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, October 31, 2001
"First of all, I would like to make one thing quite clear!
I never explain myself." -- Mary Poppins Amen, sistah! (0) comments "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious .. even though the sound of it is really quite attrocious.. if you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious (!!) .. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! ........ you know, you can say it backwards which is dociousaliexpiisticfragilcalirepus, but that's really going a bit far, isn't it?" -- Mary Poppins (the problem here, folks, is that the way she says it backwards is neither backwards nor consistant. had Mary just switched the groupings around to reverse order, the last grouping still would've been super, but she switched that word to actually be backwards.. so that it's repus, whereas the rest of the groupings (ie, docious and ali) are in reverse order but not actually reversed (ie, suoicod and ila) .. not that I blame her for just doing the groupings, but it's inconsistant to then actually reverse the group super itself, rather than just saying super at the end. Hmm.. (0) comments It's blog, it's blog.. it's big, it's heavy, it's wood.. it's blog, it's blog, it's better than bad, it's good! everyone wants a blog.. come on and get your blog.. blog blog blog.. blog.. blog.. blooooooggggg (0) comments Monday, October 29, 2001
"Be at least as interested in what people can become as you are in what they have been."
-- Steve Griffin Wow, what a quote! (0) comments Happy 32nd Anniversary to the internet! And happy 30th Anniversary to mel's parents! (0) comments Today as I rode the city-busses to college/work, I watched the scenery of nature as usual. This is one of my favorite parts -- and indeed one of the only good parts -- of not having my own car. The ability to really look at nature as the vehicle moves you is a wonderful gift, something I cherish whether I'm riding the bus or a passenger in a friend's car. Living within sight of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the view is particularly beautiful here. Locals oft go hiking along this range when time an energy allow, and when driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway everywhere you look is a breathtaking sight. Normally, the mountains look like faded blue silhouettes against the sky, but this morning the blue haze for which the Blue Ridge Mountains were named was all but absent, and the mountains were clearly seen in their more natural colors. One could see the sharp distinction of the mountain tops rather than the muted outline that is oft seen. Likewise, the nearer mountains featured their trees and the color variations of such rather than looking like a three-dimensional blue backdrop to the scenery within the city itself. I love the mountains, and I'm gladder than I could have originally guessed I'd be to have moved here among them. I also love seeing trees change color in the fall, something I missed terribly during my 11 plus years in FL. This year, perhaps because of how late fall came and apparent indecision of the weather to actually be fall and no longer summer, the colors are more muted, darker colors. The brilliant golds, oranges, and reds usually displayed in photographs taken during the fall season have been muted down into deep burgundies, rusts, and burnt umbers. The greens that remain are darker and whisper of the death that they will face in the coming weeks, joining many of their fellow leaves in .. well, leaving. Many trees are already bare due to the very strong winds that blew in this weekend. This makes for a much more subtle change from summer to winter than we usually see, but it's beautiful all the same. I love living in the mountains. (0) comments Monday, October 22, 2001
In our world, in our society, a lot of people think that Christians are Christians either because their easy-life-providing-parents were Christians and their charmed existance didn't offer any reason to question the traditional beliefs of their family, or because they've had a difficult life and thus use Christianity (or various other religions) as a crutch.
