25 May 2009
14 May 2009
more love and rain
Writing out of freedom and not bondage is kind of like perfection.
Springtime rains do not make me miserable. Water falls from the sky in little drops, lots, all over, and it touches everything. There is nothing it does not find. Sometimes you can trick the rain by making it fall on something else before it gets to you, and you stay dry. But it takes so much effort to be completely not wet when it rains. It takes a lot of staying and covering. There is something beautiful about being the same person whether the rain has full access to you or not.
The ice storm ravaged us. It took limb from tree and dashed it to the ground. It thrashed the weak and bent the strong. It was grievous and tragic. Little did it know that life and love are stronger than death--the rain falls on everything, and there is so much green. Green is everywhere; new hope springs from the scars of the ruined.
It seems that being a person is a full-time job until others depend on you full-time. Then you work overflowing-time, and there is no way to do it unless lives are the same, twine together, love together, abide in the same Vine. There is no choosing your family, past nor future, but there is choosing to bend and live with them. There is no choosing whom, but there is choosing how. It takes so much dying to self, so much cutting off of those directions of self-will that try to sprout and grow--and it would be admirable and glittery to allow them and follow them, but so, so lonely. (Not killing those dreams of your heart that are true and right and divine, but trusting that they will come about in due time.) That is why love is so earthy and organic and gardeny. It hurts so good.
Sometimes the birds get at the strawberries even though you made chicken-wire covers for your pots. i know from experience. There is a lot that i write that i don't know from experience, i just look and see, and then think i have known. i hope there is some truth in it somewhere--how else am i to live? Living takes faith, i suppose. And writing does.
Where are you, voice?
Springtime rains do not make me miserable. Water falls from the sky in little drops, lots, all over, and it touches everything. There is nothing it does not find. Sometimes you can trick the rain by making it fall on something else before it gets to you, and you stay dry. But it takes so much effort to be completely not wet when it rains. It takes a lot of staying and covering. There is something beautiful about being the same person whether the rain has full access to you or not.
The ice storm ravaged us. It took limb from tree and dashed it to the ground. It thrashed the weak and bent the strong. It was grievous and tragic. Little did it know that life and love are stronger than death--the rain falls on everything, and there is so much green. Green is everywhere; new hope springs from the scars of the ruined.
It seems that being a person is a full-time job until others depend on you full-time. Then you work overflowing-time, and there is no way to do it unless lives are the same, twine together, love together, abide in the same Vine. There is no choosing your family, past nor future, but there is choosing to bend and live with them. There is no choosing whom, but there is choosing how. It takes so much dying to self, so much cutting off of those directions of self-will that try to sprout and grow--and it would be admirable and glittery to allow them and follow them, but so, so lonely. (Not killing those dreams of your heart that are true and right and divine, but trusting that they will come about in due time.) That is why love is so earthy and organic and gardeny. It hurts so good.
Sometimes the birds get at the strawberries even though you made chicken-wire covers for your pots. i know from experience. There is a lot that i write that i don't know from experience, i just look and see, and then think i have known. i hope there is some truth in it somewhere--how else am i to live? Living takes faith, i suppose. And writing does.
Where are you, voice?
08 May 2009
jolene
Some days i can't do anything right except stand in the rain and welcome the wet and welcome the wet. i'm sorry when it stops.
i still don't know what love means.
01 May 2009
human things: love and rain
Love is a real-life kind of thing. It's messy and difficult and involved and embarrassing and indescribably wonderful. It goes back to our roots, our trueness, our real selves, before there was any wrong or hurt in the world. It is the spiritual power of life--from organelles to ecosystems, from birth until death, we move by its currents. It is like many things in our conscious human world: not what we imagine, not the ideal, but better--natural, rough-edged, real-life. It's like finding an umbrella that was lost.
Rain falls on the just and the unjust. The best-laid sidewalks and landscaped beds and sculptures and picnic tables of men lie open-faced to the same deluge that untouched rocks and trees and woodland burrows know so well. A human-thing mystery. No man is not subject to the elements, even those who remain inside. The whole reason we have buildings is because of weather.
Anyone want to go puddle-splashing?
