this moment in brief

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever*

2009-05-04T23:06:00.004-04:00

A couple of days ago I read this neat little part of Deuteronomy 30:

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

I liked it. It was challenging. It reminded me of when Jesus taught and said:

26"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. 27For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." (Matthew 24)

Sometimes I act as if God is difficult to understand. He is secret and hidden. He is complicated and mysterious.
While these things are true (he is God, after all), God is obvious. In his grace and love, he is simple. He is for children. He is for the blind, the weak, the lame.

This is so challenging to me because if God is simple, that means I can hear his voice if I listen. And he can hear mine if I speak. That means that I can go to him with the little things that frustrate me so much. And with the things that I fear. And with the wounds that are embarrassing that I don't know how to heal from.

A part of me has, honestly, no idea what to do with this. This new closeness of God has me feeling surprised, disoriented and awkward. Really, I feel it calls on a new way of living entirely.
Another part of me is so excited. I am excited that I can go to God with my everything. Excited that, though I may not be complete, I can come in my own completion and God will meet me there. I am excited that I can be awkward while God is around.
And I think a third part of me is a little afraid. Both because of and apart from the confusion and ecstasy, I am afraid of the high expectations this will challenge me to have and of the weight of the concrete on my body if I fall. I am afraid of God messing me up so much that I lose control. That is something my friends will tell me is good; mostly, I believe them, but some of me only knows that I don't know what that feels like.

* That is from Deuteronomy 29:29

good gifts

2009-02-21T14:51:00.003-05:00

I had a friend tell me a story once about when he was five and really wanted a fisher price stereo toy. His dad, believing in "real things" for his children, bought him an adult-grade stereo device-object.
This friend, incensed at the nerve of his father to tell him what he really wanted, refused to touch the gift. He hated it. And even when he began to see how it was actually pretty neat, he only played with it when his father couldn't see.

*

Today I received an email of acceptance to intern with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

*

Father,
Sometimes I feel that I, with hands so weak and sight so dim, can't tell a good gift from bad.

inhale...

2009-01-18T08:35:00.003-05:00

HOOoooooOOoooo

That's me blowing the imaginary dust off of my virtual public journal. Because its been almost eight months since my last post.
So, inspired by my seester and my brother, I'll pick up the craft again and hope that, reader, you enjoy. And I hope that this personal writing with this invisible audience to hold me accountable will result in some good thought-sculpting for my me.

Let's try this out.

I have a point....(subpoint 1: indigenous peoples are really amazing)

2008-04-10T22:52:00.004-04:00

I haven't figured out why the history of Indigenous people gets to me so much...

...maybe because their story tells some of the shameful stories of the history of the Church.
Maybe, because for a few summers, I got to know some people who were manifesting the truth of injustice in their bodies and minds and families, and loving nonetheless.

I don't know.

Here's one thought that came to me while I was working on my essay on Native Catholicism. I have to preface it a bit, but I'll get to it eventually. :P

...on second thought, I think this'll have to be a multi-parted thang, so I'll start with point 1: indigenous people are really amazing.

The people who lived in (what we today call) Canada for possibly thousands of years lived in sustainable communities. And from what I've learned, they were pretty amazingly brilliant. They figured out things like irrigation systems and astronomy long (think centuries) before those in Europe.
It's crazy.
Ancient indigenous knowledge is used to guide "cutting edge" scientific research today. And US agricultural companies are going nuts trying to patent stuff (like grains and natural pesticides) that indigenous peoples have been using for centuries because they're the best. (That part's actually very wrong.)
They were pretty cool about women too. Women in many indigenous societies were leaders and important in politics. They had control of their own property and sexuality. They had measures of accountability in place in case of abusive spousal relationships. These things might not seem impressive now, but remember this was at a time when women of other cultures were treated as property and were excluded from political processes. I mean, it was only 15 years ago that Canada removed the "spousal exemption" for rape from its Criminal Code.
And about justice. Justice systems in indigenous societies tended to have emphasis on relationships, restoration, reconciliation and community. There are some efforts to incorporate these in the Canadian system today to add to its effectiveness.

But this doesn't even scratch the surface. Not only am I doing a ridiculous brush job of who indigenous peoples were, I haven't gotten to the truly good stuff.

More to come, I promise!

the place Hope lives

2007-11-23T17:36:00.000-05:00

I wrote this song, and I don't know if it makes sense. The first part is about the sense of being unredeemable...so broken and breaking that I want to let that be the cornerstone of my reality. And then the second part is about redemption. How that which was unredeemable is redeemable because of God.

