I've been failing a lot in the world recently.

(hallelujah, for this is meaning less and less)

my Rabbi

"what new mystery is this? in overflowing emptiness
the Invisible is seen among the shadows and the mist
before my doubting eyes the Infinite appears in time--
the Unquestionable is questioned but makes no reply!

what new mystery is this?!"

The rain is narrating the day with a ferociousness.

Drifters and Foxes

One time Alex Talks wrote that her confidence would fit comfortably in a teaspoon. This particular image is what appears in my mind often when I consider how to best measure a thing. Sometimes I wonder if my confidence would be better suited in a thimble. The next thing I attempt to figure out is whether or not a thimble is smaller than a teaspoon, in measurement, or even slightly larger. One must not estimate over zealously with such delicate matters.

12 hours ago Kim and I took a 4-mile Sharon Woods walk. 12 times Jack Frost reached into our ears and squeezed our ear drums, leaving them to ache. 12 times the blond woman in the baggy navy sweatshirt ran around this same path in the duration of our stroll. 12 cats decorated the pastures of growth along the way. Perhaps 12 is only actually applicable to the first statement.

((something about putting plastic on windows))

Fox appeared tonight, clean-shaven and adorned with round tortoise-shell glasses. That voice could never belong to another soul. He was a gift as Fruit is getting harder for me. Sing songs to the One who unites.

Drifter also emerged from the darkness, and I almost choked when I realized it was him. He grew his hair but cut his beard, making him look 15 years younger. He had just hopped off a train from out west, still traveling with his red pack. It was hard on me when he left. Things were different then. The west left its mark on him, and vice versa, no doubt.

Sometimes I think writing really is inhibiting. Sometimes I think that's ludacris. Either way, the former idea seems to be reigning, because writing these days feels so forced.

/

Perhaps the best feeling is to be known. We could all use significantly more of that. We could all allow significantly more of that.

It doesn't need to be charged.

I just sewed a plush cell-phone. My hope is that eventually I will replace my real one with it. It's much comfier and only has six buttons.

If you don't see numbers appear on the felt screen it is because you are squinting. Stop squinting, it's just felt. If you would only look at it plainly you would see that there were numbers there. Oh sure, they don't go "1,2,3" but they're numbers just the same, and I think if you'd just look plainly you would find that they are really quite round. Round and dialing, ring! ring! Hello, is this the Minstry of Post-it Conservation?

Let me enjoy this conversation, will you? Oh sure, you and I both know that this phone's antenna is shot and thus will not work, but why do you have to spoil my fun like that? Ring, ring!

The minister of Post-it Conservation has stepped out of the office for a cigarette and a light breeze, but would like Mart to know she has committed a serious offense!

Any contributions to her bail can be made via plush phone, dial: 3,* and wait for the prompt. We are only accepting euros due to the dollar's decreasing worth, so let the currency exchange begin.

Ring, ring!

Hey Ya - Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra

This speaks for itself.

Sing songs of praise!

Liberia debt cancellation!!!

"I am pleased to inform you that on November 12, 2007, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has secured adequate pledges from member countries for the cost of the IMF's debt relief to Liberia, amounting to SDR 530 million (US$842 million) (See Press Release No. 07/254)."

Less myself

Recently I underwent a crisis in which I did not feel like myself for an extended period of time, whatever that means. Today I was scrunched up in the Architecture Building during my break reading Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation (which I wholeheartedly reccommend), when I came across this particular excerpt, which I found applicable:

"In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be, and in order to find myself I must go out of myself, and in order to live I have to die. The reason for this is that I am born in selfisness and therefore my natural efforts to make myself more real and more myself, make me less real and less myself, because they revolve around a lie." (p.47)

Also, if I had the time and the rights, I would type into this text box the entirety of one of Merton's chapters. Perhaps another time when i do not plan to venture into the stacks and do not have work awaiting, I will address these other words of his that I shall withhold from you for now. Or you could check the book out of your nearest library.

Lastly, I found this funny:

"If you write only for yourself you can read what you wrote and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted you will wish that you were dead." (p.111)

I laughed audibly when I read this, because it is all too true, again and again.

And really, just Hallelujah.

Let's also be about our Father's business.

