but a vapor.

(from: http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/)

"We are but a vapor. I think we know that we could die tomorrow, or worse that our children could, but do we really KNOW it? You know, LIVE as if we know in our hearts that we are just a breath, that we will wither and fade like the grass and the flowers... I know there are days when I don't. I am not meaning to be morbid, simply realistic. Because I know that if I lived like I really KNEW this truth, if I treated everyone as if they were David and might be taken tomorrow, I would love better. I would hug my children tighter and hold them longer. I would tell people thank you more often and I would tell God thank you more often. I am thankful that as I care for sick children often, this is something I am reminded of often, and I pray that it would change the way I life my life.

Francis Chan wrote, "How we live our days, is how we live our lives." I had to read it several times as I let it soak in. Because it is true. So often we find ourselves waiting for a specific moment, a specific call, something special. For what? How we spend our days... that will be our LIFE. Because today could be it. If Jesus came back today and said, "Let's go!" would we be ready? Would we be doing what we want to be doing when we meet Jesus? People say to me often, "You are so lucky that you found your calling, that you know your purpose in life." This statement boggles my mind. I AM so blessed to live the life that I do. But it isn't rocket science. God did NOT part the sky and shout out to me, "Katie! Serve my people." I read it in His word. You can too. We can all see as plain as day that Jesus says the number one commandment is to love the Lord and love your neighbor. I happened to move to Uganda and love those neighbors, but that is not the point. As believers, we should already KNOW our calling; it is to love the Lord and love our neighbors by caring for them in whatever broken state they are in. When He said that "the poor will always beamong us" I don't think he meant that as an excuse not to worry about it but as a reminder that there is ALWAYS a neighbor, no matter where we are, in a worse condition than we are. I can only believe that God created us to make this world a little better. That he designed us in love to show that love to others. I just don't know what everyone is waiting for."

dear 2010,

please be a year when people (and animals) stay alive.

thank you & it's much appreciated.

yours very truly,

ashley allyson

"i love relationships with grace in them. people who are different enough from each other have more of a space, more of a need for grace to fill in the gaps"

uncut.

This is definitely going to be Ashley-organic. No editing, and little re-reading, and probably too much rambling (because when is there not?)... because I have to run to take a shower and pack before I get going, but I also want to write because I haven't taken a moment to think in the past 18 hours at least, so here it is: a recalibration moment. I'll try my best not to make you the recipient off too many outpourings though, don't worry.

Last night my Dad left me a message asking me to call him "sooner rather than later." Which is fairly typical for his structured, always-on-exact-schedule life, but I put it off until after Trevor left (he came to visit for the weekend)... to maintain my lazy Sunday world for as long as I could until I had to re-enter the papers and ominous-father-phone-call reality. In short, he let me know that he and my aunt and a couple doctors had decided, after extensive discussion, to discontinue my grandmother's medication, excluding pain meds, and to "let things run their course."

I mean, okay, she's old. And she's miserable, truly (her mind is well but her body called it quits years ago). And this isn't at all an atypical life event. But why is stopping medication the best course of action? Plus, it's Christmas. Plus, my other grandmother just passed away earlier this semester. We already took the hospice adventure not too long ago--do we really have to go down that path again? And why are half of the belongings in my apartment all formerly owned by my grandmother? I knew I had inherited a lot when she moved into her nursing home .. but I hadn't realized quite how much until last night, when, in every room, I found myself sitting in her chair, using her dishes, curling up in the blanket her arthritic hands had made on my bed.

I told Trevor these things soon after he returned to Lewisburg. I went to a Christmas party, but ended up texting him in the middle of it saddened by its insufficient ability to be a distraction. At that, he decided (despite my resistance) that he would drive back to State College at 11:30pm, even though he had a work retreat to leave for this morning. And in the meantime, Bonnie insisted on keeping me company. So, on the phone, we sat, and we talked, and we prayed. Book of Common Prayer, Evening Prayer: Rite Two. Really--how do I have such incredible friends?

My grandmother taught me the Lord's Prayer. She taught me to pray; when I was little, I used to make myself not fall asleep so I could listen to her praying in Polish from the adjacent room. And, there was a passage near the end that said this: "Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen." ....shield the joyous. What an interesting way of putting it. Does it mean to protect them? Guard them? Keep their innocence? Prevent their pride? Hold them in safety? How can a simple phrase be so all-encompassing?

