when words, spoken in a language other than your own, grow in the midst of my ability to understand them, the exhaustion of understanding replaces the complacency in not and the weariness in being so nihilistic.
the unarguable fact, sorry nihilists of the world, is that it does matter, and the intricate web of human experience and symbols into which we are placed is a marketplace of activity. and we are all sellers of matooke, groundnuts, sugar cane strapped to bicycles, sweet potatoes in a wheelbarrow and roast maize by the roadside. the language we share in transactions revolves around relationship, you to me, you and me to land, and all of it to God, who is riding a bus through the market, face pressed against the glass. then, stepping down and walking among the piles of tomatoes and eggplants are means of participation in the vastness of our arranged human experience.
instead of watching the sky and hoping that it will end, why don't we gather around the dinner table, after having prepared ugali and matooke, smothering all of it in groundnut sauce? why mercilessly count down the days until a nation-state makes a pact with another nation-state and ushers in the apocalypse when there is food to be given to those without and tables to be shared beyond our understandings? after all, we are all probably wrong. wrong about the way it will end and wrong about when it will happen.
so, let's go beyond our wrongness and dwell with God in the marketplace of human experience, trading, speaking and savoring the goodness of food grown on hillsides of the villages away from town. and instead of misconstruing metaphors into elaborate systems to explain the way in which the world will end, let's understand that in its ending, it matters what we do until then and it can be a life of pineapples whose sweetness runs from the corners of your mouth and down the chin.
the temporality of earth is a means to its beauty, but it does not justify its dismissal
16.9.07
On containing the Unknown
What I want to do is sit on the roadside, watching overcrowded matatus taking people from one place to another, making sense of those in the market they pass. I want to sit in another rainy afternoon, as Kampala washes away, collects in the valleys between her hills and her watery life gathers as a river. And, I want to ride that river from one end to another, making a raft with my friends from tin rooves and mattresses, jerrycans and soda bottles. And, all of us, taking the river from the valleys to the lake.
There, we could go on to Jinja, take the lake into the river and make our way down the Nile. We will navigate all that way, traversing the rapids, diving the falls. We'll make one a look out atop a crow's nest! And, there in all our fashioning we'll have one who calls out for falls while we portage around, cutting bushpaths through malarial forests.
A crew of equals making our way down the Nile, eventually to Egypt, were we will deposit ourselves along with silt from Murchison Falls into the Mediterranean Sea. Taking a warm bath on the Egyptian shore. Then, splashing in the sea! This is what we have from a day's worth of rain: a river to a lake to the River to the Sea.
And, in being lost, we make sense of what we don't know. In being lost, we know the Unknown and the sky that belongs as it empties itself into the valleys.
There, we could go on to Jinja, take the lake into the river and make our way down the Nile. We will navigate all that way, traversing the rapids, diving the falls. We'll make one a look out atop a crow's nest! And, there in all our fashioning we'll have one who calls out for falls while we portage around, cutting bushpaths through malarial forests.
A crew of equals making our way down the Nile, eventually to Egypt, were we will deposit ourselves along with silt from Murchison Falls into the Mediterranean Sea. Taking a warm bath on the Egyptian shore. Then, splashing in the sea! This is what we have from a day's worth of rain: a river to a lake to the River to the Sea.
And, in being lost, we make sense of what we don't know. In being lost, we know the Unknown and the sky that belongs as it empties itself into the valleys.
3.8.07
on what i have to say after two months of not saying much
Now that I have been away for nine weeks, which is a not that long time; I mean, six months of displacement is not that long. I had this conversation with my co-worker that I have so little time. I think that I still have that very American impulse to contain within myself all the knowledge of a moment--that I will understand everything, language and culture and all differences all at the same time because I have to know! know! know!
But, the unknown–I think that is where the Word becomes flesh. I think that the Incarnation becomes a part of the act of not-knowing. In all its intercessary distance, the Incarnation passes through the unknown. And, that leap of faith at the bottom of everything, at the end of all knowledge, that jump from known–empirically known and tangibly experienced–to unknown has already been performed.
