[something creative here]

Blog has a new home!

2010-07-27T17:59:00.003-05:00

My blog has a new home. I'm tired of trying to keep up with two google accounts. Blogspot merged with google after I got gmail and already had a blogspot account, too. Thanks Google for taking over the world. :)

www.amandamaclean.blogspot.com

Come, and follow me...

Musings in Scotland

2010-07-22T17:47:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting in a hostel in Glasgow. It's pretty cool. There is a disco ball on the ceiling and techno music playing. The room is fine - a hostel room with three double bunks. I'm just stopping here for the night on my way to the Isle of Mull for my visit to Duart Castle over the next two days. I'm going to the Castle MacLean!

I'm learning so many life lessons. One is: Never lie. Even the littlest lies cause you to lie further to cover your ass. Just don't lie.

Don't be worried about what other people think about you. Don't be worried that everyone else knows more than you somehow. They probably don't. Everyone else is experiencing this current moment of their existence for the very first time. Time and even age mean so much less than we think they mean. Consciousness is something altogether different.

I just have to figure out what it is I really want in life.

I really used to think that I was single-handedly responsible for saving the world. Like everything was all on me - revolutionizing EVERYTHING somehow. Man. Now I just want to sit at home and have a cup of coffee and...blog. I don't want to do anything! I feel I've lost some motivation, but in a sense it is good. My motivation before was driven by fear. Now I am being freed in order to be able to see what my real desires are and dream based off of that passion deep inside me. I don't have to be afraid.

I can, like Maculay Culkin in Home Alone, run out the front door and yell, "HEY! YOU HEAR ME?? I'M NOT AFRAID ANYMORE!" (except unlike him in the movie I won't see the old man shoveling the sidewalks and scream and run back inside all scared. Ok, I might, but I'll just come back out again once I've gotten over that fright).

Seeing plays has really made me want to get involved in the theatre. I used to love being in plays in high school. I gave it up because I had this complex about doing things for God and spending all my time focusing on "ministry." Whatever I thought that was. I don't know....I don't understand how I could have really thought that giving up the things I enjoyed was somehow a service to God. But whatever, I am done being mad at myself for that. I am who I am because of the choices I have made and what God's mercy has shaped in my character out of it. A sadder but wiser girl I am...I am...

I also know that I need to be playing the guitar and singing and writing songs again. I need to set up a little recording studio in my house wherever I live next. (Wherever I live...now there's an idea, living somewhere - a locale, base, a location. Hmmm).

I need to be doing photography. I want to be doing photography. I want to be doing weddings. I've realized that I really LOVE the aesthetics of a wedding. I would love to be a wedding coordinator or planner or creative designer or something of that sort. I don't even know how to break into that. I just need to start.

I just need to start being creative, and actually executing my creativity. I need to be able to be independent and support myself and create my own schedule. I want to be able to travel.

I want to learn an artistic craft in a focused, disciplined way. Actually, I want to learn many artistic crafts. But I ought to start with photography, since that is sort of the one I'm the most devoted to the mechanics of already, and it is going to provide me with more money and flexibility to do the rest of the things I want to do.

I'm really excited to start living in Seattle / Seattle-esque. I feel that it is a new day. It's a new day!

Ok.

Hello from the Kingdom

2010-07-13T18:43:00.007-05:00

The United Kingdom, that is.

Here I am. It has been one hellish hell of a summer for me...one that has not consisted of anything I thought it would. But I am finally here. I can breathe to that.

I've done a few pretty awesome things since I've been here. I got to spend time at C.S. Lewis' old favorite pub, where he and Tolkien and other friends would discuss their writings.

Today our group took a trip to West Wycombe, the home of the Dashwood family, who may have inspired some of Jane Austen's literary devices in Sense and Sensibility.

This weekend I'm going to head to Ireland. I'm going to Scotland the weekend after that, to visit the castle of the MacLean Clan.

All I can say is...

Woo Hoo!

mary jane

2010-06-29T00:46:00.001-05:00

"Mary Jane"

What's the matter Mary Jane, you had a hard day
As you place the don't disturb sign on the door
You lost your place in line again, what a pity
You never seem to want to dance anymore

It's a long way down
On this roller coaster
The last chance streetcar
Went off the track
And you're on it

I hear you're counting sheep again Mary Jane
What's the point of trying to dream anymore?
I hear you're losing weight again Mary Jane
Do you ever wonder who you're losing it for?

Well it's full speed baby
In the wrong direction
There's a few more bruises
If that's the way
You insist on heading

Please be honest Mary Jane
Are you happy?
Please don't censor your tears

You're the sweet crusader
And you're on your way
You're the last great innocent
And that's why I love you

So take this moment Mary Jane and be selfish
Worry not about the cars that go by
All that matters Mary Jane is your freedom
Keep warm my dear, keep dry

Tell me
Tell me
What's the matter Mary Jane...

-Alanis Morrisette

Dear God

2010-06-08T13:13:00.002-05:00

Dear God:

I thought it was your job to make the universe run smoothly. I have news for You: it's not.

Have You noticed?

Sincerely,

Amanda

Do not think you can escape her...

2010-05-25T01:09:00.014-05:00

She had to choose Texas, didn't she?

Mary Jane LaRue was the mother of four and then some on a ranch in Billings. I don't know if I've ever been told (I've certainly never asked) the name of the ranch. (Burger Ranch? No - different childhood memory, stick to your main idea, MacLean, like you learned in your writing classes).

The ranch - in Billings, Montana. But she was a Texas girl.

She may have worn a "designer gown" similar to the one I wore on Saturday night, sitting beneath a tower exploding with fireworks to celebrate my completion of the requirements for a Bachelor's in Arts. She just had to bring me to Texas, and to Austin, and to her Alma Mater. And if that wasn't enough, she had to usher me into Parlin and Calhoun Halls, where I might have sat in one of her old seats, where she worked towards her own degrees in French, Spanish and English (I dared not attempt to compete with that - one academic focus was good enough for me, thank you). I hadn't the faintest idea when I applied to UT (to major in film?) that I would glide through those same halls like her ghost incarnate. (Sounds like an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? doesn't it?)

Oblivia - such an appropriate superhero alter-ego name for a clueless grand daughter like me.

She just had to pick Texas. And I just had to go. One does not argue with one's own dead grandmother's spirit.

Well, it is nearly finished. I'm on the home stretch, huffing and puffing to actually finish the requirements I was affirmed as having already completed on Saturday (thank you UT for letting me experience the ceremonial glory before actually earning my triumph). I'm about to leave "the island" and see where my next flight will take me. England. Australia (that's not a LOST joke, I'm really going there). I'll become Jane, sit with Bill on The Globe's planks, and then...come back for an air-conditionless roadtrip to California just before heading across the world again for Vegemite, eucalyptus leaves and koalas (not bears - people...they are not bears).

My experience as a university student has been one of the most invaluable treasures - priceless - without words - mere cliches - SHUT UP AMANDA there just ARE no WORDS why are you even BLOGGING about this?? I came to change the world, and my whole being was deconstructed. I came to be equipped to become what I was going to be when I grew up. Instead I lost all sense of time and age and being grown up and of usefulness and readiness and those words hardly mean anything to me anymore. I'm just here. I'm just alive. More than I ever hoped to be.

Childhood was shortened by loss, abuse, and my own anxiousness to be anything but a child. Grandma, thanks for taking 2 years out of eternity to make sure one of your girls got some TLC and a few kicks in the pants to realize that the world is big, that life is lovely, and all of our fears are completely overrated.

Till Oxford, I'll spend my days swimming in the pool, doing my math homework, sitting on the computer and not knowing who's going to call me on my phone and offer me another new surprise trip across the world. I'm just gardening in my bare feet learning that I can't argue with the ground if it refuses to germinate my carefully watered seeds. I'm just chopping tomatoes. Making my breakfast tacos. Listening to the resonant droning and drumming of Interstate 35. Yelling at the neighbors for their loud drunken partying. Eating dirt ice cream. And remembering the past.

I'm just a kid with a camera and an eye full of wonder again.

"Till Gabriel blows his horn..."

wow

2010-05-23T22:33:00.001-05:00

So it's been a big weekend and I should probably blog something about my graduation.

But right now all I can think about is how incredible the series finale of LOST was.

LOST! I love you. I am going to buy all of your DVD's and watch you over and over again, every year.

Farewell!

For the English Nerds

2010-05-22T01:59:00.004-05:00

In honor of participating as a graduating senior in my English Dept's commencement at UT tomorrow, I wanted to share this quote from our department's email update:

"Always remember it's not who you know that matters. It's whom."

Worry

2010-05-09T13:56:00.007-05:00

I have finally discovered that worry is a mechanism of my own making which controls my ability to choose whether or not to be happy.

I used to look at my worry and think there was a way to make it disappear: by fixing some external problem. If I fixed whatever I was worried about - whatever I feel I need control over - I could eliminate the worry. (Like, I am worried that I have too many clothes...I am a shallow, spendthrift American. I need to get rid of some of this stuff). And before I know it I'm abandoning homework or eating lunch or whatever I was doing, going through my closet. I find it very hard to pay attention to my friends when we're sitting around talking. I'm stuck in my head, worrying about something that needs to be done or changed or fixed.

The worry itself creates a worry (oh no, I am worried - worry is bad! I am bad!). Thinking I can eliminate worry only compounds the problem. The worry is its own immutable monster, an unconquerable beast. The only way to beat it is to realize that it will always be there, and to try to laugh at it instead of trying to appease it.

I have been reading about GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and have diagnosed myself with it. I know we live in a diagnosis happy age, but, hell...it really feels good to put a name to something. It also feels good to know that it's not a moral issue. I'm not a bad person. I'm just very tightly wound.

I thought about starting a blog to talk about the ways I've been dealing with my worry, but I've been to worried about how to write it... (that's a joke. I just haven't had time to start it. Plus, I have this blog already, and that's enough to keep track of). I've been taking this herb called Rhodiola Rosea and it has been like a life saver to me. I feel much more calm and, well sort of...unmotivated. But for me, that's good. Normally I cannot get myself to slow down.

I have also been trying to spend time in the morning just sitting and being quiet while I eat my breakfast. It also helps tremendously to write. I find that if I go for very long without doing these things, I start to build up to intense emotions of freaking out, and that's not good. But it's good to know that it's preventable.

I also pray. Prayer changes my perspective more than anything and gives me a better view of reality. It takes me outside of myself. I realize that I am not that important. My life is not that crucial. It is ok to just be.

There I am again...

2010-04-03T21:28:00.002-05:00

² There on the poplars
we hung our harps,

³ for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

⁴ How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?

-Psalm 137

I don't really know where to say I am "from." When I'm supposed to list a hometown on some internet profile, I never know what to put. The town I was born in? The place where I went to high school? Or the town I just moved from? None of them feel quite like home to me. At holidays, when friends are purchasing plane tickets and arranging road trips across the country, they are heading to the place they call home. When I arrange trips to visit my family, especially as time creates a greater distance between me and the place I left when I graduated from high school, I see it as an obligatory visit...maybe almost a reminder to my parents that I exist.

It's always been this way to some degree, though. My sisters and I never pretended to fit in at holidays and get-togethers with my step dad's relatives. It's sort of funny. This year I introduced myself to my step-cousin's husband as if we'd never met. He said, "I know you, I'm Angela's husband...we've been married for years." Whoops. (I lose track sometimes of who is still married or divorced or...whatever).

Lately, though, this feeling has translated itself into an intense (and weird) longing to head West. I started wanting to move to Washington and live in a trailer in the woods. At first I saw it as a way to have my own into-the-wild, f-society, Walden pond experimental adventure. But really, at the core of it, I think my soul has been searching for home. When I watch my home movies from when I was a kid, something stirs inside my heart. "That's who I used to be...there I am again. How can I get that back?"

So much happens to the human heart. Living is a dangerous thing. But the good news is that everything that's lost can be found. What I lost is slowly coming back to me...I am slowly regaining myself. I've been wandering in the desert, but home is not far away. Home is welling up from within me like a spring. The joy of my salvation is being restored.

We Have to Do This

2010-03-27T01:59:00.006-05:00

We all fashion worlds of aesthetic magic. No one is excluded from this phenomenon. All of us are creators. All of us have stories to tell.

I hardly notice the art most people create of their lives, because I recognize and praise a few so greatly that I am distracted by the grandeur I make of them. I see their work as a nobility.

And it is. Not because it glows in the limelight of my conscious recognition, however. Not because of the way they brilliantly mastered form. Not because they were genius enough to have invented beauty. As if anyone can take credit for what is already so prolific in the universe around us. No - the nobility comes from the courage...the willingness. To bring back to mind all the pain. To stare down grief and death and hatred, right in the eyes. To not look away.

We don't do this because of our genius or our brilliance or our specialness. We have to do this. Engage in a fight to restore our own lives, remember our joy again. Receive life as a gift. A healing.

Everyone who is still breathing has this nobility to offer the world. At least a little bit. This is just what we do. (And, I think, it's even better if we do it together).

I am working to be happy with just that.

Unfinished Projects

2010-03-09T00:50:00.006-06:00

I have tons of unfinished projects in my life. Maybe you do, too.

I have a multi-photo picture frame sitting on top of my books and under the shelf above them. It is littered with "potential" photos. Right now my idea is to put photos of cousins, neices and nephews that I don't normally get to see. But I don't have the right sized photos for each frame, so I have to go through pictures online, order prints, all these things that require energy and effort and time...

