Sing now, ye people of the Tower of [the Sun],
for the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever,
and the Dark Tower is thrown down.
Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard,
for your watch hath not been in vain,
and the Black Gate is broken,
and your King hath passed through,
and he is victorious.
Sing and be glad, all ye children of the West,
for your King shall come again,
and he shall dwell among you
all the days of your life.
And the Tree that was wither shall be renewed,
and he shall plant it in the high places,
and the City shall be blessed.
Sing all ye people!
{the tiding of the Eagle, from Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien}
And glorious shall be that day! For as Ioreth of Gondor said, "The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known."
"But to you who fear My name,
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings..."
{Malachi 4:2a}
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.
Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'"
{Revelation 21:4-5a}
"And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
{Revelation 22:1-2}
31.12.10
24.12.10
Obligatory Cheer
Today has been one of the more wonderful Christmas Eves out of those that I can recall, although of course nothing beats the childhood sense of delirious excitement. Then again, Christmas Eve always meant the dreadful tedium of cleaning to be done in preparation for the greater delight of Christmas Day itself, and really all that made it worthwhile to my child's mind was that in the chill of the morning we would wake up to sticky buns, hot chocolate, and the wonderful tree with all of its attendant joys. If those were the things that mattered, who really cared if the piano legs were dusted and the bathroom smelled like Pine Sol? But Mother knows best...
These days, the tree is fake and doesn't smell quite as glorious as they once did (although it also doesn't shed or require watering, as my mother would probably point out), the family is harder to accumulate into the less cramped quarters of our remodeled living room, and instead of a big meal, we're having a large-ish breakfast prepared by yours truly and a soup and sandwich lunch that is neither ham nor lamb nor any of those large racks of meat that traditionally form the centerpiece. And yet, as I said, this has been one of my favorite Christmas Eves to date. It may be cliche and perhaps you, like myself, will have a spontaneous desire to play the Charlie Brown Christmas theme song, but honestly, it is all about relationships.
We celebrate the birth of our savior with the cheeriness of red and the living, peaceful hues of greenery. That most precious birthday of all, worth every second of preparation, but not requiring it, because what that birth, life, death, and resurrection have given us is beyond all of the shopping, baking, melee, and madness... It's the eternal love of eternal beings who set aside time out of the hustle and bustle to grow warm together, to sing, to make merry and mayhap even get a little too merry with the eggnog.
Perhaps, like Martha, we are all too inclined to get caught up in the preparations because we want to honor our friends and family with the best. But let us also, like Mary, be willing to pause midstride to hug one of those friends or family members, and simply rest with them. I spent the first half of my day at work, making lattes, brewing coffee, and running orders, but I did all of that with some of my favorite people in the whole world. The candlelight service that I will be going to tonight with a close and dear friend, though filled with the glory of traditional Christmas hymns and the light of the Christ child, will not be any more meaningful than those few hours spent ruining my knees and laughing with my coworkers, for it is those latter moments that give meaning and fullness to the former ones.
May your day also be full of glad tidings, good cheer, and people whom you love. Merry Christmas!
These days, the tree is fake and doesn't smell quite as glorious as they once did (although it also doesn't shed or require watering, as my mother would probably point out), the family is harder to accumulate into the less cramped quarters of our remodeled living room, and instead of a big meal, we're having a large-ish breakfast prepared by yours truly and a soup and sandwich lunch that is neither ham nor lamb nor any of those large racks of meat that traditionally form the centerpiece. And yet, as I said, this has been one of my favorite Christmas Eves to date. It may be cliche and perhaps you, like myself, will have a spontaneous desire to play the Charlie Brown Christmas theme song, but honestly, it is all about relationships.
We celebrate the birth of our savior with the cheeriness of red and the living, peaceful hues of greenery. That most precious birthday of all, worth every second of preparation, but not requiring it, because what that birth, life, death, and resurrection have given us is beyond all of the shopping, baking, melee, and madness... It's the eternal love of eternal beings who set aside time out of the hustle and bustle to grow warm together, to sing, to make merry and mayhap even get a little too merry with the eggnog.
Perhaps, like Martha, we are all too inclined to get caught up in the preparations because we want to honor our friends and family with the best. But let us also, like Mary, be willing to pause midstride to hug one of those friends or family members, and simply rest with them. I spent the first half of my day at work, making lattes, brewing coffee, and running orders, but I did all of that with some of my favorite people in the whole world. The candlelight service that I will be going to tonight with a close and dear friend, though filled with the glory of traditional Christmas hymns and the light of the Christ child, will not be any more meaningful than those few hours spent ruining my knees and laughing with my coworkers, for it is those latter moments that give meaning and fullness to the former ones.
May your day also be full of glad tidings, good cheer, and people whom you love. Merry Christmas!
16.12.10
Curve
What does it take
to make
restoration?
No Beowulf weregild this-
what money could repay?
could hope to furnish bliss
when night o'ertakes the day?
I would if I could, oh,
is there nothing I can give?
When you have dropped,
- suspended -
in the arms of Love caught,
the space beneath feels immense.
But...
You're in better hands than mine;
And still I would give anything
to see you smile once more.
to make
restoration?
No Beowulf weregild this-
what money could repay?
could hope to furnish bliss
when night o'ertakes the day?
I would if I could, oh,
is there nothing I can give?
When you have dropped,
- suspended -
in the arms of Love caught,
the space beneath feels immense.
But...
You're in better hands than mine;
And still I would give anything
to see you smile once more.
11.12.10
The Power of a Story
This morning I awoke with a plan. Go to Panera, get bagels for an afternoon brunch with Joy and Sunshine, and then hang out and work on my Strategy for Transformation there. All was going well right up to the very last part, which I was fully prepared to do, had all of my thoughts clear in my head by some miracle, had some great sources in mind... And then I read the requirements page and realized that since I had last read it, I had completely changed around the nature of the project and so my lovely ideas were useless and would have to be abandoned by the wayside.
Which doesn't help, because not only did I like my idea, but I also have no clue what I'm going to say for the paper and my heart hurts a little bit at having to abandon a preshus. So I thought I'd exorcise that particular brainchild by writing about it here.
When I was in high school, I was always the student in math class who passed with flying colors but wrestled with things because I wanted to know what the point of them was. Why do sine and cosine even matter, and who came up with them anyway? How did they come up with them? Are they flawless concepts that are seamlessly applicable in realistic circumstances or are they theoretical constructs that almost overlap with reality to the degree that they are useful but with holes and patched bits?
The high schooler graduated and went to IMPACT 360. There she had a teacher named Charles Thaxton, who taught about the relationship between God and science and had written a book on the topic called The Soul of Science. She borrowed the book from a teacher and read it over the course of the summer, overjoyed to discover that it talked about the history and thought progression of natural philosophy at its birth and subsequent refinement into specialized areas of study like physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology. So many pieces were clicking into place, so many things made sense when placed within the overall context of history. And so she was able to rest her mind a little in the comfort of knowing that everything wasn't based on completely arbitrary philosophical constructs from a bunch of disembodied brains.
One of the things that we have lost over the years is a sense of the interwoven connections between all things. We have such clearly defined lines drawn between the various disciplines to the degree that we grow up with a sense that there couldn't possibly be an intersection between mathematics and literature. Obviously there's a sort of person who likes the one and an altogether different sort of person who likes the other. But we forget that all things are born out of minds that interpret the world with a perspective or, in the recently glamorous terminology, a worldview. Because of this, a mathematician and an author might have a surprising amount in common that we can only know if we are willing to consider critically what they have composed and follow it to its logical origins.
A lecturer recently commented on the differences between linear and story-based teaching. It was a passing statement, but it struck me because it helped to unite some questions that had been revolving through my head for the past several years. I did well in every subject in high school (except P.E., but even then I made passing grades), and people would always ask me what my favorite class was. Depending on my mood or the teacher, it could be history one day, pre-calculus the next, chemistry, government and politics, or any number of others. The one that almost always made the top of the list was literature, but by a narrow margin and mostly because I loved to read. But my appetite for books is not limited to fiction, as my book list for the year illustrates. Out of 49 full-length books that I've completed, 28 are non-fiction on topics ranging from grief to sex education to the life and times of Paul Revere.
Still, my literature teachers always commended me for my essays and insights, so I thought with a mental shrug that it was as good a path to pursue as any. But one of them made a comment that, when tied with what Jason said about stories, makes sense of my education. She said that in her ninth grade class they had been reading Elie Wiesel's Night... "And Moshe the Beadle, the poor barefoot of Sighet, talked to me for long hours of the revelations and mysteries of the cabbala. It was with him that my initiation began. We would read together, ten times over, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by heart, but to extract the divine essence from it." When they read those lines, she said that she had finally found a student who was like that, meaning me.
There are two aspects to my revelation. The first is that the unifying factor in all of my classes and in all of my learning was Truth. I am hungry to know it in all its forms, and that often takes the form of playing Hide and Seek with God. All truth is God's Truth, because it is out of and a part of His nature and being. As such, we embrace truth wherever we find it. But one of the most beautiful and ancient methods of transmitting truth is through story. A story illustrates a truth about life that is a far more effective teacher than writing a dry, individual, summarized and synthesized concept up on the whiteboard and expecting bored, disconnected students to understand it.
My broad and apparently misguided strategy for transformation in the area of education (which, now that I think about it, could possibly be tweaked for my paper) was the reconnection and integration of various disciplines together so that they form a fuller picture of the world around us. The primary connection with story is that our history is a story. And just as a body does not function or even look like a body when all the pieces are dissected and bottled up in different parts of the laboratory, so history does not fulfill its function or even look like the real story of our past unless all the pieces are put back together. (To clarify my terms: all learning is historical in that the facts and concepts that we learn were discovered, synthesized, or otherwise composed at a historical point by people whose lives covered a historically grounded span of time with various influencing factors)
Can you tell that I have changed my eventual major to humanities? I once said on a college application that I want to know everything, but I'll settle for as much as possible. It's still true.
Which doesn't help, because not only did I like my idea, but I also have no clue what I'm going to say for the paper and my heart hurts a little bit at having to abandon a preshus. So I thought I'd exorcise that particular brainchild by writing about it here.
When I was in high school, I was always the student in math class who passed with flying colors but wrestled with things because I wanted to know what the point of them was. Why do sine and cosine even matter, and who came up with them anyway? How did they come up with them? Are they flawless concepts that are seamlessly applicable in realistic circumstances or are they theoretical constructs that almost overlap with reality to the degree that they are useful but with holes and patched bits?
The high schooler graduated and went to IMPACT 360. There she had a teacher named Charles Thaxton, who taught about the relationship between God and science and had written a book on the topic called The Soul of Science. She borrowed the book from a teacher and read it over the course of the summer, overjoyed to discover that it talked about the history and thought progression of natural philosophy at its birth and subsequent refinement into specialized areas of study like physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology. So many pieces were clicking into place, so many things made sense when placed within the overall context of history. And so she was able to rest her mind a little in the comfort of knowing that everything wasn't based on completely arbitrary philosophical constructs from a bunch of disembodied brains.
One of the things that we have lost over the years is a sense of the interwoven connections between all things. We have such clearly defined lines drawn between the various disciplines to the degree that we grow up with a sense that there couldn't possibly be an intersection between mathematics and literature. Obviously there's a sort of person who likes the one and an altogether different sort of person who likes the other. But we forget that all things are born out of minds that interpret the world with a perspective or, in the recently glamorous terminology, a worldview. Because of this, a mathematician and an author might have a surprising amount in common that we can only know if we are willing to consider critically what they have composed and follow it to its logical origins.
A lecturer recently commented on the differences between linear and story-based teaching. It was a passing statement, but it struck me because it helped to unite some questions that had been revolving through my head for the past several years. I did well in every subject in high school (except P.E., but even then I made passing grades), and people would always ask me what my favorite class was. Depending on my mood or the teacher, it could be history one day, pre-calculus the next, chemistry, government and politics, or any number of others. The one that almost always made the top of the list was literature, but by a narrow margin and mostly because I loved to read. But my appetite for books is not limited to fiction, as my book list for the year illustrates. Out of 49 full-length books that I've completed, 28 are non-fiction on topics ranging from grief to sex education to the life and times of Paul Revere.
Still, my literature teachers always commended me for my essays and insights, so I thought with a mental shrug that it was as good a path to pursue as any. But one of them made a comment that, when tied with what Jason said about stories, makes sense of my education. She said that in her ninth grade class they had been reading Elie Wiesel's Night... "And Moshe the Beadle, the poor barefoot of Sighet, talked to me for long hours of the revelations and mysteries of the cabbala. It was with him that my initiation began. We would read together, ten times over, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by heart, but to extract the divine essence from it." When they read those lines, she said that she had finally found a student who was like that, meaning me.