On Thursday, I attended a teaching session by Bishop Zac Niringye, the passage over which he taught was Romans 5. And, what struck me aside from his hypnotic teaching method and the way I was drawn into it, was that he called the act of salvation an act outside the self. That to be saved is to be in the midst of being saved, that the act of salvation is ongoing, but it has already been done! Christ died once for all–something we, Americans, have buried under a mountain of cliché comprised of song and t-shirt and institutionalized religion–and the act of salvation is about what has been done for you not what you have done.
In that, I recall the prayer of salvation I prayed as a child in the aftermath of a particularly frightening Sunday School lesson about the afterlife; I remember timidly repeating the words of the ABC prayer: Admitting that I was a sinner, Believing that Jesus was who He said He was and that He died for me, and Committing my life to Him in return. And, I think about the oddity of a seven year old committing his life to Christ. When, for a seven-year-old, the passage of a month comprises a considerable amount of his life, I wonder what a lifetime looks like to my former self. I wonder if I imagined myself as an old man, gray-haired and all, making morning prayers when I made a commitment at seven-years-old.
Of course not; it is a foregone conclusion. But, that doesn't discredit that it was the beginning. It was the beginning of the practice of standing in grace, and I with all my wobbling seven-year-old knees began crawling until I could come to a day when as a twenty-two year old, I begin standing. Yes, I live a life of beginnings. And, I require all the intercessary distance of Word become flesh to make a stand into a leap–one that has been taken.
And, these are all the conclusions of one displaced and there, wrapped in the cloth of uncertainty. They mingle with the unknown, and it is the task of all my poetry, prose and daily routine to stand and to leap over great distance.
But, the unknown–I think that is where the Word becomes flesh. I think that the Incarnation becomes a part of the act of not-knowing. In all its intercessary distance, the Incarnation passes through the unknown. And, that leap of faith at the bottom of everything, at the end of all knowledge, that jump from known–empirically known and tangibly experienced–to unknown has already been performed.
On Thursday, I attended a teaching session by Bishop Zac Niringye, the passage over which he taught was Romans 5. And, what struck me aside from his hypnotic teaching method and the way I was drawn into it, was that he called the act of salvation an act outside the self. That to be saved is to be in the midst of being saved, that the act of salvation is ongoing, but it has already been done! Christ died once for all–something we, Americans, have buried under a mountain of cliché comprised of song and t-shirt and institutionalized religion–and the act of salvation is about what has been done for you not what you have done.
In that, I recall the prayer of salvation I prayed as a child in the aftermath of a particularly frightening Sunday School lesson about the afterlife; I remember timidly repeating the words of the ABC prayer: Admitting that I was a sinner, Believing that Jesus was who He said He was and that He died for me, and Committing my life to Him in return. And, I think about the oddity of a seven year old committing his life to Christ. When, for a seven-year-old, the passage of a month comprises a considerable amount of his life, I wonder what a lifetime looks like to my former self. I wonder if I imagined myself as an old man, gray-haired and all, making morning prayers when I made a commitment at seven-years-old.
Of course not; it is a foregone conclusion. But, that doesn't discredit that it was the beginning. It was the beginning of the practice of standing in grace, and I with all my wobbling seven-year-old knees began crawling until I could come to a day when as a twenty-two year old, I begin standing. Yes, I live a life of beginnings. And, I require all the intercessary distance of Word become flesh to make a stand into a leap–one that has been taken.
And, these are all the conclusions of one displaced and there, wrapped in the cloth of uncertainty. They mingle with the unknown, and it is the task of all my poetry, prose and daily routine to stand and to leap over great distance.
29.5.07
on things to do in the zurich airport for an hour
This will not be an extensive catalogue; actually, this won't be a catalogue at all. If it were a catalogue it would be littered with variations on "Buy yummy swiss chocolates," but this is not a catalogue.
This is a transition. I am on my way. I've been travelling for twenty-four hours already, and I have fifteen more ahead of me. This is my way of saying, "Bring it on."
More than I am saying "bring it on," I am saying I need sleep. It always seems the first thing to go when travelling; be it the functional minimum I procured before leaving Tulsa or the few winks from Oklahoma City to Chicago or the two hours I pieced together from Boston to Zurich. I am a weary man, but I'm almost there.
