Dear Carrie,
Recording makes me nervous, so it's a bit out of my element.
I still haven't memorized the middle, but didn't want to risk ad-libbing.
Someday I'll be able to play the whole thing for you, probably on a different piano,
and less self-consciously.
And it will be beautiful.
Thanks for the music
P.S.
Here's an alternate ending
I was just playing with it.
Maybe someday I can live in someone's house and play their piano and paint their walls.
This morning
1) I didn't wake up too late
2) I did my pushups
3) I tied my jacket around my waist
4) I went to get water from Commons
5) the Portland hill outside was glowing rosy and peach from the
6) blinding peach sun just coming over the trees from across the front lawn
7) just 20 or so feet above my head
8) lighting flying birds, treetops, and everything above a certain height with gold
9) slowly turning the walls of the gray dorm I was standing by into gold while
10) seagulls launched themselves from behind the building to fly in wheeling circles
11) in the light above the green ocean of the front lawn and
12) I enjoyed it all, wading in the cool east wind
13) without going back for a camera
...collecting signs like this -
I feel like Christopher from the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
“The starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what
one really is, and is ‘knowing thyself’ as a product of the historical
process to date, which has deposited in you an infinity of traces,
without leaving an inventory”
-Gramsci
Prison Notebooks
(English translation)
The Italian translation ends more like
“therefore it is imperative at the outset to compile such an inventory”
(except that it is in Italian)
Luke 5:1-11
Sometimes I wonder how much difficulty there must be before we recognize God's goodness and provision when we see it.
And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.
This is the one where Jesus is speaking from a boat.
He tells Peter to launch out and let down the nets for a catch. Maybe Peter just does it to be polite. Who knows. But the result is enough fish to threaten the safety of their boat.
When Simon Peter saw [it], he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
I wonder what I would do.
If I made my living at fishing, and suddenly I'm provided with way more than I ever thought possible. What would that even be comparable to?
And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.
I don't know what I would make of this. Fishing is a dangerous business and Jesus has just proven his ability to provide. Do they understand at all? Maybe faced with something that amazing, you have to go. You make the choice that'll change your life and follow the man that upset the way you thought the world worked, in the faith that understanding will follow.
But dude, catching men? Well, if you say so.
And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.
Apparently, they even left the fish.
But, the fish weren't the point anyway.
It was pointed out that Jesus gives the same offer to a rich young ruler later on. He can't take it, and walks away. Is it just because of the volume of THINGS that following Jesus would render irrelevant to him?
What is there to follow that is worth leaving everything?
and how would you recognize it?
What would you do if you saw it?
and if you can answer those questions...
what are you doing now?
A friend of mine had a birthday yesterday,
so I went to the store to buy her this box of dragons
But when I gave them to her, she said
Oh no! you made a mistake! These aren't dragons!
and I'm like
What? Of course they are, I went to the store to get you this box of dragons
but she said
No, see, these are round, white, and smooth!
and I was all
yeah?
and she said
But dragons are big, green, and scaly!
*faceplant*
Oooooh! Oh man! I didn't notice... I'm really sorry...
But I think she liked it anyway.
A Memory Palace is a memory tool by which a person mentally assigns items from a list to physical locations of a room or building and recalls the items by mentally walking through and noticing them.
Today I was cleaning my room again
Apparently, I sometimes scribble thoughts onto scraps of paper and leave them for myself to find later, in fear of forgetting forever.
Some are stray thoughts, some just needed recording, some hoped to be elaborated on or clarified later.
I'm putting the thoughts here so I can recycle the paper.
The terrible handwriting is a sign of either urgency of writing, semi-consciousness, or awkward writing position - probably necessitated by the aforementioned sense of recording urgency.
Being given free will and limited knowledge and interdependability, we inevitably make choices that open and close doors for others, however indirectly, we shape the kinds of lives that are available for others, sometimes in ways they don't deserve
While certainly larger, more noticeable events have more influence in the general historical conscience, to overlook the small, minor injustices in favor of only large events is to treat (prescribe) the disease with tissues
The beauty of life does not depend on how happy you are, but how happy others are because of you
(I should probably revise this. It doesn't seem airtight. But it does feel approximate...)
The next, I did not make,
but it was given to me by a friend and I don't want to lose it.
I do NOT intend to recycle this. It's a little bookmark. When I start reading non-textbooks again, I shall have to use it. I'm recording it here because it is small, easily to misplace, and I never want to lose it.
How are you doing?
I am like the Schrodinger wave equation
____________ until observed
I am a probability cloud
The blue part, I quoted from a friend
Sometimes the things you want & the things God wants coincide, & when that happens, don't wait for it again. Take it and run. hard. And try to make them coincide more.
