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, August 16, 2002
I'm at one of the local libraries now, since the campus is closed today. When I first got on, the guy sitting at the computer next to this one looked over when I started typing an email, and even moved his chair over so that he could see how quickly the words were appearing on the screen. Ok, I know that I type quickly, and I know that to people that didn't have mothers with home computers that could type over 100 wpm, it's a really different experience to see or hear someone that can type almost that fast. However, there is still the concept of politeness and not reading someone's email just to see how quickly they can type it. I looked over to acknowledge that I knew he wasn't trying to be offensive, and he started laughing and using choice expletives to express his amazement. Oh, that's better.
He left, and two girls sat down at that computer. I was at this time checking my hotmail account and hoping that no one was basing their first impression of me on the list of spam emails I was deleting from my inbox and junk mailbox at that moment. The girls (probably in their early to mid twenties, and apparently skilled with computers but not seeming to be very well educated otherwise) started talking (loudly enough, mind you, especially since this IS a library) about the pictures they were looking at one what may have been a singles site or what may have been a little less kosher than that. "Oooh, he's fine! No, look at his face.. with the side profile, he's gorgeous, but in the front it's nasty." The girl at the keyboard was probably from this area, and I'd imagine the other girl was as well .. however, her accent sometimes sounded like various parts of Africa and sometimes like Brooklyn and sometimes like she could have been from almost any other area of this great world. The guy at the computer on the other side of them finally requested that he not hear every bit of their conversation, at which point the ghetto pride in these girls jumped up and started biting everyone in the rear. "Oh no you just di'..'n'!" (If you've never heard the ebonics attitude version of didn't, you maybe can't undestand why I spelled it that way, intenetionally. It's worth hearing, though. I think any foreigner, any extra-terrestrial if such exist, would know EXACTLY what this person was saying from the attitude shown in the lack of enunciation as well as the head roll and the facial expressions.) "Don't snap at him, girl .. he should be mad because we're talkin' about how fine these guys are and he's not fine at all." I nearly burst out laughing, as I would have if it weren't for the healthy fear for my life, when the girls started going off about how people don't have enough respect these days and such. Hypocricy runs rampent in every part of our society, and I'd imagine others as well, because people are inherently selfish and self-focused. We refuse to realize things that we are doing that are inconsiderate to other people, but when a person jumps into our kingdom, our boundaries, and our personal space, we get rather upset and defensive, and we KNOW that a wrong has been done. Lord, please help me to always be aware of the boundaries and needs of others, and not to be inconsiderate towards other people for any reason. Not to be walked all over, but not to take advantage of others, either. On that note, readers, another venting. One of my sort-of friends from here in town, who I've known for the nearly all the time I've lived here, got involved last year in some new program that's sweeping the nation for easy money. Now, the program itself seems like enough of a scam for me to already not want to get involved. Then you look at the fact that sure, they pay their employees, and maybe they really do fulfill the service they offer. However, even if both those conditions are true, the whole premise of it is still taking advantage of people, preying on the fears that have arisen in the modern-American, never-accept-responsability society in which we live. This program is some sort of pre-paid legal services program, basically an insurance for legal issues. The sales-pitch is very much in line with an insurance program, even using the car, medical, life, and other insurance policies that many people have to justify the need for legal insurance. Personally, I'm really sick of the way that America has turned to law suits to remind ourselves that we're alive. I'm sick of the way that we think of every slip or stumble as a chance to get rich. I'm sick of how every accident that happens at someone's home brings fear to them about insurance companies hassling them for money, and maybe even having significant financial difficulty or not being at peace when any guest is at their home. Therefore, I dispise this pre-paid legal program with a passion, because it preys on all of these fears, and it adds to the excuse. "Well, since everyone's get law insurance these days anyway, I can go ahead and sue because then they'll at least get what they paid for." Not that that thought will often run through heads, but our subconcious ideas have an amazing part in our decisions, and I think that may be an idea deep in the subconcious trenches of many minds. I know it factors into other areas, like in a car accident. "It was my fault, really, or it was no one's fault, but I'm gonna insist that it was the other person's fault anyway because they have insurance to pay for it and that's better than me paying for it or having my own insurance rates go up." Apart from how much I hate this program in general with a passion, it also just so happens that this sort-of friend only has contact with me regarding this program. He doesn't call to say hi. He doesn't email to see how I'm doing. He sends packets with tapes telling about the program and letters asking me to "help review this tape" and emails telling me about how the company's stock as gone up and such, and that's the only communication I have with him these days. His wife, who was once one of my roommates, and through whom I know this fellow, has no communication with me whatsoever, as is the case between her and most of the other old friends and roommates as well. So it's very frustrating, because I feel like the only interest that he/they has/have in me is as a potential client and/or networking sales booster or something. The program has a pyramid scheme with salespeople, too, which means that a person can feasably make all their money just be convincing other people that they can make money as a salesperson. In other words, I could sign up, and then I could convince three people to sign up under me, let them do all the work, and I'll make a hefty living from that. Again, taking advantage of people. So anyway, I can't feel used because there's nothing to use me for, but I certainly don't feel appriciated. I've told them so, too, but that hasn't stopped or changed our communication. I think the next step is to say "I want to hear about your personal lives, I want to keep in touch, but I don't want to hear another word about this program, ever." And if they continue, I guess I'd just have to cut off contact. That's a sad thought, but I guess it'd be better than having only enough contact to know that they're alive and not respecting my wishes. It's all about respect and consideration. Nearly everything is. Every interaction we have with other people. Ah, if only these were more common in our world.
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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." |
