lightness has a call that's hard to hear

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." -Kierkegaard

"'What if, you know, if we just give in to it, and say this is what it is, then it gets good, and it's the fighting it that makes it so bad.'" p.192
...
"'Maybe we are just supposed to trust that (God) won't beat us up when we get there. Maybe we are supposed to trust that He is good.'" p.193
...
"...when you only ask how and never ask why, you can be happy and ignorant." p.194
-Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

"Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it"
"Closer to Fine." Indigo Girls

check out The Weepies' song "Simple Life." simply delightful.

i watched bella the other night. i think it is now one of my favorite movies... so beautiful, the colors, the emotions, i loved it. i'd seen almost all of it about a month ago, but i watched the whole thing tonight and it's wonderful.

two weekends ago i attended a training weekend for the organization servants to asia's urban poor. it was refreshing, and the pieces seem to be coming together. it was so nice to realize i do want to live like this! and to be told that that is not exactly a typical reaction.... to know that it really is something i've been called to. plus i made lots of new friends, which is always fun.

i bought a bicycle! i think it is pretty dang cute.

i've been housesitting for a week. it's made me think two things: i never want to live in a suburb again and i never want to have a big house. it's so much effort! i can't wait to get back to my little apartment.

apologies for this being all over the place. it's been a while :)

i'm a new soul

My Courtney MeMe'd me... I love her.

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

***

1. I fixate on misspellings and misused apostrophes.
2. I wish that life had background music... like in the movies.
3. I used to want to be a fashion buyer, hence the marketing degree.
4. I used to tell my younger sister that commercials fast forwarded if they were on mute.
5. I had the flu in college and during my sickness I wondered if all of my housemates were actually bits of me- like multiple personalities.
6. I am very smell-oriented.
7. I got my nose pierced 2 months after I adamantly said I would never do anything of the sort.

I MeMe Ashlyn, Abby and Emily. I think everyone else has already done it. :)

turn off the car, breathe the air...

hmm....

there is a me you would not recognize

i saw shane claiborne and chris haw speak last week, touring with their book Jesus for President. the psalters were there, too. it was pretty cool.

i also had lunch with a friend last week that was very refreshing. i guess the peace and balance she spoke from were, for me, inspirational. she made me want to take myself and my decisions less seriously, to be faithful in life, and to enjoy it and live it.

over the weekend i watched this documentary:



watch it, it'll make you think. you can borrow mine.

and sunday was father's day. for my dad and me :) i had planned a day with dad that, aside from locking my keys in my car, was a success. we went to a yummy mexican place and then to the taft museum, where one of my recent favorites, kim taylor, was playing for free in the garden. i love her. go see her live and you probably will too.

so, that's my catch up.

"I think we are supposed to stand in deserts and marvel at how the sun rises. I think we are supposed to sleep in meadows and watch stars dart across space and time. I think we are supposed to love our friends and introduce people to the story, to the peaceful, calming why of life. I think life is spirituality....
I mean, life is just life.... ...we aren't going to be any more complete a month from now than we are now."
- Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

reasons why

"It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."
Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller

i came home early today to screaming trees and a week's worth of mail. i was looking through a magazine and saw an ad that read something like "isn't it funny how 'i can't wait to get there always becomes i can't wait to get home." and it is funny. or something. i have missed my bed this past week, and clean laundry, my apartment and other little things. if i had had those things with me, if i could teleport them back to this past week, i may never have come home.

it's interesting how natural vacation is. it doesn't take any getting used to. and in the midst of it you see it's necessity, and it's underrated status in our world of constantly going. this past week was a week of pure goodness, and i am so glad for it.

i met courtney in boston and we stayed with our friend kendra, except for one night when we stayed with courtney's old friend bashir in nyc. it was so nice to feel so welcome and comfortable with old and new friends who opened their homes to us with nothing but generosity.

we went to the beach and got ice cream, explored cities and ate good food, drank lots of coffee, iced and hot. we ran in both disgustingly hot and beautifully cool weather. we looked in shops, saw movies, and talked a lot. we were good about doing and not; about taking advantage of our freedom by both sleeping in and going and doing. i'd say we did a pretty good job of vacationing.

it was a good week of perspective. it's best to gain that, i think, when outside the situation. you can see what's truly valuable and what you miss, and you can see what things are hard or what has been forced for so long, purely out of routine. it is good to talk through those things with your best friend, especially when their heart seems so much in tune with yours. it is funny to talk about those things through tears on a bus leaving chinatown, surrounded by other languages and weird snoring sounds. it is nice to talk through those things and then listen to music, and to hear songs that speak what you have been saying. it is nice to read what you're thinking printed wittily in a book.