Rain falls on the just and the unjust. The best-laid sidewalks and landscaped beds and sculptures and picnic tables of men lie open-faced to the same deluge that untouched rocks and trees and woodland burrows know so well. A human-thing mystery. No man is not subject to the elements, even those who remain inside. The whole reason we have buildings is because of weather.
Anyone want to go puddle-splashing?
26 April 2009
no not one
There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus. It's wonderful to know that solitude doesn't have to be lonely. How often i live there in spite of this, believing the lie that one more thing will allow me to truly rejoice--companion, possession, situation, attitude, accomplishment, adventure--when, truly, these things will be added when i'm not seeking them, but the Kingdom. I feel so dense that this comes alive to me just now, when i've been reciting Matthew 6:33 and expounding upon this principle for many years. But isn't that the point of life: to go on learning and toiling and discovering? And that keeps us humble and mutually teachable if we're willing. There is no human being alive who does not have more to learn--if only we would look at each face we encounter through that lens!
Speaking of learning, i have to have an opinion about who is to blame for the Holocaust within the next two hours (one reason why i'm writing here instead of the Word document that's right behind). I don't want to talk about it, i want to weep about it! I want to weep and weep. I'm not good at weeping. My heart gets detatched sometimes--many times that i wish it was pained enough for tears to flow. Most of my sadness is selfish and vain.
But for now, the beginning of the last week of the last semester of Junior year. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Speaking of learning, i have to have an opinion about who is to blame for the Holocaust within the next two hours (one reason why i'm writing here instead of the Word document that's right behind). I don't want to talk about it, i want to weep about it! I want to weep and weep. I'm not good at weeping. My heart gets detatched sometimes--many times that i wish it was pained enough for tears to flow. Most of my sadness is selfish and vain.
But for now, the beginning of the last week of the last semester of Junior year. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
30 March 2009
human things: independence and tragedy
Rigoberta Menchu won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize because she lived with her eyes open and then did something about it.
Sometimes, when we least expect it, we are given the freedom we've been waiting for.
i didn't realize how important it was to hear affirming words from people in authority over me. The turning point to my week--and probably to my semester--was my professor's "you are a good student" and "you're motivated," because i didn't think i was. Not truly in my bones i didn't. But now i know, and everything that was a struggle before--just stuff like studying and getting homework done--is so much easier now.
The other day i put my three herb-sprouted pots outside before the overnight rain. When i looked out the window after business of a day, the realization hit--there were only two in that cardboard on that rail. i ran down the deck stairs and to the ruins of basil-dirt.. the pot was intact, but i had no idea where the baby seeds were. i didn't hold back tears because i wasn't crying but i felt like i should. It was one of those moments where the depravity of the world, of accidental mishap that has life-quenching consequences, created a beautiful sorrow in me like tragedy in real life. I know it was just a few seeds, but doesn't everything feel that way that isn't how it Should be?
Rainy days make me a little bit tragic and a lot pensive. Sunny days make me joyful with a hint of longing. It seems that most people i talk to are affected by the weather in some pattern like that.
Days come and go and keep coming and going. There's an unknown number of them.
Adding to the list:
-the need to be affirmed
-tragedy
-mood changes based on weather
-finity of life
Sometimes, when we least expect it, we are given the freedom we've been waiting for.
i didn't realize how important it was to hear affirming words from people in authority over me. The turning point to my week--and probably to my semester--was my professor's "you are a good student" and "you're motivated," because i didn't think i was. Not truly in my bones i didn't. But now i know, and everything that was a struggle before--just stuff like studying and getting homework done--is so much easier now.
The other day i put my three herb-sprouted pots outside before the overnight rain. When i looked out the window after business of a day, the realization hit--there were only two in that cardboard on that rail. i ran down the deck stairs and to the ruins of basil-dirt.. the pot was intact, but i had no idea where the baby seeds were. i didn't hold back tears because i wasn't crying but i felt like i should. It was one of those moments where the depravity of the world, of accidental mishap that has life-quenching consequences, created a beautiful sorrow in me like tragedy in real life. I know it was just a few seeds, but doesn't everything feel that way that isn't how it Should be?
