a man of constant sorrow

You know when a blog entry is a big blob in your brain and you don't know what it looks like until it comes out--and you need to write it or it weighs heavier and heavier? Well, this one isn't like that. I just started with a title that came from the song lyric in my head at this moment. And here i go with my thoughts.

I'm thinking about all my friends who are very far away, about to be very far away, or just returned from being very far away. It's a large number. I think i'm really glad about that, because that means that i have friends who know (or are discovering, or have discovered) the value of being someplace utterly and completely different from home, and of getting to know the people and ways of that someplace. Sometimes it's not fun when a lot of them are gone simultaneously, though.

I'm also thinking about change, and how it is sort of like rain: when it's here, there is no end to complaint, but when it is absent it is longed for. Many times it is welcome and then becomes uncomfortable, or it just comes at inconvenient times and then is praised in hindsight. I think this is where we're supposed to learn to praise the Lord in every situation, whether it feels good at the moment or not.

Since i just finished reading The Idiot by F. Dostoyevsky (an excellent book and phenomenal author) i am also thinking about compassion. But that takes a lot more wrestly sort of thoughts that i may write about later, but maybe not.

And here is where i will leave you. Remember that Christ had constant sorrow, and constant compassion. And that's good.

Sweet Sassy Molassy

There's something cultural about taking things literally. "Sure thing, chicken wing," doesn't mean you are a piece of fowl, a lotta bone and not a lotta flesh. It means "indubitably." And "You like Cinderella? Lost your slipper?" doesn't mean you have one shoe on and the other was left in haste on the palace steps for your true love to find. It means "honey child, you 'bout to fall asleep." And "train for a triathlon" doesn't mean "start an intense workout regime and spend lots of dollars on things." I'm learning what it really means. And it has cost me several wasted days of my life. "Wasting" means spending in selfish thought and action, whether pity party or prideful presumption; being disconnected from the Creator; believing what physical eyes see instead of what is really there. Days spent in distraction are wasted to me.

On Monday the thought came. "I should train for a triathlon." I took it so literally that i bought running shoes and got a summer gym membership (the HPER) and was looking into getting a road bike. I was going for it. On Wednesday night my dad talked to me about being a wise steward and remaining focused on my purpose in life. It felt like a knife in the heart. I moped around for a while, cried, and wasn't very much fun to be with (sorry, girls). Today i realized that i have been given three goals to work towards this summer, and they are physical, mental, and spiritual--sort of like a triathlon has three disciplines. I want to become a better rock climber so that i can have more fun out in Creation, and make more hippie friends. I want to memorize "the Entertainer" by Scott Joplin so that when people find out i play the piano, i actually have something to play, and they can laugh (it's impossible to hear "the Entertainer" played live and not laugh). I want to become faithful and effective in intercessory prayer so that the nations are shaken. How did i think i would have time for anything else? The good thing is that i needed running shoes because i didn't have ANY athletic shoes. And the HPER has rock walls. And the bike would be great for commuting purposes--the tax money i just got is about the exact amount that it would cost. The Lord is so merciful, y'all! (P.S. i've gotten a lot more Southern since i've been working at Lewis and Clark.)

Sweet sassy molassy.

essential extras

I shouldn't be on here writing this right now, i should be asleep. But i'm wanting some of that gratification that comes from the blind assumption that you are reading this and can relate. (Empathy can be addictive, especially when so easily accessible by Internet, don't you think?) (And you must admit that that vowel alliteration was supremely superb.) (Is it prideful to point out my own literary feats?) (It's DEFINITELY time to stop parenthesizing.) See?

All i wanted to do, reader, was somehow explain a phenomenon that i've recently noticed, mainly through a sweet new friend. She is so exuberantly encouraging that i don't know how i ever could deserve someone like that, but i also don't know what i would do without it. You know? It's SO extra, icing-on-the-cake-and-eat-it-too-with-a-cherry-AND-sugar-on-top, and overflowing and abundant, but at the same time.. necessary?

I think God is like that, except really really fundamental.

Good night.