All or nothing

This past weekend I learned a lot. It was a good weekend. One of the things that was excellent and garnered much discussion amongst the circle I run with was some discussion about giving your all to the Lord. The example used was that nobody would ever dream of talking about getting married and say, "Yeah, I'll pledge myself to this person 85%" or even 99%, truth be told. Marriage is supposed to be a 100% effort from both parties, and it seems absurd to think of someone promising just a portion of themself to their spouse-to-be.

But... really? Isn't that what we do to the Lord? We say we'll serve Him, and we do, but... only on our terms. We want to serve him with the part of ourselves we have left after we're done catering to our our whims. The Lord (obviously) deserves more than a half-hearted effort on our part to be His. He wants us, heart and soul, in entirety.

It's easy to want that. To want that relationship with the Lord, where all burdens, all decisions, all choices, are placed on the altar before Him. But when it comes down to it, we're mostly not willing to go that far. To give every aspect of our lives over to the Lord, to leave nothing for ourselves. It takes a complete willingness to give control. A complete willingness to surrender all. I love that hymn, "I surrender all" but when it comes down to it, I'm not able to say that I truly have surrendered my all.

I'm not my own, I'm bought with a price, but for some reason it wrongly feels like a price, rather than a privilege, to give back.

"Love will come to save us, if we'll only call, He will ask nothing of us, but demand we give our all." Lyrics from a great song from the Fireproof movie. They seemed quite fitting for my current thoughts.

And that's all. For now.

Oh, Romeo

Fact: I think the story of Romeo and Juliet is stupid. Fact: Taylor Swift's re-envisioning of the story doesn't really impress me. Fact: maybe it's just because I'm not hopelessly romantic enough, but the whole premise is insane.

You meet, fall in love, can't live without one another, and prove it by dying because you can't be together. Juliet, are you sure you knew this guy? It had only been a couple of days (hours?) before you decided you were in love with him. Romeo, you obviously had no concept of.... well, let's put it this way. Juliet was 13, you were probably not too much older, let's just say you were 17 or 18. You had your whole life in front of you, Romeo, but you chose to throw it all away over a girl barely in her teens. Seriously, mister, get real.

I know you both thought you were smart enough to have figured out the world and its many nuances, but the killing.... WHAT? Obviously you weren't saved, because I, for one, have so much more to live for! I have a life in Christ, and I like to think that I wouldn't throw that away over something as stupid as someone you hardly even knew.

In other news, I just read a news article that declared that it was actually scientifically proven that you can fall in love at first sight. Weird.

Finding home

I rarely ever hear songs by The Afters, but I happened to hear one this week that struck me as kind of up my alley. I don't actually remember much of what the song sounded like, but I looked up the lyrics when I got home because I was pretty sure that the words intrigued me. Either that, or I'd heard them totally wrong. But no, I'd heard them right.

"The World's got me tied on a string/Wanderlust has overcome me/Like Lewis and Clark I'll dream/There's a million different ways to go/Only God can know where I will call my home."

I actually have no idea what the point of this song is. I sort of get the impression that perhaps they wanted a few filler songs for a CD and just decided this one was good enough. Not that I dislike it, but I literally have no idea what the point of it is. It's called "Love Lead Me On" and the entirety of the chorus goes as follows: "Love lead me on/Where no one else has gone/Faith keep me strong/Love lead me on."

It also rambles about finding home, and love, and picture perfect sunsets, so I'm pretty sure it's just a feel-good song about finding home, but I mostly liked the lines about wanderlust and Lewis and Clark. One of my friends and I used to play Lewis and Clark (I'm pretty sure I was Lewis) and we were masterful waterfall jumpers. It was pretty swell.

I have a friend who is going to school to be a guidance counselor, and he's already pretty good at it. We'll be having a conversation and suddenly I'll realize that I'm just rambling about all sorts of stuff I normally wouldn't. It's rather unsettling, actually. That being said, I was talking about traveling the other day, and he asked me, "Do you get antsy if you stay in one place for too long?"