I'm not sure how, but I sometimes feel suspended in such a mix of infinite joy and infinite sorrow -
and it seems they go together, as I feel both the immense joy and pain of not completely merging with it. I feel the pain of a beautiful waiting. It's like ice cream and coffee.
A guy I worked with at a feed mill for two summers in a row gave me this copy of Chapter XVI of Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus.
He also gave me this stylish eyeball.
It started when he named my calculator 'cyclops'
and for some reason, hidden paper eyeballs started showing up everywhere...
Sometimes I think I'm trying to be the best time capsule possible before I am suddenly and unexpectedly buried.
I wrote this for a poetry class last spring.
Revised 4.29.06
It's a sestina -
a very structured poem in which each line must end with one of six words in a particular order. There's an interesting relationship in general between degrees of a poem's structural rigidity and the available channels of expression.
Sea of Galilee
I want to walk on water,
no longer because it would be cool,
but because I want to feel
sustained in the kind of trust
it takes to step out on something
that by any other means, would drown you.
I imagine that like me, you
are also drawn to the water,
and it’s difficult to think that something
can consume so quickly which, lipped-cool,
licks the hands and feet. We trust
the darkened sea because it feels
so calm. Taking a step, the sole feels
tension - finds surface tension soothing – but you
don’t expect it to hold. In fact, you trust
the surface to split and sink, water
admitting, surrounding, stroking cool
the legs with gentle pressure. It’s something
worth repeating. Worth repeating: Something
grabs ahold of you in the water. You can feel
it pulling, gentle at first, the cool
becomes colder and you
want to get out of the water,
but its licking away at your skin. Trust
that the waves won’t support you. Trust
can’t be summoned – it must arrive. It’s something
both present and longed for. Water
is hungry. It draws you in. You feel
the thirst, and following, you
may be consumed and quenched by the cool
blue. It’s the edge of the ledge we walk, trying to keep our cool.
And I want to step beyond, I want that Trust -
that calm of walking, and I know you
also want to walk on something
that is real. Something you can feel
to hold you up above the water.
It’s not about cool. It’s about wanting something
you can Trust, longing for the feel
of something solid you don’t get from water.
A thought-collage:
Driving through the fog last night, we entered a new land
...the land of ghost boats
(Land of boats! That doesn't make any sense)
Last weekend,
I went on a retreat to the beach (not the beach in the picture) with some friends to spend some time considering the incredible magnitude of God. 
I can see how beautiful and frightening the ocean is
how people who grow up with it outside the window and then move inland could miss it all their lives
and how people could spend their lives alone with the sea as their friend.
It is powerful. Active, encompassing, uncertain, beautiful, alive
Sort of like God
The motto was 'God is bad-ass, so don't be half-assed'
It was a pretty fun time. I'll say that now so that I can be serious for the rest of this post.
We read from Acts - where Peter tells the begger to get up and walk - and from Heavenly Man and spent time thinking about what it seems that God is offering to the the world, and how we would respond if we really believed it was possible.
"God is faithful. He always answers those who seek him with all their heart."
"I began to wait on the Lord for guidance and wonderful things happened."
-Heavenly Man
Brother Yun grew up in China.. in the 70s? and endured incredible suffering, beatings, prison, torture,.. because of how he chose to follow God. Because of his faithfulness, God was able to do amazing things for him and through him. The book is his autobiography, with supplements from his wife who wrote while he was in prison.
**
If I knew I could, like Peter, know just the thing to say to really make someone whole enough to walk again, on any metaphorical level, ... I don't know if I could do anything else.
I would know how to tell others to get up and walk without being afraid of lying to them.
I would
leave
I would walk around finding everyone who was isolated, despairing, brokenhearted, captive, and I would tell them how to walk.
I would do it all day
and not worry about what to eat or if I could sleep because it's more important that others can be free
& I would somehow be left having spent all day for others & not feel alone because there is no one but God to care for me. This would not bother me.
Nothing else would matter but freedom.
I wouldn't matter.
I would walk around with God and heal people until I starved.
**
Isaiah 40:31
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint."
I don't really believe this.
I believe that God will keep me from dying when I fall, or make the fall worthwhile. I will fall for him. I believe that He will give me strength to run despite feeling drained in every way, and when I can no longer run, that he will help me focus on each step so that I can stubbornly keep moving forward, wanting the vision of freedom that I think He has for the world, and I believe that when the vision becomes reality, that even if I am too spent to live there, that I will be glad to see it.
This seems like a very different expectation.
God, if you can make us fly,
please help me understand what this means, because it seems better
more alive and hopeful
than being willing to make the best possible use of my fall
**
Psalm 73:23 - end
and we read more about the horrendous situations that Brother Yun's faith took him to. And we asked ourselves, if this is part of buying into God's vision, do we want this? My response:
No.
I do not want this
But I want God to know I love Him,
that I appreciate immeasurably being given life
and at the expense He paid
and that I love His people and want freedom for them too
And if this is what it takes,
So be it.
