circles

Today i was struck by the wonder of the gift of literacy. Reading and writing really are not necessary to life and breath; but they enrich them to the nth degree. Besides all the uses for written communication, it is just downright pleasurable to look at marks on a page (or screen nowadays) and know what they mean. Thanks, God. (Maybe i should be thinking about Gilgamesh in World Lit, but it's more fun for me to think about words.)

I think that a lot of life happens in circles, and this is reflected by some different things. In certain kinds of Psalms, the organization is not centrally based on line or meter or rhyme, but on meaning. The writer takes you down a path, but at the end you find you're back at the beginning. Here's an example. And in Dante, everything is or is related to a circle. Scientifically, matter organizes itself into spheres and circles. Seasons cycle. And when i look at my life and its seasons, the various and sundry states that my heart has found itself, and the lessons that i've had to learn "the hard way," it is very evident that i am on a road that goes in circles. I get older every time, but i have to learn similar lessons ridiculously often. Daily routines are circles. What this means, i don't know, but i think it has something to do with we're all here, circling. There is significance to being and doing.

Peace!

a sad day; a good book

The Little Bread Company of Block St. is no more, because of taxes or something. Let us take a moment to mourn the loss of the proximate best-muffin-in-world, not to mention a wonderful bakery.
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On a more pleasant note, i recommend Quentin Durward by Sir Walter Scott as the best vacation heart-refresher literature that ever i laid eyes on (well... at least within the last year or three). It is a journey of the imagination, honor, and character (because who reads knight-errant adventures without being there oneself?). More on this once i've finished it.

I'm in a new house, a new life. The transition is almost complete. My thoughts have been turning to love lost and stuff, so you may expect to hear more on that in the future. And those other things are still rumbling. (Now i'd better live up to these expectations i'm giving you.)

Peace to you. Love someone today.

movement

There's something happening, i think, because i see it everywhere. God is speaking to people about really, really living as His bride.. really being Christlike. It's here in Europe and here in Africa and all over and so many more places... and i'm excited to see what comes out, mostly because what i see resonates with my soul.

Changing the world has nothing to do with how much media happens about you or how many people know your name or even know about something you did without your name. It is an "ancillary benefit to the life we live." No matter what, you, one-sixbillionth of the world's population, have as much impact as when you would have been one-billionth or one-thousandth. And it's because you're not here for you, you're here for God, because He's making a fractal-tapestry with all of the wonderful and unique and carefully, detailfully created and beautiful lives that happen and come and go and choose. You choose. But God is absolutely omniscient. And He has a beautiful end for everything. Just because my mind can't go around that doesn't mean that it's okay for me to think that what i say and do doesn't have an impact. I don't have to understand, i just have to obey and follow. I am nothing without Him.

I ate ice cream today because i felt sad. But i knew that it was an emotion and ill-founded, because of an unfilled idyllic expectation. I ate ice cream anyway. It was yummy (but i should have gotten hot fudge instead of strawberry). But i said "hello" and "thank you" to the guy in the drive-thru, and i could tell in his eyes that he wanted to change the world but there were layers of stuff on top of him that he thought were preventing him. Just by existing, though, he is doing it.

There is such freedom to have if only we would submit. There is such joy to have if only we would let go. I read this today: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." Matt. 16:25. Let's live and love like Christ, okay? like, really, really, really, let's.

a potted watch never boils

I don't like it when a post starts forming in my head and then i get distracted and it blows to smithereens and i don't even hear the explosion. (I would like to take this moment to point out that Amber Haines taught me the power of a sustained metaphor. Thank you, Amber.)

This week at Camp Barnabas made me think and feel a lot. And i shouldn't do the promise-i'll-write-later thing (i'm trying, along with using specific vocabulary for EVERYTHING, to also never procrastinate ANYTHING--both of which sting the same lazy area of the self) but i will.

Some topics that are rumbling in the popcorn machine of my brain:
-cussin' (a very, very belated response to this)
-pain (there's so much more on that)
-imaginary friends

Good night.