a thought

"The Spirit works through the objective means of grace, namely, biblical truth, prayer, fellowship, worship, and the Lord's Supper, and with them through the subjective means of grace whereby we open ourselves to change, namely, thinking, listening, questioning oneself, examining oneself, admonishing oneself, sharing what is in one's heart with others, and weighing any response they make."
- J.I. Packer

people you hate

People you hate will get their hooks into you
They'll pull you down
You'll frown
They'll tar you and drag you through town
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie

Cake--End of the Movie

Some things never change..

well it is good to know that while everything around me is constantly changing, i do not.
i still procrastinate and find great enjoyment in putting off writing something until i can't find anything else possible to do with my time. even though i am looking forward to writing it.
hence why i'm writing this instead of writing my cover letter for an application for an internship in chicago due on friday. i mean it is only tuesday night..but i do have to get my dad and at least one other person to proofread it all. i've been fudging around with my resume for at least 3 hrs.
have to make it look absolutely perfect. you can't apply for an artistic job with graphic design on your resume and have it look in any way awkward. BUT i did want to add just the smallest hint of flair b.c again with graphic design on your resume you have to push the envelope somehow otherwise what good are you at your job? so it took me awhile to say the least
but i did develop this elongated scribble that when upright looks like an abstracted graceful female figure. i may have possibly found the scribble i've been looking for.
my life is complete.
i have nothing else to live for.
sigh.
except being dramatic :)
who knew?

Part of the reason why it is now midnight and i am just beginning my cover letter even though i've been sitting here at the computer off and on since 6.30 pm is because i just had an incredible conversation with a woman in her 50s who is volunteering her time here at camp to paint for the week that lasted 2 hrs. you know how some things are just meant to be? this conversation was chock full of reasons why it was absolutely meant to be. God is good.
and the light just turned off on me....stupid energy saving timers...i hate the dark
i know i'm not going to be able to focus on this cover letter until i get all the thoughts that she provoked out of my head.

we talked about china. we talked about my parents moving. we talked about love. we talked about life. things i haven't talked about in ages....if ever.
she acknowledged that my parents moving, summer ending, graduating from college, moving to camp, and having coming back from china all occurring in and around the same time must have been extremely difficult. like really acknowledged it.
didn't give me lip service. didn't expect me to cry. didn't look at me with pity. didn't try to fix me. just said yes.
she acknowledged that emotions affect you physically...especially if you don't deal with them.
she recognized and shared how it was doing so in her life at the very moment.
i'm not some freak. sure counseling would be great, but all i really need is an honest conversation with someone a little bit smarter than me every once in awhile. and maybe not even smarter...someone more willing to be honest, more willing to be real with me than i am necessarily. someone willing to draw me out...not because of anything that he or she needs from me but just because God nudged her a little bit to do so. my soul longs. my soul thirsts for real honest people who don't play games.
i am so sick of the games.
its fine if you play politics in the government.
its not cool when you play them at a christian camp.
and its downright frustrating when you feel like you have to play them with roommates.
i hate it. i'm absolutely disgusted with it. i'm done with it.
and i'm praying God gives me the strength to get out of it.
BAH
so random tangent.
she asked about my life. she acknowledged that there are things that i have learned that are rare for someone my age to know. and she didn't make me feel bad for it. and she told me to share what i know.
God how do i share what i know when it makes those around me jealous?
and the encouragement was so strong. i think she has a better picture of who i am than anyone here at camp except Dorie and Nikki and maybe Denise. and she only talked to me for 2 hrs.
why? why am i here?
WHY?
why the hell am i here?
i suffer in quiet desperation.
i'm learning so much but really why?
i'm learning so much but what is it worth if people don't understand me?
quiet desperation.
so quiet.

she talked about her marriage and how she's become emotionally estranged from her husband. built up a wall of resentment for putting her out on a limb all these years...allowing the bitterness to eat away at her heart and destroy them both...and their children. God that was so good for me to here. it happens. it is my parents. and yet she still longs for that soulmate, that person who is her absolute best friend and understands her better than she understands herself. who knew? who knew that it could be so real even to someone who's never had it and been married for years. and you know what destroys it? lack of communication. not knowing who you are. God if there is one thing that this year has taught, it is that i long with absolute desperation to never have such a relationship with my husband. i cannot live like this for the rest of my life. i have made horrible mistakes with sarah and i don't know how to undo them. i don't know if they are undoable. i don't know if its me or her. only time will tell. but we have time for space. we are granted such a luxury. a marriage is not. dear God I pray that I never reach the point that i've reached with sarah with my husband. please. i ask for nothing else in life but that. the world can all fall apart. we can be desperately poor, desperately ill, with absolutely nothing and no purpose. i would give up money success career fulfillment even my art to know that i never reach the point where i spend years...YEARS emotionally estranged from my husband. God you don't have to save me from much suffering in life but for all i've already been through...please. please. please.
let this be one thing that you do keep me from.
please.
i beg of You nothing else.

