To Be Holy

“Holiness, holiness, it’s what I long for.

Holiness,  it’s what I need.

Holiness, holiness is what You want from me.”

~Holiness, Sonicflood

            If you grew up in the church then you probably have heard that song before. You’ve probably stood in front of a pew, or sat in one, and sang the lyrics. You’ve probably acted on auto pilot, knowing that once you sang the song you’d be moving on to the next thing in the service lineup. But have you took time to think about those lyrics? Take a moment and look at them. Notice something? Do you notice how the word holiness is repeated five times in those three lines?

           What is holiness?

           

 This isn’t an easy question to answer and, for the longest time, I didn’t have an answer to it.

  

          I grew up in the church. From the time I was a baby I had heard of holiness. My mother was known to sing the song Holiness while doing housework. She’d sing it to me to get me to fall asleep. It is one of those church hymns that have always been present in my life.

            My friends and I would stand between our parents in church. Our eyes trained on the hymnals one of our parents held. We’d read the words. Sing the words. We’d sway a bit to the soft music. We never questioned their meaning. I guess it was because, at the time, holiness was something we associated with goodness. If you were holy then you were good. Being told to be holy was the same thing as being told to behave. Wasn’t it? That’s what we thought. In our young years we comprehended that eight letter word as meaning the same thing as a four letter one. We didn’t understand the true depth of it.

            As I grew up, that word made multiple appearances in my life. I still didn’t think about it much though. That is until I reached my teen years. The teen years are a hard time in anyone’s life. Changing, growing, trying to figure out where you fit in and wondering if it’s worth it to have a certain reputation if the cost of it is yourself. It’s tough. I know. I’ve been there.

            At about fourteen is when everyone started asking questions. I have to admit, I never really voiced my own. I felt as if I should already know the answers, what with growing up with the parents I did. You see, my parents were the people my friends were asking the questions to. My dad was the youth pastor and he explained to my friends, and I considering I was listening, what certain aspects of our belief were.

            By seventeen, my dad and one of my friend’s moms were my youth pastors. Again people were asking questions. We had lived through three more years and wanted more in-depth answers than the ones we had been given before. No surprise there. As one grows they yearn for knowledge and we had reached the age where we could fully understand the answers to our questions. I didn’t though.

            I could explain to you what entire sanctification was. I could tell you why my denomination doesn’t use wine for communion. I would have debates with my friends over whether or not once-saved-always-saved was legit or not. I was a Nazarene girl who went to a Lutheran high school. I had plenty of opportunities to talk to my friends about our different denominations’ beliefs. But every Wednesday was when my youth group would meet. We’d all pile into the upstairs room of our church and gather around a pool table, or chat on the sofas for a half hour, until our leaders announced it was time for the lesson.

            I remember one night, sitting on a worn green couch. It was seriously one of the ugliest couch ever, but it was comfy and soft. One of my friends were sitting beside me as I leaned against the arm of the couch and our leaders sat among us. I can’t tell you what the lesson was that night. We hardly ever finished a lesson. We’d start talking on one subject, then someone would have a serious question, and we’d spend the time discussing their question. This suited us. Though not all of us were the best of friends, none of us were too afraid to ask ‘hypothetical’ questions. We knew what was said in that room stayed among those gathered.

            That night, one of the leaders used the word holiness and one of my peers asked what exactly holiness was. I wish I could tell you what answer was given, but I don’t remember. That’s because it wasn’t an answer I understood. My peers seemed to understand it. They seemed to grasp the concept and move on, but to me the answer might as well been, “Holiness is a purple elephant that lives in Indonesia and dances the cha-cha on the weekends.” Seriously, I didn’t understand holiness, but I wasn’t going to ask my youth leaders for further explanation. I never even asked my dad when we got home from the meeting. I just dealt with it.

            Holiness wasn’t something I was that concerned with. I was curious about it’s meaning, but not curious enough to forget that voice in my head that was telling me that I would look like an idiot if I asked someone what it meant. So, I went on with life. I went to school, I went to youth group, I talked about Christianity and beliefs with my peers, but holiness wasn’t really thought about again.

            “Holiness, holiness, is what I long for. Holiness, is what I need.” I sang those words in church on Sundays. I listened to my Sunday school teacher talk about what it meant to live a Christian life and I asked questions on occasion. Holiness though…that question remained on the back burner, simmering away underneath the protective lid I had placed upon it.

            A year went by and I graduated high school. I had gotten into the college I wanted and was ready to leave everything in Nebraska behind. I’m going to be flat out honest, I wanted a change. I wanted to be out of my comfort zone. I was aiming for complete and total unrecognizable surroundings. That’s why I planned on going to California. It turned out that my decision to not go to California and stay a little closer to home was a good thing.