Rainy days make me a little bit tragic and a lot pensive. Sunny days make me joyful with a hint of longing. It seems that most people i talk to are affected by the weather in some pattern like that.
Days come and go and keep coming and going. There's an unknown number of them.
Adding to the list:
-the need to be affirmed
-tragedy
-mood changes based on weather
-finity of life
18 March 2009
human things: creation
Some projects just pull from their hiding place, way back behind the extra dimension of canvas, screaming and longing and pining and wailing to come out, and you're the only one who knows. Those end up being the not-so-great ones because it is rare that they can come out with justice. (Lots of things are like that, i think, but here we are as fallen Man, right?)
Others come together like an impromptu meal, with the perfect herbs complementing the vibrant vegetable-colors and the little bit of unexpected extra that just makes it whole. These are usually more satisfying--it's easier to stop working and be done than it is on the childbirth kind.
Honesty is as important in art as it is in life. No matter how uncomfortable it is to admit that there is a shadow that shapes that particular contour, no matter what irrational force is keeping the brush from the deeper value, it is not True unless it is done--there is no condemnation if you make a mistake. Similarly, nobody is going to judge anyone for being a person; it's True, who you are, and the Master knew every piece and particle and smudge of you before He called you out of the canvas.
Painting and cooking and other creative things are using energy to synthesize matter, but really we're just using pieces that have already been created. Cool, huh?
Human Things addition:
-the need to create.
Others come together like an impromptu meal, with the perfect herbs complementing the vibrant vegetable-colors and the little bit of unexpected extra that just makes it whole. These are usually more satisfying--it's easier to stop working and be done than it is on the childbirth kind.
Honesty is as important in art as it is in life. No matter how uncomfortable it is to admit that there is a shadow that shapes that particular contour, no matter what irrational force is keeping the brush from the deeper value, it is not True unless it is done--there is no condemnation if you make a mistake. Similarly, nobody is going to judge anyone for being a person; it's True, who you are, and the Master knew every piece and particle and smudge of you before He called you out of the canvas.
Painting and cooking and other creative things are using energy to synthesize matter, but really we're just using pieces that have already been created. Cool, huh?
Human Things addition:
-the need to create.
03 March 2009
human things
A long time ago i started making a list of things that are common to all humans (and not animals)--trans-culture, -gender, -time, -geography--because i wanted to embrace the things that are integral to my being human, and de-priortitize things that are not. With the design to include every possible item, i started with the obvious:
Then i sort of stopped because i thought it was a little too obvious.
But i want to think about it more. Things that i truly love, and feel that i was created to do, or that i feel are innate (sometimes wrong things), bring me back to this list--i see that they come from my being a person.
Some days it's harder to be a person than others.
Oo, here's a thought: what if the only reason that humans have language and other creatures don't is because we were created for deep relationship? Animals have purely physical, selfish relationships because they have no way of communicating their deeper thoughts (if they have any, which i doubt). Complex language for them would be pointless because all they would say (as they do now, in their own utterances) would be stuff like "FOOD!" and "Oh no!" and "Get away from my ____". But we, agonizingly and ecstatically, have so much complexity and depth that language, as wonderful and useful as it is, doesn't come close to portraying all that we are. I think that is because there is a spiritual part of us that is inexpressible with words--and animals don't have that.
In light of that, i wonder which of the things on the list are there because they are also characteristics of God, the Spirit, the Creator? Or at least because they are spiritual things. I don't think God struggles with stuff like selfishness. Maybe that is a direct result of our having spirits AND bodies--the spirit gets corrupted. Hmm, that sounds like something Paul would say.
...
Um, so, go do a BibleGateway search for "flesh and spirit" and start thinking. It will blow you away. I don't have time for expository on all of that right now. Here are a few relevant ones to what i've been discussing here:
So help me add to the list!
- family/friends
- language
- relationships in general
- food preparation
- education
- rites of passage
- dwellings
- going to work and coming back
- caring for children
- exploring one's environs
- technology and the improvement thereof
Then i sort of stopped because i thought it was a little too obvious.
But i want to think about it more. Things that i truly love, and feel that i was created to do, or that i feel are innate (sometimes wrong things), bring me back to this list--i see that they come from my being a person.
