"It'll be a day like this one"

"So the new year has arrived in her traditional fashion: with a kiss, a yell, and a sip from a disposable plastic glass. We throw in a mumbled verse about auld acquaintances and swallow the old year down. Dead. Done. Gone. Over. That's really all there is to it. And yet, when the sun rises on the suburban sprawl of driveways and shopping malls he finds them much like he does on every other Sunday. Yes, and we reluctantly wake to find that the bedroom ceiling looks eerily familiar. Yes, and aside from the telltale beer bottle on the lawn next door it might as well be any day of last year or of the next. So you rub your eyes and roll away from the window, hoping to get back to sleep. Your thoughts drift back to last night. And then, in that brief, tender moment of thought between reality and a dream you smirk at the ridiculous concept of celebrating the passing of time. Why are we so excited to announce that we are yet one year closer to the inevitable graves that await us all? Perhaps we are enthralled by The New. I know I am. The thought of a second shot; a clean slate; the American dream; the fairy tale; the "anything can happen"... could we call it a longing for redemption? Maybe. For me, redemption is collection a bittersweet stories that haunt the present tense. You see the past I have has much that has been forgiven. Mistakes piled on top of mistakes. And every year I add to the list of injustices that betray the selfish, arrogant bastard that I truly am. And yet, today I am not despondent. No, you see I have far too much to be thankful for. I wake up with the new sun knowing that I am not forced to be enslaved to myself. The chains of my appetite and of my lust are not my destiny. Truly, I have been given a second start: a new, abundant life that begins this side of the grave. No, I do not have all the answers but every breath that I have been given points to a grace that I cannot fully comprehend. Thanks to the community around me who has shown me the face of God as they demonstrate his abundant grace. Happy new year, mi amigos, have a graceful 365.25." - jon foreman

It'll be a day like this one

When the sky falls down

When the hungry and poor

And deserted are found

Are you discontented?

Have you been pushing hard?

Have you been throwing down

This broken house of cards?

It'll be a day like this one

When the world caves in

Well, its now time to bid 2008 "cheerio!", and then instantly greet 2009 with an "oh hullo!"


Why do we celebrate the new year? Tradition? or is it something about hoping for a better year to come?

I don't know.

graphic credit goes to LOBH

Its not my job

This week has been emotionally rough. I have encountered things that I do not understand, things that do not even begin to make sense to me, but one thin has no occurred to me: God is much wiser, and much more powerful than me. I cannot even pretend to understand half of what is in the Bible, I do not understand how our world even continues spinning, and yet I am comforted by knowing that it is alright to not know everything because I'm not God. It's not my job to run the world, its not my job to have everything figured out.

"Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out!" - Romans 11:33

"Praise Me. Praise Me. Praise Me."

"Worship tunes tend to evince an adolescent theology, one that just can't get over how...cool it is that Jesus sacrificed himself for the world. "Our God is an awesome God." "O Lord, you are glorious." "How can it be/that you, a king, would die for me?" Moreover, it's self-centered in a way that reflects evangelicalism's near-obsession with having a personal relationship with Christ. It's me Jesus died for. I just gotta praise the Lord. Not for nothing is "Amazing Grace," which marvels at the author's salvation, one of the few traditional hymns to be regularly included in modern worship services. Absent is any hint of community found in hymns such as "The Church Is One Foundation"-- the Jesus of worship music is a mentor, a buddy, a friend whose message is easily distilled to a simple command: praise me. Not "feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner." Simply thank Him for His gift to you (and make sure to distill copyright information at the bottom of the screen so royalties can be disbursed)." - Andrew Beaujon [Body Piercing Saved My Life]

_____________________________________

For some reason, I find this to be extremely hilarious (especially the parenthetical inclusion at the end) -- in a cynical and ironic way. I just get this really odd picture of a robotic Jesus who chirps in a machine voice: "Praise me. Praise me. Praise Me."

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world." - James 1:27

"your eyes are closed when you’re praying, you sing right along with the band, you shine up your shoes for services, but there’s blood on your hands, you turned your back on the homeless, and the ones that don’t fit in your plans, quit playing religion games, there’s blood on your hands" - Jon Foreman ["Instead of a Show"]

Its really easy for me to sit here and confirm other people's accusations...but really, am I any better? I do find it a lot easier to walk right by people that I could at least say something nice to. I guess, I want to make it clear that by posting this, I'm not trying to be self-righteous.

