Beautiful Words

Me: "Sometimes I just don't think I can live up to everyone's expectations of me. I can't be how they see me. I'm not perfect, far from it."

A friend I love: "I see in you what they see, but I also see who you are, away from it all."

And she still loves me, apparently.

Some of the most meaningful words ever said to me.

A Free Moment

For the record, I love my brother. He's probably the coolest guy in the world, and just hearing his voice on the phone makes me laugh out loud. He's funny, sure, but it's not even just that kind of laugh. It's the kind of laugh, like wow-- I'm so happy right now. This moment is so great that I just want to laugh out of joy. Yep, my brother is a crazy kid, and I love him.



I don't have anything deep or insightful to say at the moment. I'm eating Campbells Select chicken noodle soup, listening to some crazy wind blowing outside, getting ready to go to Bible study. It's Wednesday, and next week is spring break, so there's just something about getting past the middle of the week that makes me feel accomplished.

Nothing extraordinary happened today, but it's been a good one. Perhaps there's just something to say about a day that doesn't go wrong.

Who Are You?

Who are you?
The person poems are written for,
you. Who are you?
Are you different every time,
or are you an ideal?
Are you a young woman with brown eyes
and trembling hands,
or are you a man
who can't see, or who dies?

Are you Abraham Lincoln?

Are you a middle-aged school teacher
whose body has changed? But you still hope
he sees you as the lithe with brown eyes?
Or blue. Or are you the man
who still loves?

Are you a flower, or star, or sun?
A dalliant eagle or cracked oyster?
Do you breathe or heart-beat?

Are you a grandmother, a brother?
Are you Barret Browning's thee
or the Bible's Thee?
Are you God?

Do you want people to keep writing
poems about you? Do you even know they do?
I don't know who you are,
or even if you do.

Another Favorite Song

Excuse the pictures in the video: they are a tad cliche. But this is one of the best Christian songs to come out in a long time, in my opinion.

You might notice a pattern-- the last video I posted here was called "Everything" by Lifehouse. And now this song is called, "You are Everything". I guess that this particular refrain defines my view of Christ. To me, He is everything; my life is driven by his perfect love for me and my imperfect love in return.

It's a great song. The first time I heard Matthew West sing it, it moved me to smiling tears. Because I am bound to hit bottom some time. Because I would be nowhere without someone to save me. Because I am the one with big mistakes, but God does see what I was meant to be. More than a beautiful mess.

Because of Christ, I can have days filled with hope. Great song.

Anyone for a Cliche "Fives Years from Now" Post?

I don't like this question. It's too tempting.

Ever since childhood, I've found it much too easy to become wrapped up in my hopes for the future. When I was a little girl, I would sit with my best friend in my pink and purple pajamas and Winnie the Pooh sleeping bag, and on the floor of my room, we would plan our weddings. Yes, silly as it is, I did it.

In middle school, I wanted to be in high school. In high school, I wanted to be in college. My hobby for those four years was perusing college websites. I wanted to be out so bad.

I've always been an optimist, so I've always loved imagining the future. The optimist in me is certain that the best is yet to come. But as a pessimist would say, optimists are often disappointed.

One of my biggest disappointments in life was made worse because I was so invested in the uncertain future than the palpable present. I applied to a residential arts school, blantantly sure I would get in, and planned the entirity of my high school and college years on going to that school. Needless to say, I did not get in. And if I hadn't been so utterly invested in it, the rejection wouldn't have been such a big deal.

I can talk about that experience with a smile and no regrets now, because it taught me a valuable lesson-- stay focused on the present, because tomorrow is no guarentee.

So, because I have this addiction to imagining what the future might be like, I hate it when people ask me the five year question. Or ten year question, that's worse. I could really go crazy imagining what might fill in that much time. It's like drinking in front of a recovering AA member. Not cool.

But I'll indulge myself today, since obviously being date-less on Valentine's day got me thinking about it. Now, I was actually fairly not-bitter this year, though the holiday always makes me want to look to the future.

In five years, I'll probably be getting my first teaching job, looking around for my first home, and all that jazz. I'll have finished college and grad school, and the time will have come to join the real world.

I often wonder if I'll settle in my hometown, close to my family. Heck, my alma mater would be a fantastic place to teach. But... that might be a little too close to home. I've thought about settling close to Charleston, and teaching in a school there. I like the idea more and more.

But in five years, I don't think I'll be married. Maybe getting close by that point. But probably not married yet. But who knows right?

I like to think having my own family one day. And we would invite another family over, the guys would grill out, argue over who was the better griller, maybe kids would be running around the back yard. Maybe not. Maybe it's just us adults. I just like imagining these scenes.