Easy to be well and damned to be broken
I thought I could stand honestly this time
Your words left undone, my spirit unspoken
I still have your mud inside my eyes

After your response and my retaliation
All I have left are the tears I've cried
You're worth more than gold but I've brought you silver
And all that they hold is the one who died

Unexpectedly, you encounter me
I thought I was at the bottom of the
earthquake
And I understand as you take my hand
You put yourself at the
bottom of the earthquake
With me.

It's all of me found
It's all I can offer
Just these hands unbound
This heart contrite
It's beautiful sound
Our wonderful Maker
is singing out loud
hope for the blind

Somehow, these two incoherent realities find their way into my body and leave me to interpret the mess they make out my thought-life, emotions, and interests.
But I think I'm beginning to realize that this is the place "hope" lives. Even more, I'm realizing that this is only kind of place where such a thing as "hope" even makes sense - in the incoherency of the existence of something hope-worthy, although presently unattainable.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. For who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
- Romans 8:23-24

one certain hope

2007-04-02T10:30:00.000-04:00

Risk.
I thesaurused (*rrrraaaawwrrr!*) that on Word today, and it came up as “danger” and “possibility”, and also, “endanger” and “chance”. I’ve been thinking about this lately – and its connection to certainty.
It seems like I’ve put myself in harm’s way before, but it was kind of like walking blindfolded across a highway (i.e., it was stoopid).
And I’ve been certain before, but it didn’t demand me to move my feet or my hands…it was more like pretentious-fodder.

And in my more visually charged moments, I wonder if I’m this spiritually-morbidly obese child of God who’s still disheartened from those injuries of so long ago.

I’ve heard so many times that faith is being certain of what you hope for and sure of what you cannot see (or something like that). I remember hearing that, and knowing that faith is something I needed, I really tried to figure out what in the world that could mean!
Now I’m thinking about it, and I think that, for this moment, that verse can mean to me this: proper risk.

Where certainty and the impossibly unknown find their confluence, and they interrelate in such a way that it demands one’s active participation, I’m picturing faith emerging, as if from a chemical reaction.

I think of the possibility of something new in this world of old cycles – the possibility of change in a world of deflating routine. And I wonder if these possibilities could ever be known or ever tangibly realized without faith like this.

house and hauerwas

2007-03-24T08:49:00.000-04:00

I remember when I was little, on the playground, all my friends would play house. And the girls would be scrambling for the “mom” or the “cool teenage daughter” parts, and all the boys would want to be the burglars or the police officers. (I know: “house” in an age of over-television-ed culture, for sure.)
I don’t know what it was, but I would always want to be neutral. I’d play the part they needed in the end, usually the babysitter or the maid. And because everyone would assert there own story into the game (Mom would decide to go to work, the burglar would chose to steal the kids away, etc) and I would still be neutral, the babysitter or the maid would soon phase out.

I spent a lot of time in grade 1 recesses sitting on the playground bench.

I’m not totally sure why I was like that – where this deep aversion to my own subjectivity came from. But I do know that it’s truly like a battle to fight my way out of it. I do know that, at times, I’ve had to close my eyes to bring things in the open that I know are particularly mine.

So weird, huh? I can’t help but smile when I try to picture that totally neurotic 6 year-old. I can’t help but feel just a little trapped when I recognize that girl in my 20 year-old consciousness.

*sigh*. I’m starting in on this book called “The Peaceable Kingdom” by a Christian ethicist and very smart man named Stanley Hauerwas. Although he’s certainly not the first person to emphasize particularism, he talks about subjectivity and narrative as if they're all we’ve got.
Forget about the universal truths, the rational imperatives, all those “for sure’s” that I and (I think) all of us crave. We’ve only got history. We’ve only got wisdom that comes with time. We only have our families, and we only have our damn opinions.
For Hauerwas, God comes into the picture in a very powerful way. And his “subjectivity” (to use a modern term) and his narrative is really what we (what I) have got to get swept into.
So, for Hauerwas, sin is when we try to make up our own stories and press it onto a reality that God has already, in a sense, defined on his own terms. To use a Nietzsche-term, sin is when we try to be metaphysical artists.
Crazy, huh?
So, here’s to God's particularism.
Here’s to getting caught up in someone else story.
And, here’s to really, really, making history.

a newsfeed personal

2007-03-10T02:31:00.000-05:00

Oh, well! It's been a little while. Since *February 16th*, things have been moving quickly on the gloria-front.
I have officially moved out of my old house (formerly, called the "lamobay").
I have, also, found a wonderful new place (currently commonly referred to as "meggs'").
I have handed in three pretty decent papers.
I have written one pretty cool song.
And I have registered for the June 11th *law school admissions test*.