There are two aspects to my revelation. The first is that the unifying factor in all of my classes and in all of my learning was Truth. I am hungry to know it in all its forms, and that often takes the form of playing Hide and Seek with God. All truth is God's Truth, because it is out of and a part of His nature and being. As such, we embrace truth wherever we find it. But one of the most beautiful and ancient methods of transmitting truth is through story. A story illustrates a truth about life that is a far more effective teacher than writing a dry, individual, summarized and synthesized concept up on the whiteboard and expecting bored, disconnected students to understand it.
My broad and apparently misguided strategy for transformation in the area of education (which, now that I think about it, could possibly be tweaked for my paper) was the reconnection and integration of various disciplines together so that they form a fuller picture of the world around us. The primary connection with story is that our history is a story. And just as a body does not function or even look like a body when all the pieces are dissected and bottled up in different parts of the laboratory, so history does not fulfill its function or even look like the real story of our past unless all the pieces are put back together. (To clarify my terms: all learning is historical in that the facts and concepts that we learn were discovered, synthesized, or otherwise composed at a historical point by people whose lives covered a historically grounded span of time with various influencing factors)
Can you tell that I have changed my eventual major to humanities? I once said on a college application that I want to know everything, but I'll settle for as much as possible. It's still true.
9.12.10
A Brief Protest
In response to J. Meacham's NYTimes review of Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years...
Courtesy of Salvo 14, Fall 2010
7.12.10
I am Woman
AKA the shirt that gets a lot of comments...
This is just a plug for a very interesting and thought-provoking series written by Salvo journalist and author Robin Philips. For those of you who don't have time to read books like Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty or Girls Gone Mild or any other number of excellent books on modesty, gender, and the messed up sexuality of the modern day, Philips provides some great history and context, as well as dealing with many different facets of the whole shebang. It will take a little while to get through everything, but it's definitely not book length and totally worth reading. I've been tackling one a day for the past few days, and it's doable.
Robin's Readings and Reflections: Gender, Morality, and Modesty (A 6 Part Series)
Just one observation that caught my interest (from part 4: Gender Benders):
"Chivalry is unpopular today precisely because it is an emblem of masculinity among the men who practice it and an emblem of femininity among the women who receive it, even as feminine modesty reminds us that looking at a woman is different than looking at a man."
This is just a plug for a very interesting and thought-provoking series written by Salvo journalist and author Robin Philips. For those of you who don't have time to read books like Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty or Girls Gone Mild or any other number of excellent books on modesty, gender, and the messed up sexuality of the modern day, Philips provides some great history and context, as well as dealing with many different facets of the whole shebang. It will take a little while to get through everything, but it's definitely not book length and totally worth reading. I've been tackling one a day for the past few days, and it's doable.
Robin's Readings and Reflections: Gender, Morality, and Modesty (A 6 Part Series)
Just one observation that caught my interest (from part 4: Gender Benders):
"Chivalry is unpopular today precisely because it is an emblem of masculinity among the men who practice it and an emblem of femininity among the women who receive it, even as feminine modesty reminds us that looking at a woman is different than looking at a man."
6.12.10
Fire and Fragrance Outreach: Team England
 |
| Team England (from left: Joy, Nick, Tyler, Samantha, Derek, Elizabeth, me, and Shannon) |
As I write to you, I am sitting at Panera with my one-on-one (the lovely Elizabeth aka Sunshine) to whom I just retold the story of my coming to Fire and Fragrance. In the retelling of that incredible testimony, I am reminded of how good God is, and how far He will take me if I only give Him the chance.
For those of you who don't know, I have been at a Youth with a Mission discipleship training school called Fire & Fragrance, operated in Harrisburg, PA, in partnership with the Burn 24/7. I am just now wrapping up three months of lecture, so the dts portion of the school is coming to a close. It has been a long twelve weeks, but somehow I feel more refreshed now, even after the grueling climb, than I did coming into the school. We've discussed topics like Biblical worldview, evangelism, the Holy Spirit, intimacy with God, and a host of others, taught by leaders from various ministries around the United States; seen God move in Salem, Massachusetts during the annual Halloween celebration; lived by faith and ministered to approximately 450 people over the course of our three day Faith Journeys; watched flat feet get healed before our eyes; and spent nearly 100 hours in worship and prayer, ministering to the heart of God and proclaiming His will for the earth. It has been incredible to say the least. And they tell me the best is yet to come...
After a week long Christmas break, we will be diving right back into lectures with our School of Revival and Reformation. And finally, in March, we will be leaving for outreach. The entire school will be going to Harvard and Yale together, and then my team is leaving for England in early April in order to minister at Oxford and Cambridge, and in London.
It's hard to describe succinctly all that has gone into the past few months, but if there is one thing that I have learned from a missions-oriented school it is that all the bleakness of the world only serves to highlight the greatness of our God. Our nation is ripe for revival, and I hope to be a part of God's movement and work. Through our outreach, we will be living out that hope.
I am in need of two kinds of support: prayer and finances. I am asking people to partner with me in prayer for the three months of outreach, beginning March 8th and going through May 20th (approx. dates). If you are willing to do so, please let me know and give me your email address. I'll be mailing updates regularly throughout the course of the trip with testimonies and prayer requests.
Regarding finances, the projected cost of the trip is between $4500 and $5000. At present, I have raised $2750 of that amount, but there is still a gap to fill. Please prayerfully consider whether God might be leading you to sow into His kingdom work by helping to lessen the gap. You can either use the Donate button on the sidebar or mail it to University of the Nations (address below) clearly marked for Christy Linder, Fire & Fragrance Harrisburg. Please note that if you choose to use the Paypal option, you will not receive a tax-deductible gift receipt. If I have my facts straight, you should get one if you mail your check to the Kona campus.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers and consideration. I wouldn't be here without others to make it possible, and I am so grateful for everything that has gone into bringing me to this point. If you would like to contact me, you probably found this through my Facebook so you can message me or email me at crlinder09@gmail.com. I welcome any questions or even just the opportunity to chat about life. :)
In Him,
Christy
University of the Nations
75-5851 Kuakini Hwy #433
Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
27.11.10
Tears and Tears Go Hand in Hand
What's the worst sensation you can think of?
Got it?
Okay, imagine that times fifty. That's what separation is like. I hate it. Separation is a form of death that removes someone from reach, from association, communion, and communication. It may not be permanent, but how many times have you said good-bye to someone thinking that it was for a little while, maybe a month at most, maybe only a day... Never to see them again? I didn't think anything of it, the last time I saw Micah. But not too many days later, those last moments meant the world to me.
All this to say, I've done the whole life together, kingdom community thing. And the thing is, it's wonderful. Donald Miller and various other authors have said in one way or another that one of our deepest desires is "to be known and loved anyway." When you live and learn in close quarters, you get naked emotionally, spiritually, etc. in ways that are not even an option in most relationships, and it's a great feeling. Imagine skinny dipping. I've never done it, so I'm imagining with you, but I think of the delicious sense of risk, that spicy edge that makes the air tingle as it enters your lungs mixed with the tang of freedom stolen for a few moments. Do you dare? To be so exposed is to take a chance.
"But the nautical like all things fades..." and eventually everyone says good-bye. Sometimes it's forever. Literally. Who do you know who is not a Christian? When you bid them adieu, know that there is always the possibility that you will never ever see that person again in this life or the next. Suddenly every last second counts. Sometimes it's only for a day, a week, a month, a year, and then sweet reunion. But it's only a postponement of the inevitable longer separation.
To those of you who have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior: I am glad that He saved you. Someday I will shed no more tears over the space between us. To those of you who have not: I beg you to reconsider the decision you've made. I don't want to know that there will come a good-bye that will not be eventually followed by a hello, for that is a pain that knows no remedy.
Got it?
Okay, imagine that times fifty. That's what separation is like. I hate it. Separation is a form of death that removes someone from reach, from association, communion, and communication. It may not be permanent, but how many times have you said good-bye to someone thinking that it was for a little while, maybe a month at most, maybe only a day... Never to see them again? I didn't think anything of it, the last time I saw Micah. But not too many days later, those last moments meant the world to me.
All this to say, I've done the whole life together, kingdom community thing. And the thing is, it's wonderful. Donald Miller and various other authors have said in one way or another that one of our deepest desires is "to be known and loved anyway." When you live and learn in close quarters, you get naked emotionally, spiritually, etc. in ways that are not even an option in most relationships, and it's a great feeling. Imagine skinny dipping. I've never done it, so I'm imagining with you, but I think of the delicious sense of risk, that spicy edge that makes the air tingle as it enters your lungs mixed with the tang of freedom stolen for a few moments. Do you dare? To be so exposed is to take a chance.
"But the nautical like all things fades..." and eventually everyone says good-bye. Sometimes it's forever. Literally. Who do you know who is not a Christian? When you bid them adieu, know that there is always the possibility that you will never ever see that person again in this life or the next. Suddenly every last second counts. Sometimes it's only for a day, a week, a month, a year, and then sweet reunion. But it's only a postponement of the inevitable longer separation.
To those of you who have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior: I am glad that He saved you. Someday I will shed no more tears over the space between us. To those of you who have not: I beg you to reconsider the decision you've made. I don't want to know that there will come a good-bye that will not be eventually followed by a hello, for that is a pain that knows no remedy.
16.11.10
Lions and Tigers and Bears
The Gospel is like a caged lion. It doesn't need to be defended, it just needs to be let out of its cage.
//Charles Spurgeon//
As we've been talking about evangelism this week, I am convicted by how little I actually speak the love of Jesus into a hungry world. I have spent years of my life learning apologetics, Biblical foundations for everything, and even how to walk in the power of the Spirit. But somehow, I have limited myself to encouraging people who are tired churchgoers, as if all that I have learned is just an emergency exit to be used in time of need.
God doesn't need me to defend His word. Somewhere in the Psalms, we are told to test the word, and when we actually do and live what it says to do and live, things happen. If people really question its effectiveness, hand them a Bible and tell them to test it out. But for them to ever take that step, there has to be the conversation that allows them to question and the handing that enables them to test. How many times do I strike up a conversation with someone I don't know about the weather much less the love of God?
When we declare [the Gospel], we give opportunity for people to come to the King to be saved. When we are silent, we have chosen to keep those who would hear away from eternal life.
//Bill Johnson//
We are Heaven's gatekeepers. Will you open the door?
//Charles Spurgeon//
As we've been talking about evangelism this week, I am convicted by how little I actually speak the love of Jesus into a hungry world. I have spent years of my life learning apologetics, Biblical foundations for everything, and even how to walk in the power of the Spirit. But somehow, I have limited myself to encouraging people who are tired churchgoers, as if all that I have learned is just an emergency exit to be used in time of need.
God doesn't need me to defend His word. Somewhere in the Psalms, we are told to test the word, and when we actually do and live what it says to do and live, things happen. If people really question its effectiveness, hand them a Bible and tell them to test it out. But for them to ever take that step, there has to be the conversation that allows them to question and the handing that enables them to test. How many times do I strike up a conversation with someone I don't know about the weather much less the love of God?
When we declare [the Gospel], we give opportunity for people to come to the King to be saved. When we are silent, we have chosen to keep those who would hear away from eternal life.
//Bill Johnson//
We are Heaven's gatekeepers. Will you open the door?
13.11.10
Kick Drum Heart
There's nothing like finding gold
Within the rocks hard and cold
I'm so surprised to find more
Always surprised to find more
I won't look back anymore
I've left the people that do
It's not the chase that I love
It's me following you
{The Avett Brothers}
Within the rocks hard and cold
I'm so surprised to find more
Always surprised to find more
I won't look back anymore
I've left the people that do
It's not the chase that I love
It's me following you
{The Avett Brothers}
9.11.10
Dreaming Awake
Something that has been burning in my heart a lot over the past weekend is a desire to see lukewarm Christians catch fire for God. We took a little evaluation thing this morning that was supposed to indicate what influences our thought processes, and one of the categories on the scale was called "moderate Christianity." Something in me rebels at that word... moderate. Everything in moderation, but never our love for God. Let us be cautious in all things, but in this let us leap from the cliff tops and soar on wings like eagles.
We are like a race of sleeping giants who dream ourselves to be the weakest of men and never awake to know and walk in the power we were born with. When we pursue Him apathetically, we fail to realize the power we were born again to know. Jesus Himself said that we would perform greater works than His... What have you done lately?
26.10.10
Where There's Smoke...
What breaks your heart?
