swing your partner

Recently I've been partaking in a North Carolinian high country cultural experience called contra dancing. I love it. So much so, in fact, that I have decided that at my wedding reception (whenever it may happen) I plan to have a live band and a caller who will give lessons while the guests await the arrival of the wedding party, but that is neither here nor there...

This is the way God put it: "They found grace out in the desert, these people who survived the killing. Israel, out looking for a place to rest, met God out looking for them!" God told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love! And so now I'll start over with you and build you up again, dear virgin Israel. You'll resume your singing, grabbing tambourines and joining the dance. You'll go back to your old work of planting vineyards on the Samaritan hillsides, And sit back and enjoy the fruit— oh, how you'll enjoy those harvests! The time's coming when watchmen will call out from the hilltops of Ephraim: 'On your feet! Let's go to Zion, go to meet our God!'" - Jeremiah 31:1-3

How I long to join that dance! To spin around and swing my neighbor - to one day have my own to swing. I don't know exactly what it looks like, but I know what it feels like: contra dancing! It feels like giving a little weight to your partner and spinning and spinning until you almost feel dizzy, but trusting that you'll end up on his right in long lines or hands-four, ready to dance a little more. It feels like smiling through the pinch of your shoes or the breathlessness that accompanies the constant movement, despite the beads of perspiration forming on your brow.

I love to dance. I love to have a good partner to lead me through each step - a partner with whom I can just relax and move gracefully and fluidly, because it's only when I try to maintain control that I misstep or end up where I don't belong. I love leaning back in a swing and feeling the centrifugal force spinning us faster and faster. I love how the pre-swing balance is marked by the sound of hundreds of feet stomping in unison on the old wood floor of the apple barn. Clearly, I really like contra dancing. But that may or may not be what I'm talking about.

Being a skilled dancer has less to do with knowing the steps and more to do with learning to relax, to trust your partner, and to listen for the caller's instructions as He gives them.

"You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers. I'm about to burst with song; I can't keep quiet about you. God, my God, I can't thank you enough." -Psalm 30:11

i am a nerd

america's best idea

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun, -- a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal. Just now I can hardly conceive of any bodily condition dependent on food or breath any more than the ground or the sky. How glorious a conversion, so complete and wholesome it is. -John Muir

Anybody else super-excited about The National Parks series on PBS? Given that I plan to take my family on vacations to The National Parks, I sure am.

green bananas

I've come to the realization that I've got some serious ripening to do. I have a lot to learn in the academic and professional realms, which coincidentally, become less distinct from one another day after grad school day. I have even more to learn about myself - to continue to develop and build on the beliefs and values that I hold. Most importantly, I have a lot to learn about God. I have to get to know Him better. I have to learn to trust in His promises. Otherwise I'll just be a bunch of green bananas for the rest of my life, and who wants that?

aimer encore

You must not be astonished when, even at the risk of your taking me for a fanatic, I tell you that in order to love, I think it absolutely necessary to believe in God (that does not mean that you should believe all the sermons of the clergymen) — far from it. To me, to believe in God is to feel that there is a God, not dead or stuffed, but alive, urging us toward aimer encore [steadfast love] with irresistible force.

-Vincent van Gogh

Agreed. Most definitely agreed.

No, no, not the rat track!

It's been raining nonstop for the last three days in Boone, and this weather pattern is supposed to continue into the weekend. The downside is that my energy level plummets on rainy days; all I want to do is consume copious amounts of grain and sleep and/or read fiction (Think about it, how many animals do you see outside in the rain? None. They hibernate or something). The upside is that I need to get a lot of work done this weekend, so I will have a lighter load next weekend when two of my dearest loves visit, and as long as it is yucky outside, I will not be especially tempted to play outside in these mountains that are fast becoming my home.

The rain started on Tuesday, and I was forced to run three miles on the treadmill on Wednesday instead of outside [Can I get a resounding "Ugggggggggh..."?]. Today I was due for a five miler, and as I would much rather run this distance in a torrential downpour than on one of those little rat tracks in the florescence of the gym, I headed up to Cone Memorial Park, which is just off the Parkway near Blowing Rock. It was still super-foggy when I got there, but miracle of miracles, it had stopped raining! Off I went around Bass Lake with my rain-gear and iPod, following the carriage trail toward the cute little apple barn just over the ridge.

At one point I heard some loud rustling in the foliage alongside the trail, and immediately began clapping my hands and shouting, just in case it turned out to be a bear. You never know.

I think I'm supposed to be learning something about faithfulness these days, but I don't know exactly what. There's just something about driving up the road in the middle of a weeklong rain and finding precipitation-free hour just when you need it that makes me think that it couldn't have been coincidence. I guess what I'm trying to say is... Thanks, Jesus.

new.fresh.unfamiliar

Main Entry:	new
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	recent, fresh
Synonyms:	advanced, au courant, brand-new, contemporary, current, cutting-edge, dewy, different, dissimilar, distinct, fashionable, inexperienced, just out, late, latest, modern, modernistic, modish, neoteric, newfangled, novel, now*, original, recent, spick-and-span, state-of-the-art, strange, topical, ultramodern, unaccustomed, uncontaminated, unfamiliar, unique, unknown, unlike, unseasoned, unskilled, unspoiled, untouched, untrained, untried, untrodden, unused, unusual, up-to-date, virgin, youthful
Antonyms:	deteriorated, old, old-fashioned, outdated, worn

Thanks, Dictionary.com.

So I've experienced a lot of new things during the first weeks of this new chapter in my life called gradschoolboonenorthcarolinaadventure (should probably come up with a NEW name). Here are some them:

Greek yogurt, "study hikes" on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a developing interest in geopolitics?, the realization that "graduate assistant" really means "secretary," cheating on Publix with Ingle's (which is Spanish for "English" -- I've always wondered if they know that), Harry Potter on my iPod (for free, thanks to the ASU Library Instructional Materials Collection), the occasional glass of red wine, home-schooling three children on Friday mornings, constructing models of the circle of Willis using only pipe cleaners, volunteering at a nursing home, couscous, watching 18 Kids and Counting with my roommate, scoffing at the abomination known to many as "South Carolina Peaches" (j/k south cackalacky! but seriously...), this little bunny that almost always scares the you-know-what out of me when I see him hopping alongside me at a certain segment of one of my running routes near my house, utility bills, and the teeny-tiny basil plant I got at the Watauga County Farmer's Market last week.

After all, I'm still a Plant Lady.