Everything Will Let You Down

Life is pain. That is possibly the only think I know to be true right now. There is enough pain in one minute to last a lifetime. My family is a wreck, I'm a wreck, my friends are wrecks and I don't belong here--moments like these makes that very clear. I don't care about my life--it is but a lost cause; all I want to do is sleep, sleep, and let sleep kill me. Sleep's death is miles better than maniacal depression death. God is still here, its true. I just don't know where. And I only understand one thing--man is but a vapor, and right now all I want to do is disappear like a vapor will. Because being nonexistent is way freer than being existent. Existence means pain. Pain means depression. Depression means being a wreck. Being a wreck means killing myself. But then, all I want is nonexistence anyway. (please don't take that as a suicidal statement)

"Invade my heart, Invade this broken town. . . two things you told me, you are strong, and you love me, yes, you love me. . . "

Tears may fall. Scars may form. Wounds may break back open. Vices may win temporarily. But I won't touch myself with a knife because I know deep inside that it won't help any.

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of it all is that tomorrow will come, and nothing will have changed. Hearts still break, people still die, and I will still wonder if I am indeed just another mere lost cause. Through it all, I will walk on because "it would be a lie to run away."

"Everything in this life can let you down. Right now, the chair I am sitting in could break and fail me. In a few minutes I can go up and sing on that stage to thousands of people, but when I get off the stage my health could fail and I could lose my voice forever and never be able to sing again. I have a beautiful wife, but I could go home and find out she has been unfaithful. You see, everything in this life can fail you. Everything in this life is finite, meaning it doesn't last, but only one thing is truly infinite and will last forever. Yes, everything in this life can and will let you down, but the beautiful thing about it is this, when everything lets you down in this world it leads you to the one thing that is truly beautiful..... the unfailing love of Jesus Christ." - Jon Foreman

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, not powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:38-39

such a sweet time of year

Christmas time. Such a sweet time of year--both in emotions and food. I personally have never really thought much of Christmas. As a child, I loved the traditions just as much as any other child; I liked presents, I liked candy, I liked christmas trees and stockings, now, I will be completely honest and say that I love getting presents still, all the other things have no bearing with me.

Many may now be wondering, "What about the birth of Jesus! Does that mean anything to you?"

Of course it does. Because Jesus was born, he lived a perfect life, fulfilled the prophecies, died, rose again, and made it possible to be reconciled to God. And that means a lot to me; however, I find absolutely no reason in the Bible to celebrate His birth (if you have a reason, I'd love to hear it). I admit, I use the lack of Biblical reasons as an excuse to stay emotionless when it come to December 25th. I've just never had that much interest/emotion/excitement over any holidays in the last year -- for me, they are landmarks in time, breaks from school and unneeded work and stress.

Please understand that I am by no means against holidays--I love breaks! But it comes down to the fact that I just don't care about these supposed religious holidays (Christmas and Easter)...perhaps that is something that I should care about, but if that is so...I have no idea of how to begin to care about them!

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the virgin Mary. We celebrate it by singing carols that are about this miraculous birth, and also other songs that are seasonally related (about evergreen trees, boughs of holly, Old Saint Nick, etc); we decorate our houses with greenery, red and green colors, trees in stands with lights and various other ornaments; manger scenes up on tables, pianos or whatever else (these scenes always show the three wise men with the shepherds-- never mind the wise men didn't arrive to Bethlehem until Jesus was two years old). It appears to me that a lot of what is associated with Christmas is but traditional decorations and ideas. If you were to strip away all those traditions you would be left with Jesus' birth (never mind we all know He wasn't born in December). Now that we are back to Jesus' birth, would it not be appropriate for Christians to be being thankful for the birth, life, death, and resurrection of their Savior every day? Is it not somewhat similar to the (in)famous analogy of the 'Sunday Christian'? Why reserve two days out of the year to thank God for His Son when you have everyday to do so?

I'm sure many will now say, "Whats wrong with having a huge celebration those two days [Christmas and Easter]?"

Well, I don't think there is a huge problem, unless you've conditioned yourself to be thankful for the greatest Gift of all time only twice a year.

"I don't belong here......"

"Why are you sad Sheba?" Eva asked with a worried look painted strongly on her brown face

Sheba sighes, her breath blew her hair into the air for a second "I'm feeling homesick right now"

"Why? You've been here since the day you were born, how can you be homesick?"

Sheba stared into Eva's brown eyes and softly said, "This is not my home. I don't belong here."

Eva's expression changed from worry into confusion, and Sheba continued, "There was a place that I was at before I was born and came here...that place is my home."

"What does that place look like?"

"I don't remember." Sheba replyed wistfully

Eva tilted her head and asked guardingly, "Then how do you know that that place is your home?"

