C'est La Vie
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What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be. Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy. And I use these words pretty loosely. There's so much more to life than words..
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Wednesday, May 30, 2001
So the scene is set. A young girl (say, perhaps in her early 20s) is sitting in the kitchen of the house she shares with her roommates, eating breakfast, and getting ready to prepare for the day ahead. All that she's got planned is going to the local university to use their computer equipment, and at the same time hang out with the former-roommate that will drive her there, and later that evening go to work. Well, she ends up having time for a decent breakfast and doing the dishes before her former-roommate gets there to pick her up. After using the equipment on campus, she goes to the student life office to see about maybe putting on some concerts at the school. When she gets home, she checks her mail and finds her bank statement and an envelope with no return address, along with a bunch of coupons that she thinks could come in handy. When she opens the mysterious envelope, it turns out to be a letter from her landlord saying that all the money that she owed for previous months' rent had been covered by one of the local churches that she'd approached for help despite that it's not the church she attends. They had told her they'd be sending a check for $100, but either they sent a much larger check, or her landlord forgave her the rest of the debt. Either way, an extreme and surprising blessing. So she called a good friend to tell him all about this excitement, which in and of itself (the call, that is) would have made the day a good one. When she got off the phone with him, she walked down to the bank to deposit her paycheck and other things, and then stopped off for a celebratory sub from Subway and a quart of Starbucks Java Chip ice cream. (Pause to quote a great movie)
Grace: Gimme a pint. Bartender: You sure you want a whole one? Grace: Oh yah. Bartender: Rough day, huh? Grace: That's an understatement. (This line may not be an accurate quote.) Other guy, who just came in: Startin' early today? Grace: Yah, I'm gonna get chip-faced. Apart from the fact that it's really sad that I can't remember the main male character's name from one of my favorite new-releases, Miss Congeniality, I love that dialogue. So, I got chip-faced in celebration. Anyway, I'm walking home with my quart of ice cream in one hand and my sub in the other, and my friend Adam pulls up beside me, "coincidentally" driving by at the same time as I'm thinking that it wasn't wise to spend so much time out on my walk when I had to be at work so shortly. So I jump in his car and he brings me the rest of the way home, and then was nice enough to wait around while I changed so that he could also take me to work. Work went by quickly enough, despite how incredibly slow we've been lately, and when I got home my roommate told me that we'd been invited to hang out with Karen and her fiance and the guy that was staying with him. So we did, and we had a lot of fun, and then I got home and got online. So, all that was basically to mention that God really did a number on making me have an INCREDIBLY good day. Obviously, the highlight in my mind is the whole rent-provision thing. But really, all of the other things that made it such a great day are equally miraculous workings of His hands .. they're just ones that didn't stir up quite as much excitement in my heart. That letter will go down in my scrapbook as one of the coolest ways God has answered prayers in my life in a LONG time. Be encouraged, friends. Our God does love us more than we could ever, ever comprehend. And He "owns the cattle on a thousand hills" .. meaning that He can, and will, provide for all our needs. He is ALWAYS faithful to His promises, in His own timing. (0) comments Tuesday, May 29, 2001
I was on last nite and I did a lot of stuff with my email (for those that use my "primary" email address (not the one listed on this site) .. truthmail is having trouble recieving email right now, it seems, so please email the address I have linked above. That way, I'll actually GET the email (a novel concept, I know), and will be able to respond in due time instead of however long it'll take for truthmail to work again.
The interesting thing is that I have a seperate truthmail account that I use to get the email from indievenues.com's street reps program. That works just fine .. so I'm really not sure what the problem is. I can connect to another server that recieves email, and can get the email that server recieved.. I guess that means that it's truthmail's mail-recieving or sorting server that isn't working. Very odd indeed. So, I was on and doing that. And I closed my browser window, preparing to get off, when I realized that I hadn't blogged about something that had been on my mind yesterday. So I reopened my browser, and it decided at that point that it didn't work. (This was God telling me it was bedtime.) God communicates with me in some very, very interesting ways. I'm glad for that. I'm glad that He's allowed me to learn how to listen, too. (0) comments On the Andrew Peterson msg board, there has been a lot of discussion lately about Naptster and other file-sharing applications that exist, and about what is right or wrong in the world of copying music. Aaron Tate, who has been managing Andrew Peterson for the past several years, and who also has various other experiences in the Christian music industry (including writing songs that you may be familiar with if you ever listen to Christian or college indie radio) posted this ('cept for the links, which I added) in response to the discussion. I couldn't've said it better myself (and I tried): *************************************************************************************************************** I know it's cool to say "Long Live Napster!" but let's face it...it's pirating. You think an artist doesn't need your $15? Well, what the heck do you need it for? As manager, I can say that merchandise sales matter. Someone actually said to Andrew at a concert "I'm not buying your CD cause I can get it off Napster." That's an insult. If you love an artist, buy their CD directly from them, at a concert or mail order. Yes, it is a crucial way to pay the bills. Put it this way...if we had not sold any CDs on the last Spring tour, we would currently be in debt. CD sales account for about 20% of our income. If you buy it from WalMart, the artist basically only gets a few pennies. However, your purchase still matters because it tells the record label that Andrew has fans. If no one buys the CD in stores, the record label will drop him. It's that simple. With mid-level artist like Andrew, a 20% drop in sales could be the difference between getting dropped or not. Ever since Caedmon's Call hit big, there's been an interest in Christian college music. But Napster--which is mostly used by college students and other smarties--can quickly undo all that. No record label is going to put out smart, college-oriented music if they think they will lose 20% or more sales to file sharing. I know, Napster is cool, and I'm being a stick in the mud. Napster does minimal damage to bigtime artists, who make $20,000 a concert and get $15,000 a month in radio play. And Napster _may_ help tiny artists with limited distribution. But it hurts midlevel artists...like the artists you love (Andrew, Bebo, Caedmon). These guys depend on concert merch sales. They depend on a record deal to spread their music. Napster is a threat to their music. And are they doing it "for the money"? They're probably a lot like you...they don't do their job for the money, but they wouldn't/couldn't do it without getting paid. Obviously. Unless you completely reject the idea of private property, there simply is no valid moral or ethical argument in support of mass file-sharing. Most people support Napster just cause they are greedy and want something for nothing...so you have more to spend on other junk. Aaron Tate (0) comments Sunday, May 27, 2001