Maybe I will just decide to cut up my poster of the Periodic Table of Elements and put my favorite elements in the frame instead. To save time.

Then there is the home movie project. I started this last semester. I bought (um, sort of bought...I returned it to Walmart when I was done...shame) a DVD recorder and turned all my family's home movies into digital media. I feel like watching these movies has been an important part of my self-discovery and taking time to heal from buried and undealt-with grief over my dad's death 12 yrs ago. The newest phase of this project is taking what I have digitized and recoding it as files that youtube can read, so I can share the videos with my family over the wonderful world wide web (wwww). This, however, takes....oh God....so much time. Do I ever want a career in video production?

Littered across my desk are small fragments of paper - notecards, stickies, torn leaflets - with some half-finished thought or idea scribbled on them, sometimes in bullet points, and sometimes just messily scrawled. I also have a gmail account that I created specifically for emailing myself ideas when I get them. There are 227 unread emails, and 565 in the inbox.

On the workbench behind me sits a stack of books I pulled out to press some flowers dry, and now the dried flowers are sitting there as well. I haven't decided what to do with them yet.

A stack of CD's sits on top of my computer tower, waiting for me to import them to my itunes library.

Little stringlets of beads inhabit various corners of my desk drawers or on the space where I do my makeup in the morning (next to my jewelry box - that makes some organizational sense, right?)

I just brought the sewing machine I purchased last semester (Craigslist - 15 bucks!) out from under the dark and dusty corner of the bottom of the stairwell and set it in my room, to remind myself that it exists, and that the sewing projects I have sloshing around in my head need to be worked on if they are ever going to come into existence.

Worked on. Man. Work work work...

Everything that's creative, everything that means something to us artistically, takes damn hard work.

I love writing. But man, it is damn hard work.

I have to remind myself that I'm in school, and the stupid papers I have to write when I would rather be sleeping or eating or playing with my plants (yes, my plants are my little friends/children...though all they ever do is complain and ask for more water and sunlight, and they don't really give much back) are doing something within me that is so much more important than the finished product of any home project: they are creating my character. Perseverance. Focus. Diligence. No great thing has ever been done without sacrificing some other thing that could have been done in its place...

I'll get all my little crafts and arts and photos and videos and whatnot done...in time. For now, I've got to not forget the real project: me.

A great book to read which inspired me a good deal with thoughts like these is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

Welcome to my windowsill

2010-02-25T16:38:00.003-06:00

Punctuation

2010-02-07T00:53:00.003-06:00

This piece of writing is what caused me to fall in love with the English language. Read it if you like to laugh.

Notes on Punctuation

by Lewis Thomas*

There are no precise rules about punctuation (Fowler lays out some general advice (as best he can under the complex circumstances of English prose (he points out, for example, that we possess only four stops (the comma, the semicolon, the colon and the period (the question mark and exclamation point are not, strictly speaking, stops; they are indicators of tone (oddly enough, the Greeks employed the semicolon for their question mark (it produces a strange sensation to read a Greek sentence which is a straightforward question: Why weepest thou; (instead of Why weepest thou? (and, of course, there are parentheses (which are surely a kind of punctuation making this whole matter much more complicated by having to count up the left-handed parentheses in order to be sure of closing with the right number (but if the parentheses were left out, with nothing to work with but the stops we would have considerably more flexibility in the deploying of layers of meaning than if we tried to separate all the clauses by physical barriers (and in the latter case, while we might have more precision and exactitude for our meaning, we would lose the essential flavor of language, which is its wonderful ambiguity )))))))))))).

The commas are the most useful and usable of all the stops. It is highly important to put them in place as you go along. If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows in all sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn�t realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashed up squirming in commas. Better to use them sparingly, and with affection, precisely when the need for each one arises, nicely, by itself.

I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years. The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added; it reminds you sometimes of the Greek usage. It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period. The period tells you that that is that; if you didn�t get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; to read on; it will get clearer.

Colons are a lot less attractive for several reasons: firstly, they give you the feeling of being rather ordered around, or at least having your nose pointed in a direction you might not be inclined to take if left to yourself, and, secondly, you suspect you�re in for one of those sentences that will be labeling the points to be made: firstly, secondly and so forth, with the implication that you haven�t sense enough to keep track of a sequence of notions without having them numbered. Also, many writers use this system loosely and incompletely, starting out with number one and number two as though counting off on their fingers but then going on and on without the succession of labels you�ve been led to expect, leaving you floundering about searching for the ninethly or seventeenthly that ought to be there but isn�t.

Exclamation points are the most irritating of all. Look! they say, look at what I just said! How amazing is my thought! It is like being forced to watch someone else�s small child jumping up and down crazily in the center of the living room shouting to attract attention. If a sentence really has something of importance to say, something quite remarkable, it doesn�t need a mark to point it out. And if it is really, after all, a banal sentence needing more zing, the exclamation point simply emphasizes its banality!

Quotation marks should be used honestly and sparingly, when there is a genuine quotation at hand, and it is necessary to be very rigorous about the words enclosed by the marks. If something is to be quoted, the exact words must be used. If part of it must be left out because of space limitations, it is good manners to insert three dots to indicate the omission, but it is unethical to do this if it means connecting two thoughts which the original author did not intend to have tied together. Above all, quotation marks should not be used for ideas that you�d like to disown, things in the air so to speak. Nor should they be put in place around clichés; if you want to use a cliché you must take full responsibility for it yourself and not try to fob it off on anon., or on society. The most objectionable misuse of quotation marks, but one which illustrates the danger of misuse in ordinary prose, is seen in advertising, especially in advertisements for small restaurants, for example "just around the corner," or "a good place to eat." No single, identifiable, citable person ever really said, for the record, "just around the corner," much less "a good place to eat," least likely of all for restaurants of the type that use this type of prose.

The dash is a handy device, informal and essentially playful, telling you that you�re about to take off on a different tack but still in some way connected with the present course � only you have to remember that the dash is there, and either put a second dash at the end of the notion to let the reader know that he�s back on course, or else end the sentence, as here, with a period.

The greatest danger in punctuation is for poetry. Here it is necessary to be as economical and parsimonious with commas and periods as with the words themselves, and any marks that seem to carry their own subtle meanings, like dashes and little rows of periods, even semicolons and question marks, should be left out altogether rather than inserted to clog up the thing with ambiguity. A single exclamation point in a poem, no matter what else the poem has to say, is enough to destroy the whole work.

The things I like best in T.S. Eliot�s poetry, especially in the Four Quartets, are the semicolons. You cannot hear them, but they are there, laying out the connections between the images and the ideas. Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath.

Commas can�t do this sort of thing; they can only tell you how the different parts of a complicated thought are to be fitted together, but you can�t sit, not even to take a breath, just because of a comma,

* From The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979:103-6).

non-sequitur

2010-02-01T00:40:00.002-06:00

I was looking through an old journal and found these quotes, but it doesn't say who I was quoting. Your guess is as good as mine as to the context/speaker...they made me laugh.

"Moth in my butt crack."

"It's hard to look gay in short shorts when you're a girl."

What?

"those that burn with thirst...

2009-11-07T00:17:00.025-06:00

Sometimes it's hard to figure out what's wrong. As a female, that's a pretty regular part of life. It could just be one of those days. It could be one of those days that occur every 28 days. It could be a lack of sleep...it could just be that Hollywood keeps making all those sentimental movies for a dime a dozen and we just can't help ourselves but indulge...

It's been hard, really hard, for me to realize, and admit, that I'm really just...sick.

Not sick clinically. I say "sick" in a really abstract, metaphysical, maybe even sort of metaphorical, way. Like, I am the way I am because something else - something not me, something that no one could have controlled or executed or changed or stopped - came and blindsided me. Knocked me so hard I didn't know what to do. Just sat for a long time, dizzy.

I mean, it's normal to try and over-do life, get stressed out, feel sort of dissatisfied and slightly edgey or unhappy at times, right? I just can't shake it. I don't know.

I live in a pretty cute neighborhood. At night sometimes I'll go running and notice all the cute houses with their interesting porch-lights, patio furniture, plants, small gardens...etc. Sometimes their windows are bare enough for me to see inside and notice their decorating techniques - drapes, window hangings, lamps, throws and pillows and couches, or plane bareness. I see all of this aesthetic beauty and yet, for some reason, I don't feel...good. I don't feel pleasure from it. I feel sick. I feel...fear. I feel like I need to compete. I feel like I need to criticize. I feel like noticing how each house in the neighborhood is just a little too close to every other house. I feel like sighing and commenting on how avant garde and cool everyone in Austin tries to be. Keep Austin Weird. I feel like reassuring myself that my house will be completely perfect someday, without all those cracks on the porch steps, without the peeling paint, without overgrown patches of grass. I'll paint the trim nicer. I'll tear down that stupid fence. I'll make something out of you yet.

Can somebody please say "O-C-D"?

Lately I've been trying to grow plants. I planted a few wildflower seedlings and they've been springing up on my windowsill, to my utter delight. I don't know what it is that's so great about taking care of plants. It's easy. You water, provide sunlight, and watch. It always works. There's no puzzling complexities to work through, no tough conversations to be had, nothing needs to be forgiven. If it won't grow, or if it dies, that's ok. There's always another plant. I don't have to ask any questions about why, or how could you, or what do I do from here?

I watched a home movie tonight. Summer 1994. Boy, I was an ugly duckling of a kid. Not like my cute little sister. Somehow she was always radiant. But we both had the worst hair ever. Her teeth were actually pretty grotesque, too...but despite this she was really cute. There was one pretty great scene where my dad pre-empted the general concept surrounding reality television. "Lay back down and watch TV again, Mandy," he said. "I want to capture 'How Amanda Spent Her Summer Vacation.'" I had gotten up and started to take immediate interest in the camera. "Pause it for a second! I wanna see it! Stop the tape! I wanna see it! Stop the tape!" The camera turned and left the room, ignoring my cries, and entered the kitchen where my big sis was shouting, "What?"

"I'm not TALKING to you!!!"

"Mom, she doesn't want a shake - she's saying tape! She's talking about video tape!" and begins to storm out the door to head to Dairy Queen. "I thought she was saying she wanted a shake!" returns mom. Dad follows with the camera outside, and this time I'm at his tail, "Stop the tape!" I get in front of the camera and beg. "Stop it! Let me see it! Please?!"

Dad narrates, with no unnecessary emotion, "This is reality."

"I KNOW! It's got the red light on! STOP the TAPE!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Till the landslide took it down." -fleetwood mac

I miss my dad. Enough to want to stop breathing sometimes. Enough to weep uncontrollably at any given moment...turning on the computer, hanging the curtains, getting ready for a shower. It's been a regular part of my life for the last two months.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I used to think my big problem in life, this permeating sense of dissatisfaction, was due to the fact that I just wasn't righteous or moral enough. I hadn't figured out how to be motivated enough to please God and be disciplined and read all the books that are supposed to show you how to make yourself, life and the world better. I just needed to try harder. And I was going to change the world. I was going to fix everybody, fix everything that was wrong.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I got my way in that video. The next scene cuts to me holding the camera up at my dad, capturing the essence of him drinking a cream soda. There was a lot on that tape... lots of shouting and loudness and dog-barking and sister-tormenting and dancing in underwear and uncontrollable laughter and kid-dom and totally foolish gratuitousness. And it was so, so very short.

This is reality.

I'll be Ok. It's getting so much better every day. Air is easier to breathe...the freedom and wonder of kid-dom is returning - without judgment or moralizing, without anxiety, without the urge to change myself or someone else, or someone else's porch light. I'm growing up. The ugly duckling teeth grew in a bit crooked but adjustments are being made. It's Ok to cry and not no what else to do. It's all coming out.

"those that burn with thirst

shall lift their glass."

this great illusion

2009-11-05T10:52:00.001-06:00

Time.

"The objective world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the lifeline of my body, does a section of the world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continually changes." -Herman Weyl

I love talking about the past because it is the only really concrete thing I have.

The present is almost illusory. It slips by so quickly that I never really even realize that I ever had it, much less feel like I know what I ought to do with it.

The future is too problematic to even deal with. It is, in reality, completely uncertain, yet I somehow convince myself that I have the capability of controlling it. I visualize, plan, and predict. When future moves to present, I wring my hands and watch as it slips into the ambiguity of the stasis of "now."

How can I determine what to do with "now" when I am so focused on all the possibilities of "then" - of tomorrow, of some distant time and space?

But then, as the moment - carefully dancing with and gripping all the other molecules surrounding it and qualifying its existence - slips into the past, it frees me from this worry. It is over. Its existence, its quality, its validity, does not depend on me or what I do with it. Consciousness is no longer required, no responsibility is asked of me. I can laugh. But sometimes it is better to cry.

"sentences"

2009-10-18T20:59:00.007-05:00

I wear it oh so well

this thin, black veil

between me and the blue sky

between me and the sun

I can't remember all that well

where the ghost walked off to when she

stepped out of the coffin

one day is far too long

one breath costs so very much

give my soul something, please

give my soul something to drink

words are always precariously stacking themselves

too high

the alphabet might fall some day

i hope if works on me

i hope it does me well before then

i want to be sad

but i don't want to make you feel the same way

can anyone see me

can anyone tell I'm shivering?

I look to (anticipate, daydream about, obsess over) the future because I mistakenly think it will give me relief or redemption somehow. Tomorrow I might be better. What plagues me today might just have been a dream that I awake from in the morning. Everything might change. It takes more courage to suck in the air of today - of right now - and swallow everything that swims in it, with gratitutde.

