tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26155079158068622452024-03-06T00:11:51.341-05:00When the Evening is Spread Out Against the SkyTiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-23386924894814670842011-12-13T10:05:00.002-05:002011-12-13T10:19:56.844-05:00MEGAMIX.This is the sick megamix I'd make right now if I had resources to do so. Thankfully, Grooveshark exists. But, for your enjoyment, in no particular order:<br /><br />Veiled in Darkness - Bifrost Arts<br />Happy Xmas (War is Over) - Polyphonic Spree<br />A Stone Would Cry Out - Sam Roberts<br />Sim Sala Bim - Fleet Foxes<br />Terrible Love - The National<br />Frank, AB - The Rural Alberta Advantage<br />By Your Hand - Los Campesinos!<br />The First Day of Spring - Noah and the Whale<br />Lofticries - Purity Ring<br />Blood Pt. 2 - Buck 65 Remix (ft. Sufjan Stevens & Serengeti)<br />Sleepless - The Decemberists<br />Tightrope - Yeasayer<br />Brackett, WI - Bon Iver<br />No Names - Saintseneca<br />Call it What You Want - Foster the People<br />Forests and Sands - Camera Obscura<br />Wildfires - Ohbijou<br />Jesus - Welcome Wagon<br />Upward Over the Mountain - Iron & Wine<br />Seeplymouth - Volcano Choir<br />These Old Shoes - Deer Tick<br />Basket - Dan Mangan<br />Do You Realize?? - Flaming Lips<br />You Should've Seen the Other Guy - Nathaniel Rateliff<br />Halfway - Milagres<br />Kids on the Run - Tallest Man on Earth<br />I Hurt Too - Katie Herzig<br />Will You Return - Avett Brothers<br />Vesuvius - Sufjan Stevens<br />Curs in the Weeds - Horse Feathers<br />Home - Mumford and Sons<br />The Honest Truth - Typhoon<br />Snakes and Ladders - Basia Bulat<br />Neighbor Song - Aunt Martha<br />Transatlanticism - Death Cab for Cutie<br />Left & Leaving - Weakerthans<br /><br />I now expect you to make this into a Grooveshark playlist and listen to all of it. And love it.<br /><br />GO.<br /><br />Also, I have successfully completed The Catcher in the Rye, so now I can feel like less of a horrible English student. I'd edit the book list from my last post, but I don't feel like it.<br /><br />Fare thee well.Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-21785452178372403122011-11-01T10:23:00.003-04:002011-11-01T10:56:19.121-04:00I Like Books.<span style="font-family:arial;">Good day, friends. Well, I've seen these lists going around on blogs and Facebook for years now, and finally decided to face my feelings of inadequacy and take the plunge. This is actually the most comprehensive version I've seen floating around, so I'm posting it more as a prompt to remind myself of the books I need to read/finish.<br /><br />----------------<br /><br />Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.<br /><br />Instructions: Underline those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or have only read an excerpt, and mark with an asterisk those of which you've seen a film production.<br /><br />1. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen<br /></em>2. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien*<br /></u></strong>3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte<br />4. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)<br /></em>5.</span><strong><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><u><span style="font-family:arial;">To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee<br /></span></u></strong><span style="font-family:arial;">6. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>The Bible<br /></u></strong>7. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte<br /></u></strong>8. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell<br /></em>9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman<br />10. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Great Expectations – Charles Dickens<br /></u></strong>11. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Little Women – Louisa M Alcott *<br /></u></strong>12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy<br />13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller<br />14. <em>Complete Works of Shakespeare</em><br />15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier<br />16. <strong><u>The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien</u></strong><br />17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks<br />18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger<br />19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger<br />20. Middlemarch – George Eliot<br />21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell *</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><u><br /></u>22. <u>The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald</u><br />23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens<br />24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy<br />25. <strong><u>The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams *</u></strong><br />26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh<br />27. <u>Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky</u></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><br /></strong>28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck<br />29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll *<br />30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame *<br />31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy<br />32. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>David Copperfield – Charles Dickens<br /></em>33. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis<br /></em>34. Emma – Jane Austen<br />35. Persuasion – Jane Austen<br />36. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis *<br /></u></strong>37. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini<br /></u></strong>38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere<br />39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden *<br />40. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne<br /></em>41. Animal Farm – George Orwell<br />42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown *</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><u><br /></u>43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez<br />44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving<br />45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins<br />46. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery *<br /></u></strong>47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy<br />48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood<br />49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding<br />50. Atonement – Ian McEwan<br />51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel<br />52. Dune – Frank Herbert *<br />53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons<br />54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen<br />55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth<br />56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon<br />57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens<br />58. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Brave New World – Aldous Huxley<br /></u></strong>59. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon</u><br /></strong>60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez<br />61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck<br />62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov<br />63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt<br />64. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold<br /></u></strong>65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas<br />66. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>On The Road – Jack Kerouac<br /></em>67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy<br />68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding *</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><u><br /></u>69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie<br />70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville<br />71. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens<br /></em>72. Dracula – Bram Stoker<br />73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett *<br />74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson<br />75. Ulysses – James Joyce<br />76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath<br />77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome<br />78. Germinal – Emile Zola<br />79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray<br />80. Possession – AS Byatt<br />81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens *<br />82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell<br />83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker<br />84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro<br />85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert<br />86. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry<br /></u></strong>87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White *<br />88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom<br />89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle<br />90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton<br />91. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad<br /></u></strong>92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery<br />93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks<br />94. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Watership Down – Richard Adams *<br /></u></strong>95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole<br />96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute<br />97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas<br />98. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Hamlet – William Shakespeare *<br /></u></strong>99. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><u>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl *<br /></u></strong>100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo *<br /><br />21 out of 100. Ouch.</span>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-85710524111378287212011-10-03T14:31:00.003-04:002011-10-03T15:10:30.488-04:00Good DreamsI have been pondering lately if I am strong enough to love with no expectation of love returned.<br /><br />Can I give myself to another, in order to benefit them alone, and not out of selfish pursuit of gain and affirmation? Could I love someone unlovely because the centre of their being is worth it?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I pray that when I find you, I will have the courage to do it. I pray that I will know, and you will know, and we will find so much joy in the knowing. You will smile at me and I'll echo it back to you, and we will revel in loving each other. We will spend a day on the couch in the living room, your head in my lap, and I will touch your hair as we talk about dreams and technology and Fleet Foxes. I will love the sum of you as you pursue the core of me. And when all of the chasing is through, we will be content to be still together, to sit side-by-side and breathe the same air. </span><br /><br />Your love will be joy to me, and I pray that my love will inspire and encourage you, strengthen your heart and even greater still, remind you that I am not enough. I pray that my love will show you that love from our Father springs forth eternal, and it's His love that leaves us all breathless.Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-52554467751248312752011-10-02T23:17:00.000-04:002011-10-02T23:18:29.429-04:00The Owl and the Tanager<div>Foolish I pinned</div><div>My hopes on you</div><div>Foolishly they remain</div><div>Sight unseen, I'm placing bets</div><div>Waging my funds on your heart</div><div>Before our hands touched</div><div>Can I know</div><div>Before knowing you? </div><div>Can I love before sitting shoulder-to-shoulder</div><div>tense as we feel the current running through the thin cloth of our sweaters? </div><div>Can I place my heart before you to accept</div><div>Before our eyes meet, lips met? </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tgzlAiNdUdE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-36400379547008921212011-09-15T09:05:00.003-04:002011-09-15T09:46:10.522-04:00Your Hands Are Cold As They Find My Neck"For truly we have attacked ourselves in ways far worse than that in which we were attacked!"<br /><br />I am the liar.<br /><br /><br /><iframe height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GZTJ95svW7k" frameborder="0" width="420"></iframe>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-32433996206742047972011-08-30T10:42:00.004-04:002011-08-30T10:52:59.007-04:00Parallax<a href="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/depth_perception.png"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 513px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 767px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/depth_perception.png" /></a>
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<br /><div>(courtesy of <a href="http://www.xkcd.com/">http://www.xkcd.com/</a>)
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<br />Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-60235116113431721702011-08-24T19:26:00.001-04:002011-08-24T19:34:38.760-04:00It Yet Looms Yellow in My Mind<div><i>i have never seen the moon this large</i></div><div><i>looming sweet on the horizon</i></div><div><i>like a pebble you reach to find beneath the rush of a stream</i></div><div><i>like the golden face of a clock, ticking</i></div><div><i>grown sickly pale with time</i></div><div><i>and don't we all?</i></div><div><i>but tonight i will leap and feel my foot strike earth</i></div><div><i>record with joy the tickle of the dew-wet ferns as they brush my leg</i></div><div><i>in the jumble of my memory (so much like my mother's junk drawer, all the pieces entangled)</i></div><div><i>as i breathe "i will remember this; i will remember this"</i></div><div><i>to coax my mind into releasing the needle to cut this moment into memory's fickle vinyl</i></div><div><i>and i will spin with the next step, i will note how my limbs look, bathed in the cool glow</i></div><div><i>how the yellow globe of the moon makes us here below shine strangely blue</i></div><div><i>like a mix-up occurs in the millions of miles from there to here</i></div><div><i>colour lost in the atmosphere</i></div><div><i>and i will record it all</i></div><div><i>so that years and years from now</i></div><div><i>when my body wanes thin</i></div><div><i>and my hair is wispy white</i></div><div><i>i will play it back</i></div><div><i>i will remember how the wind felt on my hands</i></div><div><i>i will recall how i was breathing hard</i></div><div><i>and how later when sprawled, exhausted</i></div><div><i>on the hill, prickly with August grass</i></div><div><i>i spoke a small prayer in gratitude</i></div><div><i>for the rising of the yellow moon </i></div><div>
<br /></div>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-39767886625927837872011-07-11T14:35:00.002-04:002011-07-11T15:50:06.343-04:00We would turn everything into songs in those days<iframe height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eV_0h_OBNiM" frameborder="0" width="425"></iframe><br /><br /><br />I hope that scientists will give me a call when they invent time travel so that I can transport myself back to 1969 and convince Arlo Guthrie to marry me.Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-77900234966488504132011-07-08T15:00:00.003-04:002011-07-08T15:28:54.225-04:00Coming Before the Altar, My Body is the ProdigalI have spent the great majority of my life completely detactched from my body.<br /><br />Sure, it was great when I was a baby and everything was one with everything else and my body was an offshoot of my mother and the lines blurred between outside and inside -- even still, I was connected, whole within myself and whole reaching out and joining, breaking, re-joining with other. A whole relating to wholes. Babies don't think about themselves. They just <em>are</em>; they are simply connected with a body that simply <em>is</em>.<br /><br />I've had brief moments of this wholeness and connectedness with my body since then. However, the majority of my life has been spent regarding my own body from afar, seeing it only in a mirror where I judge and persecute myself for how it looks. My body is an <em>it</em>, it is not ME because I won't allow it to be.<br /><br />I am uncoordinated and clumsy, which is great for a laugh, but perhaps reflects the distance I've instated between my mind and body. I am ashamed of my physicality. I refuse to acknowledge it.<br /><br />Have you ever had the experience of looking at a photo of yourself and coming to the stunning and sudden realization that <em>hey, that's ME.... that's actually what I look like? </em>I feel like my existence is running on two parallel tracks, with my mind churning and spinning and travelling forth as my main understanding of who I am, and my body on an entirely different track -- a plane where I can only experience my body in the context of how others view it. It's not mine, it's a signal, a picture of who I am that I present to others for their scrutiny. It is others, it is the <em>world</em> that has the final word on what my body is doing, how it looks, and how it relates to "me" as a soul trapped within the confines of the muscle, bone and skin that make up this physicality that is, in reality, as much "me" as my mind.<br /><br />I've spent so much time telling myself that if you only lose some weight, if you only find some way to clear up your skin, if you can grow your hair a bit longer or style it nicer, if you can apply your makeup just right -- then, maybe someone will love you. Body, you're failing me. Body, you're getting in the way of what I want to be, what I want to accomplish, you're getting in the way of me finding a man to love me. You're preventing me from living. There is ugliness in my mind -- that, I can deal with. I can even live with it and adapt to it and cope with it so that it doesn't bother me any more. But ugliness in regards to my body -- I refuse to acknowledge it as mine, it disgusts me because it's not something that, like my inward ugliness, can be hidden away. The world sees it. Thus, I divorce my body from myself on a daily basis, severing the connection between mind and body so that I can revile it too, I can hate my body because the world does, because the world tells me I am <em>not beautiful enough, not skinny enough, not the right shape, not ever, ever going to fit into their pretty clothes.</em> If it's not really "me", I can join in with the world, I can bend down and pick up that stone, feel the weight (the <em>hate</em>) of it, and cast it first.<br /><br />My mind screams<br />BODY why did you betray me like this why did you sabotage me and ruin my chances why are you so fat no matter how little i eat or how much i exercize you are still fat you are still ugly and you deform the clothes i wear to try to hide you you are the fat friend that the others confide in because they know you're trustworthy just like in the movies they see you and they hate how you look but they pity you so they stay <em>you ruined everything</em><br /><br />---------------------------<br /><br />I am going to reclaim it. Even if I never find someone willing to love both my body and my soul, I will. God told me I am fearfully and <em>wonderfully</em> made. There is WONDER in how my body is formed. I am coming before the altar, I am laying my dual nature down. I am witnessing the remarriage of my two selves. I will be both combined.Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-31064070079581220592011-06-14T00:03:00.001-04:002011-06-14T00:06:37.415-04:00We Set Sail With No Fixed Star in Sight<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TRd-hwbk6WE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><div><br /></div><div>If I can accomplish one brilliant moment of pure beauty and goodness on this earth for the glory of God, all this heaviness of sin will be worth it. </div>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-71046283991492938102011-06-01T11:57:00.003-04:002011-06-01T13:49:01.578-04:00We Will Meet Him in The Air<span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>Oh Father, how I long<br />To see past the endless drag of days<br />To see the grace by which you may<br />Redeem your lost ones, Heaven's song.<br /><br />When in a brief hiccup of time<br />You'll draw us upward, upward still<br />To meet you there, your children will<br />Behold your face, and cross the line<br /><br />Where scripture in its beauty says<br />We in an instant will be changed.