Perhaps our souls know eachother better than we do.(0) comments There is this sadness when you realize that someone that you really think is a great person, is just not bound to be a friend of yours. There is a sadness when you realize that (as a woman, such as I am) a man you think is wonderful isn't bound to be wonderful TO you. (In the sense that you will never be more than friends, if that.) There's this time in some relationships when you realize that, sad as it may be, your two souls will be connected eternally as brother and sister in Christ, but never in any humanly significant way. Since Andrew and I went more-or-less seperate ways just over two years ago, it's been a long and very strange journey of, for the first time in a very long while, not having a best guy friend. Not having a guy that I could call up and hang out with whenever we wanted to, and that I could get a guy's perspective on situations (guys and girls think differently on lots of things that we normally take for granted), and that I could just have that good, deep connection with a guy. We weren't dating, and we didn't need to be. We were best firends, and that is so much more than most dating relationships are today (and is exactly how I feel that any dating relationship should start). I miss that. So there are many guys that I've become close to over the past two years, but none that at any point I would say "this is my best friend" when introducing them, the way I did with Andrew. None that I could share anything with or call at any time. (Andrew and I had only known eachother for 4 or 6 months before we reached that stage of our friendship.) I struggle not to hold Andrew up on some sorta pedestal an compare each new guy friend to him .. in reality, I don't compare the guys to him 'till I get pretty close to them, and even then it's only subconciously. It's hard to get over a friendship like that, though. At any rate, there have been guys I've been friends with. More common, though, are the guys that I thought I would become friends with. Some that, in an odd and rare streak of normalcy, I was interested in romantically down the road, but even in those cases, friends first. And yet there was something .. completely different callings, completely different personalities, whatever it may be. Just somehow or other we never quite became friends. Plenty of those. And then there are those guys that I meet, and I know for an extended period of time (say a year or a year and a half) and we see eachother fairly regularly, but we don't have but maybe 5 deep or significant conversations throughout that whole time. Guys that I feel entirely comfortable around and feel a connection with, but the connection just isn't there for all practical purposes. We never really talk, and we never really become friends. And then something is about to happen that will remove this guy from my life for a while, and I suddenly realize that we're not friends, as I had been thinking we were, at least not any closer than a hundred other people I see regularly but never get to know. And then I realize that we're just not gonna be. And that's ok. But there's a sadness attached to it. There's this feeling of "it could have been beautiful".. in a very platonic way.. and yet, it won't be beautiful, because it won't be. It simply will not be. It will not exist. We just will not be real friends. Well, I said it's ok, and I meant it. But still there's this sadness.. (0) comments Thanks, Jason. Man, you're Da Bubbles. (0) comments Thursday, May 24, 2001
Ok, so I'm typing this knowing that blogspot is down. By the time that you read this, of course, it will be back up and so writing that is almost like when you send an email and say "I hope you still have this email address". If they don't, the email will never get to them and they'll never see it, and if they do, then your question has been answered positive. But there seems to be something in us as humans where we feel the need to express that questionability of the status of things. Perhaps we want people to know that we're making the effort even though we're aware it's futile. Perhaps we want to remind ourselves that it may be futile, but the effort is worth making all the same. Perhaps we want to excuse the relative unfriendliness or shortness of a letter or other such with the reasoning that it may not get there at all. Whatever the reason, we seem to like to say "this may not work, but I'm doing it anyway."
The folks at blogger.com have assured us blogger users that it will be running just fine again soon enough. I believe them, so I know that this WILL work. All the same, it does change the perspective on how I write. Writing knowing that you won't be reading this for some time is almost like writing a letter that won't be sent out for a while, the way I used to write to Andrew for four months and then send the 10 page letter along with a few goodies (such as homemade cookies or random toys or things that he'd appriciate) all at once. The latter parts of the letters were always more normal, because I knew he'd be recieving them shortly. The first few pages, though, were written with the knowledge that by the time he got them, that news would be fairly outdated. This is slightly different, as (a) it won't be four months before blogspot is back up, and (b) when writing a journal format, news is never outdated. Before I put a counter on my site, I wrote with the assumption that the only people reading my blog were the two people that told me they checked it regularly -- one every day and the other every few days. I also wrote with the assumption that anyone that I mention could well be reading it, and I will always write with that assumption, as I've always done anything online that way. Since putting up a counter and also recieving a bit more feedback, though, I've been more concious that there are people out there reading this -- some regularly, some friends (those tend to overlap a bit more), and some random strangers that just happen across the site. What I write is written TO and FOR people, rather than just to write. That changes things. In the same way, knowing that blogspot is currently down and you won't see this for a bit changes how I write or what I want to write about. I'm not sure yet whether it discourages me from writing so much, as some of the motivation is more-or-less gone because it won't be read immediately, or whether it gives me an artificial and unfounded sense of freedom to write about more, as if you will never read it. That's what my real, pen-and-paper journal is for, and yet there's something incredibly appealing in the thought of writing a blog entry that is never meant to be read. When I was much younger, I used to write letters to my cousin and Godfather (that's one person, two titles of relation to me) that I would never send. Instead, when I was finished writing, I would take them out to the sandbox (which was almost a weed garden at that point), tear them up, burn them, and bury the remains. It was a very theraputic thing to do, and I found myself doing so probably once every two months or so during some of the more rough parts of my younger childhood. I had less effective and less positive methods as I got older. At any rate, there was something about having a specific, loving person (I adored him as a child) in mind to write to, and yet never sending the letters. There was more personalization than in writing "dear diary" (perhaps that's why Anne Frank named her diary?) and yet more freedom when I knew both that he would never read them and also that no one else would get their hands on it, as could happen with a physical diary. I've been in a talkative mood all night, and this is seeming to continue that trend. Pardon my redundance throughout this past entry. I don't plan on posting again 'till blogspot is back up and running, because I don't want to overwhelm anyone and, more than that, I need to focus on writing in my real journal and on some other things that should have priority over this but haven't recently. That's ok, I needed the therapy of blogging through the whole time of getting ready to go to the funeral service of my grandmother and also of the chaos of being a bridesmaid for the first time. blogger.com is a good thing. (0) comments Wednesday, May 23, 2001
Have you ever had one of those times when there was a statement made (usually in the form of a song lyric) that wasn't really a masterful manuevering of words to form some deep and profound statement, but you just REALLY related to and felt like it expressed exactly what you've been feeling or thinking but haven't ever been able to express?
