Captured by Beauty-Part 2

Janine and I have been friends since high school.  We met at a tiny church far removed from civilization where both of our families attended.  The youth group consisted of my siblings and me, Janine, and two other sibling groups.  Several years ago, she and her husband Ted bought a 3 bedroom cabin in the middle of NoWheresville, Mississippi. Using it only on the weekends, they generously give me access on weekdays when I need to write. A large portion of Good Night, I Love You was written in this amazing log cabin with a wrap around porch settled within 80 plus wooded acres… in the middle of nowhere.  The Wi-Fi is good enough for email and some slow Internet but phone calls are almost impossible.  This makes it a perfect place for a writing retreat! We scheduled a few days this week to set aside time for my new writing endeavors. 

While on a conference call yesterday with my agent and publicist we discussed my rapidly approaching book launch this September for Good Night, I Love You.  The details heading into these last 10 weeks before it’s release make my head swim. While discussing the long view, I assured them I am also working on the next thing…new material!

I arrived at Janine’s cabin yesterday and felt as if I were coming home. I turn into their lane then press the code to open the gate. As I hear the gate squeak slowly open, I creep my car forward down the winding road to the cabin. At this point, I usually roll down my window a bit so I can hear the peace. The sound of the pebbles crunching under my tires instantly relaxes me.  I feel lighter as I leave the weight of my mind and heart behind me. I haven’t been here to write since last fall when I was finishing my first book.  I embrace these few days of beauty, creative writing, and God’s all encompassing presence.

There is a supernatural peace here. I completely decompress here.  I sleep deeply here. In fact, on my first day here, I go straight outside and lie on the queen sized swinging bed that hangs on the porch.  I never intend to fall asleep, but usually find myself slowly waking up after about 30 minutes of catnapping.  I go days without speaking while I’m here.  I don’t watch any movies or television.  It’s my laptop, the pond, the trees, the turtles, the swinging bed, a dog named Foxy, and me.  Foxy’s an outdoor dog with beautiful blue eyes that are a striking contrast to her white hair. She’s my company when I eat meals on the porch…Foxy likes me.

The solitude is a healing balm to everything in my soul. I hear the bugs and birds at all times. Most people couldn’t handle the seclusion but I love it.   I spend much time soaking in the beauty.  It’s my inspiration.  Beauty carries my thoughts deeper into a bottomless well where God nourishes my soul.  He quenches my hunger and my thirst through beauty - he ignites my passions through beauty. With huge windows on every wall on the first floor, I take in nature while I’m on the couch with my laptop.  When I take a break, I step outside to eat at the table on the porch with my friend Foxy resting at my feet. 

My other breaks are spent on the swinging bed.  I like to lie there and think of absolutely nothing.  I watch the water, make myself aware of any sounds, stare at the tree tops while looking for birds, stretch my legs out into the air just for fun and because it feels good, or I take a siesta on the swinging bed. I give my mind space. I sit alongside Beauty.  I inhale her.  I inhale her serenity. I inhale her silence.  I inhale the beauty of God’s presence in the simple life.  In the mornings, I take my coffee outside and sit on the corner of the porch facing the water as the rising sun breaks through the trees to warm my face.  Foxy joins me on the corner of the porch but stays cool under the swinging bed behind me.

This morning I sit and linger a little longer with my coffee and Beauty –she’s offering too much of herself to walk away.  I study the way the mist moves then swirls over the water.  It hovers, then, in random spots, lifts into mini tornadoes before opening and releasing into the warmth of one of the rays of light streaming through the treetops. It’s as if the mist is traveling through the ray of light back to heaven from where it came.  The rays are like multiple staircases leading to the sun in the heavens.  I feel God’s presence.  My imagination takes me back in time to creation. “God’s spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.” Genesis 1:2MSG   The Amplified says, “The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.”  I’m transported to Day 1.

A turtle launches into the water from the dead tree breaking through the water.  He had been doing his morning yoga stretches with his neck while basking in the sun.  I hear the multiple varieties of birds calling to one another.  I even hear an owl.  This is normal for me.  Owls follow me everywhere. My husband Michael knew how to speak to owls.  When he heard them call from a distance, he made his call back.  They spoke back and forth to one another until the owl perched on top of a tree right next to him. This made him giggle with satisfaction.  There were a couple of owls that lived in our neighborhood while we lived in Jackson.   Standing on the front patio with his glass of Cabernet, he lifted his chin and joined in the conversation with our neighborhood owls.  When I moved to the countryside of New York, woods surrounded our home.  An owl called for me on my first night.  I felt as if it were Michael watching over me.  The owl touched base with me weekly.  I couldn’t help but smile every time.  The owl finds me this morning, in the middle of NoWheresville, Mississippi.  I smile back at him.

