It is well with my soul!

I am overwhelmed with so much joy. God has answered my prayers after years and has planted one idea inside my brain that can bring people together and help those who are in need.

Yesterday, a truly mind-altering experience struck me with such deliberation that I knew it couldn't be false. Sunday morning, I woke up. I took a shower, I brushed my teeth, and I sat down with a cup of coffee and a piece of zucchini bread from Fresh Market. The fireplace was blazing and the flat-screen TV was turned to some network station that I did not intend to watch.

I tend to avoid the news. I find it depressing. I know now, though, that the only thing that the only two sentiments that will ever change the world are love and broken-heartedness. I think both tend to be present when really magnificent things occur.

The remote was sitting on the other side of the room and I was already comfortable, so I humored the white-haired man and his interviewees by listening to what they had to say.

Haiti. It was a man in a suit talking to three correspondents in Haiti. I watched as he inquired, "What things are you seeing there?"

A female doctor began to speak in that way reporters often do - little remorse for the subject matter evident in her voice, but something in her eyes that said very much otherwise.

I watched as people were pulled from beneath poorly-built walls that had crumbled to the ground like gingerbread cottages. People's frail limbs were crushed and lost to the horror of the tragedy. Parent-less little boys sat with broken bodies, lonely and scared.

I sat on a suede couch with a cup of coffee, watching all this happen on a flat-screen TV, having dispatched my gourmet zucchini bread without thought.

It was time to go to church and I was silent. I tried to express to my parents how I felt so removed from that situation, how it was so easy to forget that it actually happened. I felt so distant that I think even seeing it in person would have registered only as a horrible nightmare. "What kind of place is this?" I might ask. "What kind of place has no hospitals that can withstand an earthquake, no one to help, no medicine to heal the horror of the circumstances?" What kind of place could be so unlike my comfortable, luxurious home?

I said little else on our way to church.

The sermon can be found here - its title is "broke" on January 17th. http://www.hispcc.com/site/sermons.php

I strongly encourage you to listen to it. It is the most honest and truthful sermon on giving that I've ever heard. It's a little lengthy, but it is so worth it. I promise.

Upon hearing of the subject matter, I felt that dealing with money would have little to do with Haiti. I had anticipated something more along the lines of a worship service dedicated entirely to the people, lots of prayer, lots of tears, lots of anguish and a mission to provide strength and healing to those who sought it.

Instead, it was a logical display of what Christ had to say about gifts and how God is not only directly related, but the sole bearer.

Matthew 25:14-30 was the scripture that I had read so often without truly understanding it. It became clear, as the senior pastor so eloquently explained it, that not a thing on this planet belongs to a single one of us. God has placed everything we have in our care "according to our ability" and He expects us to use it to glorify Him - to not hoard it for ourselves - to help His suffering people.

He then explained that God has absolutely no need for what we "give" him. Psalm 50:9-15
It is all His in the first place. How ignorant and selfish and proud of us to think that what we have is our doing. As if we mean more to God than those impoverished people in Haiti! God has TRUSTED us with what He has given us, and we have hoarded it all for ourselves, instead of working it and using it to glorify Him - to have something real and true to give back to God. "Here, Lord - see what I have done. I have loved and I have given to charity and I have gone to other countries where there is no physical comfort and I have made someone else's life better with what you have let me borrow. Here is what is yours, and more! It is all for your glory, Lord - you are the one who trusted me with this incredible responsibility and I realize that it is not mine to keep."

We are all God's children and he wants us to share with one another. He wants us all to love each other and get along so that he, the Father, can be glorified and honored by what we have done with the wealth He has given us.

I was so rocked by this realization that I never wanted to stop speaking about it. I wanted to tell everyone. So what did I do at the end of the service? I dropped some cash I had into the baskets at the front of the congregation on my way out - cash that would help someone in need.

