Soooo...
I have a lot of ideas. I hope I can get some of them into this post in a semi-coherent fashion.
Random Point One: I've been thinking a lot about Grace lately. I heard it defined on Sunday as "unmerited favor." Which is good, but I don't like how short that definition is. It's too cut-and-dry to encompass something as enormous as Grace. Specifically God's Grace, which is the kind I've been thinking about.
Grace is like finding out that my Phil O'Sci paper isn't due on Tuesday (tomorrow) as I thought it was. Grace is like finding the ability to keep jogging for a lap rather than switching to a walk like your muscles are screaming at you to do. I imagine Grace as a blanket. A fleece throw blanket that your mom puts on you when you get a cold from going outside when she told you not to.
I've had a lot of colds lately.
Random point two: This relates to grace in a way, but because I'm too lazy to construct good transition paragraphs, I wussed out and am reverting to the "Random point" system. God doesn't wait for me to be perfect before He uses me. He isn't tapping His foot, waiting for me to get to the next level of spiritual maturity before He can work through my life. He hasn't called me to make myself perfect. In fact, I've tried it. I told God to wait while I cleaned the blood off my hands before I could do CPR on my soul. And He did. He waited for me to realize that I couldn't get the blood off. That my soul was past my power to resuscitate.
That's not an easy thing to realize. And I don't know for sure, but it can't be easy for Him to wait for me, but He does. That's Grace.
God works with people where they are. That includes me. Sometimes that's the hardest part of grace to swallow. That it includes me. I can feel it for other people. I can long to show someone that God can use them, forgive them, love them, but it's hard for me to accept for myself. This is called Pride. It's a more dangerous form of Pride because I feel so humble. So deliciously low. So abased. As if that's what God wants-- for us to recognize our awfulness and perpetually wallow in it.
Um, yeah...that's not what He wants.
I have a lot more to say, but it is occurring to me that I should save the rest for other posts. Then I will have lots of material simmering and my blog shall not be an hungered.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Gaelic Swear Words
Several things.
I had a wonderful evening, the delights of which I will enumerate for your pleasure and interest.
I went bowling with my esteemed cousin wings, namely, Consuming Fire and Bliss. I pretty much spanked everyone, especially in the second game *cough*167*cough* and my hair was not staticky. We went to Coldstone. Then because it was only twenty after eleven and curfew wasn't til one, Jeremy, Jason and I went to Aimee's house, where a bunch of people were watching Spy Games. Lisa remembered curfew in time to get me and Chelsie back to the dorms-- we walked into Towers at 12.59, to the cheers of the collective hall directors.
Points about the above narrative:
While I understand and appreciate ORU's system of brother/sister wings, I feel it is imperative to occasionally disregard those bonds and just hang out with people. Tonight was great because that's what everyone did. We bowled, we shared semi-witty banter, we smuggled burritoes into the bowling alley. It was grand.
The same cameraderie existed, though in a lesser degree, at Aimee's. I, the freshman who really has no bond with these people other than the Honors Program, was welcomed, as I always have been by them. Besides, it made me really want to be a spy and run covert ops and break the rules and pretend that secret documents were innocent Bahamian retirement plans. And Robert Redford is a good-looking old man, but he cannot compare to Gene Kelly.
I got the biggest adrenaline rush I'd had in a while when we ran through the door at curfew. For some reason I felt as if I had accomplished something.
When I came upstairs I walked into Kara's room and found them watching Braveheart.
I wish I could swear in Gaelic. I do.
On an entirely different topic: I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe if I start seeking it it'll show up.
I had a wonderful evening, the delights of which I will enumerate for your pleasure and interest.
I went bowling with my esteemed cousin wings, namely, Consuming Fire and Bliss. I pretty much spanked everyone, especially in the second game *cough*167*cough* and my hair was not staticky. We went to Coldstone. Then because it was only twenty after eleven and curfew wasn't til one, Jeremy, Jason and I went to Aimee's house, where a bunch of people were watching Spy Games. Lisa remembered curfew in time to get me and Chelsie back to the dorms-- we walked into Towers at 12.59, to the cheers of the collective hall directors.
