oh it's funny...
... how much goes on in my brain. i start writing in my notebook, about this verse i encountered in Job (hold on a second, i'll come back to that), and then my hand started cramping up, and i thought about how out of shape i am and how i really need to be working out and then how i really need just to write about how i'm feeling about working out / being part of the soccer team and all that, and then i am thinking still how it would be easier to type this, but still of how much i love the idea of written writing (hah. is there any other? yes... but i'm so subjectively partial to my chicken scratch), and then i think about what David and i were talking about last night (well a million things, but in specific to this discussion how it feels really good to be understood, and how it takes that long in a conversation / relationship to be understood about one specific thing about yourself or the other person's self, even if it's something you know about yourself, your relationship is still stalled because you haven't communicated that thing to the other person yet. and whoa, maybe, then, chris munekawa is right about blogging, because then it is like mass communication of these things that we already know about ourselves but that other's don't know and won't know until we tell them), and i decide to BLOG IT. and i pop on to my blog, and i find that old post (the first one) that i never finished, and i've got my notebook open to a note about that same topic.
my point is, that's a perfect little starting block.
my hesitancy to do this stems from the fact that i'm reading a thousand-page novel for fun and i'd really like to get it done this summer but i have all this torrey reading i could do, but whatever, of course i'm going to read the novel anyways and make it harder for myself all semester but still feel like i accomplished something really grand (unless, of course, this novel - Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - turns out to be a complete waste of my time - the last one, Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon, was an almost-complete waste of my time, and i could go off about that, too - sorry for all the hyphens but my point is i'm really really really enjoying Infinite Jest and i'd like to do whatever it takes to have it done before i start school in August. T minus 700 pages!) . i got off from work at 11:30 and ideally, in my mind, i had five hours to read Infinite Jest before i go back to work at 5 (that's in 1.5 hours), but there was dirt on the floor and i had to sweep and i put lights on my bike so i wouldn't have to call my parents tonight to have them haul my bike and myself home from the pool tonight and i had to call and order some contact lenses and i got distracted reading a bunch of other people's blogs and then i got distracted looking up Bible verses that i wasn't sure about (Acts 10, Peter's vision) and then i get distracted reading the Bible, and then i did a bunch of athletic health insurance paperwork..... and then i realize how much i need to write and be a whole soul and really all i am doing is justifying, to myself, that i had a full afternoon regardless of the fact that i still am only three-tenths of the way through a book i am attempting to finish as.soon.as.possible.
here's the starting block, from last time:
you missed it, because i ended up writing in my paper notebook about the whole we-are-always-getting-born thing and, actually, scratch that, i just looked through it and i didn't, i only wrote about some other things i had the intention to blog about (now, i am kind of thinking, that the only real result of me having a blog is the fact that anyone who reads it is going to begin to realize just how mad-hatter-mad i actually am). so i'm sorry, i just almost told you a lie.
sidebar: i sit in the back row of church and journal during the whole thing. David scowls at me ("why do you even come?!" but my defenses are that a. i've gotten really good at multitasking and b. we all have our own kinds of worship, and mine is journaling. i get the best stuff out of my heart and into the open spiritual bliss when i journal in the back row of my church. and i'm thankful that i can do that, too. darn thankful).
back to starting block (third false attempt. i would be DisQualified from the Olympics by now, were this a sport): the last few weeks, i have been thinking about how we are always getting born (as you may or may not have picked up on). and by this i mean that everything we do is new, or, in the old things that we do, we give birth to new perspectives, new realizations, new parts of ourselves. everyone we meet, everything we do helps us give birth to something new. this was kind of sparked by my mom's best friend Jodie having a baby (Ernesto. little baby Ernesto. it's one of those handed-down-throughout-the-generations names, poor little bugger, my mom spends 86% of her time thinking up nicknames for him). (that's an exaggeration). (a lot of the things i say are). (if you want clarification because you think i am soooooo outrageous, ask. i will tell you the truth). (which in this situation is that she has only talked about nicknaming him like seven or eight times that i can remember, and speaking seven or eight times is definitely not 86% of her conversational activity).
anyways.
speaking of my mom, she is the one who showed me this quote (the infamous starting block). madeleine l'engle:
now, there's a lot in that. i really like the "conceived in love" bit; it reminds me of "to the pure, all things are pure," which is one of my favorite truths in the Bible / about the world. but my point in sharing this is more Ecclesiastes than Titus - there's nothing new under the sun. i can't believe madeleine l'engle came to a conclusion about some deeply profound and whimsically beautiful little observation i've been dwelling on for so many days now. my first instinct is to be like, "HEY! she stole my idea!!!!" and to get all prideful about how i came up with that all on my own, and hey, look how good i am for doing that, look at how great my thought process is, aren't i a genius. but really, really, once i'm over myself (and sometimes i can do that more quickly than othertimes; on occasions such as this i am getting quicker and quicker about it, i think i'm down to like a 0.8 second turnaround rate on the selflessness), i think: how lovely it is that there are these things that we can all come to. UNIVERSAL TRUTH, EVERYBODY. i'm such a fan.
side note: my dog is so cute. as are animals along the lines of koalas, puffins, and harbor seals.
what i really meant to blog about today was Job. Job 28:28. "'And he said to man, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding."'"
perfect. perfect.