- desire to know the weather
- reluctance to submit to authority
- desire to know the source of right and wrong (and many other things)
- dancing and singing
- love and suffering
- paradox: longing for freedom but continuing in (sometimes subconscious) self-repression; and many others
- philosophizing about life, no matter one's education or "right" to do so
Some days it's harder to be a person than others.
Oo, here's a thought: what if the only reason that humans have language and other creatures don't is because we were created for deep relationship? Animals have purely physical, selfish relationships because they have no way of communicating their deeper thoughts (if they have any, which i doubt). Complex language for them would be pointless because all they would say (as they do now, in their own utterances) would be stuff like "FOOD!" and "Oh no!" and "Get away from my ____". But we, agonizingly and ecstatically, have so much complexity and depth that language, as wonderful and useful as it is, doesn't come close to portraying all that we are. I think that is because there is a spiritual part of us that is inexpressible with words--and animals don't have that.
In light of that, i wonder which of the things on the list are there because they are also characteristics of God, the Spirit, the Creator? Or at least because they are spiritual things. I don't think God struggles with stuff like selfishness. Maybe that is a direct result of our having spirits AND bodies--the spirit gets corrupted. Hmm, that sounds like something Paul would say.
...
Um, so, go do a BibleGateway search for "flesh and spirit" and start thinking. It will blow you away. I don't have time for expository on all of that right now. Here are a few relevant ones to what i've been discussing here:
- John 3:6
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
- John 6:63
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. - Mark 14:38
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." - Romans 8:10
But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. - Romans 8:13
For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, - 1 Corinthians 6:19
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
So help me add to the list!
22 February 2009
it's so easy
One of my favorite parts about being away from home was writing back. A captive audience made it so enjoyable. And now i don't write as often as i should because i "don't have time."
This time that i'm using right now i actually don't have. It's like spending money--it's literally in the account, but it will literally be needed next month--but it's there, it's easy to spend. This time is here now, and it won't be tomorrow, but it's easy to waste because there is no urgency. It's got to be budgeted and sorted and packaged and saved and used as promised.. but it's so easy to live in free blindness rather than safe diligence.
I love the Fayetteville Public Library and its story-windows. You can see so much of the sky through the library windows. I think that's important to everything that libraries represent.
A bad habit that i've gotten into is waiting a very long time when i'm thirsty before i drink water.
My daddy can look at an airplane flying overhead and say what it is. I wish i could do that, too. i know sort of generally C1-30s and F-15 and 16s, and B-17s, and that those mean Cargo and Fighter and Bomber, but they don't fly over Fayetteville very often. I'd also like to know more about meteorology.
Pointless rambling, anyone? Why do i post this on the World Wide Web for all to see?
This time that i'm using right now i actually don't have. It's like spending money--it's literally in the account, but it will literally be needed next month--but it's there, it's easy to spend. This time is here now, and it won't be tomorrow, but it's easy to waste because there is no urgency. It's got to be budgeted and sorted and packaged and saved and used as promised.. but it's so easy to live in free blindness rather than safe diligence.
I love the Fayetteville Public Library and its story-windows. You can see so much of the sky through the library windows. I think that's important to everything that libraries represent.
A bad habit that i've gotten into is waiting a very long time when i'm thirsty before i drink water.
My daddy can look at an airplane flying overhead and say what it is. I wish i could do that, too. i know sort of generally C1-30s and F-15 and 16s, and B-17s, and that those mean Cargo and Fighter and Bomber, but they don't fly over Fayetteville very often. I'd also like to know more about meteorology.
Pointless rambling, anyone? Why do i post this on the World Wide Web for all to see?
15 February 2009
not alone, remember
When i first got back from Thailand one year ago, i listened to this CD like breathing air, like i had just come within seconds of drowning, and all i could do was breathe and know that i wasn't dead. There is healing in the music because there is God's message in the music.
Today at church was about Joshua: be strong and very courageous, and I will never leave you.
