stairwell accompaniment:Spoon

For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre’s castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening.

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? –GK Chesterton

for him

stairwell accompaniment:Counting Crows

Today I send to you a sudden, unplanned nap. I send to you a bowl of ripe fruit that stays that way until you are ready to eat it. A paintbrush that whispers to you what to paint. I send to you special glue for the broken places. Beauty in ugliness that you see. I send to you a deep breath. I send to you your favorite book read cover to cover. Daily prayers and the constancy of love. I send to you harder laughter and more tears. Knowledge of your resilience and fortitude. I send to you brand new underwear. One delux cello serenade. I send to you a hammock in the shade.

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.” Albert Einstein

stairwell accompaniment:Badly Drawn Boy

The past story and the present story: re-making and re-ceiving. A friend of mine shared that the best advice she ever received concerning marriage was in passing conversation: Make sure you receive your husband rather than remake him.

ten things that make apartment living:
balcony/porch
fireplace
ample bookshelvage
plastic spoons
dark chocolate
creaky floors
screenless windows
music
wine bottles to prop open said windows
blankets of every color

finding myself dreaming of autumn

all of june and beyond

We spent three of the last four weekends out of our state. Traveling the highways enroute toward those we hope to grace with company, joy and love borne of deep pleasure and thankfulness.
A weekend in Erie, PA brought couch-sleeping, car-reading and late-night conversations with truth and honesty. We felt the sand between our toes and the hookah in our lungs, we were stretched slightly beyond the coloring-lines of comfort and found ourselves changing into that messy and amazingly absurd image of an earthly Christ.

The following weekend in Fort Payne, Alabama (Al-a-BAma) brought humidity on our skin, dinner-table home-cooked meals and two soulful listeners unlike I’ve ever encountered. Bike rides and sitting on the porch. Naps and the gift of mangos. Tiny present-pleasures of a romantic God that speaks to our hearts exactly as we need to hear. Long drives home of tears and naked honesty, a desire to not allow our messy pasts to dictate our futures.

This weekend in Wilmore, Kentucky brought story times and lap-sitting that only 4 year old boys can bring, late-into-the-night games of RISK, and the call to live a life of Holy contentment. Finishing every U2 song at our disposal and conversing when silence would be more comfortable because we desire the challenge to draw deeper into the depths of relational intimacy.
In addition, I was delighted with an evening of basking in the beautiful summer evening and clear-sky summer night with Leslie. Organic pizza, eclectic shop browsing, conversations that make the soul somehow lighter and martinis on the porch. Far-and-wide discussions of future plans and here-and-now words on the heart.

So our bags are unpacked, at least for now, and we are back to tending our porch garden. My husband was born with farmer in his veins. The second-story, cement porch of our inner-city apartment is now home to pots full of strawberries, peppers and peas. And, of course, pot-with-hope full of what-one-day-could-be tomatoes and squash. Stay tuned, ya’ll, Farmers Market soon to be hosted in the Oregon District compliments of Josh.

In other news, Selah turns one this week!

name your beliefs.