Every single time I watch Bones, I cry.
Every. Single. Time.
That show gives me so much hope. It's about nothing so much as unconditional, seeing, life-giving love.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
I wasn't even tipsy.
As Brian and I shared our views on Erie weather while I peeled an orange and he ate his lunch, he said that he complains a little too much about the cold, when really the weather he hates is the overcast gray sky.
"It's the dullnes that's kind of depressing," he said.
"Yeah," I said, wrestling with the peel. "It's the dismal, heavy blanket of clouds that hangs over the sky and drenches everything in a sense of infinite sorrow."
There was a pause.
"Yes, that," he said.
I laughed.
These poor people never know what's going to hit them or when. Ordinarily, with me, it's in vino poetess; but sometimes the words will out, and my conversation partner realizes that there's something intense in my relationship with language which subsequently shapes how I view the world. The more relaxed I feel in my environment, the less the filter in my head translates everything to Joe Six-Pack vocabulary for the sake of my listeners.
"It's the dullnes that's kind of depressing," he said.
"Yeah," I said, wrestling with the peel. "It's the dismal, heavy blanket of clouds that hangs over the sky and drenches everything in a sense of infinite sorrow."
There was a pause.
"Yes, that," he said.
I laughed.
These poor people never know what's going to hit them or when. Ordinarily, with me, it's in vino poetess; but sometimes the words will out, and my conversation partner realizes that there's something intense in my relationship with language which subsequently shapes how I view the world. The more relaxed I feel in my environment, the less the filter in my head translates everything to Joe Six-Pack vocabulary for the sake of my listeners.
a silly little ditty for my darling little kitty
Sing a song of Simon --
a heartbeat full of joy --
a thousand daily cutenesses
about my darling boy.
Each time I see his whiskered face
It makes me want to sing.
With such a sweetie Kitty-Pie
who wants for anything?
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
saw this on a front door during my evening walk...
People can be so wonderful. The love of God exhibits itself -- or, more simply, God exhibits Himself -- everywhere. And I'm a sucker for that kind of protective compassion. If we can love hatchling birds in such spontaneous purity, surely we can love each other. And if we can love the weak and the helpless enough to guard their safety from all possible harm, though it materially benefits us nothing, how much more does God, who implanted that love in human hearts, guard us. Because we’re weak and helpless, because our fragile lives are miraculous, and because even in our young awkward greedy noisiness we are beautiful, because He made us, and we are His.
So God spreads His wings protectively over us, who spread our wings protectively over the mother birds, who spread their wings protectively over their young. It's all part of the same thing. All of creation is a set of nesting dolls held in the heart of an infinitely loving God.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
kinetic waiting
An evening of listening to edgy music, some mind candy reading, and time spent organizing the contents of my room to my liking make things drastically better.
As far as my room goes, it's on the small side and can accommodate my enormous and beautiful bed, one six-foot bookcase and a dresser. (Oh the heights from which I have fallen.) I stacked a couple of antique wooden crates at one corner of the bed to make a nightstand, with a happily charming effect, and fitted as many shelves into the bookcase as possible. This necessitated a new basis of book organization, one heretofore untried by me: size. Up till now I have rigidly catalogued my books according to subject, and then alphabetically by author's last name; now they gleefully fill the shelves more or less randomly, and I find myself rather liking the chaos.
While I worked I devoted more thought and prayer to my future. I've never felt so frustrated with my lack of specific calling as I have these last few months. With so many fragments of what I know I'm meant to do -- writing, teaching, speaking, transforming the church, changing the world, traveling hither and yon, family -- nothing is merging into a cohesive whole. I sense God telling me, Wait, but not Sit There and Wait; rather, Go Do Something While You Wait.
I have time to decide. The first priority is paying off my debt, which should take about a year. While I'm doing that, I will also sort through all of my options, like Psyche in the grain room, picking and sifting, until the ants come along to help me. The possible choices are all a lot of fun to consider: Do I go to grad school? If I do, should I go to grad school in another country, or in the States? If grad school, should my focus be English? Or something more seminarian (ever since the winter of '07 I've been leaning toward learning ancient Greek and Hebrew, and training in exegesis and theology)? If not grad school, what about travel? Should I look for work in another country? Teach English as a second language? Or perhaps take a year-long mission trip to work with the rural population? Where should I go? South America, China, New Zealand, Australia?
So many possibilities, and all of them exciting. Mom doesn't seem so thrilled about me going overseas, but I'm rather captivated by the idea of a bigger life on the edge of something great -- fired through in a way that I haven't been in...well...a really long time, if not ever. During my senior year in college, my predominant dream was to spend a year at a time living in a different country, and I love pulling that dream off the shelf onto which I'd shoved it, and polishing the dust from it.
If I change my mind a thousand times a week, it's because I want to do all of it, and I can't settle on which option is best. I'm praying for some kind of synthesis of everything, because I want all these possibilities so strongly I think I'm almost starry-eyed.
At the same time I'm also trying hard to buckle down and live in the present. Since I know I tend to drift along in unformed dreams of the future, I need to start constructing a plan. Also to see where I can start making the difference I want to make eventually in the world begin right here in my hometown. I just don't know where that starting point is, so I'm praying about that too. Things are done very...traditionally, around here, and what I want to do isn't exactly traditional, and carrying things out alone isn't my strongest suit. This is what I get for coming to a small town, I suppose; it's a little more challenging assembling the threads that want spinning.
Lots of things to pray about, and lots of things to do. I'm asking for a clear vision, to be able to see the immediate and the distant with equal judiciousness and equal passion, and to live fully in both present and future. Life is now, not just someday, and while I live intensely in the now with an eye toward enjoying it (however much I bitch about things, I still like what I'm doing and where I am, generally speaking; I was a pretty happy child), I'd like to work some on living more practically in the present. It's easy for me to waste time waiting for my destiny to come get me; now I think I'd better use this time to gear up to go get my destiny -- for We must away, ere break of day, to find our long-forgotten gold.
I feel like it's almost time.
Meanwhile I forgot to take my allergy pill last night because I was engrossed in thinking about all these things and the medicine bottle wasn't in its usual place (I'm a routine-oriented creature because otherwise I'd forget to do anything; autopilot is the only thing, sometimes, that keeps me functioning in the real world), so today my skin is really damn itchy and covered in red welts. Perhaps I'll play up the impression that they mistreat me horribly at work.
Also this morning I got annoyed with one of the attorneys who shares my office space because for about a month now he has left half-full soda cans scattered all over his desk without attempting to carry them one room over to the sink and the recycling bin. When he gets into the office today he'll find a pyramid of pop cans where he usually sets his laptop.
