Georgia Raindrops

Great love, setting the world on fire

I am in awe of who you are

And it's your love I'm living for

                           —Flyleaf

Summer is beginning to pack his bags. He's there in my room, laying out all of his clothes and folding them nicely into his suitcase, the one with travel stickers all over it. I keep asking him to stay, but he's declining my offer. He tells me he's ready to head south, you know how that goes. It's time for a fresh new season. He promises he'll send me Pinterest pictures of the places he's going next around the world. Well fine. I'll enjoy your stay while you're still here Mr. Summer.

I guess maybe he's right. It's time for a fresh new season, because these last few weeks of summer leave us trapped between lazy freedom and anticipation of the future, and we don't really know what we want. We're just floating and trying to enjoy ourselves, but it's hard because we're starting to put on our armor for the battle ahead: the battle of busyness and worries and excitement. We'll always be seeking out an answer to the mystery: trying to find who we are and why we are who we are, and how we can be who we are when we don't know. We're so messy with all of our questions.

Summer has been taking me by the hand and yanking me into the sky. But, the ultimate climax of my summer was camp. Last week, I had a wonderful adventure at a camp in Georgia with some of my youth group friends. I have to be honest, my sister and I are suffering a bit from camp withdraws, but I wrote nearly every detail of the week in my journal, late into the night, on my top bunk. With spiders staring me down. But I didn't mind them so much, I wanted to cut them some slack. Trust me, it's more dangerous to be a spider in a cabin of girls than it is to be on the front lines (KILL IT MURDER IT MWAHAHA). In fact, my journal still smells a little funky...

Anyways, the camp we went to was in Tiger, Georgia; a place that counts as a teeny dot on a map, but is now a big dot in my heart, not because of its location but what happens there. And what happened to me. And how God uses tiny places on maps to do things so miraculous and big we can't comprehend them. It was an amazing week. I was filthy, holy, and overjoyed at any given time. We celebrated mass outside under a tent every day, swam in a lake, sloshed around in a mud pit (ew), praised and worshipped with every ounce of our souls, and spent time in wonderful adoration.

If y'all haven't ever been down to this here Georgia, lemme tell ya somethin, it is green. Like a John Deer rollin' down I-80 near Omaha in the middle a winter. Well. Kinda. One of the days, we went whitewater rafting on the Chattooga river. It was absolutely beautiful to be in the middle of all the trees. The water was warm, which was an unexpected blessing, given that I'm prone to being cold all the time. It was a breathtaking day. There was not another person or house anywhere around us the whole trip. It started to rain halfway through the day, and it completely drenched us at times, but it was secretly a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever been so wet.

The rain was refreshingly cold. My thirsty soul soaked up that rain, and I felt alive. It was crazy, when we stepped out of the raft at the end of the day after being soaked by chilly rain, the river water felt like a hot tub. It was so different from Colorado rafting. I kept wondering if we were actually rafting in water or some other strange substance that doesn't get cold. I think I could become a tree right then and there.

We also stopped once to jump off of rocks into the water, then another time to "slide" down a waterfall (which was more like scooting). I would love to be a rain drop in the Chattooga river, cascading down a waterfall every second, and soaking up the ice-cold life of God's glorious creation. We saw natural, wild turtles sitting on rocks, and even a bald eagle. It was a lovely lovely day. (Well, other than my youth minister falling out of the raft and getting trapped under the raft, that wasn't so lovely. But other than that it was lovely.)

After we had gone through all the rapids, we tied our rafts to a motorboat and sat in them while we steadily made our way back to the bus. At first it was sunny, but of course, it started to rain. No sorry, pour. Monsoon. While we were getting drenched by rain, although it was cold, I felt incredibly alive. Cold droplets from a pure, unadulterated sky soaked into my pores and my heart felt overwhelmed with a wild sense of crazy peace. It sounds like an oxymoron, but the peace I felt wasn't relaxing. It was a peace that told me life is an insane adventure and won't ever slow down for me. Rocks will jut out of seemingly calm waters, and I will have to find a way around them to stay in my raft. It was a living, breathing, heart-exploding peace that gave me strength and excitement to live my life different from the rest of this world. I will still go through the struggles of the world, but I have a never ending peace lying underneath all the problems, and it has power to crumble them. This peace is too intense and strong for our struggles to handle. Peace will win, and fear will lose (twenty one pilots). This is a truth that needs to drench us. Peace isn't just in the form of a hammock or a stress-free life. Peace drives our hearts to search for something more. Peace is what keeps us alive sometimes. Peace is constantly fighting for us in battle. Peace is wild. Peace will win and overwhelm.

*This picture does not do the river justice*

One thing I realized at camp is that God is constantly speaking to me and tugging at my heart. If you've ever doubted that God still speaks to us like he did in Bible stories, well, he does. I know I'm a small, broken person. Insignificant and devastatingly hopeful sometimes. But God speaks into my heart. In fact, I like to think of him writing on my heart. He created me, my soul, body, everything, out of a word, so he's constantly writing words in me and story-telling his grace into my life. That makes my heart spin. I'm a journal for God. I'm poetry. I'm a novel with every detail described better than any writer ever could. My life is a collection of spellbinding words written by the maker of beautiful things.

