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Monday, January 07, 2008

  • Currently Reading
    Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses (P.S.)
    By Bruce Feiler
    see related

    Getting Ready for the Middle East

    Our first day of Orientation was TODAY! All of us were kinda jumping around; we're only slightly excited. :)

    Lindford opened up by reading "Oh, the Places You Will Go" and playing a beautiful song, although I don't remember all the lyrics or the name of the guy who wrote it.

    Linford talked about making "home" wherever you are in the moment. In all honesty, he noted, you cannot fully live and grasp every opportunity with vigor in one place if your mind is somewhere else. Being in school has already warmed me up to the elusive "home". When I am in Harrisonburg, I long to be "home" in West Chester with my family. But when I'm in West Chester, another part longs to be "home" at EMU. But if all attachment is found apart from current experience, it cripples ability to embrace with both arms the excitement, challenge, and growth right in front of me.

    I'm exhausted, excited, intrigued, giddy, and anxious all at once. This trip will be incredible, and I'm excited to share what I can along the journey. :)


     Flowers Grow at Old Rag (Virginia)

Sunday, November 18, 2007

  • Summertime thoughts

    Dredging up some summertime journaling...

    Jeremiah 33:22
    "...as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore."

    Response to the night sky at Topsail Island; it was a night of thunderstorms on the horizon, the milky way spilling across its lengths, and the black contrasting the diamond-lighted stars...



    how vast.
    how immeasurable.
    the beauties that shine & dance.
    the deepest black contrasts the purest light.
    Surely there is no seeing, no breathing independent of You.
    For if You can makes the Night Skies come to life,
           You can make the deepest parts of me come to life, too.

Monday, September 17, 2007

  • Valley Song. JarsofClay


    You have led me to the sadness
    I have carried this pain
    On a back bruised, nearly broken
    I'm crying out to you

    Chorus
    I will sing of Your mercy
    That leads me through valleys of sorrow
    To rivers of joy

    When death like a Gypsy
    Comes to steal what I love
    I will still look to the heavens
    I will still seek your face

    But I fear you aren't listening
    Because there are no words
    Just the stillness and the hunger
    For a faith that assures

    I will sing of Your mercy
    That leads me through valleys of sorrow
    To rivers of joy

    Alleluia, alleluia
    Alleluia, alleluia

    While we wait for rescue
    With our eyes tightly shut
    Face to the ground using our hands
    To cover the fatal cut

    And though the pain is an ocean
    Tossing us around, around, around
    You have calmed greater waters
    Higher mountains have come down

    I will sing of Your mercy
    That leads me through valleys of sorrow
    To rivers of joy

Monday, July 16, 2007

  • Currently Reading
    A Grief Observed
    By C. S. Lewis
    see related
    C.S. Lewis is definetly one of my favorite authors. Here are some things to chew on from A Grief Observed

    "I    mages, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage - is it not in some ways an advantage - that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me? I need Christ, not something that resembles Him... Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. To me, however, their danger is more obvious... my idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?"

    I love how C.S. Lewis takes such abstract thoughts and and pulls them onto paper. After reading some of the thoughts he spoke of, I kept thinking, "Yes! I know exactly what he means, I could never have explained it so eloquently, though."

    It's almost a little like Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. The ideas that we have of God and who He is - where are they grounded? Are the images I have of God inventions of this culture and my personal feelings? Or are they grounded in the Bible, in truth?

    My God is not mine. He transcends all humanity, and thus He is not changeable to one person's experience.
    God is constant.
    I can stick as many labels on Him as I want.
    I can define him to be weak, strong, or "not there".
    I can also call the sky green. But it doesn't make it true.
    Because God, because his son Jesus Christ, are not confined to humanity's limited views.



Friday, July 06, 2007