joyful, joyful...

i know this is terribly novel, but i may be addicted to glee. this undoubtedly comes as a shock, given that i cry *every* time i watch sister act. (granted, this show is more in the style of the sequel.)

anywho, it's superclever, the music is sweet, and jane lynch is a genius. i especially dig that rachel works out to "break my stride" because, as some of you may remember, i do, too.

additionally, i need to work out a normal sleep schedule.

and so, goodnight unto you all.

crushed

a little while ago, i wrote about the movie "the reader" and reflected on the limits of our compassion.

"sometimes we find ourselves at the end of our compassion and love. there is only so far any one of us can go, and we are, perhaps, surprised to discover we are at that border. crossing over would be right - so virtuous, so noble, so good - but it is not within our strength. we are at the end of ourselves."

it's not even always the case that you suddenly look up and realize the border lies between you and your next step. sometimes you just slam right into the brick wall that prevents you from giving more. at least i do. at least... i just did.

and it hurts. i want to be someone who can always give more... but maybe you can't achieve that without inevitably giving less. and who wants love that is a hundred miles long but only one inch deep?

a friend of mine recently asked me if there's anything i do halfway. he was referring to my hallowe'en costume (see here), but it gave me pause. when it comes to people i care about, i very rarely go halfway. i screw things up, but it usually has nothing to do with my lack of investment.

i hope... i really do hope that, one of these days, i'm going to bust a me-shaped hole right through that brick wall. but until my heart is strong enough for that, i suppose i'll have to suffer through many more bruised shins and broken noses.

for now, i'm curled up at the foot of the wall, wishing my tears could dissolve it, brick by brick.

"our best hope is to love as fiercely and give as freely as we can - as we can - and learn to forgive ourselves for the rest."

tri a little tenderness

* someone i once cared about very deeply lost a significant person in his life
* my brother-in-law didn't get the grant he was hoping for, so he and my sister are worried about their future plans to move to the uk
* my mom's highlights turned out blonder than she anticipated

i'll give you one guess as to which of the three my mother thought was worth worrying about. confession: i really don't understand.

l is for leeks

first off, leeks remind me of elwyn. back when we all worked together, he was working in "r"zone and a customer came up to let him know that another customer was taking a leak. elwyn's british ears thought he said "lead" (as in cord, i guess)... the truth was an unpleasant surprise. this is still funny to me after more than five years :)

secondly, they remind me of yum. check them out! they're incredibly pretty and the taste is equally lovely... that mild bite mingles with whatever it's cookin' with... mmmmm. when they're sliced up, they even look like little bullseyes. and the reason you want to slice 'em is that they have dirt trapped in all kinds of cracks and crannies, and the best way to get all that out (or so the internet tells me) is to cut the leek into coins and swirl it around in water until the grit is loosened up. then we scoop the coins out of the water! easy as (leeky) pie.

after looking left and right for recipes, i decided to create a leek, spinach, and spinach risotto, only using wild rice. so, wild rice isn't ideal... it's a bit too tough. from my understanding, the point of frying the rice before adding broth is to crack the grain so that the liquid can enter in. a) yummy flavours on the inside and b) faster cooking. in any case, wild rice ain't meant for this. and it's not super starchy, which means it doesn't turn out so naturally creamy.

what i'm confessing here is that maybe what i actually made doesn't officially count as risotto. but i'm ok with that. and you should be ok with it, too. ok? and you know why? 'cause it tasted marvelous!!! especially with the spinachy, leeky, shrimy, green oniony, craisiny deliciousness i added :D

give leeks a try... and not just in potato soup. you'll be glad you did.

timeless

watching my parents age terrifies me.

tell me a story...

i love to hear. to close my eyes and imagine the people and crises and triumphs you describe. they needn't be new stories. i dream that reading won't always be a solitary enterprise. maybe that's why i so long to one day have children: they will make a storyteller of me. it's been a long time now since i realized that i could never marry a man who wouldn't read to me at night... or whisper bedtime stories in my ear in the dark stillness.

