quaerite faciem eius semper..

amen

2012-01-19T14:25:00.002-07:00

betwixt

2011-11-30T15:16:00.002-07:00

There indwelt another twinkle
Another rhythm where other
Rhythms waver
And create solo tunes

And the question captured
Both hearts
And time for unaccountable moments
Allowed them this pleasure

i have no words

2011-11-11T19:35:00.001-07:00

http://youtu.be/_TsR1yiAe9g

thank you

2011-10-29T23:21:00.001-06:00

Anne Lamott suspects that the best prayers are, "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." I feel as of late that I deeply concur with her findings. Often, there is nothing but these two statements I find myself whispering to the infinite - they pour out of me so naturally like honey drips from the comb. And then somewhere in the midst of these help mes and thank yous, I feel wrapped in a cosmic something and suspended in Love. I then laugh and cry - I grasp the hands of my friends and look into their loving eyes and thank God again that I am so blessed to have those who love me.
This beautiful cycle of fragility and neediness to strength and gratitude is filling my days, and I love it. Being human is so fickle and humbling - such a dichotomy of loveliness and shit.
I would have it no other way.

the power of vulnerability

2011-08-21T01:08:00.003-06:00

As I look back at my life, I can't help but realize that over the years I've lost much of my openness. There is something about experience, rejection and pain that causes us to forget that our vulnerability and whole-heartedness is what it means to truly live!
This Ted Talks inspired me anew. I also want to be one of the whole-hearted.

sin as necessity

2011-07-28T09:20:00.000-06:00

Remember the whole biblical drama begins with an act of transgression; a necessary transgression, I think. I know we pretend to be disappointed that Adam and Eve ate the apple, but we have to know that is the whole point! They had to eat the apple. There is no story without it. That is how the conflict is set up. That is how we break through to consciousness. We don’t come to God by doing it “right.” Doing it right just makes us fall in love with ourselves, not God. In the story of the Prodigal Son we see it clearly (Luke 15:11-32). There is one son who does it right and one son who does it wrong. The one that does it wrong ends up, in fact, right; and the one who does it right ends up dead wrong.

We can’t see this because the ego does not want to see it. It gives us no sense of the superiority and ego control we are seeking—instead of seeking God and divine union. Paul calls this counterintuitive wisdom by various names, and one is “the folly of the cross.” He says it is a “revelation” from beyond and normal common sense cannot and will not see it (read 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:9). Someone has to tell us with authority that it is true, and I just told you.

-Fr. Richard's Daily Meditations

dec 2/09 and now

2011-07-25T11:19:00.006-06:00

I think I will finally be free, realizing that I am nothing. That nothing amazing naturally flows from me except that which is conjured from blood, sweat and tears (and ultimately grace and Him). If I can but free myself from this pressure that I myself burden lay, I will be free. I can enjoy for simply enjoying. I can do by simple curiosity. I can love with no strings attached, learning to fly one nosedive after the other. And maybe, in the words so delicately self-imposed by a woman under the name Currer Bell, I may also see myself as a lover of life (and those who act as it's containers) and a mere "obscure aspirant" to all which is good and beautiful.

Let peace flow over me
like a river
Let it lick me with
lapping waves
until I feel nothing but
cool movement
escaping any concept of
space and time
Just the feel of
unhindered, unfaltering
sustenance.

Let me then feel my
hair waft around
my naked skin
Reminding me of Infinity
and me
small and floating
down a cool river
sitting in a coffee shop
yearning for
peace.

invitation

2011-06-05T02:33:00.001-06:00

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
"You must change your life."

~Mary Oliver

achterland

2011-02-02T22:44:00.002-07:00

Grasping the hand of Simplicity

2011-01-18T23:09:00.005-07:00

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” -Leonardo da Vinci

Thank you Leo. I have come to a new struggle in life, and as it takes struggle to be out of struggle, I must enter it willingly.

I am, as most of us are, surrounded by constant movement of humans desperately aspiring to achieve success, money, position, fame, things. I feel my world is being quite raped by advancing technology - I watch simplicity as it slips further and further from my grasping fingers - our society does not love her much.

When did the world become filled with desire for so many foolish pursuits? Why is self elevation one of our most strived for occupations, especially when disguised so delicately in various forms of cultural acceptance.

These are the days I long for the prairies. For walks in vast golden fields, for listening to owls, for sitting in trees watching stars. For friends in oversized coats, for no stores, for one stop sign, for space, for silence. I forgot these precious features made up my reality.

I must enter willingly, knowing that there are many realities - I've lived in them. So, I struggle to be simple. To wrap myself in loving values. To breathe, and be free.

"I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I am sick with envy of them." ~Sherwood Anderson

for a congregation

2010-12-07T22:38:00.005-07:00

a pastor at the local church where my work (Highbanks) is located had asked me to write a little something for a small collection of writings he was putting together of voices from the community to pass onto his congregation. this is what came out of me.

I applied to Highbanks for two reasons. Quite practically, I needed a job. I had just made it home from the country of South Korea where I had spent one quite lonely year of living and teaching. Secondly, Highbanks' website promised a community to young mothers in need, and although not a young mother, I was quite in need of a community.

I have come to discover that where there is community there is God. For where love exists there He is also. So you can see why Highbanks appealed so much. I needed more of Him.

I am so privileged to work beside two wonderful woman who desire to love a small demographic of Calgary whom many ignore and push aside. It baffles me the more I work within the social system how those most in need of love and care are the ones most obviously disregarded. I believe this stems from deep socialized misconceptions.

Growing up in a Christian home, taking the role of missionary for several years and graduating from a Christian College I have had my fair share of the religiosity of Christianity. I have to admit, I was one of the best Christians. Always put in leadership in church, in missions organisations overseas, I had gained a reputation of an 'exceptional spiritual woman.' I genuinely carried this role quite humbly until eventually the pressure was too much and I began to love the image.

I am so grateful for the day God kicked me off my throne and showed me my brokenness - revealed the misconception that some were better than others for such and such a reason. Suddenly the 'them' in this world had been erased and there was only a 'we' community of which I was a part. WE who are saved only by His grace alone, not by my own 'holiness' or self-righteousness. (It didn't exist after all). I found all humans were in the same sinking boat. And it makes sense, if anyone could have made it by their own goodness Christ needn't come.

Since grace took on a whole new meaning it has become so easy to see God in those around me. So breathtaking to see Christ at work. The words of Matthew have become so real that when we give a cup of cold water, when we sit and listen, when we give a warm embrace we are taking part in the community of the Kingdom - the one which sinks in His grace.
That is what Highbanks has become to me. It is what every part of our lives really is - The perpetual potential to see Love (God) at work.

No one
Knows her name-
A girl who lives on the streets
And walks around in rags.

Once I saw that girl in a dream.
Her and God were constructing
An extraordinary
Temple.

-St. Francis of Assisi

two things

2010-10-30T12:13:00.003-06:00

I am starting to feel a sense of belonging here!

and THIS:

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."
-Frederick Buechner

marriage as an answer

2010-09-08T18:57:00.006-06:00

If our relational lives were put on a linear scale from worst situation to best I'm sure it would start with isolation and end in community. Marriage would be somewhere in the middle. This has been one of the most common conversations I've had with those in my life of late. The question keeps appearing, 'What would you rather, marriage or community?' Too many answer with the latter. Strange? Now, I must add that most of these friends are ones that have experienced living in community at some point. Most of them currently living in what people have told me is called the 'real world.' So they reminisce the days surrounded in company much larger than themselves.

We live in a grossly emphasized individualistic society. I comprehended it better after living in the more communal Asia. Dr. Perry is so correct in describing our society as relationally impoverished. And we are just supposed to live with this reality? This 'real life?' It is much harder to accept when one has lived in community. You come to realize it is the greatest way of living.

I write this as both an emotional response to current circumstances and as a simple observation of how people see reality. I almost cannot blame my friends anymore for getting married and preoccupying their time and energy into this one person. How does one in a society that pushes individuals to be their own at a very young age expect humans to deal? The reality is that we can't do life alone. Not well. And since communities rarely exist in our culture marriage is an attractive option for coping with loneliness.
What I find most interesting, though, is that once the couple gets married they still face loneliness.. and then what? We must contend that marriage does not end loneliness and here I must say that nothing will. It is the human condition that we suffer with this gnawing feeling of desire, longing and loss - but I think we can learn to do it well and/or better (living in the tension - resting in tension!) Perhaps we could rest in the tension more gracefully when knowing we sit with a dozen or so people who are experiencing the same.. who share the same existence. The problem then is not that marriage exists, or that it is not good, but that we are taught it is the answer.

I still find marriage as an answer too largely limited. I believe we need dialogue and love beyond the borders of two. In fact I have many married friends who are still in search of the community they once knew. There is something so beautiful about having deep friendships for years upon years. Having friends who prove to be committed to you over time and all without a contract. I have found the greatest happiness in my life has been when living in community and surrounded by those I share deep and meaningful relationships with - men and women, young and old - learning from their experiences and perspectives, growing with them. So far a boyfriend has not exceeded this joy, freedom and love. But this is just my experience. The venting comes when I wish others thought so. You see, I'm not in community now and I long for it. Why do not others? Oh for the day when we are desperate, not for a man or woman but for people to share life with!

C'était salement romantique

2010-08-12T12:40:00.000-06:00

hmm...

