(no subject)
It's beautiful here . . . 80 yesterday, 70's today . . . and the green grass is poking through and I bet in a few weeks we'll be slaving over the prolific 2 1/2 acres of bermuda.
Daddy's home from Sweden! We all love having him back, needless to say. He got to visit some relatives of ours while he was over there; they requested that he come back again and bring us with him. :-) Maybe someday I will be able to visit all my relatives in Sweden, on both sides of the family. That'd be cool. Anyone care to join me? :-) You don't have to be a Swede, just good company with lots of money. ;-p
I think I'm going to WA/ID and DC/VA this summer--two different summer camps! I can't believe it's almost time for summer vacation...that means graduation is right around the corner. :-\ I'm not sure if I want to graduate, you know? That means I have to grow up and be responsible. I really don't want May 3rd to come--I wonder if we can skip that day? I like being irresponsible, passionate and crazy. :-) 18 sounds so...old. :-)
Speaking of graduation, I applied to OSU and am waiting to hear back from them. It might be a while since they get a lot of applications in Feb-March. If I go there in the fall I'll just take basic classes to get out of the way. That means I can stay a whole 'nother year at home! :-D OSU's about 45 minutes south, so hopefully there won't be any early morning classes. :-\ IF.
I went the Oklahoma Blood Institute the other day and donated blood. That was an experience. But definitely worth it. And I got to share with someone why I wanted to give blood. :-)
I have more voices in my head: carpe diem. We pray for opportunity, to be used: God gives us opportunity to be used. We sit back and contemplate whether or not to seize the opportunity. And by the time we've finished contemplating, begrudgingly admiting to ourselves that we probably *should* seize the opportunity, the opportunity has flitted away like the summer breeze. Why?!
I don't know. :-D I think it's a rhetorical question.
While I'm on the contemplative note...think a little about what Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his The Brothers Karamazov. What an incredible writer he was.
"Life is a paradise; we all live in paradise, although we don't want to see it. As soon as we are willing to recognize it, the whole world will become a paradise; it could happen tomorrow, any time."
"The very greatness of the story lies precisely in its mystery--here fleeting, earthly reality confronts eternal truth. Just as in the first days of creation when the Creator, at the end of each day, paused to admire His work with the words, "Taht which I have created is good!"--so in this story He looks at Job and again praises His creation. And Job, when he praises the Lord, serves not only Hi but His whole creation, for generations and generations, forever and ever, for that is what he was foreordained to do....and so God raises Job up and gives him back his welath and many years pass. Job again has children, new children, whom he lvoes. But how can he possibly love these new children of his when the others are no longer there, when he has lost them? Can he be completely happy when he remembers his dead children, however dear to his heart his new children may be? But he can be happy, he can know happiness again, because a mysterious process gradually transforms an old grief into a quiet happiness; seething youth is replaced by gentle and serene age. Every day I bless the rising sun and my heart sings to it as it did before; but now I love the sunset even more,a nd its long, slanting rays bring back to me quiet, touching, tender memories, dear faces, and images from my long and blessed life. Over everything there hovers the Lord's truth and justice that moves our hearts, reconciles everything, and is all-forgiving!"
"What good is the Word of Christ without an example? A nation is lost without the Word of God, for every human soul thirsts for His Word and for the good and the beautiful."
"In order to change the world, man's way of thinking must be changed."
"Today everyone asserts his own personality and strives to live a full life as an individual. But there efforts lead not to a full life but to suicide, because, instead of realiizing his personality, man only slips into total isolation...he has trained his soul not to rely on human help, not to believe in men andmankind, and only to worry that the wealth and privileges he has accumulated may get lost. Everywhere men today are turning scornfully away from the truth that the security of the individual cannot be achieved by his isolated efforts but only by mankind as a whole...until that day [Jesus's return] we must keep hope alive, and now and then a man must set an example, if only an isolated one, by trying to lift his soul out of its isolation and offering it up in an act of brotherly communion, even if he is taken for one of God's fools. This is neecessary, to keep the great idea alive."
"God lies not in strength but in truth."
"The world has proclaimed freedom, now more loudly than ever; but what do we find in that freedom of theirs? Nothing but enslavement and suicide!"
"To consider freedom as directly dependent ont he number of man's requirements and the extent of their immediate satisfaction shows a twisted understanding of human nature, for such an interpretation only breeds in men a multitude of senseless, stupid desires and habits and endless preposterous inventions..."
"What can a man do who has become the slave of the innumerable needs and habits he has invented for himself?...It is by discarding cumbersome and unnecessary demands, by subduing and disciplining selfish and conceited aspirations, by obedience, that the monk, with God's help, achieves spiritual freedom and thereby finds spiritual happiness."
"A leader without faith will never achieve anything."
"How can there by crime if God does not exist?"
"Equality lies only in human moral dignity."
"Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever."
"Have faith to the end. Even if everyone else on earth goes astray, give your life to your faith and keep praising the Lord, even if you are the last of the faithful left on earth."
