musings

It makes me sad that someone stole my iron. My last name is printed in big purple letters down the side, so unless someone else has the same big purple last name as I do and took it by mistake, there is no reason why he should have stolen my iron.

It also makes me sad that the books the library sold in their book sale had "DISCARD" stamped in the inside cover. It's like going to an orphanage and stamping "DISCARD" all over the children. How would you like it blatantly printed across your forehead that you're not wanted?

It makes me happy that this weekend I'm going "home" to see my parents and my friends, the latter of which I haven't seen since May and don't know when I'll see again. Next weekend is Vineyard Community Church's "Vinefest" (with hay rides and tackle football and grilled foods), and the weekend after that is a possible Chicago trip with Leiza. Yay.

It also makes me happy that it's autumn, and I wrote an ode to the way the football field looks when the sun is setting on it and casts shadows to the 30-yard line. Glistening helmets, spiraling pigskins, you look happy to meet me.

The chapel speaker yesterday tried to convince us that a relationship with God is not enough, and we, as humans, need human relationships. I was not pleased as he continuously looked out at the auditorium and stated, "God is not enough!" If that's the case, what kind of God is He, who can't fulfill all our needs with only Himself? Not a god I'd want to serve.

Epitomes of autumn in which I have to this moment participated:
~ Anne of Green Gables
~ homemade apple pie
~ ubiquitous pumpkin
~ the marriage of cinnamon and my senses
~ leaf crunching
~ football
~ season premieres of Pushing Daisies, The Office, and House
~ blue skies smiling at me; nothing but blue skies do I see

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Elliot

((Not quite as good as my ode to football...but okay nonetheless.))

the fall of man

Fall is in the air. Can you feel it? I can't. But here's proof:

~ Starbucks has begun to serve pumpkin spice lattes again.
~ Olay is reissuing their Winter Retreat body wash that disappeared during the summer, but makes my arms (and probably feet, too, but I tend to notice it less) smell like vanilla.
~ Shane & Shane sang "Oh Holy Night" off their in-the-works Christmas album at their "free fall concert" in front of the seminary last night. Shane & Shane and Christmas music is an ethereal combination.
~ Game 1 of football season was Thursday night. Tomorrow promises to be a good day.
~ It's not 90 degrees today.

My good friend Sarah taught me a valuable lesson the other day. I merely asked her one lesson God taught her while she served in Africa this summer, and she answered, "God is good." I don't know about you, but I've heard that far too often.
Pastor: God is good--
Congregation: --all the time!
And I think my problem stems from the situations in which I've heard people say it. "God really pulled me through it. He is so good." But what if He hadn't pulled you through it? What if you had died, or been maimed, or lost your house or family or shelves of books? Would God still have been good?

Too often I base the character of God off of what I am going through. I feel alone, so God is far. I feel sad, so God has abandoned me. But just because I am scared doesn't mean God isn't comfort. Just because I am unhappy doesn't mean God isn't joy. "God is good" is a fact that doesn't change with the way I feel. It's like a tree, firmly planted in the soil, whose leaves change every fall and spring. Just because the leaves turn orange and fall off doesn't mean the tree has changed in any way. It's the leaves who change, not the tree. God is good. It's who God is, not the circumstance or situation with which I am dealing.

God loves us, wants to heal us, save us, be near us, and because of this I think I think I deserve those things. Why won't You heal me? Why won't You save me? But I've come to realize, it isn't about me. The people in the Old Testament seem to grasp this concept and that of God's goodness, even before Jesus. In 1 Chronicles 20, Joab is about to attack the Ammonites, and he tells his men in verse 12, "Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his sight."

That's it! They trust the Lord to do what is good in his sight. They might not understand why. They might die! But it isn't up to them. It's up to the Lord. They accept that. And whatever happens, is good. Like Shane Bernard shared last night, Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego told Nebuchadnezzar, "'If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up'" (Daniel 3:17-18). Even if he does not! It's not about US, they're saying. It's about the true King, about His plans, His reign, worshiping Him.

To me, it seems that we should serve God simply because He is Creator and majestic and a thousand other adjectives. But He is also loving and good and wants to be in relationship with us. But that doesn't mean everything will always go our way. Jesus said in John 16, "'In this world you will have trouble.'" WILL! Not may, or could, or perhaps will, but will. "'In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.'" The verse preceeding that declares that Jesus has told us this so that, in Him, we may have peace. In Him, not in this world. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

I don't know if any of this makes sense. I praise God for who He is, not for what good is going on in my life. I praise God for who He is, not because I'm happy right now. "God is good" doesn't mean "everything in my life is going good right now" (excuse the incorrect grammar). God is good, period. God is good.

I don't feel like doing homework.

the pro bowl

"You do not often see a Bengal and a Brown high-five each other in the endzone."

This is what I love about the pro bowl. The fact that Derek Anderson is calling in plays to Peyton Manning (my two favorite fellas!), and Peyton Manning is throwing touchdowns to Braylon Edwards, and Braylon Edwards is high-fiving TJ Houshmandzadeh. It's like heaven, when the lion will lay down with the lamb. This is my last time to see my boys play before the long, cold off-season. It may be summer, but Sunday afternoons blow with a bitter chill that I don't understand until I remember there's no football.