Sheba pressed her hands on her heart and whispered, "I know because there is a cord from the heavens that is attached to my heart, it does not come out, and that is how I am sure that Heaven is where I belong."

I don't know what to call this...

I figured that its time to write something of an update, or something to fill the achieves of my blog in future bygones (or something similar to that).

The wretched white stuff is here, and it appears that it intends to be hangin' out with us for at least a week more--the idea of enduring whiteness and coldness has me shuddering already. I have never really been into snow for reasons that all rotate around my heh, social life...this year however, that danger isn't as large because all my close friends cluster around their computers just like I do. Unfortunately this snow has meant that the much anticipated hair cut will have to wait until extreme further notice...which has me in tears (but whatevah).

Winter break has given me a good chance to get all sorts of stuff done that I should have been industrious enough to have gotten done who-know-how-long-ago; I've been digging through my vast storage of fabric remains from the many sewing journeys that I have been stupid enough to embark on, and so far I've been rummaging through the collection and throwing my hands up in the air because I have no idea of what to do with a ton of blue satin and miles of silky skirt extras in every color ranging from black to bright pink.

Not that its all been bad, I designed my own bag (it took me an hour to figure out the dimensions and make a pattern), and I'm considering carrying it around at school for a place to stash my friends who look like knitting needles, crochet hooks, and yarn balls --now wouldn't that look positively nerdy? Also, I used quite a lot of this linen something-or-other fabric that was left over from a broomstick skirt that I never wear by making it into a handbag of sorts that I wouldn't be caught dead carrying around...heh. And then today, I cut out something that is akin to a scarf, out of this white embroidered fabric that has billions of clear plastic sequins sewed all over it, and then I tightly zig-zagged the edges so it wouldn't fray into a million threads after wearing it once.

Also when I was rummaging through my sewing basket, I unburied the beginnings of a sweater vest that I attempted to knit a couple of years ago but quit after the yarn broke for some unknown reason to me. After briefly looking at the pattern the other day, I promptly decided that the idea of that sweater vest was absolutely ridiculous and a total waste of soft pipe-cleaner maroon yarn. So instead, I've used one skein by making an unphotogenic hat that I couldn't describe for the life of me. But before the unphotogenic hat, I crocheted a very photogenic hat with multi-colored yarn that had been sitting around collecting dust for the past century.

Today, I also did the inevitable of actually vacuuming under by bed. This procedure involved actually going out into the cold whiteness to fetch the shop vac that was chillin' in the freezing garage. So I bundled up, borrowed some one's boots and trudged through six inches of snow and lugged the monster into my room and vacuumed up all yesterday's hair balls and black spiders. I felt very hard working this morning. :)

For the past week and a half (more or less) I've been reading a book titled Nothing Feels Good (titles like that intrigue me) by some Spin dude named Andy Greenwald. The book is about the emo subculture and its quite...heh heh...fascinating (if you like Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, Thursday and Dashboard Confessional that is). I intend to mutter more on here about emo-ness later on after I've digested all the ideas that have been shelved in my brain right along with Brave New World.

"Oh they love us American boys"

Why is it that American boys love the thought of war? If you look back in history around every war period that involves America, all the men/boys were uber excited about the prospect of enduring extremely hard periods of time in training, filthy living conditions and the opportunity to blast some poor fellow human being who unfortunately happens to be a soldier on the opposite side of the fight. As a girl, I guess I just don't get what is so fascinating about carrying around weapons and using them to blast their fellow human beings into oblivion!

Are all guys attracted to violence? Almost every guy that I know is super into some sort of intense strategy game, whether its WOW(or any other video game), paintball, etc...and it makes me wonder if those guys consider war to just be another intense strategy game where they get to flex their muscles and use their brain power to manipulate the results that effect the entire world.

Or does the love of war come from some sort of nationalistic pride? If that is correct, I'm inclined to think that they are basing that nationalistic pride in a country/idea that doesn't deserve any one's pride. Where does this nationalistic pride some from anyway? I'm inclined to think that it comes from the myth of the "American Dream" and America's reputation as being the "Land of the free". Unfortunately both of those reasons are not worth any amount of people being separated from their families and potentially being killed in someone else's lunge for political power.

The "American Dream" is a myth that can be easily shelved right next to the optimistic Utopian worldview, thus making both ideas impossible because of the law of entropy. If everyone were to stop hallucinating about the "American Dream" and a worldwide utopia straight out of Brave New World its quite possible that more people could/would be happy.

America is not the "Land of the free" because people are still being enslaved in many different aspects right now. The worldwide slave trade is larger than it was pre-Civil War, and it by no means excludes the United States (Trafficking In Persons Report 2008). Plus, almost every American is mentally if not physically enslaved to the consumerist culture that rules our nation with great glee.

