I'd like to change the world // it's easier than changing me

It's a funny thing, this blog. It means way too much to me to have somewhere where I can say whatever I want and people HAVE to listen. Or at least I can think they are listening even if they really arn't, which is fine too.

I have been re-thinking my plans to run away to the oposite side of the world when I'm done with school. I don't think my motives are as noble as I used to think. I think I just want to express my independence and prove that I can do whatever I want with my life. Which isn't really a godly attitude. I'm trying to figure out if there is anything in me that trully cares about people who are starving, and if so, does that justify my going? There has got to be a balance here between sitting around pinning after a husband and just trying to get attention and glory for myself. I'm developing a bad habit of making a lot of motion and noise in my life to shut out the things that are really bothering me rather than taking them straight to God.

Praying for guidence is sticky, uncertain business. I'm never sure where the answers are really comming from. For now I'm just going to focus on trying to serve selflessly around here, which ironically seems much harder than living in a shack feeding starving people.

Does anyone else ever struggle with the apparent meaninglessness of our lives? I mean, all we do is eat and sleep and work and entertain ourselves, and then we start all over again... it's so discouraging sometimes. It makes me want to scream and break out of the trend, but I kind of suspect it's impossible to do that while staying a mortal human being.

tell me something new, forget about the sunshine when it's gone

I'm so tired right now, I just want to fall into that sweet oblivian of sleep. Lately I haven't been dreaming, just sleeping soundly as though none of the events going on in my life have any affect on me in the least. I'm like a pebble someone threw into a creek, so rough around the edges at first that the water had to fight and sputter and sprout just to get around me. But now the water has worn me smooth as glass and it flows around me so easily I hardly notice it at all.

Then sometimes there are these massive waves that uproot me entierly, and I'm tumbling headlong through bubbles and whirlpools and scattered patches of shadow and light.

I've been thinking a lot about the future these days. I'm really excited for it. I've finally overcome my fear of getting older- I'm trully excited to be fifty and have children and grandchildren and a whole lifetime of God's love to bask in and reflect on. I'm not afraid of being alone, either. I think it's going to be great, no matter what happens. I've got plans, ideas, tangable things within my grasp that I just have to reach out and take.

But sometimes I think I'm getting too confident, too independent, too eager. I mean, who do I think I am? I'm just one tiny little person, I can only do so much, and I'm always so tired and depressed. Why am I dying to get out of here, away from the people, the places, the pastimes that are safe, secure, permenant? I'm so afraid that God's going to knock me down and make me fill that little space where He is supposed to be glorified, and maybe that's actually His will for me. Maybe I'm wrong to fight against that- trying to defy gravity.

I don't know, I think I'm talking nonsense at this point, but I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, God does want us each to be the best that we can be- that somehow, he can be glorified and I can vanquish pride and vanity while shining brightly, like the city on the hill that cannot be hidden. Does any of this make any sense?

One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention:
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?

we fight and crawl our way back home, but we're going the wrong way

Recently I have been learning that I really can't do God's work for him. Sometimes I get so carried away with my personal adgenda, wanting someone to be saved, wanting to fix a broken relationship, wanting to reform a world of half-way Christians. But I forget to actually pray about these things and start taking control, trying to force the issue. When really, only God can make someone really want to find Him. Or really think seriously about theology. Or really see that the way they are acting is hurting their family.

This has NOT been an easy lesson for me to learn, especially as I realize the way I have actually been pushing people away with my methods, my over-eagerness and all that. But I want to know how I can go about being Christ, as it were, to the people around me- without being up in their faces or acting like I just don't care. I'm thinking the answer is mostly to set the best example possible, something I'm not very good at because I much prefer to blend in, and then to wait patiently for apropriate times to say a few choice words. And pray like crazy. That's got to be more effective than lectures and arguing with people, I would think.

Also, I wish that I knew how to really study the Bible. I really wish I wasn't so exausted every time I start trying, because then I might actually get somewhere. The more I've been thinking about these things, the witnessing and being a "little Christ," the more important it seems that my walk is consistent with my talk. But so often it's not. So often I just don't even know how to pray. I feel like a little more honesty about these struggles from us Christians might make us a lot more accessable to a generation that is obsessed with authenticity, but at the same time, we've got to be serious about this. We've got to be walking with Christ in every possible sense of the word or we're never going to convince anyone that what we have is real.

Anyway. That's my rant for the day, to myself mostly. btw, I am done with school for this quarter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

here we come a wassaling

My hands are so friged typing is kind of painful right now. I'm DREADING walking out to my car. Why haven't I learned to bring an eskimo suit with me everywhere I go? *sigh*

Let's see. What has happened since I last posted?

We had choir shows on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, twice on Saturday, and Sunday. So now I'm completely sick of people who were pretty much strangers one week ago. :-P Just kidding, we've got great people in choir this quarter. BIG personalities all around, it seems. It was fun to see people who always seem quiet and focused come out of their shells- sometimes slowly and sometimes poping out and whizzing all over the place like an escaped snitch. Some of these people can get you so wound up you'll be exausted after an hour. But totally worth it. :-)

This has all been very upsetting because I've always been tempted to go into show buisness and now I'm REALLY tempted. Oh woe is me! I might just have to give in one of these days. But at least now I feel like I've kind of fufilled my goal of being part of a play, because even though this wasn't a musical it was about as fun, at least in the backstage parts.

What else. Is there anything else? I've been sleeping and eating choir lately, it's gonna be hard to go back to normal life. Yesterday I hung out at the H's for a while. We made popcorn and played Old Maid. It was a very peaceful, relaxed afternoon for a change. Last night was extreeeeeeeemly windy. I am drinking instant coffee right now because Eric broke our coffee pot, and I actually like this stuff BETTER. How weird is that?

oh frabcious day, callo-callay

I like today. And the day before, and the day before that. I haven't really had a day I didn't like in a while, all things considered. It's a combination of Christmas and chior and friends and coffee. I'm a happy camper.

Let me tell you about some of the wonderful things that have happened to me lately.

First of all, I turned 20. Weather or not being 20 is a good thing is still up for debate.

-PROS-

closer to moving out

closer getting married

closer to being done with school

and

closer to being able to drink alchohol.

Just kidding. :-)

-CONS-

closer to dying

furthur from childhood

more responsibility

and

less excuses.

For my birthday my friends Dan, Christina, Jacob, and Raeshelle came over and surprised me by taking me to the play Meet Me In St. Louis.

It was SPECTACULAR!

It's a story about a happy family in which everyone ends up engaged and no one dies except the dolls. After that I spent the night at the Calvins and the next day my parents gave me lots of gifts and money, and my aunt and uncle came all the way to Puyallup just to deliver a CUPCAKE.

Oh, and it was CARMEL MACHIADO.

On Thanksgiving, my friend Christina got herself an engagement ring.

O<) <---Like this.

I can talk about this now because I think she's already told everyone here who she knows. I am SO EXCITED for them! I am even going to get to be a bridesmaid. But the most important thing is that one of my very best friends in the whole wide world found someone who loves her and will take good care of her f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Congrats to Dan&Kina!

On Monday, we had our first Victorian Country Christmas rehersal. We have an AMAZING stage. It is huge and it has houses on it, complete with built-in baby Jesus. Tonight will be our first performance.

tonight the super trooper lights are gonna find me, shining like the sun...

Also,

the mall and our house and the community center we dance in have been decorated for Christmas! I LOVE shopping around Christmastime. In the very center of our mall is a tree so big you could live in it, like indians in a tipi. And the MUSIC is everywhere!

So yeah.

That's about the gist of it.

:-)

let's leave this place, and say that we escaped

So the way that I understand it is that God no longer chooses to reveal his will specially because, esentially, he's already said everything he needs to say. Which is pretty cool, because I don't have to sit around waiting for a voice- I can just go search the scriptures.

But I know that he works in individuals lives actively today. It's not like he just sits up in heaven and watches the world go around.

The difficult part is figuring out how to follow his leading in the every day things. I mean, the answers arn't always obvious, like weather I should go to Africa or New York. These decisions arn't just arbitrary, are they? God might open up one door and close the other, all for his perfect plan. Maybe it's not always a good idea to fight and fight against a closed door, while others might be closed for a time just to test our faith. Other times, maybe we just need to learn to love what is good for us- the doors that God chooses to open that we don't want to walk through.

Tell me, what do you think about that?

it seems like everywhere I go, the more I see the less I know

Lately I've started to be worried about church and God and stuff. I'm worried that I have closed myself in too much with my religion- that really, the idea of God is much broader than I like to think. What I mean by this is all the rules that we follow. I understand why it is that we don't have a worship band, and I support my church on that decision, but sometimes it bothers me that I would be uncomforatable letting go before God, really worshiping Him to the reckless abandon of other people's opinions. And I think about gospel chiors and churches that are big on the "Amens" and "Praise the Lords," and how I've always said that kind of thing just fed the emotions. But now I'm starting to think that maybe emotions are a big part of worship, and maybe my faith would be stronger if I could claim that kind of vivid interaction with God on a weekly basis.