The reading list for the day so far: Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow and Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. True, Didion's thoughts on mortality and bereavement are weighty–perhaps too weighty for morning flights from Oklahoma to Chicago then on to Boston. Despite their context, her words struck me in an enabling way. Her ability to weave together psychologies of grief, medicinal terminologies, personal reflections and vulnerability–eye-popping sincerity–makes me feel like I too can write.
Needless to say, I recommend it.
This is a transition. I am on my way. I've been travelling for twenty-four hours already, and I have fifteen more ahead of me. This is my way of saying, "Bring it on."
More than I am saying "bring it on," I am saying I need sleep. It always seems the first thing to go when travelling; be it the functional minimum I procured before leaving Tulsa or the few winks from Oklahoma City to Chicago or the two hours I pieced together from Boston to Zurich. I am a weary man, but I'm almost there.
The reading list for the day so far: Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow and Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. True, Didion's thoughts on mortality and bereavement are weighty–perhaps too weighty for morning flights from Oklahoma to Chicago then on to Boston. Despite their context, her words struck me in an enabling way. Her ability to weave together psychologies of grief, medicinal terminologies, personal reflections and vulnerability–eye-popping sincerity–makes me feel like I too can write.
Needless to say, I recommend it.
13.5.07
on leaving one state for another and being closer, closer to it
Okay, okay. I'm guessing the differences in quality aren't socially constructed–that Diet Pepsi cola has more cola taste in realistic difference than Diet Coca Cola. That is a safe guess, and it mirrors what I have been told by the television.
When you get your teeth surgically removed–the doctor, being overly curt, introduces himself while administering an anesthetic as "Dr. Sleepy-time" and then you disappear into a dreamless world of Novocaine and anesthesia (but there are clouds, big ones like pillows, and you bound from pillow to pillow and turn the clouds into horses and turtles so little kids will look up at your handiwork and go, "A turtle!")–when they knock you out and pull what was yours out of your own mouth, you tend to watch a lot of television. A lot of ESPN, in my case, a lot of Law and Order, some subtitled Kurosawa films (the subtitles are a mistake, you can't read in this state, at least you can't sustain it).
I've been watching for long enough, and I doubt that Diet Pepsi is different from Diet Coke, take your national taste test and find someone more interested.
So, I am leaving. Going to the East Coast, to find the Atlantic–you see it needs me. It can't lap against the rocks jutting out from the sharp corner of Route 1-A, just north of Rye Beach, without me listening. It can't reflect the moon on a cloudless night without me, and it certainly can't separate me from Africa if I'm in Ohio.
So I will go and find the Atlantic. I'll leave a post-it note on the door and ride until the whole thing spreads out in front of me, blue in its own reflection of the sky.
When you get your teeth surgically removed–the doctor, being overly curt, introduces himself while administering an anesthetic as "Dr. Sleepy-time" and then you disappear into a dreamless world of Novocaine and anesthesia (but there are clouds, big ones like pillows, and you bound from pillow to pillow and turn the clouds into horses and turtles so little kids will look up at your handiwork and go, "A turtle!")–when they knock you out and pull what was yours out of your own mouth, you tend to watch a lot of television. A lot of ESPN, in my case, a lot of Law and Order, some subtitled Kurosawa films (the subtitles are a mistake, you can't read in this state, at least you can't sustain it).
I've been watching for long enough, and I doubt that Diet Pepsi is different from Diet Coke, take your national taste test and find someone more interested.
So, I am leaving. Going to the East Coast, to find the Atlantic–you see it needs me. It can't lap against the rocks jutting out from the sharp corner of Route 1-A, just north of Rye Beach, without me listening. It can't reflect the moon on a cloudless night without me, and it certainly can't separate me from Africa if I'm in Ohio.
So I will go and find the Atlantic. I'll leave a post-it note on the door and ride until the whole thing spreads out in front of me, blue in its own reflection of the sky.
