Still in progress

Return Flight

From her window seat Margie watched the mountains slide beneath the plane, but her mind was on her husband, Joe, beside her. Joe crunched complimentary peanuts, loudly. Drops of condensation fell from his plastic cup onto his white shirt, slightly tinted pink from the time he had done the laundry. His glasses rested too close to the edge of his tray, Always smudged, Margie noted.
She had sighed when Joe made the taxi turn around for his forgotten luggage. She had tapped her high heel as they waited at Check-In. And when they missed their original flight and had to settle for the 2:00 to Denver Margie became deathly silent, her way of saying, This is all your fault.
“Is there a doctor on board?” a voice rang out. Panic and tension settled like an L.A. fog. Margie froze. Joe did not and knocked his glasses off his tray as he jumped up.
He moved down the aisle, quick and agile. Relief spread across the flight attendant’s face as Joe laid a silver-haired woman across two seats. He pounded the woman’s chest with efficient, knowledgeable strokes. He was calm, commanding. Margie remembered this Joe. Even his hair had lost its grey in the dim lighting.
“Thank God he’s here,” a man whispered behind Margie.
The silver-haired woman opened her eyes. There was a collective sigh of relief followed by a long applause. Joe walked back to their seat. Someone whistled. Another thumped his back. There was a firmness to his step, a glow to his eyes, which looked to Margie. See I am needed, they said. Was he surprised himself?
Margie reached for his glasses on the ground, which had broken in their fall, and gently placed them in Joe’s outstretched hand.
“We can fix this,” she said.

Resurrection

Jamie looks out the window of her one bedroom apartment at a dying tree. Leaves are snobs, dressing in their liveliest garmets, brilliant shades of amber, before greeting even humble Earth. In Jamie’s lap is a book, Myths and Fairytales for Children, a gift from a tearful worker at the pregnancy test center. She numbly thumbs through it with her right hand, while her left hand, ringless, rests on her growing, round belly. It will be the only gift her child receives.

A page catches her eye. She stops. It’s a bird, ablaze and falling to Earth.

Fire falls from the phoenix’s wings, Death to Life from ashes will spring, it says.

She vaguely recalls a story about birds or angels flying around a throne. There was something about a burning coal and holiness, too. But that wasn’t this story. Ah, church, she remembers, a place she can no longer go.

Fire drips from the tree outside, holy hotness sent by the angles to purify, falling like the phoenix.

Will this child rise from the ashes?



Funeral

Baby, Baby, she whispered wetly into my ear. She cried and hugged me as we stood beside the open coffin. She wrapped her arms around my back and brushed my hair away with her sweaty palm. She enveloped in her embrace, and she nearly kissed me when she spoke. I didn’t really even know her. I tried to cry. I thought it might help.

It’s going to be okay, she said.

I didn’t know why she was telling me this; it was her brother.

She was eleven, and so was I.
This was our first experience with death.

Brokenheart.
The heart that was broken by the heart that was not.
Oh life, it is too much with me.
I feel life all too keenly, and it is filling up my insides with a burning, molten liquid, golden like the flashes of sun,
those swords that slice through the foliage, green and ripe.
Passion.
Its color is brilliance- gold, bronze, and silver.
And it is inside me.
If only it would burst and beam out of me I could be whole and not broken like the heart that was not broken.
Like the one who was not broken.
Like you.

The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

The Great Salt Lake

Well if you find yourself falling apart
Well I am sure I could steer
The great salt lake

Oh my heart! O my soul! My heart is too full right now. I feel the world a little too keenly right now. It makes it hard to stay in my skin.

"Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O LORD, in the light of your face." Psalm 89:15

"My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: 'O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!'" Psalm 39: 3-4

one day i will live in a tent...

two random thoughts

First, I believe that everyone should have one object that they really want that they have to wait for for a long time to get or possibly never get. Even if you can afford it and even if it would be easy to get or even if someone offers it as a gift the object should not be had by the person who wants it simply so that he can learn the value of the object and more importantly the value of really wanting something. The art of valuing things, waiting for them, working for them, and saving for them is a lost art. Too often and too quickly can we obtain whatever it is that we want; literally, with just the click of button or the swiping of plastic we can have whatever we want. Sometimes it is much sweeter to want something than to have it.