2010-06-25T13:07:00.002-06:00

"If I have a message to my contemporaries, it is surely this: be anything you like, be madmen, drunks,... but at all costs avoid one thing: 'success.'"
-Merton

dans le musee du louvre

2010-06-22T22:54:00.002-06:00

He looked at me intently
as I gazed at Him
He looks at everyone this way
The treasures at the louvre are walking

how shall i then live?

2010-05-31T00:22:00.003-06:00

I have lived in many worlds. And not even many compared to some. It is very true, and has been my experience, that you become one of the world you are exposed to. To survive you must comply. You learn the ways of life in that world.. Though first perhaps strange, soon adopted. You are then a part of a larger community of those that live in that world. You understand what they understand. You speak their language. The world you all live in is understood through the same eyes.

This is basic sociology. The way humans survive in different times and places in systems that run relatively smoothly. Immigrants that move to another country must learn and in some ways adopt the culture and mindset of the people there - otherwise they are isolated and lost.

I cannot repeat enough the importance of being a part of community. So I go on to say that I have lived in many worlds. And not even many compared to some. The worldview has been predominantly Christian. My understanding was shaped according to Christian ideology. But specific Christian ideology - for there are many.

I have uprooted myself time and again and relocated to various communities. I have adopted the charismatic evangelical Christian worldview with more passion and fervour that I have still yet to beat. I have been positive of things that I now question. I had faith that I believed could raise the dead. I was loved. And everybody agreed with me.
I moved to places where no one knew me. I lost that feeling of security and love. That feeling that told me God existed. God was gone.
I was accepted into another community that told me this was ok. God was not about feeling. God existed outside of feeling and experience. I was able to be. I found peace in not knowing. I learned to be ok with questions, with doubt.
I lived in another community that valued the Christian tradition above experience. That laughed at those who thought such things were possible.
I found one that taught me how religions were formed. How spiritual experience was fabricated or merely a biological normality of chemical release in all humans. How believing in God was like believing in Peter Pan. I found a community of reason.
I found a community that believed in God but saw that religions were completely flawed. A community that accepted all on the basis that none of us really knew very much anyway, and if God is a God of grace, we're all in the same boat.

I come back to a community that tells me that loving homosexuals is unrighteous. That drinking is unholy. That 'that girl' who smokes and is a bad influence. That my feelings are again a true display of God's communication. And the underlying message that lays unseen is what I experienced as a teenager - self-justification. The society of SELF has seeped into all areas of human existence including and perhaps especially in religion. Communities whose authority is based on their own certainty of their own rightness. The right thoughts about God, according to self. When we will finally come to the conclusion that SELF is and has been our only goal from the beginning. When will we understand that something outside of SELF is the only way to find hope.

"Since the practical aim of all human religious activity is self-justification and self-sanctification, it constitutes a barrier that must first be removed before people can receive revelation, which comes only by grace." -Karl Barth On Religion

Now tell me, how shall I then live? As one who has uprooted herself to various communities and received education and from numerous worldviews? How do I survive in this current community that I so once understood?

5/09/10

2010-05-31T00:15:00.001-06:00

myself as alice :)

2010-03-18T00:38:00.005-06:00

I give myself very good advice,
But I very seldom follow it
That explains the trouble that I'm always in

Be patient, is very good advice
But the waiting makes me curious
And I'd love the change
Should something strange begin

Well, I went along my merry way
And I never stopped to reason
I should have know there'd be a price to pay
Someday...someday

I give myself very good advice,
But I very seldom follow it
Will I ever learn to do the things I should?

made for community

2010-03-03T22:58:00.006-07:00

I often feel very alone. I am not completely isolated, and much less so than I was in Korea and yet the feeling is very real for me here at home many days. Is it because you don't expect it at home that it feels so much greater?

I just attended a conference on mental disorders and one lecture in specifically was really meaningful to me. It was given by Dr. Bruce Perry a well-known clinician and researcher in children's mental health and the neurosciences. (You may know him from his book, "The Boy who was Raised as a Dog.") His lecture brought me to tears. I have never had a biological explanation for my need of community.

Dr. Perry works with children and adults with various mental health issues. His main message was that the brain was plastic and fully able to change by means of sustained patterns (this is most significant as most of the mental health issues addressed were ones that are often deemed irreparable). Any affective therapy has to be relational and continuous. He showed us brain images of people before and after 'therapy' which he described as sensory repetitive actions that may include music, rhythm and movement (reflections of the heartbeat in the womb) and repetitive actions of emotional care and closeness, touch, respect, love, etc. The underdeveloped or damaged brains actually grew to fully functioning 'normal' brains as a result of this kind of therapy. This of course requires people to be regularly committed to people's lives. And as Dr. Perry described in ways that we might find so simple such as simply sitting with people, listening to them, respecting them, being honest and genuine, etc. These experiences and interactions actually grow humans brains! They heal them from former abuse or illness.

It was fascinating to hear that these 'slight' works of human closeness and connectivity are the answer to so many of our mental health issues. Sadly, the relational commitment that is needed for this type of 'therapy' is hardly valued in our society and is often unavailable and unfunded. Dr. Perry lamented how money is used to throw medicine upon patients when it may only aid symptoms at a small scale. He repeatedly asserted that other people and communities heal these problems, not doctors or medicine, etc. (this coming from a Doctor!) I felt as though I was in a sociology lecture by a biologist who was claiming that we live in a relationally impoverished society and that we need to re-engage. Our mental health issues are a social issue and relationally enriched environments actually promote and sooth the brain's growth and change.

He also talked of mental health issues growing in the elderly or those that live in environments where positive human contact is limited or absent. I immediately thought of myself in Korea for the first three months or so. I went to get a manicure (which I never do) and as soon as the woman touched my hands I actually had to try to hide the tears rolling down my cheek. At that moment I realized I hadn't been touched in months and how much that affected my being (in ways I don't even know). I ended up getting more manicures in Korea than I have in my lifetime.

The point, I know, is very clear and most of us attest to. We need other human beings. We need community, love and support. We know we need it when we are alone and sad and wish someone was there to sit with us. We know that when we receive encouragement and hugs our spirits and emotional states are lifted. And now for me I was given another point of view by Dr. Perry on how much people actually affect our physical and mental states. It is as though what I have been longing for was further confirmed. I am on the verge of a mental breakdown! Just joking... BUT, I feel that when I am alone, something is wrong. And that is a right feeling. It is wrong in that we are not meant for it. We were made for community.

meine schwester laura (the writer) on a portrait of our lives

2010-02-15T14:52:00.002-07:00

The ladybugs lying creviced between the tangled green carrot leaves, left an impression forever imprinted in my mind; as home. Home; the smell of fresh bread being pulled from the oven. Home; the sound of a guitar being strummed from downstairs. Mom had a knack for making things beautiful. She could pull pine cones from the front yard and frost them with golden spray paint. She would have them sitting in a green basket by the fire, looking as though they had been taken from a Martha Stuart magazine.

She was the cool hand that rested on my forehead at night, or the comforting smell that hung over me during our nap times when Stephanie was away at school and Paul was lying in his crib.

Mom was born in a small town called Taber, in Alberta. She grew up in a time, when her Grandpa owned the only Burger joint in town and she could go over with her friends for free ice cream. She ran among the hollyhocks and caught bumble bees in glass jars. On hot summer nights her and her friends would take turns on the swings outside, then scream as the bats would come out, flying round their heads. Independent and free-spirited mom took a road trip with her best friend Penny out to California when they were 16. She was married when she was 22, and had Stephanie at 24. She first discovered that she had cancer in 1989. She was 29 years old and had three children.

At that point I still clung to the ideal. The mother who was ready with a steaming cup of hot chocolate after I had come home from a winter walk with Papa. The one who’d pull out her guitar and sing late at night when I was lying in bed; the one who’d take out her paints and sit by the window, sketching patiently the robin’s nest in the tree, then carefully filling the sketching with colors from her pallet. She sketched me once when I was 4. I fidgeted and tapped my foot as she followed the long bangs that cut across over my eyes, the dinosaur shirt I’d always wear; the round cheeks.

Her mother, my Grandma had a lighthouse station on Vancouver Island when I was growing up. It was here I began to love the ocean. The phosphorescent lights dancing in schisms upon the tripping waves. The empty echo of the foghorn as it sounded among the crevices of hollow caves, etched with old sketches of the people who had lived within them years ago.

Grandma had my mom when she was 16 years old. She married her high school sweetheart, my Grandpa, but he left her to be a rock star in California, at least that was the plan. He wasn’t ready to grow up, but my Grandma didn’t have a choice. Still, the love that was present with the voices that sang around the piano was real, and each time we left a visit with my Grandma, my mom and her would be in tears.

Grandma: the scent of cigarette smoke, which somehow seemed comforting to me as I curled up and laid my head on her shoulder. The hands that would play Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on our piano until I begged my mom to teach me the music. Grandma, laughing behind her video camera as she recorded us jumping up and down, pulling on moms arm, begging to be understood.

We’d go out onto the ocean in a boat, watch the waves lap up against the side; Stephanie would catch a starfish, Paul would catch a trout. We could watch the Orca whales raise their black, shiny bodies into the sunlight, then back down again into the dark depths of the mysterious waters, which I imagined would go down for miles and miles into complete darkness.