Sufjan's BQE project

Billy sent me this link for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's commission of Sufjan Stevens to compose music about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. There is a video of the orchestra performing in the studio, but what I recommend is the interview with Sufjan (including some instrumentals)- just click "Listen to the whole show" below the video.

In other news, I taught myself how to crochet this past Saturday. It is the only thing I did the entire day until 5pm. Later at about 11 I joined a friend and we arrived very late at the salon of The Free Press. There was time enough for interesting discussion to commence, however.

Now I do not have class, in order to honor the veterans. Most of the vets I know live outside. If Drifter was still in town I would bake him something--not that baked goods are enough. God bless the veterans, God heal the veterans.



I've been thinking lately that one of the biggest deceptions manipulating the Kingdom family is indifference. Combine indifference with fear, and what have we? Not action, that's for sure. I count myself into this trickery, and plea for freedom from it. Jesus saw injustices and acted on them, turning tables upside down and causing a ruckus. We see injustices (do we?), and then pray about them (do we?), without utilizing the freedoms and wealth that have been bestowed upon us to act.

Can we pray for Father to reverse injustices, and not take any action ourselves, all the while "doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God" (micah 6:8)? I love prayer, its power is matched by none, but what is the true fast we are called to (Isaiah 58: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?")? And does this not entail active pursuit? Indeed, the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this (Is 37:32), but this does not give us liberty to sit on our couches. What is there to be scared of in turning over tables? In peaceful and creative protest and demonstration? Isn't it true that if followers of Jesus actually started living then more of them would be dying?

We are the Pharisees!

What injustices can you identify? How are you making known the voice of truth and justice? Someone is suffering, how you are sacrificing for them?

I can only see it as following in the footsteps of Truth incarnate.


sweet Lord, take away our laziness and apathy. replace it your zealous passion! motivate us to greater heights, to fulfill your purposes! we are oh so in need of you to transform us. it is your direction we desire. we surrender our fear for the sake of your kingdom, in the name of your son.

[It was brought to my attention that the entry about my roomate's video game noises did not sound particularly nice. I write now to note that it was something we were joking about together, as she was sitting across from me at our table when the entry was composed. I don't even know if she plays video games.]

What can anyone say about you?

The downside to working in such an expansive library is the closeness of countless texts I wish to engage with. I have a feeling as I change my major from World Literature to Social Work, I shall spend much more free time tasting new words and collections.

Just moments ago, before my shift started, I made my way through the stacks, scooping up Merton, St. Augustine, and a collection of essays from The Catholic Worker on nonviolent social change. Contributers including, but not limited to: Dorothy Day, John Cogley, Gordon Zahn, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, etc.

I began Confessions by St. Augustine as I was walking up the stairs. [I've been meaning to read this for some obscene amount of time, and am only just now getting to it! Ah, but better now than tomorrow, or next year.] It already has my brain churning.

For now I reccomend Happy Are You Poor by Thomas Dubay, as I just finished it hours ago. Still picking away at To Have or To Be? by Fromm... there's just so much in it that I want to absorb... Did I ever mention Nawal el Saadawi? Please do yourself a favor and introduce yourself to Nawal.

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace...."

I have much farther to go.

Eat all of the multiples of seven!

Persistent video game noises waft out of Emily's room

I detect a rowdy mixture of WOW, Oregon Trail, and Math Munchers...

Akin to the upstairs neighbors comical Cartoon Network habit.



All of this is amusing as I attempt to get a paper written.

Ellen

I met Ellen in East Asia. She is studying at my university now as an International Scholar. We always have so much fun together, dear Ellen and I, eating the delicious food that she cooks (Wendi- she aaaalways makes me tudousi!), exploring campus, and discovering new English words she doesn't know like pantry, pathology, and cynicism. Sometimes we carve pumpkins, too. By sometimes, I mean one time, last Tuesday.

It figures that one of my eyes is not open.

Blood Bananas

Read:

Blood Bananas

Though, I am challenged by this article, because what about the people who grow the bananas? It is the choice of those who run Chiquita to fund such violence, and there's no evidence that all the way down the Chiquita chain, banana farmers are behind this financial backing.

Ugh. Freeganism, anyone?