            I ended up going to a university in Kansas. I’m still there and still in love with the campus and all the friends I’ve made. It was in my second semester of my freshman year there that I took the holiness pan off the back burner.

            At my university, everyone has to take Bible classes. Two of those required are Old Testament and New Testament. It was a couple weeks into my old testament class that my professor walked in and said that he heard a song on the radio that he thought we should all hear. The song turned out to be an Addison Road song, called What do I know of Holy.

            My professor, who I won’t tell you the name of because I don’t have his permission to use it, played the song for us all to hear. As I sat there, watching the video and listening to the lyrics, that old question resurfaced. The song had a point. What did I know of holy? What was holiness? I still didn’t voice these questions however, and my professor never brought them up.

            Almost every class, my professor played that song. He taught us our lesson, show us clips from the brick Bible (it’s a pretty cool thing, actually. It’s the Bible, using Legos) and prepare us for our quizzes. After every class, he’d dismiss us with a four word phase. He didn’t say goodbye, or you’re dismissed. He didn’t tell us the class was done and to remember to study. He’d do all his quiz reminders than look at us, his eyes scanning over the full desks, and say, “Go and be holy.” Every time. Every single time, he’d say the same thing. “Go and be holy.”

            I found myself thinking about holiness more and more. I ended up buying Addison Road’s song from Itunes and listening to it on my daily walks. I became entranced by the song. There was something about it that had me captured. I realize now what it was. That song was saying, asking, the very thing I had been for years. It didn’t really give an answer to what holiness was. It didn’t say to be holy is to….it just asked, and that’s why I liked it. I spent an entire semester listening to that song, learning that song. I felt the need to learn it, to memorize it, to engrave it on my soul. I listened to it in class, on my walks, and thought about my professor’s words. Still, I asked, what is this holy you speak of? And still I never voiced that question.

            Finals rolled around and between packing, working, and finals I didn’t take as much time to ponder over holiness. I cared more about passing classes. People kept freaking me out. Freshman year, I was new, upperclassmen thought it was fun to terrify us of our finals. “You need to study really hard. His finals are super tough.” Just so you know, they were all lying. So far, I’ve only had one time that someone has told me a teacher was a living nightmare and I ended up agreeing with them.

            On the day of my Old Testament final, I was tired. I had stayed up all night the night before, working on an extra credit assignment for the same class because I didn’t know how well I’d end up doing on the final and I wanted to make sure I had some cushioning. Don’t call me an over achiever. I see you snickering. I don’t do extra credit often. I usually spend any extra time I have writing or hanging out with friends. As it turned out, I didn’t really have to fret over that final.        

  

          I remember walking into the class, sitting my stuff down, pulling out a pencil and staring down at a piece of paper in front of me. The test was turned over, I couldn’t see it, what the Professor said instantly had me nervous.

            “You’re going to have an essay.”

            “Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap.” That’s what was going through my mind. A first year English student and I already dreaded essays. Why? Because when you’re an English student your essays are practically papers. I’m not talking your normal two paragraph writing explaining a subject. I’m talking full on introduction, body, and conclusion. If you really wanted a good grade on an essay you shot for three or four paragraphs. I was worried that I’d run out of things to talk about the subject given, but when I turned over that paper, my professor started playing that Addison Road song again.

            At the top of the paper, typed out in black Times New Roman font, was this question, “What does it mean to be holy?”

            Now, with as much as I asked that question without coming up with an answer, you’d think I’d be freaking out even more at that point. I wasn’t though. I was calm. I was actually relieved. As the song played I picked up my pencil and kind of stared around me for a bit, gathering my thoughts. There were a couple Ministry majors writing away in front of me. Their hands were working quickly over their page. Then there were a few people staring blankly down at their pages, and those writing at a relatively normal pace. I set the tip of my pencil to the paper, allowing myself to soak in the lyrics of the song filling the room, and I began to write.   

            I won’t tell you all I wrote, for I ended up writing one and a half pages worth of an answer, but all I wrote could be summed up in the first sentence of my essay….

            To be holy is to be all you can be for Christ.

            You may disagree with me. You may think I’m a crack, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but to me that was the first time I grasped that concept. I’m still young. I’m only in my twenty-first year of life, and the things I experience and learn from this point on could end up shaping my view of holiness. I might come back to this writing in five years and think, holiness is also about….or to be holy you have to…I really don’t know, but right here, right now, to be holy means to be all I can be for Christ. To be myself, and nothing but myself, and to use all that He has given me (my likes, my dislikes, my talents, and my weaknesses) for Him.

            After nineteen years of wondering what holiness actually was, I grasped onto a part of it. All thanks to a professor and a song. I’m going to leave you now, and I may be leaving you even more confused than when you started reading. If I am, I’m sorry. If you disagree with my thoughts, anything that I’ve said, than good for you. I’m not asking you to accept my views. I’m not asking you to say that my definition of being holy is right, but I am asking you to think about holiness. I want to ask you something. One, simple, six worded question….