Oma came with us to the Lighthouse once, Oma, my dad’s mom. Oma: thick German accent, amber necklaces, would cuddle with me and tickle my arm, would jump up to the sound of music to dance, would laugh at our antics, would watch as we’d scrub the tiles in the bathroom, “not until they are perfectly clean!” and then she’d take us out for ice cream.

Oma was born in Berlin, Germany. She witnessed the atrocities of Hitler in World War 2. She shuddered in horror in the bunkers as Berlin was bombed out. She was not immune to the weakness and strength of the human spirit, she loved God despite her hard life. She was already married, with five children when she immigrated to Calgary, Alberta. Difficulties at home did not dispel a deep and transforming love for God and in all this ugly pain...beauty.

When I was a child she had a farm. We would take trips and spend vacations on this farm, where moonlight danced in the brook, and tadpoles whisked across our toes. Where the trees whispered their secrets, surrounding an old and forgotten barn. I’d stand at the mouth of this barn and shiver in delightful fear at what might come out of it! I fell in love with wide open spaces, with the dusk and with the cold, distant stars.

In the mornings Oma would sit at the window, sipping her coffee, seeped in warm bathing shoots of morning sun, I could tell she was not alone and so I’d tiptoe down the stairs, open the front door and go outside in my black rubber boots. Met with the sound of a thousand bird choruses, met with the singing of the cattle, met with the One who sat with Oma too.

There he was again, in the hospice as Mom lay there, looking at us through gleaming eyes. “I love you,” she said, “I am proud of you.” There he was again, surrounding us all, remembering us, holding us, asking us to trust. To trust what? To trust the heaviness, for he has held it up, to trust that after darkness comes light, to trust that in the garden, where the ladybugs slept and the bumblebees buzzed...that in the ocean, where the darkness hid large creatures that broke over the surface of the water to our delighted screams...that in the firelight that leaped from the burning logs on the farm, our voices being carried into the woods in the far corner, to trust, that He surrounds all these things.

These three women shaped my life. They are my legacy, they are beautiful beacons of light and hope. Thank you Mom, Oma and Grandma, for loving me, for shedding the light you’ve had, on me.

-Laura Schoenberg

pie

2010-01-29T15:49:00.006-07:00

Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?
- Shakespeare

..and cannot all things fall into quarite faciem eius semper? I am inclined to believe this endeavour be perhaps one of the most inclusive of experiences. Today it has brought me to food. I think I have just eaten something that brought me a little closer to heaven. :) Spiced Red Pear and Gruyère Pie. Contact me for the recipe if you like.
Oh, when domestic pursuits reward in such marvellous ways, simplicity turns her head and soothes this wanderer's soul.

The Kite Runner

2010-01-23T00:53:00.007-07:00

It is hard to explain some responses. I don't know that I can explain well, but I know that I FEEL, deeply. I know that I must attempt at expressing or attempt in explaining and exploring these feelings - this response to this book I have just finished.

I read this book over about a month's time. In agreement with my sister, my initial reaction was to discard it due to the book's popularity and sudden hipe. It's silly, really. The book was quite captivating, beautiful, heartbreaking - a brilliant story. I have felt whisked away to a new land. I felt as though I was really watching things happen, as though I was there. I wept through most of it which is humorous mostly because I spent most of my time reading it in various coffee shops around Calgary. I just tried not to make a sound and hoped nobody would look at the girl clutching her book with tears pouring down her face.
Why such a response? Of course there is so much to weep about in it.. (the downtrodden, the stepped on, the abused. Beautiful humans treated as less for some bull-shit reason or another. Yes, these are truths to keep us grieved.) But there seems to be a theme that really tears at my heart. Something that brings me to tears wherever it appears, and that I perhaps insufficiently describe as selfless love.

In the book one boy serves the other. He serves happily, adoringly, simply and lovingly. There is something within this boy that drives him to utter servanthood to the point that he is almost entirely destroyed in his sacrifice for the other. To the end of his life, this love continued. It is perhaps similarly a Frodo and Sam effect, that also gets me.

I relate, I believe, on two levels. One, I stand in awe at the one who loves so effortlessly, so genuinely and truly, even when love is not returned. I am in awe of the seeming dichotomy of simplicity and most significant and greatest achievement. The one that is so simple achieves that which is most honourable in all the world. (The underdog, the lowest of low in society was treated so poorly and yet HE was the one more worthy than them all). And I weep that I seem to relate more to the boy who was served.

Secondly, this image, this theme is one that is so dear to my heart. It is like a small dream I have secretly kept hidden, packed away in a box labelled, 'Unattainable Ideals.' Almost forgotten and often abandoned it is written word like this, stories and images that bring me to remembrance that this is something that I deeply value, and maybe it truly exists.

I am sometimes embarrassed by how moved I am by many things (more so in my adult years at least). I am one who has definitely measured her life in terms of emotional experiences. My response to this book in particular sort of surprised me. I know there are deeper issues at play, but what I am thankful for is a reminder of something beautiful, something redeeming, something life-giving in the darkest and most tragic of circumstances - A love that I will press on to fathom, grasp and emulate.

resonance

2010-01-11T17:51:00.002-07:00

this song has been one of my favourite songs for about a year now. it has brought me to tears how my spirit resonates with it. listen to it through and perhaps it will do the same for you. and if anybody knows what the piece actually is, let me know.

if i could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it

2009-12-30T00:10:00.001-07:00

conventionality is not morality

2009-12-07T17:18:00.002-07:00

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is - I repeat it - a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
-Currer Bell aka Charlotte Bronte

a piece of sky

2009-12-06T11:26:00.004-07:00

Tell me where
Where is it written
What is it I'm meant to be?
That I can't dare
To have the chance to pick the fruit of every tree,
Or have my share of every sweet-imagined possibility?

It all began the day I found..
That from my window I could only see
A piece of sky.
I stepped outside and looked around.
I never dreamed it was so wide
Or even half as high.

The time had come
To try my wings
And even thought it seemed at any moment I could fall,
I felt the most,
Amazing things,
The things you can't imagine
if you've never flown at all.

Though it's safer to stay on the ground,
Sometimes where danger lies
There the sweetest of pleasures are found.
No matter where I go,
There'll be memories that tug at my sleeve,
But there will also be
More to question, yet more to believe..

The more I live - the more I learn.
The more I learn - the more I realize
The less I know.
Each step I take -
Each page I turn -
Each mile I travel only means
The more I have to go.

What's wrong with wanting more?
If you can fly - then soar!
With all there is - why settle for
just a piece of sky?

bereavement and legacy

2009-11-27T13:31:00.004-07:00

My mother died September 12, 2001 of cancer. My great-grandma a year later at the age of 92. On the 15th my grandmother suffered the same fate as my mother in a hospice in Kelowna. I just got back from visiting her. Just got back from another birthday spent with a dying loved one. Birth and death meet again. It's hard to comprehend.

My grandmother is an amazing person. She is extremely humorous, light hearted, down to earth and most of all very loving. Everyone who has met my grandma has felt loved and the comfort of her generous hospitality. Grandma's life has not been free from suffering. She has endured trials of many kinds, and what amazes me about her is her constant joy and concern for others. She seems to always be stable. I felt the same about my mother. It was as though they had the secret to contentment - something I've been longing for my whole 26 years! :) I didn't know you could find it.

Being with Grandma, talking of life, memories, family, etc. brought me to a deep appreciation not only for domestic life (who knew?! ..who am I kidding, we all know domestic life in it's greatest form is amazing) but for family and simplicity. She has lived a full life, not because she has traveled the world or learned 6 languages or earned a PhD. She had a family and she loved them. She had fun with them. She grew with them. I watch home videos and remember and think, "Yes, it has been quite full!"

My Grandma was very close to my mother. She had her at 16. I think of Gilmore Girls. She told me two weeks ago that my Mom was the best daughter anyone could ever have. She said my Mom seemed to be born with a deep wisdom that she had even as a child. I can recognize this. As I said, my Mom appeared to not only know the secret to contentment, but also hold the key of freedom from the greater societal opinion and confinements therein. My Mom traveled alone with her friend when she was 14. She taught classes in her teens. She studied art at College and painted. She studied guitar and played and sang. She wrote poetry. She danced. She got her nursing degree. She loved the outdoors. She loved life! So far I see many similarities with me. Then my Mom got married, young. She was 22 when she married my father and 23 when she had me! If I followed in her footsteps I should be coming up on my third kid by now.

As I have written in previous posts, I seem to have a distaste for the traditional nuclear family life. But not because itself is undesirable or bad, but because I have seen it abused, and often miserable, confining and restricting. I believe it doesn't have to be this way. I've seen this in my family. Individuals make a family. Therefore, my mother being her independent, wonderful self continued as such. She had sleepovers in her 40's. She continued to paint, play, write, sing, etc. She was free and still independent (interdependent.. as we all are, aren't we?) She was also an amazing Mom (and cultivated the same freedom and love for life and others in us). Mom and artist. Mom and nurse. Mountaineer. Nutritionist. Counsellor. Friend.

I thank God that I was able to witness a woman who was not bound to a role. My grandmother said this, and I can't help but agree with her that my Mom was exceptional. I could really weep everytime I think about what I'm missing with her gone (and now with my wonderful grandmother gone).

So this is the legacy I am a part of. I'm the next woman up, with a life that so far looks quite different from the ones before me. I'm up for the challenge in learning exceptional love, contentment and liberation.