Points about the above narrative:
While I understand and appreciate ORU's system of brother/sister wings, I feel it is imperative to occasionally disregard those bonds and just hang out with people. Tonight was great because that's what everyone did. We bowled, we shared semi-witty banter, we smuggled burritoes into the bowling alley. It was grand.
The same cameraderie existed, though in a lesser degree, at Aimee's. I, the freshman who really has no bond with these people other than the Honors Program, was welcomed, as I always have been by them. Besides, it made me really want to be a spy and run covert ops and break the rules and pretend that secret documents were innocent Bahamian retirement plans. And Robert Redford is a good-looking old man, but he cannot compare to Gene Kelly.
I got the biggest adrenaline rush I'd had in a while when we ran through the door at curfew. For some reason I felt as if I had accomplished something.
When I came upstairs I walked into Kara's room and found them watching Braveheart.
I wish I could swear in Gaelic. I do.
On an entirely different topic: I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe if I start seeking it it'll show up.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
And here's how some of my classes are going
Today we had our first real HPE lecture of the semester. Fritz was in rare form. I had never seen him so energetic. At times his antics were enough to pull my head up from my Spanish homework and just stare, jaw flopping feebly. He pantomimed isotropic and isometric and isotonicky and isolational and isotropicanic excercises. At one point he demonstrated how, in his gymnastics days, he had been trained to do a maneuver called the "Iron Cross" on the rings. He looked like a fish struggling to breathe-- provided the fish was balding, shiny-scalped, and wearing cowboy boots. It was very surreal. I do not think that man is stable.
Monday was a wonderful day because during my American History in Film class as we were watching "All Quiet on the Western Front," Dr. Vickery sat next to me. Also he gave me a Werther's Original. My grandfather used to give me those. I had a moment.
Laughter is echoing down the halls and I feel compelled to go join in. But I am chained to my computer. I have a paper that must needs be written. Perhaps I should read the book.
Monday was a wonderful day because during my American History in Film class as we were watching "All Quiet on the Western Front," Dr. Vickery sat next to me. Also he gave me a Werther's Original. My grandfather used to give me those. I had a moment.
Laughter is echoing down the halls and I feel compelled to go join in. But I am chained to my computer. I have a paper that must needs be written. Perhaps I should read the book.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
This is what happens when you haven't written any random fiction in a while and you don't feel like writing reflection papers
I was sitting in the fishbowl this afternoon when I wrote this. I haven't done anything like this in a while. It was fun. Also I inspired Kara to desert homework for pointless fiction. I wish I could keep going with this without having to do research for it...
Dark night closed in. Wind high above the trees scrubbed the sky clear, and faraway stars peered down, unable to shine through impenetrable branches. A fire was lit in a clearing. A lone figure crouched, stretching out frigid hands to the heat.
Outside the shifting circle of firelight a twig snapped. The figure was instantly on his feet, every sense alert.
He waited a full minute, counting silently. The sound was not repeated. He took his place again, slowly, cautiously. His head began to nod, and, after a few silent minutes, he slumped down on the bare ground.
The wind whistled down into the clearing. The fire popped. The man sprang to his feet with a growled curse. He looked around the clearing, consulted the watch at his wrist, and swore again. He sat down, then stood back up. He paced around the clearing, stretching, watching, waiting.
The fire was beginning to die when a noise made the man stand bolt upright in the shadows of the clearing. He listened, barely breathing. The noise was repeated. He waited a minute. It came again. He produced from a pouch at his belt a small whistle and blew softly on it. The sibilant hum rose above the wind and lingered. The answer was borne back to the waiting man on the breeze.
As he stepped back into the fading firelight another figure emerged from the shadows. They approached each other hesitantly. The firstcomer lifted a stick from a pile in the dirt and stirred the embers to life.
The revived flames threw the new arrival’s face into the light—thin, deeply tanned. His eyes were guarded and speculative, their color indeterminable in the firelight. He waited. The first man stepped forward and cleared his throat.
“You’re late.”
The words, guttural and hushed as they were, broke the spell that silence had woven over the clearing. The newcomer merely looked at him.
“You’re late,” he repeated, undeterred. “I don’t like late. It makes me nervous. I don’t like to be nervous.”
A blank stare was the only reply.
He shook his head, frustrated. “Well, you’re here now. Let’s hurry this up.” He turned to a worn pack by the fire and dug through its contents, one eye on the silent man in front of him.