            What does it mean to be holy?

            And I am giving to you the same challenge my professor gave to my class each and every time we met….

            Go and be holy. 

How To: Simple Recipe Book

On July 4th my sister turned 18 and I wasn't quite sure what to get her this year. I thought about a number of things, but eventually settled on a homemade project. Yeah, I could have gotten her that DVD series, or that cute little necklace, but this was something I had been thinking about doing for her for awhile. You see, my sister loves to cook. She loves everything to deal with cooking. She watches cooking shows, could spend all day in the dish isle at the store, and loves to make and tweak recipes.

She had been asking me for a while to do a challenge for her...which involved me  coming up with a bunch of random recipes for her to try and make. I used this challenge for her birthday present and made her a recipe book. It was actually rather simple and fun to make. Like any craft though, it took time. I made it in three days (it would have been shorter if I didn't buy paint that happened to take two days to completely dry). 

I've decided to share with you just how I made the book, in case anyone out there is interested in making one. Recipe books are something we can always use. We keep those special family recipes in there. We scrawl our secret ingredients and opinions in the side bars. We pass them on  from one generation to the next. Really, recipe books don't only give us directions for delicious meals, but they also connect us. The recipes that they hold could be from our mothers, our grandmothers, even our great-great-grandmothers. They really do connect us to them, and allow use to make food that they themselves enjoyed. 

To make the recipe book I did, you will need the following items:

• A photo album (I got one with two photo slots per page) 
• Glue
• Paint
• Beads/buttons 
• Black thread
• Scissors 
• Index cards 
• Ink pens
• Computer/really good handwriting skills 

Step 1: The Cover

Paint the cover. I painted the cover first so that the paint would have time to dry while I made the recipes. This turned out to be a good thing because the paint took two days to fully dry.






Step 2: The Bookmark

For this part, there's a few different steps. Just because I feel the need to explain to how I tied the book mark on.

To start off, you need string. I used black embroidery thread (which you can purchase at Walmart for 30 cents). Cut the tread to be twice as long as you want it to be and fold it in half. Slip it under the top ring of your photo album, as shown in the picture to the left.

Next, hold the top of the thread in your hand. Take the ends of the thread and fold it over the ring, putting it through the loop the top of the thread makes.

Then, pull the thread. Let go of the top part and pull the ends through the loop.

The result should look like the picture to the right.















The last part of this step is to add beads/buttons to your bookmark. I used two ladybug buttons. Resulting in what you see.








Step 3: Recipe Writing

Now, if you have really good -legible - handwriting you don't need to use a computer for this part. Though I like to think I have decent handwriting, I fail at writing in straight lines on unlined paper...and I wanted to use unlined index cards. So, I typed up my recipes.

A good place to find recipes is on Pintrest (http://pinterest.com/), but I also pulled some from my mom's cook books. She has a few cookbooks and some family recipes, so I took some of them and put them in the book.

Once you have the recipes typed out then print them and cut them apart. If you wrote the recipes on the index cards, good for you. You can skip the next part :D Congrats on having the great writing skills! I envy you.


Step 4: Recipe Cards




This step is easy but time consuming. Glue your recipes to the index cards. I made the recipes small enough that there is room for notes on the side. You can make them bigger though.








Step 5: Dividers 



While the recipe cards are drying, I made a 'title card' for each section of my book. I made one for: Desserts, appetizers, drinks, salads, main meals, and crusts/breads (I added this one after I made this photo as an after thought because I had pie crust and bread recipes). For this, I just drew on the index cards.

If you haven't noticed, I sort of have a lady bug theme going on. So I used red and black ink and drew tiny lady bugs on the cards. I also used hearts for my 'i' dots. It added a bit of character and fit my sister, who loves lady bugs.



Step 6: Organization

Once your recipe cards are dried (not fried, like I originally typed. Seriously, don't fry your recipe cards. That's not how cooking works), slip them in the photo slots of your album.

I organized the book I made where the recipes went: Appetizers, Salads, Main Meals, Desserts, drinks and Crusts/Breads.  I also made sure to start each section on the right side of the book. Don't ask why, because my only reason is that I thought it looked better that way.









Step 7: The Final Product

Once your book is done, have fun using it! Keep adding recipes, write down cooking tips and such in it. Really just personalize it. Have fun cooking and using those recipes that are important to you. And don't forget just how important those recipes are.

As I stated at the beginning of this post, recipes connect us. They connect us to the creator of the recipes as well as those who have used them before us. We're all connected in this crazy world, and this is just a physical reminder of that.

Cardboard Box Dreams

(The following is something I wrote on a day when my mind wouldn't stop thinking. I wrote it in April and have recently discovered it stashed away in my journal.)


I always dreamed of leaving home; of leaving behind the cornfields and the drama that seemed to grow more scandalous as it's owners aged, but then I did. I graduated high school, moved with my family to another town, and talked myself through the longest summer of my life. I couldn't wait to leave. So it was no shocker that when the end of August rolled around I was packed and looking forward to a new adventure. College was the fresh start I needed. It wasn't an easy transition, by no means, but it was the one that allowed me to use the glorious wings I had spent the previous eighteen years of my life growing.

Growing up, I wasn't really ever like my peers. This is something I can now be thankful for. Sure, I dreamed of marriage, of mansions, and motherhood....but not to the extent my friends did. When I was about fourteen it became obvious I was different. All my friends were  talking about becoming doctors, or vets, or living in gigantic houses with cars that I would be fearful of owning (for I would not want to risk getting into a accident with a car that expensive). I, however, was pushing aside bridal magazines and their pretty dresses that seemed to scream perfect happiness to my friends for science-fiction books. This was something not too many people liked and very few encouraged. Yet, it was because of a science-fiction book and my little sister that I found my dream. 

Forget mansions. Forget fancy cars. Forget home cooked meals. I was fourteen when I decided that I wouldn't mind living in a cardboard box, as long as it meant I could write. 

My dream morphed and became this picture of myself standing in front of a window of a tiny apartment.. It would be night and I would be admiring the city I lived in. I always thought a city at night was one of the most beautiful sights to beheld. There'd be a bowl of Spaghetti-O's on the coffee table, a box of bombpops in the freezer, and a computer with my latest story open on it's screen. That was my dream. 

I saw graduation as a chance to reach that dream. I left home, moved into a dorm, and started my college education. Everything was find and dandy. Sure, I hit a few road blocks and got into some arguments, but I  never expected the road to be easy. I never wanted it to be. Something happened along the way, though, and I'm not sure when or how it occurred, but I got lost. I slipped and my writing began to become tainted. 

At twenty-one years old, a junior in college, and the owner of a planner packed to the brim with work and assignments, my writing had become lazy. I started some stories with friends, and pushed aside some others that I had lost interest in. I figured at least writing with friends was still writing...but then my priorities shifted. 

I want that apartment. I need a car. More hours of work? Sure, I could use the money. Four papers to write, a speech to give, a presentation to put together, a quiz to study for, and..wasn't there something due today? Yeah, those were my thoughts and I was left to wonder what ever happened to I'd-be-content-in-a-cardboard-box?

I was laying in my bed one night, pondering that question. It was one in the morning, but the lights were on and the TV was blasting some crime scene show that was intent on ruining it's viewers' psyches. What is seen can't be unseen, and I only wish I could un-see some of the things that show had shown me. My roommate  was obsessed with it though. All day, all night, there was always some cop show playing. I didn't complain. I left the room if it got to be too much, but that night it was bugging me to the point of insomnia. So, I found a way to distract my thoughts. I thought about writing. 

One thought led to another and I was soon giving nostalgic smiles as I perused my mind's archives. I worked my was back to the first book I wrote and then, suddenly I wasn't alone. 

"Hey," I turned at the sound of the voice, the file of my first book open in my hand, and stood mouth agape as my eyes locked with the brown ones of someone I hadn't seen in a long time. 

There before me, in the dark filing system of my mind, stood a seventeen-year-old male with brown hair and the kindest eyes. His voice had been so shy when he had spoken, so soft, but it didn't mask his identity. On the contrary, it confirmed it. Khaki pants, a green tee-shirt reading SFA, and a pair of worn sneakers only added to the confirmation of his identity. 

"Christopher." I was shocked at how foreign his name sounded on my tongue and felt a pang within my soul. Had it really been so long that my tongue had forgotten how to speak his name with surety? 

"Hi," he gave a shy smile. A single hand had raised to rub at his neck as his eyes turned heavenward. I looked up, but I saw nothing but darkness. He must have seen something else though for his wide, dimpled grin, that I knew him for replaced the shy smile. When his eyes returned to me he said, "It's be awhile."

"My Emerald boy," I muttered. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't thought of Christopher in years, so why was he there then? What made him make an out of the blue appearance in my mind?

"I've missed you," he paused for a moment. "We've missed you."

"I've missed you too." 

The corners of his mouth fell and a sad smile, a twisting of the left side of his lips, stole the place of his grin. "You haven't thought of us in a long time. We should be twenty-three, you know, but instead we're stuck in theses teenage bodies." 

Twenty-three? How was it possible that my original characters were twenty-three? My babies, trapped because I had left them to entertain themselves. What kind of a writer does that? 

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes Christopher had aged. He was still clean shaven, but there was a sharpness to his jaw. He wore a pair of cargo pants, and the same tee-shirt as before (but more worn). There was s sturdy pair of boots on his feet and a messenger bag packed with papers across his chest. Twenty-three...I could hardly believe it. 