On the last night of camp, we had a parish bonfire. We made s'mores and prayed together in the middle of dark, wet, open grass underneath a carpet of restless stars. I was staring up at them lying down, and in that moment, with some of the most amazing people in the world lying around me, I exhaled deeply so that a little bit of my soul would come out, so I could always be a part of that moment. I let go. That's what Jesus kept telling me to do all week. Just let go. Let go of my fear. Let go of my past, and especially my future. Let go of who I think I want to be. I'm still trying to let go, but now my heart finally has a vacancy sign lit up, and it's only accepting one guest. A permanent guest. Jesus, come stay in my heart hotel. Fill all the rooms that ache for company with your love. Help me continue to let go so that you can come live in me.

I tried to take in the craziness of all those stars that night while lying next to my sister (which, by the way, together we saw four shooting stars), and I was so happy to do that with her. We did it last summer too, in another place miles away in the Rocky Mountains, just us lying in the grass underneath all the constellations. I think that's where we belong. We're a little star crazy.

It's a sad thing that camp is over, but I'm so so happy I got the chance to go. The future is racing towards me like a crazy train about to derail, but I'm ready to jump on it. Jesus is pumping in my blood and I'm excited to go out and love with all my heart. I need his courage. Especially for when school starts, and work gets hard, and life ties my heart in cowboy knots, I need you Jesus. I never want to lose my passion or my faith.

While writing my testimony in my journal one of the nights, Jesus took the pen and wrote something I need to remember, especially when I'm afraid. The same hands that sculpted the stars sculpted me, so I have stardust pumping in my veins. Since I have flakes of stars within me, I'm always radiating. Even when I feel lonely or worthless.

This was my prayer during camp, and it's my prayer now, and I want it to be my prayer for you too:

Jesus, I love you and I want the world to burn with this love. It's true, it's taken days of my heart being thrown through rings and my soul feeling like a wayfaring gypsy, but I love you, and I'm amazed at what you're doing in my life. Any atmosphere or galaxy or simple place I end up is where you find miraculous ways to console me and love me. Help me burn. I'm ready to feel alive. 

~~more summerish things I've done~~

We went to Chadron for Fur Trade Days to visit grandma and papa. Us three ran in the Colter Run (John Colter was a man who ran...and they made a 5k for him...the end :) hehe. (daddy and camryn will get that). We ate papa's buffalo burgers and went to the rodeo too. 

Also, on our way home, we of course stopped at our favorite gas station/bathroom (for various reasons, I won't go in to much detail but let's just say the first stall in the ladies has a bidet...which I did not use thank you very much) Anyways, it's called Sapp Bros and it's in Cheyenne. There was a semi there that said Jesus on it, no idea why, so I had to take a picture.

 Soooo, the Saturday before we left for camp I got to go to an amazing concert with my best friend. We saw some of our favorite bands ever (Panic!, Bad Suns, Walk the Moon, and Twenty One Pilots to name a few). It was the craziest and best night ever. 

The week before the concert, Juju's best friend and her granddaughter Brittany came to visit from Arizona. So did our other lovely Texas cousins that make me laugh until I cry. One of the things we did was go to formal tea at the Brown Palace Hotel, which serves heavenly scones sent from the Lord himself (I do not exaggerate. Try these scones and you will see.)

Not sure what's going on with my face but at least Britt looks pretty

Whispers out West

Don't drop your arms. I'll guard your heart,

With quiet words I'll lead you in.

                                              —Anberlin

"Cassidy Klein...hmmm. Now how did you end up with a German last name and an Irish first name?"

"Um, you know, that's a great question. I don't know, I guess I'm just multicultural!"

"Yes, interesting! Do you know what Klein means in German?"

"I can't say that I do, sir. What does it mean?"

"Klein means small in German."

"Really? That's so fitting. Thank you for telling me! I don't know why I didn't know that before."

I was carrying a very heavy (heavy on the very) tray of dirty dishes back to the kitchen at the retirement home I work at when a kind old man looked intently at my name tag. The residents where I work are very sweet, but many of them think Cassidy is a strange name (I didn't think it was all that outrageous until I started working there). A lot of them ask me if I'm Hopalong, to which I reply of course, isn't it obvious? I'm so far west it's where the east begins!

Luckily they got my good side here

Anyways, this particular man was on his way out when he stopped to tell me more about my name. I was feeling overwhelmed and incredibly assiduous during my shift, and he paused the craziness for a second and informed me of a fact that I definitely need in my Rose Encyclopedia (my brain).

Small. I know I'm small, and I usually feel pretty small, but now it was for sure. Engraved in me like a lumpy scar on a skeleton aspen tree. As I lugged my way back into the kitchen, I slammed down the grimy tray just as my muscles were giving up and started scraping half-eaten Tilapia into the trash. Small? Why can't I be big? Powerful? Super important and invincible? The flawless girl you see flying in the clouds a thousand miles per hour, with a smile that thrives so brilliantly that people stop and wonder? Small can't deliver that. I need to be someone who, when people see her, they hold their breaths until their lungs give out and become lumps in their gut. Only she can take their saggy lungs and knit them back into being, with an exhale so deep and refreshing it drowns them with ice-cold peace and purpose.

