Wednesday, March 28, 2012

:E


Ivory Camaraderie
original text: below below
translated by Madison Lee

The pillars of teeth
Rehearse their ferocious geometry,
But they are innocent
Like the white garments of a nun.

They say, “I open, I bite, I chew
If it is the command, I offer help
To the smile in its happy hour
And protect the flavors
In my humid vessel.”

Teeth are comrades,
Brothers in arms
And of harvests.
If one falls, wounded in the soul,
In the rosy gums,
The others are struck with fear
And astonished, crowd together
Leaning to the sides
In a gesture of camaraderie.

Teeth are drums,
Castanets, pealing,
Choirs in which the tongue
Seeks protection or lattice cover.

They are also tremendous weapons,
Knives from the gunsmiths,
Carnivorous drills
In the bloody gums.

Teeth are the witnesses
To the kisses and the dates.
Monks and loyal lovers,
Suicidal seminarians.


Dientes camaradas

Las columnas de los dientes
ensayan su feroz geometría,
pero son inocentes
como casullas de monja.

Dicen: “abro, muerdo, mastico
si es la consigna, ayudo
a la risa en su hora dichosa
y protejo los sabores
en mi húmeda vasija”.

Los dientes son camaradas,
compañeros de armas
y de vendimias.
Si uno cae, herido del alma,
en las rosadas encías,
los otros se sobrecogen
y en el estupor se apiñan
inclinados a los lados
en gesto de camaradería.

Los dientes son tamboriles,
castañuelas que repican,
corales donde la lengua
busca protección o celosía.

Son también armas tremendas,
cuchillos de las armerías,
trepanadores carnívoros
de las sangrientas encías.

Los dientes son los testigos
de los besos y las citas.
Monjes y amantes fieles,
seminaristas suicidas.


Thursday, March 15, 2012

Monday, March 5, 2012

record of grace

The following is a transcript (preeeetty much) of my notes from the GCF Spring Retreat, March 2nd through March 4th. They are lengthy, choppy, personal, confusing. As much as I believe that probably no one will read them (so please don't tell me tl;dr - I already know...haha), I wanted to type them out and put them here as a record of grace and just to read through my own notes again and process them in this way and also to maybe serve as jumping off points for discussions, if anyone wants to talk about any of this stuff with me; wants me to explain myself. They're kind of lacking, because I can't include all the little drawings and stars and various font sizes and exact, scribbly formattings of the actual {non)words in my notebook, but I did my best! I am actually amazed at how many of the sentences are even coherent!! The huge-lettered things are titles of each new entry. Imagine these notes as speaking to you against the background of brown-y, recycled paper, with a gold spiral running down the middle of two pages, in green ink, of scrabbly messy handwriting.


March 2 GCF Spring Retreat PASTOR BYUNG Ham

Living Water vs. Tall Glass of Toilet Water
  • Jeremiah: drinking from Living Water of JC vs. gutter water cisterns
  • this THIRST has been with us for a LONG time. (from the time of Adam and Eve!)
    • Adam & Eve! NEKKID!!
    • always thirsting, b/c we're looking for glorifyglory
      • always trying to decorate, to justify, to self-glorify...because we're THIRSTING for the living water
  • why does the world constantly tell us to stay thirsty, stay hungry?
      • b/c it's our nakedness that keeps the economy, the consumerism going
  • woman at the well...most famous ex. of THIRST in the Bible.
    • JC was only able to REACH THROUGH to her b/c she confessed, opened up of all her sins.
      • *we need to be honest w/ God, too *
      • *we need to stop snacking on the world to satisfy the thirst with temporary znax...*
  • Luke 19 "Zacchaeus the tax collector"
    • "Zacchaeus was a CHIEF tax collector and was WEALTHY"
    • Z was a traitor...tax cheater...against his OWN ppl, Jews
[1. Identity                                2. Motivation                        3. Idols]
  • Zacchaeus' idol was $... Greed = stealthy incognito ninja
  • Pastor B: "너는...욕심이 하나도 없어." 
    • greed=ambition}woah. $is what Pastor B's [parents] came to Am. for.
  • $ is not GOOD or BAD. Being rich or poor is not a moral alignment. It just has this tendency to blind us, b/c of our already-fallen nature.
    • When we're around homeless, disabled people, the DISCOMFORT comes from...the fact that they reflect what we are...INSIDE
    • $ is a wonderful SERVANT, but a horrible MASTER.
  • broken people...do broken things.
    • Zacchaeus was a broken man.
  • When you're serving the Ggod of ______ <-- [$, sex, career, love, romance...], you'll always listen to and obey that.
    • and then that Ggod says it will justify you...
  • Zaccaheus: the seeker was being sought <--> JC on a tree.
    • JC 说: come down from there! I will give you righteousness.
    •                                                I will make you pure.
    •                                                I will justify you.                    } ==> new purpose!
    • and he (Z) DIDN'T have to contribute...
    • Micah 6:8 "justice, mercy, humility"
    • 2 ways to fail at understanding this msg:
      • superiority complex: "I'm not that bad; don't need JC!"
      • inferiority complex: "I'm too bad to be saved..."
    • HOW MUCH DO I GIVE? It's just money. My God is You."
    • if you say "how much do I have to give?" You're still trying to work off your salvation.
      • with Christ as your idol, you should be able to give up ANYTHING ELSE, BECAUSE of freedom.
      • God is jealously pursing. So go drink the living water
      • sex, money, career, beauty...They're all just gifts. They're great gifts! But THEY ARE NOT LIFE. JESUS IS LIFE.
      • When Jesus is life, you're a slave to:
        • righteousness, love, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, peace, patience...
Small Group
the general trend is positive. don't be discouraged. 
[drawing of a squiggly graph with a general positive trend]
  • When you learn smtg new, it won't stick if you're living 
  • THE SAME LIFESTYLE & just trying to add the new thing into it. the LIFESTYLE must alter to fit the new learning!
  • * * * * * * * * * * *  * * [lots of hand-drawn five-pointed stars]

3/3/12 SPRING RETREAT Sat. Morning
  • you can read all the stories and...miss the whole point of the Bible
  • Luke 24:27 - knowing the Bible & missing Jesus
    • reading the Bible like Aesop fables, reading the Bible like a self-help manuel. about...US, fundamentally
    • if not focused on Christ, all this Bible reading could just be fueling our narcissistic, self-help usage.
      • application is all good, but...INSUFFICIENT
  • scripture is a portrait of Christ. Tells the story of how God rescued a broken world, and how Jesus was the hero
[[ "The Word of the Lord reveals the Lord of the Word." ]]
  • The Bible is about the broken human race and how God saved it.
  • COVENANT:
    • vow, promise, secure contract
    • no need for reciprocating!
    • 2 parts! Anticipation        The take back  GENESIS 22 (!) Abe&Sarah --> Isaac "HAHA"
  • the thing is, not all idols begin as idols...
    • if that were true, God would be a teasing God! They are gifts...
    • family, children...
  • "sin" = despairing refusal to find worth, self-identity in God.
  • You must ultimately place your self-worth in CHRIST, because the force of your THIRST to fill that "God-shaped" hole will crush that idol. If your idol is:
    • your family: you will be resented, for putting too much pressure.
    • your career: you will do unethical things to get farther ahead
    • your cause: you will lose sight...!
    • your church, morality, religion: you will be proud, pompous, ...GUILTY
      • and when you FAIL, even if God forgives, it won't be good enough for you...
  • What do I love more than anything else in the world?
  • What are you working for/looking to to bring significant?
  • What would it look like to give up that idol?                      EVERYTHING IMPLODES
  • *The best things are the most prone to become IDOLS *
    • that's why ISAAC had to be give up.
  • everyone has a LIFE STORY. suffering turns up the volume of that Broadcast.
    • often, that process Reveals what you're living for.
    • it's a continuous process of being SAVED...It is a process of revealing and strengthening...
What is my Isaac? What do I pray the most about, cry about, get super super super excited about? dream about.
  • Abe had to go thru this, b/c he loved Isaac too much.
  • It was a custom-made test for Abe
  • i.e. Pastor B refrains from Dating, b/c of sexual temptations. --> so your testimony is not ruined. so you can be used by God, b/c it's about God and his story. NOT yours.
  • Because a one of a kind test --> a one of a kind, custom-made worship.
"I see that you're calling me to live without the one thing I thought I'd never be able to live without...many of us don't see that Jesus is all we need until Jesus is all we have."