Second, among other random thoughts, I am in love with a song. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYUFcxBq1y4&feature=av2n.

Flightless Bird- Iron and Wine

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys
Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, american mouth
Big pill looming

Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue

Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold
And clean blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth
Big pill stuck going down.

Hello blog, it has been awhile

right now i am so overwhelmed with the love of the gospel, the significance of sacrifice, and the revolution of grace. i just finished harry potter about an hour ago- for the first time- and this undoubtedly has something to do with what im thinking right now haha. harry potter was awesome. i cried. it was actually pretty life changing, so don't get me wrong, but im so glad that real salvation, real redemption, and my dear savior are so much better that harry, dumbledore, and the rest of the crew. im super analytical and could sit down right now and draw all the parallels possible between the gospel and harry potter, and i certainly think that the book echoes of love, sin, sacrifice, and redemption which all truly great stories must do, but as i read the ending of the 7th book i kept feeling like something was missing, something wasnt complete. I know what it is. Harry didnt die. I wanted him to (as much as i wanted him to live forever), knowing only a sacrifice as great as death really brings salvation. Jesus died 100% and that made all the difference. He didnt just return to normal, everyday life after the cross. Yeah, he was made alive after death and is still alive right now, but he experienced utter, complete, and total punishment. He endured it all in one deathly act of finality and wasnt allowed to pick back up his life on earth afterwards. It's the sacrifice, the cost, the burden that gets me. it is the irreversibility of his circumstance that puts fire in the belly. This type of totality and burden is different than the kind of sacrifice harry made. furthermore, despite all of his good deeds and wisdom and love for harry dumbledore ultimately was weak, messed up, and came to and end. I imagine god as a type of dumbledore who wasnt weak, or tempted, or scared, or unsure and obviously this comparison falls desperately short of the weight of his glory but in my mind that's one pretty awesome god. thats the kind of god that i cannot wait to jump into the arms of, to talk for hours to, to cry with, to laugh with, and to learn from. Lastly, there wasnt redemption from the malfoys. sure, the malfoys werent as bad a you think they are at first, and you end up sympathizing with them. but there's no real sorrow or regret from them, therefore there is not real forgiveness either, and consequently they arent really made whole or brought back in the end.
I love harry potter and it is such a refreshing and revitalizing reminder of redemption, but it doesnt hold a smoldering wick to the cross. it cant. im not sure j k rawlings wanted it to. but it is an excellent tool for stirring up the passions in peoples' hearts, prompting them to find redemption and love, and that is the real magic of harry potter.

why am i in auburn right now? there's got to be a reason. you told me to be here. so i am. why?

Currently Reading/ Lately Read

Leaves Of Grass (whitman)- beautiful, naturey, and sacreligious
Poems of Emily Dickinson- not my bag of chips
Huckleberry Finn (Twain)- challenging themes, one of my favorites
McTeague (Norris)- dark, true, what life without Jesus is like, similar to Dostoyevsky
The Awakening (Chopin)-for anyone who has ever felt their own potential and had it snuffed out
As I Lay Dying (Faulkner)- moving, about family miscommunications and misunderstandings
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston)- the only hope in this one is that the reader changes society
The Bluest Eye (Morrison)- offends audience to emphasize hopelessness
The Joy Luck Club (Tan)- misunderstandings between families

All these books are dark and problematic to the Faith, but these are important issues to confront and to work through personally. Great reading for analyzing the American culture and the human experience in general. If you really read these books there are very sacreligious and offensive, but I think the part of the Faith that they make problematic can be answered. All I know is that I recognize the problems in these books, I feel them, I recognize myself in the characters, but ultimately I come to different conclusions than the authors because the god they talk about is not the God I know. I wish they knew who He really is. We must ask ourselves why these authors have such a bitter taste in their mouths about Christianity? We have everything to so with the problem and the solution.

Couldn't have said it better than Frances R. Havergal...

