C'est La Vie
|
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..
Contact Me
Other Weblogs I enjoy
Recommended Readings
Recommended Listening
Things I love
Things I wish I owned and could listen to or read
|
Wednesday, November 28, 2001
Here in this fair area, people have this "habit" of overusing "quotation marks".
It "reminds" me of this "Chris Farley" skit on "SNL" where Chris is "acting" as a "news" anchor and he keeps using his "fingers" to signify quotation marks around "words", changing his "tone of voice" to imply that there is "something" about that word not "clearly" stated. Isn't it "irritating" seeing quotation marks everywhere? "Imagine", if you will, that this was the case "everywhere" in your town. The "newspapers", "signs", marquee boards, "bill-boards", and even "text" on TV included "random" quotation marks where they simply "do not belong". For example, one of our "bathrooms", as it were, here at "college" is "under construction". There is a sign in front of the "door" that says (and I quote, literally) "Please excuse the inconvenience of this work area. Your safety 'is important'." (endquote). Why in the "world" should "is important" be in quotation "marks"?!? I ask you. (On that "note", one of the words -- I "forget" which -- is misspelled on the sign, as well. "Perhaps" this is not really a college, after all. One would "suspect" that at a college, signs could have "good" spelling.) So the "intelligent" lifeforms, per say, in these parts are "apparently" lacking the desire to "properly" use the gift we have in "quotation marks." Indeed, they would rather "overuse" something particularly irritating than use such "features" as bold, Ahh.. but the mountains are beautiful. And rain is refreshing. And it was in the seventies or eighties today despite the fact that it's almost the end of November. I'm glad in that it was a beautiful, beautiful day. Of course, it just happened to be the day I wore one of my polyester shirts in an attempt to keep warm. And I "do" like the snow and even sometimes the snow-free cold weather. But then, there are still plenty more months before it will likely get warm again in which I can enjoy the snow. On the other hand, it "did" snow in April last year. Perhaps the seasons are just overlapping themselves and switching around. Soon 'nuff it really will be Christmas in July! (0) comments Tuesday, November 20, 2001
I stood at the door and looked outside. The sun was shining brightly on the landscape, the sky was mostly clear with just a few shreds of clouds hanging about to lessen the sun's harm, and the leaves fluttered ever-so-slightly with a nice, light breeze. What a warm, glorious day! I could almost smell the freshness of the falling leaves from inside the building! I could almost feel the sun beating down on my face while I stood in the shadow of the overhang!
Finally I opened the door to step out into the beautiful atmosphere. And I nearly froze to death. Looks can, indeed, be decieving. (0) comments This weekend, the haze over the Blue Ridge mountains got so thick that when I looked at it from miles away down the road, it looked like it was fixin' ta rain. The sky above me was clear as anything, though a much darker, deeper blue than usual. But ahead it looked almost purple, and very thick. I hope you know what I mean when I say the air looked thick, because it's an incredible sight. Just as when the air looks so thin it's almost not there (can you imagine if air just wasn't there at all? I mean, we can't really see it, but there is *something* there.) it's so noticible to someone like me that it nearly blows me away. At any rate, the haze was very, very thick this weekend. But today, it's almost gone again. Just as quickly as it came. The sky behind the mountains looks almost white. The mountains make a crisp outline against the backsky, and you could even see some trees on the mountains even though they're over an hour away. I love living in a place surrounded by mountains. (0) comments Friday, November 16, 2001
The ringing of the bells has begun.
I am a fan of charity organizations, assuming they do what they say they will (and more when possible) to help those in need. And I am glad to see that people will spend many precious hours of their time doing whatever they can to help these organizations. However, as I will go in and out of grocery stores for the next couple of months, I will hear the constant noise of bells. Ringing doesn't seem the right word once they get on your nerves. Clanging is too loud of a word for them, but the meaning is much closer. I have survived a couple of decades that included months of incessant ringing, though, and I will make it through this winter all the same. Indeed, I am really looking forward to this winter and this holiday season. By this time next week, I will have eaten a hearty and tremendous meal with a family I've come to care very much for in the past year (how can it only have been a year?!) an hour from here. And I'm not sure just yet what my break in between semesters (including the most joyous of all holidays -- Christmas. Though argument could be made that Easter is at least as joyous, but Easter couldn't have happened without Christmas, and there was so much more to Christ's life than His death and ressurection. Those are, of course, exceedinly important. But His LIFE was also a tremendous gift to us, His life here on earth. The God that knows our sorrows and our joys -- that celebrates in a wedding as dear friend as well as Creator. The God that was tempted just as much as we could ever be -- perhaps more -- and yet stayed true to His Father. There is such wonder in knowing that our God, the very One that created us, lived among our kind -- Ate our bread, cried our tears, was truly one of us -- rather than an Apherdite disguised as an old woman until a more beautiful woman makes her jealous and she shows her true self to curse the human. Yes, Christmas is surely the most joyous holiday.) So, I'm not sure what my break will include just yet, but I know that it will include travelling some, seeing loved ones, hopefully visiting FL to reconnect with old friends and see how my niece has grown. I am greatly looking forward to this winter. And now that I've gotten some of my clothes out of the storage area of a friend's house (where most of my stuff still remains and will untill I move in somewhere that is my own or at least large enough to bring my belongings with me) I feel a lot more prepared for it. I have my long-sleeved shirts now, my leather bomber-style 80's jacket, my scarves, hats, ski gear. I even have the Christmas-time clothing that I enjoy just for goofballhead's sake. So the bells will ring, and I'll enjoy this season all the same. (0) comments Monday, November 12, 2001
I neglected to think.
When writing my entry about loneliness, I posted a passing comment: "I wonder if we can ever be so consumed with God's love that we don't need in-person friendships." I neglected to think before I posted that. It does sound romantic, doesn't it? Divinely beautiful. But Sharon (who rocks the free world) emailed me to remind me that God Himself said "it is not good that man should be alone" and then created him a companion. And there are many, many other Scriptures that show us that God fully intends for us to enjoy the companionship (not necessarily in a marraige way, of course) of other human beings. Thanks, Sharon, for bringing me back to reality. (0) comments Wednesday, November 07, 2001
So last night, after writing out the entry that I typed up just previous to this one, I was thinking about the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul says all these great and wonderful things he could do (theoretically or realistically, depending) and adds "but if I don't have love, I am nothing" or such sentiments to each.
This has been a popular subject of Bible studies and expository sermons all over the world for hundreds of years now, maybe even since Paul wrote it. But I was thinking last nite about an angle I've never heard spoken on. I believe that Paul wrote it the way that other people read it and teach on it, which is that all the great things you do are either motivated by love and thus great, or not motivated by love and thus pointless or nothing. However, last nite I was feeling the other side of it. I can do whatever wonderful and happy things a young American woman can do in this day and age, and yet if I'm not recieving love -- if I'm not feeling the love that God is pouring out to me, and if I'm not recieving love from other people whether because they're not giving it or because they are and my cynical heart refuses to accept it -- nothing that I do will really matter. I will always feel unfulfilled, I will always be found wanting. I do feel the love God pours out for me, but not all of it. If I was feeling all of it, I wouldn't feel such a huge desire for in-person love. (My online friends, most of whom make up the population of readership of this blog, are certainly not put out of my mind even during these most lonely times. You are the ones that keep me going, you are the ones that remind me that I am loved by humans and that there is some point to not just going off and being a hermit in the woods. But there is something different to someone standing right in front of you, looking you in the eyes, and really caring. There is something different to being able to be hugged when you're sad, not just see a bunch of parenthesis or the word "Hugs!" or something.) However, I wonder how secure a person can be when they feel their amount of in-person contact and friendship is limited. Seeing as how during our time of seperation from God (that is, live on earth) when we cannot see Him face to face, we cannot recieve all of His love, I wonder if it's possible to be so consumed with His love that we don't need in-person friendships. I almost don't want to find out, because really finding out would mean not having any friends at all in-person or online. But then again, if the best would be better, I guess that would be worth it. In the meantime, though, I'll hold to the theory that whether or not we can, you are blessed gifts from God and I will continue to cherish you. (0) comments It's rare that I feel this lonely. I was sitting in a room with 3 other girls that I love deeply and that love eachother more deeply. And I should not have been there. I was an intruder on a very special time, a time of laughing and bonding. Once I was friends with these girls. They can go months without thinking of me, longer without wondering how I am. When you are alone among strangers, you sometimes feel lonely. But when you are so alone among people that once were great friends, the feelings become intense. I almost cried right there, and I'm not sure that would have been such a bad thing. To cry, to mourn for the friendship that once was and for what could have been. I wanted nothing more than to escape. I wished that I had a car right outside so that I could drive home .. drive anywhere .. be anywhere. I couldn't take being there anymore. I hate feeling alone, but I'd rather be lonely at home than among people that once welcomed me, and that had hurt me so much. Oh, they had hurt me. And I know I've hurt them, too, but not that way. So as I sat there, having my eyes avoided when significant looks of shared emotion were exchanged, I wondered why I went to spend time with them at all. How foolish can I be? Can I really have thought I was welcome in their midst again, so able to become one of them once more when it's been made abundantly clear to me that our time of friendship has passed? They'll still call from time to time, when they need something, to be sure. But they won't call when something beautiful or tragic happens in their lives. They won't call when they just want to talk, or just want to hang out. They won't call when they get some odd feeling that maybe I want to talk to them. They won't even call when I leave a message on their machine. The friendship is gone. I guess I was so sick of sitting lonely at home, lonely at school, lonely at church .. that I deluded myself into believing I didn't have to be lonely. Sure, I brought myself to believe, I can have friends in the very same town as me. I'm a nice person. I smile a lot. I shave my head for charity. Surely I can find friends here somewhere. And if I love them, surely they'll love me back. A foolish child I remain. When will I learn? (0) comments I'm standing halfway between the moon and the sun, Not quite sure which way to go. The one is transparent against the sky, The other blindingly beautiful. Halfway between the sun and the moon, The world fades into a path. I can still see the brilliant hues, of autumn leaves that will do just that. Ok, so that was a sturpid poem-of-sorts, but I walked out today going from work to class and saw the half-moon still in the sky, hanging there lightly against the perfect, cloudless blue. And on the other side was the sun, so bright I could barely keep my eyes open nomatter where I looked, especially when facing its general direction. I love when the moon is still visible. And I enjoyed how wonderfully warm it was outside, despite now being November in the mountains. Ah, I'm so glad I moved here. :) (0) comments Friday, November 02, 2001
"If you don't send bulk email, your competition will!" read the headline on yet another piece of Spam in one of my inboxes.
And that, my friends, is exactly why I don't buy from the competition. People that send bulk email like that annoy me, aggrivate me, and waste my time. Which of those reasons would prompt me to buy from them? Grr. (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." |