He reached up, toying with something above him. I saw nothing, but his fingers behaved as if he were rolling a dangling string between them and he was debating on plucking the string from it's root. 

"You got out," he commented, his eyes turned towards the darkness he was playing with.  "The city's a nice place. Your dorm room's cozy."

"I guess," was my intelligent reply. I watched for a bit, as he closed his hand around whatever it was that had him fascinated. I had ask though, about his life. I had an unquenchable thirst to know what happened to him. "What are you up to now days?" 

A smirk came to his lips, it wasn't an expression I was use to seeing on his face. It wasn't one I could ever recall him wearing. He shrugged. "You tell me. You're the author."

But I wasn't his author. Not anymore. I felt disconnected from him...like I no longer had the right to dictate his life. Not that I ever really dictated my characters' lives. For the most part, they worked out their own lives. I merely wrote them down. 

"You know," he said it with such sureness that I couldn't help but believe him. Our eyes locked and I felt a rush of some unnamed force wash over me. Something happened and I was no longer disconnected. I knew exactly what had happened to him during those years of abandonment. I knew exactly where he stood that day.  

"I'm sorry," i spoke. " I really thought you and Kristy would last. It looks like you're doing well though. You're teaching at the Academy, I see. Good job! I'm proud of you. Who's in charge of the Academy now? Is it still Leader Smith?" 

A shake of his head was my answer. His raised hand gave a downward jerk and a single light bulb blazed to life. A fragile looking, beaded chain dangled from it. His hand held the chain lightly, like he was afraid he'd break it. "His daughter is. You remember Tara. She's doing a great job. Erick's gone missing though. They say he's dead. One of the tombs collapsed on him at the excavation site...but you already knew that. You started writing that story. Remember?"

It was my turn to nod. "I remember."

"Skyler and Onna are happy," he went on, watching the single bulb above us, "but they miss you too. We all do."

I couldn't think of anything to say. My gaze turned to the folder in my hands and I heard a sigh leave Christopher's lips.

"Do you remember when you were younger?" he broke the silence. The bulb was flickering, it's light fading like shadows on a summer day. Darting out on occasion to play with the world around it, but always retreating. "Your dad was in Illinois and a storm was shaking the windows of your home. The storm was worsening and your mind was too busy to sleep, so you logged onto that old Gateway desktop and opened up our story. Remember? You finished the book that night. You ended our adventure on Sapphire-Diamond. Our first adventure. You remember how you felt when you typed those last two words?"

I couldn't speak, so I merely nodded. The flickering light was becoming somewhat of a nuisance. I found myself mentally demanding that it to choose between life and death.

"What happened to you? Where did that confidence and pride go to?"

"I don't know," I chocked out, and it hurt to know that what I said was true. Where did it go to? Why was it that whenever I finished a writing I no longer felt pride in it? Why did I feel like there was nothing worth writing about?

"What ever happened to that cardboard box?"

The light flicked off and I jolted awake, eyes snapping open to find that the TV had been shut off. The lights were still on, though. Out of instinct, I glanced at the clock. It was nearly three. If I had cared to look around the room at the time, I probably would have noticed my roommate reading something on her computer. Her headphones would be in, blaring music so loud that the lyrics were as clear as glass to those of us not wishing to hear them. That's what was normally going on at three in our dorm, but my mind was else where.

What did happen to that cardboard box? When did I suddenly decided writing wouldn't be enough and that I needed to push my body and mind past it's limits in order to grab onto the glorious future that everyone else wanted? When did I ever start wanting that future? 

A Reader's Confession

Reading is something I have always been fond of. When I was little, it was impossible to quench my thirst for books. Every summer, I would participate in the local library’s reading program and would read around ten books a week. As I’ve grown older, I’ve lost hours in which to read. With school, work, homework, and a social life, my reading hours have dwindled. Yet, I still have a passion for it. I still have a never-ending list of books I wish to read, and most of my shelves have been reserved for my own personal library.

Yes, reading, is something I’m very fond of. But, over the last school year I’ve come to realize that I don’t read the same way that I use to. Before this semester, I reached the conclusion that reading for pleasure had become hard for me to do. My English classes had taught me to dissect a book and I found myself doing that so much that I no longer really enjoyed reading. So, for awhile, I ceased reading. The only books I opened were the ones I was required to read. Then this last semester rolled around.

In my Introduction to Literature class, we read a poem by Billy Collins, titled Introduction to Poetry, and it really hit home. I'm not going to give you the entire poem, but there are a couple stanzas in Collins’ poem that says:

“But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They began beating it was a hose
To find out what it really means.”

