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, March 08, 2002
(At this point, I'd like to post an apology to Darin in Atlanta. As a mutual friend just reminded me, it's the OTHER Darrin (from Aussie-land) that spells his name with two R's. I always get them mixed up, and have been spelling Darin with two r's this whole week.. and previous to that, too, I think.)
I'd spent a few days with Renee and Darin, and a few with Michelle. I'd gotten to hang out with Brian and Akemi, and had seen some other people I hadn't seen in at least a year and a half, and in several cases much longer. And I'd met a lot of friends-of-friends. I was leaving Michelle's to go back to Renee and Darin's (where I am now), and decided to get a little bit of gas before hitting the interstate, what with it being rush-hour and all that so that I figured I ought to get more than I needed to get down here, since rush-hour meant a lot of extra gas usage. And then I stopped at a Kroger's on the same road to get some Starbucks' Ice Cream as a host/hostess gift for Renee and Darin, since they'd never even known Starbucks made ice cream, and since this is some of the most excellent stuff I've ever had. Plus, Renee had had an ice cream craving a few days before I got here, and I figure they strike me often enough that she might could use another pint before long. On my way out of Kroger's, I stopped to get a box of Samoa's from the Girl Scout's at the end of the plaza. The two girls were really cute, trying to scream "Girl Scout Cookies" as much as they could. Today was a rather warm day, beautiful to be outside, but not so fun to be standing in one place trying to peddle your wares. And it didn't look like these girls were getting a great deal of business, and I was more than happy to help them out and feed my own craving at once. And there I was thinking the boxes were $4 each this year, but I was mistaken .. they were only $3. Party, bonus. So I'm driving a rather indirect-by-this-time route from Michelle's to Renee and Darin's. I'm in the greater Atlanta area, in which I feel very much at home. And I've got a container of starbucks ice cream in my thermally-insulated Dr. Suess lunchbox (I figured even if I was lucky enough to not hit much rush hour traffic, I'd still better put it in there to reduce the meltage on the half-hour or so trip) and a box of my favorite girl scout cookies on the seat beside me, and a beautiful day to drive in, and my window's down, and there's a great mix tape playing. It just happens that there were a few fun songs by Steve Taylor on this particular section, from his Squint album. (Thor, give it back to me soon!) The songs were Bannerman, Sock Heaven, and Cash Cow. So Bannerman and Sock Heaven are two really fun songs, and Bannerman in particular has a lot of meaning for me. (There's an IRC chat room I used to chat in a lot that was named #bannerman and I'm still really good friends with many of the folks from it, which also just happens to be how I met Renee.) And then Cash Cow comes on. For those of you not familiar with Squint, or Steve Taylor for that matter, Cash Cow is this "rock opera in three small acts" that is absolutely hilarious. It's basically this very humerous (if not cynical .. I really do think it's more realistic than cynical, though.. but then, I'm cynical and jaded myself, so perhaps I'm not the best judge) look at how civilizations throughout time, and our American rumpuses in particular, have this obsession with mula. And there's this line where Steve says/sings "Who loves power lunching from Spago to the Sizzler?" and then in his maniacal voice sounding like it's coming from a bit of a distance: "Guess who's coming to dinner?!?" *insert maniacal laughter here.* Have you ever had one of those moments when you were just ceased by joy? When there wasn't someone that just handed you a 20 dollar bill (though that's a very nice thing), nor did you just hear about the friend you were a bridesmaid for possibly getting pregnant (though I'd imagine that's a great feeling, too).. but something, somehow, just a bunch of little random things combined, I guess .. and you just smile, and feel so happy like there's something welling up inside your soul that's just gonna spew itself out all over the whole world and then flowers will sprout everwhere and people will never fight again and short of someone you really care about that isn't a Christian passing away, nothing could make you the slightest bit upset at that moment? That's what happened right then. The line triggered it, I reckon, and I couldn't help joining in the laughter, though mine was a tad less maniacal. (btw.. if you ever talk to me in person and I feel a hankering to use the word maniacal, I'll more likely than not pronounce it maniac-ul. I also usually say protest-ant rather than the proper pronounciation for protestant. That's just me. In my head as I type, I keep reminding myself it's mah-nie-uh-kuhl, but each time I type it it just sounds so much like may-knee-ack-ul.) And so even getting onto the freeway to see loads of very backed-up rush-hour traffic, and even realizing that I wasn't entirely certain of which exit I was taking to get back to Renee's (I'd taken a different interstate down, so the directions I had wouldn't help me much from here), and even realizing that Atlanta people -- though they are generally a fairly southern group of people filled with southern hospitality and common sense -- do not apparently have the southern hospitality extension to driving. As a whole, they're not a group that let people merge very well. And then when someone does let others merge, he or she lets about 20 cars "merge" in front of him/her at the same time, thus kinda defeating the purpose. Can we say "alternate", boys and girls? Not that I'm road ragish .. (long-time or complete readers know that I have serious issues with the whole concept of road rage..) .. just that it struck me as rather odd. At any rate, even that couldn't upset me at all. The joy had lain hold. And it's lasted all night, to this very moment. Of course, watching the Cash Cow video when Renee and I got back from the coffeehouse we went to tonite (it was open mic night, so we were highly entertained by a crazy group of folks with good voices and nice guitars for the most part. And some GREAT sammiches before hand. Check out the Sycamore Tree Coffeehouse if you're ever in the Atlanta area. Go there as often as you can. Their sammich and coffee and such sales go to helping the coffeehouse stay open as a ministry to teens in the area.) helped to keep the unceasing-joy going strong. Good stuff. Joy is a wonderful thing, and I'm so glad God's grace has poured out on us to bring us such a great gift. Check out Steve Taylor while you're at it... one of the most incredible, creative lyricists I know of.
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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." |
