Today has been a year since we lost our little Jude. The problems started at the beginning of April and concluded today very early in the morning, one year ago. I am filled with complex, confusing emotions as I grieve the loss of our second child while I feel the movements of our third child inside of me and watch our first child play in front of me.
I do not anticipate having too many quiet moments today to allow myself to think and remember and cry. Being a mother doesn't allow for too many of those moments. And yet... it is the situation of being a mother that causes the grief and the need for solitude and silence.
I am feeling a little overwhelmed today ...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
I am currently reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and I love it. I wish I had been recording my favorite excerpts from the very beginning but I guess better late than never (I write this 583 pages into the book). The book begins with this preface:
"So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age -- the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night -- are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless."
This statement adequately sums up the portion of the book that I have read thus far. Hugo writes impassioned for the wretched that are a product of his society. He cries out for justice. He pleads for opportunity and understanding for the unfortunate and the wrongly oppressed. I love his heart for justice and his empathy for the pain of others. He hurts for every innocent child trapped in slavery, never knowing a mother's love (which seems a God-given right). He pities every man and woman driven to miserable actions and conflict with the government in the name of survival. I have not read many authors that have written with the conviction and emotion that Victor Hugo writes this book with.
Moving from this thought a bit, I would like to share another excerpt that I enjoyed. The context: the author is painting a picture of convents and monasteries in his day. In the midst of this, he lights upon the infinite (God).
Moving from this thought a bit, I would like to share another excerpt that I enjoyed. The context: the author is painting a picture of convents and monasteries in his day. In the midst of this, he lights upon the infinite (God).
"There is, we are aware, a philosophy that denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, classed pathologically, which denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.
To set up a sense we lack as a source of truth, is a fine piece of blind man's assurance.
And the rarity of it consists in the haughty air of superiority and compassion which is assumed towards the philosophy that sees God, by this philosophy that has to grope its way. It makes one think of a mole exclaiming: 'How they excite my pity with their prate about a sun!'" (p. 438)
To set up a sense we lack as a source of truth, is a fine piece of blind man's assurance.
And the rarity of it consists in the haughty air of superiority and compassion which is assumed towards the philosophy that sees God, by this philosophy that has to grope its way. It makes one think of a mole exclaiming: 'How they excite my pity with their prate about a sun!'" (p. 438)
And one more last thought, he continues just a couple of pages down:
"A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour.
To meditate is to labour; to think is to act.
Folded arms work, closed hands perform, a gaze fixed on heaven is a toil.
Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy.
In our eyes, cenobites are not idlers, nor is the recluse a sluggard.
To think of the Gloom is a serious thing." (pp. 440-441)
To meditate is to labour; to think is to act.
Folded arms work, closed hands perform, a gaze fixed on heaven is a toil.
Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy.
In our eyes, cenobites are not idlers, nor is the recluse a sluggard.
To think of the Gloom is a serious thing." (pp. 440-441)
I realize this post has been a jumble of excerpts that I found interesting and they do not seem strongly related to one another. That first excerpt truly is the heart of the book. The other two are from sections where Hugo sets aside the main story for the sake of offering insight into what is going on in the background of his characters' tales. I think the appeal I find in such excerpts is that they echo thoughts that I myself have been ruminating on lately. Perhaps I will try to post only one excerpt next time and further expound upon how it relates to what I've been thinking.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Restless
I love this song by Switchfoot. How can the human soul survive in a dull, invariable environment? I feel that I will wither and fade into non-existence if I do not experience some change in my life. Ah, my fickle and discontented spirit! Not that this is the point of the song above. I just love it because my soul is immensely restless and I can feel that in this song. I long for change. I long for action. And more to the point of the song, my soul wants to be freed from the box I have enslaved it to so that it may run with all of its might to seek rest and satisfaction in God. To my very core I Am Restless.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Revitalize Me
I spend every day exhausted, on the verge of tears, nauseated, trying desperately to keep a little bit of food in my stomach, feeling every moment like a failure for the lack of effort and the creeping impatience toward my wonderful two year old. I feel broken. I am tired of looking forward to the coming of each night so I can hibernate and forget my maladies and growing gloom.
I long for restoration. Revitalization. Energy.
I long for my own space to make beautiful and clean for my family. I long to have the joy and energy to do that. I long for our family to be standing on its own feet and to feel complete as just our family.
I long for a new beginning.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Silence
Oh, where to begin...
I don't know where to begin. I don't even know what the subject is tonight. I suppose I decided to write tonight to help me collect my thoughts. My mind has become very undisciplined. My thoughts just wander off on their own in no particular order, becoming tangled and confused. This is my attempt to harness them and pull them back in. Once I do, maybe I can set them in order.