perhaps that is why the reader has completely overwhelmed me. surely it is not the only reason... but i feel i'm almost drowning in it all.

standing at a distance, from my comfortable seat, my heart shouted it out, plead with him: "you know what you must do! you know what is at stake! put yourself aside!"

but knowing right from wrong is rarely the difficulty: ethics can never grip us, mobilize us, paralyze us, so much as our fears and hurts do.

there is a moment in this movie when one touch, one smile, one infinitesimal drop of kindness might have made a tremendous difference. but it was withheld. because it was impossible. sometimes we find ourselves at the end of our compassion and love. there is only so far any one of us can go, and we are, perhaps, surprised to discover we are at that border. crossing over would be right - so virtuous, so noble, so good - but it is not within our strength. we are at the end of ourselves.

there is pain that goodwill cannot erase. our best hope is to love as fiercely and give as freely as we can - as we can - and learn to forgive ourselves for the rest.

wonder ten

janet's hands fluttered, danced, and beat the air as her recorded voice recited. she forced the simple words of her poem into the world of three dimensions. "i am a sister; i am a dancer; i am an office worker; i am a wonderful person."

that evening, after dinner, sharon took a photo of me blowing kisses at my own reflection. janet's words were ringing in my ears: i am a wonderful person.

---

i reach out, offering a kindness, then instantly pull my hand back. something within has sprung up to identify my motive: atoning for sin, winning favour, attaining status or glory, hearing praise, inspiring guilt, or some other manipulation... rather than love for the sake of loving, i am doing good for my own sake.

restlessness takes over and i search my surroundings for a distraction. i don't want to think about how very selfish i am. the stench of hypocrisy nauseates me, and my eyes fill with hot tears. how can i be so full of crap?

---

gazing in mirrors leaves me in awe. my own reflection takes my breath away... not because vanity is my vice of choice, but because what i see is astounding. truly, i am the most beautiful of all God's creatures. and also the ugliest.

my thought life, my prayer, my work ethic, my patience, my compassion, my words, my fear, my touch, my openness, my courage, my purity, my thoughtfulness, my gentleness, my capacity to hope... as they are daily tested, they testify for and against me. and there is nothing like consensus.

---

n.t. wright says the world is awesomely ugly and achingly beautiful, and that we need imagination in order to cope with what feels like a false dichotomy.

i say my head and heart hurt from the effort of trying to sort myself out.

but this i know: within myself i find great cause for hope, great need for confession, and great grounds for forgiving those who fail me. and without? a God who is only beautiful and who wants to come inside.

---

beautiful, you're beautiful
beautiful as the sun
wonderful, you're wonderful
as wonderful as they come
~smashing pumpkins, "beautiful"

don't tell anyone

there will always be sad secrets to tell and to hear. maybe the reason i keep checking every week is that sometimes there are secrets that feel true, even though i don't understand them at all.

it's forgiveness sunday, the beginning of great lent. traditionally, i should ask those close to me to "forgive me, a sinner." they should respond, "God forgives." i don't know how to ask forgiveness from people who don't seem to think it's important, but it still seems crucial to ask, instead of just saying i'm sorry.

to us, as children of adam and eve, God also gives opportunities to ask for forgiveness, as adam and eve should have done. He gives us the sacrament of confession. confession does not exist because God wants to know what we have done or left undone. He already knows that . . .

God does not need our confession, but we do.
~ from here

confessions [and some conclusions]

confession #1: when i'm walking down the street and i throw something into a garbage bin, i often pretend that i'm a spy somehow sending a secret message.
conclusion: i have watched way too many episodes of "alias."

confession #2: i often judge books by their covers, movies by the trailers before them, and people by the books on their shelves, cds in their stereo, and links on their blogs.
conclusion: i'm too lazy to experience things - i want to make up my mind as fast as possible.

confession #3: i really hate it when i get no comments on a post. a lot.
conclusion: i want to know that this isn't meaningless, and apparently meaning is contingent on external affirmation.