The second man watched him for a moment, then turned slightly and loosened the pack he was wearing. He separated the straps almost reluctantly, and reached slowly inside, producing a small brown paper package. He held it for a moment in his hands, paying no attention to the man in front of him, who had drawn forth a similar parcel. He stared at it with an unreadable expression on his face, then with a flick of the wrist tossed it at the feet of his companion.
The first man smiled a smile of one who has accomplished a long-anticipated goal. He held out his own bundle in his left hand and kept the right buried in his bag.
“We’re even,” he said quietly.
And with that his right hand, holding a gun, came up out of his bag.
For a split second the man hesitated—the moment between his words and the raising of his gun, or perhaps the pause between the cocking of the weapon and the pulling of the trigger. That moment was his undoing.
The second man turned and kicked the gun out of his hand. As it went whirling through the air the expression on the face of the shooter turned from sneering confidence to craven terror. He reached for the gun: panic took over and he turned to the forest, desperate to escape. He turned back; he grasped for the bundle at his feet—
He was dead.
The entire exchange had not taken more than five seconds. Five seconds in which an eternity of fear had been lived by the dead man. The victor stood still, arm outstretched, gun smoking in his grip. He stood motionless.
The constellations wheeled and swung, oblivious to the nightmare transpiring beneath the shielding branches. They danced on, shifting and sliding through the night sky.
It was daybreak before the second man emerged from the clearing. The fire had been smothered, all evidences of ash and ember covered. The bundle that the first man had held was buried with him, in a shallow grave at the edge of the clearing, where scavengers would be sure to find and destroy it. The second man carried out of the forest the package he had brought with him. It weighed on him like a dead man.
Dark night closed in. Wind high above the trees scrubbed the sky clear, and faraway stars peered down, unable to shine through impenetrable branches. A fire was lit in a clearing. A lone figure crouched, stretching out frigid hands to the heat.
Outside the shifting circle of firelight a twig snapped. The figure was instantly on his feet, every sense alert.
He waited a full minute, counting silently. The sound was not repeated. He took his place again, slowly, cautiously. His head began to nod, and, after a few silent minutes, he slumped down on the bare ground.
The wind whistled down into the clearing. The fire popped. The man sprang to his feet with a growled curse. He looked around the clearing, consulted the watch at his wrist, and swore again. He sat down, then stood back up. He paced around the clearing, stretching, watching, waiting.
The fire was beginning to die when a noise made the man stand bolt upright in the shadows of the clearing. He listened, barely breathing. The noise was repeated. He waited a minute. It came again. He produced from a pouch at his belt a small whistle and blew softly on it. The sibilant hum rose above the wind and lingered. The answer was borne back to the waiting man on the breeze.
As he stepped back into the fading firelight another figure emerged from the shadows. They approached each other hesitantly. The firstcomer lifted a stick from a pile in the dirt and stirred the embers to life.
The revived flames threw the new arrival’s face into the light—thin, deeply tanned. His eyes were guarded and speculative, their color indeterminable in the firelight. He waited. The first man stepped forward and cleared his throat.
“You’re late.”
The words, guttural and hushed as they were, broke the spell that silence had woven over the clearing. The newcomer merely looked at him.
“You’re late,” he repeated, undeterred. “I don’t like late. It makes me nervous. I don’t like to be nervous.”
A blank stare was the only reply.
He shook his head, frustrated. “Well, you’re here now. Let’s hurry this up.” He turned to a worn pack by the fire and dug through its contents, one eye on the silent man in front of him.
The second man watched him for a moment, then turned slightly and loosened the pack he was wearing. He separated the straps almost reluctantly, and reached slowly inside, producing a small brown paper package. He held it for a moment in his hands, paying no attention to the man in front of him, who had drawn forth a similar parcel. He stared at it with an unreadable expression on his face, then with a flick of the wrist tossed it at the feet of his companion.
The first man smiled a smile of one who has accomplished a long-anticipated goal. He held out his own bundle in his left hand and kept the right buried in his bag.
“We’re even,” he said quietly.
And with that his right hand, holding a gun, came up out of his bag.
For a split second the man hesitated—the moment between his words and the raising of his gun, or perhaps the pause between the cocking of the weapon and the pulling of the trigger. That moment was his undoing.