Pick a cause, any cause. Slap a catchy slogan on a broken world, accumulate enough Facebook "likes," and change will follow, right?
Wrong.
Maybe it's heretical of me to say this, but it struck me recently that there is one thing that our God who has all things does NOT have. Because He has given us the choice to obey, He has willingly deprived Himself of the worship of those who decide on disobedience. Not that He is incomplete without our worship or in some way lacking, but since the Fall, He has been robbed of His glory.
When you recognize His love and respond to it, something strange happens. You begin to change. The things you once thought were everything... They really aren't so great after all.
"Dear Sir: Regarding your article, "What's Wrong With the World?" I am. Yours truly, G.K. Chesterton"
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
//Gandhi
William Wilberforce, famed English abolitionist, had two aims: the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners. He succeeded in the former, but I think that what he began to capture in the latter was a truth of far greater import: change starts with individual revival and reformation resulting in lovers consumed by desire for God and a will to see Him glorified throughout the world.
The buck starts here.
Pick a cause, any cause. Slap a catchy slogan on a broken world, accumulate enough Facebook "likes," and change will follow, right?
Wrong.
Maybe it's heretical of me to say this, but it struck me recently that there is one thing that our God who has all things does NOT have. Because He has given us the choice to obey, He has willingly deprived Himself of the worship of those who decide on disobedience. Not that He is incomplete without our worship or in some way lacking, but since the Fall, He has been robbed of His glory.
When you recognize His love and respond to it, something strange happens. You begin to change. The things you once thought were everything... They really aren't so great after all.
"Dear Sir: Regarding your article, "What's Wrong With the World?" I am. Yours truly, G.K. Chesterton"
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
//Gandhi
William Wilberforce, famed English abolitionist, had two aims: the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners. He succeeded in the former, but I think that what he began to capture in the latter was a truth of far greater import: change starts with individual revival and reformation resulting in lovers consumed by desire for God and a will to see Him glorified throughout the world.
The buck starts here.
12.10.10
{burning ones}
Psalm 8:4//
What is man that Thou are mindful of him?
If you have never been blasted by anything you've read in the Bible, this verse is a great place to start. Why would a God who created the entire universe for His glory choose not to destroy completely that work when it decided not to give Him glory? As Andy Byrd told us, the greatest injustice in history is not genocide, is not sex trafficking or slavery, is not abortion. It is the fact that God has been robbed of the glory that is owed Him by His creation. If we were completely sold out to glorifying Him, all other injustices would cease to exist. We cannot glorify God and then proceed to debase the image of God in another human being.
Today in class, LCMI pastor Eric Smith said that foundational truths are of utmost importance because the enemy targets foundations. He will even allow a beautiful, perfect house to be built atop that crumbling foundation so long as he can distract us from its decayed state, and in allowing that, he receives greater glory as the beautiful house inevitably falls. But he cannot be forever successful. Many times, yes, he is, but his victory is fleeting.
"Why such hope?" you may be asking. As Chesterton notes in The Everlasting Man, our God isn't the kind of deity who gets overly bothered by death. He has, after all, overcome it and continues to overcome it. When the externally beautiful house of our works crumbles to the ground, as we lie among the ruins of what was fundamentally flawed, there is a breath of cool air that blows away the dust. The glory and power of that Psalm 8 verse is that though Man is nothing that God should be mindful of, yet He IS mindful. It is when we are humbled and brought low that we can hear what He has been saying all along but pridefully chose not to hear: "I loved you first. My thoughts are for you. I have given everything for you. Come as you are, beloved. Build anew, but this time lay your foundation of My undying, unchanging love for you and erect a home for yourself with My glory in mind."
And if you do have a house of works that hasn't crumbled yet, light it on fire. Take the torch of radical love and hold it to all the empty things you have held dear. As John Wesley said, "Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn."
He is longing for a world of burning ones. Are you ready for the fire?
What is man that Thou are mindful of him?
If you have never been blasted by anything you've read in the Bible, this verse is a great place to start. Why would a God who created the entire universe for His glory choose not to destroy completely that work when it decided not to give Him glory? As Andy Byrd told us, the greatest injustice in history is not genocide, is not sex trafficking or slavery, is not abortion. It is the fact that God has been robbed of the glory that is owed Him by His creation. If we were completely sold out to glorifying Him, all other injustices would cease to exist. We cannot glorify God and then proceed to debase the image of God in another human being.
Today in class, LCMI pastor Eric Smith said that foundational truths are of utmost importance because the enemy targets foundations. He will even allow a beautiful, perfect house to be built atop that crumbling foundation so long as he can distract us from its decayed state, and in allowing that, he receives greater glory as the beautiful house inevitably falls. But he cannot be forever successful. Many times, yes, he is, but his victory is fleeting.
"Why such hope?" you may be asking. As Chesterton notes in The Everlasting Man, our God isn't the kind of deity who gets overly bothered by death. He has, after all, overcome it and continues to overcome it. When the externally beautiful house of our works crumbles to the ground, as we lie among the ruins of what was fundamentally flawed, there is a breath of cool air that blows away the dust. The glory and power of that Psalm 8 verse is that though Man is nothing that God should be mindful of, yet He IS mindful. It is when we are humbled and brought low that we can hear what He has been saying all along but pridefully chose not to hear: "I loved you first. My thoughts are for you. I have given everything for you. Come as you are, beloved. Build anew, but this time lay your foundation of My undying, unchanging love for you and erect a home for yourself with My glory in mind."
And if you do have a house of works that hasn't crumbled yet, light it on fire. Take the torch of radical love and hold it to all the empty things you have held dear. As John Wesley said, "Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn."
He is longing for a world of burning ones. Are you ready for the fire?
11.10.10
Like Ten Thousand Sparrows
I think a lot about the future. Not what I'm going to be doing. I have a decent idea of that, and even if I didn't, I could still trust that He who has the whole world in His hands didn't accidentally let me slip through His fingers. But there's a distinct uncertainty that held me back especially at the beginning of this school and that I still feel pushing itself onto the edges of my consciousness as I return from my weekend in New York City.
If I lived no differently before, what is going to prevent this from being a few seconds of passing breath and then nothing more than a return to old ways, old life, old settle-for-less-than-nothing? As the seconds flow like sand from a child's cupped hand, even after one month I have the breathless sense of the impending days after tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow. Days when I don't spend five days a week in the prayer room, and all that has been is not.
Lord, I have done this before. I have believed that I had all the time in the world, only to find that time was broken and all months end. I don't want to tighten my hands into clenched fists, stuck forever on these precious moments when You revealed Yourself to me over and over in a thousand ways every day. Pry apart my fingers if that's what it takes, lay to rest the anger and bitterness, and into my opened palms, uplifted to You, pour out Your Spirit in greater and greater abundance with every passing day. Laying down my will is a small price to pay if it means the greater peace of trusting You.
If I lived no differently before, what is going to prevent this from being a few seconds of passing breath and then nothing more than a return to old ways, old life, old settle-for-less-than-nothing? As the seconds flow like sand from a child's cupped hand, even after one month I have the breathless sense of the impending days after tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow. Days when I don't spend five days a week in the prayer room, and all that has been is not.
Lord, I have done this before. I have believed that I had all the time in the world, only to find that time was broken and all months end. I don't want to tighten my hands into clenched fists, stuck forever on these precious moments when You revealed Yourself to me over and over in a thousand ways every day. Pry apart my fingers if that's what it takes, lay to rest the anger and bitterness, and into my opened palms, uplifted to You, pour out Your Spirit in greater and greater abundance with every passing day. Laying down my will is a small price to pay if it means the greater peace of trusting You.
9.10.10
Freefalling
I've always thought that underneath the panic and the terror, there would be something surreally, heartbreakingly beautiful about jumping off a building. But then, to rephrase Chesterton, it takes a living person to appreciate the beauty of a suicide, if there can even be such a quality to it.
As you fall and know with absolute certainty that your descent will end in death, you feel the rush of wind in your face and rest on air. The immortal dream of man realized: flight.
Today was a strange day. Thanks to the exhaustion of going and going and going for two weeks without break, I, unlike the Energizer Bunny, crashed hard. And I'm fully prepared to go from this blog post straight to bed, so it's not over yet. In part due to that exhaustion, in part due to the overwhelming rawness of the concentrated human misery that I feel in cities like this one, all day I had the sensation of falling down, down, down. Except that in the midst of my beautiful flight, a strange thing happened:
He caught me.
As you fall and know with absolute certainty that your descent will end in death, you feel the rush of wind in your face and rest on air. The immortal dream of man realized: flight.
Today was a strange day. Thanks to the exhaustion of going and going and going for two weeks without break, I, unlike the Energizer Bunny, crashed hard. And I'm fully prepared to go from this blog post straight to bed, so it's not over yet. In part due to that exhaustion, in part due to the overwhelming rawness of the concentrated human misery that I feel in cities like this one, all day I had the sensation of falling down, down, down. Except that in the midst of my beautiful flight, a strange thing happened:
He caught me.
5.10.10
Whispers From the Past
Or not a daydream, but a wish
For miracles of bread and fish;
And more than simply water mine,
I'd like for once to have some wine...
"Beauty in the present is that which foreshadows future renewal."
For miracles of bread and fish;
And more than simply water mine,
I'd like for once to have some wine...
"Beauty in the present is that which foreshadows future renewal."
3.10.10
Life Prep 101
This week has been intense. I mean it. And not always fun intense, either. But it had its moments.
Somewhere between the twelve lectures/sermons that we sat through (and one still to come), the outreach team assignments, the hours of worship, the late night work duties, and the even later night diner runs... I feel like I've been running around like a maniac. We've been at The Fathers Speak conference that the Life Center has had this past week, hearing from men like Che Ahn, Bishop Garlington, Larry Randolph, and finally, Bill Johnson. I've been prayed for by a lot of people, blessed by even more, and prophesied over by a very nice lady who sat next to me on Friday evening. My elbows and lower left side of my back are sore from vacuuming. I haven't found any diamonds, but I rather think that after this morning, God has already showered on me with more than enough.
And at last, I feel like I can finish my end of the summer journal. Perhaps that seems like an odd conclusion to come to after my description of my week, but at last I know for certain that I will be staying at Fire & Fragrance. As I told Sharon (my prophetic lady), October 15th is like a door and I had faith that once I reached it, it would be open, but I was still praying for it to be so. This morning, my dad informed me in what is an absolutely astonishing burst of generosity (he is increasingly so, but generally more with church than with children, which is, in all fairness, quite just), that he was intending to pay the full amount of my outreach as his tithe on a recent inheritance. Since I still have outstanding program fees, I asked if part could first go toward that, and then the remainder of the outreach could be covered through support letters to relatives and church members. But the point is: not only did God provide for the rest of my program costs, but far above and beyond to my outreach as well! Glory to God forever :)
Now that I know where I will be for the next seven months, I think my season of rain is officially over. Or at the very least, the nature of the rain has changed. And so I can seal it off well and finally. Farewell, desert wilderness. Hello, revival fire.
Somewhere between the twelve lectures/sermons that we sat through (and one still to come), the outreach team assignments, the hours of worship, the late night work duties, and the even later night diner runs... I feel like I've been running around like a maniac. We've been at The Fathers Speak conference that the Life Center has had this past week, hearing from men like Che Ahn, Bishop Garlington, Larry Randolph, and finally, Bill Johnson. I've been prayed for by a lot of people, blessed by even more, and prophesied over by a very nice lady who sat next to me on Friday evening. My elbows and lower left side of my back are sore from vacuuming. I haven't found any diamonds, but I rather think that after this morning, God has already showered on me with more than enough.
And at last, I feel like I can finish my end of the summer journal. Perhaps that seems like an odd conclusion to come to after my description of my week, but at last I know for certain that I will be staying at Fire & Fragrance. As I told Sharon (my prophetic lady), October 15th is like a door and I had faith that once I reached it, it would be open, but I was still praying for it to be so. This morning, my dad informed me in what is an absolutely astonishing burst of generosity (he is increasingly so, but generally more with church than with children, which is, in all fairness, quite just), that he was intending to pay the full amount of my outreach as his tithe on a recent inheritance. Since I still have outstanding program fees, I asked if part could first go toward that, and then the remainder of the outreach could be covered through support letters to relatives and church members. But the point is: not only did God provide for the rest of my program costs, but far above and beyond to my outreach as well! Glory to God forever :)
Now that I know where I will be for the next seven months, I think my season of rain is officially over. Or at the very least, the nature of the rain has changed. And so I can seal it off well and finally. Farewell, desert wilderness. Hello, revival fire.