I felt like Introduction to Poetry really summed up where I was with reading. I had reached a point where, instead of diving into literature and exploring it, I was trying to beat the truth out of it. I had been asked too many times in my English classes, “What did the author really mean by this?” and “What is the purpose of this symbol?” that I had disregarded the joy of reading and was more focused on discovering the answers my professors wished to hear. That’s not how one understands literature though. You can’t torture truth out of it. There is no right and wrong answer when it comes to the meaning of a story, and that is something I needed to be reminded of.

After reading Collin’s poem, I made up my mind to start reading for pleasure again. I bought some new books, set aside some time to read, and kept a pen close by just in case I did want to annotate something within the story. Of course, annotating is not the first thing on my mind when I’m reading, currently. It’s more of a habit, really. Something I picked up from being an English major. The real reason I’m reading is to rediscover the joy of it, and so far I haven’t been disappointed.

Thanks to this Introduction to Literature class, I have been able to reevaluate my reading habits and fix them. Now, though I am reading for pleasure, that doesn’t mean I am completely disregarding everything I’ve ever learned about interpreting literature. That pen I mentioned earlier is for more than just writing small comments I have about the story in its margins. It’s also so I can underline specific lines, translate words, and explore the possible meanings of phrases and symbols. I’m just not letting the meaning of those symbols get in the way of the excitement of the story.

Like Collins’ stated, we have the tendency to try to force truth out of literature, but it doesn’t take force to discover truth. You don’t have to look up every word, tear apart every symbol, and beat the truth out of the story. You just have to sit back, open your mind, and read. Get lost in the literature and the truth will find its way to you. Everyone can get something different out of every piece of literature and I’m enjoying discovering the truth in the book I am currently reading, which is The Fallen: The Fallen and the Leviathan by Thomas E. Sniegoski. When you sit back and just take the book as it is, you not only discover truth but you enjoy the journey to discovering it.

Snippets of Smiles

In life you come across all sorts of people. You come across the ditsy, the clever, the bright-color lovers, the dark-color lovers, the music lovers, the literature lovers, the jerks, the ones who think they're cool but aren't, the nerds...and so on, and so on. The list off all the different types of people that you come across can go on and on. It's a never ending list, really, because every single person is different. We all come from different backgrounds, different regions, and different lifestyles. No one person is like another because none of us go through the exact same things. We're all unique and its our uniqueness, our us-ness, that makes life so entertaining.

Over the last two semesters, I've filled my note books with the random, clever, funny, and thought provoking things that my friends have said. One of them is always saying something and, as a writer, I take note of the brilliant way they say things. It started as a personal project, really. One of my Professors suggested that our Creative Writing class keep lists of things people say, and the things we see, that we think would be good lines or images for stories. I don't know if any of my classmates took that challenge seriously, but I decided to give it a go. I've gathered quite the collection and, today, I would like to share a few of them with you.

I've mentioned a few times now that life is busy around here, where I am, and I'm sure some (if not all) of you reading this are feeling the same way. So, I want to give you a chance to smile. Here's just a chunk of the things that my classmates say that have brought smiles to mine and others' faces. I hope they do the same for you.    

Guy:* walks into class where he's the only boy and every girl goes silent* What's going on in here?
Girl: We're plotting your demise.
Guy: That actually makes me feel pretty comfortable. I'm use to that.

Girl 1: It was flurrying this morning!
Professor: It's just a reminder from God that you're the salt of the earth.
Girl 2: It didn't please me. There was snow on my car...in the spring!

Girl 1: *notices friend wearing a lace shirt* It's so pretty!
Girl 2: I know, right? You can even rub your face on it if you want!

Professor: * teaching about the place of curse words in the English language*
Student 1:* Starts listing off examples of curse words.*
Professor: No, no, no. This is an English class. You're English students. If we're going to curse, we should at least curse with class.

Student: *speaking about a professor* It's like sink or swim with her...except she ties something around your ankles so you fall right to the bottom.

Guy: *addresses class that's all girls, beside himself* Do any of you know how to tie a tie?
Girls: Yeah.
Girl 1: Do you know how to tie a tie?
Guy: No. I feel like it should be required that for ministry majors to graduate we should all have to pass a class on tie tying.

Professor: Why are there still so many of you in this class? They told me that at least half of you would drop...but there's still twenty of you. Not that I don't like you...I just don't want to grade your papers.

Guy: *having a Christian-Pickup-lines contest with a friend* Is that your resurrection body? Because it's flawless.
Girl: Do you need prayer? Because I'd love to lay my hands on you.

Professor: Put your hands on your neck like this *puts hand on neck*. Now saw Z-Z-Z. You feel that vibration? Now say s-s-s...don't do this in public. People will think you're crazy.

