hm.

Sometimes people ask me why I’m an English major. Why on earth would I want to add more and more books on top of the already insane amount of reading each college student has to do?

I’ll tell you why.

Each writer has a vision. A unique way of seeing things. Like each artist sees and paints the same sunset differently. A writer has her or his own way of viewing the world and putting that world onto paper.

T.S. Eliot is one of my favorites.

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.”

~ The Waste Land

The way T.S. Eliot looks at Spring is unique. Most of the world sees spring as a time of new life and fresh starts. Why do you thing we have spring cleaning? He also describes the snow as warm. Who else does that? In a painting, snow is snow. In a poem, snow is the warmth that allows you to forget all the things buried beneath it.

Just a thought.

new beginnings…

The start of a new semester means a lot of new things. For me, it meant a lot of goodbyes. Goodbyes that I never wanted to ever have to say. Goodbyes to some of the most significant people in my over the past 6 months.

But its good. I’ve known this was coming for a long time. And for everything there is a season. Last semester was my season of close friends, laughter, and growth in who I am, with people there to affirm me in who I was and what I was doing.

And while that is so so important, what is more important is who I am without people there to constantly tell me who I am. I need to be confident with or without them. God created me to be this way, and that is way more important.

So. This semester I am applying for everything that falls into my lap. Whether that be attempting to be an RA next year or going abroad. So bear with me, and this will all be figured out. Within 5 weeks. So weird.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” ~Ecclesiastes 3:1

I’m excited to see where God takes me over this next semester, and I know that His plan is way better than I could ever imagine.

I had dinner with a friend from high school last night. We talked a lot about where the church was and where it was headed.

And then we realized, that it is our turn.

It is our generation’s time to step up to the plate and be a light to the world.

There is no more time for us to be luke warm christians. We need to desire Jesus’ love more than ever before. We need to feel His passion. We need to show His love to everyone. We need to make ourselves uncomfortable for the sake of His glory and His plan. This life is so fleeting and so unimportant in the large picture of things.

“I don’t want to go through the motions. I don’t want to go one more day without Your all consuming passion inside of me. I don’t want to spend my whole like asking what if I had given everything instead of going through the motions.” ~ Matthew West

I want so badly to strive after God with every part of my life and soul. I want to give my everything for His glory and furthering the kingdom.

We were talking about how you have to be careful what you pray for. It’s scary to pray for someone to get a wake up call. Because you KNOW that will cause them pain. Like her brother, who is struggling in his relationship with Christ right now. She doesn’t want him to have to deal with life apart from God, and then be brought to his knees one day. But thats what she has to pray for.

We are all sinners. We are all hypocrites. But God loves us regardless.

One of my favorites…

The Hollow Men

T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death’s dream kingdom

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging

And voices are

In the wind’s singing

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death’s dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer—

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land

This is cactus land

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man’s hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

In death’s other kingdom

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars

In this hollow valley

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is

Life is

For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

I could pick apart this poem for forever. But tonight, I’m not going to. ENJOY!

Freedom.

That’s the key to having it all: stop  expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like.

Cindy Chupack

Rant.

Love lifts us up where we belong

She is love

Love is blind

Love wins

Love who you love

Let us love

Love story

Young love

Almost love

Love is an ideal

To love is to suffer

Love song for no one

God is love

What is the true meaning of love? There are so many different ideas, so many different definitions. How do we know what is true? We live in a society where it is a goal for people to find another person to spend the rest of their life with. Is this really what we should be striving for? Is this the best way to live a Godly life? Sure, marriage is a physical example of Jesus’ love for the church, but what if we don’t find that other person. What if God’s plan involves us staying single for forever? Being a relationship vagabond, if you will.

Sometimes I just have those days where it doesn’t seem like I’ll ever find another person to spend my life with. And that’s ok. I’m so content with being single. I hate the idea of getting hurt. I know that if I love God, then I won’t ever be let down. Is it worth loving another human, knowing they will hurt you, let you down, and break your heart? So what’s the point? Why not just have friends, and then have Jesus? He’s the perfect partner. He’ll be with you wherever you go. I could pick up and move to London tomorrow, and Jesus would follow me there. He would guide me to places all over the world and I wouldn’t have anyone to stop me. What’s so wrong with wanting to be free? Doing His work all over the world. Short term, long term, who knows? All I know is, I’m tired of just sitting here and waiting for someone to come find me. So after I graduate, I’m following Christ. And if that leads me to a guy, great, but if not… screw it. I’m living my life to the fullest and to the complete glorification of Jesus.

Food for Thought

The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.

John Cage (1912 – 1992)

Arrivés au point

Abraham and Isaac by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

He really meant to do it.

All it took was an angel’s merest touch

to stop him, but the boy’s hands

were tied, the father’s fingers

wrapped around his jaw

(perhaps to smother him– one paltry act

of mercy before the fatal slice?).

What kind of God would require

such appalling fidelity?

What kind of father could bear

to imagine the blade

leaving its trail of red

in the tender skin of a throat

no beard has covered?

what would it take?

What must be the magnitude

of a love that would go this far?

The look in Abraham’s eye

is crazed. The angel’s message

relieves him (though all his life

some madness will haunt him,

and Sarah will follow his steps

with darkened eyes):

You don’t have to do this

any more. Another father

will take your place

Another son will be led to slaughter.

The promise will be fulfilled,

Israel’s seed will be planted.

Let him grow old and die.

 

There is something about this poem that touches me. Maybe its the humanization of Abraham. This is a story that I have been told since I was a child going to sunday school. But how much of Abraham was damaged that day? A piece of his soul that would always question every action he made. How could he gather up the strength to be willing to kill his own son?

God.

He gives us so much. He created us. He loves us dearly. He sent His own son to die for us. He took the place of Abraham. Someone had to die. And that day, it was not Isaac.

This is just a display of the sacrifice God had to make while sacrificing Jesus. Except, he was not stopped by an angel. The nails pierced Jesus’ hands and he was buried in a tomb. For 3 days. But the tomb could not hold him. This is my Savior.