So who would you, if you were one of these people, not be able to put into either catagory? I've had a pretty difficult life. I don't use Christianity as a crutch. However, I've had discussions where people are already so convinced that all Christians are either charmed or crutch-laden, that they don't listen to what I'm actually saying about the difference between just having a crutch and really knowing the true God that did indeed help you in many situations. (For example, if I had to use a physical, literal crutch in order to walk and some bizarre militant guys came into my school and told me to walk without the crutch or they'd shoot me, you'd better believe I'd be walking without it. Whereas with my faith, I wouldn't be about to lie and say that God isn't real just to appease their sick desire to deny the truth.) So quit using your hatred for religion, especially that for Christianity, to block out any possability that it could be true. Because everyone on the face of this planet could either be catagorized as having a charmed life or a difficult life. Show me the person with just enough hardship to be uncharmed and yet little enough to not have it difficult. That doesn't exist, especially since all of these things are relative, subjective ideas to begin with. Grr. (0) comments Meanwhile, monday, tuesday, wednesday, and friday I show up for my work-study job as close to 10:30 as the city bus drops me off. It used to be that my boss left her office door open so that I could get in whenever I got there, and could get some work done while she was teaching class. For whatever reason, she hasn't been doing that lately. So when I get there, I have to open the door of her classroom and let her know I'm there and even then she usually waits 'till class is over to come unlock the door. (Occasionally she'll give me the key, but it's been at least two weeks since she's done that.) This morning, I got there and the door was locked. I decided that I would go do research while waiting for class time to be over, and thus didn't even poke my head in the door. (That's the nice thing about a work-study job. I am supposed to put school ahead of work.) So I went back about five or ten minutes after class time was over, and the door was still locked. After asking around, I found out that the note on the door that said class was cancelled for October 17th was indeed intended for today, and she wasn't there. Why is it that I have to call in when I'm sick, but no one has to let me know when they're sick? That's ok, I've been productive this morning. But having an extra hour of sleep would have been nice. (0) comments Ok, so I was walking out of one of the offices at school today, and there was this elderly man walking out of the same office about ten steps behind me. So, as I often am wont to do, I held one side of the double door open because that's what's polite. By the time that I get to the holding-open-position, though, he already had his hand on the bar for the other door, and he just opened that one and walked right through, not so much as nodding or anything to acknowledge my presence. Well, nevermind then. (0) comments Wednesday, October 17, 2001
I got my third essay for English class back today. It was the second on which I was given an A. Yay. (too many ay sounds there, eh?)
I was the last one to have my essay given back. Our teacher handed back the bulk of them, then another small group, and then took about 7 essays that he had set aside and said "we've run out of time for today, but will those of you in this group bring your essays back in on Friday, please? There were parts of your essay that were particularly good that I would like to read for the class." Would it be horrible of me to feel really, really good about that? When I was in 2-D art my Freshman year of high school, we had some learning excersizes early in the year that included still-life sorta drawings of fruit and of shoes. The teacher hung up some of the better drawings to be admired (and hopefully learned from) by fellow classmates. First was the fruit. I thought i did a very good job on it. Mine wasn't hanging up with the others. I just figured I'd have to do better the next time. With the shoe assignment, I honestly did a very good job on it (and more people in this world need to remember that false modesty is just as silly as pride, by the way. Not to mention that God gives people gifts and denying that you have a gift is like saying that God made you ugly or that God made Einstien with average intellegence.) and I even did it with colored pencils, although everyone else did theirs with pencil. (The assignment wasn't to use a number 2 -- or other drawing lead -- pencil, but rather just to draw shoes in certain positions.) Again, mine didn't get put on display. I felt a little bit hurt -- not that I wanted my classmates to know what a great and wonderful artist I was, but because I felt that my teacher had overlooked my drawing and the skill that I had put into this piece. I felt that all the hard work I had done didn't matter to him. Because I had done the work for him, I felt that if it didn't matter to him, it was pointless. I asked him about it. He said that because using colored pencils was more advanced than the other students at that time, he didn't want to put this up and encourage them to do something above their heads. (There's part of me that has since begun to scoff at the notion that not challenging someone is better for their growth and development, but then again, there's that part of me that understands that if I try to teach someone to read the entire dictionary before I teach them their ABC's, I would be asking far too much of them.) Now, my college English teacher has chosen a select few essays to read sections of, and mine is amongst them. Perhaps readers will think that I'm bragging and be turned off. Perhaps some will think that I'm too easily proud of myself and will not understand why I can feel so great about something so small. Either way, I feel good. (0) comments Friday, October 12, 2001
Apparently, all internet usage at my college is monitered and the FBI has visited campus in the spring and just came back this past week or so.
