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.
02 February 2009
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.
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