this was written in january.

Didn't make the original cut and has been cleverly hiding in my drafts for a while.  Today was a beautiful and horrible day. Moods really can change you're whole outlook on life. so can people. I must say, earthly bodies are so frustrating sometimes. It's been one of those days...lovely in many ways but filled with time constraints, difficult conversations, overheated coffeeshops (we were sweating...my jeans were literally sticking to my legs), previous engagements, persistent dispositions, and a general discontentment.

But as I was walking down to Maranatha to set the stage for that night's production, the Lord had some words for me. The woods were empty and beautiful to my left, and the sky was coherent and simple.

"See my creation?" the Lord was saying, "Don't let the things of this world affect how you conduct yourself or how you love life."

And that's all He said. It felt like the pent-up, tension sort that I had been all day was melting into the sidewalk as I walked.

fire pages.

I will read ashes for you, if you ask me.I will look on the fire and tell you from the gray lashes and out of the red and black tongues and stripes, I will tell how fire comes and how fire runs far as the sea.

[Carl Sandburg]

lustvanity.

This is legit. In my worldviews class today, my professor revealed the most profound facet of immorality to me. At the beginning of the hour, he passed out blue sheets for the men and pink sheets for the women which stated:

The greatest sin that men struggle with is: _____________________ The greatest sin that women struggle with is: _____________________

We handed them all back in anonymously and he read each paper off out loud to the class. We all decided on a generalized, median word for each group. The tally stood:

Men  => (according to) Men: lust Men => Women: lust Women => Women: vanity  Women => Men: ? 

Without a doubt, most everyone wrote down some sort of sexual sin or lust for men. Women for women wrote down all different forms of vanity: gossip, comparison, slander (which is really to put someone down in order to bring yourself up), and skewed visions of body image. Men for women stated an entire range of sins...everything from honesty to lust to contempt to being catty. The class decided to state that it was pretty clear that men have a hard time pinpointing a specific sin on the female gender.

We discussed the logistics of the results...the professor kept the discussion open-ended about why it is commonly assumed that men struggle with lust and it is a bit harder to understand what women struggle with. He wasn't by any means saying that men are more sinful than women, simply that it was puzzling why men's most common sin is blatantly blown up before the church and women's most common sin is not.

And then there was the conclusion that floored me. Somehow it had just been a disconnect in my mind:

Neither of these two deeds was originally created to be a sin...

Lust and vanity are deformed, immoral versions of two beautiful characteristics that are mainstays for marriage.
You see, within the context of marriage, the desire for sex and a need to take care of yourself & try to look your best is essential. The Lord made us that way. Without a man pursuing this kind of intimacy and without a woman taking delight that her beauty is being pursued, these weighty ingredients of marriage would be obsolete and possibly cause much harm. We weren't created for for lust and vanity. We were created for the original atlas of marriage that the Lord laid out. Love instead of lust, humility instead of vanity. It's as if these glorious images were stenciled, punched out, and xeroxed into grotesque and disfigured shapes. And we've gone so far as to assume that these clashing elements are similar to each other. Love is not lust...they cannot compare.

It would make sense that Satan would want to take these amazing notions and twist them into ugly, tangled things.

meddling.

You may move the hands of a clock to suit you, but you do not change the time. You can open a rosebud before its ready, but you'll ruin the flower. Leave all to Him. Hands down. Thy will, not mine.

Stop poking at things. 

mumford & sons.

Current favorite: If you haven't already...check them out.

bad day at work.

Today was the day when the angry customer decided to take out her bad day on the cashier girl.

two beautiful works.

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near.
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose.
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing.
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

                      e. e. cummings


http://www.myspaceplaylists.com/mc/trackplayer.swf

i didn't know it meant so much.

After being in the San Juan, Puerto Rico airport for five hours, I think I love Minneapolis more then any city in the world. Mostly because it's mine. And especially because it's familiar. Our tickets to board the Sun Country plane said we were to board at gate 27. After about two hours of waiting, milling about, sitting on the floor, various bathroom breaks, changing clothes in preparation for Minnesota cold, reading, and sleeping, a voice came over the loudspeaker and announced something indistinguishable.

"What did he say?" we all asked, looking to a group of women sitting next to us on the floor. One woman shrugged. "I don't know, I think something about moving to gate 26."

Confused, we gathered our things and moved toward Gate 26 across a hall and in the next room. As soon as we rounded the corner, we could see the orange and blue Sun Country symbol on a plane outside Gate 28. So where to now? My dad attempted to talk with a man at the desk (the only employee anywhere in sight), but he mainly answered our English questions in Spanish. when he did announce things over the intercom in English, bless his heart, but he had a lisp, and we could not understand anything he was saying. It was ridiculous. (I can say this because I was a lisper myself as a child.)

A few hours later, we got on a plane. Another hour later, we took off. Then we flew six hours.

When we arrived in the cities at 10 PM, I couldn't have been happier. Or felt more at peace when we walked off the plane into a nearly vacant airport. When we were wheeling our bags through the skyway, I felt like hugging the stranger walking towards me, simply because he was from Minnesota. When we walked out the automatic doors in the parking ramp, the air smelled cold and sweet instead of muggy. Things were motionless at last. When we were driving in the taxi, all I could do was stare out the window at the city lights and the straight streets and the clean driving and feel like I was home.

that's why i hold.

And after the storm, I run and run as the rains come and I look up on my knees and out of luck, I look up.

