Week One of Lent

This post might make you mad...or worried about me.

This post is potentially blasphemous and it might upset you/make you angry...fair warning.

Lately I've been finding myself questioning current Christian Rhetoric. It all started when I watched this video:

Seriously though...if you spend even a minute amount of time around a female Christian you've probably heard at least one of those phrases. If you search my blog thoroughly enough I bet you could find a couple of them that I myself have said (or written, if you will)...I know that I've said some of those things in conversation before.

Why?

When I look back over my (super long expansive life of) nineteen years, I see a girl who spent a lot of time trying to fit in with her fellow believers. I read Josh Harris's books at the ripe age of fifteen and because of them chose to "kiss dating goodbye." I cried at all of the youth events and "re-dedicated my life" more times than I care to admit. I learned to play Casting Crowns by ear. I said and did all the right Christian stuff. I went along with all of the trends because I wanted to be cool.

Now that I'm all grown up I find myself facing Christian fads and trends that I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with...

I mean, I don't wear toms. I don't go to a cool church that has a coffee shop in it. I want to get a tattoo (but NOT of a verse or some Christian phrase or symbol). My bookshelves are covered with nineteenth century novels, volumes of poetry, guides to writing well, books about Greco-Roman mythology, and manuals about security and crime prevention. I haven't read Radical. Nor do I plan on reading it (not that it matters because I'll never have enough free time to read what I want ever again anyways!).

And then there's this. My blog. My baby. 183 posts ago I began putting itty bitty pieces of my heart on display for the general public. And somewhere between there and here I started laying it all out for you guys...to the point that I subject you to my thoughts that don't really fall in line with Christian norms. Somewhere along the way I evolved away from wanting to be the cool, coffee-drinking, hipster Christian I hoped you all thought I was.

But I'm not really sure who (or what!) I've evolved into.

I mean, GOD is still a huge factor in my life. I still love Him and worship Him. My life is still submitted to Him. So don't freak out and think I've gone and turned into some heathen or something.

I have more to say but this post is long enough so maybe I'll continue my thoughts some other time...

I'm all mixed up tonight.

I've been sitting here trying to come up with something to post about for the past half hour and I feel really lame because my thoughts refuse to let me organize them. It doesn't help that they're all really random.

So here they are with absolutely no order or sense:

1. I'm out of chocolate.
2. Last night at work some lady on the phone asked me if I was a Jew. For some reason this really upset me and I've been thinking about it all day. And if you've talked to me at all today I've probably mentioned it at least twice.
3. My bathroom sink is broken.
4. I'm writing a textbook on mythology for my Milton class. It's consuming my thoughts...lately I find myself daydreaming about Andromeda being chained to a rock whilst waiting for her rescuer or Narcissus falling in love with his own reflection. It's distracting to say the least.
5. I want to be better at knowing what to say and when to say it.
6. Water is my favorite.
7. My Lent prayers are coming easier to me now.
8. I've had this weird streak of insecurity come over me lately.
9. My hair smells nice.
10. We read some deliciously scandalous poetry in 17th/18th Century Lit the other day. And I'm kind of in love with it.

What's that weird girl got on her arm?

If I Ever Get a Tattoo...

Here is a selection of the phrases I would consider...

"Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color."
- W.S. Merwin

"Surely it is a privilege to approach the end still believing in something."
- Louis Gluck

"'Love' is finding the familiar dear.
'In love' is to be taken by surprise."
- Mona Van Duyn

"Wisdom is having things right in your life
and knowing why."
- William Stafford

And here is a link to pictures of the other ones I like...

Can we just be friends?

A couple weeks ago I wrote this post about how I felt about the beginning of my relationship with GOD. And that train of thought has kind of been continuing in my mind since then.

After the honeymoon stage I had with Him I realized that there were some things He actually expected of me. I realized that the sparks and emotional highs were happening less often. My relationship with Him started feeling stale and everyday instead of magical and mysterious.

So I slipped into the pattern of seeing and referring to GOD as being my "Best Friend." GOD and I became buddies. And to be honest, I was a very fair weather friend. I called on Him when I felt like hanging out, but I rarely (if ever) answered His calls.

And then I started (metaphorically, of course) seeing other people...their names were Pride, Movies, Novels, Greed, Selfishness, Coffee, New Clothes, Insecurity, Homework, Boys (Haha that's ironic!), Facebook, and Money. They were the ones consuming all of my time, thoughts, energy, and desires.

So GOD and I slipped into this pattern of seeing each other on Sundays, but not really communicating throughout the week. And on Sundays things were strained...I mean, I knew that I was using GOD to get what I wanted and I felt badly about it, but I really didn't want to stop.

Even though I had made a covenant with the LORD that was as equally binding as marriage I still found myself wanting Him for just a friend so that I could have all the other stuff in my life that I liked. I clung to things that really didn't satisfy me at all.

Now that I've written all that in the past tense, I see that it's really not in the past. Even though I intended to write a post about how I was when I was 16.

I guess that's because I still fight the urge to "Just be friends" with GOD.

But that's not what He wants. He wants ALL of me. He wants MORE of my time, MORE of my thoughts, MORE of my attention, MORE of my energy than I would give to a friend. He wants to love me and cherish me and protect me and provide for me in ways that a friend never could. He's not okay with just being friends. And as my economics professor said the other day, "There's no better place to be than in the center of Christ's will."