8.5.07
on the mixture of novocaine, an anesthetic drip and oxycodone
If what I'm looking for is to stop feeling, I've found a dental procedure to handle it. Getting my wisdom teeth out is like signing up for catharsis. I've been seated on the couch watching Kurosawa movies–well, kind of watching them. I've been sinking in and out of sleep during Kurosawa movies, and the whole subtitles thing doesn't translate well through oxycodone and whatever-the-hell-else is in my bloodstream.
Honestly, though, the removal of wisdom teeth is such a strange ritual anyway. It is like a rite-of-passage, nearly every college student or young adult has a story to tell when the incident of wisdom teeth is mentioned. Whether someone chimes in with a "I had dry-socket" or a "I cursed out my nurses," we all seem to have a story, and creating an amalgamation out of all those stories when anticipating your own extraction–well–that's just absurdly fun.
So, I found some stimulus to write in becoming completely numb; there's some social commentary in there, but it's not worth fleshing out.
Honestly, though, the removal of wisdom teeth is such a strange ritual anyway. It is like a rite-of-passage, nearly every college student or young adult has a story to tell when the incident of wisdom teeth is mentioned. Whether someone chimes in with a "I had dry-socket" or a "I cursed out my nurses," we all seem to have a story, and creating an amalgamation out of all those stories when anticipating your own extraction–well–that's just absurdly fun.
So, I found some stimulus to write in becoming completely numb; there's some social commentary in there, but it's not worth fleshing out.
26.4.07
on wanting you, friend, to particpate
okay, okay. I'm going to do this: a semi-functional post. Because struggling with the Incarnation, Word become flesh, can sustain a blog for only so long, I'll actually do something of utility. How do you like me now?
As I'm sure you've gathered, I'm going on an internship with the HNGR program at Wheaton College. I will be working for six months at FOCUS in Kampala, and I would like to update you on the situation. I will occasionally post on this "thingamajigger," but they will not be functional/helpful/all-that-advantageous-to-be-read (see, I can still undermine myself in a semi-functional posting, hooray for the inadequacy of language!).
All that to actually say, if you would like to receive e-mail updates from me while in Kampala, please make comment that you would like that. Feel free to attach any other encouragements or salutations, because I have no idea what my readership is here. And, I like it when folks respond to my words, it helps them (the words) enter into the communal space–try that one on for Anabaptist size (hooray for obscure theologies!).
And it makes this whole weblog a little less artificial. But it is so, so artificial, isn't it?
So, let's war against the artificiality–let's be vulnerable (in e-mails, where I know who's reading, who they are, what they sound like, what they tend to wear, their demeanors, the impressions of their characters). That doesn't work as war against the weblog, but don't overdo it.
As I'm sure you've gathered, I'm going on an internship with the HNGR program at Wheaton College. I will be working for six months at FOCUS in Kampala, and I would like to update you on the situation. I will occasionally post on this "thingamajigger," but they will not be functional/helpful/all-that-advantageous-to-be-read (see, I can still undermine myself in a semi-functional posting, hooray for the inadequacy of language!).
All that to actually say, if you would like to receive e-mail updates from me while in Kampala, please make comment that you would like that. Feel free to attach any other encouragements or salutations, because I have no idea what my readership is here. And, I like it when folks respond to my words, it helps them (the words) enter into the communal space–try that one on for Anabaptist size (hooray for obscure theologies!).
And it makes this whole weblog a little less artificial. But it is so, so artificial, isn't it?
So, let's war against the artificiality–let's be vulnerable (in e-mails, where I know who's reading, who they are, what they sound like, what they tend to wear, their demeanors, the impressions of their characters). That doesn't work as war against the weblog, but don't overdo it.
"some people wake up on Monday mornings
barring maelstroms and red flare warnings
with no explosions and no surprises
perform a series of exercises"
"Simple X" - Andrew Bird
barring maelstroms and red flare warnings
with no explosions and no surprises
perform a series of exercises"
"Simple X" - Andrew Bird
22.4.07
on april's effort to match the joy of my anticipation
Today is a beautiful day. The mercury is rising and the clouds have all but departed; the ones left are the pillowy kind–the cotton candy kind. And, it all seems suited to the voices of my favorite singers and songwriters, because that is what a good day does in reinforcing.
