heart.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23 keep |kēp|

verb ( past kept |kept|) [ trans. ] 1 have or retain possession of 2 continue or cause to continue in a specified condition, position, course, etc. 3 provide for the sustenance of (someone) 4 honor or fulfill (a commitment or undertaking) 5 make written entries in (a diary) on a regular basis

noun 2 archaic charge; control 3 the strongest or central tower of a castle, acting as a final refuge.

I think it is easy to forget to keep your heart.

When I was reading this verse in Proverbs the other night, I had to stop and think about why the author (namely, the Lord) was referring so much to the heart in general. And then I started noticing the word even more all over the Bible. It seems important.

I remember being in Jr. High at youth group when I was younger, sitting with all my other little seventh-grade girlfriends, and listening to a speaker imploring us over and over again to "guard your heart." We, thinking this was all incredibly romantic, would nod with our mouths half open and swear to only let our heart belong to Jesus for the rest of our lives. Not only was this a slightly twisted comprehension of what the speaker was trying to get across, but I think this whole attitude of ambivalence on one's heart posture has spilled over into the lives of many Christians today.

If you look at the definitions of the word "keep," you can see the intensity in which Solomon urges the reader to protect/keep/be aware/vigilant of his or her heart. Even the last explanation of keep as a noun, "the strongest or central tower of a castle, acting as a final refuge," shows how deep this should go. Now, I'm not just talking about "guarding your heart" in the realm of relationships/boys/romance/etc. (although it applies there too). I'm hashing out what the posture of a heart looks like on a day-to-day basis.

I picture myself, most days, like a balloon with a string unattached to anything. I just float around, sometimes bumping into walls, sometimes getting whisked upward in a great rush of air high into the sky, and sometimes losing all my helium and just floating down, an inch or two from the ground. Mindless. I'll just blow around wherever the wind takes me. There are so many of these times where I just live live live like a blob and don't tie myself down to a firm foundation. I don't keep the phone continually off the hook with the Lord (to quote the pastor at HopeCC, "Do you guys even know what that is anymore...like a phone and a hook? Back in the olden days, before cell phones, there was this cord that attached the phone to the receiver, and you had to hang-it-up when you were done").

I've found that the days where I have fear or am worrying about something continually are the days when I haven't checked in with God at all and have just let my heart fly around and do it's own thing all day. There is no vigilance. This very quickly leads to the believing of lies instead of living out of truth and the Lord's freedom.

Hopefully this all makes sense - I am sort of thought-dumping right now. This has officially become a ramble.

So. Hearts are crucial things. That's why they're talked about so much in the Bible. I am still working out in my head how the heart and mind and soul all converge into one (I will ask one day when I get to heaven, along with why we have toenails and other things). For now, I'm drawing things on my wrist to remind me about all of this because I forget things easily.

These bits of wisdom from Proverbs are getting craaazy deep.

Beginnings.

The busyness has started. But I am making a conscious decision to refuse to let it get to me. I've been back at home this summer, and here is something nice that just happened: Elsie moved in with me and my family! (But we only have three weeks left here - sad to leave family/excited for new apartment in Minneapolis). Since Student Development training started this week, I got to spend some qual time at Ndubs today with Kirsten and some other friends. It was just so good to be there and be with people all day.

All of this to say, I am excited/ready to be in community again. I learned a lot this summer. It was hard. Praise God.

Lauren

Washington state, etc.

Well, I've only been here officially for two days, but this is what I've noticed so far. People here are different. Observations:

1. Everything (i.e. everyone) is calmer here. No one seems to be in a terrible rush, and everyone is a bit quieter. When we came out of the Baskin Robbins in Olympia last night, I felt like my family had been yelling (even though we weren't). Isn't this how it is in England?

2. Everyone here is SO nice. Maybe it's just the places we've been to on the west coast so far, but I feel like any of the people I met on any given day, I could have easily hung out with that same night. They are that inviting.

3. The green movement must have started in this state. Two days here, and I've already heard about the politics (both sides), the timber that is being cut down, and have been bombarded with various green/Mother Earth products in various gift shops at every location we've stopped at.

4. Snoqualmie (via I 90) is the MOST epic place I have ever driven through in my entire life. Is there a grad school here?

5. Any foliage is double the size it is in Minnesota. There are vines and ferns everywhere, even in the urban parts. The millions of pine trees are 10x bigger and thicker.