i let go of some things this week and made some refreshing realizations. and some scary, i have no control over that, ones. i saw from a new window what pounds in my heart.

it was a wonderful, glorious week, filled with pursuing joy and celebrating friendship.
thanks, friend. it was so good.
now back to figuring out what's next....

get yourself in this race

decision time is upon me and i have made mine. the other day i was running, perhaps the best day running-wise of the year: cool and sunny, just lovely. and i decided that yes, i will be running another marathon this fall.

allow me to say, excercise is a wonderful form of medicine. it is therapeutic, it keeps you feeling good and in shape... just read this guy's recent article.

i was thinking about how good running has been for me: my mom has even offered to help pay for races because she's seen such positive shifts in my confidence levels and things like that. i was thinking (that's what i do when i run) about how so many people would probably benefit so much from something like it....
so, i highly recommend some kind of activity, if only to maintain some balance in life. i'm not saying go run marathons (my doctor always gives me a bit of trouble), but i am saying, as a person who never thought of herself as athletic or definitely not endurance-y :), that i have seen many, many positive reasons to continue running. just don't discredit yourself. think positively, ask questions, keep trying, do some research, buy some good equipment and do it!

i don't know what i'm doing that for

"No one may claim the name of Christian and be comfortable in the face of hunger, homelessness, insecurity, and injustice found in this country and the world."
-from the Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy Issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, November 13, 1986

i stole this from a friend's facebook profile.
i've been thinking about it all week.

i had a dream last night that i went with some friends to brazil. i remember feeling elated and saying, "this is my favorite place in the whole world."

consider, even, the lilies

i've been thinking lately a lot about God's goodness and provision.

i had some hard weeks. i didn't like a lot of things and i lacked hope. it seemed that God kept piling things one on top of another. and each thing was heavier: loneliness, frustration, death, hopelessness....

i had a conversation with a friend somewhere in the middle of all of that, and she had had a similar time of loneliness about a year ago. she said that in it, she claimed and gave it to God, saying to Him that she would trust Him, for as long as it would last, and that she would hope in Him to get her through it. and now, the same time this year, she is probably experiencing one of the happiest times in her life.

at the same time the onset of all of this hurt set in was when i was rereading donald miller's searching for God knows what. it was a good reminder and time of reflection on why i felt the way i did and how i was interpreting things. i was feeling sorry for myself because i didn't seem to have the attention and value of others. but miller's book reminded me that the only approval i needed to be seeking was the Lord's, and that yes community was important but that it wasn't going to solve my problems or dictate my worth.

i was thankful for that reminder, and it lifted me somewhat out of the gloom, only to enter into again in a different way with the loss of my friend.

but let me just say, our God is faithful.
even one month after losing meredith and probably four months of fairly consistent sadness, i am already seeing the lessons God is teaching me come to fruition. i feel renewed in my love for others, in my energy to meet needs, in my ability to laugh and think about hard things and speak with honesty and love about them.

God has renewed me. i feel lighthearted, and am begging Him to allow it for a time. I am asking for guidance on finding a balance between giving my time to others and spending time alone with Him. i see with new clarity and certainty my need for God alone, and my desire to grow in that.

i am praying for something upcoming, i hope. God has put on my heart a call so deep that nothing else shakes it- a call to bring justice and hope to his children around the world. he has given me a love for simplicity and beauty in life over one of abundance and complexity, and i long to be able to better practice those desires.

it's interesting, i just read someone's blog and she had posted my most favorite passage from the Chroncles of Narnia, in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. i've been thinking about it a lot lately, and hope you'll enjoy it, too:


"And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the Lion said- 'you will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know- if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like a billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away....

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt- and there it was, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them."

i wanna yearn

where to begin?  sometimes i get overwhelmed by everything and so i slack off in blogging only because i can't put it all to words.  but i want to try.

1. i came home last week one day to mail.  a card, at that.  i love snail mail... maybe partly because all i ever get is bills and stuff from world vision reminding me that the world is falling apart.  and of course because it communicates that someone took time to think about you and do that!  but yeah, a very beautiful card and glorious mix cd greeted me when i arrived home one day.  yay for soulmates.