I would live hiding and ashamed otherwise
But I wish that my response didn't feel so much like avoiding the hypocrisy of doing otherwise and felt more like actually actively... choosing INTO something rather than away from something less desirable
But I do believe in Love. And in God being Love.
I can choose into that. Whatever the consequences.
I choose Love.
**
Hebrews 11:1
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence ofthings not seen"
**
One week ago today,
Last Saturday morning,
we invented a ritual for ourselves.
We used the ocean as our symbol.
In consideration, and as demonstration of the potential personal hazards we must be at least willing to face if we really think God and his vision for the world are worth it, some of us decided to walk into the ocean.
I just walked in in all my clothes, which probably protected me from the cold a good deal, but it's not like it was a hypothermia contest or something. Initially I was approaching the ritual somewhat fatalistically. But, -
You know what. I'm not going to tell you about this. I didn't even write about it in my notebook. I'm going to keep it. 
**
And then we were leaving the Land of Boats
**
Since then it's been more interesting to walk on faith through difficulty
because, as if overlaid, I can see the gray sea meeting the darker gray sky
I feel the rocks beneath feet that are not only my own
I feel the cold waves rising to meet me, each in turn
I hear myself saying 'I love you'
And I keep walking
**
A friend once told me that
"Freedom is the ability to love everyone"
For much of my life, you have raised me to believe that the noble deeds required by society of me based on my abilities and background are very much related to going to school, getting a 'good education,' and moving into a career. PhD's, scientists, researchers... are very much exalted as those vanguards and explorers of our vast intellectual reserve. To set me on that trail, you have baited myself and other students with fascinating intellectual toys.
But World,
you didn't tell me about the others that you drew to this place,
or that there are places where children cannot have such things as you promise to my future. Even when we read about those places, you did not tell us what it was like to be there, or to know the people as friends and family. You said it like it was another intellectual bauble.
I have followed your bait to the cage, but World,
you will not keep me here.
We are finding out, slowly. And we will find the way out by comparing our stories.
World, your plan seemed so amazing, but
You didn't tell me
that starving people have no use for abstract algebra
that articles are not enough to keep warm by
that categorizing the proteome does not preempt hatred
that reading about religion tells us nothing about God
and research papers do not stop my friends from waking up alone and screaming
Physics might know whether the cat is alive or dead, but nothing about life or death.
I have heard about the days when philosophy ran wild outdoors in search of the source and stuff of living.
This too, you have brought indoors, domesticated until, pale and shriveled, it falls upon itself for sustenance, forgetting it's beginnings and wondering what it has become.
World,
your offer is enticing, and you have already trained me well to fulfill it in many ways.
But, until there is a greater need for libraries than for bread,
for theorems than for companionship,
until you address the needs of those beyond this cage,
I will find a way out.
I shall deprive you of the research papers you have invested in me to write,
because even as you trained me here, you have deprived my brothers and sisters of things far more essential.
How can I add to your fat libraries
or concentrate on filling my mind
when my friends are starving in so many different ways?
My primary responsibilities are elsewhere.
Sincerely,
-me
We read this passage from Luke the other day.
in the Lectio Divina style.
This means that someone reads through the passage twice while people listen for words or phrases that stand out to them, which they might share with the group. The person reads the passage again and the people pay attention for ways that the word or phrase might be relevant to their current personal state and conduct. Again, the passage is read and this time the people consider what they feel called to do or to become based on their understanding of whatever relevance they see to their life.
The translation we read is one that I'm not familiar with. I will quote it here
Luke 19:11-27
While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. 'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.' "But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.' "He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it. "The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.' "Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.' "The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.' "His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.' "Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina, I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.' "His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put mymoney on deposit so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?' "Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.' "Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!' "He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me."
The bits that stood out to me were
'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'
and
'I will judge you by your own words'
I can understand where the last servant is coming from. Being left with something of value to work with can be really daunting. The other servants seem to have invested the money in some way, but considering the economic processes of the time, it was probably a rather risky venture. Maybe your ship comes in and you get 10 minas back (none of which is yours - you are being responsible for someone else's money ... yikes). But what if it doesn't? What if your master comes back and all you can say is, 'Oops, heh. Um. I tried investing it, but it didn't work out the way I thought it did, and I lost everything that you gave me. Yeah, that's going to sound real good. But as a friend and I were discussing the passage and talking about the symbols, it seemed like an appropriate interpretation to consider that the minas are the blessings and situations that God gives to us. And, I think he wants us to learn how to use them well to do his kind of work and to be closer to him. Thus, if I try and fail, I've only started with one mina anyway. I think he'd give me another to try again. But what am I investing it in? If I'm paying attention and investing it where the return would actually be worthwhile, then it's probably an investment in either God or his Kingdom. And one of the things I've learned about God is that if you take a step out in faith to find him or to work for his vision for the world, he will meet you there. Thus, the investment is really not so much of a risk and more of a dare. God provided the mina. He'll provide the return if you, in faith, invest it in him. And, if this is done well with small things, He will provide greater things to be responsible for. And you'll be able to handle it and appreciate it since you already know how to invest.
