october!

In all my affairs
may I distinguish between
DUTY and ANXIETY,
and may my CHARACTER and not my CIRCUMSTANCES chiefly engage me...

--Valley of Vision: "Contrition"

October already! I love it when the first day of the month coincides with a Monday...it lends the illusion of order and "rightness" to my week.

It's been a good morning so far...I slept soundly enough to dream last night, and when I awoke I felt rested and very snug in my quilt, with the autumn (!) wind gusting through the open windows and rustling the open notebooks on my desk (newly crowned with a medium-sized rotund pumpkin). My morning jog felt marvelous--and I pushed myself harder than usual, which always helps encourage my timid little self-worth-ometer. Now I've just emerged from sipping coffee and smuggling hot cocoa packs in the Great Hall. I love me my hot beverages!

Today I have three classes: Anatomy, Shakespeare, and History. After work study, I plan on completing as much homework as possible in order to free up my Wednesday for shopping with Vowsh and Melody! Time to invest in some new sweaters!

Happy October, folks...

"the cradle rocks above the abyss..."

It's my birthday!

Today I turn 20 years old. As a symbol of my newly acquired maturity (at least chronologically), I recieved a Motorolla Tracfone in the mail. My friends need no longer complain of my inaccessability...or of their thankless status as my secretaries. Calling home (and recieving calls therefrom) will no longer require a landline. The world just got that much smaller, my friends and family that much closer. Welcome, Abby, to the 21st century.

Even better, Dad sent me the final installment of the Thursday Next series--a hardcover copy with additional online features! I eagerly await the "brainy silliness" and bibliophiliac abandon to come! Vowsha, knowing my passion for Annie Dillard, purchased Living by Fiction for me--I book I've already come to love. With it, she wrapped up a bright navy mug with a graceful flowery painting on it. It fits quite nicely in my hand.

Tonight, Melody is escorting me to Starbucks--after which we will repair to the Kulick resident to pay our respects to its latest member: Chrissy! She arrived via c-section in the early hours of the eleventh, and already has made her debut in a Facebook album.

I'm finishing my conquest of Nabakov's memoir Speak, Memory...and noticing butterflies and various other lepidopteral creatures everywhere I go. Literature truly does give me fresh eyes and heightened joy.

Well--dinner awaits. Au revoir.

keep in mind:

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.
[marilynne robinson]

cheers to living ontologically!

Today hailed another convocation of studies at Covenant College: bagpipes and ceremonial cowls, tassels and berets, whistling, applause, creationfallredemptionconsumation...the whole deal. I pondered anatomy, Shakespeare, the twentieth century, and the meaning of "redeeming the time." It is Felty's birthday, as well...we shared coffee and toasted to her new decade in our bathtowels.
In the midst of the festivities, I am doing my best to live ontologically. To BE: recognizing that each moment in time encompasses both the past and the future (thank you T.S. Eliot), and that I must not allow my self image (warped and murky as a funhouse mirror by starlight) to get in the way of my self (that elusive spirit that vanishes the moment I focus on it, that is most real when it is least aware of itself). Confusified yet? Because I sure am. (Thank you, Madeleine L'Engle.)
What I am attempting, day by day, is to live a life of humble integrity. That is living ontologically. And God knows (and has said) it is impossible. But the closer I approach it, the nearer I will approach wholeness.

happiness

O Lord,

Help me never to expect any happiness

from the world, but only in thee.

Let me not think that I shall be more happy by living to myself,

for I can only be happy if employed for thee,

and if I desire to live in this world

only to do and suffer what thou dost allot me.

Teach me

that if I do not live a life that satisfies thee,

I shall not live a life that will satisfy myself.

Help me to desire the spirit and temper of angels

who willingly come down to this lower world

to perform thy will,

though their desires are heavenly,

and not set in the least upon earthly things;

then I shall be of that temper I ought to have.

Help me not to think of living to thee

in my own strenght,

but always to look to and rely on thee

for assistance.

Teach me that there is no greater truth than this,

that I can do nothing of myself.

Lord, this is the life that no unconverted man

can live,

yet it is an end that every godly soul

presses after;

Let it be then my concern to devote myself

and all to thee.

Make me more fruitful and more spiritual,

for barrenness is my daily affliction and load.

