Star Gazing

I wish I was star gazing right now, like the real stars in the sky that occasionally shoot across the black and allow you to make a wish.

I wish I was doing that instead of sitting here on my computer. But I am updating network pages and downloading tracks to be sold online and frankly, my butt hurts.

One of the reasons I enjoy shows is that I can meet people. Not network. Meet people. I want to get better at this. I realize that with every event, choice of restaurants, and unlimited access to movies via Netflicks, it is quite an honor for someone to take time and listen to me sing some heart murmurs that I fumbled to articulate into song.

After all this downloading completes, I am going to go and flyer for an upcoming show at a coffeehouse. I hope I can meet the people at those places. Pittsburgh is a small enough city where family can still happen on the street. I hope I never stop looking for it.

women of strength

i am so desperately in awe of the Lord who turned me, a girl who hated girls because of past betrayal, into a woman who yearns for the fellowship of women. deep, passionate women who love and hurt with such dignity that i cannot help but grow from just a passing sigh. i am so blessed. i am so honored that i would be considered and welcomed into such a sisterhood.

i hope that one day we as people will be better bonded by our love and redemption than hate and destruction. but as we inch closer to that hope, I am so thankful that i can oscillate between crying and composure with a friend's hand to hold me steady through it all.

on another note, I spent last night dancing and rejoicing in the Spirit in my room until 3am. i can't wait to dance with Him again. sorry to all of you whom i overwhelmed this afternoon as i bounced around, smiling and laughing until my ears almost popped off. but how could I be silent, when surely goodness had follow me in the house of God...may it be forever.

Hand to the Plow

Wind is picking up speed these days. Two weekends from now will hopefully be the music weekend from heaven...not, well..you know.

Saturday night I am playing at the Catholic Underground coffeehouse. Sunday I lead worship at a different church. Monday I perform with United Harvest Workers Union, Ember Days, and another band from Florida (?) that I apparently will love but always forget their name. It's exciting.

Yet of course, Elise cannot live without paradox. As things pick up with performances/worship, I feel a gentle tug on the emergency break of my slowly accelerating car. The echoing question: Why do you do what you do? It's a question of self-evalutation, of everything, everyone in my life. Including me. A sifting period.

And right as things were getting good.

Jesus says that whoever puts their hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. So how does one look forward and inward? Or do we not judge ourselves but allow the Holy Spirit to bring things up as we plow away? Like a GPS. Hahaha: God's Personal Spirit. Hahahaha, oh, I can be such a freaking corny Christian :)

But seriously, folks, perhaps as we drive toward God's direction, the Holy Spirit whispers "turn right." And when we make a mistake, the ever popular direction on my dad's GPS occurs: "Recalculating."

Hand on the plow, eyes towards Christ, ears towards the Spirit. Now that's multi-tasking.

Wake Up! Your Alarm Clock Said.

Wake Up! Your Alarm Clock Said.

Lost again in a world of despair
Why do my dreams still haunt me?
Wake up and realize there’s nobody there
Why do the ghosts still call me?
Foreshadowing prophecy or slight indigestion
More of gravy or gravity, that is the question
Where we all fall down at the slightest suggestion
That maybe there was something more

The clouds are grey but the grass is greener
Than I’ve ever seen before
They say it’s the cones but I say that it’s God
Showing me there’s an open door
The rain keeps falling on my head on my eyes
And I realized its past the time, and I start to cry
And the water from me meets the water on high
And the bud of a fruit is now bearing

Call out to me and join all the voices
In harmony, laughing or carrying on
I try to ignore them, I can’t even answer
When they’re singing my favorite song
So I plunge my head back under the sheets
that reminds me I’m covered, I’m safe, and I’m free
and I close my eyes to go back to sleep
and the alarm screams, wake up, oh, sleeper

who am I kidding? I haven’t slept a wink
since I heard they were dying by midnights
poor Cinderella just lost a damn shoe
while they were losing their hope in the street fights
does anybody care? cries the heart in my chest
what they hell can I do, scoffs my mind
we’re bored and we’re restless, say my hands and feet
and my spirit conceived shakes alive

refuse all those flattering words dripped with honey
they just becomes sticky and cling to their money
and electric blankets, which burn you alive when you’re not watching
and the alarm screams, wake up, oh, sleeper