What is leave?

- A pause that only makes everything after it so much worse. ((All Quiet on the Western Front))

It's raining outside, and the occasional rumble of thunder makes it feel more like a foggy spring morning than the first week of the new year. The air is tinted a strange yellow color through the raindrops on my window screen. The snow started melting drastically a couple days ago, about the same time our tree refused to light. It's as if Christmas has gone and is now reaching back to pluck away whatever remnants it left behind. Mom even threw away a tin of Christmas cookies that Dad and I weren't quite finished with.

Some might enjoy the warmer weather. Dad went out without a coat on the other day, excited that the temperature had reached 30 degrees. I, on the other hand, rather like turning on my heating blanket to a toasty 8 and falling asleep while my toes search out the warm spots in my bed. I almost prefer the cold of the bathroom linoleum on my bare feet; it makes the reward of crawling back in bed so much more worth it.

I think the mornings are definitely my favorite, while Mom's still in bed and Dad's at work. I lie on the love seat with my book (first All Quiet on the Western Front, then The Good Soldier, and now A Room with a View), my subconscious listening to the tick of the grandfather clock while I'm completely absorbed in the black letters on the page. And I hear the clock strike 8...then 9...and I realize that while my body has been lying on the love seat this whole time, my mind and emotions have been racing through Germany and England and Italy with characters deep, pensive, and true.

Why is it that I only seem to find the books I want to read when I've so little time left? Now that second semester swiftly approaches, I have a good 5 books in my sight that I want to read with less than a week left to read them. I'm sure if I devoted myself to only that, I could do it. But I get distracted by the sounds of the football game and the warmth of the blanket and the sleep that beckons me after a long Sunday morning. Only a month left of football season. Why must everything come to an end?

Things that don't have to come to an end, no matter the season: Lindt white chocolate truffles, the Glenn Miller orchestra, House marathons, friendships, knitting projects, my list of "to read"....

Why, I remember on that afternoon I saw a brown cow hitch its horns under the stomach of a black and white animal and the black and white one was thrown right into the middle of a narrow stream. I burst out laughing....I chuckled over it from time to time for the whole rest of the day. Because it does look very funny, you know, to see a black and white cow land on its back in the middle of a stream. It is just so exactly what one doesn't expect from a cow. ((The Good Soldier))

last full measure

I breathed heavily, my lungs stinging as I took in a breath and released it in a moist fog. The wind whipped wildly and violently tossed the innocent, light feathery flakes of snow. It was really the only beauty I could see. The ground was brown with upturned earth, and the peaceful snow turned to slush by the constant tread of feet. I blinked to clear my eyelashes from the snowflakes as my buddy next to me cleared his sinuses. His pants were smeared with blood and I wondered if it was his or somebody else's.
Screaming and yelling rose and fell around my ears. I'd grown expectant of the constant noise but not immune. It shattered the quiet of the falling snow and unfailing wind and the occasional whistle called me out of the dream-like trance I could've so easily fallen into.
We were lining up. Good God, not again. I wanted to pray, but did God listen to prayers for such things? Last time we'd been hit so hard, and I couldn't feel my hands anymore. I looked down at them to see them bleeding. I hoped I had all my fingers and purposely counted to make sure. Was there any purpose? Why were we here? My ears burned with the last bit of warm blood before going numb. Then I heard the calls, voices cracking with the strain, and we got into position. I crouched down and saw my enemy opposite me. There he was, just like all the times before. Same watery eyes in the wind, same red face from the cold, same shaking knees from the persistent running, dodging, diving. We were all of us tired. Couldn't we stop? Couldn't we take a break and pick up where we left off?
No, I remembered. We were there for a reason. He wasn't just like me: he was wearing different colors, speaking a different language, calling out different names. He hit us hard, but we hit back. We were there to win, to beat him, to come out victorious in what seemed like a draining, fruitless battle. We were there for home, who listened for reports on the radio and waited to hear from us. They needed this as much as we did. Maybe we did it for them. It hurt, but the pain made the rest afterward more defined. I couldn't imagine the rest, but soon I wouldn't have to. Just get through this night, and I could rest.
More shouts from behind. It was coming. The moment to charge, to push, to try until my hands fell off or my knees broke. I dug my hands into the mud. I waited.
"Blue! 42! Hike!"
Clashing of helmets, deep-chested grunts of men being pounded, the sound of cleats sticking in the cold ground. I sprinted forward, cut to the right, and looked up just in time to see the spiraling ball appear out of a cloud of white snowflakes. I reached out, pulled it close to my chest, and ran. I don't remember sidestepping, stiff-arming, or juking. I don't remember crossing the line or feeling the slaps and pats and punches of victory from my teammates. I remember the feeling of the warm sheets on my aching legs and the sight of the snow falling outside. Outside, where it belonged. And never had a sleep seemed so deserved, saved for those who worked hardest to get it. I knew that it was over, that my hands would heal, that my soreness tomorrow would prove as a pleasantly-aching reminder that we had accomplished and survived and won. It was over. Until next week.

finals week

Terence, this is stupid stuff
(A.E. Housman)

I felt a funeral in my brain
....
My mind was going numb
(Emily Dickinson)

This picture makes my heart glad: