08/18/13
Palpate your own bladder.
04/21/13
River Child, river god's daughter
Gazes out over her father in chains.
Two sets removed, one yet remains.
Still, the beauty of her father has caught her.
Two reminders of the river's power
And of man's failed attempts to rule him.
Each one built further from the brim
Further from water, ice, tree, and flower.
In the spring come the rains,
Cleansing the river of man's taint.
Bare piers of gray stone the flood restrain'd,
Not so the decks for wagons and trains.
The power of nature, we cannot constrain
Man will not forever reign.
02/06/13
On Saturday, January 26th, Caren Elise Wiley did me the great honor of
agreeing to become my wife. We had spent the whole day painting the house
with my father before going out to McCormick and Schmick's on Pier V for
dinner. After that we enjoyed a performance of Beauty and the Beast at
the Hippodrome before returning, sleepily, to the house. This was our
first non-work evening there, so we finally had an opportunity to enjoy
some of the champagne that had appeared when we closed on the property. I
feigned ignorance regarding the proper opening of a champagne bottle and
had Caren open up the fridge. While we were out, my parents had dropped
off proper champagne glasses, a dozen long-stem red roses, a vase, and two
special fruit tarts (my mother's addition). Caren was startled, to say
the least, though she had a feeling that something might be happening.
When she pulled the box of roses out and opened it up, I took out my
great-aunt's ring and when she turned around asked her if she would marry
me. I had not had the time to get down on one knee, which Caren quickly
rectified before agreeing to my proposal. This is our house now, though
it really was all along. Our house, our life together, our love.
01/26/13
"Every finger is touching and searching,
Until your secrets come out,
In the dance, as it endlessly circles,
I linger close to your mouth.
I am living to nourish you, cherish you. I am pulsing the blood in your
veins. Feel the magic and power of surrender to life."
"When I'm miles and miles apart from you, I'm beside you when I think of
you, and I'm with you as I dream of you, and a song will bring me near to you."
11/06/12
Uncertainty kills hope.
7/25/12
Because God made the stars to shine,
Because God made the ivy twine,
Because God made the sky so blue,
Because God made you, that's why I love you
4/18/12
"My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his
work."
John 4:34
3/21/12
"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from Behind. 'Pooh?' he whispered.
'Yes, Piglet?'
'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'"
A.A. Milne
3/13/12
Some things are better than sleep.
3/07/12
"That experience, connecting with a stranger and falling
recklessly in love, is on of life's greatest joys."
xkcd.com #420
3/07/12
I sure as heck did nothing to deserve this. So thank you God.
#notsarcasm
3/06/12
Rae: "So we broke up for a few hours over the whole house-buying
thing. We decided we're not ready yet and are going to put things
off."
Tina: "But what about our joint wedding?" -turns to Caren-
"Alright, you have to do this for me now."
Me: "I'm too young to get married." -oldest person in room-
2/25/12
It's so easy and so very surprising. Things seem to be coming to
me now unlooked-for. One thing follows after the other,
unexpected and glorious. Life unfolding new mysteries day by day.
When I stopped looking I began to find.
2/15/12
Ropes again! I found somebody to climb with. Happy times.
2/14/12
I didn't realize that I would have to give up my best friend as
well. That was unexpected and unfair.
2/06/12
Because I'm getting pretty gray at the temples,
which negatively impacts my earning potential
and does not necessarily attract vibrant young women
with their perfumed bosoms to dally with me
on the green hillside,
I go out and buy some Grecian Hair Formula.
And after the whole process, which involves
rubber gloves, a tiny chemistry set,
and perfect timing, I look great.
I look very fresh and virile, full of earning potential.
But when I take my fifteen-year-old beagle
out for his evening walk, the contrast is unfortunate.
Next to me he doesn't look all that great,
with his graying snout, his sort of faded,
worn-out-dog look. It makes me feel old,
walking around with a dog like that.
It's not something a potential employer,
much less a vibrant young woman with a perfumed bosom
would necessarily go for. So I go out
and get some more Grecian Hair Formula.
Light Brown, my beagle's original color.
And after all the rigmarole he looks terrific.
I mean, he's not going to win any friskiness contests,
not at fifteen. But there's a definite visual improvement.
The two of us walk virilely around the block.
The next day a striking young woman at the bookstore
happens to ask me about my parents,
who are, in fact, long dead, due to the effects of age.
They were very old, which causes death.
But having dead old parents does not go
with my virile, intensely fresh new look.
So I say to the woman, my parents are fine.
They love their active lifestyle in San Diego.
You know, windsurfing, jai alai, a still-vibrant sex life.
And while this does not necessarily cause her
to come dally with me on the green hillside, I can tell
it doesn't hurt my chances.
I can see her imagining dinner
with my sparkly, young-seeming mom and dad
at some beachside restaurant
where we would announce our engagement.
Your son has great earning potential,
she'd say to dad, who would take
a gander at her perfumed bosom
and give me a wink, like he used to do
back when he was alive, and vibrant.
"Grecian Temples" by George Bilgere, from The White Museum.
2/01/12
God in His infinite wisdom
Did not make me very wise-
So when my actions are stupid
They hardly take God by surprise.
Langston Hughes - Acceptance
1/31/12
I take my dreams and make of them a bronze vase
and a round fountain with a beautiful statue in its center.
And a song with a broken heart and I ask you:
Do you understand my dreams?
Sometimes you say you do,
And sometimes you say you don't.
Either way it doesn't matter.
I continue to dream.
Langston Hughes - I Continue to Dream
1/30/12
They say time heals everything
but I'm still waiting.
Dixie Chicks
1/23/12
$%^&*( Adele and her little song too. Finally made it to the
climbing gym today despite hearing her little ditty on the radio.
1/17/12
Teddy - "You met a girl over a year ago and forgot to mention her?"
Donzo - "Unlike you, I don't fall deeply and significantly in love
with a girl on a meeting or two."
Fernwithy
1/12/12
Teddy found himself flipping back through To The End of the Earth,
re-reading the passages he'd skimmed, which dealt with love business, and
particularly with kissing, as witches seemed to like this sort of thing,
so he guessed it was what they'd expect. He was disappointed to find that
it didn't actually explain how to kiss, except that stars were meant to
explode and the sea was supposed to keep the rhythm, which sounded like
something of a tall order.
Fernwithy
1/08/12
Boom boom ain't it great to be crazy?
Boom boom ain't it great to be nuts like us?
Giddy and foolish, the whole day through
Boom boom ain't it great to be crazy?
1/07/12
Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are
easier to find.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Wise Man's Fear.
Read while sitting in a library in Florida during a 48-hour
stretch of alone-time.
1/06/12
You cannot discuss the purpose of life with a man who denies the
existence of God. You cannot profoundly collaborate in human
affairs, in sociology, say, or education, with a man who denies
the existence of God. You cannot simply agree to omit God from
the collaboration for the sake of argument, any more than you
could agree to omit the sun from navigation. The sun is a fact
and essential to navigation. God is a fact and essential to
everything.
Frank Sheed - Theology and Sanity
This position is not meant to be as absolute as it sounds. It
comes in the middle of discussion of how faith is seen, these
days, as some characteristic of a man which does not affect his
interactions with the world around him. It is about as important
and far more mutable than his hair color, say. Sheed rejects
this, in the passage above, by pointing out that for a man who
knows that God exists and understands something of his nature and
his role in existence, such knowledge cannot be put aside. It
affects everything.
1/05/12
Man dies to himself in order to live to God, and, living to God,
find himself too.
Frank Sheed - Theology and Sanity
12/20/11
Ginny nodded, and turned around to rest in the crook of his arm.
He kissed her head, and she said, "I just wish there was something
that would make you happy."
He laughed softly. "That's what home is for."
Fernwithy (http://fernwithy.livejournal.com/1045880.html)
12/12/11
The easiest or quickest path is not always the best one.
I hope that you learn this before you throw away too many things
of value in your life.
12/02/11
I like a green olive
stuffed with a pimento
after it has been submerged
for some time in a martini.
I like to go downtown with my husband,
sit in a booth at the Grand
and let the drink rub the edge
off the inane fight we had
about the furniture salesman
and whether he treated us fairly,
my view, or whether he tried
to put one over on us,
my husband's view.
In some moods we'll fight about anything
just to make the other
carry the weight of anger
we lug all day through our lives.
But that moment
when we climb into bed
on a winter's night,
letting our bodies lie down,
letting the day be over,
its not unlike the way gin
loosens the rope, lets float
the raft into its stillest waters.
Happy hour, when the landscape
loses its daylight meaning
as it slips into the silk of dusk
before night pours down its jazzy notes
in a cathedral of crushed velvet.
We are sitting side by side in the booth,
watching the flurry of holiday shoppers
come in from the cold.
By now the salesman is a jerk,
or he's a helluva guy,
either way is fine.
We are talking about anything,
having drifted out into the calm
plainness of intimacy. Nothing
profound, just a place to rest
at the end of the day,
the cord between us swinging gently
after the bells have stopped their ringing.
"Gin" by Jacqueline Berger from "The Gift that Arrives Broken."
12/01/11
When the moon was young,
When the month was May,
When the stage was hung for my holiday,
I saw shining lights
But I never knew
They were you, they were you, they were you.
When the dance was done,
When I went my way
When I tried to find rainbows far away,
All the lovely lights
Seemed to fade from view:
They were you, they were you, they were you.
Without you near me,
I can't see.
When you're near me,
Wonderful things come to be.
Every secret prayer
Every fancy free,
Everything I dared for both you and me.
All my wildest dreams
Multiplied by two...
They were you, they were you, they were you.
The Fantasticks
11/22/11
Oh, Tongue, give sound to joy and sing
Of hope and promise on dragonwing.
Anne McCaffrey
11/21/11
So right now I'm in an all-Palestrina, all the time choir at the
University of Maryland - College Park. Everything we sing is in Latin,
which I enjoy. Singing a translation of the original text to the same
music really never works - the text is always weakened and corrupted by
the translation. Stressed syllables don't line up with stressed musical
moments, meaning is lost, and we lose a connection to the overall cultural
context of the work. Thankfully, once you get out of high school every
serious musician realizes this and no sane choir director will ever have
you sing the English translation of a text. As a conscientious musician,
you'll even learn what the words mean and not just how to pronounce them.
The incredible power of what the composer is saying through your voice is
now something you understand.
What does your audience get out of this? They can hear your pretty
voices and appreciate the work you've put in and the musicianship you are
displaying but do they appreciate the raw emotional power of the text?
Even with translations in their programs or supertitles above the stage,
the musical experience is somewhat lessened by this language barrier.
Maybe that's why church choirs so often sing the English translation; in a
religious setting, transmitting the meaning is crucial to the impact of
the work. Yet this causes great musical harm as well. Church choirs
should then be advised to stick to compositions created in English. Many
of them do and this allows them to both preserve the integrity of the
pieces and perform their important role within the Mass. The popularity
of works such as Handel's Messiah and some of Britten's religious music
attest to the impact that great music with a message that can be easily
understood by its listeners can have.
Yet this approach abandons centuries of the rich musical tradition of the
Church. Surely this isn't the answer. Meanwhile, audiences in secular
spaces get to hear these works but fail to grasp their full emotional
content. What, then, can we do to address this?Have someone stand up
before we sing these works, both during Mass and at concerts, to explain
the text. We should talk about where it is drawn from (Scripture, early
liturgy of the Church, the writings of such and such a saint). We should
talk about the cultural context in which the piece was written, what
struggles the composer or the local community were going through at the
time. Why was this text selected and what did it mean for the composer
and his audience? Finally, read through the text and give a literal, not
a poetic, translation of it.Once I saw the current Del-MD Synod bishop
break into the middle of a Eucharist celebration that he was leading to do
something along similar lines. He turned to the congregation of youth and
told them "This is a big deal! This is important! These words, what we
are saying as a church, these ancient formulae...they have meaning! Pay
attention!"
We need to have similar moments with these works. When I
sing "o Jesui filii Mariae miserare mei, miserare mei, miserere mei" I
want to be shouting at the audience like he did, saying "This is BIG
DEAL!" When I sing "Ave Verum Corpus" I want people to understand that
something very real and very important to both me and the composer is
being shared with them. These are not madrigals, flighty little songs
about love. These are religious motets with words that meant something
when they were composed and still mean something today. Nobody's musical
experience is lessened if they don't understand that "Il bianco e dolce
cigno cantando more" means that the cute and sweet swan is singing as it
dies. Their experience is lessened if they ascribe the same importance to
those words as they do to "Requiem aeternam dona eis domine et lux
perpetua luceat eis," which means "rest eternal grant to them oh Lord and
may perpetual light shine upon them."
11/11/11
Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because---
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like---just as I---
Was out of work--had sold his traps--
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.
Thomas Hardy - Man He Killed
10/28/11
Joining my friends in Tumblr madness? Not quite yet.
That being said...Legs, eyes and hair
10/20/11
I Didn't Realize
How much it would hurt
How many dreams would be foregone
How many dreams I still had
How much I would cry
That I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about you
That you were the only person who I shared everything with
That you were not only my best friend, but that nobody else comes close
How I would see things, every day, that remind me of you
How much it would hurt, not being able to share them with you
That I would have to fight the instinct to call you, to email you
That little things would come up in life and I wouldn't be able to share them with you
How much you have supported me this past year, during my struggles with career and depression. I haven't thanked you enough for that
How much I would miss that support once it was gone
How much I would miss your voice on the phone, your embrace
How much a part of me you have become, and how empty and alone I would be once you were gone
How much I love you.
10/20/11
Stay busy
My mind races from one thing to the next, but always returning
to that one thought, that one inescapable thought.
The usual distractions do not work;
they have never tried their strength against something so all-consuming.
Books fail; TV fails; my work fails; even climbing fails
Food and pleasures taste of ash. Literally.
The power of the mind over the body is amazing.
I cannot stay busy.
What if I was wrong?
10/19/11
The world has grown cold
10/19/11
So life is like the game of Hearts, right? Once you've taken a
certain percentage of the hearts plus the queen of spades you
start wondering if there's a payout for taking all of them.
10/13/11
I spend part of my childhood waiting
for the Sterns County Bookmobile.
When it comes to town, it makes a
U-turn in front of the grade school and
glides into its place under the elms.
It is a natural wonder of late
afternoon. I try to imagine Dante,
William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson
traveling down a double lane highway
together, country-western on the radio.
Even when it arrives, I have to wait.
The librarian is busy, getting out
the inky pad and the lined cards.
I pace back and forth in the line,
hungry for the fresh bread of the page,
because I need something that will tell me
what I am; I want to catch a book,
clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris,
to London, to anywhere.
Joyce Sutphen - Bookmobile
10/03/11
Ragnar DC 2011
Mile Zero
The body is tight, keyed up from lack of sleep
You receive the baton and head off into the darkness
You stride out too powerfully, too quickly as the adrenaline peaks and fades.
Light, noise and teammates are all left behind you
Only you and the road remain.
Mile One
Your body has remembered what it is to run, what it is to pace
This is what you have trained for, this steady lope that eats up the miles.
In-two, out-two. In-two, out-two.
The rhythm is your only companion and refrain.
All other thoughts merely flit over the surface of your mind.
Mile Two
The darkness ahead of you is broken by flashing red lights
as you begin to climb through the fields
They become the only thing you can focus on,
The eye is drawn to movement.
You have to reach them, to catch them, to push on.
Mile Three
The lights are behind you now, but others beckon ahead
Despite the increased slope, you pick up the pace to chase them down
Without knowing how far you have run or how many miles you have left
And without the sight of the mountain ahead
The lights are the only goal you can have.
Mile Four
Four-hundred feet of climbing behind you, three hundred more to go
Not that you are aware of this
All you know is that your legs have a temporary respite
Surely the leg must be almost over
Surely the worst is behind you
Mile Four and a Half
Out of the dark and the fog looms a new slope, steeper than before
You cannot see the top, but the route is strung with those red jewels
You force your unwilling body to obey you,
To pound out a steady tempo, to maintain the same pace as before
Your body obeys and you pass by those lights, leaving them behind you.
Mile Five
You near the top of...something
You no longer care how far you have run . you lack the energy to estimate
The mountain could not possibly be finished, though.
You do not feel as if you have worked hard enough yet.
You cannot believe that this is the peak, even as you start down
The pace speeds up, the legs stride out in a reckless flight down the hill
Each footfall strikes the ground like the blow of a hammer
You barely brake as you hurtle past more lights;
You are in a controlled fall, no longer running.
Gravity is paying you back now.
Mile Six
The road levels off but you cannot slow down now
The feeling of speed is intoxicating
As is the knowledge that you have almost finished.
You are powerful; there is nothing your body cannot do
The last half-mile is a sprint as you search for the line
There is no need to save anything, no need to hold back
You rush to the line, to the embrace of your teammates
And almost regretfully hand off the responsibility to one of them
You do not want to stop running.
8/30/11
Los ángeles no son
enviados a cambiar
un mundo de dolor
por un mundo de paz.
Me ha tocado a mí
hacerlo realidad;
ayúdame, Señor,
a hacer tu voluntad.
This one kept running through my head today. If someone were to
ask me why I wanted to leave engineering and work for USCIS, my
answer would be the first six lines there.
8/26/11
There was much discussion of Lani's relative merits, and of Donzo's
motivation for going out with her ("I like her!" he said helplessly when
pressed on the subject, though this somehow didn't seem like enough of an
answer). This discussion inevitably led to the more disturbing topic of
whether they all ought to get girlfriends now, and how such a thing was
done, and which girls were particularly interesting.
Fernwithy - Teddy Lupin and the Hunter's Moon
8/16/11
I am because we are,
We are because Christ is,
and Christ is in us.
I DO NOT STAND ALONE
8/04/11
"It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But their agony
has achieved just this - that now it is equally bad taste to be an
avowed Christian. Emancipation has only locked the saint in the
same tower of silence as the heresiarch. Then we talk about Lord
Anglesey and the weather, and call it the complete liberty of all
the creeds."
Heretics - G.K. Chesterton - Introductory Remarks
7/27/11
Let my life be a reflection
Of the love that you have shown.
Let your love be my direction
And my heart be your home.
Lost and Found - Reflection
7/26/11
Well I lift my voice to heaven for I know that I belong
And I lift my voice to heaven and I join the angel throng.
They are gathered 'round the altar and they sing a heavenly song
And I lift my voice to heaven and I know that I belong.
Lost and Found - Lift My Eyes
7/25/11
Gonna make these dry bones walk.
Gonna make these dry bones walk.
God has decided, now I'll do more than talk
God has made these dry bones walk.
Gonna be the salt where the world is bland.
Gonna be the thought when the world won't understand.
Gonna be the light where the world is dark.
Gonna fight the fight and gonna leave a mark.
Gonna be the food when the world needs bread.
Gonna be the life where the world would be dead.
Gonna be the water in a world that would thirst...
The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Gonna be the hope when the world's in despair.
At the end of our rope, GOD WILL BE THERE.
Gonna be the spark when the world needs a start.