JESUS + Nothing = Everything
Everything - JESUS = Nothing
  • Isaiah 53: God did this. crucified his Jesus.
  • "God damn" = "I could do this better than God!"
  • *THERE'S FREEDOM in JC, when he delivers you from your ISAACS.
  • *GREATEST FEAR as Christian =/= failure
  •                                                    = success at things that don't matter.
  • *When we give JC our everything, our thirsts will be quenched
  • (!) dying to self. JC as protagonist of our own lives
Small Group: my cross...a gross monster combo of selfishness + self-image
What will my test be?
What do I place my God-like expectations in & will be disappointed by?
Are you more glad to be the end pt. of his grace, or a tunnel through which it flows?



3/2/12 actually should be 3/3/12 post-discussion journalings

Why is it so important for us to have something to die to, something to lay down everything to? That's all that THE WORLD caters to - that desire, that unending need to be filled...the GOD-SHAPED hole. Who am I? Where do I belong? What can i devote my whole self to? ...A love? A child? A cause? A career?

It's a God-shaped hole. It must be filled with God. 
And Jesus transcends culture. Age barriers. 
"everything is empty"
"life is meaningless"
so many people say stuff like this. Tis a ubiquitous experience.

Must remember that IDOLATRY reigns over everything.
We need to devote ourselves to a 
nourishing, healthy, loving, self-sacrificing, ultimately-fill[ing] IDOL, CHRIST.
  • Charismatics
    • take it case by case,
    • I believe that the Spirit does work powerfully in unfamiliar ways
    • build relationships with those "charismatic" around us
    • make sure to distinguish between worshiping God and worshiping theology. THAT can become an idol, too.
  • IDOL traps
    • legalism
    • morality
    • theology
    • community
    • feeling...Hedonistic Christianity??
3/3/12 Saturday Night
"Outside-IN vs. Inside-OUT"
                                                  -conditional love         -scandalously unconditional
                                                -creates insecurity         -I obey...BECAUSE he loves me.
                                  -I am good --> God loves me.    -DAILY presents/presence = ULTIMATE GOAL!
                                        I obey --> God loves me.      -death to self => fading away into eternity.
                             -We just want God's xmas presents
  • greatest enemy of the best =/= the worst
  •                                         = the good enough
  • remember the giant carrot story. What separates the sacred from the secular is MOTIVE.
  • am I a "SO THAT" Christian? Yes :( showing others
[Obedience & Trust vs. Cost-Benefit Analysis]
of Adam and Eve's demise:
  • if Adam and Eve had been told of all the bad tings that have happened because of the Fall, they certainly 

would not have eaten from the tree... But God/Jesus would've been NO part of that decision. That would've been a
SO-THAT DECISION
It would've been a result of recognizing God as THE measure of all that is good.
  • Do I refrain from _______ because I love Jesus?
  • No. It's because of ___________ consequence.
  • If we do certain good deeds and refrain from certain bad ones, FOR the purpose of being a good person, righteousness itself becomes an idol.
  • Luke 18: 9-14 Pharisee: "I'm so good! Phew good thing I'm not them"
    • but hey, evil isn't anywhere far. It's inside.
  • So wen people ask, "how can you believe in a good God with so much evil in the world?"
    • say hey, look in your own heart (b/c WE believe to be saved..)
  • Mean Girls: everyone's just looking for a bunch of -tions. validation, justification, ...and thirsting for it, and there's only one waterbottleful of glory...
  • And when there's only one bottleful of coveted glory, you're gonna disgrace, deface, the image of God in all others to gain artificial righteousness.
    • rappers = justified after jail
    • "DOES MY FORM OF RIGHTEOUSNESS HURT OTHERS?"
    • stomping others DOWN to become higher.
  • But when you're in Christ, you don't need the justification the world offers. and you can...
    • stop being jealous
    • start loving your enemies
    • stop the competition
    • start honoring others without needing their justification
    • serve others, pray for others, because I don't need anything from them!
    • To be friends? To be loved? To be wanted? Yeah, I want those things. But I don't need them.
YES, THIS IS THE IMPLICATION OF THE GOSPEL!
  • justification: JC died for us, and forgave us of the $5 trillion of debt. NOT ONLY THAT, but added $5 trillion of his own righteousness!
  • and then you are HOLY because GOD says so. B/c of JC.
  • Identity determines ACTIVITY
    • if you believe you're a sinner, you'll live like one
    • if you believe you're a justified, beloved person, you'll live like one
you spread what is the deepest inside your soul

  • Why won't God justify the NONbelievers who are morally better than us? To GLORIFY himself. To make himself famous with our lives.
    • if we don't make him famous through our POST-justification life, we're 又 just making ourselves famous, 又 putting down anyone else who doesn't fit our definition of righteousness.
    • Pastor B's mom...justified by her husband and children taking her back. but still, she tries to regain justification by working off her past shame, avoiding more future shame. That is a life guided by, run by [fear, disgust, avoidance of shame].
live in freedom. live in righteousness,
  • think of all those people who were told they weren't good enough and worked all their lives to prove those people wrong. --> "what are you gonna do when the haters are gone?"
    • we're all looking for criticism from somewhere
    • this is what Joy G (7th grade, Kammerer no friend girl) knew...from such a long time ago, isn't it? That she didn't need to be justified by anyone but JC. Only He can make us whole.
  • All we need is NEED. All we need is NOTHING.
  • If we don't have Christ, all the "good works" are done in vain. in fear. we must burst into his presence and ask, "Daddy, do it again. Tell me who I am."
  • Identify = defining. Jesus tells me who I am.

The cross tells me who I am. Jesus tells me who I am. After sinning, we run to him and repent and ask him to define us. There's no more shame because that was all done at the cross. And he'll never speak of it again. 

"I don't want you guys to go all out because it's the last night. I want you to go all out because God is GOOD. Because God is so worthy. Because he is so good."

9:07 pm 
Grace Bible Camp
Lexington, VA

It doesn't mean the thirst will be gone. But it means we'll know where to drink from until Heaven.
Playing: "O the Wonderful Cross" 

Today 9:25pm is my spiritual re-birthday. My August, 6th grade spiritual birthday was a birth of emotion. I do believe that birth, that awakening of Christ's love was indeed genuine, and that it was that time that God used to place the Holy Spirit in me. That was indeed genuine. Yes. But, emotions on their own were obviously not enough. They fueled me for a little while at least, and that fueling was real...just not enough for long sustenance. There was no logical, thought-revelation revelation of THE FREEDOM OF CHRIST in m life!! So all my actions were so ME-driven. Almost empty (not completely). But now it's complete. My identity is in Christ, and I finally get that FREEDOM. 

How silly that it took my so long.
How silly how seriously I took myself.
How difficult it was for me to live without the foundation of that knowledge in my life.

And how thankful, how excited I am to begin this new, beautiful, empowered life. & this new page.

Thank God!
How my heart beats!!
My life has ALWAYS been about making a big, bang-y impression. I was equipped with a spunky personality and a shiny smile that, when flashed with the right timing and combination, often made some kind of an impression. And to a certain extent, I think God equipped me with these things as survival tooks. To survive - and in many ways, truly, thrive - all the moves my family transitioned through. So, so much of my identity was planted in how others would react to me. How others looked at me. I lived for it, that flash of surprise in people's eyes - the glimmer of imbalanced reaction. Rocking people a bit with an unexpected juxtaposition of words, an unnerving flash of smile, a snarky comment just cause I was the mysterious, brightshiny new girl. All the time. Because I had to SPARK(LE) at every new school. But that became an idol. Always looking to others for some secret, subtle, maybe even unintentional, recognition and attention and approval. 

