Water water everywhere, but what?

I've listened to this song so many times, but today I finally heard it...

Island, Mainstay



In an old apartment waiting for the walls to move

Praying that someone, hoping that no one intrudes

Living like an actor, feeling like a poet bruised

But no man is an island

Lay down your robe, leper or rogue, keep yourself open here

Don’t let the cold close to your soul, lonely tonight

Passing like a shadow never letting anyone see
Maybe I’m biased but I don’t think you know the first thing about me
Lay down your robe, leper or rogue, keep yourself open here
Don’t let the cold close to your soul, no one is free come light
Heavier stones think themselves, that they’re alone here
But everyone grieves and everyone feels lonely tonight
Don’t tell me you know, when I know you don’t

Behind the Song:
"During the fall of 2006 while we were writing this record, I read a book that I will never forget - Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” This book (inspired partially by one of John Donne’s poems) shows the depth of human connectivity amongst people who consider themselves loners, outsiders, and detached from the world around them. Being one of those people that often feels so misunderstood, depressed, and internalized, it had a profound effect on me, teaching me to turn to others around me and open up; to drink deeply from human experience, but not isolate myself from those around me. This song is a call to all those who feel lonely and alone in the world, to turn to others and realize that so many people feel like them in their most private moments. It is a call to self-dubbed “lepers” and “rogues” to open up from their reclusion and feel lonely - together. Naturally, like so many of my lyrics, this song is aimed at myself." - Justin Anderson
(from JesusFreakHideout.com)

No man is an island?

Hmm...

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee…

-John Donne

Eh? I don't know that I agree. These lines from the movie About a Boy make more sense to me.

In my opinion, all men are islands. And what's more, now's the time to be one. This is an island age.

Every man is an island. I stand by that. But clearly some men are island CHAINS. Underneath, they are connected...

-Will

We are connected, but we choose to be islands. Our own pride divides us, like water separates one island from another. We ignore the underlying connections until they're buried so deep that they seem to disappear.

We're connected...so why is there still so much junk? Hate, shame, hurt, fear...





je ne sais pas






(My favorite island, Sumatra)

Pass the kleenex please...

I'm not positive, but I think this little guy is to blame for my current health condition:






No fun sir, no fun at all.




So, last night I managed to put on my big-girl panties and go to a new(ish) church by myself. It was good, all of it...the worship, the message, and that I made myself go.

We sang "Clinging to the Cross," which was a new one to me, but I was nearly floored after just the first verse. It was one of those songs that just resonated with the truth of my heart thats been buried by so much junk lately.
Nothings changed, but there's something about being honest before God that makes that hopeful speck of light at the end of the tunnel a little brighter.

My soul is weak
My heart is numb
I cannot see
But still my hope is found in You
I’ll hold on tightly
You will never let me go
For Jesus, You will never fail
Jesus, You will never fail

Singing in such a beautiful big, open room was like signing in the shower (but with about 75 other people and a band, so not exactly like a shower...unless you count that one time in Mexico, but I promised Ruth I wouldn't bring that up again...).


When I left the sky was amazing, but by the time I got my camera I'd missed most of the good stuff.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

— Scott Adams

It is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are. He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work. He wants you alone.
God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are. He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that!
-Bonhoeffer









Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions, to which we never gave much attention and which we do not want to surface. “Being busy” has become a status symbol, and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their body and mind in constant motion. Occupation and not empty space is what most of us are looking for. When we are not occupied we become restless. We even become fearful when we do not know what we will do the next hour, the next day or the next year. Then occupation is called a blessing and emptiness a curse.
Many telephone conversations start with the words: “I know you are busy, but…” and we would confuse the speaker and even harm our reputation were we to say, “Oh no, I am completely free, today, tomorrow and the whole week.” Our client might well lose interest in one who has so little to do.
-Henri Nouwen

FYI, Music You Should Hear, & A Jumbled Ramble

A Few of D's Laws

#64: Once you've graduated you're no longer allowed to call it "spring break," its now called "vacation" (the exception being teachers, they're pretty much all saints in my eyes so they can call it whatever the flip they want)
Breaks are given, vacations are taken.

#72: If you have significantly large boobs that are even close to face-level on me, do not expect a full frontal hug. Thats just the way it is.

#80: Headphones+Singing in a room full of cubicles=Seriously? You should know better...





Let's play a game...Its called "Go listen to these songs"
Ready?

• Run to You, The Rocket Summer
• Blanket of Ghosts, Dustin Kensrue
  (also try Pistol and I Knew You Before)
• Catch Your Fall, Gavin Mikhail
• Overboard, Matthew
• Amazing Because It Is, The Almost

Go.



