Informality

"I know the silver ready of takeoff and the

unearned divinity of cruising altitude.  I know, too

the melancholy rush of final approach, of

returning, as we must, to earth.  I know 

the allure of always going somewhere else...

"I know girls who love their bodies, who let their hips draw commas in the air before them, paving the way.  I know women who used to, whose hands and teeth and shoes are asking always:  how do I get back there...

"I know the words--the yes and the sorry and gone--that stand in for other things we can't say.  The constellation of freckles on my left arm I am waiting for someone to read me like tarot.  I know the aftermath of want."

--Kate Petersen, "To All Those Who Say Write What You Know"

This was a lyrical essay I read last semester and it's haunted my thoughts for months.  I found a copy of the piece tonight stowed away under my bed in a box full of school folders.  

I miss the intellectual atmosphere of the university, the creative atmosphere of my writing classes.  You can find the full text on the cool non-fiction site called Brevity.  The publication is entirely online and only accepts non-fiction pieces of 750 words of less.  

I also found a copy of another essay I enjoyed by Nancy Mairs titled "On Having Adventures."

I want a copy of Evangeline Patterson's poems.  

I had, what I consider, a nightmare last night.  There was a group of false prophets that picked people at random and somehow forced individuals into conversion.  I dreamed they were spreading lies to my family about God and I kept trying to tell them the truth about Jesus and I didn't think anyone was listening.  They were especially targeting/going after my brother.  Brittany and I watched a documentary on Jonestown recently and I worry about my brother a lot.  Maybe this dream was a combination of those things.

A Severe Mercy

A Severe Mercy is making a severe impression on me.  It might be one of my favorite books ever. 

The narrator writes these lines after making a choice to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior:

"Between the probable and proved there yawns

A gap.  Afraid to jump, we stand absurd, 

Then we see behind us sink the ground and, worse,

Our very standpoint crumbling.  Desperate dawns

Our only hope:  to leap into the Word

That opens up the shuttered universe." 

Ahhhh......so good.

the religion of love and other matters.

the religion of love:

Florence + The Machine has nabbed a top-notch spot on my current listening list. The beat and climax of songs like "Dog Days are Over" and "Cosmic Love," leave my pointer finger forever stranded on the repeat button. Despite my obsession, I can't help but notice Flo's tendency to voice convictions that establish romantic relationships as gods. In "Cosmic Love" it appears the universe has collapsed along with Flo's broken heart when she sings, "The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out/You left me in the dark/No dawn, no day. I'm always in this twilight/In the shadow of your heart..." Other songs seem to suggest that someone is falling at the feet of a lover.

Flo is putting her faith into what I call a religion of love. This isn't a new idea. Sheldon Vanauken in his book, A Severe Mercy, confesses that the love he shared with Davy was of astronomical importance...religious importance. They made a god of the deep love they shared. A poem they compiled together states: We build our alter, then, to love and keep/The holy flame alight and never sleep:/This darling love shall deepen year by year,/And dearer shall we grow who are so dear." Although I'm not there yet, plotwise, I know a rock is thrown into Sheldon's deep well of conviction when he hears the truth of the Gospel . Sheldon even hints at the fact that there is something that fails in love alone, when he states, "It must be that, whatever its promise, love does not by itself endure. But why? What was the failure behind the failure of love?"

Hemingway does this too in The Sun Also Rises. Love becomes a goddess.

I believe human love is weak and never strong enough to survive on its own. Even if it lasts a lifetime, death will eventually claim both lovers. Sheldon admits:

"... the Shining Barrier, [a symbol of his love with Davy] however invulnerable to the separating forces of life, was not invulnerable to death."


Scripture also reminds us:

"For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

When we build our houses on foundations of human affection, they will undoubtedly fail us and crumble at our feet.



Other matters:

The presentation at WKU on Friday went very well. I encouraged the listeners to see inmates, communities and the people around us in light of what they can be, and outside the shadow of their pasts and mistakes. I think this is the beautiful nature of the Gospel. Humans have hope through Christ and the reconciliation he provides on the cross. We don't live as slaves to our bad decisions. I also spoke about the the injustice that was occurring in regards to gender discrimination in the jail facility. Surprisingly, after my presentation a woman approached me and offered to help solve some of these issues through her connections to the jail. Awesome.

Also being in Bowling Green made me miss 91.7, the Revolution. Best radio station ever.

I love biking. I took my bike and camera out today on an adventure and it was wonderful. :)

I have a new favorite blog:

http://www.peoniesandpolaroids.com/

Also, I want a yellow cat with fluffy, epic fur. This one would do:

A group of friends and I traveled to Columbus, Ohio a few days ago. Road trips always poignantly remind me of the great big earth and my small, short life. The contrast is overwhelming.

As a teenager, I was convinced that being Amelia Earhart would suit me just fine.