"Rest is not a commodity that Jesus hands out...rest is inseparable from Jesus." -Don V.

I turned the page to a new chapter of my life. I found new worries. Lots of them. They jumped out from the pages like a million shrieking gremlins with oozing fangs, stinky breath and sharp daggers in their hands. I thought it was just the lack of sleep or the amount of homework or bicycle riding or not enough protein or PMS. But it was none of that. These demons live inside me; for 24 years I have been their permanent home.

I once asked God what good it did anyone for me to be a photographer. "What is the point of this gift?" I asked. I felt like his answer to me was..."I just like it."

Well, what if that's it? What if that's the whole reason for everything about me? The whole reason I am alive? I didn't have to exist. My life isn't necessary. It's extraneous. Gratuitous. Extra.

All of life is.

"The meaning of life is to live it." -a bumper sticker

the night i felt tired

2009-10-06T22:51:00.009-05:00

Sometimes I decide I want something new.

Usually when this happens it's because I'm looking at what I already have, and I'm sick of seeing it. I'm sick of the clothes in my closet. So, I want new ones. Time for a trip to the Goodwill Blue Hanger, or for a Savers 50% off sale. Or for a sewing machine. But I can't just add to the wardrobe, I've gotta get rid of the old. And not only do I gotta get rid of it, I also gotta find a good way to get rid of it. Give it to someone who wants it, needs it, would fit well with it, or is poor...

I think a lot about how things can be used as other things. When I'm making my breakfast taco in the morning I look at the carton of eggs and think of the ways it can be recycled into something new. This intrigues me. I tense up and wince a little bit, right there, standing at the stove, as I think about the day when I use up the last egg and I have to make a choice - whether to hold on to that little egg carton...maybe find a place for it in the garage. Maybe build a home or nest for little egg cartons, and plastic bags, and wrappers, and things...things that could be useful again. Or if I'm going to waste its reincarnated life as a functioning utility by tossing it in the trash.

Yes, I know. Austin recycles - there is hope for this little piece of cardboard legs with a top hat. But that is so impersonal. I would rather see this little cardboard man dance in my kitchen to a new song.

It takes so much to manage it all...

I am tired. I've been growing tired for a while, now. How long, I do not know. I am not present. I am not living in the moment. Has anyone ever really been able to do it?

I was trying to remind myself tonight (by telling my room mate - and using my quantum physics lingo, probably incorrectly, in attempts to sound smart) that there is no time. No time! It's an illusion. It's a construction of death. It's the result of our knowledge - good and evil. You're not waiting for eternity...you're in eternity.

Stop waiting.

Oh, but it takes so much energy. I am going a million miles an hour to try to balance it all, and for what? Christian love? Altruism.

My misery is a result of forgetting, once past - in a particular time - as well as habitually, who I really am. And by overlooking who I am my ghost feels naked and knows she's just a ghost and that everyone can see the wall and the expression of the face on the painting she's standing in front of - through her. She's just trying to stand there and hold it up but everyone can see right through it, and sometimes she can see right through them, too, and it makes her feel a little better...

I have to remember. Oh God, what is it going to take? A season of solitude in the woods? Everyone tries that. I'm already there in my head. What difference would it make? My Walden Pond is all around me all the time, I just have to open my eyes.

I'm frustrated. I don't feel very creative right now. I want to make something just so I can look at it and know it came from me. I don't want answers anymore. I want to find out what the question was.

Welcome the mud along with the picturesque. Embrace the mosquitoes and flies with the ambience of the cry of the loon. Stop pretending I can experience one without the other. They both come in the same glass. There's nothing else to drink.

I guess I just need nights like this sometimes. Hell, if I didn't, would I ever have anything to say at all? I always gotta have somethin' to say.

Summer smells and syrups

2009-08-21T12:15:00.002-05:00

Summer may be winding down but I still perspire like a barn animal every time I step outside. As does everyone...in Texas.

Well, I've had a good week of appointments and to-do's before school starts. Here is what it consisted of:

Kansas spruced up my bike for me. He put on new tires, new brakes, a new fork, and he oiled up my chain. That took about 10 lbs of weight off of it and made my ride A LOT more smooth, and safe.

I went grocery shopping for work and stopped to take a look at syrups for my own personal curiosity, to see if there are any syrups at HEB that don't contain high fructose. This guy, about my age, walks up to me and says, "What are you looking for?" I told him. "See," he goes, "that's what we were just talking about. Organic girls..."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I mean..." He was definitely drunk. At about 3:00 in the afternoon.

"I mean, I kinda think it's like obvious, you know? Like, organic? Aren't we all like...grown?"

"Yeah I guess we are."

"Why is that stuff bad anyways?" He was referring to high fructose corn syrup. I actually couldn't even remember why it was bad. I just know I've heard from everywhere that it is. I BS'd some answer about blood sugar. He just stared at my boobs and looked really bored. I finished my half made-up nutrition lesson and waited quietly for him to take his turn in the conversation but it was hopeless. "Um, sorry to disturb your...your looking for syrup," he said and walked away.

The only other exciting thing that happened this week was that I got a haircut. Oh! Wait, here's something else. I was taking Keith back from the bookstore to get his books for classes. As we were walking through the door from the garage in his apartments, Schatzi (his 5 lb Chihuahua / terrier mix who thinks she is the Minotaur or some other ferocious thing) decided to poop. She's done this a few times while going through the garage despite my urgings that she just wait till we get to the apartment. (I think she knows it pisses me off because she can totally get away with it). But she was trying to poop right where Keith was wheeling himself in the doorway, so he kind of scooted her with his foot and she moved....to another spot right in front of him. This continued for a few good minutes as he kept trying to make her clear a path. All the while her little turd is dangling from her butt and she's trying to continue pooping (squatting all the way) while walking. I don't think she's ever made us laugh that hard before.

Wow.

Last night's TND was great. Good times, good friends.

Good bike ridin'

Here's to the coming of Fall...where hopefully soon it won't smell like BO everywhere I go!

i want to be inhibited::emily::that::was::just::for::you!

2009-08-09T16:20:00.011-05:00

Summer, summer, summer…

Hotness. Driving. Flying. Appointments. Insurance. Plasma. Road trips.

Getting up early. Sleeping in. Lunch and coffee dates with friends. Bike riding. Grocery shopping. Outdoor theatre in the park.

Being able to ride my bike to the grocery store! Super cool.

Packing and unpacking. Sweating like an animal. Tanning in the sun.

Seeing old friends. Making new ones. Making a new friend out of an old one, and new memories.

I went to Arizona just to go on a date with Will. A date that lasted 8 days and consisted of baking in the heat, seeing my family, swimming in the pool (and the lake), walking around the old ghost town of Jerome and just having an all-around lovely time with a very special person indeed.

Now I am back in Texas and gearing up for school – moved into a new house with three very lovely girls. I’ve done nothing the last few days but unpack and try to settle in, and catch up with my good old friend, Kristina Benham.

I’d like to find some way to describe my current state of being other than these simple events and facts and products of the dance between Happenstance and Providence that I call my life. Within the last few months some sort of metamorphosis has taken place. I used to worry. A lot. All the time, about anything and everything, and most of my anxiety was over something I could never quite put my finger on. Something has changed.

It would take too much explaining to tell you how, but if you feel like it, you can ask me sometime and I will tell you over coffee or on the phone. I like to talk about it. Writing about it seems too tedious (I just got done writing 6 single-spaced typed pages about it, and I still don’t think it makes very much sense. Maybe it would be better expressed through Haiku).

“Garth, I think that was like a haiku or something…”

Anyways, I love my life and I love the fact that I have so much peace right now that I don’t know what to do with my thoughts and energy, since I used to worry and now I don’t. What did all of this mental space clear up for?

She can laugh at the days to come.

Even After All These Years...

2009-07-20T11:56:00.004-05:00

Whenever I finish a roll of toilet paper and come to the cardboard inner-tube, I still think, "I've got to save this for my hamster." I haven't had a hamster in 11 years!

I have re-discovered a lovely, secret (though only a slight bit shameful) joy: thrift store shopping. There are tons of them in Austin. Right around the corner from me there's a Goodwill Blue Hanger Outlet. Which basically means a warehouse full of rows of bins that are full of crap. It's not organized or put together nicely...sometimes there's even broken glass and other things you wouldn't want to touch (lots of shoppers wear gloves as they browse). Everything costs next to nothing, so it is fun to browse and do low-risk shopping. I am a sucker for purses - I have done well containing myself (I've only purchased one). I saw a bulletin board with "Sue" and a flower hand painted across it and thought it was cute. Then I thought, "If Melinda Baustian was with me, would she approve of this shopping decision?" I laughed at myself and left the Sue board in its bin. (It's purely coincidental that Melinda's middle name is Sue).

Then I saw something that I will never forget. The employees had cleared one of the rows of bins so they could bring out new bins with new items. A crowd gathered at the end of the store and it was hard to shop with all the elbows I was bumping up against. There was an invisible line drawn across the room where everyone was waiting for the new bins to be ready. Like the starting line of a marathon or something. Then, like the fire of a gunshot that begins a race, an attendant said, "Alright go!" and it was just like those videos you see at Christmastime, that you can't believe you're seeing, where people turn into animals in a stampede and hurdle themselves forward toward the plunder. The bins were all organized and nice and neat, but once people got their dirty little hands (or gloves) into them, it was all disheveled. Explains the messiness - it's just the crazy shoppers like me.

I was a bit materialistic and bought two scarves for no reason at all other than they were cute.

It's summer!

Hello World

2009-07-15T23:44:00.006-05:00

Well, I feel I should update. I'm not sure what exactly to say, though I know there's a lot I could say...

Mere and I had a fantastic time in California. I got what I was wishing for...to see this boy:

His name is Will Wheelehan and he is my boyfriend. It feels sort of weird to say that. Like, I feel like it is not actually real and I am just pretending he is my boyfriend just to hear myself say it. But...I'm not!

Well, I've admittedly been doodling his name all over my notebook for a little while now. Ok, not literally but... :) It was GOOD to see him LIVE in PERSON. And it sucks that I can't every day.

We did some other cool things on our road trip. Shooting with Will, walking to the Full House house, riding the San Fran city bus (for free!), eating crab at fisherman's wharf, seeing fireworks in San Diego with Liz, visiting Tahoe with Will, night on the town in Vegas, night in Sedona and an afternoon in Jerome, AZ. Beautiful. Meredith should have lots to write about.

Thanks to those who let us stay with them - my Big Sis Maria, Liz (you rock), Savannah, Rebecca, the Wheelehans, and Pati Muniz (thank you for dinner - you also rock. you will probably never read this). And an EXTRA big thanks to my boss, Keith, for renting his car out to me at the last minute. You really rock.

Practically Perfect in Every Way / Let it All Hang Out

2009-06-30T01:53:00.012-05:00

I'm not sure whether to call it the Perfect Day. It wasn't exactly perfect. It was only practically perfect.

I'll start with the imperfect part to get it out of the way: Plasma today. Oh my gosh. This girl was not focused. That, or she was too focused. That, or, she just sucks at sticking people! I swear my flesh was on fire, she had to have been scraping at my muscle tissue digging around trying to find my vein. I squirmed like a child. I winced. (I always look away). I usually try to hide my reaction to pain but this time, I said, "Ow!" She said sorry. When the saline was going in at the end, it hurt really, really bad. Almost enough to make me not want to give plasma as regularly as I wanted to, if it means increasing my chances of having an experience similar to that again.

After I came home things began to perk up. I recently purchased a bathing suit. It's the first suit I've gotten since I was 14. I have never been much of a swimmer, mostly because I do not wish to show the world as much of my body as is generally required for this activity. This summer, however, I decided I am an adult and I need to get over it and enjoy the water! Yesterday I did. I had my first swim at Barton Springs. And loved it.

So today I thought I would enjoy the suit even further by laying out. (It's a great suit for this - say no to tan lines!)

Now, where I live, "laying out" is sort of a tricky thing. We have a backyard. When I walked outside to inspect for any areas that might possibly be suitable, the dogs followed me with intense excitement. "Welcome to our house!" I told them I liked what they had done with the place, but between the poop mine field, the overturned kiddie pool (which has been trampled and compounded enough to hold muddy water that the dogs cool their feet off in), and the random grove of wild sunflowers that has recently sprung up, I found no adequate place to tan.

Thus, I made for the front porch. I ended up laying my towel in the gravel next to the barbecue grill - our one area of exposure to the sun that isn't occupied by a garden plant, car, or storage unit. (We really don't have very large yards in my neighborhood).

It was so, so wonderfully lovely.

Iced tea. A bowl full of sliced strawberries and peaches with yogurt. Bill Evans tickling the ivories via my blackberry (I love you, Blackberry). Good book (The Fountainhead) by a nice, bitchy female philosopher (Ayn Rand). What more could one ask for?

Then, when I decided that just 10 more seconds of the Texas blazing sun on my back would probably do permanent damage to my entire cuerpo, I went into the house to let the AC cool off and got a phone call from my dear, dear friend Melinda. We had quite a pleasant talk, as always, and I made myself soup.

After the soup and the convo, I went back outside for some more reading, which was followed by some thinking, writing (on my blackberry!), meditating, and guitar playing. It was cool and windy while I played guitar and sang some of my most favorite songs. Doing that was more refreshing for my soul than yesterday's dip in the Spring.