<br /><br />Oh, to be spirited away with You<br />This is the deepest echo of<br />My soul, to climb as like a dove<br />Into the sky, into the blissful multitude<br /><br />To escape the bonds of sin and then<br />Be free of controversies, that<br />Confuse and pain us, endless lists of who begat<br />Whom, which some would urge points to your Word as tainted by the folly of wicked men.<br /><br />And then the argument arises<br />Of who wrote what, and to what laws<br />We must adhere, and which flaws<br />Of ancient men are proof enough to cancel what the Spirit advises.<br /><br />The paradigm shifts and down we fall<br />Into the rabbit hole, and we shudder, adrift --<br />Rejecting wisdom and those holy gifts<br />The doctrines we had held in closed fists seem not to matter at all.<br /><br />This is the state You find us in<br />When you return to do your work<br />Sinking fast in mire and murk<br />But You, oh merciful One, will rescue us from sin.<br /><br />Oh for that day to swiftly come<br />When you draw us away from earthly bonds<br />Oh, then we'll praise with endless songs<br />You, the great Victor who has won.</em></span>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-4659520620619454182011-06-01T09:20:00.005-04:002011-06-01T09:26:57.216-04:00After Storm 01/06/11<span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>Most of all, I want to know that you are there and that you feel it too</em><br /><em>That you see the lightning arcing like a cut through the night sky black</em><br /><em>Feel the thunder shake and grumble rippling up through your feet and legs</em><br /><em>Gasp when the wind gusts in through the screen and brings with it rain, small like mist</em><br /><em>That you see and feel and hear all of these things and return praise, always always</em><br /><em>Knowing along with me, feeling along with me the worship that comes from seeing the might of the Alpha and Omega</em><br /><em>I want to know that you are there, and you feel this happiness that is so acute it feels like sad</em><br /><em>I want to know that you feel it too</em></span>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-31469663842111224032011-05-25T10:47:00.005-04:002011-05-25T11:32:25.524-04:00Ariadne Leads Him to the Dawn<em><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>I am Ariadne, and I will help you find your way out.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>hold tight to the unraveled edge of the string and I will pull you</em><br /><em>I will wind that highway of twine into a bright red ball</em><br /><em>I will reel you in</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>In all of this that we construct, I will be to you an outstretched hand</em><br /></span><em><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">as you hurdle over barriers and walls that I create<br />as you seek the prize within the turns and corners of the labyrinth<br /><br />I am Ariadne, I am the architect and I will beckon you and draw you back<br />with markers and signs I will lead you<br />you who bears the heavy load of truth and reality on your shoulders<br />I will guide you to see around and through the lies of time<br />I will show you the crafty traps of memory and the twisting depths of days<br />I will give you the key and show you the door<br />I will break you from this jailhouse of linear pacing and bring you to the way<br /><br />And you will know the red ribbon of freedom</span></em><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></em>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-52021894892966644842011-05-13T15:29:00.003-04:002011-05-13T15:35:49.320-04:00Play Nice, Niceans. (Awful Joke)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(42, 42, 42); line-height: normal;font-family:'Segoe UI',Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;" ><div style="line-height: 17px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So. The Council of Nicea. After a friend made some comments about how the Bible is unreliable because of the fact that fallible men compiled it, I did some research. Which was fun because I like research and also I'm a nerd. And here is the results, copied from an email I sent.<br /><br />Apparently, we (the Church) have been duped -- there seems to be no evidence that the proceedings at the Council of Nicea included the deciding which books would make up the canon of the Bible. From the accounts we have, it seems like the main topic of discussion at the Council was the relationship between God the Father and Jesus, which was in response to a cultish uprising led by a man named Arius who believed that Jesus was not God. There's a bit of an outline here: <a href="http://www.equip.org/articles/what-really-happened-at-nicea-" target="_blank" style="line-height: 17px; font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer;">http://www.equip.org/articles/what-really-happened-at-nicea-</a></span></div><div style="line-height: 17px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 17px; font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" >They came up with the "Nicene Creed" that we now know about, which outlines that the Father and Son are the same being in two forms. Not a new belief, but they codified it so that the new congregations springing up all over would be unified in this (most important) point of doctrine. There is a list of other canons that were discussed by the bishops in attendance, such as church disciplinary matters (including the notion that at this time, there was no one church who was appointed as "head" above the others). The heretical Arius got the boot, along with his followers. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" >So, the idea that the books of the Bible were decided upon at the council simply are untrue. This source outlines possible sources for the myth: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html" target="_blank" style="line-height: 17px; font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; font-size: 10pt;">http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html</a></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" >, along with some useful commentary on the actual events by some of the bishops who were there. This source: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.christian-history.org/nicea-myths.html" target="_blank" style="line-height: 17px; font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; font-size: 10pt;">http://www.christian-history.org/nicea-myths.html</a></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" > gives a handy overview of the fables many in the Church believe about Nicea, and gives rebuttals for them. The inset box entitled "The Real History of the Bible" is useful. Basically outlines the fact that the Bible as we know it has stayed relatively unchanged since the time of the writing of the NT. In the second century, there were other additions, and 2 Peter, James, and Hebrews have been called into question -- but I think it's important to keep in mind that "called into question" does not mean necessarily that these were false teachings/scriptures. Just because someone questions something doesn't automatically mean that the consensus of all early Christians was that it was heretical. I think often we fall into the trap of the "fallacy of tradition", in which we believe that because X is old, X must be true or better. True, the early Christians were closer in chronology to Jesus and the New Testament writers. However, this does not mean that every thought they had was correct or to be accepted on par with what the NT teaches. I understand that humans are fallible, and thus we can expect some error in works written by humans.