As far as my room goes, it's on the small side and can accommodate my enormous and beautiful bed, one six-foot bookcase and a dresser. (Oh the heights from which I have fallen.) I stacked a couple of antique wooden crates at one corner of the bed to make a nightstand, with a happily charming effect, and fitted as many shelves into the bookcase as possible. This necessitated a new basis of book organization, one heretofore untried by me: size. Up till now I have rigidly catalogued my books according to subject, and then alphabetically by author's last name; now they gleefully fill the shelves more or less randomly, and I find myself rather liking the chaos.
While I worked I devoted more thought and prayer to my future. I've never felt so frustrated with my lack of specific calling as I have these last few months. With so many fragments of what I know I'm meant to do -- writing, teaching, speaking, transforming the church, changing the world, traveling hither and yon, family -- nothing is merging into a cohesive whole. I sense God telling me, Wait, but not Sit There and Wait; rather, Go Do Something While You Wait.
I have time to decide. The first priority is paying off my debt, which should take about a year. While I'm doing that, I will also sort through all of my options, like Psyche in the grain room, picking and sifting, until the ants come along to help me. The possible choices are all a lot of fun to consider: Do I go to grad school? If I do, should I go to grad school in another country, or in the States? If grad school, should my focus be English? Or something more seminarian (ever since the winter of '07 I've been leaning toward learning ancient Greek and Hebrew, and training in exegesis and theology)? If not grad school, what about travel? Should I look for work in another country? Teach English as a second language? Or perhaps take a year-long mission trip to work with the rural population? Where should I go? South America, China, New Zealand, Australia?
So many possibilities, and all of them exciting. Mom doesn't seem so thrilled about me going overseas, but I'm rather captivated by the idea of a bigger life on the edge of something great -- fired through in a way that I haven't been in...well...a really long time, if not ever. During my senior year in college, my predominant dream was to spend a year at a time living in a different country, and I love pulling that dream off the shelf onto which I'd shoved it, and polishing the dust from it.
If I change my mind a thousand times a week, it's because I want to do all of it, and I can't settle on which option is best. I'm praying for some kind of synthesis of everything, because I want all these possibilities so strongly I think I'm almost starry-eyed.
At the same time I'm also trying hard to buckle down and live in the present. Since I know I tend to drift along in unformed dreams of the future, I need to start constructing a plan. Also to see where I can start making the difference I want to make eventually in the world begin right here in my hometown. I just don't know where that starting point is, so I'm praying about that too. Things are done very...traditionally, around here, and what I want to do isn't exactly traditional, and carrying things out alone isn't my strongest suit. This is what I get for coming to a small town, I suppose; it's a little more challenging assembling the threads that want spinning.
Lots of things to pray about, and lots of things to do. I'm asking for a clear vision, to be able to see the immediate and the distant with equal judiciousness and equal passion, and to live fully in both present and future. Life is now, not just someday, and while I live intensely in the now with an eye toward enjoying it (however much I bitch about things, I still like what I'm doing and where I am, generally speaking; I was a pretty happy child), I'd like to work some on living more practically in the present. It's easy for me to waste time waiting for my destiny to come get me; now I think I'd better use this time to gear up to go get my destiny -- for We must away, ere break of day, to find our long-forgotten gold.
I feel like it's almost time.
Meanwhile I forgot to take my allergy pill last night because I was engrossed in thinking about all these things and the medicine bottle wasn't in its usual place (I'm a routine-oriented creature because otherwise I'd forget to do anything; autopilot is the only thing, sometimes, that keeps me functioning in the real world), so today my skin is really damn itchy and covered in red welts. Perhaps I'll play up the impression that they mistreat me horribly at work.
Also this morning I got annoyed with one of the attorneys who shares my office space because for about a month now he has left half-full soda cans scattered all over his desk without attempting to carry them one room over to the sink and the recycling bin. When he gets into the office today he'll find a pyramid of pop cans where he usually sets his laptop.
Monday, May 04, 2009
I'm not there
It's one of those (Mon)days.
I had too much to do this weekend and in trying to do it all I ended up doing none of it well. I also got no sleep and feel this morning as if someone had poured powdered sand in my eyes, laughed at me and walked away. The domestic front is tense for no immediately discernible reason. Good deeds do not go unpunished. None of my closest and best beloved live anywhere near me. Although I'm more Catholic than anything else (belief in the Eucharist limits one's options, and I speak neither Russian nor Greek) I still fit no molds and have no community lacking anything in common with anyone so church is a wrenching kind of drag -- again. I'm not maximizing my potential where I am and I don't know where to start and I want everything to be simple and easy and I know it's never simple and easy but today I'm pissed about it, thank you.
I have too many jobs and no money. My inbox keeps getting filled with stupid inspirational forwards which are like yelling "SURPRISE!!!" at someone with a hangover. My head is thousands of miles away and doesn't want to concentrate on the task at hand. I'm so tired I'm taking naps in my daydreams. It's a mood wherein I would love to go running for a cigarette if I could smoke it without throwing up (this means, I think, that I have officially quit for good, dammit) and the day stretches long and sunless ahead of me when good old Mr. Weatherman had promised me sunshine. Appropriately, "Halloween Head" is spooling on continuous loop in my mind's ear, and inconveniently it's drowning out everything else.
So fuck it -- I'm retreating to my other hiding place. While I answer phones and deal with whatever crap lands in my lap I'll be about fifteen miles away from here sitting on a bleached-bone driftwood log with my hands curled around my knees watching the wind blow over twenty-six miles of gray water.
God is good. But occasionally everything else sucks. And this means that I should take my old youth pastor's advice: "When everything is bad and you feel horrible, get out there and serve people."
Okay. Here I go. But I won't like it.
I had too much to do this weekend and in trying to do it all I ended up doing none of it well. I also got no sleep and feel this morning as if someone had poured powdered sand in my eyes, laughed at me and walked away. The domestic front is tense for no immediately discernible reason. Good deeds do not go unpunished. None of my closest and best beloved live anywhere near me. Although I'm more Catholic than anything else (belief in the Eucharist limits one's options, and I speak neither Russian nor Greek) I still fit no molds and have no community lacking anything in common with anyone so church is a wrenching kind of drag -- again. I'm not maximizing my potential where I am and I don't know where to start and I want everything to be simple and easy and I know it's never simple and easy but today I'm pissed about it, thank you.
I have too many jobs and no money. My inbox keeps getting filled with stupid inspirational forwards which are like yelling "SURPRISE!!!" at someone with a hangover. My head is thousands of miles away and doesn't want to concentrate on the task at hand. I'm so tired I'm taking naps in my daydreams. It's a mood wherein I would love to go running for a cigarette if I could smoke it without throwing up (this means, I think, that I have officially quit for good, dammit) and the day stretches long and sunless ahead of me when good old Mr. Weatherman had promised me sunshine. Appropriately, "Halloween Head" is spooling on continuous loop in my mind's ear, and inconveniently it's drowning out everything else.