I hope my parents are proud. My brother and I both chose fairly noble professions. I'll be a teacher, he a soldier. And one day, I want my husband to grill out with my brother while his wife/girlfriend/signifcant other and I laugh at them over iced tea.

As much as I love being in college, I don't want to be here forever. I know days of grilling out aren't all glamour. Maybe we have a giant fight before the other couple comes over and start the day in that awful, post fight funk. Maybe there are kids, and one falls out of a tree and breaks his arm. I figure there's always some crisis waiting around the corner in adulthood, in the quote "real world" but I'm ready to take it on. I'm ready to live.

Rest

"Take my yoke upon you and learn for me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." -Jesus (Matthew 11:29)

Even alone in my dorm room, there is no quiet. The fan is on its lowest setting, humming and gently sending air circulating around the room. As it turns, post-it notes on the bed post, stray reciepts, open flaps of cardboard boxes all rattle quietly as the fan passes over them. My fingers tap on the keyboard, sometimes fast enough to sound like a steady rain on a window; other times, slow like a dripping faucet. Steven Curtis Chapman's steady guitar strums and plaintive tenor voice drift from the speakers of my laptop. Sometimes, the refridgerator sighs. My suitemates close doors and closets and dresser drawers in their rooms. Outside my window, construction continues on a new building, and sometimes any semblence of silence is destroyed by the insistent banging of a pile driver.

But why do I let music play? Why do I not want to turn off the fan, even if the manufactured breeze is chilly on my arms? Why does the tapping of my laptop keys settle my nerves? Why am I afraid to take all of these sounds away and lie in silence?

What thoughts would find me if I did? What would God say to me if I took the time to be quiet, be still and know that He is God?

I'm not busy at this particular moment in my day. What if I turned off the fan, turned off the music, stopped typing, and simply rested? What would I think of? What would I hear? A pile driver? The movements of my suitemates? A ringing in my ears?

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." -God (Isaiah 30:15)

Is this a trust issue?

Only one way to find out.

Out and About

I'm going through a devotional journal, week-by-week, with my accountability partner. She's a close friend, the nearest thing to a sister I'll ever have. And the two of us are going to be helping to lead a retreat at our home church, and we're taking a journey through this book together, to prepare our hearts. Spritual carb load before the race.

This week, it's about ministering. I'm only on the fourth week and this book is in my face-- what am I doing to make this world a little bit better in the name of Christ?

I thought about it, and I came face to face with my own selfishness. Really, what am I doing??

I'm assistant leader for a freshman Bible study. I adore those girls, and I hope I'm at least a small light in their lives. I try my best to live in such a way that people take a second glance. I want to share Christ by living like Him and loving others.

I've always wanted to work with youth. I'm not so sure I'm called to be a youth minister, but since middle school, I've felt called to work in youth ministry. So once I graduate, get a job, my next order of business will be to find a church, even if its not my home church, where I can help lead in youth ministry.

Today is a beautiful day, by the way. The sun is shining, students around me are smiling, and the slightest hint of a breeze whispers through my hair-- it's days like these, embryos of spring, that give me hope.

Corny, right? Well, screw you, I love sunny days. ;-)

Walt Whitman

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 hte poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
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 may contribute a verse.

-Walt Whitman
_______________________

This poem by Whitman was in part what inspired the poem of my own a few entries down. This, and some of the words of my Romantic Lit professor about moments.

Walt Whitman is my favorite poet, if that's obvious already. ;-) And Walt Whitman is credited with this quote:

"I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least."

It breaks my heart that so many of those close to me are questioning God. Each time I hear someone tell a story about how a Christian hurt them, I want to take them by the shoulders, and beg them not to give up. I agree, there are many hypocritical Christians out there, I being one of them. But who among any of us hasn't said one thing and done another? As Christ said, "If there is one among you who is without sin, let him throw the first stone."

Of course, Christians sin. Of course Christians lie, hurt others by both accident and design, and of course Christians travel that fated road paved with good intentions along with every other soul on this earth.

But, friends, please--don't mistake my Christianity for a religion. My Christianity is not a religion, a book of rules, a list of who made it and who didn't. My faith is not faith at all, for I can't even muster up enough faith to fill a mustard seed. My faith is love. Love for a man who loved me before I was born, before this world came into existence.

No, I am not curious about God--I don't spend nights in agony, trying to figure out mechanics, or dates, or numbers, or theories. No, no, I only try to love.

I don't act the way I act out of fear or out of obligation. No, I try to live like Christ lived, because I love Him, and because He first loved me. "For there is no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friends."

Jesus: "Now, I do not call you servants, because servants do not know what their master does. No, now I have called you friends."

If I could sing my faith, I would sing like Lifehouse-- "You're all I want! You're all I need! You're everything, everything!"



All this, inspired by a secular poet. Yes, like Whitman, I hear and behold God in every object.