Sunday, December 25, 2011
"To achieve anything today, an artist has to develop a conscious strictness in respect of time which in former ages might have seemed neurotic and selfish, for he must never forget that he is living in a state of siege." [W.H.Auden]
"I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills." [Audrey Hepburn]
"I don't like formal gardens. I like wild nature."
[Walt Disney]
"When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream...our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing." [psalm 126]
"There are two ways through life; the way of nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow. Grace doesn’t try to please itself. It accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. It accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself and others to please it too. It likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it and love is smiling through all things. You taught us that no one who loves the way of Grace ever comes to a bad end. I will be true to You.”
[The Tree of Life]
“I chose the specialty of surgery because of Matron, that steady presence during my boyhood and adolescence. 'What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?' she said when I went to her for advice on the darkest day of the first half of my life.
I squirmed. How easily Matron probed the gap between ambition and expediency. 'Why must I do what is hardest?'
'Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?
'But, Matron, I can't dream of playing Bach...I couldn't read music.
'No, Marion,' she said her gaze soft...'No, not Bach's 'Gloria'. Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.”
[Abraham Verghese]
"But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I'm not about to let his grace go to waste." [paul, 1 cor. 15:10]
"My politics were those of prophylaxis, my opponents preferred those of palliation." [Rudolf Virchow]
"Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult."... “Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity.”
[Hippocrates]
“I always entertain great hopes.” [Robert Frost]
"Even here the children laugh..."
[Alan Paton, Cry, The Beloved Country]
"There's just two ways to lose yourself in this life
And neither way is safe.
In my dreams I see visions of the future,
But today we have today.
And where will I find You?...
In the currency of Grace,
is where my song begins."
[Switchfoot]
"So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God." (from Phil. 1 in the msg)
"I have been ravaged by intent. I have been moved by tenderness.I have been changed by a warring Love."
[Ashley]
"When people say 'take care' I say, 'rubbish, take risk!"
[Andrew White]
"Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." [Martin Luther King Jr.]
"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day." [Pooh's Little Instruction Book]
"without any doubt he was
whatever(first and last)
most people fear most:
a mystery for which iv'e
no word except alive
—that is,completely alert
and miraculously whole;"
[cummings]
"we're a mystery that will never happen again, a miracle which has never happened before—" [cummings]
"It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which He creates." [Amy Carmichael]
"We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend on material success; nor on sciences that cloud the intellect. Neither does it depend on arms and human industries, but on Jesus alone." [Mother Cabrini]
"Every man gives his life for what he believes. And every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or in nothing, yet they give their lives to that little or nothing. One life is all we have. We live it, and it's gone. But to live without belief is more terrible than dying, even more terrible than dying young." [Joan of Arc]
"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair." [chesterton]
"However, cheer up, and whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago." [C.S. Lewis]
"Idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It's very real. It's very strong."
[Bono]
"I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests."
[Pablo Neruda]
"My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters it rises to the sky seeking me
...and it opens for me all the doors of life
...in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword."
[P. Neruda]
"So I will fight this good fight of faith, and I will do it all for love. You are my great reward, you're so worth fighting for, and I can't wait to see your face." [kristene mueller, homeward bound]
"Oh laughing man, what have you won?
don't tell me what cannot be done."
[the innocence mission]
"This is the call to arms:
Let the great rebellion of our generation be one of purity. Let us not be known throughout the world for drunkeness, loneliness, broken marriages, teenage pregnancies, greed, drug habits, gang culture, and everything else that makes us look like people who are lost. But let us be renowned and respected for our wisdom, our restraint, our passion, our honour, our integrity, our joy, our fulfillment, our trustworthiness and most importantly of all let us be known as nation who loves each other. Let us turn against this tide of conformity, turn from the values of the world and turn our backs on all the things that weaken us and embrace what makes us strong:
We are called to be in the world but not of the world: to see beauty with our hearts and not our eyes, to see love as a virtue and not a feeling, to value mankind equally, to be fearless, radical and transparent."
[king charles]
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
looking back
2011 is just a few weeks away from completion. This year has been full of both joy and heartbreak. I traveled to Mexico and made amazing new friends, I worked odd jobs that gave me just enough money to make it through the year, I borrowed lots of books from the library, got accepted into a post-bac pre-med program at University of Maryland, ran my first 5-K race, went through the heart ache of losing lots of friends as the aftermath of my parents losing their jobs as pastors, and also found myself in the middle of many life lessons that I didn't anticipate.
At the moment, I'm in the midst of the heartbreak portion that occurred this year, and I'm not really at a place where I can fully put into words how it's felt or what future I can see beyond this point. I've cried a lot. That's been good. Other than that, I'm slow to process everything because I don't want it to move on too hastily; I don't want to miss the treasures God is purifying in my heart as He dislodges things like man pleasing and faulty definitions of success and security.
One thing I did do tonight, as a way to look back on this year and create expectation for what's to come, is read the blog entry I wrote on the first of this year, 1-1-11. It's funny how the very thing I started to realize then is actually coming full circle in my life:
"I'm realizing how much I don't need, which is making me all the more thankful for the things that I do need--most of them not tangible. It's crazy the flimsy fabrication of safety that is made with the tangibles in life--and how easy it is to waste our whole lives working for those things that make us feel safe, while the living is done outside of that poorly made blanket.
Cheers to what is to come! And thank God for His faithfulness in the last year."
This year, more than any, I have come face to face with the fabrications of safety I've clung to in my life.