Great-Grandma Bodie
1910-2002

Grandma
1943-2009

Mom
1959-2001

clive on grief

2009-11-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."

on marriage

2009-11-14T22:57:00.004-07:00

Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences. -Isadora Duncan

When it comes down to it the thought of marriage frightens me. It frightens me because it is all responsibility to convention, roles, expectations and (apparent) practicality. I am desperately in love with freedom. I feel as though I could live forever on family, friendships and occasional flirtation. However, there are some moments when my mind wonders on this idea of commitment. And I realize that not only is it somewhat dazzling, but I indeed exist and thrive within commitment already. Amongst other examples I think specifically of my brother and sister and how their love and commitment to me has been all freeing, life-giving and mostly lovely. So it is the idea that marriage is not freeing is what keeps me from considering it.

Again, when I think about marriage as a part of my life I realize that it seems to me that it is not marriage I want (for as I said I have commitment already from others, and I'm failing to see other positive reasons for marriage (or examples of)) but romance. And not romance as it may be traditionally understood either. Not the chivalrous kind but the kind that is equal and mutually understood. I seem to believe that there exists a process of shared enchantment where in seeing glimpses of the bare soul there is desire to know and reveal. That it becomes both choice and desire to set the other free in the rawest of states. That freedom and love are the ultimate goals for the other. If this did exist, this I could commit to.. for it is free.

I would never wish to gain my independence from any man, nor my economic or social security. I am not in need of one to give me my greatest value or affirmation. I desire no spiritual covering or adventure coach. The thought of bearing children does not come with a natural understanding to me. I feel as far removed from the image of a women in floral-print dress in the kitchen as any man would. No, these things I am not looking for. I desire life, love and freedom (freedom perhaps from the conventional/traditional ideas).. and if this exists in a commitment with a man.. then of course, I welcome it (or welcome the consideration).

grief

2009-11-08T23:29:00.002-07:00

Infidel

2009-11-07T21:32:00.013-07:00

Infidel (literally, 'one without faith') is what Ayaan Hirsi Ali has professed herself as and has plastered in large all-cap letters on her recent autobiography. A brave woman as association with such a name puts her in direct threat of Islamic radicals.

I have just finished reading her fabulous autobiography where Ayaan details her life as she moved throughout Eastern Africa and the Middle East specifically Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. She places emphasis on how Islam shaped and changed her life, then to a greater extent how it affects it's followers and finally, Islam as a worldview that influences the world. Her story is all horrific, fascinating and thought-provoking. I winced through it as I read about her experience with female genital mutilation and the treatment of women in most Islamic countries. How can you leisurely read about a girl of 14 begging her husband who is holding a knife to her scar (the result of circumcision) not to cut her open so he can penetrate her? He so kindly got her cut open at a hospital instead of doing it himself. Such experiences fill her life's story. It is horrifying.

Ayaan also describes the political and social environments of the many countries she lived in. The reign of Siad Barre, the battle and ultimate destruction of Mogadishu (think Black Hawk Down). The rise of the Brotherhood of Islam and their influence in the world. Finally, she relays how she escaped an arranged marriage and fled to Holland. There she stayed independently where she worked factory jobs, learned Dutch and worked herself through school, gaining a masters degree in political science. Her observations and description of western culture from architecture to sex to philosophies is direct and eye-opening. We hardly comprehend our own culture until the other appears. Ayaan made her way into Dutch parliament and fought for women's rights, various immigrant policies, etc. all the while publically rising up as a fierce critic of Islam.

Together with Theo van Gogh, (a filmmaker in Amsterdam) Ayaan made a short film called Submission (you can watch it on youtube). The movie simply and artfully communicated the oppression of women in Islam. In November, 2004 Theo van Gogh was chased down on the streets of Amsterdam, shot, had his throat slit and was stabbed numerous times by an Islamic radical. With the last stab his killer attached a note onto Theo's chest addressed to Ayaan threatening that she would be next. She has since gone into hiding and is residing now in the U.S.
I arrived in Amsterdam 6 months later and I remember walking with some friends in Dam Square and being told of the huge demonstration that had happened there for Theo van Gogh in reaction to this terrible incident months before. This was undoubtedly a big deal.

Today Ayaan is known as one of Europe's most controversial political figures, speaking directly against the detriments of Islam. My natural overly tolerant Canadian tendencies winced at reading her harsh accusations and criticisms of Islam in her book. She has not been one to withhold her controversial opinion and in turn has rose in popularity as one of the most loved and hated feminist voices of today. I admire her strength and courage.

I love autobiographies generally. I love hearing people's stories, learning their lives, sharing and relating to their thoughts and experiences. What I love about Ayaan is her honesty and directness. I felt as though I have had the honour of being taken into her confidence and share a deeply personal journey. She wrote so candidly, not withholding details that one might easily hide as embarrassing if not unimportant to the story. But Ayaan has simply lived and told her story. She is a product of and now a fighter against religious abuse.
I recommend this book as one that has deeply touched and taught me. One can learn much from it's personal journey, history and perhaps challenging (or other) point of view from a fellow fighter for social justice.

In Ayaan's sharp criticisms towards Islam fundamentalism I couldn't help but find parallels with fundamentalist Christianity. Yes, evil is done in almost any name. I felt an uneasiness thinking back on the Christian education I so often received growing up with a (too often solely) strict emphasis to 'save the lost!' (as thought that were my job in the first place. Didn't Jesus come to do just that?) and all the detriments attached to an over simplistic, non-relational, partially understood 'mandate of love.'
Ravi Zacharias declares that one cannot judge a religion based on it's abuses but rather on what it professes. Now we're getting onto a whole other topic. :) I believe religions are flawed and often harmful. They are human made. And though it may be harder for me to separate a religion from it's abuses I am most interested in what religions profess. Ayaan makes it clear that it is a critical question to ask, for in reality it affects us all.

jo

2009-09-30T23:07:00.003-06:00

Jo: Oh, Beth, truly, I don't know if I could ever be good like Marmee. I rather crave violence. If only I could be like Father and go to war and stand up to the lions of injustice.

Beth: I'm sure Marmee does in her own way.

Jo: Yes.. But I want to do something different. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm on the watch for it.

Beth: You'll find it Jo.

--------

Jo: Well, of course Aunt March prefers Amy over me. Why shouldn’t she? I’m ugly and awkward and I always say the wrong things. I fly around throwing away perfectly good marriage proposals. I love our home, but I’m just so fitful and I can’t stand being here! I’m sorry, I’m sorry Marmee. There’s just something really wrong with me. I want to change, but I – I can’t. And I just know I’ll never fit in anywhere.

Marmee: Oh, Jo. Jo, you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You’re ready to go out and – and find a good use for your talent. Tho’ I don’t know what I shall do without my Jo. Go, and embrace your liberty. And see what wonderful things come of it.

not to mention everyone speaks english!

2009-09-29T23:49:00.008-06:00

What is funny most about being home is calling this 'home.'
I am one of the few people in Calgary who can say, 'born and raised.' Weird (i feel quite estranged from all that statement entails). Weird seeing Calgary now as i do; quite corporate, fast paced, money-driven, extremely materialistic - the sad state of many western cities, but not all (or as much). i'm quite sick of blackberry's, labels, big trucks, hummers, etc. I miss Winnipeg. Hippies all of them. :) (not all of them, but diversity is more easily seen). I miss Lakeside - our quiet hideaway in the mountains. Freshly made granola at 'buns by the lake.' I miss Otterburne.
Nonetheless, this is where i have lived most of my life save the last 6 years or so. So i come back (from Korea) not knowing what to expect or what i would feel. It's familiar yet unfamiliar. I know how to get places... I had a church here once, and a fairly large community of friends.
Over the past few weeks i have been amazed as i've gone about my days in this familiar yet unfamiliar place. I go to Kensington and order a shwarma from Sam! The same man who's served me Sam's special for years. Still smiling brightly, still calling me, 'my friend!' I couldn't stop smiling. How strange. I move away for years... experience various places, people and communities.. and things still exist here as they did!
I'm amazed at how i run into people on the streets that i know! All the time! That i will recognize someone from high school at a coffee shop, or an elderly person will come talk to me because they know my dad. Calgary is not that small. I guess it is.
Today i went to the Doctor. I didn't think he would remember me. He did. Asked all about my life, how i was doing, if i was married. Advised me that i shouldn't get married to a man under 40 and talked more to me about personal things than what i went there for. It was nice. He knew my mom, well.
These experiences are strange to me. I am not used to familiar. I am not used to being known. I think it's a good thing.

because i also feel large

2009-09-27T01:25:00.004-06:00

Father, I bring thee not myself,—
That were the little load;
I bring thee the imperial heart
I had not strength to hold.

The heart I cherished in my own
Till mine too heavy grew,
Yet strangest, heavier since it went,
Is it too large for you?

-Emily Dickinson

Leaving the garden by Miriam Meinders

2009-09-24T23:22:00.005-06:00

We all want to be good. We are heavily invested in our identity as good, well-meaning people. This accounts for the appeal of the development narrative as it is usually told: go to exotic places, meet interesting people, and help them. We don't want to know about unfair trade practices or resource exploitation, but we do want to know about how we could fund an orphanage, dig a well for a village or get more African girls in school. It is easier to congratulate ourselves for helping others than to think about how our comfortable position depends on their uncomfortable lives. It is easier psychologically, but it's also easier intellectually. Neither mainstream media nor the various NGOs and development organizations have much reason to complicate the story of the good North (sometimes called the First World) reaching out to help the poor benighted South (sometimes called the Third World).