confession #4: seeing "the da vinci code" last night upset me more than i thought it would.
conclusion: lies infuriate me, particularly when most people won't take the trouble of finding out the truth.

confession #5: sometimes i think i could fall for a guy solely on the basis of his intelligent and witty contributions to classroom discussions. even if he sat rows and rows in front of me, and i never saw his face.
conclusion: maybe g.mango was right - maybe i would get married for the conversation.

yoink!

stole this from peter: check it out! highlight the section below to read my reaction:
i first saw this on peter's blog, and because he'd seen it at a youth pastor conference, i assumed it was supposed to be about God. "He's got the whole world" was prolly the first God-related song i ever learned, with "father abraham" as a close second. (confession #1: i didn't recognize kevin garnett. confession #2: i kept wondering how a Christian group got the cash to put something high-quality together.) SO, all that said, i loved the ad. it's clever and creative. more than that, though: because i was thinking about Jesus, i found it moving. when people get out of their cars and pile out of buses and run to him? dude. :) i liked it.

heresy and retribution (in that order)

i took a quiz . . . the result has fun big words:

you scored as chalcedon compliant. congratulations, you're not a heretic. you believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. officially approved in AD 451.

chalcedon compliant - 100% - and i even know what it means!
pelagianism - 92% - "yeah!" for issues with original sin!
monophysitism - 33% - and i even know what it means!
monarchianism - 33% - yeah, no clue
apollanarian - 25% - i'm supposed to know what this means . . .
nestorianism - 25% - i get the feeling i'm supposed to know this one, too
donatism - 8% - ooh! this one's interesting. does sin affect sacraments?
adoptionist - 8% - my favourite heresy of all time!
docetism - 0% - i seem to know what this means
arianism - 0% - not for me
gnosticism - 0% - not for me
albigensianism - 0% - this word must be made up
modalism - 0% - ice, vapour, and water, my foot!
socinianism - 0% - this is unfamiliar . . .

are you a heretic? created with quizfarm.com

---

we finished off woody allen's "crimes and misdemeanors" in ethics today . . . and i've been thinking a lot about forgiveness, retribution, and conscience. in the concluding scene, allen's character says that a guilty man will eventually turn himself in, betrayed by his own conscience. in the absence of God, he posits, man must be his own judge. the notion that man decides right and wrong for himself is not new, of course, but that's not entirely what allen is suggesting. no, what he proposes is that man must punish himself. that - again - in the absence of God, we must hold ourselves accountable and seek retribution not only for the sins committed against us, but for those committed by us.

interesting.

lately, i've been struggling with forgiveness, see. apparently martin luther did, too, 'cause he was never sure that he was repentant enough, sorry enough. my trouble is somewhat different. it is this: i often feel ("feel" being the operative word) that i must confess to someone in order to be forgiven. it is easier for me to feel (there's that word again!) forgiven if i hear someone say, "i know you hurt me. i forgive you." and there isn't always someone to go to, 'cause not all my stupid decisions hurt people. and some hurt people in very indirect ways, which might be awkward to talk about.

(hey, remember when my writing was clear and concise. i miss that.)

when woody allen (as cliff) says that man must be his own judge, in the absence of God, it kinda clicks for me: i don't live in the absence of God. none of us do (imho), but i'm supposed to conscious of that, right? so, what's this need to secure my forgiveness/redemption externally? it's forgetting that God is enough. dayenu, friends. that's all i have to say.

anyway. oh, and by the way, mia farrow is in "crimes and misdemeanors" (she and woody allen were married at the time) and i totally didn't recognize her. the whole time, i was all "who is that?!?!?" she was daisy in "great gatsby" and jacqueline in "death on the nile", but i far preferred her in "the last unicorn", wherein she voiced amalthea. they're doing a remake, btw. due out this year!

dalmations?

you know i love stealing stuff from other sites and blogs:
frederich buechner, whom i love, said that your call is to: "the intersection of your own deep gladness and the world's deep hunger." isn't that beautiful? i stole it from this article about life dreams. this seems to be a theme for me this week.