Then I realized that I was extremely hungry (it was now past 8pm) so I went to dig for left overs. There was plenty of leftover LAMB. (Do I not live in food paradise?) And there were cucumbers, tomatoes and feta cheese at my disposal to make the perfect little Mediterranean dinner.

Yep. Life is always getting better, day after day.

Thank you, Bathing Suit. Thank you, Blackberry. Thank you, Texas Sun. Thank you, Melinda. Little Lamb, God bless you!...for being eaten by me.

I can't wait to go to California!

RIP Truck, at least I didn't kill you myself

2009-06-27T15:41:00.014-05:00

Yesterday I went to get my car looked at and a few things fixed. Pre-California-roadtrip safety repairs, you know. I got there a little bit late in the morning so there was a bit of a wait. What does one do in hellishly hot Texas when one has no vehicle? Hang out in Goodyear's waiting room for two hours and watch the news obsess over Michael Jackson's death and $400 million debt? No way, Jose - I hit up Capitol Metro for a free, air conditioned ride across Austin.

The 338 route begins right across the street from Goodyear, so I sat and ate a breakfast taco while I waited for the next bus to come. After picking up some folks at HEB in the Hancock Center, we headed down Red River to Lamar where the rest of the route heads directly south. I watched the world go by, some familiar places like downtown, Lake Austin, and the various businesses on South Lamar. Been there, seen that. I took the time to type up some philosophical musings on life, heaven, hell, morality and ultimate reality, on my blackberry (God's gift to the inspired writer on-the-go). What a life.

I wasn't sure how far south the route would take me. Turns out it stops at some really obscure cross street in a neighborhood south of 290. I asked the driver where would be a good place to go next as a bus explorer, and he recommended West Gate Mall.

When I got to WGM I was thirsty enough to die, so I walked into Central Market and got a little lunch and some juice. To my dismay, I found out after drinking half a quart that this pomegranate tea juice I got has HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) in it, and I've been drinking it a lot lately. Bummer! It was still blissful, however, to sit outside on the cafe's patio and listen to a lovely playlist on my blackberry (I love you blackberry) while enjoying a cool, sweet drink.

The phone call came while I was walking back to the bus. Trey from Goodyear - the verdict on my truck. It was really good news. If you like hearing the news that you no longer have a vehicle.

My axle has been bent for a long time, I've driven on it like that for years. But they told me that it looked like it was getting worse (it was wobbling a lot and that's why I brought it in), probably due to the fact that the frame is bent. So, I'm basically driving a wrecked car. I could drive a car with a bent frame around town, but if the wheel could spontaneously fall off at any moment because of my axle, it is not worth it.

This is a blessing in disguise, however. The reason my frame is bent is that I got rear-ended last summer! This means that, if I play my cards right, I can cash in from the driver's insurance company since the shop they sent me to never fixed my car properly. I'm going to push for monetary compensation and not buy a new car. When I live in town this fall I won't need one.

As for California, someone has already paid me to haul their cargo to Venice, so there's no way we're backing out. (I wouldn't want to, anyways). It will just cost a few more dollars. We're still working out the details...I think we'll rent a nice, spacious cargo van.

I'm pretty happy that, of the second vehicle I have had completely ruined, it wasn't my fault this time.

After I came back and dealt with my bad news I went to Home Depot. An old, sweet, African American disabled man, Raymond, helped me look for stir-sticks and sign-posts. He has a speech impediment so I kept misinterpreting what he was saying and looking in the wrong places...it cracked him up. I definitely made his day. When I was checking out I asked him how long he'd been working there, and he pointed to a little patch on his orange, Home Depot apron. "11 Years of Service," it said. Wow!

What a day. What a life.

my lovely day

2009-06-24T17:23:00.003-05:00

Today I...

Donated plasma for like the 6th time. It was the first time that it hurt! They stuck me kind of weird.

The rest of the day has made up for the pain. I watched two completely excellent movies while cleaning (deep cleaning deeply embedded dirt and grime in the kitchen). Good Will Hunting and The Neverending Story.

I decided that the next dog I own (or owns me, rather) ought to be named Falcor. The Luck Dragon.

Yeah, how do you like them apples???

Yeah.

Texting a 10-year old

2009-06-21T22:59:00.005-05:00

Conversation with my 10-year old nephew, via text message:

G 10:57 pm - Waz-up!
Me 10:58 pm - WAAAZZZZUUUPP!! -Yaya (family nickname)
G 10:58 pm - Waaaaaazupppppp!
Me 10:59 pm - Nada mucho, Wwaazzzzup with u???
G 11:01 pm - Nada mucho!
Me 11: 03 pm - Go milk a cow.
G 11:06 pm - Go milk a bull!
Me 11:09 pm - Where are your manners??
G 11:10 pm - What manners?
Me 11:30 - The ones all good little boys have, silly. Aren't you a good little angelic boy?
G 11:32 - Sure!

I love the 21st century.

'Meet Crazy People' Day

2009-06-18T17:44:00.022-05:00

"Waiting for...Godot?" I heard a man standing behind me say as I waited for the light to change to cross Guadalupe onto UT's campus. "Waiting....waiting for...?" he kept muttering over my shoulder.

I slid my book forward so he could read the title. "Waiting for....God! Well! Isn't that...different!" he said. "Simone...Bouvier?"

"Simone Weil [ v e ]*," I corrected. "She was a French woman."

"Wasn't there a Simone Bouvier? A Feminist?" He had a red felt bag strapped over his shoulder and long, wild grey hair kept under a hat. "She wrote....the Feminist...Mystique?" His words dragged out of his mouth with wasteful resonance. He smelled of alcohol and his blue eyes, though pointed at me, seemed to be looking past me or over me.

"I'm not sure," I answered.

He looked at my books again. "Ayn Rand? Whoa, you are seeeeerious! You must be taking an English class!"

"No, it's just for fun," I said.

"Wow! Be careful, they say...inside every reader....there's a writer."

"I think that's true. Do you like to write?" I asked him. The light for the crosswalk changed and we stepped into the street.

"I keep a journal. That's why I like to talk to strangers, interesting people to write about. Nice meeting you!" He abruptly veered to my right, crossing behind me. I had been trying to keep my eyes steadily on him (for safety) but I gave up turning my head to the left as he disappeared from my sight.

Then I walked into the Union building to use the computer and another crazy person, this time a lady, approached me. The story was not very compelling (well, neither was the first one), she only introduced herself to me, using her nickname, which I forgot. I know it was her nickname because she said, "Hello, my nickname is..." She didn't say anything to me after that.

Well, crazy people have to go somewhere in the sweltering summer heat. May as well come talk to me.

*I'm pretty sure that's the correct way to phonetically transcribe the sound "vay." Anyone wanna challenge me?

No one gets me

2009-06-17T16:22:00.004-05:00

I was just laying down on the floor with my dog, Blazer, laying down beside me. I was stroking his head and he was looking all pitiful, because we've been yelling at him for being bad all day.

Then he looked at me in the eyes and said very clearly, "No one gets me."

I laughed for about 5 minutes.

It's true, Blazer. Life can be so complicated.

"How much better can all this get?"

2009-06-12T15:14:00.021-05:00

I just want to say something.

I love my church. Mosaic Austin, you are my community and I love you. I frickin love you!

I feel the meaning of these words of Paul's: "I thank God every time I remember you..." Seriously. Holy friggin moly. Can I just try to explain why a little bit?

The first night I walked into 5619 for liturgy I knew there was something about this church that was different, that I was really going to love. I was having a hard time finding a church that I really felt like I could fit in with, find relationships and, well, enjoy the "show" overall. For the previous year, I had grown really tired of church. As I was working for a ministry, I felt like I had my community already sort of built-in, and church became another a routine to fill my already over-crowded schedule. I was tired of hearing sermons that seemed to be more about motivating people to appear more pious in the eyes of culture rather than recognizing our perpetual need for Mercy and the gratuitous love of God communicated through the cross. I wanted to hear the gospel, not a self-help message. I wanted to contemplate this reality in the midst of others who would be willing to recognize the complex simplicity and depth and beauty of the mystery of Christ, not offer a nicely packaged dogma or checklist of faith. The reality of relationships is what I craved. God knows.

Aside: maybe I ought to be more hesitant to use this type of rhetoric or to make comparisons between churches or ministries, as if I am bragging that we have the best church out there and everyone else is wrong. I don't believe that is true. I don't want to make the circle smaller instead of wider in the greater Body of faith. But I've got to be honest about what I see in this community and contrast it with what I've experienced in contemporary Christian culture (as a generalization) to be able to describe why it is so meaningful to me to find myself here at just the right time in my life.

Maybe this is shallow, but...I really like the band, Sigur Ros. As I was sitting down in my white folding chair, waiting for liturgy to start, their eerily beautiful sounds started playing from the mains. I thought, "Oh - my - gosh...what kind of church is this?" Ha ha...I am cracking myself thinking about this.

Then, someone from the congregation stood up and walked to the front. He was wearing bicycle shorts and a tank top, revealing a bit of scruffly chest hair, looking as if he had just come straight from a game of racketball or from riding his bike. "Welcome to Mosaic," he said, "we're a community of seekers and believers..."

He took up a banjo and sat down with the band, who proceeded to sing:

"Song is so old, love is so new"
"We must also love the whore"
"Bandages weave into a wedding gown..."
"It cannot be too much longer!"

Everyone sat quietly in contemplation. I also sat in silence, but my soul was on fire.

I don't remember what the exact topic was that night for the sermon, but when it was over, we all formed a line to the faded formica-topped table at the front and did what may be the most important thing any group of people can do together. We were each fed a little torn-off morsel of bread, which we ourselves dipped in sugary grape-flavored juice...crude elements symbolic of the necessity that we consume this Mercy, and receive it from each other's hands.

I could go on and on, about At the Table in the fall, about being welcomed to the Simone Weil book club by -AH-, the college bible study at the -G's-, the coffee dates and dinner groups with -PQ- and -MF- with flying fall cheeseballsfrom -CP- and eating with only our right hands. The beauty and simplicity of God's presence in liturgy times. The clarity I felt in those moments that cut through my more typical state of anxiety. My long-missed ability to write a few lines of poetry as -SW- and the band played quietly during the communion meal.

But I won't do that. I will just end by saying, to anyone who may be listening: thank you. Thanks for being who you are, for loving God and each other and yourselves, and living in the kingdom in Austin with me. It has changed my life. And reading all the way through this sentimental little note - thank you for that ;)

Massages and Rhetoric

2009-06-11T18:21:00.003-05:00

I was getting my boss' car washed today and they had a massage therapist set up in their waiting area, selling massages. He asked if I wanted one for $1 per minute. I usually say no to stuff like that, but I have been thinking of and wanting to see a massage therapist for a while to work on my shoulders. I've been working on my posture for like a year to get rid of my horrible slouching stoop, and have realized that my neck and shoulders are pretty messed up and tense and in need of help.

"We take Visa!" he offered. Sold - what the heck?...5 minutes, and we'll see how this goes...

About a minute into it I told him, "You better make this 10..."

Oh man, I need to get a 10 min. massage like, every day. I felt, like, fixed. Like a person should feel on a normal basis, I think. Thank you God.

I haven't been a very faithful blogger lately. In my writing classes they always drill, "Blog blog blog! Build a writing sample for future employers!" So I have this pressure to blog...but no real motivation. I'm not motivated because I don't really have an audience. On blogspot I have 1 follower (thanks Melissa!) and people on facebook don't read notes unless they are tagged. At Teen Mania I was a blogging freak. I was motivated to write because I knew people were reading, leaving comments.

There is something about having an audience...having someone to listen to your words. This may be strange or even a little psychotic, but I have this secret little audience person in my head that I talk to constantly. If not out loud, then silently in my thoughts. Sometimes I don't remember whether or not something I said to myself in my head was just in my head or if I was speaking, which can make for embarrassing situations. There are other people who do this too, right? Right??

I picture the audience member as a specific person most of the time. Usually someone whom I think is cool and wish to impress. Cool teachers. Friends or preachers or people I don't know but would like to know. Boys I want to impress. Never do I really think of it as what it really is....my own view of myself.

Words are expressions of the intangible. Dang. Does that not do it for you right there?

“Where does the drama get its materials? From the "unending conversation" that is going on at the point in history when we are born.”
-Kenneth Burke

"Words in my head
Like misfits after midnight, begging for a light
Words left unsaid,
they may never see the light of day, and that may be ok."
-over the rhine

2009-05-23T00:39:00.000-05:00

I have been learning quite a bit about ambition. Ambition seems to be a seriously dreadful thing for me. Aspiration always catches the best of me in the end.

I am so blessed. I live such a full life. I have come to understand so much freedom from so much indescribable truth. I feel responsible for so much because of what I know, yet it doesn't cause me to fear or feel burdened. I know that everyone shares the same responsibility for what they know, too, and I can't consider my own knowledge to be weightier than anyone else's. To take my responsibility too seriously would be just as grievous as neglecting it altogether.

I need to read more to understand and learn how language flows together to create a story. I take fragments of language to learn abstract concepts and sometimes make them discernible as concrete pictures, but this is a challenge for me because I do not regularly practice the art of language as words flowing together to weave a tapestry. This should be my inspiration for reading, not self-validation from books as testaments to my knowledge.

