I was born to ramble

I was suprised by joy the other day when I snagged a hard-back copy of They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves at a cute little bookstore for five bucks. Lewis wrote this poem in memory of Greeves:

"That we may mark with wonder and chaste dread
At hour of noon, when, with our limbs outspread
Lazily in the whispering grass, we lie
to gaze out fully upon the windy sky--
Far, far away, and kindly, friend with friend,
To talk the old, old talk that has no end,
Roaming--without a name--without a chart--
The unknown garden of another's heart."

:)

Not the best poetry in the world, but I've felt especially blessed by friendship and comradery these past few weeks. So, this poem kind of hits home.

I also read a bumber sticker today on the back of a van that stated, "Somedays I just want to be a missing person." I can sympathize with that lately. Sometimes I get this sudden urge to run away from the impending uncertainty of my future. (I just imagined some lady throwing her hand to her forehead and fainting). I need to stop being so dramatic. God in is control. God is sovereign. God is good. God knows the plans He has for me. Fret not. Faint not. Oh dear.

We celebrated Pa Doug's (my dad's dad) birthday today. He turned 82 and he goes non-stop all the time. Literally, we had to meet early for dinner because Pa Doug had been invited to play at this bluegrass get-together thingy. I love it. I really hope if God chooses to bless me with old age that I'll be as energetic and full of life as he is.

All Things New or All Things Old...

I had forgotten how much I love simple homeade sandwiches. Today I hung out with Cody and we made turkey sandwiches for lunch with fresh cut tomatoes and lettuce. He also shared his spicy barbecue chips and slightly frozen key lime pie. Yum. Cheap, fast, good. It also made me think of Sunday summer afternoons with my family. We'd leave church, run to the grocery, buy fresh bread, chips, and cookies and sit around the table for over an hour sometimes just munching and talking. Makes me miss my brother and who he used to be and reminds me that everyone and everything is changing. Dare I say I'm feeling nostalgic?

Spring break is at hand and I feel like it's simultaneously going slow and fast at the same time. If I'm completely honest, I'm restless, bored, and un-motivated. Why didn't I plan to travel somewhere? I wish I could just pack my suitcase, right now, and go somewhere far, far away from here. I mean far. I've been playing Over the Rhine's "Suitcase." The lyrics don't really match what I'm feeling, but they make me think about leaving nonetheless...."What'cha doin' with a suitcase? Trying to hit the ground with both feet running...? Stealing away on a sunny day." Hmmmmmm. Anywhere but here.

It's been a year since I've watched the Beatrix Potter movie and I'm fighting a big urge to buy it and watch it again.

I watched Changeling last night with a new friend from work and I liked it. It was about three hours long and I wanted to scream out of frustration the whole time, but it was powerful and had a lot to say about women's rights and struggles in the twenty's and the corruption of the law enforcement system at the time.

I met with the jail book club tonight. One woman broke down right there in the room. :( Everytime I leave those grey walls and locked doors I breathe a little deeper remembering what it means to be free to choose what I eat, where I go, when I wake up every morning. There are some major inequality issues between men and women in some prisons/jails. I'm thinking of ways I can help to change it.

Nana sliced three of my fingers today. jerk.

all things considered

Buffy, our family dog of fifteen years, may be on the down hill slope of health. As of yesterday, she couldn't move the lower part of her body and she's been rather fragile the past year or so anyway. Almost two years ago Buffy lost one of her front legs to a tumor earning her the infamous nicknames "Tripod" and "I-Lean." She struggles with arthritis and is almost completely blind and deaf. It breaks my heart, but I know she's an old dog and she's had a good life.

Phrases from the past week that I don't want to forget:

"For the love of the flu."
"I am the soil."
"Eeep."
"I got my swim trunks. I got my flippy floppies."

Hmm.

By Friday the 20th I will have read over 250 student submissions or at least that's the plan. If I succeed, I'll automatically be an editor for the school publication, Zephyrus.

Last year at this time, I was in L.A. with Miss B; this fact depresses me slightly.

