People are fragile things. You should know by now.
My life hasn't been nice 'n flowy enough lately to merit a long entry. If I look back over the vast majority of this semester, all I see are glimpses and moments and fragments of, I'm guessing, something larger. It's much like someone out there is channel surfing my life.
At church last night, I stumbled across something I'd written in my Bible ages ago. There was, most likely, nothing fantastic about these two sentences when I wrote 'em. Probably something I just wrote in there because I liked how I crafted the diction of my passing thought. I probably finished writing and then wondered why I wasted ink.
But, last night these sentences cut my heart deep. It was like getting a note from my past self who knew EXACTLY what was going on NOW and knew just the right words to encourage me.
I want someone, anyone-- a friend, a romantic interest, a stranger on the street-- to listen to me talk and hear both the words from my mouth and all I'm wanting to say but fail to vocalize. It's a sobering thought that that person just might be me....
Maybe foreshadowing is a real-life phenomena.
I dunno.
None of what I write here may actually have a concrete, manageable point.
There are a lot of broken-hearted people out there. "A lot" is an understatement. Everyone has a history of offenses to their hearts, minds, bodies, souls... we carry these offenses like a hand of cards, which we fan out for the willing listener, simply to justify our behavior. If we can make our listeners see, understand-- THEN we would be understood. THEN we can, in a sense, be excused-- our behavior cannot be our fault, the fault MUST lie in the past circumstances that shaped us, and that MUST be explained to our audience.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm searching for answers for complex, intangible questions, and succeeding in nothing more than frustration.
... But I'd like to see what it looks like for someone to put away their hand of cards and live un-apologetically for themselves. I need some pointers in that species of courage.
I'm getting real tired of all these self-involved people who can't see past their own skin... and yet I am just as guilty of it. I walk around campus, work, town, church and wonder whether I'm actually noticed... whether or not my terrible suspicion that people are actually more concerned about themselves to really see is true.
How should I use my invisibility? For evil? Or to fight crime?!
Last night, around 11pm, I sat with my roommate in front of the laundry room upstairs and talked about our lives and God and our surroundings... sometimes she says things that blow me away. She's not going through easy times right now... life is harder than she really lets on, and yet she said to me something to the ring of, "Looking at it all a few steps aside... I haven't been really worried or stressed about anything that important. I'm really very lucky. Probably more lucky than I'll ever grasp".
Each human cell has six feet of DNA. Think about that. Each CELL has six FEET of DNA!
I love being a youth leader. I love walking into that building, knowing full well how much work is in store for me, and knowing that that place is exactly where I want to be. The initial problems I had with the program have smoothed over, and not because I've been domesticated.
While we're on the subject, I have a 17-year-old friend. She's all too often lumped into one of two oppressive categories-- the "in need of Jesus-ly salvation" pile... or the pile of lost causes. She fits neither mold, and I love that she can prove to me how wrong everybody else is about her.
I love it when ANYONE can disprove a bad public image to me.
Bowling balls that are eleven pounds or lighter float in water.
Newly Single Pre-Med Meghan and I had a good talk today in organic chemistry lab today. Her M.O. has always been to only talk to me when her pre-med friends weren't around. Not a healthy friendship, but I don't lose sleep over it. Now that her four year relationship is suddenly over, she's lightened up immensely. We worked side by side today dealing with dangerous chemicals in an automatic, robotic fashion... yet with a grace that is only developed through extensive work, and we talked about nothing in particular, yet in my head I couldn't stop but think about Pulp Fiction and the amazing dialog that always took place between John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson-- because that's what our talk was channeling.
I could go on, but to make a long nearly-pointless blog short[er]-- I'm really very happy right now. My life, though in need of a tune up or two or hundred, is blessed life. I can't explain very well what the cause of this calm joy is, as I don't really know. But seriously-- I don't even want to take the effort to analyze.
Chicken Soup for You Reading This Soul take- home message: Life is beautiful and not devoid of hope. You can see it in the little quirks.