I tend to be a big fan of the unpopular belief that if someone is doing something wrong, they deserve to get caught, and that as long as I'm doing nothing wrong, it doesn't really matter who's watching me, eh? So let me use the computer at work for personal email when I've finished all my work for the day. If I do something wrong, it's my "beef", my "bad", my fault, and I will be caught and be in trouble. As long as I'm doing nothing wrong and don't mind being monitered, what's the deal with saying that I can't use the internet at work because someone across campus used a library computer to download something unspecific, which may -- for all our uninformed selves know -- have very well been research for a school paper and nothing harmful or illegal. What's the deal? I dislike the general mindset of our society that ignorance is bliss (that is, the FBI or CIA don't have to tell us what they're doing if they moniter stuff, nor what they're going after when they visit campus in search of wrong-doers) or that in order to protect my safety you must restrict my access to the internet. Moniter it if you want, I have nothing to hide. But don't restrict it. As I have nothing to hide, I should be able to send just as many emails, IM msgs, or other communications as I want. If they want to question me because I happen to be loosely associated (location-wise) with the person that may or may not have done something wrong across campus, go ahead. I can answer questions just as I can go on about my Under-Big-Brother's-Eyes life. But don't tell me that I can't keep in touch with my loved ones unless I have a computer at home. Blah. (0) comments Horses, in all of their beauty and glory, are apparently very dangerous for me to be around. My history of being nearly-killed by horses started when I was about 10 and was just learning to ride. I was at a Girl Scouts daycamp, and the horse that I was on the day we got off the lead lines decided to go walking around the jumping course no-matter what I did with her bridle. Fortunately, she decided not to jump that day, but it was still significant enough to scare me quite a bit Since then, at each camp that I went to or in any other situation that involved me riding a horse, I have been placed on/with the most difficult horse (despite usually having been the smallest person at that camp or in that program or working there) and have survived thus far. Long-time readers of my blog will remember an entry from about mid-summer, when I went riding at the farm of one of the families from my church. The horse I was on (normally a very well behaved horse) apparently got sick of being ridden, figured he'd had enough for the day, and ran through the large set of bushes in their grazing corral, where there was a trail just large enough for a horse (since they walked through those bushes while grazing sometimes) but not nearly large enough for a horse with a rider. Add to that the fact that he knew what all was coming up ahead and I could barely see enough to move large branches and vines outta my way before they poked my eyes out. Well, that should be enough of that adventure for those that have already read about the whole thing, but to re-cap the important part for those that haven't: I was dehorsed when a large, broken branch was scraping (and threatening to seriously injure) my left arm as it protected my stomach, and my right arm was holding up a branch that would otherwise have whacked my head. Using the top branch the way I used uneven bars in gymnastics as a kid, I somehow (and this involves serious work from angels, I'm sure) managed to jump backwards off the horse and land on my feet, safely, but with a rather nasty-looking scrape and bruise on my left arm. If that was the worse of my troubles after a ride like that, though, who could complain? So, I had Monday and Tuesday off from both school and work (which is the nice thing about working at school) and decided that I'd REALLY like to go horseback riding as one of my ways to relax and have a good break. I went to the same farm. I wouldn't have minded riding the same horse I rode last time -- since I really don't think it was anything personal that made him go streaking off into the bushes. But I was on a different horse this time, named Rush. Rush is a beautiful, wonderful horse. She likes to run. She is, after all, named Rush for a reason. So we get to this large field and we managed to get around the perimeter uneventfully when a deer-blind-box spooked the horse following mine. (I was in the middle of three.) Because the girl on that horse -- who is the owner of the horse I was riding and the daughter of the family whose farm we were on -- was going to stop to get her horse used to the blind-box, I decided that would be a good time to bring my horse in a wide circle so she wouldn't be crowding the horse in front of us so much anymore. I got her turned around, and felt her desire to trot. I'm not exactly immune to desires to be on a trotting horse, either, so it sounded like a good plan to me. I gave her permission to trot, slowly. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile, eh? She began to canter. Here is where I'm going to hope that you have a decent knowledge of horses and their riding equipment. The rest of the story will go with that assumption fully, so if you don't know these things already, go out to your local riding stable or find a good website to learn about english riding and some things about different breeds. (I forget which breed Rush is.. I wish I could remember, because that would tell you ALL about why she can run so fast, I'm sure.) I've ridden both English and Western enough to be comfortable with either, but have ridden Western more and am assertively more comfortable with having a horn when doing anything faster than a trot. English is great for easy trail rides or for more experienced riders, but I really like having a horn when the going gets fast. Meanwhile, apart from the saddle differences, I'm also a lot more familiar with neck-reigning, which is more common to Western riding. I've ridden traditional English and Western with their appropriate reigning styles, and I've ridden English saddle using neck-reigning to guide the horse, but I had never ridden Western saddle with English style reigning. Until yesterday. So I'm on this massive beast that has decided to canter, I've got one reign in each hand (so that if I were to pull back with one hand, she'd turn in that direction, and that would not be a good thing. The harder I pulled the sharper she'd turn, basically, so that I would likely end up in bushes, going in a very sharp circle that would have dehorsed me anyway, or not controlling her enough to matter. So the alternative was to hold onto the horn with both hands so that I would neither fall off nor pull her bit unintentionally. I could hear Liz (the mother of this family, who was riding the lead horse which just happened to be the one that took me through the bushes last time) calling to me "Pull back! you have to pull her back!" I tried to say "I can't.. trust me, I know this, but I can't pull back" but all that came out was more like "I ca.. I ca..." During this time, Rush had decided that if she could get away with cantering, she could probably get away with galloping. So she did. Fortunately, she takes corners extremely well and just when I thought I'd either be stuck on a horse as she went charging through the bushes, or thrown from her back (and possibly toppled by her if she also fell) as she took a corner too sharply, she smoothed out and glided around the turn as if there was nothing to it. So I stayed on. And on. And on. She went flying right past the other two horses (you know how one horse seeing another run makes the one want to run, too? hey, that sounds like a tongue-twister.) and was heading for the trail-head at the edge of the field. My brain was attempting to work despite the adrenaline rush and possible onset of panic. I was trying to think of ways to get both reigns into one hand so that I could pull back to stop her without letting go of the horn. Not really an easy task, but necessity IS indeed the mother of invention. Rush was galloping full speed by this time, right down the trail between the field and the creek that seperated Liz's property from her neighbors'. Being a decent, but not all that experienced or advanced, rider, trail-riding at this speed was not sounding like fun. It was also bringing up memories of a similar adventure I'd had 3 months before that involved trees and a running horse. But Eb hadn't been running anywhere near this quickly. Finally, both reigns were in one hand and I was able to pull back and get her to stop remarkably well. She didn't stop quickly enough to send me flying over her head (or even to shift me forward in the seat) but she did know that play-time was over. Liz, in the meantime, had gotten Eb into his Tennessee Walker walk-trot, and Julie had dismounted Blue (who tends to buck when he starts to canter) and they all came up the trail right after me, shaking all over and possibly more relieved than I was feeling to see me still on the horse. Julie pointed out later that she was gonna have to get Rush used to flying down trails like that if she was going to eventually go on a fox-hunt with her, anyway. Her father suggested that she train Rush for barrel-racing. (Julie's won many awards for barrel-racing on her other horse, Fatima.) I'm just glad that I had, all-in-all, a wonderful time that could only have been better were I actually aware of the fact we were going to gallop, and especially if I had been using a horse that neck-reigned. Rush will be trained on neck-reigning soon. (0) comments When you have a really good thing, you want to share it, right? No less when that good thing is an incredible person you have the pleasure of knowing. Many married people experience this on various occasions, as their spouses -- be they musicians, pastors, docters, or anything else -- are shared with the world at large or a certain few. I, too, have experienced sharing my most incredible friends with eachother. There are those that I introduced that hit it off and became romantically attached, those that have a parent-child sort of relationship, and those that have become even closer as friends than I ever was to either. Perhaps I am more of a bridge than a friend in the first place. Not that any of these friendships were any less genuine while they lasted; Rather that they were never complete in and of themselves. I had a great friend, and shared him or her with others. Results have usually been outstanding. (At least one, though, turned somewhat sour, but I did warn them it was likely to do so and it had never been my intention to "hook them up".) I am, truly, genuinely happy for those that have gained very close friends -- or gotten closer to someone they'd previously just been acquainted with -- and yet there's a part of me that wishes I could just keep a really good friend to myself one of these days. Not to not share them at all, just to never let them outta my reach as they run out into a whole new world of friendships or love. But you know, good things are never as good when you hoard them, just as good news kept secret is never quite as good. So, friends, meet eachother and find out why I'm friends with each of you. You never know .. perhaps the next person you meet through me will become the best friend you ever had. (0) comments Wednesday, October 10, 2001