It felt so empty, though. I know every little bit counts. But what happens when all you ever give is a little? What could happen if you gave more? That money meant nothing to me. I could have done so many meaningless things with it - it was no great sacrifice at all! I did it to make myself feel better, but the realization of that hit me so hard that I started to feel terrible. Who am I to think that giving a little cash is some great deed? I have such an unbelievably blessed life that I should be using everything I have to serve God.

"I'm not that kind of person," I told myself. "That is for other people to think about - not me." And I went on with my day, like I would any other.

Yesterday, I sat around and watched a whole bunch of TV and not much else until a little after noon. I cruised around on facebook and saw that I had been invited to a group that encouraged people to wear red shirts to show support of the people in Haiti. I think, based on my last post, you can imagine what happened next. I was simply irate. "How dare those people think that they are accomplishing anything by wearing a red shirt! This is an insult to charity - it is an insult to this community and to the people of Haiti!"

How dare they? How dare I. I began to think how little that money meant to me, how it wasn't really a sacrifice at all. And I began to think that God had put me here for some greater purpose than to judge other people and to put a little cash into a basket at church for everyone to see - for God to see. Did I think that would impress Him? Did I think I could ever really impress Him?

I do not want to say that I have come upon this myself. I know that every single thought that has crossed my mind since Sunday morning has been God's way of chipping away at the final layers to make me a stronger person. I know that He has planted every good thought that has popped into my head and that He has supplied me with such good friends and such strong support for what I am trying to do.

I know that, if we sell one ticket or a hundred tickets to this concert, it will be a victory in the name of God, and if no one else can see that but me, so be it - it is God's money and those are God's people. He wants anything but for us to use money and time on ourselves instead of helping His people, even the slightest bit.

I am so overwhelmed with joy. I truly am. My only regret is that it took such a devastating event such as the one in Haiti to make me feel this way. I intend to make up for lost time if I can, and I intend to enjoy myself along the way.

Praise God. It is well with my soul!

END.

Meaningless "support."

I'm sorry, but I find it disgusting that people think wearing a red shirt will, in any way, help people in Haiti. I personally think everyone just wants to feel less guilty for living incredibly luxurious, blessed lives. I'll tell you what I don't feel guilty for - I do not feel guilty that I have gone to really nice schools for my entire life; I don't feel guilty for having had food and clothes and a wonderful house to live in. What I do feel guilty about is forgetting how blessed I am to have those things and being selfish with what I do have. I think everyone experiences that in a time like this.

I have so much and I should be more grateful and more willing to share it with people who have nothing. If everyone shared more, maybe buildings in Haiti wouldn't have crumbled to the ground during this earthquake - maybe more people would be alive, or wouldn't have to suffer through this awful time.

You want to do something? Contribute. Don't just wear a red shirt to TELL the entire world, "Look at me - I care." Maybe you should actually act on it.

Even in a time like this, people still think of themselves. "Poor me - I feel so guilty. I want everyone to know that I'm aware of this incredible tragedy so I'll wear a red shirt."

I'm not saying it's a bad gesture. I just think, rather than having a facebook group that says, "Wear red for Haiti," (which means absolutely NOTHING to those suffering people) it would be better to have some kind of a donation center on campus or at least donate an hour of prayer or meditation or ANYTHING towards those people - something respectful and meaningful.

How about doing something that matters instead of doing something that will just make people feel less guilty? It's still just feeding that mainstream, yuppie attitude that there's nothing we can do about poverty. "Here's my two cents - the earthquake was bad."

I also had similar feelings about the recent goings-on on facebook. Post as your status the color of the bra you're wearing to support breast cancer.

I'm sorry. That is the absolute most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. It has so little to do with breast cancer that I'm actually angry about it. Can I say, honestly, what I think it really is?

I think it's a lot like the "relief of guilt" thing for Haiti, but I also think it's girls wanting an excuse to get guys to picture them in their underwear. I'm not saying that's why everyone did it - but I think that's what a lot of them were secretly thinking. Girls just wanted some cutesy secret thing to do on facebook.

And - here's the kicker - nobody knew WHY these girls were posting colors as their statuses. EVEN if you view posting your bra color as a legitimate form of support, how could it possibly help breast cancer awareness if no one knows WHAT THE COLOR MEANS.

