Muddy Water

"But the muddiest water clears as it is stilled...
...and out of that stillness life arises."

I'm standing back on my feet again and although the ground is still soft, these have been my stepping stones:

90s hit song auditions
ordering seafood
painting pictures of dandelions
wearing straight leg jeans
breaking my high score playing Brick
figuring out the public transportation system all by myself
downloading new music
not picking off the mushrooms
finding my favorite ring I lost a month ago
interviewing for a job in freaking Dallas

Please don't stop me...I'm on a roll

Pray with Me

The human nature is a very funny thing. I like thinking back on the times when we were in our purest form...toddlers. Our personalities were raw, our desires and wants were well known, and if there was the slightest imbalance in our universe...we threw tantrums, screamed until our throats were raw, and cried the kind of tears that don't actually get your face wet. If something was wrong our mothers could hear from any distance and come running to find us. Something so mystical we share with the animal kingdom.

Growing out of our toddler tantrum phase there is still a human nature inside us that wrestles with crying out. For example, our 8 year old selves didn't want to go to bed at a certain time, or just really really wanted that toy in the store, and even the 'snacking before dinner' rule was the dumbest thing ever to exist. Moving into teenage years, there was a fight for following the crowd and becoming our own, which still left most of us crying in the bathroom feeling insecure and unhappy with who we were blooming out to be.

What I'm getting at is not the developmental stages we take, but the internal wrestling we spend our whole lives fighting. It presents itself in a socially unacceptable outward manifestation. And somehow entering adulthood, we're told that our internal discontent is to be kept hidden. Burried deep. We would look childish if we displayed our discontent outwardly. Or that this is never the "right place" or the "right time."

Jesus himself had this very same internal sense of discontent. He sweat drops of blood for crying out loud. Desperately praying, pleading with every ounce of mind, body, and spirit to just have the discontent taken away for God's sake.

If I could sweat drops of blood, I would. If I could still scream and cry out and my mom would come running, I would. If I could throw a tantrum and scream until my throat was raw, I would.

Jesus asked his friends to stay up all night and pray with him so he wouldn't have to do it alone. I guess that's what I'm asking for too...and I guess that is what will get me through this.

That...and throwing water balloons off a bridge

Folly

I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.

And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."

"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."

She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than he liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing.


-Kurt Vonnegut from The Cat's Cradle

I'll be in Debt when the World Ends

"What would you do if you knew the world was going to end in only a couple of days?" he asked.

"Well, I'd probably go see some stuff I haven't seen before or just eat all my favorite food until I felt sick"

"What??? Why?? WHY WOULDN'T YOU JUST RACK UP ALL THE DEBT YOU COULD??"

"What? Spend all my money?"

"Yeah. Take it all out of the bank, borrow all you can, and just have a hay day?"

"I guess I could do that. I never really thought about it"

"Well that's all I think about. Think about just not worrying about any of it. You'd never have to pay it back!!"

"Ok... Yeah...that sounds like fun. I think I'll do that."

It's my last semester of college. The end of my world as I know it. So I think I'll probably just rack up as much debt as possible and spend it all until we die.
(metaphorically speaking of course)

meg

Random thoughts...no format

Dads aren't supposed to leave their families on family vacation...

and you're not supposed to sit in the same room across from your best friend for 2 1/2 years and not make eye contact.

I just heard song lyrics that say "everything I have loved has turned to stone"...

...it spoke of my heart and I cried