So fuck it -- I'm retreating to my other hiding place. While I answer phones and deal with whatever crap lands in my lap I'll be about fifteen miles away from here sitting on a bleached-bone driftwood log with my hands curled around my knees watching the wind blow over twenty-six miles of gray water.
God is good. But occasionally everything else sucks. And this means that I should take my old youth pastor's advice: "When everything is bad and you feel horrible, get out there and serve people."
Okay. Here I go. But I won't like it.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
preparing the way
After a blinding revelation yesterday, I have begun weeding out my possessions with a never-before-seen determination. As I stood in the trailer dejectedly surveying the wealth of crap that I needed to pack, most of which I would have to pay to put in storage, I suddenly straightened up with the thought: Why? If I don't want to pack it, I don't want to keep it. A grin started to form at the corners of my mouth as various paraphrases of Thoreau flashed in mental neon across my frontal lobe. Then I hunted down the garbage bags and started stuffing them with the things that I have allowed to become, not sources of comfort and joy, but balls and chains.
It was thrilling, a little frightening, immensely satisfying, to sort through objects I had never thought of discarding, picking out only the ones I really wanted -- and could justify taking with me on future moves. I decided to limit myself to one box of trinkets, some of them sizeable, and, chewing on my lower lip, I ticked off lists of possessions in my mind, coming down to the realization that I only care about my music, my kitchen stuff, my books and my movies, with a few items I've collected over the years which possess a sort of spiritual significance.
And even within those primary keep-it categories, particularly the books, music and movies, I can do some sifting. Plenty of chaff has accrued there as my tastes have become honed, my identity more refined. I have taken great pride in my collection of 800-odd books, but a lot of them I never intend to read. The classics, for example: I have no desire ever to open the covers of Bleak House. Or A Tale of Two Cities. I think I won't apologize to anyone anymore for not wanting to read them. Some of the contemporary stuff, too -- I truly hate A Prayer for Owen Meaney. So why have I kept it so long?
I'm doing some serious contemplation of what I want, and what I'm supposed, to do with the rest of my life, finally taking into account the ever-present restlessness that burns in my blood like acid and resurfaces after six months of any given relocation. I want to be some kind of pioneer. There's so much world to see, and I haven't seen any of it. I know that whatever God has in store for me includes something huge, some vast expanse of horizon, some place I never imagined, and, since I'm not getting any postcards in the mail saying, Go Here. Do This. Love, God, I think it's time I consider how to strike out to go meet Him: to "rise on the wings of the dawn...[to] settle on the far side of the sea," where "even there His right hand...will hold me fast."
With that idea germinating (which I'm watering with much prayer and mulching with much thought and exuberance), I'm paring down my possessions in light of the idea of living a life of mobility -- of being ready to drop everything and go live in Brazil, or Australia, or New Zealand, or Madagascar. I've also decided, finally, to save up for an iPod, one that can accommodate my collection of CDs -- a lot of albums I can buy in the future are cheaper purchased as mp3s, and, although I love the physicality of a purchase, love to run my fingers over the jewel cases and gloat over how many works of my beloved artists I own, it's much more practical to slip one's iPod in a pocket of one's carry-on than to box and ship a couple hundred CDs. (Of course there may be electronic factors that I in my innocence/ignorance don't yet know about, but there will be time, and there will be time.)
So even this part of my present circumstances has become not mundane, but thrilling; no longer an obligation, but purposeful -- working toward something bigger, something broader, something more adventurous. I was watching an infomercial yesterday while chowing down on some lunch, and it advertised this broom-type cleaning product that was supposed to get all the sticky off hardwood floors and smeared mirrors, and I felt a sudden twist of horror at the idea of having my life, and the things I buy, focus around a big expensive house with big expensive floors, a museum-turned-tyrant which would demand all of my resources, including how I spent my little bits of free time. I want my free time truly to be free; I want to be free; and I have no intention of giving up that freedom for a picket fence and a two-car garage.
I want the same things I always did -- home, family -- but I don't want them in the usual way. I want to carve out my own space, my own definitions. I've never been like anyone else in any other respect; why should my destiny look like anyone else's? Why should I keep trying to be like everybody else? The traditional ambitions are great for them, are good in general, are wonderful; but I'm drawn to something different...something undefined...something unwritten. Something all mine. And I'm finally starting to be ready to begin to embrace it. It'll take planning, and prayer. But I'm excited.
It was thrilling, a little frightening, immensely satisfying, to sort through objects I had never thought of discarding, picking out only the ones I really wanted -- and could justify taking with me on future moves. I decided to limit myself to one box of trinkets, some of them sizeable, and, chewing on my lower lip, I ticked off lists of possessions in my mind, coming down to the realization that I only care about my music, my kitchen stuff, my books and my movies, with a few items I've collected over the years which possess a sort of spiritual significance.
And even within those primary keep-it categories, particularly the books, music and movies, I can do some sifting. Plenty of chaff has accrued there as my tastes have become honed, my identity more refined. I have taken great pride in my collection of 800-odd books, but a lot of them I never intend to read. The classics, for example: I have no desire ever to open the covers of Bleak House. Or A Tale of Two Cities. I think I won't apologize to anyone anymore for not wanting to read them. Some of the contemporary stuff, too -- I truly hate A Prayer for Owen Meaney. So why have I kept it so long?
I'm doing some serious contemplation of what I want, and what I'm supposed, to do with the rest of my life, finally taking into account the ever-present restlessness that burns in my blood like acid and resurfaces after six months of any given relocation. I want to be some kind of pioneer. There's so much world to see, and I haven't seen any of it. I know that whatever God has in store for me includes something huge, some vast expanse of horizon, some place I never imagined, and, since I'm not getting any postcards in the mail saying, Go Here. Do This. Love, God, I think it's time I consider how to strike out to go meet Him: to "rise on the wings of the dawn...[to] settle on the far side of the sea," where "even there His right hand...will hold me fast."
With that idea germinating (which I'm watering with much prayer and mulching with much thought and exuberance), I'm paring down my possessions in light of the idea of living a life of mobility -- of being ready to drop everything and go live in Brazil, or Australia, or New Zealand, or Madagascar. I've also decided, finally, to save up for an iPod, one that can accommodate my collection of CDs -- a lot of albums I can buy in the future are cheaper purchased as mp3s, and, although I love the physicality of a purchase, love to run my fingers over the jewel cases and gloat over how many works of my beloved artists I own, it's much more practical to slip one's iPod in a pocket of one's carry-on than to box and ship a couple hundred CDs. (Of course there may be electronic factors that I in my innocence/ignorance don't yet know about, but there will be time, and there will be time.)
