Relief

We all know the feelings of relief - your head is so high in the clouds you are giddy from lack of oxygen; you're a kid again: all the colors around you are bright as a bouquet of balloons, the sky is as a perfect as a glorious sunset, and you float or dance or skip, instead of merely walking.  That's how I felt yesterday when I finally gave my speech after dreading it for a few long weeks.  It went so much better than I anticipated.  I had decided to talk about Moral Relativism for my speech class, and it was a bit challenging for me, to say the least.  I just pray that people were able to come away from the speech with an idea of the dangers of believing that morals have no grounding or absolute standard!

This week, overall, was just a veritable hurricane of due dates.  Why does everything always have to hit you at once?  I have no idea, but this is what invariably happens.  I had an exam, a research paper, and a speech all due the same week.  The relief that I feel now on Saturday, done with that round, is palpable.  And a little crippling, since all I want to do now is relax...

On another vein, school can sometimes feel rather unrelated to real life - an insular cocoon with its own rules, triumphs, and failures.  Sometimes I worry that I'm not really learning anything useful or applicable for my future.  I mean, do I need to know that the AB blood type has both A and B antigens while the O blood type has both A and B antibodies (Or something like that)?!  Or that the gluteus maximus originates at not only the iliac crest, but the sacrum and coccyx, as well?  Also I know that those facts will definitely flee my mind in just a few weeks!  But I'm so grateful that I know that God will redeem this time, as I try to be diligent!  He has been reminding me that I need to trust in him daily and be obedient in the small things.  Like not only keeping up with my homework, but being a loving daughter and sister - now that is where I need the most help!

(P.S. I'm sorry for my school focused posts - unfortunately, my life is presently swallowed in that abyss.)

Musings

Photo credit: Rebekah

I haven't written in a long while.  Well, that isn't quite accurate; I have written sundry papers and brief paragraphs of stilted prose for various assignments and classes, but I haven't let my true words flow.  They have been dammed up inside me, locked in dark closets, stuffed under my bed with forgotten socks and old birthday cards.  When inspiration kisses me I tend to be too lazy to chase her silken wings.  I force out words to fill up prescribed pages, instead of making time to write for myself, for the words that clog up my arteries and sleep next to my heart.  All that to say I haven't had time to freewrite - which is my absolute favorite way to write: just a pen and a paper and no hesitation or second guessing.

I was thinking about this sorely neglected blog and wondering what to write.  Odd topics flitted across my tired brain.  Nothing truly noble caught my fancy, however.  Well, I have been listening to Switchfoot's new album, Vice Verses.  Jon Foreman's lyrics have really been piercing me of late; his words are so eloquent and resonate within me.  I love the line from the song, Restless, "I am the raindrop falling down always longing for the deeper ground..." The album is full of longing - for more than superficiality, for heaven, and for more than mere survival.

Photo credit: Rebekah

I feel that my life of late has been so day to day that I haven't stepped back and just thought about anything.  I just get so caught up in my routine...  I'm sleep deprived, run ragged around the edges, a frayed and tattered remnant of myself.  Yes, I am melodramatic too!  This semester is beginning to really pick up momentum.  I need to focus on the Lord more.  It gets so easy to forget the most basic things!  Which, strangely enough, are the most important...  This line from "Thrive" (also from Vice Verses) sums up my present life perfectly "Feels like I travel but I never arrive, I want to thrive, not just survive..."

Photo credit: Rebekah

(And, no, I don't usually have time to put much makeup on!  But I can't omit it from my routine no matter how much sleep I didn't get...)

Fluorescent Moonbeams

Transparent

My sins haunt me
In carless parking lots and empty bathrooms

When the harsh glow of streetlights,

Or florescent moonbeams from mold-laden fixtures,
Reveal my stains.
My skin becomes 
Limpid.
It no longer shields my dark-crusted soul,
But no one is there to see
My beating heart and the blackened abscess that grows over
Its pulsing strength.

This rather macabre poem I wrote last year was the inspiration for the title of my little room in the world-wide web.  I think moonbeams are one of the most beautiful things.  Their fluorescence in this poem, instead of their usual placid gleam, gives them a harsh illuminating quality which metaphorically pierces through to my bare soul.  This blog too, I hope, will be a similar tool of illumination and incisive clarity.  

First Words

Perhaps this is an inauspicious way to start a blog.  I really have a myriad of more important things to do; they are clamoring and demanding for my attention as I sit here and begin to write.

"The only joy in the world is to begin." Cesare Pavese said.  I don't necessarily agree with him.  There are many joys that come after harsh beginnings and difficult starts to sweat stained endeavors.  I think the most joyous moment of any project is its end.  Gazing on a white sheet of paper filled with perfect grammar and inspired words that twinkle for a brief second with completion, is heavenly rapture to me.  However, there is a certain pleasure in the first words on a page, the first notes of a song, the first strokes of a swim.  That first moment is laden with excitement, anticipation, and daring unleashed...

Perhaps this blog won't be full of epiphanies, proclamations, or anything very mighty, but I hope that it will be a growing experience as I contemplate the joy and pain of everyday life and the love of God that sustains me.  Anyway, back to the grind of college homework...