I want to do something. I mean, really do something. Please do something with me.

END.

... So you threw the key away.

I listen to songs in a certain way. I think as my body and my moods and ideas change, so does my taste in music. I can listen to a song a hundred times and not really care for it, and then I'll listen to it one more time and see new meaning in it.

I'm not saying this is true for "Red Right Ankle." I've always loved that song. First it was for the melody, then it was for the guitar, then it was because I liked the way the words sounded, but they didn't really mean much to me because I had never really listened, if you know what I mean.

If I listen to a song like fifty times and still don't derive any real meaning from it, I tend to then look up the lyrics online, mull them over in my brain for a bit, look up how other people have interpreted them, et cetera. I usually just let that stew there for a while as I listen to the song about fifteen or twenty more times, and then I figure out my own interpretation. It's a process that I love and J has fallen prey to my ramblings about how I interpret certain songs on many a car ride.

"Red Right Ankle" was one I could never really place. I would go back and forth wondering what it was about, but I came to the conclusion a couple days ago, thanks to different circumstances than usual (Friendly Fire and all that). I've been a little distressed about it all, and if you've talked to me much lately, you pretty much know what's been going on in my life so I won't go into detail here (HOORAY FOR RUN-ON SENTENCES BECAUSE I CARE SO LITTLE RIGHT NOW!).

I read an interpretation about "Red Right Ankle" that said it was all about connections. I think this is very much what it means, but I think it goes beyond that. I think it is about the sameness in everything.

This is the story of your red right ankle,
and how it came to meet your leg,
and how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled,
and how the skin was softly shed,
and how it whispered “Oh, adhere to me,
for we are bound by symmetry.
Whatever differences our lives have been,
we together make a limb.”
This is the story of your red right ankle.

This is the story of your gypsy uncle
you never knew ‘cause he was dead,
and how his face was carved and rife with wrinkles
in the picture in your head.
And remember how you found the key
to his hide-out in the Pyrenees.
But you wanted to keep his secret safe,
so you threw the key away.
This is the story of your gypsy uncle.

This is the story of the boys who loved you,
who love you now and loved you then.
Some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you.
Some just laid around in bed.
Some had crumbled you straight to your knees,
did it cruel, did it tenderly.
Some had crawled their way into your heart
to rend your ventricles apart.
This is the story of the boys who loved you.
This is the story of your red right ankle.

I think it is about connections on a fundamental level. It's about how muscle and bone became a functional part of a body and were connected that way, and it's about wanting to feel a connection to a lost uncle, and it's about how all these boys loved one girl. It makes sense, but I think instead of feeling connected to one another, they were all the same thing. The muscle and the bone are both the ankle. "Oh, adhere to me," said the ankle, bidding these things to be a part of it, and they were. And you find your uncle's key to his hide-out, but because your uncle is a part of you, you somehow feel the same closeness to his refuge that he himself felt, so you made sure no one ever found it. And all the boys who loved you...

Well, it turns out it was just one boy who did all that stuff, after all.

I am really comforted.

END.

And the season's change was a conduit.

I wrote this back in writing fiction as a very superficial, insignificant way to get through the last bit of my semester. I hated it until tonight - it bears some kind of deeper meaning to me now, and I love it so much more than I did.

