beauty in the ordinary

quote-able writers

2008-09-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Forgive my absence from the blog-o-sphere. Much has happened since I last blogged.
- I moved to a new city.
- I left an organization that I had worked with for 7 years.
- I got a new job.
- I had a birthday.
- I went to San Diego and Dallas.
- I participated in a Nigerian/Sicilian wedding.
- I surfed at San Onofre and got bumped on the head with a surfboard.
- I surfed at First Point in Malibu and got a little eye infection.
- I am wondering how to surf without getting injured.

Those are just the externals. The internal churning is still happening too. But, that blog would take more work and energy than I can handle right now.

But, I did finish a book recently which contained some pearls of wisdom, the kind that I want to clasp onto in the recess of my brain (or blog) and recall at certain moments of life. I didn't think I'd like Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, but it surprised me. Here are a couple fave passages:

If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line - starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding to logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King's Highway past appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led - make of that what you will (p. 133).

*****

I can't look back from where I am now and feel that I have been very much in charge of my life. Certainly I have lived on the edge of the Port William community, and I am farther than ever out on the edge of it now. But I feel that I have lived on the edge of even my own life. I have made plans enough, but I see now that I have never lived by plan. Any more than if I had been a bystander watching me live my life. I don't feel that I ever have been quite sure what was going on. Nearly everything that has happened to me has happened by surprise. All the important things have happened by surprise. And whatever has been happening usually has already happened before I have had time to expect it. The world doesn't stop because you are in love or in mourning or in need of time to think. And so when I have thought I was in my story or in charge of it, I really have been only on the edge of it, carried along. Is this because we are in an eternal story that is happening partly in time? (p. 322).

****
No doubt that the many changes in my life cause resonance with Jayber and his very ordinary life. But beneath the everyday lies the depth.

follow your heart

2008-05-31T11:53:00.000-07:00

if you know me at all, you know that i love to read. since i was a kid, books are refuges, escapes, adventures, and dreams. i went through a brief period in college when books ceased to be fun (i think it was because i was an english major and reading became work and i had to read some hideous novels), but i am back in love with books. (if you love reading too, be my friend on goodreads.com ).

i recently finished The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlho while i was in China (which i hope to post about at some point in the near future). i loved it deeply. i think i cried while finishing it in the Shanghai airport. here are some of my favorite excerpts:

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."
"Every second of the search is an encounter with God," the boy told his heart. "When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I've known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I've discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve."

*****

"Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him," his heart said. "We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures , because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, towards its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them - the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness...So we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we hope that our words won't be heard: we don't want people to suffer because they don't follow their hearts."
"Why don't people's hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?" the boy asked the alchemist.
"Because that's what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don't like to suffer."
From then on, the boy understood his heart. He asked it, please, never to stop speaking to him. He asked that, when he wandered far from his dreams, his heart press him and sound the alarm. The boy swore that, every time he heard the alarm, he would heed its message.

*****

some of it sounds a little "self-help/self-realization - ish," but if you are a committed follower of Jesus, i think there's something for you in The Alchemist. how often our dreams and our hearts get beaten up by the world, by despair, by the devil. and how often we need our hearts to be revived by hope, dreams, possibilities, resurrection.

may my heart never die completely. may the suffering never overwhelm me. Jesus, stay alive in me always.

a deep thought

2008-04-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

this is not a jack handey deep thought. this is a deep thought from my spiritual director, a mentor who has blessed me more than he will probably ever know.

"doubt is the friend of faith."
"the enemy of faith is certainty."

i have found this to be true, more and more. i am certain of very few things in this world. lately, i am more certain that God loves me.

and i have had many a doubt in the last year. yet, when i go to Jesus with my doubts, it has been the case that my faith has increased.

i'm a beloved sinner

2008-04-23T12:47:00.001-07:00

There is a pastor I like named Tim Keller, of Redeemer Church of New York City. I have probably listened to over 20 sermons of his on tape or online. I kid you not - each sermon has been good for my soul. He has this saying that he would use all the time in sermons:

We are more sinful than we could ever realize,
and we are more loved than we could ever imagine. (paraphrase, because I can't remember the exact quote.)

I thought I understood what that meant. But really, I am understanding now, after 15 years of following Jesus, how deep is my sin, how broken I am, and yet still, how loved I am. Only God could hold all these things together.

As a friend recently wrote to me, "God is SO BIG and SO SMART." Yeah, I think so too.

i went on a trip

2008-04-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

the most ordinary things can be beautiful when in another world. grafitti in argentina, for example. they use stencils for their grafitti. i am no expert in grafitti, but i think it's pretty artistic. i was just amazed at the amount of effort these artists exerted - do they make stencils of bono for fun? Ok, I did just realize that they probably printed out the stencil or something like that, but isn't it cool, still?

I can't really condense my trip to Argentina and Peru (with spontaneous side trip to Uruguay) into words. I would have to whisk you away there, sit in a lovely cafe in Buenos Aires, sipping our cafe con leche and watching the beautiful people stroll by, listening to their sing-song-y Spanish. Or, maybe we could go to Machu Picchu and lie in the grass, just watching the mist rise off the peaks. Yeah, it was pretty a pretty amazing time.

One thing I don't want to forget - I remembered what it felt like to be an outsider - in every way. I didn't look like people there, I didn't speak the language, I didn't know that you're supposed to tell the bus driver where you are headed when you get on the bus and then he charges you a fare. Cultural etiquette was beyond me. And it has been so long since I have been on the outside.

But people here feel it every day. So, I want to remember what it feels like. And I want to remember that people were very often kind to me, and I only got cheated once by a cab driver in Lima. Maybe that way I can be kind too.

My friend whom I traveled with wrote more about our adventures. You can read about them here. And here too. We spent nearly every hour together, so we experienced similar things.

a poem i like

2008-02-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

I recently heard this poem read on NPR. I read Elizabeth Bishop when I took English 50, Poetry and Poetics, one of my more memorable English classes. For the final of this class, I had to memorize Wallace Stevens' The Idea of Order at Key West. While a strange exercise, the poem went deeper into my soul and permeated me. And dimensions of it emerged that I missed on initial readings. Anyway, this poem by Elizabeth Bishop launched me on some reminisces of college.
Here's the poem. I quite like it.

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

 to be lost that their loss is no disaster.


Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.



Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.


I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.



I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

is that you, God?

2008-01-17T15:14:00.000-08:00

my roomie informed that I have not blogged in quite awhile. the web does not lie. it has been over a month. attribute my absence to moving, working more, and traveling. but i am back!

I believe God is in the little things. and the big things. the undercurrent of my prayers of the last year or so is the persistent question, "are you fighting for me, God? are you really on my side? are you really for me? " In the last day, mayhaps God is trying to get a message through to me. the evidence in the last 24 hours:

- the YMCA has granted me and my roomie a sweet finanical deal - 40% off and reduced enrollment fee!
- the nice guy at the Y also let me have two weeks for free since we are signing up mid-month.
- my mechanic yesterday fixed a dent in my bumper for practically free. I didn't even ask him to do it.
- the Panera bread catering person went the extra mile to help me with a catering order.

I am surprised by kindness from people who I don't know and who may or may not be Christians. I know that I am not often this kind and I am a "professional Christian." God, I'm starting to get the message.

haunted by a question

2007-12-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

Brother Lawrence once wrote, "The whole substance of religion was faith, hope, and charity. In the practice of these we become united to the will of God."

I didn't know much about Brother Lawrence until last night's small group. I only knew of him as the guy who wrote "Practicing the Presence of God," a saintly man who must have prayed continually. And was tranquil and content. My polar opposite. Anyway, our leader asked us to write down ways we practice hope. Huh?

How do I practice hope?

How do I practice faith?

How do I practice charity?

(ok, I know those are multiple questions, and my subject line only says one, but just bear with me. they're all the same concept really.)

How does a person practice hope? Hope is such an ethereal idea to me. Romans 5. Psalm 42. Those don't totally shed light on the question. Do I practice hope when I pray? Am I hoping in God when I sit for a long time and just be with God? I think Bro. Lawrence would say I'm on the right track. But there's the itchy in my seat, raring to go side to me that just wants to say hope has to be more active than that! And the very word "practice" makes it seem like we do something to practice hope.

How do you practice hope?

the cloud of unknowing

2007-11-25T22:08:00.001-08:00

I just finished When the Well Runs Dry: Prayer Beyond the Beginnings by Thomas Green. It felt like a St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila for dummies kind of book. He takes the parts of their writings and relates it to our spiritual lives today. He articulates the "dark night of the soul" in a way that made me say, starkly and dumbfoundedly, "that's me." He also writes about the cloud of unknowing, which was written by an Englishman from the 14th century. I created the art above before I had read that chapter, but I think it captures some of what he was talking about. God is both blessing and confusion, a cloud of unknowing. How do we pray to such a God? I thought you could wrestle with me over that question. And I hope the art invites you into that cloud of unknowing.

beauty au naturale

2007-11-20T21:03:00.001-08:00

I've been trying to take more pictures lately, especially of beautiful things in nature. Nature calms me like warm tea on a chilly afternoon.