I know people will say that you should be able to worship God just as vividly during the dryest hymn without any accompanyment whatsoever, but I am starting to doubt that this is true. Certain things stir up our emotions- we were created that way. And if a moving piece of music combined with powerful lyrics (throw out the repetative, me-centered praise songs, please) could help to break through the clouds that always seem to exist between God and I, then maybe that's a good thing.

Sure, the emotions will wear off. But hopefully the relationship you develop with God during those intimate, emotionally charged moments would stay the same. Just like human relationships.

But this is getting more technical than I intended it too- really, I'm just craving the oporotunity to worship God with everything in me, my body and my voice and my heart as well as my mind. Come to think of it the same concept applies to the idea of God speaking to individuals or even just moving in their hearts in ways that are too esoterical to pin down in precise terms. I don't exactly think God speaks to us anymore in actual voices or that he gives people the ability to prophesy (wow, I can NOT figure out how to spell that), but maybe He does work more personally and mysteriously than I am sometimes willing to allow for. I don't like that I've closed my mind to the possibility that God could ever give me a strong feeling that I need to do this or talk to someone or whatever it is. Of course I'm walking a very fine line here, and I know that.

Moving on, I worry a lot about the different faces different people put on God. Sometimes talking with other people even in my own church I realize that the God they pray to has a totally different personality than the God I pray to. It's somewhat comforting to realize that God is a complex being with many, many different sides to Him, and even when I have only learned to recognize or worship one or two sides of him, He is still faithfull to deal with me according to all the other sides. He doesn't cut me off to say, "that's not really me you're talking to, stop making up some idea of me in your head that doesn't exist." He accepts my praise and worship, even if I'm only grasping at one corner of his existance. Which is amazing, because if someone understood me so incompletely I would feel very frusterated with their attempts to admire or love me.

Part of the problem might be that God can exist in these duplicities that we humans can't comprehend- He can be terrifying and gentle all in one instant, just as he can die for the sinners who in other passages he claims to abhor. We can only focus on one of these attributes at a time, when really they only make sense as a condusive whole.

I do think it's really dangerous to become too convinced that I know what God is like, instead of keeping and open mind and trying to learn more about him all the time. That's the part that bothers me, in myself as well as in others.

On a slightly more personal level, I have been feeling really alone lately. Even though I'm surrounded by people all the time, I'm never quite a part of it the way I used to be. I keep floating back in my mind to all these groups that I've been a part of that were the world to me, starting with the Camp Hopies, and then my co-op friends, and then the Boyds, and then the Mississippi group last year. And now everyone is splintered and being pulled in different dirrections. People feel sorry for me a lot lately and try to talk to me to make me feel better, but what I really want is one person that I can always count on to be there no matter what. Someone that I can email sixty times a week and chat online all the time and call on the phone and hang out with after school. What I really want, I suppose, is a husband- but I'm not anywhere near ready for that. I've almost always had one person like that in my life, and now I find myself automatically sidling up to different people, testing out the waters to see if maybe this could be that person. But it never is.

And I think I know why. I think God is trying to teach me not just to be content in any situation, which I certainly am learning, but to go to HIM with my problems. I am terrible about this. My first reaction is to tell a friend, or post a blog, and if that doesn't work I'll eat a big bowl of ice cream or go get a mocha or flop down in front of the TV. I never believe that praying will actually help. It's always an after thought. But when I'm more or less alone like I am right now, I find myself driven to God in desperation- and I'm always shocked by how well it works. It's very faith-strengthening. And I'm learning, slowly, to go to Him as a FIRST reaction instead of waiting until there's no where else to go.

I am also learning that life is much more than relationships. I mean, there is only so much a friendship or a relationship can do for you. In the end of the day we're all kind of alone, we have to find our own ways of dealing with things and comming to rest with reality. We can only know one another to this very limited extent, even in marriage or the closest parent-child relationship in the world. Very interesting to someone like me who always thought relationships were the most important, deep and fufilling thing in the world.

I guess I'm trying to rival Kacy for blog post length today. But one more thing. I am SO confused about what to do with my life. I feel like I have to make a decision right now, but there are so many variables that could change any time. Things I want to accomplish:

1. Get my AA
2. Go to a university and learn more about music and litterature
3. Go to Africa and be a missionary
4. Go to New York and be a nanny
5. Be in some plays, preferably as a dancer and/or part of the chorus
6. Write a book

And I tend to think all of this has to happen before I get married. If I don't get married, I have no idea how I will occupy myself after all of this is done. If I do, I don't know how I'll satisfy myself with not "living my dreams" or whatever. So please pray that direction would come to me as I need it. Right now I'm pretty absolutely convinced that I need to finish my AA, which is looking like it's going to be another three quarters at least. (Yuck!!) So I keep reminding myself not to get restless, but to devote myself to the task God has given me for right now. After that, it's gonna be harder.

I hate that I'm such a late bloomer and I'm just now figuring out how to actually accomplish things. A lot of people have like all of those things done by the time they are my age.

Oh well. I gotta go fold t-shirts now. And then, off to chior to do some CHOREOGRAPHY!!

lesson in joy

In a dark room I find myself crawling and climbing, my fingernails scratching at corners and walls. This feels frighteningly like the room I was born in, small and dark and two-dementional like everything outside has also become. I've grown too weary to fight it. Searching, searching, always searching for that pin prick of light that will crack into a way of escape. Feeling rising panic choke out my throat, wondering if there really is nothing outside this box except it's critics. Almost believing this must be so, and yet not alone. Somehow, even in lonliness, not ever quite alone.

Confusion is the least of my worries, as I am mute and heartbroken as well as blind. How can this be? Tears begin to course down my cheeks as my searching becomes more frantic, throwing myself against the walls, my muscles straining until the skin turns white. Don't leave me here to live, I begin to beg, my mute lips moving in still silence. The darkness crushes in like hands on every side, holding my thrashing limbs still until I am sobbing in terror. All I want is to be rid of it, this opression of the soul.

At last my silent cries reach a wail, and I colapse in utter defeat. There is no more hope. It is then that the hands of time pull back, allowing the air to rush in around me. There is stillness. My racing heart has exausted its self, and it slows to a steady beat. It is still dark, with not a point of light for my sightless eyes, but slowly I climb to my feet. My fingers curl into fists, determination embodied in the bloodied knuckles streatched over the bones. And in that silence, in that darkness, I begin to whisper with a voice I did not know I had. And this is what I say:

I will serve You.

Over and over will I repeat it, never shouting, not deigning to beat the walls or the floor again. Over and over will I say it until the light comes in. There is nothing more certain than this.

reaching for something in the distance, so close you can almost taste it...

Things I have been thinking about:

1. I wish people gave a little more respect to the president.

2. I complain too much. It's completely ridiculous. Never quite satisfied, I go groping for something to make me happy day in and day out, when really it should be so simple- work hard, follow God, love people, be joyful....

3. Does God love everybody?

4. Chior is AWESOME. We are one of two chiors and several soloists joining together with this big swelling orchestra to create the ultimate cheesy holiday masterpiece, the kind you expect to hear while shopping in downtown Seattle with colored lights everywhere as the snow starts to fall. I can't imagine anything more wonderful in the whole world.

5. Music makes me restless. If I don't listen to music, I can almost avoid feeling, which is awesome sometimes. But I wish I would choose the music instead.

6. The word "believe" refers to something that you actually do think is true. Not something that you like, not something that helps you feel connected to the world around you, not something that fufills you or makes you a better person. I thought this went without saying, but I keep running into people who say they believe or know someone who believes something they most certainly don't believe... they just practice these things religiously in some way shape or form. Does that make any sense?

7. Somewhat connected, I'm realizing that I don't really believe the things I say I believe as much as I'd like to. I believe them, meaning I'm more than 50% sure they are true, but I don't know if I believe anything 100%. There is this huge disconnect between what I say and the way I really think, and even more between the way I think and the way I act. I really want to change this. I want to read through the Bible as though I'd never seen it before and see what I find all on my own. Even though they wouldn't be the best opinions ever, nor the most well educated- at least they would be mine, and I wouldn't be taking things strictly on other people's authority.

And then a half-finished song that I don't think I'm ever going to finish.

if we had been astronauts
make-believe space robots
we'd know to blast out of here
Out in the atmosphere
in our own hemisphere
like earthlings we'd live on the moon

If we had a great balloon
We’d sail for Hook’s lagoon
fighting pirates like Pan on the sea
So young we could not grow up
with one thimble-full of luck
We’d hardly need pixie dust to fly

Far as the telescope can see
Under blanket forts
It’s make-believe
There’s nothing here that’s real
but I’ve got nowhere else to go
so come on
let’s pretend that we're invincible

And now I can delete all 12ish drafts sitting in my posts from the last month, haha.

hello Seattle, I am a cold sea horse

There are people who are hopelessly flawed, and I'm one of them. I don't just mean in the general sense that we all have sin- I mean in the human sense, that some of us have more value than others. It's so hard to deal with these people that are hard to love. It's so hard to know where they fit in to the big picture of life that in my mind has only beautiful, smart, quick-thinking people that MAKE you love them automatically.

