Nothing significant, except a quote and a sort of response poemish...in light of this week, it's humorous that I'm posting, but this has been on my mind lately.

"What is this praise He's after? It is Praise Living. It is GOD leaning in and shouting, "I am the center!" and the sum of our lives nodding back in agreement." --D*Crowd, Praise Habit

2010. Twenty ten. Two thousand and ten. Crazy. I am somewhere between intense interest in the new year, and apathy—it’s just another day, after all. As a student, I tend to think in school terms, anyway: “Did that happen sophomore or junior year? What teacher did we have then?” So the change from one calendar year to the next has never had much significance.

But something feels different now. Maybe it’s the fact that I have indeed been alive for two whole decades and that my quarter-life crisis is impending—instead of looking over my life so far and thinking “where has it gone? What have I done?” (i.e. mid-life crisis) I am approaching questions like “Where will I go? What will I do?” Unanswerable questions, indeed. I know I am not alone in asking them, but that knowledge does not always help—(“Ok cool, your ship is sinking too? Well, I guess we’ll drown together! Hooray!”)

And then of course, there the resolutions. One might be to actually become resolved. About something. Anything. There’s a good start.

I think another would be to notice life more. To wake up and smell the beauty. To taste how extraordinary this world, this Love, this life can really be. I think this is something I have lost of late. I used to be freakin fantabulous at breathing praise in my soul, of acknowledging God, even if only in my spirit (my stupid fear of turning God into a cliché often gets in my way.) Since reading some of Donald Miller’s new book, I realize that I have stopped noticing it all—

“What I’m saying is I think life is staggering and we’re just used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given—it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral...If I have a hope, it’s that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you. “

So, resolution: to notice the beauty of every day, every person, of the mysterious God that made all of this.

Another one would be—to listen more to His voice. Whatever that means. The mystery and of this concept slips through my fingers so often, though I know I have experienced it before. Maybe this is supposed to start small, with the nudging that we sometimes call our conscience, and then moving forward with that. And maybe it’s more than that. Again, Donald Miller affected this resolution:

“I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, and whispering a better story into our consciousness...I realized the Voice, the Writer who was not me, was trying to make a better story, a more meaningful series of experiences I could live through.”

By listening better, perhaps I can live better. What a concept…

While these resolutions have no way to be counted or really attainable, somehow they seem more optimistic than “get better grades” (though that would be nice), “lose 10 pounds” (though that would definitely be nice) or “save x amount of money” (which is probably needed. I hate money.)

In some way or another, my resolutions encompass the UBC benediction, “love God, embrace beauty, and live life to the fullest.”

Maybe I’ll say those words with greater resolve every week.

Also, I need to drink less coffee. And blog more.

(So much for resolutions…)

Late night desk shift at the NoRo front desk, where I should be studying for spanish, but I am restless.

I will practice translations.

• Este dia fue muy extraño: Today was sort of an off day, to go with the weather this morning. It started out with my bike breaking, and my slipping and falling twice this morning. (TOMS + slick floors = no bueno.) To top it all, I saw a dead squirrel behind the SUB. Strange as it sounds, I found myself choking up a bit. God speaks to some people consistently with rain or butterflies, but he sends me squirrels as symbols of joy. The day perked up a bit, again coinciding with the brightening weather. Bought a ticket for Where the Wild Things Are, got an A on a paper, had dinner with good people...so really, that Relient K lyric, "lately the weather has been so bipolar and consequently, so have I" is really fitting.
• Voy a Dallas porque necesito a ver mi familia: I miss my family. Not that this should be surprising, necessarily, but I don't know that there has been a time in my college experience so far that I have felt like I legitimately needed a break, and that I needed to go home for that break. It'll be good to see everyone after being away for over two months.

That's about it for now. Time to stop procrastinating,

I hope everyone has a wonderful Fall Friday! :)

what follows is a very random selection of some poetry I recently rediscovered on my computer...some written recently, some from years ago, some with more meaning than others.

I hesitate--
1. I don't want an appraisal of these poems. In a literary sense, they are lacking. I also don't want compliments. It's not about that right now. (I mean, every now and then, I need a cheerleader :]...but there is a time and place.) Writing is many things, but for me, it is more of an expression than a craft. I just do it.
2. I would love feedback with regards to personal response. Do you share experiences, emotions, etc?
3. this probably isn't the only poetry post I will make.
4. I am very angry that blogger won't let me format these in the way I want to. some things need to be indented, rearranged, etc. bah.


Lost and Found

I found my Bible in my laundry basket today
Along with other forgotten things:
A key, some money, a lost t-shirt.
I think I secretly pride my self in being spiritual
without needing what I might call
"the usual bonds of religion."
So, the Truth has been under jeans and underwear
For a week or two.

And my spirit has been empty
For just as long.




Lyrics

The unfamiliarity
And insincerity
Of hospital rooms.
The impersonality
And cruelty
Of needles, tubes, and trays,
drugs, bedsheets and magazines.
This is my summer vacation.

And also,
The Who playing as the soundtrack,
Who are you? Who, who?

Not to mention my father’s voice resounding from
A foreign body—in Spanish, the tongue
That rarely left his tongue.
Ay Dios, mio. Ay Dios, mio.

Oh, my God, oh my God.
Who are you? Who, who?
Oh my God, oh my God.
Who are you? Who, who?

These lyrics of my summer
formed not only my question,
But my song.



Untitled

For a while I was
Despairing—
Losing hope in
Beauty.
But then
The clouds gilded pink
Just melted into the sky
Like cotton candy
Pulled
By sticky spitfingers.