On a more practical note,
I have done my laundry a very hygenic four times.
And I bought new running shoes, and got some free *running* socks (i.e.: pity socks) to replace my cottony tube socks.

On a more *emo* note,
I have listened to Derek Webb's album, "mockingbird", an impressive 3.5 times in a space of two days.
And I have spent one late night blogging (oh, how existential of me...).

Love you all (or at least hope to...),
gloria.

lamobay wuz here

2007-02-16T19:16:00.000-05:00

And so it is.
I tried to avoid it. But apparently, if denial has any bearing on reality, none of it is very productive.
Usually, at best, it just ends up in wasted minutes in public reflection.

*hmmmm...*

So, as I listen to bad hip-pop, the famous four (a.k.a.: the happy snappies, three of my favourite people in the whole world, the LAMOBAY) is disbanding.
I suppose it was all inevitable. "Housemates" never do sign anything more binding than a lease. And we didn't even have one of those.

If I were to extrapolate one thing from this experience, I would say this: things end.
Things end all the time. The good and noble and beautiful. The things that stop you and rock you. Somewhere within, I think all my friends and I begin distinguish something that our generations past have called life and death.

I was telling some friends of mine my "lifestory" thus far. When it hit me. As much as I can make sense of it all, there have been two warring themes in my life: loneliness and love.
And often it has been in the deepest places of isolation that love has confronted me in the most real ways.
And often it has been the times that I have been most convinced of love that loneliness has sat so heavily and secretly in me.

In a moment like now, I can discern, through the confusion of packing and the pulsing, predictable beat of Nelly Furtado, the narrowing of the lines between love and loneliness.

And it makes me want to vandalize this old house.

Love you erika, karne, sarahfuller, marianne, rachpeters, and rachael drumm!

goulash and God: some things are worth saying twice

2007-02-09T18:26:00.000-05:00

"I want to DO something this summer.
I want to make a difference or to find a 'real' job so that I don't have to borrow money for school next year, or to go somewhere and DO something.
Anything.
I want to get my advanced open water PADI certification. I want to go camping. I want to find a waterfall. I want to go to a wedding and dance. I want to hike up the Grouse Grind. I want to ride on a roller coaster.
I want to spend a whole weekend with God. I want to read. I want to write. I want to love somebody in a tangible way. I want to write letters and send cards.
I want to encourage.
I want to grow ivy on the ledge in front of my window. I want to learn how to make the goulash thing that Nola made on the farm in Melbourne. I want to see Big Ben and a castle.
I want to wear contacts. I want to take pictures. I want to get a Canon PowerShot something (I found the perfect camera at the store beside the Starbucks where I work... It's only $500 *sad face*). I want to decorate my room. I want to swim in fresh water.
I want to give Gloria a hug. I want to have at least one real conversation every week. I want someone to tell me about what God is doing in his or her life.
I want to run around the SFU campus in thirty minutes. I want to do the Sun Run. I want to complete the LEAD certificate.
I want to have a healthy discontent...
I want to remember how many shots (of espresso) go into an Iced Venti Vanilla Latte. I want to meet a boy."
--Shannon the infamous. (spacing mine)

I just liked this because it reminded me of one of my most treasured friends.

health and wealth? - what are you kidding?

2007-02-07T23:34:00.000-05:00

I think it's all about what you love.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. - 1 John 1:2-3
I've been thinking, I guess, about the mechanics of happiness - and it seems, that when things *go well for me*, I'm happy, and when they don't, I get stressed or sad...you know the story. But I think about the things that make me happy.
the powerful, the adventurous
the rarely spoken and the unspeakable
the frivolous and embarassing things!

It's funny how rarely I realize that it is fully God's intention to change what it is that makes me happy - what it is that I just naturally react to. It's crazy to think that God - or anything/one - could so change your inner-workings that even the hard stuff can be pure joy.
Yikes.
Life must be pretty awesome for someone!

