Something you're working on

A dream is growing.

Seats filled. Anxious. Broken. Worried. Depressed. Grieving. Miscarried. Sorrowful. Hopeless. Lost. Dead.

A haunting melody consumes the air. It is pain. Misguidance. Confusion.

An anthem of strength overpowers the weight of the melody. Hard. Heavy. Worthy. Sure.

A stage with a story. A man giving tools. A woman peddling good news.

Seats. Leaning in. Wonder filled. Caught in curiosity.

What is that stirring, that lifting, that . . . Hope?

A dream is growing.

Looking for the T[ea]

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Compliments

Your hair looks nice. Oh, thanks. Ooh, I love your sweater. This old thing, I've had it for years! Where did you find your boots? Well I first bought them at . . . How do you always know what I need? Blank stare. It's not that compliments aren't lovely, it's that they overwhelm. Receiving them an admission of self-righteous ego. That dirty word, pride. The thing to be shirked and shunned. Once the kindness floods the senses the balloon in my hand threatens to peel the soles of my feet from the firm ground. Lifting with tender force my heel, then footbed, until there's nothing tethering me to this earth but my twinkling toes. So I repel. Decline. Defer. Deny. Planted, I must stay planted. For who has the right to soak in the joy of being? Who is entitled to bask in their making? Who . . . But Who taught us that to be good was bad? To be seen as pleasing, beautiful, kind was ever any sort of wrong? I look to the balloon a

At some point in your story, a character says "You're better than this..."

She sat there on the stoop. Contemplating. Her eyes lost down the bustling street. She didn't see the trees placed at calculated distances stretching across each side of the road. She didn't notice her neighbor's fourth attempt to parallel park. She didn't hear the squirrels rustling in the leaves, nor the elderly couple squabbling as they shuffled down the walk. She couldn't embrace the beauty of life or the hope of today. She just stared. Contemplating. What if? What if? What if? She didn't hear the door creak behind her. She didn't feel the warm body sidle beside her. She wasn't even there. Her body, yes. But it was still, empty, void. It was hollow and cold and alone. Her thoughts ran nowhere. Everywhere. "You're better than this," is all she heard. Her eyes snapped to the moment. The brilliance of fall. The bustle and struggle of life. The quiet and beautiful world. "What'd you say?" she turned to ask, but she sat alone.

At some point in your story, a character says "You're better than this..."

She was desperate to be good. An A- was a disappointment, a harsh word's echoes didn't quit. Her standards were impossible, but she met them, and the times she didn't were deep disappointments. Success was survival. Approval was survival. Whose approval? God's? Her parents? Her church's? Despite living every moment subservient to it, they never quite gave it. Perhaps God did, but how could she have known? And so she did two things. She found someone who did accept her. He wasn't burdened with religious requirement, and his acceptance was a relief, even if she failed to see the danger in the flip side of the coin, of lawlessness. Next, she went in search of God. Because despite the convoluted image given her, she saw goodness, and wanted sense. She found truth, and she found God. And found the whole point of this Jesus they told her about was that she didn't have to jump through their hoops, recite their formulas, look just so, or behave just so. She could st

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