Gonna write his new law in the flesh of our hearts.
Gonna be the way when the world is lost.
Gonna calm the waves when the world is tossed.
Gonna be the yeast when the world needs leaven,
Prepare the feast for the kingdom in heaven.
Gonna make these dry bones walk.
Gonna make these dry bones walk.
God has decided NOW I'LL DO MORE THAN TALK
GOD HAS MADE THESE DRY BONES WALK.
and run and skip for joy and shout out loud.
Lost and Found - Bones
7/23/11
We are one body, one body in Christ;
and we do not stand alone, no we do not stand alone.
We are one body, one body in Christ;
and He came that we might have life.
6/16/11
In coming centuries it's quite possible that, when it comes time
to reproduce, women will press some button on their inner thigh.
In the meantime, able-bodied young men are good for the following
gender-specific things: sex (procreative and nonprocreative);
installing air conditioners; and, yes, moving heavy furniture up
narrow flights of stairs.
Friend or Foe blog, 6.14.11
6/16/11
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
William Shakespeare - Sonnet #129
4/28/11
Another voice, low, inward and confidential, was that of
Babbington, who had borrowed Stephen's Hindustani phrasebook: over
and over again he was repeating 'Woman, wilt thou lie with me?' in
that language, staring impatiently north-eastwards.
Patrick O'Brian - H.M.S. Surprise
4/26/11
There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
"I feel that this is right for me,
I know that THIS is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you - just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.
Shel Silverstein - The Voice
4/21/11
"No one ever owns a cat," he corrected her. "You share a common
habitation on a basis of equal rights and mutual
respect...although somehow the cat always comes out ahead of the
deal."
Lillian Jackson Braun - The Cat Who Turned On and Off
4/6/11
Suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem.
4/5/11
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from Pole to Pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley
3/31/11
Hardness of heart is the result of our inability to truly accept
the love of God. It is caused by the sin of pride. When we are
too proud to acknowledge the love of God we are then rendered
incapable of sharing that love with others.
Note to self - Read Psalm 95.
3/30/11
I've lost my guide for my radical course in living.
3/22/11
A man kneels in a cathedral, holding his face in his hands. He
tries to ignore the nearby distractions as he prays.
"The Body of Christ, given for you."
His forehead bears the reminder of the brevity of life, a cross
formed by ash.
"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
He is overwhelmed by the realization of his own sins. How can he
be beloved of God?
"Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."
The words of Joel are a consolation.
"Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful
Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."
Perhaps he can trust in God's mercy. He should trust, he knows,
but trust is difficult for him.
"Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church...and grant
us peace."
Ah, peace, peace...'tis a state devoutly to be wished. If only
the man could stop looking at his sins, could acknowledge the
peace and grace given by God.
"Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I
shall be healed."
He feels...something. A lightening of the heart as he begins to
accept the reality of God's love and the gift of grace that is
his.
What does God require in exchange for this gift of grace? Nothing.
However, something is owed. There is a debt to be repaid, not out of
obligation but gratitude.
"To know, love and serve God in this life and be happy with Him
forever in the next."
To know, love and serve God in this life...The last decade of this
man's life has been spent trying to discern his vocation and know
God. His constant prayer: "to know and do God's will" in his
life. Yet as Lent approached something seemed wrong with this
prayer. He prayed to "know God's will" for his life yet was he
actually prepared to accept a vocation if and when it became
evident? No, he was not prepared to accept such a call. His
pride in abilities given by God and accomplishments achieved with
God's help have made it all but impossible for him to achieve the
degree of surrender necessary to truly follow Christ. The Devil
has used the strengths of this man, gifts of God, to make him
proud. Even though his self-reliance is an illusion, he clings to
it. Answering God's call requires trust in God, not in self, and
so his prayer has changed.
Like Jesus in Gethsemane, he kneels and prays over and over again,
"Lord, let not my will but rather yours be done" until it is time
to rise and receive the dismissal.
"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."
Self-denial is the first step that Jesus lays out for us. The
second step is sacrifice. A willingness to take up one's cross is
called for. While this sacrifice varies, many times it seems that
it involves the closing off of several possible avenues in life to
follow the path that God calls us to. The economist would call
this the opportunity cost of our vocation. Frost would talk about
two roads in a wood; to take one path involves the sacrifice of
the experiences along the other.
3/16/11
"No, Huck leave them there. They're just the tricks to have when
we go to robbing. We'll keep them there all the time, and we'll
hold our orgies there, too. It's an awful snug place for orgies."
"What's orgies?"
"I dono. But robbers always have orgies, and of course we've got
to have them, too."
Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
2/24/11
People come to this place to not worry about who they are, to lose
themslves. Yet there are places where the old us, the real us, is
accepted and loved. There are places where we do not need to hide
ourselves or dull our perceptions, where in fact we see more
clearly.
In the company of people who already know us and still love us, of a God
who knows us perfectly and yet still loves us, we can reveal our souls
rather than our bodies. We can revel in the daylight rather than hiding in
the darkness. We are free to be more truly ourselves than we are even when
alone.
2/24/11
What was this curse that was on me, that I could not translate
belief into action, and my knowledge of God into a concrete
campaign for possessing Him, Whom I knew to be the only true good?
No, I was content to speculate and argue: and I think the reason
is that my knowledge was too much a mere matter of natural and
intellectual consideration.
Thomas Merton - The Seven Storey Mountain
2/23/11
It never occurred to him to place any limits upon the appetites of
those who seemed to like books. If they wanted books, well, this
was a library. He had plenty of books, that was what a library
was for. You could take as many as you liked, and keep them until
you were through: he was astonishingly free of red tape, this
happy little Franciscan.
Thomas Merton - The Seven Storey Mountain
2/22/11
But when my mind was absorbed in all that, how could I lead a
supernatural life, the life to which I was called? How could I
love God, when everything I did was done not for Him but for
myself, and not trusting in His aid, but relying on my own wisdom
and talents?
Thomas Merton - The Seven Storey Mountain
Whoever you are, the land to which God has brought you is not like
the land of Egypt from which you came out. You can no longer live
here as you lived there. Your old life and your former ways are
crucified now, and you must not seek to live any more for your own
gratification, but give up your own judgement into the hands of a
wise director, and sacrifice your pleasures and comforts for the
love of God and give the money you no longer spend on those
things, to the poor.
Thomas Merton - The Seven Storey Mountain
Because of the profound and complete conversion of my intellect, I
thought I was entirely converted. Because I believed in God, and
in the teachings of the Church, and was prepared to sit up all
night arguing about them with all comers, I imagined that I was
even a zealous Christian.
But the conversion of the intellect is not enough. As long as the
will, the domina voluntas, did not belong completely to God, even
the intellectual conversion was bound to remain precarious and
indefinite. For although the will cannot force the intellect to
see an object other than it is, it can turn it away from the
object altogether, and prevent it from considering that thing at all.
Thomas Merton - The Seven Storey Mountain
2/15/11
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble
yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn
the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell
your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not
want society.
Walden - Thoreau
2/14/11
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and
call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks
poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults
even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps
have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.
The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as
brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its
door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may
live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a
palace.
Walden - Thoreau
2/10/11
My first criminal-law professor taught us everything we needed to
know about criminal intent by reminding us of the kindergartener's
hierarchy of self-defense. First: "I didn't do it." Second: "I did
it but I didn't mean to." Third: "I meant to do it but I didn't
plan it." And finally: "I was upset at the time and I promise I
won't do it again."
Dahlia Lithwick in Slate
2/09/11
A saner man would have found himself often enough "in formal
opposition" to what are deemed "the most sacred laws of society,"
through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his
resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man to
put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain
himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to
the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a
just government, if he should chance to meet with such.
Hendry David Thoreau - Walden
2/09/11
Confusion about where Portman stands in her ambitions isn't, in
fact, just a function of her own path. It's an ambiguity extending
through the upper strata of her generation. Portman's peers make
up a demographic widely perceived as a legion of overdriven
dilettantes, a group of young people alternately pushed to wild
multispecialization by some unknown inner fire and stunted by an
incapacity to choose among those paths.
Slate article about Natalie Portman
2/01/11
While I often feel a sense of connection to the Camel, most
'scruciating idle, I have more in common with the Elephant's
Child, full of 'satiable curiosity.
1/03/11
"If you feel . . . that well-read people are less likely to be
evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books
in their hands is preferable to world filled with schisms and
sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you
enter a library you might say to yourself, 'The world is quiet
here,' as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater
good."
~ Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope
12/30/10
The best things happen while you're dancing.
Things that you would not do at home come naturally on the floor
For dancing soon becomes romancing
When you hold a girl in your arms that you've never held before.
~White Christmas
12/28/10
Nearly everyone has a first love that she or he has never entirely
gotten over. Getting married to someone else is not about
renouncing those feelings but about putting them in a safe place
where they can't hurt anyone.
~An interesting view on this from Friend or Foe at Slate
12/14/10
Go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you wanna do it with
Mommas and the Papas
12/10/10
If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire.
St. Catherine of Siena
12/10/10
Once my wrists looked like yours
Covered in woven floss and yarn
Different patterns, different colors
Created by many people to grace my arms.
All different, yet crafted in the same spirit;
They embodied love and friendship
Sparked and nurtured during one golden summer.
So many bands did I receive
That they blended together into two tangled groups
Near-solid gauntlets of fabric;
So many that the details of each gift
Melded into one fuzzy memory
A memory containing emotion rather than fact.
I wore my gauntlets both to remember that summer and those friends
And to make a visual proclamation to the world that I had been a part of something special...
Something important...something magical in its intensity.