Its odd that America's negative characteristics are a lot more credible than its positive ones. As for the negative characteristics--such as: "Bush is an idiot", etc--they appear to all stem from the fact that there is a war goin' on baby. Everyone has a different reason for hating President Bush's foreign and domestic policies. I've got two responses to all that nonsensical hatred: Where is your respect for your elected leader? and do you seriously think you could do any better? If you hate Bush for whatever he did/didn't do to you please think about those for a minute.

So with all the hoopla, bumperstickers, and chain emails sporting the rather...boastful declaration, "I'm proud to be American", my usual response would be *manical laughter*, *deletes chain message because it said at the bottom that I'm a moran if I don't forward it to all my contacts*. It all comes down to the fact that I'm NOT proud to be an American because America is nothing to be proud of. Entropy will decimate anyone's dreams of a perfect nation filled with personal freedom, and I'm much more interested in the everlasting kingdom of Heaven.

Conditionment

I think I have a severe case of Endofquarteritis.

Tomorrow is the very last day of school until sometime in early January. Those three weeks after tomorrow and before January will be very interesting...I'm going to be stuck with uber slow dial-up for three weeks and let me tell you the very thought of that has me miffed. Its ironic really that after the entire summer and past life I haven't had that much of a frustration with the home internets and now that I'm conditioned to high speed I think dial-up is slower than a slug stuck in molassas in January. I try to convince myself that the internet at home actually has gotten worse, but really, I think its just me. And then I get to thinking about how much our culture relies on the fasted and "best" of everything, like we think we need fast computers and whatnot to do anything; plus, because of that tendency we condition ourselves to the point where we blow up when the internet won't connect decently after the first try.

Anyway, in the next three weeks I might not post much because of my ridiculous frustration with being patient for more than 3 seconds.

December is here...

Man, I feel bad that I haven't written a blog post in a while, but its finals week (which should convince you that I have absolutely no time...). I decided that today I need to bite the bullet, close down youtube and all those other awesome time wasting sites and put something semi-logical into words. And I have about 30/45/60 minutes to do it. Sucrose!

So, as you all know, there is only about 20 days left of wonderful 2008. I've been thinking back on the last year, going over the highlights and all that, and I thought I would write about a few of them on here. (just another boring list about the last year :P)

Things I've learned:

• I've that running away from something just because its painful or unpleasant is stupid and I won't get anywhere doing that. I've always tended to avoid things if I thought I might embarrass myself or if it was too hard for me to do comfortably. God has been showing me that he wants his children to do things that aren't exactly "easy" and if I learn to do them now without complaining it might be much easier when I'm older when I potentially have to make more important decisions than the ones I'm making now.

• I've learned that "it is better to trust in the LORD, than to put confidence in princes" (Psalms 118:9). I have, and sometimes still do tend to put my trust in people I know, people I admire etc, when really they are just humans like me and they will disappoint me because they cannot be my ultimate guide in life, only God can!

• I have learned to choose "belief over misery". Over the last few years I've had times when I've gotten really depressed, and sometimes I don't make the right choices on how to deal with that sadness. As of this year I have not been depressed anywhere near as much as I have been before, probably because I have learned to take my sadness to God, to get the sadness out and then get over it. These last few months its been more like it only lasts for a day instead of weeks. And for that I am extremely grateful.

• I've learned that telling my friends the truth when its needed is a lot better for us than turning the blind eye to the way the friendship is going just because I don't want to deal with it.

• I've learned that if I want an in depth relationship with my parents and siblings I need to make an effort to spend time talking to them. Something that doesn't come easily to me, especially now that I'm gone all the time, but I have been able to develop relatively close relationships with my siblings that are close to my age.

Things I've gotten to do in the last year:

• I went to Creation Northwest with my dad last July and I didn't really like the festival itself, probably because I didn't know anyone there and the only band I really liked that played that day was Switchfoot. We went to see Switchfoot, and it was incredible. I even was crazy enough to stand in a super long line for over an hour just to meet them and get my poster signed (funny story on the poster: Chad and Drew signed their names on Romy's piano....I don't think they were paying attention to what they were doing! typical rock stars...). Also, in the super long line, I met two uber Relient K fans and another guy who likes pretty much every Christian band on the planet except Flyleaf. Us four were talking a lot to pass the waiting time, and one of the RK fan girls asked the guy if I was his sister *scratched head*....twas rather odd.

