A Travelogue of the Interior Quotes

“Under a Torremolinos Sky (Psalm 116)8 For Jim The first thing I notice is not the bed, oddly angled as all hospital beds are nor the pillowcase, covered in love notes. Not the table filled with pill bottles nor the sterile tools of a dozen indignities. I’ll notice these things later, on my way out perhaps. But first, my wide-angle lens pulls narrow, as eyes meet eyes and I am seen. How is it, before a word is spoken, you make me know I am known and welcome? What can I give back to God for the blessings he’s poured out on me? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation—a toast to God! You smile behind the plastic that keeps you alive, and as I rest my hand on your chest we conspire together to break the rules. The rhythm of your labored breathing will decide our seconds, our minutes, our hours. Tears to laughter and back again always in that order and rightly so. We bask under a Torremolinos sky and hear the tongues of angels sing of sins forgiven long before the world was made. I’ll pray in the name of God; I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it together with his people. Talk turns to motorcycles and mortuaries, to scotch and sons who wear their father’s charm like a crown, daughters who quicken the pulse with just a glance. Time flies and neither of us has time to waste. I’ll make a great looking corpse, you say because we of all people must speak of these things, because we of all people refuse to pretend. This doesn’t bring tears—not yet. Instead a giggle, a shared secret that life is and is not in the body. Soul, you’ve been rescued from death; Eye, you’ve been rescued from tears; And you, Foot, were kept from stumbling. Your chest still rises and falls but you grow weary, my hand tells me so. It’s too soon to ever say goodbye. When it’s my turn, brother, I will find you where the streets shimmer and tears herald only joy where we wear our true names and our true faces. Promise me, there, the dance we never had. When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love him. Oh, God, here I am, your servant, your faithful servant: set me free for your service! I’m ready to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice and pray in the name of God. I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it in company with his people, In the place of worship, in God’s house, in Jerusalem, God’s city.”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“We do ourselves a grave disservice when we relegate the experiences of the patriarchs and prophets and apostles to some time and place where God behaved in mystical, supernatural ways; it leads us to believe that God used to speak in ways that didn’t require faith, but now God is silent, having said His piece.”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“That begins to get at chesed: it is wild, passionate, irresistible, formidable, decimating platitudes and boundaries and proper grammar. Chesed is how God loves me. How God loves you, too. At”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“What Am I? (Psalm 8) What am I? A mass of contradictions a cacophony of atoms flesh transcendent in some mysterious way. I am my past reborn and reckoned so it is no longer past but present and present tomorrow too. I am my will that strains against yet rests in my tether because I don’t have to hold on. I am my heart of flesh and also stone amazed at He who draws water from rock to quench the thirst of nations. I am my mind that takes me places feet never could to heights and depths reserved for angels where I fear and hope to tread. I am my feet too my most honest friends, taking me where I want to go whether I want to or not. I am my hands open to receive and heal but shut too in fists of hatred ready to strike. What am I? A mass of atoms and contradictions made merely, made exquisitely a human being. The glory of You is me fully alive. The glory of me is You, the Living God.”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“We learn early and well that truth-telling, especially concerning our souls, comes with painful consequences, and in response we become so adept at speaking falsely that we wake one day to discover our authentic voice has atrophied.”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“I’ll notice these things later, on my way out perhaps. But first, my wide-angle lens pulls narrow, as eyes meet eyes and I am seen. How is it, before a word is spoken, you make me know I am known and welcome?”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“Lament teaches me that God listens and knows full well the horror of the human experience, of my experience, all my moments and seasons. Lament teaches me that God is bigger, far bigger, than I am, an unassailable strength that can carry the full weight of my grief, my agony, my hatred, my confusion, my need without wavering, weakening, or breaking. Lament teaches me that I can flail and thrash about in fits of anguish and fear and blindness and a bottomless hunger, yet still be fully held in God’s unyielding arms. Lament teaches me that God will, if invited, establish Himself at the center of me, like a massive tree with impossibly deep roots, around which the weak newborn shoots of me can twine and grow and flourish.”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“Broken,” for our purposes here, refers to the idea that every one of us is deeply injured, and from our wounds we wound others.”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms

“My angle, like me, is a bit more pedestrian: lament is about calling out the elephant in the room. We all have an elephant—at least one—and some of us have been herding elephants around so long they’ve multiplied and are now mulling around the entirety of our interior living space. Our elephants: the things we don’t want to think about or talk about, the injuries we blame God for because God could have prevented them, the horrors at the hands of others that seeped under our skin and haunt us months, years, even decades later, despite our best efforts to “get over it.” This is where we begin, by looking at these festering wounds and refusing to turn away. By coming clean. By insisting we not talk about anything else until we have talked about that. By raising our voices in lament.”
― Karen Dabaghian, A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms