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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Monday, May 06, 2002
Rumor has it, especially among children, that buttercups got their name because when you hold one under your chin, it will reflect yellow if you like butter.
When I was a child in Massachusettes, I remember the rumor being that if it reflected yellow, you were in love. I guess we got bored of the butter story. It had been a while since I'd seen buttercups, but when I first went out to ride Cinnamon, there were fields full of them throughout the property. Yellow expanses stretched across the lawns and meadows, intermingled with wheat-stocks, purple clover, and other interesting weeds and grasses. Seeing these brilliant green, yellow, and brown waves over the land, especially the buttercups, brought on some wonderful warm and peaceful feelings. Somehow, that early association of buttercups and being in love made for something of a euphoric high at the very sight. There is a certain friendliness, too, in yellow flowers, that lightens one's heart all by itself. Love, though, is even better than friendliness. I mean, a smile from a new friend can make you happy for a while, but a phone call from someone you care about dearly, or a letter from a loved one, can ignite feelings all the friendliness in the world couldn't reach without the promotion from friendliness to love. (Tangent: I don't think that I have the same relationship between the words friend and friendly as I do between love and lovely. Friend and friendly are very similar words, in my mind, while love and lovely are really quite different. I wonder if that should tell me something about how I view love or loveliness. Hmm.) Today, after myself, my friend Peggy, and the two girls in the family that owns Cinnamon had ridden him a great deal, the girls and I went to put him in the pasture. After turning him out, we sat in the fields about 20 feet away and pulled up buttercups and other pretty weeds. I gathered a handful into a somewhat-arranged bouquet, and then the girls and I made chains, wreaths, and other jewelry with God's beautiful bounty. Heather, the younger of the two, wove her buttercup chain and some extras into the french braid I'd done in my hair for riding. (Quite stunning, in my earthy opinion. If I would have gotten married, I would likely have wanted to do an outdoor wedding in a great bigfat field of wildflowers, with flowers woven into my hair in a very similar manner.) Lauren decided she'd rather pick flowers and pet the dogs than make a chain herself, but the three of us had wonderful conversations. I made a wreath for each of the girls in their own style. Overall, it was a glorious day sitting outside in the mid-70s, partly-cloudy afternoon. I almost laid down right there in the field to pick out shapes in the cloud, but it was a bit too sunny yet for that. So the three of us went inside and made tapioca pudding, and then I came home, cooked the other half of my acorn squash, and watched the copy of Charlotte's Web that I borrowed from another family. How many years has it been since I've seen Charlotte's Web? The last time I remember seeing it was in sixth grade. That's quite a while ago. Great movie, for the most part. I was amused, though, at how the songs Fran sings for Wilbur and Charlotte sings for Wilbur are both songs that could actually be sung at a wedding. And then there's the "Chin Up" song, which has the basic message of "hide your feelings unless you're happy, and if you're not happy, make everyone think you are." Really. I listened to a bunch of the words before my cynical side woke up, and that's exactly what it was saying. Furthermore, one (if that one is me, anyway) really must wonder at how friendship is defined by Charlotte. She considers Wilbur a true friend, but it seems to me that all he does is worry about how he's going to be made into ham and bacon in the fall, and ask her to save him. He doesn't actually *listen* to her, from what we can see -- Ok, yes, I'm analyzing a children's move, and that's always a very silley thing to do. But really, there are those classics (like Mary Poppins) and those movies that somehow became classics for some unknown reason. Charlotte's Web is a great book, mind you, but I've come to appriciate (if it did take me far too long) just how much this movie is lacking. Don't get me wrong, I do still enjoy it, and I'm even hatching a scheme to get my current jr. high group to watch it (since many of them have never seen it at all!). But if I were showing this to my own children, I'd make sure to talk to them about some true reasons to "keep your chin up", rather than just not wanting to let others know you're sad. And about being able to talk about things when they ARE sad. Well, that's all a moot point anyway, I reckon. All in all, one of the best days I could've possibly had. I spend far too many beautiful days sitting indoors. I really do miss the roof of my old house, where I could crawl out the kitchen window and sit on the roof staring at the oak tree and all the activities happening within it, reading books, looking at clouds, talking with friends, basking in moonlight. There's just nothing like having a roof to sit on. I sure spent a great deal of time outside those two summers. This summer, though, there's so much more fun to be had, between riding horses, waterskiing, music festivals, jr. high camp and event days, and taking various chilluns to swimming pools. There's also hiking and other nature-enjoyment-activities, and there're those lazy summer afternoons making flower jewelry with young and still-not-cynical children that refresh my own more trusting and innocent side. Oh, how glad I am that I moved to Virginia. How very, very glad.
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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." |