9:55pm
  • the line (btw. idolizing ____ vs. using _____ for his glory): minset. mindset. motive. motive. your kingdom or his kingdom?
  • God made us for himself. God didn't save us for mission trips
  •                                                                     for pastoral duty
  •                                                                     but for himself.
  • Even non Christians! They all wanna be more patient
  •                                                             more kind
  •                                                             more affectionate
  •                                                             more giving        }what are all theses qualities? => JC
  • don't just stare at the cross and feel bad, or be scared into doing good works; into not staring anywhere. THAT'S NOT THE POINT. take your eyes off yourself, put your gaze on Christ.
  • The only thing that can CHANGE people = beauty. not the grotesque.
  • STOP looking at yourself in the mirror. Look at JC. and the undercurrent will take you away.
  •                                                                                             undercurrent
  •                                                                                            undercurrent
  • Xtianity is the ONLY truth that makes humility, and whose truth doesn't suffocate. whose truth is genuine.
  • Tim Keller - Counterfeit Gods
  • how do you keep communities from getting suffocating?
    • confess more. you start.
  • No one is holy. JESUS is holy. And we're only holy at the expense of JC.
  • fruit =/= gifts
    • fruits are born because of our choice to be under the presence of God      
    • fruits define maturity
  • in the face of forgetfulness, in the face of being disillusioned...remember that God is a God of creation. Don't look for recreations of past experiences.
11:40 pm
This message is ultimately fulfilling. The me-centered message was running out of fuel, because it's...well, me-fueled, had been me-centered! There's not much substance in that. The "OMG Jesus lahvs me so much" takeaway just wasn't enough anymore. THIS is the first time I've had this natural urge to share. 
evidences
  • first instance of desire to SHARE this
  • right message --> right register/grid. overcame the barriers! to 听懂!
  • finally provided with conviction that Christianity is absolutely the only one.
  • God-centered. makes sense. I have no objections here. <-- though it's NOT about that ANYWAYS

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

autobús

"I am relevant!"



I like it when the seat right behind the bus driver is empty because that's where I best like to sit. Not cause it's the coolest, or the warmest, or the best people watchingest, or cause it gets-you-there-the-fastestest, or whatever other superlative you might desire from a bus ride, but because this is where I have sneaky secret access to the bus driver. Because from here, I can very slightly and very casually lean over - as if to stretch out my gluteus sideus, or to simply heave myself a yawn, or to peer out of the windshield as if that might make some kind of a difference - and, in fact, inconspicuously whisper into the unsuspecting ear nearby, "...Does this bus go to...say, Hereford?"

This ear may sometimes contain intriguing piercings, or be lined with that teensy line of ear fuzz that ears can sometimes have, or simply be rocking out to the self-selected tunes that stream through the airwaves that the bus speakers make, or if it is wintertime, perhaps be hiding beneath the furs of a cozy hat. Indeed, this ear closest to my favorite seat on every bus is unique, special, and particular to each individual whose head-side it occupies, but on each bus remains exactly the same in that it is always the closest one to this particular seat.

So I like it when the seat right behind the bus driver is empty because it is the one seat toward which this ear can most reasonably crane, without neck injuries or bus accidents or attention-drawings from the rest of the bus crowd, the great masses not so fortunate to be sitting in this special seat. Because this is the seat, after having received the secret inquiry through that ear, to which the bus driver can most discreetly and conveniently whisper back, "No..." (and if they're nice, also with a "...sorry..." but mostly just with that look of discomfort from my whisper having been a tad too close to his or her ear) as I sigh and pull the little ding-string, and Request dat Stop, and put on my sheepish face (._.) - to get off this very wrong bus, abandon this perfectly wrong seat, so very&conveniently close to the front door of the bus, through which I make my slightly-ashamed, no-longer-a-first-year; have-no-excuse kind of escape and trek out once again into the webby, wide worldful of unmastered bus lines and kind, bus drivery ears, just waiting to be whispered into.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

headline bossy clichés of 2011

Do not despair. 
Find a balance.
Journal always.
Take deep breaths and 
Stap ze inzecurity.
Love more.
Keep learning.
Stop being so bossy.

Farewell 2011 & Hello 2012 in eight deep breaths!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

dear blue-eyed, full-lipped, dark-haired man,

Hello, you are quite blue-eyed, full-lipped, dark-haired. Quite.

As it so often happens, here I am blogging when I should be studying (&reading through some old posts about blogging instead of studying...a vicious cycle, it seems).

I'm not quite sure if you're worth the moments, but let me just take a few moments to note these moments of sitting across from your blue eyes, full lips, dark brown hair. I can't decide if they are attractive or not...they are almost too much, but still kind of pretty...but almost too muchhh ehhhh cannot decide. They teeter totter on some kind of beauty-ugly-scary verge. A three-way face precipice.

AHHH YOU JUST LOOKED AT ME and for a moment I thought you could:
1. read my mind reading these words
2. read these words backwards and all, through the back of my computer screen

3. but then realized that it was probably because I was crunching my extremely green, extremely sour, mediumly delicious apple, extremely loudly. Oops. Sorry.

But as I said, I'm not quite sure if you're worth these moments. I am also not sure of many, many other things about you. I wonder if you are kind. I wonder if you enjoyed that butter-only-no-cream-cheese-nuh-uh bagle as much as I'm enjoying my extremely green apple, which is only a medium amount, and I hope you enjoyed it more than I'm enjoying this but I dunno you seemed pretty matter of fact about it all. Knife, butter, Swipe-Swipe, Take Bite, chew-Chew. I wonder how long it has been a habit of yours to purse your extremely full lips in the way that you are doing. I wonder if it's a stress-induced thing, cause you look quite stressed, though you seem to be productive. But of course I cannot read your mind and the words it is reading (not) out-loud to you, or read through the backside of your computer screen, or indeed even read backwards that fast, so who knows. I wonder what kind of music is pulsing through your earphones into your earholes into your brainwaves. I wonder if it is stupid that I systematically call everything remotely related to brain activity "brainwaves." But most of all, I wonder if you are kind.

And then secondly, if you are worth these few moments that took to write up this blogpost, the answer to which, I spose, is related to the answer to my biggest wondering.

Goodbye and good luck! Dear God please bless everyone at this table, in this room, on this floor, in this library, in any library studying right now. I know it's silly and naive to think that this small prayer will suddenly make everyone's studyings better or brighter or even cause a little burst of energy or something, but I pray anyway that you touch each person in the way that they need to be touched by you right now, in small and significant ways that are only apparent to you and him and her. Most of all dear God, please help us all survive this exam season more or less unscathed. No. Triumphant. Please, God, use me in ways that make other people's days sparkle a little bit in these sparkle-lacking times. What a blessing it is to study for exams.


Woah you just stood up. You are also quite tall. Quite.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

wednesday convictions

To not only read great literature as a "break from other homework"
To not only read great literature and only be "struck by it" "moved by it" even to tears or heart-clutching gasp-y-ness
To not only read great literature and tuck it away on an "I Own These" shelf
To not only read great literature and tuck it away in my pocket, in my little world, just as a part of this "grape semester"

But to pull it out every day and
To use it

  • To love,
  • To be kind,
  • To overcome my own me-ness,
As a tool God gives me 

To change the world.


Friday, November 18, 2011

Spying

on a beautiful moment of koinonia. Real fellowship. Was wondering why these otherwise seemingly-typical, JCrew scarf and pea coat-clad girls with be-Ugged feet and perfectly unperfect curl-ed hairs, seemed somehow so different. So earnest in conversation and dedication to each other, not their cellphones, sharing about Christ-filled revelations, jelly-filled donuts. Just kidding, no donuts. I wasn't planning on spying but when I saw the brown sweater girl pull out her journal and start reading from it to the grey sweater girl, I couldn't help but pause

(which had been repeatingrepeatingrepeatrepeatpepatiepaing like thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis)

and listen. Eyes sparkling, voices trembling, hands waving in excited gesticulation and true connection of love, truth, spirit-filled fellowship. What a blessed moment this is, this moment today in sunny Nau 11/18/11 12:something pm.

It reminds me of my own, so mystifyingly, tear-renderingly (okay no tears, usually, but you know what I mean?) beautiful fellowship moments with my beloved sisters in Christ. And makes me so excited for what lies ahead, what more beauty and tears (of tragedy, of joy) that God has in store for us all.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Love you, love you, love you.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

just keep breathing, silly.

The sky keeps holding its breath. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that it keeps making me hold my breath, because it keeps looking like it's gonna snow but it just keeps raining and not snowing. And holding my breath for snow is strangely self-defeating and self-deceptive and self-blinding (errmm self-noseplugging. METADUH) anyways because if I would just give in and take that swoosh of air into my lungs, my nostrils and my nostrils' little hairs and my nostrils' little hairs' sensory things (MMM SCIENCE) would be like oh! hay it doesn't smell like pre-snow atmosphere at all! and let my silly brain know.
But alas.