Guy: Fifty Shades of Grey is a bad influence on women.
Girl 1:What's Fifty Shades of Grey?
Guy: You haven't read it? How about you, have you read it?
Girl 2: No, but my roommate has and she told me what it's about.
Guy: You're not going to read it, are you?
Girl 2: Not my type of literature.
Guy: Good.
Girl 1: What's it about.
Guy: It's torture porn. And the lead female character falls in love with the guy torturing her. I don't see that as a good influence. As a guy, I wouldn't want my girlfriend to be like that chick. She allows someone to hurt her for love. Seriously, have some self-respect! Listen up you two, You should never let a guy hurt you. Even if you love him and hurting you gives him pleasure. If he really loves you he won't hurt you. Understand?

Professor: Think about this for a moment...God loves you so much that He would rather die than live without you.

Professor: Even the darkest corners of space aren't completely dark.

So, there you have it. A few quotes to hopefully brighten up your day. Like I said, I have more, but I don't want to make a freakishly long blog with all of them it it. Also, the Fifty Shades of Grey quote wasn't to offend anyone. If you like the book, good for you, but that was exactly what one of my guy friends said about it to me and another chick when we were working with him.

Have a blessed day, lovely souls!

The Cleansing Powers of Rain

Rain is a glorious thing. Like most things in life, it has a duality to it. Every coin has two sides, and rain can symbolize both life and death. For the sake of this entry, however, let's focus on the positive side of rain. Perhaps  at a later date, I'll write about the negative side. As it is, though, I've been pondering on the positive. 

Life has been crazy lately. Theses last few weeks have been nothing but stress and insomnia. Almost all of my time has been dedicated to school, work, or preparation for the future. Free time has become something of a myth. Yet, I still find time to enjoy a few walks. If I didn't, I'd go crazy. It was on one of theses walks that I did something completely against my nature. 

Before I go on, let me tell you that I love rain...but I hate to be in it. This has nothing to do with its temperature, or how its wet, its because I absolutely detest the feel of wet fabric. Seriously, I cant' stand it. Like some people can't stand eating rice because of it's texture, I can't stand wearing wet clothing for the same reason. There's just something about how it plasters itself to my form that irritates me. But, twice in three weeks, I have voluntary experienced the feeling.  

The first was on that walk I was telling you about. It was misting that day and I knew there was a high chance of storms, but I was so stressed out that I needed to leave the dorm. To escape from the white walls and forget for a little while. The weather looked so inviting with its heavy clouds and lite fog. I grabbed my Ipod, my over-sized hoodie, and ventured on a walk. It started out nicely, the heaven's tears occasionally striking the surface of the river I walked beside, but grew to be something I needed. Something deep and meaningful. 

It started pouring while I was walking the trail. My first thought was to turn back around. I was only about half way through with a mile. The walk back wouldn't be a long one. As thunder began to sound, I made up my mind to turn back. Music and solace weren't worth getting sick over...correction, I thought they were very much worth it, but I couldn't  afford to become sick. My life was simply (is simply) too hectic for it. 

When I was almost back to the dorms, I changed my mind. I remember pausing, looking at the river and unconsciously moving towards it. I could no longer bring myself to care that it was pouring, that I could get sick, or that I had a pile of work waiting for me back on my desk. I was captured by the beauty in front of me.

I honestly couldn't remember the last time I had 'danced' in the rain. I could recall a brief conversation I had with my mother about how cleansing rain was and how standing in it washed the dirt off the mind and soul...but that conversation had been over three years ago. I had still been in high school then, and no I'm only a few months away from my Senior year of college. I did something then, when I realized just how long it had been since I had actually been out in the rain and enjoyed it, that I normally wouldn't do. I turned off my Ipod, plucked the buds from my ears, and sat down on a rocky area I always walk by. It's more like a rocky cliff-side, but it's not too high up and over look a river. Granted, if you stumbled from it you would be injured. It may not be that far above the river, but there were enough jagged rocks at the bottom that a tumble could easily break a limb. I sat there, though, for almost an hour. I just sat there watching the rapids of the river. I saw ducks playing, robins bathing, and found myself entranced by floating leafs. I allowed myself to forget all my stress and to succumb to the beauty of the Lord's world. 

After that walk, I felt alive. I felt as if I had been shut off from the world and -for the first time in forever -I was really feeling. That moment was more real to me than the paper waiting to be written. More important than the speech I needed to finish...more beautiful than the stack of precious literature I needed to read. 

In the words of Stephen Chbosky (Have you ever realize how much I quote this guy?), "In that moment, I felt infinite." I felt like I actually understood the scenes in movies where people who have gone through so much suddenly dance int the rain. I'm a writer, and yet I fear that I can't possibly accurately describe that feeling to you. I think it's something that, to truly understand, one must feel for them self.