A fish flops in the open water, the dragonflies dance across the tops of the stalks of grass on the edge of the pond.  A cow’s voice rises up from a distant pasture.  I hear Foxy crawl out from under the swinging bed.  She’s at my feet looking up at me with adoration while swishing her tail back and forth on the porch.  I’m drunk with beauty now.  I feel full and satisfied.  Reaching down to Foxy, I rub her neck and chest.  She closes her eyes relishing the moment. 

I carry this satiation with me into the day of writing ahead of me. My time with Beauty was time well spent - the fire igniting my passions has been stoked.  I'm captured once again.

Captured By Beauty - Part 1

On my way home last night from a late night run to the grocery store, I spot the full moon peering through the horizontal clouds streaking across the sky in front of it.  I’m drawn to its beauty.  My car takes me to the waterfront in our neighborhood.  I roll down the window facing the water. My sunroof is already open so I can hear the summer sounds of the evening bugs.   I turn off the engine. There she is - the moon in all her glory.  Her light shines on the water with the reflection coming straight towards me in a breathtaking column of glistening light, like a white royal carpet spread before the queen. I take in her beauty.  I watch the rippling of the water move across the reflection.  I see the tall grass at water’s edge wave in the moonlight.  I simply sit.  I let the silence and the beauty envelop me.

I wake up this morning, open my emails and find God sending me another reminder of beauty. I read the Daily Reading sent out by John Eldredge and Ransomed Heart Ministries.  It captures me quickly as he speaks of beauty and our need to chase after it. It’s the very subject that rises above my circumstances every single day. I began looking for beauty to catch sight of her as much as possible since my husband died 6 years ago.  Reading Eldredge’s words brings my thoughts on beauty to a denouement, a grand culmination.

In an excerpt from his book entitled, Fathered By God, he writes, “We must open our hearts to all the other ways God is bringing beauty into our lives. The beauty of a flower garden or moonlight on water, the beauty of music or a written word. Our souls crave Beauty, and if we do not find it we will be famished. We must take in Beauty, often, or we will be taken out by beauty.”

Moonlight on the water.  It enraptures me every time.

I remember with great clarity the moment in my life when I recognized my hunger for beauty.  I was famished yet had not paused to take notice. 

The year is 1990. I’m teaching at a huge public school in Rankin County, just east of Jackson, Mississippi. My classroom buzzes with constant movement, restrained movement.  It’s full of boys with learning disabilities, most of them on medication for ADHD.  Eighteen preteen boys and I am without a full-time teacher’s aid.  Teaching this motley crew requires every ounce of focus and strength I can bring to the table each morning.

Wearing my Janet Jackson “Rhythm Nation” look, all the way down to the large hoop earrings with a cross hanging from one of them, I am not the average Special Ed teacher.   I am tough but cool and the boys love me for both.  I wear fake glasses to look older and more serious. It seems to work.  One day, James (reminiscent of Fat Albert in look and voice), says, “Miss Barranco, you be mean when you wear ‘dem glasses!”  They were worth every penny of the five dollars I spent on them at the flea market.

 During my interview for the teaching position, I’m hired on the spot because I am currently reading C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien simultaneously, and because I use all of my verbs in proper tense. (I’m not kidding – the principal told me this then almost leapt out of her seat across her desk when I answered what I was reading at the time.)

I took that job in the middle of the year when the woman holding the position couldn’t handle the boys (or the room) any longer. She simply didn’t show up for work after Christmas.

…In walks Janet Jackson, a young newlywed fresh out of student teaching.

Armed with all of the colorful and creative bulletin boards I crafted in the days leading up to my first day, I walk into a room completely barren of beauty. Floor to ceiling grey cinder blocks become the backdrop to our uncommon yet surprisingly thriving little learning center. The fluorescent lights, hanging high above from the 16 some foot ceilings, disburse even more grey light and shadows in the room.  Their incessant buzzing is a bonus added to the dungeon-like atmosphere.   Without any windows, the soaring ceilings save us from feeling as if we are in some type of torture chamber or interrogation room.

I use the walls as enormous bulletin boards to bring life and color to the room.  When it’s time for afternoon activity period, they bust out of the room as if it is the last day of school.  I completely get it.  Sitting outside with them, I watch them detonate the stored energy in their bodies. Occasionally, I close my eyes behind the brown Ray-Ban wayfarers while my soul and body greedily inhale the light, the breeze, and the vitamin D.   I see a car drive by on the road and I think, “Oh, I would love to be going somewhere…anywhere.”