I had no idea what to tell him. I don't even remember the last time I stayed in one place for a long time. At least one weekend a month I'm somewhere else--anywhere else! And it's not that I don't love my family, or my home (because I love both, very much), but I'm just always doing other things on the weekends. It was odd for me to take a step back and look at myself the way others must see me. I know there are some people who think I'm out and about too much, that I should be home more.

But... I am pretty tight with my family. We eat two meals a day together, we discuss anything and everything whenever we have spare minutes, we travel places together when we get the chance, I ask my parents for advice about most things (even crazy-sounding things, so they can talk me out of it), and my siblings and I are incredibly close.

So, does my traveling a lot mean I'm escaping from something? Because I can't think of what I'd be running from, or what I'd be trying to run toward. My home is just that: Home. I wouldn't want to think I'm out trying to find another place to belong. I'm just out to find that perfect sunset, to play Lewis and Clark and make discoveries worth discussing at the dinner table.

I like to think of it like T. S. Eliot always said: "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

All about Love

"If ye love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15

That verse tends to be a good reminder for me. When I do something wrong it doesn't mean that I don't love the Lord any more, but it means that my desire should always be to keep his commandments because I love him. Not out of duty or a sense or moral right and wrong, but rather that I love Him.

I was thinking about love even before work today, where I was informed that it was my duty to "love the plants" so they'll stop dying. I'm supposed to talk to them and remind them that they're doing a good job. Sometimes I can't believe they still pay me.

Back to Up

I mentioned the Disney/Pixar movie Up a few weeks ago, and I was pondering it the other day. And today, I guess.

A fact about me: I'm not romantically attached to anybody in any particular way. Thankfully. =) One day I might be ready. Moving on.

So here's the deal: sometimes I wonder if love is worth it. That quote from Tennyson, the one that goes, "'Tis better to have lost and lost/ than to have never loved at all," always struck a nerve with me, if that makes any sense. Sometimes I'm convinced that love isn't worth it. First, look at the percentages of marriages that don't last. Oh, and pause and consider the number of marriages that have lasted, but as a technicality, because the marriage itself hasn't held up internally. Then consider the people who aren't in marriages yet have crummy relationships.

And that's just marriage. Don't get me started on the games people play before they get to that point.

Sure, marriage seems scary and like a lot of work. This much we all recognize. But what scares me worse than that is the thought that one day, after you've worked through the agonizing parts, and come out stronger on the other side, blah blah blah, if the Lord doesn't come... well, that spouse (or you, whichever) is going to die. Raptured or dead, those are the only options. Doesn't that sound cynical? News flash, I am sort of cynical.

So we've determined that I'm cynical and that marriage seems big and scary. What does this have to do with Up?

For those who have seen the movie, they will immediately remember the first 11 minutes of the film, wherein a touching story is shown of the life of Carl and Ellie, a couple who went through a lot (death of a child=supposedly one of the worst things that can happen to a person, though I don't know from personal experience), and lived life to the fullest. Until Ellie died. Bummer.

But it was so sad! And even at the end of the movie, when I knew that Carl was happy and hanging out with his newest pal Russell, it was sad, because I knew that for every day Carl was enjoying his favorite activities with Russell, it must have hurt him, because those were Ellie's favorite places, too.

Odd to consider this in such depth, but I'm sort of an odd duck.

So there we have it. Loving and losing sounds frightening. Everyone says it's worth it, but this girl needs a little more convincing.

Valentine's Day

First of all, I am NOT one of those people who hate Valentine's Day. I think it's a cute holiday, and if people want to buy cards and chocolate, that's totally fine with me. I do think it's funny though, the whole emphasis we put on love just once a year.

I serve a God of love, and He's year-round. I love that.

That's all.

Hey there, Delilah

Sometimes I just get upset when I read the story of Samson and Delilah. First of all, Samson was a judge, he certainly should have known better than to be cavorting around like a fool. (Plus, I wish the author of Judges had written at least a little about his judging. I mean, what did he do? How did he act as a judge? Was he less retarded in those twenty years than he was during his woman-hunting days? Seriously...) Secondly, I don't really like stories that end with eyes being poked out, or thousands of people dying. This story ends in both.

