L is for the way you lie to me...

"People say they love you, but what they mean is, they love how loving you makes them feel about themselves. Or they love what they can take from you."
-To the Bone

 I don't love well. I throw money at things. Money I don't have. Debit that I don't care about because it's too scary and I'm pretty sure I'll kill myself by the time I'm sixty. So why fall in love? I can't even be a good friend. I'm actually a pretty terrible friend.

 "Stop waiting for life to be easy. Stop hoping for somebody to save you. You don’t need another person lying to you. Things don’t all add up. But you are resilient. Face some hard facts and you could have an incredible life."

what is force?

 "You're manipulating the situation in a way that gives no one a way out. That's force. Look it up."

Gilmore girls season one, episode 3 "Kill Me Now"
Totally taken out of context but this is my life right now.

Something happened, with a guy...It scared me.
I am fine, I handled it.

But emotionally I'm a little messed up. My recall is fuzzy (screw you angry orchard). On the same night I was an asshole to a guy I am lucky to call a friend. I hate myself for that. I hate that I got myself in this kind of situation.

I said no when it was time...and I physically followed through (hence my soreness). I stood up for myself. I stopped something that could have ended terribly.




I can't deal, but I'm telling everyone I'm ok. I'm a f*#king liar.
I think "call E, go sleep on her couch," but I can't. All I do is sleep.

4 a.m.

For serious...

I watch this every few months...
LOVE it!

Coincidence? no, it's creepy...

Love TED Talks.

God, Devil, Self

I never thought of it like that, but yeah.

Somewhere along the way I heard someone speak about the devil using selfishness as a way to attack us, and I totally agree.  So, putting both ideas together kinda explains our ridiculous drive to rock it out on our own and never ask for help, and also our struggle to be happy with ourselves.

More than anything or anyone, I want to be friends with myself...
Why is that so hard?

Bend your elbows, lower your arms. . .

For the most part this is how I live:


I wish I could say that the "breastplate of righteousness" or something else armor-of-God-ish, but that would be an obvious lie.

I find myself constantly on the guarding myself, against anything and everything, including God.

Believe me, I know how ridiculous that is. But there's something so hard about surrender.

Letting go. . .

Its not directly an issue of doubt, I don't think. Its more about fear, and my inability to differentiate between trusting people and trusting God.


Oh but grace. . .

Faith is a code to accept that Jesus knows my whole life story, every skeleton in my closet, every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty, degradedness darkening my past. Right now he knows my shallow faith, my feeble prayer life, my inconsistent discipleship, and he comes beside me and he says, I dare you to trust. I dare you to trust that I love you, just as you are and not as you should be, because you're never going to be as you should be.

-Brennan Manning

Not Yet

This life is therefore,
not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health, but healing,
not being, but becoming,
not rest, but exercise.
we are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it,
the process is not yet finished
but it is going on,
this is not the end,
but it is the road.
all does not yet gleam in glory,
but all is being purified.
-Martin Luther

truth

I have extra saliva! It's a medical condition, ok?

Maybe it's because it's late(ish), and I'm anxious about the new job tomorrow, but I find this hil-arious:

“Roses are red, violets are blue. I have a knife, get in the f*ing van.”

I spit all over myself and haven't been able to stop giggling since I read that.



[I briefly considered writing it on a notecard and slipping it into my purse in case I start feeling overwhelmed tomorrow, but there are just too many ways that could end badly.]

light vs. dark . . . sound vs. silence

I live in a very not quiet neighborhood.  I am, for the most part, coming to terms with that.  When the weather permits I leave my windows open, but this can make falling asleep difficult.

There are some noises that make you hope that driver is wearing a seatbelt.

There are some noises that make you sigh and curse the creation of the subwoofer.

There are other noises, however, that make you run to the window, call 911, and pray. . .


I was in bed but not yet asleep when I heard a scream.  I assumed it was a crazy neighbor, but something made me keep listening.  When I heard the screams again I grabbed my phone and tried to see if I could tell where or who they were coming from.  Everything looked still.

 Maybe I just watch too many crime shows, but it sounded like a woman, crying and screaming, "Somebody help me, please!"