Life is complicated enough without this division. It's something we fight against kind of pointlessly, I'm convinced- the idea that we arn't all completely equal. Someone who is beautiful has more value in our society than someone who is ugly. Someone who is funny is better than someone who is borring. Etc, etc, etc.

More and more I find myself falling on one side or the other of this line, although I move the line around depending on who I'm with. I'm either the lovable person or the person impossible to love, all the time. Never just a person. When I'm the loveable person I look down my nose at those who arn't, as though loving them requires more energy than I should have to exert. As though it's all their fault. And when I'm the impossible-to-love person, I'm still hopelessly drawn towards those who are everything I'm not. Still hopelessly making myself promises that I will never keep- stuck forever in that rut of blind, impulsive unlovableness.

But don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm some humble, self-depricating person. Don't we all tend towards thinking the best of ourselves?

I'm sure it would help a lot if we could see each other the way God does... including the part where he loves us unconditionally in spite of everything ugly or even just annoying about us. If we could love one another that way, then we would all be easy to love. I just don't know where to start, I'm crippled by hate and bitterness and selfishness and sometimes, insecurity.

Okay, that's all I've got. Time to get some sleep.

Oh come on...

I'm reading the third Twilight book for the first time. I'm doing my best to enjoy it. For me, that means re-writing it entierly. :-)

I think Bella is a little bit ridiculous, and Edward is totally unrealalistic and annoying. I used to think he was kind of charming, but now... If I were Bella, this is how the story would go:

Chapter 1:
Me: Edward, I just heard that my old friend Jacob, who basically saved my life when you broke my heart in the last book, is going through a tough time. I want to see him.
Edward: No.
Me: Uh, well, you can’t tell me what to do. So, bye!
*drives to La Push*
Jacob: Bella!
Me: Jacob!
*hug*
Me: Are you okay?
Jacob: Well, kind of okay. Mostly I’m upset because Victoria is hunting you again, and your friends the vampires have broken our treaty.
Me: What?!
*drives back to Forks*
Me: EDWARD!
Edward: Yes, my goddess?
Me: Stop talking like that! You sound stupid. Now, what’s up with you not telling me that Victoria is hunting me again??
Edward: It is for thine own good, oh Delight of my Life.
Me: Who are you to decide that?
Edward: I am thine body guard, Rapture of my Soul.
Me: That’s weird. I don’t want a body guard. All I want is a normal, give-and-take relationship.
Edward: Mine heart bleeds with your pain, oh Give of All that is Beautiful and…
Me: SHUUUUUUT UP!! I’m going to bed. And stop sneaking into my room at night, you creeper!
*locks doors and windows*


Chapter 2
Edward: So, I think we should go to Arizona.
Me: I don’t think my dad would like that very much because he hates you. But I do want to see my mom, so I think I’LL go to Arizona and YOU can stay here. See ya!
Edward: But… *sigh*


Chapter 3
Edward: BELLA! Welcome home.
Me: Nice to see you again.
Edward: Well, do I get a hug?
Me: No. I’m cold.
Edward: Oh. Okay.
*phone rings*
Me: Hello?
Jacob: Hey Bella. You coming to school tomorrow?
Me: Yep!
Jacob: Okay. Bye!
Edward: What was that about?
Me: Jacob suspects I am now a vampire!
Edward: Well don’t worry baby, you will be soon!
Me: Uh, I think I liked the 18th century talk better.
Edward: As you wish, Angel of Beauty and Love.
Me: Uggg…
*next day*


Edward: Look who’s here! Too bad I forgot to check with Alice on the whole foreseeing the future thing….
Me: Jacob!
Jacob: Hey Bella. I’m here to talk with your boyfriend.
Me: Oh good! Then we can all be friends, like one big happy family!
Jacob: Not exactly. You guys are in big trouble, leach. This is a warning.
Me: Oh man, we got so close…
Edward: Go home, foul beast!
Jacob: Not until I feel like it!
Edward: You will go home when I tell you to go home!
Jacob: I will not!
Edward: Will too!
Jacob: Will not!
Edward: Will too!
Me: OW!
Edward and Jacob: What’s the matter?
Me: Edward, you’re crushing my arms, let go of me!
Edward: No.
Me: Help! Help!
*Jacob swoops in, tackles Edward, frees me, and whisks me off on his motorcycle while the rest of the school cheers*


Chapter 4
Me: Jacob, that was amazing!
Jacob: There’s plenty more dashing rescues where that one came from… marry me, Bells?
Me: Of course. But first I’m going to get my dad’s permission and go to college.
Jacob: Sounds good to me, I’ve still got a couple years of high school left.
Me: Yay!
Jacob: And you know what is especially awesome about this? I’m strong enough to protect you, and I DON’T thirst for your blood!
Me: HORRAY!
*they hug*


THE END.


Epologue: Latter, Jacob destroyed Victoria and took down the Volturi with his pack of Werewolves. Edward lived the rest of his life in caves until he became shriveled and shrunken and started chanting, “Gollum, gollum,” and eating raw fish. Jacob and Bella lived normal lives and were very happy together until they died peacefully in old age.

unfold your paper heart and wear it on your sleeve

I wish I could cross my arms
and cross your mind
cause I believe you'd unfold your paper heart
and wear it on your sleeve

all my life I wish I broke mirrors
instead of promises
cause all I see
is a shattered conscience staring right back at me

I wish I had covered all my tracks completely
cause I'm so afraid,
is that the light at the far end of the tunnel
or just the train?

lift your arms,
only heaven knows where the danger grows
and it's safe to say
there's a bright light up ahead
and help is on the way

I forget the last time I felt brave,
I just recall insecurity
cause it came down like a tidal wave
and sorrow swept over me

depression please cut to the chase
and cut a long story short

oh please be done,
how much longer can this drama afford to run
fate looks sharp,
severs all my ties
and breaks whatever doesn't bend
but sadly then,
all my heavy hopes
just pull me back down again

I forget the last time I felt brave,
I just recall insecurity
cause it came down like a tidal wave
and sorrow sweapt over me

when I was given brazen love
I was blind
but now I can see
because I found a new hope from above
and courage sweapt over me

it hurts just to wake up
whenever you're wearing thin
alone on the outside
so tired of looking in
the end is uncertain
and I've never been so afraid
but I don't need a telescope to see there's hope
and that makes me feel brave

I don't know if there's ever been a song in the whole world that described me as well as this one does right now.

come with me now to see my world, where there's beauty beyond your dreams

College is ripping my heart out. I mean really, I come home sobbing every day and curl up in a ball on my bed and lay there for hours too stunned to think or move.

Okay, not really. But I do occasionally start doodling in big, angry lines to keep myself from standing up in the middle of class and yelling (princess-bride style), "Liar! Liar!" Because it's so frusterating.

And the depressing part is that most of these people arn't christian-haters or terrible individuals. They arn't deliberatly trying to brainwash us or anything like that- they're just blind. Hoplessly so. I continually get the feeling that given the oporotunity, I could easily convince my whole class to come to Christ. I mean, that's not true, but I feel like it is- because the things they are buying into are so much more ridiculous and so much more hopeless. Like, they have GOT to be starving for something real and honest and true and full of LIFE!

My mom thinks it's not healthy to sit under teachers who inturpret texts with a bias for or against anything. In Oxford, she says, people don't do that. They just teach the material. That may be so, but I've never been more sure of what I believe than I am right now, with all my teachers talking about Christianity as though it's obviously rubbish. It's thick with bias, but it gives me a chance to think about why what they are saying isn't true, and usually the answers are right on the surface.

I think I used to always see Christianity as a side, as one possible answer out of many. And it was my job to defend my side and back it up with as much proof as possible so that people couldn't knock down my arguments. There are elements of truth in that view, but I think now my religion is more of a lense. There are things that I know to be true in ways that can never be backed up with logical arguments. And once I've accepted those things, everything else makes so much more sense. It's gloriously clear. It's beautiful, it's breathtaking, it's TRUE. But you can't see things through that lense until you've accepted the lense its self, until you've chosen to put on the glasses in spite of how ridiculous you might look wearing them.

Hum, I think I'm basically quoting C.S. Lewis here without realizing it. What's that famous line? I believe in Christianity like I believe in the sun, not because I can see it but because by it I see everything else? Something like that.

You know what is amazing? In the art class I'm taking with Beth and Liz we just got to the part where Christianity starts to influence art. From a purely historical point of view, this is where Christianity actually started- in the Roman times at the comming of Christ. Because before that there wern't Christians, just jews. It's fascinating to see how it looks from the outside. This man comes along claiming to be the son of God and gains a huge following, which has all of these twists and turns we never even think about. Like, the religion became something outside of its self, taking on a life of it's own that true believers probably lamented all along.

First it became the official state religion, which ruined it in so many ways, and then catholisism came along, and the crusades happened. Suddenly we're fanatics with an adgenda. Religion for the sake of religion. Oh boy, it's serious stuff.

When the teacher asked what kind of Christians you would get by forcing people to convert at knife-point, one kid replied with, "They'd be no worse than the rest of them." And I don't blame him, because things haven't changed all that much- we really are a lot of hypocrites chanting meaningless religion if we don't follow it up with dilligent morality. We don't stop enough to ask ourselves how we should be acting. We don't turn over every stone and see what the absolute best decision would be. We try to eak by with minimims... I do it all the time.

