.....i make rust on purpose: upolu

finally, a month later, i am getting to post shots and thoughts from our trip to hawaii to visit my parents! they live in kona, on the Big Island, and there are so many lovely places to drink in.

my favorite place (so far) on the planet is here...

a little dirt road near a tiny airstrip leads you to this staggering view. red and black lava cliffs descend into rough gorgeous water.

here is a bit from my journal as i sat alone in this beauty and just drank...

it's like this place was made just for me. my dad loves it because it's almost always clear blue and windy... but there's more waiting for my heart.

you come to the edge of the cliffs and look over to wild, untamed tumultuous beauty, the sea so blue, heaving this way and that, waves crashing on the black lava, sending spray twenty feet in the air and gently misting my face.

but then you turn around and look at the cliffs themselves. and they are embedded with a thousand rusty things, so much a part of them now that it's hard to tell if it's the dirt that's red, or the disintegrated rusty metal making it so. there must be whole cars rusting here. millions of shards of glass... vintage shapes, decorative elements... melted, twisted in some fire...

but oh, the shapes of the red iron equipment against the backdrop of pure turquoise turbulence.

i am in awe.

so if all of it is grace, and every gift points to christ, i sit wondering how. this thrill in my heart as blue explodes into white, and rock joins with rust... what does it all mean? eucharisteo before i understand [referring to Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts]. i think i would be happy if i died here.

usually my favorite "beauty" involves the quiet solitude of the mountains with its pine-fresh air... but nothing comes close to this. i feel like i could stay here all my days and never tire of exploring the beauty.

it's your love for me.

the rocks push back ferociously but nothing can keep it at bay. the wave ever coming, over and over again to lavish itself, bring life to the terrain, refresh the tidepools on its surface.

for the first time i understand the C.S. Lewis quote:“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves.” – C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)