I told the 9-1-1 operator what I'd heard and she promised to send someone to check the area, but I couldn't just get back in bed.  I got dressed, grabbed my keys, stun gun, and a screwdriver (you never know) and crept out as quietly as I could.

 After walking the length of the alley in the direction I'd heard the noise, I crossed to the end of the block and saw two cops looking at a house across the street.  I told them what I'd heard and headed back to my apartment.  As I walked I prayed, for the life and soul of that woman, for her comfort and rescue--whatever the situation might be.

Now, a hour later, my heart may be beating normally again, but its still a little broken.

Evil is like a shadow -
it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light.
You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it,
stamp on it, by railing against it,
or any other form of emotional or physical resistance.
In order to cause a shadow to disappear,
you must shine light on it.-Shakti Gawain

i paint unoriginal things

I'm seeing more and more of these posters, but (a) this one's hand painted, and (2) its not copy-written.

I still find myself collecting unfinished pieces, but I hope to soon have a better set-up to photograph them, and maybe that will motivate me to complete some.  Or perhaps this attempted new set-up will only result in another project abandoned half-way through...

take a look, its in a book

Lately I've been reading Restless Faith by Winn Collier. So far, its amazing, so I wanted to share a few pieces (and perhaps entice you to read it yourself).

True theology is never a dry, intellectual exercise; rather, it is the endeavor to be consumed with the reality of the One who is beyond our categories in such a way that we point in his direction.



God has gone to incredible lengths to pursue his own glory by winning the hearts of his people. And these incredible lengths step outside our bounds, outside our sensibilities.


...we struggle because of how faith has been defined for us. We have been told that faith is claiming a reality and seeing it come to pass. Faith is taking God at his word and waiting until we see him move.


We often approach God as a means to get what we want, but his desire is to in fact be what we want.

"Our past is not our potential."

-Unknown

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

-Anna Quindlen

We will mess up. We will hold on when we should have let go. We will walk when we should have run, We will go when we should have stayed. We will hurt others when we should have loved, but God forgives, He forgets and best of all, He restores.

-Unknown

to do or to be

We can start changing people’s mindset. Instead of asking young people, “What are you going to do when you grow up?”, ask them, “Who are you becoming?” The question is not whether you will be a doctor or a lawyer but what kind of doctor or lawyer you will be.

from Jesus For President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw

Another good read

Story archives - story #2978
"As a professional nanny, I've found that scaring a baby doesn't alleviate her hiccups, but it does scar her for life."

-helenthenanny

For more cereal spitting fun, visit

hm.

The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from God.
-Thomas Keating

from inward/outward

Martin Luther King, Jr...more than a street in Little Rock

"No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood….
Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured."
(emphasis mine)

a few thoughts to assure you I'm still alive

My back muscles feel like they could errupt into a frenzy of tightened spasming knots any second.


I'm getting a new neighbor. That'll take some getting used to.


My nephew is a little man.

Oh Baby Jax...





We sell a lot of charms/pendants. There are a lot of typical styles like crosses, hearts, lockets, etc. . . but they're beginning to get weirder.
Today I found this:


An angel, Saturn, cheese, scissors, a monkey, and asprin.

Yeah. Sure, why not...




Recent quotes that caught my eye...

"Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love." -St Francis of Assisi

"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman

"Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can't accept your imperfections, that's their fault." -Dr. David M. Burns

martha nails it

"When you're depressed, everyone has an opinion about what you should do. People seem to think that not only are you depressed, you are also stupid. . . People hear the word depression and figure that since they've felt down or blue at some point in their lives, they are experts, which is like assuming that because you've had a chest cold, you are now qualified to treat lung cancer. . .
In the old days I could shake it off and gently refuse it. . . All their helpful comments imply that if I'd only do ______, my problems would be solved. Like its all within my grasp, able to be managed and mastered, if only I would try harder, longer, better. As I nod my head in polite and pathetic appreciation for their input, I scream inside, "Shut up. Shut up. Unless you've been lost in this particular section of hell yourself, don't you dare try to give me directions."

-- Martha Manning, Undercurrents

why is it so difficult?

"Befriending myself seems to be about opening my heart as a homeless shelter for all the destituted and prostituted aspects of my being that I have been running from for years without even knowing that's what I have been doing."

-- Dawna Markova, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

exactly...

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

-Albert Camus