How often does the average American sit and think? I mean just think. Simply being alone with their thoughts. When I was a teenager I loved to walk the woods by myself. I would read. I would write. I would think. I would sit by the creek for hours and watch the water swirling, rushing, drifting. Then for a time, when I was in college, I hated to be by myself. I was terrified of being alone with my thoughts. I was afraid of the silence. I can still feel the irrational panic rising in my chest, threatening to choke me, when there was no one else around and all was quiet. I can feel the near-hysteria that overcame me.
Now I have lived a few more years and experienced a bit more of life. There have been heights of soaring bliss and depths of black grief and drowning sorrow. I am a changed person. I suppose there are days when I still fear solitude. But being mother to a busy, chatterbox of a toddler has made me realize just how wild and disorderly my thoughts have become and how little time I devote to careful, quiet thinking. How often do I search my heart and mind? How often do I let myself be enveloped by the quiet? I usually find a way to entertain myself when my little one is sleeping. Am I still uncomfortable with my thoughts, with the silence?
I don't know where to begin. I don't even know what the subject is tonight. I suppose I decided to write tonight to help me collect my thoughts. My mind has become very undisciplined. My thoughts just wander off on their own in no particular order, becoming tangled and confused. This is my attempt to harness them and pull them back in. Once I do, maybe I can set them in order.
How often does the average American sit and think? I mean just think. Simply being alone with their thoughts. When I was a teenager I loved to walk the woods by myself. I would read. I would write. I would think. I would sit by the creek for hours and watch the water swirling, rushing, drifting. Then for a time, when I was in college, I hated to be by myself. I was terrified of being alone with my thoughts. I was afraid of the silence. I can still feel the irrational panic rising in my chest, threatening to choke me, when there was no one else around and all was quiet. I can feel the near-hysteria that overcame me.
Now I have lived a few more years and experienced a bit more of life. There have been heights of soaring bliss and depths of black grief and drowning sorrow. I am a changed person. I suppose there are days when I still fear solitude. But being mother to a busy, chatterbox of a toddler has made me realize just how wild and disorderly my thoughts have become and how little time I devote to careful, quiet thinking. How often do I search my heart and mind? How often do I let myself be enveloped by the quiet? I usually find a way to entertain myself when my little one is sleeping. Am I still uncomfortable with my thoughts, with the silence?
Thursday, January 17, 2013
One of Many Posts to Come Concerning C.S. Lewis
I am currently reading Perelandra by C. S. Lewis. The story takes place on Venus, or Perelandra. It is a beautiful, young, innocent planet. The first man and woman have been made there and, along with the gentle beasts that inhabit the planet, are untouched by evil. There is a part in the book when Dr. Elwin Ransom, who has been sent to this planet, comes across a mutilated frog. In a world where everything is joy and fulfillment and contentment, pain is unprecedented. The Lady herself (the first woman) does not understand any form of negative emotion. She does not understand suffering or death because she has never seen it. A wounded animal is completely out of place here. Allow me to share an excerpt:
"On earth it would have been merely a nasty sight, but up to this moment Ransom had as yet seen nothing dead or spoiled in Perelandra, and it was like a blow in the face. It was like the first spasm of well-remembered pain warning a man who had thought he was cured that his family have deceived him and he is dying after all. It was like the first lie from the mouth of a friend on whose truth one was willing to stake a thousand pounds. It was irrevocable. The milk-warm wind blowing over the golden sea, the blues and silvers and greens of the floating garden, the sky itself--all these had become, in one instant, merely the illuminated margin of a book whose text was the struggling little horror at his feet, and he himself, in that same instant, had passed into a state of emotion which he could neither control nor understand. He told himself that a creature of that kind probably had very little sensation. But it did not much mend matters. It was not merely pity for pain that had suddenly changed the rhythm of his heart-beats. The thing was an intolerable obscenity which afflicted him with shame. It would have been better, or so he thought at that moment, for the whole universe never to have existed than for this one thing to have happened." (pp. 93-94)
It may sound odd for me to say that it was refreshing for me to read this. I was certainly disgusted (and it only gets worse with Dr. Ransom finding twenty-one more mangled frogs), but when I say I was refreshed it is because we are so calloused to pain in this world that it was satisfying to see a character truly sickened by pain, even if that pain was found in a mere beast. It struck a chord in my heart to have the truth brought before me that there is something seriously wrong with pain. Suffering was not what we were created for. Our entire existence, from our first gasping cry to our final gasping breath, is surrounded in evil and death and suffering. Our lives are tainted. Our planet is tainted. We are so immersed in pain all of our lives that we have grown hard to it. We kill a bug without a thought. We run over a squirrel with our car. We see on the television people being shot and killed and we feel a twinge of sadness for a moment but then move on to the weather report in the next sixty seconds. We tell ourselves that there is simply too much pain in the world to really invest our hearts. We would be crushed by the weight of it. So we allow ourselves to shrug off the deaths of our brothers and sisters and the many other wonderful creatures that God has created.