And, as I come to a place nearer the place I will soon be in Uganda, I heave big, big sighs because I am going from one place and state of mind to another very different place. I want to learn all about it, and I want to leave this place in good spirits and in good standing with the people I cherish.
So, here I go in going out!
And, as I come to a place nearer the place I will soon be in Uganda, I heave big, big sighs because I am going from one place and state of mind to another very different place. I want to learn all about it, and I want to leave this place in good spirits and in good standing with the people I cherish.
So, here I go in going out!
2.4.07
on the changing weather and my disposition
I don't take much pride in the fact that the weather, especially days like today, the unexpected snow during the first week of April, directly influence my state of mind. What a shitty day. The clouds have conspired against the sun and the ground is freezing cold. It is as though April never showed at all ... save Monday when it was 60 degrees and quite nice.
I have never longed for Monday before. Not once, and this entry will be the first time I long for a day such as Monday. Mondays are reminders that we repeat instead of progress. I spend so much energy longing that I can't adequately make myself present. I sense that acute longing when I look at this campus or when I walk in between the aisles of a supermarket or when I wait in line behind someone at an ATM or when I hear someone's music from two cars over at a stoplight. We are all groping against it, and we can't quite articulate what to call it.
And, when we can't name it, we can't claim it. To name is to call into existence, because language–it will save us. The Word become flesh, and a bevy of phrases come to mind: the Incarnation! The Incarnation? To call it a name, to believe, to long, to look with expectation, these are things we call the human impulse. Language doesn't suffice. So, why would we pull the Word into the world of language and make language to suit the Word?
When I can't find the language, the words, the phrases to match my disappointment in a world that requires war–where men kill men and women, I doubt it–all of it–so profoundly that I let it disappear into concretions and only concretions: a woman riding a bike, a table holding a plate full of spaghetti, a book made from the widdling away of trees, a fingernail clipping that can be divided into molecules and particles then quarks until we are all comprised of energy, a space in which we exchange symbols–crude representations of what we mean.
But, the Word! What does He do? What does the Incarnation mean to peace? to meaning? to equillibrium? All things moving toward some good? Those who love him?
There: community. All things moving toward community; being known and being loved, it must be where we are going.
I have never longed for Monday before. Not once, and this entry will be the first time I long for a day such as Monday. Mondays are reminders that we repeat instead of progress. I spend so much energy longing that I can't adequately make myself present. I sense that acute longing when I look at this campus or when I walk in between the aisles of a supermarket or when I wait in line behind someone at an ATM or when I hear someone's music from two cars over at a stoplight. We are all groping against it, and we can't quite articulate what to call it.
And, when we can't name it, we can't claim it. To name is to call into existence, because language–it will save us. The Word become flesh, and a bevy of phrases come to mind: the Incarnation! The Incarnation? To call it a name, to believe, to long, to look with expectation, these are things we call the human impulse. Language doesn't suffice. So, why would we pull the Word into the world of language and make language to suit the Word?
When I can't find the language, the words, the phrases to match my disappointment in a world that requires war–where men kill men and women, I doubt it–all of it–so profoundly that I let it disappear into concretions and only concretions: a woman riding a bike, a table holding a plate full of spaghetti, a book made from the widdling away of trees, a fingernail clipping that can be divided into molecules and particles then quarks until we are all comprised of energy, a space in which we exchange symbols–crude representations of what we mean.
But, the Word! What does He do? What does the Incarnation mean to peace? to meaning? to equillibrium? All things moving toward some good? Those who love him?
There: community. All things moving toward community; being known and being loved, it must be where we are going.
25.3.07
On having been there without being here
I find it increasingly difficult to stay present on campus. Though I had a fabulous time at the Latin Dance (yes, I salsa'ed, and no you cannot handle my hip-shaking) and though I am generally enjoying myself, I constantly find myself imagining the time to come in Uganda.
I've confirmed my internship with an organization called FOCUS in Kampala. And, I'm beginning my e-mail correspondence accordingly. And, I feel ready to go. I'm getting shots; I'm booking flights; I'm cleaning out my drawers; I'm daydreaming about city streets packed from side to side with mini-buses and clay soil. I daydream about clay, because every picture I see online or in travel books the roads, the rows of dirt in between maize or coffee, the underbelly of the foothills, all of them are red-brown. And, I imagine myself caking my fingertips with it after the rain and playing soccer atop it (even though I am a terrible footballer).