6. 60% of the people here are in their 20's. At least from what I've seen.

7. You might think that everyone in the Seattle area is a drifter, about to go rock climbing, or a hitchhiker. That's just how they dress here.

8. Most of the news on TV is about things like logging trucks and rivers. Tonight we saw a headline about three people who fell over a waterfall?

9. They don't blast their air conditioning inside here. It's always a comfortable temperature whether it's ShopKo, a nice restaurant, or a gas station.

10. No bugs! No mosquitoes, no flies, nothing. We can leave the sliding door wide open, and it doesn't make a difference.

11. Amazing mountain views from every parking lot? Yes.

12. If I wanted to officially belong in the Seattle area, I'd probably have to get a tattoo. It seems to be required.

13. Best place to live in the country? (Mild winters, mild summers, seaside, mountain ranges everywhere, all the hiking/canoeing/etc. you could ever want, urban/rural life comfortably near each other, coffee all over the place). Could be.

Also, something completely off topic, but I've been thinking a lot about my friendships during this trip. This little blurb here is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves via The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. I love how Lewis/Keller shed light on this particular aspect of friendship. Makes me miss and appreciate my friends back home all the more and understand more fully what it is to have kinship with the Lord:

"C.S. Lewis was part of a famous circle of friends called the Inklings, which included J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, and also the author Charles Williams, who died unexpectedly after World War II. In his book, The Four Loves, Lewis wrote a striking meditation on his death in an essay entitled "Friendship":

'In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles [Williams] is dead, I shall never again see Ronald's [Tolkien's] reactions to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him "to myself" now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald...In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision are crying "Holy, Holy, Holy" to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have.'"

How I knew spring came each year.

Growing up, I could always tell when spring had arrived. And it wasn't because of the leaves on the trees or anything like that. I was picked up and dropped off at the same bus stop for most of my childhood, about nine years of it. I remember when the sunrise first became something to be liked. I was probably twelve, standing at the bus stop at 6:30am by the steel street-sign pole, and I remember thinking that it was romantic to watch a sunrise. Then two yellow buses rumbled by and the moment was over. These first ones were not to be boarded because one was for the public school and the other was a shorter bus used to pick up children who had disabilities and could not board the other type of bus. I was supposed to wait for the private school bus.

This was also the corner where we had lemonade stands as kids. We went all out, making big signs and providing Kool-aid and lemonade along with the occasional batch of cookies. It was served in Dixie cups of course. The neighbors were always very generous, and we made out with eleven dollars once. This also happened when we sold dandelions door-to-door. Now, when I see kids down at the corner, I always try and buy some lemonade. Support the cause. Part of growing up I think.

Some mornings, after spending too long fishing the raisins around in my oatmeal while watching Arthur, I was late for the bus. I ended up running down the street, my wet hair sticking to my cheek and my lunchbox flailing from my side, in order to make the bus on time. Some years the bus driver was grumpy and scolded me thoroughly, and some years he or she was nice and patiently nodded when I apologized.

It was in the afternoon when I could actually tell that the springs had come. Walking heel-to-toe, or singing (I sang a lot), I mostly concentrated on how I was about to get out of my plaid jumper/skirt/etc. (we wore uniforms) and the snack that awaited me inside as I walked the three hundred feet to my house. Each and every spring (before spring had arrived officially), without fail, there was always a smattering of Styrofoam peanuts piled along the part of the street that curved toward our house. And this was how I knew. Spring had officially come once the peanuts were there. Looking back on it now, I wonder if one of the neighbors simply received something annually in the mail and was just careless with their unpacking.

One year, when I was a bit older and more suspicious of strange things that I had believed in as a child, spring came late. It was mid-April before it stopped snowing, and I figured that there couldn't possibly be any Styrofoam peanuts to announce that spring had arrived by that point. But one afternoon, as I rounded the bend, there they were, lying in their terrific state, and all the magic came back. I still wonder how they were there, even so late in the month. The peanuts were always comforting to me. I remember thinking each year, "It's the peanuts. I knew they'd be here. Spring is coming!" It was always a hopeful time.

Sometimes I still look for them, if I happen to be home from college in late March or early April. I think I've missed them the last several years. But I've been going on walks more lately. So Spring Peanuts 2012, I plan on you. Then I will know it is spring for real.

