even the sunset...

...seemed tainted tonight with the knowledge that it's beauty comes
from the destruction of our world by the same beings that deem it
beautiful.

choosing a book to read...

just reminds me of all the paradoxes and dichotomies and confusing strings pulling at me from all directions. do i choose the revolutionary and anarchist fiction, or the theological treatise, or the history of revolution or oppression, or the social commentary, or the radical christian autobiography, or the literary masterpiece, or the photodocumentary, or the postmodern literature, or academic essay on the world's issues and possible solutions? or do i choose the children's book?

do i work to become an activist, a pastor, a leader of a social movement, an NGO worker, a radical Christian community member, a writer, a photographer, an artist, or an activist? or do i try to escape? or in the case of the last, is that choice actually the choice just to love?

the indecision of the paradox of choice freezes us from everything i believe. one choice or the other isn't going to matter in the end, because the importance is in the love and the grace one might give in any of those things.

the choice for today: les miserables.

soundtrack: brian eno- "ambient 1 music for airports."

walk on...

I saw U2 in concert with Muse on Tuesday. I was in the floor section with some friends, and we were about 20 feet from the outer ring of U2's epic stage. Sometimes those moments when you feel God talking to you, or you feel connected to everything, or something makes sense again seem few and far between... Tuesday night I had multiple moments like that... More later, but for now:

"And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring...
Is all that you can't leave behind."

a day in the life of a college student?

This morning I took a shower.

And seconds after I got out of the shower, my suitemates burst into my room with me standing all proud and long-legged in my boxers chasing a snake that had apparently crawled out of the shower drain seconds after I got out of the shower.

He stayed content in our warm room all day, and my roommate just found him. They thought it was a water moccasin, but it was actually a baby copperhead.

I caught him and threw him into the woods, but seriously?

What would you do if you were taking a shower and a snake crawls up through the shower drain while you're shampooing your hair?

Eeeeek!

It is amazing to me how different life was two years ago... Last
spring too.

And how much I miss those times for different reasons.

And want now to change.

two years

my feet touched kenya's red dirt two years ago today. it feels like forever, but now as i remember, it feels like yesterday. in the weeks leading up to today, it's hurt a lot thinking about that, and thinking about where i am now pounding the books every night and trying to keep my head above water.

one misses the clarity of that clear, thin air.

i'm going back. when remains the question, but it's going to be soon. bummer that in the grand scheme of things, "soon" is relative.

Thinking about that mountaintop, and how clear it was remains in stark contrast with the valley. The valley has been stuffy lately, and maybe at some point I'll write about it, if studies and life would let me breathe. Funny how I think of this as the valley, when I go to school on a mountain... maybe I've just got to go the bluff and breathe. From the Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis:

"Stand still. In a moment I will blow. But first, remember remember remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and to pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters. And now, daughter of Eve, farewell--"

The voice had been growing softer toward the end of this speech and now it faded away all together. Jill looked behind her. To her astonishment she saw the cliff already more than a hundred yards behind her, and the Lion himself a speck of bright gold on the edge of it. She had been setting her teeth and clenching her fists for a terrible blast of lion's breath; but the breath had really been so gentle that she had not even noticed the moment at which she left the earth. And now, there was nothing but air for thousands upon thousands of feet below her."

and when does one sleep?