27.9.10
Flying in the Father's Arms
AKA Post #100! I think that's a pretty sweet mark, and therefore, it deserves an excellent topic. Allow me to paint you a story...
Scene One: After church, everyone has melted into pools of that joyful fellowship that follows the service, talking about the week to come and making plans or sharing prayer requests or perhaps simply chasing a child around the room in exasperated love. In the midst of the jumble of glory stands a father. His hands are wrapped around the waist of his tiny daughter, probably no more than three years old, and his face shines upon her. He tosses her up in the air, once, twice, higher, higher, and higher still. Watch her: this is the nearest that we weighty humans have ever come to flight and she will remember the rush of air on her face as if it were the sweet breath of God.
Scene Two: In class this morning, Sean Feucht talks about a life of risk (a "coincidentally" common theme in my life of late...). He prays for a renewal of innocence over us, that pure combination of innocence and naivete that make the faith of a child so simple and yet so trusting.
Scene Three: In the prayer room, surrounded by people kneeling, flat on their faces, being wrecked by God... This is the place of intimacy with our best Love, the One who calls us to live for Him at whatever cost. In this world there will be trouble... But we are His children, and with each breathless "Yes" that we say to Him, He tosses us into the air. How can we fear that He will not catch us? He is the perfect One, and our delight is His delight: we can trust Him. And in that moment of absolute trust, our response can only be one thing: "Higher, Daddy, higher!"
May you fly in your Daddy's arms...
Scene One: After church, everyone has melted into pools of that joyful fellowship that follows the service, talking about the week to come and making plans or sharing prayer requests or perhaps simply chasing a child around the room in exasperated love. In the midst of the jumble of glory stands a father. His hands are wrapped around the waist of his tiny daughter, probably no more than three years old, and his face shines upon her. He tosses her up in the air, once, twice, higher, higher, and higher still. Watch her: this is the nearest that we weighty humans have ever come to flight and she will remember the rush of air on her face as if it were the sweet breath of God.
Scene Two: In class this morning, Sean Feucht talks about a life of risk (a "coincidentally" common theme in my life of late...). He prays for a renewal of innocence over us, that pure combination of innocence and naivete that make the faith of a child so simple and yet so trusting.
Scene Three: In the prayer room, surrounded by people kneeling, flat on their faces, being wrecked by God... This is the place of intimacy with our best Love, the One who calls us to live for Him at whatever cost. In this world there will be trouble... But we are His children, and with each breathless "Yes" that we say to Him, He tosses us into the air. How can we fear that He will not catch us? He is the perfect One, and our delight is His delight: we can trust Him. And in that moment of absolute trust, our response can only be one thing: "Higher, Daddy, higher!"
May you fly in your Daddy's arms...
21.9.10
Clementines and Babies
It's a week later. That's really all I can think to say at this point. So much has happened in the past week that I am overwhelmed just thinking about it. And I'm tired when I attempt to envision the future at the present pace. But there is just enough excitement, just enough confirmation from God that here is right and what He wants for me right now, that I can keep on going. After all, as I have been reminded today, when our foundation is the love of God which is unchanging and everlasting and our purpose is to glorify God as we were created to, the word "sacrifice" has no meaning. Is there anything we can possibly give up that even begins to compare to the greater everything that we receive in Christ?
So yes: I am at Fire & Fragrance. I still need another $900 for the program fees, but God is big enough. And wherever He takes me is where I am going. So if I will leave in a month, I will leave. If I stay, I stay. Either way, I want to give everything I am and learn all that I can in the time that I have here. All the same, I would love to do the outreach... And if this desire is from Him, He will provide.
Where You go I go
What You say I say
What You pray I pray
He pours into us so that we who are empty and unworthy can pour all back to Him in praise.
I know I'm filled to be emptied again...
Lord, empty me of all that I am and fill me with all of You. Mold me into the woman You always meant for me to be. And as You invade, don't stop when I am full, but continue to pour into me so that I will overflow Your radiance onto others.
So yes: I am at Fire & Fragrance. I still need another $900 for the program fees, but God is big enough. And wherever He takes me is where I am going. So if I will leave in a month, I will leave. If I stay, I stay. Either way, I want to give everything I am and learn all that I can in the time that I have here. All the same, I would love to do the outreach... And if this desire is from Him, He will provide.
Where You go I go
What You say I say
What You pray I pray
He pours into us so that we who are empty and unworthy can pour all back to Him in praise.
I know I'm filled to be emptied again...
Lord, empty me of all that I am and fill me with all of You. Mold me into the woman You always meant for me to be. And as You invade, don't stop when I am full, but continue to pour into me so that I will overflow Your radiance onto others.
14.9.10
A Light in the Highest Window
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus
When I am alone
When I am alone
Oh, when I am alone
Give me Jesus
When I come to die
When I come to die
Oh, when I come to die
Give me Jesus
He's faithful to the end...
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus
When I am alone
When I am alone
Oh, when I am alone
Give me Jesus
When I come to die
When I come to die
Oh, when I come to die
Give me Jesus
He's faithful to the end...
A Hundred Laughs for Every Tear
It's Tuesday at last. September 14th has not exactly dawned so much as it has been blackly ushered in by the gradual transitions of the green LED numbers on my alarm clock. And somehow, whatever happens tomorrow (Wednesday, I mean) matters far less to me than where I am right now. How is it that I can have no idea where He is taking me and yet have greater peace than I ever did when the future seemed as precisely delineated as a Mandelbrot set? "I've finally found where I belong," and truly, Lord, it is in Your presence.
I am $4,350 away from going to Fire and Fragrance. Those are the numbers. But sometimes numbers aren't everything.
For instance, a snatched evening with my mentor, the amazing Hayden. Four unexpected hours of conversation at Olive Garden. Our server probably thought we were insane, and we weren't even drinking. But these are the moments we live for. Conversations about everything from the story of Sweeney Todd to the glorification of the bad guy (because, after all, who is to say that his philosophy is of less merit than that of the good guys) to boys to infinity and beyond... Well, infinity might not have been one of the topics, but we definitely went beyond just those.
In Revelations 21:3-4, the loud voice says, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."
To be alive in a fallen world means to experience much pain and travail. "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." (Romans 8:22-23)
Many are the tears of the waiting world, crying out for its redemption, for its true master and the Creator of all to return at last. All is not right and we know it. But this is the grace of our beloved Abba, that for every tear we shed in our finite, numbered lives on earth, we have an eternity of laughter in paradise. Though we are the better for our time in the house of mourning, it is only because we are joined all the closer to Him by uniting with Him in suffering. And someday we shall move from the house of mourning to the city of praise.
To dwell in the house of the Lord forever... And this past day I think He has granted me rest there for these moments. Oh Father, if this is the way, I will walk in it.
I am $4,350 away from going to Fire and Fragrance. Those are the numbers. But sometimes numbers aren't everything.
For instance, a snatched evening with my mentor, the amazing Hayden. Four unexpected hours of conversation at Olive Garden. Our server probably thought we were insane, and we weren't even drinking. But these are the moments we live for. Conversations about everything from the story of Sweeney Todd to the glorification of the bad guy (because, after all, who is to say that his philosophy is of less merit than that of the good guys) to boys to infinity and beyond... Well, infinity might not have been one of the topics, but we definitely went beyond just those.
In Revelations 21:3-4, the loud voice says, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."
To be alive in a fallen world means to experience much pain and travail. "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." (Romans 8:22-23)
Many are the tears of the waiting world, crying out for its redemption, for its true master and the Creator of all to return at last. All is not right and we know it. But this is the grace of our beloved Abba, that for every tear we shed in our finite, numbered lives on earth, we have an eternity of laughter in paradise. Though we are the better for our time in the house of mourning, it is only because we are joined all the closer to Him by uniting with Him in suffering. And someday we shall move from the house of mourning to the city of praise.
To dwell in the house of the Lord forever... And this past day I think He has granted me rest there for these moments. Oh Father, if this is the way, I will walk in it.
10.9.10
When Johnny sings to me...
I ask myself a million times what's right for me to do
To try to lose my blues alone or hang around for you
Well I make it pretty good until that moon comes shinin' through
And then I get so doggone lonesome...
//Johnny Cash//
To try to lose my blues alone or hang around for you
Well I make it pretty good until that moon comes shinin' through
And then I get so doggone lonesome...
//Johnny Cash//
Turning Tides
Inspiring dust clouds,
coughing out of a dry throat,
this is the cycle of the dreary days.
No rain falls
from a sky without promise
to a world parched and dying.
I have packed away my hope
in boxes,
stowed until a better time:
when winter's fingers rise
from the bone chill clay
and fair spring renews the song.
Perhaps then I shall be more brave;
perhaps then your laughter
will light the fireflies again.
6.9.10
The journey of a thousand miles
Proverbs 4:18//
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
That shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
That shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
3.9.10
Am I Crazy?
I ask myself that question every morning when I look in the mirror. I think God is laughing at me again...
Monday found me on my knees again
Breathing You in
To blur the lines that mark where I begin
And where You end
No use trying to pretend
Come take me again
Cause rumor has it I'm not who I've been
Come define me
What can we do
If the rumors are true?
I turn everything over
Turn myself in
I turn everything over
Turn myself in
There's nothing left of me to defend
I turn myself over
Turn myself in
....
Rumor has it You love me
Rumor has it the world spins upside down
Rumor has it my only hope is You
And the rumors are true
I turn everything over
//"I Turn Everything Over" by Switchfoot//
Monday found me on my knees again
Breathing You in
To blur the lines that mark where I begin
And where You end
No use trying to pretend
Come take me again
Cause rumor has it I'm not who I've been
Come define me
What can we do
If the rumors are true?
I turn everything over
Turn myself in
I turn everything over
Turn myself in
There's nothing left of me to defend
I turn myself over
Turn myself in
....
Rumor has it You love me
Rumor has it the world spins upside down
Rumor has it my only hope is You
And the rumors are true
I turn everything over
//"I Turn Everything Over" by Switchfoot//
2.9.10
The day the extended metaphor died
I turn everything over.
...But for the record, I'm sick to death of reasons. In their absence, I could use a little revelation.
...But for the record, I'm sick to death of reasons. In their absence, I could use a little revelation.
1.9.10
Why playing at vegetarianism is a losing game, or...
Carrots.
Proverbs 13:12//
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12//
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
30.8.10
Story
No hero can ever hope to succeed in the final object of his quest without first overcoming the arduous journey.
27.8.10
Kisses and Smoke
Delight is rejoicing in the glory of someone or something that is perfectly who or what it is meant to be.
I love the quiet surprises. A person you know who suddenly reveals a hidden or different side that you never caught because you don't ordinarily draw that out of them. A sweet breath from the heart of one of my grandmother's roses, their seemingly shabbier beauty bestowed hence with an aching grandeur. A customer who catches a joke and tries to play along, someone you've known for years but never connected with until now. A word of grace where none was expected. A ray of light in an otherwise grey sky.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you...
"Who are you?"
This is a question that has meandered in and out of my head, because who we identify ourselves as is so telling. If you ask that question, the average person will say his name. But what if you tell that person that he cannot say his name, what will he identify himself as then? Some might say "the son of _______ " or name their professions. Among my first identifiers, I would probably note my sisters, but it would take a while before I would mention my parents, a quick tell of where I place myself in my family. Sometimes you discover as much by exclusions as by inclusions.
But what I have always wished is for my first and immediate response, sans any hesitation, to be that I am beloved of God. Recently, I got the Hebrew word "yediyd" tattooed on my left wrist. It means "beloved." As Much-Afraid took on a new name when she reached the King's Land and sacrificed all for the Great Shepherd, I feel as if I have taken on a new identity in the hands of my Father. And though I stumble and though I fear and though I walk through the valley of the shadow, I need only be reminded that His love is sufficient, my more than enough.
To be delighted in and to take delight in... Father, be the light of my eyes.
22.8.10
A Cosmic Joke
This morning in church we sang the Cory Asbury song, "My Beloved." The first lines I've quoted in the post below this one, but to refresh: "One thing have I desired of the Lord / That one thing I seek / To know You, (I just want) to know You..." I was struck as I sang that that in reality, that is not the one thing I desire of Him. Many other things, yes, to the degree that I often treat Him like some kind of a vending machine deity; "insert prayer, press button for sought after result." I am ashamed of the extent to which that is true of my relationship with Him, if you can call that a relationship.
But whether I actively seek to know Him or not, He does have a way of revealing Himself to me. Like, for instance, His sense of humor. I've been reminded of that quite a bit recently, mostly because I've come to the conclusion that most of my responses to life's situations are a toss-up between laughing hysterically and bawling my eyes out. Maria would say it's the hormones, but I'm too stubborn to say that my body can affect me that much. Why, you may ask, has God's sense of humor been a particular revelation for me recently?