(Written late Sunday night, I think)
I have this doll that I got when I was about 3 years old. It's been rare for him not to be snuggled up beside me while I sleep ever since. Like the beloved doll in the Velvateen Rabbit, Elroy has been the main character in many of my childhood games, accompanied me on several adventures, and been the perfect companion for times of crying. You can tell how much I love him just by looking at him. His clothes and fabric skin are so dirty that it's nearly impossible to imagine what colors they originally were; His face has scratches and paint in random places. Friends of mine often comment on how incredibly dirty he is. "Why don't you ever wash him?!?" they wonder. I have to explain (and rarely is it believed) that I have indeed washed him numerous times, but I've had him since I was 3 and he's simply a well-loved doll. My other dolls and stuffed animals come in various shades of worn-out, depending on if I got them during or after my days of play, how much I loved them, and what adventures they've been on with me. Elroy, though, is by far the most loved.. and thus the most different from his original state. We are like that with people, I think, and with our God. The more we love people, the more worn-out we can get in the act of loving. Likewise, the more worn-out they can get from being loved. The more we spend time with God, the more we realize how broken we really are, and similarly the more dirty and torn we get in acts of service to Him. I want to look like Elroy. I want to be open to that much love. (0) comments Not having a computer at home and having things get a bit busier at work than they had been 'till recently sure does make a difference in my time online, eh? But, I'm apparently addicted enough to blogging that I actually write blog entries. It started when my blog was fairly new, and I went to LA for my grandmother's funeral. Now, several months later, I wrote an entry because I was thinking about a lot of things I wanted to blog about but had a fall break ahead of me (monday and tuesday off, which makes this my first time online since the very early afternoon on friday .. not a big deal, but bad in the sense that my email is storing up because I've only had a combined two hours or so to do anything of my own online in the past week and a half) and thus wouldn't be able to get to the computer before I stopped thinking about it. Yet, there's the demotivating factor that since I stopped blogging, a lot of people that I normally keep in touch with via email haven't emailed me much because they get their personal connection with my life from my blog. All that to say, blog is a wonderful, terrible thing. (0) comments Wednesday, October 03, 2001
Just to clarify on my last entry..
I was not thinking about myself specifically when I was writing it. I don't have a sister to not hit, I don't have primitive desires for men to act on (I know few people believe that and those that do generally have some warped explanation for why it may be so, but it's true. I worked for years, by the Grace of God, to cut out impure thoughts of that sort from my thinking and desiring processes.) Although I'm not particularly healthy, I'm not obsessed with losing weight, either. In fact, I don't think about it a whole lot other than my health (which is as much a hinderance in getting healthy as it is a reason to get healthy.) and when I want to borrow clothes that are too small. But then I find some clothes to borrow that fit well and realize that if I were teensy, they wouldn't fit, and it all kinda equals out. Also, the ultimate motivation is love for God rather than love for others. I didn't touch on that in yesterday's entry because I'm thinking about experimenting with this style of discipline on people that don't necessarily realize how much they love God, or perhaps why they should. Thus, the "love of God" method of discipline (overused, perhaps, by the Puritans. Still in use in many Christian homes around the nation. Not even a thought for most of American society.) is not very motivating to them. It would be like telling a very patriotic American that he could be Canadian if only he would polish his shoes more. And one final clarification: this whole love-motivated discipline is NOT what we were talking about during jr. high... we were using the Cain and Abel story to discuss what the problem was, who the problem was between, and what solutions were possible. In all my cynicism, I pointed out to the girls that their answers entirely neglected the possible solution of Cain killing his brother. I mean, how obvious is that one? It's the one Cain chose, so we know from that alone that it's a possible solution. Not the right, not the best, not even the easiest. Why he chose it, I don't think we'll ever know. But we know that it was a possible solution. (0) comments Tuesday, October 02, 2001
There seems to be this unwritten law of discipline that a major motivation for not doing something is the punishment doing it would entail.
