engagement post (better late than never)

it happened on the 21st of february. we took a trip to inís mór. and david griffith asked me to be his wife.

that part makes me happy.

the part where he left and went back to the states makes me sad.

but the part where we look forward to the future together... that's a very good part.

the stillness becomes the dancing

i'm moving out of laurel today. back up to philly. david is going on leave, renee is moving. the time has come to leave my happy little home here. i gave david's car back to him last night.

it's sad. i know the timing is right. this was only ever temporary. renee needed a roommate, i needed a place to stay. it was perfect for a time. but now the time has passed.

i went for a walk around laurel yesterday. it's a great place to walk. as i turned onto main street, i smiled. i passed the dodgy coffee shop that's always empty because it has bad hours. there was the mediterranean food shop with the broken credit card machine. the row of consignment stores.

the sun was shining and it was unusually hot for the last day of october. i was walking because it was a beautiful day, but also because i was restless. i'd spent the morning mulling over questions i don't have answers to for the thousandth time. a week ago i pleaded with God to give me sunshine and balanced hormones in order to cope with the questions. yesterday i had both. i've had a place to live, a good friend to live with, a man who cares for me. what more do i need in order to feel settled? what more do i need in order for those questions to stop plaguing me?

i asked God as i walked. as i turned off of fourth street onto montgomery, he said, you have everything you need.

i waited for a car to pass and thought, yes, i do. i have made my heart known to a loving Father. i have laid my questions before him. he will answer when he will answer.

for now, enjoy what he's given.

for now, wait, and let the stillness become the dancing.

there's a roast on the floor

i am sitting in my adopted living room, sipping hot cider with david and renee.

there is a roast in the crockpot on the floor next to me. it will be there for a few more hours.

for more adventures in cooking in the laurel pad, see renee's blog.

a triune chord

it's been a litte while since an abstract thought really got me going, but last week my sister had me read an article about a guy who had spoken at one of her chapels at college. it was about how music can inform our understanding of theology.

a couple of years ago i read dorothy sayers' the mind of the maker. sayers was saying that God has left his image on creation... and so a lot of things that we take as theological mysteries are actually displayed in our daily lives. for example, the trinity. how do we wrap our heads around three persons in one godhead? but a book is both the creative idea that conceives it, the tangible manifestation of that idea in book form, and the effect that the book has on those who read it. the Father--the creative conceiver; the Son--the tangible incarnation; and the Spirit--the continual effector.

jeremy begbie, the guy the article was about, draws out the idea of trinity in a musical chord. in a chord, each note remains unique and individual, but the three notes blend together in harmony to create a whole chord. while objects can't occupy the same space (and our minds tend to work in terms of objects, thereby making the trinity a difficult concept), sound can. here's a link to an interview with begbie and one to the abstract of an interview he did with mars hill. he's also got a book out called beholding the glory. i'm too cheap to buy it, but if anyone else does, i'd love to hear about it.

i don't have much to say about all of this other than that i love to discover new ways that God has revealed himself in creation and in art. a while ago, pat wallin posted on the role of art in the church. something that we've lost in the modern evangelical tradition (which is making a comeback in the emergent church) is a respect for God's revelation in the arts. we have been created in the image of our creator God to be creative. it's not a frivolous thing. it's vital--it's intrinsic to our understanding of who our Father is.

i voted for bush

i just found out that i'm a flaming liberal feminist. i'm always a little amused to find out how people perceive me (i tend to keep to myself, which means people end up drawing their own conclusions), but i have to say this one has come as quite a surprise.

somewhere between high school and now, i stopped being ultra-conservative. i know that. living and traveling in europe helped me to question some of my presuppositions and try to see the validity in the 'other side.' i know that, too. and i started to really love the unique voice that women have--the beauty and the strength--and i've wanted to hear it expressed more. i long to see men honor women by encouraging and validating their voices.

but i didn't know that all of these things added up to being a flaming liberal feminist. here's how i found out: i started hanging out with a guy who works for the united states secret service. he carries a gun. he wears body armor. he protects the white house. and as i've started telling people about him, they're shocked. really. several people have implied that his job surely must clash with all of my ideals. as liberal as i (apparently) am, it doesn't seem possible that i would be comfortable with someone who works for The Man.

there are many layers of irony here, but the one i find most humorous is that i actually voted for bush. there were several extra-political reasons that i did, but none of the political ramifications were strong enough for me to decide not to vote for him. and i'll be honest--i've kind of resented the fact that i've had to keep that on the DL. i'm not saying that i'm 100% behind everything bush does. there's a lot that i don't agree with. but aside from the politics, i resent the fact that i lose cool points because of the way i voted. i am absolutely against the idea that to be christian is to be republican. that is anathema to me. (i went to a church the sunday before july 4 where they sang patriotic songs instead of hymns and preached on why the constitution is worthy of respect. i had to dig my fingernails into the pews in order to avoid jumping up and screaming. this is the first time in four years that i've been in the states for the fourth, and the whole thing was so strange. can i just point out how appropriate it is that our major national holiday is a celebration of independence? bullheaded american independence. we will depend on no one.) but i don't think the solution is to vote against the 'moral majority' to maintain edginess.

so this is my public confession: i voted for bush. twice.

you may now think less of me. but i warn you: if you think less of me for this, i will probably think less of you.

a fresh coat of paint

when my sister got home from her first year of college in may, she decided to redecorate her room before moving her stuff back in. her room hadn't changed for the eight years that we've lived in this house. so for a week the entire family was stepping over suitcases and milk cartons full of clothes and books and picture frames, stacked in the hallways and on the stairs and in the laundry room. we stripped the old border off--the one she was never quite sure she liked, though she had never hated it. we painted over the neutral sand color on the walls--a color she had always resented because she hadn't picked it--with a bold rose color. (i'll spare you the description of the kickass cutting in job i did. i'm a little ocd when it comes to cutting in. i have dreams about it.) we hung new curtains. we rearranged the furniture.

the other night i was hanging out in her room while she hung some pictures. we got talking about the way going away changes you--how it affects your identity and sense of self. and how one of the hardest things about going away and coming back is that the people you left expect you to be what you were when you left.

i think everyone rubs up against that at some point in their lives. you go away to college, or leave for a summer. you establish a life of your own somewhere, and then try to come back and interact with your parents. you go abroad and interact with the ideas and customs of another culture. you experience some dramatic healing from some lifelong crap.

i've done all of the above over the last few years. and it's always hard to come back and translate the changes. how do you communicate subtle internal changes? slight realignments of identity? i went with a friend of mine in ireland last year to pierce her nose before she came back to the states. i usually come back and purge my wardrobe. i've changed--those clothes are no longer an expression of my self. i cut my hair. i do my make-up differently. i change my language. like sharon redecorating her room, i need some sort of external manifestation of the changes that have taken place. i need a fresh coat of paint to remind myself that i am not the woman i was.

said the beggar

just came across this poem i wrote early last year (inspired by a dublin beggar) and it made me chuckle.

i will get a
9 to 5 job.
i will buy a
three piece suit.
it will be my
holiday from
this life of
ease.

i've taken a bit of a holiday from blogging because it was pissing me off. may be food for later posts, but for now i'll sign off with a plug for stephenhill.info. i was just listening to his 'jesus said' demo cd this afternoon for the first time in a while and remembered how much i like it.

stephen, when does the cd come out?