incidentally i'm just waiting for the dusk to kill the day

Aren't Fridays supposed to be like, the best day of the week?

Not sure what happened to mine, but I feel a little bit like somebody snatched it up and ran away with it as I got my first Diet Dr. Pepper this morning at work. I sort of spent the rest of the day hoping they'd bring it back and set it down in front of me. We'd have our laughs and I'd probably punch somebody in the arm only to bicker a little longer about how "you're such a jerk, stealing my shiny Friday benevolence..." hahahahaha...

Yeah, give it back.

*looks around*

Nowhere. I don't know what happened.

Well, I kind of do... but I don't really want to talk about it. As I'd love to be wrong and I'm going to give myself until Monday afternoon before the final verdict is cast...

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

I just need to start the book.
I need to shut up whining about it,
stop staring at the pages like it's going to write itself,
and just do it. Who cares what comes out?
Well, somebody does...
NOT THE POINT.

Just write.

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

I've really no reason to be a whiner about things today. I've had a pretty great past few days/week and a half, really. Tebow, Kings of Leon, Hanson... I mean, kind of amazing.

Y'all know I love Hanson. A long, long time coming... and, O, how I needed to feel young...

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

*sigh*

I think whoever stole my happy Friday tablet took my ability to articulate any sort of depth with them... those rascals. Believe it or not, I actually feel quite deeply today. I'm just not sure the feeling has a word.

Though, if I were going to put my finger on it, I think this video-- this sound... that about covers it... the strange sort of heavy, joyful melancholy that's spinning around my head, buzzing in my ears until my eyelids weigh down and I'm not looking out of my eyes anymore.

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

Live. Learn. Life. Love. Die. Dust. Gone.

We sit secure in time-honored traditions made,
Never wondering where or when the sickle may come.
If we don't seek our knowledge to be greater men,
When the rain starts falling,
Gonna drown before we get our feet wet.

We build our ivory towers to protect us from the flood,
A fleet of vessels made of wood so they won't rust.
But can we see the bottom of the bottle when we start to drink?
There's fire on the mountain, fire, and it's coming our way.

Can we pick the pieces up?
We're mending Babylon,
Tryin' to right the wrong.
Can we pick the pieces up?

Live. Learn. Life. Love. Die. Dust. Gone.

There's fire on the mountain.

Can we pick the pieces up?
We're mending Babylon,
Tryin' to right the wrong.
Can we pick the pieces up?

Live. Learn. Life. Love. Die. Dust. Gone.

-"Fire on the Mountain" Hanson.

game day.

That's all.

don't knock it.

you've been here before.

thanks, Matt.

What I’m saying is that obedience to Christ for us here is rarely this weight that falls on our heart where it could cost us everything—where it feels like it rip out our person-hood. But sometimes it is.

Sometimes it is.

And the hope we have in the Triune God of the universe is that all His commands and all His leadings are leading us to life and not begrudging submission to His power simply because He could command what He wanted to command. That is not our God. That is not the God of the Bible. So even if it feels like He’s pulling at something that feels so much like its yours that if you let it go you wouldn’t know how to define yourself anymore—that if you let it go you would be naked and afraid…Those commands are leading you to life not to death. He is not trying to take anything from you but what would eventually destroy you, even if that feels like it’s impossibly woven into who you are as a person.

It is idiocy to trade actual godliness for the appearance of godliness.

--Matt Chandler (in a sermon entitled Games People Play Part 2)

glorious.

the first email of the day:

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

You know, it was a really intense weekend, for obvious reasons. When something that traumatizing happens it sort of jolts you (or at least me) into this ultra-existential mentality where everything is about being a live or dying. Everything I ate had these phenomenal tastes... I was overly aware of every touch, every temperature. Every ache, every itch... every sound outside the window, and ESPECIALLY every tick of a clock. I felt like I never could find a place anywhere in Birmingham where there wasn't a ticking clock in the background. It was horrifying..and liberating...and profound.

Kaitlin sent me a text late Friday night that said she'd gotten a phone call from someone who had spoken with Cameron's mother; She said it wasn't an accident, that Peter meant to take his life. Peter meant to die.

He meant to just quit life.

And he did. They pronounced him dead at 2 am Saturday. Peter is dead. On purpose.

When I got that text, without even really thinking or processing it, I literally got out of bed and onto my face in the floor of the bedroom. I've never, in my entire existence, wept like I did then. And it was among the most profound layers and layers of feeling I think I've ever ever had... I was sobbing so fast and so hard that the only words I could manage to pray or even remotely whisper were "It's so dark here... do something."

It was all I could write. All I could say about the entire situation -- be it however muddled with my current circumstances (rather, my current understanding of my circumstances and my childhood and who I am and what's been done to me)-- was that it's all so dark. And the darkness is so oppressive. Then the greatest thing I think I've ever experienced...

I was in that floor and I could almost see myself at the feet of God Himself... begging for Him to get us out of here, it's so hard and heavy. It's so dark, I said. Do something. Do something beautiful.

And as clear as I can see the message (not the words, but the message) I'm writing you right now, He lifted my face (after a bit of struggle) and gave me this overwhelming desire to feel around on my own face, my own body. I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm here. I'm still alive. This has happened. This is my life. These things have happened to me. All of these things have happened to me. And somehow, by some unspeakable grace in my life, I'm still here.

I'm okay.

And He's doing something beautiful.

That was my weekend. It doesn't merit any smiley faces I suppose. But I think I might be a little different today than I was a week ago. And what's the point of a story if the character doesn't change, right?

Anyway, I suppose all that was to say, I'm glad we're okay today. And I hope my perspective can stay in this sharply focused place that is right now... though I know it's only a matter of time before it moves again...

and so it goes.

Be alive today.

drums. here it comes.

I'll just not say anything. Someone else always does this part better.

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

To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
-CS Lewis

"whate'er my God ordains is right, Though now this cup in drinking may bitter seem to my faint heart, I take it all unshrinking. My God is true, each morn anew, sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart, and pain and sorrow shall depart"
-Samuel Rodigast

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

I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land I have given them. Says the Lord your God.
-Amos 9:14-15

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

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.
-Gen. 28:15

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

smoke is rising from the houses
people burying their dead
i ask somebody what the time is
but time doesn't matter to them yet

people talking without speaking
trying to take what they can get
i ask you if you remember
prospekt how could i forget


drums
here it comes
don't you wish that life could be as simple
as fish swimming 'round in a barrel when you've got the gun
oh and i run
here it comes
we're just two little figures in a soup bowl
trying to get the other kind of control
but i wasn't one


but here i lie
on my own in a seperate sky
and here i lie
on my own in a seperate sky
i don't wanna die
on my own here tonight
but here i lie
on my own in a seperate sky
-Coldplay "Prospekt's March"

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

Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.
-Job 13:15