But the true power of the gospel is that in will change you, if you really go into it all the way. Right? And if that's really true, and we really live it, than there's always hope for the people in our lives. That's so exciting, and so terrifying, at the same time.

what happened to the happy ending?

In my English class we've been reading short stories. It's not a genra I'm particularly thrilled about, because it always seems kind of preachy to me. Like the only reason people write short stories is to make a very particular point. You don't get to explore a new world, or get to know the characters, or learn much about the author. You just get a message, and I don't like that as much.

But I have written short stories before, when I had to, and they were happy short stories with messages like, "Robin Hood was right to go against the king," or, "It's always better to obey your parents." Hahaha. I haven't written one in a long time.

These stories we're reading in English class arn't like that at all. They're always depressing. One was about a guy who's wife has a blind friend and he basically thinks his wife is in love with the friend but there's nothing he can do about it. So he lets the blind guy come over and even though he ends up really liking the blind guy, his marriage is never fixed. It's supposed to be this reflection on true blindness and sight, because the blind guy is more open minded and insightful than the guy who can see... but it bothers me that the marriage is never fixed. And more than that, there's just this tone about the way it's writen and the way their lives are described that makes it all seem so heavy, like this guy's life is totally not worth living but he keeps living it for some weird litterary reason.

And then we read a story about a couple who gets in a fight and ends up killing their baby. We read that one outloud in class. You could have heard a pin drop in the room, and all the gasps and horrified faces were a little bit redeeming- at least we're not that desensitized yet. But it was depressing. And the story had absolutely no hope- not even for other couples who could potentially learn a lesson from it. The point was, this is how all marriages will end. This is what love comes to, inevitably. So we might as well accept it.

I'm taking this in the inturpretation the English teacher gave it- I would have ascribed a lot more hope to it on my own. But my teacher insists the author didn't intend for that hope to be there.

It seems to me that in the end of the day the only point to most of these stories is to make you face the hard facts of reality. Now, I'm not saying all short stories are like this- but it's interesting that these are the kinds of stories that apparently reflect the very heart of American litterature, because that's what I'm reading in my American Litterature class.

And I think I'm beginning to understand why, because we read another story about a girl who's father wants her to write a normal story with a normal plot line, and she doesn't want to because she hates the plot line. She hates it because she thinks it leaves no hope. Like, the ending is decided from the beginning. Everyone deserves a chance to decide their own destiny, that sort of thing.

And we talked about how short stories don't have to follow the plot outline that a fantasy or a romance does. There's no rising action and no solution at the end. Just a climax. It's like, what if instead of writing the Lord of the Rings, Tolken just wrote a short story about two guys on a mountain, trying to find the inner strength to get rid of a ring that could potentially make them powerful. And then the mountain blows up. The end.

Which IS reality- things that happen in real life often don't have a plot line. Little things happen day in and day out that might be interesting to think about, but it would probably be very hard to write an interesting story with purpose spanning several years or even several weeks of our lives, unless we choose just one thing to focus on, like my job at such and such a place from start to finish... but even that usually isn't very interesting.

But to me, the plot line is full of hope. Way more hope than you'll ever get from a story without one.

As Donald Miller points out, world does have a plot line. From Creation (status quo) to the Fall (conflict) to Redemption (climax) to the end of the world. And come to think of it, individually our lives in Christ have something of a plot too. From our birth into sin, our salvation, our perseverence in the faith and finally our death, we make the story arc. Which is incredibly cool to me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that as Christians we have the immense privilage of seeing things as a whole, on that broader perspective. Which enables us to always have hope, knowing that it's all going to mean something in the end. We don't have to look at life as these isolated incidents of random thoughtfulness. Everything that happens is part of a big story, an epic trillogy, as it were, not just a book filled with short stories to pick and choose from.

It really makes me want to jump up in the middle of class and start telling everyone about the hope and joy that is Christ. And it really makes me thankful for the way God has chosen to do things!

NEW blogger

Because you know how I like to make announcements about these kinds of things.

Danny now has a blog of his own, you'll find him in my friend's list. This was not my idea so he's not TECHNICALLY a recruit, but I still think I'm doing better than the rest of you in this chatagory. :-P Danny, you've already met every one of my friends except for Bo, Lucy, Matt, and Sarah. Bo, Lucy and Sarah are camp friends and Matt is from school.

So when Danny starts posting new stuff you should all comment to make him feel included and everything. You know the drill.

Hum, this feels kind of like an AA meeting... My name is Emily. ("Hello, Emily...") I've been a blogger for, wow, five years now...

what joy shall fill my heart

School and work have just been too much lately- not too much for me to handle, but too much intensity, too much busyness, too much of the world pressing in on me and blocking out faith. And then I start studdying 1 Corinthians, and I'm amazed at the clarity of the scriptures, the obviousness of the message being potrayed. And I wake up to see the rain falling on the window and feel the coziness of the house before it's quite light out side, and I'm reminded that God is a God of character and diversity, and I can say with Him that the creation "is very good!." And I go to Mars Hill and hear this hymn:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
consider all the works Thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy pow'r thru-out the universe displayed

when thru the woods and forest glades I wander
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees
when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze

and when I think that God, His Son not sparing
sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin

when Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart
then I shall bow in humble adoration
and there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art

then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
how great Thou art, how great Thou art
then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
how great Thou art, how great Thou art

I think it's so important to really engage in our faith, not just to live intelectually believing it. Even the demons believe and tremble, right? This hymn helps me so much to engage my emotions in the things I'm trying to live out day by day. I think I need to start hanging hymns on my desk at work to remind me through the day of who I really am and what's really important.

The end. :-)

just the facts.

(From yesterday)

I started school today. For the first time since Christmas I actually have something to think about other than work! It's a little weird. I had a small moment of panic sitting in English class when the teacher started talking about all the various kinds of assignments... suddenly it all came back to me just how hard it is to keep everything straight and what it feels like when you realize in class that something is due that day. I really don't know how this year will go, because I'm usually terrible at school, but I've become a lot more dilligent and orginized in other areas of my life since I was last in school, so I'm hoping it will be different. I guess we'll see.

So let's see. I'm taking chior, English Litterature, and Art Appriciation. Today I just had English and Chior. Chior is a lot different this year (Matt, we miss you! For the first time in forever we're actually short on GUYS), but I'm supper excited because all the leaders from last year are gone and instead of walking around in other people's shadows I get to be a little more confident and help lead my section- which, by the way, might turn out to be the soprano section. For whatever reason Mr. Owen asked me to switch sections once everyone was arranged. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but at least he trusts me to handle the higher notes.

My English Lit teacher is a vast improvement on my English 101 teacher, the Communist Feminist Wicken that I'm sure you've all heard about. This teacher is a nice older lady with a perky sense of hummor. And it sounds like this class is going to be very multi-cultural and diverse, so it should at least be informative and interesting. I don't think it will be exactly challenging, but that's okay for my first quarter.

On the other hand, Art looks like it's going to be much more intelectual than I thought. I won't know for sure until I go to class tomorrow, but the text book is pretty hefty.

This past weekend I traveled to the East side of the state to visit Carolyn and witness the baptism of someone I've never met before... Carolyn and I have talked a lot about our churches and she thought this would be a good oporotunity to see hers. The Calvins were visiting friends down there too, so I was able to travel with them. I drove the first two hours with Dan and Christina and wrote in my journal, and then we stopped in Ellensburg and picked up Jacob, who had just dropped all his stuff off in his dorm room at Central. The rest of the family followed in the van at a pace that, well... allowed us to see the scenery in great detail. :-)

(From today)

When we got there we had dinner at the Petersons' and then I drove home with Carolyn (another 45 minutes) to Clarkston. It was dark and I couldn't see much but it was pretty clear that we were driving through nothing but fields and hills most of the way, which is pretty cool if you ask me. Then we started passing water, which looked amazing with the lights from the harbor reflected in it, and we drove into the city and stayed at Carolyn's new appartment, which is super cute.

Saturday we walked around downtown Lewiston (which is actually in Idaho), got our nails done (my first manacure ever!), had a picnic, blew bubbles, rode on the swings, made scones, watched High School Musical 3, and went to Carolyn's work. She works in a brick backery and there was live music. I started out reading Mr. Darcy's Diary, until Libby showed up. We talked for something like three hours... turns out she's a writer like me and we had plot lines to hash through and various characters to analize. :-D

Sunday we went to Carolyn's church and then to a park called Hells Gate (seriously) for the baptism. I thought it was really cool that they did the baptism in the river. And then they had an out doors communion service and a picnic. I got to talk with Laural and Katie and Nathan and Dexter and Sarah, which was awesome. I knew someone from almost every family in that church. Rueben has the CUTEST little girls.

Then after saying goodbye to all the Calvins except the Kina and Jake, Carolyn and I went to her parents house and helped her mom get crafts ready for Kids Group or something like that while Dan, Kina and Jacob toured Clarkston. And then we all went to the Peterson's again for the night. We watched a couple movies on creation, both of which were actually quite interesting. And then the Calvins, Dan and I went up on the roof to see the stars. The Peterson's house is really cool because it's backed into a hill, so you can litterally just walk right onto the roof from the backyard. And the stars out there are absolutely breathtaking!