I've been learning that I can't overestimate God's desire to really, honestly, beautifully bless us.

"oh my, look at her startling propensity to..."

2007-01-30T16:35:00.000-05:00

Hi family and friends!
So I think I've taken one of the longest blog-breaks in gloria-history. It wasn't even that long! Maybe a little more than two weeks?
ha!
Anyway, I'll break the silence...

I actually posted a new one last week, but then I took it down because I didn't like it. It left me with more mess than anything, I guess.

*sigh*
Note with me my exceptionally conversational tone: I think I'm lonely.

so who knows what?

2007-01-12T15:49:00.000-05:00

Hey guys!
I don't know about me.
Like every post is another valiant (or kind of wimpy) effort to figure out what this life business is about!
*sigh*. In moments when I kinda see this silly cycle - I seriously wonder about the sanity of my friends!
Isn't it just exhausting and tiresome, guys?

I think with me, the reason why I'm a Christian
why I think it's worth it to identify myself with the murderers, liars, molesters, bigots, corrupt leaders and nihilists of the past and present
and even more, why I have the audacity to identify myself with the saints and revolutionaries of our yesterdays and todays
is all because Christ won me. He acted on my behalf and did more than his share.
I was reading this morning Deuteronomy 5. After God gives Moses the "10 commandments", the people say to Moses something like, "We've seen and heard God in his glory and majesty, in the deep darkness, the cloud and the fire - and survived! But we can't take this anymore. You (Moses) talk to God and we will listen to you. We can't be close to God like this. We're sure we'll die". Moses goes to tell God this - and he says that what they said was good!
And this God, who is revealed in deep darkness, the cloud and fire, is the same God who sent Christ so that we can actually know him. Because God is majestic and glorious in his holiness and justice, but most of all in his humility and love.

Here's to praying that God would continue to change me and do more than his share as I find myself giving over all that is mine to him.

hard words and an enabling God

2007-01-08T12:39:00.000-05:00

2007!
I'm pretty much adjusted to the "7" instead of the six. Like how you eventually get use to your new age right after your birthday...
I've been singing songs of cleansing lately. They've been hard words because a prayer like that so heavily involves acknowledgement of your own uncleanness. So there have definitely been moments of feeling hopeless and unredeemable - however fleeting.
Coming back from a great conference about missions and the globe and students, I feel in me a certain unsatisfaction - a certain drive for newness.
I read this part in the gospel of John (chapter 6) this morning. It's kind of crazy because it's after Jesus feeds the five thousand when he says it's only by his flesh and his blood may someone have eternal life. The disciples respond by saying something like, "This is a hard teaching - who can accept it?". And it gets super crazy because, instead of Jesus making it more easy to understand (or, rather, easier to do) he makes it even harder. He says, "What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing".
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

Hard words. I guess my prayer is just that God would enable me.

life and death in a christmas moment

2006-12-24T00:39:00.000-05:00

I had this completely bizarre conversation with my sister, mom and little brother on the way home from a big family dinner today. Here's a snippet:
danny: "hey, you know in *that movie* where the dead guy is being set on fire 'cause he's dead and his dad puts wood all around him and the gasoline...?"
gloria: "no"
danny: "well, it doesn't matter. i think i'd want that...except with chairs all around"
gloria: "...you want us to watch your corpse burn?"
danny: "the wood would be piled high around me"
gloria: "i don't think i could do that"
danny: "fine - i'll have to have a boring funeral then...what do you want me to say at your funeral?"
gloria: "say something about the parts of me that are immortal..."
Something like that anyway. It was weird and kind of nice to talk about death with my family - our own in particular. But I kind of recoil at my own comfort at death. I think we humans - and especially us in the West - have a strange and dangerous tendency to try to replace fear with comfort.
We are afraid of scarcity and surround ourselves with stuff we don't really need - even if it means the exploitation of others.
We are afraid of a lack of significance and we fill our lives with rhythmic noise and a constant in-fill of information.
We are scared of death, and build luxurious caskets and bury them in beautiful green fields.

I read this article about Christmas, and the author talks about the danger of domesticating Christmas. The reality is, there are elements of the Christmas story that don't make sense and sometimes seem ridiculous - which can be scary. And when we just make these things comfortable and cute, the story loses its potency and meaning.

