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. :-)