How in the context of such fits of imagination could I possibly remain in one mental place–much less a college campus? It seems an unfair stretch to dangle the immensity of a six month internship abroad in front of yourself and expect to be fully engaged with your surroundings. Well, apparently I've been unfair to myself, and I'll just continue to be.
And, even now as I clean my apartment, I am more drawn by the prospect of listening to the new Explosions in the Sky album and closing my eyes to imagine what it will be like, in as much sensuous capacity as I can create with my collective experience.
But, there are things! things to do! spaces to clean! events to plan! and attend! So, here I go.
I've confirmed my internship with an organization called FOCUS in Kampala. And, I'm beginning my e-mail correspondence accordingly. And, I feel ready to go. I'm getting shots; I'm booking flights; I'm cleaning out my drawers; I'm daydreaming about city streets packed from side to side with mini-buses and clay soil. I daydream about clay, because every picture I see online or in travel books the roads, the rows of dirt in between maize or coffee, the underbelly of the foothills, all of them are red-brown. And, I imagine myself caking my fingertips with it after the rain and playing soccer atop it (even though I am a terrible footballer).
How in the context of such fits of imagination could I possibly remain in one mental place–much less a college campus? It seems an unfair stretch to dangle the immensity of a six month internship abroad in front of yourself and expect to be fully engaged with your surroundings. Well, apparently I've been unfair to myself, and I'll just continue to be.
And, even now as I clean my apartment, I am more drawn by the prospect of listening to the new Explosions in the Sky album and closing my eyes to imagine what it will be like, in as much sensuous capacity as I can create with my collective experience.
But, there are things! things to do! spaces to clean! events to plan! and attend! So, here I go.
"the street heats the urgency of sound"
17.2.07
On the state of being
It is hard to post without some sort of instant of stimulus. I must not be the blogger that gets cut off in traffic and angrily marches to his computer and says, "So, this guy on 294 just whips his sedan into my lane ..."
No, no, I'm not nearly that confessional. (If I am confessional, like Plath, I'll do it in a parenthetical and it will make the whole thing seem trivial. I could say things like: I have no idea what it means to love, I am insincere, I am cripplingly averse to commitment and I don't like that, I try to make myself like music that isn't that good if it's obscure. But, because I've placed it here--in this parenthetical--it is negligible. A remarkable way to distance myself from you, right?) If I were to confess, it'd be something useless like I put an empty ice tray in the freezer. Do you see now why I keep things away from the blogosphere?
So, this guy on 294 just whips his sedan into my lane, and I ... am ... pissed.
No, no, I'm not nearly that confessional. (If I am confessional, like Plath, I'll do it in a parenthetical and it will make the whole thing seem trivial. I could say things like: I have no idea what it means to love, I am insincere, I am cripplingly averse to commitment and I don't like that, I try to make myself like music that isn't that good if it's obscure. But, because I've placed it here--in this parenthetical--it is negligible. A remarkable way to distance myself from you, right?) If I were to confess, it'd be something useless like I put an empty ice tray in the freezer. Do you see now why I keep things away from the blogosphere?
So, this guy on 294 just whips his sedan into my lane, and I ... am ... pissed.
2.2.07
on a growing impulse to go
I heard a voice over the din of the cafeteria and the rumble of the chapel, over the iPod headphones in my ear–over it all–I heard a voice saying, "Go! Go! Go!"
And, I spend the considerable portion of my energy resisting the desire to withdraw. It is not hesitance toward going. No, it is the responsibility–the grown-up impulse–to remain here. To be here is to be present with the twenty-four hundred other people and believe in the worship songs before prayer in chapel.
–I am not gone yet, I repeat to myself to the tune of a contemporary chorus. –Give it three more months, then go, go, go!
And, I spend the considerable portion of my energy resisting the desire to withdraw. It is not hesitance toward going. No, it is the responsibility–the grown-up impulse–to remain here. To be here is to be present with the twenty-four hundred other people and believe in the worship songs before prayer in chapel.