Pastor Jeff's theme of late has been the modern unfolding of what he calls the prophetic journey of the Israelites. I've referenced one of his sermons before with the whole idea of "There is always a wilderness between the promise and the Promised Land." But something he mentioned today stuck with me because I've been wrestling so much with a sense of powerlessness, and it was this: the Israelites were in the most humbling position possible because they could do absolutely nothing for themselves. They were a million and some strong, and they could not provide food, water, or even direction for themselves. Their clothing didn't wear out. Without their one leader, they descended swiftly into idolatry and its attendant sins. They had lived in slavery their entire lives and they had no fighting skills with which to defend themselves against hostile nations. The point is: they were powerless. God had to do everything for them.
Lately, I've been driven to the point of tears at how completely incapable I am. I can do nothing, it seems, without tripping over my own feet. I do one thing and regret it moments later, then regret my regret. One moment, I think I've caught something of what God is trying to tell me and I am at peace, the next I'm crashing into a wall full speed and head on with no idea how I got there. Sometimes I'm dying to tell somebody that I'm going insane and ask them to help me make sense of the insanity, other times, I wish I didn't blab so much about the train wreck that is my life. This afternoon, I think I managed to figure out my life story in a sensible, clicking fashion, this evening, I'm stuck with the fact that explaining my life doesn't mean that I get to stop living it. Even my body apparently hates me. At least, that's what Maria says, and suddenly, when I felt like a rational, clear-headed individual who made sound decisions, I was hit with the doubt of the possibility that my house of cards was not stacked by the power of physics but rather levitating in a delusion of mind power.
This is the personal application, the bit that I always hated because it meant I had to bs about how I suck and this passage will make it better because... But I guess this isn't bs. I just think God is laughing at me a little bit as He leads me over the same course over and over until I get the bloody point. He's in control, I'm not, and no matter how much I want to be and no matter how much I try to be, it's not going to work.
Disclaimer: the fact that I've written this does not mean that I've figured it out. And yes, as soon as I hit 'publish post' I'm going to wish that I hadn't.
Snapshots and Snippets
"One thing have I desired of the Lord,
That one thing I seek:
To know You, to know You..."
What does it mean to look on the beauty of a God that we cannot see?
"Though weeping endures for the night
Your joy comes in the morning
Though sorrow may last for a time
Your joy comes in the morning
Faithful, You're always faithful
True, You're always true
You'll never leave me, You're always with me
You're good..."
"Hope is a strange thing [.] Something must be close enough to reach for, yet far enough away to chance doubt. Such is the stuff of adventure."
//Cory Asbury, Cory Asbury, and Charles, respectively//
That one thing I seek:
To know You, to know You..."
What does it mean to look on the beauty of a God that we cannot see?
"Though weeping endures for the night
Your joy comes in the morning
Though sorrow may last for a time
Your joy comes in the morning
Faithful, You're always faithful
True, You're always true
You'll never leave me, You're always with me
You're good..."
"Hope is a strange thing [.] Something must be close enough to reach for, yet far enough away to chance doubt. Such is the stuff of adventure."
//Cory Asbury, Cory Asbury, and Charles, respectively//
18.8.10
Embarkation
On our magnetic board, my roommate chelsea kept a magnet that said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Often as I was walking into or out of our room, it would catch my eye and though I rarely paused to give the fairly simple idea much thought, those successive glances have piled one atop the other to cement the phrase into my memory.
Think of every story that has ever inspired you. I bet it didn't go like this one.
Once upon a time there was a very good boy who never did anything that would shame his mother or cause his father to sigh. He woke up with the dawn, industriously completed his chores, excelled in school, followed his parents' life plan for him, married his pre-school sweetheart, and settled down to have 2.4 children and 1.3 cars with a job that provided a satisfactory degree of personal accomplishment and a steady income. One day, he died.
We are not inspired by the ordinary, unless we are acting in revolution against it. Who wants to be that boy, sweet-tempered, docile, and entirely satisfied with life? It is in a healthy form of dissatisfaction that we are inspired to attain to the better story. Beowulf's story, for instance, is not a pretty one. He must travel far, fight monsters that no man of normal means should ever have to face, and survive to fight still others. But we find inspiration in his epic quest because he dared.
There are two armies waging a conflict within us. On the one side, there is the desire for safety, comfort, and pleasure. We want to curl up in bed, pull the blankets over our heads, and stay far from hunger, dirt, or despair. On the other side, there is a fierce need to be a part of the adventure that life could be if we but dared to take risks, go out into the cold and the blazing heat, occasionally suffer want, all with the enduring knowledge that the rewards of a life lived on the cliff's edge will always yield more than the life lived in the armchair.
A friend mentioned that among school children, creativity and imagination are on the decline in a correlation with a decline in time spent out of doors. After all, if they don't have to invent situations for their deeds of derring-do, why should they bother?
As we live a life surrendered to God, we are taking the radical path. Sometimes it feels like we are walking by a precipice in a thick fog and all we have is a quiet voice directing us out of the mist. But in trials we are refined, our creativity, trust, and courage becoming formidable tools as we submit them to Another's purposes. The epic quest a thing of mere fantasy? Perhaps not so much.
Think of every story that has ever inspired you. I bet it didn't go like this one.
Once upon a time there was a very good boy who never did anything that would shame his mother or cause his father to sigh. He woke up with the dawn, industriously completed his chores, excelled in school, followed his parents' life plan for him, married his pre-school sweetheart, and settled down to have 2.4 children and 1.3 cars with a job that provided a satisfactory degree of personal accomplishment and a steady income. One day, he died.
We are not inspired by the ordinary, unless we are acting in revolution against it. Who wants to be that boy, sweet-tempered, docile, and entirely satisfied with life? It is in a healthy form of dissatisfaction that we are inspired to attain to the better story. Beowulf's story, for instance, is not a pretty one. He must travel far, fight monsters that no man of normal means should ever have to face, and survive to fight still others. But we find inspiration in his epic quest because he dared.
There are two armies waging a conflict within us. On the one side, there is the desire for safety, comfort, and pleasure. We want to curl up in bed, pull the blankets over our heads, and stay far from hunger, dirt, or despair. On the other side, there is a fierce need to be a part of the adventure that life could be if we but dared to take risks, go out into the cold and the blazing heat, occasionally suffer want, all with the enduring knowledge that the rewards of a life lived on the cliff's edge will always yield more than the life lived in the armchair.
A friend mentioned that among school children, creativity and imagination are on the decline in a correlation with a decline in time spent out of doors. After all, if they don't have to invent situations for their deeds of derring-do, why should they bother?
As we live a life surrendered to God, we are taking the radical path. Sometimes it feels like we are walking by a precipice in a thick fog and all we have is a quiet voice directing us out of the mist. But in trials we are refined, our creativity, trust, and courage becoming formidable tools as we submit them to Another's purposes. The epic quest a thing of mere fantasy? Perhaps not so much.
15.8.10
Kingdom Sell Out
"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."
//Matthew 13:44//
During the drive to Norristown today, I had the opportunity of bouncing off of Dan a thought that has been developing in my head. It all began on Friday evening when I asked each of my coworkers what it is that makes them feel alive. I was surprised by none of their answers: for Abi, writing; for Ben, music and his wife, Amber; for Lia, being in the midst of God's creation; for Crystal, one-on-one conversations. I've heard it said that the flaws we believe we are hiding so well are actually visible for all the world to see, but I think we are also naked in where our passions lie. We are not merely talented in those areas, but we are brought to life by them.
For me, my passion is for powerful writing and the beautiful paradoxes of God's world. I can literally feel myself light up when I share with someone about Orthodoxy or revel in the delicious irony of Blackwood's death in "Sherlock Holmes." It makes me think of the last lines from the lullaby in Like Water For Chocolate that I shared before: "You are the light of my eyes, my eyes / I'm brought to life by you."
There are two kinds of people in this world. The first group is that variety of people who have sold themselves completely because they know that it is far better to live inside the passion that God has given them, indeed to live, than it is to pursue the things of this world. You know them because they are flourishing, radiant with the rightness of walking in God's perfect will for their lives. One example that comes to mind is one of my church's pastors, Corey. He is genuinely and radically surrendered to God's work, and you will not find anyone more open and honest in his failures or more ebullient and outspoken in his joy. He is the ultimate sell out, and I rather think he'd thank you if you called him that.
The second group are those people who have chosen to cut off the desires God has placed within them because they have bought in to the lie that wealth, health, and the ever-fleeting siren of happiness are the best things in life. They try to fill the empty spaces with flash and glamor, but like a child who digs holes by the seashore to capture the waves, their wants will never be satisfied. They are zombies: the breathing dead.
Going back to the Matthew verse for a moment: what is the kingdom of heaven? I would suggest that it is a potentiality that will one day be actualized in the return and eternal reign of Jesus Christ. However, we are able to recognize some elements of that potentiality in the present. I firmly believe that part of establishing the kingdom on earth is the desperate, sold out pursuit of the purpose God has given each one of us and all of the passions and desires associated with that purpose. Hence, Ben can go into a studio to record a demo, and all of heaven rejoices. Lia is brought to worshipful silence at a perfect ocean vista, and the foundations of hell tremble. Like a pine forest caught up in a drought, all it takes is a small flame to create a roaring fire. We are powerful people when God brings us to life.
The Lord's Spirit calls
He's singing,
"Follow my road to sorrow and joy
Be intertwined
And find
All things are under my wings
And rise
Given time.
//from "Desert Father" by Josh Garrels//
//Matthew 13:44//
During the drive to Norristown today, I had the opportunity of bouncing off of Dan a thought that has been developing in my head. It all began on Friday evening when I asked each of my coworkers what it is that makes them feel alive. I was surprised by none of their answers: for Abi, writing; for Ben, music and his wife, Amber; for Lia, being in the midst of God's creation; for Crystal, one-on-one conversations. I've heard it said that the flaws we believe we are hiding so well are actually visible for all the world to see, but I think we are also naked in where our passions lie. We are not merely talented in those areas, but we are brought to life by them.
For me, my passion is for powerful writing and the beautiful paradoxes of God's world. I can literally feel myself light up when I share with someone about Orthodoxy or revel in the delicious irony of Blackwood's death in "Sherlock Holmes." It makes me think of the last lines from the lullaby in Like Water For Chocolate that I shared before: "You are the light of my eyes, my eyes / I'm brought to life by you."
There are two kinds of people in this world. The first group is that variety of people who have sold themselves completely because they know that it is far better to live inside the passion that God has given them, indeed to live, than it is to pursue the things of this world. You know them because they are flourishing, radiant with the rightness of walking in God's perfect will for their lives. One example that comes to mind is one of my church's pastors, Corey. He is genuinely and radically surrendered to God's work, and you will not find anyone more open and honest in his failures or more ebullient and outspoken in his joy. He is the ultimate sell out, and I rather think he'd thank you if you called him that.
The second group are those people who have chosen to cut off the desires God has placed within them because they have bought in to the lie that wealth, health, and the ever-fleeting siren of happiness are the best things in life. They try to fill the empty spaces with flash and glamor, but like a child who digs holes by the seashore to capture the waves, their wants will never be satisfied. They are zombies: the breathing dead.
Going back to the Matthew verse for a moment: what is the kingdom of heaven? I would suggest that it is a potentiality that will one day be actualized in the return and eternal reign of Jesus Christ. However, we are able to recognize some elements of that potentiality in the present. I firmly believe that part of establishing the kingdom on earth is the desperate, sold out pursuit of the purpose God has given each one of us and all of the passions and desires associated with that purpose. Hence, Ben can go into a studio to record a demo, and all of heaven rejoices. Lia is brought to worshipful silence at a perfect ocean vista, and the foundations of hell tremble. Like a pine forest caught up in a drought, all it takes is a small flame to create a roaring fire. We are powerful people when God brings us to life.
The Lord's Spirit calls
He's singing,
"Follow my road to sorrow and joy
Be intertwined
And find
All things are under my wings
And rise
Given time.
//from "Desert Father" by Josh Garrels//
13.8.10
Limited
"...I asked him how his wife felt about all of this, thinking she must be excited to have her husband back. My friend looked at me as though he were realizing he hadn't actually said anything to his wife.
'You haven't said anything?' I questioned.
'I guess I figured she knew,' my friend suggested.
And that's the first time I realized that the idea a character is what he does makes as much sense in life as it does in the movies. I thought about my friend's story from his wife's perspective. She only knows what he says and what he does, not what he thinks and what he feels."
