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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Friday, October 12, 2001
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.
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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." |