• Plus, if I should still be on the earth next summer (I'm kinda leaning toward being raptured sometime soon...haha...), and if I can cough up enough money, and if my parents let me, I just might go back to Creation with at least two of my friends for the whole caboodle instead of just one day.

• I'm going to college this year. I'm really glad for that because I want to get college done as soon as possible...I just have to decide what I'm going to

• This last quarter at college I've been able to meet up again with two of my childhood friends, which is awesome. One of the girls I was actually in Cubbies with when we were 4. And the other one was my sister's best friend back when we went to PACE (the good ole days of being below 10 years old :P)

I'm sure there are more things, but I'm not thinking of them right now!

*Claps*

I'd like to make honorable mention to my dear friend Sarah, who was so kind to joyously create the beautiful graphic on the top of my blog (You are the best!).

*hums "Hold fast till the break of daylight...."

Random happenings

The 4-day weekend is now almost over, and to be honest I'm lovin' the idea of going back to school. Weird I know, but I actually somewhat enjoy being around people and being able to use fast internets (here at home I'm lucky if the internet even connects).

I have my 8 page research paper in English due on Thursday, and so tomorrow I need to tweak it a little for maximum perfection. I have my second oral presentation also on Thursday in Spanish class...which I'm not looking forward to because when I get up there and try to talk in Spanish I mispronounce everything (even the things I can normally pronounce right). Plus, as of yesterday I am reading Alduos Huxley's book "Brave New World" and from what I've read so far (which is a little less than half), I think that his predictions may have at least in some ways come to pass. Though of course utopia will never occur because its impossible (entropy is beautiful that way..but more on that later after I'm completely done with the book).

Thursday I got the digital download of Anberlin's Cities album and I must say, Stephen Christian has a certified third lung! If more people could sing as good as he could, our world would be a much better place! I'll probably write up a review for Cities after I've gotten all the songs figured out and memorized; but so far "*fin" is outstandingly odd (and thats not in a bad way btw).

I also got the two new songs that came with Jon Foreman's new compilation disc, Limbs and Branches (GO GET IT!!). The two new songs "Broken From The Start" and "Over The River" are just as amazing as I knew they would be...Jon Foreman is rather predictible because his music is always amazing, which is a good thing because then I don't have to worry about wasting my money).

Oye! And today I got one of those lovely updates from landofbrokenhearts.org that informed me that when Fiction Family goes on tour this winter/spring they just MIGHT come to Seattle or Tacoma...believe me, I nearly screamed with excitment, because people! Fiction Family coming near me= AKKEEEEE.

Anyways, that is whats going on with me in random order.

Entropy Is Cruel...or something like that

life

birth to

a world full

of sorrow and strife

the minute you are born

you begin to slowly die

color starts to fade

entropy is cruel

it spells

death.

Thanksgiving is Tomorrow!

You all you read my stuff will have to be patient with me because I'm not exactly computer savvy...(enough said).

Tomorrow as you all know is Thanksgiving. For the past few years I've haven't really been into this holiday, or any holiday for that matter, because on holidays my mom, my sisters, and I all cook...pretty much ALL day long. Its one of those deals were it takes all day to make the food, and it takes 30 minutes to eat it all gone, and for a cook who spends way to much of her time stirring gravy and what-not...thats just a little defeating (Besides, food is really not all its hyped up to be, but that is a different story entirely).

So I was thinking about this Thanksgiving, and of course Thanksgiving is supposed to be time when you think about all the things that you are thankful for....so what am I thankful for?

I've always been a little annoyed by new year's resolutions and lists around Thanksgiving and Christmas and all that, because it just seems so faky to only think about those things once or twice a year....but these are the things I'm thankful for...hopefully all year long.

1. I have a relationship with God!
to me that is wonderful, because it means that I have someone who is always there to listen to me, someone who loves me even when I am a jerk.

2. I have a family (a quite large one at that!)
I feel blessed that I do...some people are only childs (that would be soooo boring....).

3. I have wonderful music to listen to!
I'm completely addicted to the awesomeness of music, and I am so thankful that there is awesome music out there to listen to! I am very thankful that God created the guys in Switchfoot who make the best music on the planet! (I know I'm biased so don't bother telling me about it).

4. I live in a free country were I have the right to be open with my beliefs.
I think thats cool....

5. I'm going to college!
some people don't have enough money to go to college, or can't for other reasons. I love being able to go to school and hopefully learn something that will help me when I'm older.

6. I have awesome friends!
I seriously love my friends, they are the most hilarious people on the planet!


So what are you thankful for??

New SpringWidget

So this is my first blog post and I don't really know what to say.

I intend to have something worthwhile to say in the near future but until then, this is the hopeful beginning of my blog.