Only Wednesday and it has already been (half) a week full of breathlessness and "But alas"s.

1. Derek Walcott, lovechild of Yeats and St. Lucia, catches me off guard and leaves me confused because I don't get it but I love it, his poetry.

2. Jonne Dohn, who makes me feel like I'm choking. A terrible kind of breathless.


3. New Cabell trek up to the fifth floor that inspired a moment of community among three strangers this morning at 8:59am, commiserating and urging one another on, onward, onto the next floor! you can do it! - we were a makeshift sports team for those few moments of walking up those steps. Six coordinatedly burning thighs, three pairs of lungs running pitifully out of breath, one collection of random individuals who shared that connection and just as quickly parted ways, wishing each other well for the the rest of our days.

4. This, which I didn't even fully read for class today. which makes my heart beat faster. which was written by a man whose full-time job was in investment banking. which catches my breath, but which inspires me to breathe on.









In other news, I anxiously await Thanksgiving Break.

Heeeheeeehuuuuhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

please play us both at the same time!

Friday, November 11, 2011

"It rains" --yesterdayesterday

Foreword: These revelations are from Wednesday, 11.9.11, but were reborn in the writing of this blogpost during the wee hours of (technically) Thursday, 11.10.11. And I think it is kind of fitting that they are now being presented to the whole wide world on this crazymindexplodinglysignificant day of 11.11.11. If only I had been able to post it at 11:11:11 am. But alas I was sitting in Chinese, blabbering about what color, size, price t-shirt everyone was wearing today, so that I didn't even make a wish. Alas and alack indeed but also, yay for not getting stuck on the logistics - cause let's be real, I make enough 11:11 wishes on normal days to maybe even rival the huge-ness of today's 11:11:11...HAHA okay so even I'm not convinced by that argument but hope you enjoy the post anyways. Sleepyhead grammatical mistakes and all.

It rains. Il pleut. Está lloviendo. Piove.
It rains. It rains. It rains. It rains.

Who rains?

My mind was blown today, of all days, because of ENLT 2523: Lyric Poetry. It's a little bit weird, because we didn't talk about anything that we hadn't talked about before, but all of a sudden today it hit me extra mind-blowingly and then there I was, dumbstruck, gasping for my metaphorical breath, feeling (relatively to other brains,) stupid and a little (relatively to myself of just a few moments before that moment,) smart at the same time. I know. What a paradox. Alas and alack, such is my life as an English major (eep).

Despite the fact that Wednesdays are my infamously worst days (infamously known to...two whole people, me and my last year roommate), also known as "Wilde Wednesdays," combined with 2.4 hours of sleep on Tuesday night, today (Wednesday, 11.09.11, not 11.10.11 as the time stamp will show when I Publish this post) was quite wonderful. I shall summarize it below, but in order to not get completely lost in that, let me finish the whole rainy business first.

So it rains, right? Well sometimes, anyways, and I like when it does, but who the heck is doing all this raining? Who makes it rain? What makes it rain? When makes it rain Where rain How??

Who knows. But the thing is, no one cares. And this is because

the grammar (third person present) gives agency to...an unknown entity. Is this being a benevolent or dastardly being? Will he she or it continue to make it rain or withdraw in cruel drought? Does she he or it care that these watery drops fall on people's heads on their worst days, their best days? Do it he she they have pets or hobbies or achy backs? Will he they it shes ever find love, or write poetry, or survive these next twelve days or Do Great Things? The answer is unknown, because the agent is so utterly unknown. We do not know his (her its their) name or face. We have not met any members of his family, and we do not know his favorite color. A magnificently, mysteriously, movingly monumentalmystery.

It's almost as if we're attributing our own agency to nature. Like oh there simply must be a being out there, brewing and felling this rain, sprinkling it or bucketing it, with concrete hands of five fingers each, connected to wrists, elbows, practical hinges. Something out there, living, probably breathing, separate from the rain, that's making this magical thing happen.

This is called the pathetic fallacy.

Dahh. Even its name is so bleak, you know? It's pathetic (though it probably comes from pathos, feeling). It's a fallacy. But then yeah, even the "pathos" view of it, if anything, makes the "fallacy" even more supremely sad, because  you have put your feelings, your heart into this thing, and still, it has failed. Pathetic Fallacy. It is supremely sad that it's defined this way - the idea that to invoke another being out there in nature is a FALLACY. - You are alone. - And what's more, you are self-centered for even thinking these things, that nature is talking to you, patting your wee head, and eye-caressing you and sending you signs via owls and silences. And that is that! Like zip, nada, nope, case closed, blip blop blooop, cause that is the Definition and that is what all the smart people have decided and studied and hmm-ed and hmmmm-ed over and said. wrote.

And who am I to rub my sleepy eyes and write this feeble, run-on sentenceful blogpost about this Huge, Established thing that Huge and Established People have Hm-ed and Haw-ed over? Hmmm??


I am she. I am the same, identical woman. I am a he she it me they we they she, a she with an undeniable agency. I have a cat named Binky though I am infinitely more of a dog person. I am scared of many things, among which are bunny suits. Spores. (s h u d d e r.) I have two eyes and one mouth and I speak and write too many words and a lot of times I am rather, very, quite, seriously self-conscious of them. I spill over like water and feel bad about not having enough rigid structure to help protect you from the barrage of me. I can tell you about my favorite food and color, and I would like to know what-your-top-three-happiest-things-in-life-are-right-now-please-o-prease.  And sometimes I deteriorate in grammar. &always I am hurtling toward the end of this, my third semester of College and only really every stopping to breathe about every THursday or so. Ah Thursday.

But here I am - at least here I am, a being enough to, "Ah Thursday." To parallel stories of the rain and living out poetry underneath umbrellas and trying hard to find some sort of a perfect balance. An imperfect agent, who realizes the impossibility of the perfect and embraces the imperfect by virtue of its reality and stark, brave face. An agent who

reigns.

She he it reigns. I reigns rain, mainly in the plain Spain! Haha :)

Perfectly, completely, incompletely happy for this tiny domain in which I reside and the emotions and currents that run through it/stay in it and reveling in eye caresses and brainwave synchronizations and things that come in 38s and being concrete and true.

And here is the poem that inspired all this mindexplosion:


The Most of It — by Robert Frost

He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree–hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder–broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter–love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff's talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush—and that was all.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

"i'm so sleepy" in the 411*

So she was sitting in front of her wheezing whirring laptop, which was working hard even though she was not, and she slow started to lean forward little by little, like so little-y that I didn't even notice until she was almost doubled over, forehead to the keyboard, almost almost. No one said anything but I was kind of worried because I wanted her to be comfortable and to not have an achy back and just sleep more in general because I am not sure if she ever sleeps, this grace. And her laptop, so oblivious to her apparent tiredness, still whirring and wheeeeeze-wheezing away, so inconsiderate, SHH please be quiet!! But you know how semi-old-ish (maybe?) laptops are. They'll be loud if they feel like being loud.

So she was sitting in front of her laptop and dozing a little and I think this is the first time that I've ever seen her so vulnerable. to sleep. and vulnerable just in general, maybe. That's strange and...also not strange at the same time. Gah sorry for saying nothing. But yeah so she is sleepy.

And I loooooooked over and leeeeeaned toward her cause I wasn't sure what I was to do. Shall I wake her from this tortuous state of half-sleep, half-waking? Shall I let her sleep even though it looks so uncomfortable and surely she will acquire a crick in her back (hah a crick in her back) if she stays in this position for a long time? Shall I close her laptop to shut it up from being so freaking loud so she will be that much more (just a leeeettle bit more) comfortable? Shall I call out her name or what? Shall I or shall I not?

I had no idea, so I just stayed leeeeeeeeeaned over and looked at her and kept wondering and then looked over at raney who is working in the room with us. We eye-connected and she smiled a wee smile that told me that this was a normal thing; that everything was and shall be okay. At least in this small moment. This is the life of this apartment here. People sit here and doze in front of their loud laptops and it's no big nothing whoop. And everything is going to be okay. And okay and okay and okay.