All I can say, even through the tears and heartache, is that I am thankful that God is taking me and my family through this process. He's been the most faithful and best of friends.
So here's to the living that is done outside of poorly made blankets of safety.
At the moment, I'm in the midst of the heartbreak portion that occurred this year, and I'm not really at a place where I can fully put into words how it's felt or what future I can see beyond this point. I've cried a lot. That's been good. Other than that, I'm slow to process everything because I don't want it to move on too hastily; I don't want to miss the treasures God is purifying in my heart as He dislodges things like man pleasing and faulty definitions of success and security.
One thing I did do tonight, as a way to look back on this year and create expectation for what's to come, is read the blog entry I wrote on the first of this year, 1-1-11. It's funny how the very thing I started to realize then is actually coming full circle in my life:
"I'm realizing how much I don't need, which is making me all the more thankful for the things that I do need--most of them not tangible. It's crazy the flimsy fabrication of safety that is made with the tangibles in life--and how easy it is to waste our whole lives working for those things that make us feel safe, while the living is done outside of that poorly made blanket.
Cheers to what is to come! And thank God for His faithfulness in the last year."
This year, more than any, I have come face to face with the fabrications of safety I've clung to in my life.
All I can say, even through the tears and heartache, is that I am thankful that God is taking me and my family through this process. He's been the most faithful and best of friends.
So here's to the living that is done outside of poorly made blankets of safety.
Attentiveness to God...
"consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object...All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style, and all faulty connections of ideas in compositions and essays, all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily, and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth. The cause is always that we have wanted to be too active; we have wanted to carry out a search...We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them." -Simone Weil
"consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object...All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style, and all faulty connections of ideas in compositions and essays, all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily, and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth. The cause is always that we have wanted to be too active; we have wanted to carry out a search...We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them." -Simone Weil
Thursday, December 15, 2011
transitions
Today, I drove my dad to his first day of work at his new job. He's giving taxi cab driving a try. Pastor to cab driver is a big change. This transition alone is showing me just how much our society encourages definitions to be created by "what we do" versus "who we are" and that is something I am guilty of too.
Shame. It really shouldn't exist.
Get me to the trash dumps asap please. To the "unwanted" and "forgotten" who have nothing yet still manage to have way more joy and life satisfaction than me. Teach me how to really live.
Shame. It really shouldn't exist.
Get me to the trash dumps asap please. To the "unwanted" and "forgotten" who have nothing yet still manage to have way more joy and life satisfaction than me. Teach me how to really live.
brewing frustrations
they always end up expressing themselves in some way.
usually not in a way that's lovely.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Quarter of a Century
I reached it. 25. What a crazy few weeks that led up to this particular point on my journey's timeline.
Last year, I wrote a letter on my birthday to bring focus to that new year of life. One thing I wrote, "God, take me down to running size."
Wow. That sounds like such a nice, pretty picture, eh? You know, the kind of scene in a movie where the inspirational soundtrack is cheering the main character on as the story hits the climax and then the resolution comes just a few minutes later, where all the hard things finally start to shift and the underdog overcomes? Yeah, I think the inspirational soundtrack forgot to show up for me. :) (just kidding. several amazing friends have provided soundtrack inspiration at just the right moments...reminding me to not give up).
One thing I know, God answers prayers and He never leaves. He answered that one (and is continuing to do so), and He's been there with me every step of the way, teaching me how to surrender my timeline to Him and all the plans that I've made.
"Lord, wound me with the reality of my own insufficiency. Lord, ruin me and wound me with the reality of the world's insufficiency until I see you alone in everything. I want to see You, Jesus. I want to see You alone in everything, because then I know all things will bring me joy."
What if this is where the story ends? What if there is no more, and it stops here, with transpired events that brought with them feelings too deep for words?
Except I know that it doesn't end here. A quarter of a century full of history with my Best Friend. A quarter of a century full of dreams and lessons and growth.
One day, God will use the things that don't make sense. And He will use them even when I don't know that's what he's doing because He's brought me so far into wholeness. Into His likeness.
"The places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I've learned. The door was closed off to me as my back was turned..."
Last year, I wrote a letter on my birthday to bring focus to that new year of life. One thing I wrote, "God, take me down to running size."
Wow. That sounds like such a nice, pretty picture, eh? You know, the kind of scene in a movie where the inspirational soundtrack is cheering the main character on as the story hits the climax and then the resolution comes just a few minutes later, where all the hard things finally start to shift and the underdog overcomes? Yeah, I think the inspirational soundtrack forgot to show up for me. :) (just kidding. several amazing friends have provided soundtrack inspiration at just the right moments...reminding me to not give up).
One thing I know, God answers prayers and He never leaves. He answered that one (and is continuing to do so), and He's been there with me every step of the way, teaching me how to surrender my timeline to Him and all the plans that I've made.
"Lord, wound me with the reality of my own insufficiency. Lord, ruin me and wound me with the reality of the world's insufficiency until I see you alone in everything. I want to see You, Jesus. I want to see You alone in everything, because then I know all things will bring me joy."
What if this is where the story ends? What if there is no more, and it stops here, with transpired events that brought with them feelings too deep for words?
Except I know that it doesn't end here. A quarter of a century full of history with my Best Friend. A quarter of a century full of dreams and lessons and growth.
One day, God will use the things that don't make sense. And He will use them even when I don't know that's what he's doing because He's brought me so far into wholeness. Into His likeness.
"The places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I've learned. The door was closed off to me as my back was turned..."
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