Alright, well, it's probably time I get on with my day. But it's such a gift in itself to have a direction to send my rambling, flawed though they may be. Plus, isn't that the modus operandi these days? It seems like everyone is putting out "EP albums" ... raw, uncut studio recordings. Neither the writer nor the listener feel the need to answer their flaws. Why do we find them so great, mistakes included? Perhaps even more profound than their freshly polished albums? Maybe for the same reason some of the greatest 'novels' ever were taken directly from writers' diaries. It rehumanizes the abstract writer on the other end. We want the emotive, scuffed up, candid version; maybe we want the person, not the product.

my heart aches to know how i should live.

to spend all night in the back yard,
staring up at the stars and the moon.

"i just got to this place of silence. i simply have nothing more to say."

and the roads diverge.
and neither option holds full hope.
i'm missing a road, i am.

Some days I'm a bird, some days I'm a song.
Some days I'm a storm, sometimes I'm just plain wrong.
But there is a still quiet voice and it sounds a little like mine,
Saying, “You’re right where you should be, it's just going to take time.”

When's it all breaks down
When they's nothing to lose
When there's no more to say and there is nothing to prove
Oh yeah bring it on, all things living in you.

You're not just what has happened, you can be something new.
But what you leave to the shadows, what stays in the dark,
Will grieve you and seize you and cripple your heart.

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars

I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharaoh's court
I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them

how can you begin describe one of the most influential people in your life in a short letter of recommendation? words could not contain my heart's outpourings, let alone this 8 1/2 x 11 sheet.

Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." (Matt 9:22)

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Peace, peace, it's hard to find
Doubt comes like a tiny voice that's so unkind
And all your fears
They conspire to unwind you

And in your dark street shines
An everlasting light
And all your hopes and fears
Are met in Him tonight

"There are all kinds support groups for people who grieve, but nothing for people who should be grieving but don't."-Discovering My Autism, Jessica Kingsly

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

give us this day our daily bread.

on friday, i read this (well, the italicized part) at my grandmother's funeral. it was hastily written and poorly delivered. but, it was enough for the day. i love you, grandy.




(this picture makes me smile. we both just look so .. bright. she has forever-hot-pink lips that are brought out further by her shirt [i can assure you, the day before she passed away, her lips were still beautifully pink]. and i have swimmers' shoulders and blonde hair. and, of course, we are sitting on her floridian furniture, which could [i say this honestly] not have been more appropriately placed in her philadelphian home.)

~*~

"Do you see God in everyone? Despite our brokenness, one of our greatest gifts as humans is that we reflect our Creator’s image inherently, and that we can teach each other God just by being who we are.

Now, if you asked my grandmother how she reflected God, my hunch is that she’d say something along the lines of, “Well, my stunning good looks have God written all over them—have you seen the portrait of me with those gorgeous golden locks?”

Or, maybe when *you* think of how Grandy was God-like, you immediately come to her no-less-than-divine ability to read a 300 page novel in about .. 300 seconds.

And, there was the fact that she had this ability to listen patiently to you, without ever really demanding attention herself.

In the chapter 11 of the Gospel of John, Martha and Mary’s brother Lazarus dies. Martha begs of Him, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But, Jesus was there. Of all things Christ was, His quality of being “there” is undeniable. This was our Emmanuel, our God who came down to find us, to be with us. He demonstrated this a few short verses later in the well-known verse: “Jesus wept.” Though we cannot be sure the cause of Jesus’ tears, we do know that, because he was there, He was deeply moved to raw emotion. Our Christ was with them.

Upon contemplating all of the many things Grandy taught me, I realized that one aspect of God she constantly showed was the art of being there. She patiently met you where you were. Of course, that being said, at my graduation she did develop the nickname “the wandering grandma” after we couldn’t find her for at least 45 minutes. But, despite what it may seem, I think this may be the truest demonstration of her 'being there.' While I took pictures and laughed with my friends, she unassumingly waited for me. She walked around the campus, met people, and even got herself something to eat. Even when she wasn’t there physically, she was there for us. She, like Christ, knew the simple joy of just being where you were.

