i am blessed

I have the best friends in the whole world. Seriously.

And I just felt like writing that:-)

Cause I feel really really reaaly thankful.

Naked Personalities

Naked Personalities (from The Business of Heaven)
By C.S. Lewis

This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.
Hence (if you will not misunderstand me) the exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility of this love. I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival…
In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day’s walking have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life—natural life—has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?

"...Tell an Alternative Story"

“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into our future so that we can take the next step…If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.”
-Ivan Illich, Austrian philosopher

Grammar of Silence

“It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they ''speak with the accent of natives'' they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.” -Ivan Illich

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle—
Why not I with thine?
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure." -Joseph Campbell

"Step then
from the staid and somber line.
Move out in dancing
into dreams so daring;
without them you will settle for the road
that wanders by and winds to nowhere."
-Dream Dancer

Society by eddie vedder

It's a mystery to me
we have a greed
with which we have agreed

You think you have to want
more than you need
until you have it all you won't be free

society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me

When you want more than you have
you think you need
and when you think more than you want
your thoughts begin to bleed

I think I need to find a bigger place
'cos when you have more than you think
you need more space

society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me

there's those thinking more or less less is more
but if less is more how you're keeping score?
Means for every point you make
your level drops
kinda like its starting from the top
you can't do that...

society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me

society, have mercy on me
I hope you're not angry if I disagree
society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me

The Great Minimum

It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

--G.K.Chesterton

But this I'm sure of...

Some mornings I wake up just wanting to go back to sleep and not wake up until the next morning. It’s this feeling that’s close to numb, but not numb enough to get rid of a sense of looming dread.
Nothing to look forward to.
Nothing to offer to the world.
Nothing to gain from my existence.
Empty.

And I wonder when…
The sacred was lost.
Bucking traditions became defacing beauty.
Abandoning structure became embracing anarchy.
Running from definitions became running from identity.
Pure things became defiled things. Slowly. But surely.

With the loss of sacred comes the loss of dreams, of kindness, of life, of purity, of a standard.

So I hide. I don’t want anyone to know me. To know my anger. To know my disappointments turned into bitterness. To know the lost dreams, the lost cause, the lost faith. I don’t want anyone to come with me into the dark times of life.

So I hide. And I wear masks, smile, make jokes, encourage people. I use all the Bible I learned as a kid to sound spiritual. And they believe me. I never knew I could be a good actress. I’ll keep that secret to myself. Don’t want to blow my cover. Don’t want them to think I need help—especially not their help. Don’t want anyone to see into the holes in my heart.
They are better off not knowing me.

it’s here, in this attitude, in this fear, in these defenses, in this confusion, in these mind-sets…

That Abba confronts me. With love He challenges me to believe Him instead of my experiences. To believe Him instead of my pain. To believe Him instead of the words others have spoken over my life. To believe Him when shame tries to brainwash my identity. To believe Him when disappointment tries to pollute my vision.

So…that’s what I’ll do. I’m not sure what that looks like yet—to believe Him fully. I’m not sure how many tears it will take to get to the real laughter. I’m not sure how many people I’ll need to forgive in order to move on. I’m not sure how many risks I’m going to have to take to get free. I’m not sure how many times I’m going to have to step out in order to stop caring about what man thinks.

But this I'm sure of:
I know He’s got me.
And He's never letting go.

Miles to Go Before I Sleep

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.