Yes, I'm sure you have. (0) comments "A love that cannot live, yet will never die" -- an incredible line from a song I heard on NPR today that I think was called "You don't know love", being sung by Karrin Allyson. I'm not sure if she's the one that wrote it or not. (0) comments Monday, May 21, 2001
Today has been a wonderful day. I'm not gonna get into specifics here and now, but it's been quite a wonderful day.
Things on the agenda for this week: having a date with myself at some point, going swimming somewhere at some point, working the 20 or so hours I ever get scheduled for, finding a better job hopefully, my two mid-week church activities (house church and jr. high Bible study), eating the leftover food from the wedding and rehearsal dinner that we were given, figuring out what to get my roommate for her wedding in two weeks, sleeping, paying bills, spending LOTS of time in the sun if all this fog and rain clears up at some point (we do need the rain, though not as much as southeast FL does, but it's harder to sit and read in the sun when it's covered by rainclouds), reading a lot, and, possibly right at the end of this week, starting to learn to drive stick. Not as bad as I thought it might end up being, in the business sense. Lots of pleasureful activities. I'm glad to have so many great things to do and a fair bit of time to do them. Yay. (0) comments Sunday, May 20, 2001
I'm as full of thoughts as ever .. about the mutual joy and sorrow of standing up for one of your closest friends as she gets married, and yet knowing this day will be the last for quite some time that you see her.. when they get back from their honeymoon (in Ireland!) they're going straight from the big airport a ways away to New York, where they'll live. So, untill I/we go up there to visit them, or 'till they come down to visit her family and their friends, or perhaps for her to do paperwork so she can get her degree from the University here after finishing classes at another college up there .. either way, I won't see them again 'till then. Or a million other thoughts that came to the surface of my mind throughout this weekend.
But along with being as thoughtful as ever, I'm also as tired as ever.. last weekend's trip, this week's stress, and this weekend's wedding festivities have taken their toll. Now that that's all over and I look forward to relaxing (possibly another date with myself?) this week, it's REALLY hitting me how tired I am. Yikes. 'Nite. (0) comments Friday, May 18, 2001
The massive weekend-full-of-wedding-stuff begins in a few hours.
Why am I still up? At least I've got some new makeup to wear to the wedding. When you don't wear make-up often, what you have (at least what I have) tends to be lower quality and usually gets old before you're done with it. Human relations, by the way, are not easy things. I literally thank God that there are souls involved, so that there's some small amount of compassion and common-bond between us. Otherwise, I fear we would trash eachother more often. Perhaps that's part of what happened in Sodom and Gammorah. I'm sure I spelled that wrong, but my Bible isn't right here right now, and I'm too tired to go get it and too lazy to check it on the internet. It's so tempting sometimes to go be a hermit in the mountains somewhere where you don't have to interact with anyone. Of course, I'd be stifled then.. I thrive on interaction at least as much as I do on solitude. Prolly more. (Ok, I'll type Probably, just this once, for those of you annoyed by the Prolly abbreviation-of-sorts.) Not only would I be stifled, but I'd also not really be effectively serving God, would I? So I guess I'll stick around a while and try to hope that someday I won't be so much of a dork, and people will be able to tolerate me better. Untill that day, thank you, friends, for putting up with me. (0) comments The thing about a bag of peanuts is that when you're putting the empty shells back into the bag so as not to make a bigfat mess on the floor, it gets kinda hard to find unopened peanuts. I tried to post last nite, but my computer froze right as the sign-in page was loading. Sorry about that. Anyone that would like to send me a new computer, just let me know. Farewell, Douglas Adams. So long, and thanks for all the books. (0) comments Wednesday, May 16, 2001
The following entry was written while I was in LA, during the rehearsal for my grandmother's funeral/memorial service:
I haven't been here in 10 years, and haven't seen many of these relatives in as long, and haven't ever met others. Because there's not much communication between my family and the LA relatives, there isn't much of the instant bond that many feel when first seeing relatives they've long been away from. I've been here for a full day so far. I got to meet my niece, Sloane, yesterday. Now, I know I'm biased, but put that aside and she's still and incredibly sweet, cute, and well-behaved 5 month old baby. She has great parents (my brother and sister-in-law, and I say that without bias) and her temperment is also very friendly. She doesn't cry much, she can be held by a lot of people without getting overwhelmed, and she has one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen. Because I look so much like her father, she looks at me with a touch of confusion and the same admiration she usually reserves for him. Sam (or Samantha, my brother's wife) and I alwyas have good conversations, and this weekend has been the enhanced version of that. We haven't seen eachother in almost a year, and being around this much dysunctional family history is surely raising a lot of questions in her mind (as it always has in mine)_ at how our family has anything to do with itself. Along with that, she's been a part of my life for some time now, including times at which my current roommates and friends weren't, and talking to her about those times is particularly theraputic for both of us. Add to that that we're the two girls our age here (including the relatives that were able to make it to the service or other family events throughout the weekend) and thus uniquely able to keep eachother company and have some non-girley girl bonding time. At any rate, she certainly has a unique perspective on the way things are in my life. There have been a few tense momtns during the visit so far, as can only be expected, but nothing's escalated too much in my presence. It's obvious to any onlookers, I'm sure, who all is part of the family and who's married into it. I still remember the first time I saw a black girl, when I was 4 or 5. (Sorry for the whiplash from changing subjects so quickly.) I called her a chocolate girl. We're stopping for directions right now, at this little house wwaaaaaayy in the country, and there's a 7 year old black girl here with her brother and grandmother. She looked at us mighty funney, and then started looking into the car windows as if checking to be sure that us white people had two legs as well, or wondering what we might have in such a nice (rental) car. I wondered out loud as we were leaving if that was her first time seeing white people, and my mother commented that it was certainly the first time that white people had pulled into their driveway, anyway. Thus ends the journal entry. Between that and the entry I posted last nite, that should do for now. If I have anything else important to share from the trip, I'll obviously be posting that. But for now, ciao. (0) comments Could she possibly not have thought about me in her three months of being confined to a hospital bed, either in the hospital or at home? No message was passed through my grandfather. No rememberance was left for me as there were for so many others. No pictures, no ring, no book, nothing. It's not that I wanted some huge fortune, though I certainly wouldn't have complained in that case. It's just that I wanted to know that she thought of her only granddaughter, the one she spent so many (and yet not enough) hours with while alive, that she made clothes for and taught about gardening and cooking and life. She wrote letters pleading for acceptance, which she had in plenty all along. She couldn't not have thought about me. But it's so hard to be sure she did. (0) comments Tuesday, May 15, 2001
I'm back, safely, from my trip.