There's plenty of good stuff that I think I want for myself, and that it is responsible to think about and work towards, but not to obsess over. I have also been given smaller things to be responsible for. And if I can't take care of the small things, I cannot hope to successfully deal with the larger things. Sometimes the small things seem like minor distractions from the more obviously important things. But, it's good to deal with small things and not to rush the important-looking things before you can handle them.
And since I know that, I can hardly expect God to show me leniency in not being responsible in those ways ...
Here are a few other thoughts our group had
Practice being faithful with a little. Much more is no good if you can't handle it. There is no shortcut [to being responsible and being given large things].
Jesus expects things. Use what you're given. Not doing so is not an option.
We don't have to conjure up our own things. We should pray that he gives us something to invest.
God is King whether we want it or not.
God is not coming back to see how I'm doing.
(A response to the King coming back to receive the money that he left to be put to work in his absence)
"As in individual development, so in the scientific group, maturity comes most surely to those who know how to wait"
-Thomas S. Kuhn, quoted in The Clash of Civilizations: An Islamicist's Critique by Mottahedeh, pp. 18,19
from The Essential Tension by Kuhn (Chicago, 1977), pp. 221-222
Discovered in the midst of reading for my reading for class
Last night,
the crescent moon looked so cheshire-smiley
I told myself that I would take a picture of it
positioned to recline along a tree branch
yet once I got inside, it quietly slipped my mind.
One of my open unsent emails is one that I re-discover periodically.
**
3/10/07
a picture I've had for a while,
but am only posting now:
Happy Birthday!
I ... got you some pictures
They're fresh. I took them today:
It was a rather pretty morning
I went back to the dorm later,
and while deciding what to cook, we found this recipe:
The evening was also pretty nice.
Especially in the Rhodie Gardens across the road.
First:
Yesterday = the second ever Zombies vs. Humans game was epically amazing.
I suppose there may be some ambiguity as to whether it was 'yesterday' or 00:00.12 this morning or something.
Did the Humans deliver themselves from the attacking zombie masses?
... only subsequent games may tell...
And:
Sometimes,
I think I can consider myself half pack rat.
I've heard people referring to pack rats collecting anything and everything. When they find something new, they take it and leave whatever they had before in its place.
I've got the half that takes new things.
In an effort to help myself let go of things that you will laugh at me for keeping, I am finding ways to record them so that I can remove their physical presences from my cluttered midst forever.
Like this, for example:
it is a brown napkin from Commons - 2 years ago - on which I wrote two quotes from a thoroughly enjoyable conversation that a friend and were having at the time.
It says,
I just learned that while I was setting up a YouTube account and trying to upload the video from a few posts ago, my brother half-way across the country was doing the same thing (this is getting a little weird), but with a different video (oh. ok, that's not so bad).
Here is the result of one crazy day during last summer.
Some of the scenes had to be cut, so it makes even less sense than usual.
I hope I'm not making too big of a mistake in allowing things like this to appear on the internet.
So quickly, before I change my mind, we give you
THE HAPPY VAC
-a real multipurpose household miracle appliance-
My brother Sam, who did the editing for the video says the following:
sigh.. i put this up too early. in the dark space in the middle there should be a voice saying "if you answered yes to any of these, but not exceeding these questions, then you need...THE HAPPY VAC!"
"Yesterday", driving back through the mist from from Cannon Beach and the Land of Boats
Listening to Small Town Poets
Watching the cloud-shrouded sun glowing around the vertically flickering pine forest foreground, from a backdrop of blue, white and sun-glare,
Keep your eyes open I thought he said, and I will show you even more beautiful things than this.
as soon as I figure out video things.... one shall appear here.
*****
1.21.07
Ideally, I would like to do some more work on this.
I suppose further edits will appear here as well.
Midnight Frisbee in the snow escalated into a snowball fight... which came to include very large snowballs... and the perception of the canyon as an enemy...
(For the longer clips, the image is sideways. You can't see much anyway, but the snowball falls from 'left' to 'right')
I knew there was something else about 1/07/07
It was the first wedding of a friend that I'd been to.
10 days before this time last year, I was on a plane headed for Seattle to see my good ol' freshman quasi-roommate Max and his girlfriend, I mean- fiancee, Jess be married. 
So Happy 1-year Anniversary guys.
I hope wonderful things for you.
Here's what it looked like to me:
(I hope you have internets to see this with sometime)
God bless you guys.
Have an awesome life.
I hope to see you around from time to time.
