patience

When I was younger, each day was its own eternity, and I wondered at adults' comments that months could seem to fly by.

When I was younger, I was amazed by my parents' relative lack of enthusiasm over holidays. They explained to me that although I had only seen a few holidays, holidays happened every year. After many years, you get used to them. I did not comprehend this.

Almost two decades later, I feel weeks flicker past. Holidays come and go like a wheel.

I think that if a person were to live infinitely, seeing all things, whole eons would pass in the blink of an eye and the heaves and surges of the world would become a steady ebb and flow.

I consider that God is infinite patience

The fox and the scorpion

Another story that's been in my head for at least the last 3 years, that I actually thought I had posted before, but I guess I didn't because I can't find it anywhere...
I was reminded of this story by a friend's post on Solotude.


I don't watch Star Trek often, but once it happened to be on and I think to was Spock telling a sort of fable:
Here, I brutally paraphrase it according to what I remember right now:

*******************************************************************

A fox had come to a swift-moving river and was preparing to swim across it when he heard a voice calling to him. He turned to see a scorpion there. "Excuse me fox, I need to get across this river. Would you please give me a ride on your back? I can show you a good place to cross, but if I try to cross it myself, I will be swept away by the current."

The fox took a step back, "No," he said to the scorpion. "What if I take you on my back and you sting me? I can't take that risk."

"But I have no cause to do that," reasoned the scorpion. "If I stung you while you carried me, then I would be lost in the river and we would both die."

The fox considered this and decided that it seemed reasonable. "That makes sense." He said. "Ok, climb on my back and show me where to cross this river."

So the scorpion crawled onto the back of the fox and led him to a point of the river which was a little easier to cross. The fox, carrying the scorpion, began to swim across the river.

Suddenly, the fox felt the sharp prick of the scorpion's tail. He felt the poison entering his system and as he began to sink beneath the current, he called to the scorpion, "Scorpion! Why did you do that? Now we will both die."

"I'm sorry," apologized the scorpion, "It's my nature."

maintenance

A thought that's been rattling around in my head for at least a year now -

That in a similar manner as all it takes to damage a machine is to use it without proper maintenance,


all it takes to be a jerk is to operate without due consideration or compassion for others. (edit [26 Jul 2010]: I think the following is closer to my original language)


all it takes is to become a jerk is to stop being actively considerate of other people.



It sounds surprisingly and somewhat frighteningly easy, because all it takes is becoming careless and being ok with that.

Be attentive. Your fellow people are worth it.

Patience

If God is all-powerful, why doesn't he just solve the problems of the world with miracles?


I was walking past the front lawn near the swingset, thinking about how as we get older, we begin to understand that certain amounts of time 'fly by'. When I was young, all time took forever. At my current age, time escapes swiftly on the order of months. I'm sure that in another few decades I won't know where the last 5 or even 10 years went.

At the same time, it becomes ok for things to take longer. Right now, I can't imagine doing anything for more than 2 or 4 years at a time. When I was younger, all issues (deforestation, poverty, etc) must be resolved immediately. I'm sure now that when I'm aged and these are still problems, I won't be surprised, though I will still hope for a better future.


I imagined God as being infinitely old, having seen all that was and all that will be.

We are so young, and we are in such a hurry.
That's why we are impatient with God.

For someone so old, I thought, eons must seem like a moment.
No wonder He's in no hurry.
He's seen it all.

Someone infinitely old must have infinite patience. Nothing is urgent.



I remember thinking this was important and I should write it down.
It proceeded to stay only in my head for years. I think it has been at least 4 years, perhaps 5. Apparently, I found it certain enough to not be urgent in the writing.

SMS

(Some text messages I sent to myself, thoughts to be developed later)


1) Words are masks
(28 Apr 2010)



2) Some priorities we set. Others, we learn. When two important things conflict, we can discover our loyalties.
(20 May 2010)



3) If you do not work hard toward your visions, you will have to be content with what others give you.
(25 May 2010, and the preceding days)


- edit -
4) Words are only good as collateral.
(31 May 2010)

reality

In my dorm sophomore year, I remember a brief conversation with a good friend who stopped near my door as he walked down the hallway.

