Lincoln

"No one's ever been so loved by the people. Don't waste that power."

Am I Crazy?

Tonight I'm up at 3:57 a.m. editing a video. About potatoes.

After two hours of listening to focus groups discuss au gratin vs. cheesy I kind of wanted to die. So I got in the shower and almost actually died when my sister walked in unannounced (because of course I had been imagining people behind the shower curtain. And for a split second I thought she might be one of those people).

So for the rest of my shower I wondered, is everyone else as crazy as I am?

Maybe creative people are all hanging by a thread. Like we're pretending to be normal, but at any minute we could snap and the world would see us for who we really are - not borderline insane, but actually insane.

Is it normal to always hear the sound of your own thoughts louder than any noise around you? I think my fear of being alone at night has nothing to do with a fear of darkness...but the silence and emptiness that comes with darkness. The crack of a door, the brush of a shower curtain are enough to send violent shock waves through me. When my head is on my pillow I can hear full symphonies. I can wake up from a dream and feel the presence of nothingness so strong that it strikes me with panic. In the dark, material things stop speaking and invisible things take their turn - and the presence of them is so horrifying and delightful I'll never understand it.

It's this combination of sensuality and imagination that makes artists so stir crazy. We feel things and imagine things until eventually we're just imagining we're feeling things. After one of my faux break ups with someone I never dated, I remember grabbing a cab with my friends, sitting between them and having a near mental breakdown. Between sobs I kept saying, "I'm normal, I'm normal." To which my friend responded, "No you're not." Smiling. (because he's not normal either).

There are negative side effects to creativity, but every truly creative person will admit they kind of enjoy the torment. If someone told me they would flatten me out by taking away all of the fear, nausea, and jumping a foot in the air from the brush of a shower curtain (not to mention seeing people behind the shower curtain) I would be tempted to trade those things, but I could never follow through with it. Every time I've tried to take an easier road, the beauty always went with it.

It's a package deal. The heightened sensuality that makes you panic at night helps you write music. The thoughts that flood your head with nonsense sometimes manage to write themselves into beautiful stories that make people cry. And the ability to make people cry is not crazy. It's beautiful.

The blood of love welled up in my heart with a slow pain.

-Sylvia Plath

Why Women Like Jerks

Jean Valjean.

All throughout Les Miserables I was completely captivated by him. His character, his strength, his anger, his gentleness, and his firm resolve to bring mercy and justice into the world are just...stunning. 

I forgot men could be like that, watching them run around in skinny jeans trying to muster up the courage to hit on girls at bars. Even still, I know that whenever I fall for a guy, regardless of who he really is, I always think the world of him. Sometimes it's blind, sometimes it's crazy, but it's what girls do.

We catch a glimpse of greatness in a man, fall for the potential, and then want to play a small part in bringing it out. Why did Belle fall for a beast? Why did Mr. Darcy drive Lizzie so crazy, when she was spirited, fierce and beautiful and he was a dour, tortured soul?

It's like in Anne of Green Gables when Marilla asks Anne, "Would you want to marry a wicked man?" to which Anne replies, "I wouldn't want to marry anyone who was truly wicked, but I'd like it if he could be wicked--but wouldn't."

It's strange - why women are drawn to jerks and blindly worship them even if they are being treated like garbage. Tonight I was watching episode 12 in Once Upon a Time, where Belle becomes a hero for her family by choosing to live forever with Rumplestiltskin, a man who's darkness has power over the entire kingdom. One day, out of his growing love for her, he releases her from the castle. She goes scot free, only to come running right back with that hopeful gleam in her eyes - the look that says, I want my love to change you, to make you good. Her kiss almost turned him from a monster into a man.

Imagine if it had worked? The tragic undoing of every single person destroyed by the beast's wickedness could have been prevented by the sweet, unassuming way of a woman. It's the story of Esther, approaching the king with gentle boldness and saving her people. It's the story of Jesus overcoming the power of Rome not by a sword, but with love. 

There is a tenacity of will and a passion inside every woman to see only what her man can be, not what he is, and I wonder if that blindness isn't always a bad thing. 