How precious is time, and how painful to see it fly

with little done to good purpose!
I need thy help:

O may my soul sensibly depend upon thee

for all sanctification,

and every accomplishment of thy purposes

for me, for the world,

and for thy kingdom.

-Valley of Vision

8:13 am

The Writer

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top.

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

[richard wilbur]

presentiment

It's rained all morning--soaking soul-satisfying rain. It being my day off, I played some Norah Jones in the empty apartment and flung the front door ajar, until the humidity in the air wilted my hunger for fresh air. Now the sun glitters off raindrops everywhere, and I have sealed myself into the air conditioned apartment for the final two hour interim before my housemates return.

Halfway through July already. I realized this morning that the calendar on our living room wall thought it was mid-May...rather like myself, till that moment. Poor June barely had a second to see the world before I flipped to July and studied the dates in dismay. August and hell week and student orientation and junior year are on their way. And I'm not ready.

I hope that my stay at home will help reorient me. Meanwhile, I'm going to brew another pot of coffee, dig up a good book, and immerse myself in the tranquil, muddy waters of denial.

Presentiment--is that long Shadow--on the Lawn--

Indicative that Suns go down--

The Notice to the startled Grass

That Darkness--is about to pass--

[emily dickinson]

what subterfuge is this?

Today in Sunday School, I heard several quotes from John Calvin that made me resolve to read The Institutes soon. After being raised constantly associating Calvin with deep, unsearchable (and certainly almost incomprehensible) erudition, I found his sentences regarding True Worship not only legible, but also entertaining! He speaks of "bleary-eyed men" in scathing anecdotes, and drops words like "subterfuge" with impunity.

So, upon returning home from church, devouring a meal, and sleeping it off--I logged onto Encarta to see what quotes my favorite encyclopedia had to offer. You know what I found?

One quote, out of volumes and volumes.

It reads thus: It is a mockery to allow women to baptise. Even the Virgin Mary was not allowed this.

My friends, Muhammed the Prophet has eighteen quotes. Encarta awarded Buddha five. Even Joseph Smith's voice was louder than Calvin's by three quotes.

It's moments like these when it strikes me how drastically different were the cultural emphases on my life than those on most members of my generation. Calvin, to each crop of Reformed Christians, is just beneath the Apostle Paul when it comes to his impact on the church's teachings. To the wide world (if Encarta can be permitted to judge), Calvin is a negative blip on the radar...a French fanatic whose extreme and narrowminded views contributed to the oppression of women in the world.

So I am even more resolved now to read the Institutes and judge for myself.
I still love the word subterfuge.

i'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter...

After a day of slow and steady work yesterday, Rachael dropped by our beloved apartment four and whipped up some cheesey hamburger helper, which Buck and I devoured while viewing two episodes of Malcom in the Middle. Afterward we partook of a typically wacky discussion touching on all major topics (life, love, coworkers, and movies). When they left, I felt a sudden need to call Hannah. It had been over two weeks since our last talk, and all week I'd been battling an increasingly powerful missing feeling that I couldn't shake. S0...I borrowed Buck's phone and meandered off to Shadowlands field. Hannah answered on the first ring, and after our usual opening awkwardness--false starts and dead ends--got a good conversation up and running. It's tough for me to generate a dialogue out of two weeks' absence, to muster the conversational momentum that comes so easily to some people. I used to be rather ashamed of this, but ever since high school physics, I've realized that universal laws are on my side, which rather takes the bite out of my deficiencies.

Our talks always end in family. Hannah lives at home, in the thick of the clamor and confusion, the caring so powerful that it sometimes ends up causing more damage than good. And I, listening to her, love them all so much!

During our conversation, the sky behind the treeline that borders the soccer field keeps flashing with sheet lightning, outlining the deep boiling clouds, while the thunder grumbles. Just as I return from the field, a crack of thunder precedes the sudden rush of rainfall that chases me the last few feet to my front porch. The rest of the night, it poured and poured...and this morning dawned overcast and puddlewonderful and mudluscious.

