Christmas!!!!  christmas christmas christmas!!!

there is certainly no better time than to christmas to consider your family, friends, how your life has changed in the past year, etc.

If this is true, then i have MUCH to think about.

This year I moved to a brand new city (the largest one in the world, mind you), embarked on an incredibly different lifestyle, vastly changed my career, started dating the girl that I plan will be the last girl I ever date, rented my own apartment (for the first time), started living alone, started paying ALL my own bills (often with great lingual frustrations and misunderstandings), found a new and wonderful church, and, for the first time, i haven’t visited the US in over a year.

In fact, on that last note, I haven’t had a Christmas in america in 3 years or a Thanksgiving in 5.  None of these things were really planned, mind you, this is just where life takes us.

When I consider all these life changes, I’m brought back to the unexpectedness of all of it.  Sure, some changes and life happenings are pre-plotted and planned, just not most of them.  We find ourselves in situations that we often never would have planned.

That, however, isn’t what I want to write about tonight.  I’ve been thinking of all these different ‘worlds’ I have found myself in.

We all have different realms of existence…surely you can relate, you have your work relationships, your family (extended AND immediate), the friends that you currently have and your long-time friends that somehow seem to always fit.  I have managed to create an impossibly curious web of relationships and ‘worlds.’

I call them worlds because realms doesn’t carry quite enough ‘umph’ to convey the measure of variety found in between the strings of all of these worlds.

I remember Christmas in Foxworth, vaguely, but I certainly remember it.  Tuan and Paula coming over to the house.  Back then, Dad would come too because he and mom were still divorced, but we would have to wait until everyone was over before presents would begin.

I remember Christmas in Foxworth that last time, when we had Christmas two days early and I slept in on Christmas Day in a house alone.  That afternoon I drove to Jackson to be with college friends and leave early the next day for Urbana ’06.

I remember Christmas after India, just before Peru.  It is certainly a blur and seems to have so little to do with my life now.  It was at Twin Lakes and in Foxworth.  Wonderful times.

I remember Christmas in Shizuoka, the first time.  Overwhelming.  Unsure of my relationship with Elizabeth.  Unsure of what I was doing there, but also assured I would be leaving very soon (just a month later).

Last Christmas was also in Shizuoka, much more sure of why I was there but undoubtedly more unsure of Elizabeth.  That was a hard and wonderful time.

And now I am again spending Christmas in Shizuoka.  It is certainly not my plan to do so.  I don’t understand why my plans come to naught, but the Lord is higher than me and I accept what he has brought.

And at the same time, i have my Tokyo people.  We had the best Christmas party I’ve ever had this past week.  It was truly amazing.  They told me stories of past Christmas times.  Combini Christmas.  It is strange, my now people, I love them deeply and yet I am so different from them.  It’s always been that way.  Maybe it always will.

This post was for me.  It is the beginnings of a much deeper idea.  Patience, certainly, will pay off.

and, even though all this rings to be true; 1) the overabundance of detail is exhausting, boring and, generally, not helpful 2) the muddiness of so many ‘almost’ examples that partially convey an idea cannot by any measure make up for a precise statement.

yes, this is true, but i think there is a much more real and easily seen reason behind my lack of ability to convey and communicate clearly, effectively and in any exciting manner:

i don’t have anything to say.

i have spent so much, much time looking at other people and understanding them i have forgotten to cultivate the one garden that i should have cultivated: myself.

i am often unsure of what i think about something until i have someone to react to. only with a listening partner can i grasp my own ideas.

i need less reaction and more motivation.

and i’m going to be working on that.

and, in one respect that’s true…photographs, when untampered with, do record a moment in time rather accurately.

as with all things, photographs became more and more commonplace.  no longer did people have to stand still for (what we would call) absurdly long durations.  pictures are instant, now.  there’s not even any need to wait for development to see them.  or, as with most pictures, they are never developed.  merely shared via the internet to facebook, twitter, flickr, posterous, wordpress, blogspot, tumblr, instagram…the list goes on…

these things, however, are just the backdrop for where my mind has gone…

but, before we move on, we must color in the last of the backdrop…

now and again, as with all things, as photography has become more commonplace and as the rules for photography have been refined and refined, so has the ability and desire to break outside those rules…

when i think of paintings, i’m often drawn to the more abstract ones…certainly with a firm basis in reality, and i certainly respect greatly the artist who can perfectly capture a moment…the sketches where you double take as you’re not sure whether it’s really a drawing/painting or a photo…those are amazing.  even so, i am pulled to the more abstractly-slanted portraits and artworks…

in a painting or a drawing, there may be certain rules in place, but they are in place by choice…rather, there are only a few confining aspects of the mediums of paint and pen…two-dimensional (at least in reality) and the physical confines of the size of the canvas…other than that, paint and pen can go almost anywhere…

photographs, however, have greater limits…i suppose the limit is found in the subject matter.  the subject matter of a painting is only confined to the ability of the artist and the immensity of the artist’s imagination…photographs, though, cannot actually be of saturn, or the second coming of christ…they may represent these things, certainly…but, the photograph has a much more firm and irremovable anchor in this reality…

and herein lies the artistry…earlier, i wrote this:

‘photographs are the unrhyming and candid poetry of the eye; almost prosaic and much more poetic than philosophic; beckoning infinity via the finite.’

photographs have a very different brush and stroke quite differently than the wild and vague and grand brushes of a painting.  there lines are more oblique and blunt than the delicate strands of a quiet sketch.

and yet, this makes it so much more beautiful (in it’s own right).  rather, it is not less than painting or drawing.  they are different and most certainly not equal…they just are, both of them…

chesterton says it better than i do:

If the Secretary stood for that philosopher who loves the original and formless light, Syme was a type of the poet who seeks always to make the light in special shapes, to split it up into sun and star. The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. For him the great moment is not the creation of light, but the creation of the sun and moon.

hopefully that helps make sense of it…in this photography is more likened to syme and painting is more the secretary…

it is said that there is an uneasy stigma between painting and photography, which, i think is idiocy and sadness…why should you ever choose between hemingway and donne?  keats and faulkner?  dickinson and joyce?  dostoevsky and shaw?  i see no point to that…colors are made to accent each other as all these are merely colors and frames for experience and life…

i find it interesting…and contradictory, and wonderful…

any thoughts?

recently, i moved…i live in a new place and, with that change, almost certainly, comes a time of nostalgia…

nostalgia, in itself, is fine…i don’t mind it.  it reminds of what i have to be thankful for…i find it interesting, though, when i see what exactly i do remember.

i remember faces and glimpses into moments…i remember particular conversations that somehow seem to capture the essence of entire people…no, i am not silly enough to think that people are so one-dimensional to be fully captured in a conversation or a moment…but, relationships and how they work can be exemplified, almost as a caricature, in a moment…people and how they were for a time (and sometimes, if you are close enough, how they truly are) can be inscribed into a certain time or a certain action…

these things i remember…and i find myself knowing that there is much, much more…

certainly there are more than my memories…obviously i don’t remember perfectly and the adventures, misadventures and everything in between are too great in quantity and quality for me to accurately recall them all…

but, that’s not what i mean…

i think the things that i remember least are the ones that have had the most impression on me…it’s almost as if i never lodged memories for years and years because things became such a part of me that i never needed to…

that’s strange, but it may be how i explain my lack of childhood memories…specifically, the smell of grass and the smell of fire.  i have no particular instances that i can remember smelling these things.  at least, not independently of other events.  and, nonetheless, i remember the smell of grass and of fire so very, very vividly.  i love them both immensely and it is with great displeasure that i progress my voyage on this asian vessel without them as, at least, occasional companions.  these things, others exist too, though i will not mention them yet…these things, are such a part of me and what i love and who i am that i never felt the need to remember them specifically.  i grasped them on a level deeper than instances.

we don’t mark those things that we never expect to lose.  what stands out in our lives are the things we take the time to mark, what we assume will be there is what we don’t write about.  these things we don’t just remember…we know them…they are lodged more deeply than memories can be.  and they oft surprise is when we do not have them…it isn’t until we realize we don’t have them that we could have possibly missed them…

how do you mourn gravity?  what could you say to eulogize water?

that said…i know the smell of grass and fire, i know and pine for rye grass under my bare feet.  sweet tea, also, must find it’s way into this list…it represents so much more than lipton tea bags and sugar.

with this abstraction, i hope you see something…our lives are deeper than we realize.  we are doing more than just making scratches on the surface of a dirty and beautiful rock.  our mark, while not deep on the surface of the planet, is strong and hearty.  the deepest marks we mark are the ones that we inscribe into our own spirits…all the others will fade.

all that said, i’m excited about the newness…journey with me if you don’t mind abstraction

we all struggle with dying to ourselves…

we struggle with throwing out our sinful desires…

we struggle with choosing spirit or flesh on a daily basis…

there are also desires that we have which we consider honorable or good…

and they are, but life is more complex and more simple than ‘good’ and ‘bad’

even our best desires must be surrendered…even our desires for God’s Kingdom must be surrendered…

Paul was called as an apostle to the Gentiles; he had an enormous compassion for his Jewish brethren…

as Paul did, we have to surrender even our best ideas to Jesus…

the dichotomy is not ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’

at this point, all that really matters is surrendered and not surrendered…

even in my best of plans with my best of intentions, if i haven’t surrendered it, i am still making it about myself…

i must choose, will i reign in hell? or serve in heaven?

its the idea of a surrendered life versus a narcissistic one

i found some truth:

“If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you’re either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: “Can I believe it all again today?” No, better still, don’t ask it till after you’ve read The New York Times, till after you’ve studied that daily record of the world’s brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer’s always Yes, then you probably don’t know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you’re human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that’s choked with confession and tears and. . . great laughter.”