//from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller//
One of the things Stonestreet talked about was the fragmentation of man. We were separated in the Fall from God, from the earth, from one another, and within ourselves. What remains of the once intimate connections is a vast chasm over which we shout to each other, our words confused and garbled by distance, volume, and the echoes of the past that bounce back up to muddle the present.
I'm tired. And right now I feel like my heart got kicked repeatedly by a Clydesdale. For whatever reason, I write more when I'm in this variety of mood, so allow me to reiterate that most of the time, I am a fairly balanced, happy, healthy person who works a bit too much and reads far too little.
I hate that I am dependent on words to know, even as I love words. But in the separation, we all suddenly acquired a burden. Unless you are a hermit or so socially ostracized that you have perfected the art of life without communication, you know how hard it can be to say even the simplest thing. I live in a tenuous state of "to say or not to say," afraid that I'm being too needy or that I'm not expressing my need well enough, afraid that I will alienate or accidentally lean toward the unmeant flirtatious, afraid that this of the thousand chasms will suddenly find itself without even the fragile bridge of our conversations to bear me over it.
Who are you and what is making you tick? When you snap, I don't know why. When you are silent, I don't know why. Even when you are joyful, I don't know it because I know nothing. All I have is what you tell me, translation made all the more difficult by the missing 90% of facial expressions, twitches, stance, and whatever else make up body language.
I beg for grace because I am vulnerable in my ignorance. I am not a perfect person, nor do I ever hope to be one. Know that even as I hear you incorrectly, your tympanum also fails to perfectly interpret the heart and soul of the vibrations that tickle it. We are two people who are a world apart, who leapt that world for a moment and then found ourselves slipping down the lines of longitude once more. Have you the energy for a second try?
'You haven't said anything?' I questioned.
'I guess I figured she knew,' my friend suggested.
And that's the first time I realized that the idea a character is what he does makes as much sense in life as it does in the movies. I thought about my friend's story from his wife's perspective. She only knows what he says and what he does, not what he thinks and what he feels."
//from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller//
One of the things Stonestreet talked about was the fragmentation of man. We were separated in the Fall from God, from the earth, from one another, and within ourselves. What remains of the once intimate connections is a vast chasm over which we shout to each other, our words confused and garbled by distance, volume, and the echoes of the past that bounce back up to muddle the present.
I'm tired. And right now I feel like my heart got kicked repeatedly by a Clydesdale. For whatever reason, I write more when I'm in this variety of mood, so allow me to reiterate that most of the time, I am a fairly balanced, happy, healthy person who works a bit too much and reads far too little.
I hate that I am dependent on words to know, even as I love words. But in the separation, we all suddenly acquired a burden. Unless you are a hermit or so socially ostracized that you have perfected the art of life without communication, you know how hard it can be to say even the simplest thing. I live in a tenuous state of "to say or not to say," afraid that I'm being too needy or that I'm not expressing my need well enough, afraid that I will alienate or accidentally lean toward the unmeant flirtatious, afraid that this of the thousand chasms will suddenly find itself without even the fragile bridge of our conversations to bear me over it.
Who are you and what is making you tick? When you snap, I don't know why. When you are silent, I don't know why. Even when you are joyful, I don't know it because I know nothing. All I have is what you tell me, translation made all the more difficult by the missing 90% of facial expressions, twitches, stance, and whatever else make up body language.
I beg for grace because I am vulnerable in my ignorance. I am not a perfect person, nor do I ever hope to be one. Know that even as I hear you incorrectly, your tympanum also fails to perfectly interpret the heart and soul of the vibrations that tickle it. We are two people who are a world apart, who leapt that world for a moment and then found ourselves slipping down the lines of longitude once more. Have you the energy for a second try?
11.8.10
Float Away
We sailed away on a winter's day
With fate as malleable as clay
But ships are fallible, I say
And the nautical, like all things, fades
And I can recall our caravel
Little wicker beetle shell
With four fine masts and lateen sails
Its bearings on Cair Paravel
Oh, my love,
Oh, it was a funny little thing
To be the ones to've seen
//from "Bridges and Balloons" by Joanna Newsom//
With fate as malleable as clay
But ships are fallible, I say
And the nautical, like all things, fades
And I can recall our caravel
Little wicker beetle shell
With four fine masts and lateen sails
Its bearings on Cair Paravel
Oh, my love,
Oh, it was a funny little thing
To be the ones to've seen
//from "Bridges and Balloons" by Joanna Newsom//
7.8.10
One Red Balloon
Alumni reunion. It's a strange place to be, the campus where you lived, learned, and developed into a fuller representation of Christ on earth. Who are these strangers who call themselves fellow IMPACT students? And yet, I don't really find myself stuck in the past. Something about the bare walls and empty spaces reminds me that this is not home, or rather, not my home. Soon to be someone else's blessing and bursting ground, but not mine.
We've all had a lot of processing and mixed emotions. But in between conversations about the symbolism of the progression of conception, gestation, labor, and birth that so well illustrates IMPACT and beyond for me, what Leah's wedding is going to be like, and whether it's appropriate to sing that prayer changes so my D went to an A+ in chemistry... It's been great. Leah and I have been having a blast, all the way from the hippie side of Chattanooga to a midnight Walmart run that resulted in a tray of cinnamon rolls with the words "Hapy Ema" spelled out in M&Ms on top. There wasn't much space, and her birthday was almost over, so we had to cut a few corners, leave out a few words... Nothing much, y'know.
Of course, there are still two and a half days left, which is plenty of time for me to curl up in a fetal position and try to shut out the world, but that's not as much fun as it sounds. I do plan on sleeping a lot this weekend (sorry, dearly outgoing class of 2009!), so maybe it won't be too brutal.
Speaking of sleep... The sugar rush is wearing off and it's crashing time.
We've all had a lot of processing and mixed emotions. But in between conversations about the symbolism of the progression of conception, gestation, labor, and birth that so well illustrates IMPACT and beyond for me, what Leah's wedding is going to be like, and whether it's appropriate to sing that prayer changes so my D went to an A+ in chemistry... It's been great. Leah and I have been having a blast, all the way from the hippie side of Chattanooga to a midnight Walmart run that resulted in a tray of cinnamon rolls with the words "Hapy Ema" spelled out in M&Ms on top. There wasn't much space, and her birthday was almost over, so we had to cut a few corners, leave out a few words... Nothing much, y'know.
Of course, there are still two and a half days left, which is plenty of time for me to curl up in a fetal position and try to shut out the world, but that's not as much fun as it sounds. I do plan on sleeping a lot this weekend (sorry, dearly outgoing class of 2009!), so maybe it won't be too brutal.
Speaking of sleep... The sugar rush is wearing off and it's crashing time.
29.7.10
Keystone State of Mind
Hur hur, I'm so funny, thieving from Jay-Z. Because everybody should do that at least once in their life. And yes, I did just investigate the grammar of that last sentence. Shh, if you don't tell, I won't. Onward!
Corn stalks, though fragile, can form quite a formidable barrier en masse. I can sympathize with Bing Crosby as he begs meltingly, "Don't fence me in." Somewhere between September 8th and the present day, my piedmont hills with their fur of rye, alfalfa, and the inescapable corn have lost their charm. Now where once they romanced my soul and left me longing to send my roots down into their soil, they crowd around me as if they would eventually enfold me entirely. I once said that I would like to be buried without a casket in the sweet, dry dirt of a field, but I didn't think that my world would take me seriously.
And no, while I have my personal paranoias, that's not really one of them. It's merely a means of describing the shift of perspective that I have undergone since leaving IMPACT: my "Keystone State of mind." Working 50 hours or 6 days (one week, all 7) with no end in sight has trapped me, strapping on a pair of binoculars that funnel out the great wide world and leave only Lancaster in view. I am so tired and bound up in it that I don't even care about school anymore. This is what it means to trudge.
It's not so horrible as I make it sound. When I typed the word "trudge," I was thinking of an early scene in "A Knight's Tale," when they meet Chaucer who is walking naked on the road. They look at him askance when he remarks that he is trudging, and he explains thusly: "To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on." It makes me laugh, even as I find myself seconding the sentiment.
And in the midst of this increasing awareness of an increasing change, I called Kennedy. He was texting me a week or two ago, and I sincerely wanted to call him but forgot/had no opportunity when recalling until today. He certainly doesn't change, although the call was surprisingly brief. Even his encouragement was standard Kennedy fare. And yet it was exactly what I needed someone to tell me. That my future matters. That I will not be holed up in Lancaster, working 3:30 to close Monday to Saturday and bemoaning the overripeness of avocados for all of my days. That through me, God has blessed somebody somewhere no matter how much I feel like I'm permanently stuck on myself, and that He can and is still using me.
And so the flame burns on, though it wavers from time to time.
Corn stalks, though fragile, can form quite a formidable barrier en masse. I can sympathize with Bing Crosby as he begs meltingly, "Don't fence me in." Somewhere between September 8th and the present day, my piedmont hills with their fur of rye, alfalfa, and the inescapable corn have lost their charm. Now where once they romanced my soul and left me longing to send my roots down into their soil, they crowd around me as if they would eventually enfold me entirely. I once said that I would like to be buried without a casket in the sweet, dry dirt of a field, but I didn't think that my world would take me seriously.
And no, while I have my personal paranoias, that's not really one of them. It's merely a means of describing the shift of perspective that I have undergone since leaving IMPACT: my "Keystone State of mind." Working 50 hours or 6 days (one week, all 7) with no end in sight has trapped me, strapping on a pair of binoculars that funnel out the great wide world and leave only Lancaster in view. I am so tired and bound up in it that I don't even care about school anymore. This is what it means to trudge.
It's not so horrible as I make it sound. When I typed the word "trudge," I was thinking of an early scene in "A Knight's Tale," when they meet Chaucer who is walking naked on the road. They look at him askance when he remarks that he is trudging, and he explains thusly: "To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on." It makes me laugh, even as I find myself seconding the sentiment.
And in the midst of this increasing awareness of an increasing change, I called Kennedy. He was texting me a week or two ago, and I sincerely wanted to call him but forgot/had no opportunity when recalling until today. He certainly doesn't change, although the call was surprisingly brief. Even his encouragement was standard Kennedy fare. And yet it was exactly what I needed someone to tell me. That my future matters. That I will not be holed up in Lancaster, working 3:30 to close Monday to Saturday and bemoaning the overripeness of avocados for all of my days. That through me, God has blessed somebody somewhere no matter how much I feel like I'm permanently stuck on myself, and that He can and is still using me.
And so the flame burns on, though it wavers from time to time.
25.7.10
Melancholy Pause
Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you'd gone
And let the world spin madly on
Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on
I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I'm standing still
Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on
I thought of you and where you'd gone
And the world spins madly on...
//"World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies//
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you'd gone
And let the world spin madly on
Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on
I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I'm standing still
Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on
I thought of you and where you'd gone
And the world spins madly on...
//"World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies//
One Tribe, Y'all
Apparently, the difference between transformation and conformation (not to be confused with "confirmation") is that the transformed heart embraces variety while the conformed heart only values and seeks those who are similar to it.
Interesting thought from a Bethel podcast sermon. I don't know where the connection comes in, however, because at first glance it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. As I've been mulling it over, I think it's specifically in connection with the body of Christ.
Rejuvenated by the beating of the drum
Come together by the cycle of the hum
Freedom when all become one forever, forever
One tribe y'all, one tribe y'all,
One tribe y'all, we are one people
//"One Tribe" by The Black Eyed Peas//
For a moment, let's assume that the speaker in the podcast was right about transformation and conformation. The song "One Tribe" has been bothering me, not solely because we talked about it in class this past year. While the idea being most overtly promoted is peace, they seem to be suggesting peace brought about as a result of homogeneity. And there was the contrast.
The body of Christ: unity in diversity. Many members, distinct parts with distinct functions, all bestowed with grace but of differing casts. A celebration of all the things that make us unique. We are members of a body, not many bodies, all the same in form and feature but for some slight variation, composing one tribe.
It's a lot easier to make peace in conformity... But is it worth the loss?
Interesting thought from a Bethel podcast sermon. I don't know where the connection comes in, however, because at first glance it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. As I've been mulling it over, I think it's specifically in connection with the body of Christ.
Rejuvenated by the beating of the drum
Come together by the cycle of the hum
Freedom when all become one forever, forever
One tribe y'all, one tribe y'all,
One tribe y'all, we are one people
//"One Tribe" by The Black Eyed Peas//
For a moment, let's assume that the speaker in the podcast was right about transformation and conformation. The song "One Tribe" has been bothering me, not solely because we talked about it in class this past year. While the idea being most overtly promoted is peace, they seem to be suggesting peace brought about as a result of homogeneity. And there was the contrast.