In Desire for Development: Whiteness, Gender and the Helping Imperative, Barbara Heron, a former development worker, concludes that the "desire for development" is at heart a "profound desire for self." Working in the South can be a path to self-actualization, to a more fully realized life. You can have a meaningful experience, and do good at the same time. If you are troubled that your meaningful experience comes via the suffering of others, you can tell yourself, "Well, at least I'm helping. Or trying to help."

I am being both facetious and non-facetious here. Helping is one of the things humans can and should do for one another. Our species is interdependent, after all. But there are unseen power dynamics at work. Paulette Goudge, a scholar whom Heron quotes, foregrounds the idea of domination rather than the idea of helping:
The more I have reflected on my experiences, the more I have realized the crucial role of notions of white superiority in maintaining the whole structure of global inequality. The aid industry is deeply implicated in these structures.

Rather than acknowledging our participation in structures of domination, however, we would prefer to maintain our innocence. Our innocence is the key to maintaining the moral high ground, and the moral high ground is very dear to the hearts of Northerners (especially if we are white and middle class). It is territory we consider ours by right. It is crucial to our self-concept.

You have to live far removed from the exigencies of survival to believe in the possibilities of your own innocence. That is, the further removed you are from the labour that made your clothes or grew your food, and the less you know about the pipelines bringing the natural gas to your house, the more easily you can convince yourself that life can be pure.

With knowledge comes responsibility, but that responsibility is more than can be borne sometimes, which I take to be the meaning of the story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Once you eat of the Tree of Knowledge, you have indeed been cast out from Paradise. To cling to the notion of your own innocence is a way of trying to get back into the garden. But what if we look around and accept this world as our home - this reality here and now, mixed and troublesome as it is? Would that help us accept our knowledge and our responsibility?

In Ursula Le Guin's short story, "The Shobie's Story," a spaceship crew does a ritual to prepare for a dangerous voyage with experimental technology. One character explains the purpose of the ritual: "'We all use each other,' Oreth said. The ritual says: we have no right to do so; therefore we accept the responsibility for the suffering we cause.'" I suppose this could turn into a source of easy comfort - we could say, "Ah, well, we all use each other, therefore I might as well get what I can out of other people" - but it seems profound to me. There is no living without using and being used, there is no remote safe place from which to maintain one's innocence. If I give up on a fixation with the idea of purity, I am better able to conceive of the possibility of action, I am more willing to embark on a course of trial and error, I have less fear about pushing up against the world with my foolishness and having it push back and show me the error of my ways.

My sense of self can rely less on a static concept of goodness and more on my interdependence with others who need me, and help me, as much as I help them.

random ranting and church shopping OR 'from without'

2009-09-16T00:24:00.008-06:00

At this moment i wonder why Christians are often such snobs (how contrary to the religion's foundational values, don't you think?). Why physical appearances are some's sole concern. Why we reject tradition for 'relevance' that weakens in a month's time and excludes more humans than includes in it's 'relevence' (highly ineffective). We all sit around looking beautiful, scanning the room for other beautiful people to use. All the while thinking highly of ourselves and this pious lot of the most humble and spiritual.

I ask why equality is not only unpracticed but completely unconsidered. Why human relationships are encompassed in games and mask-wearing. Why we have forgotten the worth of a critical mind for the sake of mindless pleasure (and self-justification).

... and there's the dichotomies within myself where i look for something ancient yet something new (an 'ancient future'). A rebel trying to find meaning in the traditions i rebel against. Playing the games i detest and judging those who join me. Wanting stability and longing for escape. Needing order in the chaos and chaos in the order. And all the while hoping that there is something bigger than my questions, frustrations, dichotomies and this 'unendurable sense of desire and loss.' Something 'from without.'

such a common bird

2009-07-28T12:59:00.005-06:00

I am a lone wolf
A beauty and a beast
Both hunter and hunted
Soft tongue and sharp teeth
I'm toned from my travels yet raw from this road
As I drink from storm puddles
And the stories I'm told
Help me figure this out
Help me figure you in
You're a shadow to me
That I echo when I sing
Help me figure this out
Help me figure you into this simple little melody
I have seen angels
They were sleeping in gutters
They were standing in bank lines
They were jumping from towers
They were calling like seagulls
But nobody heard
Such a beautiful message
From such a common bird
We want freedom for ourselves
But we can't give it to each other
We want peace between nations
Yet we battle with our lovers
We're blinded by billboards
And trying to get ahead
Choking on ambition
And the words left unsaid
All the words left unsaid form a simple little melody
I am a lone wolf
A beauty and a beast
Both hunter and hunted
Soft tongue and sharp teeth
I'm toned from my travels yet raw from this road
As I drink from storm puddles
And the stories I'm told
Help me figure this out
Help me figure you in
You're a shadow to me
That I echo when I sing
Help me figure this out
Help me figure you in

my father's wisdom

2009-07-09T01:28:00.001-06:00

"I'm so glad you haven't figured out what you're going to do the rest of your life, yet. It would be so disappointing for us who are a little further in our history, still scratching our butts wondering whats next?" - Papa

my heart and i

2009-06-18T21:41:00.002-06:00

ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

How tired we feel, my heart and I!
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?

Yet who complains? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, -- well enough,
I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

on wisdom

2009-05-25T22:34:00.000-06:00

"Wisest is she who knows that she does not know"
- Jostein Gaarder

fellow wandrers

2009-05-03T18:38:00.003-06:00

Unser Leben gleicht der Reise eines Wandrer's in der Nacht;
Jeder hat auf seinem Gleise etwas, was ihm Kummer macht.

Our life is like the journey of a wanderer through the night;
and each one, advancing slowly, knows: deep sorrow is his plight.

two giant fat people

2009-04-29T05:54:00.003-06:00

God
and I have become
like two giant fat people living
in a tiny
boat

We
keep bumping into
each other
and laughing.

-Hafiz

looking back

2009-04-25T09:22:00.002-06:00

nothing really significant, but i found this in my old files and i completely forgot about it. i left for Korea one month after graduation without really thinking about my decision or knowing what to expect. i've now been here for about 10 months. i can't believe it.

"i'm feeling sad.. and a little anxious. i leave for korea on friday... and have been waiting for this damn visa for almost a month now. that's a month of not working... waiting... preparing... ignoring the fact that i'm leaving again.. and having some amazing times with my family and friends.
i'm packing now. what is this? the unknown i guess is enough to make one feel anxious.. but i've done this many times. could it be that after moving and living in 6 different places the last 6 years is finally taking its toll on me? am i finally feeling the wears and tears of saying good-bye to those i love.. to re-familiarizing myself to those supposed to be familiar at "home?" i don't know... maybe i just feel this is too soon. i haven't soaked up my brother and sister enough... not enough of michelle and hannah.. the lockharts.. not enough of the mountains. and off i go again. to a culture quite unlike mine... to a language i will probably never learn... this usually excites me. maybe my unsettled emotions come from my fear of being alone. for the first time i'm not moving into another community... no ywamers to hug me at first meeting... no old familiar friends... dorm life... no. my own apartment; what a freaky thought!
perhaps i'm just feeling extra nostalgic at the moment. maybe as soon as i get on the plane my heart with leap with excitement again at the adventures ahead."

insufficient content

2009-04-22T02:49:00.003-06:00

i feel as though my life is on pause. at this moment i want to go home. home to a home. home to a family. home to beloved nature displayed in its greatest splendor. and home to an unknown future. yes, even that i would accept.
what is contentment? maybe it will never fully be ours. i can't imagine being fully satisfied; can't imagine not wanting more. maybe that's the point.
i find myself in this state filled with joy over the simplest things. colours - like those brilliant reds in the fall. the sky at dusk - a dark but vivid blue. the brilliant pink hundred-petalled flowers generously clustered on rich greenery. the delicate cherry blossoms blooming on dark gnarly branches. and other things like potted plants. designs made from foam and espresso in a warm mug of latte. the chirping of birds on a morning walk and seeing the sun at 9, 10 and 11 free of concrete cover. these things bring me joy. i wish i could dwell with them; be encompassed by colour, songs, warmth and beauty; find comfort in being as they do. (be free from concrete, suits, schedules and money-making.) but i cannot wrap myself in colour as much as i can kill desire. i am an ever longing, ever desiring soul. wanting summer and fall to exist at once, and mourning the death of each brilliant red.

"I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil - this is God's gift to humans." -Ecclesiastes 3:12

if only it were that easy.

2009-04-04T18:10:00.002-06:00

"What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it - the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me...

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to love me."

-J.I. Packer

...and again

2009-03-31T03:41:00.001-06:00

Sonnet CXVI
by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests.. and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love is not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out.. even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

on love

2009-03-17T03:56:00.000-06:00

I think it is right and just that all creatures be free. Indeed, that God Himself has ordained the world and our relationship to him in such a manner. Love therefore cannot be coerced, it cannot be conditional, it should not require preference upon another, it must exist strong and true; penetrating all frame, faculty and nature.
Love must be free, for love that is not free is not love at all. In such a state of mind I require that onto others; that they be free. And as apparent dichotomy time and again prove itself the founder of truth, in freedom will exist absolute security. Within this security evolves the greatest form of acceptance, adoration and love for the creature in it's rawest state, as God originally saw fit. It is this that I wait for, and for this that I hope.

2009-03-01T07:36:00.004-07:00

If I was free to hold you
I would.
I would kiss you for a
thousand days
and when those were through
I'd kiss you ten thousand more
until we understood
eachother's eyes
dove into our souls
and knew Him
so much better

salt

2009-02-26T06:08:00.002-07:00

there is a gnawing at my
heart
it is the sorrows of the world.
why is it that i see your hand
under my feet
and the next day i'm drowning?
was it not you who also
made the sea?
is it you who engulfs me?
and helps me brush the salt off?

my thoughts as described by Charlotte Bronte

2009-02-07T06:36:00.002-07:00

"I hold to another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all."

Is that my fate?

2009-01-08T05:28:00.001-07:00

Do they prove anything to you, these tears?

All that I had I laid outside that door
where I was told you lived, and someone took those gifts,
was it you?

Were they that worthless that no thanks was given?
That must have been the case for I heard
not one word of gratitude.

Has it ever happened that a lover courting a lover
has not offered trinkets? Surely you did
not begrudge me for that.

In the world of amorous play amongst your forest creatures
I have tried to learn some secret about love
to bring you as near as they did; for I see how happy
you made them.

The flame called the moth but the glass pane was there.
How many have died not in the fire but in the cold,
crazed in longing.

Is that fate of any heart to not reach you?

No, no, that is not the fate of any soul.

-St. John of the Cross

Countess Daria Chernyshova-Saltykova

2008-12-28T05:16:00.003-07:00

Friday - always a joy in itself. I get to wear whatever I want to work, which for some reason always seems to change everything. Funny how fickle my attitude can be. All week I've been feeling a little down, a little low on much needed energy, a little introspective and introverted. I've been alone every evening... Friday, I'm awake. I'm free. After work I find myself continuing in my ever introversion and end up at an art exhibit. Seeking comfort from those who, though long gone, have portrayed the human condition so marvelously - marrying our similarities through the generations; a consolation to a weary soul comforted by the wearied. I entered the room peacefully and find myself surrounded by humans, the quizzical and portrayed. And with much needed classical music to keep my busy mind focused on my soul-refreshing, I popped in my earphones and started to walk through the paintings of earlier centuries. A portrait in specific, "Portrait of the Countess Daria Chernyshova-Saltykova by Francois-Hubert Drouais caught my eye and stopped me from my casual wandering. The Countess stares back at me. I couldn't stop watching her still figure. There was something so human about her, as if she was more than a painting but rather a woman caught in a frame by some spell. Her appearance is both young and old. White hair and rosie cheeks. The painting contains dark greys, and blues contrasting her perfect ivory skin and choking white pearls. Her deep blue eyes are piercing and seem to hold a secret. She's wise... very wise. Experience surrounds her like a wafting aura. Stories of sorrow, loss, love, life, death, joy and pain are told by her eyes. But she sits still, perfect, submissive. The appearance of a beautiful young naive woman dressed up in all the finery a reputable woman should adorn. Her meager smile and placid expression do not fool me. She's meant to portray a perfect innocence and ignorance. Masking her deep wisdom she plays her part, sits silently. I keep her gaze for awhile, half-expecting that she would pop right out of the painting and together we would discuss our common conceptions. But she remained picture perfect, still-posed.
I smiled back at her and eventually continued on. She knew I understood.

if

2008-12-16T00:38:00.002-07:00

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

i think this is very wise.
i'm trying to come up with a gender inclusive ending. any ideas? :)

The Monastery Orchard in Early Spring

2008-12-09T05:01:00.002-07:00

God's cows are in the fields,
safely grazing. I can see them
through bare branches,
through the steady rain,
fir trees seem ashamed
and tired, bending under winter coats.

I, too, want to be light enough
for this day: throw off impediments,
push like a tulip
through a muddy smear of snow.

I want to take the rain to heart
and feel it move
like possibility, the idea
of change, through things
seen and unseen,
forces, principalities, powers.

Newton named the force that pulls the apple
and the moon with it,
toward the center of the earth.
Augustine found a desire as strong: to steal,
to possess, then throw away.
Encounter with fruit is dangerous:
the pear's womanly shape forever mocked him.

A man and a woman are talking.
Rain moves down and
branches lift up
to learn again
how to hold their fill of green
and blossom, and bear each fruit to glory,
letting it fall.

-Kathleen Norris

myself as a greek talking parrot OR As the Ruin Falls

2008-11-28T03:57:00.006-07:00

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

-C S Lewis

i read this poem and a tear came to my eye..
yes, this is me.
masking my desire to love as a solely selfless desire.. and struggling to love those who "don't love" as i have "so attained" to. yes, i have lovingly deceived myself in thinking my love was selfless. i think ignorance to our selfish ambitions is bliss. and when i'm forced to see myself for what i really am... forced to see how much i am deeply in love with my "loving" self... it can be quite a sobering experience. wisdom brings pain.
ooh, but what a revelation.. and then comes what freedom! to see reality. to understand His grace again.. and conceive that i am but human in need of a love far beyond my own. a love that flattens me and uplifts me with the rest of humankind. again, we are equals, limited in love and awing at Love's existence.
He again looks at me with loving eyes, sprinkles the ground with flecks of gold and green and watches as I fall on my face amongst his demonstration of love. "God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."

never seed a pomegranate in a white hoody and other such advices

2008-11-25T03:39:00.003-07:00

I was seeding a pomegranate in my white hoody and managed to get the blood red juice everywhere. I guess it's not surprising that when i was a teenager my friends were going to buy me a book that told me what stained and what would wash out. I think i like to get dirty. Anyways, it made me think of my mom. For some random reason i suddenly remembered this conversation we had when i was a child. I remember re-telling her some story about the latest hollywood star and how amazing, beautiful and talented they were. My mom smiled at me from our large brown couch and said, "Stephanie the 'stars' are just people, like you and me." today i hold the same value as my mom. A value that all people are equal and stand before God the same regardless of status, prestige, wealth, education, beauty, talent, (place your favourite social value here), etc. I guess i'm just remembering what i've been raised in. Only as an adult (can i call myself that?) have i come to realize what a great value system my parents held and how they truly lived it out. i am so blessed to have been brought up with their examples.
My parents were both hippies at one point, both valued nutrition/health, the environment, equality, love and servanthood. Therefore i grew up eating what i thought disgusting healthy food, recycling EVERYTHING that could be recycled and wearing hand-me-down clothes. Of course no child admires these things when they are young. It's just annoying and uncool. My mom would drive us to school in a brown rusty station wagon that was practically falling apart, stalled at every corner and made loud noises in the cold winter. I was embarrassed. My mom thought, "Use it until it's broken." she (and my dad) had a sense of "waste not, want not." some people have nothing. We have a car to get around in, and look! it talks to us!
When i was little everyone compared what their moms made them for their lunches. I remember having sandwiches made of more seeds than bread substance, trying to transfer as much crumbling "bread" from my fingers into my mouth as possible; and an apple for dessert. I always envied the kid who got chips and sandwiches on beautiful white bread.
My mom always told us we were beautiful. That we could do anything we wanted. That we were loved no matter what happened, whether we got bad grades or not, whether we made the team or not, whether we quit piano (ahem..) or not!
My mom painted, danced, played outdoors, went on sleepovers with friends in her 40's, wrote poetry, baked, made crafts, played guitar, took care of the elderly. She was (is) amazing. But as i grow up and look back what is most amazing about my mom amidst her various talents and admirable qualities - she loved.
My dad told me a couple months ago something that brought tears to my eyes. He said that when my mother was dying and was asked what she wanted to do at the great banquet feast in heaven her reply was, "I want to serve."
That's my mom!! Her life to me is the greatest of advices!

fear of vulnerability

2008-11-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

pride?

beautiful glimpses of love

2008-11-16T05:07:00.007-07:00

The Enemy [God] wants to bring humans to a state of mind in which s/he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than s/he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him/her, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his/her own favour that they can rejoice in their own talents as frankly and gratefully as in their neighbour's talents - or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each human, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even his/herself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love - a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.