2. work continues to be good.  i know no one really cares, but i do!  i come home each day so thankful.  i took a girl to an appointment today and it was so fun that we were trying to figure out what other things she "needs" to go to, so we can hang out more. :)

3. prince caspian.  i saw the new narnia film on saturday with my seesters and it was really fun.  i think they did a better job than the first one (but i haven't read them in a while....)  the depiction of lucy's needing aslan and looking for him although he seemed to have abandoned narnia was wonderful.  clive staples is a genius.

4. i went to a symposium on violence in the community last wednesday night.  it was really cool, hearing about people in important positions care about people that no one seems to be concerned for- the dope boys, the gang members, the kids of the inner city.  it got me so pumped up.  my only lament with things like that is i want to strategize following the discussion, like everyone say what they're gonna do besides talk about the problem, and let's go do it!  oh i am such a dreamer.  but it was refreshing nonetheless.

5. church was great yesterday, very practical.  the head pastor is reading a book about what non-Christians think of Christians.  it's so sad, but i understand it.  the church seems to be a sleeping giant.  i have been energized lately because a guy from the church works at the homeless shelter around the corner from me; it's like having a partner in what we're trying to do.  but yeah, the service talked about this video

and about matthew 28 where the disciples are doubting and Jesus commissions them anyway.  he just talked about how we can be different, more like Jesus and less like what the world thinks of as Christians.  he was much more eloquent.  i've been working all day. :)

so many other things, but i feel boring.

i'll write when i feel more poetic.

i wish it would stop raining.

know that i'm still learning

the swell season was last night. it was... wonderful. i am having trouble putting words to it. seeing the two of them was surreal and very real at the same time. it's like they're just so much them, that seeing them so closely was no different than seeing them on a movie screen; but at the same time it was thrilling. and their music... i guess you could say it connects to your soul. glen is so precious and honest with his stories, sharing from clear, real-life feelings and experiences, and marketa, in her youth, exudes a confidence as well as earthiness that is refreshing. the show was altogether delightful. i didn't get any photos; it's like john mayer said, "didn't have a camera by my side this time, hoping i would see the world through both my eyes." :) plus we were pretty far away, no photo would have done it justice.

i took today off of work since i knew we'd be getting home late; the show was almost 2 hours away. so i am relaxing and having coffee and debating how to spend these precious hours of freedom. i've already caught up on the latest episode of the office and done some journaling.... i'm sure a run will ensue and who knows what else.

random trivia:
i don't know if you've heard the news about hard plastice watter bottles, but apparently they're phasing out current ones due to associated health risks. now, i know people say there are health risks with everything, but i've been hearing things since college. so i gave up my orange plastic bottle for a new aluminum one, which i think is pretty cute, and hopefully does not have the same health concerns associated... plus, some environmental friendliness?

anyway...
it's been well with my soul lately. i feel a sense of clarity and perhaps even direction i haven't felt in a long while. the things i care about have been reconfirmed and illuminated, and i feel as though God is really trying to show me what is deep within, what matters most. this i am thankful for.

pick me up love

this was a fun weekend.
i've had several good days lately, and i've been thankful for them. work has been enjoyable, and not felt much like work. i've felt joyful, peaceful, and even... gasp! a bit happy. it's bad when you feel guilt over happiness. i'm always learning that balance.

i saw lots of good music friday night with good people.
saturday i had sisterly fun running errands and watching penelope.
and today has been sabbathy and mothery :) good thoughts and fellowship with church this morning, and then i had lunch with my family and did some "practicing" of the guitar, as i am trying to learn.

here's a little inspiration for the week ahead...
love.

sugar high

tomorrow is a long time

today i noticed shortly after arriving at work that everything was pissing me off.  so i texted my roommate to see how she was doing today.  and she informed me that she too was not having the greatest day.  and she reminded me that two weeks ago today our dear friend meredith went on from this messy world.  

losing my friend has been a weird, hard, lonely, and all kinds of other things time.  

the morning i found out i had about 15 minutes of numbness, where i knew, even before reading the update, what had happened and was relieved for her, that she was no longer suffering.  

and then the reality of the situation set in.  i said what had happened to a coworker.  and a beautiful thing happened: my coworker cried with me.  and i was able to say things like i know mere is better off and that i'm not sad for her, i'm sad for the rest of us.

and in the past two weeks we have remembered mere, both through a service and through interactions with friends and family- no one was a stranger to her.  i have been blessed to see glimpses of the kingdom of heaven come here; through phone calls and visits and letters and offers of dinner and the support of friends.  

i got angry for a bit, or not angry, but really frustrated.  i longed so much for meredith to be healed, for redemption to come here on earth and not in heaven.  and then when it didn't happen that way i started to question how much redemption can come on earth.