Monday morning Dan had us up bright and early- and believe it or not, Kina, Jacob and I actually were ready on time. This breaks records! We went to the park for breackfast and ran into Dan's old PE teacher. And then we went to see the school where Mr. and Mrs. Peterson work. We even got to play with the instruments in the band room. And then we said goodbye to the Peterson's and took off to tour Pullman.

I will not put you through the list of every place we went in Pullman, but highlights were Bret and Cristine's house, caged grizzly bears, and a resturant that served hamburgurs I actually liked. :-) And then we had to say goodbye to Carolyn and head off for our side of the state again. On the way home it hit me suddenly that I was taking a road trip with friends, which is something I've ALWAYS wanted to do. The ride back was especially fun, I'm not sure why. I made a crossword puzzle with song lyrics and I was the only one who brought CD's, so the music was great. :-)

We stopped twice, once for gas and once to drop Jacob off in Ellensburg. I'm super jealous that he gets to live on campus and go to this amazing school. His doorm room is bigger than my bedroom, which is saying something! After that Kina had to sleep because she works at 3:00 AM, so I just sat in the back and listened to my music blarring through the speakers (Dan is a very patient guy...). Every now and then if I turned around and looked through the back window, if we had just gone around a bend in the road so that the other cars were still out of sight, all I could see was the outlines of trees against the stars. It was a weird disjointed feeling, but amazingly cool nonetheless.

And now I'm at work, trying to adjust to normal life in the northwest. I think I want it to start raining again... it feels about time for a rainy day.

what the world needs now is love, sweet love :P

Okay, here's an ethical/moral question to ponder: how important is doctrine, really?

I mean, I 100% believe that theology is the framework for everything that you do. Ideas have consequences and what you believe about God has big consequences. There is only one correct answer to any doctrinal/theological question, and it is our responsibility to do everything we can to deduct that correct answer.

But as we all know, people come up with different answers to these questions all the time. And unless they are doubting that Christ is the Son of God and that it is only through Him that you can be saved, or perhaps the inerency of the Bible or other equally fundumental principles of the Christian religion, it would be absurd to say that such a person wasn't trully a born again child of God because they interpreted the scriptures differently. So in that since, it almost doesn't matter what you believe about things like the Sabbath or Dispensationalism or whatever the issue is.

However, as our pastor was saying on Sunday, the goal of being a Christian is not just to get to heaven. Our Goal is to become as Christ-like as possible, to conform ourselves to the likeness of our Savior. So you could stand to reason that any incorrect doctrine has some sin mixed in with it, or at the very least will cause us to sin because of the way we live in reaction to that doctrine. Which would make us not conforming to the image of Christ, and thus crippling ourselves in the very purpose which we are here to accomplish.

Taking all of that into consideration, how accepting should we be of Christians with other doctrines? I mean, obviously we should love them and treat them as our equals and not burn down their buildings or anything, but what amount of "incorect" doctrine can we put up with in the organizations that we support with our money and time, or the people that we fellowship with as Christians, or the books that we read?

I guess this is something of a pet peeve of mine, when people allow doctrinal differences to get in the way of unity between the churches and ESPECIALLY ministry work. I hate the mentality that I have to constantly be picking my way through a mine field of people, books, and oporoutnities to find the ones that are Conservative Reformed Baptist Evengelical, and only then can I get involved. Because it seems like there are a lot of great things out there in a wide variety of backgrounds and we could all learn a lot from each other if we could just get past our differences. I mean, that sounds so touchy-feely, but really, we Calvinists could learn a lot from the way Armininists evangalize so energetically, even if we don't want to teach the same doctrine. And we could learn from the carismatics about worship. There's even a lot to learn from the Mormans- I'm just saying, when we box ourselves in to our own little way of thinking, we become prey to all the potential pit falls of that way of thinking. And they ALL have pitfalls.

So I don't know, maybe this is just my feeling side wanting us to all just get along like hippies.

But I would love to know, what issues would make you say, no, I'm not going to read a book by a person who believes that, or no, I'm not going to fellowship with a church that believes that, and what would you be willing to overlook?

thought

You know what I've been thinking about? Joy. It just occured to me the other day that joy is one of the fruits of the spirit. Which is incredibly interesting, because that's basically saying that if you are a true mature Christian, you will be joyful. And I find that this more or less rings true with the really strong Christians I know.

It's awesome, too, because if we were all really joyful, that would set us apart from the world like nothing else. It would be such an obvious difference, and not the kind of difference that drives people away, either. So in other words, SMILE, JESUS LOVES YOU!!! Haha, sorry, couldn't resist.

Another weird fruit of the spirit is peace. Elizabeth reminded me of the verse that says, "And the PEACE of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." And I guess it's true, if I really believe the things I say I believe, they should give me enough comfort to be at peace with any situation.

And then there's Self Control. I'm so terrible at this. It's just weird to me to realize that these are Christian traits. Not just irrelevent, nice-person characteristics, but Christ characteristics. I thought that was interesting.

I see the angels, I lead them to your door

Lately my life has been one big "I just don't know." I don't know anything anymore. Even the things I used to know for sure are shaking loose. It's leaving me in this weird state of nothiness- I don't know if I want to write or not so I just don't write, I don't know weather I can trust someone or not so I just don't talk to them, I don't know what I'm feeling so I just try not to feel. Obviously this isn't the solution, but somehow it's more complicated than just snapping out of it. I can't even begin to explain to myself why I'm acting this way.

On a lighter note, I'm reading the first Harry Potter book, which makes me the first in my family. Honestly I'm not quite understanding the controversy here. It doesn't seem much different from other fantasy books I've read- maybe my whole life I've just been reading things that a lot of Christians would find inapropriate. I just remembered that we already had a big discussion about the use of magic and good and evil in fantasy books on this blog, a long time ago. The whole genre of fantasy is pretty interesting, really. It's not very well respected in eleit litterary circles, is it? This is kind of a strange realization for me because I always thought it was universally acknowledged that the greatest works of all time were the big long works of fantasy and science fiction. When really those books are more appriciated by nerds and those who like to read just for the fun of it.

Which definantly puts me into one or both of those chatagories, because I can hardly ever make it through classics like Dickens or... well, whatever hip and modern author is buzzing around in university English classes these days. Wouldn't it be great to be all sophisticated and cultured like that? I'll spend the rest of my life dreaming about it, I'm sure.

Elizabeth has been going on this alternative-rock journey lately and I'm kind of getting taken along with her. I don't know how she finds these songs, it's so depressing watching your younger sister become several times cooler than you, haha! But awesome at the same time because conceptually, some of that coolness might rub off on you by association. :-P I've become so lazy about my music, though, I want to go on a big journey through all the different genras to get totally adicted again. Because music, when you find the right stuff, is so amazing.

And so are words. Writing calms me down so much.

posting just to post here, guys

Life is so strange, how you drift around between people-groups and places. You would think we humans would need something consistent, something solid to keep our feet on the whole way, but we don't- somehow we're perfectly fine letting go of old things and clinging to new ones. We do it all the time, with the rapid inconsistency of a pin-ball machine. One tiny thing can change our minds about something we loved dearly the day before, and we put it behind us like food gone bad.

I've been thinking about all the different phases in my life, from running around recklessly full of imagination in Colorado to right now, staring at this empty echoy thing called my future and wondering, what point does any of it have, really? Why did I have to go through all of those experinces to land myself here, only to find that the most likely course will have me leaving it all behind, all the people and places and interests that guided me off and on till now?

Blah. Too much deep thinking. Vacation was, well, interesting. Family vacations are always hit and miss- I've had great ones and not-so-great ones. This fell more under the second chatagory, not that it didn't have it's moments. I wrote a continuing blog post about it, kind of like a really borring documentary, in my notebook, which I will post if I ever decide to finish typing it up. For now I'm wrapping up my work day... I feel like it should be raining outside, but it's actually perfectly sunny! Weird feeling.

sweet beginnings and bitter endings

i am typing this from my moms phone. it's a little weird.
just thought you guys would likr to know that so far we have made it past the point where we broke down. yay! and i have had coffee, so no worries there.
i'm working on a huge cumalative post to commemorate this vacation, which i have absolutely no desire to type on a phone. i'm sad because i can't find a colon on this phone so i can't make a smilie face. i can make a wink face though! ;) no noses on this keyboard either, but thats okay. smilie faces don't necessarily HAVE to have noses, you know.
anyway, we're driving through eastern washington right now, and it's so inspiring! i think we should all move out here and start our own ranch. whoes with me?

cuz I don't want to waste another moment, saying things we never meant to say

Leaving tomorrow for Yellowstone.
For real this time.
Well, Lord willing, I suppose.
I'll be back Monday, probably pretty late.
At that time I will most likely make a blog post.
Because vacations always inspire me, even though I never want to go on them in the first place.
Kind of like right now.

But anyway. I keep wanting to write a blog post, but I'm always too tired or too lazy or too emotional. It's much harder than I thought not just rambling on about myself in these posts, kind of like I am doing right now.