There is a deeper "within" where truth comes out. Real inspiration flows there. Pure motivation for anything lives in that realm. I talk to myself a lot and pretend that I'm in dialogue with other people, but 99.999% of the time I am only validating my ego by explicating things that are on my mind that I think would make these imaginary impressions of people that I know think very highly of me. This is from the shallow realm, it's a shallow use of my gift of language. I have to reverse the habit of drawing from this shallow pool and learn to dig into the deeper within where the real me - the true, beautiful me - knows a precious secret and takes joy in liberating others with its shine.

"like misfits after midnight..."

2009-05-14T23:08:00.005-05:00

Sometimes certain words get stuck in my head. Does this ever happen to you?

It's like having a song in your head, but...instead of a melody or something, it's just...a word. And I'll end up using that word a lot more often in my vocabulary without realizing it. Like, I'm not misusing the word, either. I'm not using it just for the sake of using it. It seems like my opportunities to use the word meaningfully in conversation are just increased.

Words I've had in my head over the past few months include:

Gratuitous
Stasis
idiosyncratic
Synchronicity

I think these are all really good words to use.

Ok...enough being nerdy.

School is finished! I am NOT doing summer school. This just feels too good. I didn't get the position as a research assistant. Oh well. The Lost season finale made me pee my pants in shock. I might be coming to Lindale on May 30. I'm going to see Melinda graduate from SFA on Saturday.

Life is (always) good!

Heat of Hell, Floor of Heaven

2009-05-09T18:23:00.005-05:00

Summer is coming.

Hell, it is so hot that I would consider it here. Time to embrace its hostility...

My plan for the summer is to write as much as possible, and do as much reading as I can as well. I am a much better reader than I was before this semester, having spent hours reading and listening to the fairly sophisticated academic prose of my professors. I am so fortunate for that. Reading (and writing) is sort of a form of meditation for me. Something changes that I can't really explain.

I am also going to be volunteering at Mosaic for half a day/week. I'll also still be working for Keith. I may do summer classes. I am very interested in being an assistant to the Dept. Chair for Linguistics at UT who is writing a book on syntax, if I get chosen.

I've been really cranky and somewhat emotionally turbulent inside for the past few days, so I've been listening to the CD I bought at Over the Rhine's show, The Darkest Night of the Year. It's a Christmas album. Listening to tidings of peace on Earth and good will to men and the silence of that darkest night has been therapeutic for me.

"Thank you my angel
for blessing me with these words
and for giving me what I was hungry for:
a taste of dirt from the floor of heaven."
-otr

New Favorite

2009-05-04T23:01:00.002-05:00

I want all preachers everywhere to start preaching this on Sundays.

Long but quite the inspiration. I think I will listen to it many, many times this summer.

Just click here

Ohhhhhh...

2009-05-03T01:34:00.005-05:00

My Second Over the Rhine concert...

It was so beautiful.

I could have closed my eyes and be taken to another place very easily.

But then I would have missed the lines in Karin's face...the near-anguish she shows when she lets out a note that means...everything to her.

And Linford's smiles of delight when he catches Karin or someone in the band being absolutely amazing as the absolutely amazing sounds are produced from the electrical current of all five of them on the stage.

Of course, all of it was blurry because my eyes were full of tears nearly the entire time.

I couldn't take pictures (this photo is from last year) - it was frowned upon, and we were sitting in the FRONT ROW BABY. Karin's shiny blonde hair next to the deep red roses sitting on the stage with her made that a little hard for the photographer in me.

I'm going back tomorrow night. "I hang from my desire like a rope swing from a tree..."

2009-04-23T09:57:00.007-05:00

I had a fantastic Wednesday!

It was just one of those days where you feel good for no particular reason. I'm having more and more of those days lately. It makes life sweet. Every other minute I was having some thought or revelation or discovery of some simple truth that makes life better and more free and made me more happy about living it. Life is a gift. A gift I say! Don't take it so seriously.

Then, just when it couldn't get any better...I looked through a telescope and saw this:

I mean, with my EYES...I saw Saturn. How cool is that?

I was really thirsty afterwards (astronomers' work can really take the electrolytes out of you) so I went to Wendy's to get a drink. When I asked the guy at the counter how his night was going, he was like, "Alright." Then he asked me how mine was, and I was like, "I just saw Saturn!" I think I was having a better night than he was. I recommended that he try looking at Saturn sometime.

Unoriginal Confessions

2009-04-19T00:04:00.003-05:00

I've been exploring this new life-metaphor on gardening, or the concept of a garden. Well, I suppose it really isn't new...since it's the oldest metaphor known to man. But to me, it's like getting a new-used car, or watching a re-run on television that I never saw when it first aired.

I never saw all this stuff before...

I live my life in the future. I am frantic, OCD, preoccupied, rushed, and fueled by a sense of martyrdom at having to do so much in such a short time to try to save the world. There are lots of false paradigms embedded within me that this stems from; I'm not going to go into all the details of the bad theology and naturally fallen psychosis I am recovering from.

Today, however, I feel very healthy. Very, very healthy.

My steps feel light. It isn't the coffee - I felt like this from the moment I started my day. There used to be this heaviness around me, this gravity-like force that seemed to choke the atmosphere around me and make it more like walking under miles of ocean or trying to run in a dream (you know those dreams where you run and run and it's like your legs are just moving in place because you aren't going anywhere? That, and discovering that I'm in a public place and not wearing any clothes, is one of the only recurring dreams I've had throughout my life...hmmm, what does that say about my unconscious?)

I don't need to save the world. That's obvious. How did I ever think otherwise? What does dust have to do with saving dust? Life is a vapor.

Progress is not the point. Relationship is the point. It's a mystery...the most obscure, unsure, incalculable, unsystematizable (thanks House of Mercy), and uncontrollable thing in the world.

It's like a garden. Your character and who you are becoming is what life really is. It's not this checklist of accomplishments, it's not a tower to be built to reach to the level or position of the Almighty (another little midrash from the original Book).

LIVE IN THE NOW. It's your character that you're producing. When you sit down to read a book, read the words in the book. Don't think about what you're going to do when you're done reading and feel so accomplished and good about yourself having added another book to the shelf as a testament to your knowledge. With every thought, word and action (but thoughts are the seedlings of all of them) you are either building a tower or tilling a garden. You till, plant, and water. But God makes it grow.

Stop thinking. Be present. Pay attention to the person talking to you. This moment - this miracle of interaction between two human beings, immortal souls who will reign (reign?) in eternity together - will never come again. You didn't invent it, you're not responsible for producing it. It was given to you. You are the beneficiary, the recipient. Receive well. Say "thank you." This is your spiritual act of worship. This is the kingdom.

Make it your highest aim to respect other people. Be self-aware, but don't be self-conscious. Put others before yourself. Make the effort - this is what a conversation is all about. Engaging. It's hard work. Damned hard work. It won't do itself. The ground has to be tilled.

Shuffle Play

2009-04-17T10:26:00.008-05:00

Do you ever say a word over and over until it doesn't make any sense? I have an astronomy test in about 34 minutes. I can't study. Say the word "ammonia" over and over and over...those 5 little phonemes no longer convey any meaning.

I decided that it was time to go for a walk in the rain.

Exploring is the best way to discover life. I discovered on my walk to the library (where I am right now) that the bricks paving the ground behind the courtyard adjoining Mezes and Benedict hall are purple. Purple bricks? Purple is (supposedly) my favorite color, and I never noticed this before. Have I been walking with my eyes closed every day? They are really beautiful bricks.

My pants are wet, and so are my shoes. My pants are also really thick - I wore these thick Ralph Lauren jeans my sister gave me from her yard sale pile when I was home a few weeks ago. It feels like a snowy day when I was in elementary school in Washington...kids stuffing their big MC Hammer, synthetic sleeping-bag material snow-pants into little shiny galoshes, trying not to slip on the slosh and water being tracked in and dripping from the frost melting off our jackets. Everything is a little colder, a little darker, and the indoor lights have an appreciable glow, almost like neon. I like that feeling. I know that when I get home I will be able to enjoy changing into dry clothes, brewing some how brew of a drink (tea or cocoa likely) and watch the dark and cold and wet world from under my shelter.

I've got my blackberry on shuffleplay, and the likes of Derek Webb, OtR, Sleeping at Last and Jason Upton seem to be the only artists it wants to play. They have provided an odd mix of delight.

Beautiful.

Simply Wonderful!

2009-04-14T21:54:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3kc1jDahU4&feature=related

The Long, Dark Night

2009-04-09T21:51:00.003-05:00

"...How long, O LORD, how long?"

They had only a few days to wait. But none of them were aware of that.

All they knew was their deliverer, their liberator, the one who promised redemption....was dead.

And what good to anyone is a body in a grave?

2009-03-12T22:24:00.003-05:00

I miss East Texas in the Spring.

Hmmm.

Happy Spring (almost), everyone!

Today is Sunday

2009-03-01T23:55:00.003-06:00

Life is still good.

Today: Just a product of yesterday...

2009-02-22T22:56:00.008-06:00

Tonight I had to write this "describe some experience that changed you" essay for a scholarship app for school, so I wrote about my freshman English class. My teacher was awesome and I still have all the papers he left comments on when he graded them, so I was leafing through them and going down memory lane.

I can't believe what an overachieving slacker I am.

I mean, this is like, the epitome of "retarded melancholy." I'd have this really well-organized paper with creativity and subtle nuances, printed on paper that had stuff already printed on the back, just because I was too lazy/clueless to go buy computer paper at the freakin store. Or, since I really didn't know how to use a computer in 1999, I would have these problems with the margins that I didn't know how to fix, so I'd literally copy and paste (like with scissors and glue!) lines at the bottom of the sheet that were supposed to have been printed there.

I'm so glad that Mr. Schultz didn't care too much about these details and just graded on my writing...

And I had other papers all the way through my senior year where I did the same sort of crap. One big project for my Government class had to include photos, and I remembered this requisite the morning it was due, so I taped photos that I ripped out of Newsweek to the backs of my essays.

I've found myself practicing the same bad habits this semester. Pop quizzes, procrastinated papers...I see myself as an "A" student, but man...I am such a slacker, and I can't really get away with it anymore.

Will I ever learn?

When I Grow Up

2009-02-15T22:12:00.003-06:00

I've never been able to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up.

When I was in pre-school my class sat in a circle and we had sharing time. We all shared what we wanted to be when we grew up. My dad was a photographer. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I decided to be clever. When it came to my turn in the circle, I said very innocently and convincingly that I wanted to "shoot people" like my dad...

"With a camera," I said, after a dramatic pause, smiling not a bit mischievously.

I tend to be overly ambitious. I am goal-oriented and freakishly hard-working and when I set my mind to something and am really sure about it, you can't stop me from doing it. But the sureness part is usually hard to come by. I deliberate over ideals, frantically trying to decide which possibilities will satisfy each meticulous little detail I see as criteria for success (which equates to perfection). I often get distracted from consistency by my mind's tendency to wander and dream and ask, "What would it be like to..." It has been a huge source of frustration, as those close to me know.

I get this feeling like the clouds just broke and all is clear, "Yes, this is what I am supposed to do..." Then I get the same feeling of inspiration 2 weeks later about something different.

I'm not sure if I have all the right motives driving me toward the right path in life. Maybe that is the point, though. To discover something greater than an ideal. To realize that, "Life is for living." It didn't start with me and it won't end with me, so why am I so worried about making the ideal contribution to it?

The only thing I do know for sure is that I love life - today. I love waking up every morning and making coffee and a breakfast taco. I love riding the bus to school and watching all the students ride or walk or pass from class to class (but I don't love seeing them on facebook in class...hello, are you paying for this?) I love my church, the folks I know, the folks I ought to try harder to get to know, the simplicity of God's presence in our liturgy times and the down-to-earth fun and generosity I've found in relating to friends through dinner groups, book discussions, and over cups of coffee. I love how people from church will ask me how my job is and ask about my boss or about my family members by name. I love going to Keith's after school and cleaning or doing the dishes or driving around Austin (I don't get so lost anymore!) or taking Schatzi for a walk or to the bank where everyone ooohs and ahhhs and comments on what a cute little dog she is. I love taking my own dogs for walks and runs and watching them nearly foam at the mouth with excitement over running beside me and me being one of the pack. I love discussing philosophy and academia and the possibilities of law school (ha ha - possibilities uncle gary is trying to manifest by telling 2 people a day) with my aunt and uncle over dinner. I even love doing the dishes after dinner. I love doing homework - even the most tedious grammar homework. I love slicing tomatoes to make myself a sandwich and daydreaming of being able to grow my own vegetables someday. I love taking people's pictures and knowing that even though I'm not the best photographer and I'm a sharp critic and will probably think it looks like crap that they somehow enjoy it and appreciate it (and sometimes pay money for it and tell their friends that I'm good). There's really not a lot that I don't love about my life right now. Really.

I'm beginning to think that this - this wildness, this joy, this passion for the moment and contentment with who I am and the gift of aliveness that God has given me for today...this is nearer to the kingdom than I have ever been. And it is here that I can be in the position to receive and give the mercy of his body and blood to reconcile the world and unite all things together under him.

Amen. Let your kingdom come!

I should post about something else

2009-02-08T23:01:00.004-06:00

I should write like an actual blog entry, but I don't feel like it.

I do feel like bragging about how pretty this spreadsheet is that I made for my budget. In fact, here is a picture of it:

The figures are purely fictitious. Not that I care if people know how much money I have or what I spend it on, but I know that's sensitive info to some people and didn't want to offend...or whatever.

I just really needed to update with something.

Ok goodnight.