I am now very aware.

I normally pray very simply. Something like a child being put to bed at 8:00 and then crawling out of bed at 8:03, padding down the hallway, and sliding through the doorway to ask for "a cuppa water first, please?" Not as though I am sneaking anything, but I don't dance around the point much. Lately, I am praying God would teach me how to pray. As I was driving around Lake of the Isles this afternoon, I realized that the Lord has been incredibly faithful lately and has answered some of my simple prayers most directly. So I decided to make a list:

• I prayed that I would find my keys (so I wouldn't have to pay $200 for a new key FOB). Kirsten found them under her couch.
• I prayed that I would sleep really well last night. I woke up nine hours later, and my head cold was gone.
• I prayed that Amy's classes would all line up so she could go to England. She found out yesterday that they do, and she has a plane ticket for August 29th. (Selfishly, I am a little sad). Not only that, but she can graduate on time too.
• I prayed that I could get work off on Saturday, so we could leave on time for Seattle. After much hoop-de-lah, a nice girl named Beth took my shift.

There are more than just these, but some of them are confidential. After seeing this, how could I not value prayer more than I do? I feel very aware of His listening. He loves so much like a father.

I feel very cared for this sunny and green afternoon.

PS. If you are in the mood for a personalized postcard this month, shoot me your address, and I'll send you a little something in the mail from WA. I've been in a letter-writing state of mind the last few weeks.

Lithosphere.

The sea flush shudders with thefractures of bone or animal husks, the lost furs. Only the edges uneasily cover themselves before the sweep of water. There is a dark space at the base of the tree, after the sand, where the hollows were found, and I treasured the blank, glazed leaves left over from a flare of a summer. (We shift to pitch the green.) The ash on the doorposts softened at noon, so I massed the arrowheads together, took down the flags, and brought the buckets meant for rainfall and other things back inside. There is a maturing of the deep, the soil is creaking an aged bond. We can’t help but pool the lake in our pockets and carry this hurtling reservoir in heaps past the branch cavities to the door.

What I buried is pressing to light.

© Lauren Bernhagen 2011

city muse.

When I was younger, Minneapolis always seemed as though it were in a sno globe to me. Except the seasons were switched - it was always summer, never winter in my mind. If you shook the globe, the entire city would convulse and all the houses would be thrown upward into the gold-blue sky and float lazily - upside down and sideways - until they settled back down gently into their proper places. The only traces of magic would be in the leaves and branches of the tree limbs that had grown together over top of some of the streets. This is what I think of when I see the city at sunset.

Tonight, as I was shooting out of the underground tunnel on 94 (I say shooting because I always feel like I'm in Star Wars or I, Robot when I can't change lanes, and everyone's suspended together in the orange lights for ten seconds), all the skyscrapers seemed extra stately and strangely lit with the sun. It had already set, but the summer light still cast everything in a creamy, glowing blue. All the streets were veins spreading out from the center, and I felt a part of something much more intricate and full of life than I usually do. The traffic pulsed outward, but we all felt pulled back in. Even before I left, the men sitting on the street curbs smoking cigarettes with dirty hands knew this and wanted to be there. It was too hot to stand or walk, and they were content to rest on the corners by street signs and fire hydrants in the blurry smog. I wanted to sit there with them myself, but instead I played soccer with some people in Uptown and got sweaty and my pants stuck to my legs. I drank two full glasses of lemon iced tea when we got back to the house.

I am looking forward to moving to Minneapolis this August.

seattle trip reading suggestions?

I have a small list of books compiled for the two-week trip out to Washington and back. Are there any other books that should be on this list? Here's what I have so far:

Radical by David Platt Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer O Pioneers! by Willa Cather Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

What others should I check out?

pilates-mom.

So I'm sure this post will seem unusual and out of the blue to every guy who reads it, but I know the ladies will understand. The Gap that I work at has four connected stores that stretch a couple hundred feet through the outdoor mall. Lately, they've been floating me around. I usually work in Adult or Gap Body, but the last couple of weeks, they've been sending me over to Gap Kids and my current favorite, Gap Baby. There are so many pregnant women who come there to shop.

Whether it's in the Maternity section in the back, the fitting rooms that connect Kids and Baby (where there is, for real, a pseudo baby bump that those who are expecting can try on), or if they are just there to pick out the tiniest of shoes and little one-piece outfits for their soon-to-be-arriving infants, the moms are all over the place.

