Countess Daria Chernyshova-Saltykova

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

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

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

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

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

pride?

beautiful glimpses of love

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

"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

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."

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

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

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

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

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.