I've had my coffee fix, and my Hannah fix, and a pancake with bananas too! Listening to the "You've Got Mail" soundtrack as I type this and pack my Annie Dillard read into my lunchbreak bag, I am confident that it will be a good day.

sunday morning

I am ready to go home.

big comfy couch

I like the couch that has taken up residence in my apartment. I like it mainly because its ample armrests can easily cushion my cup of coffee, while I perch crosslegged adjacent, my rear perfectly situated in the gap between the seat and back cushions. I like the calm blues--navy and sky--that pinstripe across its curvacious form; the glimpses of exposed stuffing and padding in the corners and crevices. I love that, when I seat myself thus, I command a view of the entire front half of the apartment: the kitchen, dishes littering the sink and green handtowel stuffed in to the refrigerator door; the bookshelf (or should I say movieshelf?) displaying its eclectic wares; the ever-watchful television set, offset by the coca-cola glass of graceful orange flowers; and the windows, offering a splintered vision of the nieghboring vehicles and a fringe of tulip tree greenery.

From this very post, I have visited and revisited the spheres of Facebook and Hotmail, of Banner and People.com--humming along to Michael Buble or Rosie Thomas; chatting on occasion with my roommates as they pass in and out. I have reveled in the melodrama and tedium of reality tv shows. I have shared pot after pot of gurgling Maxwell House to visitors.

From this vantage point, I can say with a sigh of satisfaction, that it has been a good summer.

Cheers.

sumatra morning

...it'll be a good day!

i love this poem

The Lantern out of Doors

Sometimes a lantern moves along the night,

That interests our eyes. And who goes there?

I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,

With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?
Men go by me whom either beauty bright
In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:

They rain against our much-thick and marsh air

Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.

Death or distance soon consumes them: wind

What most I may eye after, be in at the end
I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.
Christ minds: Christ’s interest, what to avow or amend
There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot fóllows kínd,
Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

The voice of this poem principally comes from that of a narrator, who describes his feelings as he watches a light with interest. In the first stanza, he thinks wonderingly about the owner of that light and his or her destination. The setting is somewhat eerie: he thinks “Who goes there?” like a guard, alert for signs of danger, as he watches “down the darkness wide, his wading light.” The adverb “wading” gives me the picture of a wavering light, moving through a dense liquid medium: the darkness. The adjective “wide” intensifies the ghostly imagery, making us feel the vastness of the darkness, which makes the light seem smaller.

In the second stanza, he discusses what sort of people pass by in this darkness. “Men go by me,” he writes, “whom either beauty bright/In mould or mind or what not else makes rare…” These people are “rare”, beautiful physically or intellectually or in some other way. In other words, all men that go by him are somehow uniquely beautiful and precious. These men “rain against our much-thick and marsh air/Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.” Men are the lights that he sees, shedding brilliance against the stifling boggy air in which he dwells…until they are snuffed out, either by death or distance, beyond his sight.

The third stanza emphasizes this last point by repeating it: “Death or distance soon consumes them: wind/What most I may eye after, be in at the end/I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.” Even those that he most “eye[s] after”, the lights he tries to observe the longest, eventually are quenched. The last line is dismissive, “and out of sight is out of mind.” Once they vanish from sight, he no longer wonders about them.

But, even though he no longer minds these faltering lights, “Christ minds.” Hopkins writes about the comforting spiritual truth that “Christ’s interest, what to avow or amend/There, eyes them, heart wants, care haunts, foot follows kind,/Their ransom, their rescue, and first, fast, last friend.” These lights cannot depend upon the “interested” eyes of fellow men who observe them until they depart or die. Rather, they must depend upon Christ, who eyes, wants, haunts, and kindly follows them with the intent of ransoming and rescuing them. He, unlike fickle human bystanders, is a true Friend: first, fast (loyal), and last.

In this poem, I believe that life is personified as a wide dark bog: an eerie, dangerous place. Human beings “wade” through this bog like solitary lights, viewing each other with “interest” (and perhaps warily, like guards who demand “Who goes there?”), and recognizing the beauty and rarity of each individual light. Yet as soon as the light is quenched, or wades out of sight, they lose interest and become self-absorbed again, forgetting about the beautiful light that so entranced them. Christ, on the other hand, does not forget. He loves and yearns after these lights, haunting them, following with kind intent, not losing them in the dark mire. He alone is their friend, and they can turn to no other but Him for rescue and ransom from the darkness.

