This morning–videos in bed, reluctance, inertia, space, chalk the door frame, etc.
So I just watched another audio slide show on the NyTimes site. Wonderful. Actually, transporting–But makes me wonder how stable a home should be, how tranquil, how volatile, how porous, how comfortable, etc.
Morning—chicken soup, strongly spiced.
Evening—marijuana and skunk blend.
Always the sirens, and always the Los Angeles dust.
Friend Jen said update, so here we are…
From my journal…
A rambling, messy thought on personal responsibility.
“And what should I say? Father deliver me from this hour? No, for it is for this hour that I was created…” this verse where Jesus is struggling with his upcoming crucifizion (literal historical context) strikes me in that it has two subjects-both present and equally acknowledged. Jesus is attentive to the father, pouring out his feelings to him as they are happening, but he also is attentive to the circumstances of his life, and the world around him. One is in no way compromised by the other. Christ’s deep love for the world implies a deep relationship and commitment to God his father, and the relationships speaks back into his care for the world. Too often I don’t see the connection here, and I fall into the unspoken excuse that following hard after God will entail an ethereal impracticality, a shirking of real world responsibility when the truth is that it is this “following hard” that enables the vision necessary to see reality and its responsibilities.
Domesticity
Freshly carved fruit on a table. A folded plate. Napkins stacked atop napkins. Friendly banter. Sideways skewed, yet slightly bent. And her voice coming from beyond a corner.
And her voice coming from beyond a corner. Freshly carved fruit on a table. Sideways skewed, yet slightly bent. A folded plate. Friendly banter. Napkins stacked atop napkins.
There haven’t been many posts lately. Or ever, really. But my friend Jennifer Chin and her freshly formed blog have inspired me. I want to imagine myself at her writing corner, bent over that little desk, with a pen and a moleskin, instead of sitting here on my futon in Los Angeles, pecking away at my Macbook.
Speaking of Moleskins, my sister Laura gave me one for Christmas this past year. It was the most wonderful present! On it, I managed to draw a fair likeness of my father:
I have also doing some pretty frequent journal entries. So I’ll enter some excerpts, which form a string of thought:
- “Teach me your way O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart.” Psalm 86:11-12
- The word “unite” in this passage implies a rupture in a persons being/character (a concept that seems odd to me in itself. ie–unity v. multiplicity within personhood) and how the word “whole” in v. 12 can refer not only to the completeness of the worship, but the peace/unification of the heart itself. The heart–mended together for a specific purpose, perhaps only for a specific purpose–”to fear your name.”
- An example of a disunited heart in the saying “hope defereth maketh the heart grow weary.” It is odd how hope can seem so much like its opposite. Perhaps hope, because it strips us of defense, is particularly sensitive to threatening despair.
- There seems to be a fundamental tension between the Christian ideal of indiscriminate love, and choosing one person to love in a romantic sense, because the exclusivity of that love requires discrimination. The question then, is how to make that choice without it being basically selfish.
- The worst type of pain comes when a person is divided against him or herself. It cuts particularly deeply, because (in my case/situation) I would like to think that I could trust myself, depend on myself without being constantly betrayed and let down. So not only is there betrayal, but an intense localization of the associated blame.
Thats all for now : )
The memories of her began as the guilt of what he had done and what he shouldn’t have. Little slights, misunderstandings really, that she had most likely forgotten long ago. Yet they appeared at the most unlikely times. And after a few weeks, months, they blossomed into something else entirely. A longing.
The streets emptier than usual, the air colder than he had remembered. A man dressed in silver clothing, silver paint on his skin, his boom-box rumbling, broken–the disconcerting stop jerk motion of his limbs for money. A man standing on his head and speaking to strangers. The bushman gone on leave–his discarded limbs sprawled by an empty crate. Empty pier warehouses. But mostly the thought of her, how he wanted to write a letter with words so carefully chosen, like so many small stones, in a wooden cigar box, to be felt with the hands like a physical prayer that works deep into a person’s body by repetition. But he lacked the concentration, the patience, the absolute clarity of will–which is to say, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
A remove. A desire for longing. A distant hum at the back of the mind, occasionally blaring awake upon dreams.
1. This American Life: “Poultry Slam” and “Human Resources” (past episodes cost .99. Current Episodes are FREE)
2.NPR: All Songs Considered: “Viking’s Choice” and “Guest DJ Thom Yorke“
3. New Yorker: Fiction: “Urban Planning” and “Luck of the Draw“
4. The Moth: “Elna Baker: Yes means Yes?“
5. NPR: Fresh Air: “Emmanuel Jal: From Child Soldier to Rising Star“
6. The Economist: Anything–updated weekly
7. gdgt weekly: “
8. NPR: Second Stage: “Eric Lindley: Saturday” and “The Top Ten Great Unknown Musical Artists of 2007“
9. You Look Nice Today: Unfortunately they only have a couple episodes. Zany, Obscene, and very funny.
10. Princeton University (selected): A lot of really boring stuff on here, but: “Carlos Eire: A Brusque History of Eternity” (3 part) and “Paula Fredriksen, Boston University: Sin: The Early History of an Idea” (also 3 part)
1. I live in the back section of the living room, behind 3 rigid, styrofoam panels from home depot.
2. I have a bay window that looks out at a veteran cemetery, with its orderly rows of slate tombstones.
3. We have a possible cricket infestation.
4. Sometimes, when I spit in my sink, my spit rises back up.
5. There is a fireplace in my room but no way to turn it on.
6. There is a small spot of blood in the corner of the stairwell.
7. Part of me thinks that maybe there is a man with a baseball bat in there. waiting.
7. Second hand smoke comes through a vent in my roommate’s closet.
8. She doesn’t wear those clothes.
9. My landlord accidentally dyed her hair purple.
10. Sometimes, my apartment smells like a spent match.
All things that are not so great. but there are some good things. Sometimes I find things in my garage. A few days ago, I found some beer.
Cheers!