Once my wrists looked like yours.
12/04/10
The solstice approaches and once again my thoughts turn to regret.
Maybe this is just something I do in the winter as the sun slowly abandons me.
My thoughts turn inward and towards the past
Directed towards those moments in life when decisions were made.
Did I do the right thing?
How did I hurt other people...and myself?
What would the future have been like if only I had...
Each year there are more candidates for these moments of introspection.
More decisions, more past, more hurt. More universes created by each choice.
Given this, why does my mind return to a select few each year?
Are they any more important than the others?
Yes.
But so what?
This mental exercise is not particularly helpful. The past can teach us
lessons, but dwelling on our regrets is about as useful as worrying about
the future. Both distract us from the beauty and joy found in each day. Maybe
this is why my mind turns to regret during the winter; the beauty of each
day around me because harder to see. Yet the beauty is still there, the
green blade does come forth from the seed. Life is a precious gift, and
living in regret wastes this day that God has made.
7/04/10
Facing Towards Jerusalem
The Kingdom of God is near!
The Messiah makes his royal progress, a triumphant procession to His capital and His throne.
The cup of salvation offered at the coronation feast.
The crown of thorns, the royal robe flecked with crimson.
His throne a cross, His courtiers thieves, load hosannas turned to wailing.
Yet this is the moment of our reconciliation to God, the blood that bridges the gap caused by our sin, by my sin.
Laughter in tears, joy in our sorrow, our new lives in His death.
He turned his face towards Jerusalem, towards His suffering and our salvation.
With the death of the King, the Kingdom of God has been made manifest.
6/27/10
Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the
flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and
what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are
opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity,
licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy,
anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy drunkenness,
carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned
you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God.
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who
belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions
and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by
the Spirit.
Galatians 5:16-25
4/10/10
Poirot - The English they do not have a cuisine my friend,
they have only the food.
Hastings - Well, That's a bit harsh
Poirot - Like the meat...overcooked
The vegetables...too soft
The cheese, inedible
Agatha Christie - The Yellow Iris
11/5/09
Gracias a Dios. I would HATE to be French. I would be miserable.
It would be absolutely wretched to be French.
HollyAnne Giffin
9/21/09
The numbers go by in a blur. The brain takes refuge in this.
What do the numbers mean after all? How can the brain comprehend the
deportation of millions, the death of uncounted others through exposure,
starvation, and execution. After a while the numbers merely flicker past
the eyes because they can mean nothing. The author, however, realizes
this. While the eyes seek refuge in meaningless numbers, individual
stories inflict themselves on the mental landscape. Babies thrown out of
moving railway cars. War heroes, accused of being enemies of the state
because they own a cow, dragged into the streets and shot. Bystanders
being deported for handing starving children pieces of bread.
How can thing like this happen? A dumb question. Things like these do
not "happen." We, humans, are the agents. Collectively we authorize and
sanction the most barbaric, horrific and dehumanizing treatment of our
fellow men. Not only that, many of us actively participate. To claim
that those who are responsible have somehow separated themselves from our
common humanity is false. No man is an island unto himself. Just as
Donne pointed out that each man's death is the death of us all, so too
each man's sin is or becomes the sin of us all. We are all guilty.
9/16/09
New Beginnings
8/6/09
The future is open wide.
6/20/09
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
To do otherwise would be insulting and piss me off.
William Shakespeare - Hamlet
6/15/09
God is good...
Some of the time.
And some of the time...
He really just wants to mess with your head.
5/28/09
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Andrew Marvell - To His Coy Mistress
5/22/09
As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and
secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed
by a raging compulsion to complicate things.
David Eddings - Magician's Gambit
5/1/09
So if I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs,
And if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home.
Jars of Clay - If I Stand
4/4/09
Same bed, same room, same alarm, same clothes...how can it all
bear to still be the same when things should be so different?
3/16/09
Girl, you chunky.
Madagascar II
Also...
You've got to march right up to this woman
Look her right in the eye
Lean forward, right, just a little ... almost all the way
Then you let her like lean forward just another little way until
you are just a lip's distance away from each other
And then you just tell her ...how much you ...
Madagascar II
2/9/09
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me you heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
Brandon Heath - Give Me Your Eyes
1/9/09
We live we love
We forgive and never give up
'Cause the days we are given are gifts from above
Today we remember to live and to love
Superchick - We Live
1/7/09
Empty me of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition and the poison of my pride
And any foolish thing my heart holds to
Lord empty me of me
So I can be filled with you.
Chris Sligh - Empty Me
11/6/08
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be
preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.
Terry Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment
10/24/08
Regrets
9/3/08
Memory
It was late in the afternoon. I was packing the most needed
things. She followed me. She went after me from one room to
another. She shuffled around my legs. My cat Mira, as if she
knew I was leaving. Yes, she knew it very well.
When I took my bags she went after me. I told her: "Stay there,
Mira, watch our house. Luka and I are leaving. Even though we
don't know where we are going."
Mira stopped. She stopped and followed me with her eyes. I
walked and looked back nobody knows how many times, and she was
still there, on the same spot, watching us. I started to cry. I
cried while walking. We were far away. I couldn't see her
anymore, but I could see her and her eyes as if she were before
me.
Dusanka Maric, late 60s, Bosnia-Herzegovina (written in Belgrade in 1995)
7/18/08
He distrusted the kind of person who'd take one look at another
man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, 'Ah, my dear sir,
I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason
who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently
fallen upon hard times,' and then unroll a lot of supercilious
commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man's
boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was
wearing his old clothes because he'd been doing a spot of home
bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tatooed once when
he was drunk and seventeen and in fact got seasick on a wet
pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic
variety of the human experience!
Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay
7/17/08
"What good would a lot of money do me, hey?"
The clientele looked puzzled. This seemed to be a question along
the lines of 'Alcohol, is it nice?' or 'Hard work, do you want to
do it?'
Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay
7/16/08
"How many dishonorable discharges have you had?"
"Lots," said Nobby, proudly. "But I always puts a poultice on 'em."
Terry Pratchett - Men at Arms
6/25/08
Put your arms around me
What you feel is what you are
And what you are is beautiful.
Goo Goo Dolls - Slide
6/22/08
O LORD, you have enticed me
and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long;
everyone mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
I must shout, "Violence and destruction!"
For the word of the LORD has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
If I say, "I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,"
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
For I hear many whispering:
"Terror is all around!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!"
All my close friends are watching for me to stumble.
"Perhaps he can be enticed,
and we can prevail against him,
and take our revenge on him."
But the LORD is with me like a dread warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble,
and they will not prevail.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.
O LORD of hosts, you test the righteous,
you see the heart and the mind;
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.
Sing to the LORD;
praise the LORD!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hands of evildoers.
Jeremiah 20: 7-13
5/28/08
Yes, this culture is elitist. Just walk down the aisles of your
local, union-free organic grocery, unutterably cool but way beyond
your price range. Or stroll through the most upscale shopping
district of your city, where you might notice the fake-shattered
windows favored by one national retailer, evidently trying for
that '60s look while not losing any stock to actual looters.
Yes, it's offensive, too. It's meant to be that way, to remind
you always that you are not hot; that you've bought the wrong
brand; that the vanguard is way ahead of you; that, with your
organization-man craving for health benefits or job security, you
probably need to be fired.
Thomas Frank - WSJ Editorial Page
5/8/08
I went to a shrink to analyze my dreams.
She says it's lack of sex that's bringing me down.
Green Day - Basketcase
4/24/08
Wrestling was perfect for you. You were so FAST!
It was like watching a little greased monkey.
Mom, talking about me
4/4/08
He used to want to try to walk the straight and narrow.
He had a fire and he could feel it in the marrow.
It's been a long time and I haven't seen him lately
But I've been searching for that Missing Person.
Michael W. Smith - Missing Person
4/3/08
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but
to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the
triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have
conquered but to have fought well."
Olympic Creed
4/2/08
Citius, Altius, Fortius
Olympic Motto
3/28/08
Diego - Remember, I have the most sensual voice in the city. It
makes the women melt.
Me - "Pissing themselves" isn't the same as "melting."
3/25/08
Riding behind you is like riding behind the motorcycle.
My friend Paolo, after I had taken two HARD, LONG pulls at the
front of the group.
3/22/08
I want to go fast.
Will Ferrell - Talledega Nights
3/20/08
The other night dear as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I woke dear I as mistaken
And I hung my head and I cried
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know dear how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away
You are my Sunshine
3/18/08
"There is no salvation outside the church."
St. Augustine - Of Baptism
3/11/08
"Well, look who's up! Good morning sleepyhead!
You've missed the best part of the day! I've been up since 6:30
getting many things accomplished."
Calvin & Hobbes
3/8/08
Tienes asma, o has mamado?
Diego Zhindon
3/7/08
"You'll have heard about yon offin' youth's missus running off," he said.
"Yes," I replied, "I did hear about it."
I waited for Luke to gloat but he seemed strangely ill at ease.
He fidgeted until I had finished drying my hands, then he glared
at me and bared his strong teeth.
"I'll tell you something James," he ground out, "I wish someone
would take my bugger."
James Herriot - All Creatures Great and Small
2/26/08
Oleg had learned patience with his current life-threatening
adventure, but one thing he'd never learned, and never expected to
learn, was how to watch a woman shop...without wishing to throttle
her.
Tom Clancy - Red Rabbit (Thankfully, my mother and girlfriend
DON'T enjoy shopping)
2/2/08
You'll be alright. Doesn't mean that it doesn't suck not to have
a rudder.
One of my friends broke his last spring.
Was a bear of a time getting the boat home.