So even this part of my present circumstances has become not mundane, but thrilling; no longer an obligation, but purposeful -- working toward something bigger, something broader, something more adventurous. I was watching an infomercial yesterday while chowing down on some lunch, and it advertised this broom-type cleaning product that was supposed to get all the sticky off hardwood floors and smeared mirrors, and I felt a sudden twist of horror at the idea of having my life, and the things I buy, focus around a big expensive house with big expensive floors, a museum-turned-tyrant which would demand all of my resources, including how I spent my little bits of free time. I want my free time truly to be free; I want to be free; and I have no intention of giving up that freedom for a picket fence and a two-car garage.
I want the same things I always did -- home, family -- but I don't want them in the usual way. I want to carve out my own space, my own definitions. I've never been like anyone else in any other respect; why should my destiny look like anyone else's? Why should I keep trying to be like everybody else? The traditional ambitions are great for them, are good in general, are wonderful; but I'm drawn to something different...something undefined...something unwritten. Something all mine. And I'm finally starting to be ready to begin to embrace it. It'll take planning, and prayer. But I'm excited.
Friday, May 01, 2009
because on days like today I am for no reason in love with the whole broad world
THE world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~ Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur"
(And it's not even sunny.)
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~ Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur"
(And it's not even sunny.)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
sc-fi salad
Hey! Why haven't the fighters in the Resistance come up with a huge electromagnetic pulse to wipe out Skynet? Don't EMPs murder computer chips? Doesn't anyone in John Connor's army remember watching Dark Angel as a kid, before the lights went out? If they have enough resources to reconfigure time machines and reprogram Terminators, surely they have enough resources to build a pulse-maker.
Maybe this was addressed in Season 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I missed it. Or maybe it comes up in Terminator: Salvation this summer.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. If Skynet is defeated in any simple way, my favorite of all fictive filmographic heroes has no more story, and that would cause me much grief.
Still.
Maybe this was addressed in Season 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I missed it. Or maybe it comes up in Terminator: Salvation this summer.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. If Skynet is defeated in any simple way, my favorite of all fictive filmographic heroes has no more story, and that would cause me much grief.
Still.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
It started out as a song quotation and turned into a moral expository.
Who knew Ryan Adams could be so encouraging? I picked up Cardinology for barely a song the other day (Music Spree 2009 is well on its way, although plans are underway to give myself a monthly music allowance since truly I can't live without the stuff), and I love this one too:
For everything that's wrong
there is a worried man
There is a reason why
We just don't understand, but will:
You gotta keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory,
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into a light
For everyone alone
I wish you faith and hope
and the strength to cope,
to be your own best friend:
Have confidence and keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We were born into a light
We were born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into the light
"Born into a Light"
Quite possibly I sound severely unbalanced with this constant flux of ups and downs, but isn't that life? Something makes you feel horrible, but just for a little while, and then you bounce back for a little while. I can't say that I'm ever truly happy with a lack of particular companionship; all my happiness comes in spite of it; but there is happiness to be found nonetheless.
Today my resilience finds a helpful source in the rejuvenation of the whole world, the continual cycle of birth from death, the baby greening of the trees. The temperature hovers at around 55 and it's sunny, a quintessential Mid-Atlantic spring day, and I've dressed for the occasion in a flouncy brown skirt that ruffles out at the knees, little brown ankle boots, a sleek lime green tanktop and a shimmery burnt orange half-sleeved shrug with beaded sequensing down the neckline which ties below the breast. Big matching jewelry and loose curled hair completes the ensemble, and, for no good reason, especially because I suck at it, I want to go dancing. Form dancing -- like contra. Someplace where this skirt can fly out around my knees and do my pale calves some justice. I want to get caught up in some lively motion.
A few nagging existential dilemmas still gnaw like mice in the dark at my thoughts, but today it's not unbearable. I'm considering different approaches with a new mindset based on Thomas Jefferson's advice to his son that "the uprightness, and not the rightness of a decision is what matters." Which I think I love: So many decisions over which we agonize, trying to discern the "right" decision from the "wrong" one, have none of the good-vs.-evil implications or consequences with which we imbue them; important as they are, the different paths we might take do not lead to divine approval or indictment, and in these then, particularly as they involve other people, the question is not one of right and wrong, but of uprightness, of which decision is better -- which encompasses a host of moral considerations that keep a person on the path of integrity.
I think that oftentimes, as Christians, we fall into a black-and-white mentality of right and wrong, and approach decisions in terms of reward and punishment: Which choice leads to God's favor? Which choice will incur His wrath? How will I answer for this decision on Judgment Day? Unfortunately this approach, when it encompasses most of our decision-making processes, leads to paranoia, the fear that we are morally accountable for everything, and in the end we run the risk of paralyzing ourselves because we can identify a thousand ways in which God could judge us for any choice we might make, since we are never truly selfless, never live perfectly in love.
But we miss out on so much of life's richness, on the possibilities of love and the glowing strength of living in faith and the gloriousness of walking free of fear, when we reduce everything to its eternal consequences to ourselves. Christ came that we may "have [life] to the full," not to the minimum, and a life lived in fear of taking a wrong step and falling into a pit of fire isn't exactly living life to the fullest.
And honestly, uprightness is more commendable than correctness. Most of the time there is no correct answer, anyway. I'm not talking about choices that are clearly between right and wrong, such as Do I cheat on my spouse or not? but rather choices such as whether to express words of love, or how to approach human relationships, or which career to pursue in which part of the world. There's no blueprint for these things, just a foundation of agape love. How we build on that is up to us, and the structure gets to be our own. The love and the lives we build won't look like anyone else's; we're not talking manufactured homes here. Someone's might have three stories and turrets, someone else's might be built into a hillside with a vegetable garden on the roof, and someone else's still might sprawl in a single story with flowers in windowboxes. God's not going to say that one of these mansions is better than another; as He made the extent universe in dizzying variety, so He made us, and so He made us to love: uniquely, individually, personally, powerfully. The only thing we don't get is praise for trying to copy our neighbor brick for brick, or praise for building International-style, trying to make everything the same from the fear of incorrectness and winding up without beauty or soul.
To consider uprightness, the full effect of a decision less upon the self than upon others, leads to better decisions. Ironically when we stop focusing on how the decision will affect us eternally, we make choices that will actually lead to a "Well done, good and faithful servant!" If we choose based purely on our own interest (yes, thinking only of whether or not God will be happy with us displays even greater self-interest than a lot of decisions based on sensory impulses) we live and love in a miserly way: We become the servant who buries his talent in a corner of the garden and does nothing for anyone: We become inorganic.