Love Anyway - Once Upon a Time

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. 
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. 
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” 

-Mother Teresa

Not gonna lie, I'm a little obsessed with Once Upon a Time.  

Tonight's episode showed a glimpse into how Rumplestiltskin became so evil. My stomach turned as I watched the king demand that he kiss his boot, and then kick him hard in the jaw right in front of his only son. 

Cruelty like this crawls under my skin. I resolved that, in my own life, I will do whatever it takes to make sure no one will ever feel that way on my account. 

Then I thought of at least one person, who, at that moment, was probably feeling pain on some level because of me. It felt like justice to treat them poorly because of the way they treated me. 

But that's not God's definition of justice. He says, "Love them anyway." We think it's OK to wish people harm who have harmed us, but those are moments where it's the most critical to love anyway. That is how we reverse the cycle of pain and suffering in this world. 

The antagonist is rarely one-dimensional. They antagonize because something, or someone is antagonizing them. By hurting the people who hurt us, we participate in continuing the cycle of pain. Why not be the person who puts their foot down and says, "enough," to our  pride, ego, and conceptions of what's fair, because ultimately, it's not about us.

Every day our actions are paying something forward, whether it's bringing hope and life into a situation or death and more pain. When people hurt us, we can be bitter or be gracious. We can pay the pain forward, or put an end to it by choosing to love - even when it "feels" wrong. 

Welcome Intruder

The gentle look in your eyes hits violent chords in me
All night I watch the clock for the crescendo to break
Is there any clean escape from this incessant flowering
Growing and dying, like springtime, inviting
A welcome intruder
Who sits in my roots and climbs up my limbs
Growing, dying, reviving for the win.
How do you fight a thing
With no lips and no arms?
No weapon to swing,
No reason to harm,
When the foe you aim your shots at
Is the one you want to love.

Fateful Turns

(Taken from my friend Ralph Nardell on Flickr)

Chick Flicks

My mom said something really interesting about chick flicks in the car today. Don't they always seem to present terrible situations in a sugar-coated, "it will all be OK in the end" sort of way?

At the end of the move, things like divorce, heartbreak, betrayal, etc. wrap up neatly in a nice ending that makes everyone feel good about themselves.

What happened to classics like Gone With the Wind, Great Gatsby, or Troy? Helen brought down an entire kingdom with her shenanigans. Queen Elizabeth did the opposite and got maaaaad respect for it. Actually, a lot of historians say that her rule significantly altered the course of Western history, in a good way. What's funny is that stories likes these from different eras are probably closer to showing the real outcomes in ours. At least more than chick flicks do.

Thinking about this mentally prepared me for what happened a few hours later. A woman was crying as she came out of the bathroom and I felt terrible for her. It was slightly awkward to ask, but I went up to see if she needed prayer. We ended up talking for hours about the challenges she was facing in her marriage, and afterwards she felt so much better.

One day I'll probably look back and realize that everything else in my life was hay, rubble, and wood, burning away in a fire, when moments like these were pure gold.

I'm so sick of the way our culture trivializes everything. We put price tags on each other based on how attractive, funny, wealthy, talented blah blah blah we are. I feel like Peeta in the Hunger Games when he wanted to prove to the game maker that the capitol didn't own him.

Even if we don't agree with the laws that govern this system, we are still under them somehow. For the past week I've had this curious, growing hunger in me to pendulum swing - in a good way - towards something else. Something more noble.

Faith and Glory

I was driving to New York last week when I heard this on a Tim Keller podcast:

His purposes will ripen fast

Unfolding every hour

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

You fearful saints, fresh courage take!

The clouds you so much dread, 

Are big with mercy - and shall break -

With blessings on your head.

I think this poem describes exactly how God works. A year ago from today I had nothing in my life figured out. I was a recent college grad, waitressing, wandering around my house every day in sweatpants, trying to take my creative work seriously. Everything in me wanted to quit, but I kept feeling that gentle nudge, "Keep going, it's worth it." 

...His purposes will ripen fast

Unfolding every hour...