I've noticed that most of these women are either in exercise-wear (Life Time Fitness is across the street) or they are with their own mothers. I have decided that when I am pregnant (if I ever get), I want to take pregnant-lady pilates classes. If your body is going to go through that kind of deformation, exercising on a regular basis has got to increase your chances of recovering. Don't you think? Also, I want to go shopping for pregnancy clothes with my mom. I know she will want to be a part of all of the hubbub and excitement of a new baby. And I want her there too. My mother knows a lot more about having a baby than I do (and she was a nurse!), and I can't wait to learn from her wisdom and care.

To any men who might not relate to these thoughts, if you had the anticipation of your body going through one of the most painful experiences known to mankind, you would think about it too.

These are just some things I was mulling over while I folded onesies at the cash rap today.

taking a stance.

It can be easy, as a college student, to take a neutral position on politics or not get involved at all. As a college student myself, I know all of the excuses: not enough time, too much to read, I have to go to work, I don't even care, etc. I've been convicted lately about the amount of effort I have put into caring about the future of America, and so this summer, I am making some changes so that I can be well-informed and understand what is actually going on in my home country and around the world. Here is my list: 1. Make BBC World News my home page (I did this earlier this year during the riots in Egypt, and I learned a lot fast)

2. Keep up with the different debates and speeches for the upcoming presidential election

3. Read up on all the candidates from both sides thoroughly and find out what they're really about

4. Research the current issues that are in question and discussion, especially regarding the presidency

A few nights ago, Mom, Amy, and I watched the Republican Presidential debate in New Hampshire on TV. Since President Obama is a part of the Democratic party and has only served one term, he is the automatic choice for that party. The Republican party, however, has seven candidates that are running, and if you didn't get a chance to see it yet, here is the debate. It is about an hour and a half long, but if you watch the three videos separately, it only takes a thirty-minute block of time for each. I suggest taking it in chunks. Very much worth it to be informed. (I'm posting the first two parts here, and the third can be found on YouTube. Start the video at 2:32).

It's easy to feel helpless and like you can't change anything. Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to offer and that my one, little vote couldn't possibly change a thing. I don't want to be oblivious like this. Sometimes I think the greatest thing we can do is simply CARE. I want to be passionately interested in justice and truth, and step up to impacting what goes on in this country. I want what's happening around the world to break through my calloused American culture and affect me.

So please, care with me.

Lauren

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYucaFkCHY&w=327&h=245]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHDtEPlpe-E&w=327&h=245]

cuddling.

This is not a post about college couples and how they cuddle. It is about an analogy that has completely changed my outlook on waiting. I am sitting in the atrium part of the R. H. Stafford Branch library right now (the part with all the trees and rivers) with a latte and a stack of books, and I am astounded at the amount of middle-aged men in business-wear that use this library and come to sit at the tables to work. I actually am always astounded by this at coffee shops in general, and I've been thinking about writing my Senior Seminar Psychology paper on it (either that or why people choose which bathroom stall in public restrooms and why. Still need to brainstorm more, clearly.)

Anyways, last night, we were sitting outside, watching the sun set behind the field (right before we went inside for apple strudel), and Kirsten explained this comparison that a mutual friend of ours, Megan, had told her. I know from experience that nannying provides a lot of time and angles to think about, and it seems that children always end up showing shades of the eternal in amazing, unexpected ways.

Here is the analogy: Imagine yourself holding an infant, rocking her gently up and down in the nook of your arm while you wait for the milk you are about to give her to warm up. The baby is screaming. No matter how much you try to soothe her with your words or dry her tears, she cries and cries, unable to understand the nourishment that is soon coming. "Baby shhh...I can't give you this milk as it is right now - it is too cold for you. I have to warm it up still. If you would just be calm, instead of screaming and flailing about, we could just... be... cuddling right now. I could hold you near me, and you would feel my heart, and you would be safe."

This is how I am with God sometimes. I generally find myself too busy wailing about my current setbacks and pain to really quiet down and listen to my Father's wisdom and just be close with Him. But this simile makes me want to sigh with relief. To understand that I can just rest is so peaceful and life-giving to me. He would just hold me if I let Him. What could be better?

Hope that today, you are understanding that you are the ransomed, and He is jealous for you and knows you better than yourself. Off to finish The Problem of Pain and start Cold Sassy Tree.

All my summer lovin, Lo

come on up to the house.

Here is a song for you to listen to. When I first heard it, I didn't understand what the chorus meant. Mostly because I didn't really pay attention. Then I heard it randomly play in several different places in a span of about three days (that's when I'm like, Okay, Lord). This world is not our home - our eternal house is with the Lord. The conditions in life are often prime for self pity and getting all wrapped up in fear or sadness.

I even catch myself getting caught up on where I have sinned and wallowing in that shame, and pretty soon, I end up worshiping that instead of Jesus. Sarah Jarosz hits this portion of my thought-life squarely when she sings, "Come down off the cross, we could use the wood...".

Anyways, this song makes me think of summer, peace, and the triumph we find in God. Makes me want to fight for joy.

Proverbs 17:22 A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbzASqc9Zqo&w=560&h=315]

Small.

To clear up some confusion, this is a creative writing piece I wrote for a class last semester. A regular essay takes a subject, states the central point, and supports it with two to three points of evidence. A lyric essay takes a subject and dances around the central point, never fully stating what the essay is about but circling its outer edges in fragments. This is a lyric essay. I thought about climbing inside of a tree bud yesterday. Everything would be damp and misting if I had: a rubbery birth green that I would pull up to my chin like a sheet. The weight of the vast happenings in my immediate living space had suddenly felt very thick and bulky that morning. Difficult. I was small enough, then - felt intimidated enough, in comparison to these great things, that I might as well have carefully crawled under the tongue of the leaf where it was smooth and guarded in the shade. In fact, I would have had the weather permitted. In my mind, my breathing would have been more secure I think - honeyed and methodically lyrical.

I was standing in the street, by the corner of Grand and South Oxford, when I first thought of it. The black-steel city lights were muted and had blinked off only an hour ago, and I felt the static from the late electricity just as I could feel that the TV was on in the family room all the way from upstairs as a child. I usually assumed it was a sixth sense I had.

You asked where I went that night three days ago when we were in the car and the spaces got all wide in my head and the lights on the top of the theatre flickered. I said that I didn’t have to tell anyone. And it was true because I didn’t, but I mostly said it so you would say that we were going home instead of out and throw all our unused napkins heavily into a garbage can. Families are such plaited things.

When I was six, or eight, or any of those ages when you can be completely unguarded and trusting, I used to sit in the backseat of the car while we drove through Minneapolis and watch the orange lights spot the black expanse and quiver as we went over the 35W bridge with a great rushing sound. That brown, velvety interior is the most secure place I can think of now. I could see that the safest locale for me was in a backseat, and so generally, I always volunteer to let others drive because trusting is a lot easier when that is one’s sole option. When we passed through the underground tunnels by the city yesterday, I felt like I was floating.  The downtown buildings grew in angles over my head, and it was right.

When I think of comfort I think of the night a lot because you don’t really need as much holding in the day.

Cummings wrote a poem about someone and said that the coolness of her smile was stirring of birds between his arms. He said this “in the woods which stutter and sing” (Cummings 8).

Pondering all of this, I felt very attached to the blue postal receptacle I was leaning on next to those morning streetlights. This road, flecked with sunspots and early-morning, grey light, was fastened in my mind as an insulated place. Mom, Dad, and I used to get waffle cones at the corner shop and walk along the back streets to look at the mansions. We’d finish them in the car, generally, while we were driving back by the old, abandoned Lowertown Depot and the stars were just poking through the sky. It was a compacting feeling. I was cased in snugly with my family.

Once I lay down in the middle of a crosswalk, like a scene from a book or a movie, and stared at the sky and looked at my fingers to see if they were normal. I always wondered what my hands looked like to other people. My dad has long fingers too.

In Francis Burnett’s book, The Secret Garden, Mary Lennox lives in India with her wealthy parents. Everyone in the village is dying of cholera: “During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone…Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty, though a partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and plates looked as if they had been hastily pushed back when the diners rose suddenly for some reason” (Burnett 3). She ends up drinking a leftover glass of wine, feels intensely drowsy, and wakes up to an empty house the next morning without a mother or father.