We spend so much time worrying about what God wants. He's said pretty clearly what He wants from us: "To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." The beginning of that verse -- "He has shown you, O man, what is good" -- implies the question we ask so often: What is right? What is the good decision? And the answer: He has shown you. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. These are matters of uprightness. Justice, mercy, humility; action, love and progress.
Most of the time we only let ourselves get mired down in wondering what God wants because it lets us dither our way into paranoid inaction, which gives us a secret sense of relief because the decision we probably ought to make involves risks that scare us. And we can get away with that if we obsess, and prioritize, the rightness of a thing. We can deconstruct every possibility until it reverberates to meaninglessness, and thereby justify our failure to act. But when we prioritize uprightness, we seek to bring good to, and to bless the Other, and we pursue the fullest richness of life. And in contemplating uprightness we have no excuse for failing to bring good to another.
The spotlight of uprightness shows our decisions for what they often are: selfish and cowardly, small and fearful. Uprightness brings every shade of goodness and love to counter all the shades of uncertainty we use to excuse ourselves.
And how much more fun it is to celebrate each other! How much happier to tell people what they mean to us, to encourage their strengths and forgive their weaknesses, to look for things to love about others and express appreciation for them!
As Sufjan writes:
We celebrate our sense of each other:
We have a lot to give one another.
For everything that's wrong
there is a worried man
There is a reason why
We just don't understand, but will:
You gotta keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory,
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into a light
For everyone alone
I wish you faith and hope
and the strength to cope,
to be your own best friend:
Have confidence and keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We were born into a light
We were born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into the light
"Born into a Light"
Quite possibly I sound severely unbalanced with this constant flux of ups and downs, but isn't that life? Something makes you feel horrible, but just for a little while, and then you bounce back for a little while. I can't say that I'm ever truly happy with a lack of particular companionship; all my happiness comes in spite of it; but there is happiness to be found nonetheless.
Today my resilience finds a helpful source in the rejuvenation of the whole world, the continual cycle of birth from death, the baby greening of the trees. The temperature hovers at around 55 and it's sunny, a quintessential Mid-Atlantic spring day, and I've dressed for the occasion in a flouncy brown skirt that ruffles out at the knees, little brown ankle boots, a sleek lime green tanktop and a shimmery burnt orange half-sleeved shrug with beaded sequensing down the neckline which ties below the breast. Big matching jewelry and loose curled hair completes the ensemble, and, for no good reason, especially because I suck at it, I want to go dancing. Form dancing -- like contra. Someplace where this skirt can fly out around my knees and do my pale calves some justice. I want to get caught up in some lively motion.
A few nagging existential dilemmas still gnaw like mice in the dark at my thoughts, but today it's not unbearable. I'm considering different approaches with a new mindset based on Thomas Jefferson's advice to his son that "the uprightness, and not the rightness of a decision is what matters." Which I think I love: So many decisions over which we agonize, trying to discern the "right" decision from the "wrong" one, have none of the good-vs.-evil implications or consequences with which we imbue them; important as they are, the different paths we might take do not lead to divine approval or indictment, and in these then, particularly as they involve other people, the question is not one of right and wrong, but of uprightness, of which decision is better -- which encompasses a host of moral considerations that keep a person on the path of integrity.
I think that oftentimes, as Christians, we fall into a black-and-white mentality of right and wrong, and approach decisions in terms of reward and punishment: Which choice leads to God's favor? Which choice will incur His wrath? How will I answer for this decision on Judgment Day? Unfortunately this approach, when it encompasses most of our decision-making processes, leads to paranoia, the fear that we are morally accountable for everything, and in the end we run the risk of paralyzing ourselves because we can identify a thousand ways in which God could judge us for any choice we might make, since we are never truly selfless, never live perfectly in love.
But we miss out on so much of life's richness, on the possibilities of love and the glowing strength of living in faith and the gloriousness of walking free of fear, when we reduce everything to its eternal consequences to ourselves. Christ came that we may "have [life] to the full," not to the minimum, and a life lived in fear of taking a wrong step and falling into a pit of fire isn't exactly living life to the fullest.
And honestly, uprightness is more commendable than correctness. Most of the time there is no correct answer, anyway. I'm not talking about choices that are clearly between right and wrong, such as Do I cheat on my spouse or not? but rather choices such as whether to express words of love, or how to approach human relationships, or which career to pursue in which part of the world. There's no blueprint for these things, just a foundation of agape love. How we build on that is up to us, and the structure gets to be our own. The love and the lives we build won't look like anyone else's; we're not talking manufactured homes here. Someone's might have three stories and turrets, someone else's might be built into a hillside with a vegetable garden on the roof, and someone else's still might sprawl in a single story with flowers in windowboxes. God's not going to say that one of these mansions is better than another; as He made the extent universe in dizzying variety, so He made us, and so He made us to love: uniquely, individually, personally, powerfully. The only thing we don't get is praise for trying to copy our neighbor brick for brick, or praise for building International-style, trying to make everything the same from the fear of incorrectness and winding up without beauty or soul.
To consider uprightness, the full effect of a decision less upon the self than upon others, leads to better decisions. Ironically when we stop focusing on how the decision will affect us eternally, we make choices that will actually lead to a "Well done, good and faithful servant!" If we choose based purely on our own interest (yes, thinking only of whether or not God will be happy with us displays even greater self-interest than a lot of decisions based on sensory impulses) we live and love in a miserly way: We become the servant who buries his talent in a corner of the garden and does nothing for anyone: We become inorganic.
We spend so much time worrying about what God wants. He's said pretty clearly what He wants from us: "To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." The beginning of that verse -- "He has shown you, O man, what is good" -- implies the question we ask so often: What is right? What is the good decision? And the answer: He has shown you. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. These are matters of uprightness. Justice, mercy, humility; action, love and progress.
Most of the time we only let ourselves get mired down in wondering what God wants because it lets us dither our way into paranoid inaction, which gives us a secret sense of relief because the decision we probably ought to make involves risks that scare us. And we can get away with that if we obsess, and prioritize, the rightness of a thing. We can deconstruct every possibility until it reverberates to meaninglessness, and thereby justify our failure to act. But when we prioritize uprightness, we seek to bring good to, and to bless the Other, and we pursue the fullest richness of life. And in contemplating uprightness we have no excuse for failing to bring good to another.
The spotlight of uprightness shows our decisions for what they often are: selfish and cowardly, small and fearful. Uprightness brings every shade of goodness and love to counter all the shades of uncertainty we use to excuse ourselves.