Fast forward 8 months and I pinch myself every day, wondering how I got so lucky - not just with more work than I can't keep up with, but with new friendships, fresh creativity, travel opportunities, and seriously magical experiences. It struck me while I was working at the Ace Hotel the other day. I'm starting to live out my dream - creating epiphany moments and moving people's hearts to care about things that matter. 

I'm realizing this is how God works: you trust Him fully, he gives you everything and more. The lie we always believe - and the thief of joy - is exactly the opposite: if you follow Him, he's going to withhold from you what you really want. I think the reason why this lie works on us so well is because there is an element of truth in it. Obedience usually requires some level of sacrifice, and it usually feels awful, but it's always the best thing for us. 

...The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower...

When we step out in faith and do the hard thing, God brings us out into glory, then we step out in faith again, and he brings us even deeper into that glory. Faith and glory are inextricably tied. 

Jessi is the best at this. She has the kind of faith that makes her believe God's future promises are true in the present moment. She's always bringing everyone around her on board to risk and trust with her, and it's amazing to get to be a part of it. 

We almost have to bulldoze blindly through the confusion until we eventually arrive out in a clearing where we see why all of the fog, mud tracks, and road blocks were necessary. The resistance drives us to a place of full dependence on God, makes us people of character, and stamps a spirit of thankfulness onto our bones - all of which are profoundly more important than any tangible blessing we could receive in this life. It also makes for a better story. 

After seeing God work this way so many times, I honestly get a little excited when things get difficult, because I know it can only lead to bigger and brighter seasons of fullness. 

...Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take!

the clouds ye so much dread, 

Are big with mercy - and shall break -

With blessings on your head.

Emily Bronte

Remembrance

Cold in the earth -- and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern leaves cover
Thy noble heart forever, ever more?

Cold in the earth -- and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring;
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion --
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again? 

Fun is the New Hot.

Working out has a converse effect on me. The skinner I get, the fatter I feel. Anyone with me?

When you're throwing down triple chocolate meltdowns, life is good. But once bizarre things like getting more defined butt dimples becomes the sole reason for your existence -- you start to hate your body and your life.

I feel like health, fitness, and beauty is this huge melodrama that women get sucked into. And it's so pointless. No one notices when you lose five pounds. Or cares.

This is the thought that led to my brilliant daydream. Imagine if all the beauty-obsessed women in the world transferred their energy into being fun. So like, at a party where everyone would typically be competing for the hottest, trying to get the most guys, and instagramming sexy pictures of themselves (booooring), instead, the secret competition would be about who could be the funniest, the craziest, and make the most people laugh.

The results were as follows:

Since you can't be fun all by yourself - no longer would girls be catty, exclusive, and throwing each other under the bus - they would be spontaneous, silly, and willing to look stupid for a change. In fact, we would probably be having so much fun that we wouldn't care about meeting guys. Then they would have to chase us -- which is what we're really after anyway (lets be honest).

Oh, and, we'd probably all just get skinny from being so happy.

What Do Women Want?

With That Moon Language - Hafiz

July = Heart Explosion

Can someone freeze time?

This may have been the best month of my life--like one heart exploding moment to the next--lots of crazy partying, epiphanies, unexpected surprises, and God's presence thick like honey in all of it.

I'll start from the beginning.

The first week I spent at the beach with my family, mostly with my mom (in her beach chair with her baseball cap, practically in the water all day like a reptile, theorizing and seeing visions of the future). 


On Friday morning my girlfriends headed to Montauk for the weekend to celebrate Jessi's birthday. We mostly rolled around the town, bar-to-beach, with browning skin and salty hair, chatting about the great romance life is to us. We also created a near circus at Ruschmeyer's (getting 2/3 of the people in a venue to wear face paint for your best friend is an abnormal, but serious victory). 

On Tuesday I met up with our team serving in the South Bronx. We partnered with Sara Frazier's work - A House on Beekman. I watched the team take off their shoes, stand in God's glory and wash their neighbor's feet. This is the spirit of Jesus that changed my life forever 8 years ago. Being with them reminded me. And I got to film adorable inner city kids--my favorite!

After that I headed to Philly and stayed a few nights with Carolina at the Marriot. We did some stage design for the annual ACTS413 prayer event...and laughed. A lot.