At this point in my life - about twenty years and a little bit in - I'm not totally sure what I want this existence to look like. But I'm absolute and adamant that I don't want to spend it walking the line between fear and a nice-casket kind of comfort.
Please, I'd rather live.
Please, I'd rather die.
And I think this is what Christmas and Christ is really about.

the flight of the Xtraordinary Young Zebras.

2006-12-06T17:38:00.000-05:00

You know that moment where you're in class and you finally got all your thoughts together to comment on the complicated issue of *xyz* but then you realize that it's all too late, because everyone's talking about a different xyz?
Yep.
I kinda feel like that's what all my expressions have been lately. Weird.
No, really weird!
Because this last little bit has been kinda crazy, in that I've been thinking about things in a different way than I ever have. And that's been so refreshing and challenging. But today's been so weird - I just kinda crashed.
It's like I need to have these ridiculously unproductive (and counter-productive) days in order to keep myself grounded.

I guess the question that I need to challenge myself with now is, what am I keeping myself grounded in?

...I find I have to continually stop myself from making a project out of Christ-following.

whatever it's about

2006-11-21T01:48:00.000-05:00

I've been realizing that I am hard on myself! Whenever I realize something, I think I should get it right away - especially the stuff that really matters.
It's not that I think it should be easy, but that if I devote myself to it enough...
Right?
This is an issue of accepting grace, this is about knowing my own limits as a human being. Most of all, I think it's about remembering God's love for me. Not just like "ah! - gotta remember that god loves me! all the time, in all ways!". But deeper than that.
So that maybe one day, my whole world will be flipped upside-down and the things that matter to me just matter. And the things that I do and work for and struggle for are the same things that Christ does. And the best part is that it's all for love.
Ha!
That sounds so fluffy. Let me see if I can better explain.
What if we actually did what we wanted to do all the time? What if what we wanted to do all the time was to give and bless and honour and heal? How awesome would that be?
How world-changing?
How history making.
How redemptive.
How unspeakably beautiful.

peace

2006-11-19T19:19:00.000-05:00

Hmm - it's definitely been a weird week. Faced with the pain and heaviness of past failures and just the messed up way my own mind seems to work, there have definitely been moments worthy of a few tears, a deep sigh and maybe a slump of defeat.
I wonder if I'll look back on these days and be able to say that it was worth it. I wonder if I'll figure something out somewhere down the road and regret all this time I spent on feeling beaten. I wonder how light life will feel when all the secrets of the gospel are proclaimed from the rooftops.

I think in *worldly* terms, in a "guilty until proven innocent" kind of place, I don't really have the right to associate myself with God the way I and millions of others do so boldly.
Bless me and call me a Christian.

Peace.

the difficulty of being deliberate

2006-11-13T23:39:00.000-05:00

Today was such a day of pushing on immaterial doors and checking all the locks of a house that exists only in Word.
And they say I can't do abstract...
Ok, it's just that, I met with someone today who wants to help me act as a Christian...but there's something about being that deliberate about your own fate that folds you in. It feels like talking on the phone in the mirror - to a deeper extent. Where once your movements were natural, the mirror brings in a new level of consciousness - that maybe shouldn't be all that welcome.
I don't know. I want it so much. To be able to "act as a Christian" is the best way I can put it. Not all that grandiose.

When the space grows dim and my limbs become weak
I let my breath sink into the dark
My lips form words that long to be heard
"How am I going pull this off?"

"i have a calling"?

2006-11-09T23:17:00.000-05:00

this thing is gunna rock my socks - and the rest of me.

Check out the interview with Rick Warren...what can I say? the man knows how to get a point across.

Pray for me, if you want!

hoping tomorrow will be different

2006-11-02T19:08:00.000-05:00

I'm writing this paper that's totally stressing me out (they always do), so in an effort to divert my attention/gain perspective, here I am!
I was in my social contemporary movements class, talking about how indigenous peoples' on the western hemisphere have been consistently treated with unimaginable brutality and system by europeans. Rape, slavery, child abuse, mass murder, genocide, you name it. Our prof read a quote from Christopher Columbus' journal describing the indigenous people in the Bahamas:

"They... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

Disgusted? I was. I was swearing in my mind. I didn't know what to do with my face or my hands. My prof went on to say that this attitude was by no means unique. Indigenous people have been exterminated and exploited in Haiti, in Mexico and in Canada.
I was thinking about this. What do you do? Get angry, stay angry? Write your LSATs, become a human rights lawyer? Make a lot of noise about the deep injustice behind the Caledonia tension? One thing I know: there is no time for apathy. Not just about aboriginal rights, but where it seems as if injustice and hate and brutality are sweeping through the world like a tsunami, it scares me to think that I could do nothing.

the ever-transcendent LAMOBAY

2006-10-29T22:01:00.000-05:00

The lamobay is what we (at the lamobay) call the lamobay (the house that we live in). I think it's awesome, and I have three arguments called karne, rika and sarahfuller to prove it.

