Sunsets

Right now I'm sitting at my kitchen table. I have a quasi-cold cup of coffee and ten pages about Emily Dickinson that need editing. The to-do list got so long this week that I stopped adding to it and I've been capitalizing on the newly-engaged status to win neck-rubs for stress knots. Seems like a bad moment to get back to blogging right? Or not.

I'm sitting facing the door of the Cran. In the backyard behind me the sun is setting--which in Kansas means its beautiful and pink and wintery. There is a little girl in a pink and purple coat running around the backyard and with her is her overgrown, quasi-awkward father. They have sticks. Her stick is short and proportional to her body. His is longer. They go to fight dueling sword style but she gets frustrated and makes him break his stick so that their respective weapons will be equal. The moment that he goes to fight with her she squeals and runs away. Now they run over the yard laughing and yelling and I find myself giggling because I remember doing this with my dad. In this moment as I'm giggling I have just an instant of crystallizing awareness: life can be so stressful and given enough stress I start to have tunnel vision--all I focus on is the to-do's and making sure I'm not forgetting or offending or slap-dashing. I don't know about you, but if I do this for very long, I stop having fun and everything in life starts to become one giant to-do list to be crossed off.

But wait a minute. Right now, literally in front of me, a little girl is squealing and giggling over a stick and her father's love. No trappings, no trimmings, just straight joy over relationships. That's pretty nice to remember.

The one where she blogs about blogging

Yes, it's a meta-post I'm making. This week in a class o'mine we had to write a "literacy narrative" which is a fancy way of explaining how we learned to read, why we like to read, and why we think reading is important/why we're English majors. Yes, my major is hard. We had to turn this narrative in as in digital form (as a blog) and incorporate digital aspects into it (that's pictures for you more technical folks who might be getting impressed.) I enjoyed this assignment thoroughly and I thought I'd share the finished product with you all.

keepthelightsburning.weebly.com

The One Where I Lived the Dream

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite books of all time was a James Harriot story called "The Christmas Day Kitten." In this story, a little kitten shows up at a lonely lady's home on Christmas morning. I was always drawn to the way how sad both the lady and the kitten were at the beginning of the book and how happy they made each other at the end. I think I thought it was cool that they were able to help each other and make life easier.

This week. Yesterday to be exact. I actually watched this story take place FOR REAL. I was walking from Murphy Hall (music building) to Watson (library).... no wait, back up. A few weeks ago, I was sitting on campus outside enjoying the day when I was certain I saw a kitten go running by. I dismissed it though because, well, why would there be cats on campus? Back to real time. Yesterday as I was doing my late afternoon walk, I saw a very old lady sitting in the middle of the sidewalk next to a bush. I was confused at first. Then I saw her take food out of her bag and push it into the bush. Naturally I stopped. What could she be doing? I wondered.

I perched myself next to her on the sidewalk and asked her this question. She laughed and pointed into the bush. There I saw, not one, but four cats. A huge, lusciously white tom cat. A small, prim, gray tabby. And two beautiful, sleek kittens. They stared back out at me with as much astonishment that I had found their hiding place as I had in seeing them.

How long has they lived here? I asked. And then Carol (our cat-rescuer's name) began to tell me about a winter ten years ago when she was walking around campus on Thanksgiving. During this particular walk, she noticed a little calico cat following her crying. Upon closer examination, she realized that the cat was pregnant, and so very hungry. So she carried the kitty, which she named Lady, home to feed and care for. And so began this process which has led to ten years of carrying food and shelter to these tiny cats who, instead of living ferral homeless lives, have found themselves the most loving and compassionate mother imaginable.

I Started Lookin For Excuses

I have a confession to make to you friends. I have been putting this post off for multiple reasons.

First. MAN I don't want to have to account for the past five months of my life outside of this

Second. I have been lacking vision for what to write about. Let's shoot for more than just random words which we throw up on the screen.

Third. It was summer. And let's be real, summertime is not the time for sitting introspectively in front of a computer screen. It's the time to be laying in a field full of grass dreaming about cloud men and the future and doing greatly enormously amazing things with our lives. Summer is a time for dreaming, not for doing. And friends, I dreamed this summer. I also did stuff, but mostly, I climbed onto the lazy river float and just went with the current. It was a delight to stop paddling for a while and to let the river carry me.

But now we're back. It's fall. I have been overcome by the desire to drink hot apple cider and to eat pumpkin pie. I have broken out the sweaters and jeans. And I have jumped out of the lazy river and into the big kid pool -- you know, the one with high dives and crazy older kids who know how to do cool backflips. This metaphor is breaking down, but you catch my meaning I'm sure.

So since we're jumping into new things, why not jump into some new blogging? Let's share this fall and enjoy the passing of seasons and days together. I promise to write you long epistles about the cool books I'm reading and happenstances, and you can promise me to send me long epistles about your fantastic adventures. What fun! If summer is the time for sprawling and dreaming, then fall is the time for energy and color and delight as the air gets crisper and the world comes alive with brilliance for one last Tango before winter.

The sun is a prodigal one.

These past few weeks tiny tiny things have helped me to realize God's presence: a kind man who helps me with my car-trouble; seeing goldfinches who play in the rain when I know that logically goldfinches aren't really lawrencian natives; feeling the financial crunch and getting a check in the mail; crying real, honest, cleansing tears and then standing up and walking on in faith; buying the first watermelon and blueberries of the season; picnics and slushies in the quicktrip parking lot; sunsets; literal green pastures; finding exactly the research I need in exactly the amount of time I have; and on and on the list goes. These things aren't exactly earthshattering, and they're not the kind of thing you make reality christian TV about, but in these past weeks of stress and worry they have spelled the difference for me between alone and loved.