Aside from this quality, she demonstrated many other facets of God’s character. I am quite sure that few people will pour out gifts on me like my grandmother did. And, you could know her for years, and one day ask if she knew anything about doll-making for your colonial days project. Then a few hours later she would reveal her completely hidden talent by presenting you with a beautiful doll for you to show off in school the next day.

And then, well, there was her …perhaps more human side. I feel these things warrant sharing as well. One day, my grandma, around the age of 80, decided that boogie boarding was obviously for her. I remember watching her wrestle the waves, thinking I had to have the coolest grandmother around. And there was last year, when she and my mom and I spent a weekend at the beach, what was her drank of choice? Scotch. Straight. And even last week, I told her I was reading an article about economic theory that I didn’t quite understand, and even in her weakness, she lost no ability to tell it like it is: “It stinks!” she proclaimed from her bed. Candid, witty, blunt. That was her.

And so today, while she is not with us physically, she is with us. As we go to be with each other, let us carry and delight in the pieces of us that are forever changed because she was, and is, with us."

~*~

and now, i am going to go sing in the shower. because that is right for this day.

you try to live and love
it comes and interrupts.

i wonder if God gives us the gift of things feeling surreal when we can't experience them head on. graduations, births, traveling abroad, weddings, winning the lottery, deaths. they're all a blur. but, i'm pretty sure i'm grateful for the blur.

birthdays always happen so surprisingly quickly.
it seems like they're perpetually far, then one day they're in two weeks, then they're gone.
i wonder why this rhythm .. imaginary/approaching/wake-up.
that's sort of how christmas is too.
or any exciting event.
maybe two weeks is the window for whirlwind?
who knows.
anyway, time to re-enter imaginary...
by the way, bonding over food is more fine than anything has ever been.
sigh--ignorance is not bliss: intimacy is.

it's a sadness about all of these things. not frustrated or angry or even upset just.. sad. it's about the discrepancy between the way things are and the vision: the way things could be, and should be. it's the resounding clash between heaven and earth. and sometimes it causes frustration or anger. tears or trepidation. but tonight, it's nothing more than a long defeat. where really, truly, the only hope is an unseen way.

because the raindrops have returned. they're splashing into the ocean of unknowns in the way raindrops do, and are warping the little light that finds its way into the blue abyss. the funny thing about water, though, is that despite it lessening the ability for vision, hearing is heightened. sound travels faster, fuller. so why am i fighting to see though the water.. when listening, and casting out echoing cries to understand my surroundings, would be far more helpful?

key westtttt...
home of the sunset.
our home for the next two days.
excuse me while i go swim in the pool outside our room and 'get away from it all'....
(all = grad school, but mostly cold state college weather ;)

do you have people in your life who just ... speak truth to you? one time, my friend bonnie, in her infinite whimsicality, asked me to "tell her something true." how would i even begin to do that? but, it's been something i've pondered ever since [ever since being .. at least the past two years? perhaps more?]. i wonder what gives these statements truth. i suspect it has more to do with their timing than their content. or maybe it's that they speak uniquely you, right in the moment when you aren't quite sure what 'you' means.

anyhow, i feel like i'm rapidly collecting these moments as of late, so i'm going to compile them [even if some of them were sent secondarily instead of by their original authors; same principle]. perhaps they'll serve as an anchor at some future prodigal point?

...

"Please. (I'll demand politely.) I know your MO, so you'll have no choice but to share, got it?! :)"


"They may have many friends, but they don't have another Ashley G. (I was just going to write "another Ashley" but Ashley's such a common name that I thought I'd be more specific)."


"i love how instead of asking 'does that mean something's wrong?' you wrote 'does that mean everything's okay?' hmmm. what does that say about you, or me, or our relationship? ;)"


"So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,
one of which was you."


"I am really not meant to be a part of society I think. It irks me."


"if the whole psych thing doesn't work out...you could totally be a preacher. we could go to africa together and be a preaching psych pair of the introverted variety."