In the movie, Mary’s parents die in an earthquake, and she grabs a small ivory elephant off of the trembling nightstand and clinging to it, crawls under the bed until she is backed up against the wall in her bare feet and white, lace nightgown. Smaller places have always been safer. I wonder if all humans revert to this at some point: holding a pillow tight or leaning close to others. Dense, compact, near.

In Iowa, two weekends past, the first thing we noticed on 235 South at night was that the streetlights were wider and flatter. Everything looked crisp and very clean, like we were in one of those cities where you could get arrested for dropping your gum wrapper on the ground. We were one of three cars out at that sedated hour of the morning, and that was the only time it felt different, unsafe. I felt alarmed that everything was so empty and scattered so evenly. I was the one driving that time, though, and home was hundreds of miles away.

Little things are less threatening; I see this as a trend in all settings. Crime is higher in metropolis areas, babies like to be wrapped up tight, close to the body. Minor emotions carry less of a risk than loud, exploited ones. A tiny room has no blank space, I can see everything.

Small is safer, but then you’d never live.

deeper?

Yesterday, while turning out of Byerly's from an impromptu ice-cream run in the middle of the day, I turned the corner in my devilishly good-looking Buick LeSabre and came face to face with an older Sedan that appeared to be driver-less. It was smoggy and hot outside, and it wasn't until I got to the stop sign that I could more clearly see if someone was actually in the car or not. I thought about the stories I've heard of little kids accidentally getting behind the wheel. The whole thing seemed strange. Looking carefully out my left window, I saw that just an inch or so above the steering wheel, with his nose tipped up and his spectacles pulled down so he could see properly, an elderly gentleman was carefully making his way to the Walgreens' parking lot. He was the tiniest man I had ever seen. In the seat next to him, his equally tiny, elderly wife was peering over the dashboard right along with him.

It wasn't two blocks later before I saw another aged couple, shuffling and wearing pastels, walking haltingly with canes in their outside hands and grasping to each other with their inside hands. They seemed so satisfied, enjoying the shaded greenery over the sidewalk and each others' company.

The rest of the drive back, I thought about what love will be like at that age. Arriving at a stage in life when wisdom abounding and child-like contentedness intersect seems magnificent and scary to me. I know it is not always like this, but even when memories are fading and joints are failing, some of these couples are so tightly bound.

There are so many movies (ex: The Notebook) where the love story ends with the couple old and holding hands or rocking on the porch together in the twilight. It's cute, classic. Maybe a little stale. I think this is such an entirely limited view of what this type of connection is like after so many years.

I was almost back to campus when I started thinking of what listening to the Holy Spirit will be like when I'm in my eighties. And what I will think about the world. I probably won't care about fashion or fads very much. Maybe just my daily routine and Jesus and my grandchildren. (Even as I write this, I know I am generalizing terribly). I wonder if I will understand people in more intricate and different ways than I do now. I know the Lord will be a central vein in my life, but I hope I have a group of people to sit and sew with or go on walks with as I reach the oldest years. Parts of me have always feared growing old, but I know there's something that goes past all the physical and even mental failings. I can't quite articulate it yet, but I plan on talking with my grandma about it. And possibly the older gentleman who sits on the corner of Lincoln and Lydia most days to watch the traffic and the college students walk to class.

sometimes im a girl and i have a lot of feeelings.

If you've ever struggled with worry or anxiety in any way, shape, or form in your life, you know that it isn't a feeling you want simply to be put aside and labeled as insignificant. It can hide in the shadows and masquerade as mere concern or possibly stress. It can produce shame and further emotion, and then one ends up worrying about worrying. It can distort things and place an untrue shade of color on everything you feel and see around you. Tonight, this was me. I was standing in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, thinking about the next couple months of my life and feeling very out of control. Being sick is part of it. Everything seems worse when you're tired, I think.

I feel a bit awkward writing this post, like I'm a little girl admitting that I'm scared of monsters in the closet.

I have a lot to look forward to this year: two more months of summer, Seattle and Canada, a new small group at HopeCC, my SAC staff, camping with some high school friends over Labor Day, and a new apartment with three wonderful roommates (and a fourth in the spring, Kirsten!). Even tonight, when I punched out of work on the clock and walked outside, the sky was perfectly clear, and I smelled bonfire on the air. It was beautiful. I drove with the windows down all the way home.