Take My Life and Let It Be

Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee;
Take my voice and let me sing,
Always, only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee;
Take my silver and my gold,
Not a mite would I withhold.
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in endless praise;
Take my intellect and use
Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it Thine,
It shall be no longer mine;
Take my heart, it is Thine own,
It shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store;
Take myself and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee

280 Boogie

The 280 Boogie is my favorite thing to do in Auburn. (Actually, it's in Waverly, but you know what I mean.) Simply put, it is an outdoor music festival where local vendors sell their products, and people of all ages and from all walks of life come to enjoy some of the best local music you'll ever find. And it's FREE which gets progressively more exciting the closer I get to graduation. The music is a bluegrass/folk/indy/mountain combination, meaning that just about every band has banjos, harmonicas, and vests. Original, rootsy, and raw is the flavor of sound. There are always a few people who end up hoola-hooping, which apparently is some sort of trend for these types of events. The only thing better than the music is the people. Families, old men without their shirts on, college students, local hippies, middle aged bums etc are some of the rustics that literally come out of the woodworks to be at the boogie. Folks spread out blankets, pull out their beers, and sway, clap, sometimes dance to the sounds of originality. It's a place where real people come to express their real selves with an uninhibited freedom that's only evoked with deeply original and colloquial music. These are the days that I'm glad I live in Auburn, Alabama.

What God Has Been Teaching Me This Week

Something happened this week that I was totally not expecting. Not only was I not expecting it, I expected the complete opposite of what actually happened. It was really difficult. I was caught off guard and was really shaken by it. My first reaction was "What do I do now? Where do I go from here? What s there to live for now?" Then I actually listened to myself and realized how much stock and I put into the situation. I was totally living for this thing and not for God. That's why when it fell apart I felt like my life was over.

In my head I knew that God was in control and that this was part of his plan that is good and perfect. I knew all these things. I knew the promises I had in Christ. What I didn't have was the feelings that go along with this head knowledge. But that was okay. SOmetimes God doesn't give us heart knowledge, just head knowledge. So without "feeling" it, I had to just act upon what I "knew."

Several good things came out of the situation.

1. I realized my idolatry and how easily my heart is captivated by things other than God.
2. I realized how disconnected from reality I was and how much I acted upon what my imaginations and fantasies were rather than what the truth was. I do this a lot.
3. I realized how prideful I have been in this area, and how much humility I need to express in this area.
4. I realized how insecure, self-conscious, FEARFUL I am. More on this later.
5.I realized how closed I am to other people about my emotions and what I am thinking about and feeling. I need to be honest, open, and genuine and willing to take risks. I need vulnerability that is only possible with COMPLETE confidence in the Lord.
6. I opened myself up to a few good friends and feel like we have a better, stronger friendship.
7. Opening up to people about this situation relieved me and made it easier to deal with.
8. I have been praying so much more and really trusting in the Lord. I feel closer to Him now than I have in a long time. This is what Paul means when he said "when I am weak, I am strong."
9. Because I have dealt with this situation well and brought it before the Lord he has blessed me with making the situation a whole lot easier than it could have been.
10. I am now beginning to feel okay about the situation and have a small amount of peace about moving on.

I'm sure I'll keep finding good things about this.

Sometimes I feel like God has screwed me over. Again, this is what I am "feeling," not what I know to be true. But feelings do count for something and should be dealt with not shoved under the rug and denied. I have told God this, to His face. He wants me to be honest with Him. I don't know why this happened or why it happened in the way it did, especially in the timing that it did. I probably never will. But God hasn't fed me to the dogs yet so I can only trust that He is good even when I don't feel it or when I don't understand it. There could have been other times and other ways that it happened, but it didn't happen those ways. There is a reason for this. It is good. I don't know the reason.

There are a few good things about the timing. The shock value made it easy to accept as truth and easy to begin to immediately change how I felt and thought. If I hadn't found out as soon as I did I might still be mislead.

I still hurt inside. It is still hard and will be hard. This situation is one that I will have to deal with a lot in the next month so I am just going to have to push on and rely on God's strength. I really have no idea where to go from here or what to do or what to feel or how to think or how to act. All I know is that God give you just enough light for your next step. That's all he guarentees. Sometimes he graciously provides light for the next few steps. This time he hasn't so I just have to take a step forward in the only light I have and wait for new light.