I did put up one entry that was on my mind and I hadn't written down in my actual paper-and-pen journal, but will have to wait on the others 'till tomorrow night. I'm exhausted, and not entirely sure of when I have to be at work tomorrow and all that. 'Till then. (0) comments As I closed the car door so they could get going to the airport, I squeezed his hand one last time and said goodbye. We don't look alike at all, and, just as has always happened, I'm sure that any onlookers that caught one of the times I insisted on hugging him assumed we were romantically attached. While most of my friends and random other girls would be incredibly flattered to be so attached to him, the thought repulses me, seeing as how he's my twin brother. But I do love him more than I could ever dream of expressing in any way. I stepped back from the car so she wouldn't run over my toes while pulling out, and watched Peter fade into the distance. My twin brother. I don't think that being twins ever meant anything more than regular siblings to us, but this weekend it sure did. I hadn't seen him in two and a half years -- longer than any of my direct family or grandparents -- and these four semi-hectic days weren't about to be enough. I could feel myself about to cry. "Come back, Peter! Transfer your flight.. or fly to my current hometown. Move there, even!" I'd teased him a few times about how far away he is, on the other side of our continent, and about how if he could move here (where he'd have no job, as this is not a particularly advanced area computer-wise and the internet market is already fairly cornered) or at least to, say, Atlanta or some such place where he'd be only a few hours of driving, rather than the several hours of flying it would take to get to him now. No go. He's happy enough where he is now. He probably didn't say more than 20 words the entire trip (he's always been a quiet guy), but I can be around him in silence for hours without feeling awkward. Just so long as we're together. "Peter, I love you." I had said that outloud, indeed. Unlike wanting to not let him leave in the overstuffed car this morning, I had been sure to tell him several times that I love him. How could I not? He is, after all, my twin brother. (0) comments Thursday, May 10, 2001
Ok, it's really time for me to go now, so I can finish packing and get a teensy bit of sleep before tomorrow. Er.. today.(0) comments yuck.. I also get a lot more trashy IM's from random people that apparently have nothing better to do with their time than corrupt the world further and harass innocent bystandards..oy (0) comments Wow, AIM buddy lists look mighty empty with all the students home or nearing home, and not using AIM on their school network connections.. (0) comments I'm glad that I have a really big duffel bag. I usually pack fairly light. I'm so unaware of protocal, of what I'm supposed to bring or wear or whatever, that I'm trying to be more prepared for whatever I may find there. (0) comments I leave for LA in a few hours. I'm quite aprehensive about this trip, not entirely sure of what to think. I think that I hope they have plenty of ice cream (my coping method of choice) that I can have while I'm there. I'm not sure who "they" is in this case -- my relatives, the stores, random strangers. Just so long as it's there. I probably won't have access while I'm there. Apart from the fact that I don't have a laptop and all that fancy stuff, I'll surely be busy doing things with people I haven't seen in many years, and spending some time with those that I've seen more recently but certainly not enough. I don't mind that so much. Of course, you'll all miss my blog terribly while I'm gone, and so I'm just gonna have to keep posting a lot tonite and then post a lot more when I get back, to make up for the absence of a few days. That works, right? (0) comments "Din Din tonite was really good. I made some psgetti sauce last nite, so I put that on a tortilla, topped w/ cheese, and had a sortof tortilla fajita. Then I had 3 slices of New England Brown Bread w/ Peanut Butter for desert. Plenty of water and a glass of milk completed. Yum!" -- excerpt from the Turtle and Sparrow Friendship Journal, entry 7-2-98 (0) comments This time of year, many students are preparing to say goodbye, and some already have. This week, the university I live near is having graduation, and many of my friends are graduating or walking, having graduated at the semester. Since I'll be in LA this weekend, as they don their caps and gowns, I'll miss the ceremonies, the parties, and the farewells. Some people don't know I'm going away (just hasn't come up in conversation, for example) .. Some people haven't realized it's this weekend .. And some people I just don't really know well enough to say goodbye. Since I live here year-round, and will be here over the summer as I have been for the past two, it doesn't seem like a big transition for me. This summer, though, brings about the departure of more friends than the previous two, along with a lot more busy-ness on my part, so that the transition is greater. Because I'll be gone this weekend, while many of my friends either leave for the summer or leave for good, there are a lot of people that have come to be very dear to me that I won't see (for at least three months) after tonite. Some of whom I haven't seen in some time. This is for you, those friends that I won't get to say goodbye to. My two years here have seen lots of changes in my life, and the lives of those I love. The support of friends in person, the hugs, the shared glances and memories, were essential in me being who I am today (be that a good or bad thing), and I could not have done without them. I've only just begun to get to know some of you, and I've made some pretty bad impressions on others.. But each of you, whether we met just for a day, or have known eachother since I got here, have a place in my life that will not just be smudged over when you leave. I will miss you, in one way or another. Some more than others, but each and every one of you. Goodbye, friends. I hope that your graduation ceremonies are everything you've worked for, that your parties are safe and memorable, and that your trips home or elsewhere are blessed by good travel and success in whatever you do. Do all things for the glory of God, seeking His Kingdom first, and wait patiently for the day that we will praise Him together, seeing His face rather than acting on faith. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. And rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of His hand. (0) comments I don't know why I didn't post on Monday.. I know I didn't work all day, and I'm pretty sure I got online that night, but there's no post from them. Hmm.. (Oh, and to me, Monday night's post would prolly show up as being on Tuesday.. it's still Monday night to me) At any rate.. last nite, blogger was updating some software and whatnot, so it was unavailable at the time I was trying to post. Fortunately, that should mean that it's running even better (was it running badly?) now, but I know you all missed my blog posts incredibly and are shocked that you had to go for two whole days without them. (0) comments Monday, May 07, 2001
"What happens to you today has its origin in my enduring love."-- What Is the Father Like? (a devotional by W. Phillip Keller.) I was doing this devotional last year and wrote down some key texts from each study, along with the verses and some thoughts and reflections. The first study, with the topic "I Am the Author", included the quote above as well as: "When life tempts you to run -- sit still." and "I rejoice at the prospect of sharing all my eternal life with you." After finishing the first study of the book tonight, I was going back through my devotional journal and re-read the first entry I had in it, which was for this study and included those quotes. Boy have I been needing to be reminded of them for the past couple days, especially today. God knows exactly what He's doing.. Imagine Him working it out (not that Thor's truck broke down just for this purpose, but..) so that I could drive through the mountains and have such a wonderful moment as the one I mention at the end of my previous enry.. and imagine Him helping me to re-find these words in this journal, that I haven't read since probably almost October or so. And everything else that happened today was part of this massive reminder that He loves me, that He knows what's going on, and that I really need to trust Him to take care of it all. Thank God that He *did* take care of me. That's the only reason