More Concerning than Sarah Palin's Fashion Choices

2009-01-15T23:17:00.005-06:00

Some news you won't read at the checkout counter in the grocery store...but a little more concerning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8

"When a thief finds nothing to steal...

2009-01-13T21:52:00.003-06:00

...he will steal a dagger made of sand."
-Berber Proverb

Lessons from 2008 in the School of Hard Knocks:

Don't try to force the handle if it doesn't want to turn.
Temp agencies: making more money off the miserable work you do than you bring home at the end of the day.
No one can make anyone else's choices for them.
Life is, still, truly, always, emphatically, yes, yes, yes - a beautiful gift.
Dogs are man's best friend.
Love = how fast you can forgive. (I am a poor lover).
No one can know you if you don't know yourself.
The Gospel is the greatest story and the true myth...if you aren't tasting Eden/The Kingdom, then you've heard the wrong gospel.
EVERYONE is insecure.
“To fail to speak of evil in the world today is to engage in bad theology. But to speak of "they" being evil and "we" being good, to say that evil is all out there and that in the warfare between good and evil others are either with us or against us—that is also bad theology.”- Jim Wallis
Every adventure involves a great, personal cost.
"Love is never far from danger." -Over the Rhine
Don't take pictures for people without well-written contracts.

Maybe I will think of some more later. Probably.

Pura Vida

2008-12-13T20:06:00.000-06:00

Hola from Costa Rica!

It has been quite an adventure thus far.

I missed my flight to Panama City because of bad weather when we tried to land in Houston, so the person picking me up at the airport, whom I have never met and wasnt smart enough to get a cell phone # for before leaving, had no idea how or when to pick me up on my new flight.

Thus, with my awful, broken Spanish and a little bit of Providence I met some folks who know some friends of mine from my church here, and they helped me get to a hotel in Panama City for the night. The next day I somehow managed to get myself to the bus station, ride a bus across the country, and cross the border into Costa Rica. I won't say I wasnt somewhat of a nervous wreck - being alone in a foreign country is a little intimidating. It's also a little boring to have an adventure by yourself with no one to talk to and reflect with.

However, I am now with Brooke in a little village called "Bambu" near the Costa Rican border. It's raining, like it usually does in this country.

I know enough Spanish and speak well enough to make people think I am bilingual for a moment and speak to me like I am. Then they discover my complete confusion and try to help me out :)

We plan on spending the next few days here and heading back to Panama City next week. I can't really believe I'm here. Es como un sueno...

Feliz Navidad!

Etcetera, whatever, I guess all I really mean...

2008-12-05T23:35:00.002-06:00

"We don’t need a lot of money.
We’ll be sleeping on the beach,
keeping oceans within reach.
(Whatever private oceans we can conjure up for free.)
I will stumble there with you
and you’ll be laughing close with me,
trying not to make a scene
etcetera. Whatever. I guess all I really mean is,

we're gonna be alright
yeah we're gonna be alright
you can close your eyes tonight
cause we're gonna be alright

So come on now,
I can almost see
that place
on a distant shore.
And courage is a weapon we must use
to find some life you can’t refuse."
-overtherhine

oh god

2008-11-19T22:27:00.005-06:00

Life is a gift
this really isnt at all about my contribution
you dont need me
my existence is gratuitous
the only thing that is relevant is this moment
my response
love or self?
love is ultimate reality
i dont' know how to say all this
the difference between a pharisee and a prostitute
the position of mercy
pride is the greatest enemy
i am my greatest enemy
i am my own personal antichrist
i am the whore of babylon
i am the harlot's lover
you have made me drunk
the kingdom is within me

It's so amazing. So amazing. Alleluia!

good news

2008-11-11T20:36:00.001-06:00

Whoever has been forgiven much loves much.

"Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea,
A great high Priest whose Name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart,

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free,
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me,

Behold Him there, the risen Lamb,
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace.
One with Himself, I cannot die,
My soul is purchased by His blood.
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God!"

"there's nothing harder than learning how to receive..."

2008-11-02T22:28:00.012-06:00

A quote from an OvertheRhine song that rings true to me...

I've been receiving a lot of things for free lately. Namely...free room and board (awesome - thank you lovely Aunt and Uncle). Free food (again...). Free rides home when I miss the bus because I was not paying attention to the time (thanks friends - you know who you are). Tonight I got a free bike! from a girl at church whom I met a few weeks ago and whose name I forgot, and re-met her tonight...she gave me a bike, right at the time I was needing it (ehh hem, Capital Metro - let's get this strike settled for our drivers soon?). <---does anyone know if I need to put a period there, since I already punctuated the inside of the parenthetical?

Receiving shows me that I have a lot of pride. I want to even out the scales and not owe anyone anything. Which is sort of fine...I mean, it's a good check to keep me from becoming irresponsible and taking advantage of people. But I have always disliked receiving things. I even hated having people make us food and do chores for us when my dad died; I don't like the vulnerability of a position of need.

I don't like that position but it's the only one where I can see Christ and eat His bread.

Other thoughts:
Not that I am criticizing the preacher who spoke at liturgy tonight (who really preached his message - like it was something in his veins, not just a regurgitation of something he appreciated in an academic or theoretical sort of way), but....lately I've been hearing a lot of "calls to action." Pleas to be involved politically, call the senator/local representative and let our voice be heard (not to knock last year's ATF tour theme name) on issues that affect culture, ranging from morality (the culture war) to social justice and advocating for the needs of the poor. Perhaps I'm feeling a little like I've been desensitized by the "go-out-and-change-the-world" rhetoric that I've heard unceasingly for years at TM. And, to be clear, I am definitely an advocate for actually using our civil liberties and doing such things, because we really do have that power as the people, and most nations do not. But what I was contemplating during the message tonight was... should we want to take action before anything else? Before we do that shouldn't we ask ourselves, "Why?" Why is it in me to do this? Is it really in me? When I drive past homeless people, do I feel that little tinge of guilt, like "What should I do/should I do anything?" because I care about them and who they are, or because I don't want to think of myself as a bad person?

I don't think people have been as bad about doing this at TM anymore, but I used to always see these signs posted in different ministry units - maybe by someone's team captain who was really enthused about firing up his or her team - that would spout statistics on how many people are going to hell every hour that we don't spend doing something to evangelize the world. Aside from being steeped in a lot of what I think is bad theology, this sort of motivation is...well, selfish. "How could you live with yourself if you don't tell people the good news? Could you even sleep at night?" Is news that I need to be compelled by guilt to tell really good news to me at all? If I really am satisfied by what is at the table, isn't inviting others to join me sort of...natural?

Tony Herring gave this great message at SOMA about the idea of "seeing the people." When Jesus fed the multitudes, it says, "He saw the people..." I don't think I really do this. I don't see people. I don't see the poor. I see poverty...I see an institution. An institution that can be abstracted and debated and talked about and even acted upon feverishly...but Jesus didn't see an institution. He saw the people.

How can I love my neighbor (any neighbor) as myself...if I can't even see past myself to see them?

"Love's no politician...it listens carefully."
-Derek Webb

Save me from my condition

Going to Panama

2008-10-29T21:26:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm going to Panama for 20 days in December.

Yes, I'm really going!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOHMYFREAKINGOSH!!!!!!

Does this astound anyone else?

2008-10-25T17:12:00.002-05:00

-from Black Holes and Time Warps, by Kip S. Thorne

my back is tingly, and other things about me...

2008-10-19T22:37:00.011-05:00

The muscles in my shoulders sometimes feel pins-and-needlesey with my continued efforts to improve my posture and prevent becoming a hunchback. The latest and greatest development is sleeping without pillows. It's hard, but it keeps me flat on my back at night rather than tightly scrunching up my pillows between my neck and shoulder (I sleep on my side every night). The difference is dramatic in how I feel the next day.

What is this tension in my body/mind that makes even sleep an act of straining?

I've been reflecting lately (all the time) on: (1) How much the idea of what is in the future - what I'm supposed to do with my life, the contribution I'm supposed to make to the world, the things I want to experience and enjoy, etc, etc. - stresses me out; (2) How much I want to change about myself to make myself an ideal person (someone who can easily and gracefully accomplish the aforementioned in #1); and (3) How much about me has changed in the last five months and the fact that I can't claim to be responsible for that much of it.

It's becoming more and more natural for me to relax and be happy with myself. I don't know if it always requires this, but for me, much of what has brought this reality to me has been through being alone. That is, even when I am around other people, I am not totally myself. It isn't naturally easy for me to breathe easy. I want to perform, be a certain way, present a certain version of me...a little Mr. Awesome that everyone will like and want to be like (or Ms. Awesome I guess). I've always carried around this insecurity in some capacity, but being moved out of "my territory" where I felt most comfortable saying whatever I wanted to say and being whatever I wanted to be and being transplanted into a whole new world and culture where I am anonymous has made me acutely aware of how self-conscious I am. I call where I work "the awkward office" sometimes because of how uncomfortable it is some afternoons to hear nothing but the sound of my own voice leaving the same phone message over and over without a word from any other human being in the room.

I didn't realize how much having close friends means until I went to Indiana in June to shoot a friend's wedding and felt physically lighter from the relief of being around girls I cherished whom I knew cherish really know me. And though I have found an incredible community with incredible people who have welcomed me generously, it is still a beginning. And like building a structure, I can't even think about the brick until the concrete's finished drying...I'm not even sure if I'm finished pouring it, or if the frame has been built around it. How do I know if I'm being honest about who I am if I don't know who I am? I've got to become comfortable with what's inside this skin.

And, there is also a new peace flowing from the truth that the world is not in need of me. If I were to die tomorrow, God's plan would not be jeopardized. I'm starting to take on the philosophy that I should only seek to change the world if I'm just doing it for fun. I take my own existence too seriously. Life is a gift from God. My consciousness, my days, my experience of the world is almost wastefully extravagant. It didn't start with me, it isn't going to end with me. My only obligation is to be a good steward of this very moment. Doing that seems to mean many things, but the main things, I think, are: being fully myself (this is integrity), being thankful for what I can't control or take credit for, and being honest and diligent with what I can (faithfulness). This, I think, is what it means to gain your life by losing.

The Kingdom of heaven is "at hand." It is "in your midst." It's as close as the next breath, this moment we are in ahorita. Everything else has already met its end - Christ said, "It is finished."

That is good news.

"Jesus is there, staying out of the way, loving me. Telling me always, whispering in my ear, 'I love you. You are living in a lie - perfection and power do not exist. Imperfection and dependency is all there is. That is the place where everyone lives, and it is beautiful - it is freedom. Oh yeah, there is something else: I love you.'

I have discovered that this love only remains a secret because I cannot hear what Jesus is saying. But Jesus does not get mad; Jesus does not talk louder; Jesus just keeps telling me secrets in my ear, 'I love you. It is OK to be you. I love you.' Jesus is not impatient, because Jesus believes one day I will hear. He believes that the love of God will not go unheard forever, that it will seep into my bones and fill the air around me until one day I will hear it. And when I hear something and turn around, I will see Jesus standing there, smiling."
-the uncontrollable love of God, by russell rathbun

Waiting

2008-10-12T00:43:00.002-05:00

For this book by Russell Rathbun to come out.

Please come soon.

Beautiful

2008-10-06T21:10:00.003-05:00

Is this not one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen?

oh

2008-09-23T23:25:00.003-05:00

I need to update my blog!!!!!!!

I'm gonna go walk my dogs!!

Big Road Trip

2008-09-04T16:17:00.005-05:00

I have a job where I can sort of go on autopilot mentally for several hours at a time, so today in between phone calls and while leaving messages I planned a road trip for myself for next summer. If I leave the driving to Greyhound, I can visit 16 cities across the western half of the U.S. for only $1,066. That's just the ticket fares, but that's not bad for 16 cities! I'm looking at roaming through Kansas City, Minneapolis (to see House of Mercy), Denver and surrounding area, Wyoming, Montana, Central Washington, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Vegas, Northern AZ, Phoenix and good old Tyler, TX. I would plan on camping in state parks and KOA's and staying with friends and fam along the way.

Photography and reflection to abound.

Anyone wanna join me?

simply amazing miracle

2008-08-30T23:36:00.001-05:00

An excerpt from a commentary on the midrash by Rav Ezra Bick...let it blow your mind away:

"Let us return to the original midrash, describing Avraham's anxiety concerning his youthful transgressions. God tells him that his sins are like the dew; they evaporate in the sun without a trace. This, of course, is one of the principles of the Jewish idea of teshuva, repentance. Teshuva leads not only to a suspension of punishment and to a reconstitution of one's relationship with God; it annuls and uproots the very existence of the sin in one's past. In the words of the Mesilat Yesharim, negation of the will results in negation of the acts. It is now understood why Avraham, who discovered so much of God's ways on his own, was incapable of reaching this principle without a direct revelation of God. This principle is inherently alogical, going against everything on which the scientific mode of thinking is based. The past is, almost by definition, irreversible. The principle of retroactive annulment of sin is an expression of Divine miracle, itself an example of direct revelation of God. Its operation requires not merely a manifestation of providence within the world but a suspension of the laws of nature. One who is immersing himself in the waters of repentance is moving out of the world into the hands of God. Avraham, as great as he is in discovering the presence of God WITHIN the world, cannot understand this point without experiencing it."