The second man turned and kicked the gun out of his hand. As it went whirling through the air the expression on the face of the shooter turned from sneering confidence to craven terror. He reached for the gun: panic took over and he turned to the forest, desperate to escape. He turned back; he grasped for the bundle at his feet—
He was dead.
The entire exchange had not taken more than five seconds. Five seconds in which an eternity of fear had been lived by the dead man. The victor stood still, arm outstretched, gun smoking in his grip. He stood motionless.
The constellations wheeled and swung, oblivious to the nightmare transpiring beneath the shielding branches. They danced on, shifting and sliding through the night sky.
It was daybreak before the second man emerged from the clearing. The fire had been smothered, all evidences of ash and ember covered. The bundle that the first man had held was buried with him, in a shallow grave at the edge of the clearing, where scavengers would be sure to find and destroy it. The second man carried out of the forest the package he had brought with him. It weighed on him like a dead man.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Mental Ex-lax
My mind is cloudy and clogged.
Everything I thought I knew is knotting up. What's worse, everything I knew I knew is tangled. I wish I were the kind of writer who could just turn it on. I wish that as soon as my fingertips hit the keyboard the torrents of words inside would come pouring out in perfectly constructed sentences and coherent paragraphs. I am not that kind of writer. I write what I feel at the moment. Normally it's the only way to untangle things. No matter how poor the writing, it somehow releases the strain on my mind. Except for times like now, when I feel the urge and sit down and tap my fingers and just...wait. And fill up the waiting with meaningless drivel about how much it sucks to wait.
Some Chris Rice comes to mind in my present mood:
"I would wave my magic wand, I would say the magic words
Cooking up a miracle, putting on a show
Changing what I thought to be unchangeable reality
If I had a magic wand of my own."
There are days when I can feel miracles. Not in the ORU-seed-faith-charismatic-life-miracle way, but in the tingling of my pinkies when I see moonshine. Or in the involuntary skip in my feet when I walk in wind. When "unchangeable reality" doesn't seem all that bad. There are days when it seems that the world, Nature itself, is putting on a show, just for me. That God leaned over and announced, "Behold the sunset-- to Colleen!" Sometimes the air blazes a trail down through my lungs to every corner of me, thrilling with aliveness. Sometimes I walk by myself and smile. Because I can. Because smiling is a miracle.
But sometimes a magic wand could come in handy. Like when I am alone and lonely. Or surrounded and lonely. Or when my reality is so unchangeable I weep at its interminability. Yeah. There are todays when I wish I had a magic wand that could just make all of this better.
Of course here I am talking like He hasn't provided me with one.
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." I John 5.4
*Flush*
Everything I thought I knew is knotting up. What's worse, everything I knew I knew is tangled. I wish I were the kind of writer who could just turn it on. I wish that as soon as my fingertips hit the keyboard the torrents of words inside would come pouring out in perfectly constructed sentences and coherent paragraphs. I am not that kind of writer. I write what I feel at the moment. Normally it's the only way to untangle things. No matter how poor the writing, it somehow releases the strain on my mind. Except for times like now, when I feel the urge and sit down and tap my fingers and just...wait. And fill up the waiting with meaningless drivel about how much it sucks to wait.
Some Chris Rice comes to mind in my present mood:
"I would wave my magic wand, I would say the magic words
Cooking up a miracle, putting on a show
Changing what I thought to be unchangeable reality
If I had a magic wand of my own."
There are days when I can feel miracles. Not in the ORU-seed-faith-charismatic-life-miracle way, but in the tingling of my pinkies when I see moonshine. Or in the involuntary skip in my feet when I walk in wind. When "unchangeable reality" doesn't seem all that bad. There are days when it seems that the world, Nature itself, is putting on a show, just for me. That God leaned over and announced, "Behold the sunset-- to Colleen!" Sometimes the air blazes a trail down through my lungs to every corner of me, thrilling with aliveness. Sometimes I walk by myself and smile. Because I can. Because smiling is a miracle.
But sometimes a magic wand could come in handy. Like when I am alone and lonely. Or surrounded and lonely. Or when my reality is so unchangeable I weep at its interminability. Yeah. There are todays when I wish I had a magic wand that could just make all of this better.
