The Team
Behind the Scenes of i was 8814
The line up. Who brought us together?
How did we find each other?
Why are we all smiling in Arizona except for Laura back in the UK preparing for an art exhibition?
Manessa stands on the far left.
She is our accountant, preserving financial integrity, receiving gifts for production costs of i was 8814, and now paying for distribution, eg flights to Phoenix,
the creation of a trailer,
Manessa at the book table with copies of A Garland for Ashes, the story before the film.
Like each of our team Manessa has a unique story and layers of gifting.
She is an accountant, a wife, a mother but also a poet reflecting on what it means to be human:
Silence
Smell the fresh pen on the pad
Feel the rhythm made of words
See the art sculptured by hands
Hear the silence infesting its curse
Judging the fear, planted by us in others
We see who we are, and who we don’t want to be
Regretting the choices we chose to make,
The mistake is not choosing life.
Living in the past, while setting a path for tomorrow
Picking it up stone by stone, and putting it in front of us
Expecting it to look different than yesterday
The loud silence over the world
Makes it hard not to cover your ears
But that’s why we’re silent today
Never appreciating the present
Consumed by the worries of the future
Living in the now is impossible
When time is unstoppable
And now is now before.
And now is now after.
Satisfaction isn’t enough
Recognition is what we want
But from whom
The screaming world that has no voice
Because we’re all singing a different tune
Or is the same tune
And we’ve just closed our ears
Out of fear
So we can no longer hear
What everyone else is saying, or not saying
Cause self-centeredness is in
And it’s now become a sin
To admit when you’re wrong
Cause you’re right, right?
Building homes out of pain
Falling in love for personal gain
Playing the game so well, you lie to yourself
It’s a shame
The things we go through today
Are nothing compared to what they went through yesterday
But yet we’re in so much pain
People wear blinders through this race
Seeing everything might slow their pace
Never realizing they’re going too fast
And that speed will never last
Not knowing the people on the sidelines
Are actually farther along in the race than they are
Cause they’ve stopped to enjoy life
In the end
“YOU”
are nothing
But We
“WE” are everything
-Manessa
5/31/04
Fear
Fear does not come from Him, who is love.
Fear does not come from Him, who is love.
Resist the temptation of a natural reaction.
A simple distraction can cause systems to crash, and what are we left with after that?
The aftermath of an emotional reaction.
It’s not fun cleaning up the mess we made while in a rage.
A temper tantrum, a grown-up hissyfit, if you will.
But oh no, no, I won’t! I won’t confess to you that I do struggle, too, with my emotions.
Motion sickness from the waves tossing me about,
Just like the warning from James to the double-minded who doubt.
But fear does not come from Him, who is Love!
Then why do we walk in fear?
Why do we choose to stay in the cave when we’ve been free for years?!
Our tears in bottles before Him.
Our names on the palms of His hands.
John 17 shows His heart toward us, and still, we don’t obey His command to LOVE!
To love them, and He loves.
And if we love Him, then we’ll love them.
Then fear is cast out by this deep, abounding love from within.
Within because He is in us, and we are in Him.
And He is love, and love always wins!
We receive grace by faith, but faith through love.
So remember, fear does not come from Him.
Fear DOES NOT come from Him.
Fear does not come from HIM, who is LOVE!
Amen
Reading Manessa’s poems,
I ponder,
unseen realities,
the intersection of lives,
why we are here,
what we will leave behind…