oh, confession for today: totally made up a guestlist for my wedding. isn't that NUTS? it easily had 70 people on it. and that's with some paring down! the "will cry if they're not there list" was much shorter. i. am. a. geek.

it's not grieving, but it's still got steps . . .

confession: i haven't been to my home church in a long time. part of it has been my being away (at camp or in toronto), part of it is that i can't get a ride anymore, part of it is that my closest friends are no longer there.

this article talks about other reasons that people leave good churches. those steps didn't apply to me entirely, but i saw glimpses of myself in some of them, for sure.

it's a tough thing, figuring out where God wants you. sometimes, something doesn't have to broke(n) for you to wonder if there's a need for fixing. you know?

confession #29

i just have to confess this: i check everyone's blog every time i update mine. i don't always read with undivided attention, but i always check it out.

even nav's which hasn't been updated in two weeks, skoch's which he hasn't touched in five weeks, and fred's, where, as predicted, i've been staring at that one picture for seven weeks! i mean, you can just hear the wind whistling through the ghosttowns i love to visit! i keep checking their blogs on the off chance that they've elbowed their way online. unlikely, since those three are on urban mission week right now, and will be back at camp for another two weeks afterward.

there are other folks who, to be fair, have been blogging a tad more recently. but you always want what you can't have. ain't that always the way.

the latest!

confession: i like watching "desperate housewives". it's so well written at times, and i'm very curious to find out why may alice killed herself.

alex said something neat last weekend at the birthday doo - he had watched "alias" once and sensed that it was the kind of show he could really get stuck on. he then made a point never to watch it again. in other words, the seductive nature of the show convinced him that he shouldn't watch it.

i know i'm stuck on tv. there are at least half-a-dozen shows i really like to watch. and when you're alone so much of the time, it's the easiest way to cover up the silence. BUT i am making a few commitments:

#1 - i will, in fact, read my bible for at least 10 minutes a day. i'm praying about where to start.
#2 - i will, in fact, spend at least 10 minutes a day praying for my "person of the day" and my "cause of the day" - i'm making a list of seven people and seven "issues" and assigning them each a day of the week. that way, i have to be disciplined about setting aside time, and not only praying as things come up (although that's great, too)
#3 - i will, in fact, spend about 20 minutes a day on my bike. pedalling.
#4 - i will, in fact, keep reading books.

i read the first ("the mysterious affair at styles") and last (curtain: poirot's last case") poirot mysteries this weekend, and am now getting into jules verne's "the mysterious island", upon dad's recommendation. think "lord of the flies" but with five adults and a dog. speaking of poirot, i've decided to buy them in order, one or two a month, until i have all 39. $400 later, i'll have every harper collins poirot mystery there is. i've been meaning to find myself a collection, and this seems a good one, since i find agatha christie to be no less than brilliant and - can i just say - the harper collins book covers are simply gorgeous:















so . . . if anyone is wondering how to randomly surprise me with a gift, this is the way to go :) i also accept gift cards.

any other goal suggestions?

it's true

i was hoping it would turn out not to be, seeing as i'm twenty-two and a quarter and . . . well, i'd like to think i'm an adult. but maybe it's high time i just embrace this part of me. maybe being a real, mature adult means not being ashamed about things like this. maybe being self-confident means that i don't feel the need to justify myself to others.

i am loud. i am proud. i am unable to fall asleep without listening to "adventures in odyssey"!!!

let's begin with a confession

i'll admit it. i'm a copy-cat. but you have to be stupid not to jump on good bandwagons, right? and, truth be told, i've been meaning to start something like this for a while.

yeah.

you know, i've never finished a journal. i got my first diary when i was eight (the day i turned eight, as a matter of fact) and ever since i've been an un-finisher of assorted diaries and journals.

i suck.

but this one . . . . this one *won't* have those tell-tale empty pages at the end! hurrah for online journaling! down with paper and pens and guilt!

and welcome.