Of course I was running around like a headless chicken shooting the event and--in my spare time--dragging my dad's staff members into a creepy stairwell for ANOTHER secret video shoot for his 50th birthday.  

Sneakily, stealthily, we put together a montage that came out with the big news... that he was flying out to the world's BEST golf course in St. Andrews, Scotland! 

...the magic of July just kept rolling. Saturday night Jessi and I had a life-changing conversation via an allegory I wrote in college, The Gumblers. It really does blow my mind that God would use a story about alien creatures holding water bubbles to alter the course of someone's destiny.

Speaking of how literature affects us, Monday night we had the author of The Shack over for dinner. When he shared his story, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. I feel like I met a friend, like when two souls are fellow travelers on the same journey. C.S. Lewis says the picture of lovers is two people staring in each other's eyes, but the picture of friendship is two people staring at the road ahead. Friendship is always about something else. Something much bigger than either of you.

And as if this month hasn't been wild enough, I just found out today that Ken Graves, aka The divine and human bird, is visiting tomorrow. {heart explosion times one hundred thousand million}

Dear Ken, you coming to my house, riding trees like a mountain man to the ground, reciting poetry around the fire, and banging tables in righteous anger is probably the best way I could imagine ending the best month of my life.

Cupcake cafe

I like this place! Anita and I basically sat here all day and worked remotely.

The ambience is somewhat shabby-chic with a white stone slab of a table, tons of outlets, benches, and really thrown together decorations (so New York). A big window sits to my left so I can dream and people watch as my files render themselves away. And a big plus is, it's close to jessi.

I can see myself having a meeting here. It's cozy enough to hole yourself up and work all day and not feel restless... Quiet... Unassuming...

Weltschmertz

philosopher-kings

never rule

fat mouths
speak nothing-words

to the world

wealth rots

in empty houses

limbless captains

navigate our seas

and no one believes 

in stargazers

anymore.

Some late pinterest favorites

Elm

Elm, Sylvia Plath

God's Grandeur - Hopkins

The World is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare not, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast, and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Is the knowledge if good and evil...evil?

After Adam and Eve bit the apple, He turns to His trinity and says, "Now they are like us, knowing the difference between good and evil."

I've always wondered why sin is defined in this way.

Why does the knowledge of good and evil make us sinners, but not God?

Maybe it's because we confuse our definitions of good and evil. Like we keep eating bad apples, over and over sick to our stomachs, because somewhere deep in our bellies we believe they are good for us. The same words God used for creation, we use for the perversion of it. Good.

But God's definitions of good and evil are never mixed up. Could you imagine being able to interact with everything as it really is? No illusions, no false hope, no dried up cisterns. God has pure reality pouring in and through him. In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes heaven as a place so solid that our human souls look like ghosts in comparison. A blade of grass is heavier than a tree on earth. As we grow closer to God, we become more solid. He teaches us how to separate light and darkness, so that someday, like Him, we will be solid enough to know good and evil, and not be overcome by it.

We're Sick of Each Other

Read this great article comparing pinterest and facebook.

"What sets Pinterest apart and makes it so appealing is its focus on who we want to be -- not on what we're doing, where we've gone, how important we are or how beloved. While much of the content shared on existing social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare screams, "Look at me," Pinterest posts urge, "Look at this." At least for now, the site offers a refreshing haven away from the boosterism and boasting that plague so many sites."

Art is Work

Chapter "Approaching the Mystery" in The War of Art, (109).

Why have I stressed professionalism so heavily in the preceding chapters? Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Why is this so important?

Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights acrete.

Just as Resistance has its seat in hell, so Creation has its home in heaven. And it's not just a witness, but an eager and active ally.

What I call Professionalism someone else might call the Artist's Code of the Warrior's Way. It's an attitude of egolessness and service. The Knights of the Round Table were chaste and self-effacing. Yet they dueled dragons.

We're facing dragons too. Fire-breathing griffins of the soul, whom we must outfight and outwit to reach the treasure of our self-in-potential and to release the maiden who is God's plan and destiny for ourselves and the answer to why we were put on this planet.

