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I’ve been trying to write all night in my journal. I thought I’d just write some prose or poetry or something because I feel that bursty feeling, like there is something I’m supposed to be putting out there, but I’m just not hitting on anything.
I keep hearing one of my favorite poems. It is so well put, it makes me think if everything poetic has already been said.
Here’s the one line that keeps bouncing around my cerebrum
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
What I’m about to say isn’t what the writer was thinking exactly (or even nearly), but he’s hitting on a theme in the human heart.
The weight we carry is love. He’s perfectly spoken here. There’s a great meter, and a great image. I feel this weight, it lies under the burden of my everyday life, there is a weight in loving people, in wanting to love people well. There is a weight in the hearts of men to be loved and to love deeply. It is God calling out to us.
So I’m taking a break from a class (a sort of inner healing thing) on Monday night in the Desert Stream facility (aka annex, aka old FSM building, aka first prayer room). At break I needed a serious sugar fix. So off I go to the vending machine in the hallway.
I’m staring intently at the rows of chocolate and chips, wondering which snack would bring me true joy. Amidst the rows of snack items was a booklet they handed out to us a few weeks ago; untitled “Emotional Dependency.” A picture is worth a thousand words… so here it is.
I love camera phones.
Speaking of feeling needy, I dislocated my shoulder later that night and got it back in by myself (all the while nearly puking). It wasn’t out of socket longer the 10 seconds, but it is one of the most painful things you can do to yourself. So later this week I was walking around with it in a sling, which is just embarrassing, because you have to explain all day long how it happened, what it feels like, and how desperate and needy you are. It just made me feel pitiful: pitiful and nauseous, because after explaining several times I began to feel really sick.
So home I went to sleep for awhile and then dearest Rachel and I went out and did some retail therapy at Nebraska Furniture Mart, which is like a small country and should have a flag and national anthem of their own. But I bought real adult furniture, so check, I’m becoming old. I felt old, walking around with a stupid injury checking out wood grains and micro fibers, end tables, a lamp styles. Our salesman talked this whole time about his lifelong struggle with his belief in Jesus Christ.
Odd, I’m finding life to be very odd these days.
Charleen has just declared today to be International After Midnight Day. We have this rule around here that anything said after midnight cannot be held against you or ever mentioned at anytime of the day before midnight. It’s sort of a catch all.
So today it’s like it’s after midnight all day long, nothing said today can be held against you, at least around here, but you have to take what you can get. As soon as I got Char’s email I called her and told her something I wasn’t going to tell her, because I didn’t want to be judged. I feel so much more free now.
So be gentle today, but speak your mind, be honest with people, love each other extravagantly.
Tomorrow we can go back to our restrained selves. Today let’s live with our hearts on our sleeves.
It’s fasting day here in Kansas City, and for all you die hard fasters I just wanted to plug a new place I found(It’s on 135th into the Kansas side). Robeks. I’ve been going there because I have a nasty cold (or as some call it – the onething plague – thank you Kathy). They serve these delicious smoothies and inject them with all sorts of nutritional non-sense.
But more importantly they taste great, and they make me feel great, and I feel no guilt, I feel only the genuine satisfaction of feeding my body something it is probably craving, such as vitamins.
Fast on…
I’ve been having a discussion with my roommates recently about the idea that we reap what we sow. I say “idea” like I heard this on Oprah. Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
It makes me think of how I have mistreated people, and how people have in turn mistreated me. We all have had that moment of realization in the midst of being mistreated, “oh crap, I’ve done this to someone else.”
We get back what we put out their. If we are sowing into anger and bitterness, that’s what we get back. We give birth to the type of people we have become. We ultimately bear fruit of the type of tree we are (for the record if I could be a fruit tree I’d bear pomegranates).
Galatians goes on to say that we should be good to all people, for in time we will all reap a harvest.
This has been bouncing in my head all morning… there by I’m deeming it thought of the day.
We reap what we sow.
My parents are pretty cool people. In my life my friends have gradually all become friends with my parents, some of them have come to realize that in fact my parents are cooler than me. They came over just to hang out with my parents. I’ve come to terms with the fact I have mildly cool parents. It’s mostly about their past and the drugs and the rock and roll. I’ve grown to appreciate these things. Some of them, such as the music, have become a part of my life. Other things, such as the drugs, never really caught on with me, if anything doing drugs wasn’t cool, cause hey my parents used to do them.
Okay so anyway, for Christmas we gave my dad an iPOD, which is a great gift for his music album loving self.
I first became concerned when my mother told me that she found his brand new iPod headphones in my Dad’s morning coffee. Disturbing by itself, I realize, but next my mother poses this question to my brother (the tech head) “is this some new way to charge something?” She wasn’t kidding. She’s just crazy sometimes. My brother nearly peed his pants he laughed so hard.