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><u style="line-height: 17px; font-size: 10pt;">However</u></span><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" ><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;">: I also think that if God, in choosing the Bible as the main vehicle through which He communicates to His people (He communicates to us through many things, I know, and I don't mean to constrain God to words on a piece of paper, but in the Bible His words are clearly stated), God, in His sovereignty, would see to it that the canon of the Bible is exactly what He wanted it to be. It's about this Bible the prophet Isaiah records God saying "the grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8), and to which Paul refers to when he says "all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16), and it is "living and active" (Hebrews 4:12). I don't believe that God would allow the folly of men to override his means of communicating to us. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 17px; font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 17px; font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" >Oh, one last thing -- I found the reference I was thinking about where Peter refers to Paul's letters as Scripture -- it's 2 Peter 3:16 - "He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." so there's pretty good support in there for Paul's letters being authoritative words from God. And a bit of a warning, too. </span></div><div style="line-height: 17px; font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 17px;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;font-family:Tahoma;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Ummmm, sorry for this huge post. I hope you were all able to make it this far. If you did, congratulations!</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Love and cannons (HA! Like canons, but different! I'm hilarious!),</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Tiffany</span><br /></span></div></span></span>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-87557495487367652932011-05-02T11:04:00.005-04:002011-05-02T11:23:43.810-04:00Remove from Me My Heart of Stone<iframe height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lGMG_PVaJoI" frameborder="0" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />We lost two important people in a matter of days. David Wilkerson, author of "The Cross and the Switchblade" and regarded as one of the forerunners of street ministry as well as the founder of Teen Challenge died in a tragic car accident. His sermon prompting Christians to anguish in prayer for the things that hurt God's heart totally wrecked me this weekend. Then, today, news of the assassination of Osama bin Laden is spreading, prompting responders online, even Christians, to respond by heaping more hate on an already hate-filled situation. What does wishing bin Laden a great time in Hell do for us? What does it accomplish, to as one person on Facebook wished, proclaim "I want to watch him be killed"? It hardens our hearts, makes us bitter and lulls us into thinking it's okay for us to live in the Grace of God that saved us from sin and then turn around and laugh that a man died, possibly while still rejecting the claims of Christ. Is this not a disgusting, twisted sense of self-righteousness that spews forth this kind of judgment? Is it not God who decides who goes to Hell? Am I not, in the deepest, ugliest recesses of my heart <em>just like him?</em> How can we believe in a God that says in Ezekiel 18:32 that He does not take pleasure in the death of anyone -- wicked or not -- and then rub our hands together, relishing the warm feeling of revenge, when someone evil is murdered?<br /><br />Today, I am sorrowing for the death of another human being who's fate rests in God alone, not my opining or conjecture on where he might be right now. I am also sorrowing for the Church who is so seduced by the world that we feel it's okay to celebrate the death of another person, no matter how bad, no matter how sinful and the extent of the horrible and wrong things he did. We declare "an eye for an eye", spitting in the face of a Jesus who died for us all. I recognize the urge in my own heart to say "Good!" and feel justified that one who instigated the killing of so many has now been killed. And I reject that urge to sorrow with the Lord over the death of a man that HE made, a man who God knew from the womb and a man whom God never gave up on.<br /><br />The death of a saint in Christ and a world-renowned terrorist -- both are pushing me towards anguish and towards a heart more attuned to Him today. May it be the same for you.Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-16404628974627401062011-04-27T12:50:00.005-04:002011-04-27T13:09:29.044-04:00Somewhere, in Some Misstep I Chose ThisDear Blog,<br /><br />Thanks for being an outlet for my angst so that I don't have to annoy my friends with my mopey, emotional outpourings.<br /><br />Thus, here begins another sad post.<br /><br />---------------------<br /><br /><em>I want to say it's not your fault</em><br /><em>it's not your misstep that caused this ache</em><br /><em>To tell you that your absense is not helping with this hurt</em><br /><em>but rather making a dull pain more heavy</em><br /><em>giving accent and outline to a fluttering soreness</em><br /><em>I want to ask you to stay by me</em><br /><em>to tell me that it will be alright</em><br /><em>this will all be alright, and it will pass</em><br /><em>I want you there to hold onto when I feel like I am slipping from this edge</em><br /><em>and feeling its' sharpness</em><br /><em>and feeling the keeness of knowing that you can't dance this dance with me</em><br /><em>you can't comfort me when it's the pain of this new distance that has settled, like a mantle, over my shoulders</em><br /><br /><em>I would carry it for you</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>-----------------------------</em><br /><em></em><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WGYEHN_VUzg" frameborder="0" width="480"></iframe>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-73994723941606107202011-04-04T21:05:00.003-04:002011-04-04T21:15:43.147-04:00A Girl Drowning, Making Movements Towards the Shore<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(42, 42, 42); " ><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(42, 42, 42); ">I'm at a time right now of spiritual awakening... but I can't tell if it's for the better. So many questions. I have been in the desert, and it isn't like this. It's not a cup of water to quench the thirst; it's a flood. There's so much that I'm almost drowning. I wrote this about a week ago -- things that perplex me but that perhaps don't have answers. Hmm hmm hmm.