If you want to pursue a woman...

What does it mean when a man falls in love with a radiant face across the room? It may mean that he has some soul work to do. Instead of pursuing the woman and and trying to get her alone, he needs to go alone himself, perhaps to a mountain or cabin, for three months, write poetry, canoe down a river, and dream. That would save some women a lot of trouble.

Iron John, Robert Bly

Chivalrous Virtues

These 12 virtues were the basis of the knightly code of conduct. It was aimed at others, not at making yourself look good. I think it's so interesting that they chose these!

1) Trustworthy | Integritas: a man's word is his bond. Words matter. You mean what you say.

2) Loyal | Fidelitas: you stand by a friend even if they are wrong, even when you don't feel like it.

3) Helpful | Succurrere: be proactive about having resources and skills so that, if and when a need comes, you can pitch in.

4) Friendly | Benevolus: go out of your way to make others feel welcome. It's not about you, it's aimed at them.

5) Courteous | Urbanus: be aware of your surroundings. Do seemingly trivial things for someone else if they matter to that person.

6) Kind | Benignus: "celebrate others."

7) Obedient | Referre: there is an objective standard outside of you as an individual.

8) Cheerful | Hilaris: live in the light of knowing God is in control. Things are okay when they don't appear to be.

9) Thrifty | Frugalis: make most of your time, resources, money, and talent. Don't squander it.

10) Brave | Fortitudo: move forward, even if you fear to do what is right.

11) Clean | Abolere: well, you know.

12) Reverent | Sanctus: admire what is good.

Transformation

We all want to feel like we are a part of something that matters. It's great that social media platforms create an opportunity where we can identify with movements, churches, causes, non profits - and promote them on our own pages.

Even though it seems harmless - sometimes I get suspicious that this interaction is training me to rely on a "feeling" of connection to a good cause, instead of the good it's actually doing.

I find myself valuing connection to a cause "out there" more than acts of kindness, forgiveness, sacrifice, friendship--things that have been transformational circa forever--and I can do them right here, right now, without a computer.

Without discounting the benefits of using social media, I only mean to capitalize on it's dark side. There's a grey haze over my friends, family, and myself, like we're all under the illusion that out there we'll "find it." Whatever that thing is...the thing that feels big and important and has me at the center, because somehow in promoting this movement, I'm promoting myself as the kind of person who promotes good movements.

We have more than enough platforms to make us feel like we're changing the world, but are we? Tweeting about trendy non-profits does not make you philanthropic...but spending time with inner city kids will. Especially when no one is there to instagram you doing it.

Like | Dislike

As a kind of junior but powerful version of romanticism and existentialism combined, the emotivist movement insisted that all moral discourse could be reduced in any case to statements of likes and dislikes. "Murder is wrong" simply means "I don't like murder." "Giving to charity is good" means "I like people giving to charity." From this point of view, following moral rules and following your own inclinations both boil down to pretty much the same thing. Often today people who are discussing moral choices will say that this person "prefers" Option A or that person "applauds" Option B, as though moral choices were a matter of personal perference or taste. Sometimes they speak of "moral attitudes" as though what a particular person believed about the rights and wrongs of certain actions were simply an "attitude, an innate prejudice which they hadn't bothered to think through.

N.T. Wright, After you Believe, pg 50

Telos

Coined by Aristotle, Telos (τέλος) is one of my favorite concepts in Greek philosophy.

Telos is the ultimate thing you're aiming at, your main ambition, your life goal, the thing that drives you. Once you know what it is, then you decide on strengths of character which will enable you to arrive at that goal, followed by a process of moral training by which these strengths turn into habits.

So you have three things: Your main goal, the character to get you there, and daily habits that are character-forming.

Do you know what your telos is?

I would love it if someone asked me that at a bar instead of what I did for a living. What a terrible question. Sometimes I get roped into it, thinking that work is my identity. I start believing my life ambition is to be Ellie Goulding, or a great film director, but those things don't serve as very good "ultimates." This awful culture has us tricked into believing that it's something we do, when it's supposed to be something we are becoming.