But he did it.
Mark Parker
1/29/08
When I was your age, television was called "books."
The Princess Bride
1/24/08
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Bilbo Baggins as recorded in "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
1/13/08
One sister for sale!
One sister for sale!
One crying and spying young sister for sale!
I'm really not kidding,
So who'll start the bidding?
Do I hear a dollar?
A nickel?
A penny?
Oh, isn't there, isn't there, isn't there any
One kid who will buy this old sister for sale,
This crying and spying young sister for sale?
For Sale - Shel Silverstein
12/27/07
Sometimes I believe all the lies so I can do the things I should
despise
And every day I am swayed by whatever is on my mind
Caedmon's Call - Shifting Sand
12/26/07
well I'm just a regular joe, with a regular job. I'm your
average white suburbanite slob. I like football, and porno, and
books about war. I've got an average house with a nice hardwood
floor. My wife, and my job, my kids, and my car, my feet on the
table and a Cuban cigar.
But sometimes that just ain't enough...
Dennis Leary - for me it'll never be enough. suburbanite?
regular job? please God, no!
12/25/07
I'll be home for Christmas,
You can plan on me.
Please have snow, and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.
Best version by Bing Crosby
12/24/07
Westron wind, when will thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.
Anonymous
12/23/07
Go to college, a university
Get a real job, that's what they said to me
But I could never live the way they want
I'm gonna get by and just do my time
Out of step while they get in line
I'm just a minor threat so pay no mind
The Anthem - Good Charlotte
I don't want your boring life
and I don't want your nine to five
Or anyone to tell me how to live my life
Festival Song - Good Charlotte
12/22/07
LISTEN TO THE MUSTN'TS
Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child, ANYTHING can be.
Shel Silverstein - I need to think about this poem more often
12/21/07
We play with the cards that we're dealt...
But I threw away a flush and ended up with two low pair
Because I was bored and not paying attention to the game.
Me, reflecting on England
12/17/07
"Two days," she thought, "and they'll be back at school! What a lovely, what a heavenly thought for a
mother.."
She remembered vaguely some wicked remark by a woman columnist.
Only six happy days in the year for a woman.
The first and the last days of the holidays. How true that was, thought Mrs Ramsay, sweeping up
portions of her best dinner-service. With what pleasure, what joy, had she contemplated the return of her
offspring a bare five weeks before! And now? "The day after tomorrow," she repeated to herself, "the
day after tomorrow Bill and Ted will be back at school. I can hardly believe it. I can't wait!"
How heavenly it had been five weeks ago when she met them at the station. Their tempestuous and
affectionate welcome! The way they had rushed all over the house and garden. A special cake baked for
tea. And now - what was she looking forward to now? A day of complete peace. No enormous meals
to prepare, no incessant clearing up. She loved the boys - they were fine boys, no doubt of that. She
was proud of them. But they were also exhausting. Their appetite, their vitality, the noise they made.
Agatha Christie - The Clocks
12/12/07
Scientific progress goes "boink"?
Calvin & Hobbes
12/11/07
Cuando tienes ganas de comer carne, no compras toda la vaca.
Solo compras algunas dos o tres libras.
A saying in Ecuador
12/10/07
Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul
With a corncob pipe and a button nose and eyes made out of coal.
Frosty the snowman is a fairytale they say
He was made of snow but the children know that he came to life one
day.
Favorite Version by Bing Crosby - This song made me cry today
12/7/07
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,
that we to judge thee have in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected,
O most afflicted!
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.
Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
the slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered.
For our atonement, while we nothing heeded,
God interceded.
For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,
thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation;
thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,
for my salvation.
Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,
I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,
think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,
not my deserving.
Johann Heermann - Ah, Holy Jesus
12/6/07
I don't think I'd have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if
I'd known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.
Calvin & Hobbes
12/5/07
Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
Maybe six feet
Ain't so far down
Creed - One Last Breath
12/2/07
Funding for Medicaid depends on politicians' sense of decency,
always a fragile foundation for policy.
What to do about health care Krugman 2006
11/29/07
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
John Keats - La Belle Dame Sans Merci
11/28/07
Why are there so many
songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions,
but only illusions
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told
and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong...wait and see.
Some day we'll find it, the rainbow connection
the lovers, the dreamers and me.
Kermit the Frog - The Rainbow Connection
11/26/07
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
Arnold Lobel
11/24/07
Every secret prayer
Every fancy free
Everything I dared for both you and me
All my wildest dreams
Multiplied by two
They were you...They were you...They were you
The Fantasticks - They Were You
11/23/07
The Iowa landscape is a patchwork of corn and soybean
monocultures, with about as much biodiversity as a bachelor's
refrigerator.
A funny and true quote from the Post.
11/17/07
The radio was on when I rode the bus in to work this morning. A
public service announcement came on, about fatherhood. It was an
extremely touching poem about a father.s love for his children,
doing everything for them, his hours of work, his sweat, his
callouses and blisters. About treating them with patience, loving
them, etc. Basically about how his world should revolve around
his children.
It was a poem, with a musical background.
In any event, I almost started crying there on the bus, thinking
about children. I really do want to be a father. But it goes
beyond that. I want to have children that are of my flesh, and
that of the woman I love. To have a part to play in the nature as
well as the nurture. Part of that is due to arrogance/pride. But
part of it is also very human.
11/14/07
The sun the sun
comes round the corner
like a shining knight of old
galloping over the landscape
on the horses of morning
And shaking his lance over us
in trance of night
awakens us to speak or sing
to banish death and darkness
And each steed a word
each verb a stallion
reared up against all ignorance
Untamed rampant radicals
in dictionaries of light
Ferlinghetti (thanks amiga)
11/12/07
They say "time heals everything"
But I'm still waiting
Dixie Chicks
11/8/07
How long have I been in this storm?
So overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form.
Water's getting harder to tread,
With these waves crashing over my head.
If I could just see you,
Everything would be all right.
If I'd see you,
This darkness would turn to light.
And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be all right
I know everything is all right
I know you didn't bring me out here to drown.
So why am I ten feet under and upside down?
Barely surviving has become my purpose
'cause I'm so used to living underneath the surface.
If I could just see you,
Everything would be all right.
If I'd see you,
This darkness would turn to light
And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be all right
And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be all right
I know everything is all right
Lifehouse - Storm
11/6/07
Calvin: I'm never gonna get married. Are you?
Hobbes: Hmm...I suppose if the right person came along, I might.
Hobbes: Somebody with green eyes and a nice laugh, who I could
call "pooty pie."
Calvin: POOTY PIE!!!!
Hobbes: Or "Bisty Pookums."
Calvin: I think that would affect my stomach a lot more than my
heart.
Hobbes: "Bitsy Pookums," I'd say. "Yes, Snoogy Woogy," she'd
reply.
Calvin & Hobbes
11/3/07
Calvin: Hey mom, can we go out for hamburgers tonight?
Mother: Not tonight, dear.
Calvin: Aw, Mom! Why not?
Mother: Because I'm already fixing something for dinner.
Calvin: Yeah...I know.
Calvin & Hobbes (my sisters did this to me just the other week)
11/2/07
Hobbes: Are you making any resolutions for the new year?
Calvin: Yeah, I'm resolving to just wing it and see what happens.
Hobbes: So you're staying the course?
Calvin: I stick to my strengths.
Calvin & Hobbes (With a marked similarity to my own life plan)
10/31/07
"My goodness, someone cut your hair mighty short. Ouch."
My Mother
10/30/07
Is it too early in the day for you to pretend to be a dog?
Me, to a coworker at 8:15 AM
10/27/07
"El cura ya está en el infierno."
Guys in Cuenca discussing the recent death of a priest noted for
his acquisition of money by selling fake university degrees.
10/26/07
You know every guy in here tonight would like to take you home.
I've got way more class than them, Babe, that ain't what I want.
I'd like to see you out in the moonlight.
I'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks.
I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
And I'd like to check you for ticks.
Brad Paisley - Ticks
10/25/07
Stand up for what you believe in
God (He's the one to back you up)
Will stand with you.
Veggietales - Stand
10/23/07
But nurse, I don't want my shot...
"Cabrón, no me jodas."
10/18/07
Start a huge, foolish project...
Like Noah.
Rumi
10/17/07
If you miss the train I'm on
You will know that I am gone.
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles
Lord I'm one, Lord I'm two,
Lord I'm three, Lord I'm four,
Lord I'm five hundred miles away from home.
10/11/07
So how does failure affect us? More specifically, how does it
affect me? Failure probably comes up for us in life less often
that we might think, given our frailties. We avoid situations
where failure seems likely, tailoring our challenges to our
strengths. I do that, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Failure probably comes up most often for us in those areas where
life challenges all(or most) of us. As boyfriends or girlfriends,
spouses, parents, friends. These areas are where we fail most
often. Indeed, some degree of failure (and learning through
experience) is expected when we tackle these challenges. But how
does it affect us when we fail in one of our areas of strength?
How do we react to a severe disappointment in one of our chosen
challenges?
I suppose that I really just want to throw the question out there
because I certainly don't have any well-formed answers. Do we
re-evaluate our strengths? Do we look for the things that
undermined our success? In short, do we use it as a "learning
experience" and move on stronger and better?
Or does it damage our confidence, make brittle our pride and fill
us with doubts as to future challenges? Do we become hesitant to
step forward and meet those challenges, instead retreating into
comfortable and peaceful obscurity?
I don't know.
10/8/07
Just a city boy...