In English: People commonly think that saying "don't hit your sister, because you'll be punished" is the right way to go. Perhaps it is. I wonder, though. If we were a more loving society, could motivation for discipline (particularly self-discipline) look something more like this: "Don't hit your sister, because it will hurt her." Because you love her, you do not want to hurt her. I mean, what's wrong with that? We think about ourselves an awefully lot in this society, and punishment-motivated discipline is just another proof of our self-centeredness. What about love-motivated discipline? If we love other people more than ourselves (as our Great Teacher taught us that we should, and as the Holy Spirit allows us to when we seek to follow God rather than see ourselves as our own god) than we care more about the fact that our actions will, by their very nature, punish that person rather than the fact that if we do something and get caught, we will be punished. Some other situations and the changes love-motivated discipline would bring about: "I need money, so I would rob this bank, but if I got caught I'd go to jail." vs. "I need money, but robbing a bank is not an option, because that would be harmful to people. Those whose money I'm stealing, those at the bank during the robbery, etc." "I would act on my primitive desires with that male before we are married, but he might leave me, or he might be underage and thus I'd be in mucho trouble, or he might have a disease and give it to me, or ..." vs. "I would act on my primitive desires with that male before we are married, but it would be harmful to him Spiritually and emotionally (and possibly physically) and would likewise be harmful to me Spiritually and emotionally." On that note, it is perfectly ok to have a self-centered motivation when the motivation is "the greater good" (yours in the confines of a community, others first when it effects others, yours a consideration next) rather than avoiding the legitimate consequence of your action. There is also, of course, the issue of placing society's values on ourselves. If love is our motivation, it would look very unlike what we currently see. That is: "I should lose weight because people make fun of me, I don't look as beautiful as the cover-models look, and I don't think I can get a good date looking like this." vs. "I should lose weight because I am unhealthy." (This, one should notice, defies the concept of someone that is perfectly healthy thinking that he or she should lose weight for appearance reasons. There are a few reasons other than health to lose weight, but in most cases -- such as "I cannot compete athletically with my peers or something like that -- the reward is not losing weight, but the action one hopes to achieve. Indeed, the reward here is health rather than losing weight.) These are just some thoughts that were coming up on Sunday during jr. high group time. We were talking about Cain and Abel. If you want to know some of the very fascinating things said during that discussion, email me. (I may post some of them later, but for right now I'm thinking I won't.) (0) comments I'm gonna do just fine on my quiz, by the way. The reason I'd put off reading much was because we've been going over this same stuff in class for a few weeks, and reading about it sometimes makes me a little woozy for some odd reason. I used to never get squeemish nomatter what we were doing. I might think something was cruel, I might think something was gross/impure to talk about, but I didn't get all squeemish and feel like I was gonna be sick. 'Cept once during my junior year of high school, but that's another story. (0) comments Monday, October 01, 2001
"Oh, I'll just get online real quick-like and check my email a final time before heading off the computers for the day."
"While I'm on, I may well read some of the blogs of friends, since I may not have time to do so tomorrow." "Look, Kristen's blog has a link for a game. I like games. I know Kristen has good taste in games." "Goodness, only 40 minutes 'till ceramics! I've still gotta eat and read those two chapters of my first aid book. Geepers, creepers! I had three hours between work and ceramics! where does the time go?!?" Thanks, Kristen. :) I enjoyed that game a whole bunches! (0) comments http://www.bigidea.com/penguins/kids/k_spacedpenguin.htm (0) comments I have a quiz in First Aid tomorrow. I have two full chapters to read between then and now. If you're ever hurt and I'm nearby, ask me what I got in my First Aid (and Safety) class before you allow me to help you. (0) comments Chew, Patty, chew. You're not really that hungry, and the sammich isn't going to help your tummy any if it's going down in one big massive chunk. You know that the real reason you are neglecting to chew is because you're a slacker. Quit being such a slacker. Chew. (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." |
