Electricbones’s Weblog

Yay! Eddie Izzard!

Constantly feeling like I’m getting the wind knocked out of me.  Being humbled, being left to my own devices, being kicked around a bit.  Truth is flitting in and out from all areas… and everything in life seems appealing or worth taking into account.  

Ramble much? 

Shoot… for a second I though I lost it but here she is! Some co-workers and a Saint’s Cafe regular compiled some movies that I need to watch!

So far off the list I’ve seen : City of God (just watched it this past Friday… very striking), Little Miss Sunshine, Eternal Sunshine, Juno, Devil Wears Prada (haha…Glenn Close is fierce), Dan In Real Life, and Big.

To see: A Clockwork Orange, Reservoir , American Movie, Requiem For a Dream, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Amelie, Philadelphia Story, Mildred Pierce, Charlie Chaplin’s Goldrush, Definitely Maybe, Friday Night Lights, Money Pit, and The Burbs 

also suggested: any Wes Anderson or Paul Anderson films. I’ve seen The Darjeeling Limited and was unimpressed – we’ll see.

note* These lists were also entirely composed by suggestions from the male perspective. We shall see how this goes

New Copeland album… “You Are My Sunshine” being released on the 14th! “The Grey Man”, their new single off of the album, is “traditionally Copeland” to me – using Aaron Marsh’s tender falsetto and their tear jerker lyrics (flecked with rhetoric of guarded but now broken hearts) that have you feeling as though the song was written just for you. Love it! 

Sitting here with my favorite coffee cup… it is so tiny and delicate with hand painted flowers. Anyone else have a fascination with small things? Just LOOK

Heading to Europe over Thanksgiving break… I hope the international markets continue to struggle so that my dollar will do better against the pound and the euro

Yikes… eh i mean… Sorry, I’m not for a global recession.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95562253

byes.

Although the situation mentioned previously isn’t necessarily one that was uplifting in any sense, God has and still is continuing to use it for his glory. Keeping sin secret breeds more sin, and bringing sin before God lets Him do the work… to rebuke, to cleanse, and to redeem. It is really beautiful, but painful – a friendship has been almost all but completely lost in the process and also, hopefully, I am not the only one learning more about commitment and love and honesty in relationships.  

I feel a season of fasting coming on… I’m not quite sure what God wants me to fast from… but I think it will be from something other than food. 

In other news… I will start living in my new palace on Monday! (No, I did not misspell “place”) Literally, this house that I’m living in is the most ridiculous blessing of the century. While my friend was helping me move in he made this comment…

“I never think to myself that I am a materialistic person… and then I see something like this.” 

Porch, deck, hardwood floors, creepy basement, washer/dryer, front and back yard, monkey bars that scream “tetanus!”, garden space!, etc … it is a really beautiful and unique old old house that my friend’s parents bought and redid and are now renting to us

Regarding recent situations, I’m really having to sink into grace and love and not let my heart grow bitter towards guys. 

Blegh. I feel sick. I feel deceived and sad and guilty. And I hate how sneaky and deceptive Satan is, prowling like a lion.  I want to let Jesus in fully, but I’m having a hard time forgiving. I think it shows our true sinful nature when we are set in circumstances that lead us to react first with animalistic tendencies, where going back to our old self is our primary vice. I need to let Jesus be what He is, and accept that I am weak. 

Someday I want to breathe freely of this situation, but for now it is to be quiet voices and secrets kept.

Current thought: men and women can’t be “just friends” 

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Recently, I’ve also realized how much our loneliness increases our need for God. Not that we necessarily always press into Him when those lonely times are there, but we can see our tendencies to try to fill up that solitary empty hole with things that echo pieces of who God is.  

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Currently reading: The Kingdom of God is Within You – Tolstoy (back at it!)

East of Eden – Steinbeck

Current fav album/songs:

“Hard Way To Fall” and “The End”- Ryan Adams on Jacksonville City Nights

Summer is here! It is so funny how change drives me. Although the discipline and dedication (sacrifice) that comes along with the consistent is necessary… wouldn’t you agree that we also need to feel as though we could always be learning or doing something new to keep us going? Consistency oftentimes makes me restless, so when I am able to be living in a time where I can forgo too much consistency for new experiences and the randomness of life, I get excited.

