They Just Make Me So Happy

(I checked on that last one. It's not fake. Apparently you can actually go stay in these things (portaledges) in a high ropes forest in Germany. WHAT.)

Good Morning

The morning that lives outside my window today looks like a young theater major that played the role of an old man and has come out to the lobby after the show to be congratulated by his friends who can finally notice how fake his grey hair really is.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

-Robert Frost

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 

-Rudyard Kipling

Laundry Room Aromatherapy

1. Mapping out the rest of the semester on paper
and being able to taste the end.
2. Anne Lamott.
3. Free gingerbread coffee.
4. Outdoors that smell like crisp winter night crossbred with clean laundry.
5. The way that the beat of a djembe carries my soul.*

*the word djembe comes from the phrase "Anke djé, anke bé," which means "everyone gather together in peace." That just makes my soul even more eager to be carried.

Other Noteworthy Small Moments of Goodness

1. Spending 6 hours on Spanish in the library and actually almost enjoying it.

2. Having a girl that I don't see that often come up to me, point out that I've been in the library for a long time, encourage me, and share the rest of her bag of pomegranate seeds. She's also one of those people that is such a patient friend to people that need especially patient friends, and she offers that friendship in such a genuine way. Her small act of thoughtfulness just caught me off guard and allowed me to ponder on the goodness of her soul for a moment.

3. I got a postcard from my friend who spent the semester in Iceland. And it is all in Icelandic. All I can read is "Good day!" (at least I think that's what it says) at the beginning and "love from Iceland" at the end. I asked some friends, jokingly, if they knew Icelandic, and two guys preceded to sing me a song in Icelandic in really high pitched voices, which made up for the fact that I can't read the postcard.

4. The 5 minutes of guitar time I am going to take right now before reading more Jacques Ellul.

5. Reading Jacques Ellul.

6. The bed I get to sleep in soon.

That One Time a Guy Farted In the Library

And the whole floor couldn't recover from laughter for a full minute. :)

I just hope he's not mortified. He seemed to take it like a champ.

Jacques Ellul is the MAN

I am learning so much good stuff right now. I'm SO glad that the Bible isn't actually talking about half of the things we are taught that it is talking about.

The Meaning of the City

Finals Time, It Is. Problems Writing with Correct Syntax, I Have.

I did it. Over Thanksgiving break two of my friends came home with me and we watched all 6 Star Wars movies in 4 days to remedy my ignorance. I loved them. So great. And for the record, while the original 3 might be better, I support watching them in chronological order rather than the way they came out. Also, I think Yoda has used the force to take over my neocortex (which I just learned is the name of the part of your brain that controls language). Also also, I want to adopt R2D2. He is my favorite thing ever. 

I Wish I Were 2

There's a little girl that comes with her mom every week to the cafe that I face when I sit in the little glass box where I work. I love watching her entertain herself while her mom and dad and their coworkers eat lunch together. I love watching her talk, and watching her comprehend and engage with the things the adults around her are saying. 2 year olds are amazing. They understand so much language. But they aren't pressured to speak it perfectly. Children are given so much flexibility,  patience and grace as they learn to speak and form syntax and correct grammar. *Sigh.* Maybe if I wear footie pajamas and pigtails when I go to Costa Rica, they'll treat me the same way. In the meantime, if anyone wants to read me Spanish picture books at bedtime, I won't turn you down.

Why I Hate Homelessness

An excellent blog by a fellow Mission Year alum.

I'll Rise

From the Book of Common Prayer

I liked parts of today's prayer a lot. 

Listen, Lord, listen: not to our words but to our prayer.

"We must be saved together. We cannot go to God alone; else he would ask, 'Where are the others?'" -Charles Peguy

Five Reasons Why I Like College

1. There are lots of people with amazing musical skills.

2. Those skilled people cover a spectrum of music tastes.

3. Because there is such a wide variety of musical geniuses, you are bound to find some people that feel your jam.

4. There are lots of stairwells to do said jamming in.

5. Fellow jammers live so close that spontaneous midnight music making sessions can be the norm. 

Basically, I am really really happy right now.

"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." --Wendell Berry

A Free Man

Guess who gets to go see Wendell Berry speak in 5 days??!!! THIS GIRL.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection. 

-Wendell Berry

Marshmallow Test

So hilarious.

The Line

Okay, this is my last post for the night, I promise. But if you have the time and haven't seen it already, this is definitely a worthwhile documentary that puts faces on poverty. And it's short and to the point, but in a really humanizing way.

Gollum

Yet another reason to go to New Zealand.

Perhaps Belated, But Still Good

An article Jim Wallis wrote about choosing a presidential candidate.

As a nonprofit, Sojourners (the magazine Wallis is editor-in-chief for) is subject to constraints on their political engagement and as a result, can't support or oppose any candidates. They've done a great job at meticulously keep their partisan stances out of their writing, and I think that very constraint has made the articles they've written in response to the presidential campaign especially good. They've been able to remain "committed to [their] mission, which is to 'articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.'” (Jim Rice)

New Obsession?

Bonsai trees.

Before today, I just thought bonsai was the name of a type of tree species. But no! My friend walked into the library today with a bonsai she had just bought, and it turns out, as we learned, that "bonsai" literally means "tree in a pot" in Japanese. (Maybe you already know this, in which case, just humor my naive excitement.) It's basically the art of taking cuttings of pretty much any kind of tree and pruning and caring for it a certain way that keeps it tiny. It's like how when you're a kid, you wish your kitten or puppy would stay little forever. Except that your little tree CAN stay little forever. And it looks like a real tree. A real MINIATURE TREE.

They bonsai-fy apple trees that grow real tiny apples:

You can grow spruce tree forests:

You can pretend it's fall all the time with a teenie flowering delonix regia:

OR, you can get a California REDWOOD. Can't you just hear it? "What's that on your desk?" "Oh nothing, just a real live miniature redwood."

Poop

I wonder how long in history people have been picking up dog poop. And in what cultures. And for what reasons. I think that'd be a really fascinating anthropological study.

628 Walk

I realize this is totally dated, but a friend introduced me awhile ago to the blog of a guy that did mission year and then walked 628 miles home and relied on the goodness of people to feed him and let him stay in his tent in their yards. The whole thing is pretty cool, but I just read the last blog he posted before he got home, and I really liked it a lot. Thought I'd share:

Are You Ever Scared?