Maggie Randall was a fourteen-year-old girl who lived on Gossamer Street in Durham, North Carolina. Pine trees, maples, and oaks surrounded her home, and the occasional dogwood would light up the small forest with its white flowers. Gossamer Street was a quiet sort of street, with mailboxes and flowerbeds that lined its borders and a creek that gurgled behind its homes.
Maggie was a silent, ordinary girl, with mousy brown hair that reached her shoulders when she wore it down but, more often than not, it hung limply in a ponytail instead. She had a small nose with dark freckles that ran across it and onto her cheeks – a few of them even ventured down to her chin or up to her eyebrows. She wore her older sister’s old clothes not for lack of money, but because she rarely wanted to go shopping.
Each year when the summer came, Maggie looked forward to the thunderstorms. Rather than going to the pool or the mall, her favorite thing to do was to sit on her back porch and watch storms pass right over her home. The more violent the storm, the better the show.
Maggie had an image in her mind of the parents down the street, looking out their windows with furrowed brows, concerned more for their freshly-raked lawns than the mortified children wrapped tightly around their legs. She knew that it was with crossed fingers and futile hope that they sided with the familiar weakness of their rooftops and flowerbeds.
Maggie, however, often found herself identifying with the powerful lightning bolts and hail, rather than the hopeless pine trees whose spines were so easily broken. The pines never won and, while it was with pity that Maggie looked upon them, she was never one to bend or break. It was with the smallest amount of guilt that she fervently occupied her thoughts with fallen branches and lost leaves, all in the interest of a victory shared with her beloved rain clouds.
Still, the passing of each storm would leave Maggie slightly heartbroken, for as the summer wore on, she realized nature’s beautiful destruction that she loved so dearly would soon come to an end.
She would often walk the streets of her frightened neighborhood once only the distant rumblings of the formidable monster remained, and she would pick up fallen branches and pine cones, marveling at the life that had once resided in their helpless frames. And, in the latter days of August, these walks left her with a cold sensation that sat in her chest densely, growing heavier with the passage of time and the falling of leaves.
Every September, Maggie would begin to feel the soft but foreboding breath of autumn press impatiently against her heart, warning her that the epic battles between land and sky would not resurface before the other three seasons had their turns that year.
It was August 23rd – just a couple weeks before Maggie started her sophomore year of high school. She sat on her back porch with a shaking, shuddering screen as the only barrier between her and the strong, graceful deluge that sometimes engulfed her backyard during the summer. The creek that lay less than fifty yards away seemed unable to control itself and gushed forward, turning her backyard into a cloudy, brown ocean. Periodically, she would hear pinecones hit the roof, or hear a branch snap, and she would smile.
Maggie was happy with the porch. Recently, she had found herself riding her bike and taking walks around her neighborhood more often than she had in the early months of the summer; she did this in a genuine effort to spend as much time with the warm weather as she could. But here, there was no rush – the hammering of the rain on the screen and roof left her no choice but to stay inside and love every sound and smell that the thunderstorm provided.
Still, Maggie often felt a sense of urgency that came with August, like there was too much to be done. And, while she loved the last month of summer dearly, she dreaded September. Although she’d never had a boyfriend, she imagined September was what breaking up would be like.
On September 3rd, the last storm of the summer happened. Maggie could almost tell, as the storm was rumbling in the distance, that it was the last one. The hail that had hammered against the roof and bounced off the ground seemed to be a good-bye, and Maggie had felt sadness weighing her down as it died.
Autumn came and Maggie occupied her thoughts with school work. While she would admit that the leaves were beautiful, she missed the display of power. She sometimes sat in school and stared out the window, hoping that dark clouds would give rise to something greater than the dreary rain they always provided.
Maggie desired the menacing darkness of the sky after a lofty lightning bolt flashed silently across the sky. She longed for the thrill and surprise of thunder, whether it was deafening like a gunshot, or gentle and sonorous like a bass drum. Maggie wanted the wind to sing, high and low, howling along with the percussive rhythm of the hail.
Instead, there was rain.
The winter came and Maggie was frozen. Snow etched the corners of the bare, ugly trees and sometimes kept her away from school. Most days, Maggie slept as often as possible, willing the days to pass quickly. Everything once alive was dead, and the world was entirely gray.
February crawled onward, dragging Maggie drowsily along with it. Even March was somewhat cruel as it teased her with its occasional warmth. April was kinder. It seemed far more consistent to Maggie and she began to remember what shorts and flip-flops felt like.
It had been warm for a solid week now and the end of April was fast approaching. It was April 20th when the first storm of the year struck her neighborhood. She couldn’t help but feel happy as soon as she heard the distant roar of thunder.
The rain began to pelt the roof above her room and Maggie ran downstairs, flinging open the door to the back porch.
The warm wind and smell of humidity hit her forcefully as she closed the door behind her and took a seat in the worn, wicker chair that sat near the screen. She looked to her left to see blue sky and white clouds, but in front of her, the horizon was like charcoal. An entire cloud lit up with a flash of lightning, flickering dangerously like a dying fluorescent light. Seconds later, there was a rumble.
The storm passed right by, leaving very little impact on Maggie’s neighborhood. True, it was not the most interesting storm Maggie had ever witnessed, but it was a storm nonetheless.
When the rain had died down to a fine mist, she walked out her front door and sat on the top step of her porch, which was barely damp from the weak display the storm had given. Maggie noticed the absence of pollen in the air and felt the mist settling on her bare feet, generating small goose bumps on her legs.
She smiled, prepared to fall in love and have her heart broken all over again.