with all that said/prayed (and it will become unceasing)

love does exist.
a person who knows my soul just as well as i know myself and vice versa does exist.
and i will cling to the faith that if God does marry me to someone, it will be such a person.
i said it 2.5 years ago when i made the life changing decision to be single and i say it now
i'd rather be single for the rest of my life than experience anything less.
i cling to the belief that i am made for more.





you shouldn't think what you're feeling

v-day

Who can say when the roads meet
That love might be in your heart
And who can say when the day sleeps
If the night keeps all your heart

valentine's day...
you know i have to write something about it
after all i'm that cynic about such things
that hard ass that secretly watches chick flicks on her own
.....well its not so secret anymore.

but i've worked really hard on that.
everybody knows i love a good chick flick
and i've REALLY tried to cut down on the biting cynical comments
i think i'd even venture to say that most people would not consider me a bitter person anymore.

I don't consider myself a bitter person anymore--
and I'm my own harshest critic.

but I still sit while watching a chick flick or listening to my friends talk about their relationships, and I question. I question what is the worth of love in that kind of relationship? These people seemed to have found it and also seem to consider it more valuable than life itself.
Do they lie?
Are they disillusioned?
Or is it only for some people?
I think I've come to a point where I see that it's not a lie. That it does exist in some form.
But I've been told for so long
not to dwell on that,
not to plan it,
not to idolize it,
not to live for it...

that I'm not sure
how to know it,
how to recognize it,
how to believe that it does exist,
how to live with it.

It's as if I've been told for so long to get it out of my life, that its not all there is
and I've taken it to heart so much, that I've forgotten that it even exists.
I've forgotten that maybe it is something that I want.
and I haven't the slightest idea what I'm even looking for anymore.

And I think it might be getting me into a bit of trouble.
because I'm this wide open target for guys to like and since I don't know what I want, different parts of me want different guys.
And then I begin to rationalize
and reason
my way out
and in
and around
because surely if one versus another is supposed to work for me, then I would feel more strongly, that I would not just think with my head but feel with my heart especially after I've left the moment. but nothing ever sticks with me. and nothing ever shuts my brain up.
and in the end that's all I really want...
is for someone to stick with me.
and to shut my brain up.
not because I made him/he made me
or because I flirted enough,
but just because life/God made us that way.
is that too much to ask?
things around me seem to be saying as much.



except for one...but that's a whole different story....
which has only one word to describe it--impossible.

Daniel

Daniel 3.17-18 "If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."

*stars*

Life seems to present its own little jokes every once in a while.
When the stars align in such a way you never thought possible.
Worlds collide and all you can do is shake your head and laugh.

And its a good thing you can laugh.
Otherwise the confusion might just kill you.
Sometimes having all the choices in the world
doesn't help when the one thing you want--
isn't a choice anymore.

Or maybe you don't want it anymore
but you just haven't quite figured that out yet.
because that requires feeling something
dangerous so instead
you'd much rather feel nothing.

But nothing never gets you anywhere
anywhere but alone
so maybe you've turned it off.
or maybe you've moved on.
or maybe you're content to just wait.
but where does that leave me?
out of my league at a distance i can't see--

stranded
each and every time you leave

The God Who Smokes

The God who smokes by timothy stoner

'the calling of the artist is to be in the world and for the world but not of the world

the artist is plunged into a world of symbol, paradox, mystery, and indirection. it is communication not only with words but also images. the significance of the symbols is rarely self-evident or obvious. meaning is in the eye of the beholder, so what is being communicated is visceral, not necessarily logical. this is the land of parable, metaphor, and ambiguity. it is happy harrowing and heady.

it is a land that can also eat you alive.

art is God's good gift but the artist is still in enemy territory.

good fiction can strip truth from its stained-glass and sunday school associations an thsu steal past those watchful dragons. he was referring to those invisible cultural watchers who stand ready to pounce on any truth that poses a threat to their monopoly. he had in mind those mighty dragons of materialism, hedonism, narcissism, pragmatism, and even mysticism. in writing his novels lewis was camouflaging those offensive but vitally necessary truths that woudl otherwise cause his readers to close the covers ort ake potshots at it on network tv. fiction for him was a means to surreptitiously slide crucial truth into the minds of the audience. for lewis a christian artist has an agenda: smuggling in those life-changing life-promoting hope-enhancing but culture-offending realities that define the essence of Jesus follower.

the artist is a servant of the glory who is wounded by transcendence and afflicts this wound on others.