Klostermeyer and John Donne

Dear Dr. Klostermeyer,
This post was partially inspired by our talk today. I mean, I didn't run home trying to think of something to blog about just because you pointed out that I hadn't really written in a while...I just realized that my being busy hasn't just kept me from blogging, it's kept me from reflecting and thinking in the way that I ought. Also, when you pointed out that I'd never written about SBU faculty I thought it was time for me to give a shout out. So here's my shout out. And what follows is my actual post:

So anyways, things have been crazy lately. I've been doing a lot of running around/trying to memorize court cases/trying to figure out what the heck Milton meant in his super confusing poetry/making up for lost sleep by spending way more time in my bed than should be legally allowed/downing caffeine like nobody's business.

I haven't really slowed down for a while. And to be honest, even when I have slowed down these past few weeks I've ended up falling asleep before I could get any productive thoughts in...or to be even more honest, I've kept myself from thinking productive thoughts, because they're difficult. They're messy. They usually make me uncomfortable. They usually spur me toward making choices that don't seem very fun (but that I ultimately know are right).

So I think GOD played a joke on me tonight. I came back to my room and drank a mocha and then fell asleep. At eight. On a Friday night. I forgot about the caffeine content a mocha has. So I woke up exactly thirty minutes after falling asleep.

And of course I woke up in a weird state of mind because I'd only slept for a short time. The kind of state of mind where you read seventeenth century poetry and wind up crying all over the book. Which was embarrassing, but okay I guess...we all need some cartharsis.

I'm taking a class about 17th and 18th Century Lit. this semester. For the most part it's all over my head, but we read this poem the other day and it really got to me:

Holy Sonnet 14
By John Donne
Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

I feel like this poem speaks for itself, so I won't belittle you by dumping my thoughts on it on you. So now hopefully I can work off this caffeine buzz and get some sleep.

My Honeymoon

Let me just start out by saying that it's been one of those weeks where at the end of it you want to do something crazy like color your hair blonde, or bright red, or lilac, but you know that you'd hate yourself if you did so instead you start a new work out plan. So I'm a little sore.

I'm two weeks in to my hardest semester ever, and I'm already going a little stir crazy...as is evidenced by my previous post. I know it seems like I have way too much time on my hands to the casual observer, but let me set the record straight...anything I've been posting on here or on facebook has been a sad attempt to procrastinate and/or seem like I actually have a life in the midst of all the stuff I need to get done. Although I guess posting something on facebook is really proof that you don't have a life because you're so cooped up that you only have time to talk to your online friends so I guess that little paradox kind of defeats my purpose...

So anyways...

A couple months ago I posted some stuff that talked about how I'm learning to view Christ from a marriage perspective...if you missed out on those you can catch up here and here. I guess you could say that the LORD has kind of been building on that perspective this past week.

You know how when you first start liking someone who likes you back and everything is wonderful and you always think nice things about that person and you want to buy them stuff and make them cookies and play with their hair and write them notes and...I could go on...

I call that the Honeymoon Stage of a relationship. Maybe you're dating, maybe you're not, all the same, you're just starting to know them and you like them a lot. And it's mutual.

I had a really nice Honeymoon Stage with GOD. And I've been thinking a lot about it this past week...

I don't know about you, but when I have any sort of Honeymoon Stage with a guy, pretty much any movie I watch, book I read, or song I sing will one day remind me of that male. So this week when I watched the new Jane Eyre, it made me think a lot about the LORD, because I read that book over and over when I was first getting to know Him.

Another thing that reminded me of Him was when in Spanish class this week I came across the verb 'llover', which means 'to rain.' This is super cheesy and sappy and weird, but when I first learned that verb, I taught myself to remember what it means by reminding myself that my Lover (the LORD) makes it rain to remind me that He loves me. (I've always really, really, really loved the rain.)

My favorite part about my Honeymoon Stage with GOD was how peacefully I always managed to sleep. It was such a nice feeling to literally and metaphorically rest in His love. And He blessed me with a fairly long time of honeymoonishness. He gave me several years that were free of doubts and full of trust in Him.

Girls.

I say 'so' a lot...

So my room is currently an inferno. It's killing me. So much so that I can't focus on the seventeen hours worth of homework and studying that I have. I put the fan in the window to try to pull in the lovely 60 degree winter air outside, so it sounds like a small truck is trying to rev its way into my room. Which is ironic because I live on the fourth floor. Some truck.

Also for some reason I had an off day today. It all started when the campus eating facility ruined my morning by serving lukewarm water in place of my favorite caffeinated beverage. Well...there was some coffee in there, I guess...although not enough to keep the liquid in my cup from looking strangely similar to milk.

So in Spanish all I could think about was how I NEEDED a cup of coffee. It was very distracting. So I concocted this marvelous plan that involved going downstairs to the library where there is a nice little coffee place. But guess what. They were out.

Someone almost threw herself on the floor.

Eventually I sucked it up and ran back to my room to make my own cup. And then I felt better. And then I ran to class. And I could focus and everything felt right with the world.

So that's my story of today. And I'm sticking to it.