Alas, for I make up stories in my head. Honestly, I pretty much can't help it (I can do all things, etc., I know, but this is something I haven't worked too hard to stop. I can't decide if the stoppage of this is actually necessary), when I see someone on the street, or meet someone for a split second, or bless the person who sneezes when I'm grocery shopping, I wonder about them and their life. Do they have a spouse and family at home? Are they caring for an elderly parent? Are they all alone--nobody to care for or be cared by? I just always wonder.

Well, this transfers a tad (uh, tad times 57) to my Bible reading times. For instance, I've got all these fake stories (well, they're not really firmly-implanted stories, so to speak, they're mostly just vague wonderings, like maybe there's something about their life I'd see if I just studied their chapters hard enough) about Jonah, and Job's wife, and Potiphar's wife (actually, I've given up that one, after enough reprimands about it), and Martha, and, well, just about every character you can find in the Bible. I read and I wonder, might it have been like such-and-such? And usually I try not to share my rambling thoughts with anyone, lest it seem as if I'm spreading bad doctrine, but I present them only as things I wonder about (seriously, mrg, I've never been as dogmatic about these things as you think me to be), and sometimes, apparently, even blog about.

So yes, Samson. First, WHAT WAS HE THINKING? I mean, obviously Samson knew what was going on. Delilah would tie him up in different manners, tell him that the Philistines were upon him, he'd wake up, get out of there, and that was that. But he knew that she had the Philistines on her side. Check out Judges 16:11 "If they bind me fast with new ropes, etc." Uh, pardon the obvious, but they? Don't you think that if Samson had a brain in his head, he would have stopped to think "Oh hey, Delilah is conferring with the Philistines on how to kill me, maybe it wouldn't be wise to explain to her how to cut off power to my strength."? But nooo, Samson had to stick around and eventually cave in to Delilah's whining. I don't want to get down on men too hard, but the sheer level of stupidity astounds me. The things men do for love.

Speaking of. I have a theory about why Delilah did what she did (hint: it wasn't for love). Only, it's not a theory, because the Bible clearly shows that she did it for the money. But sometimes when I read this chapter I feel as worn down by the end as Delilah. I feel almost like she didn't really expect a real answer, and it feels like she's almost as sad in verse 18 as I am. "And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, etc." I feel like there must be a prevailing reason as to why Delilah wanted that money. Could it really be that she just wanted it? I wish there was a little secrety verse in there that was all like, "Just so you know, Delilah didn't really want to turn Samson in, but was a single mother and needed to care for her children, lest social services take them away." Clearly, Social Services wasn't an issue in old-timey Gaza, but I always want to make Delilah into not such a bad person, and explain away her greed with a more human side.

But... there's really nothing like that in this chapter, not at all. Samson was just a foolish man who thought he was in love, and Delilah was just a woman with an agenda.

This is just a bad, bad chapter in the saga of humankind.

The Bumbetoes

One of my favorite story books when I was a child was one called The Bumbletoes. My grandma had it from when she was a child, and it was the only fictional book she and her siblings were ever allowed to own. The book went missing for about ten years, so the details were getting foggy. There was something about a castle, a picnic situation, and Buttonsboy kept on saying "Right ho."

But we found it recently, much to our delight, and it was one of the few things I asked for from my grandmother's house after she passed away... and I got it! The book is over a hundred years old now, and has been in the family for more than 90 years, according to the inscription in the front page. "Five little H_____'s, from Uncle Herbert, Jan. 1918." Magnificent in beat-up-ness, brilliant in verse, and clever (yet vaguely frightening) pictures is what makes the book what it is.

The basic story is that The Bumbletoes (little odd-looking, alien-type fellows) decide that they're not content being at home, they're wanting to travel. And they want to take Buttonsboy and Belinda, because Buttonsboy is their friend, I guess, and "a girl can cook or trim a hat."

With all that out of the way, the travelers travel forth. They go by boat, get seasick, and stop for a picnic lunch, made especially sweet by "Sally Luns, those best of buns" which "cheer each drooping heart." Now comes my favorite part of the whole book. Pardon the long quote.