"I have often been told that when one first turns to God, one is greeted with brilliant Yes answers to prayers. For a long time that was true for me. But then, when he has you hooked, he starts to say No. this has been, indeed, my experience. But it has been more than a No answer lately; after all, No is an answer. It is the silence, the withdrawal, which is so devastating. The world is difficult enough with God; without him it is a hideous joke." - Madeleine L'Engle


"this is not what i'm going to forreal write you."


"i'm back and i see your green dot!!"


"Take it from me--crazy life is much better than sitting around with nothing to do but sit around and get crazy in your head. Crazy life is much better than crazy in your head."


"I started dancing in my kitchen when I read your email. Then I hugged Ellen and tried to tell her about the beauty of women friends. Just yesterday, she, Sean and I had a conversation in which they both tried to convince me that, based on their experiences, girls make lousy friends to each other. I assured them that this can change."


"..it makes perfect sense to me that the one you sent (and the caption) made you think of me – not that I can say why exactly."


"I found it simultaneously humbling and encouraging. As always, I am struck by our collective vulnerability and strength."


"It's a beautiful mystery isn't it?"


"You wrote with such passion and urgency, giving me the feeling that you might have been out of breath by the end of it. I could literally feel the pulse of that email - - it was wonderful!"


"Just a crazy love for them - - not for their possibilities (although that's a piece of it I'm sure), but for who they are at this moment. They move me."


"Life doesn't get any better. This I know for sure."

.....


From This River, When I Was a Child, I Used to Drink

But when I came back I found
that the body of the river was dying.

"Did it speak?"
Yes, it sang out the old songs, but faintly.

"What will you do?"
I will greive, of course, but that's nothing.

"What precisely will you grieve for?"
For the river. For myself, my lost
joyfulness. For the children who will not
know what a river can be--a friend, a
companion, a hint of heaven.

"Isn't this somewhat overplayed?"
I said: it can be a friend. A companion. A
hint of heaven.

....

"I have come to believe that over the course of a lifetime, if we are fortunate, we will find a few souls that serve as anchors for our own soul and that this is what we seek - - sometimes tentatively as in our most vulnerable and lonely moments and sometimes with passion and abandon. I believe that we are drawn and compelled by certain people regardless of age, gender, interests, experiences, personality, and so forth. They simply catch us up in some inexplicable way."

i like the smells of morning: the preparation, the anticipation, the hope.

The flowers you gave me are rotting and still I refuse to throw them away.
Some of the bulbs never opened quite fully
They might so I'm waiting and staying awake.
Things I have loved I'm allowed to keep
I'll never know if I go to sleep.

make no protest as you go.

Thus might I hide my blushing face while His dear cross appears,

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness, And melt mine eyes to tears. 

statistics, please be over :(

wrongs will be righted
if we're united
let us seize the day..

(ah, newsies.)

"how does africa taste?
is the hue of the morning sky a different shade of blue? it always sounded so cliche to say that australian skies were bluer. but they were. i may miss australian skies most of all.

when you know something, do you feel like it knows you? i wonder why knowing leads to the feeling of being known. is this a false reciprocation? is it because knowing leads to a hope of belonging? did you feel like you belonged in cameroon, by simply knowing it? not belonged in the sense of the star-shaped-block fitting through the star-shaped-hole. but, belonged .. as in je connais. you may know 'je sais' the roads .. but could you know them, as if they were people? as if cameroon were another being, one with whom you could converse? i wish i could articulate this. i feel it so clearly.

i wonder if it's the same subtle difference in living and abiding. right now, i live in God more like He's my address or current location. i don't abide in Him. you're living, in kenya right now. but, i pray for you to be allowed to live there. to dig your toes into the earth and reach your fingers to the sunlight. to drink in, and give back beauty. and, live into. i love how you said that. 'live into his joy' .. it suggests motion. a moving toward. we live into joy, not live in joy."