I'm alive today, and that's the only reason I turned out to be a functioning and semi-productive member of society, rather than the nightmare parents dream their children may turn out to be, the stereotypical hooligan produced by parents children have nightmares about. God is good, indeed! (0) comments "I *crackle* eed *static* pick *buzz* up.." Thor, one of my best guy friends here, was calling. He and Angela, his fiance and my roommate, had been in West Virginia this weekend visiting her grandparents. They were on the way home when his truck broke down. Fortunately, his boss had recently given him a cell phone, but he was in the middle of the mountains on a low-quality cell, so the reception was horrible. I could barely understand him, and his phone kept dying, but within the next 4 calls, he managed to get across how I could get Angela's car and drive out to get them (they were, fortunately, only about an hour away rather than breaking down closer to her grandparents' house) and where they were. I got her car and started on my trip out there. I'd been somewhat upset about not making it to Chapel Hill this weekend, as I'd really wanted to do, but driving helped ease that. I was listening to The Thistle and The Shamrock on NPR as I drove, and got to drive on the mountain road that I learned to drive on, as well as being right next to a river. This was a monumentally nice way to spend my afternoon. Somehow, though, it got better. I can't explain it, really, but let's just say that if you held your hand parallel to the ground at, say, tummy level, the ground would be normal contentedness, and your hand would be about how I was feeling as I drove along. Move your hand up just above your head, and that's about what I was feeling moments later, as I found myself driving along beside a train. I've always been mildly fascinated (perhaps in an observational way, while my twin brother collected miniature toy trains and the like) with trains, but have never particularly liked them. With the exception of watching the circus trian pass through when I lived in a train town in CA, I don't remember any time that I ever felt better having a trian beside me. But today, as I drove beside one, I felt this joy come over me that I can't possibly put into words. Then tonite we had the jr. high leaders meeting/dinner, and after that I leanred to sew. Yup, me, using a sewing machine! It was so fun, and so totally different than the me that can put on a button or sew up a hole in yet another old pair of pants or jeans, but really can't do much else. Now, I can sew fabric together to make a skirt, as long as it's all about straight lines. And when I came home tonite, I had a good talk with one of my roommates, and then I did one of the devotional meditative guide things from the Praying with C. S. Lewis book, with candles lighting the room and with Meditative Gregorian Chants for listening pleasure. What a wonderful time. (0) comments Sunday, May 06, 2001
The desire to escape, just for a few days, has rarely been stronger since getting out of the bad situations of my pre-adulthood days. I want to go down to visit Chapel Hill. The set-up is perfect.. there's a concert tomorrow night, I worked my rump off today to earn some extra money, and I somehow (by some weird fluke, I suppose, since I've only got two shifts this week due to my grandmother's service) wasn't scheduled for monday, or 'till the late afternoon on tuesday. Sunday through Tuesday, decent trip. Only problem is I don't have a car. Well, if I ought to go, God will provide a car through someone somehow. If not, I'll work on cleaning, getting other things done that I've been putting off for a while, and maybe even find some other way to escape. Ah, to have a car of my own again. (0) comments "He loves me more!" She cackled as she said it, and repeated it over and over like a three year old child aiming to hurt terribly. It worked. Three years later, it was my fodder for tears. When she hit me, it hurt. But that was simply her, a stranger and not a particularly good person, hitting me. I could leave, and she would, in theory, be out of my life forever. There was no chance for her to hit me again once I walked out the door, and there would be no way for her to keep herself physically in my life after that night. But he would always be my father. And he loved her more. Her words were truer than perhaps even she knew. While she would, in theory, be out of my life, he would always be a part of it somehow. In the very least, a memory and someone to see at family events, such as my older brother's wedding. Were her words to have been less true, he could have been my father again.. he could have been the man to walk me down the aisle if I do get married. He could have been the man I turned to with exciting news, or flew to CA to visit on breaks. He could have been the man that my future-husband-if-I-get-married would ask the blessing of, or that would be there to talk to me through many years of continued singleness if I don't. He could have been the first one I called when I decided to become a promoter, and the man I would be so excited to introduce people to. My father. But that wasn't his chosen path. What man, when a woman he's only known for three years hits his daughter of 16 years, would stand for that? He loved her more. I needed to cry tonight. I've been needing to cry for some time. "He loves me more" rang over and over in my head. Before I remembered that phone call, I tried thinking about all sorts of other things. How stressed-out I am about my upcoming trip to LA, how memories of childhood pain still hurt, what things someone had said recently, or any sorts of other things to try to bring myself to tears. (Anyone that wonders why I would want that, or thinks it's too depressing, try theraputic crying. It's SUCH a wonderful things.) None of those things helped me be pained enough to ease my pain, though. None of them broke through the barrier of numbness created over the past several months. My grandmother passed away, my twin brother was in the hospital for two weeks, my planned trip to meet my niece and see my grandmother before her passing fell through, and a whole lot of other things have happened since the start of December. The anniversaries of my mother kicking me out, of my father's girlfriend hitting me, and of all sorts of negative events have passed. My birthday came and went, and I let it kinda slide under the radar this year with my local friends. So did they. I don't know.. I'm not throwing myself a pity party here, I'm just amazed that for so long I could just not be upset. And that all of these things I was thinking about tonight didn't help get through. One thing was strong enough, though, to break that barrier. "He loves me more." It's not that he has to love me above everyone else. I'd like it if he loved me at all. He is, after all, my father. But to love HER, of all people, more than me. Nothing before or since has made me feel so insignificant. The good thing is that I realize that he's a human and (the biggest sign of this being his lack of true love for God) his tastes are a little skewed. That comforts me in a bizarre, not comforting way. The other not-so-comforting thing is that, since he was never really all that great of a father, it wasn't much of a loss. But that day, he all-but died to me. "He loves me more." "She didn't hit you. And if she did, you deserved it." I didn't really know him, because he doesn't talk about himself. But this, I never saw coming. He worked with child protective services (HRS in FL) and with other programs designed to help children in abusive situations. He had degrees in areas that came full to play. He came from an abusive childhood, himself, and had thus vowed to help all the abused children of the world. Except his own. "He loves me more." But that's not saying much, is it? (0) comments Saturday, May 05, 2001