The body of Christ: unity in diversity. Many members, distinct parts with distinct functions, all bestowed with grace but of differing casts. A celebration of all the things that make us unique. We are members of a body, not many bodies, all the same in form and feature but for some slight variation, composing one tribe.
It's a lot easier to make peace in conformity... But is it worth the loss?
22.7.10
Hold Life Like Water (CtrlPt2)
Somewhere between Mulberry and Charlotte Streets, I realized that there are some things I simply cannot do.
This revelation is not one that I particularly wanted to have. If the (slightly truncated) earlier remarks on control were not clear, I like having it. I don't like to think that I have no ability to influence areas of my life. And true, there are times when I do so by not doing so, but my post-shift headache is on in full force and that just aggravates it. Point: I dislike feeling powerless. Point #2: Sometimes I can't do anything about it but accept it and move on.
Ejemplo: Today was brutal. It was alright from 8:30 until noon and then again from two until five. But in those two hours in between, Dominik and I faced a full board of tickets to the point where Eric had to turn them sideways and stack them at the end to fit. Suck a freaking egg. All we could do was give a wait of forty-five minutes and hope it would discourage one or two people while the rest had a degree of patience. There is only so fast that you can move when there are two of you working with two grills, one toast, and one and a half microwaves (one was blowing up eggs like World War III), plus you have to (as Carl puts it) dosie dough a lot to get things out of the bain. So we've finally dealt with all of the orders and I'm working on a stocking list and a few drink orders when Mandy announces that someone posted something on the Facebook page about how she had to wait 40 minutes for her to go bagel, and so on. Cue headache. And a certain sense of disappointment. Could we have done better? Maybe. We do try to send out cups of soup and bagels faster, the things that don't take any preparation. But anything that takes more than a cut and a toast will stay in the food line-up along with all of the other tickets, and we can't work any faster than we do. We did our best, it was over, and a customer had a complaint that I couldn't fix.
Sometimes all I can do is ask God for the grace to lay down the arms of competence in an unconditional surrender. Today's example was a small one and not terribly significant in the grand scheme of my life, except that work = life for me for the time being. But in the small things I see the shadows of the big ones, and so it lies. I must hold life like water, and as it flows through my hands, untamed and untamable, perhaps if I am lucky the lines of my palms will leave an impress on its metamorphosing form.
20.7.10
Thunderstorms and Lullabies
Peace at the eye of the storm. A friendly voice in a hostile crowd. A gleam of light in a pitch black cave. We hope because without hope we falter. All trust is bound in hope. All adventures thrive on it. And yet... Even hope fails. Only one candle remains, and in His arms we rest.
I pray light will
Leak from our pockets
We'll be drenched, overcome
At night the fireflies
Streamers at our sides
Silent flaming arcs of hope
All things will change
We wait for the rain
And the promise remains
//"Jacaranda Tree" by Josh & Michelle Garrels//
I pray light will
Leak from our pockets
We'll be drenched, overcome
At night the fireflies
Streamers at our sides
Silent flaming arcs of hope
All things will change
We wait for the rain
And the promise remains
//"Jacaranda Tree" by Josh & Michelle Garrels//
17.7.10
Control & The Only Reason I Feel Secure
Two titles of cds by the band Pedro the Lion. I had them, once upon a time, on a single disc that mostly spent its time in my cd case, never listened to or even thought about. But those titles side-by-side have stuck with me, occasionally running through my head long after I threw the cd in the trash.
Why do we need to control? While Sam and I were en route to Philly on Tuesday, we started talking about vegetarianism. Her ex-boyfriend was a rigid vegetarian for ten years, and in a passing comment, she said that it seemed to be a need for control rather than something arising from animal love or health concerns.
I was chasing a mental bunny trail about the opposite of control and a line from "Fight Club" came to mind. As Tyler Durden rather crudely puts it, "Self-improvement is masturbation. Now self-destruction..." What is masturbation but a form of control? What is self-improvement but some level of self-control? And yet his response is to engineer chaos, not unlike Nolan's Joker, whose claim is to randomness. But in the creation of chaos, control is exerted. It is those who are at the receiving end, the victims, who feel powerless.
Is control the only reason I feel secure? Do I, like the mayor in Fight Club who promises to bring down Project Mayhem, seek to wrestle it back even when everything says no? And if my answer to those questions is, "No, I feel secure for other reasons," then why am I thrown off balance by circumstances that make me feel powerless?
While I've always liked the one and only translation that trades the word "secure" for "hope," recently I've begun to embrace the more common form of Psalm 16:8-9.
I have set the LORD continually before me;
Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will dwell securely.
Why do we need to control? While Sam and I were en route to Philly on Tuesday, we started talking about vegetarianism. Her ex-boyfriend was a rigid vegetarian for ten years, and in a passing comment, she said that it seemed to be a need for control rather than something arising from animal love or health concerns.
I was chasing a mental bunny trail about the opposite of control and a line from "Fight Club" came to mind. As Tyler Durden rather crudely puts it, "Self-improvement is masturbation. Now self-destruction..." What is masturbation but a form of control? What is self-improvement but some level of self-control? And yet his response is to engineer chaos, not unlike Nolan's Joker, whose claim is to randomness. But in the creation of chaos, control is exerted. It is those who are at the receiving end, the victims, who feel powerless.
Is control the only reason I feel secure? Do I, like the mayor in Fight Club who promises to bring down Project Mayhem, seek to wrestle it back even when everything says no? And if my answer to those questions is, "No, I feel secure for other reasons," then why am I thrown off balance by circumstances that make me feel powerless?
While I've always liked the one and only translation that trades the word "secure" for "hope," recently I've begun to embrace the more common form of Psalm 16:8-9.
I have set the LORD continually before me;
Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will dwell securely.
16.7.10
Mumford
Stars hide your fires / These here are my desires
And I won't give them up to you this time around
And so I'll be found / with my stake stuck in the ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul...
//from "Roll Away Your Stone"//
And I won't give them up to you this time around
And so I'll be found / with my stake stuck in the ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul...
//from "Roll Away Your Stone"//
12.7.10
When the Rain Comes...
For a variety of reasons, this has not been the easiest summer. I'd say to review some old posts and figure that out for yourself, but as past experience and experiment has shown me, I get a lot more depth and texture from what I say than any other reader.
Anyway, Kennedy texted me the other day, just to ask how I've been and what I've been up to. My response was fairly simple: "Dear Kennedy, my summer has not been easy, but it has been blessed. God uses all to His glorification." At first, it seemed like a sort of sell out comment to make, probably influenced by the recipient who would say something similar. But when I reread it, I realized that it is not untrue.
Am I harping on the same theme? Does this unending talk of my melodramatic misery and God's unseen but felt grace begin to grate at your nerves like Joanna Newsom's voice? Not that it's a bad story to tell, if I do say so myself, but perhaps there is still the desire to shake me and ask, "Have you gotten it yet, Christy, or are you still as daft as a fence post?"
For that, I can only say that I am sorry if you feel that way, but I won't apologize for my absurdly drawn out learning process. We walk, we run, or if necessary, we drag ourselves forward on our bellies with what feels like the weight of the world in a pack on our backs, but at the very least we keep moving forward, for the alternative is not worth any moment's consideration.
As August approaches, my anticipation grows. Alumni reunion marks a spot of light on the calendar blocks that I am so slowly checking my way toward, not the least for getting to spend some time with Leah the virtually inaccessible one and to escape work for a precious few days. But it is not the climax of my next few months of existence, from which all goes downhill on the gentle slope of the falling action.
Back in March, Kennedy had a word for me (accompanied by a rather amusing, Kennedy-esque prophetic moment... I miss my crazy Kenyan friend). It was something of a confirmation, but his word was to wait. At the time, I thought perhaps I knew what was meant by that, but I'm starting to think that God's fruit bears a startling resemblance to onions. Sharp, piercing, distinct, recognizable... And there are always layers to be peeled back, often a fresh understanding to be had.
Hence the anti-climax of reunion: it ends nothing, decides nothing. I sense no cessation to this wait, though of late I have been given renewed strength. The middle land, the wilderness between the promise and the Promised Land, is a barren place, but God met Moses in the wilderness, trained Paul there, prepared His Son for earthly ministry and the divine act of redemption. Though barren, it is not empty, not void. Elijah heard the whisper after the whirlwind, and so I listen for God's whisper to rise above the roaring silence and watch longingly for the first cast of green to break through the gray. Until then, I revel in the windswept kiss of His present provision and grace.
I told Debbie the other day that I really wanted to fly, but perhaps that's just blindness. For, as the Denise Levertov poem illustrates, I am already suspended, caught by arms eternal, and that is as glorious a flight as I could ever dare to hope for.
Anyway, Kennedy texted me the other day, just to ask how I've been and what I've been up to. My response was fairly simple: "Dear Kennedy, my summer has not been easy, but it has been blessed. God uses all to His glorification." At first, it seemed like a sort of sell out comment to make, probably influenced by the recipient who would say something similar. But when I reread it, I realized that it is not untrue.
Am I harping on the same theme? Does this unending talk of my melodramatic misery and God's unseen but felt grace begin to grate at your nerves like Joanna Newsom's voice? Not that it's a bad story to tell, if I do say so myself, but perhaps there is still the desire to shake me and ask, "Have you gotten it yet, Christy, or are you still as daft as a fence post?"
For that, I can only say that I am sorry if you feel that way, but I won't apologize for my absurdly drawn out learning process. We walk, we run, or if necessary, we drag ourselves forward on our bellies with what feels like the weight of the world in a pack on our backs, but at the very least we keep moving forward, for the alternative is not worth any moment's consideration.
As August approaches, my anticipation grows. Alumni reunion marks a spot of light on the calendar blocks that I am so slowly checking my way toward, not the least for getting to spend some time with Leah the virtually inaccessible one and to escape work for a precious few days. But it is not the climax of my next few months of existence, from which all goes downhill on the gentle slope of the falling action.
Back in March, Kennedy had a word for me (accompanied by a rather amusing, Kennedy-esque prophetic moment... I miss my crazy Kenyan friend). It was something of a confirmation, but his word was to wait. At the time, I thought perhaps I knew what was meant by that, but I'm starting to think that God's fruit bears a startling resemblance to onions. Sharp, piercing, distinct, recognizable... And there are always layers to be peeled back, often a fresh understanding to be had.
Hence the anti-climax of reunion: it ends nothing, decides nothing. I sense no cessation to this wait, though of late I have been given renewed strength. The middle land, the wilderness between the promise and the Promised Land, is a barren place, but God met Moses in the wilderness, trained Paul there, prepared His Son for earthly ministry and the divine act of redemption. Though barren, it is not empty, not void. Elijah heard the whisper after the whirlwind, and so I listen for God's whisper to rise above the roaring silence and watch longingly for the first cast of green to break through the gray. Until then, I revel in the windswept kiss of His present provision and grace.
I told Debbie the other day that I really wanted to fly, but perhaps that's just blindness. For, as the Denise Levertov poem illustrates, I am already suspended, caught by arms eternal, and that is as glorious a flight as I could ever dare to hope for.
11.7.10
Depths
"Don't you remember on earth -- there are things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them all right? Shame is like that. If you will accept it -- if you will drink the cup to the bottom -- you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds."
//The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis//
//The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis//
10.7.10
Childish Moments
When I secretly want to rebel, I eat fruit without rinsing it.
My mom would be so aggravated if she knew...
My mom would be so aggravated if she knew...
4.7.10
Serenity
Mornings are a better time of day. Unfortunately, thanks to the vagaries of an ever-fluid work schedule, I rarely wake up as early as I would like. Even if I try to set my alarm, my half-slumbering fingers know that they can hit the snooze button as many times as they like because there isn't much to beg my time. This particular morning, however, I had made plans to meet Hadassah and Debbie at Chickies Rock to run the trail to the overlook, so I roused myself with rather less grogginess than a mere five hours of sleep (after nearly ten hours at work) ought seemingly to have dictated.
They failed to show up, one because she didn't want to miss church, the other because she got lost and my signal is never good on the hill so I couldnae direct her. But I still had the opportunity to run by myself, which I did, every sore, stiff, and out of shape inch of me.
As I was sitting on a stone column of the fence at the overlook, I was contemplating the water as it rushed downstream. Even from many feet above and away, the distant thunder of water against rock still reached my ears. A glorious symphony, free and fierce. What classical music (save, perhaps, that of good old Elijah) has ever made a morning brighter?
