2nd Abode
🔥1.. flame at both ends. Bless me, Jesus.
After writing Abode, I spent the rest of the day thinking of second movements - second movements in music, poetry, writing, thought, prayer.. living life.
Often, we recognize something with our intellect and spent quite a bit of time processing, as we sort out and categorize what, exactly we’re looking at. I know I have that trouble of being mesmerized in the beauty of what I witness.. the second movement seems to be one of breath. After long exposure, just taking the time to breath in and exhale slowly, sometimes sighing over days.
I know what that’s like.
I seem to enjoy it, obviously.. I get caught up in trying to know God — to figure out how God works, to know His mind.. wanting to think as God thinks, maybe. I don’t know. I just know I get stuck there sometimes.. usually.
Abode seemed unfinished. I never came to what is all this for? what am I supposed to do with this? I was giving myself a status. On it’s own it would seem to hold up, but honestly, I’m rather tired of talking about myself and the murmurings of my little soul. Of what good are my thoughts? What good would Abode have for you? That was the second movement I was missing.
I muse, but what’s the takeaway?
I’ve often taken so much pleasure in being concealed — and in being concealed in my brash openness! I know I leave gaps, I’m vague, I trail, I hide meaning, like prose poetry, perhaps (no clue as to what that is, exactly, btw), justifying what sometimes feels like my illicit presence here.2
You are my friend and friends tell.
I’ve been short in my telling, selfishly thinking of me and my soulful dancing and not my beloved neighbor and his holy gain.. a lack of that second movement.
See in human, speak Divine.
Jesus gave me my Second Movement in confession today. The grace I received was a rare gem, my friend, one I want to closely guard and muse about, first, before telling what can and should be told.
What I learned — this is not what Father told me — but I’ve seen how every little thorn I’ve had, every little trouble & difficulty about my writing and my thoughts have been on point, and now we move to the Second Movement. From my confusion of what to write, where to write it — in this Notebook, to my friend, to my other friends, to no one — to my hesitation, my silence, my reserve.. even to my move to playing with sacred obscurity in poetry, I’ve been going in a particular direction without knowing it. Rather fearfully, but now that’s gone, because everything is made glorious in Love. We’ll just move to that Second Movement.
Which is what?
I haven’t thought that far.
I don’t remember offhand what I wrote in Abode, that beautiful moment’s gone, like a strange shape in a cloud we thought we could recognize. So, I can’t say if there will be a second movement for it — maybe this is it, right? Empty and vague, dangling modifier.. dullish cliffhanger.. followed by Jesus telling me you feel it? your sense of language and story define it? see what’s missing? this is where we go next.
Yes, I’m holding back. Father’s instructions for my brief 2-sin confession had nothing to do with second movements or what comes next for this substack or my letters to you.. but everything to do with my heightened uncertainty and the blemish of this space, which was myself.
I will tell you about it.. soon. Like one friend talking over coffee with another.. for the good of one soul for another.
God doesn’t want us to keep our graces for ourselves, I know that. He doesn’t want us to horde His Love — which, ironically, has been the First Movement of <waves about> all this. In sharing myself in God’s Love, I thought I was gifting you.. focal points turn, you know.. looking at you, looking at me, looking at God.. what human frailty. I may have given you something, my friend, what good could you receive from wretched me? .. now, I have to be sure. I want to be sure.
I want to be sure you receive His grace and Love from me, through anything you have to do with my presence here.
Of this I know, of this I promise. Friends forever, destined for heaven, brothers and sisters, all of us, I promise.
I promise our Lord, to take out this rare gem He has given me, in remembrance of the great good He has done me, and in wishing to share this grace and His Love through the gifts and talent He has also given me, I promise to be prudent and good, for your sake and mine.
It’s late. See you tomorrow. I pray for you and yours. :).. my dear friend, thank you for praying for me..
❤️
in Love,
your veronica
—
Fiat Voluntas Tua. No nobis, Domine, no nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. 7.30.2022
rp ve S 12.16.2024, d ve S 9.6.2025
Is it illicit? Just know whatever you’re wondering, everything has crossed my mind. What good is there for a no one to reveal the workings of her soul? I’ve always had my doubts.. are these the doubts of every writer? or of souls who try? .. but I digress. I’ve hated the bad in the internet, and I wanted to bring some semblance of beauty.. and in offering something real-time, I wanted to give the world a model of love, that’s all.. of what we can all do, of how we can all Love, Hope & have Faith in .. but that’s another story. I digress from my digression.