Oh, what will let my heart run free
Break these chains deep inside of me
If heaven knows, lord I cannot see

Burning sun fell through a blinding mist
It broke the ground with gentle fists
Beneath the sky wide and full of grace
A ruthless trust filled this faithless place
Oh, there’s no love that deeper be
Human heart nor eye can see

Heaven knows what it’s given me

it scribbles across the sky in all directions, as if just beyond the next city block. only the
accompanying silence gives away its real distance.

not because we want to

but because we are dead

and if i know anything, Christ is the way to life

We’re all homesick
Is love the reason?
My hunger led me to your hope
Until the end of this colder season
Keep us warm

anger always seems like an entirely new emotion every time it happens.

it's weird how much control you have in relationships with other people. and how they are so dependent on reciprocity (would saying 'simultaneous reciprocity' be redundant?).

then again, it's incredible how little control you have as well. how they come to you, with full spirits of their own, and leave so unexpectedly. sometimes, before you know that they're on their way out. and then you're left .. looking at them, and trying hard to remember what it felt like when they were so very present, just a short time ago.

Ashley

it's the ask-an-important-person-to-be-me-doctoral-chair meeting

Ruth

Don't ask in pirate.

....ha. also yes, scary meeting today. actually, the second. two committee members down, two more to go. ah!

i am so desperate for attention sometimes that it's sickening.
and, the moments when i like anything but contemplation and discussion are so few and far between. they're fun, but they just don't compare.
bonnie had it right when she said that life's best moments are lying in bed, figuring out the world.
it's like i have this undying curiosity, and if i don't get to express it regularly, it bursts. i'm like a teapot, and will start crying out if i'm left just to stew for too long without being tended to.
how come some people get me so well, and yet we can't talk? and others barely understand .. but i just feel so .. fulfilled after having a conversation with them. why does conversation matter so much to me? and why are some conversations so much better than others? escape. it's about escape. escaping the world to slip into a world of our own while we talk. that's what it is. that makes all the difference.

how can i be simon?

today i was thinking about toothbrushes sitting next to toilets.
and how often we try to clean ourselves with something that may actually make us more dirty.
of course, that's not a general rule.. because the toothbrush will still remove plaque and food particles. but will it add anything less desirable?

i know there's a metaphor in here somewhere, i just have yet to find the right thing to apply it to...

i wish i could reach out and rejoice with the world today.
can i sing alleluia in spite of myself?

Rivers never fill the oceans
But oceans always feel
The waters reaching deep inside them
I guess they always will

Love's a constant mission to a world you never spoke
Love, it keeps you wishing
My heart, it keeps me broke...


---
confused words are appearing in my mind rolling around the world is a jumble of an unmanageable mountain of entangled thoughts that become visual memories trying to tear apart one image from the other to make sense of it all but cant I need to escape from the people from the place from my mind something holds us back its ingrained within us from childhood like chains they shackle us hinder us from the light in the world one has to look out of themselves grab that ladder and climb to the top of the world out of themselves and find the light wherever it may be some are capable of doing it on their own and others need to be slapped out of it

The winter's going to be cold.

why is being happy so natural for some,
yet impossible for others?
why are we predispositioned like this?
and who has the greater blessing?

hot water screaming
over the silence in my house
will someone get me out of this meltdown?


again? so soon?

this doesn't feel like rolling to the middle.
for me, either.

sandra, what would i do without you?
still, i don't want this song to ring so perfectly capturing.
what does that mean?

--=--
summer heat through the porch screen
like time through my lungs
i am overcome, with your memory
there's a stain on my hands
of gasoline and sand,
and night comes again without asking

like a train car running off the tracks,
you can run behind, but you cannot get it back...

change comes like the splitting of wood
like the plow blade turns the soil on the ground
and the change comes like it should
you gotta die before you live
something's gotta give for you to find
what comes after

spare change in my pocket
falling from my jeans
you are fading from my dreams
with each sunrise
hot water screaming
over the silence in my house
will someone get me out of this meltdown?

and the change comes like the splitting of the wood,
like the plow blade turns the soil on the ground
and the change comes like it should
you gotta die before you live,
something's gotta give for me to find...what comes after

write the words, memorize the frame

it's so bittersweet, to leave you again

i left houston on a sunday
and i just can't explain
feels like a drug in my veins
all this changing, all this changing...

my playlist is on random.
and i'm discovering all sorts of songs i never knew i had.
such as this one (how tragic that i was unaware of a U2 album!):

You're kept awake dreaming someone else's dream
Coffee is cold but it'll get you through
Compromise that's nothing new to you.
Let's see colors that have never been seen
Let's go places no one else has been

You're in my mind all of the time
I know that's not enough
Well if the sky can crack there must be someway back
To love and only love


also, there's a part of me that's grumpy about how easy the internet makes everything these days. it used to be a talent to change html settings on blogs. and to be able to use photoshop instead of sites like picnik. but, i suppose the days of intense user friendliness are upon us.

apparently lyrics are my lifeline lately.



