Fresh Soil

Last night I re-potted all of my plants. It was time for a fresh start. I liked the way the soil felt under my pink fingernails, but how lovely it felt when I scrubbed it all away - a fresh start for my hands and my plants. It makes me think of a lot of things, really, but especially the lyrics to an Ingrid Michaelson song, Starting Now.

Speaking of soil (I must confess that I have three separate/unrelated ideas to include in this post, but I will do my very best to connect them anyway), the other day I read this:

"Tragedy is the fertile soil of miracles. ... it seems the way to deal with the evil of the world is not to pretend to go around it, but to plunge right through . ... I believe sometimes bad things happen to good people so we can watch God turn the greatest tragedies into the purest love." -Athol Dickson, from The Gospel According to Moses.

I have watched this happen time and again in my life. I hope you have, too.

And finally, Love. I suppose at nineteen, I'm still too young to understand it. Mostly I know this because I thought I did, and not all that long ago. I was under the impression that it was quite simple. It's not. It's not a bad thing to be too young - I just still have a lot of things to learn about life and Him and the world and other people and myself.

"Teach me and I will be silent; show me where I have been wrong." -Job 6:24

Ready To Stand

I'm walking in an open field looking for some space to fill
I believe there's something left to hold.
So even when the sun goes down and there's no one around
I'm standing in the freedom of my soul.
-Bebo Norman, Stand

Step One: Identify and Overcome Fears
As 2 Timothy 1:7 says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (NKJV) I'm giving blood tomorrow. This is a huge step for me - a step of obedience for sure: first His blood - now mine. As far as the more distant future is concerned, I'm considering a move to Seattle next year for graduate school. By myself.

Step Two: Seize Opportunities...
To travel - I figure God made the world and everything in it, so it's probably worth seeing if one has the means.
To love/help others - He also made people and loves each person deeply. I suspect that there is a reason; I'd like to discover it.

Step Three: Learn to Love Unreservedly
Recently I've realized that true freedom requires my extension of the forgiveness I've received to those in my life who are equally undeserving of it. So learn to love mercy (Micah 6:8). "Only the free can love, and only the completely free can love unreservedly." -St. Teresa of Avila

Step Four: Be More Disciplined: Waste Less Time
"In all the work you are doing, work the best you can. Work as if you were doing it for the LORD, not for people." -Colossians 3:23

Step Five: Loosen Up: Waste More Time
A. Try new things: piano, painted fingernails, yoga, Wesley, the old testament, spending some money, poetry, step aerobics, paradoxes, wearing heels occasionally, summer in Russia...
B. Be generous and willing to share. (1 Timothy 16:18)
C. Release whatever it is that I hold onto so tightly; only then will my hands be open to receive God's best for me. Realize that this is a process.

Sore Must Be The Storm

A dear friend of mine just started a blog and in one of her first entries quoted Emily Dickinson. So this is inspired by the pair of them: my dear friend and Dickinson. I'd like to share two lovely poems written by the latter. I wish I had words of my own, but hers are so much more than enough.

Hope is the thing with feathers
The perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

---

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Middle School Monologues

Recently I had the privilege of being a part of something wonderful. My friend was part of a team that created a film for campus movie fest, and she asked me to play a small role. These girls did an amazing job, and out of 140+ entries, they made the top 16 that were shown at the Classic Center on Friday night. I hope this makes you laugh.