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resolute?

Well, obviously the blog posting resolution is going quite well.  :ahem:

Honestly, I’ve been scrambling to find the time each day to take some photos, journal, and read a large-ish chunk of the Bible [in order to finish it in a year] as part of my devotions.  But having made the resolutions has helped me stick with all three and I’m happy to report the first two weeks of ‘10 have been rather a success resolution-keeping-wise.

Also, I’m moving down to Westport next Saturday, after which transition I plan to implement the cooking-for-friends and finding-a-mentor phases of my great plan.  I’m so very excited about moving into the city and all the new opportunities for relationships and ministry there.  My heart has been down in that particular neighborhood for some time now.

Finally, as I’ve contemplate the road trip thing, I began thinking more about Don Miller’s words on living good stories and what that means.  I’ve also been thinking about trying to join a team that’s going to Haiti in the coming months.  Pray with me about this possibility.

2010

I’ve never been one for resolutions, for planning the coming year out or trying to set out a list of aspirations.  But reading some of my friends’ lists this year as well as this excellent post by Donald Miller prompted me to think about what I’d like to do this coming year, not so much overarching life goals for now, but intentional things that will help me to grow in faith and love and community.

I put these things out there so that I can be held accountable, so please, ask me about them!

1.  Once I’ve moved out (January or February, hopefully), cook dinner for friends at least once a month.  Throw fun dinner parties.

2. Find an older woman to mentor me and meet with her at least twice a month.

3. Read at least two books every month.  Review at least one on goodreads.com

4. Take at least one photo every day, to be added to a 365 set on Flickr.  Bring my camera with me everywhere.  Improve my photography significantly.

5.  Read through the entire Bible this year.  I haven’t done it for about 5 years, going to try going the RSS feed route, suitable for lunch break reading.

6. Go on a road trip with friends; explore states and cities I’ve never seen.  So many possibilities…  Pacific Northwest, anyone?

7. Write at least one blog post a week here.  I miss the discipline of writing often.

8.  Start journalling again, even if it’s only a few sentences each day.  I’ve been telling myself to get serious about this for age , as I think it’s a great spiritual and personal discipline.  Seriously.  I got a new journal for christmas; it’s not leaving my bag, and I’m writing in that blasted thing.

There we go.  I’m excited for this new year.  2008 was the worst year of my life, and 2009 started with alot of brokenness and loneliness.  It became a year of surprising twists in my plans, learning new things, starting new chapters, meeting new friends, and finding healing & life.  This new year promises so much more.  Bring it, I say.

summers

I stumbled on this hilarious review posted to Amazon for the 500 Days of Summer DVD:

“As frightening as JAWS, MISERY, EXORCIST all rolled into one. Guys, there are only ‘Summers’ out there. There is no ‘Autumn’ waiting in the wings for a happy, dream-like ending. Just give up & forget about even trying, if you have any grasp on 21st Century reality, OK?  Good movie, though, i’m totally buying the DVD.”

Cynical much?  Although, on certain days, I’m certainly with him.

ice & branches

1. morning windshield, 2. Shred, 3. blue skies, 4. Untitled, 5. •oO.°, 6. Stanislava, 7. Untitled, 8. path, 9. thermalove

Inspired by my day of hoping for snow and being disappointed, hour after hour, here’s a small dose of cool photographic goodness.

easy now, camel.

I can’t remember the last time a poem moved me to tears.  Possibly never before.

I think sometimes it is only in art that bits of God’s beauty and love are able to shine the most truly and purely.  The camel and needle metaphor will never again be the same for me.

Tangentially, this reminded me of the scene in Dawn Treader in which Aslan peels back the dragon layers from Eustace to change him back into a boy at long last.

Luke 18.25
by Karsten Piper

He spread his blanket on the sand,
kneeled and arranged his bowls and tools:
hook, mallet, clamp, chisel, rasp, razor.

His smile glinted in the rongeur’s claws,
and upside down in the curette’s spoon.
Light shone out of the needle’s eye.

“Hoosh,” he said and began plucking hairs,
paring calluses, shearing wool, shaving
to the follicles, cutting to the quick.