Please believe me when i talk about circles. These things all orbit together: being the same as children--having the deep need for being held, following rebellious streaks, realizing the meanings of stuff; never being alone because of the sorrow and love of our Father--He is with us, he knows, he is watching out the kitchen window; learning lessons over and over--knowing that we have to love our neighbor but struggling so hard; having to die and say Yes to life--giving up our 'rights' to toys, space, food, transportation; seasons and change and newness--moving to a new house, going to a new school, getting a new job; old habits dying hard. You know?
So often i experience the very same emotions that i did when i was a child--i remember--because i'm the same person, except bigger. And i'm learning the same lessons, except connected in different ways.
Love is so glad, but so deep and painful. I think that's what beauty is too.
Today at church was about Joshua: be strong and very courageous, and I will never leave you.
Please believe me when i talk about circles. These things all orbit together: being the same as children--having the deep need for being held, following rebellious streaks, realizing the meanings of stuff; never being alone because of the sorrow and love of our Father--He is with us, he knows, he is watching out the kitchen window; learning lessons over and over--knowing that we have to love our neighbor but struggling so hard; having to die and say Yes to life--giving up our 'rights' to toys, space, food, transportation; seasons and change and newness--moving to a new house, going to a new school, getting a new job; old habits dying hard. You know?
So often i experience the very same emotions that i did when i was a child--i remember--because i'm the same person, except bigger. And i'm learning the same lessons, except connected in different ways.
Love is so glad, but so deep and painful. I think that's what beauty is too.
02 February 2009
superman. banana.
Tony Horton's voice resonates from every room in my house. Echoes of his revved-up exhortations to Get Busy are infiltrating the brains of my roommates. We're all doing P90X--those workout videos from infomercials, you know. It's great exercise, but i have the feeling that we will all want to kill Tony long before 90 days are over.
I'm starting to realize the imbalance between my talking and not-talking. Many times i keep something silent that is burning to come out of my mouth. i should know that it's okay for me to say stuff. Not talking makes people think i have deep and wise insight to contribute when i really don't, i just don't like hearing the sound of my own voice. I would hate to become a say-lots-of-random-words-foolishly person, but is that just pride? I should pray about this. Also i am not quick at thinking on my toes, and often what i want to say becomes formulated minutes after the opportunity passes. (See? This argument is one of the main reasons i don't talk or don't say completely what i mean, and it only came after all the rest of that fluff. My point exactly.)
I'm bad at concluding blog posts.
I'm starting to realize the imbalance between my talking and not-talking. Many times i keep something silent that is burning to come out of my mouth. i should know that it's okay for me to say stuff. Not talking makes people think i have deep and wise insight to contribute when i really don't, i just don't like hearing the sound of my own voice. I would hate to become a say-lots-of-random-words-foolishly person, but is that just pride? I should pray about this. Also i am not quick at thinking on my toes, and often what i want to say becomes formulated minutes after the opportunity passes. (See? This argument is one of the main reasons i don't talk or don't say completely what i mean, and it only came after all the rest of that fluff. My point exactly.)
I'm bad at concluding blog posts.
28 January 2009
cold without electricity
If my life were paced like the past couple have been--slow, contemplative, unrushed--i could write books. The Tin House has been getting colder by temperature but warmer by roommate-love: we've been cooking, eating, sitting, drinking, talking, walking, shivering, deciding, laughing together. It's a beautiful thing.
20 January 2009
cold without Christmas
i know i should be slapped for saying this, but there's something about being at the end of our ropes that is so hopeful. Once we lose our death-grip on the last fibers, and slip off the end into oblivion, we're Free: Someone has been there the whole time, patient, waiting to envelop us in the sweet Mama-sling of rest and humility and peace and drool.
On Friday we had a Christmas-cookie-and-Elf-movie party because it's been too cold to not be Christmastime, but i think the discomfort goes deeper than that. Remember in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it was always winter and never Christmas when the evil witch was queen? There's something sinister about it, like death. Ropes get really short. Pressure, disease, crisis, hopelessness--unless we become reconciled to the idea of falling for miles and being smashed into smithereens like glass, because that idea might be the same as trust.
The moments that His strength flows make it easy. i'm not denying that there are also the dark moments of turning off the light and waking up in the cold morning and being late and forgetting something and letting someone down, and there's the rope mocking in your face. i don't know how to live in joy there. but i know that falling isn't miles into a canyon of sharp boulders, it is inches into His plush embrace.