God is good. I am not. That is all.

Alright, alright.

So I got some stories and I be laying them down right here on this page. ah. i am so not gangster.

I know this looks insanely long, but READ it. Some parts are funny/entertaining, I hope. :)

anyway.

so my friend jason at the tutor lab is in a wheelchair ( i do not define him by that disability...i hardly even remember that he has one but it's essential to the story) and yesterday morning we were all sitting around with nothing to do. he started clanking the front metal part of his chair into the tables and saying in a very serious, meditative tone, "Sanctuary. Sanctuary." so, all day today when things got really quiet I would take a pen or some other object and hit under the table and make that really funny bell tone. It's not that great of a story, I understand, but it has really made my day and it made me laugh a lot--So much yesterday that I almost blew hot chocolate out my nose. It was really just snot but that makes the story sound so much better.

On that note, I have been extremely gross to be around the past week or so given the illness that took over my unwilling body. Ah...dramatic, I know, but that's how it felt. Anyway, all weekend I was with these really cool, trendy high school girls and I kept having to blow my nose because I couldn't talk or breathe otherwise and I know that it grossed them the crap out. They were probably all thinking, "Dang. This frumpy, frizzy college girl needs to get her gross, sick butt home and take some fashion lessons." they even somewhat insisted on straightening my hair Sunday. I felt like Mia from the Princess Diaries or one of those awfully dressed people from "What Not to Wear" or something like that. They were all crowding around me and saying things like, "Yeah...you look totally different now," and "Yeah, you should really wear those glasses today. Girl, we're gonna' get you some digits." I'm not even joking. I think I developed a slight complex...:( Maybe I'm just not aware of my self-presentation. Maybe I just don't care.

Back to the tutoring lounge.

So this girl needed help with math the other day and I sit down beside her, let out a big yawn, and ask her what wants to go over. When I look to my side she's staring down at her homework assignment. So, I naturally look down and realize that I have yawn spattered all over her papers. OMG. I didn't know what to say. So I go, "Did I do that?" Of course, I totally knew that I had at that point, but what else am I supposed to say? She looks up and solemnly nods her head. OMG. I'm so emabarrassed at this point. I take my sleeve and hurredly wipe off her papers. "It'll dry....I am sooooo sorry. That's really gross." then I jump into an explanation of fractions and hope that she gets so caught up in numbers that she forgets all about it. Ah. The horror.



Tangent:

Here are some quotes from the literature that was given to me for the weekend. I personally feel as if they're theologically skewed in very serious ways. So I'm listing them here and if anyone has thoughts on them, please share.

"Satan won't tempt you with something that you know to be clearly wrong, because he knows the you won't give in to it."

False. I think most Christians know when they're committing sin.

"When you are lukewarm, it affects no only your life, but also all the lives around you. Suppose you have two or three friends who are lost, and they see your lukewarm lifestyle this year. You may prevent them from ever entering the kingdom of heaven and coming to know Jesus Christ as Savior. Well, perhaps there are two or three next year, and two or three the next. The result after years and years of living a mediocre Christian life will be that you have caused many to fall away from Jesus Christ. But if you had lived a cold Christian life and didn't even profess to be something that you were not, only you would suffer the consequences."

I understand the importance of Christians leading lives that follow the standards that Christ gives, but I think this quote is placing WAY too much importance on the individual. God does the calling, not our actions. Plus, I've never seen anyone come to Christ based off of human actions. True salvation comes through hearing the Word/Truth. Right? Thoughts?
I mean, I know Jesus served people physically a lot of the time before he helped them spiritually (although the two are obviously connnected...you get my point) but I think this is a different matter, entirely.

"You are always either drawing others toward God or causing them to fall away."

This just seems so weird to me.

And because I have feminist tendencies and get fired up really easily:

"By the way, did you know that there is only one way a young lady can dress to draw others to God? She must dress to accent her eyes and expression. Any other way, such as tight tops, or short shorts does nothing but push others away from God. She becomes a stumbling block."