But, I'm a Klein. I'm not in the major-leagues, and I can't actually fly yet. I'm not exactly a social butterfly either, although sometimes I wonder if social butterflies ever feel like their wings are tacked to a wall. My small mind contains enormous dreams, that I'll be on the front page someday and that my words will swim into the hearts of people all over the world. And that somehow, through the words I braid into messy sentences, they will stumble upon a sea-glass glimmer of hope in the endlessly bleak gravel of a shallow promising society.

Sometimes I find myself wandering along this gravelly beach after darkness lead me there, and the vicious stones cut the bottoms of my feet and give me bloody footsteps. All around I notice souls who have bought the lie that they are too small and insignificant, and are doing anything they can to build themselves up and fortify their concrete walls for any battle they might need to fight. These walls look all different, but I'm surrounded. I walk by beautiful faces and see their eyes screaming from inside the concrete. They scrape their skin every time they move, but don't even care, because they're feeling something when they bleed. Who they are is never enough. They hate being trapped in concrete, and they hate being freed from it. It's their bodies, their personalities, their talents. So much hate trapped inside the walls.

I know I'm small, smaller than the teensiest star in the barely visible fuzzy patch of them underneath the grand carpet of initial stars. Small, seemingly simple and ordinary, but underneath the surface my emotions and ambitions are blankets of tangled, intricate lace. When I look at my small hands, I see blue veins that remind me of the labyrinthine paths I've tried to take, only to wind up hopelessly lost. But every veiny path leads back to my heart, somehow. And though I'm small, I won't drown in a sea of big and powerful faces. I will silently breathe and let my heart soak up more life than I can handle. The small writer inside of me is constantly working in her head, kneading moments and memories into something she can try to make sense of—words. Writing helps me in that way. I don't always know what I think until I read what I say.

I want to look into the eyes of every hurting soul I see and cause the concrete walls to crumble. I want them to be free and fall in love with the privilege of running wildly. In our smallness we can stop seeking artificial love and discover a true love that never shouts, but whispers softly and makes us feel infinite.

Pure love is swelling inside our small souls. If we let it, it can fill us up so profoundly until we absolutely can't hold it in and we burst open like Spongebob, leaving a beautiful, erratic mess of joy all over those around us. They'll get stained with it and wonder where they can find this joy too. No matter how small we are, we can hold an immeasurable amount of love and life inside of us. Particles of God dwell in us and when we pray and laugh and sing and cry we retch up these bits. And then he replenishes us with many more, and these particles sink into every cell of our bodies and begin to radiate until we're burning alive.

Love is a word that has become so cliche I almost can't stand it. It's overused, and too many people have a demented perception of what it really is. It's such a real and fierce spirit that attacks us unexpectedly and provides us with a reason to live. My choir instructor (we call him "life lessons" teacher as well sometimes) tells us that love shouldn't be big and loud. If someone is screaming at you that they love you, they probably don't. If they whisper softly that they love you and humbly show affection, then it's real. (He also tells us that saying "I'm sorry" comes with the implication that you will never let it happen again, which I think is golden. But that's a whole other story. Choir is the one class that teaches me things I'll actually need in life!)

Whispers are small. They don't roar and explode and bite. They don't usually draw a crowd, and sometimes they're inaudible. Insignificant. But if the whisper is directed at you, it's the biggest, most powerful force that can make you topple over. And that's where God is. The small whisper. I think sometimes we (me especially) think we have to be these perfect, saintly people to feel close to God. I'm learning though, that if I listen to the small things, I can feel overwhelmed by the closeness I feel to him. He's in the lyrics of our favorite songs (or weekly song obsessions if you're Peyton), he's in the late night conversations with your friends, he's in the passenger seat of your car. He's even in the frantic beating of your heart as you catch eyes with that one person who makes you feel like flying.

Tonight, it's so late, and I feel comatose as I twirl in an ugly thrift store dress with my hair in a messy knot and guitars and drums and good lyrics bleeding from my stereo. And I feel in love. I know Jesus loves me in my smallness, and because of his small whispers I am the strong and fearless hopalong Cassidy. I might be a Klein, but I will stampede on my horse into tomorrow with a love so violently calm I'll break any concrete walls with a whisper. And I know the beautiful people around me, my lovely, broken friends, are capable and strong and will do the same.

I know I'll get lost. I'm a wayfaring dreamer and I might wind up in a scary and pressure-filled place, but all I have to do is remember to listen for the whispers in the dark and know how fleeting my time here is. I'll listen to the music and my heartbeat will be the drums, beating and loving so loudly that my smallness will melt into the rich blanket of stars, and there I'll stay; burning until I fizzle out and someone makes a wish.

emotions like lacey dreams

Big CC and lil cc

Big CC and...lil cc? And two more C Klein's :)

I've seen love die way too many times

When it deserved to be alive

                              —Paramore