And how much more fun it is to celebrate each other! How much happier to tell people what they mean to us, to encourage their strengths and forgive their weaknesses, to look for things to love about others and express appreciation for them!
As Sufjan writes:
We celebrate our sense of each other:
We have a lot to give one another.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
song of the day
In all my life mercy
hasn't known my name this well
Like how every sea filters out
and leads us gently to a creek
we sit around
Some of us are strong
but the rest of us are weak
So let us down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
In patches of pink clouds thick smoke
comes rising off them hillside slopes
Down here in this neighborhood it's the dumps
with cars iced up perfect for writing on
if you're wearing gloves
Every season I spend alone
feels like a thousand
to my heart and in my soul
So let me down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Instead of praying I tell God these jokes
He must be tired of himself so much
He must be more than disappointed
Christmas comes, we eat alone
A pretty girl surrounds some pretty thought
Who takes your order, she yells it
and she cries alone in the back room once it stops
then she smiles
So let her down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down, let us down, let us down
Easy
~Ryan Adams, "Let Us Down Easy," Cardinology
hasn't known my name this well
Like how every sea filters out
and leads us gently to a creek
we sit around
Some of us are strong
but the rest of us are weak
So let us down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
In patches of pink clouds thick smoke
comes rising off them hillside slopes
Down here in this neighborhood it's the dumps
with cars iced up perfect for writing on
if you're wearing gloves
Every season I spend alone
feels like a thousand
to my heart and in my soul
So let me down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Instead of praying I tell God these jokes
He must be tired of himself so much
He must be more than disappointed
Christmas comes, we eat alone
A pretty girl surrounds some pretty thought
Who takes your order, she yells it
and she cries alone in the back room once it stops
then she smiles
So let her down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down, let us down, let us down
Easy
~Ryan Adams, "Let Us Down Easy," Cardinology
a nose by any other name
Wouldn't it be weird if our noses were made of bone instead of cartilage? They'd have to have joints for us to sniff, or sneeze, or wrinkle them. Our faces would be much less expressive. And our skulls might look hilarious instead of macabre. Because basically our noses would be fingers. Which is kind of gross. Unless you're an elephant (although their noses are cartilage too).
But maybe they could pick themselves.
But maybe they could pick themselves.
Monday, April 27, 2009
crapside
On Sunday in celebration of the lovely weather Linnèa, Jenny and I drove into New York to visit Lake Chautauqua and wander the lake village and look at the expensive houses. Since it’s still the off season, none of the touristy shops or cafes were open, and on the way home hunger forced us to stop at the only open restaurant we could find: Lakeside Hotel and Restaurant.
It was an unfortunate necessity. As soon as we climbed out of the car we smelled the hot grease of a huge deep fat fryer. Not food: grease. Our arrival further didn’t bode well when, despite the “please wait for hostess to seat you” sign, none of the employees looked at us when we stepped through the door – the only acknowledgments we received came from the creepy men at the bar. (In tiny little podunk towns like the ones scattered across PA and New York, anyone looking remotely fresh and pretty garners attention; most of the women in these places wear stonewashed jeans, hair in last year’s perm and dusty black leather.) After waiting several minutes, I approached the bartender and asked her where we should sit. “Anywhere,” was her sullen response, and we elected to take a table on the outdoor patio.
I saw a guy stick his head out the door with a few menus bristling out from under his arm. I made eye contact and smiled, and he disappeared like a gopher.
That was when I grew annoyed.
Finally the same gentlemen brought a few menus to our table (everything on it was fried), having lingered around the tables of other people already eating their food, and proceeded to scold us for not waiting for the hostess. With sugary politeness and a smile that was all teeth I said, “Well, nobody greeted us and the girl behind the bar told us to sit wherever we liked.”
He got passive-aggressively defensive. I didn’t react, although I maintained my firm overpoliteness (“I’m not taking responsibility for that shit,” I muttered to my companions after he walked away), and after twenty minutes or so our server arrived to take our drink orders. She then proceeded to forget our drinks, forget what we’d ordered, forget to check on us, and forget everything we asked for.
My reward for patience and courtesy was free beer.
The entertainment that evening featured a table full of drunken hicks espousing their enlightened views on sexual orientation in roaring voices. I thanked my stars that I sat with my back to them so that I didn’t need to disguise my facial expressions, which seemed to keep my companions entertained.
The food, when it finally arrived, tasted fine, except for something funny about the coating on the fries. I couldn’t tell if it was the taste of really old grease or lard. The burger was cold by the time I got the condiments I wanted, but at least the cook knew how to grill (or fry) medium rare meat.
Basically I don’t think I’ve ever experienced worse service at any establishment I have ever visited in my life. Further, the next day my intestines decided to voice their hatred of me for what I'd forced them to digest and gave me that post-greasy-food feeling of bloated heaviness and general malbeing.
But the patio was nice and the day was sunny and warm and I was wearing a pretty dress, so while I can’t imagine ever voluntarily eating there again, I don’t consider it a loss. But I've had my fill of fried food for awhile.
It was an unfortunate necessity. As soon as we climbed out of the car we smelled the hot grease of a huge deep fat fryer. Not food: grease. Our arrival further didn’t bode well when, despite the “please wait for hostess to seat you” sign, none of the employees looked at us when we stepped through the door – the only acknowledgments we received came from the creepy men at the bar. (In tiny little podunk towns like the ones scattered across PA and New York, anyone looking remotely fresh and pretty garners attention; most of the women in these places wear stonewashed jeans, hair in last year’s perm and dusty black leather.) After waiting several minutes, I approached the bartender and asked her where we should sit. “Anywhere,” was her sullen response, and we elected to take a table on the outdoor patio.
I saw a guy stick his head out the door with a few menus bristling out from under his arm. I made eye contact and smiled, and he disappeared like a gopher.
That was when I grew annoyed.
Finally the same gentlemen brought a few menus to our table (everything on it was fried), having lingered around the tables of other people already eating their food, and proceeded to scold us for not waiting for the hostess. With sugary politeness and a smile that was all teeth I said, “Well, nobody greeted us and the girl behind the bar told us to sit wherever we liked.”
He got passive-aggressively defensive. I didn’t react, although I maintained my firm overpoliteness (“I’m not taking responsibility for that shit,” I muttered to my companions after he walked away), and after twenty minutes or so our server arrived to take our drink orders. She then proceeded to forget our drinks, forget what we’d ordered, forget to check on us, and forget everything we asked for.
My reward for patience and courtesy was free beer.
The entertainment that evening featured a table full of drunken hicks espousing their enlightened views on sexual orientation in roaring voices. I thanked my stars that I sat with my back to them so that I didn’t need to disguise my facial expressions, which seemed to keep my companions entertained.