I loved my boys in spite of the cinder block dungeon.

After the last student walks out at the end of the day, I head straight to coach and train two cheerleading squads until 5:30. Working only five minutes from home, I’m quickly back in my kitchen preparing dinner before my husband gets home from work.  After dinner it’s IEP work for one of my students, laundry and choreography for an upcoming dance job.  Crashing into bed is never early enough.

Our tiny house backs up to a small wooded area between subdivisions.  It’s early in the morning. I step outside the back door to head straight to my car before work.  I stop suddenly. I notice the quiet in the air. Beauty calls me. The moment snatches me.  I breathe in this little slice of beauty.  It feels as if I am out in nature instead of standing on a concrete slab in the middle of our zero lot line neighborhood with cars parked on the streets and no privacy from neighbors.  Then I hear the birds.  I see the blue sky outlining the towering pines.  I notice the leaves that are now on the trees from an early spring.  I press the pause button and truly see.  I see there is beauty if I only pause and acknowledge it.  It is in this moment I realize I’m starved for natural beauty.  I know in order to survive my days in the cinder block dungeon, I have to take in natural beauty wherever I can, whenever I can - even if it’s only while standing on a concrete slab, in a little cookie cutter neighborhood development, in Rankin county Mississippi.

I have short-term memory.  I found how easy it is to forget beauty.  Easy to forget to feed my soul with her.  Easy to forget she’s right there, if only I pause to breathe her in, in all situations, locations, and circumstances.  I must find time for beauty.  She desires to fill me and bring me back to life, as it should be. I must be intentional. When I acknowledge beauty and take a moment to simply be with her, I’m renewed.  My hope renews, my stress recedes, my joy emerges.  I am reconnected with God on an intimate level.

Some people never connect with beauty.  How tragic that is to me.  They don't even recognize they miss her.  They are content in their routines, schedules, to do lists, and more. They learn if they simply stay in motion, then they can silence her cries.  More times than not, these people are the ones who have turned down the volume of their heart's voice because they "don't want to go there."  They don't want intimacy - with people, or with nature, with beauty, or with their own heart.  So they shut off opportunities for beauty because it makes them squirm.  They turn away and get back to what they "need" to do.

Since my years of living in the Hudson River Valley of New York, I’ve become even more keenly aware of beauty.  Beauty in all things.  Nature especially, but also in people (not their looks), but the beauty of a conversation, the beauty in pain shared, the beauty of fellowship over a meal, the beauty of laughter. The beauty of a naïve comment from a small child.  And the beauty of real love.  Deep, pure love - love without judgment, love in spite of flaws, love that is patient, kind, and compassionate. Enduring love.

Now I sit typing while listening to a summer rain land on the tin roof – another beautiful moment.  Allow unexpected beauty into your life. Hit the pause button. I pray you see, fill your mind with, and experience beauty today.

Photo cred to Mia Jené Barranco

Good Night, I Love You

The day is here. My heart is racing. I feel speechless-I'm in awe as I watch God weave the miraculous tapestry in my life. After many years, countless hours of writing in solitude, and even more tears, the release of my book is announced - September 19, 2017!

Three days after my husband died, a strong fire ignited in my soul to record my journey through what I call the Midnight Hour. The fire burned day and night and was never satisfied until it was finished. Good Night, I Love You was birthed as a result of my willingness to persevere through the fire.
Many told me along the way that they wished I would put my Midnight Hour experience into a book so they could put it in the hands of others. This book is for all. The human experience of grief is universal. Even if you have never lost one close to your heart, you know someone who has. Loss comes in many forms other than just death. It can come in the form of divorce, the death of a season of life, a broken relationship of any kind, and much more. Understanding the world of grief and loss is imperative. It is a part of life. We need to embrace it and learn to show limitless compassion, mercy, love, and patience to those walking through it.

My prayer is that this book will give all of us courage to let grief out of the closet. Let's feel comfortable discussing it with our friends. Let's give one another freedom to experience the depth of its pain without the fear of judgement. Let's extend a hand to the griever and sit with them in their solitude or invite them to come out for awhile. Thank you to those who extended their hand to me, sat with me, and prayed for me and my children.

“Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows as normally as marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer. It is not a truncation of the process but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure.” C.S. Lewis - A Grief Observed

Pre-orders are now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all major book sellers. It will be available in hardcover and e-book. Book tours and speaking will begin this fall.

A HUGE thank you to Hachette Book Group and FaithWords Publishing!