It was such a knowing and wee and somehow reassuring smile that it contented my heart and turn to sit to face to look to my own mediumly-loud computer and to open up this Ctrl T, mjl, New Post, and then Publish this fastest blogpost ever ever ever.

And to wonder if you are hating this stream of consciousness-esque-ness-itude-ity.

*quote attribution: some angel of the night

Saturday, October 29, 2011

10:22 am October 29th, 2011

It's the second officially cold day of the season
And the snow that was supposed to come is
falling
Over shivery fall leaves,
Sideways on the current of the wind,
Splashing jacketfronts,
As freezy raindrops, breaking in tiny explosions on the topsides of umbrellas.

The last sip of a cold hot chocolate in hand,
I'm walking your way and
You, mine.
I'm rushing just the right amount and
You're leisure-loping
(But we travel toward each other at the same pace; your legs are much longer than mine).

And these moments are cold and dangerous
We calculate, size each other up,
Notice how skinny the sidewalk gets when two of us, and two umbrellas, too, must share it.
Will I step onto the road?
Will you run into the wall?
Or shall we collide -- tangoing missed steps, tangled umbrella spokes -- ?

But time's up for thinking, decision-ing,
Cause you're here and I'm here
The moment is now and somehow,
We share a few seconds of brain wave synchronization:

You'll lift your umbrella arm
While I duck to fit under it,
And it's magic - we're a smidge and little bit,
Two momentary puzzle pieces
Made to fit together at this moment, on this rainy sidewalk, in our umbrella tango.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

breath & balance

Today was technicolor leaves and oversaturatedly blue skies.

I was making my favorite walk across grounds after work (slowly across the Lawn on Old Cabell side, skip down the stairs behind Wilson, marvel through the leafy trees-surrounded brick gateway onto the jeffersonparkavenue,walksignisontocross crosswalk, approx. 5 o'clock in the afternoon sun or rain or cloudy weather) and being way too busy to deserve the beauty all around. Though I was finished with classes, with work, my mind was still way too crowded - with things waiting in my backpack to be done, thoughts of dinner to be eaten at what time with whom, lists to make and to be checked off blip blip bloop bah. 

Surrounded by so much beauty; so much wonderful, but "too busy" to pause and soak myself in it in a way it all deserved to be taken in....in. Realized, and actually stopped to think about, how much fewer pictures I've taken this year compared to the amount that I had taken by this time last year (probably. not completely sure). Don't get me wrong - I still have a bZillion and thirty-eight pictures to put up on facebook, but this year I have let myself pass beauty scenes by so many times because I was rushing from one busyness to the next. Just rushing rushing thinking about rushing, being tired from scurrying about everywhere, simply getting from point a to point b waving at people hello hello ah! oh! hi! being caught off guard wishing to stop to capture a scene (in my mind and on my camera) or to give someone a proper smile but not doing so and letting all the soul thoughts spill away and resorting to texting myself gigantic passages that I hope to someday make into blogposts. . .

So I stopped. Noticed an old man (as so often there seems to be in my life) standing in front of Old Cabell and just gazing Lawn-ward. Because it was obvious. Because it was a travesty not to stop and give this beauty some attention. So I stopped, too, and took my walking, moving legs out of my path of travel and stood. Facing the Rotunda and perpendicular to my route, rebelling against the urge of let's go go go hurry up please it's time, etc. hehe

And it was tear-inducing, this beauty. 

...PAHA actually, it wasn't - the leaves were too technicolored and the skies too melodramatically blue. Like OKAY SKY, JUST CALM DOWN YOUR BLUE BRILLIANCE IS MAKING MY EYEBALLS WANT TO THROW UP A LITTLE. Haha! But I did wipe my eyes because there was a small speck irritating the left one and then felt self conscious because I didn't want the people sitting on Old Cabell's steps to think that I was actually moved to tears. Which is silly because:
1. I love crying.
2. It is natural and beautiful to be moved by beautiful things.
3. Probably no one was paying attention to me anyway.

Silly.

Then I took a breath and felt the instinctive urge to check the time. Check my phone. Check my shoelaces. Check something and look busy and purposeful and not all alone. Sigh I didn't even wear shoelacey shoes today. Sigh I don't even care about being alone in public. Sigh when did I get so attached to my cellular, anyway?

But my hands had already lunged into both pockets of my jacket so I had to do something. I mean people were probably watching me, waiting, expecting for something momentous to happen, and I couldn't just let them down, you know. So I gripped both fists - the left clenching my phone and the right clutching my iPod - and almost pulled out the left, but ended up taking out the right. The iPod seemed like the lesser evil or something. Saw that it was some hour, some minute but didn't really care.

Then turned myself 90 degrees and resumed the trek homeward. 

And kept stopping to take pictures of this and that and this again (and these CHRISTMAS BERRIES!) - combined with walking really fast when I wasn't stopped - so that I was passive-aggressively racing this girl who was on the same path. Passing her, letting her pass me, passing her. 

And realized that I must find a balance. I can't just keep stopping in my tracks whenever the mood strikes - that disrupts other people's walks home, other paths of travel, the journey of point a --> point b, which sometimes does indeed trump capturing a beautiful moment. Must find balance. Bal-a-nce. B-alanc-e.

A baal-ance between tackling a formidable pile of homework, getting ready for another Wilde Wednesday (my busiest day of the week) and just stopping to write a blogpost while listening to my mmmmm playlist.

Even though everything is a mess. Because sometimes, just not doing what you "need to be doing" is exactly what you need to do to be able to finish doing what you need to be doing. Ya see what I'm doooing?

Friday, September 2, 2011

tmooth sransition

What a beautiful thing second year is. What a beautiful, overwhelming, incredibly satisfying, unsettling, and calm and insane simultaneous-beginning-and-end! But I guess that's redundant, hmm, "simultaneous beginning and end" because after all, all beginnings are endings of other things and vice versa versa vice.

&What a beautiful thing this summer was. What a wonderful, blessed, lovely, lazy and productive, love-filled, undeserved present for me.

So far, here are my inadequate blabberings about this beautiful thing that is second year:

Second year is meeting up with beloved professors from last year and nervously and awkwardly making conversation because I'm still in awe of how much I admire them. Continuing to sit there though the usual topics of conversation have run out and basking in their wisdom and kindly words and letting all the respect-love-awe ooze out of my silly lopsided smile and knowing that they can totes tell that I'm enamored of them but not caring. Unnecessarily but gratefully borrowing umbrellas from them in face of hurricane scares. Finally walking out of the office and returning home on bouncy, dreamy, floaty feet.

Second year is knowing - and taking a ridiculous amount of pride in the fact that - I'm not so lost anymore. Geographically, directionally, academically, interpersonally, spiritually, extra-curricularly, everything-ly, feeling infinitely more sure of myself than just one year ago. Confidently navigating through the Activities Fair and only looking at stuff I actively want to look at; knowing the difference between stuff I actively want to look at and the stuff I know I don't have to worry about, "just in case". Not feeling a pang of shame whenever I recite my list of classes to answer the question, "what are you taking this semester?! :D?" to well-meaning people who didn't mean to, but really used to, make me feel so direction-less and pointless by their questions that reminded me what ridiculous range of classes I was taking. Bouncing on the balls of my feet with my backpack straps confidently clutched in my left and right hands and strutting (in my own small way) all around grounds, except NOT really because...almost all of my classes exist in New Cabell. AHAhahah.

Second year is, after all that "I'm not so lost anymore ohohohoho" business, in real life application: changing my intended major(s) EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. Calling people late at night, panicking about this silly thing I haven't even declared yet. And, whenever people ask what my major is, having to preface my answer with the warning: "Well, todayyy..."

Second year is being frantic to "catch up soon" and "eat a meal with" and "seriously taaaaalk!" with you, and you, and you, and you, and the rest of the whole wide world. But sincerely. Sincerely being excited about seeing how the summer has changed you, and to tell you how this summer has changed me. Sincerely being interested in what you have to tell me, and sincerely desiring to eat said meal at O'Hill for old times' sake.