Journey - Don't Stop Believin'
10/2/07
Right now, chatting with my friends consists of a lot of
"commitment" decisions. You know the kind- people getting engaged
and married, having kids, buying houses. But it's also struck me
how much weight we tend to put on smaller decisions that really
could change. If you live in a house with a 30 year mortgage, you
don't have to stay there 30 years. You just up and move. If you're
in a job you don't get satisfaction out of, you find something
else. People will tell you it's not easy, and they're right, but
honestly, when did the good things in life become easy? You always
have to give up something to get something else. There's always a
choice. To think you don't have a choice, or that you're trapped
in your life takes away the ownership that God has given you over
your life. God wants us to have freedom, not be enslaved. So much
of that is a state of mind, too. So why do I face decisions as if
this one tiny decision will turn the course of my entire life? I'm
still myself, and I'll still have a thousand more decisions to
make by the end of the day, and I can, at any time, choose
something totally different. There are consequences for every
action, but in a sense, when we choose the action, we choose the
consequences as well, and therefore we still own our choices. For
better or worse, it's not anyone else's life but my own. So when I
choose to follow God, I take part in our relationship and the
consequences that follow. Sometimes it's hard. In fact most of the
time it's hard. But I have chosen it, so I can own those hardships
as something God is doing in my life to refine me and make me
grow. And there is freedom in that.
Bethany Wallace - Blog post October 2007
9/30/07
When I was younger so much younger than today
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self-assured
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.
The Beatles - Help!
9/28/07
'I mean . . . well, you know what people call men who wear wigs
and gowns, don't you?'
'Yes, miss.'
'You do?'
'Yes, miss. Lawyers, miss.'
'Good. Yes. Good,' said Angua slowly. 'Now try another one . . .'
'Er . . . actors, miss?'
Angua gave up. 'You look good in taffeta, Nobby,' she said.
Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant
9/27/07
The Librarian is, of course, very much in favour of reading in
general, but readers in particular get on his nerves. There is
something sacrilegious about the way people keep taking books off
the shelves and wearing out the words by reading them. He likes
people who love and respect books, and the best way to do that, in
the Librarian's opinion, is to leave them on the shelves where
Nature intended them to be.
Terry Pratchett
9/26/07
May the fruit we bear be Christ.
May the harvest be ripe.
Or the fruit won't fall so far from the tree
Abide in you, Abide in me
And the Father is glorified...
May the fruit we bear be Christ.
Lost and Found - Fruit We Bear
9/25/07
Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
If you ever want to find me I can still be found
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around
Dixie Chicks - Taking the Long Way
9/24/07
It's the...
Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay
Dixie Chicks - Easy Silence
9/20/07
Many feel they are called to the priesthood, but what they really
hear is an inner voice saying, "It's indoor work with no heavy
lifting, do you want to be a ploughman like your father?"
Terry Pratchett - "Small Gods"
9/19/07
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can
see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And
the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where
you started is not the same as never leaving.
Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full of Sky
9/17/07
'It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue.
There are so many shades of grey.'
'Nope.'
'Pardon?'
'There's no greys, only white that's got grubby.'
Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum
9/6/07
Lord, search my heart,
create in me something clean.
Dandelions...
You see flowers in these weeds.
Five Iron Frenzy
9/4/07
(after I was surprised that my parents weren't familiar with Duran Duran)
Dad - "Well, we are from the generation of sex, drugs and rock &
roll. Except that we never did drugs and don't know much about
music..."
8/14/07
As has been pointed out earlier in the Discworld chronicles,
entire agricultural economies have been based on the lifting power
of little old ladies in black dresses.
Terry Pratchett - Lords and Ladies (This quote makes me think of
some of the rural women in the Andes, as they carry 50kg sacks of
cement uphill to the jobsite.)
8/13/07
Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.
Terry Pratchett - Wyrd Sisters
8/3/07
(After my boss, Ing. Moscoso, announced that the "ventilador" on
his computer was working.)
Me - Que hiciste?
Ing. Moscoso - Nada
Me - No pegaste?
Ing. Moscoso - No
Me - No es una cura comun aqui?
Ing. Moscoso - Para las mujeres.
8/1/07
When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy
food and clothes.
Erasmus
7/19/07
(Thinking of England. I'm not sure if I'll ever understand how
that's affected me.)
"The Little Blue Engine"
The little blue engine looked up at the hill.
His light was weak, his whistle was shrill.
He was tired and small, and the hill was tall,
And his face blushed red as he softly said,
"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."
So he started up with a chug and a strain,
And he puffed and pulled with might and main.
And slowly he climbed, a foot at a time,
And his engine coughed as he whispered soft,
"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."
With a squeak and a creak and a toot and a sigh,
With an extra hope and an extra try,
He would not stop . now he neared the top .
And strong and proud he cried out loud,
"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!"
He was almost there, when - CRASH! SMASH! BASH!
He slid down and mashed into engine hash
On the rocks below... which goes to show
If the track is tough and the hill is rough,
THINKING you can just ain't enough!
Shel Silverstein
7/18/07
"Toy has decided to be masterful today."
Robert Jordan
7/10/07
"Yes!" Scout cried between sniffles. "Yes, exactly! .. . How did you know?"
Yoda scrambled up onto the bed and sat beside her, letting his little legs
dangle in space. His ears perked. "Secret, shall I tell you?" He leaned in
close, so she could feel his whiskers rasping against her face. "Grand Master of
Jedi Order am I!" he said loudly right in her ear. "Won this job in a raffle I
did, think you?" He snuffed and waved his stubby fingers in the air. "How did
you know, how did you know, Master Yoda?" he said mincingly, followed by another
snort. "Master Yoda knows these things. His job it is."
7/9/07
Mistakes - I've made a few
And although I try
I'm guilty of all the things I do
You understand me, I'm part of your plan
I see now that you are all that I am
I've heard the talk, of how you changed the world
Because you...
You held your breath - everything changed
Gave up your life for my freedom.
No one deserves the price you paid...
But that is your way.
Echelon - One Breath Held
6/26/07
Calvin - "There's a new girl in our class."
Hobbes - "Well! What's her name?"
Calvin - "Who knows?"
Hobbes - "Is she nice?"
Calvin - "WHO CARES? - NOT ME!"
Hobbes - "Do you LIKE her?"
Calvin - "NO!!!!!"
From Calvin & Hobbes, clearly. I put this up because anytime I so
much as mention a girl other than Donna here in Ecuador everyone
immediately says something like "Do you like her?" or "You're
going to marry her, aren't you?"
6/18/07
Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city
Lovin' Spoonful
5/14/07
Ain't no rock
Gonna sing in my place
As long as I'm alive
I'll glorify His holy name.
5/8/07
Always hoped that I'd be an apostle
Knew that I would make it if I tried
Then when we retire we can write the Gospels
So they'll all talk about us when we die.
Jesus Christ Superstar
5/7/07
If we want hope to survive in this world today
Then everyday we've got to pray on on, pray on
If we want hope to survive in this world today
Then everyday we've got to pray on.
Sweet Honey in the Rock
4/16/07
Do not stand on my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in the circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
Anonymous epitaph
4/14/07
Cuando dos enamoradas estan muy lejos...
Cuatro personas estan felices.
Ing. Juan Villavicencio - Senior Manager at ETAPA
3/29/07
I can see through you
See your true colors.
Staind
3/27/07
Dreams last so long
Jewel
3/21/07
Of my hands I give to you oh Lord.
Of my hands I give to you.
I give to you as you gave to me.
Of my hands I give to you.
Of my life I give to you oh Lord.
Of my life I give to you.
I give to you as you gave to me.
Of my life I give to you.
3/16/07
Boom, here comes the Boom
Ready or not, here come the boys from the South
P.O.D. (Go Terps)
3/15/07
I'd rather go to Carolina and get a great education and still be
cool than get into Duke and lose all your balls and be a dork
Quote from a random YouTube user
3/8/07
Hooray for International Women's Day
2/26/07
"Amor es... una eterna lucha entre la verga y la chucha."
The definition of love, according to Fabian, my boss
1/22/07
"Andres, necesitas usar el teclado en una manera mas suave.
Necesitas tratar el compu como una mujer: con carino y delicadeza."
"Comparing a computer to a woman shows how much you've been
contaminated by your 30 years of marriage to an engineer."
Rosalia Ordonez and I
1/19/07
Has olvidado la propina
No te preocupes... esta noche le da
12/09/06
"Thinking about diarrhea temporarily makes your ass less sexy."
10/26/06
"We could stay up and talk..."
"No, we'll only be staying up if it involves touching."
10/17/06
Quote about the past and stuff from "The World is Flat"
8/29/06
"No, Andrew, go for the middle of the skirt. Aim for the
honeypot!"
My captain's instructions while sailing.
8/14/06
Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Can you take me with you?
For my hand is cold and needs warmth
Where are you going?
Godspell
8/05/06
Speak to the skies
Is anyone listening?
Please, desperately seeking reply
Echelon
7/20/06
Whatever we deny or embrace, for worse or for better
We belong, we belong, we belong together.
Pat Benatar
5/18/06
"Running is Joy, Racing is Glory"
From the Cambridge Hare & Hounds website
5/15/06
"I hope you didn't get hepatitis from the cow crap."
My friend Rita Kalra
5/14/06
"You always used to say I was wanton, when we was younger," said
Nanny.
Granny hesitated, caught momentarily off-balance. Then she waved
a hand irritably.
"You was, of course," she said dismissively. "But you never used
magic for it, did you?"
"Didn't have to," said Nanny happily. "An off-the-shoulder dress
did the trick most of the time."
"Right off the shoulder and onto the grass, as I recall," said
Granny.
Terry Pratchett, in "Witches Abroad"
4/10/06
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor, that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus
4/07/06 through 4/09/06
"Brilliant!"
