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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Wednesday, September 18, 2002
It's interesting how blogger used to be one of the first things I did when I got online each time, and now I end up with a few online sittings between blog entries. Hmm.
I think that stress has influenced my life in a number of ways, and this lack of blogging is a bigfat part of that. But the stress is moving back towards its lower stages now, methinks, which means I'll be less out-of-character any day now. What I mean by that is that I've been doing very uncharacteristic things, like leaving lights on or forgetting to lock my car downtown. I've been forgetting about appointments written in my planner, too, including this morning's date with my students' See You at the Pole rallys. I'd committed to joining some of my girls (and some of the boys that go to the same school) at one particular school, and at some point yesterday completely forgot that that was today. So I stayed with a friend last night, also neglecting to check my voice mail, which would have thus reminded me about today as the home-schooled girl I was gonna take called and left a msg about it, and slept right on through See You at the Pole (which would make this the first time since 5th grade that I didn't participate, if I recall correctly). So, I look forward to the moment when my stress levels are back down and I'm back to my normal, turning-lights-off-and-keeping-my-word self again. Meanwhile, when I first started blogging, I got quite into it and let everyone I knew know about my blog. Then, at the revelation from a friend, my excitement dwindled slightly. See, the original purpose of my blog in my own mind was to post everything in a central location instead of having to post the same thing a few times on different msg boards, and instead of having to tell the same story (or same defenses, excuses, whatever) over and over to various online friends and relations. When my friend told me that reading my blog made him feel like we were keeping in touch and thus he didn't actually keep me updated on his own life, because he simply forgot we weren't having conversations, I realized one of the biggest negative impacts that blogging would have on my life. Recently, I came across another. I've been hesitant to write about this, and I'm sure I don't have to explain why. I mean, writing about what people do when they read your blog to people that read your blog is kinda a strange thing, eh? But I've also decided that I can't not express to the rest of you what's on my mind, and that I can't not do myself the favor of getting it out in the way most necessary to my well-being. So, here's the thing. Another idea behind blogging is to be known, to allow others inside your head (depending on the format and content of your blog, of course) and to meet new people that read about all the shenanigans you may post about. About a month ago, I had a long-time local friend -- who now lives in another state and reads my blog -- tell me that she's upset about some certain aspects of my current life, and in that conversation she used the phrase, "you're not like anyone I've ever known." When I first met Sally (fake name, of course), I had just moved here to town and she was friends with the girls I was moving in with. My very first day here, Sally brought me to her place for lunch, and we hit it off. Over the next couple of years, we became very good friends, and shared a lot of trials together. I have more memories with Sally than prolly anyone else here in town, despite that she wasn't an actual roommate (though she was an "honorary roommate", as we called it, since it seemed like she did live in the big house) and that she's been out-of-state (except for a few small visits) for the past year plus. Over the past three and a half years since we met, Sally and I have, of course, butted heads on a few issues and have both realized that we're not exactly like eachother. Indeed, I've never thought that I was much like anyone anyone's ever known. But it seems to me that her reading of my blog has made this difference that much more apparent, and perhaps has enhanced it to the point where it almost seems like too wide a gap. I don't think I'm different in a way that demands constant judgement or inquiry. I think that I think differently, I assume differently, and I behave differently, but also that some of these differences might actually be a GOOD thing. In my sociology class, we're talking about (brace yourselves, you'd never see this one coming) socialization right now. The movie Nell was used as an example, and the class discussion (it's an online class, so discussions are posted on the Blackboard system) brought up questions about conformity and how socialized is socialized, etc. I think that I am a socialized person as much as I really want to be, but I also hold tight to certain ways of thinking that I particularly appriciate and even think should be found more in society. Most of these ways are the same ideas for which my roommates used to call me a commune-ist (not to be confused with a political party, a commune-ist is one that would be more at home in a commune environment than in a house with 6 other girls that don't really like sharing and don't really like agreeing), but some of them are just plain different. When I read the Rich Mullins biography, I saw myself a lot in those descriptions. If you haven't read it yet, you may wanna skip this paragraph 'till you do read it. If you have, I saw myself particularly in the story about him calling some folks he'd met in FL to use their shower, and then he left right afterwards, and they were surprised because they figured he'd stick around and talk. To them, it was more of a social outing, to him it was just a shower. I don't see things in the way our society generally does. I don't know a lot of the protocol for when you're expected to do what and how and with whom. I saw myself in all the other related stories of Rich just not fitting in in the sense that he simply thought differently. I didn't teach myself to think like this, I just do. So anyway, having this person that has known me for three and a half years and maybe knows me better than any local friend (I'd say my online friends have always known the real me better, and add to that the fact that several of you have known me for 5 or more years, as opposed to three and a half max for anyone up here) react to me as if she's meeting a whole new person while reading my blog has made me realize that maybe I'm not as much myself in person as I always thought I was. Or maybe I am and people just use their own stereotypes to remember and forget what fits with how they think I should be? Either way, it was a strange experience. And at the very same time, I've had a few experiences where I think maybe I don't fit in at the coffeehouse as much as I thought I did. Not that I thought I was "like" the other folks there (I've already mentioned that I know I'm not really normal, and also that many of the foundational beliefs, including Christianity, vary greatly within the group down there) but simply that they're all friends and I thought I was, too, and I think I still am in a way. But there's the fact that I'm one of the few girls in the group, and one of the only ones that hangs out to the wee hours, and there's the fact that I'm one of the only Christians, and the fact that I'm all about not having too many conversations go the way of the buffalo.. er.. I mean, revolve around not-so-g-rated subjects. So I always just figured "different strokes for different folks" and all that, but there were enough different comments made over the weekend that I'm not so sure I'm really as much a part of the crew down there as I thought I was anymore. But again, once I'm less stressed (which will be soon, because I think I have a job .. should know by Friday .. and because even if I don't, I'm financially stable for the next two months now thanks to my Pell Grant refund check coming last week, and I think finances were the primary source of stress lately) I should be able to figure out exactly what's going on with who I am and where I belong and all that. Then again, it's the eternal struggle, isn't it? Finding a place to belong, finding people we fit in with, not feeling outside when we're still seperated from God? Perhaps I just need to get again to the point where I'm not worried about having groups of friends that really know me, but instead seeking to develop my walk with God further and truly know Him and continue to long for the day when I'll be with Him and will no longer be lonely. "And if I weep, let it be as a man who is longing for his Home." -- Rich Mullins, If I Stand.
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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." |
