I have been wondering lately if my brand and my business and my desire to be kind and godly and non-offensive has tamed me. My passion is missing, passion I need to push me out of bed in the morning, passion required to make art and to make it well. I haven’t been taking risks; I can’t tap into desire.
I tell myself I have too much to lose if I… well, fill in the blank. But if I’ve got too much to lose, then I’ve already lost sight of the most important thing: the God who is big enough to hold me together even if I do lose.
I wanted to live recklessly. Why oh why do I keep waiting for a dare? Why do I so consistently pass up abundant life?
When I was away in Texas for a week last fall, Pete planted me a garden. When he planted it, everything was rather uniform in size – I guess plants come that way from the nursery, kinda like babies. But in less than a year, the garden has taken on a life of its own. The mums are fighting to survive the summer heat, the variegated trivet is filling in the garden floor with some crazy, and the purple butterfly flowers have been drooping over the sidewalk haphazardly all year.
But none of them have done what the sunflowers (or whatever these things are) have done, growing up tall (it’s over three feet now) and making a statement. This thriving perennial has been daring me for weeks to photograph it, but I’ve opted to ignore it. Still it teases me with its vibrant un-Kelly colors until I laugh at its audacity.
It is not a well-behaved plant.
I rebelled this morning. I looked at Pete and told him that I hate my job right now, accepted the fact that I have failed (and OH so gloriously) at something I wanted. And when the sun came in on my monitor to force my morning break, I went out and misbehaved right along with my plant.
I used my old camera. I broke compositional rules. I shot colors and not neutrals. I zoomed in close and tapped into life that plant has been teasing me with for months.
It is not a well-behaved plant, but it is a Kelly plant. It is chasing the light, living real life just as it was meant to live without care for anyone’s approval. It’s filling up my garden with passion.
There are too many “right” ways to live. Everybody has an opinion about what is okay and what isn’t okay, and some people may be able to fit the “okay” mold just fine. But me? I can’t stay the same height as all the other plants. I can’t pull off the sweet-and-wispy droop or the elegant filler.
A friend asked me on Friday what I have to lose by living passionately, by saying what I think, by letting go and just BEING, wherever I am. I didn’t have an answer for her.
“You’re living out of fear,” she said pointedly. She was right.
My heart begged an explosion, reached again for the God who wants me free, who called me to GO.
Reckless living requires reckless trust that I am – and can be – loved with a reckless love right where I am. It demands growth undaunted by heat, full-out abandon to the light. It thrives on questions and third-day hairstyles and tears running out my nose when Pete tells me I am “the most beautiful mess” he’s ever seen.
Abundant life, real life – it isn’t tame, behaved, organized, or branded. But it IS exquisite. And it is worth it.
For Billy Coffey, Elizabeth Esther, and Claire Burge. Thank you for story, for brave, for life. You are each amazing. Every time I engage with you, I come away more alive.
(LINKING TODAY AT WWW.TWEETSPEAKPOETRY.COM)
FILED UNDER: Art, color, Garden, Inspiration, Mood Board, Nikon D200, Personal, Real Life, Sunflowers, Tamron Macro
Someone wrote a really good story once about a wild rose trying to understand its place in the garden.
If you still have it in your files, it might be worth reading, for the reminder. Because it’s truth an awful lot of us need.
Love you :)
Wow. This is hitting me…I want to write, but I censor myself so much. I don’t want to step on toes. I want to use really vulgar words sometimes, but I don’t want people to be offended. I want to challenge paradigms, but fear I’ll be misunderstood; or unsettling and therefore shut down. Hmmmm…..I’m going to have to ponder this.
I saw your comment over on Claire Burge’s piece at Tweet Speak…. and I just wanted to leave you a note and say that I’m glad you posted it, even though it’s not a poem (and maybe even partly because it’s not a poem) and for sharing yourself in this way. I really liked reading this, and the pictures of your misbehaving flowers are wonderful (I never would have guessed you had to break so many rules to get them)!
You brought me alive, too. All my heart, EE.
This is exquisite, Kelly. Love this – and you. xo
Stunning, in every way.
I like the Kelly-flower. It might not behave. But it does a good job of being.
So glad to have been led here, to you, today through a series of blog writers. Your post captured my lens drawing me close. I hope you continue to live this way, a new normal. I’ve struggled far too long being unhappily safe. I no longer live in such a way. I now see through a new lens. It truly is a fantastic way to live. I live a life fully aware. I am anxious to read and see more of you.
Every word of this is as exquisite as the Kelly flower. I love the free you.
Kelly, this makes me want to shout with joy! What life shining forth from your words, from you.
reading this, i can see your eyes and body language. i can hear your voice and it adds a dimension to the piece that i love.
go on, be wild, be you.
i love you in this place…
Beautiful photos, Kelly. Just live you. The wonder follows.
The abundant life. Definitely don’t have it today. Instead I feel a crushing weight of to-do’s. I told Josh last night “If one more person asks something of me I’m going to scream.” Some of that is my lack of turning to God and asking what HE has for me, not what others have for me. And some of it is just that life gets busy and I feel my lack to deal with it.
God bless Kelly plants and friends who know us so well that they can rattle us out of our funks every once in a while!
oh yes, a shock of color. The best kind of shock :)
I’m glad you added the link at Tweetspeak. People should travel over to taste the oranges.
Oh these photos are exquisite! I think you have such a distinct and unique eye. How is it that you’ve failed? I see you continuing to not give up. That is success.
It’s no coincidence that these flowers are teaching you something right now. God’s whispers look like flowers. xo
Good for you! I hope you continue to follow your passions : )
Living that way is way better than living in neutral, isn’t it?
Simply beautiful. Thank you for this. xox
The colors are amazing…so is the photographer and her gift.
Those colors, Kelly, they are breathtaking.
I struggle to know what to do with this grace we are given to live recklessly for Him. To be passionate. I struggle to know– God has given me THIS personality, THESE gifts, THIS perspective on the world, and so often it seems so out of place in the role God has called me to. And I don’t know how to fit all these pieces into the parsonage of a small-town Baptist church and make it all work together.
Life is interesting, huh? And it completely drives me crazy.
Lovely, lovely, LOVELY. The colors are grand – I’m a big fan of the Kelly-light-neutral look. But this is glory. Misbehavin? Maybe. More likely living real. And that, dear Kelly, is the only way to fly.