late nights = no work nights

so it is 3.13 am.
.15 of 1 lesson plan out of 4.0 whole lesson plans.
haha. as usual. i suck.

i just spent a good hour or more on remembrances from the past...
a retreat i went to a long time ago...
i found a card from the pastor that i used to despise so much but that contained so much simple truth,
"May God give you joy and happiness as you experience more and more how much He values you."
i don't know if i noticed back then, but he has pretty handwriting. i am grateful to you. how funny that it is the lesson i have been trying to learn all year.
and i found another secret that i will save until the future. one that i will hopefully be able to give to my brother, in a moment with much joy in my hands and understanding in his eyes.

and writing, writing. stumbled across some things i had written...i realized, with a jolt. what if writing comes to be "one of those things i did" back in high school? a faded memory, activity; a part of me no longer possible or capable. if i do not start again, that is what will happen...and i will be sad at having lost yet another one of the precious few interests/semi-skills i possess.
or i will look back, muse, and think, 'ah, that was what i once did...'. knowing that it was a giving up on, of what might have been honed, or valuable.
but perhaps we all have to choose.

it is difficult,
to write a story.

i wonder if i have ever read a short story with a real ending. they're more like real life, perhaps. they end with a feeling, a mood- a moment. a waiting.

or maybe that is just raymond carver.

and along those lines, two short stories that everyone should read:
1. "bullet in the brain", tobias wolff
2. "what we talk about when we talk about love", raymond carver

i liked when garrett said that. more interested in the pure beauty to be found, or crafted in words. it made me think of someone mining for something in those words, searching for a hard jewel of ruby or sapphire in them. something solid, concrete, and to be held onto.

life is perty sweet when you hit upon a note of truth. like hitting one of those colorful notes on the xylophone. that happens rarely, or by accident.
but maybe its better to roam and get out of your range to try to find others, than to hit the same note over and over again.
or maybe the trick is to hit that note again, deeper and deeper.

love

got owned this year. haha.

that questioning of love. is it real? can it ever be selfless?
im believing again, though...in love, and in sincerity. and service.
and allowing the best in people to shine.

so my heart: in reparation and restoration.
but joyous because of God.
...and good things, the here and now. and the things to come.

today was a gorgeous day, with kev/sam/sean's uncles, or more accurately, sookmo's younger brothers. they are wack. and bright. and hilarious.

thoughts to remember from the day,
1. how strong people appear on the outside [how much they can hide]
2. eastcoast.westcoast. // acceptance. // christianity, as it applies to everyone.
think i have been working in narrow confines, in terms of jesus and life. but want to expand things real wide.
3. i think i have found another mystery.

i love the people who can make me laugh,
and talking about the people i love.

a series of quotes

which i just read, and would not like to forget.

"To know a primrose is higher thing than to know all the botany of it-just as to know Christ is an infinitely higher thing than to know all theology, all that is said about his person, or babbled about his work."
- george macdonald

"I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."
- thomas merton

"The darkest of dark cannot extinguish the light of a single flame."
- dietrich bonhoeffer [ a man i hope to read ]