Don't get me wrong; I love modesty and understand why Christian women should practice that, but the implications of this passage are limitless. It sounds like the author might acutally support modern-day abayas. Really, was this comment necessary? And I feel like all of these excerpts place way too much blame/guilt on the person acting out these things. What about the choice of the other person? does that makes sense? Am I wrong? I don't know. It just confused/angered me. I talked to a good friend about it and he's actually having the leader of the weekend write the publisher about some of the issues. Kind of cool.

oh my goodness.
oh my goodness.
there's a movie with a character that says that. Hmmm?

anyway.
oh my goodness. what a weekend.
I thought I might die friday.
And I shared the Good News Gospel of Jesus all freakin' weekend long.
And!
The word "propitiation" played a very important role in an intense game (the name surpasses me) of questions/chair nabbing. Doesn't get much better than that, friends.

Oh boy. fun stuff.

more later, maybe.

I go to war with myself every morning.

and no, that is not a completely orginal idea.

I felt like I could relate to these lyrics by Lisa Hannigan in her song "Lille"--

"He went to sea for the day
He wanted to know
What to say
When he's asked what he'd done
In the past to someone
That he loves endlessly
Now she's gone
So is he

I went to war every morning
I lost my way but now I'm following
What you said in my arms
What I read in the charms
That I love durably
Now it's dead and gone
And I am free

I went to sleep for the daytime
I shut my eyes to the sunshine
Turned my head away from the noise
Bruise and drip decay of childish toys
That I loved arguably
All our labouring gone to seed

We went out to play for the evening
We wanted to hold on to the feeling
And the stretch in the sun
And our breathlessness as we run
To the beach endlessly
As the sun creeps up on the sea."

I feel really discouraged and encouraged by a lot lately. It makes for an odd tension.

honey-child

Warning: This post is bit lengthy and cheesy. You may want to spare yourself.

Today was exceptionally interesting.

At church I helped with the kids in the nursery. Okay, let's backtrack a bit. I have a cousin named Gracie. She was born a day after my birthday on April 24th. I babysat her once and she hated me...hated me. Oddly enough, she has absolutely adored me ever since. So, in the nursery today I helped the kids, including Gracie, draw houses, stairs, trees, chimneys, slides and grass. They begged me to draw things for them, but I told them to watch me and try things on their own. Here's my attempt:



Needless to say, I greatly miss coloring and cutting out things from construction paper. Here's Gracie's attempt at a swimming pool with a slide which she insisted on stapling to the picture of my house. I told her the pool should have fish which she added and then drew large dashes all around the water, and said, "this red is the really hot." Oh, kids.



Gracie also colored this:



I enjoy children, but sometimes I don't censor myself well. For example, today one girl kept peeling the wrapper off of the crayons and I said something to the effect of we shouldn't take the clothes off the crayons because then they're naked and that's no good. Absoloutely a terrible thing to say to a group of five and six year olds. After that, another girl proceeded to tell me about the time her crayons were naked, and I really think that they're all going to go home and tell their parents about how we tried to keep the clothes on the crayons. The church may never trust me with the kids again. I guess I could have tried to make it biblical and referenced Adam and Eve in some way. Maybe not. Ahah.

On another note, I watched Coraline with a group of friends this weekend, and I liked it, quite a bit.

Also, I feel like a cat mom. I know that taking care of kids and taking care of pets are two totally different things, but when people come over, I really just talk about the cat. I also take lots of picture of her. I feed her, clean up after her, try to teach her things...and so on. I always knew I was a crazy cat lady I just never thought it would happen so soon. Thus the following:





So Lent is approaching and I really want to fast from something. What that something should be is not quite clear yet.

I'm helping with a Disciple-Now this weekend and I'm really worried. I stress out way too much over things like this. Today I started reading through the material and got really confused and angry/frustrated. I don't think I agree with what the author is saying about evangelism and it scares me because I don't know if my convictions are right or just plain cynical. Oh well, maybe I'll blog about the specifics later.

I think that's all.