It takes work and a long time to figure out how to extract joy out of life.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one that thinks we're taking ourselves to seriously!" --Against Me.
At church last night, I stumbled across something I'd written in my Bible ages ago. There was, most likely, nothing fantastic about these two sentences when I wrote 'em. Probably something I just wrote in there because I liked how I crafted the diction of my passing thought. I probably finished writing and then wondered why I wasted ink.
But, last night these sentences cut my heart deep. It was like getting a note from my past self who knew EXACTLY what was going on NOW and knew just the right words to encourage me.
I want someone, anyone-- a friend, a romantic interest, a stranger on the street-- to listen to me talk and hear both the words from my mouth and all I'm wanting to say but fail to vocalize. It's a sobering thought that that person just might be me....
Maybe foreshadowing is a real-life phenomena.
I dunno.
None of what I write here may actually have a concrete, manageable point.
There are a lot of broken-hearted people out there. "A lot" is an understatement. Everyone has a history of offenses to their hearts, minds, bodies, souls... we carry these offenses like a hand of cards, which we fan out for the willing listener, simply to justify our behavior. If we can make our listeners see, understand-- THEN we would be understood. THEN we can, in a sense, be excused-- our behavior cannot be our fault, the fault MUST lie in the past circumstances that shaped us, and that MUST be explained to our audience.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm searching for answers for complex, intangible questions, and succeeding in nothing more than frustration.
... But I'd like to see what it looks like for someone to put away their hand of cards and live un-apologetically for themselves. I need some pointers in that species of courage.
I'm getting real tired of all these self-involved people who can't see past their own skin... and yet I am just as guilty of it. I walk around campus, work, town, church and wonder whether I'm actually noticed... whether or not my terrible suspicion that people are actually more concerned about themselves to really see is true.
How should I use my invisibility? For evil? Or to fight crime?!
Last night, around 11pm, I sat with my roommate in front of the laundry room upstairs and talked about our lives and God and our surroundings... sometimes she says things that blow me away. She's not going through easy times right now... life is harder than she really lets on, and yet she said to me something to the ring of, "Looking at it all a few steps aside... I haven't been really worried or stressed about anything that important. I'm really very lucky. Probably more lucky than I'll ever grasp".
Each human cell has six feet of DNA. Think about that. Each CELL has six FEET of DNA!
I love being a youth leader. I love walking into that building, knowing full well how much work is in store for me, and knowing that that place is exactly where I want to be. The initial problems I had with the program have smoothed over, and not because I've been domesticated.
While we're on the subject, I have a 17-year-old friend. She's all too often lumped into one of two oppressive categories-- the "in need of Jesus-ly salvation" pile... or the pile of lost causes. She fits neither mold, and I love that she can prove to me how wrong everybody else is about her.
I love it when ANYONE can disprove a bad public image to me.
Bowling balls that are eleven pounds or lighter float in water.
Newly Single Pre-Med Meghan and I had a good talk today in organic chemistry lab today. Her M.O. has always been to only talk to me when her pre-med friends weren't around. Not a healthy friendship, but I don't lose sleep over it. Now that her four year relationship is suddenly over, she's lightened up immensely. We worked side by side today dealing with dangerous chemicals in an automatic, robotic fashion... yet with a grace that is only developed through extensive work, and we talked about nothing in particular, yet in my head I couldn't stop but think about Pulp Fiction and the amazing dialog that always took place between John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson-- because that's what our talk was channeling.
I could go on, but to make a long nearly-pointless blog short[er]-- I'm really very happy right now. My life, though in need of a tune up or two or hundred, is blessed life. I can't explain very well what the cause of this calm joy is, as I don't really know. But seriously-- I don't even want to take the effort to analyze.
Chicken Soup for You Reading This Soul take- home message: Life is beautiful and not devoid of hope. You can see it in the little quirks.
It takes work and a long time to figure out how to extract joy out of life.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one that thinks we're taking ourselves to seriously!" --Against Me.