Second year is, speaking of which, never eating at a dining hall. Not cause I don't want to but cause there doesn't seem to be any time or excuse to. Being a little bit sad, but mostly mystified by this dramatic change from the year before. Being bad at eating adequate meals, but also not wanting to eat so much junk food, which is kind of funny and refreshing. Oh, and also: FOOD TRUCKS and BUBBLE TEA :o

Second year is taking too many credits again but having huge, grateful confidence in the fact that though I am weak and fall-asleepy-in-class all the time and absolutely unable to survive this semester on my own, He is "faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it" and that "I can do all this through him who gives me strength" and of course, even in my inadequacies and "weakness" his power is made completely perfect.

Second year is falling in love with GCF Class of 2014, ahh so much inexplicable love for these lovelovelovely people. Being so thankful that we are together and bonded as this special group that so often puts the Grace(Christian Fellowship) in my life. Appreciating the fact that we, as a whole entity, are people who own cars on grounds now, people who give others rides, people who are in charge of knowing directions to get to downtown and of transporting younger people to Sweetfrog without getting pulled over by the police or anything like that.

Second year is going from Chinese Corner at 6pm, coming to appreciate the subtle sounds of this language that I always thought was so un-beautiful and eating some shrimp dish that made my mouth all spicy, and then hopping over to the Italian Corner at 8pm, listening to poetry about the sea and writing...haikus in Italian, wishing the inspirazione would strike in just 2 minutes. Feeling wonderfully confused and mashed-up, squished in and navigating between the thin membranes that separate these vastly different but wonderfully similar worlds of languages. Baffling the kids on the Arabic floor with my knowledge of: this. Heehe.he.

Second year is no longer being a first year and surprisingly self by truly loving and reveling in that small and really natural and unsurprising fact. It uuuuusually goes like this, you know? 1st year, 2nd year, etc. But being just so surprised/delighted at it. Feeling for the first years who must be feeling the same feelings I was feeling last year, in their shoes - a little lonely, a lot overwhelmed, a medium amount of lost. Praying for them and making wishes for them and doling out hugs whenever shyness can be overcome. Being extra-calm and hopefully calm-ing when I converse with them, so they won't feel overwhelmed cause I seem like I know what I'm doing or something, and so they know they're not alone in this disorienting experience, and so they don't feel like they have to try so hard to make this conversation pop and happen and to be happy to meet me and shake my hand and be all, hi, my name is Madison nice to meet you! kinda stuff.

Second year is reconnecting with people with whom I share brainwaves, and those with whom I share heartbeat rhythms - the "you're good for me" people. Deciding things and making school-year goals and creating special lingo and having full-circle conversations and deciding to become detail friends and being unabashedly needy at times. And being sad about the fact that I'm being needy, but also happy about it cause that must mean we're truly truly true friends; that I feel all comfortable being neeeeedy with you.

Second year is weaving together the loose strings of new, loosey scraps I learned about myself over the summer and through beginning-of-the-year soul-clarifying conversations. Finding people who leave me hanging during our gchat conversations and happily finding that these alone-in-the-conversation moments are precious seconds in which I talk to - and kind of find - myself. Being surprised by reading back on self-conversations like this:
me:  at first i was really disappointed cause i realized that its not gonna be that strict. i would probably benefit more, language-wise, from being in either the french or the spanish house, but thepeople seem cool and it's nice and new and air conditioned and in a good location and all these other good things so its okayi keep being sad that im not living with people i already love and am comfortable with, at like crossroads or cc or somethingbut i know i'll come to appreciate this. Sent at 7:36 PM on Sunday me:  it's just beginning-of-new-things pains

Second year is finding people who intrigue me and make me want to know them and their old cars more and better and feeling unnecessarily hurt and indignant when they don't text me back appropriately. Being reminded that I'm still an immature little person. Reveling in that, too.

Second year is overcoming extreme packrattyness as well as the overwhelming first year desire to KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT'S GOING ON and removing self from unnecessary listservs whose emails I always just skimmed through anyways. Receiving those confirmation emails about being removed from said spam lists and not feeling nostalgic or panicky about all those future emails I shall miss out on and being inspired to start a blog post, past 12am, on the night before the first Chinese quiz for which very little studying has been done so far, while my roommate laughs at the fact that I'm not "writing a paper...I'm blogging!!" while my blog music flows into my ears and nurtures my sleepy brain and feeling self-conscious about the fact that even though I didn't actually make this a bullet point list, that's basically what it is ("Have I lost the ability to write in paragraphs?"). Not actually writing the blogpost that I had planned. One for which the current title would've been completely relevant and appropriate. One bridging wonderful summer and wonderful beginning of school while summing up both wonderful things cleverly and nicely and memory-good-yay-ly, but not even going back to change the beginning now cause I'm so tired and it's time to sleep, Iwillwakeupearlytomorrowtostudyforthisquiz. Painfully, delightedly realizing that some things really have not changed at all since one year ago.

Friday, August 12, 2011

painting a house, finding a family

This is officially day 3 of Lee Family Project: Paint the Whole House Some Shade of Yellow, and I've managed to escape the madness...for a few hours. So here I am, documenting. Let's see if I can pump this post out in 20 minutes. Wouldn't normally do this, but seriously, when I go back home, there will be no time for computer silliness, or any other kind of silliness except for paint, duct tape, and preventing Binky from making too big of a mess with his foot, er...paw prints. It has been crazy and tiring and enlightening, this house-painting experience, and I'm realizing than I'm finding out so much about my family (and relationships and marriages and families in general) through it all. Bullet points GO GO GO!!

  • My dad is like obsessed with me. Like, he likes me a LOT, thinks I'm like the best apple ever. Don't really get it, cause I'm really not that great and - perhaps a more fair judge of the situation - the other parent doesn't seem that enthralled with me at all. When I was helping paint the near-ceiling edges of my room, Papa Lee offered his hand to steady me on that high, teetery stool I was standing on and when I accepted, he was so happy. Kept insisting for the rest of the evening that I hold his hand. "See how helpful it is, to hold my hand?" "Good thing you're holding my hand, or else you'd be falling!" "Okay okay now hold my hand" etc etc etcccc
  • Painting is kinda like working on a marriage. Easy breezy when you're working on a simple, four-sided room with no crown molding, but pretty rocky when you have to work together in a kitchen with endless corners and crannies and edges and CABINETS. You have to work harder to communicate, to overcome frustration, to tape more edges, and inevitably, to clean up more messes that are going to be made. So painting is kinda like a marriage...and like any other kind of relationship in which you may face trials and tribulations. Okay so that was a really bad, overly-general metaphor, but what can I say, I've got painting on my mind. 
  • Peacemaking: I've been realizing a bit of this all throughout this summer, but it's really clear now. My mom and dad communicate and express themselves so differently and this sometimes causes communication issues. What my dad says in order to re-organize the situation and reassure all participants, my mom finds repetitive and unnecessary, and therefore annoying. Sometimes it's like a train...no, car, collision just waiting to happen and I can see it and RUN in the middle to stop them both from completely collisioning. Reassure dad that what he just said makes sense and is good; distract mom with something new and more problematic or more useful so she doesn't get upset about the repetition. Kinda worried about what will happen when they decide to take up the next big collaboration challenge and I'm not there. Need tons of prayer.
  • In painting and in relationships, you have to be willing to get dirty and all paint-covered if there is work to be done. Don't worry about it. Everyone else is getting paint all up in thur hurrs and hands and noses, too, and look at what a beautiful thing you're creating on all the walls. There's always a shower to be taken upstairs. Unless the bathroom's being painted too, in which case...that was just bad planning, and now it's a lesson learned! :D!!
  • Cooperation is KEY. Sometimes you get tired, and ask the other person with the roller to meet you in the middle (or maybe more like 25:75...usually dad, cause he likes you the best HEEhe), and then you'll finish the whole wall, something you never imagined possible!! And then you can stand back with your knuckles on your hips diva-style and say "MAHAHA I HAVE PAINTED A WHOLE WALL!! with dad's help"
  • Sometimes you just have to use your pinky finger to fudge some of the corners cause NO BRUSH OR ROLLER WILL REACH THAT TINY NOOK. Like relationship and families, no paint job (no...anything, for that matter) is perfect. Don't get too upset about it because I saw Mama Lee doing it, too.
OKAY THAT IS ALL FOR NOW. MUST RUN. PICK UP CHIPOTLE FOR DINNER (THIRD CARRY OUT DINNER IN A ROW!!) AND RETURN TO THE WORLD OF YELLOW SHADES OF PAINT!!