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(42, 42, 42); "><br /></span></div><div>------------------------------------------</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(42, 42, 42); "><br /></span></div>Have I just been sleeping all these years?<br /><br />How are there so many facets to the Christian faith that I've been blind to or ignorant of for so long??<br /><br />Are we to choose, is the choice made for us -- for all of us, before the world began? Was Luther with his 99 theses overreacting when he nailed them to that door?<br /><br />Are we individual worshippers, or is the congregation a necessary institution? Is it a support and help, a place to serve, or a cumbersome entity that prevents real worship for fear of offending/embarrassment/commitment?<br /><br />Should we be looking inward to work out our personal struggle with faith and the effects of the Holy Spirit on our own souls, should we be looking internally to purge our sin? Or should our focus be outward, in the world, not dwelling internally but being the hands and feet of Jesus to a dying world? Should we be concerning with serving, or having our own spiritual thirst slaked?<div style="line-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="line-height: 17px; ">Can we reasonably enjoy the good things here and now, or is it vanity, knowing that there are more and better things to come? Should we forsake pleasure and comfort at all costs to show the world that in Christ our satisfaction lies, is it "soft" to live this Christian life enjoying the same comforts as the world does, and showing them that they can sacrifice without really sacrificing, as we do? Can we truly be "in the world, but not of it"? Where does relevancy play a part, if at all? Do we make Christ relevant to the world, or do we transform the world by showing them the Messiah himself? Should we make ourselves like monks and turn away from the material things of the world, or does this only serve to alienate us from the people we're trying to reach?<br /><br />Where does tradition lie? How can we know when we've overstepped the boundaries from practices that please God into those that disgrace Him by turning worship into empty and legalistic ritual?</div><div style="line-height: 17px; ">Do those feasts and traditions laid out in the Old Testament mean something to God, is his name honoured when we follow them? Or is it all "old covenant", passed away, ritual that meant something but now is overshadowed by the pursuit of Christ and Him alone? Can we participate in tradition with a clear conscience, is it always bad, or simply a situation in which we must be aware that performing certain acts does not endear us more to God, but instead may act as a catalyst in our own hearts to prompt us to further worship?<br /><br />Can we confidently say "by faith alone"? Where do our works play a role? Is it neither here nor there, but a mashing together in the middle? Do we perform works because we want to be counted among the sheep or because it's a natural outworking of the love of God in us that prompts us to serve and do right?<div style="line-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="line-height: 17px; ">What is the Old Testament to us? Is it for Israel, they who missed the boat in ages past and are now milling about in stasis until the End of things? Or is it alive and vibrant for us still, the ones who are grafted in? Can we pin some of our hopes on Israel, should it be us who serve them in the fulfillment of Tanakh prophecy or is it simply a waste of time, an addition of "Jesus PLUS" that we should sidestep? Can we in good faith ignore the everlasting covenant that marries Israel to the land, that God established to lead his first chosen ones homeward? If they are still the chosen, what are we? Co-chosen? Somehow secondary? Co-heirs, or simply helpers along the way to guide Israel and make her jealous?</div><div style="line-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="line-height: 17px; ">Does God punish his people here on earth? Does he judge the nations now, does it prove logical to punish the people for the directions their leaders give? Does He punish those who love him, or are we spared by His blood? Does he punish the unbeliever here? Or is it a punishment to be unfurled once the curtain drops?</div><div style="line-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="line-height: 17px; ">Is Heaven a place to construct and build while we still breathe the air of this earth? Can we definitively say that Hell is eternal, that there is no further chances once that final journey is undertaken? Does this accord with a God who IS love? Can a God who's love is victorious ransom those who have seen the desolation of the other side, in the end reclaiming all souls to Himself, He who is not willing that any should perish? Can it be that love always wins? And is it really a victory if it redeems those who do not wish to be redeemed?</div><div style="line-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="line-height: 17px; ">Is this all "fire insurance"? Do we love God because we wish to escape the punishment of Hell, and if this Hell is not an eternal pit, does this free us from this binding? Are all the things I do on this planet simply to avoid the guilt of doing wrong, is it all because humans need a place to belong, is it because I love God and want to glorify Him? Can we ever hope to overcome our selfishness and act purely out of love? How much of what I do is even worth anything, if I can't even discern my own motives?</div><div style="line-height: 17px; "><br /></div></div><div style="line-height: 17px; ">Why must it all be on a sliding scale? Are there black and white areas, is there always a space to choose, or is only one perspective correct? What does true Christianity look like? Can we get our cues from the early Church fathers? The Bible only? How can you serve, be in a congregation -- without the unity of a common doctrine that all can agree on? How did the pursuit of Christ grow so many appendages -- so many that it is impossible to see the body for the arms? </div></span>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-60670111200153228852011-04-04T11:45:00.002-04:002011-04-04T11:48:17.593-04:00Francine Rivers and I = BFFsFrancine Rivers is the bomb. I've loved everything I've read of hers -- The Mark of the Lion series, Redeeming Love, Sons of Encouragement (though I'm not done that one quite yet). One time, I emailed her and she emailed me back. It was an exciting day in my life. Thus, this contest excites me greatly: <a href="http://www.tyndale.com/blog/?p=1042">http://www.tyndale.com/blog/?p=1042 </a><br /><br />Winning all of her novels? A dream come true. Winning any of her novels? Still pretty awesome. And posting right here about the awesomeness of this contest? One entry in the contest, baby.