Oh. I saw the new Star Trek movie, and it was incredible. I've only ever seen one of the other movies and exactly zero of the TV episodes, but I still really enjoyed it. I don't think I've heard of anyone not enjoying it. Have you guys seen it yet? What'd you think? Spok is my favorite, in case anyone is wondering. :-)

you've been having trouble staying asleep, you've been waking up at 4:12

Every year the routine is the same. After floating around in outer space for a week we have to endure rough bumps and jars as we re-enter the earth's atmosphere, remembering how to perform mundane tasks like driving a car or using a computer or cell phone. Nothing could be more frusterating. But then when the transition is made and I find myself, somewhat unwillingly, back in my familiar house once again, I shower, unpack, and share storys from the week with the family. All rather unwillingly. But slowly I begin to warm up to my new-old enviroment and see the rightness of the whole pattern, the place real life has in the fabric of thinking I wove for myself while I was away.

And then, after meticulously cleaning up ever corner of my room, I sit down, check my emails, and pull up a blank draft for a blog post. In spite of hopeless exaustion and the threat of an early morning the next day, I'm never furthur from sleep then after returning from Camp. My mind is alive, my emotions are churning in a cacophany of noise and color and brain-matter stuff. I'm bursting to express myself, desperate to make this moment count for something. And usually after attempting to make that blog post captering the essence of all that I am and all that life is, I give up and go do something to remember, like climb up to the top of the swing set and listen to Angels and Airwaves under the stars. Or write in one of my stories a scene that I'll keep comming back to for forever. What will it be tonight? In the end, nothing ever quite satisfies the intense longing Camp Hope creates in me for something I can't identify and I have to just go to bed. The next day, the process of forgetting begins and somehow it doesn't bother me like it does tonight.

So what is it? What is it about Camp Hope that shakes me to my core every single time, weather it's Junior or Teen camp, weather I'm staff or a camper, and no matter who comes? It's so strange.

I just know that when I first arrived I felt disapointed, because it really wasn't all that great. I saw a bunch of dirty cabins in the woods with a gutterball table in the middle. And then people started showing up and I thought the same thing- these are just regular teens with regular teen problems. Whatever magic Camp Hope used to have for me is over now, that was all a part of hormonal adolesence. I think this just about ever year. But like usual, I warmed up to it and became so emotionally attached to EVERYTHING and everyone. For reasons I just don't understand.

I noticed this year that at the beginning of camp I was judging people right and left- this person was better looking than that person, that person just plain bothered me, this group of people could hardly compare to my elect chosen few I wanted to be friends with exclusively. I didn't realize I was judging them, I guess I just always judge people and choose favorites and think mean thoughts. But as the week progressed these barriers began to fall down, and I started noticing things about people that endeared them to me, things that went so much deeper than their ability to measure up to my personal standard. The ability to love, just naturally, compulsively, uninhibitedly, is born in me during camp and it spills over to include just about everyone. I've heard that to trully love someone you have to see them how God sees them, and I think I began to see people that way to an extent this week. I forgot all about my original steriotypes.

And then there's the Anual Disapearence of Inhabitions. Everyone always points it out: at Camp Hope nobody tries to be cool or impress anyone. That atmosphere is simply not tollerated. You can just be who you are and do what you want to do and people will laugh and yes, join in. I have become such a snob over the year, thinking that I was finally beyond being reckless and even a little stupid. It's so amazing to be in an atmosphere where you feel people will love you no matter what, where you can "open up and come alive." How long have I been caging myself in the same closed-minded expectations I place on other people, as though there's only one right way to be and I have to find it?

Most importantly of all, I never feel closer to God than when I'm at camp. Suddenly everything in me is involved when we're singing a worship song, my emotions and my desires as well as my mind. My prayers become so real and more constant, the truths in the chapel messages often sink furthur in than they would have at home. It's never perfect, of course, but He just seems closer when I'm at Camp, away from everything that makes me stumble. It's all so beleivable. Faith is so strong, conviction so real. What I wouldn't give to live like this all the time!

My priorities change so much when I'm at camp. It's hard to beleive that a week ago I was stressing over doctrinal technicalities or work or school or relationships when there are such things as worship and fellowship and unspeakable friendship. Ahh, I just want everything about my life to change so much. I want to be more, do more, see more, live more. And I don't ever want to forget the memories from this week, even though many of them were hard and painful and stressful and not fun for me at the moment. I want to hold on to every tiny thing I learned. Like I said, it's just so strange.

My only theory is that Camp Hope is a little bit like what heaven will be. Lots of hard work, a LOT of honest and real worship, indescribable, intimate communion with God 24-7, and unending fellowship with true beleivers. Suddenly I understand why we won't miss things like sleeping or food or marriage. If that's what heaven is going to be like, I can hardly wait another day.

it's all good, all right- see ya latter doesn't mean goodbye

Okay, so I'm going to be gone at camp for the next week- I'll get back to my post on rights. I think this is a really super important concept, the more I think about it the more all-encompasing it becomes.

In the mean time, though, you should all go and check out Danny's comments on my post about courtship. He's obviously put a lot of time and energy into the subject- it was his thoughts that sparked all the discussion at church and my questions, so it's well worth the read.

Crystal says hi. Well, she's in the shower right now, but I'm at her house and I'm sure if she were here she would say hi, because she's nice like that. :-)

it's chap sticks and chapped lips and things like chemestry

Here's a consistently re-occuring theme in my life right now: rights. As usual I'm in the middle of about ten different books, and in two days I came to the subject of rights in two of them.

Both were talking about the same thing. Their point was that when it comes to the way we think of ourselves and deal with other people, it's very important that we don't have the mindset of asserting our own rights. This is hugely counter cultural in America especially, I think. Most poignantly for women, with the feminist movement having become such a big deal. We're taught to stand up for ourselves and and never allow people to walk over us. I'm realizing how much I've bought into this myself. If people don't treat me the way I think I deserve to be treated, I can be very unforgiving about it.

So it's hitting me rather hard to think that I don't really deserve to be treated any certain way in the first place. And that even when all fairness would say that I do have certain rights, it's not my place to assert them. One of my books pointed to the story of Jonah as an example. Jonah was big on his own rights, not thinking he should have to go to a country he didn't like, or have to suffer harsh weather conditions, or have to forgive people who had done terrible things. Repeatedly God said to him, "What right do you have to be angry?" This just brought it home to me how little God values rights. He gives things as he chooses, not because we deserve them, but because He wants to. Not even being a Christian is enough to earn us any amount of rights before God.

This concept comes in especially handy when it comes to relationships (and I don't mean just with boys, I mean with everyone). Elisabeth Elliot points out that a marriage only works when each person is equally dedicated to surrendering their own rights and supporting the other persons. This means even when the other person, be that my mom, my boss, or my friend, is demanding their own rights and paying no attention to mine, I have to give in willingly. And without bitterness, without reminding myself that this isn't fair. I have to be so focused on the other person being happy and getting what they "deserve" that I don't even notice my own rights. That's what it means to really and trully love someone, and I've been missing it all this time.

say goodybe to courtship?

Alright, I'm really not trying to be all controversial and hip here, but the only good, thought-provoking subject I've been thinking about lately is dating. I guess I always kind of have this in the back of my mind, as I'm revising my standards and planning my future (if such things can be planned at all...) but it's been pushed to the front lately by discussions we've been having at church.

There is an opinion circulating that because neither dating or courting is in the Bible, it's kind of a bogus idea altogether. I think this is pretty radical and at first I was really turned off by it, but the more I think about it the more I see potential truth in it. Other than betrothal, there's never an example in the Bible of two people entering into any kind of a romantic relationship prior to marriage. The guys just go around choosing wives and marrying them.

So. The immeadiate question that pops into my head is this: can the marriage rituals of the Bible be merely a cultural thing, or are we to follow the example of the patriarchs as instruction intended for our benefit? Another example to play with in your head would be that of the roll of women in church- I had to do a speech on this one and it was very tough. Paul says women should be quiet in church and not take up any positions of leadership, but there are many Christians who argue that this was merely a cultural thing. (Verses would be helpfull here, I'll dig up my old paper if anyone gets hung up on this point.) I took the stance that Paul's instruction for women was God's instruction, not the culture's instruction.

But is there a difference between being specifically told something, like in Paul's instruction to women, and just seeing patterns of behavior, as in marriage customs? I know that we don't ONLY listen to direct commands in the Bible. When I hear a sermon on Joseph there's always application from his life. Something like, "Just as Joseph was bold here, so we ought to be bold in such and such situation."

On the other hand, there were lots of things done by people in the Bible that we don't even think twice about doing, such as washing one another's feet or... yeah, washing one another's feet. (Let me know if you can think of another example.) So perhaps more appropriately the question is how do you draw the line between cultural things and things we should embrace in our own lives? I'm sure this question could apply to much more than just dating.

I think this whole concept is interesting because the only way I've ever exaimened the issue before is by applying Biblical principles, never by looking to the Bible for the how-to instructions. (As Donald Miller says, there are how people and there are why people. I've always been a why person.)