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Night-Love-You-Awa…/…/1455598445

Wrestling for Deeper Relationship

It’s cold and raining here.

My daughter Mia makes me an afternoon coffee.

I sit here in my room listening to the rain while sipping a brevé cappuccino and reviewing my notes from Rob Bell’s book, Velvet Elvis.

I come to a passage that jumped out at me the first time I read it earlier this year.  It’s underlined and has a big star next to it.  I feel it’s just as important the second time.

"The rabbis have a metaphor for this wrestling with the text: The story of Jacob wrestling the angel in Genesis 32.  He struggles, and it is exhausting and tiring, and in the end his hip is injured.  It hurts.  And he walks away limping.

Because when you wrestle with the text, you walk away limping.

And some people have no limp, because they haven't wrestled.  But the ones limping have had an experience with the living God."


I am not satisfied with what I call "doormat faith".  I don’t want to simply lie down and take whatever comes my way.  I question, dig deeper, and wrestle with the scriptures and God for understanding, for enlightenment.  Who wants to be in a relationship with someone who never enters into true, deep, and meaningful discussions with you?  We all long for more.  Like iron sharpening iron.  As Jacob was injured in his wrestling, we may walk away with a limp but stronger, wiser and with a deeper understanding from the wrestling.

Bell also says, “We have to embrace the Bible as the wild, uncensored, passionate account it is of people experiencing the living God.  Doubting the one true God.  Wrestling with, arguing with, getting angry with, reconciling with, loving, worshipping, thanking, following the one who gives us everything.  We cannot tame it.  We cannot tone it down."

The Bible is a living story.  We are in this story.  Our earthly relationships take work just as our relationship with Him does.  It takes all these actions to build and develop a truly deep and meaningful relationship.   Every time I wrestle with the scriptures and wrestle with God, I walk away with not only a limp but also with a better understanding of Him.  I walk away with a knowing that I understand more and am understood.  I walk away knowing I love and am loved by the Father.  I walk away with more courage that could only have come through the wrestling.  The same holds true when I dare to wrestle, go deeply into more intimacy through conversations in my earthly relationships.

It makes me think of Theodore Roosevelt's speech, "The Man in the Arena."

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I would rather be in the arena...”face marred by dust and sweat and blood”.  Striving valiantly, screwing up, learning, making mistakes, but at least I am IN the arena making the effort.  I choose to wrestle.  I would rather risk having a limp than never have stepped foot into the arena. I will boldly take the experience with the living God.  I will dive deeply into more meaningful relationships here on earth.

Wrestling makes me vulnerable, but I would rather dare greatly in my vulnerability than never dare at all.

Silver Linings

I'm on a personal writing retreat at the moment in an old fashioned little beach town somewhere off the southern coast of the United States. I typically watch movies or exercise when I need to completely disengage from my work. I try to choose movies that cause me to think or those that are known for fabulous dialogue.
Last night I watched Silver Linings Playbook for the first time. Impressive acting... every single role. But of course, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawerence's performances stand above the rest.

In every movie I choose, there is typically a quote by one of the characters that becomes a tasty morsel to my thoughts. I latch onto it and begin to process it into my own life. As soon as the line is spoken, I know its the reason I needed to watch it.
Silver Linings Playbook was no exception.
Not too far into the movie, the bottom line of the movie comes out in something Bradley Cooper says to his parents after coming home from an 8 month stay in a mental hospital. He is determined to set a new direction for his life. With passion and fortitude, he responds to his parents' concerns with this statement, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take all this negativity and use it as fuel and I'm going to find the silver lining...that's what I'm going to do! And that's no bullshit! Now that takes work... and thats the truth!"

The silver lining I have looked for since my husband died has been purpose. How will I take the negativity from the great loss and use it as fuel for my life to go higher? How will this help my purpose? How will this life experience propel me even stronger into the direction God has planned for me? How will it secure my purpose even more? How can this negativity in my life be used as fuel to help others who have had similar negativity come at them.
This kind of thinking helps me look to the future instead of continually looking back at the painful circumstances. I challenge myself every time I think, "Now, what am I going to do with this? How do I see God using this for good?"

In addition to purpose, the other silver lining is that it has caused me to live my life with even more boldness...because, as we know, life is short. Be real. Be honest. Be compassionate. Show mercy. Forgive. Love deeply. Don't hold back love. Break down walls. Enjoy others.
Follow God in spite of the negativity, toward the silver linings that are there, if I only look for them... like a well crafted, thought provoking quote buried in the dialogue of a movie.  And if I look hard enough for the silver linings, they come to me.