Pre-First Day Adrenaline Buzz

2008-08-26T14:41:00.002-05:00

It begins tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my first day of school at a real, live University. Not an online, correspondence, virtual-teacher college...a real college. The kind where you see your professor in the flesh face to face from a podium or in front of a chalkboard, giving real, inspiring words of knowledge with his or her own live, unique and distinctly human perspective. Where thousands of young, bright students will be bustling along, blinking in the Texas heat, bright with eagerness to read, stay up late drinking coffee, wrinkle their foreheads as they punch numbers into their scientific calculators, and hear the scratching sounds of freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils against college-ruled notebook paper for the next four months. Where activists, punks, artists, interest groups and people from every color of the spectrum will mingle and muddle together in a kaleidescope of God's diverse and wild beauty in humanity.

I feel like a character in a movie. Or, perhaps more like an actress on the stage that's been waiting to say the lines she's worked hard to feel inside her bones. I've been waiting for this season for years, have had tastes of it through different experiences in community college and working at Teen Mania. I know that it's what I was made for...it's one of the few things I know to be part of my destiny.

I doubt that I will sleep very much tonight...

Stuff

2008-08-25T22:04:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I was walking into Schlotzsky's (or maybe I was walking out, I don't know) and I thought to myself, "You know, I get over myself just a little bit every day..."

I still have such a long way to go; I think I am the most selfish person alive...

In other news, I registered for classes. If you have been wondering, yes my academic plans changed pretty dramatically from when I first came to Austin. I am now studying Linguistics. Whenever someone asks me, "Why do you want to study Linguistics? What languages do you know? Do you want to be a speech therapist or a linguist?" I don't really know what to say to them. I just think languages and people groups and the way we learn and communicate are all incredible phenomena. Like, in the beginning was...the Word. Language seems to me to be very important to God. He reveals who He is to humanity through a particular language, people group, culture and time period in history. It's significant. So, the idea of language itself, and the in's and out's of how it's structured and what it does within our brains, is what I want to study.

And after that, we'll see what else I want to study/pursue/do as a job. My ultimate vision/dream in life - for now as well as the future - hasn't changed...just the school part.

Whenever I need to feel happy...

2008-07-14T00:30:00.003-05:00

I will think of this very special night:

Everyone needs someone who will change the whole universe for one night just to make them a little happier...

"I’m afraid I’ve lost the piece of me
I need the most you see
This puzzle is really just about the need
To be somebody
I’m afraid I’m not all that you see
All along the coast of me
I’m camouflaged, a desert mirage
A nobody

But you came so close and I assumed
You were looking
For the piece of yourself that’s lost
It is the hiding place inside everybody
And though we love to numb the pain
We come to learn that it’s in vain
Pain is our mother
She makes us recognize each other..."

-Over the Rhine

Life is really good

2008-03-23T23:58:00.004-05:00

I have this thing on my google homepage called "places to see before you die." It shows me all these beautiful pictures from all over the world. Tonight when I logged on it showed this beautiful horizon looking over a massive canyon in Utah.

Yeah, that's my life right now. Overlooking...what?

On and on and on to forever...and I have no idea what any of it looks like or how to get down there.

My life is really, really good. Better than I deserve. I get to see the most beautiful things every day. There is beauty in everything you see because everything is meaningful; that's what becoming an artist has taught me. I have so many deep, huge, aching passions and desires in my heart. Some selfish and some selfless. I'm not sure how to knit them all together. I don't know what tomorrow holds.

Life is a gift. Right now, this moment, these keys, my sore back, my sunburned shoulders and my conscious being. Everything is a gift to me, the gift of becoming. The gift of growing, the miracle of birth and re-birth and death and new life. Oh, if I had the words...if the psalmnist had had the words, there would have been fewer psalms...

I have lots of pages to write. I've finally learned a little something about discipline and about courage. It takes both to be an artist, and to be a disciple is something like being an artist. Being a leader is being an artist.

What does tomorrow hold? I can plan...I plan my budget, plan to get a job, plan to pack my things very meticulously, plan to throw out what I don't need anymore and get ready to cram into someone else's space, plan to go to college, plan to find a church. Plan to have quality time with my family. Plan to lose weight. Plan to study hard and be structured. Plan to befriend some dogs. Plan to be under someone else's roof and abide by their rules. Plan to wonder about life still. "Plan to be surprised."

Plan to be surprised.

a letter to Brooke

2008-03-18T22:56:00.001-05:00

It is so hard...
You know what I'm starting to see?
Love is the kingdom. And the kingdom has very little (or nothing) to do with where we are or what we're doing, or what others are doing to us.
It is who we are. Completely.
I have this theory that we all live with what I call "the hollywood mentality". Everyone is just trying to make it to "Hollywood" - (like an aspiring actress who says, "If I could just get to Hollywood, then I'll be somebody." Everybody's Hollywood looks different, whether it is actually being famous or well known, or in another state, or with someone, or married to someone, or just for five o'clock to come....Hollywood. It never comes. You can never get there. It doesn't even exist. You are you no matter where you are - Hollywood, Austin, Lindale...you will always be made of the same stuff and will have the same character and will be the same selfish, unhappy person, until you suffer the death of Christ.
If we could just be humble and accept the gift of life, of the moment, and realize the beauty of our participation in RIGHT NOW and stop THINKING so much about the future, get our minds out of our own heads and into the presence of the miraculous reality that is around us, our next breath, our ability to...be...alive...whatever that means to us....man, does it mean anything at all?
(hopefully)
Hope you had a good love feast tonight. Keep me updated. I love you too.

neglect

2008-03-15T15:40:00.001-05:00

We will always be neglecting something.

Poetry Quote

2008-03-08T10:56:00.001-06:00

I like this quote:

Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes.
-C.S. Lewis

windy night

2008-02-25T22:16:00.000-06:00

when there's nothing to say
that's when the best things come out
realities dance with their own impossibility
right here in front of me
i just came to watch
i'm not even sure what i'm looking at

i don't know how to reconcile my dumbfounded silence
with your need to hear me say something
to spit out letters and numbers just to hang out to dry
watching the story of adam
blowing like leaves in the wind
watching the sails on the vessels as they leave the shore

when there's no one to hear
that's when the worst things come out
and realities collide with each other as sparks of light
paint it up on the wall
write it down, catch my fall
tell me your story, and i'll tell you mine.

why did god create

2008-02-19T20:59:00.000-06:00

Why why why...did God create the world...hmmmm....HMMMMMMM....I don't think the Bible ever gives us a flat out "this is it" answer. I think the very fact that we can ask this question is more interesting than any of the answers we could come up with. Questions in general are in many ways more compelling than answers. Answers suggest an end to something - almost like a stop in the road. This piece of concrete here means that this is it, no further. That's not to say that answers are bad in themselves. Borders serve a purpose for whoever made them. But what they suggest is...finite.It is easy to take a novel idea that seems to answer questions like this and use it to reduce an infinite God to our finite expressions and perceptions - to cast an image that seems to resemble Him and is meant to honor Him (like the Israelites did with the calf they made and called it "Yahweh")...or like Russell Rathbun describes in one of his sermons, it's like pressing a flower between the pages of a book and later admiring the beauty of the flower as if it were still alive, forgetting that it never impregnated the ground with its seed...The nature of a relationship is somewhat uncontrollable and God is a Person, not an infinite, spirtual, ambiguous machine-like thing. Vanessa mentioned that we have clues from His Word as to what He is like. It is easy to take some interpretations of these clues that come from a human understanding that seems logical and satisfies the itching that we have to know the answer...but where does that itching come from? Is it our desire to humbly know and obey God, or is it an attempt to be able to light the way ourselves, to be in control? Does it really cause God to be glorified, or does it simply give us a sense of satisfaction in the power we have wielded with our knowing?If asked sincerely and in humility, questions have the capacity to lead us into the infinite - the discovery of someone other than ourselves.Emelia mentioned that it is not a mystery. I disagree - I think there's lots of mystery and necessarily so. What is a relationship without mystery? Do we ever come to understand everything there is to ever know about our best friend? That's all part of the wildness and the adventure and the beauty of the thing..."What makes you who you are?"So I guess my answer is...never stop wondering. You're an eternal being, you will never run out of time :)
Posted 12/24/2006 5:05 AM by Jerreemander - reply

Love is foreign to me

2008-02-18T23:13:00.004-06:00

Love is automatic forgiveness for others' faults. Don't be wise in your own eyes. Love is not looking down on another simply because they make a statement you think is stupid. See all sides of it before you judge. This is humility.

Book

2008-02-18T23:13:00.001-06:00

Write a book about the thoughts you had on desire and motivation…write it like an collection of short stories, sermons.

Rage Against the Machine

2008-02-18T23:12:00.002-06:00

Don't rage against the machine The machine is too big, you won't win against it! We are all forced to play by the rules of the game. One day we will be able to see each other as we really are.
And read below
______________________________________________ From: Amanda MacLean Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 11:56 AM To: Amanda MacLean Subject: stuff

Language presents ideas, communicates certain intangible things, concepts. Words don't have morality. There are no good or bad words. But there are good and bad things behind certain words, and the real concern is what you're going to bring up inside a person when you say certain words. Words are powerful because fo that.

I am undone

2008-02-18T23:10:00.005-06:00

The human mind can process so many things yet comprehends so little. Our scope of life and reality is so, so indescribably small.
My little life is not the main thing…it is almost nothing.
Don't say, "Life is short, so focus on eternity." Instead realize, "My life is a drop in the ocean of ultimate reality. Focus on that - on HIM." Eternity is just another form of consciousness and it's not a product of what I do. What I do is a product of who I am, which is a product of the current state of consciousness I live in under the curse. This is the process of sanctification, of redemption. This is what Christ purchased with His blood - eyes to see!
How come I can remember stupid little random facts about fourth grade but can't remember what I did yesterday? There is something in the way my brain retrieves information. Somehow it can't or won't when it is asked to. When we are checking on it, we don't see anything. When we close our eyes, all possibilities exist.
Holy, holy, holy…I am undone!

The Greatest Mercy

2008-02-18T23:10:00.003-06:00

Get over it and love people.
Remember 1 Cor. 3:9
The only way to live life is to give it. That is why Jesus gave us the Great Commission. The task, the work...is mercy for our own souls.

Trivia

2008-02-18T23:10:00.001-06:00

We fill our minds with so much trivia. It is a distraction from the reality of God in every moment of our lives. Contemplation is interrupted by the noise of memorized facts, formulas and ideas.

Proverbs

2008-02-18T23:09:00.004-06:00

A good day's work satisfies and rewards itself.

Humility motivates.

Eros is our desire to be worshiped.

Secrets

2008-02-18T23:08:00.003-06:00

Blessed secrets…the things I have learned in life. Amazing things like quantum physics.
Told in a story as secrets. Mystery. Go with that.

An artist or not

2008-02-18T23:08:00.001-06:00

Anyone can jot down random musings and think of himself as an artist. But only a true artist understands the life and beatuy that is foundin the sweat of the labor of their work.
You won't get "there" someday unless you've gotten "here" today.

to be written

2008-02-18T23:07:00.000-06:00

The greatest mistake Organizing a miracle
You NEED to write a book/something about ATF and how this youth ministry changed your life, even though you can't control a miracle. The themes of forgiving your leaders, the life lessons you learned this year, not taking life too seriously, trusting God's hand to bring his own kingdom and being faithful to your part, not getting your part confused with his and your own neurotic personality.
Yes, you need to write this. Make it creative.

Write about Discipleship in business management/leadership/marketing/negotiation

Someone else's ideas that I love

2008-02-18T23:06:00.002-06:00

The trinity is the perfect picture of community….love, submission.
Speak to every tribe and language - this is so much more than spoken word, every thought and way of thinking and type of node or peg in the wheel that speaks and fastens together
Marketing is an art, everything is an art, to serve the great purpose: building the kingdom. It's not quite saving the world, even though it literally is

Trust

2008-02-18T23:06:00.001-06:00

As we all reflect a different part of God and a different piece of his authority in each other's lives, we find it is necessary that we trust one another to carry out the goal he has given to his church.
I cannot think like a businessman and I never will. I depend on accountants. They aren't called to be artists. They depend on me to provide that. Provide what you were called to provide. Trust others in fulfilling their calling. Don't judge them for being different. Don't force them to be like you. Don't make them extensions of you.
Another idea: God stirs dreams in our hearts. There may be a period where we are dissatisfied with where we are and yearning for something new. That doesn't mean we must go find that new thing right away. Let it simmer.

The blame game

2007-11-03T00:30:00.000-05:00

I am really not interested in writing anything right now. I'm doing so in order to honor my personal commitments and decide who I am going to be. This is going to be a menagerie of thoughts.

My internet is going ridiculously slow. What is up?

Life is so different from what we think. "Thank God we're wrong."

I know what I need / want / ought to write about. Restoring my faith in humankind! How is it that I can enjoy people so greatly and see the best in them and not want to change them in any way...and then the next moment be embittered towards all mankind for being such selfish jerks with bad customer service?

Just what is it exactly that I expect in my participation and interaction with humankind?

There is this phenomenon that I've been pondering since last night. I call it the Blame game. Actually, my manager called it that. He was referring to the way the bureaucracy works here in the ministry. Whenever something goes wrong, we look for someone to blame. He was telling me that he suspects that there really is no person, team, department or other entity that can be blamed. It's the call center's fault. It's marketing's fault. It's the mail team's fault. It's operations' fault. It's Jim's fault, Carrie's fault, so-and-so's fault. Though no one ever gets fired for just being the one at fault for a significant failure.