During this time in college, (actually since I started school in kindergarten) my time has been measured in relation to the school year. The way in which we measure time says a lot about where we are in our lives, and it will be strange when I measure time by a different standard. How do you measure time? I think I also measure it according to experiences that I have, or significant periods of my life that stand out. For example last year (which I also label in relation to school-sophomore year), I think my friends and I and both talk about it in relation to who we are this year, and how God has done different things in our lives- measuring these times by the way we have changed or how we are different than we were before.

on a Fiona Apple kick! she is beautiful… and a vegan who supports PETA, especially expressing her sadness for the plight of turkeys on T-day

“Extraordinary Machine”-

“I still only travel by foot and by foot, it’s a slow climb,
But I’m good at being uncomfortable, so
I can’t stop changing all the time…

I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day
You deem me due to clean my view and be at peace and lay
I mean to prove I mean to move in my own way, and say,
I’ve been getting along for long before you came into the play”

My heart is just tingling with excitement for this summer…

Trips to NYC (hitting up Cafe Grumpy’s in Brooooklyn please! http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/dining/13coff.html?_r=1&oref=slogin), Asheville and Charlotte NC, and possibly some other places!

Camping and hiking and bouldering! Especially hiking some of the Appalachian trail (PA through VA) at the end of July (made easier now with my new friend from App Ski and Outdoors – discounts baby!)

found this in my xanga from last year…

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“reading my utmost for his highest this morning…

“If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified.”

…purified by a God whose desire is to glorify Himself, and to bring our hopes to a place where we have hope in Him.
oftentimes i feel that our hope in God diminishes when we start to believe that His promises to us aren’t enough or will never be fulfilled.
or that the goal set before us is unattainable
or when we don’t truely believe that He has already won.

again, another way where disappointment is only an opportunity to understand God more and to change our mindset about how He works. “

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*attn: please read Col. 3* -want some basic principles on how we should be living life? Sometimes I like it when God just says, straight up, what we should and should not be doing. bam!

I think by recognizing these, God can really transform the way we act. Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.” and with that clean and purified heart we then speak/act the way we should be (”from the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks.”)

It is so so important to be looking at these places in our lives that don’t exactly match up with what we say we believe- and then how God is wanting to change that… to have those mistakes be used for His glory. It is really a beautiful thing.

This life with God is a transformative process… we are a new creation.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be in a place where I feel like I am fully satisfied. I know satisfaction is found in Christ, but I just don’t think that will happen here to the complete (on earth). It feels as though there is often such a disconnect between that idea of full Satisfaction (unearthly) and then the finding of things that can keep us satiated (earthly).  A child denied full knowledge for their own sake; a poor reflection as in a mirror (1 Cor. 13:12).  It reminds me of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco of Adam and God… seeing God, knowing He’s there, hearing His voice, feeling His presence, etc. but we can’t quite fully “reach” Him (in understanding, in His full glory, etc.) We are still running around in these bodies, living in these earthly tents (2 Cor. 5:1).

In a more transactional sense, there are oftentimes these monumental tasks that we feel that by accomplishing will somehow help us to breathe easier.  We set huge expectations for how much easier and better things will be once this task is through but then, in some shock to us, life still comes-trials, more waiting, more unknown. I don’t think my underlying Peace (you know? that Current of Hope that runs through us) has been shaken lately (I just often ‘forget’ about it), but the things that lie more towards the surface, the little divots that beg to be filled with something right away, get filled and the water just slips away. As when you dig a hole in the sand and try to fill it with water, but it oftentimes just sinks away. And you keep rushing back to your water bucket to keep it filled, but it never can be.

Just getting over some not so fun sickness.

Wasn’t able to attend Jubilee with Calvary this weekend (see above). That fact is slightly frustrating because oftentimes I feel that I never go through with things fully… and that my inability to attend this conference (in spite of needing rest) is somehow attributed to my “loose ends” sort of life, that I can’t seem to finish things or go through with things fully.

Hmm God just told me that I am in a place of waiting and that that sometimes means I have to wait on Him to tie up loose ends in my life, for Him to finish and fulfill certain areas.

I think I need to listen more to what God’s truth has to say about where I am rather than listening to lies that are telling me who I am.

Writing more, loving more, learning more, listening more.