The food, when it finally arrived, tasted fine, except for something funny about the coating on the fries. I couldn’t tell if it was the taste of really old grease or lard. The burger was cold by the time I got the condiments I wanted, but at least the cook knew how to grill (or fry) medium rare meat.
Basically I don’t think I’ve ever experienced worse service at any establishment I have ever visited in my life. Further, the next day my intestines decided to voice their hatred of me for what I'd forced them to digest and gave me that post-greasy-food feeling of bloated heaviness and general malbeing.
But the patio was nice and the day was sunny and warm and I was wearing a pretty dress, so while I can’t imagine ever voluntarily eating there again, I don’t consider it a loss. But I've had my fill of fried food for awhile.
sleeping in the sand
So many things about which to blog...
But I only want to talk about two things at the moment, and I only have time to talk about one. Perhaps it will hold no interest for you, dear readers, but, as it holds no interest for most of the people I know, and as you, dear readers, are a more or less free-but-captive audience (as in, you have no control over what I post, but don't have to read anything I write if you're bored, and I'm none the wiser), this is what's appearing today.
I post about this, I feel, fairly frequently, but I still can never say it enough: I love, I love, I love Conor Oberst. There are never words adequate to express how much. I can list plenty of reasons why (and I will), but underneath all the rationales lies something purely visceral and inexplicable, a reaction of mind, soul, heart and body to his music. Some people who share my faith look at me funny when I say that, but clearly they don't understand squat.
I love the power of his imagery. I've been told by people whose opinions remain ever high in my esteem that I wield metaphor and simile deftly. Conor wields them as though they were his hands and his feet -- not something he grips, but something he grips with. Every time I listen to his compositions I have to fight the temptation to close my eyes (because I'm usually driving) to savor the garroting beauty of his metaphors. Devastatingly lovely, mind-stoppingly brilliant. The one that nailed me to the wall last night was, "Stars are all inset like diamonds / on a gravity halo / eternity's wedding band," (from "Coat Check Dreamsong"). Fabulous rendering of the Milky Way. This morning's (which I have noticed many times before; it always strikes me afresh) was
Hey, hey, hey, mighty outer space
all that flying saucer terror made me lazy drinking lemonade
a waste
it just went to waste
like the freon cold out the hotel door
or the white rocket fade over Cape Canaveral...
(from "Cape Canaveral").
Oh, that simile, "like the freon cold out the hotel door." I lose my breath a little bit every time I hear that one.
I love his scratchy, throaty, chesty voice. It bears so much of his body in it -- such a physical voice. He conveys more emotion from the tenor of his voice than most people can with facial expressions, and I feel his music in every fiber of me.
I love his enunciation. I have almost never needed to check the lyrics of any of his songs, because his enunciation is nearly flawless. Every vowel, every consonant receives its just due from Conor's mouth, which adds power to his voice and his images. And since he makes masterful use of alliteration (the English language's best poetic asset) in lines such as, "All the peacock people left their plumes in a pile" (from "Get Well Cards" -- ahhh, brilliant line), and of assonance in lines such as, "I know that victory's sweet even deep in the cheap seats" (from "Cape Canaveral"), the devices' dependence on excellent pronunciation comes to utter satisfaction in Conor's reverent care. And his grammar is wonderful, too -- he knows about "lie/lay" and leaving out the "s" in "toward." This almost puts me over the edge of ecstasy. (Yes, I find good grammar wildly sexy.)
I love his spirituality. I love the passion that permeates everything he says, every tone, every chord, every instrument. Most of all I love the way in which this musician and lyricist, exceptionally sensitive to beauty and horror and all the ways they intersect, grapples with his deep and inescapable love for the God in whom he no longer believes.
When I'm too depressed for words, I listen to Conor. When I'm too happy to contain myself, I listen to Conor. When I'm content and at peace with the world, I listen to Conor. I feel closer to the oneness of the world, closer to God, with Conor's music surrounding me in my little car.
And, glory hallelujah, he's coming out with his next album in just over a week. Something told me to check (because Amazon loves to recommend to me books in which I have no interest and will never read, like everything Ambrose Bierce ever wrote or thought about writing, because I have bought books by A. S. Byatt, and apparently all Amazon needs are matching initials; meanwhile all of the music that sustains and enlivens and soothes my soul slides unnoticed beneath its recommending eye, leaving me to fend for myself based purely on an ESP sense of longing for my favorite artists), and now I wish it were a week from today so I could listen to it almost NOW.
I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait. It's summer: the time of the music spree. I feel moved to sing:
We should move to Sausalito
Livin's easy in a houseboat
Let the ocean rock us back and forth to sleep
In the morning see the sunrise
Look in the water see the blue skies
As if heaven has been laid there at our feet
So we remain between these waves
Sheltered for all our years
While bikers glide by highway shrines
Where pilgrims disappear
Where time takes icebergs
Where fields burn westward
Where pilgrims disappear
~ from "Sausalito"
But I only want to talk about two things at the moment, and I only have time to talk about one. Perhaps it will hold no interest for you, dear readers, but, as it holds no interest for most of the people I know, and as you, dear readers, are a more or less free-but-captive audience (as in, you have no control over what I post, but don't have to read anything I write if you're bored, and I'm none the wiser), this is what's appearing today.
I post about this, I feel, fairly frequently, but I still can never say it enough: I love, I love, I love Conor Oberst. There are never words adequate to express how much. I can list plenty of reasons why (and I will), but underneath all the rationales lies something purely visceral and inexplicable, a reaction of mind, soul, heart and body to his music. Some people who share my faith look at me funny when I say that, but clearly they don't understand squat.
I love the power of his imagery. I've been told by people whose opinions remain ever high in my esteem that I wield metaphor and simile deftly. Conor wields them as though they were his hands and his feet -- not something he grips, but something he grips with. Every time I listen to his compositions I have to fight the temptation to close my eyes (because I'm usually driving) to savor the garroting beauty of his metaphors. Devastatingly lovely, mind-stoppingly brilliant. The one that nailed me to the wall last night was, "Stars are all inset like diamonds / on a gravity halo / eternity's wedding band," (from "Coat Check Dreamsong"). Fabulous rendering of the Milky Way. This morning's (which I have noticed many times before; it always strikes me afresh) was
Hey, hey, hey, mighty outer space
all that flying saucer terror made me lazy drinking lemonade
a waste
it just went to waste
like the freon cold out the hotel door
or the white rocket fade over Cape Canaveral...
(from "Cape Canaveral").
Oh, that simile, "like the freon cold out the hotel door." I lose my breath a little bit every time I hear that one.