I sat under this tree on an unseasonably warm afternoon in Central Park, New York City. New Yorkers were out in full force, including a group of 6 year olds playing kick ball. I relaxed under that tree and just breathed in the city.

This is a rose from the Huntington Library, a place of peace and depth for me. Do you see the tiny drop in the leaves?

A sunset over the San Jose hills, the view from my apartment building. Some days, I forget that San Jose and northern California is such a beautiful place. (Just ignore those electrical lines!)

My dad just sent me these pictures from home. I went home to New Jersey in October, vainly trying to capture the autumnal leaves. But nature is on its own timeline. These are from mid-November! Next time, I should just go home for Thanksgiving. By the way, this is the house my family has lived in since I was 4!

an unedited poem

2007-11-12T00:08:00.000-08:00

darkness touches life
blackening leaves
charring
curling fire
singeing
but He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world
(repeat)
and Light repairs the fragile spidery veins
growing back the leaf, the stem, the tree
until darkness is overwhelmed

last shall be first...

2007-10-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

i've never quite understood the fascination with lotteries.

until now.

last night, i entered into a lottery to win front row seats to see wicked in new york city. for $25! that's a $100+ orchestra seat for $25! arrogantly, i thought i had a decent chance to win (although the other 60 people might beg to differ). i have no idea why i thought i was going to win; i just thought, "well, i showed up, i followed my friend's strategy (throw your name in the middle of the pack), and voila! out comes a ticket to sold-out broadway show."

i must admit, once the names started getting called, it was pretty exciting. some people were so casual about it all - "here! yes, that's me." one lady was on the phone and started shouting, "honey, i won! i won!" and really, i liked her from the moment i saw her chasing her toddler around and playing with him vs. scolding him to be quiet. so, i was glad she won.

waiting, waiting, certain my name would be called. after 12 names, i lost. incredulous! inconceivable! what made it so bitter was the very person BEHIND me in line won! and she had already seen it! hrumph! life is unfair.

once i got over the madness of the loss, i realized what an absolute amazing, unheard of thing this is. what kind of art performance gives the best seats in a lottery to last minute show-goers? it's art for the regular people. it's art that you could afford if you saved up a little every week from your paycheck. may i even call it justice, or the last shall be first?

there's something appealing about a system like this, where there is opportunity for everyone.

if only i had won. but i'll be back again.

am i who i think i am?

2007-10-09T21:54:00.000-07:00

i had the bizarre experience of having someone rock the boat - my boat, that is. have you ever felt stable and settled, and then all of a sudden, have the glasses and dishes shatter on the floor? it's a very off-kilter but not unwelcome feeling. what if this begins to explain my miniature crisis? praise the Lord if it does. funny how an outsider can just slide the angle and begin to make sense of the chaos.

i keep talking about how there are all these puzzle pieces floating around, dancing above my head. how will they find their fit?

am i who i think i am?

in the now

2007-10-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

God is teaching me to be present. It's amazing how easy one can speed off into nostalgia of the past or mental meanderings of the future - one could get stuck in rewind or fast forward with no VCR needed. i'm making friends with the present. and someone who helps me is my mom. she has a knack for enjoying the moment. she's visiting my brother and their expanded family (+1 to their brood). the ever focused educational monster she is, my mom is teaching my niece addition. sidenote: my mom is also exercising her brain by taking counseling classes at a seminary back home. an example of a recent phone conversation:

me: how's it going with hannah?
mom: oh good, i'm teaching her addition.
me: that's cool, mom. is she picking it up?
mom: (chuckling) yes, she's pretty good. but you know what? i sometimes say "addiction" instead of addition.

hope my niece doesn't go to school calling 2+2 "addiction."

pause on a hummingbird

2007-09-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

still, i sat. when you interrupted my reverie. flitting. floating.
how do you move quite like that?
buzzing and humming so effortlessly.
who invented you?

origins

2007-09-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

my inaugural post. i don't think i have ever described myself as shy, but i feel shy as an artist. this blog is my timid attempt at entering a world of artistry, creativity, verve in the blogosphere. we'll see how it goes. but let me tell you, just creating a template wore me out! i wanted this to be a place for me to muse on life, post photos of pretty things i see, write, create, be. come and be my friend in this endeavor!

addendum to this last post:
i guess i didn't really explain why i started this blog. (i chalk that up to fatigue from choosing a template!) at any rate, i have found that 21st century life, my 21st century life, is not conducive to creativity. i like to check off tasks, be efficient. that doesn't leave much room for lingering. and lingering is needed for creativity, right? this blog is a forum to help me capture some creative essence within me. the inner artist that got sidetracked in second grade when i started having my mom do my art projects ;) yes, that's how i got into stanford.