the problem of Jesus

2008-11-05T18:04:00.003-07:00

What i mean with this sentence is the issue, let's say necessity, of Jesus for salvation. Honestly, this last year at Prov has been a new discovery of who Jesus is, and why he is so vitally important. For what? SO many things! But that response to my own question (so many things) seems to be my problem - at least when in dialogue with others.
I'm reading Eat, Pray and Love, a book about a woman who goes on a spiritual journey and finds God - Love. AWESOME! However, at the beginning of her book she details her meaning in the word "God." One that I can surely agree with (mostly), except that it's missing one not so tiny detail. Jesus Christ - human God. To me (and it has not always been so) Jesus has become everything! All things wonderful and good. The Incarnation is our HOPE! It's Love's action. It's living, breathing, sensational, relational God. It's more than the feeling of God one gets. It changes humanity, the systems of our societies, cultures, history, etc. It changes how we live, how we love, how we understand faith and grace and perhaps most of all a world so completely contrary to our own: directly opposite - the Kingdom. For me, this is the clincher. I think that anyone and everyone is in love with love. We need it, we know it, we seek it, long for it, look for it, etc. So the fact that God is Love (as many understand and accept) and love is (supposed to be) the foundation of the Christian faith, it is easy to swallow. What I mean is, anyone would easily adopt a belief or faith in Love. Eventually we all come to know this is the answer to our human dilemma.
So what? We love! Awesome! And I truly mean that. I'm a firm believer in love - God. - Jesus. But wait - Jesus is forgotten! Love may be convincing, but then love seems to be so relative today and that's my problem. People can believe in love it seems as long as they are experiencing it as they wish..
God is/may be attractive to almost anyone now (as I'm reading lately - Go Oprah!). Why? Because most come to the conclusion that "He" is Love and also so other, ineffable - so God then can become whatever I wish. And better yet, He loves me! I find this dangerous because then God isn't God. He's whatever I deem Him through my personal experiences. God is everything and then nothing. But Jesus gives the world a clearer picture of God. The indescribable now described. Love in the flesh and even more than that (as I said earlier) the Kingdom - the Kingdom FULLY OTHER (fully from God - the fully other ONE) than our Kingdoms. That's why it grabs me and reveals to me the truth, the hope, the true life from God - the other delivered a Kingdom fully other that we can live and participate in, if we so choose. A Kingdom where the last are the first, where the oppressed are blessed, where the dead are alive, where fashion, status, money, etc. mean nothing, but conditions of the heart are everything. Where no one is elevated and no one oppressed, but all stand equal before the love of God. Where the pursuit of riches, wealth, prestige and happiness are foolishness in the fullness and happiness the Kingdom brings - through Jesus.
You see, without Jesus we just have our own thoughts and interpretations of God. We can have great euphoric experiences without having to touch anyone, or have it infiltrate the world at all. To me, that is a most insignificant power. But God Jesus not only reaches the heart in love with all sensational experience, but through him creates a bond and change and love in us for the rest of humanity and all creation. All in love! Not far off, but attainable and living and yet life so other from our normal human tendencies. So attainable otherness in love through Jesus Christ. Therefore, I have come to believe, he's not only necessary, but is the mysterious truth made known for all humanity and creation.
...some thoughts as I've pondered Him.

dancing in cold water

2008-09-24T05:56:00.003-06:00

Cold, cold water surrounds me now
And all I've got is your hand
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now,
Or am I lost?

No one's daughter allow me that
And I can't let go of your hand
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Or am I lost?

oooo, I love you
Don’t you know I love you
And I always have
Hallelujah
Will you come with me?

Cold, cold water surrounds me now
And all I've got is your hand
Lord, can you hear me?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me?
Ahh...

Am I lost with you?

masculine and feminine

2008-09-17T03:24:00.006-06:00

Perhaps a random thought... I don't want to be like a man. Sometimes I think that my sociologically thinking self has done opposite of what my education has purposed. In having my eyes opened even more to the man's world in which we live; the history of our world, our high regard for the strength and power of the masculine, my egalitarianism has failed to value differences in men and women (in that appreciating both feminine and masculine qualities in both men and women). My focus has been entirely on our equality and with that our similarities (which certainly exist) rather than our differences (and equality in those). But that indeed is the problem isn't it? Society doesn't equally value differences. And perhaps that's why I've swung to the other side, thinking that my passion for equality would extinguish our focus on difference (along with this is my fear that our generalizations of men and women will put each individual into a gender box disallowing their unique feminine and masculine qualities to distinguish them).

We are afraid of the unknown. Unsure of how to treat a feminine male or a masculine female. Why? Personally, I struggle with the question of how to treat a masculine male and a feminine female (in their extreme cases).

Alright, where do I fit in this? What do I do with the knowledge of my own socialization? How do I act? Well, I seem to have been rebelling against all things feminine, and in this perhaps come off (and maybe I do I'm realizing) valuing the masculine more. And Oh, I hate all this talk! This distinguishing; systematizing everything. See, this is my struggle. Is there really a difference between us? Besides the physical? A part from our socialized selves? Nature vs. Nurture. What, if any, difference exists naturally between men and women? Perhaps none. I have no answer... I have only had it emphasized to me that where there are differences there is equality.
A friend of mine once said, "any who thought there was any difference between men and women, apart from anatomical; we fools blind to nurture."
Hmmm... So maybe my fear is ridiculous and so off the point - something that usually happens to me. My passions lead me in wrong focus.

In light of my socialization (which I must always keep in mind to keep my actions and heart in check), I don't want to be more masculine because that's what the world values, nor do I want to be less feminine because the world doesn't, nor do I want to focus on being one or the other or even a perfect mixture of both. I just want to be free to be whoever I am beyond societal nurturance. And I pray to do the same for others. May we all be free and feel loved as we are.
I want to see people; not merely sex. And people are all so very different, aren't they?

happiness

2008-09-15T12:05:00.003-06:00

"The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free."
-C.S. Lewis

oh my god

2008-09-03T05:27:00.004-06:00

Oh my God; look around this place. Your fingers reach around the bone, you set the break and set the tone. Flights of grace, and future falls. In present pain, all fools say, "Oh my God." Oh my God, Why are we so afraid? We make it worse when we don't bleed, there is no cure for our disease. Turn a phrase, and rise again. Or fake your death and only tell your closest friend. Oh my God. Oh my God, can I complain? You take away my firm belief and graft my soul upon your grief. Weddings, boats and alibis, all drift away, and a mother cries.

Liars and fools; sons and failures
Thieves will always say
Lost and found; ailing wanderers
Healers always say
Whores and angels; men with problems
Leavers always say
Broken hearted; separated
Orphans always say
War creators; racial haters
Preachers always say
Distant fathers; fallen warriors
Givers always say
Pilgrim saints; lonely widows
Users always say
Fearful mothers; watchful doubters
Saviors always say

Sometimes I cannot forgive. And these days, mercy cuts so deep. If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep. While I lay, I dream we're better, scales were gone and faces light. When we wake, we hate our brother. We still move to hurt each other. Sometimes I can close my eyes, and all the fear that keeps me silent falls below my heavy breathing. What makes me so badly bent? We all have a chance to murder. We all feel the need for wonder. We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the thunder.
Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven. All the times I thought to reach up. All the times I had to give. Babies underneath their beds. Hospitals that cannot treat all the wounds that money causes. All the comforts of cathedrals, all the cries of thirsty children - this is our inheritance. All the rage of watching mothers - this is our greatest offense.
Oh my God
Oh my God
Oh my God..

banana pancakes

2008-08-30T09:49:00.003-06:00

i'm dreaming every night. sometimes i live through my dreams. sometimes i think it's all i need.

i fear loneliness. i also fear falling more in love with my independent tendencies. i am alone here.

i long for God and i'm frustrated.

i want love, passion and happiness. i preach sacrifice, brokenness and pain.

i want to fly away. i want to be back a prov. learning, growing, soaking up the intelligence from my brilliant professors. contemplating in vast quiet fields and waking up to Anne and banana pancakes. i could weap with mourning for these things. this is such a different season for me. it's hard.

i want to cry. i know i will dream of different realities... and i'll continue to find new excitments. and maybe someday i'll be crying about missing Korea and the people here. Oh, what a torture to move all the time; and Oh, what a love and appreciation it brings for the things you struggled through and took for granted.

traffic and stars

2008-08-10T07:58:00.004-06:00

In humid heat I sit.
dusk
warm breeze
and everywhere traffic
of souls and automobiles
high heels and dresses,
suits and cigarettes,
honking horns and racing scooters,
men holding hands,
curious stares
foreign and familiar
fight for my senses
In humid heat I sit.
watch
and glimpse
your freckle in the sky.

jewels on the streets

2008-08-03T00:29:00.003-06:00

No one
Knows his name-
A man who lives on the streets
And walks around in rags.

Once I saw that man in a dream.
He and God were constructing
An extraordinary
Temple.

-St. Francis of Assisi

It should not be surprising that the Seoul streets also home those that are homeless. I probably see one such person every day on my way to work; sitting on the subway stairs with a hat in front containing a few tossed coins. I see one person crawling up the street just opposite the one i work at. This person has no legs. I saw another kneeling on the ground with his head bowed down on his outstretched arms; his hands making a cup to receive any type of mercy. What do we do?

I had a vision the other day, as i past another such woman, of me coming to this woman with Kimbab (a korean sort of sushi roll)... I took it in my hands and knelt before her with my head bowed down on my arms (like the man i saw earlier) and extended my hands containing the food. She wept; for bowing is a huge sign of respect here, done to those of a higher status than you.. So this action of mine would be an extreme statement.
I don't know where this vision came from. I can only say it was from God. A challenge.. Maybe God was speaking to me further on how he sees us. His people.. Those that are homeless are his precious jewels that we quickly rush past.

Church today this is what was preached. I was overwhelmed. This message is so counter-culture, it slaps our societal values in the face.. my values, and dare i say Christian values.. to love those who are rich, beautiful, talented, "successful;" and all of the meaning we've attached to these words.

Matt. 25:42-45
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they also will answer, saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then he will answer them, saying, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me."