He sorted these, trimming skin with skin,
hair with hair, into rows of clay bowls,
and set a large basin to catch each sour drip

as he sliced the hide and used both fists
to yank back the whole stubbled, gray pelt,
as wet and red on its underside as afterbirth.

He piled this heavily away, draping it
in clean linen, and turned to the meat and bone
heaving under sheer, tight membrane.

Sawteeth chewed into femur, rib and shoulder.
Pliers twisted and wrenched away tendons
until everything softened, canted, and collapsed—

yet not one sliver dies. Each ribbon and shard
bawls for the horror and hurt of their missing,
wishing for the old braying wholeness.

Pain bloodies evening and morning,
stabbing day after day from even the first cuts,
like the slow light of far stars.

Eyeballs and heart float alone in the last bowl,
dark and defenseless, quavering when he leans down
and they recognize in his eyes how little is left.

“Easy now, Camel,” he says and lifts me
in his fingertips, one quivering strand at a time,
through the eye of the needle.

a consuming flame

” He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought himself a great sinner before, but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair.  He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson.  He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.”

-Flannery O’Connor;  The Artificial Nigger

I’ve been reading a book of O’Connor’s short stories lately with varying degrees of interest and enjoyment.  There is no doubt she is a brilliant writer and well-deserving of her place in this country’s literary canon, but nonetheless, her stories make me very sad.  She manages to give birth to characters who exemplify the depravity of man so intensely that it is both exhausting and painful to read their stories.

So earlier this evening I was sitting in the Filling Station, fully prepared to be left saddened yet again by the story, when I came upon those words I just quoted at the end of one story.  “the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it.”  How incredibly powerful are those words?  Shouldn’t that very action be taking place in our hearts?  This bears a great deal more thought.

grey Saturday thoughts

I find myself, unaccountably, with nothing to do for a couple hours today.  This new city life has its innumerable positives, but an aching negative that has weighed on me — the scarcity of quiet time by myself, being.

Of course this is partly my own fault; being silent in thought, meditation and prayer takes a great deal of discipline that I largely still lack.  How many nagging worries would diminish and come back into proper perspective if I would spend more time dwelling before my Father with them and less consulting the opinions of every close friend?

blue

I can’t get this song out of my mind.  Regina performed this at the concert I attended this past Saturday and this song in particular struck me.

~

He stumbled into faith and thought,
“God, this is all there is?”
The pictures in his mind arose,
And began to breathe.
And all the gods and all the worlds
Began colliding on a
Backdrop of
Blue.

Blue lips,
Blue veins.

He took a step, but then felt tired.
He said, “I’ll rest a little while.”
But when he tried to walk again,
He wasn’t a child.
And all the people hurried fast,
Real fast,
And no one ever smiled.

Blue lips,
Blue veins.
Blue,
The color of our planet from far, far away.

He stumbled into faith and thought,
“God, this is all there is?”
The pictures in his mind arose,
And began to breathe.
And no one saw, and no one heard.
They just followed the lead.
The pictures in his mind arose,
And began to breed.

They started out beneath the knowledge tree.
Then they chopped it down to make white picket fences,
And, marching along the railroad tracks,
They smile real wide for the camera lenses.
They made it past the enemy lines
Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines.

Blue lips,
Blue veins.
Blue,
The color of our planet from far, far away.

Blue,
The most human color.
Blue,
The most human color.
Blue,
The most human color…

Blue lips,
Blue veins.
Blue,
The color of our planet from far, far away.

I spent a bit of time looking back through my favorite shots on Flickr this evening.   It’s interesting to see the shift of color spectrum and feeling subtly change to reflect the seasons and my mood.

Apparently I’ve been drawn lately to reds and blues, mushrooms and berries, animals and things made out of yarn, strikingly-revealing self-portraits and pictures of couples…  oh, and collections of things.

1. Untitled, 2. don’t go quietly, 3. Untitled, 4. sunday foraging., 5. Tim Roth, 6. Rain, 7. Untitled, 8. Untitled, 9. Untitled