Of course here I am talking like He hasn't provided me with one.
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." I John 5.4
*Flush*
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Uhhhh..
Somebody needs to strike me with inspiration for a long, witty, insightful post.
I'm waiting.
Smite me, O mighty smiter...with a good post...
This is reminding me of constipation
I'm waiting.
Smite me, O mighty smiter...with a good post...
This is reminding me of constipation
Monday, January 02, 2006
Chuckles
I am sitting downstairs in my dad's office laughing. It is a good thing that everyone else in my home has gone to bed, else they might be perturbed by the maniacal cackles echoing from this room. I really am a dummy, guys. Really. I'm a dolt.
Allow me to explain. The devil has been beleaguering me with reminders of my unworthiness and weakness all week. Solid, tangible reminders. Abrasive, corrosive reminders. I spent that time thinking about how far I had come and how far I had fallen. He was rubbing it in my face. Somewhere in the midst of it I thought, "Why doesn't this ever seem to happen to anyone else?" or words to that effect.
Forgive my idiocy, readers. All four of you. I do not really wish to chronicle this, but I think it's good for me.
God, being who He is, was very kind. Very honest, blunt even, when I got around to taking this to Him, but gentle nonetheless. And today He reminded me of my complaint. "Why does this only happen to me? Why do I seem to perpetually fail? Why am I so weak?" Here is His response (and I quote):
"I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
Romans 7:21-25, 8:1
He started with me in 7:5 and went til 8:17. But if I typed all of that on here I'd have carpal tunnel syndrome and no one would ever read this again. Paul dealt with it. Everyone deals with it. And to think otherwise is weak and, frankly, vain.
Why do I chuckle? I chuckle at my own blindness and gullibility-- it's not like I never read this before. I laugh with delight at the knowledge and security of the love of God. And I full-out guffaw at the damnable tricks that satan uses to make me believe I'm in bondage to him. I laugh at him. But I'm angry, too, that I wasted any time at all on him. Arg. but I don't dwell on it.
The way I felt today was kind of like a hug. One of those hugs that coaches give their players when they've tried hard and messed up. He laughed at me. A comfortable laugh that said, "Yeah, kid, I know."
I hate this post. I am being exceedingly random and what I wanted to say is irretrievably buried somewhere in this rubble. Hope you can salvage something from this. Maybe I'll just delete it. Or just post the entire book of Romans on here...it would make a heck of a lot more sense than this.
I will force myself to stop this madness now.
Allow me to explain. The devil has been beleaguering me with reminders of my unworthiness and weakness all week. Solid, tangible reminders. Abrasive, corrosive reminders. I spent that time thinking about how far I had come and how far I had fallen. He was rubbing it in my face. Somewhere in the midst of it I thought, "Why doesn't this ever seem to happen to anyone else?" or words to that effect.
Forgive my idiocy, readers. All four of you. I do not really wish to chronicle this, but I think it's good for me.
God, being who He is, was very kind. Very honest, blunt even, when I got around to taking this to Him, but gentle nonetheless. And today He reminded me of my complaint. "Why does this only happen to me? Why do I seem to perpetually fail? Why am I so weak?" Here is His response (and I quote):
"I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
"I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
Romans 7:21-25, 8:1
He started with me in 7:5 and went til 8:17. But if I typed all of that on here I'd have carpal tunnel syndrome and no one would ever read this again. Paul dealt with it. Everyone deals with it. And to think otherwise is weak and, frankly, vain.
Why do I chuckle? I chuckle at my own blindness and gullibility-- it's not like I never read this before. I laugh with delight at the knowledge and security of the love of God. And I full-out guffaw at the damnable tricks that satan uses to make me believe I'm in bondage to him. I laugh at him. But I'm angry, too, that I wasted any time at all on him. Arg. but I don't dwell on it.
The way I felt today was kind of like a hug. One of those hugs that coaches give their players when they've tried hard and messed up. He laughed at me. A comfortable laugh that said, "Yeah, kid, I know."
I hate this post. I am being exceedingly random and what I wanted to say is irretrievably buried somewhere in this rubble. Hope you can salvage something from this. Maybe I'll just delete it. Or just post the entire book of Romans on here...it would make a heck of a lot more sense than this.
I will force myself to stop this madness now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)