Last night I was reading from one of my favorite ladies, Carole Mayhall, and she talked of the extraordinary in among the ordinary: those brief moments when the curtain is pulled back to reveal eternity. We can't live in the eternal right now, but sometimes, and I think it's most often when we are pressed down by life's circumstances, God generously pulls back the curtain to reveal himself and to encourage us that he IS. He is present and working even when it seems that the world around us is crumbling just a bit; he reveals the eternal and gives us a helping of perspective so that we will be enabled to keep walking.

"In the bustle of brimming-full days, when I hear only strident voices and roaring engines, God's meadowlarks keep singing. But how can my heart be cheered, or my soul be stirred, or my spirit be lifted in joy, when I don't hear? How can he lead me beside the still waters when I've kicked into passing gear in the fast lane of life? How can God restore my soul when I don't take time to sit at the feet of Jesus?"
-- Carole Mayhall

It seems as though it ultimately comes down to my heart's attitude toward Jesus. I run and I rush because I want to be in control, but in those little moment's he tenderly reminds me that what he really longs for is me. Me, sitting at his feet confiding in him as he reveals himself to me. And in that moment I am free and content and all of these things, the worries, the finals, the problems, come into the focus of his presence and his power.

Shenandoah!

One of the perks of working at the stereotypical downtown coffee shop is having a piano that cool music students come in and play. It's like having a perpetually changing live soundtrack to work to. One guy plays "on the street where you live," another plays "blue moon," it's always wonderful. Today's person was a guy who, I think, may actually the male form of Ann. The entire time that he was playing his emotion just poured through his music. Part of the way into his little practice session, he played the theme song to a western that I LOVED as a little girl. I couldn't help it, I had a spontaneous happy moment while I listened and as I was having this happy moment I happened to look up and see a tiny old man having the exact same happy moment. He pointed into the air and said "Shenandoah" and then we were friends. How nice to remember that all it takes is something as small as a cheesy western song to make new friends!

"Breathed Immortal Love"

This week we are reading Milton's Paradise Lost, a book which is about as widely recognized as the Iliad or the Bible. We all know OF it, but few of us have actually taken the time to slow down and understand it. However, some of us (namely me) are currently getting the chance to do this under the guise of getting good grades. Tonight is Passover, but I have spent a good portion of it at home finishing homework. Not exactly the most spiritual idea ever, but God is good and he is faithful to meet us where we are. I opened up my homework assignment in Paradise Lost to Book III or the great consult of heaven. In this, Milton imagines that God, father and son, are sitting in heaven surveying for the first time the beauty of creation when they perceive that Satan is flying towards this glorious creation. Understanding immediately what is going to happen the Father speaks to the Son of the implications that Adam will most certainly fall and that there must be atonement for Adam's fall. He explains that because Adam will be deceived, he will receive grace, but that he [God] is fundamentally just and so there must also be the satisfaction of Adam's debt. All of these ideas are familiar to Christians as we have heard this since kindergarten Sunday school. What is not familiar is the idea that BEFORE Adam sinned, God knew. BEFORE Adam strayed, Christ had made a way for his redemption. The part of this narrative which leaves us, as readers, in awe is the descriptions which Milton provides of Jesus, son of God, and the dialogue which takes place to secure man's safety. Let me share just a few with you, I know they're long and in virtually a different language, but take a few moments over these next couple of days, not to read my words, but to imagine with me what has taken place in heaven and on earth to bring us to this day where we can stand redeemed and glorified:

Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious. In Him all His Father shone
Substantially expressed and in His face
Divine compassion visibly appeared:
Love without end and without measure grace.

Man disobeying
Disloyal breaks his fealty and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heav'n,
Affecting godhead, and so, losing all,
To expiate his treason hath naught left
But to destruction sacred and devote
He with his whole posterity must die.
Die he or justice must, unless for him
Some other able and as willing pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say, Heavn'ly Pow'rs, where shall we find such love?
Which of ye will be mortal to redeem
Man's mortal crime and, just, th' unjust to save?
Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?

This desperate searching of heaven reveals absolute and utter silence. None are willing to subject themselves to the wrath and pain necessary to redeem creation's mistakes, your mistakes, my mistakes. But then a voice rises over the deafening silence:
Father, Thy word is past: MAN SHALL FIND GRACE!
... Behold Me then, Me for him, life for life,
I offer. On me let thine anger fall.
...I shall rise victorious and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.
Death his death's wound shall then receive and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed.
I through the ample air in triumph high
Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell and show
The pow'rs of darkness bound. Thou at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile
While by thee raised I ruin all my foes,
...then with the multitude of my redeemed
Shall enter Heav'n long absent and return,
Father, to see Thy face wherein no cloud
Of anger shall remain but peace assured
And reconcilement. Wrath shall be no more
Thenceforth but in Thy presence joy entire.

And so in a burst of immortal love so deep, so innate, that it is the very breath of who He is, our security is made sure before we have even erred. And all of heaven breathes a sigh of relief for:

Heav'nly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death and dying to redeem
(so dearly to redeem) what hellish hate
So easily destroyed and still destroys
In those who, when they may, accept not grace.

And for this act of selflessness, our humiliation is taken from us and we can stand, confident, bold, and joyful in the presence of the very one whose wrath would have assured our destruction, finding on his face no trace of the anger which was once directed toward us. And on the face of the one towards whom the anger actually was directed we find no trace of regret, rather pure, radiant joy that we would approach him and stand with him before the father in the victory of light over darkness.