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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.