I love his scratchy, throaty, chesty voice. It bears so much of his body in it -- such a physical voice. He conveys more emotion from the tenor of his voice than most people can with facial expressions, and I feel his music in every fiber of me.
I love his enunciation. I have almost never needed to check the lyrics of any of his songs, because his enunciation is nearly flawless. Every vowel, every consonant receives its just due from Conor's mouth, which adds power to his voice and his images. And since he makes masterful use of alliteration (the English language's best poetic asset) in lines such as, "All the peacock people left their plumes in a pile" (from "Get Well Cards" -- ahhh, brilliant line), and of assonance in lines such as, "I know that victory's sweet even deep in the cheap seats" (from "Cape Canaveral"), the devices' dependence on excellent pronunciation comes to utter satisfaction in Conor's reverent care. And his grammar is wonderful, too -- he knows about "lie/lay" and leaving out the "s" in "toward." This almost puts me over the edge of ecstasy. (Yes, I find good grammar wildly sexy.)
I love his spirituality. I love the passion that permeates everything he says, every tone, every chord, every instrument. Most of all I love the way in which this musician and lyricist, exceptionally sensitive to beauty and horror and all the ways they intersect, grapples with his deep and inescapable love for the God in whom he no longer believes.
When I'm too depressed for words, I listen to Conor. When I'm too happy to contain myself, I listen to Conor. When I'm content and at peace with the world, I listen to Conor. I feel closer to the oneness of the world, closer to God, with Conor's music surrounding me in my little car.
And, glory hallelujah, he's coming out with his next album in just over a week. Something told me to check (because Amazon loves to recommend to me books in which I have no interest and will never read, like everything Ambrose Bierce ever wrote or thought about writing, because I have bought books by A. S. Byatt, and apparently all Amazon needs are matching initials; meanwhile all of the music that sustains and enlivens and soothes my soul slides unnoticed beneath its recommending eye, leaving me to fend for myself based purely on an ESP sense of longing for my favorite artists), and now I wish it were a week from today so I could listen to it almost NOW.
I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait. It's summer: the time of the music spree. I feel moved to sing:
We should move to Sausalito
Livin's easy in a houseboat
Let the ocean rock us back and forth to sleep
In the morning see the sunrise
Look in the water see the blue skies
As if heaven has been laid there at our feet
So we remain between these waves
Sheltered for all our years
While bikers glide by highway shrines
Where pilgrims disappear
Where time takes icebergs
Where fields burn westward
Where pilgrims disappear
~ from "Sausalito"
Friday, April 24, 2009
plenty of sunshine headin' my way
Eighty-five degrees now. Still sunshine! I haven't felt this upsurge of fiercely joyful wellbeing in ages. I want this weather to last forever. Or at least a week. It can rain while I'm sleeping. I've been bouncing around with a bright smile radiating a cheer that would make Little Orphan Annie look like a cousin to Oscar the Grouch.
Except that I'm indignant because as I unfolded my legs from the car upon arriving at my parents' house a little girl zipped past me on a bike. Which didn't strike me as deserving of indignation until I heard a little humming whine. My head snapped up.
The damn thing was motorized.
Apparently the beauty of technology is not making our kids even work to push their own pedals anymore, so that they can grow up to become enormous balls of flesh with no muscle like all the people floating on carts in Wall-e.
Except that I'm indignant because as I unfolded my legs from the car upon arriving at my parents' house a little girl zipped past me on a bike. Which didn't strike me as deserving of indignation until I heard a little humming whine. My head snapped up.
The damn thing was motorized.
Apparently the beauty of technology is not making our kids even work to push their own pedals anymore, so that they can grow up to become enormous balls of flesh with no muscle like all the people floating on carts in Wall-e.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Today I feel light and whimsical; my soul and my heart feel full and satisfied and nicely stretched, as if they'd had a good meal and a good nap and are once again able to yawn and sigh and look around them in contented interest.
I have begun to reevaluate my recent years' prioritization of pragmatism: If God designed life to be, above all else, good and beautiful, why do we laud a sterile industrial life of usefulness as the best of all possible worlds?
I think because we've given up. I had given up. But I'm tired of being tired, and I'm tired of living as though tomorrow will hold only responsibility and duty and part of a much-needed paycheck. Tomorrow holds adventure. God made tomorrow that way. And we can start living it now.
Kierkegaard writes, "Abraham had faith, and he had faith for this life." The man who fathered the faith from which our own faith sprang had faith that his promise would come to its full flower in his own lifetime. So will ours. So will yours. So will mine.
Let's get out of the bread line and grab up a machete and start hacking away at a place where no trail existed before. There are heroes and monsters and villains and things of great terror and things of great beauty and things of great joy and great peace and great fun.
I'm tired of merely existing. It's going to be a gradual process realizing the hopes, but it starts with reviving the dreams I had as a little girl: dreams of romance and adventure, dreams of doing something amazing and significant, dreams of changing the world, dreams of being necessary and essential and brave and beautiful and fearless and fought for.
Why not? Being practical didn't bring me what I wanted, and didn't make me happy about it. I'm going to relearn how to be a little more starry-eyed. Not that pragmatism doesn't serve its purpose (ha); but it's not the be-all and end-all. Love and truth and goodness and beauty are. Because He who is the Alpha and Omega is all of these things.
I have begun to reevaluate my recent years' prioritization of pragmatism: If God designed life to be, above all else, good and beautiful, why do we laud a sterile industrial life of usefulness as the best of all possible worlds?
I think because we've given up. I had given up. But I'm tired of being tired, and I'm tired of living as though tomorrow will hold only responsibility and duty and part of a much-needed paycheck. Tomorrow holds adventure. God made tomorrow that way. And we can start living it now.
Kierkegaard writes, "Abraham had faith, and he had faith for this life." The man who fathered the faith from which our own faith sprang had faith that his promise would come to its full flower in his own lifetime. So will ours. So will yours. So will mine.
Let's get out of the bread line and grab up a machete and start hacking away at a place where no trail existed before. There are heroes and monsters and villains and things of great terror and things of great beauty and things of great joy and great peace and great fun.
I'm tired of merely existing. It's going to be a gradual process realizing the hopes, but it starts with reviving the dreams I had as a little girl: dreams of romance and adventure, dreams of doing something amazing and significant, dreams of changing the world, dreams of being necessary and essential and brave and beautiful and fearless and fought for.
Why not? Being practical didn't bring me what I wanted, and didn't make me happy about it. I'm going to relearn how to be a little more starry-eyed. Not that pragmatism doesn't serve its purpose (ha); but it's not the be-all and end-all. Love and truth and goodness and beauty are. Because He who is the Alpha and Omega is all of these things.
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