The good news is that Spring comes like clockwork, like the Earth turning, like the axis staying 23.44 degrees while we whiz off to another familiar side of our orbit!
and i kazoo'd the national anthem last week but forgot today.
10:32 pm EDIT: i actually did have the opportunity to musically serve my country today: Lindi just got an earful of kazoo over the phone.
On Friday we had a Christmas-cookie-and-Elf-movie party because it's been too cold to not be Christmastime, but i think the discomfort goes deeper than that. Remember in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it was always winter and never Christmas when the evil witch was queen? There's something sinister about it, like death. Ropes get really short. Pressure, disease, crisis, hopelessness--unless we become reconciled to the idea of falling for miles and being smashed into smithereens like glass, because that idea might be the same as trust.
The moments that His strength flows make it easy. i'm not denying that there are also the dark moments of turning off the light and waking up in the cold morning and being late and forgetting something and letting someone down, and there's the rope mocking in your face. i don't know how to live in joy there. but i know that falling isn't miles into a canyon of sharp boulders, it is inches into His plush embrace.
The good news is that Spring comes like clockwork, like the Earth turning, like the axis staying 23.44 degrees while we whiz off to another familiar side of our orbit!
and i kazoo'd the national anthem last week but forgot today.
10:32 pm EDIT: i actually did have the opportunity to musically serve my country today: Lindi just got an earful of kazoo over the phone.
14 January 2009
again, new
Remember when i told you about the circles of life? Well it's really true. It's new over and over again, life.
Veronica says, "prone to wander, Lord, i feel it / prone to leave this God i love; / take my heart, Lord, take and seal it / seal it for Thy courts above."
Bekah says, "Long-sleeve t-shirts are like the sundress of winter: i just have to wear them."
Today i ate too much, and was sad so i bought ice cream and ate it. Remember last time that happened? That time was better.
Sorry. Maybe there will be a real blog one day.
Veronica says, "prone to wander, Lord, i feel it / prone to leave this God i love; / take my heart, Lord, take and seal it / seal it for Thy courts above."
Bekah says, "Long-sleeve t-shirts are like the sundress of winter: i just have to wear them."
Today i ate too much, and was sad so i bought ice cream and ate it. Remember last time that happened? That time was better.
Sorry. Maybe there will be a real blog one day.
01 January 2009
new tear
The best New Year's Eve party ever happened this year. Fun people, good, understanding, eccentric, loving, old-friendy people. And it's a good time to remember and know that time keeps plodding, and the choices are to learn and go on the way marked out, and rest, or gradually lose more and more identity by pridefully striking out through the underbrush which could get to the same destination, but not as rightfully. With Choice One comes a lot of trust that the path is adventurous as it is marked, and is better than any other way.
I really meant to type "new year" but that's what came out so i left it.
I really meant to type "new year" but that's what came out so i left it.
29 December 2008
human.
Sorry for the silence. If no one comments, i have no evidence of readers, and therefore no motivation to write. This is pride, yes. There have been many neon indicators of pride in my life lately, and one of them is the flaring frustration that i feel at that fact.
C.S. Lewis observes that time goes at the rate of sixty seconds per minute, and i kind of love how true that is. I love that time is just a skinny slice of our existence but we wouldn't know how to be without it.
When i'm home i eat like a pig and don't exercise, (neon) and care too much.
Sometimes i try to construct my own worldly-awesome life by planning adventures (involving extensive sojourns across oceans) and it's just [neon] because what my book says in Heaven is way better than anything i could ever plan. Staying here and following when i hear Him read out of it is a much more glorious adventure. It's a lot more simple, too. And i keep saying that i like simple.
Madeleine L'Engle died in September 2007. I wrote her a letter earlier that year but never sent it because i was shy, and didn't even know if she was still alive, and now it's too late. A good chunk of my self would not be as whole without her widsom. The most influential writer of my life could have known it (on this earth at least) but the chance is gone. I'm glad for her, that she knows what is beyond Death now.