E'en so, press on. :-)
Andrea
Daddy's home from Sweden! We all love having him back, needless to say. He got to visit some relatives of ours while he was over there; they requested that he come back again and bring us with him. :-) Maybe someday I will be able to visit all my relatives in Sweden, on both sides of the family. That'd be cool. Anyone care to join me? :-) You don't have to be a Swede, just good company with lots of money. ;-p
I think I'm going to WA/ID and DC/VA this summer--two different summer camps! I can't believe it's almost time for summer vacation...that means graduation is right around the corner. :-\ I'm not sure if I want to graduate, you know? That means I have to grow up and be responsible. I really don't want May 3rd to come--I wonder if we can skip that day? I like being irresponsible, passionate and crazy. :-) 18 sounds so...old. :-)
Speaking of graduation, I applied to OSU and am waiting to hear back from them. It might be a while since they get a lot of applications in Feb-March. If I go there in the fall I'll just take basic classes to get out of the way. That means I can stay a whole 'nother year at home! :-D OSU's about 45 minutes south, so hopefully there won't be any early morning classes. :-\ IF.
I went the Oklahoma Blood Institute the other day and donated blood. That was an experience. But definitely worth it. And I got to share with someone why I wanted to give blood. :-)
I have more voices in my head: carpe diem. We pray for opportunity, to be used: God gives us opportunity to be used. We sit back and contemplate whether or not to seize the opportunity. And by the time we've finished contemplating, begrudgingly admiting to ourselves that we probably *should* seize the opportunity, the opportunity has flitted away like the summer breeze. Why?!
I don't know. :-D I think it's a rhetorical question.
While I'm on the contemplative note...think a little about what Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his The Brothers Karamazov. What an incredible writer he was.
"Life is a paradise; we all live in paradise, although we don't want to see it. As soon as we are willing to recognize it, the whole world will become a paradise; it could happen tomorrow, any time."
"The very greatness of the story lies precisely in its mystery--here fleeting, earthly reality confronts eternal truth. Just as in the first days of creation when the Creator, at the end of each day, paused to admire His work with the words, "Taht which I have created is good!"--so in this story He looks at Job and again praises His creation. And Job, when he praises the Lord, serves not only Hi but His whole creation, for generations and generations, forever and ever, for that is what he was foreordained to do....and so God raises Job up and gives him back his welath and many years pass. Job again has children, new children, whom he lvoes. But how can he possibly love these new children of his when the others are no longer there, when he has lost them? Can he be completely happy when he remembers his dead children, however dear to his heart his new children may be? But he can be happy, he can know happiness again, because a mysterious process gradually transforms an old grief into a quiet happiness; seething youth is replaced by gentle and serene age. Every day I bless the rising sun and my heart sings to it as it did before; but now I love the sunset even more,a nd its long, slanting rays bring back to me quiet, touching, tender memories, dear faces, and images from my long and blessed life. Over everything there hovers the Lord's truth and justice that moves our hearts, reconciles everything, and is all-forgiving!"
"What good is the Word of Christ without an example? A nation is lost without the Word of God, for every human soul thirsts for His Word and for the good and the beautiful."
"In order to change the world, man's way of thinking must be changed."
"Today everyone asserts his own personality and strives to live a full life as an individual. But there efforts lead not to a full life but to suicide, because, instead of realiizing his personality, man only slips into total isolation...he has trained his soul not to rely on human help, not to believe in men andmankind, and only to worry that the wealth and privileges he has accumulated may get lost. Everywhere men today are turning scornfully away from the truth that the security of the individual cannot be achieved by his isolated efforts but only by mankind as a whole...until that day [Jesus's return] we must keep hope alive, and now and then a man must set an example, if only an isolated one, by trying to lift his soul out of its isolation and offering it up in an act of brotherly communion, even if he is taken for one of God's fools. This is neecessary, to keep the great idea alive."
"God lies not in strength but in truth."
"The world has proclaimed freedom, now more loudly than ever; but what do we find in that freedom of theirs? Nothing but enslavement and suicide!"
"To consider freedom as directly dependent ont he number of man's requirements and the extent of their immediate satisfaction shows a twisted understanding of human nature, for such an interpretation only breeds in men a multitude of senseless, stupid desires and habits and endless preposterous inventions..."
"What can a man do who has become the slave of the innumerable needs and habits he has invented for himself?...It is by discarding cumbersome and unnecessary demands, by subduing and disciplining selfish and conceited aspirations, by obedience, that the monk, with God's help, achieves spiritual freedom and thereby finds spiritual happiness."
"A leader without faith will never achieve anything."
"How can there by crime if God does not exist?"
"Equality lies only in human moral dignity."
"Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever."
"Have faith to the end. Even if everyone else on earth goes astray, give your life to your faith and keep praising the Lord, even if you are the last of the faithful left on earth."
E'en so, press on. :-)
Andrea