The current is strong from what I've heard
It'll wisk you down the stream
But there never seems to be much time

My toes just touched the water

Daydreamed on the bank again
I was swimming with the fish
And I thought this time that it may be true

My toes just touched the water

Walked a mile just to find the edge
Some place low enough to step right in
Now I'm here and I can't begin - to move

Walked a mile just to find the edge
Some place low enough to step right in
Now I'm here and I can't begin - to move

The spoiled sun up over there
It always has to have its way
And I know that the river's there to shelter me

My toes just touched the water

(norah jones)

perhaps i should really think about getting some of her music..

This is how I know our love
This is when I feel its power
Here in the absence of it
This is my darkest hour

When both of us are hunkered down
And waiting for the truce
All the complicated wars
They end pretty simple
Here when the lights go down
We roll to the middle

No matter how my pride resists
No matter how this wall feels true
No matter how I can't be sure
That you're gonna roll in too
No matter what, no matter what
I'm going to reach for you

When I get to heaven I'm gonna go find Job
I want to ask a few hard questions, I want to know what he knows
About what it is he wanted and what he got instead
How to be broken and faithful

What I thought I wanted
What I thought I wanted

Staring in the water like aesop's foolish dog
I can't help but reflect on what it was I almost lost
What it was I wanted, what I got instead
Leaves me broken and grateful

"the recipe page has been the most visited part of the inaugural website" ...so that's why i'm an american ;)

and, one last thing ... did someone from scranton, pa really make it to vice presidency? :)

sitting here, watching the inauguration ... what do i feel?
why is there still an invocation? what purpose does it serve ... just because we feel like we have to have it? why do we still say "so help me God" .. and swear on the bible?
why are people more excited to see aretha franklin than to speak to the God of the universe? nothing against ms. franklin .. she's great .. but do we .. do i .. comprehend who we're speaking to when we pray?
hope. freedom. change. newness. love. service. equality. justice.
isn't it clear, perhaps more than ever, that these are the things we long for?
are these not the very things woven through each and every gospel?
this is no novelty.
what about simplicity?
"when true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed"
why do americans know simplicity to be good, but follow everything but it? why do i do the same very thing?
maybe it's good to keep singing these songs, repeating these words. at least we will be reminded... at least we won't forget these virtues completely.
but, is it not obvious that we have no ability on our own to go through with doing what we know is right?
so why do i watch this with tears in my eyes? where is this emotion coming from?
"a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves"
..do we have that willingness?
is guilt causing this? sadness? worry? uncertainty? melancholy?
is presidency 'sacred'?
do we even know how to brave icy currents anymore?

Cutting through the darkest night are my two headlights
Trying to keep it clear, but I'm losing it here
To the twilight
There's a dead end to my left
There's a burning bush to my right
You aren't in sight
You aren't in sight

Do you want me
Like I want you?
Or am I standing still
Beneath the darkened sky
With the scenery flying by
Or am I standing still
Out of the corner of my eye
Was that you
Passing my by?

On this hot summer night
Between fight and flight
Is the blind man's sight
And a choice that's right
I roll the window down
Feel like I'm
I'm gonna drown
In this strange town

Feel broken down
I feel broken down
Do you need me
Like I need you

A sweet sorrow is
The call tomorrow

Are you passing me by
Or am I standing still?

why do i believe such lies? so easily?

'cause hell's the only place you can be free of all love's pain.
[is this true?]

"Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?"
-from "Reluctance" by Robert Frost

i'm scared.
sometimes, i understand the verse about not making promises.
promises shouldn't be made.
they only set you up for not following through.
or the fear of it, at least.
i'm tired of living in this brokenness.
with this broken body, broken soul, broken heart. surrounded by broken people.
where all we are is defeated.
why must suffering bring glory?