C.S. Lewis observes that time goes at the rate of sixty seconds per minute, and i kind of love how true that is. I love that time is just a skinny slice of our existence but we wouldn't know how to be without it.
When i'm home i eat like a pig and don't exercise, (neon) and care too much.
Sometimes i try to construct my own worldly-awesome life by planning adventures (involving extensive sojourns across oceans) and it's just [neon] because what my book says in Heaven is way better than anything i could ever plan. Staying here and following when i hear Him read out of it is a much more glorious adventure. It's a lot more simple, too. And i keep saying that i like simple.
Madeleine L'Engle died in September 2007. I wrote her a letter earlier that year but never sent it because i was shy, and didn't even know if she was still alive, and now it's too late. A good chunk of my self would not be as whole without her widsom. The most influential writer of my life could have known it (on this earth at least) but the chance is gone. I'm glad for her, that she knows what is beyond Death now.
30 November 2008
there is a great, noble life outside this window in the snow
I like that they call snow flurries snow flurries. Because that's what they do. And i'm really glad that i am sitting at this upstairs library table, right where the gnarly, angley, reachy tree can see me and tell me it's snowing. If it wasn't there i would have no distinction between the snow-motes and their mothering panel of cloud. I love that tree from very inside me, and i know that if i were snuggled in its hug i would still be cold because i would be outside and it's snowing. And there is a little sugaring on its branches already.
Moments like this have to be taken as they come, no matter what deadlines have me in their nooses, no matter how close the countdown is to zero. Life is worth living when i can take minutes to blog about my tree and the snow. But i also have to get to work. And so shall i.
I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall i be saved from mine enemies.
Psalm 18:3
Moments like this have to be taken as they come, no matter what deadlines have me in their nooses, no matter how close the countdown is to zero. Life is worth living when i can take minutes to blog about my tree and the snow. But i also have to get to work. And so shall i.
I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall i be saved from mine enemies.
Psalm 18:3
10 November 2008
delving into the past
If you have lots of time on your hands and are curious about my thoughts about life in high school, this is my old blog. There is a link to a "new one" which only has a few posts on it (though they are HILARIOUS). Enjoy!
EDIT: Remember all those times when i promised to write about pain even more? WELL, i'm writing a paper on it for class. So maybe i'll share it later. Yay for not lying to you after all!
05 November 2008
isaac
I just had a dream about deer and buffalo.
If mom saw a bear in our house, she would say, *gasp* "there's a bear!" and then she would try to kill 'im.
Sometimes i freak out about candy and want some more after i've already had some.
You only eat candy at night, or in the early morning. But not in the daylight. Because that's not a good way to start your day. Breakfast is a good way to start your day.
I frake out.
You laugh like a pig.
[in the southernest drawl you can muster] I'm refillin my bullets. That's what i sure am doin'. Doin'. Doin'. Doin'.
If mom saw a bear in our house, she would say, *gasp* "there's a bear!" and then she would try to kill 'im.
Sometimes i freak out about candy and want some more after i've already had some.
You only eat candy at night, or in the early morning. But not in the daylight. Because that's not a good way to start your day. Breakfast is a good way to start your day.
I frake out.
You laugh like a pig.
[in the southernest drawl you can muster] I'm refillin my bullets. That's what i sure am doin'. Doin'. Doin'. Doin'.
28 October 2008
a cross-out life
Whenever i complete an item on a to-do list, i strike it through rather than check it off. There is such victorious closure in that gesture. If something becomes irrelevant or impossible for my list, i scribble it out, sometimes until it's unreadable. Maybe this comes from my tendency to reverse-self-investigate (e.g. if anyone wanted to discover why or when i did this or what i wrote here, they couldn't discover it in this way but would have to think about this other thing). Too much Sherlock Holmes as a child, perhaps?
A couple of weeks ago i made a list of lists to make (while driving).
A couple of weeks ago i made a list of lists to make (while driving).
- things that go through a cycle of being bad, reaching a prime, and then being bad again (as opposed to being awesome at first and then declining, or things that get better with age)
- things that get better with age
- things that are awesome at first then decline
- unusual things that can be done safely while driving
- eccentricities to try
- languages to know
- things to tell kids about life
- things not to buy
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