My roommate Karen is a funny lady. I would say she's very funny lady material. Maybe, if we were in funny land and comedic value was currency, my ol' friend Karenski would be a billionare and I would go over all the time to enjoy the excesses.
My roommie Erika is fancy. So fancy, she could eat crackers and condiments with the queen and no one would try to drag her away for double dipping. If I lived in Germany, the erkister's forefathers would be the ones with whom I would talk about Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer.
My room-partnah and mutual "true friend" Sarahf (...uller) is very fun and exciting. Like double dutch. When she's not busting out meaningful discourse musical-theatre style, she's jack-o-lantern-napping so she can make delicious soup. If I was starving in the american North during halloween season, Sarah would be highly wonderful to have around.

*sigh*. silliness.
It's good when you can be close with the people that are close-by.

peace,
gloria.

forgetfulness

2006-10-25T09:03:00.000-04:00

I wrote a song this week. I realized something pretty deep about me. People sometimes say I'm "very emotional" or maybe "over-emotional" - and, hey, though I deny it most of the time, it's probably true. My life is filled with unnecessary drama and indulgent self-*feeling* (i.e.: pity, anger, bitterness, confidence). I went to this workshop thing basically for people serving at church on the rock. I was the only one that wasn't really supposed to be there. We watched this dvd of a speaker named Kenneth Ulmer and he talked about the call and work of Christ with such conviction that I began to really just weep (I know - take it easy, emo).
I began to think about what he was talking about and the way I reacted, and I guess because of a stream of events, I've been brought to this realization. More than anything else, the thing that stops me from being used by God, being "consumed by the call" (to wax Ron Luce), responding even somewhat appropriately to Christ, is pride.

du Jour

2006-10-22T01:04:00.000-04:00

Today's been a day when I've been challenged about appearances.
Today's been a day when I've seen the value of community.
Today's been some sort of day...

I talked to ms wendy sim today. I think she's great because she can say things like "god's so cool" with total conviction.

Today I've been reminded just how important praying is.

Like a polaroid picture..or something

2006-10-13T23:21:00.000-04:00

So I've decided I'm in - on this thing...the way I talk about it so vaguely makes it sound like a big special secret (like joining a secret society) - it's not really.
But I've been hearing a lot about the importance of moving lately, and I think I could really go for some of that.
Some of that guidance. some of that growth. A little bit of the feeling that I'm engaged in something far greater than me and the one thing that truly matters. God can't guide you if you're not moving, right?

Oh goodness me.

I want...your mayonnaise

2006-10-11T22:56:00.000-04:00

Ah!
I read some Nietzsche earlier this school year, and he said that scholars need a hearty diet to supplement their rigorous academia...oh frederick....
It's true though! I'm so tired from thinking. Long story short, I have this totally new, strange opportunity ahead of me. And its black and white and purple and blue and shadowed with a big, obstructing unknown - I guess called "the future".
What do you think?
Go for it?
I think the answer is yes, but I keep on thinking of possible mistakes that I could make or could be making.
What if I compromise myself? What if I lose sight of what is most important to me?
Is this the moment where I realize I've got to give this stuff over to God and realize that over all, he's got this?
Maybe.
Maybe I should think about that one some more.
My journal is so worn out.
Shannon, have you gotten my package yet?

*sigh*. I've got these friends named la and meggs - who aren't super close or anything...even though I keep on inviting myself over to their house (I want your mayonnaise!). But one thing I noticed about them right away is that they seem to...ummm...do what God tells them to do.
Maybe I'll ask them what it feels like.