I mentioned in my first post going to prom with my best friend at the time. Not just at the time, though. For three years we were best friends. It's been two and a half years since I've seen him. I finally got a hold of him on the phone tonite, after a week of trying. Man, it was good to talk to him. And yet I almost feel like my heart is broken (over loss of friendship, not loss of romance) all over again. We laughed a lot, and we remembered some of the more difficult times. Turns out that three of my old friends from the church we used to go to (an in one case, also from the school we went to) are all getting married within the next year. Including him, on June 9th. I sincerely wish him the best, and I'm sure that she's a wonderful and beautiful person. I just wish we could still be friends. I'm so glad that I'm so fortunate as to have had a friend like him, and yet I can't ever have another real best friend that's any less of a friend than he was. The impossability-seemingness of having another friend like him is staggering. But I know that there could be another. I sure hope there is. (0) comments Candles aren't so effective when it's still light out at 7 or 8. But sitting on the roof.. rather, laying on the roof and looking up at the big old tree and the funney way it's grown to one side, makes for a rather nice date with myself. Only slightly tainted by an interruption that was necessary but not really desirable. But, my chicken and rice was good. And I didn't get syphilous (sp?) (house joke.. one of the girls said that instead of salmonella) from the chicken, either. I also had tea and water. And for dessert, I layered caramel apple dip and chocolate fondue in a sundae cup, and it was VERY good if not perhaps richer than I should have had. And I read some of the Surprised by Joy book by C. S. Lewis. I'm gonna really enjoy the rest of the book. (0) comments Friday, May 04, 2001
I've already done my rant on road rage, so I'm not gonna get into that again.. but today, I was riding in a car, and that all got very annoying once again. She (the driver) wasn't paying attention.. not particularly unusual for this particular person, but it was worse today than usual. She almost hit a pedestrian walking through the parking lot, and as we neared the end of the row where it meets the sorta road going around the mall, she didn't see the car coming (that I had seen much in advance and pointed out to her with plenty of warning once I realized she didn't see it) and we were almost in a VERY bad accidently. Fortunately, God protected us from this one. There were, within the next 5 minutes, at LEAST 4 other near-accidents caused by her carelessness. Not 5 minutes later, once she'd reached the main road and we were safely on our way home, a car made a left turn into our lane some distance ahead of us. The car had plenty of room (trust me) and did nothing wrong.. but she cursed at him (I could do another rant on profanity, especially careless profanity used by people that complain about it when coming from other people) and honked her horn. Shortly after that, there was a car that did legitemately cut us off while making a double land switherooni, and that was frightening.. this was the only near-accident that wasn't her fault during our trip.. but she honked her horn and held it for at least a good 10 seconds. Why expect mercy and grace and forgiveness from the woman that she almost hit in the parking lot, and then not feel any desire to extend it to someone that was driving dangerously, granted, but not nearly so dangerously as she was? Very frustrating indeed. Especially because I was so shaken up by almost being in a fatal car accident, but had to hold it together enough to drive from the passenger seat for her since she wasn't paying attention and yet wouldn't let anyone else near the wheel of her precious car. Oy. (0) comments So today, I got asked out!! Tomorrow (Friday), at an undecided time (spontenaity is so romantic!) I'll be going out on a date.. with myself. I haven't decided yet what I'll do, but it will probably be similar to my first date with myself, which I described in my first blogger entry. (Which can be found in the archives.) I had decided then to do it at least monthly.. it's already long overdue at just over 15 days since my last date with myself. Ok, so I didn't really say "Hey, Patty, will you go out with me?" or anything, but I did decide that to keep some amount of sanity around, I really need to not think about stress (particularly financial stress) and need to relax. Fortunately, I'm not working tomorrow. The only thing I have to do outside the house is getting my bridesmaid dress re-altered. The first alterations just didn't turn out right. Anyway, other than that, I've gotta write a letter to my Compassion child (if you're a Christian and are no sponsoring a child or three already, PLEASE look into Compassion.. they're a great organization and they can help you fulfill the mandate by Christ to care for the orphans.. there is no excuse not to care for the orphans and widows), make a few phone calls, form more solid plans for things happening throughout the next few weeks.. and have my date with myself. Since I should have an extended amount of time (depending on how many other dates I get asked out on.. oh, wait, that would be none!), I'll probably do the full relaxation thing.. and certainly will get to sit on my roof this time, rather than just looking out the window as I did last time. Yay. I think I'm gonna like dating myself regularly. Can't lose my friendship over it, either. (0) comments Ignorance in someone trying to debate is as frustrating to me as me singing is to someone with perfect pitch.. (0) comments Thursday, May 03, 2001
The English teacher I had my sophomore year of high school would smack me if he knew that I still (as I always have, even while in his class) use the term "a lot" to refer to a significant number of, rather than a plot of land. He insisted that "a lot" was only a plot of land and should not be used in any other way.That's ok, I felt the same way about many of the words that he used inappropriately. (0) comments I've been pretty thoughtful lately. I'd like to think so, anyway. I've been spending a lot of my time thinking. Sitting on my roof, walking to the store, listening to music, or when I'm about to fall asleep, I've been just thinking. And I've even had a few times when I wasn't thinking, which is a very important thing to not do every now and then. Tonight, though, I'm not in a thinking mood at all. It's kinda good, 'cause I've been realizing how incredibly stressed out I've been lately. Most people haven't noticed, because it hasn't gotten to the point where I've snapped at people or been particularly apt to take my stress out on others. Rather than that, I've just gotten somewhat numb. It's been a long time since I've cried, and (since getting my ulcer when I was 14 and realizing I needed to let stress out) I'm a person that likes to cry fairly regularly, especially when rough things are going on. Apart from this blogger, I haven't been writing as much, either songs or journal entries or other such, as I usually do. I've just let myself get numb. But I'm starting to come out of that, and make myself FEEL more often. I've been making myself think about what just happened whenever something happens, so that I can force myself to react with emotions as well as my practical side. One of my co-workers said something today that was very hurtful (in a general sorta way, it wasn't aimed entirely at me) and I almost cried right there at work. This is a good thing, regardless of what brought it about or what others feel about seeing someone cry. At any rate, tonite I'm all for just sitting back and going about things out of habit rather than doing anything that requires thought. Only a week left before my trip to LA. (And I am talking about Lazy-Anna, the State, here, rather than Los Angelos.) (0) comments Mirador is a pretty word. Thanks, Sarah, for pointing that one out to me. (0) comments Escapee is a very odd word. I can just picture a foreigner or a child learning to read trying to sound it out. (0) comments I decided tonight to post a poem I wrote a few months ago. Escapee Evidence of your trespass left on my window sill Can't tell where your cage stops and my room begins My candle is missing and your stomach is bleeding You disregard all of the care that I give Scratching in the night to get out of confinement Can't you see that I know what's best for you? But you've been running free more than I knew of And catching you sure is a hard thing to do I hear you fighting your brother and your sister your mother As the world outside goes racing by But I hope you'll stick around another 6 years 'cause that's when I'd planned on saying goodbye 3 of your friends stayed where they belong Now you're the one with the gash in his back Too unhappy alone to live by yourself Too claustraphobic to stay with the pack So drink of your water and eat to your fill And let your friends hold you when it gets cold at night But I know there's nothing that I can give you To make you happy with the way of your life (0) comments Wednesday, May 02, 2001