The glamour of flying away in a red plane over clouds and oceans around the world was something to be deeply envied. I imagined myself wearing yellow goggles and a brown flyer jacket in the small pit of tiny aircraft.

Of course, I didn't really like the idea of disappearing altogether, but the exploring part, that seemed magical.


At age twenty-three, I'm haunted by travles not taken and places unseen.



"The sky is flesh. The great blue belly arches up above the water and bends down behind the line of the horizon. It's a sight that has exhausted its magnificence for me over the years, but now I seem to be seeing it for the first time."
--Jane Mendelsohn, I Was Amelia Earhart

On "inloveness"

"But when the 'real thing' happens, there is no doubt. A man in the jungle at night, someone said, may suppose a hyena's growl to be a lion's; but when he hears the lion's growl, he knows damn' well it's a lion."

--Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy


I like this book.

Babble

Real life conversation with the female dean of my college during a meeting before graduation:

She looks over my transcript and asks, "Oh, so you're a religious studies minor?"

"Yes," I say.

"What do you plan on doing with that?"

"Might go to Seminary."

She scans the details of the past five years of my college career. "Life of Paul. Don't you just hate Paul?"

I gulped and stared.

I wanted to tell her everything that I had learned in my Life of Paul class. How he didn't hate women and how he wouldn't hate her and how Jesus loves us all even if we are females. I wanted to tell her "sorry" for all the men that had said she couldn't do it, for all the men that told her she was stupid or not smart enough just because she wasn't born with a Y chromosone. I know how it feels and it sucks and it cuts deep, but that's not what Jesus meant. And that's not what Paul meant. But I couldn't say any of those things because I'm a coward and I struggle to believe it sometimes too.

For seven months I led a Jail Book Program in Bowling Green called "Books Behind Bars." The experience changed my life and the Women's Studies program has requested that I speak at a Genderations event on October 16th at Western Kentucky University. I'll be returning as an alumnus (that word is odd) and I think I might pee my pants. I'm scared. Not really because I'll be talking in front of people. That doesn't bother me much, but more because the people that I'll be talking to are hard core feminists. I'm supposed to talk about gender inequalities and how to resolve those issues. Ahhhhh! As a Christian, gender, and the roles that come with being a Christian woman have been one of the biggest areas of pride and confusion in my life...ever.

More than anything, I know that God has provided this opportunity to share his gospel. Why is that so intimidating? What am I scared of? I'm scared of not having answers for those women who are angry, hurt, and pretty much pissed off at a doctrine that says women are in any way under men. How do I say that's okay?

I guess I don't. I mean, I struggle with it too. Not to mention the historical boundaries that we're met with in the Bible. I think that I forget that I don't have to dive into all of that. Grace come first. I believe the Bible, so I believe that men and women are different. That's a huge difference between myself and the people that will probably be listening to me talk.

I think I keep forgetting that the biggest and most important difference is Jesus, and He, Thank God, covers all the gaps. I don't have to.

Please don't get me wrong, this presentation, won't even touch the surface of half the stuff I'm venting about here. But I will be talking about literature and how some of the books I used in the club addressed conflicts between gender and religion. I'll also be talking about a book that preaches the reconciliation that comes through Christ. (I don't even think the Women's Studies Program realized that I was bringing texts like that into the jail.) Just stressed. And for no reason. If I believe gospel, then I believe God is on my side. I don't answer to anyone but Him.

This is simply my mental digression.

Please pray that I'm loyal to God's calling in this situation and not my own fear.

"Bored" Games (Bahahahah)

Scrabble game gone found poetry.

queens
whores
vixens
bias
flume
haze
quiets
bag
vote
xi
rats
in
mini
teem

Teeming mini-rats with a hazy bias, vote in fourteen (xi) vixens and whore bags as queens of the quiet flume.

Words and Color

Crisp air. Cardigans. Scarves. Apple cider. Campfires. These are the treasures of fall...:)

And let us not forget good books. But those are for all seasons, eh? I'm currently reading A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, a friend of C.S. Lewis. Read this tonight:

"And of course beauty: the beauty that was for him the link between the ships and the woods and the poems. He remembered as though it were but a few days ago that winter night, himself too young to know the meaning of beauty, when he had looked up at a delicate tracery of bare black branches against the icy glittering stars: suddenly something that was, all at once, pain and longing and adoring had welled up in him, almost choking him. He had wanted to tell someone, but he had no words, inarticulate in the pain and glory. It was long afterwards the he realised that it had been his first aesthetic experience. That nameless something that had stopped his heart was Beauty. Even now, for him, 'bare branches against the stars' was a synonym for beauty."



Pain and glory--a fitting paradox for the definition of beauty, I believe.

I'm ready for the pain and glory of dying leaves! Took this picture last fall by purposely turning the lens out of focus. Lovely.