This should not be. Of this I am certain: we were not made for pain and it will not be the end of us (or of anything in this world). There will come a time when these things will have passed and we won't know pain or tears. Animals will be at peace with each other and with man. Man will be at peace with himself and with other men and have true communion with his Maker. There will be Restoration.
"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
- Isaiah 11:6-9
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”"
- Revelation 21:1-4
I look forward to that day with all of my heart.
"On earth it would have been merely a nasty sight, but up to this moment Ransom had as yet seen nothing dead or spoiled in Perelandra, and it was like a blow in the face. It was like the first spasm of well-remembered pain warning a man who had thought he was cured that his family have deceived him and he is dying after all. It was like the first lie from the mouth of a friend on whose truth one was willing to stake a thousand pounds. It was irrevocable. The milk-warm wind blowing over the golden sea, the blues and silvers and greens of the floating garden, the sky itself--all these had become, in one instant, merely the illuminated margin of a book whose text was the struggling little horror at his feet, and he himself, in that same instant, had passed into a state of emotion which he could neither control nor understand. He told himself that a creature of that kind probably had very little sensation. But it did not much mend matters. It was not merely pity for pain that had suddenly changed the rhythm of his heart-beats. The thing was an intolerable obscenity which afflicted him with shame. It would have been better, or so he thought at that moment, for the whole universe never to have existed than for this one thing to have happened." (pp. 93-94)
It may sound odd for me to say that it was refreshing for me to read this. I was certainly disgusted (and it only gets worse with Dr. Ransom finding twenty-one more mangled frogs), but when I say I was refreshed it is because we are so calloused to pain in this world that it was satisfying to see a character truly sickened by pain, even if that pain was found in a mere beast. It struck a chord in my heart to have the truth brought before me that there is something seriously wrong with pain. Suffering was not what we were created for. Our entire existence, from our first gasping cry to our final gasping breath, is surrounded in evil and death and suffering. Our lives are tainted. Our planet is tainted. We are so immersed in pain all of our lives that we have grown hard to it. We kill a bug without a thought. We run over a squirrel with our car. We see on the television people being shot and killed and we feel a twinge of sadness for a moment but then move on to the weather report in the next sixty seconds. We tell ourselves that there is simply too much pain in the world to really invest our hearts. We would be crushed by the weight of it. So we allow ourselves to shrug off the deaths of our brothers and sisters and the many other wonderful creatures that God has created.
This should not be. Of this I am certain: we were not made for pain and it will not be the end of us (or of anything in this world). There will come a time when these things will have passed and we won't know pain or tears. Animals will be at peace with each other and with man. Man will be at peace with himself and with other men and have true communion with his Maker. There will be Restoration.
"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
- Isaiah 11:6-9
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”"
- Revelation 21:1-4
I look forward to that day with all of my heart.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
My Yawp
I
think most of us desire to leave some imprint of ourselves in this world. Or at
least to know that we were heard and known and that we mattered to our fellow human
beings. This blog is about making my thoughts known, whether they are trivial,
important, useless, old, or new. Even if no one else reads this… at least I
have put myself out there.
Ecclesiastes chapter one says that there is nothing new under the sun. I do not expect to come up with anything new or profound or to have any kind of impact on anyone reading this. In fact, I suspect that I will often share thoughts much greater than my own from people much greater than myself. I will share what has influenced me and perhaps why it has. This blog, if I am faithful in writing, will consist of thoughts on any subject that happens to be occupying my mind. Even if they are selfish, insecure, incorrect, pointless, small, and not very well-written, these are my thoughts. They are mine. And I am making them known.
Ecclesiastes chapter one says that there is nothing new under the sun. I do not expect to come up with anything new or profound or to have any kind of impact on anyone reading this. In fact, I suspect that I will often share thoughts much greater than my own from people much greater than myself. I will share what has influenced me and perhaps why it has. This blog, if I am faithful in writing, will consist of thoughts on any subject that happens to be occupying my mind. Even if they are selfish, insecure, incorrect, pointless, small, and not very well-written, these are my thoughts. They are mine. And I am making them known.
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