Aristotle's telos was a fully flourishing human being, rounded, wise, and formed in character. He had four principal virtues: courage, justice, prudence, and temperance. He said these were, "The hinges upon which the great door to human fulfillment and flourishing would swing open" (15).

Fulfillment. Flourishing. Like that swimming sensation in your nerves, when every part of your being is coming together, and coming to life. Aristotle was onto something, and Jesus only added to it, by inviting you to live that kind of life with people who have the same goal. It doesn't always look like the illusions of fortune, status, or success, but it has everything else we're hungry for, like love, contentment, knowing and being known.

I think that kind of telos brings out a certain magical quality of life, and I'm lucky to have discovered it so soon.


Quotes taken from N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. 

Getting Healthy - Numero Uno

After spending an entire night on WebMD, and diagnosing myself with GERD (fancy name for acid reflux) I've decided to make a few dietary changes in order to feel normal again.

This woman talks about singers who have dealt with acid reflux. She inspired me to tackle this annoyingly awful life-interrupting disease by eating stomach-friendly, alkaline, and doctor recommended foods.

I know I can't implement everything at once, so I'll start by adding things one at a time.

This week's kick: BONE-BROTH!

Sounds gross, but apparently it has healing properties. Very nutritious.



Here are some good recipes.

I called my mom tonight and said, "Hey, can you pick up some bones while you're at the grocery store?" So she brought home a lovely array of, um, bones. We cut up celery and carrots and let the bone soak for a good 2 hours. It should be done by now...

Possession

There are two ways to be broken and never heal.

The first is to believe a promise: that if I fully possess the thing I desire the most, I will be happy. But when I finally grab ahold of it and suck the marrow out of it, I come to the horrifying conclusion that I am still hollow.

The second is to believe another promise: that as long as I feel full right now, I will be happy. I commit to nothing fully because I can never love anything great enough to lose the other options. I am driven by the need to be filled...with anything.

Both promises are lies. The first can't deliver, and the second makes me a slave to my appetites.

There third promise I have held on to in brokenness is the only one that doesn't just act as a bandaid on a wound, but leads to healing.

Whatever makes your heart sick with desire, whatever owns you, whatever you think you can't be happy without: kill it. One day, when you are ready to have it back, it will be brighter, better, and fuller than ever, because for the first time, you will possess it fully.

Ginger

Meet Ginger: my sassy mentor-turned friend, who's spirit is truly poetic.


How many people can you meet for coffee and randomly start reciting poetry with? Really.

Haha, here you go ging.

SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!

Sometimes I get revelations while listening to Bruno Mars.

Living in a culture of choice presents unique problems. The freedom to choose can be liberating or paralyzing, because no matter what we choose, the anxiety of neglected choices looms over us.

In our 20's, it's game-time for choosing. We fret about where we work, but that's just one pea-sized piece in a jigsaw puzzle that's constantly changing shape. After you get a job, you still have to figure out what you actually want to do with your life and how in the world you're ever going to make money doing that thing when you probably suck at it. Then you have to decide who you love, and find ways to make sure they stay in the picture...or take them out of it.

We put the pieces together one by one, and then the puzzle picture changes, and we have to start over again. Then some wise adult touches our hand and says, "It all works out in the end."

It probably works out in the end because at some point, we get serious about our commitments. (Smedes writes a good article about this). He says most of our identity comes from making wise promises and keeping them. When you make a promise to someone or something, you create a sanctuary in a jungle of unpredictability.

What have you made a promise to?

Listening to the radio today, I thought about the process of pursuing music: how frustrating and fun it is, how sometimes I feel like a goddess but most of the time I just feel like a hipster idiot penning lyrics on duck tape to my kitchen table.

But things that matter the most always cost the most. I can't think of anything more foolish than an army of marching in circles around a fortified city for 7 days, blowing trumpets. We wish that walls would come down on their own, but that's not the way it works. Truly profound things are rarely accomplished normally, and, without bruises to your ego. You write 25 songs that are just okay and want to kill yourself. Then you write one good chorus and feel like you will live forever. It's an ebb and flow: glory and shame, glory and shame.