My second concern was when I called my father up and asked how it was going his reply was “I’m iPODing it.” Hmmmmmm. Wow.
Third concern, whenever we are trying to tell my dad he is too old for something he claims with great pride, “I have an iPOD.”
Fourth concern, call my parents on Valentine’s day, my mother screeches, “You father gave me a nano?” She said nano like a question because she wasn’t sure how to pronounce it. Oh goodie.
And now when I call my parents my dad says, “We’re iPODing it.”
Today was a great day, not just because I handed Hello Kitty valentines to everyone in the office, although that was great. It wasn’t the fact that I ate D’Bronx pizza for lunch although that was really great too.
But I babysat for the cutest kids ever tonight. I’ve had them in my two year old class for the last year (yes that’s right their twins). I never really babysat when I was younger, I just wasn’t really into it. But ever since Katie got me started teaching the two-year old class, I just can’t wait to be with these kids every week. I was so excited when they asked me to watch their kids, I was probably a bit enthusiastic.
It was a really good way to spend Valentine’s Day, I really do love these kids, all of my kids, not just Trinity and Julian.
So Happy Valentine’s Day all, I hope everyone spent it with people they love.
Last weekend I went on a spontaneous road trip to St Louis. I was sitting in the Prayer Room last Friday minding my own business when Matthias and James (Jesse’s brother – Jesse is my administrative assistant and fiancee to my roommate Char, who also works with me)came prancing down the aisle, as they came back up the aisle James petted my head and Matthias leaned down and asked me if I wanted to go to St Louis.
I instinctively said, “uh no.” But then I thought, what am I doing in the next 18 hours? Why couldn’t I go? I couldn’t think of any reasonable excuse. So I quickly changed my mind and an hour later (12AM) we were headed to St Louis. James and I were the primary drivers on the trip, as Amanda had class the next day and Matthias swears he will never ever drive in his lifetime (we did teach him how to pump gas at the 7eleven).
Upon arriving in St Louis we snuck in James’ house like the true ninjas we are (in reality I giggled the whole time because I’m bad at sneaking things, my automatic fear response is laughter, I can’t help it) to surprise James’ brother John B. Amanda had the video camera all ready, she turned to his bed with the green night vision light only to discover John B was on a church retreat. That was much ado about nothing. We snuck back out of the house without ever being noticed. From here we went on to pick up James’ girlfriend, and then on to the arch.
It is at this point at about 4:30 AM we become a bit lost trying to find a parking spot, somehow we ended up on a highway heading into Illinois (all hail). We flipped a U-turn and James comes to screeching halt and runs out of the car and lays himself flat on the pavement right on the white dotted line, we all laugh and proceed to follow him. Just as my head lays down, James yells headlights and we all scream and jump up and soar back to car, I screamed twice more in the car just for dramatic effect.
There was no parking anywhere near the arch at 4:30 in the morning, so in yet another daring move, James parks the car right in the middle of the street right next the Arch. So out we run up a very steep hill and to the arch, where once again we lay flat on the ground staring up at the arch. It was way cooler then I thought it was going to be. It sort of shimmered in the spotlights and it was huge.
We had only a few minutes as we were illegally parked, so we ran back to the car climbed in and set off to find a steak and shake.
Two steak and shakes later we were back on the road by 7AM, it was at this point that the two boys bet me that I couldn’t stay awake the whole ride back. I bet them I could and that neither one of them would make it. They were bold in their trash talk. But what they didn’t know is that I have been on roadtrips with both of their brothers. Experience has taught me that neither the brysons nor the wells’ do very well on low sleep in cars.
So about 15 minutes in Matthias dropped out and slept the whole way with his mouth open. Two and half hours in James pulled his cap over his eyes and drifted off. Admittedly I was starting to drop off, so in went the Killers and down went the windows and we made it back without incident; I, obviously, winning over the two boys who clearly needed their beauty rest.
I’ve had a rough week. Work has been crazy and it’s conference week. It seems this week every step forward comes just before four steps back. It’s a bit discouraging.
But here’s the weird thing, I’ve had this sense something good is about to happen to me; like something is just around the corner.
It also makes me think that the Lord has really blessed me in the last two or three weeks, he has really given me a peace about all the difficult things that have come my way. I mean sure, I’m still a basket case, but there are days like this last Monday, when he just swoops in and kisses me.
It’s hard to describe without going into a dear diary moment, which I’ll spare you. I don’t know, maybe God is blessing me with my freedom. Freedom from the fear of what people think, freedom from my own expectations, freedom from lies I have told myself my whole life.
Maybe this is a gift for really facing my stuff, for really digging deep these last seven months. Maybe this isn’t even a gift, maybe it’s just a part of the continual goodness of God in my life.
Alright I’ve got to sign off, Annyoung is playing with the turkey baster again.
