BA.

I stink. My hair needs washed and my clothes show with the grime of a backwoods hike. My calves ache almost as badly as my head does. I have a cut on my lip and I stopped looking in the mirror long ago for fear of the grime on my face. Tears have left streaks through the dirt on my cheeks. My eyes hang heavy.

My mind burns. Like a physics-class-type burn. Information-overload doesn’t even cover it. I feel like I have a confused switchboard room behind my eyes. The flustered ladies dash about trying to connect me to myself but I just keep hanging up. I can’t think.

I am totally battered. Broken down. I am weak from the journey. Weary from the struggle. I have been pierced, prodded, and tripped. My realities rebuked, my world challenged. My weaknesses have been called upon and they betrayed my barriers as they screamed to the world, “Here I am!” I am stripped of all my defenses.

Yet I am so alive. So so alive! Maybe more so than I ever have been, only One can really say.
My eyes hang heavy; from crying after dwelling on Your passion. I weep at the Love, the true Love, that You are for me. I can’t help but lose tears when I feel You in the room, working inside me as well as my brothers and sisters. My chin quivers as I realize You have answered all my prayers.
I can’t think; because You have bombarded me with Your message through all forms possible. I have heard You speaking in discussions, music and lectures. I have seen You acting through my fellow humans, both lay and religious, in skits, plays and the simplest gestures. I can’t think on anything but You, because You have blocked all else.
I am stripped of all my defenses; because it is only then that I might truly accept Your message. I have built so many walls to protect myself when the only protection I ever needed was You. You tear them down, that You might build me back up. Starting with my soul.

Buffalo Awakening 15
“No Greater Love” Jn. 15:13-16

There is no hug like a BA hug. And no hug so plentiful.
A BA hug isn’t just physical. A BA hug is a hug of the soul.
A hug that wraps around your newly exposed heart and covers it.
A BA hug has true Love at its core.
When you first receive a BA hug, you’ll know.
You’ll feel it in your very being.
A warmth like you didn’t know existed.
A Love that you’d only read about in books.
Total support, through it all, no matter, the end.
That’s a BA hug.