He furrowed his brow at some distantly internal thoughts and said something about questioning the existence of reality.

I've thought about that, I said, and, I don't really know, but I figure in the end there is something that I have to deal with.

That's my reality. The actions I take and the consequences they have. I see myself constantly handling a choose-your-own-adventure of consequences, whether or not those consequences can be said to 'exist' in some sense or another. They exist in the sense that I deal with them when they come.

hmm. he hummed, then nodded sharply as though momentarily satisfied, unfurrowed his eyebrows some, and proceeded down the hallway.

Grade school wisdom

A while ago, I was walking through an elementary school, reading the bubble-letter slogans promoting good character and personality and attitude and really appreciating the messages in them, now that I understood what it meant. I was once tall as a doorknob running through elementary school hallways, and though I knew the vocabulary, the posters and banners went way over my head.

I reflected that it seemed odd for such strong messages delivered to kids who are not able yet to understand them. But I guess they're all good thought-seeds to plant.

In middle school, there was a poster near the office that I remember passing frequently. It's the only one I remember. It said something along the lines of

People will not remember you for the clothes you wore, the ... or the ... [ insert other things of concern to middle schoolers ], but they will always remember the way you made them feel.

It seemed obvious, but it stayed in my head anyway.

As I move farther through life, I start wishing both that I had been able to understand such attitude slogans at a younger age, and wishing that the people I meet could have been similarly exposed.

The Capitol and Library of Congress

After the White House, a friend and I went to the US Capitol Building


Photo from Capitol tour website

My memories of this building include watching some propaganda set to nice music and looking up at tall things, like pillars, statues, and the painting on the top of the Rotunda. There was a room with lots of statues of important people like an imposing collection of chess pieces.

I also remember my friend (who knows these things) pointing out some locations we walked past and having a vague awareness that this is where very important people do things that have important consequences for millions of other people.

The health care reform bill was in its final days of discussion.

( I saw none of it... a friend emailed me excitedly on the day that it passed to ask what was going on in DC. I'd enjoyed having lunch with a friend that day. I recall hearing some sirens, but nothing unusual. That evening I returned to hang out in the dorm. That is where I was when the health care bill passed.)

Most of my memories of the Capitol building feel overwhelmed by the presence of lots of other people doing the same thing I was.

After the Capitol tour, we walked by the Library of Congress, and I realized that it actually is a place where people can actually do research. I'd seen it on TV before, but it mostly seemed like a fantastic book-hoarding repository than a place of active research. Also, the Library of Congress has a Gutenberg Bible that I stared at for a while.


I'm actually writing this about a week after the date listed when I started the draft. By this point, one of my more distinct memories is of eating an awesome experimental-ingredients salad wrap at Chop't. Beets, snap peas, tomatoes (i think), greens, tzatziki/blue cheese dressing ...

memo from the future

(written 01 Apr 2010, blog-drafted 21 May 2010, posted 25 May 2010)




I've just returned from the future.

I traveled from the past.

And as I made my journey home I thought it seemed easier to move through space than through time. The gates of time are beginnings and endings, and at times, the portals are forceful.

In the future they decide what happens - they decide how things will go and here in the prior hours, the world lurches to catch up. As I made my preparations, talking on the phone, transcending hours between my coast and his, I felt at a loss. Whatever he said, in his three-hours-ahead, seemed possible. I only wondered what my world would have to do in those three hours to catch the place where his had stood.

I followed the eastern horizon around the rotating earth.

In the future there is certainty, and I ask him over the phone to tell me what lies ahead for me and the others in my time. Our voices move simultaneously across the time and space.

I travelled over time zones from my own time to his.
When one day he saw my writing,
when he saw what I'd recorded of my thoughts and of his words, he said he'd better watch it.