–I am not gone yet, I repeat to myself to the tune of a contemporary chorus. –Give it three more months, then go, go, go!
23.1.07
on witnessing a team that remains from my childhood comeback from 18 points to defeat my fears
Let's imagine I'm a leather ball, laced together but on all accounts bursting apart. I was thrown from endzone to endzone on Sunday, and I won. I won. I finally won.
And, I repeat to myself, "one more game," because hopes are wound up in a leather ball. I admit, I believe I could conquer the lot of my problems if and only if the Colts could win a Super Bowl. What a silly thought to have, to wrap one's hopes into a game--were it so easy. That one team could score more points than another and my disposition could be improved. Wouldn't that be a feat? Sport transcending sport and becoming a raison d'être.
No. --So foolish, I say.
--Matters of one's disposition are best rooted in the things one can control, the appropriate response would be.
--Right, right, I agree. --Best to restrain my own well-being. Reign it in and grow it so that I can harvest it on command. Best not to let it compete with something else. Best to hide it away from the vicious world of shoulder pads and cleats.
--I see where you're taking this, the appropriate responder anticipates.
--Best to hide my spirits away, I ignore the caveat and continue. --Best to bury it instead of running it up the middle on third down and two on the four-yard line, on the off-chance that the offensive line will read the defensive scheme exactly, perfectly even, and the hole will expand and I will enter the endzone unscathed, untouched, blameless.
Best to control things myself.
And, I repeat to myself, "one more game," because hopes are wound up in a leather ball. I admit, I believe I could conquer the lot of my problems if and only if the Colts could win a Super Bowl. What a silly thought to have, to wrap one's hopes into a game--were it so easy. That one team could score more points than another and my disposition could be improved. Wouldn't that be a feat? Sport transcending sport and becoming a raison d'être.
No. --So foolish, I say.
--Matters of one's disposition are best rooted in the things one can control, the appropriate response would be.
--Right, right, I agree. --Best to restrain my own well-being. Reign it in and grow it so that I can harvest it on command. Best not to let it compete with something else. Best to hide it away from the vicious world of shoulder pads and cleats.
--I see where you're taking this, the appropriate responder anticipates.
--Best to hide my spirits away, I ignore the caveat and continue. --Best to bury it instead of running it up the middle on third down and two on the four-yard line, on the off-chance that the offensive line will read the defensive scheme exactly, perfectly even, and the hole will expand and I will enter the endzone unscathed, untouched, blameless.
Best to control things myself.
16.1.07
on beginning a new semester
There is a freshness in the beginning of a new thing. It raises up in me--this newness--and fills my lungs like the sharp sting of the quick inhalation in midwinter. It is a good burn, I attest, because it means the body is being worked into submission.
It is breaking into a thousand pieces--the body that is--but my resurrector, He glues me together like a mosaic. Perhaps faith is a portrait splintered and re-constructed, and we spend the good majority of our effort as a community on the agreement of what our faith should look like: nice and packaged and well-rehearsed and presentable. Once, we were not this way; we had dirt beneath our fingernails and the blind in our arms.
Let's return to it.
I may be going to Uganda for my HNGR internship; that would be a beautiful thing and it will challenge me. Oh, it will challenge me.
It is breaking into a thousand pieces--the body that is--but my resurrector, He glues me together like a mosaic. Perhaps faith is a portrait splintered and re-constructed, and we spend the good majority of our effort as a community on the agreement of what our faith should look like: nice and packaged and well-rehearsed and presentable. Once, we were not this way; we had dirt beneath our fingernails and the blind in our arms.
Let's return to it.
I may be going to Uganda for my HNGR internship; that would be a beautiful thing and it will challenge me. Oh, it will challenge me.
4.1.07
on having a girl in the war
So, so, so, I've been reading Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and it is exactly that. A remarkable blend of fiction and non that is encouraging in its ability to inspire a writer to write. So, so, so, I've set out to write a simple post, that may or may not be read by the people I like. [Chances are, if you're reading this, I like you.]
But, I've nothing remarkable to say, so I won't say a thing:
But, I've nothing remarkable to say, so I won't say a thing:
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