I have such a silley ghetto computer. (Oh, and for anyone that doesn't know already, I do know how to spell silly properly. There are a few words I, by choice and by habit, add an e to. Not really sure why.) Blogger's editing page has buttons across the top, including the settings, template, etc buttons. At the far right side should be a button for blogger.com's page that loads right after you sign in. Just left of that is the sign out button. I don't want to sign out, but I can't get back to the main page as easily, because my button that would do that is too far over to be on my screen on my ghetto computer. Meanwhile, I just looked at my counter and saw that it's at 45. Yikes and wow! Who in the world is reading this thing???? (0) comments Ok, along with Chapel Hill I've found a new place I love. Lexington, VA. Home of Washington and Lee University (which I'm not sure I'd heard of 'till hearing about the event there tonite), Lexington is a very cute town in general. If you're near enough to visit, spend a day there sometime. I hope to go look around the town when I've got more time than it takes to barely make it to a concert, and check out some of the very neat-looking stores I saw along the road there. VERY cool looking place. Meanwhile, Bebo Norman was excellent tonite, as always. The show was very well done, and he's one of the people I very much enjoy catching live, as he (and all my favorite folk artists) shares some of himself each time he performs, in stories as well as incredible music and beautiful lyrics. This was very much worth the road trip of sorts it took to get there, and the bonus was that I got to spend some time on the ride back telling a new friend (fairly new, we met about two months ago) all about my life, my parents, and why I so strongly believe in God. A solid Christian himself (and his fiance, who was my roommate for a month and may be again, possibly, before they get married), he also shared about his own past and all sorts of other good things to talk about. It was so wonderful opening up to someone so much again, and I'm very glad that God brought both of these great folks into my life. As well as concerts, which (along with dates with myself .. see my first entry) will keep me sane during this time of stress. Mostly good stress, but stress all the same. (0) comments Tuesday, May 01, 2001
why didn't I stick to writing my blog entries in notepad so that I don't lose them to the big bad blog-post-eating monster? silly me. (0) comments May 1st. This would have been my parents' anniversary. *shrug* Seems that for the last few years of their marraige, I was the only one that remembered this date, anyway. Certainly during the first few years of their divorce, my mother had a much easier time remembering it with bitterness. Who knows if my father ever thought twice about it at all. Happy May Day, everyone. Dance around a may pole, be free, be childlike. Leave the worries of this world somewhere else. (0) comments |
Hippie: (after hearing Max wants to avoid the draft)You still have options man. "So how do i do normal "It's been known for a train to jump its track. It's ok, so you'll know, most times they come back. It's ok to lose your life, when you finally see your birth. It's ok to say, "I love you," and figure sometimes it's gonna hurt. "As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes, all exciting at first, but then by the end you're sick of 'em!" "Hey, this is weird! I ordered one frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You don't happen to like frozen yogurt, do you?" "I love it!" "You're kidding! What a crazy random happenstance!" "Only one more trip," said a gallant seaman, "It was Flannery O'Connor who said that 'grace must wound before it heals.' Her words help me to separate what is most true about life from the things we want to be true. We want life to be painless. True grace is a hard sell because in order for the human heart to understand forgiveness and love, it must first experience darkness and isolation. A life lived under the rule of grace is a life of need which allows us to receive an appreciate the gift of the giver of grace. This is why we will always have the poor with us; this is why God will not allow us to ignore injustice; this is why we are called to a life we cannot handle alone, which can and will break us in the effort to live it -- because grace must wound before it heals." Regarding 2007: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, I thought Christmas Day would never come. But it's here at last, so Mom and Dad, the waiting's finally done. And you gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up, it's Christmas morning. O little town of Bethlehem, Walk humbly, son Strings of lights above the bed "In a little while I'll feel better "Please tell me once again that You love me. That You love me. Please tell me once again that I matter to You and You really care. Please tell me once again that You're with me, forever. It's not that I could ever doubt you, I just love the way it sounds. I just love the way it sounds." "Every once in a while, a bannerzen posts." "7:30. What kind of people have to be at work at 7:30?" have you seen my love Traveling is significant because it takes so much effort. Either you're going to some place you love, or you're leaving some place you love. Usually it's both. I think I have Bond's ability to get into trouble but not his ability to get out of it. Someday I'll be in some foreign country with 5 thugs with automatic rifles pointed at me, and I'll just.... fart "You had no alternative .. We must work in the world. The world is thus." --- "No .. Thus have we made the world." The summer ends and we wonder where we are And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car And you both look so young And last night was hard, you said You packed up every room And then you cried and went to bed But today you closed the door and said "We have to get a move on. It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead, We push ourselves ahead." Looking out the bedroom at this snowy TV.. ever since commencement, no one's asking 'bout me. But I bet before the night falls, I could catch the late bus.. take small provisions and this Beethoven bust. I could find work in the outskirts of the city, eat some fish on the way.. befriend an old dog for a roadside pal, find a nice couch to stay -- a pull-out sofa, if you please!" Ooh! Get me away from here I'm dying "The trouble with folks like Brownie is they hold their life in like a bakebean fart at a Baptist cookout and only let it slip out sideways a little at a time when they think there's nobody noticing. Now that's the last thing on earth the Almighty intended. He intended all the life a man's got inside him, he should live it out just as free and strong and natural as a bird." "Life is a phantasmagoria .. It is a pell-mell of confused and tumultuous scenes. We try in vain to find a purpose - to bring an order, a unity to life. I suppose that is the appeal of art. Art is the blending of the real and the unreal, the conquering of nature. It is real enough for it to reflect life, but has the unity that life lacks." "in time memories fade. I've always had this feeling about Patty that she's complex and intriguing...I like Patty alot. She's got a good heart and tells terrible squirrel jokes. "Try to remember that world-weariness isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the book of Mark, I think its Mark, Jesus looks at a blind man and sighs. Jesus sighed before even telling the man he would be healed. He sighed, and I'm not sure that there's a much more human expression of frustration than this. Faced with the horrid picture of a cursed earth and looking into the white eyes of a man blind from the day he was born, He sighed. The Creator of the universe in human form was sad "of the evils of this world," the world He created. Your Creator sighed for you in the same way before He healed you and made you His." After the last secret's told After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone After the last child starves And the last girl walks the boulevard After the last year that's just too hard There is love -- Andrew Peterson, After the Last Tear Falls "when you most need people, you don't need perfection - just to know someone gives a damn" "A CALL TO ACTION: "My brother's always [telling me], 'You should be more mysterious--boys like that.' But I'm not good at that. It would just make me more uncomfortable." "Loners want to kill you, but not for any particular reason, and they'd probably like you if they weren't being guided by the violent voices in their head." "No one wants to oil a snake these days!"