Better watch what he said,
and it occurred to me that people who live in the future

do not think about how their lives might be recorded.

Perhaps that is what frees them.

Refrigerator wisdom (part 3)

another significant set of words on the refrigerator of a friend, it's about time I finally got around to posting them. I've been meaning to since at least last July, and now is certainly a good time.

"

... we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again, and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.

"
-Aeschylus
Agammemnon



(I also feel like this may have been referenced in I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds)

Refrigerator wisdom (part 2)

"I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing"



I have been meaning to post this quote, found on my friend's refrigerator, for at least since last July. Now is as good a time as any, especially since while in Connecticut, I found the quote within a book. It should be attributed to: William P. Young, The Shack

The Subtle knife

(found folded between other papers in my room. This was probably written in the spring of '07 (or maybe late fall/winter of '06). I typed it all, including the lines I'd crossed out. I remember ...)

how to leave his room
the hall was level
but, held by an unseen leash
like a dog
I searched for the
world brought on by each
new step like a dog
nosing for holes in
a chain-link fence,

finding them, one by one,
I wedged through thin
air & labored toward
the hallway door like
a bicyclist winding
his way uphill.
Occasionally I'd stop to rest
Occasionally the leash would jerk
or the fence would be sharp

Though stationary,
I'd stagger a few steps to
the left or right to keep
what mental balance I
needed to take a few
deep breaths. Sometimes,
scuttling sideways brought
me up against the hallway
wall, where I could lean
for a moment against some
outside pressure before trying again
Walls are good to hold
oneself together with

I reach the door & push it open

There is a path leading to the left

- -

I take the right
I am free of the hallway
My decision to leave is more
certain (now as there is not)

But often

Sometimes immediately
outside, sometimes I
can get halfway up the
physical hill of the
path - before the same
hand which
marionette hand
which suddenly
extracts the water
from the pit of
my stomach out
through my bursting
pinhole eyes
cuts the strength/strings
to my legs
and drops me to my
knees
where I am
paralyzed until
I rouse an unknown
strength to alter
myself into a
different world
in which I am
allowed to stand
& even to walk
to my own room

Arrows

I have spent years dwelling on this in search of words,
but perhaps it would be best to simply quote as well as I can remember.


---

Summer of 2006. June. In Los Angeles for our brief training and states-side orientation before heading to Cairo.

I was going on an IVCF Global Urban Trek to volunteer for Sudanese refugee schools in Cairo. IVCF (InterVarsity Christian Fellowships) is a Christian organization (and one which I appreciate the attitude of) so part of our time in LA was spent in readings, meditation and prayer, and gathering to worship together. On one of our last nights in the states, we had a worship service that had a lot of scheduled freedom at the end, encouraging us to use the time as we pleased - to sing, pray, pray in groups, wander about the room to different stations meant to provide encouragement, inspiration, and topics of prayer and consideration, etc ...

I remember a man - one of the leaders (and, if I remember correctly, writer of the book used for our content reading on urban slums) praying for several people in turn. I don't remember which of us asked, but he prayed for me as well.

I don't remember if I told him, but I had been asking God to help me use my freedom well, and to be functional as I was meant to be. I had felt that I'd taken some sustained psychological damage in the previous few years, and wanted desperately to be overcome useless obstructing fears, to be functional, to navigate the width, breadth and depth of my freedom, and be useful, and to guide my life in accordance with the will of God so as to better enable these things.

He placed his hands - I think on my shoulders - and prayed out loud.

I think he asked for healing, strength, direction, and
he said I was like an arrow - one that God could send, flying true towards its goal.


And yes - for years I have considered my circumstances (at times) in terms of the words chosen by this one man.
Maybe I wanted it to be true.


----

I believed in Love - and aligned myself with what I thought were the true and faithful practices of this belief.

I have tried to be true in the only way I know how, and I feel that this path has taken me through a length of damage and darkness, seeming at times to be unusefully detrimental and destructive.

It has been strange to think of God in the old ways.