More to be added, as more is learned, realized, painted :)

Thursday, August 4, 2011

observations from lindt

Transcribed straight from one, two, three, four, and a half yellow sticky notes of thoughts scribbled down from Lindt, at Barracks. 

"6/18/11
  • Old people like peanut butter.
  • The Black Currant Excellence bar is surprisingly tasty. So fragrant and delicious.
  • I'm not such a good salesperson here because I feel like I'm making - tricking - people (to) spend money on something they really don't need, but I'm getting over it. Lots of people come in here for gifts and w/ an actual purpose of buying chocolate, believe it or not.
  • Some people refuse free samples.
    ...yeah I don't get it.
  • I like leisurely chocolate buyers - the ones that want to talk, discuss, hmm and hmmm over chocs...
  • I enjoy working by myself but these times are also the most dangerous. The sample bucket calls my name. . . .
  • I like the music here - it's surprisingly not repetitive, or maybe I just don't mind the repetition so much. Hah It's music that's pleasant if you listen or don't listen. It skips along and around, but not uncomfortably or intrusively. You can listen to it, or not, and it doesn't really mind either way.
  • The magic apron hides all - lots of people comment on how skinny I am, [a] surprising [fact to them,] when compared to the relative proximity/quantity of such delicious chocolate. Little do they know...
  • Opening is not so scary
    every day is a little less frightening
    and Sue is wonderful
  • My co-workers are great. esp. Sue!
  • My favorite truffle is coffee. It is a "limited edition" flavor; apparently they're just trying it out but I really hope they keep it.
  • Sue loves to tidy & clean. Maybe not necessarily the actions, but she takes ownership and responsibility [of keeping things neat and stuff].
  • Sam is a chocolate expert and a Lindt expert and getting people to buy more than they intended expert. It's admirable in kind of a scary way.
  • There is an ever existent clash of my identities as a salesperson & a consumer.
  • there is something adorable about the way chocolate bunnies hollowly clinkety clack against each other when you rustle them while organizing. I know it's just the same chocolate, formed into the mold of a bunny shape but whoever thought of these is a genius. They're just so appealing. Hahaha"

"7/31?
  • "so long" man [This one man said goodbye to me with a very cool, very casual "So long," after I handed him his bag full of classy and refined chocolates. Without a hint of irony. Was caught off guard by the outdated language and unironically suave manner. It hit me, at that moment, that this man was the epitome of what all hipsters are trying to emulate. Cool guy.]"

"8/3/11
  • :9 lady [Just yesterday, one lady literally made the colon-nine slurpy yumyum face when I told her to "Enjoy your chocolates! :) " It looked exactly like the emoticon in a non-creepy, cute kind of a way. She was a little bit rotund like a teapot and had short gray hair and soft-looking skin.
  • White man reeking of Indian food [walked into the store and proceeded to talk forever about everything.] Everything he owned (like his cooler, to carry the chocolates in), handed to me (like the 1 dollar bills and 5 dollar bills), touched (Fill-Your-Own truffles, $7.50/lb.) smelled of the Milan lunch buffet. Strangely appetizing and gross at the same time. "
More updates to come :)

Friday, July 29, 2011

TUBA

10 days in Tuba City,
1 week to process & finish journalings,
3 days of writing/sending thank you letters to supporters,
7.5 days to accomplish snail mail goals...
which still leaves like an entire week til now, and soooo many different excuses for why this post has been so slow in coming. Sorry if you were waiting, sorry if you weren't waiting, sorry that this post is so long and rambly and not very good at conveying all the AMAZING that this trip really was. Pleeeeeeease talk to me in person if you want to hear more and/or are confused by anything in my inadequate writing!!

Some background information: I went on a mission trip this summer! From June 24th to July 3rd, to Tuba City, AZ. Tuba City is the biggest and "nicest" city in Navajo Nation, the Native American reservation located in Arizona. It is hot, dry, and dusty. It is full of red rocks, night skies full of stars, and a surprising number of fast food places. The kids here hang out at a skate park, and there is a grocery store (Basha's) whose name some members of our team still do not know how to pronounce (BAshee's? BAW SHAW's???).

We spent a lot of our short ten days traveling to and from Tuba, but for a few days in between all the traveling days, 110+ people from all over the country (Chicago, California, Maryland, Virginia) collaborated to put together a Vacation Bible School for the kids, a Teen Week Program for the youth, an Adult Bible Program, and an Outreach Ministry for the community at large. I know it was an amazing experience for our team as a whole, as well as many people of Tuba City.

But here are the Madison-specific moments that were momentous during my time in Tuba City and some before and some afterwards - I know...so self-centered. Gah can't help it. But! :) again, please please talk to me if you want to know more! Someone asking me, "how was it?" about this trip caught herself, saying "what a simple question to an answer that could probably fill a book, right?" At the time, I didn't think it was true - how could I ever have so much to say about any one thing? - but writing thank you letters, other letters, journal entries...I'm finding that she really was right. My heart overflows with things to share, and this blog post is so insufficient. The following bullet points will probably not be in any sort of order (except maaaaybe chronological), and may be edited in the next few days as I remember more to write, and may not even make sense, and will probably make the scrollbar on the right side of the screen reeeally teeny.