4/02/06
"There's nothing to be afraid of. Look, he's Mr. Tumnus or Mr.
Tumnus' brother."
Young mother to her small child, referring to me.
4/01/06
"Pierce, you remind me of a dog I once had. He too was cheerful
in the morning... so I gave him to a family of immigrant Japanese and
they ate him."
MASH
1/06/06
If shame had a face I think it would kind of look like mine
If it had a home would it be my eyes?
Would you believe me if I said "I'm tired of this?"
Well here we go now one more time.
Lifehouse, "Sick Cycle Carousel"
1/29/06
Sometimes I look like my dad in the face, and that's not a good
thing.
"Nameless Friend"
1/28/06
Just as I should seek in a desert for clean water, or toil at the
North Pole to make a comfortable fire, so I shall search the land
of void and vision until I find something fresh like water, and
comforting like fire; until I find some place in eternity, where I
am literally at home. And there is only one such place to be
found.
G.K. Chesterton in "Orthodoxy"
1/14/06
Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot.
Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last
have softening of the brain.
G.K. Chesterton in "Orthodoxy"
1/10/06
A Thought: IF Rafe is the Captain and the Captain is Rafe, then
by the same logic the Captain's wife and daugter are Rafe's wife
and daughter. Ergo, Rafe will be guilty of incest and bigamy.
This thought brought to you courtesy of H.M.S. Pinafore.
12/16/05
"Yeah, the girl you dated in your second senior year was pretty
hot."
"You mean pretty self-absorbed, right?"
Donna Pedersen and Erin Ryan
"Nick the f***** Caner-Medley is f*****g ***"
Last line of my girlfriend's dream this morning
12/13/05
"She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people
will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply
to you."
Terry Pratchett, "Equal Rites"
12/12/05
This world has nothing for me
And this world has everything.
All that I could want
And nothing that I need
Caedomon's Call
12/05/06
"I hope you take your pants off at some point."
Me
11/16/05
Come with me, under my coat
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat,
Or wine if it be thy will
And we will talk until
Talk is a trouble, too,
Out on the side of the hill,
And nothing is left to do,
But an eye to look into an eye
And a hand in a hand to slip,
And a sigh to answer a sigh,
And a lip to find out a lip
What if the night be black
And the air on the mountain chill,
Where the goat lise down in her track
And all but the fern is still!
Stay with me under my coat,
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat
Out on the side of the hill
James Stephens, "The Coolun"
11/10/05
I frequently wish that the future was clearer. God continually
disappoints in that way. He's rather niggardly with revelation.
Me
11/08/05
The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach
for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our
minds, and that's what you've given me.
D
11/07/05
I sleep with a bear.
I know what you're thinking now, "That's unnatural."
But I sleep with a bear.
Why a bear?
The bear was a gift from my far-away love
'though most bears are fierce, she's like a dove.
Her teeth aren't a problem, she has no claws
'though she has something held in her paws.
A bright red heart, with something inscribed
A message for those left love-deprived?
I re-read the words, put them close to my heart
'though I know that the phrase is only the start...
Of something that really goes beyond three words, something we fail to express fully, something deeper. The start of a
life together, the basis for everything else, the simple fact behind the drama, complexity, happiness and sometimes
pain. The simple statement:
"I love you."
10/23/05
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
Christina Georgina Rossetti, "A Birthday"
8/28/05
Donna: "My mom gave them to me in case I wanted to do a crafts
project"
I had just asked her why her mom had left her a bunch of arts and
crafts supplies while moving in to college.
8/5/05
In your eyes...
6/13/05
When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work
becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount
a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on
anything but the ride you are taking.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, January 18, 1896, Scientific American Magazine
6/12/05
Corey: "You don't shop like a college student. You shop like a..."
Andrew: "Housewife?"
Corey: "Yes, that's it."
5/09/05
The vigilant Fredegonda was one of the most wary of ancient
spinsters. She had a becoming terror and distrust of what she
denominated "the opposite sex", which had gradually increased
through a long life of celibacy. Not that the good lady had ever
suffered from their wiles, Nature having set up a safeguard in her
face, that forbade all trespass upon her premises, but ladies who
have least cause to fear for themselves are most ready to keep a
watch over their more tempting neighbors.
Washington Irving, "Tales of the Alhambra"
4/20/05
As I was walking over to Maryland Chorus tonight I looked west,
and saw the colors. The colors you love, the reddish tint of the
sky as the sun sinks over the western horizon. Sunsets are always
special for me now, in a way that they weren't before. They're
special because they remind me of you, my lover of sunsets.
I'm a dawn kind of guy. I like to see the colors, so similar to
the ones in your sunsets, as the sun creeps up above the horizon
to signal the start of a new day. A new day, with new life and
new opportunities and new experiences. New times to be shared
with you. I think about the dawn when I see the sunsets. The
colors, so similar. It's sometimes hard to tell the difference
between the two.
Dawns and sunsets, sunsets and dawns. They follow each other in
an interminable sequence. Each day there is new life, new
experiences. Each beautiful sunset leads to a beautiful dawn. From
every ending comes a beginning.
Sunset isn't just the end of the day. It's the promise of the new
day, the promise of the dawn, a foreshadowing of that glorious
moment when the sun announces its presence in the world.
For me, each sunset is a reminder: of past experiences, of the end
of the present, and of the promise of the future.
Each sunset is a reminder of the path of our love, the present
reality of our love, and the future of our love. Full of promise,
full of life, full of experiences to be shared together.
Goodnight, my princess of the sunsets.
~Your prince of the dawn
4/18/05
¡ Inteligencia, dame el nombre exacto de las cosas!
. . . Que mi palabra sea la cosa misma
creada por mi alma nuevamente.
Que por mí vayan todos
los que no las conocen, a las cosas;
que por mí vayan todos
los que ya las olvidan, a las cosas;
que por mí vayan todos
los mismos que las aman, a las cosas . . .
¡ Inteligencia, dame el nombre exacto, y tuyo,
y suyo, y mío, de las cosas.
- Juan Ramón Jiménez
Dedicated, in this space, to my amiga Em
2/2/05
No tengo las palabras para expresar lo que mi corazon esta
cantando.
1/20/05
The Sun
The winter dawn, colored by blues, reds, and yellows.
It peeks through the clouds, seeking the ground.
The warm colors embrace the earth, giving a promise
a promise of the spring, of rebirth.
As it rises the snow begins to glisten
Sometimes harshly; it can be painfully bright
Yet it too has beauty, and promise.
Hidden within the blankets of frigid white are crocuses.
Crocus, the winter flower.
Delicate stems of deep green touched by black
Yielding to brilliant blues and yellows
Like the dawn, they presage the new season.
The winter will end.
Spring comes, with its abundant life.
Freed from its icy mantle,
The Earth dons new robes of youthful green.
"Vivo" cries the Earth.
"She was not dead, only sleeping."
Winter is but a dream, a moment's pause
In the reality that is life.
Me
1/18/05
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
John Donne
1/17/05
"The Sun Rising"
BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
John Donne
1/14/05
"My Love in Her Attire"
My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer.
No beauty she doth miss,
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty's self she is,
When all her robes are gone.
Anonymous
1/11/05
Upon further study and reflection, John Paul II is unfit to lead the Church.
1. His support for Opus Dei, a corrupt religious organization with close ties to the Franco Dictatorship.
2. His automatic excommuncation of all priests leaving the priesthood to marry, even when they still
wanted to use their talents to serve the church.
3. His interference in the Jesuit order. When he found out that someone he didn't favor would be elected
General, he personally installed his own conservative puppet, voiding the majority rule of the Order itself.
4. He canonized Pius IX, who called the Jews "dogs," claimed that they were responsible for the death of
Christ, claimed that they ritually murder Christian Children, and declared himself infallible.
5. He tried to cannonize Pius XII, who set the Church back centuries in its theological outlook and led a
"reign of terror" that nearly destroyed the Church.
6. He has sainted more people than ALL of his predecessors combined.
7. His twisted interpretation of the "prophecies" of Fatima to aggrandize himself was politically opportunistic.
Side note on Fatima. The girl who claimed to have the prophecies didn't write them down or tell anybody
what they were until AFTER the prophesied events had already happened.
8. He cannonized a man who never existed (Juan Diego) giving official acceptance to the Virgen of Guadelupe
despite proof that the entire thing is a forgery.
9. He has created a commission to study giving Mary a new title ... co-reedemer of the human race. What the
hell is this? Queen of Heaven isn't enough? Now she is to be equal to Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died on
the cross for our sins, in terms of redemption? I think not.
10. He cannonized Maximilian Kolbe, who spread anti-semitic propaganda around the world as "truth" supported by
the Church.
1/11/05
The people join in the entire church's witness to the truth by
their acceptance of that which is proposed, showing the
discernment infused by the Spirit.
Garry Wills
1/09/05
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy, when skies are gray.
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.
1/08/05
There's no greater love, than the love of Jesus.
There's no one who can love you more.
Dreams come and dreams go and people move in and out of your life
But the one thing that remains...is the love of Christ.
1/03/05
Sit down I'll tell you a secret
There's nothing that you can do
He died, those things were defeated
Now nothing separates Him from you.
Lost and Found
12/31/04
You are the call and I am the answer.
You are the wish, and I am the fulfillment.
You are the night, and I the day.
What else?
It is perfect enough.
It is perfectly complete.
You and I.
-D.H. Lawrence.
12/30/04
The dawn was beautiful this morning. A slow tide of red creeping
up from the horizon, gradually turning to orange and yellow before the sun
appeared. "Red sky in morning..." may be the proverb, but a landsman can
just appreciate the beauty. I find that the cold, clear air in the winter
makes the sunrises and sunsets more brilliant. And it makes me think of
my lover...of sunsets.
Andrew
11/10/04
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and
feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons
nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by
widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the
whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
11/02/04
"Be very careful if you make a woman cry because G-d counts her
tears. The woman came out of a man's rib. Not from his feet to be
walked on. Not from his head to be superior. But from the side to
be equal. Under the arm to be protected, and next to the heart to
be loved"
The Talmud
9/22/04
AMONG all lovely things my Love had been;
Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew
About her home; but she had never seen
A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.
While riding near her home one stormy night
A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;
I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,
And from my horse I leapt; great joy had I.
Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,
To bear it with me through the stormy night:
And, as before, it shone without dismay;
Albeit putting forth a fainter light.
When to the dwelling of my Love I came,
I went into the orchard quietly;
And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name,
Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.
The whole next day, I hoped, and hoped with fear;
At night the glow-worm shone beneath the tree;
I led my Lucy to the spot, "Look here,"
Oh! joy it was for her, and joy for me!
William Wordsworth - Among all lovely things my love had been
9/13/04
you have one wing, i have another
seeking shelter like sister and brother
through the winter and through the summer
like one angel we'll fly
far away
Burlap to Cashmere
7/9/04
Que mis ojos se despierten con la luz de tu mirada.
Que mi madre no se muera
y que mi padre me recuerde.
Que te quedes a mi lado
y que nunca te me vayas mi vida.
Que mi alma no descanse
cuando de amarte se trate mi cielo.
Por los dias que me quedan
y las noches que aun no llegan.
Por los hijos de mis hijos
y los hijos de tus hijos.
Que me pueblo no derrame tanta sangre
y se levante mi gente.
Que mi alma no descanse
cuando de amarte se trate mi cielo.
Un segundo mas de vida para darte,
y mi corazon entero entregarte.
Un segunda mas de vida para darte,
y a tu lado para siempre yo quedarme.
Un segundo mas de vida yo.
A Dios le pido
Que si me muero sea de amor,
y si me enamoro sea de vos,
y que de tu voz sea este corazon.
Todos los dias, a Dios le pido
Juanes
7/7/04
le pido al cielo solo un deseo
que en tus ojos yo pueda vivir
he recorrido ya el mundo entero
y una cosa te vengo a decir
viaje de Bahrein hasta Beirut
fui desde el Norte hasta el polo sur
y no encontre ojos asi
como los que tienes tu
Shakira
6/25/04
"Consider your own lives," said Mustapha Mond. "Has any of you
ever encountered an insurmountable obstacle?"
The question was answered by a negative silence.
"Has any of you been compelled to live through a long
time-interval between the consciousness of a desire and its fulfilment?"
"Well," began one of the boys, and hesitated.
"Speak up," said the D.H.C. "Don't keep his fordship waiting."
"I once had to wait nearly four weeks before a girl I wanted would
let me have her."
"And you felt a strong emotion in consequence?"
"Horrible!"
"Horrible; precisely," said the Controller. "Our ancestors were
so stupid and short-sighted that when the first reformers came along and
offered to deliver them from those horrible emotions, they wouldn't have
anything to do with them."
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
6/17/04
Riverdance lyrics.
6/12/04
It's official.
5/27/04
I found my cuddle-buddy.
5/26/04
Schaeffer: I'm tired of your foreign languages. I want you to
speak words I can understand.
ENGLISH WORDS
Plain, straightforward, beautiful ENGLISH words.
Fast-food clerk: You're a tiresome, big-mouthed ignorant geezer.
Schaeffer: Not THOSE English words!
KAL
5/15/04
Summer stretching on the grass...
summer dresses pass
In the shade of a willow tree
creeps a crawling over me
Over me and over you
stuck together with God's glue
It's been a long hot summer
Let's get undercover
Don't try too hard to think...
don't think at all
I'm not the only one
staring at the sun
Afraid of what you'd find
if you took a look inside
Not just deaf and dumb
I'm staring at the sun
Not the only one
who's happy to go blind
U2
5/6/04
Never forget that we are all still 'the early Christians'. The
present wicked and wasteful divisions between us are, let us hope, a
disease of infancy: we are still teething. The outer world, no doubt,
thinks just the opposite. It thinks we are dying of old age. But it has
thought that very often before. Again and again it has thought
Christianity was dying, dying by persecutions from without and
corruptions from within, by the rise of Mohammedanism, the rise of the
physical sciences, the rise of great anti-Christian revolutionary
movements. But every time the world has been disappointed. Its first
disappointment was over the crucifixion. The Man came to life again. In
a sense -- and I quite realize how frightfully unfair it must seem to them
-- that has been happening ever since. They keep on killing the thing
that He started: and each time, just as they are patting down the earth on
its grave, they suddenly hear that it is still alive and has even broken
out in some new place. No wonder they hate us.
C S Lewis
4/28/04
That is just what one would expect if Christianity is the total
plan for the human machine. We have all departed from that total plan in
different ways, and each of us wants to make out that his own modification
of the original plan is the plan itself. You will find this again and
again about anything that is really Christian: every one is attracted by
bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest. That is
why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting
for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity.
C S Lewis
4/26/04
Here is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not
frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who
have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is
God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We
do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know
that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.
C S Lewis
1/15/04
Met a girl, thought she was grand
Fell in love, found out firsthand
Went well for a week or two
Then it all came unglued
Puddle of Mud
10/12/03
That's all she wrote.
10/2/03
Weep, weep, weep mine eyes, my heart can take no rest
Weep, weep, weep mine eyes shall ne'er be blest.
Weep eyes, weep heart, and both this accent cry.
A thousand deaths I die, I die, a thousand deaths I die.
Ay me, ah, ah cruel fortune
Now Leander to die I fear not.
Death do thy worst I care not.
I hope when I am dead
In Elizian plain we'll meet and there with joy we'll love again.
12/5/02
Heisenberg is driving down the autobahn. A police officer pulls
him over. The officer says, "Excuse me, sir, do you know how fast
you were going?"
Heisenberg says, "No, but I know where I am."
11/24/02
I used to date a girl named "World." Sis was real glamorous
arrayed up in diamonds and pearls. She was the baddest the phattest she
was established And with her universal status she had me livin'
lavish. She knew about my sinful habits. She used to feed them. She
offered me the fruits of lust (and yep) I used to eat them. She took my
freedom. Warnings came, I wouldn't heed them.
And when I mentioned God she said, "Chill you don't need Him." I
second-guessed this but then she pulled out those dresses tight
fittin' ones made by Mercedes and Lexus. Her neck just exploded
with the fragrance of passion.
I used to date a girl named, "World."
Sis was real glamorous arrayed up in diamonds and pearls.
But now I've got a new best friend
Because the world will leave you dry and watch you die in the end.
CM '02
11/11/02
Love isn't something we're worthy of. It's not something that we
deserve. God loves us in a way that is beyond comprehension. We, who
rebelled against him, who continually are in a state of the deepest sin,
he calls his dearest children. Love between us here on earth is
similar. It's not something that we can earn. When we find someone that
cares for us even when we hurt them, even during our worst moments, even
when they know us better than we know ourselves, this is love. It doesn't
ignore faults, it sees through them to the person within. So no, I am not
worthy of love. But somehow it happens anyway.
Me, in the morning
11/6/02
il m'appellait son eau vive, son cristal...et voila, le cristal
est en miettes
Sartre, Huis-Clos
10/27/02
Flippancy is the best of all. In the first place it is very
economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or
indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if
virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to
have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is
discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a
ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up
around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and
it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of
laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy: it deadens, instead of
sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who
practice it.
Your afectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
10/25/02
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not
pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own
interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it
does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
10/21/02
"And the number one way in which people said their scores on the
next exam could be improved was.......to study more beforehand."
Dr. Hassam in Physics 374
10/20/02
Hear me now, oh thou bleak and unbearable world
Thou art base, and debauched as can be
And a knight with his banner so bravely unfurled
Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee
I am I, Don Quijote the Lord of La Mancha
My destiny calls and I go
And the wild winds of fortune shall carry me onward
oh wither so ever they blow
wither so ever they blow
Onward to glory I go
Hear me heathens and wizards and serpents of sin
All your dastardly doings are past
For a holy endeavor is now to begin
And virtue shall triumph at last
I am I Don Quijote the Lord of La Mancha
My destiny calls and I go
And the wild winds of fortune shall carry me onward
oh wither so ever they blow
Wither so ever they blow
Onward to glory I go
"I am I, Don Quijote" - Man of La Mancha
10/19/02
What a tangled web we weave....
9/20/02
I've heard there was a secret chord
that David played
and it pleased the Lord
but you don't really care for music, do you?
it goes like this:
the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall
the major lift
the baffled king, composing hallelujah
Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
you saw her bathing on the roof
her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to a kitchen chair
she broke your throne, she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah
baby, I've been here before
I know this room
I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
there was a time you let me know
what's really going on below
but now you never show it to me, do you?
I remember when I moved in you,
The holy dark was moving too
and every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Maybe there's a god above
and all I ever learned from love
was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
it's not a cry you can hear at night
it's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
Where is love?
Does it fall from skies above?
Is it underneath, the willow tree,
that I've been dreaming of?
Where is she?
Who I close my eyes to see
Will I ever know, the sweet "hello" that's meant for only me?
Who can say where she may hide?
Must I travel far and wide?
Til I am beside the someone who,
I can mean,
something to.
Where?
Where is love?
Oliver - "Where is Love?"