wedding sights

I think my favorite thing about weddings is the way everybody cares so much, and I could tell this just by looking around.  I loved looking at the bride in her glorious, lace-covered beauty, but even more than that, I liked the way the air felt different when she was there.  I liked watching everyone else and seeing their eyes get soft when they looked at her.  And I liked the bridesmaids' mother-hen manner as they flitted around her, fixing her train and protecting her from even the slightest harm on her happiest day.  I loved seeing that everyone there was the same as their usual selves but also more, in a culmination of joy and beauty.  That was the best part -- that all the energy and love was focused on that day, right then.

I like this because I am just so very susceptible to hovering, and because of that, sometimes I don't adjust well to in-between-ness.  But instead of hovering I want to embrace here and now, always.  For this time is what I have been given, no matter how much I always seem to look toward the next thing instead of being in the present.  How blessed I am to have things to look toward... but still, for now, I will try to teach my timid feet to land.

validation

I feel like I'm losing my words.  Either that or summertime signifies a decrease in things that make me think deeply.  Actually, that's probably it.
Still, I have this need to express my current life in words, thereby validating it in some way.  So here's a random collaboration of thoughts, for better or for worse.

1)  There is so much wisdom to be learned from our elders.  At least my elders.  This week I helped my grandma clean her house, which mostly included talking to her, hearing her stories, thoughts, and life experiences.  I haven't even begun to imagine some of the things she's experienced, and I felt so blessed to hear her speak of them.
2)  I think I might try writing a poem every day for some undetermined stretch of time.  I love reading poetry, and I want to practice writing it too.
3)  People are great.  Did you know that?  This morning I decided that if my life were an experiment, the one conclusion I would feel qualified to make is this:  People are great.
4)  I am surprisingly (to myself) adamant in my dislike of Wal-Mart.  I've long been opposed to a corporation that ruthlessly exploits workers, vendors, and customers, but I recently read the book "How Wal-Mart is Destroying America (And the World):  And What You Can Do About It".  And since then, whenever I hear about people shopping at Wal-Mart, I just think, do they KNOW?  I mean, are they AWARE what they are supporting??
If you're curious, read that book.
5)  Yesterday Melody and I realized that we read different books of the Bible for our accountability group.  We're supposed to pick one together each week when we meet and then read that book, separately, throughout the week.  But this week we realized she read Romans and I read Hebrews, which is seemingly unexplainable and also hilarious.
6)  I'm going to a wedding tomorrow for two people I love a lot.  I think weddings have to be my favorite large social events -- they're just so happy!
7)  I'm taking a French language CLEP test in two weeks.  It's actually nice to re-induct myself into the language of my high school years... plus I get to read Charlie Brown in French.  I mean, really-- is there any better way to study?
8)  I am so inexpressibly excited to work at camp again this summer.  It is such a blessing...to devote yourself to serving and loving more than you ever thought you could.  I know it's going to be challenging too, and I can't wait to see the ways God is working in all of our lives and what I learn from it.
9)  I've missed 11:11 a lot recently.  I'm not taking it as a sign.
10)  I'm finding myself simply thankful.  God is here, in my life, and I know such beautiful people.  And how lucky am I to get to experience both of those things at the same time?  Everyone should be so blessed.

So, although I would like to believe that my life is not quantifiable, there it is in list form.

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."  -Isaiah 30:21

believing

Because even though I feel as if I am drowning in rain these days, I still believe in sunshine and blue sky and days that exude happiness.

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything wich is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened) ~i thank You God by e.e. cummings

my aspirations

Poetry like this wraps its words so lovingly around truth, leaving me in wonder at its effortless capturing of everything I strive for.

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

(excerpts)

2.

Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
    are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
    thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.
And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

3.

The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of a single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life–just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
    still another.

6.

Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some
    fabulous reason?

And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure–
your life–
what would do for you?

7.

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
    though with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out; I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
    somehow or another).

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

~Mary Oliver

summer reading list

So I just made a reading list for this summer.  I have a gigantic ongoing reading list, but these are a few I picked for the next few weeks/months:

1)  The Chronicles of Narnia -- classics.  I've been wanting to re-read them for a long time, and if you haven't read them yet, you really should.
2)  The Lacuna (Barbara Kingsolver) -- I love Barbara Kingsolver more than words can adequately express, and I haven't read this one yet.  Thus, it is on my list.
3)  The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner) -- I'm reading this as part of a group of English majors who started a reading blog to talk about books this summer.
4)  Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen) -- This is just a random one that people keep telling me I should read.  I've been putting it off for a while, but I did that with the Kite Runner too, and look how fantastic that one turned out to be.
5)  The Brothers K (David James Duncan) -- again, it's been highly recommended and has been on my monster book list for a while.
6)  To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) -- my favorite book in the whole world.  


any book suggestions are always welcomed.  :)