The alternative to dating/courting would be to just be friends with a person, even if they have expressed interest in you, until the time when the guy is ready to propose. The idea is to avoid the expectations put on a couple who are in a relationship, the expectations to spend time alone, to treat one another in a special way, perhaps even to be physically involved to a certain degree (although I know many courtships have done without this just fine). Are these expectations necessarily a bad thing? I don't know. Sometimes they put pressure and sometimes they are harmful, but perhaps some of them are good. For example, the expectation to follow through, to either marry the girl or give her a full explanation for choosing to not marry her, gives the girl a ring of protection that enables her to trust the guy with her emotions.

Some would say that you should be able to get to know everything you need to know about a person just by being friends with them. I'm not exactly sure this is true, because I don't think it's wise to get super close to a guy you're only just friends with. Then again, how much to you really need to know about a person before you can safely marry them? Arranged marriages have worked out fine in more continents than not for centuries.

And one more question, if you've expressed interest in a person and vice versa, can you even say that you're not in a relationship? Is it a bogus point? What about Jacob and Rachel from Genesis? They loved one another, or at least he loved her, but was unable to marry her for fourteen years. All of that time, she had his heart- is this perhaps an example of what is essentially courtship? It seems that once you have declared your feelings for someone you have something of a commitment to them, if honesty is at all a virtue, to follow through. And I certainly don't think you can skip telling someone you like them until you're ready to propose- or can you?

my blog belongs in the movie Transformers...

So I've been thinking, I've been blogging here for at least four years (although at one point I deleted several months worth of posts at the beginning for reasons I've yet to fathom), and for the most part it seems like I've just talked about myself this whole time. It's been one endless stream of self-discovery and self-expression- both of which are important to an extent, I suppose, but I just thought of that verse that goes, "for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25)

It seems to me I would be much better off if I could submerse myself in things bigger and beyond me. And how cool would it be if I could use this blog to stimulate good conversations about things that really matter? It's been done before, but I just wish I could do it all the time instead of comming back to wallow in my little mud hole of self.

Plus by the time I get to my devotions at night I'm usually too tired to really think that hard about anything I'm reading. It's kind of a bummer. I think things would be really different if I was always discussing them on blog through the day.

I've also been thinking about opening this blog up and making it public so that people could read it without a super-special invitation... I think it would be awesome to have an open discussion forum that anyone could contribute to. Maybe post a link to it on Facebook or something... I guess I'd better get a few thought-provoking posts up there first, though. Let me know what you guys think about this idea.

battleground

they pull me in and spin me around, they chatter and scream at one another, they bruise me and shake me untill my teeth rattle loose against my jaw. every single one holds onto some fiber of my existence, inseperatably linked to me at every checkpoint, at every nerve. but they hate me as though they are not of me. oh how the hatred gloats and smirks, pointing and laughing at the horrific irony of the misery they have so much power to inflict.

and yet i am trapped. utterlly trapped by my own thoughts, a slave to their wrenching grip upon my conciousness. how is it that when everything else in life is exactly the way it should be, a simple thought can worm it's way into my conciousness and destroy the whole precarious balance of my hapiness? and then there are the other demons.

these slip in unoticed and take up a residence in the rooms i save only for the best of guests, and there they begin to grow and spread, until they are master of the whole palace. they come and go at will with no warning, they deceive with honney and sweets that disolve when i try to bite down. worst of all they dress in all sorts of disguises, miraging first from one form then to another, so that i never know when it is their handwork i witness or some other force- be it the Almighty force, the thought-demons, or the Evil One.

can i escape what i feel? should i try? is my reasoning sound enough to rely on without the help of wild, untameable, unreasonable, and yet always honest emotions? what would smothering these do? can i offer these to the Almighty? where would that leave me?

together they are at war, sometimes forming alliances with each other and with other powers, sometimes fighting united as sides and teams, forcing me to choose. and there is nothing, nothing that i can rely on inside of me to guide me- nothing at all. there is no third power. just fault fighting fault, deception fighting deception. helpless i grope for something outside of me to silence the battle within, but my fingers curl around weeds that are rooted in sand. searching for the Rock and the endless peace that must be found there, i plunge on, blind and helpless, broken and tearful, but somehow still alive, still hoping, still believing.

bondage

Here's something that totally confuses me.

People say that when you accept Jesus Christ into your heart and life, things should change for you- that you will turn your life around and start doing good, whereas before every thought of your heart was only evil continually. I beleive this no questions asked, because out of love for what Christ did for me I see no choice but to do my best to follow the commands he lays out in his word. So far so good.

Lately, however, I keep catching wind of this idea that upon salvation we are endowed with some kind of special ability to do good that we didn't have before. And also that once you are a Christian, you will be able to acheive levels of goodness unreachable to the unregenerate person. This is very new to me, and I'm not sure I'm really buying it. I tend to think that being good is every bit as difficult after you become a Christian as it was before, the only difference being that you have a greater motivation to do good and a greater knowledge of what goodness is after salvation. Also I tend to think that there are many unbeleivers who do a perfectly fine job of "being good," even though there is no true faith in their actions. They just want to live cleaned-up lives because it makes them happy.

So what's the difference between people like that and born again Christians, other than the motives and the state of the heart? In Born Again Colson talks about people who had already been saved but were still struggling with achoholism or drug addiction, until they were "filled with the Holy Spirit." And then they just lost the need to drink or smoke, like the holy spirit had actually performed a miricle in their bodies. If that kind of thing really happens today, I can see how it could be easier to be good after salvation. But I don't know if it does.

I think I almost understand this, but I can't quite put my finger on it yet. So there's some food for thought, follow-up post probably soon to come. Thoughts?

wildcats everywhere, wave your hands up in the air ;-)

Time to introduce another new reader- Blogglings, meet Matt, Matt meet blogglings. He's a friend of mine from chior at school. (No, not the Matt you know Anna.)

And for both Matt and Nathan's benefit, I'll introduce my other blog friends real quick:

Anna ("quenta tindomerel") used to go to my church, her family is (are?) looong time good friends with my family

Beth ("Bethany") is my cousin and one of my very best friends (all of these people are, really)

The Carlsons are my cousins from New Jersey

Kacy ("Verya") used to go to the co-op my cousins used to go to, and so obviously we're like best friends now. :-)

Lindy and Lucy ("Lindy" and "Missionary Girl") are sisters from a summer camp I've gone to virtually every year of my life

Michaela ("MJ") is Beth's sister and another one of my V.B.F. (very best friends) :-)

And Nathan ("{g4G}SomeThingWeird") also used to go to my church and now lives in California.

And that's basically it. I'm off to Ocean Shores until late tomorrow!

I wish I could explain what's been eating at me lately. I've spent so much time trying to get around it, either by brushing it under the rug like it's no big deal or by bustling around doing "good things" to cover it up, to make me feel like the incompleteness isn't there and like I've got all my ducks in a row.

But that's not quite true. I'm going to be baptized a week from Sunday and then the Sunday after that, I'll be accepted into the membership of the church I've been attending since I was six. I'm really excited to finally be at this point in my life, but I can't shake a nagging feeling that I'm doing it for the wrong reasons or that I don't really understand what this means between me and God. But it's not just a question of weather or not I'm ready to be taking this step, it's more a emptiness I feel in myself where I thought God was supposed to be... a hollowness in my religion that I thought was supposed to be vibrant and real and strong. That worries me in so many ways- I'm afraid of what this is doing to my testimony before my fellow Christians, my witness to unbeleivers, and ultimately to my own spiritual health.

Let me see if I can explain what I mean. I'm reading a book right now called Born Again. It's by Charles Colson, infamously known as President Nixon's "hatchet man" because he was willing to cut through the red tape and break rules in order to get things done in the White House. He was eventually charged with being involved in Watergate (a famous break-in to a Democratic safe, I think) and he ended up serving jail time for deliberately black mailing a Democrat which was somehow involved with the whole thing... The politics of this book are mostly lost on me, but I'm pretty sure that's about what happened.

But somewhere in the middle of this book, Colson becomes a Christian. Just like that. He goes from a life completely enslaved to selfish motives and sinister tricks with no religion or thoughts of God at all to giving all of himself over to the transforming power of Jesus Christ... starting when a friend gives him a copy of Mere Christianity and moving through a deep intelectual and emotional struggle lasting about a week. And then suddenly everything is different, he joins prayer groups and starts making decisions based on the Bible's teaching- though he's only a new Christian lacking knowledge, he is unquestionably different in character and personality. He talks about praying and feeling the moving of the Holy Spirit within him, and about this deep communion with Jesus Christ that is frankly unlike anything I have ever experienced.

See that's what bothers me- it seems like if I really beleived these things, I mean beleived that they were really real in every since of the words, I would live my life very differently. And it would mean something to me, other than just a pattern of life I go along with to maintain a decent status quo. It should move me to my very core, the realities of the gospel and what they mean for me.

