Ekzer's Xanga

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:45:14 GMT

Freedom

Ah, Freedom:

Well, that's just some people talkin'.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:35:22 GMT

Muffin warm and basket brown
Smiling faces gathered round our dinner table
Close together, hand in hand

I always cook with honey
To sweeten up the night
We always cook with honey
Tell me, how’s your appetite
For some sweet love

Find in favor with your neighbor
Well, it can be so fine
Its easier than pie to be kind

We’ve been searching for so long
Now our house has turned into a home

I always cook with honey
To sweeten up the night
We always cook with honey
Tell me, how’s your appetite
For some sweet love

Well, our door is always open
And there’s surely room for more
Cooking where there’s good love
Is never any chore

Some come to get to know us
There’ll be a place set just for you
Sweet wine before dinner
That is surely bound to soothe

I always cook with honey
To sweeten up the night
We always cook with honey
Tell me, how’s your appetite
For some sweet love…

Monday, December 04, 2006

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:14:04 GMT

Do we really comprehend what "broken ducks" we all are?

Waiting for Aristotle

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 00:49:22 GMT

This past weekend, Corey and I chaperoned our church's 6th and 7th grade youth retreat. We learned how to preserve sanity during theologically inaccurate, hyper-vexatious songs (repeat deep breathing and "Lord, have mercy:" 12x times a day), how to never-let-children-fall-playing-tag-and-why-this-matters-to-mothers (my response: Um, so when my dad was growing up, he blew up a field...) and how to spot a high maintenance child from 450 feet away ("Wait, why won't any of the leaders go tell him to join the game? Oooh."). But I don't mean to only focus on the negative: the majority of the kids who attended were extremely well-behaved, and we were both impressed by the admirable qualities of our group.

There were many times over the short weekend that we felt the generation gap, such as when we had to explain who Jimmy Stewart was during a game of Apples to Apples. Perhaps the best example of how a modern 11 year old's mind works is from this morning during breakfast. The conversation ran as follows:

Me, biting into the burnt sausagesque pattie: "This is kind of gross."

Corey, sawing through his pattie: "Yeah, they taste odd. So much for the record of having good food."

Kids: "I had 28 pancakes!!"

"Well I had 29!!"

"YOU DID NOT!!"

"YES I DID! I HAD 19 PANCAKES!!"

"YOU JUST SAID YOU HAD 29!! I STILL WIN!"

Me, absently gnawing on the sausage: "It's like ground beef with some Essence of Sausage."

Corey, glazed over, staring at the boys fight over pancake numbers: "Yeaaaah. Hahaha, really is. Gosh, I wish I'd slept better."

Silence comes over the kids as they realize they didn't sleep well either. One of the boys begins to fidget and then mumbles, "Essence...essence...it's like the soul of something...its essence."

At this point, both Corey and I go through the same motions of exchanging stupefied looks, laughing astoundedly and simultaneously asking the boy "Where did you get that from???"

The boy shrugs, answers "Zelda," and drinks the rest of his milk.

Today...

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 01:03:12 GMT

...one of my favourite memories of my whole life happened. (You may ask how I know it is a favourite already. I know this because there are certain things in life that you can--or should--recognize as becoming favourites, and if you don't, you're missing out on the extraordinariness of them until the last moments of your life when the best things flash before you and you're surprised at what was important. I know this was.)

At church today, we had the joy of celebrating All Saints' Day and having two baptisms. And for this, Brittany and I were wedged in between Corey and Ben F., safe from anyone who ever thought of stealing short people from pews. The babies who were baptized were fantastic examples of how children can have reverence (and curiousity) for God at a young age. After the baptism we gave the Peace. It is so refreshing to greet Brothers and Sisters and bless them and be blessed by them; I am always very moved by the elderly ladies who bless me. Near the end of making our rounds, we all started to settle down when suddenly, Father Tom took a handful of the blessed water from the baptismal font and flung it all over the front rows of the congregation! There is nothing quite like unexpectedly getting a face-full of holy water. It's quite the shock-blessing therapy.

So there it is: one of my favourite memories, stored away hopefully forever. The day we were all splashed in church with holy water by Fr. Tom. God knows we needed it.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:53:42 GMT

There is no failure here sweetheart

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 23:49:02 GMT

Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule

I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black

And I held my tongue as she told me

"Son, fear is the heart of love"

So I never went back

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love." --1 John 4:18

This is for all those people out there who will be left saying "IS THERE NOTHING SACRED LEFT?"

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 01:07:58 GMT

How many of you would decline to be in a good friends' wedding if you hated the dresses they'd picked out for you to wear? I mean, really hated. I'm talking brown-paper-bag-with-pasta-glued-on-it-and-spray-painted-silver-with-orange-plastic-trim ugly. With neon go-go boots.

I think it would be fitting if people who were too fond of cake at weddings didn't get cake and instead got Twinkies. "HOW MANY OF YOU WANT THAT CAKE?" All who scream are Twinkied.

Suddenly, the idea of planning a wedding seems exciting. But only if the possibility of creating little social morality lessons is included...

thought of the day:

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 10:59:07 GMT

eunuchs cannot beget eunuchs.

And don't give me this "Well what if he wasn't a eunuch and he begat a son and then they were both eunuchised." No.

a short thought on romance

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 13:44:00 GMT

True romance is the wildness of real life...of nature...of hell and two people going through it together, coming out of it and turning to each other and saying "I love you now more than I could have, because I have been given more opportunity to love you in our weak and imperfect times." Or shuddering together at the fact that love has made what they have more beautiful, or if they're blessed, Most Beautiful. Give me that over the sallow, pasty saccharine "I love you now, you gorgeous, flighty, heart-following little flower!" any day. Anything else is not full of virtue: only the strong, warring love can be temperate, prudent, courageous and just.