U2

stairwell accompaniment:The Postal Service

a mad, mad world

things I love today:

-the smell of wood stain and the accomplishment of two very underqualified yet fiercely determined girls.

-the first five minutes of gripping the frigid steering wheel until the heat kicks in.

-jazzercise ringtones (mine).

-sleeping off a headache.

-Lynn says, “Tell me who you think the God of the Bible is and I bet I don’t believe in Him either.” Misconcceptions.

-Sharon has a ring on the 4th finger of her left hand.

-Nick Drake music.

-Indian food.

-Monday.

break so easy

stairwell accompaniment: Damien Rice

I was driving in the cold (November) rain today coming from the Emporium with a tall mug of hot tea-I was just so struck by the reality of every relationship I’ve given myself to and exactly how much each one has taken from my heart. Sometimes -often- I feel so second-hand, faded. I feel like with every boy I’ve given too much and how I have those cisterns in my heart to prove it. But I want to turn each of those broken spots into a God-shaped hole. What is it like to feel whole again? I know that each relationship taught me a valuable lesson about myself and about my God. Does that make those splinters any less real? I just think of SB and the way he’s guarded his heart from peripheral relationships. I think of the amazing, intact gift he now has to offer his future wife. And although I often argue that his life has been too guarded and that his choices have made him risk not really living- I so often wish that the heart I now have to offer wasn’t quite so scarred, afflicted, scabrous, tainted. Is it true that because if these trials, injuries I am am now more prone to pour out God on others, and to offer a truly humble being to Him? Do I even realize what a Healer and Comforter God is? If I did, wouldn’t I scream it from the mountaintops? I want it to be reality- I want to decidedly fall on my face, pleading for an acquittal and to know that God can, will and has made me new, whole. Broken and alive. Alive and looking up. Alive and screaming from God’s mountaintop how indebted I am for His love. Because how could I possibly live glorifying God if I am not fully accepting His love? My heart can be so impenetrable, cluttered, callous and selfish. How can a heart this human be loved?

Mid November

shopping cart

stairwell accompaniment:Rilo Kiley-The Execution of all Things

Sparse postings. I’m not sure why. I’m doggie-paddling in an ocean(ok, ok bath tub)of my thoughts lately yet can’t conjure up even one relatively creative-noteworthy-intelligent thing to write. It’s the same door I close on myself with my own journal- I somehow feel that what I write needs to make sense or have a big-picture meaning otherwise it doesn’t deserve a. my time b. paper space c. to be read. Who makes these rules anyway? With that preface, please understand that I really don’t have any purpose for writing tonight and you might not(read: definitely won’t) find anything to give thought to in the next lines.

I was grocery shopping tonight. One of the domestic duties I despise the most. I seriously put it off for months on end. Ask my roommates, I’ll make trips to the store for one thing even though I have no food in the house just so I can make it a in-and-out trip. And sometimes I’ll go weeks with only a half box of couscous and some nutella to sustain. But tonight I dawned my headphones and a wickedawesome mix rightfully named upandup blaring in my ears, manned a wobbly shopping cart and mingled with the grocery-goers. I occasionally found myself singing alound in the same annoying fashion that people talk louder than necessary with headphones on do. (Amanda is now cringing and feeling pity for all shoppers in my general vacinity. She’s thinking of the graceful? and loving? way I enjoy singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” to her and her alone. Amanda, I really need you tonight, forever’s gonna start tonight.) But I did sing as I browsed through cereal boxes and between the Quaker Oats and Frosted Flakes I wondered what is this funk that has taken over my life lately? Can I put a name on it?

…So as I’m on the edge of this newfound relationship with him (c’mon, the cat was never, ever in the bag), I want to do this right. I do want to do this right. I want to be intentional in how I handle this and…as I chose my prefered box of cereal, I made my commitment to be intentional, live and love? intentionally.

a. because I’ve seen what it’s like to not b. he deserves at least that c. God should be glorified in all my actions and d. go fish.

letters and numbers

stairwell accompaniment: Guster-Live from Portland

Matt said something at small group last night that has stayed with me. God has sent the Spirit to be our living water-to flow out of us and fill us until we run over. Yet I am always concerned about having a perfect, tall and shiny glass from which I can pour. But itsn’t it the broken and cracked cups that empty the quickest? Darren said today that he doens’t believe in regret because everything in his life has somehow shaped him into who he is today. And if he were to regret any aspect of his life it would be like wishing he was not himself-that he was someone else. So my cracks and broken parts are for a reason. Useful. Meaningful. Still very able to pour out the Spirit.

I’ll leave you all with a much overdue email sent today from a disheveled girl in Dayton to a one Mr. Bookie (aka Cheney, Catter, wearer of wife-beaters, Mad Rapper):

“Have we met? You look strangely familiar. I faintly remember our lives once intermingling on the rickety wooden stairway of an ancient Indian burial mound. I remember wanting you to hold my hand and wanting desperately for us to lay on our backs, side-by-side with the sun on our faces and not caring at all what the passersby whispered.

Is that why I feel like I’ve met you? Maybe it was the night the stars danced for us and the instant you whispered “did you see it?” and I smile because I did, indeed, see that wildchild star streaking its light across the sky for our amazement. Did you recognize me then?

I faintly remember the outline of your face and the lazy way you sipped a mango smoothie that you didn’t particularly want on a green metal swing overlooking the gloriously impressive river of Dayton. I poured my broken heart and you painstakingly held the pieces in your hand. I laughed-you made me laugh-because isn’t this just life. Just life and that Everlasting Water that we so desire does flow even more freely from a cup that is broken.

Let’s be broken together and. and laugh.

ambrosia”

and also

stairwell accompaniment:Jonathan Rice

The new poem is new because of

Direct language

That describes what is

In such a way that the poem itself

Becomes an event.

(If not the event.)

We are reminded deliciously

To keep our sleepy eyes open

For the moment

Or miss all that matters

Mostly.

(By the way,

Anything is better than the contagion,

The outbreak,

The epidemic of numbness.)

The poet’s final boast is simply this:

I saw the world and I could not resist.

…Why do I look forward to the weekend so?…