For those of you who have been here all along, remember Sam's Narnia post? He talked about how he thought true Christianity was like stumbling through the wardrobe to find yourself suddenly in a world of wonder and joy and beauty. I thought that was the most amazing thing I'd ever read, and at the time it rang true for me. I was in a period in my life where I was very emotionally wrapped up in the things of God, but that was so long ago. I'm still here, and it's still winter. Always winter, and never Christmas. I'm still waiting to meet the roaring lion on the road, or to do battle face to face with the White Witch. I'm still waiting to see the snow melt and the truth and power of my cause to be revealed, to be crowned in the palace and to know for sure that this will always be mine- because once a queen of Narina, always a queen of Narnia. I'm still waiting to go on this wild adventure and find all of these things out for myself that I read about in the Bible and in spiritual books... but it's just not happening. I'm so disapointed and frusterated with myself.

So I don't know. I just don't know.

celebrate good times, common

My coffee isn't working this morning! It's horrible. Usually as soon as I have coffee I get really hyper and excited and awake, but today I just feel gross and tired and I have a headache, in SPITE of the enormous mug of coffee sitting on my desk right now. Ba-hum bug. Maybe I'm building up an immunity. I wouldn't be surprised because I have two friends who drink coffee non-stop and I've been hanging out with them a lot lately. NOT good for me. What's worse, they've both converted to BLACK coffee. Can anyone here fathom the concept of drinking coffee black? You might as well eat spoonfulls of baking soada, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, in case you were wondering, I'm at work (as usual) and really boared. When I came into work today I was sent straight to the shipping department (i.e. the other side of the room, which features a counter and a roll of tape) to do a big run of transfers, which is where we get huge boxes of merchendice droped off and we have to sort them all into neat piles by size and style, and then using pieces of paper with confusing numbers on them we have to sort all the merchandice into boxes for the individual stores, and then package the boxes correctly and print out UPS shipping labels for each one so that they can be picked up by the super-cool UPS guy and shipped to said stores. It can get interesting, especially since we don't really have any of our own boxes, we just have to figure out how to make it work with whatever boxes the merchandice gets dropped off in.

Because I'm sure you wanted to know all of that.

The good news is I got Thursday afternoon and Friday off, so I get to go with the Villa clan to their beach house for the weekend. If my parents say yes. Tessa is in town for one week (she's been in New York for six months and will be again for the next six) so we're hanging out a lot this week. So far I've been the only one around not related to her except for her brother's girlfriend, which is a little weird but no one seems to notice. And I like having two families. :-)

Jelly Beans

My old blog title is back! I missed it too much. Then I saw a girl at the baseball game with a sweatshirt that said Jelly Beans and I thought... you know, that should be me. It should be me!!

So all of the sudden I am really excited about blogger again as a social networking tool, not just as an archive for my thoughts. It's fun to go around to everyone's blogs and strike up conversations and leave random comments. I think everyone else should get into it too, but I know people are busy and stuff and some really annoying people don't even do online stuff at all. *mutters under breath for a while* Blogs die down during the summer, don't they? Oh well.

For the first time ever this year my mood is being affected by the weather. I walk outside and see the sunshine and it's the most exhilerating thing imaginable! Driving with the windows down, running on the track while kid's soccer games are going on, comming home to a house all fresh-smelling... how did I survive nine months of winter??

Random question: do you think your name fits you? If not, what would you change it to? Do you ever notice patterns with people who have the same name? I think I like my name and it fits me pretty well. It would be horrible if I had been named something like "Reene" which is too regal for me or "Jessica" which is too girlie.

PS. I just found this in my unfinished drafts from when I was working at T-mobile. Stories like this make me SO thankful that God put me where he did in life:

Today at work my co-worker Shaunte told me about a friend of hers who got married at 17. And her response to that was "Don't you realize that's the last person you'll ever be with?" as though it was a bad thing. And she has a boyfriend. That made me really sad because I tend to be pretty oblivious and I thought that everyone WANTED to find just one person they could be with for forever. It's such a weird concept to me that people can actually look at their significant others as purely temporary, like I might look at my phone or my favorite shoes.

Then later we had a customer come in who was buying a 400$ phone for her boyfriend. To me that was a clear sign that they were pretty serious, the kind that WOULD want to stay together forever. And yet at one point during the transaction she mentioned that she didn't trust her boyfriend at all, because men can't be trusted period. So apparently people have no problem just living with broken and messed up relationships. They think that's just the way is, and I'm nieve for beleiving otherwise.

Sad, isn't it?

can't get enough, shaking me up, turn it up

Lately life has been just peachy-keen.

I wake up (late) every morning excited to face the day. I eat good food, I go to work, I get my job done while chatting with my friends online and posting blogs, I go back home for lunch and wade in our pool, I go back to work and eat gumballs, I go home and do whatever I feel like doing all evening long.

I guess that's the same as usual but these past two weeks, I've been enjoying it. Maybe it's the weather, I don't know. Maybe it's just that for once in my life I don't have anything weighing on my mind, nothing to worry about or stress over. I've kind of just been refusing to let things become a big deal. I find a way to process the things that happen and deal with them once and for all the minute they come up instead of agonizing over decisions.

And so far it's working quite nicely for me. It sounds really lame, I know- me drifting along merrily merrily merrily merrily, because life is not a dream and lots of people have miserable lives. That does bother me. But I think it's important to learn how to deal with the valleys in life without letting them get you down before you can start really making a difference in the world. I'm not saying I've figured it out completely, just that these last two weeks have been a taste of how I want to live all the time, if that's even possible.

Without trying to sound too hyper-religous or superior here, I'm really really excited about my devotions right now. Most of the time when I come to read the Bible it's out of obligation or guilt or even desperation (I NEED something to get me through today, maybe this will work? That kind of thing). And- does anyone else ever feel this way?- when I pray I often feel like I'm groveling before God, trying to show myself humble and broken enough for my prayers to be heard. This is me trying to stand based on my own merit instead of Christ's.

It just occured to me the other day, if the gospel message is really true, and if I really have a share in it, why wouldn't I be inright outright upright downright happy all the time? Why shouldn't I come before God with complete confidence that my prayers will be heard, crying over the awesomeness of the sacrifice that was made in my behalf and giving thanks to God for it? Instead I come to him saying, yeah, well, I've been kind of undevout lately, so I know I don't really deserve much, so I'll only ask small favors. It's like the ultimate way to get around facing my mistakes. More faith, more faith, more faith. I'm constantly realizing how pathetic my faith is.

I get to drive to highline today. Yaaayy. See me jump for joy. Woohoo. :-P

na na na na-na-na naaa, na-na-na naaa, hey jude

I am so so so so so so sooooo restless right now. Probably having more to do with lack of sleep and caffine overdoes than anything else. But. I really need to learn to deal with restlessness in a practical way instead of roving all over the place looking for something that will make me feel content again.

So I'm writing this to re-focus my thoughts on the things that are really important. I don't do this enough, I'm sure.

I've been thinking: it's so important to fall in love with Jesus. As totally new-age and charasmatic as that sounds. If it's something I devote myself to enough, there is no way I can come away from thinking, writing, and reading about Jesus without being completely excited about him. This is the baby I kind of threw out with the bath water when I decided I agreed with my church's more dry philosophies on worship. I can't just understand things on an intelecutal level or go through motions on a practical level. I've got to "invest" myself in it, give pieces of myself to it every day until I am lost in it.

So I'm trying to ask myself the question, what is it about God that I love? I mean, other than everything.

First of all I think it's phenominal that he loves me. This is interesting because I'm a girl and I want to be loved more than anything else, and I have the tendency to love those who love me. And while that may seem like a very selfish reason to love someone on a human level, God says that this is exactly how it works in his kingdom. He is willing to love me just so that I will love him, and somehow that saves my soul. I think this is really cool.

Also I think it's cool that God is a God of TRUTH. I hate it when Christians get so wrapped up in being conservative good people that they can't consider the potential truth to totally oposite theories, like evolution or even something as radical as atheism. It seems to me that God wants us to view things as honestly as we can and hopefully, if we devote enough time and energy to finding the answers, no matter what persepective we are comming from, we will figure out that the Bible is right. And then even come to understand and agree with the reasons why we intupret the Bible in certain ways. He doesn't want us to put blinders on and accept everything we read or that pastors or reformed Christians say. I feel very liberal saying all of that, but I think it's mostly right.

So I think those two reasons are enough to start off with. God is incredible and because of that the whole world has incredible meaning and purpose. I love meaning and purpose. I'm happy if I have it even when my heart is breaking, I think.

If that makes ANY sense.

I got accepted into Pierce college, so I can finally go choose classes now! I hope I get into some kind of an English class. I really wonder what it will be like going back to school. I'll probably hate it. But. Just one more year and I'll have something to show for all this work.

So...

We have a new reader around these parts. His name is Nathan Combs; some of you may remember him from his days at Emmanuel a loooong time ago. He now lives in California and he has a blog circle similar to ours except a bit smaller- I was thinking we could merge circles, perhaps. But I'll let you all negotiate arrangements with Nathan and his team members on your own. ;-)

Speaking of nerds (ops, did I say that? :-) I saw the first three X-man movies this weak and I'm completely in love with... *ahem* the movies. And Wolverine is pretty cool too. I feel a tiny flashback to my days of LOTR fandom in how much I liked those movies, especially the first two. It's kind of fun to be nerdy and stupid all over again. Does any one else share my sentiments here?