Madison's Momentous Moments, Tuba City edition (each shall start with a quote from my TC journal entries! Privileged preview :o !! Haha not reeeally... But these will reveal moments of insecurity and honesty, I hope):
  • "I feel so unprepared for this trip - I feel like we haven't bonded enough, we haven't gotten all the events together, we haven't...ahh I dunno (Friday June 24th 3:01pm)"
    • This was before officially leaving for the trip. Was so full of doubts in preparing for, and even during, the whole thing. Constantly felt inadequate and self-conscious about our (lack of) preparations, and my own unpreparedness, lack of prayer, etc. But seriously, God redeemed everything good and everything that lacked. What a foolish little person I was to think that any of this was about me at all!! And with that, I'll share my personal anthem verse for this trip: "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." -2 Corinthians 12:9 AH what a wonderful God.
  • "...to not come back until we've shared all our love with the kids... (Friday June 24th 6:10pm)"
    • On the flight out to Arizona, I got to sit next to Jinnamin, whose dream is much more admirable and lovely and humbling than anything I could think of (ask her about it! hehe). Anyways, right after she turned her phone off for the plane's take-off, she showed me this text from Sunny who said (something along the lines of), "don't come back until you've given the kids all your love!" Immediately I felt so at peace and convicted to simply...LOVE, as Jesus has loved me. I quietly promised myself at that moment to truly remember this conviction every moment of the trip. God used this little promise in tremendous ways - allowing me to just channel His great love for His beloved children! It was amazing, what I felt for these kids I only knew for a few days. So not from me - I'm way too selfish - it was all from God, this love.
  • "It's hugely spacious and open land, but..(Saturday June 25th 3:56pm or something like that)"
    • ...for some reason, I kept feeling so unopen, unclear. Does that make sense? Like, the opposite of open. Blocked up? I dunno. But every time we drove out in our huge white vans into the huge red desert and every time I looked out at the open land, my chest would feel all squeezy and claustrophobic inside. I came to associate all the openness with barrenness and dryness, instead of the beauty that I could have seen. Not really sure why. I just kept feeling so parched, and wanting more of God's presence in Tuba City. Maybe it was God placing more prayers in my heart. It worked.
  • "...because they are lovely and loveable... I want to love more. That shall be the theme of this mission trip. Love More. (Saturday June 25th 11:44pm)"
    • More about this love thang. This particular love burst was about my fellow mission team members. I just kept seeing so many lovely sides of these people I was serving with and couldn't help but love them and want to get to know them more. It was truly amazing, what God allowed me to see and feel, once I stepped back from my own judge-y nature just a little bit. Amazing. I truly love my TC team.
  • "...I am proud to proclaim to you, O Diarye, that we are facebook friends (28th of June 11something PM Greyhills Hotel)."
    • HAHA more love! This is about a particular person, obvi, and just how much I love and admire her, even though I don't know her very well. So proud to be fb friends with her. This passage in general was very blabbery cause I was really tired, but it was basically a bullet point list of everyone I was in love with on our team heehe.
  • "Bucket List check! train count: 113 Flagstaff, AZ TUbaCity Mission Trip (6/29/11)"
    • Okay so on Wednesday, the Teen Program took a field trip to Flagstaff, Arizona - about an hour away from Tuba. We split up into different teams and engaged in some friendly competition via a photo/video scavenger hunt all over the downtown area, which was cute and surprisingly easy to navigate. I was really scared that I would lose people and it was weird to be in a position of leadership over these kids cause I...SUCK at being directionally oriented, but it was okay and I didn't lose any of my girls AND we came in third place! :)
  • "I am not really sure what to feel right now. I am a little bit upset that my hands smell like dirt (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)"
    • This is just a teeny thing, but still kind of a significant olfactory memory...haha. The soap in the girls' bathroom (out of the dispenser stuck on the wall) always made my hands smell like dirt. 
  • "I wish to speak to him more and I pray that God softens his heart (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
    • About one of the teens I met - I love and worry over and care for him a lot. He was one of the teens who were "delivered" from demons by Pastor Joshua, and I am superbly happy to say that he is so completely changed since we left Tuba City. It's really amazing what God can do in someone's life - these are such cliche words and I lament the fact that the clichedness takes away from their power, but cliches are cliches for a reason, right? Was so blessed to have witnessed his transformation, and just to be a part of his life. He is mature beyond his years and amazes me on a regular basis. I just want to continue to show him love and let him know that he is so special to me. I know God is going to do powerful things through this guy. Lucky, lucky boy.
  • "Missing-toenail-water-drinker and her little brother (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
    •  There is a skate park in Tuba City where the locals go to hang out. We did "park ministry" there, basically reaching out and letting people know about the VBS, Teen Program, and Adult Bible Study that was going on for the week. I met these two tiny kids who kept trying to reach the water fountain - a little girl and her little brother. She had a slight toenail injury and it was all dangly, but at first she kept insisting that it was okay and that I shouldn't look at it. But by the end of the evening she trusted me enough to ask me if I had a nail clipper or something. I somehow found one for her and clipped it as best as I could. This evening was full of moments of doubt - kept thinking, 'should I have done VBS? It's so easy to love these kids and they clearly need so much love... Am I doing what God called me to do, truly?' Ah so many doubts, but in the end I am so glad I was a part of the teen ministry. Praise God for doubts pondered and doubts redeemed!! I hope toenail girl and little bro are okay. Getting enough water and all. Ah.
  • "Youth kids can provide you with love bracelets, too (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
    •  Another small silly sadness I had about not doing VBS was the fact that there would be no tiny tokens of tangible love I would be able to take back home (or so I thought), since we wouldn't really be doing crafts in the Teen Program. It's not the actual little bracelets and stuff I'd miss, obviously, but the gesture of giving, I guess. Somehow a gift, whatever it happens to be, just seems so much more special when it comes from a baby. Maybe because they really don't have much to give, but they put that effort into creating the little craft and then they just GIVE it to you. Hahaha I don't know. But anyways, I was wrong about this too. Total love loot from my TEENs: 1 sillyband, 2 plastic bracelets (1 right off of her wrist, another the next day, from her house), a little evangelism booklet ("To. Madison, I hope you like this book because it tells you how people believe in God."), a marker picture of two cute, small creatures saying "THank you :)", 1 friendship handshake. I am so rich with love.
  • "All the addresses so far have been P.O. Boxes (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
    • Decided to ask for some of the kids' addresses so I can further embark on my bucket list checklist of "developing a meaningful snail mail correspondence." Everyone wrote out their addresses in a different order of things (first the PO box number, then the zip code, then the city, then state...? wait wait city first? wait...) so I was kinda confused at first, but the letters seemed to have gotten their all right. Whew.
  • "...so faithful in the smallest to medium to the biggest things...how can I keep from shouting your name (Friday, July 1st 12:50am nighttime journaling sesh)."
    • Just in awe of God's faithfulness! He literally answered e v e r y prayer: for love, to let us see GREAT things, for tangibility, for closure, and for thirsts quenched, literally and figuratively. Totes should've asked for a unicorn... HAha just kidding. God is not a magicbox. One of the most amazing ways that God answered my personal prayer was through my small group - a group of 3 girls that I fell in immediate sync and love with, from the first day. There was a lot of angst on my part, though, because I felt like I wasn't connecting with them on a "deeeper" level, especially during our discussions. On the last day of small group time, I had prayed beforehand, "God PLEASE let them open up to me PLEASE PLEASE change MY heart if it's not your will to show me tangible things PLEAASE AH," but was disappointed to see that they were just as nonchalantly unresponsive as the days before. So I gave up on them. I KNOW! SO BAD! I just got frustrated and curtly told them that if they didn't have anything more to say, we can just close up (this was like 5 minutes into small group time, which was supposed to last...longer than that), and I walked out. I WALKED OUT. What a disobedient and impatient little brat. But then, praying by myself, I knew that I had to go back. So, biting back my stupid pride and whatever else was in the way, I went back to the room and was surprised to see the girls still sitting there. I apologized and asked if we could talk some more, since it was our last meeting time. I shared a bit about the silly things that plague the daily life of little Madison Lee (feeling so insignificant and bratty, comparing my luxurious worries to what these kids go through), and amazingly, each person opened up in an amazing and personal way. I won't share details here because I want to protect these bared souls, but...yeah. God is amazing. Even when I gave so feebly and small-ly He used that.
  • "Hey! ...You changed my life! (Saturday July 2nd early morning journaling...catching up ...7:30ish)"
    •  Documenting a piece of dialogue. The last conversation I had with one of the kids. That's it. haha
  • "You are loved! (Friday, July 1st)"
    • I had wanted to write a little note to each person I had gotten close to in the Teen Program, but -__- fell asleep the night before and didn't have a chance to. But, still wanting to give the kids a little something, I condensed all the feelings and thoughts I had for them into one slip of 3x1 paper ripped out of my journal and...that was this. A leeeetle note saying "You are loved! -Madison"
  • "It's all hot" 
    • One tiny sentence that led to a special afternoon of spending time together, playing the piano and talking about nothing much. After our afternoon activity one day, some of the leaders took the kids down to Sonic, but one of the teens wanted to stay behind at the church because it was "all hot" and stuff and she didn't feel like walking. I stayed behind with her. Was surprised and grateful and humbled that she opened up to me that afternoon. Ah so much prayer needed for her.
  • "Ephesians 6, Romans 6 (I read this), James 4 (Thursday July 7th 9:08 am @ Wilsdorf/Chem lib)"
    • Remembering what happened Thursday night, after the Youth Rally. This whole "deliverance" business was a lot more straightforward than I expected. But then again...I guess I didn't really have any expectations or knowledge of how it would be. Ask me about this in person.
  • "...and sat on ledges and wished that I had my phone with me so I could call someone from up there and say, "I'm calling you from the top of the world!" (Sunday July 10th 4:29pm @ Greenberry's)"
    • Remembering a grand, thought-ful moment on Saturday, when we went hiking in Sedona. John and Lana are a couple there, ministering to a college fellowship called One Tribe (at NAU). John gave his testimony which was...so powerful in like, a really caaalm way haha. Hard to explain. It just made me think a lot about the future, God's plans, etc. Need to think and pray more about this, so check up on me later :)
  • "so easy breezy (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm Greyhills Hotel)"
    • ...was my trip compared to the missionaries' lives - Peter and Joann, John and Lana, and soon Bob and Angela and all their families, too. One thing that consistently made me tear up was praying for these people who were so obedient to God's call and were serving Him FOR REAL, with all their lives, in this desert place. I just found it so heartbreaking and heartwarming and...really convicting, I guess, how these missionaries simply laid down their own lives and pursued after what God called them to do. So amazing. So admirable to me.
 There are so many more bullet points to be explained, so many quotes to be explored, but...this entry is already so long. I'll stop here with
"...My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." -2 Corinthians 12:9
and thanksgiving and praise to the amazing Creator who loves beyond all human feeling, who exceeds all human understanding, who pours out rain in the desert, who cares for the smallest and the weakest and those that absolutely cannot finish even teeny things like blog posts, without His grace.

P.S.
links to pictures:
TubaCity pt.1
TubaCity pt.2
though you probably have to be a friend of a friend of mine at least, to see them