-- Her mom: "We're all safe." -- Jamie Bevill and her mother during Christmas-Decorating dinner, December 20, 2002 i'd throw out all my shoes i'd set up cans for friends to dump their shoes senseless shoes a pioneer of callouses lordy-be and bless my soul i'd be a barefoot spaceman the first you'd ever know" "The best way to have God's will for your life is to have no will of your own!" "Generations circle and each one atones. The sins of the father are seperate from my own. In Pilgrim's Progress, it's forgiveness that makes whole, and as time levels and consoles, I place the daisies in your bowl." "For a moment he just stared at her. Then, with an urf-urf-urf of laughter, he turned back to the controls." "It's on the internet.. so, then, it must be true." "Be at least as interested in what people can become as you are in what they have been." Blessed be the rock stars!" Get up for the shower.. wash and scrub and scour every part as if a cleaner man could better bear the shame.. "She was eating gnarly amounts of calcium." Homeless man to girl trying to give him money: "No, thanks, ma'am. I never work on Sundays." "Wow! I never thought I'd need a radar-guided spatula!" "Isn't it great that I articulate? Isn't it grand that you can understand? ... I can talk, I can talk, I can talk!" I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know... I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: "You've turned up in the right place at the right time. You're doing fine. Don't ever think that you've been forgotten. When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "No answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand." CCM: You've spoken a lot more about crying than I ever thought you would. "Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort. A man doesn't grow old because he has lived a certain number of years. A man grows old when he deserts his ideal. The years may wrinkle his skin, but deserting his ideal wrinkles his soul. Preoccuptaions, fears, doubts, and despair are the enemies which slowly bow us toward earth and turn us into dust before death. You will remain young as long as you are open to what is beautiful, good, and great; receptive to the messages of other men and women, of nature and of God. If one day you should become bitter, pessimistic, and gnawed by despair, may God have mercy on your old man's soul." ""Don't go matchmaking for me, Ilse," said Emily wit a faint smile... "I feel in my bones that I shall achieve old-maidenhood, which is an entirely different thing from having old-maidenhood thrust upon you." "I wish Aunt Elizabeth would let me go to Shrewsbury, but I fear she never will. She feels she can't trust me out of her sight because my mother eloped. But she need not be afraid I will ever elope. I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art" "Tomorrow seems like a long ways away. But it will come, just like any other day... Deep inside, where the wounded creatures hide, I am afraid. Maybe I got lost somewhere along the way somehow. Please rescue me... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the dark shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me... Though I fear, though I am afraid, You are with me. Though I'm angry, tired, broken down and confused, You are with me. Though I sin like I've never sinned before, lose myself right out an open door, You are with me." "The invisible people agreed about everything. Indeed most of their remarks were the sort it would not be easy to disagree with: "What I always say is, when a chap's hungry, he likes some victuals," or "Getting dark now; always does at night," or even "Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?"" -- C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader "When People object... that if Jesus was God as well as Man, then He had an unfair advantage which deprives Him for them of all value, it seems to me as if a man struggling in the water should refuse a rope thrown to him by another who had one foot on the bank, saying, "Oh but you had an unfair advantage." It is because of His advantage that He can help." "But, you know, as a Christian, one of the big questions you always ask yourself is, "So we believe in Jesus, we believe in the teachings of the church, but what does that look like when it's lived out?" Because surely, one of the things that Jesus said that I think we often overlook is, "The person who hears my words and does them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock." He didn't say "the person who hears my words and thinks about 'em" or "whoever hears my words and agrees with it." But he said, "Whoever hears it and does it." "find that which gives you breath and grants you more to give "I have packed all my belongings. I don't belong here anymore. This pair of sandles, one pack to carry, this old guitar and this tattered old Bible. And I know I won't be afraid. 'cause I know, I know Home is where You are." "Open up your weepy eyes, everyone is dancing. Angels peer through sweet disguise, through a fire of cleansing. "Long hair, no hair; Everybody, everywhere:
Breathe Deep, breathe deep the Breath of God!" "You may be bruised and torn and broken, but
you're Mine!" "I don't deserve to speak, and they don't deserve
to hear it. It's makin' me believe that it's not
about me." "Kickin' against these goads sure did cut up my
feet. Didn't your hands get bloody as you washed
them clean?" "They say God blessed us with plenty. I say
you?re blessed with poverty. ?Cause you never
stop to wonder whether earth is just a little
better than the Land of the Free" "Computers will know everything in the 21st
century. They'll be like me in the 20th
century." |