last wednesday i watched a young yuppie married man pick up a prostitute in his new shiny red pickup truck in the middle of the day.  i felt the strangeness of walking through a drug infested neighborhood, and felt the absence of the church.  i spoke with individuals that i helped to get apartments last spring, only to be back in the shelter, run out by dope boys.  

and my question in all of that was, how much hope is there, really, here on earth.

and those questions lead into other questions about my own life, my prayers, my hopes and dreams.  i do not compartmentalize; when one thing comes loose everything else shifts.  

and then sunday someone spoke about the redemptive timeline.  he said we are in a time of already, but not yet.  the kingdom of heaven is come, but we are not yet finished with all of the messiness of the world.  

i've found myself envying meredith, and wanting so much to not have to hurt anymore, and not having to see the hurt all around me.  

but on sunday he also shared this verse, that has been coming up a lot lately.  

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed." 1 Peter 4:12-13

i find myself with some renewed hope.  it comes and goes.  our suffering is to be expected.  but so is the glory that will be revealed.  i am still having a hard time finding words for my prayers. i think i don't know what to say, still.  and i know i am thinking differently, or more fervently, about a lot of other things.  

"The Lord is good to those who wait for him

to the soul who seeks him

It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

it is good for a man that he bear

the yoke in his youth.

Let him sit alone in silence

when it is laid on him;

let him put his mouth in the dust-

there may yet be hope;"

Lamentations 3:25-29

come sustain us

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

166. O Me! O Life!

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;	5
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

joy and pain, sunshine and rain

"...it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is."
-Surprised by Joy, CS Lewis

i'm hoping to be surprised....

a funny taste in my head

Revelation 21:3-5

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying or pain; the first things have passed away.' And He who sits on the throne said, 

'Behold, I am making all things new,'

And He said, 'Write, for these words are faithful and true.'"

i need a hurricane

tired and sad and tired of feeling tired and sad.

I felt the faint trace of thunder
rattle this old house
I saw the fire light the sky
but there's no sign of rain anywhere

I need a hurricane
to empty out this place
It seems it's the only way
to salvage any sense I have left
to move on

I'm waiting to hear your voice again
and lighten up this heart
I'm holding onto stupid memories
but I see you in every little thing

I need a hurricane
to straighten out this place
It may be the only way
to salvage any sense I have left
to move on

I need a hurricane
to ravage through this place
I think it's the only way
to salvage any sense I have left
to move on

I felt the faint trace of thunder
rattle this old house
But there's no sign of rain anywhere
No, there's no sign of you anywhere...
Hurricane, Mindy Smith

i apologize for being so down. this week has just been difficult. i know it will lift.

in my praises make Your home

Psalm 13

How Long, O LORD?

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

1How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

3Consider and answer me, O LORD my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him,"
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

5But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6I will sing to the LORD,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

i feel it all

nothing like a run on a sunny 70 something degree day to get you feeling like your old self, and allowing all of the thoughts that have a been in a jumble for days into words.

in college some of my guy friends liked to go to the catacombs of the library and turn on those moving bookshelves and run through, trying not to be pummeled by them. they endearingly dubbed it, "the gauntlet." this week i feel like i've experienced the gauntlet of emotions, running through a flurry of them and trying not to be pummeled.

on monday night my friend abby had some sad news about some friends of hers. tuesday i found out during the workday that my friend meredith's cancer has progressed to the point that her liver is now failing and the family called in hospice. with those things on my brain, working on the streets was hard, and each individual i encountered brought me close to tears.

immediately after the news of mere i felt pretty frustrated. that, along with other big-ish things that i've been praying about, felt unanswered... or that i'm getting more "wait" responses.

but with spring comes hope :) He makes all things new. i don't know how that will be embodied, in meredith's situation, in big things i'm praying in my own life, but i believe it, and i apologize for not doing so so often.

i was listening to caedmon's call's album, share the well, and this song again hit home.
Mother India
Father God, You have shed Your tears for Mother India
They have fallen to water ancient seeds
That will grow into hands to touch the untouchable
How blessed are the poor, the sick, the weak

Father, forgive me, for I have not believed
Like Mother India, I have groaned and grieved
Father, forgive me, I forgot Your grace
Your Spirit falls on India and captures me in Your embrace

The serpent spoke and the world believed its venom
Now we're ten to a room or compared with magazines

There's a land where our shackles turn to diamonds
Where we trade in our rags for a royal crown
In that place, our oppressors hold no power
And the doors of the King are thrown wide

the complications when i see His face