I feel hopeful or something. I guess God had me write this with something else in mind.

END.

Squeaky swings and tall grass, the longest shadows ever cast. The water's warm and children swim, and we frolicked about in our summer skin.

I don't recall a single care,
Just greenery and humid air.
Then Labor day came and went,
And we shed what was left of our summer skin.

On the night you left I came over,
And we peeled the freckles from our shoulders.
Our brand new coats so flushed and pink,
And I knew your heart I couldn't win,
'Cause the season's change was a conduit
And we'd left our love in our summer skin.


I want to write something that beautiful.

But, since I can't, I'm just listening to it over and over again.

I hate this song, but I love it. It's just too sad.

END.

Don't wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.

I'm trying. Really, really hard.

Too hard, maybe.

I need some sort of guidance, but what else is new?

I really am quite happy right now - just a little confused.
I intend to write a lot more tomorrow. I would like to continue writing now, but I'm only just realizing how late it is.

I used to hear nice little phrases in my head. I would hear the middle or the end of a story and not know where to start, or one line to a song that I didn't know how to write, or I would feel something that I wanted to let out through my fingertips in a poem but not know how to articulate it. Writing was like dreaming to me. It took so little effort, but now writing is more like falling asleep after drinking a huge cup of coffee: you toss and turn and your eyes feel heavy but your body can't relax.

Music used to inspire me, but now music is just work.

Work, work, work. I'm 21. Should I be having a good time? I'm not sure. I think I might already be going through a midlife crisis - does that mean I'm going to die when I'm forty-two?

I sure hope not, but there's no way to tell. Maybe I was actually having a midlife crisis in seventh grade and I'll die when I'm twenty-four. That wouldn't be surprising, based on what kind of kid I was in seventh grade.

Joking.

I'm just a horse stuck in the quicksand. Help is on the way soon, but I just have to remember not to fight too hard or else I'll sink faster. I'm happy anyway. I really am. Just a little stressed out.

Relaxing and taking a deep breath is the only way to make it through college alive.

It's the only way I'm going to make it out of this stupid quicksand alive.

END.

I have to admit, it's getting better, a little better all the time.

http://hearsay.alphaquam.com/music/070302_05-Getting_Better.mp3

One of the few Beatles covers I've heard that seems to really carve its own path through the music, rather than just sticking to the safe, comfortable grooves that the Beatles had already established. Also, I love Fionn Regan (www.fionnregan.com), so I was sort of leaning in that direction before I even heard it.

I'm a biased, stubborn girl - what can I say?

But really, I've decided that I like it.

You know, things might not be getting "better" so much as getting "different." No, that doesn't really make sense grammatically or technically, but it sounds approximately right in my brain, I think?

I need to prioritize. I wonder if I can even do that anymore... I think I've started to realize where my priorities should lie, but I don't know how to execute that realization, or even if I'm capable of executing it.

Despite feeling a certain sense of enlightenment, I'm feeling a little down. I struggle with all of the same things I've been struggling with for the past few years, months, weeks, whatever. I'm not really different on the inside. I wish I could say that I am, but it isn't true yet.

I hope I change soon, and I hope I start to prioritize correctly.

END.