"I hate them for making hate necessary, and I'll do what I can to end it." — Michael Collins, revolutionary founder of the Irish Free State

“The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.” - Thomas More

"Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.” - Thomas Aquinas

"I would never wish my upbringing upon anyone....but I wouldn't take it back for the world."

-Mary Kate Olsen

"For broken dreams the key is dream again and deeper"
C.S. Lewis

Every minute
of every day
of every life
is a full library.

-Colquhoun

yes.

"The time had come for me to site my building, to fix this dream of mine to the earth."

-Michael Pollan

I would like to build a place like this

"...the 'hut dream.'...it’s a wonderful idea...It’s a very poetic idea: that we’re drawn toward it. We have a dream of huts. And you see it in children who will make a hut out a blanket and two chairs, or even just underneath a table.

You know, I built a literal hut. But even in a modern office building, where everybody has these little cubicles made out of God knows what. People turn those into huts."

-Michael Pollan, author of “A Place of My Own"


Excerpt from "A Place of My Own"

Is there anybody who hasn't at one time or another wished for such a place, hasn't turned those soft words over until they'd assumed a habitable shape? What they propose, to anyone who admits them into the space of a daydream, is a place of solitude a few steps off the beaten track of everyday life. Beyond that, though, the form the dream takes seems to vary with the dreamer. Generally the imagined room has a fixed terrestrial address, whether located deep within the family house--or out in the woods under its own roof. For some people, though, the same dream can just as easily assume a vehicular form. I'm thinking of the one-person cockpit or cabin, a mobile room in which to journey some distance from the shore of one's usual cares. Fixed or mobile, a dream of escape is what this probably sounds like. But it's more like a wish for a slightly different angle on things--for the view from the tower, or tree line, or the bobbing point a couple hundred yards off the coast. It might be a view of the same old life, but from out here it will look different, the outlines of the self a little more distinct.

In my own case, there came a moment--a few years shy of my fortieth birthday, and on the verge of making several large changes in my life--when the notion of a room of my own, and specifically, of a little wood-frame hut in the woods behind my house, began to occupy my imaginings with a mounting insistence. This in itself didn't surprise me particularly. I was in the process of pulling my life up by the roots, all at once becoming a father, leaving the city where I'd lived since college, and setting out on an uncertain new career. Indeed, it would have been strange if I hadn't entertained fantasies of escape or, as I preferred to think of it, simplification--of reducing so many daunting new complexities to something as stripped-down and uncomplicated as a hut in the woods. What was surprising, though, and what had no obvious cause or explanation in my life as it had been lived up to then, was a corollary to the dream: I wanted not only a room of my own, but a room of my own making. I wanted to build this place myself.

start from the center

"start from the center, at the very heart of the circle from where the whole thing derives is source and meaning: and here we come back again to that forgotten, outcast word, the soul."

-from "The Poetics of Space" by Gaston Bachelard

"In Memory of W.B. Yeats"

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining Voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

-W.H. Auden

… & how I feel your heart beat slowly out there in the garden
as we both see the
dove
in the
youngest acacia,
& how it is making its nest again this year, how it chose the second ranking
offshoot
again, how the young tree strains at the stake in the wind, & within,
the still head of the mother sitting as if all time
came down to
this, the ringed neck, the
mate’s call from the
roof, & how we both know not to move—me inside at the window, deep
summer, dusk,
you in the line of sight of the
bird, & also
of the hawk changing sides of the field as
usual,
& the swallows riding the lowest currents, reddish, seeking their feed.

-Graham

The Violinist at the Window, 1918 (after Matisse)

but I pick it up again, the
violin, it is
still here
in my left hand, it has been tied to me all this long time—I shall hold it, my
one burden, I shall hear the difference between up
and
down, & up we shall bring the bow now up &
down, & find
the note, sustained, fixed, this is what hope forced upon oneself by one’s
self sounds
like—this high note trembling—

-Graham

"Positive Feedback Loop"

we

shall walk

out into the porch and the evening shall come on around us, unconcealed,

blinking, abundant, as if catching sight of us,

everything in and out under the eaves, even the grass seeming to push up into this our

world as if out of

homesickness for it,

gleaming.

-Jorie Graham

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

Carl Jung

In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

-From Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (Malvalio)

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
- Mark Twain

‎"Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it." - John Adams

"Hope has two beautiful daughters: Anger and Courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are." - St. Augustine.

"The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, she thought, does not belong to irresponsible fools; an inviolate peace of spirit is not the achievement of a drifter; to be able to laugh like that is the end result of the most profound, most solemn thinking."

-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

sometimes the only safe place for my thoughts to go is into my new brown leather journal.

there are a lot of thoughts that need to be kept safely right now.

The capacity of the life of the heart...

has me on a search.

Burn out or grow in passion--that's the question, the choice.

I'm amazed that a heart has the ability to go through intense warfare and still, if it chooses to go the route of healing, become both stronger and more able to love.