The poem is divided into four stanzas: the first two are quatrains, the second two contain three lines. Throughout the poem, Hopkins reverses word order, placing objects before their verbs and nouns before their modifiers. I don’t really understand why he does this or how this contributes to the overall meaning of the poem itself, but I love the resulting cadence of the words, and the way it sounds when read aloud. He also uses alliteration in the following instances: the “w” sound in the lines 3 and 4; “beauty bright”; “mould or mind”; “death or distance”; “foot follows”; “ransom, rescue”; and “first, fast, friend.”

All of these elements combined create a stimulating, ear-pleasing poem that contains a comforting message about Christ’s love, even in the midst of our bleak lives. I believe that it also encourages individuals to care about their companions on earth even when circumstances make it difficult.

breakfast blend

It's Mother's Day!

I slept in this morning, brewed myself some Starbucks' Breakfast Blend coffee to sip along with my feast of "Melt in Your Mouth" Bisquick Pancakes. The sun continues to blaze outside, and the world is bright and golden and green. Lauren and Melanie still sleep in their respective bedrooms--so I settled at the kitchen table to type and listen to Kris Delmhorst's crooning ("So we'll go no more a'roving").

My plan for today is to get dressed, showered, and ready for church. This afternoon I want to go lay out at Highlands again, with another good book. After the evening service at Cornerstone, I will go for a jog in the twilight of Shadowland's field. It's been far too long since I've jogged...my life feels so disordered yet that I allow the chaos to distract me from doing the things that will actually contribute to a sense of law and order in my life. Funny how I let my discipline slide when outside circumstances start to confuse or disorient me. I need to work on being unflappable. I just love that word. And currently, I'm just flapping and flailing around. It has its attractions, don't get me wrong, but I know that in the long run it will have only negative consequences.

Oh my soul, steer us to uncharted waters, hoist the anchor, shake out every sail.
My brave soul, if they're out of season, heaven why should we not go where all maps fail?
We've been waiting in our harbour
We will head for deeper waters
Farther, farther, farther, farther now...

(Is that Walt Whitman?) Because I like it.

the WEEKEND!!

That's right...Saturday has come at last, and my first week of BEST summer team is officially under my belt. We changed over Carter and did a lot of organizing and crushing the first week, which made the time fly. I'm also moved into the glamorous apartment #4, complete with an earsplitting window AC unit and a phone landline with an unreliable connection. I'm rooming with the beautiful Ugandian Melanie, and Buck and Lauren share our home. Already, we've done some entertaining. Amy S. and I cooked some chicken fajitas the other day, and last night we had George, his pregnant wife, and Trevor over for some spaghetti and a rousing game of Imagineiff, followed by "Diversity Day" (an episode of The Office).

I love slow Saturday mornings! Today I slept in until 8:30, took a long refreshing shower, and then watched another episode of The Office before heading out to Highlands with a blanket and a book to lay out and read for an hour. Upon my return, I've watched Buck and Melanie battle each other in Nintendo. Now that's a good day!

Quite a few of our team have departed for their respective homes in honor of Mother's Day, which signifies a low-key weekend. I sent Mom a letter yesterday, and am hoping that it arrives in time. I also intend to call her tomorrow.

All in all, I'm looking forward to this summer!

sadness

Tonight is the last night that I will spend snuggle up cozily in my Hotel Prestige bed, with mosquitoes buzzing in my ear. Tonight is the final Thursday night dinner that Meridyth, Vouj, Felty, and I will spend fixing food and feasting upon it late into the evening in our spacious apartment. Today was the last day I trudged over to the Katolicka Jednota to our classroom for CHOW II and American Writers in Europe. Tomorrow will be my goodbye trip to Tete, Tesco, and the Building...because tomorrow at 3 am, my bus departs for the Bratislava airport, jetlag, and home.

I'm sitting here, having cranked out one full essay and researched and outlined another, listening to Shawn Mullins while Felty dissects some aromatic chicken breast on the burner. The sunshine is glowing through the shades in our window. Books and articles of clothing are scattered across the beds and tables, and our Billa trash bag gapes open from the handle of the interior door.

I'm going to miss it here.

blameless

Have you ever thought about that word, "blameless"?

I just realized, last night, that I've never appreciated what God means when he calls me to be blameless. It means that I live in such a way that I am above reproach--above blame--above suspicion. Like Christ.