But at the same time, there's a lot of unknowns right now. I feel like such a typical twenty-something, fearing the great big wide world. Actually, I'm not even scared of graduating and finding a job. It's all the other stuff in between, really.

Anyways, too many feelings. Everything is jumbled. I feel like Wendy in Peter Pan when she decides she's been in Neverland too long and that she and John and Michael need to go home, but at the same time, she really doesn't want to.

Torn, that's how I feel.

I feel too vulnerable in this blog. I might delete it. We'll see. It had to come out though, and sometimes it just feels good to be real.

regular oatmeal.

My writing professor told us once that all art, including writing, is merely a vehicle in which one tries to get a message across. She also said that if any writer looks back upon his or her writing over a great span of time (whether you be a poet, an author, a journaler in the quiet of your home, a blogger, or a post-it note writer) he or she will be able to see a trend in everything he or she has written. In her words, "We always write about the same things, over and over again. Regular oatmeal." I know this is true for me, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I don't really like it. It's difficult to write something fresh while having the weight of all the other writers in all areas of the world across all of the centuries on your shoulders. This is why my professor warned us at the beginning of the class not to write about kitschy things like breakups, spring, best friends, or katydids (the last is a large, typically green, long-horned grasshopper native to North America, and for some reason, it pops up in NWC students' short stories and poetry ALL the time).

Running out of ideas is typical. Writing a poem about writing a poem was something we talked about a lot. (Just like, for instance, the fact that I'm writing a blog about writing a blog). The best was when people would write about a desk or about a pencil or about the shape of the keys on their computer keyboard. This happened to me one time, and I wrote about the kitchen wall. When blogging, sometimes my thoughts come barreling out like a freight train, and other times, I consider closing this blog up for good because of lack of relevant or interesting content.

Another thing that every writing professor has told me is that writing needs to be practiced - just like an instrument or painting or dance; therefore, "you should write something everyday." Even if it's small or insignificant. Or completely uninteresting.

I don't know how I feel about experimenting with this on my blog. I might. But I'm blogging about it now, so that must be a start.

Dust.

Woke up this morning feeling very grateful that the Lord knows how much I am merely dust. Human bodies are so frustrating sometimes. I read Psalm 103 last night: 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him

At the same time, I read this contrast in Mere Christianity by Clive, and I feel the weight and magic of the combination: "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." Living in the balance between these two is what the battle is all about. Knowing I have the Holy Spirit within me (a power that can level both the force of angels and demons) makes me want to fight harder and strive even more.

When we went to see The Screwtape Letters at the Pantages Theatre downtown, the most affecting line for me in the entire show/book was when Screwtape (the head demon) was writing to his nephew (a less-important demon) about one of the main ways the devil affects humans: "It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out." It is easy for me to get up, make my coffee, and mindlessly drone through work/school/homework/meetings with friends/etc. without giving further thought to the unseen realms all around me.

I want to be bolder, less afraid, more honest with myself and more passionate. I want to pursue after God and be a "woman" after His own heart. I want to take those peaceful moments in the morning and thoroughly search myself and listen for Him instead of wasting time around the house, sitting on Facebook, or watching BBC. This isn't to say that He isn't involved in these things too or that He isn't with me while I write to a friend or watch a man with a British accent cook food outside by a cottage (Els). But I desire the quality, quiet moments. I know this will take more practice. I feel impatient.

Ever processing, Lo

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zoAhKNwnfQ&w=360&h=270]

tribes.

I've been thinking a lot about the Israelites lately. About what it would have been like to travel with a tribe of people more "numerous than the stars in the sky" and live my daily life as a nomad amidst thousands of people in a tightly knit community. So much so that, last night, I dreamt about a tree that had large clusters of grapes hanging from it just like in the Promised Land. I didn't realize they were grapes, though, when I was far away - they simply looked like large, dark purple spheres suspended from the branches. It wasn't until I was closer that I realized they were bunches of colossal, lush grapes. I've always read about the Israelites in the context of their wanderings in the desert in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. It always seemed pretty point-blank, and I would generally see it from a sky view in my mind; I'd picture the tribes from above - small oatmeal-colored dots kicking up plumes of red dust with their sandaled feet amidst beige, animal-hide tents and camels. I'd picture the dunes covered with manna some mornings, white like flowers, and I'd always picture that classic painting of Moses with his white beard flowing in the wind while majestically holding the two tablets that listed The Ten Commandments.