That paradox is a miracle to me, that pain can bring forth depths of beauty that no poem can adequately describe.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can’t read & write,
but those who can’t learn, unlearn & relearn.” – Alvin Toffler

Men are only as great as they are kind.
-Elbert Hubbard

Those who live in his shadow will again raise grain, and they will blossom like the vine. His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon. O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you I am like a luxuriant cypress; From Me comes your fruit. Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; Whoever is discerning, let him know them for the ways of the LORD are right, and the righteous will walk in them, but transgressors will stumble in them.

-hosea 14:7-9

"Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
-Henry David Thoreau

This morning, I felt like God said to me,

"If you were only supposed to love those you find it easy to love, it would be a much wider road. My way is the narrow way. Follow Me."

He started exposing my heart to the weightiness of the cross--and how the unforgiveness and offense that I've allowed to enter my heart have no right to be there--and they will only destroy me. A clear heart is the best way to live--a heart where the rivers of living water flow without any blockage.

I read this right after that conversation. It's from the book Viktor Frankl wrote after he lived through the horrors of the Holocaust,

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true." (Man's Search For Meaning)

That small paragraph holds such food for thought. As I read it, I feel the standard for my life being raised, but only because I know that Jesus does this with me every day. He loves me fully--He is fully aware of my essence and believes in my tomorrow--and fights for me today. Only because of His love can I love. I want to embark on a journey that discovers the fullness of love and life that is found in Him.

“Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder” -eberhard arnold


I am learning...

"The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing."
(psalm 34:10)

Holding Patterns and Purity

The other day, my brother and I walked down our street (isn’t it funny to call a street “ours”?) to pay a visit to the local lemonade stand that some of the children in our neighborhood set up.

Personal protocol for such an adventure: go with bare feet and extra change—even when walking across gravel.

As we paid our 50 cents (and hopefully a little extra), memories of childhood days spent dreaming and risking came at me like a wave—I saw that distant picture of a little girl with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I remember the days of my own summer lemonade stands. I believed that such an endeavor could bring in record amounts of money to fund our (meaning my younger siblings who helped hold up signs for their bossy big sister) addiction to sugar. And it did. After a hard day of sign waving, shouting to get the attention of our neighbors, and replacing the lemonade after hitting a jackpot of thirsty customers, we would evenly distribute that hard earned change to each kid, put it into a plastic baggie, and walk a few blocks to the local candy store to purchase cowtales and now&laters.

In my heart, there was an innate knowing that the sky is the limit. Dream a dream. Put action to that dream. Nothing is impossible.

These days my ambitions have seemingly grown beyond earning a few dollars by selling lemonade. And everything feels far away and impossible. (Maybe that’s what happens with the transition into a grown up world—a world that some kids know from too young of an age )

Unfortunately, ambition seems to be less appealing than advertised.

I’m not really a fan.

Maybe a kid who makes and sells lemonade for a chance to go buy a candy bar that evening holds a secret that beats out ambition. Maybe it’s in the simplicity of the endeavor. Maybe it’s in the lack of worry about whether the business will succeed or fail. After all, there’s still dinner waiting at the table when the day comes to an end, regardless of whether any customers come by that day.
In a world where success and failure define how we view ourselves and operate, what a miracle to have eyes that glow with the raw pleasure of being free and able to execute a marvelous plan well and not care whether it succeeds or fails.
That’s what I want.

I write this while my life feels like it is in a holding pattern of sorts. I’m not sure what is ahead, but for now it is in waiting that I am expecting brilliance. The last month of summer is here and the last few months are filled with stories of brokenness and growth and deep down joy.

Dreams are starting to stir again. But more importantly, I feel faith expanding in my heart to make the leap from dreams to action—the risk factor that’s been missing the past few years.

Dreams for the nation of Nicaragua—for the people that I fell in love with at twelve years old. Dreams of filmmaking and medical missions and being a voice of truth. Dreams of family dinners and laughing children and bedtime stories. Dreams of living a life fully surrendered to Jesus, found daily in the amazing story of his death and resurrection. Dreams of sailboats and cool summer nights and friendships full of God’s love. Dreams of travel and adventure and growing a garden full of fresh vegetables and flowers.

And as these dreams are returning, I’m noticing now the wisdom of God to bring us into holding patterns. He takes those moments where the dreams are not coming and life is mundane to teach a lesson deeper than the emotions of a stirred up dream. In the daily grind there is brilliance in the cultivation of character—in learning that a dream comes attached with a price to pay that is not for a heart that is easily dismayed. Until I have the character to walk out the weight of a heavenly dream, there will not be a foundation to keep me steady when the waves hit and the wind blows. And that puts the fear of God into my heart.

"you were not meant to sit in the shade of life."

"Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when it is, of course, the cross."
~Flannery O'Connor

the sound of your goodness

"Over the brokenness, into the emptiness, You are singing again. /Words of redemption and songs of deliverance, healing that comes in Your name./Echoing down through the ages, hearts are freed at the sound of Your voice./It's the sound of Your goodness, the sound of hope filling the air./It's the call of Your kingdom, awakening faith on the earth." (kathryn scott, "deliverance")

over the hearts where hope's been destroyed, louder and louder, it is Your voice.

(http://www.myspace.com/kathrynscottmusic)

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for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
- George Eliot,
Middlemarch