It seems like I could take this concept of blame game and go even further with it. It's someone's fault that I am unhappy. It's someone's fault that I'm unsatisfied. It's someone's fault that I walk around with guilt and shame on my shoulder. Someone is to blame. Someone's at fault for my incapabilities and personal injuries, for the fact that I can never seem to win. It's someone's fault that no one recognizes how glorious and wonderful I really am.

"Come on, Amanda. Take responsibility. If you're the one failing, then it's your fault. If you're unhappy, that's your own fault. Take responsibility. Don't blame someone else. It's your fault."

People are always looking for someone to blame. Who did Pharaoh blame for his hard heart? Who could be throwing the monkey wrench into all my wonderful plans?

Woe to Me

2007-09-25T13:03:00.000-05:00

I am so afraid of making the wrong "direction-decisions" in life and losing my title and/or identity of "great warrior Christian." Prophetic and moral obligations have become a trophy for me; I have fallen into the worst trap imaginable for a follower of Jesus. I can do no good for the kingdom if I am finding myself in its business rather than making its business about what I have found in the King's word spoken over my soul.

Freedom

2007-08-25T13:39:00.000-05:00

The Christian is vexed by the government taking away prayer in school and the post the Ten Commandments in government buildings. I think deep down we have good reason to feel this way - it is frightening to see a once godly nation turning post-Christian.

We do wrong to personalize the issue, to make it about our rights. It becomes "us versus them," and is spiritually unproductive. Jesus issued a command that we go and make disciples. Are we making disciples of homosexuals by fighting against their wishes to be married? I can understand the idea of protecting the sanctity of marriage. But if we are truly that concerned about marriage being holy, why aren't we campaigning to legally prohibit divorce?

It wouldn't be a bad thing for all of us on the evangelical right (or right-middle) to ask ourselves what it is we really hope to accomplish with our political agendas, and then to ask ourselves if our methods really coincide with what God has instructed us to do.

Welcome to the Kingdom

2007-08-24T18:09:00.000-05:00

Christ has done it - it is finished.

Think of how profound that statement really is. I want my life to be worthwhile. I have this insatiable urge to matter, to be needed, to be useful enough to be worth having existed. As if anything I have done or could do would be nearly as meaningful as the cross. Nothing...wow. It is finished. There is nothing left to accomplish.

I can breathe and rest and find my meaning in this: God is merciful. This is the kingdom of God. Welcome...make it your home.

How to Touch God

2007-07-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

Perhaps the frustration we have with not being able to reach holiness and the likeness of Christ and the ability to please God is not that we are simply unable, and thus need to learn to "sit loose" as Rathbun says. Perhaps it is that we are simply trying in the wrong way.
The Holy Spirit is the one who leads us into all truth, who leads us to the Advocate, Christ; and Christ is the only way to the Father. Being filled with the Spirit is a command of the New Testament. Perhaps it is something we can simply do.

Take of speaking in tongues as an example. That is something simple, something you don't need to have great revelation to simply do. But there is power in it. There is power in the spoken word, and there is power when those words are supernatural…power to reach God, power to see Jesus and to make the cross the very centerpiece of our consciousness.

Confessions

2007-02-26T18:59:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing in the Bible belt when my mission field is with the hard hearts of the postmodern American culture. Preparation...I guess I am just learning the tools I need to be ready. When will training be over?Is it right to think that? Am I jumping the gun? If I am unwilling to go through the training then am I truly serious about the battle? Is it about their lives or is it about the exhilaration that I feel in the midst of my attempts to rescue them...It is so easy to flake out. It is easy to lose sight of the vision. It's easy to become perverted, lukewarm and complacent, blinded by the dreams of ambition and the pride of life. My creative faculties aren't for me. They're not for my name, my kingdom. They are for His name. His Kingdom. His glory. There is no other way to live. Yet I live in the backwards state every day. "Hey - those are my rights, my feelings, my desires that you just stepped on - watch it!" It's a little bit...ridiculous.Perfection...I would like it.Lately I wonder about my development and involvement at Teen Mania...what is it that I should be trying to learn and get out of these few years here? I have undergone so much change that I can hardly describe it. Yet, most of that change was a surprise. None of it was exactly what I expected to grow in. And discipline is no easy trick - I've learned that much. There is no sudden inspiration that makes staying motivated an easy thing. Only the understanding that there is something greater and worthwhile beyond it. Back to the subject of growth...should I be looking for a certain area of my life to be developed to a certain point, and then I will know that I am finished and done and ready for the next season in life?I feel sort of...I don't know...lost or out of place. I don't have the "next big thing" thing to guide me. I mean, the next big step in the little Teen Mania bubble world...going from intern to GI, GI to better GI (3rd year with a staff position), Better GI to Staff Associate with a real paycheck...what is next? I don't really care. Positions, titles...whatever. Maybe I'm a little jaded. I've realized that we don't reach these positions and titles because of our great works and accomplishments - I didn't "arrive" here, I got here by accident. I still don't think I'm all that great at what I do. But my bosses think I'm great, and that's why when I learn things, it's usually knowledge I accidentally pick up that they didn't mean to teach me - they aren't trying to develop me, I wouldn't expect them to. I'm an adult. I guess this is what it means to be an adult. No one to baby-feed you. No one to catch you when you fall. You pick up the bill yourself, and you can if you have worked hard and earned enough to make it. That's independence, in this life, in this culture. It's a bit of a challenge to embrace it and live in it but remember that I also belong to a different culture, one that counters this American way of living (not that all of it is bad), the Church. I forget that I have brothers and sisters who are just like me...fighting, struggling, imperfect, fallen. I have this tendency to think of everyone around me as having some sort of advantage or skill or talent that makes them better than me, or the opposite. I find my security in mitigating my imperfections by comparison to theirs. I make up relationships in my head through my daydreams and dialogues - my imagination supplements reality and I am the master of my own little world where vulnerability isn't necessary. It is so hard to show yourself to other people. That is the first step to loving...that is the thing that casts out fear...

Birthday Gift

2007-02-12T20:31:00.000-06:00

It is never enough to enjoy what I've experienced so far and be thankful for it, as a gift. It is the familiarness that makes birthday presents from your parents less exciting than a gift given at random. In childhood, one hardly understands how to appreciate birthday gifts because they are so routine. That's what always happens on my birthday. How could it not?

And one could even think they deserve whatever gifts they put on their wish list - they are rightfully theirs to take and enjoy until they have used up all of the pleasure they can possibly give them. No one ever realizes this attitude, just as children do not realize their own selfishness. Nonetheless, they move on to the next flashy toy that catches their eye and think, "Christmas is soon..."

I do this with life. I expect another day to come. I expect the sun to rise. I expect my car to work. I expect my interns to be in the office, to make lots of calls. I expect people to be nice to me, always. I experience something intensely pleasurable, like a beautiful song, and all I can think about is buying the CD and I forget to finish enjoying the song. I'm not grateful to God that I even got the chance to hear the song once. I don't consider any of the moments of my life to be what they really are - gifts I do not deserve.

Realizing such would do drastic damage.

Flesh and Blood

2007-02-12T20:16:00.000-06:00

Some people, whom I judge as overly metaphysical thinkers, believe in the God of the Bible, but also believe that the history of the Old Testament is just a story through which God reveals to us who he is; it didn't literally happen. In other words, they believe God is real and that he reveals himself through scripture, but they don't believe that the events recorded in scripture did not literally take place, such as the events recorded in Genesis in the Garden of Eden.

I want to ask these people one question: How could a God, who made the world and time and space through which we exist and experience His reality, not also choose to manifest Himself through time and space the same way we exist in it? What good is a theoretical story to a person with flesh and blood, all of whose faculties (which are what make him like God and able to relate to and perceive who this God who made him is) exist and operate on a physical, material level as well as a spiritual level? Such a god would be a fool to expect anyone to believe he was real.

If the writers of Scripture did not tell us of events that really happened, then they were talebearers. God does not need lies to reveal transcendent truth.

Looking for a Lover?

2007-02-03T14:07:00.000-06:00

A Response to the Lonely God
by James Hescock

There’s that song again! I thought. Sounds so cool, this melodious sound of like, indie rock? And the girl’s voice! It plagued me. Who is this? I thought. It was later that day that I heard it playing from a friend’s desk. So at this point, I couldn’t take it any longer. So I went over, I got up real close, and leaned my ear in to hear what she was saying. There it was, that familiar melody, but now with words about God forming the heavens with his word, the universe with his breath. My anticipation was building, Finally! This is gonna be cool. Here came the chorus: “God is a lover, looking for a lover, so He fashioned me. God is a lover looking for a lover, so He formed my heart.”

I winced, and my heart sank. Wait a minute. I know this, I thought. “God made us because he was lonely. He is Love and God being Love, he needs someone to love, right? So, he made you and me.” Have you ever heard this? Many of us probably have. But is this the truth? Is this really what the Bible tells us?

Well, no. It’s not. And before I lay out before you reasons why God is not a lonely God, it’s vital for us to see why this debate is so important. It is important for two reasons:

One, the glory of God is at stake. I think this one is obvious to most people. Our very image of God is what’s on the line here in this debate. If at any point we ascribe God to be something that he is not, his true glory is denied; hidden from us to be seen and savored, and furthermore, to be spread to the nations. Therefore, what’s at stake here is God’s glory.

Two, eternal life hangs in the balance. Scripture tells us that the saints are sanctified by “beholding the glory of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). “Without holiness, no man will see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14). Now, do you see what’s at stake here? Sanctification is the process by which God’s people are made more and more into his own image, that is, made holy. And this holiness is crucial in order to “see the Lord” and without it, they won’t—ever. Therefore, if the glory of God is hidden from being beheld by his saints — at any point — it threatens to shut down this process of sanctification, and furthermore, choke eternal life. Do you see it now? This is serious. Eternal life hangs in the balance.

So here’s what I hope to do: I hope, in this short essay, to at least plant enough doubt in your mind to put in check your confidence in this notion of a lonely God and then point you to resources that will help fill in all the gaps I overlook. Yet beyond that, what I really hope to do, under God, is to free you from the terrible trappings of this man-centered, codependent, lonely God, and to set you to lose yourself in continual, self-forgetful moments of sheer wonder and awe in view of an all-sufficient, God-centered, and glorious God. That’s what I’m really out to kick-start here in this essay.

So let’s get this straight: God is infinitely satisfied in God. God is not “a lover looking for a lover.” That’s not why he fashioned you.[1] God the Father says of God the Son in Matthew 3:17, “This is my Son, My Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” (emphasis mine). Literally: “With whom I am and have always been pleased.” For all eternity God the Father has delighted in his Son, brim-full with pleasure upon pleasure, moment after moment, forever and ever without end. God loves — delights in — his Son and there is no deficiency in God which the Son could not satisfy.

And so it has been that each person in the Trinity has been perfectly fulfilled by one another moment after moment in ever increasing pleasure as they behold in each other the glory of each person in the Godhead. It is an insult to the Almighty to say that he was lonely before there was man. God was not and is not lonely.

Furthermore, it wasn’t love that God was looking for in Creation, but mirrors. You were made to for the glory of God. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.” (Is. 43:7, emphasis mine.) One pastor puts it like this:

“[Creation:] The Son and the Father beholding in each other their mutual perfections, and delighting in infinite energy in each other overflowed or exploded with superabundance in the creation of the world, so that the world is the spin-off of the joy and the life and the love that God has in himself.” (emphasis mine.)[2]

You and I are the spin off — or, the demonstration — of the joy God has in himself; each person a parable of the glory of God. (Ps.19:1; John 1:1;) Though tainted by the Fall, every aspect of the Created Order is meant to tell of the glory of God. (Ps. 19:1) That’s the “why” behind our creation—not to fulfill a lack of love in the Father’s heart, but to display the glory of God.

So, brethren, let Jesus Christ receive all his glory! To that end, in view of God’s bountiful sufficiency and the ineffable beauty of his Son Jesus, let us give ourselves to gazing upon, and beholding the glory of God, raptured in his own delight in himself that he’s always had since before the foundation of the world. And do so, until the wind of your joy in God sets you to be blown about to great endeavors of missions and mercy for his name’s sake and the good of his people.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 25, 26)

Resources

· John Piper (www.desiringgod.org)
o “God Created Us for His Glory”
o “The Pleasure of God in His Creation”
o “Is God for Us or for Himself?”
§ Shows everything God does is for his glory.
§ Objections Answered:
· God is arrogant if he pursues his own glory.
· God is unloving if he pursues his own glory.

· Wayne Grudem
o Systematic Theology; pg. 272

· Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
o “A Slice of Infinity: God in Three Persons”, by Betsy Childs

[1] Lyrics from Misty Edward’s song “See the Way”. (Edwards, Misty. See the Way. Forerunner Music. 2005)
[2] Piper, John. The Pleasure of God in His Creation. Desiring God Radio. 2005

For real

2006-11-19T15:54:00.000-06:00

Here's my first "real" post.

My ingenius idea is to experiment with different blogging sites to see which one(s) is/are the most strategic venue for my writing. I'm trying to start writing more for an audience. Other women on blogspot whom I have come to highly respect through their writings have inspired me to try this out.

I do enjoy the classy feel of this website. I have no idea what sort of people blog here or what methods there are of connecting to other people besides leaving comments and browsing through other users' friends. Anyone have any tips for me?

I also need help figuring out how to give this website a better look.

Off I go into the world of blog marketing!

uhhhh

2006-10-28T12:14:00.000-05:00

first post

here it is

2006-10-28T12:13:00.000-05:00

My First Post.