That shakes me. That is NOT my life. Thousands of self-judged "minor" infractions characterize everything I do.

I need to stop rationalizing my sins away, and recognize that if I act in a way that could incur blame, I sin.

Just a thought.

a memory...

Ah, the men of Italy. Tall, dark, handsome, amorous, and persistent—their kind has peopled the annals of art and literature for centuries. No woman, I was told, could ever visit Italy and leave feeling undesirable.

I visited Rome, and I encountered men who fit the pattern…some, embarrassingly so. But my most memorable meeting was with a quite different individual.

It was the final day of our stay in the eternal city: a gusty, cloud-swept night. The lights of the city and the noises of traffic made me question whether I was, indeed, walking the venues of that ancient city—it felt so industrial, so modern. As my doubts gained credibility, the street blossomed in front of me into a vast flagstone piazza, dominated by a massive sculptured fountain: the Piazza del Populo. Now this was Rome. Lovers walked arm-in-arm across the wide area, or draped themselves in various attitudes on the benches and the stairs of the sculpture. The patchy breeze and the plashing of the fountain mythologized even the distant roar of traffic. My companion and I seated ourselves on the cement stairs of the fountain and looked about us in silence.

The stranger annoyed me at first. Another grasping peddler, destroying my experience by trying to exploit my tourist’s purse. He approached us hesitantly at first, hovering from a distance of several yards as if weighing his chances. In the darkness, I distinguished a short round figure in jeans and a sweatshirt. In his arms he bore a bunch of roses. His dim outline gradually gained clarity as he gained nerve and approached us. I guessed that he was of Indian origin by his pigment.

He extended the rose to us with a fawning sort of smile.

“No thank you,” I shook my head apologetically and smiled. “They are beautiful—but I have no money.” I hated this aspect of tourism. All week, I had been turning down the wares of wandering vendors, speculating whether this was their only source of income, and how much actually depended upon my reception or dismissal.

This man appeared unfazed. “Where are you from?” he questioned, his already timid voice so confused by his accent that it took a moment for me to decipher its message.

“Umm....oh! I’m from America,” I replied.

“America,” he nodded and smiled, lingering.

Maybe he had gone all day without exchanging more than a haggling conversation or two with a handful of self-important tourists. His posture and the eager expression on his face told me that he desired to stay. And I, on my part, was intrigued.

“Where are you from?” I returned.

Without need of further prompting, the man unleashed a torrent of words. It took all my powers of concentration to be able to interpret the unfamiliar cadence and articulation, but I understood the gist of his speech. Originally from Bangladesh, he had moved to Rome three years ago to earn some more money. He planned on returning to his homeland soon—within the year. I asked if he had family there, and he shook his head.

He began questioning me then. Did I like Rome? When did I return to America? Did I have a boyfriend? Gradually, his voice had acquired vigor, and I found it easier and easier to understand what he was saying.

After a few minutes, he shook my hand with an enormous smile, wished me and my friend a good final evening in Rome, and bade us goodbye.

So much of his story remained a mystery. What had inspired him to leave his homeland in the first place? Why Rome? Where did he stay? Did he find it difficult to make ends meet? Why roses?

As I wondered about that man, the people teeming around me took on a new strangeness. Every single one of them had a story like that of the Bangladesh rose-vendor, a story that had led them to Rome: Rome, the city that had drawn people from all civilizations and walks of life to it for centuries. On every face, the genetic material of ages of human life had blended to produce an absolutely original individual. How many of our ancestors had encountered each other in the past, in other settings, under other circumstances? And there we all were, cheerfully breezing by each other in a starlit piazza of a Roman spring.

Even as I sit here reminiscing, I wonder if that man still walks the streets with his armful of roses, telling his story to anyone who will listen. I wonder how many people from all walks of life have his blooms, dried and pressed, adorning the pages of their scrapbooks. Perhaps he has returned to Bangladesh, and there entertains his friends with tales of his adventures abroad.
And I wonder…does he tell the story of two American girls he met on the stairs of a fountain in the Piazza del Populo, who would not buy his roses?

Do I have to go home?

ah, the benefits of travel...

Foreign places help your mind to float free

And reduce you to such simplicity

You only know the words for Good night and Good day

And Please.

You don't know how to say

"My life is torn between immutable existential uncertainties."

Garrison Keillor