From the Latin, "buckeroonis"

2006-10-03T00:22:00.000-04:00

So I got that bill from Bell. Eighty-one buckaroonis and no news about the grown-up business.
Maybe the fact that I called them "buckaroonis" instead of "dollars" or even "buckaroonies" is an indication in itself...it's from the Latin, in case you were wondering...
Nevertheless, I feel a little bit older since I last wrote to you, invisible audience (which I think consists of three people).
I've learned that I can really think I know myself - that I can test my own pulse and track my own movement - but really because of a lack of stable reference point, this belief is a fallacy - if not a flat out delusion.
I've learned that hurt is debilitating. And even when I think I can gain a wider perspective with my *blinding* intellect and education, I only find myself, at best, blanketing my hurt on the larger issues. Objectivity may be a worthy goal, but by what means? With what objective?
I've learned that generosity is always, always, a good idea.
I've learned that the difficulty of miracles is that they are, by nature, easy to find.
I've learned that family is a complex and beautiful thing. While it is never beyond being awkward and hurtful and unable to understand, it is resilient and deep.
I don't know if there's anything around that's more complicated, complicating, than life - and I'm not even sure if that's a legitimate complaint. But I think the question of the hour is this: if life is so - well, like life - what makes us think we can figure out how to live?

what do you wanna be...

2006-09-27T12:56:00.000-04:00

Last night, I was talking to one of my friends about "grown-up"-ness. I'm not sure if I am one or what. And I'm not sure if it's a measure of autonomy or if it has to do with something else. Or maybe it's not a measure of anything, but more like an epiphany.

I'm getting the first bill in my name next month. It's from Bell. Maybe they will tell me.

waxing a little preachy....

2006-09-25T11:43:00.000-04:00

I head a really strange yesterday! Emotions-wise, thinking-wise, event-wise.
But it ended on this crazy note that has left me thinking and rethinking until this morning.
I wrote in another post that grace is simple. And it is. Even more radically simple than I first imagined.
I spend so much time in *longing*. I expend so much energy articulating what I do not have, do not know, what I cannot be. I've found that this blog demonstrates this constant preoccupation pretty clearly.
But none of any of this makes me any more deserving. Of grace, of life, of knowing God - any of the things that I want. Because God has already given these things to us.

It's nice to realize. It makes me want to devote my life to taking up what I have already recieved - instead of trying to make it there on my own. But it's also incredibly hard to realize. Because in doing so, I really have to recognize the uselessness of my efforts. I really have to throw the means I've held on to for so long out the window and realize that god doesn't really care about the stuff I do and the things I think about when it comes to just being in a relationship with him.
:P.
Just thinking....

you know those dolls with smaller dolls inside? Have I got a treat for you...

2006-09-11T22:20:00.000-04:00

Word on the street - on the Esther street, that is (that is if "Esther street" actually means Esther, my sister, and the "word on the..." means that this is what Esther thinks) - is that this blog is depressing! And that I'm kind of spreading sadness ("word on the..." "street": I'm polluting the world!).
Sorry!! I didn't mean to be depressio. I think honesty is tricky. When do you know the stuff your saying is getting right down to the bone of just, well, you? Or when you're just honestly trying to be honest.
I have some thoughts I'll post one day about that kinda stuff.
I wrote this one blog, and I didn't post it because it made me too sad. I pasted it below. Don't take it as wisdom or anything. I want to show it here though - just as my friends, I want you guys to see just, well, me.

old woman

I met this really funny lady at the bus stop a couple of days ago. In this rare kind of funny that makes you smile because of its subtle originality. She had this super thick accent and kept on calling herself an old "oo-man" (Koreans have a hard time with the "wo-" sound). She wasn't very impressive or anything, but in some small, quiet way - I think I might want to be like her.
It's weird how hard it is to be self-aware sometimes.
I have this tendency to make everything about me/my life into some sort of public announcement. To somehow garner myself some sort of significance, some sort of historicity. To make sure that this - I - happened. And honestly, I'm not sure how this moment is much different.
I listened to this old sermon/message thing this morning called "The Divinity of Christ", and the guy (named Kevin Loten) was talking about how the closer he got to this Jesus so many people say they love, the more he was convinced that if people saw the real Jesus, they would not reject him. He was reading from Philippians 2. One part that sticks with me now is how he (Jesus) didn't believe equality with God was something to be grasped. He didn't feel like he needed to hold on to his own value and worth. But gave it up willingly, taking the form of a person - and as this fully God and fully man Christ, he performed to the world the purest and deepest kind of love.
It's so compelling. So appealing. This story, this Christ, seems to carry so much promise of deep life change and an incredible freshness to life and living. I have called myself a Christian for most of my life and have honestly tried to follow Christ for at least half of this time. Still, so often, I feel like I'm toeing the line.

