– Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms

Henri Nouwen clarified for me my current spiritual state. It was how I felt, but could not describe: “Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God. And then we can look back with a smile and realize that we aren’t even angry or greedy any more.” [emphasis added]

My, this is a good place.

- I went to two dance parties and danced at both. At the first I was drunk and the second I was sober.

- Dancing would be better if the music wasn’t phallic, violent rap.

- I am making a dance mix.

- I smoked a hookah last night and it wiped me out.

- I’m reading a bunch of stuff by Henri J.M. Nouwen right now and it penetrates.

- I was called an astute reader by a good man.

- I watched Old Joy last night and I can see myself buying that someday.

- I might be more of a librarian than I ever imagined, soon.

- Woven Hand in less than two weeks will warm the cockles of my heart.

I feel like a new season of my life is about to be born. I can feel it. I’m anxious (in a good way) and I’m meeting new people and old people who’ve never really left me are becoming more a part of me. I am connecting with people in a meaningful way and I feel more attune to the beings around me than I ever have been. I know when something is wrong and that makes me happy, not because something is wrong, but because I can do something about it. And it seems like when they know I know, they express it (yet try to hide it). But, I won’t go into those conversations because they’re pretty private.

I helped a lady today because I had the feeling that something was upsetting her. She was dropping her daughter (empty-nest syndrome) off at the university. She was probably divorced (no rings) and she couldn’t print things because she isn’t a student. Turned out she needed directions home, to Pennsylvania, to a town not 1 hour from where I’m from. So I helped her and got her what she needed and she expressed her gratitude. Her voice changed and she felt a little less lost and if I can be someone who makes people feel a little more at home or a little more guided, then I think I can be satisfied in that because I’m bringing about order and that is what my God does. That’s the salvific, restorative plan, anyway. Chaos —> order.

I like people and I love the people who I’m closest to. They make me whole and make me feel at home. They make me love America, the nation anyway.
I’ve been praying more intentionally too and studying contemplative prayer and this has made me better too.

I leave you with a poem:

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

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.

I. (7:45am-ish (not amish))

I guess I’m pretty young myself, but I’m worried about the kids. I’m in the neighborhood yesterday, a bit before six at night and I’m gardening. I was planting pumpkins in fact and I remember being somewhere between the ages of four and ten and growing pumpkins with my grandfather. Along comes a young boy who asks, “Sir. Could I borrow that rake?” Politely, I reply, “Oh, well, I’m using it right now.” Sharply he replies in frustration, “Well I’m trying to kill my brother.”

He goes on to tell his friend how he wants to kill his brother who he described using a wide variety of words I sure didn’t know when I was eight.

Yay capitalism! You’ve inadvertantly turned six year olds into violently-minded individuals.

II. (8:46)

—-

III. (12:49)

Tattoo. We’ll see if I go through with it or not. I hope to, but that’s a significant change. The basic idea I have hammered out because I’ve thought of it for a while. It will start on the inside of my left foot/ankle and kind of wrap onto the top of my foot. It will say “the whole creation groans” and an olive branch will be sort of intertwined. I may get the reference nearby. If I did it would just be VIII.XXII, but I’m not sure of that idea. Michael is drawing it for me.

IV. (9:04)

Passages I like from Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by Bishop Wright:

meh, later.

Later:

“Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden, dimension of our ordinary life –God’s dimension, if you like. God made heaven and earth; at last he will remake both and join them together.”

“Paradise is, rather, the blissful garden where God’s people rest prior to the resurrection. When Jesus declares that there are many dwelling places in his father’s house, the word for dwelling is mone, which denotes a temporary lodging.”

“I Corinthians… Paul is clearly articulating a theology of new creation … ‘He will transform out present humble bodies to be like his glorious body.’ Jesus will not declare that present physicality is redundant and can be scrapped. Nor will he simply improve it, perhaps by speeding up its evolutionary cycle … as Paul says in Ephesians 1:19-20–…[Jesus] will change the present body into one that corresponds in kind to his own as part of his work of bringing all things into subjection to himself.”

“Revelation 21-22 . . . This time the image is that of marriage. The New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband . . . As in Phillipians 3, it is not we who go to heaven, it is heaven that comes to earth; indeed, it is the church itself, the heavenly Jerusalem, that comes down to earth. This is the ultimate rejection of all types of Gnosticism, of every worldview that sees the final goal as the separation of the world from God, of the physical from the spiritual, of earth from heaven.”

This isn’t to say that the lyrics are well-written –because they aren’t particularly. He repeats the word ‘freedom’ several times which leads Havens to say, “Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child . . . a long, way, from my home” and I think this is something all people feel at some point or another and perhaps this is a recognition of some form that we are humans and we experience a significant separation from the being who created us. I probably tend towards a more narrative-based, mythological understanding of my own Christianity and I understand why many would reject such notions, but even a fundamentalist/Southern Baptist/conservative/whoever would agree that we are in fact “a long way from … home”. Now, the nature of the home we might disagree upon, but we Christians anyway are looking toward Heaven. I’m not sure about the pearly gates or streets of gold –we’ll see about those; I do feel a long way from home though and while this earth and many things remind me that “I need my brother” and community with others on this good, lush earth –things that fill my life with pure, un-refracted joy which are undoubtedly representations of Christ (I am truly blessed)– I can’t help but take part in the collective desire to “get ourselves back to the garden.”

The principle aspect of my personality. I know that I need to be around others on a regular basis and I suppose not just any others, but specific others and I can’t be without them for long.

The quality that I desire in a man. A synthesis of the 20th century masculinity I’m most familiar with and something else that I haven’t been able to put my finger on –not femininity– but something less interested in capital and more interested in quality of life. It seems unfortunate the way much of the 20th century has turned out in that regard; fathers working their asses off so their sons can go to universities and die in wars. Maybe it’s just what I want out of myself and that’s why I haven’t figured it out.

The quality that I desire in a woman. The initial rejection of my articulation and analysis and all of the things that follow from that.

What I appreciate most about my friends. Their ability to take part in the principle aspect of my personality.

My main fault. Fickle motivation.

My favorite occupation. Being occupied with the body of Christ and the people I love and I suppose being a student.

My dream of happiness. I can tell you that it keeps me waking up and moving forward so that I might meet it. That’s all I know.

What would be my greatest misfortune? The lack of companionship.

What I should like to be. A good son, husband, father and teacher.

The country where I should like to live. Right where I am.

My favorite color. Deep, rich greens.

The flower that I like. Magnolias and lilies.

My favorite prose authors. Goethe, at the moment.

My favorite poets. Donne, Goethe, V. Miller and so on.

My heroes in fiction. Little Paul Dombey, though some would disagree about his hero-ship, and Daniel Deronda

My favorite heroines in fiction. Galadriel

My favorite composers. Brahms, Wagner, Pärt, Rimsky-Korsakov and we’ll say… Ravel.

My favorite painters. Monet and Botticelli

My heroes in real life. Grandfather, father and Tim

My heroines in real life. My grandmothers, mother, and K.S.P.

My favorite names. Hard to say. I’d rather not disembody them anyway.

What I hate most of all. Anxiety

Historical figures that I despise the most. Nathan’s answer: The ones who caused the greatest pain.

The military event that I admire most. -

The reform which I admire the most. -

The gift of nature that I would like to have. I don’t?

How I want to die. Whole.

My present state of mind. Anxious –probably the word that best defines me and might better serve as my greatest fault as well.

Faults for which I have the most indulgence. Some sort of impatience and frustration.

My motto. I hate mottos.