Night has always pushed up day but I won't rot, not this mind and not this heart.

midmorning march 2

there is much. 

going home with elsie to her place up north in duluth
over spring break, and i couldn't be more excited.
she is such a sweet spirit and my ARD for next year,
so why wouldn't i want to spent gobs of time with her?
wutke has decided she wants to be
an au pair in england this summer. or ireland maybe.
and she actually applied, so i guess i better grab my suitcase
and pack some antique things, fancy lip balms,
and white, down bedding.
this week, physiological psychology is kicking my butt. 
work is picking up. everyone and their brother
has a comp 2 paper to go over. which i don't mind,
i actually like editing.
getting into planning our room for next year.
my future roomie amy and i have been
documenting window curtains, shower curtains, and wall art.
speaking of amy,
she's really sick right now.
she threw up 4 times and then passed out in her
bathtub. you should pray for her,
even if you don't know her. thanks.
i only get sick for one evening at a time;
i get a fever, sore throat, tender nodes,
the whole shebang,
and then i'm better by morning.
i have an extremely resilient body i think.
feeling very inclined to start my lit & writing major soon.
having to wait until next semester though.
news flash: i only have four more classes
and i officially have completed my psychology degree.
been very monotonous in my coffee choices lately
and would love some new suggestions.
im needing to revamp my habits.
the Lord has been intricately weaving occurences
together for me lately. it's actually been really unorthodox.
five days until we fly out. feeling a bit caged
and can't wait much longer.
nina stated yesterday: "i wonder where all the lost things go."
this is quite the thought, that i think requires it's own post. 
have been contemplating that perhaps every
negative response has a corresponding
reason or wound from the past.
like how you really hate being interrupted,
or how being ignored, even a little,
immediately brings you to tears.
maybe i'm just getting carried away with
psychoanalyzing people who are close to me,
but i think this might be legit.
alright, enough of these short, fragmented sentences;
things are beginning to overlap.
all my love, lo.

i never thought about it like this before.

This is an excerpt from David Batstone's book Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade - and How We Can Fight It:  We have arrived at a momentous stage in the struggle for human freedom. The curtain has gone up, and the future waits for what unfolds. 

All of us wonder how we would have acted in the epic struggles of human history. Would we have stood up and been counted among the courageous and the just?

How would we have responded in 1942 when Nazi soldiers came to our door in pursuit of our Jewish neighbors? Would we have been the collaborator who reveals to the soldiers where the Jews on our block might be found? Or would we have played the role of the spectator who pleads ignorance, minding our own business and watching the drama unfold from our front room window? Or might we have dared to act as an advocate, giving our neighbors shelter in our attic or helping them escape across the border? 

Would we have stood up and been counted among the just? 

esther - by esterlyn

University Avenue in Minneapolis is the most widely prostituted street per capita in the whole nation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified Minneapolis as one of 13 cities with a high concentration of criminal enterprises promoting juvenile commercial sexual exploitation.  The paint's peeling off the streets again and I drive and I close my eyes and I feel nothing, not brave. It's a hard day for breathing again. 

But there is hope in the Lord.  

bushed.

I would give my left arm to take a nap right now.and sleep for a day straight.

blessed are those who mourn.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort
than be comforted, to understand than to be
understood; to love than to be loved; for it is by
forgetting self that one finds; it is by forgiving that
one is forgiven; it is by dying that one awakens
to eternal life.


- St. Francis of Assisi 

When all seems fairly lost and you are lower in spirit than ever before, invest in others...and your light will rise in the darkness [Isaiah 58:7-11].

forget [fer'get] verb - trans: fail to remember.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bought a $1 mini grow-your-own flower pot kit of forget-me-nots a couple weeks ago. It came with this little pattie of soil that magically grows when you pour a couple tablespoons of water in the pot...it seriously was fascinating to watch. Brie and I just stared at it for like three minutes straight as the dirt bubbled and expanded. Anyway, so the directions said to put a maximum of ten seeds in the soil (I think this is because the roots would get tangled if there are any more than that)...but, since I had a great lack of faith in my flower-growing abilities, I dumped probably close to twenty in.

I think this may have been a poor decision. With great joy, I awoke yesterday morning to find fifteen little sprouts reaching towards the window. They were so fresh and green, I made Brie get off the couch and come look. I was so proud.

Good news: they look healthy. Bad news: I hope they don't all kill each other as they take over the pot. I'm going to need a babysitter for this plant over break (March 4-14) to mediate any possible quarreling, any takers?

put to sea.

Okay so this isn't anything terribly deep or weighty, but I just got this picture of a ship stuck in my mind the other day when I was thinking of my life. Ha that's a bit trite. I think this is a very normal reflection.

I have like three really important decisions that I find out about soon and will basically change the direction of my life a bit. I've been waiting on the Lord and putting my hope in Him, but that doesn't change the fact that when "it" doesn't go quite the way I planned, things get a little sticky.

Hence, my brainpicture of the ship.

When you are sailing straight forward, it's easy. You have momentum, you can plan ahead, everything is unwrinkled and effortless. But when you need to change direction (or the Lord decides that your life needs to change direction), it takes A LOT of effort to turn the obstinate wheel. It takes much strength, it's usually hard, you strain and sweat and muscles shake. But once you have turned and have begun the new course, the sailing is smooth.

The turning will probably be hard. It'll probably hurt a little. I'm a stubborn wheel.

But I believe the Lord's guidance...and that I'll end up where He wants me when it's done if I turn when He tells me to.