All things go.

Entries for January, 2010

January 12, 2010

deathcabforcutie

windows

He asked me out to a movie today.

Well, not as like a date or anything. We're watching a movie we'd already both seen to appease his group of friends that haven't, yet.

Haven't seen this person in a while, and I can't say I tried to (er, unless you count that twice I asked if he wanted to hang and got shot down both times), but this is probably just him feeling sorry for always saying no, and slightly expecting--maybe hoping--for me to do the same. But I'll take what I can get. When windows are opened to you, they'll never be as good as doors. Can't get in through them (unless you're seriously whacked, or Rose from "Two and a Half Men"), and it's really nothing personal because they're meant for everyone to look into. You'd always be waiting for that door to swing open and for him to beckon you in... just you. Just the two of you, for some coffee, maybe.

But right now, it's all good. Let's hope he'll be looking out of his window, too.

Yeah. Didn't want to push the metaphor too much, but it had to be said. Avatar better be good the second time around.

currently listening to Your Hands - JJ Heller
currently reading Soil 200

deathcabforcutie
roadkilled at 03:52 PM

3 hostaged

January 15, 2010

deathcabforcutie

disturbance

I think I have the whole life stages thing in reverse. University has me stuck in that "where-do-I-sit-in-the-cafeteria" limbo again. Well, not "again". I am so coordinating schedules next year.

currently reading biogeosciences notes

deathcabforcutie
roadkilled at 02:23 PM

stick 'em up

January 21, 2010

deathcabforcutie

philistine
this is a favorite post.

When one of the more sublime aspects of your faith is the practice of worship--the act of vocally adulating the nature of your God together with a group of people--it's inevitable that you'll want to examine the praises that leave your mouth.

I have to admit that most of the worship words in my arsenal include what I call "default phrases", those I quickly switch to when I run out of more personal terms of endearment. "King of Kings", "Lord of Lords", "the Most Merciful", "All-Powerful", "Most Loving Father"... they're all true, and can for sure be spoken with a sincere heart, but once they reach the status of default-ness, their connotation, their real, raw meaning is sort of lost on you.

What does it mean to be the most powerful? What is God's infinite might and unconditional reign as King of the universe to us?

I started rereading the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis thanks to a wonderfully thoughtful Christmas present from Kylene, where many great and almost too wonderful feats of Aslan the Lion got me dwelling on just this. If he is omnipotent, omniscient, omni-everything... what's the point of even recognizing any tour de force? Why praise Him for His nature, some superior point which is the basis for all potential? Why bother going through all the motions of adoration when His might is uncontested anyway?

He saved me from being the proverbial lost sheep for longer than necessary; I got to reading a passage on young David, today. The one with that big lug of a Philistine Goliath, of course.

David answered him:
“You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar,
but I come against you in the name of the LORD of hosts,
the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted.
Today the LORD shall deliver you into my hand;
I will strike you down and cut off your head.
This very day I will leave your corpse
and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air
and the beasts of the field;
thus the whole land shall learn that Israel has a God.
All this multitude, too,
shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves.
For the battle is the LORD’s and he shall deliver you into our hands.”

So I'm like, what, why do they even bother? God should just smite him now, bolt of lightning, sudden landslide, bam, done.

The Philistine then moved to meet David at close quarters,
while David ran quickly toward the battle line
in the direction of the Philistine.
David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone,
hurled it with the sling,
and struck the Philistine on the forehead.
The stone embedded itself in his brow,
and he fell prostrate on the ground.

Reading all the minute details, it gets to you.

The simplicity of the blow. The sparseness of the victory. Watching it from afar as another soldier, you'd probably notice two dots move in the quiet of the desert, the bigger dot falls, and someone goes, "huh, it's started already?" (not knowing it's over). No lightning, no opening up of the earth.

And looking at David himself gives you a idea, already. Ruddy and handsome, perhaps, but scrawny and undeveloped. All his strength is (was) in his youth and the speed of his spindly legs.

I think David represented that moment the clue to God's power. He had whatever strength he had, but someday he'd grow up to be so much more (to the point of becoming so popular with the ladies that he got a grieving widow to get over it and sleep over haha), his weapons were scant and only those he knew how to wield, but would one day lead armies to battle in the front line in full garb.

God's power, I think, is unlike Goliath's which far surpassed anything David's meager muscle mass could come up with. God's power doesn't just transcend all that we know, but instead meets all levels of strength, then reaches higher and higher up with all the might and force and actual strain that it requires.

And from that, I feel it goes the same with His pain and His love, too. He doesn't surpass ours, doesn't exist on a plane impartial to ours--on the contrary, He goes through it all. Our pain, our love, then multiplies it with the incomprehensible magnitude of His own.

Why indeed did He send His Son to be born and to die here in the first place? He is not on a level above it all; He's in every one.

currently reading Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis)
currently watching House
currently feeling sick

deathcabforcutie
roadkilled at 05:47 AM

stick 'em up

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