“One summer day I lay upon the grass. I’d sinned, no matter how, and in sin’s wake there came a kind of drowsy peace so deep I hadn’t even will enough to loathe myself. I had no mind to pray. I scarcely had a mind at all, just eyes to see the greenwood overhead, just flesh to feel the sun.
A light breeze blew from Wear that tossed the trees, and as I lay there watching them, they formed a face of shadows and of leaves. It was a man’s green, leafy face. He gazed at me from high above. And as the branches nodded in the air, he opened up his mouth to speak. No sound came from his lips, but by their shape I knew it was my name.
His was the holiest face I ever saw. My very name turned holy on his tongue. If he had bade me rise and follow him to the end of time, I would have gone. If he had bade me die for him, I would have died. When I deserved it least, God gave me most. I think it was the Savior’s face itself I saw.”

“To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness – especially in the wilderness – you shall love him.”

-Frederick Buechner

adding that ingredient relenquishes control…

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They’re spreading blankets on the beach

it may have begun as a smile…it may have begun last month…or possibly earlier today, most likely it was a year or so ago…but even that can’t be said to be true…even if i were to trace it back in every possible and conceivable manner to a single, solitary event, it would still be only a half-truth…there is a design in it, the circumstances, as wonderful as they are, are truly not enough to call for something such as this…i guess that is my main clue as to its true significance, which, i suppose, is beyond my comprehension…

again, i don’t know what to call it…tears pour and lips tense into smiles all at the same time that knees buckle in humility…eyes open and close because that’s all they can do…laughter and smiles trade places with quivering lips…all the while the control that we all are so used to seems to be a forgotten tradition…

so, whatever you call all of that, that is what happened today…it is to big to capture in my head and certainly to big to convey through words and pictures…

but, that said, its kind of like this:

and maybe a little like this…

and it is very, very certainly a LOT like this:

The place that God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the worlds deep hunger meet. - Fredrick Buechner

And now, by some transition, which he did not notice, it seemed that what had begun as speech was turned into sight, or into something that can be remembered only as if it were seeing. He thought he saw the Great Dance. It seemed to be woven out of the intertwining undulation of many cords or bands of light, leaping over and under one another and mutually embraced in arabesques and flower-like subtleties. Each figure as he looked at it became the master-figure or focus of the whole spectacle, by means of which his eye disentangled all else and brought it into unity–only to be itself entangled when he looked to what he had taken for mere marginal decorations and found that there also the same hegemony was claimed, and the claim made good, yet the former pattern thereby disposed but finding in its new subordination a significance greater than that which it had abdicated. He could see also ( but the word “seeing” is now plainly inadequate)wherever the ribbons or serpents of light intersected minute corpuscles of momentary brightness: and he knew somehow that these particles were the secular generalities of which history tells–people, institutions, climates of opinion, civilizations, arts, sciences and the like–ephemeral coruscations that piped their short song and vanished. The ribbons or cords themselves, in which millions of corpuscles lived and died, were the things of some different kind. At first he could not say what. But he knew in the end that most of them were individual entities. If so, the time in which the Great Dance proceeds is very unlike time as we know it. Some of the thinner more delicate cords were the beings that we call short lived: flowers and insects, a fruit or a storm of rain, and once (he thought) a wave of the sea. Others were such things we think lasting: crystals, rivers, mountains, or even stars. Far above these in girth and luminosity and flashing with colours form beyond our spectrum were the lines of personal beings, yet as different from one another in splendour as all of them from the previous class. But not all the cords were individuals: some of them were universal truths or universal qualities. It did not surprise him then to find that these and the persons were both cords and both stood together as against the mere atoms of generality which lived and died in the clashing of their streams: But afterwards, when he came back to earth, he wondered. And by now the thing must have passed together out of the region of sight as we understand it. For he says that the whole figure of there enamored and inter –inanimate circling was suddenly revealed as the mere superficies of a far vaster pattern in four dimensions, and that figure as the boundary of yet others in other worlds: till suddenly as the movement grew yet swifter, the interweaving yet more ecstatic, the relevance of all to all yet more intense, as dimension was added to dimension and tat part of him which could reason and remember was dropped further and further behind that part of him which saw, even then, at the very zenith of complexity, complexity was eaten up and faded, as a thin white cloud fades into the hard blue burning of sky, and all simplicity beyond all comprehension, ancient and young as spring, illimitable, pellucid, drew him with cords of infinite desire into it’s own stillness. He went up into such a quietness, a privacy, and a freshness that at the very moment when he stood farthest from our ordinary mode of being he had the sense of striping off encumbrances and awaking from a trance, and coming to himself. With a gesture of relaxation he looked about him…

stop selling the world so short…the reason there is so much cynicism going around is because beauty really does exist…

and, just so people understand the title:

“The cardinal difficulty,” said MacPhee, “in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, ‘Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you’ll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.’ The female for this is, ‘Put that in the other one in there.’ And then if you ask them, ‘in where?’ they say, ‘in there, of course.’ There is consequently a phatic hiatus.”

thx jack…

our lives should be at least this amazing…

don’t give up because it hasn’t happened yet…

its coming…it just takes surrender