Job is confusing. anything having to do with death is confusing. what happens after we die? why do both good and bad people die? why are eternal consequences our reasons for doing things, and yeah, that's a really good reason, but can we prove it? and everyone i know who goes to church and Biola is going to be like "YES! Jesus rose from the dead!" but some side of myself and the majority of everyone i know who doesn't do church / talking about things like that is going to be a little more skeptical about it. uf. so it's scary on top of confusing. and here is where all the new-testament assurance of faith stuff comes in, and you believe it or not (okay okay biola kids don't jump all over me for sounding so unsure), and why it's scary is because it is ALL OF US. we have that in common. josh quoted something about that yesterday, i forget, i'll have to go ask him.
at some point last semester James Garcia told me about how he makes little dictionaries for everything he reads, and since then, i've been definition-crazed. ergo my attention to Job 28:28 - fear of the Lord is wisdom; turn away from evil is understanding. i like it when things are solid. people who are into philosophy do a lot of talking about reality or realities and i tend to shy away from that word in my mind, as in, i don't use it at all, except in the case of "the reality of the situation is..." - because i love that phrase, it involves a sense of "look, i know we're talking about this and this and this but the point is really... (fill in the blank with dire make-it-or-break-it truth about person and situation)." when you say "the reality of it is...," now, that is where decisions are made. i dig it.
anyway, again, i don't like philosophizing about reality/realities (i did, however, find the word realties, as in, multiple realty agencies, while playing boggle today, and scored 9 points for it), because i get really hung up on how people have different realities (absolute vs. relative truth) and i can't really separate my terminology and thinking into a way that makes sense. but i like definitions. this may be because i am an english major, it may be just because i enjoy learning other people's realities ("this is that; that is this" for them). my point is, well, i don't have a good one, but my thinking is that change happens a lot (reality changes? some people would say reality doesn't change. i guess that's why i avoid the term, is because no one can really decide on it. it is hilarious, and by that i mean, i really laughed out loud just thinking about it, that there are so many theories and philosophies about reality. oh the irony kills me oh, ha ha ha ha).
i don't really know where i was going with that, but i know that i've got to go to work, and i also know that everyone should read and pay good attention to Job 28:28, because there is some desperately pivotal truth there.
oh i was going to write about working out and soccer and love of sport and stuff like that. hmf. it can wait. it's there.
my point is, that's a perfect little starting block.
my hesitancy to do this stems from the fact that i'm reading a thousand-page novel for fun and i'd really like to get it done this summer but i have all this torrey reading i could do, but whatever, of course i'm going to read the novel anyways and make it harder for myself all semester but still feel like i accomplished something really grand (unless, of course, this novel - Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - turns out to be a complete waste of my time - the last one, Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon, was an almost-complete waste of my time, and i could go off about that, too - sorry for all the hyphens but my point is i'm really really really enjoying Infinite Jest and i'd like to do whatever it takes to have it done before i start school in August. T minus 700 pages!) . i got off from work at 11:30 and ideally, in my mind, i had five hours to read Infinite Jest before i go back to work at 5 (that's in 1.5 hours), but there was dirt on the floor and i had to sweep and i put lights on my bike so i wouldn't have to call my parents tonight to have them haul my bike and myself home from the pool tonight and i had to call and order some contact lenses and i got distracted reading a bunch of other people's blogs and then i got distracted looking up Bible verses that i wasn't sure about (Acts 10, Peter's vision) and then i get distracted reading the Bible, and then i did a bunch of athletic health insurance paperwork..... and then i realize how much i need to write and be a whole soul and really all i am doing is justifying, to myself, that i had a full afternoon regardless of the fact that i still am only three-tenths of the way through a book i am attempting to finish as.soon.as.possible.
here's the starting block, from last time:
you missed it, because i ended up writing in my paper notebook about the whole we-are-always-getting-born thing and, actually, scratch that, i just looked through it and i didn't, i only wrote about some other things i had the intention to blog about (now, i am kind of thinking, that the only real result of me having a blog is the fact that anyone who reads it is going to begin to realize just how mad-hatter-mad i actually am). so i'm sorry, i just almost told you a lie.
sidebar: i sit in the back row of church and journal during the whole thing. David scowls at me ("why do you even come?!" but my defenses are that a. i've gotten really good at multitasking and b. we all have our own kinds of worship, and mine is journaling. i get the best stuff out of my heart and into the open spiritual bliss when i journal in the back row of my church. and i'm thankful that i can do that, too. darn thankful).
back to starting block (third false attempt. i would be DisQualified from the Olympics by now, were this a sport): the last few weeks, i have been thinking about how we are always getting born (as you may or may not have picked up on). and by this i mean that everything we do is new, or, in the old things that we do, we give birth to new perspectives, new realizations, new parts of ourselves. everyone we meet, everything we do helps us give birth to something new. this was kind of sparked by my mom's best friend Jodie having a baby (Ernesto. little baby Ernesto. it's one of those handed-down-throughout-the-generations names, poor little bugger, my mom spends 86% of her time thinking up nicknames for him). (that's an exaggeration). (a lot of the things i say are). (if you want clarification because you think i am soooooo outrageous, ask. i will tell you the truth). (which in this situation is that she has only talked about nicknaming him like seven or eight times that i can remember, and speaking seven or eight times is definitely not 86% of her conversational activity).
anyways.
speaking of my mom, she is the one who showed me this quote (the infamous starting block). madeleine l'engle:
"I've experienced the pain and the joy of the birth of babies and the birth of books, and there's nothing like it. When a child who's been conceived in love is born to a man and wife, I think that the joy of birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or of composing is much the same thing. I think all our lives are a process of births, of continuous births. And each of these births does involve pain."
now, there's a lot in that. i really like the "conceived in love" bit; it reminds me of "to the pure, all things are pure," which is one of my favorite truths in the Bible / about the world. but my point in sharing this is more Ecclesiastes than Titus - there's nothing new under the sun. i can't believe madeleine l'engle came to a conclusion about some deeply profound and whimsically beautiful little observation i've been dwelling on for so many days now. my first instinct is to be like, "HEY! she stole my idea!!!!" and to get all prideful about how i came up with that all on my own, and hey, look how good i am for doing that, look at how great my thought process is, aren't i a genius. but really, really, once i'm over myself (and sometimes i can do that more quickly than othertimes; on occasions such as this i am getting quicker and quicker about it, i think i'm down to like a 0.8 second turnaround rate on the selflessness), i think: how lovely it is that there are these things that we can all come to. UNIVERSAL TRUTH, EVERYBODY. i'm such a fan.
side note: my dog is so cute. as are animals along the lines of koalas, puffins, and harbor seals.
what i really meant to blog about today was Job. Job 28:28. "'And he said to man, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding."'"perfect. perfect.
Job is confusing. anything having to do with death is confusing. what happens after we die? why do both good and bad people die? why are eternal consequences our reasons for doing things, and yeah, that's a really good reason, but can we prove it? and everyone i know who goes to church and Biola is going to be like "YES! Jesus rose from the dead!" but some side of myself and the majority of everyone i know who doesn't do church / talking about things like that is going to be a little more skeptical about it. uf. so it's scary on top of confusing. and here is where all the new-testament assurance of faith stuff comes in, and you believe it or not (okay okay biola kids don't jump all over me for sounding so unsure), and why it's scary is because it is ALL OF US. we have that in common. josh quoted something about that yesterday, i forget, i'll have to go ask him.
at some point last semester James Garcia told me about how he makes little dictionaries for everything he reads, and since then, i've been definition-crazed. ergo my attention to Job 28:28 - fear of the Lord is wisdom; turn away from evil is understanding. i like it when things are solid. people who are into philosophy do a lot of talking about reality or realities and i tend to shy away from that word in my mind, as in, i don't use it at all, except in the case of "the reality of the situation is..." - because i love that phrase, it involves a sense of "look, i know we're talking about this and this and this but the point is really... (fill in the blank with dire make-it-or-break-it truth about person and situation)." when you say "the reality of it is...," now, that is where decisions are made. i dig it.
anyway, again, i don't like philosophizing about reality/realities (i did, however, find the word realties, as in, multiple realty agencies, while playing boggle today, and scored 9 points for it), because i get really hung up on how people have different realities (absolute vs. relative truth) and i can't really separate my terminology and thinking into a way that makes sense. but i like definitions. this may be because i am an english major, it may be just because i enjoy learning other people's realities ("this is that; that is this" for them). my point is, well, i don't have a good one, but my thinking is that change happens a lot (reality changes? some people would say reality doesn't change. i guess that's why i avoid the term, is because no one can really decide on it. it is hilarious, and by that i mean, i really laughed out loud just thinking about it, that there are so many theories and philosophies about reality. oh the irony kills me oh, ha ha ha ha).
i don't really know where i was going with that, but i know that i've got to go to work, and i also know that everyone should read and pay good attention to Job 28:28, because there is some desperately pivotal truth there.
oh i was going to write about working out and soccer and love of sport and stuff like that. hmf. it can wait. it's there.
Comments
Thanks for the blessed experience of your writing!
-Matt