I comfort myself with the thought that perhaps I am still en route to my target, and that dark and abrasive hell, easier to see with distance, has been a necessary obstacle.

What I asked with my eyes to the sky,

was whether it was really more like the way Venus played the Sybil, or all the gods - lying, deceitful, powerful, arbitrary, evil (she goes so far to say) ?


I still believe in the voice of the sky.

discolored

Several months ago:

The dudes had again confirmed each others' coolness.

"Yeah, pound it," one proffered a fist.

"Respect knuckles." was the matched response.

"Not respect," corrected the first in an expanded gesture of brotherhood , "Love."


"Love without respect?" I interrupted.

They turned to acknowledge me out of the haze of their coolness and still using their cool voices, "Yeah." heads bob.

"So," I meddled further, "abuse?"







"Ha- .. uh ..." In the long silence, their eyes searched the air above our heads for a good reply before admitting defeat: "yeeeaah ... There's no way to make that funny."

I felt like I had spoiled something.

quotes from Spoon River (part 2)

continued from the envelope -
because you have to chew your gravestone poetry slowly now.


Louise Smith

Do not let the will play gardener to your soul
Unless you are sure
It is wiser than your soul's nature




Fiddler Jones

I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle -
And a broken laugh,
and a thousand memories,
and not a single regret




Emily Sparks

My boy, wherever you are,
Work for your soul's sake
That all the clay of you,
and all the dross of you,
May yield to the fire of you,
Til the fire is nothing but light!
Nothing but light!




Herbert Marshall

This is life's sorrow"
That one can be happy
only where two are,
and that our hearts are
drawn to stars
which want us not.

quotes from Spoon River (part 1)

It must have been about this time last year - I used my public transit commute to voraciously read a number of books I'd been meaning to get around to. I also meant to write thoughts and reviews about those books - but unfortunately for my personal documented history - that was when I wasn't really writing. I have been meaning since then to recover the quotes I recorded from whatever notebook I was writing in at the time.

I might as well start with the quotes scrawled on the envelope I just found on my desk.
These are taken from their larger context, but read these quotes as you would read the inscription on a headstone in a graveyard grown heavy with generations.



George Gray

To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture of restlessness and vague desire -
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.



Mary McNeely

Passer by,
To love is to find your own soul
Through the soul of the beloved one



Ernest Hyde

For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,
A birth with gains and losses.
The mind sees the world as a thing apart,
and the soul makes the world at one with itself.
A mirror scratched reflects no image -
And this is the silence of wisdom.



Ezra Bartlett

... only when after many trials for strength,
Only when all stimulants fail,
Does the aspiring soul
By its own sheer power
Find the divine
By resting on itself

Dear Curious Psychiatrist,

Sometimes I write to help my present or future self
sometimes I write in the hope that others might benefit
sometimes I write because I hope that a curious psychiatrist will someday find my written ramblings and piece myself together from a more objective vantage point.

The more I understand though,
the more I realize that I must be that psychiatrist.

Back from New Orleans

He told me about how
the ground was covered in shells.


they volunteered in
A section of the city which,
after 3 years of natural growth looked like broad farmland
but
smack in the middle of
the should-be city, there was just
something wrong about
the emptiness

And the houses, each remaining set of roof and walls marked
with the date it was searched
and the number of bodies removed

Brand-new houses and condominiums,
destroyed by flooding from the
inside out,
the watermark on the walls,
evidence of the flood levels;
boarded-up, useless
shells

You'd only get the ground covered in shells like that he said
from being under so much water for so long,

He told me about a man
walking into a bar in a deserted sector to find
others, company, and music inside

proving that
even if you kill New Orleans,

You haven't killed New Orleans.

Cultivate

Men are admitted to Heaven not because they have curbed and govern'd their passions or have no passions but because they have cultivated their understandings
- William Blake

(to Edit:
include:
2/24
special archives
LJR)

"Flower can be a verb - Flower!"

Can't catch this one