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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Tuesday, July 02, 2002
This has been one of the most eventful weeks of my life.
On friday, I started a new semi-regular/frequent babysitting job. Emily is nearly a year old, and is learning to walk, having never crawled. She is an extremely mild-mannered baby, only crying when put down for naps, and then not for long. She has these hilarious facial expressions that I absolutely love, and she's never difficult to watch. I've had the pleasure of watching her as part of groups before, such as for the women's Bible study and other church meetings, but this was the first time with her solo. I was there from 8am (yikes!) through 4pm, and then stayed to chat with her parents for a while after that. As per normal during such a long stay, she did at one point release waste products into her daiper, which meant that I changed her daiper. For the first time in all my babysitting history, years of babysitting babies and toddlers (along with older kids, but they don't wear daipers, so it's not relevent to this thought), I changed a daiper. How I made it this long without is an interesting question to which I certainly do not know the answer, but Friday was my first. And not a bad one, at that. So then Saturday I went up to the house on the river that I love so much and to which I often go to water-ski and such. And we did. Along with the water-skiing and canoeing as per usual, though, I also drove the jet-boat for the first time, and then drove the ski-boat (a regular boat, much different to drive than the jet-boat) for the first time. It was so great. Plus, me learning to drive that boat meant that Bob could finally go water-skiing, which was his first time in a while. And it means that in the future, he's gonna be able to go more often on our house church's excursions up that way. This makes me happy, because I always felt horrible at how he extended himself and his gifts to allow others to water-ski and tube and such, without getting to go himself. After all the water-skiing, we went inside and had dinner. There were four of us still there at this time: Bob, Rachel, Ena, and myself. After dinner, we went back down to the river (there is no van there for me to live in, though) and got back on the boat to do some tubing. To make a long story much shorter because it's 3:50 am and I'm starting an 8-hour drive in 6 hours --- Bob was driving, Rachel and I were on one tube, and Ena was on a little stunt tube. The regular tube is big and round and very full, while the stunt tube is little and more triangular and short/flat and not quite so full. So we collided and her tube basically just went *under* ours, instead of bouncing off as a round tube would have done. I was on her side of our tube, so I fell onto her tube when ours flipped over, and then fell in-between the two, getting caught up with the ropes in the process. To the point where the rope holding the stunt-tube broke. So at this point, I'm under water, tangled up in a rope so completely that I can't move, and there are two people and two tubes (not in that order) between me and the surface. The rope was around my arms, around my head, tangled in my hair, around my legs, around my waist.. and worst of all, around my neck. If it hadn't snapped, it would have been significantly more damaging, even though Bob cut the engine as soon as he saw the collision. I could feel it choking me, but there was nothing I could do. It's truly amazing how many thoughts can go through your head in a matter of seconds. Fortuntely, I had my life-vest on, as everyone always does when skiing or tubing or otherwise being towed by Bob's boat. And as I always will whenever doing those activities, even if the boat driver doesn't require it .. just like wearing my seat belt in any car. So anyway, it was the life-vest that brought me to the surface, at which point I could breathe (ah, what a wonderful feeling!) and could eventually move enough to get the rope away from me. I've never wanted something away from me so badly, and that includes stinging insects and such. The feeling of it in my hair (detangling that mess was quite difficult) and the sensation of it that remained around my neck even after the rope was gone were so horrible that I felt sick just thinking about it. Finally, the rope was gone and I made my way to the ladder on the boat. Bob, Rachel, and Ena had been watching with much concern, and we'd all been talking during this time about what had happened. Bob had also taken the stunt tube out of the water and deflated it, because we'd obviously not be using it anymore that evening. So I opted to ride on the boat while Ena and Rachel rode the tube together, and as I climbed up the ladder, Rachel said I had some rope-burn on my neck. Sure enough, there's still a decent-sized spot of it left now, which I can feel when I move. And there's another along my left shoulder/arm-joint, and along the back of my right shoulder is a welt. There are bruises all over my arms and legs, and my left ear (the left side being the side that got the most impact) felt like it had been torn clean off, but instead is just sensitive, sore, and a little wounded. No blood spilled, but plenty of pain. Despite all that, though, as soon as Ena and Rachel realized that an 80 lb. rider and a 120+ lb. rider riding at the same time doesn't really make for good balance and thus good tubing (that is, they had quite the wipe-out while I was in the boat) I went ahead and got right back on for a solo ride, which lasted some time and I caught a fair amount of air and they were very entertained watching from the boat. I had two more close encounters with the water, in which I did hurt my neck a little and bruise my legs worse and (between the crashes and the tubing itself) use muscles I've prolly never used before .. but I had a wonderful time. "You gotta get right back on the horse, you know." After I decided I was done, Rachel and Ena each rode solo before it got too dark, and then we headed back in and home. The following morning, I went to church early (as all our church members were doing) so that we could see of the Kazahkstan church-planting team. Some will be gone for 6 weeks, Chris will be gone for a year, Trish for two years, and at the end of the summer another family will be leaving for four years or longer. I didn't cry, but I almost did. These are some of my closest friends, going for the rest of the summer, and two of my closer friends for even longer than that. Directly after church, I filled up my gas tank, bought the obligatory Jones Soda (Cream Soda this time, though the Sheetz I went to also was carrying Fufu Berry, Green Apple, and one other flavor that day), and started my 8 hour drive to here in Cincinatti. I'm staying at my friend Care's house, and had dinner with her as well as Sharon and Kristin tonight at O'Charley's. We then regrouped at her house for some more hangout time, and I baked shortbread, and we listened to CD's. And Sharon and Kristin have long since gone home, and Care's long-since gone to bed, and I'm still up because I wanted to catch up on my online life before heading away again. This time, I'm going to Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL. I'll be working at the True Tunes booth some, especially in the mornings/noonhour, so stop by and say hi if you happen to be there. On my way home from that, I'll be swinging through Nashville. Hopefully, this will be another ghetto-budget trip. Did I mention that I spent all of $5 in CA? Of course, ghetto-budget trips rely on the financial graciousness of other people, without whom I would not have been able to spend so little.. and this trip is no exception. But it needs to be significantly limited, 'cause I've still gotta make it home and then pay the remainder of my rent once I get back. So anyway, I'm off for the next week and a half, most likely. Might be able to get on a little in Nashville, at least long enough to let ya'll know I made it safe. Even so, I won't be on much, and that won't be 'till at least Sunday or Monday. May God bless you and keep you in the meantime.
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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." |