Some Bible verses that God has spoken to me through:

2 Timothy 1:7 "For God gave us a spirit not of FEAR but of power and love and self-discipline."

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Psalm 75:3 "When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars."

Lamentations 3:22-26 "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

Proverbs 31

About Fear and Boldness
I have realized a lot of how I act and what I do and don't do is controlled by my fear. My pastor said that what you fear the most is what controls you. This is so true for me. I am so insecure and afraid of what others think of me that I fail to live in boldness. My number one goal now is to not be intimidated, but to live in the confidence I have in God and to be bold and strong in him.

Good Words From William Cowper

"There is A Fountain Filled With Blood"

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.

You know those time when you thought someone really knew who you were and more than that that they actually cared, but then you found out that they didn't know you or care? That was my night.

Then I went to Fred's and it got better. But only a little.

Words

Faulker wrote a book called As I Lay Dying. In it one character says that "words are no good" and that they were invented by people who can't feel the meaning of the words so they have to make up words for the lack of feeling. Words are just "a shape to fill a lack." I think he was getting at the fact that when you love someone or when you are really afraid or really sad you don't need words for it because the feelings themselves are enough. They explain themselves. Words are for people who've never felt anything deeply enough to let the feelings be "unsaid." I couldn't agree more. This is a big deal because I really like words. My love language is verbal affirmation; words mean the world to me. To realize that words are still inferior to pure feeling is humbling, but Faulkner himself believed this, and he was one of the best American writers of all time. I think Faulkner is right because those times in life when I look at someone and we completely understand one another( and this doesn't happen much) it is a feeling that words just don't touch. It's a feeling to deep, to old for the newness of words. These feelings are as old as the earth itself, maybe older. Love, and I'm talking about intimate understanding and pure goodness, an entity Holy unto itself, is eternal because God is eternal and God is love.


On a completely different note, this song by The Weepies is currently my favorite. I woke up and baked a cake this morning and put this song on repeat. Pure bliss.

The World Spins Madly On

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you'd gone
and let the world spin madly on

Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on

I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I'm standing still

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on

I thought of you and where you'd gone
And the world spins madly on.


It doesn't sound as depressing as it looks. And actually it really is a beautiful song because of the words not despite them. I think maybe we all feel this way sometimes.

Shoes

You can tell so much about people by their shoes. Seriously, if there's one thing I look at when I'm trying to figure someone out or to analyze someone it's what they wear on their feet. People pose in other ways, with other clothing, but shoes are generally true to the person beneath.

Why I Decided to Blog

I like to write; I really do. Perhaps that is why I am majoring in English. I've tried to journal before and have been moderately successful. But a lot of times I get tired of journaling, and then I get caught up with how messy my handwriting is and how I leave out something that I mean to say earlier and it bothers me that my thoughts are out of order. Again, these quirks make me a great candidate for an English degree.

I think I'd enjoy writing more if I did it as a blog. That way I can separate the endless papers I write for class from writing about myself, my thoughts, my life. It will help me organize my thoughts. I am a very analytical person, and I need a way to process all the thoughts crammed into my head or it weighs me down.

I used to live life feeling like I had to separate my thought life from my everyday actions. I remember waiting for summer just so I could sit around and think all the thoughts I needed to think but never had time to think during school. That is such a bad way to live. Now instead of just doing the things I have to do like school (I have always been really driven in school and while being good at school is a blessing it is also a curse. More on this later I'm sure.) I'm learning how to carve out time to do the things I want to do like reading and biking and hanging out and learning guitar and spending time with God and, well, just plain thinking.

Furthermore, for the time being, I've decided not to tell anyone about this blog. I have always been really skeptical of blogs because, honestly, who cares what color you painted your bathroom or what trick you just taught your dog. But lately I've come across a few blogs that made me change (at least partly) my attitude towards it all and actually made blogging look appealing instead of making me roll my eyes. I'm sure eventually I'll tell my friends about this, but right now I need to know that my thoughts aren't being read by the entire world. I'm much to insecure for that. More on that later, too, I'm sure.

So, here's to taking time out of life's sometimes suffocating flow of activity to merely think about my thoughts!