<br /><br />Shameless I tell you!<br /><br />Peace friends.Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-35653635895279816862011-03-20T22:33:00.003-04:002011-03-20T22:39:22.239-04:00The World is a Nosy JerkWhen the world tells you:<div><br /></div><div>how to look</div><div>where to live</div><div>what to wear</div><div>how to think</div><div>where to walk</div><div>who to befriend</div><div>when to act</div><div><br /></div><div>that you are:</div><div><br /></div><div>too loud</div><div>too short</div><div>too fat</div><div>too ugly</div><div>too lazy</div><div><br /></div><div>not brave enough</div><div>not stylish enough</div><div>not focused enough</div><div>not strong enough</div><div>not happy enough</div><div>not perfect enough</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>... tell it to shut up.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's my advice for you.</div><div><br /></div>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-60254799866924065212011-01-04T00:08:00.002-05:002011-01-04T00:13:56.172-05:00We Say Things That Are Unsayable and Mostly TrueHello friends, <div><br /></div><div>Here is a new poem for you. I'm quite pleased with it. I named it "3 Mile", but I'm not entirely sure I like the title. So, here you go.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><i>I have so many thoughts inside</i></div><div><i>Standing next to the reactor at 3 Mile Island</i></div><div><i>My hand mirrors yours</i></div><div><i>And we stare into the depths of the eyes of revolution</i></div><div><i>With a stringy folk ballad twisting in the air above us</i></div><div><i>And my skirt making fluttery noises on my leg, now yours</i></div><div><i>The hurricane wind makes waves in the sunset air</i></div><div><i>Teaching a stray strand of hair to limply lean on my face, yearningly</i></div><div><i>I turn to you, our eyes lock like bank vaults</i></div><div><i>And your gaze grabs me like an octopus hug, and we see each other in confidence</i></div><div><i>We say things that are unsayable and mostly true</i></div><div><i>And we're falling in love with the brains of dead writers</i></div><div><i>And we're tasting the sulfur and the ocean on the air like cotton candy</i></div><div><i>And we're stretching taller, arms spread wider</i></div><div><i>And we're balancing here on the pinnacle, on a chair balanced on the pinnacle of the point of the highest tower</i></div><div><i>And we stand as one flesh among the debris</i></div><div><i>Yard sale of the discarded </i></div><div><i>Handbags and vending machines and moose antlers and spice racks</i></div><div><i>Dotted with lampshades and pool cues</i></div><div><i>And now we are fading, and the music notes fall around us like bombs</i></div><div><i>But you know, it doesn't matter</i></div><div><i>Because my hand is a perfect mirror, imperfect</i></div><div><i>Of yours.</i></div></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>01/03/11</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Now you should listen to this song:</div><div><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_7nD1T7mjp8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_7nD1T7mjp8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>With love and reassuring shoulder pats, </div><div><br /></div><div>Tiffany</div>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-52185622468174517082010-11-01T18:30:00.002-04:002010-11-01T18:37:38.749-04:00Things I Could SaySometimes, I can't make words say what I want them to say.<br /><br />I want to say: I could live here forever. I want to be in this moment, always, with you.<br /><br />I want to say: I know what it was, about that dream. I wanted it to be real. I wanted to be floating there, out in space, alone and cold, seeing everything that had ever happened contained in that orb.<br /><br />I want to say: This is important. Listen. My heart is always calling yours.<br /><br />I want to say: The way the sun looks today makes my heart feel real.<br /><br />I want you to understand it, when I say these things to you.Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-4378993062589328002010-10-29T20:38:00.002-04:002010-10-29T21:10:18.308-04:00A Bunch of BaloneyToday, I saw a man walking down the street in a black trench coat and a top hat. I sure hope that means Halloween is coming, not that time travel has finally been invented and the world is soon to be spiraling out of control. I think the former is correct because top hat man was on a cell phone. Generally, time travelers from 1824 don't know about cell phones.<br /><br />-------------------------------------<br /><br />Currently there are two boxes full of fruit turnovers and strudel-like desserts sitting on my coffee table, looking at me forlornly. I don't actually want to eat them, but I didn't go to the gym today, and the rebellious part of myself says EAT THEM, YOU MIGHT AS WELL.<br /><br />It is weird that when I want to do something "bad", I want to do it REALLY BAD. For example, when I think "hee hee, I'm going to stay up a little bit later tonight, because I can!" usually turns into "uuggahahhhggg it's 3AM!!! WHY!!!???" and "I don't feel like cleaning my room right now" turns into "THROWING CLOTHES EVERYWHERE". Well, that's a bit of an over exaggeration on that last one. But the mess does escalate quickly.<br /><br />Anyway, this is a boring blog posting. Sorry.<br /><br />Yours,<br /><br />TiffanyTiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-27307554119605764212010-10-26T23:38:00.002-04:002010-10-26T23:46:07.999-04:00Phalange is a Funny Word<object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GhFSgnvKqm4?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GhFSgnvKqm4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="640"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />Hello friends. It is rainy and this song makes me feel a little bit melty. Because they just took that pop song, and they acoustic-ed the crap out of it. And that is nice.<br /><br />Today, I finished learning how to knit a mitten. Too bad mine ended up looking like a mitten specially designed for an individual with multiple-phalange amputation. Poor freaky mitten.<br /><br />Also, I ate delicious desserts at my friend Steph's house. Also, I watched "Clue". Which is awesome, and nothing like I imagine freaking CANDY LAND is going to be as a film. Or Monopoly, for that matter. Unless the Monopoly movie has someone picking up the edges of the board and shaking it vigorously while yelling "EARTHQUAAAAAKE!!!", it will be a waste of my life to watch it.