But I realized something. The water's music, every wonderful note, was the music of pain. It could not produce sound of such volume or perhaps at all if it were not for the rocks that barred the way. As it cast itself against and around the stones in its way, it was then that the notes issued forth. "For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few..." (Matthew 7:14)
"The Water Song"
from Hind's Feet in High Places
Come, oh come! Let us away--
Lower, lower every day,
Oh what joy it is to race
Down to find the lowest place.
This the dearest law we know--
"It is happy to go low."
Sweetest urge and sweetest will,
"Let us go down lower still."
Hear the summons night and day
Calling us to come away.
From the heights we leap and flow
To the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call,
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,
To go low and rise again.
To be brought low. Humbled. To embrace pain not for itself but because it is but a small price to pay for the better thing. And then to rise again...
They failed to show up, one because she didn't want to miss church, the other because she got lost and my signal is never good on the hill so I couldnae direct her. But I still had the opportunity to run by myself, which I did, every sore, stiff, and out of shape inch of me.
As I was sitting on a stone column of the fence at the overlook, I was contemplating the water as it rushed downstream. Even from many feet above and away, the distant thunder of water against rock still reached my ears. A glorious symphony, free and fierce. What classical music (save, perhaps, that of good old Elijah) has ever made a morning brighter?
But I realized something. The water's music, every wonderful note, was the music of pain. It could not produce sound of such volume or perhaps at all if it were not for the rocks that barred the way. As it cast itself against and around the stones in its way, it was then that the notes issued forth. "For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few..." (Matthew 7:14)
"The Water Song"
from Hind's Feet in High Places
Come, oh come! Let us away--
Lower, lower every day,
Oh what joy it is to race
Down to find the lowest place.
This the dearest law we know--
"It is happy to go low."
Sweetest urge and sweetest will,
"Let us go down lower still."
Hear the summons night and day
Calling us to come away.
From the heights we leap and flow
To the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call,
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,
To go low and rise again.
To be brought low. Humbled. To embrace pain not for itself but because it is but a small price to pay for the better thing. And then to rise again...
2.7.10
Suspended
I had grasped God's garment in the void
But my hand slipped
On the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
Must have upheld my leaden weight
From falling, even so,
For though I claw at empty air and feel
Nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.
//"Suspended" by Denise Levertov//
But my hand slipped
On the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
Must have upheld my leaden weight
From falling, even so,
For though I claw at empty air and feel
Nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.
//"Suspended" by Denise Levertov//
1.7.10
Handprints on My Heart
It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime
So let me say before we part,
So much of me is made from what I learned from you
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have rewritten mine
By being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you...
I have been changed for good
//For Good, "Wicked"//
So let me say before we part,
So much of me is made from what I learned from you
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have rewritten mine
By being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you...
I have been changed for good
//For Good, "Wicked"//
30.6.10
Eye of Newt and Dead Flowers
Somewhere between waiting at work for hours for a paycheck and arriving home to a televangelist praying against high blood pressure on late night tv, I think I've cracked. No, maybe that was a few nights ago when I just wanted to swear a blue streak while driving home. Home. What a stupid word.
"For Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee."
Sure. It's profound and beautiful and profoundly beautiful. Why must it be so frustratingly paradoxical to try to rest? I don't mean to strive. But HOW THE BLOODY DEUCE?!
When You feel like answering, God, I'll be here. I probably just won't hear You because I adore fireflies and revel in poppies, but can't hear the voice of my own Creator. Great. I'm dying to fail. Again.
Post-Edit//
"My soul, wait silently for God alone,
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength,
And my refuge, is in God.
Trust in Him at all times, you people;
Pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah."
//Psalm 62:5-8//
"For Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee."
Sure. It's profound and beautiful and profoundly beautiful. Why must it be so frustratingly paradoxical to try to rest? I don't mean to strive. But HOW THE BLOODY DEUCE?!
When You feel like answering, God, I'll be here. I probably just won't hear You because I adore fireflies and revel in poppies, but can't hear the voice of my own Creator. Great. I'm dying to fail. Again.
Post-Edit//
"My soul, wait silently for God alone,
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength,
And my refuge, is in God.
Trust in Him at all times, you people;
Pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah."
//Psalm 62:5-8//
27.6.10
Caught
From a sort of journal entry:
"This has been a good week, though one of wilderness. But if Jesus could endure for forty days and Paul for three years, what is my single week? The blessing of the test is not in proving our faithfulness to God; He already knows it. No, it is that we cannot fathom the depth of our own strength until we are put to the seemingly impossible task, and we find ourselves not only enduring, but thriving."
"This has been a good week, though one of wilderness. But if Jesus could endure for forty days and Paul for three years, what is my single week? The blessing of the test is not in proving our faithfulness to God; He already knows it. No, it is that we cannot fathom the depth of our own strength until we are put to the seemingly impossible task, and we find ourselves not only enduring, but thriving."
25.6.10
Confessions of a Bibliophile
The day dawned bright and beautiful, the weather perfect for what was in store. For what could be a better use of a day off than a book hunt, that glorious pastime when a bibliophile (or several, although they usual disband upon nearing a quarry's possible den, being varied in the exact nature of their taste for game) pursues an elusive volume from used bookstore to used bookstore, occasionally getting distracted for hours along the way.
Beast of the Chase: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Master of Fox Hounds: Yo soy la maestra de los perros, eh?
Kennelman: Dad (he takes care of my car, okay?)
... Nothing else really fits from all the terminology that I found... That's enough.
Beginning Point: Dogstar Books, West Chestnut St. (for those who are Sirius about books... har har...)
Time: approx. 10:15AM EST
Mission Status: Failed. Den contained a mere two volumes of Lewis plus what appeared to be a biography, although there was a very intriguing collection of philosophy and logic AND a first edition Silmarillion for a mere $25... Ahem. At this point, M.F.H. was still in possession of wits and avoided all possible pitfalls that threatened to significantly reduce the contents of her wallet.
Brief Detour: Prince Street for an iced caramel latte (cars aren't the only creatures that need fuel), the Thai stand for lunch aka two hard-won veggie crispy rolls to be saved for a later time of day (HA! take that, lunch crowd! At last, I beat you!)
Stop the Next: Winding Way Books, West Chestnut St.
Time: approx. 11:00AM
Mission Status: Failed. In every way possible. If, that is, you view a decrease in finances as a failure. However, since the M.F.H. increased in intellectual wealth, this may have been an incredible success. Four books and a very nice conversation with the shopkeeper later, M.F.H. left the Seuss-ish store simultaneously richer and poorer.
Stop the Third: Barnes & Noble, Fruitville Pike
Time: approx. 11:45AM
Mission Status: Success. Except that the point was to procure the beast of the chase at a used bookstore, thereby reducing expenditures. So actually, it was a failure of a success.
Stop the Final: The Book Haven, Marietta Ave.
Time: approx. 12:30PM
Mission Status: Failed. Attempted to find Lewis's work here with the intention of returning aforementioned successful failure if should be discovered. However, did find a very nice biography that might possibly have depleted last of available funds...
Final Accounting:
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Knowing God by J.I. Packer
The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
The Call by Os Guinness
Othello by William Shakespeare
Charles James Fox by John Drinkwater
All in a day's hunt... Er, work.
Now to find space on the maxed out bookshelf...
Beast of the Chase: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Master of Fox Hounds: Yo soy la maestra de los perros, eh?
Kennelman: Dad (he takes care of my car, okay?)
... Nothing else really fits from all the terminology that I found... That's enough.
Beginning Point: Dogstar Books, West Chestnut St. (for those who are Sirius about books... har har...)
Time: approx. 10:15AM EST
Mission Status: Failed. Den contained a mere two volumes of Lewis plus what appeared to be a biography, although there was a very intriguing collection of philosophy and logic AND a first edition Silmarillion for a mere $25... Ahem. At this point, M.F.H. was still in possession of wits and avoided all possible pitfalls that threatened to significantly reduce the contents of her wallet.
Brief Detour: Prince Street for an iced caramel latte (cars aren't the only creatures that need fuel), the Thai stand for lunch aka two hard-won veggie crispy rolls to be saved for a later time of day (HA! take that, lunch crowd! At last, I beat you!)
Stop the Next: Winding Way Books, West Chestnut St.
Time: approx. 11:00AM
Mission Status: Failed. In every way possible. If, that is, you view a decrease in finances as a failure. However, since the M.F.H. increased in intellectual wealth, this may have been an incredible success. Four books and a very nice conversation with the shopkeeper later, M.F.H. left the Seuss-ish store simultaneously richer and poorer.
Stop the Third: Barnes & Noble, Fruitville Pike
Time: approx. 11:45AM
Mission Status: Success. Except that the point was to procure the beast of the chase at a used bookstore, thereby reducing expenditures. So actually, it was a failure of a success.
Stop the Final: The Book Haven, Marietta Ave.
Time: approx. 12:30PM
Mission Status: Failed. Attempted to find Lewis's work here with the intention of returning aforementioned successful failure if should be discovered. However, did find a very nice biography that might possibly have depleted last of available funds...
Final Accounting:
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Knowing God by J.I. Packer
The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
The Call by Os Guinness
Othello by William Shakespeare
Charles James Fox by John Drinkwater
All in a day's hunt... Er, work.
Now to find space on the maxed out bookshelf...
You Won't Relent
The blessing of brokenness...
"How could I expect to walk without You
When every move that Jesus made was in surrender
I would not begin to live without You
For You alone are worthy, You are always good"
When we look on the face of God, we know who we are.
"How could I expect to walk without You
When every move that Jesus made was in surrender
I would not begin to live without You
For You alone are worthy, You are always good"
When we look on the face of God, we know who we are.
23.6.10
Tunnel Vision
I arrived home from work this ... well, night, I guess, on the borderline of being out of sorts and was nudged over the line by a moment of unpleasantness involving my mother. That moment led to a mental litany of woe over the things that weigh on me, from dissatisfaction with growth to frustrations at work to the present blank slate awfulness of the future. One shower later, I was brushing my teeth when my dad wandered out of their room to play a midnight insomniac's game of solitaire. I asked him about a medical bill issue and was surprised when he said that he had taken care of it. Into my funk and furor, a ray of light.
It was a little thing, trifling really. A matter of a mere few dollars that maybe means I'll finally be able to go to a gym or who knows what, but it has been hanging onto the edge of my paycheck and tips, waiting to be paid and just one more little nagging thing that frayed at my already fragile nerves. So small, and yet... grace.
It's an unpleasant place to be when you can't appreciate the blue of the sky because you're too busy staring at the clouds.
It was a little thing, trifling really. A matter of a mere few dollars that maybe means I'll finally be able to go to a gym or who knows what, but it has been hanging onto the edge of my paycheck and tips, waiting to be paid and just one more little nagging thing that frayed at my already fragile nerves. So small, and yet... grace.
It's an unpleasant place to be when you can't appreciate the blue of the sky because you're too busy staring at the clouds.
22.6.10
Rhythm and Glow
So often, I am deaf to the voice of my Father. But one way that I swear He speaks to me is in the evening kiss of a firefly's light. How else (okay, weather factors favorable to fireflies aside) can I take the single firefly that appeared at my table while I was sitting outside during my break this evening? Somewhere between Mumford & Sons, who are delightful but not always cheerful, and the exhaustion of stress and sun-addlement, the world grew darker than the circumstances merited. Cue a lone light that descended from above until just within range of a welcoming hand. Why is it that I flick off or writhe away from all insects but these? But ants are not so favorable to poetry unless you are a practical person, and practical people do not tend, in my rather limited experience, to think in poetry.
And I was on my way home, caught between drive and dream ... Standing still in a moment of eternity / Where worlds collide and I feel the breath of heaven over me ... I chanced to sight, out of the corner of my eye, a brethren lantern. Upon daring to look closer, I knew him to be not one but many, a hundred thousand instruments of phosphorescence playing a joyful symphony. Not a lone stirring of hope, but a reminder of the myriad promises of a good and glorious God.
Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
My eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul...
Chiaroscuro
And I was on my way home, caught between drive and dream ... Standing still in a moment of eternity / Where worlds collide and I feel the breath of heaven over me ... I chanced to sight, out of the corner of my eye, a brethren lantern. Upon daring to look closer, I knew him to be not one but many, a hundred thousand instruments of phosphorescence playing a joyful symphony. Not a lone stirring of hope, but a reminder of the myriad promises of a good and glorious God.
Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
My eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul...
Chiaroscuro
One tear falls,
Shimmers in the darkness
As refraction captures the light
of a single firefly.
I keep my hope in a jar
to light up the valley of the shadows
when the soul's midnight presses down
and His hand is my only trust.
And this, the hour of need, sees
a hand that shakes but dares
to unscrew the lid
and release
one dream to light the way.
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