we who must die demand a miracle...

There has fallen on earth for a token
A god too great for the sky.
He has burst out of all things and broken
The bounds of eternity:
Into time and the terminal land
He has strayed like a thief or a lover,
For the wine of the world brims over,
Its splendour is split on the sand.

Who is proud when the heavens are humble,
Who mounts if the mountains fall,
If the fixed stars topple and tumble
And a deluge of love drowns all-
Who rears up his head for a crown,
Who holds up his will for a warrant,
Who strives with the starry torrent,
When all that is good goes down?

For in dread of such falling and failing
The fallen angels fell
Inverted in insolence, scaling
The hanging mountain of hell:
But unmeasured of plummet and rod
Too deep for their sight to scan,
Outrushing the fall of man
Is the height of the fall of God.

Glory to God in the Lowest
The spout of the stars in spate-
Where thunderbolt thinks to be slowest
And the lightning fears to be late:
As men dive for sunken gem
Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,
The fallen star has found it
In the cavern of Bethlehem.

-G. K. Chesterton
Gloria in Profundis

chasing pavements

It was a "Wheaton" thing for the freshmen and sophomores to be blind Kierkegaard lovers, then eventually grow out of it because there were (apparently) so many other brilliant minds to blindly follow. You know, like Obama.

I, for one, hope I never grow out of my Kierkegaard stage.

On the one hand, this time in my life feels fairly exciting. I mean I can do whatever I want now... I have no ties keeping me anywhere. And the only thing I'm committed to for a long haul are my friggin' loan repayments.

Then the other hand:

This is all I've got.
All I've got to show for the past six and a half years are a couple sheets of paper with my name on them. I'm getting old. And I'm terrified that I'll never be the person I always wanted to be when I was a little girl. Too many bills...too many complications...Should I go? Should I stay? Should I chase some pavements?

I think I'd go with John, in case you were wondering.
Because Jack thinks all there is to being alive is staying alive.
And I have to believe that there is a purpose...it makes sense for there to be reasons, that things happen when they're supposed to, the way they're supposed to.

Blah, enough melancholy ranting. I'm sure it's the cold and the kidneys talking.
In lighter news, it's Christmas!

And since this whole "wheaton experience" has wrapped up and I'm left to sit and think "what the hell just happened?"--I figure Christmas should be different for me. I don't know why, I always knew what it was "really about."

It's just a way bigger deal than we like to remember. We'll do your standard cheesy things like sit around and make the antsy and sugar-hyped kids wait to open presents while we read the first two chapters of Luke, pray, and call it our duty completed. But it's not completed.

It's not even started.

We ignore the parts of the story that are difficult for us. We neglect to teach with our lives the parts of the storythat hold the least bit of controversy (you know, like feeding the poor or giving our stuff away or anything the word "social" is used in front of)...

I really have to let that simmer in brain a little longer. There's just something that could be radically changed in the world if we'd just stop treating our lives like we've got something to lose... echad doesn't get lost. It gets ignored...but not lost.

I have to admit, it terrifies me to think that all I've done for the past six years is for nothing. I feel like it's just time for something to happen in my life and yet I feel like I'm going to have to push a brick wall before it will happen. I know that's completely incoherent... but it makes sense to me. If you've never had to push a metaphorical brick wall for awhile before, believe me, you'll know when you're doing it. It gets old. Quick.

In lighter news, I think I've finally scaled down my "stuff" to fit from my one bedroom, living room, kitchen three closet bathroom apartment into my already furnished and filled one bedroom in my parents' tiny house.

It's official.
Anything can be done.

sometimes

For the most part, I think we don't hear things because we aren't listening.

*******************************

But sometimes, I think we don't hear things because we are supposed to be saying something...

and we aren't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiNBmNl88Pk