Success is irrelevant - what matters is that you have made a promise to something that matters. The rest isn't up to you.

Art and Longing

I had an epiphany on the purple couch this morning when Cindy told me about the process of a traditional Hebrew wedding.

First, the Father would choose a husband for his daughter and discuss arrangements with him (dowry, terms, etc.). Then suitor would be invited over for dinner, and at some point during the evening, drink from a glass of wine. If the daughter accepted, she would drink after. At the moment she puts that cup to her lips and drinks, she is married.

The husband, or "soon to be" then goes away to build a house for her. They do not consummate their marriage until he comes back, (usually a year later) and sweeps her off into a new life.

Here's the interesting part:

The bride would not know the exact day or time the husband would come home, only the "season." So if it was in springtime, she would have to be ready at all times for him to come home. It was a season of longing, waiting, and preparing even though she was already his.

If the bride is the metaphor God has given us for the church, then maybe this whole life on earth is the season of that longing.

Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting my time writing love songs, but if I really believed the trajectory of history from the angle of scripture--God saving, humans waiting, God coming--then wouldn't love and longing be the most important thing to write about?

Love songs help us cope with longing. They help us wake up desires from death and keep the lamps burning when they so frequently go out, and they remind us what we're hoping for. Art does this better than anything, and I guess until now I've underestimated how important it was.

Important Little Ingredient to Love

I think there is this little ingredient that tells you could carve out a life with a person and make it work. It's the ability to know someone's flaws and get excited about being a part of their renewal. When this happens, that's when I know there's something deeply magical about my feelings for them.

Tim Keller says it well in The Meaning of Marriage

"Many people have asked me, How can you tell whether you've got a friendship on which you can base a marriage?" The answer that Kathy and I have always given is this. When you see the problems in each other, do you just want to run away, or do you find a desire to work on them together? If the second impulse is yours, then you have the makings of a marriage. Do you obsess over your partner's external shortcomings, or can you see the beauty within, and do you want to see it increasingly released? Then move forward. The power of truth that marriage has should hold no fear for you."

Jeremiah 1-3

But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit...my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covers us: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.

Turn, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

Tim Keller - to fall in love

Tim Keller describes a "Christian vision for marriage" and what it means to fall in love.

It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating and to say, 'I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, '"I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!'"

...Romance, sex, laughter and plain fun are the by-products of this process of sanctification, refinement, glorification. Those things are important, but they can't keep the marriage going through years and years of ordinary life. What keeps the marriage going is your commitment to your spouse's holiness. You're comitted to his or her beauty. You're committed to his greatness and perfection. You're committed to her honesty and passion for the things of God. That's your job as a spouse. Any lesser goal than that, any smaller purpose, and you're just playing at being married.

The Meaning of Marriage

Elvira...Alvin...Elle...Vinabags?

Moments spent with this girl are like snapshots in time. I look back at this year of transition--moments spent in my room complaining about the nebulous cloud of life planning always hanging over our heads--moments spent drinking out of hot beverages in sunny French cafes and dreaming about what's next. All of the journey's most important stops and pitfalls can be traced by remembering our conversations via her little visits here and there. Always poetic, always honest, sometimes glamorous (but mostly ridiculous), she's got a wide soul and a deep heart and sucks the marrow out of everything.

Now she's off to London and Mumbai, and I'm going to miss her very much.

<3 you Alvin.

McKee's Quotes on Story

“When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.”

“Beyond imagination and insight, the most important component of talent is perseverance—the will to write and rewrite in pursuit of perfection. Therefore, when inspiration sparks the desire to write, the artist immediately asks: Is this idea so fascinating, so rich in possibility, that I want to spend months, perhaps years, of my life in pursuit of its fulfillment? Is this concept so exciting that I will get up each morning with the hunger to write? Will this inspiration compel me to sacrifice all of life's other pleasures in my quest to perfect its telling? If the answer is no, find another idea. Talent and time are a writer's only assets. Why give your life to an idea that's not worth your life?”

“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.”

"...While it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's also true that the unlived life isn't worth examining.”

Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in the smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward look, the land is bright.

-Arthur Hugh Clough