Good night, friends!
gloria

learning to use a compass

2006-09-06T15:18:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to figure out what humility really looks like lately. Because, most often to me, I distinguish the light from the dark from a black reference point. Most often for me, I produce humility by not being arrogant...or at least not seeming over-arrogant.
But I've found that humility cannot be exercised in such a way. It's much more a thing of itself than arrogance or pride or selfishness could ever be. And even though I know that I'm so far from holding this in my hands, I have this sense that it's a lot like being like Christ.

true confessions

2006-09-03T00:19:00.000-04:00

I think maybe thoughts are like laundry.
My friend from the camp I went to this week is over for the next couple of days and she doesn't like leaving wet laundry in the machine over night. And that makes sense. When she told me that, I realized that that's probably very gross. Well, with bacteria and all.
You should put out your laundry. Because if you keep them in the machine all the time, it gets all gross and a little stinky. Sure, it's GREAT that you do laundry, but would you put your laundry out?
I'm thinking that I probably think too much and don't act enough, is what I'm trying to say. :P

Food stamps

2006-08-26T08:23:00.000-04:00

When I'm really honest with myself, I know that, at best, there are only a couple of things I really know. And sometimes I forget even those.
I was reading a little bit of "Blue like Jazz" by Don Miller, and he was explaining grace - the grace of god - by telling this story of this lady who was paying for her groceries with food stamps. And how everyone around her was embarrassed for her, and she was all awkward from being watched. Isn't it retarded how we complicate simple things like help with groceries? Miller wrote that he realized there that he was actually the one to be pitied; she could take help, even though it was humiliating.
Grace is simple. Grace is simple.
Engaging in a journey where this is the founding and enabling factor however, I've found, is a lot like falling in love.
Sometimes it's the most simple thing in the world. In places where I can just realize the greatness and sincerity of God, I feel all I need to do is relax to achieve life's greatest meaning. And sometimes, being deliberate with the deepest issues of me, I get disappointed with my shortcomings, shocked at what is natural for me, and surprised at the distance between me and He who has loved me first. Heart-breaking.

The aquarium

2006-08-21T10:56:00.000-04:00

It seems like lately, I've been talking to/hearing from a lot of people about the same kind of thing. I have a wonderful friend named Shannononnon who has a way of saying things as they really are - no matter how many words she has to use :). And she was just talking about hurt and the world. We were talking the night after my [pseudo] birthday party way too late into the night, and something she said has stuck with me since.
"I'm angry that the whole world has turned its back on what matters".
Told you she was awesome.
The next day, operating on far too little sleep, I was talking to one of my co-workers at the ever-pretigious "The Barn" and her boyfriend/financee comes. They seem to be having a pretty intense convo, and I feel all awkward because she's standing like a metre away from me at the next cash register. The guy leaves and she turns around and she's crying. I don't know her that well, but I ask her if she's alright.
"I'll never be" is what she says kinda quietly.
I'm beginning to realize that the world is filled with people that are barely holding together. It's amazing how we can function yet have our insides just ripped apart. It's amazing how we can so quickly forget the state of the world we live in.

I read a little Marx this summer for one of my classes, and as far as I understand it, much of his writings are based on the precept that we - because of various social institutions - look at the world through "illusory lenses". And to really live life we need to become aware of them, shed them, understand reality as it is, and live by it. From this precept, Marx departed into other ideas, but I wonder if the most marring lenses we put on as we go about this life thing is the blind conviction that we are as we should be. When truly, we don't possess all that matters.

pseuday birthdo

2006-08-19T07:59:00.000-04:00

I think this blog is at least somewhat significant. I came into being on my pseudo birthday! I had an early birthday party last night and now I'm awake WAY too early. Anyway, This blogging business seems tricky.
You have to say things that somehow are honest and, I think, vulnerable - yet knowing that lots of people have access to these things.
And you have to write things and post them - with the opportunity to read it over and edit and edit! I'm completely one of those emailers.
I also am not so computer saavy - OR original! (to prove my point see "esther"'s blog)
I think all in all I feel uncomfortable of this new medium of conveying the me-juice. I thought the face-to-face business was probably enough for the world...but, given the evidence of this post, the me today thinks the me of before is a stupid lady.
Well, trumpet blasts and rice confetti. This is my first post! (except for my actual first post - actually written by SHANNONERONI)
Much love, the g-spot.

2006-08-19T00:18:00.000-04:00

This is my first post.

- G.