Lately, however, I've been wondering what daily life was like. I'm sure there's a class specifically on this at NWC, and if so, I would love to take it. I keep thinking about the culture and how they cooked their food and what their relationships looked like. Did they have their own marketplace, amidst the traveling, to sell their wares or did they simply share everything? Did they gather around great bonfires at night to dance and worship the Lord and socialize or were things more solemn than that? I wonder especially what life then would have been like for a girl of my age. Maybe at twenty-one, I would have already been married for six years and have several children of my own, or maybe I would be tending to the sheep and drawing water from the river each day to help out the rest of my family. Would the Lord have spoken to me? Like when Elijah saw the wind and the earthquake and the fire pass by, but the Lord was not in any of them - He was in the gentle whisper. One so overwhelmingly potent with God that Elijah had to throw his cloak over his face. Or would I have seen the Lord as a pillar of fire and seen His power rumbling outwards in great swells of black smoke on top of the mountain?

Maybe I would have snuck out, under the cover of night, to swim with my friends in the Red Sea or sit near the coast and feel the hot wind on my face while I talked with Him. I wonder if I would have woven clothes and blankets or if I would have known how to strip and de-gut an animal. I wonder what my dreams would have been like and how I would have handled emotions and love and deep grief. I suppose that even amidst that kind of kinship and clan, there were still many people who felt lonely or awkward or out of place too. I bet my feet would have always been caked in dust and dirt, maybe even animal poop.

I bet everything was caked in dust.

I always thought of the desert as filled with a dry, sandy kind of silt - the kind that just slides right off once you splash water on it. But maybe it was a brick-red, clay dust - the kind that stains everything and makes cleanliness difficult (shows how much I know about Middle-Eastern deserts). I bet the women hated being dirty all the time. Or maybe they just got used to it and didn't even notice. I bet the men loved it...I always feel like men feel a little more masculine when they are covered in dirt or grime.

Anyway, I am praying that God would give me eyes to see these people as more than the simplified, flat characters placed on the felt storyboard in my second-grade Sunday School class. They had lives that were not only epic but often monotonous too. They each met the Lord in different ways, and they felt passion and anger and joy in all the intensity as any human would - maybe more so.

I have lots of thoughts on this. More might come out.

Sincerely,

Lauren

Coffee?

Been very monotonous in my coffee choices lately and would love some new suggestions. I'm needing to revamp my habits.

there can be joy.

I have been feeling very blessed by some of the sweet friendships in my life this last year. One of the greatest purposes of the church body is not only for the members to encourage each other but also to sharpen one another. I am very grateful for these friends who have not only called me out on things but have reminded me about deep love, joy, and peace from the Lord. I rode around Afton for some time with Amy this morning while she picked up job apps and coffee, and I couldn't help but feel on the cusp of something as we talked about our futures and the things we were dreaming about for the next few years and how God could change all of it for better or different. (Side note - I just opened my window to hear the rain better, and there is a cool, water smell all over the room now.) I felt the same way tonight when Els and I were sitting on the brown couch downstairs discussing monotonous days at work and her adjusting to working at the zoo and how it really is impossible to know everything there is to know about penguins and money-sorting and front desks in the first two weeks of the job. She told me how working at the zoo each day is different from going to the zoo only once or twice in a year and that there is so much more to notice: double-decker strollers, hundreds of different kinds of parents and their children, uncommonly known facts about Chloe, the two-toed sloth, and her absence at the zoo (they are currently mating her with another two-toed sloth named Stephano - what could be better than little two-toed sloth babies?)

All of this played a part in the prompt I feel now. There is so much in life to see and understand. I feel as though my heart has been in a constant mode of change this last week - like I am very much a lump of clay, and I am very much being whittled and formed, and it isn't always pleasant. It seems different to me now, though.

I am learning that, each morning, I can wake up and choose the joy that the Lord freely offers me, or I can choose to see only through my fleshly eyes and feel things through my fleshly reactions. There is great freedom in this, and I am now looking forward to some of the more uninteresting and repetitive things in my life like work and closet organizing and the mass of boxes I am sorting through in the garage (everything is being cleaned out right now). There is stuff to learn from Jesus even from the smallest points of my life.

These are just some things I've been thinking about. Hope this encourages you if you've been feeling as though you lack hope as of late.