Keep your eyes straight ahead. Because the silver linings are ahead of you, not behind you.

Resurrect the Dance

 “Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,

Let me forget about today until tomorrow.”

Bob Dylan “Mr. Tambourine Man”

Dancing in total abandonment… One hand waving free. How long it has been since I danced like that!  I have done it before, more times than I can count. Most every day of my life.  If there was a song, there was a dance. From a hobby to a 20 year profession.

But I buried my dance long ago. My dancing to music and my dancing with life.  I buried it even before Michael died.  It sunk deeper into the grave beside him after his death.  How can I ever dance again?

It’s time.  Time to stir up the dancer - and the dance - in me.

I find irony in Ecclesiastes 3.  It leaves me a bit mystified.  Here is the famous listing of “a time for everything”…. a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…

Wait…What?  Dancing follows mourning?  These two are a pair? Really? Hard to swallow that one – but it must be so, just as the others hold true. As naturally as dying eventually follows birth, and building naturally follows tearing down, dancing should naturally follow on the tails of mourning.  Joyful abandonment.  Freedom to enjoy life again.  The weight of grief lifted. Moving creatively and gracefully through life.  Expressions of thankfulness for life itself.

It’s time to resurrect the dance.

For two years now, the resurrection power of Christ has been on my heart.  While tucked away in the countryside of New York, the prayer for resurrection power opened up on me. It felt like the sun opening up on an overcast afternoon with its warmth enveloping every inch of my body. In the solitude of my writing room, I came to God one day with a blank slate.  I asked Him to write my prayers.  Our needs were so great for continued healing and restored life that I did not even know how to pray.  So I asked God for His prayers for me.  His answer – pray the resurrection power of Christ over your household.

THAT’S IT!

Why hadn’t I thought of that?

It reminded me of how Charlie Brown felt in Charlie Brown’s Christmas while receiving counsel from Lucy.  As she sits behind her makeshift desk, she lists several phobias that may be his problem…

Lucy: Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you have climacaphobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia. This is fear of the ocean, or gephyrobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges. Or maybe you have pantophobia. Do you think you have pantophobia?

Charlie Brown: What's pantophobia?

Lucy: The fear of everything.

Charlie Brown: THAT'S IT!

Of course I should pray the resurrection power over the kids and me!  It covers everything!  My prayers began to pour out of my heart as if a floodgate had lifted.  Our needs for life were great and had built up - but it was time to release the dam.  The resurrection power lifted the gate just as it rolled away the stone from the tomb for Jesus.

Lord, I pray the resurrection power of Christ over me.  Resurrect my heart from the dead.  Resurrect my hope for the future. Resurrect my joy, my boldness. Resurrect my dreams.  Resurrect my life from the ashes. Resurrect my creativity and my gifts that I have lost the desire to use.  Resurrect my desires, my purpose. Resurrect my dance.   Restore me; restore my family, with the same power that restored Christ after his death on the cross.

I personalized this prayer for each one of my children.  It became my daily prayer as I cried out to God to lift our lives, completely and wholly, from the ashes that remained from my husband’s death.  We needed a complete, glorified resurrection, just as Jesus did.

I have watched the resurrection slowly take place in each of us, in small steps and in different areas.  In my life, the resurrection of hope and desire led to a natural resurrection in other areas.  Because desire was alive again, I chose to reach down to Dance and pull her out of the ashes… “Let’s dance again.” I whispered to her.

A time to mourn and a time to dance.

In 2 Samuel 6:14, scantily clad King David danced before the Lord with all of his might.

In reference to this scripture, Joshua Dubois writes in his book, The President’s Devotional, “He danced because the Lord had been good.  He danced because despite unspeakable trials, he was still alive. He danced because it gave glory and honor to the God who had formed him in his mother’s womb.  He danced because the weight of sin had been lifted off of him.  He danced, and danced, and then danced some more, with all that he had.”

Its time for me to dance.

Dancing in total abandonment is not only limited to physical dancing, as we know it.  The way we live our lives, face it, approach it, experience it, can also be a dance of abandonment…with one hand waving free.  Living free, without a care of what others may think.  Living life from the heart. Moving seamlessly in step with our dreams, our purpose.  Exuberant living.  As a body moves to the rhythm of the music bringing a song to life, so our lives can move and glide along with life itself, its rhythm, its pulse, while bringing subtle inspiration to those watching the dance. Yes, dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waiving free.

Resurrect your dance.

A glimpse of my days as a professional choreographer and performer.  A pre-game performance for a NFL game.  A group I directed for this special event.  If you haven't figured it out...I'm the one in the middle!