As if from subterranean depths,
A Growl comes to their ears,
And round the corner of a rock
A Big Black Bear appears.

Now fly the Bumbletoes, with speed
That only fear can lend:
Alone now stands the Buttonsboy
Belinda to defend.
No help is near, no weapons sure,
Nor pistol, sword, nor gun--
With courage born of great despair,
He throws the deadly Bun.

Not often for such courage rare
Such swift reward is found--
The Bear before that fearful blow
Lies dead upon the ground:
Belinda laughs at perils past,
The others do the same,
Congratulating Buttonsboy
Upon his careful aim.

After the nearly ill-fated picnic, they set off again, see a castle in the distance, and are welcomed warmly by the residents of the castle, only to discover that they are merely being imprisoned. The Bumbletoes dissolve in tears, "'All, all is lost,'" they cry, 'Give us a foot or so of floor, We'll lay us down and die.'"

Belinda has an interesting take on matters as well (if it weren't for the bun killing the bear episode, this would be my favorite part of the book, hands down). "'Oh! Buttonsboy,' Belinda says, 'Although I'm not a man, and have not intellect enough to think out any plan, I grasp the prospect is not one we're likely to enjoy--I think we needn't quite despair!' 'Righto!' said Buttonsboy."

Now tell me, isn't that the funniest thing ever? I have not intellect enough to think out any plan? Best part is, the book was written by a duo of sisters, Millicent and Githa Sowerby. We are forever thankful that they felt they had intellect enough to write and illustrate a book that should be a classic in its own rite.

The Bumbletoes and Buttonsboy are put to work, growing pale and thin and having no time for sleep or play. These weren't the adventures they were looking for, I'll tell you that. Belinda, being a girl "now must sew and cook, and bustle all she can," because apparently bustling is an actual thing to do. The things you learn while reading.

Anyhow, all is saved when a Donkey falls in love with Belinda (at which point we realize that maybe Belinda and Buttonsboy were brother and sister and not marriageable-type playmates after all). After declaring his love for Belinda, the Donkey makes this Darcy-worthy impassioned speech.

My stand is only made of wood,
My voice is best unheard,
My tail is short--I know full well
That I was born absurd;
But oh! I'd perish for your sake,
I'd give up carrots too,
Nor touch another blade of grass,
And all for love of you.

How touching. Eventually "love lends him brains to form a simply brilliant plan" wherein he brings poppy seeds to Belinda, who bakes them into an apple pie that is a "culinary art." Everyone from the castle loves the pie (the very large pie, the largest pie Belinda could have possibly made) and they all eat it and simultaneously fall into a deep sleep. The Donkey steals the keys from the sleeping key-holder dude, and they all escape.

It's a good thing they have the Donkey with them (you didn't think Belinda was going to leave him behind, did you?) because once they realize that they'll never make it to the coast by walking on their feet, the "helpful Donkey cries 'You'll have to ride, of course, and as a cow is rather slow you'd better try a horse!" The Bumbletoes catch a non-broken-in horse, somehow managing to ride it off into the sunset, because by this point everyone in the castle woke up sort of angry over the situation and were chasing them.

It gets worse. The castle folk are coming ever-closer and since our travelers "have no guns, not even buns, they cannot turn and fight" they end up taking out their pocket-knives cutting most of the way through a wooden bridge the castle-folk will have to cross to reach them, and waiting for the bad castle-folk to walk out on the bridge (all at once, mind you) and the bridge falls apart. Naturally, the castle-folk "Hang for a moment in the air--then scatter far and wide. Down, down they fall, and one and all are sunk beneath the tide." But the book hastens to assure us that the evil folk manage to make it out alive and come to the coast just in time to watch the friends put out to sea. Belinda got to man the wheel, actually, so I guess even though she couldn't form intelligent plans, she was able to be some good.

They get home safe and sound, but best of all:

No more their restless spirits long
In distant lands to roam;
While ways are steep and seas are deep,
It's best to stay at home.

Oh, and there's a picture at the end of Belinda watering some flowers standing in front of a cave-like dwelling with a sign "At Home" on it.

So remember this, good friends. 'Tis always best to be "at home."