I read this somewhere the other day:

...hanging out with people who i agree with, people who think the same as me, people who are like me, makes a clique not a community... (Paul Mayers)

Think about that.
I'm the worst at community. Honestly, people exhaust me. But I know that we were created for relationships, so I'm trying.
Still, I get so fed up with the complacency. I see people who have no desire to connect with anyone different. Then there are others who are content with the small group they've surrounded themselves with, and never consider the possibility of new relationships.

But I don’t think a network of friends necessarily equals a living, breathing community of people. Come to think of it, most of my friends don’t even know each other. I can bounce from one friend to another—or one group to another—without a second thought. Even my church feels like a nice weekly gathering of people I barely know. I am not surrounded by a tightly woven web of people who experience life together. (Amy Simpson)

Busyness, insecurity, and just general self centered thinking are our roadblocks.

The answer?
If I knew, I might not be sitting alone right now, typing my thoughts to a faceless (and possibly nonexistent) audience. I'd probably be sharing my heart and life with someone else. . . connecting.

I wish people didn't make me claustrophobic.
I wish I didn't have walls.
I wish I could stop running away.

I've got a feeling, it's hard to explainFeels like the devil rents a room in my brain
The things I'm ashamed of, feel like dear old St Paul
The things that I wanna do, I don't do at all

Other People's Words

"We are all born with a deep desire to please God, housed in the flesh and bone of human limitation. It is a good desire. I believe it is a God given desire. One that can either be unleashed through a hand-in-hand relationship with the true God or crushed under the foot of religious guilt and obligation. For there is a fine line between pleasing and performing."
-Jarrett Stevens, The Deity Formerly Known as God


"Truth, in the end, is not a propositional statement, its a man. If you know the Man you know the Truth."
-Tony Campolo


"Almost every day I feel momentary flashes of hopelessness and wonder every time whether I am slipping. For a petrifying instant here and there, a lightning-quick flash, I want a car to run me over and I have to grit my teeth to stay on the sidewalk until the light turns green; or I imagine how easily I might cut my wrists; or I taste the metal tip of a gun in my mouth; or I picture going to sleep and never waking up again. I hate those feelings, but I know they have driven me to look deeper at life, to find and cling to reasons for living. I cannot find it in me to regret entirely the course my life has taken."
-Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon




And this is great:

Yep...

Having it Out with Melancholy Jane Kenyon

1FROM THE NURSERY When I was born, you waited behind a pile of linen in the nursery, and when we were alone, you lay down on top of me, pressing the bile of desolation into every pore. And from that day on everything under the sun and moon made me sad -- even the yellow wooden beads that slid and spun along a spindle on my crib. You taught me to exist without gratitude. You ruined my manners toward God: "We're here simply to wait for death; the pleasures of earth are overrated." I only appeared to belong to my mother, to live among blocks and cotton undershirts with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes and report cards in ugly brown slipcases. I was already yours -- the anti-urge, the mutilator of souls. 2BOTTLES Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin, Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax, Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft. The coated ones smell sweet or have no smell; the powdery ones smell like the chemistry lab at school that made me hold my breath. 3SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND You wouldn't be so depressed if you really believed in God. 4OFTEN Often I go to bed as soon after dinner as seems adult (I mean I try to wait for dark) in order to push away from the massive pain in sleep's frail wicker coracle. 5ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT Once, in my early thirties, I saw that I was a speck of light in the great river of light that undulates through time. I was floating with the whole human family. We were all colors -- those who are living now, those who have died, those who are not yet born. For a few moments I floated, completely calm, and I no longer hated having to exist. Like a crow who smells hot blood you came flying to pull me out of the glowing stream. "I'll hold you up. I never let my dear ones drown!" After that, I wept for days. 6IN AND OUT The dog searches until he finds me upstairs, lies down with a clatter of elbows, puts his head on my foot. Sometimes the sound of his breathing saves my life -- in and out, in and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . . 7PARDON A piece of burned meat wears my clothes, speaks in my voice, dispatches obligations haltingly, or not at all. It is tired of trying to be stouthearted, tired beyond measure. We move on to the monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Day and night I feel as if I had drunk six cups of coffee, but the pain stops abruptly. With the wonder and bitterness of someone pardoned for a crime she did not commit I come back to marriage and friends, to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back to my desk, books, and chair. 8CREDO Pharmaceutical wonders are at work but I believe only in this moment of well-being. Unholy ghost, you are certain to come again. Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet on the coffee table, lean back, and turn me into someone who can't take the trouble to speak; someone who can't sleep, or who does nothing but sleep; can't read, or call for an appointment for help. There is nothing I can do against your coming. When I awake, I am still with thee. 9WOOD THRUSH High on Nardil and June light I wake at four, waiting greedily for the first note of the wood thrush. Easeful air presses through the screen with the wild, complex song of the bird, and I am overcome by ordinary contentment. What hurt me so terribly all my life until this moment? How I love the small, swiftly beating heart of the bird singing in the great maples; its bright, unequivocal eye.