  

Today, I experience that awesomeness again...which is what really provoked me to write this blog. I was forced to walk to class in pouring rain, to talk about a poet that is more than a bit disturbed (Sylvia Plath, for any of those wanting to know. That's the poet's name). I must have looked like a drowned cat when I entered that classroom. I was soaked to the bone. So soaked that my clothes were dripping and my steps leaving puddles. Remember how I said that I hate the feel of wet fabric? For forty-five minutes I sat at my desk, fighting the urge to run back to my room and throw on some dry clothes. I paid attention to the discussion  but it was difficult. Sitting as stiff and as still as a board, I forced myself through the class.     

After class came to an end, I sat at my desk for a few moments longer. I didn't want to go back outside, but I didn't want to spend the next two hours, which I had as free time, there. So, I picked up my hoodie -intending to put it on -and discovered it was still just as wet as it was when I had peeled it off my body. 

Taking one glance out the old window, at the pouring rain, I mentally said, "Forget it." I was soaked anyway. So, I gathered up my back pack, draped my hoodie over my arm, and made my way into the rain. I walked back to my dorm slower than I ever have before. I figured I might as well enjoy the walk since I couldn't temporarily halt the rain. I allowed the rain to finish its task of drenching me, had a conversation with a professor who was also venturing through heaven's wonderful tears, and was freezing by the time I made it back to my room. The three minute walk to my dorm was made in ten.  

The rain's cold today -its drops are powerful, almost bruising as they strike at your flesh, but they are beautiful. I have said this multiple times in my life, but there is nothing as beautiful -as breath taking -as a storm. There is something so pure to it that nothing else can quite rival it. It's like...well, it's like God. It's powerful and strong, but nurturing at the same time. It's awe-inspiring. It's pure perfection. It's... indescribable.  

In literature, rain -water -is used as a symbol. It can represent life, death, trials, and perseverance. It can be personified as mocking or nurturing...but the most common ways it is used is as a symbol of rebirth. It symbolizes the purification of the soul. The rebirth or resurrection of one's self.

In a spring that started off frozen, I am finding rain to be more beautiful by the day. Not only has it provided for me a few moments of extreme closeness to the Creator, but it has revived the world just as it has my soul. 

For those of you who read my last blog post (entitle Soliloquy) you read a poem about myself wanting to be revived. I might had wrote it as a class assignment, but I wrote it about my inner struggle to rise above the dark and frozen state of the world. This is a struggle I think all can relate to. With the coming of the rain, I felt a weight being lifted from my shoulders. Its been as if the rain has washed the cares from me. I still have things to do, meetings to attend and grades to get, but the rain had brought a sense of peace and tranquility. It has been a reminder to me of the beauty that is in this busy life.  

Some of you who had started reading this may have already left by now. I may have lost your attention long before this point, but -for those of you that are still here -if you take away anything from this post I hope it's that there is beauty in this world. Despite the darkness and the everyday struggles that try to bring us down, there is beauty. The Creator is an artist, and this world is a masterpiece. 

I challenge you to take a few moments out of your busy schedule to enjoy the world around you. I realize it may not be raining at where every you are reading this, but still take time to look around you. Go outside and gaze up at the sky. Go to the park, lay down in the grass. Go on a walk. If there's a tornado, go watch it...from a safe distance...please, don't go injuring yourself. Tornado/storm watching is perfectly fine (I've done it myself), but be safe about it. That is my challenge to you. The Lord has packed this world full of beauty and just a moment's observation of it can change your whole day.

Soliloquy

The following is a poem I wrote as assignment for my Introduction to Literature class. The assignment was for each student to write a poem, turn them in, and then explicate (write a paper about) another student's. Soliloquy is my poem for the assignment  I did mean for the title of the poem to be important to the actual poem, but you can understand what's going on without looking up what the title means.

For those of you that don't know, and are wondering, Soliloquy is an art of writing that normally appears in dramas. It is a section of lines -words -that the speaker/writer is saying to him or herself. To put it simply, a soliloquy is a letter to (or a conversation with) one's self.

Without further ado, my poem...

Soliloquy 


I want to write something sunny,
Something bright and full of delight,
But the world keeps spinning faster;
It keeps spinning into the night.

How do I write of butterflies
When all I see are moths?
How do I write of victory
When all I see are sloths?

Looking for the silver lining
Is easier said than done.
They say keep moving forward,
But life weighs a ton.

Doors keep getting closed,
And their keys keep getting lost,
And this just makes me wonder,
What would giving up cost?

My mind tells me it’s not worth it,
My heart declares that isn’t so,
And my soul just keeps on screaming;
It keeps screaming Go! Go! Go!

I’ve tied a knot around my wrist
To remind me of my goal.
I’ve changed all my radio stations
So they sing the songs of the soul.

How could I live with myself
Upon giving up a dream?
How could I think of backing down
When things aren’t what they seem?

So I’ll just keep on going,
Keep looking towards the sun,
For when all of this is over,
I can rejoice that I’ve won my run.