Oh, internet, lately you are making me really sad.

It seems as though no matter where I may be roaming through the interwebs, I'm pleasantly enjoying myself until -- wham! -- suddenly I stumble over a spike of anti-Christian vitriol.

And then I just sit there and feel... not angry, or even very offended -- just really, really sad.

Yes, it bothers ( Read more... )

The interesting and quite possibly lovely thing about 2009 is that, sitting here now with my gigantic mug of coffee and my fairy lights glimmering over the frosty window, I am not counting the moments until this year is gone and I am out of it. 2009 was full of ups and very deep downs, lots of snarls and tangley bits, times when I didn't feel in ( Read more... )

So: SATs. Mostly good, I think: again, I had the weird sensation of half enjoying them, although it wasn't as fun this time because I spent half the test trying to calm myself down and let go of the fact that I did not finish my twenty-five minute essay. (This is partly my fault -- I am nothing if not long-winded -- and partly the teacher's fault, ( Read more... )

Things I am thankful for ( Read more... )

I've been thinking about this for several days, especially since I've been digging through colleges again and trying to understand how I can fit the things I want so badly to study into one interconnected whole. So, here it is:

I want to major in Story.

Watching this beautiful, beautiful video from Ukraine's Got Talent clinched it for me -- because ( Read more... )

I remember, back in the days when my family's life was pretty bleak*, my mother used to say: God is good. All the time, God is good: because He is, as a fact, not a trait, not something He's doing right now, not because He just did something noticeable for you -- in the slums, He is good, and in the starlight, He is good; when you weep, He is good ( Read more... )

I think that every year in recent times I have been thinking, as one year passes into another, that I am tired. I try to make resolutions, but they tend not to go very well. I hope for every year to be better than the one before it: and in many ways this turns out to be true -- if it's not better, it's deeper, higher -- and yet every better year ( Read more... )

What I can say is this: it's been an intense year. I can't tell when I taste if the sweet or the bitter is the stronger. But I'm not sorry to see it go. I'm weary of optimism -- but I'm an idealist; I can't help it.

It's blank parchment. I like to think of turning the page and finding one without any mistakes on it yet.

I thank you, o God, for stars and snowfall, seashores, skyscrapers, semi-colons, black ink on white paper, skirts against my ankles, running barefoot to see the moon, bicycling, late-night conversations, papers on foreheads, flickering screens, words & stories, music festivals, kith & kin, a pen in my hand, a warm oven, sunsets and thunderstorms, ( Read more... )

Today I came online to discover that Madeleine L'Engle has died.

And I wept.

Is it silly, is it possible to love someone whom you have never met, who has never met you?

I don't think that I have ever felt so deeply and personally connected to a writer's work as I am to hers. As I wrote some time ago, "There are some writers, you know, who you love ( Read more... )