<br /><br />The end.<br /><br />Because you're amazing,<br /><br />TiffanyTiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-67933326351379962442010-10-24T23:44:00.007-04:002010-10-24T23:52:24.886-04:00All Things<object height="385" width="590"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IoezWBPGRAc?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IoezWBPGRAc?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="590"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />He makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him. I am not Lo-Ruhamah. (Hosea 1).Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2615507915806862245.post-55606609563250615372010-10-23T16:22:00.004-04:002010-10-23T17:04:41.323-04:00Birch TreeWell, I've debated about posting this for a long time, now.<br /><br />I wrote it when I was at my lowest point, when I thought my life was over. It's a stream of consciousness piece, which is what I tend to write to release my feelings.... and, at the risk of putting a damper on a blog that is usually so positive, I've decided to share it. Sometimes it feels good to share things that hurt. Not because I want others to hurt with me... but because I want to release it, push it forward and out of my life. It's pretty obvious in the piece what situation prompted me to write it. I have been dead for a long time now. And I'm beginning to learn, finally, that God isn't done with me yet. He wants life for me, and life to the full. One horrible event can't remove me from His will. A thousand horrible events can't remove me from His will. So, here it is.<br /><br />---------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And you cannot grasp it, she thinks, her mind wandering far, deeper, into the small hum of the fluorescent light, burying itself in the rise and fall of passing cars outside her window. You can’t grasp it at all. She laid back on the bed, spreading her arms wid</span><span style="font-style: italic;">e above her head, feeling the cotton pull of the coverlet on her cheek. My life is ticking, she thought, and sighed, pushing air into the dimness of the evening room. This is waste, she thought. She didn’t cry; her eyes were too dull, her tear ducts rusted from misuse and bitterness. Tomorrow will be better.<br /><br />What is a life all about? I’m stuck inside. The whisper blue o</span><span style="font-style: italic;">f the morning sky peered, wonderingly, around the edges of the curtains. She woke up, and was still muffled beneath the layer of discontent that lay, like a robe, on her limbs and enveloped her thoughts. Take them captive, she thought. Make every thought captive. This day will be better than the last. She shifted herself and slid her legs onto the floor, and passed a bed-wa</span><span style="font-style: italic;">rm hand over her face, pushing droopy bangs aside. She exited the bedroom, and leaving her footprints behind her, and it started again.<br /><br />This ache is ending without end, she thought. I am ended; the pain is unending, I’ve reached the finishing of myself. There is no upwards trajectory, there is no way to rebound and she cannot see any way to grow. I am a stunted plant, said her heart. I am a plan</span><span style="font-style: italic;">t without sunlight, even the deep sea plants need nourishment. I am a plant adrift in the sea, rootless. She opened the door to the cupboard, and reached for a box of cereal. Filling a bowl, she sat at the melamine table, running her finger over the chips on the edge. She felt like she was suffocating, her soul buried in gray. As she ate, she wondered why. She couldn’t compose a proper response, and didn’t expect to.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When he left, he took precious things with him. He took the ring back, the beautiful ring with its high-mounted center stone, that shone rainbows in bright sun and glaring fluorescent bulbs. He took the part of her that believed that she was worth chasing and convincing and proving one’s value to. He took the remnant of her belief in her own bea</span><span style="font-style: italic;">uty, that tender rosebud surrounded by disease and death. That rosebud was now his boutonniere as he quit the apartment, and as a robe he wore her dreams for the future, glowing verdant green. Knit of scenarios imagined and re-imagined over the span of years, the robe was dreams of sweet-faced babies, of a home well-kept, of love so wild that it was still humming with vibrancy in old age. It was all gone; he took it with him when he left.<br /><br />What will I feel, when other pass through the passageways of sacred ri</span><span style="font-style: italic;">tual, she thought. It will be burning jealously, nestled in the deep of my stomach, curling around my spine like a lick of flame, smouldering coals reminding me of the things I have lost, what I have forsaken, what has forsaken me. It will be sadness like tall white birch tree wit</span><span style="font-style: italic;">h bark peeling like tears, stark and naked and cold. It will be dullness, dead thoughts, life extinguished. It will be like death, undying.<br /><br />If I can’t resurface, she thought, I will drown in this room. She saw her life stretched, like a birch tree, her life splintering as the barren branches stretching forth into grey skies, cloudy winter. She saw her days, stretching out before her and fading out into m</span><span style="font-style: italic;">eaninglessness and repetition, a certain placing of the plate at the table, a folding down of the bedspread, a positioning of shoes at the door. This is all my life will be, she thought. This is a room with bars for windows, this is life in a cage.<br /><br />This is death, undying.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-----------------------------------------------------<br /><br /></span>Once, my heart agreed with Solomon when he wrote that "the things that are done under the sun; all of them are <b>meaningless</b>, a chasing after the wind". I was dead. I am still emerging from death. But I am reaching for God's promise that He has "come that they may have life, and have it to the full". God told me I would have a full life with Him. I need to cling to that, know it. He is not finished with me yet.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUYK-qRPht8BbZRRDgNc3u005icwoweFvwTyxUiCxAakytpLvLWOVRNjorUcXBn4ZTP52AJMlhVL22_nCdeXIZs2tRtBausqHaZws7ODfpL0SckCBeyboSPuJia8xryxhGDP3LlIeLCZA/s1600/3978339723_e653aa3ba3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUYK-qRPht8BbZRRDgNc3u005icwoweFvwTyxUiCxAakytpLvLWOVRNjorUcXBn4ZTP52AJMlhVL22_nCdeXIZs2tRtBausqHaZws7ODfpL0SckCBeyboSPuJia8xryxhGDP3LlIeLCZA/s320/3978339723_e653aa3ba3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531349969860982850" border="0" /></a>Tiffanyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02983550031481961215noreply@blogger.com0