I need to learn how to love.

joy

2008-07-28T06:37:00.005-06:00

Somehow the conundrum of the privacy of my thoughts was answered by an explicit response of appreciation... which turns my problem to pure consciousness of existing observations. This can be frightening to me; but obviously overcome as i continue to write my thoughts... scared as i am to make claims of knowing anything right now... I know nothing but to love.
But i must speak right now of joy. I love those moments... so ineffable.. and yet, here i try.
C.S. Lewis describes joy as "the sublime experience of the transcendent, the glimpse of the eternal that is only fleetingly available..." I often don't know where it comes from, but i can name times in my life where this feeling has overtaken me.. And in the most random of places... Today i was on the bus and had to write. These are my words as i flew:
"I feel as though i'm flying in open skies; limitless, boundless and all beauty encompassing infinite space. I feel JOY. My heart has wings; God has kissed my cheek and i'm sitting on this Seoul bus grinning wildly on the inside. I sense his freedom, the freedom that breaks our standards, our scripts, our understanding. The freedom to love beyond the lovely, to value those that by worldly standards have none; YES, this is it! To see gifts in those where they are invisible. To tell them! To see them GROW and CHANGE. To see them break the boxes society has gently placed them in; slowly rocking them to sleep. By God's strength, love, grace and mercy may I be a part of those gift openers; rip them open like presents on Christmas morning and see the ugly's beauty, see the nerd's coolness, the weakling's strength, the shy's audaciousness, the ditz's brilliance (I am speaking in worldly terms). And may they open more presents, and loose the elevated from the thrones we've bound them to. And as the least of these, the last, the sinners, the lowly and oppressed (as God so kindly spoke in our own terms) are lifted, and the exalted lowered; may we all speak, see, understand, live and love on the same plane - AKA, The Kingdom; started in a stable."
Oh, my idealism runs wild.. But was not Jesus an idealist with a perfect realistic understanding? Did he not exist in our world and show us another?
These thoughts have been my joy today. They are my wantings, my striving fors...
"All joy...emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings." - C.S. Lewis
And so i journey...

2008-07-21T19:23:00.001-06:00

Only as a child am I awake
and able to trust
that after every fear and every night
I will behold you again.

However often I get lost,
however far my thinking strays,
I know you will be here, right here,
time trembling around you.

To me it is as if I were at once
infant, boy, man and more.
I feel that only as it circles
is abundance found.

I thank you, deep power
that works me ever more lightly
in ways I can't make out.
The day's labor grows simple now,
like a holy face
held in my dark hands.

a beautiful poem bethany sent me by Rilke.

brought to memories of mom

2008-06-26T13:31:00.005-06:00

My father came into the room and began to try to convey to my terrified mind things it had never conceived before. It was in fact cancer and followed the usual course; an operation, an apparent convalescence, a return of the disease, increasing pain, and death. My father never fully recovered from this loss.
Children suffer not (I think) less than their elders, but differently. For us the real bereavement had happened before our mother died. We lost her gradually as she was gradually withdrawn from our life into the hands of nurses and delirium and morphia, and as our whole existence changed into something alien and menacing, as the house became full of strange smells and midnight noises and sinister whispered conversations. If I may trust to my own experience, the sight of adult misery and adult terror has an effect on children which is merely paralysing and alienating. Everything that had made the house a home had failed us; everything except one another. We drew daily closer together (that was the good result) - frightened urchins huddled for warmth in a bleak world.
Grief in childhood is complicated with many other miseries. I was taken into the bedroom where my mother lay dead; as they said, 'to see her', in reality, as I at once knew, 'to see it'. There was nothing that a grown-up would call disfigurement - except for that total disfigurement which is death itself. Grief was overwhelmed in terror. To this day I do not know what they mean when they call dead bodies beautiful. The ugliest man alive is an angel of beauty compared with the loveliest of the dead. Against all the subsequent paraphernalia of coffin, flowers, hearse, and funeral I reacted with horror. To my hatred for what I already felt to be all the fuss and flummery of the funeral I may perhaps trace something in me which I now recognise as a defect but which I have never fully overcome - a distaste for all that is public, all that belongs to the collective; a boorish inaptitude for formality.
When her case was pronounced hopeless I remembered what I had been taught; that prayers offered in faith would be granted. I accordingly set myself to produce by will-power a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful; and, as I thought, I achieved it. When nevertheless she died I shifted my ground and worked myself into a belief that there was to be a miracle.
With my mother's death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.

These are the words of C.S. Lewis in this book Surprised by Joy. It seems to be a habit of mine of late to record what I am reading from others... their thoughts, their experiences. Reading this, however, was like reading my own journal. I cannot believe how similar our circumstances were and how extensive our thoughts correlate.
I can definitely relate to Lewis' observation that with the death of his mother came "a distaste for all that is public, all that belongs to the collective; a boorish inaptitude for formality;" and I can see this as true in my friends who have also lost.
Death is never something one gets over. Maybe that's why I write about it now. I need some sort of outlet, a way to continue to express the grief I still feel. Somehow communicating reminds me... and others that this story does exist; and many are living silently with their heartbreaking memories. Like Lewis, I also feel that amidst much fun, pleasure and joy, the reliable, peaceful security that my mother embodied is forever gone. And I will grieve for the rest of my life.

nails

2008-06-14T14:34:00.005-06:00

it can be very strange for me to participate in what our society calls "womanly." today was one of those days... shopping, hair, make-up, getting nails done. i don't know when these activities became so foreign to me, or if i have always felt a little strange to focus so much attention on frivilous, "beautifying" persuits. (oh gosh! i just chipped one of my freshly painted nails typing!) haha... so much time and energy someone put into making my nails look beautiful... ruined in 25 minutes! what is the point?
one of the girls mentioned how after getting things like this done you don't feel like doing anything active incase it ruins your nails, hair, whatever. so we value this "beauty" while limiting our movements and other (more beneficial) activities. no. women, we must sit beautiful; that is what society tells us. and this is what so many accept and consider normal without question.
i sat down with the other women to let my nails dry and our conversation turned into a gossip session about the latest celebrities and their love lives.
i cannot help but feel like i'm getting lost in world with shallow focus. the thing is, i know each of these women i've spend time with "gossiping" is brilliant and has great potential in this world. why do they put on the face of the pretty woman? the act of the needy woman? material woman? incapable woman? ditsy woman? have i always been so different? probably not. but things look so different to me now. and i wish we could all see, and be set free to live without these pressures to be simply beautiful and needy (in order to get a man, which seems to be the goal of so many women's lives) but to live freely and love... knowing each one is uniquely beautiful and capable of spreading love and beauty in the world.
may we all experience such a feat in this adventure.

An understanding with Dietrich

2008-06-12T01:06:00.002-06:00

"I detect that a rebellion against all things 'religious' is growing in me. Often it amounts to an instinctive horror - which is certainly not good. I'm not religious by nature. But I have to think continually of God and Christ; authenticity, life, freedom, and mercy mean a great deal to me. It is just their religious manifestations which are so unattractive. Do you undestand?"

Some personal thoughts of Dietrich Bonhoeffer... a rebellion I seem to share.

St. Thomas Aquinas On Behalf of Love

2008-06-01T23:34:00.002-06:00

Every truth without exception - no matter

who makes it - is from God.

If a bird got accused of singing too early

in the morning,

if a lute began to magically play on its own

in the square

and the enchanting sounds it made drove a pair of young lovers

into a wild, public display of

passion,

if this lute and bird then got called before the inquisition

and their lives were literally at stake,

could not God walk up and say before the court,

"All acts of beauty are mine; all happen on the behalf of love?"

And while God was there, testifying for our heart's desires,

hopefully the judge would be astute enough

to brave a question,

that could go,

"Dear God, you say all acts of beauty are yours;

surely we can believe that. But what of all actions

we see in this world,

for is there any force in existence greater than the power

of your omnipresent hand?"

And God might have responded, "I like that question,"

adding, "May I ask you one as well?"

And then God would say,

"Have you ever been in a conversation when children entered

the room, and you then ceased speaking because your

wisdom knew they were not old enough

to benefit - to understand?

As exquisite is your world, most everyone in it

is spiritually young.

Spirituality is love, and love never wars with the minute, the day,

one's self and others. Love would rather die

than maim a limb,

a wing.

Dear, anything that divides man from man,

earth from sky, light and dark, one religion from another...

O, I best keep silent, I see a child

just entered the

room."

2008-05-11T01:03:00.002-06:00

how dare i look upon a creature with contempt
how dare i judge
through eyes blinded by my own
limited understanding
but again, Look!
and see an image
of One most lofty
and again
do I not see Him in your eyes,
see myself in your pain
and wonder at my stupidity

questions

2008-03-20T09:36:00.000-06:00

Would you,
if that every torment
brought my gaze
back to your eyes,
Allow their
thrashing arms
to tear at me so?

And if so...

Are you,
as one who longs
to mend
shredded hearts,
Enough, to keep
these eyes from
wandering fro?

Who Am I? - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2008-03-16T00:37:00.000-06:00

Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country-house.Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command.Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting forwords of kindness, for neighborliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events,powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to it all.Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

Hawaii

2008-03-04T05:31:00.001-07:00

i cannot help but see Him everywhere. my mountains. the endless prairies. a dark sky painted with northern lights. and presently, plumeria flowers on long spiny branches. a sparkling ocean writing a love song to the sun which brilliantly shines upon it in bright orange rays. i find my reactions are laughter or silent awe. again, i'm whisked away.. to a world so overwhelmingly beautiful that radiates love into my being. a world not a "far away land," nor a fairy-tale fantasy.. but this world... the one in which i exist beckons me to Love... and He's kissed me today.

Diamonds

2008-01-15T00:01:00.001-07:00

God sent me diamonds this silent night.
When the light of the lampost exposes their descent
they giggle
and I stand in awe at the playfulness before me and
wonder at the tickler.