Funeral

I touched her hand and she took it, her
fingers colliding with mine with more power
than I had ever seen her muster. I looked down
and our arms were different colors, sizes, and shapes,
but our hands were the same hands.
She leaned in and her whole body throbbed
against me, as if tuned in
to the pulse beating between our fingers.
I finally had to lean down to see that
she was sobbing
big and guttural and strangely
silent tears.
Right there, it was not
the arrangement of our births that joined us.
Right there,
we were sisters.



Baylor Psalm

Praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD from the Brazos to HEB
Praise Him from the 5th floor of Cashion to the bottom of Waco Creek
Praise Him, all His Bears,
Praise Him, all his students and faculty
Praise Him, Bachelors of Arts, Sciences, Fine Arts, and so on.
Praise Him, all you who seek knowledge.
Praise Him in the works of your hands
Praise Him in your papers, your tests, your projects
Praise Him in the comings and goings of your being
Praise Him from the BSB to Common Grounds.
Praise Him in your laughter, in your friendships
Praise Him in the beauty of sunlight
Praise Him in the glory of His creation
Praise Him for the trees surrounding Old Main, silhouetted across the Texas sky.

Praise the LORD.

it has happened. my life has gotten in the way of my promises to blog.
promises I didn't actually promise to keep, I guess. (See very first post.)

Life is full, life is good, life is hard, life is...fill in the blank.
the answer changes moment by moment.

but mostly, it is good. I am in one of my favorite spots on earth--this university that I treasure so much. This is the overarching blessing.

Also, I have fallen in love with North Russell. Staff, residents, all. My fellow Prexians may cringe to hear me say it, but I feel that I am in the right place at the right time--a satisfying feeling, one that mirrors my satisfaction in being at Baylor itself. How similar these journeys have been: first met with reluctance and frustration, then complete joy.

And in a lot of ways, Brooks still feels like home, but I'm not bound to it in the way I thought I would be.
A relief.

Besides that, I am relearning what it is to be a college student. And what it is to be in the BIC.
And learning for the first time what it is to be a CL.

Life is fast.

A wonderful moment today--some BICcer friends and I stopped walking in the middle of campus during a passing period. While we weren't doing or saying anything particularly "peaceful," we were still. We were a rock embedded in the stream of students making their way to class, flowing in purposeful motion around us. It felt good to be still.
I wish my days were filled with more moments of "still."

but here I am, instead.
busy, tired...and awake, right now, when I should be asleep.
Poetry blogpost coming soon, I think.

in His beauty, grace, and light,
good night.

I'm spending my last few hours at home before going back down to Waco tomorrow morning--packing and thinking.

Mostly I'm thinking of how much I've changed in this past year, and how much has happened since the first time I packed my bags for Baylor. I have made some great friends who I feel will be around for a while. I've survived my first year of research papers and schedule juggling (this gives me a bit of hope--if I did it once, I can do it again...even while being a CL and trying to figure out my life.) I've made some mistakes, and hopefully I will learn from them. I have finally found a church that feels like home (UBC, if you're wondering.) I have found some favorite places in Waco that I've missed this summer--and I thought Waco could never grow on me.

These thoughts perpetuate the anticipation I already feel about moving back--how much more will my life be filled by the time I am packing my bags yet again for Wacko Waco? What will I be writing about a year from now? It's a wild question for me, without, of course, a real answer. So I guess I'll leave it up to the air for now and go back to packing...

I almost hesitate to post these thoughts, because I fear seeming superspiritual.

Not because of shame of my faith, necessarily, but because I dislike and fear holier-than-thou-ness, or maybe even some notion that I've got it together or have all the answers. (I wouldn't consider the latter fear, except that I have the tendency to trust too much of what I read, even in blogs...)

But enough of disclaimers.

 

Part I

 

This morning, as I was running late on my way to a random day of work, I plugged my iPod into my little cheap tape converter in order to listen to some music by my good buddy, Phil Wickham. (and by 'good buddy,' I mean that he does not have an inkling of my existence, but that I follow him on Twitter and like is music.)

 

anyways.

 

As I listened to his song "True Love," a thought from some sermon long past popped into my head.

Christ does not love me as a mere part of an amorphous blob called Humanity.

Until January 2008, I had thought of His love and His sacrifice in this way--that it was a sweeping generalization of perhaps unreachable love that doesn't really make sense or isn't daily present. (And, well, it still really doesn't make 'sense.' You could say that grace is nonsensical...)

 

But while He does love the masses, he also loves ME, personally. YOU, personally.

 

I once heard this love explained like this:

"If you were the only person that he could rescue by dying by the gruesomeness and agony of the cross--He still would."

 

Right now, this seems most mind-boggling. Perhaps it's because of my background or just my particular thought process, but my painful confession is this: especially when I was younger, there were times that such a sacrifice did not seem so remarkable. The ethics here seemed simplistic. If you could save countless lives, would you not give up one, even your own? (The T.V. series Heroes comes to mind here...)

 

As I have grown, considered the cross, and come to understand more of what He did, this idea has changed some.

But it was not until I understood this love and sacrifice to be so personal, that I was completely blown away by it.

 

He loves ME. Me??

The thought is difficult for me to express, but in some ways, it almost seems harder to love one person than many.

 

Again, it just blows me away

that His love is not only big enough to reach the masses,

but that it is also big enough to love the individual.

 

Part II

 

my fear is that I will not (well, do not) love in this way. Ha, perhaps it's not so much a fear as a reality.

I say that I love people, that I want to care for them, that I want to know their stories, etc. This is the general sentiment.

 

But what about practically and individually?

I am selfish. So often, I prefer to love in my own way, on my own time, when I feel like it.

But oh, I still 'love' everyone, yes?

Consistency fail.

 

Part III

 

My prayer is this (and it seems repetitive because...it is):

 

that you and I would know this love:personal, rich and deep 

and would overflow with it to His glory, because that's all we can do.