fantastic poem

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life you could save. --Mary Oliver--

i will add to this blog post later or tomorrow. for now we'll leave it at this is how i feel right now.

oh hello

oh hello my fantastic blogging friends. i have dropped off the face of the earth for the past week. it's been busy. i had a great birthday and then a lovely christmas. dad is home and doing quite well. there have been a number of sad and disturbing things happening today in my world and so i'm feeling a need to just remind myself of my belief in the world and humanity and god. a good friend and her family are going through some very bizzare and difficult and sad times. from our book of common worship...
god of life, there are days when the burdens we carry are heavy on our shoulders and weigh us down, when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening, when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage.
flood the path with light, turn our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to your honor and glory. amen.

merry birthday to me and happy chirstmas to you :O)

I got a forward in my email yesterday. It was said to be written by Ben Stein, a kind of essay on religion and its place in our society. I liked a lot of what it said, didn’t like a lot of other things. So will all respect to the great Ben Stein (if he did indeed write it) I’m going to go ahead and pick it apart and share what I thought the highlights were. But first I’ll talk about my problems. It was a little too close to a vengeful god kind of email for me. A little too much, you push god away and what do you expect. I believe in a loving and merciful god. I also believe that things in this world are happening for reasons that some of us won’t live to see. The purpose behind the action isn’t revealed to us immediately, that’s why you have to have faith. Otherwise you’re just living in a world with chaos. I can’t tell you why there was hurricane Katrina, but I can tell you it wasn’t to punish the poor people of New Orleans or any other town it destroyed. I can’t tell you why people are dying in the Iraq war, but I can tell you that every single death is teaching us something. And isn’t that ultimately what it’s all about? You leave but your legacy lives on, teaching those of us who remain something about how to live this life. In the email it says “It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year…I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?... Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.”
These are the parts of the email that I like. The reminders that it’s ok to have religion, it’s ok to believe in god, however you see him/her. That the common thread of having a religion, any religion you like, is something that tied our ancestors together. I went to an adult ed session at my church last weekend where they talked about church sociology and how the number of people in this country(and all over the world) that attend church (or temple or the mosque or any kind of religious gathering weekly) is dramatically going down. And I wonder how much of that is our society- like it says above, it’s ok to worship Nick and Jessica but not god. And I wonder about why this is true, when it became such a bad thing to have a faith. I would be lost without mine. I can easily say that I would not have made it through the past year of my life without my church family. I’m not sure really what I’m saying in this post, but if you stuck with it this far then thanks :O) I hope you have a fantastic December 21. I happen to be turning 27 today, so I know I will have a great day. Lots of love to you, peace r

i'll be home for christmas

i think this will be the last dad related update for a while. he's in the rehab hospital and doing physical and 'emotional' therapy. getting stronger every day and we're planning to pick him up on either the 21st (my birthday) or the 22nd. we're heading up this weekend to go see him and battle through the crappy snowy weather. now that we're in the clear i'm still pretty exhausted. i really, really want a vacation. even just a day or so where i'm not doing anything. sigh. i have a 4 day weekend over new years, so i'm going to try and get things together so those can be my new seminary essay writing days. that would make me very happy. ok. i need to pack for this weekend. hope you all had a great week. oh and i haven't read any more in my book because i've been busy sewing/crocheting. but soon!!
love and hugs
r

you can't do everything

there are many things that i can do;i can sing a little bit, play guitar a little bit, crochet, sew, paint, help build houses, sleep in the same room with anyone, build trails( i think i can still do that:O), bake, tell a joke, laugh out loud. many of these things i even do pretty well. then there are the things i cannot do. i cannot speak russian, or spanish, or italian (or hebrew or vietnamese, despite going to those countries), i cannot keep my room clean, i can't wear a size 2(nor do i ever want to), i can't skateboard or downhill ski. i'm afraid of the dark and i dislike confrontation so much that i don't even like watching it on tv. when it's in fictional shows. but this post is not about any of that. i am a woman who is almost 27 (less than 2 weeks!) and i cannot do a damn thing to fix my car. no, i lied, i know how to check my oil and add more and i know how to add windshield wiper fluid. oh and change the wipers. but other than that, i'm pretty clueless. i have a general idea of how to change a tire, but have never needed to do it myself, i don't know how to change my oil, how to even really explain what is wrong with my car. so saturday night i pulled into the grocery store and discovered that one of my headlights was out. so i did what any self respecting 26 year old would do. i called my mom. and the first thing i said was 'i know i should be able to figure this out. but my headlight is out and i need to know what to do.' you see, i've always operated on the theory that everyone has different gifts. my gift is not auto mechanics. my car runs and it is magic. when it stops running i'm sure that it's because i've offended it somehow and that if i just say a prayer and give it some affirmation it will start working again. and if that doesn't work, i take it to the people who are called in this life to work on the magical hunk of material i call lola. so i spoke to my mother who said that replacing a headlight is tricky business indeed and that i would probably need some help. now, i'm not big on asking for help. i know that sounds kind of at odds with the rest of what i've said, but it's true. so i decide to figure out how to do this myself. my fantastic roommate told me about the all knowing book that's in the auto parts store that helps you find out what kind of light you need. so today, i went to the auto parts store, found the book, then found the lightbulb then took it to my apartment and...changed it all by myself! it's a pretty easy process, but i'm still proud of myself :O) and the magical car is back to running and shining light just like it should. and next time i offend it and a headlight goes out, i'll know just what to do.

i'm an elf

i am my own christmas sweat shop this weekend. i'm crocheting, scrapbooking, sewing and quilting. needless to say i do not have time to read :O) i'm not visiting dad because i have some sort of cold and all germs are banned from his room. i hope you all have a great weekend!

eat, pray, love

so i've heard a lot about the book 'eat pray love' by elizabeth gilbert. all the women in my family LOVE this book. i just haven't read it yet, i'd been interested in the concept, but just hadn't gotten around to it. the premise is that the author goes to italy to explore pleasure, india to explore devotion and bali she explores "a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence."

tonight i was looking the book up on amazon dot com to see if there were any companion/spin off books that i could get my sister for christmas (there's not) and i started reading the reviews. i had already heard the positive reviews from my family so i was intrigued to see what the cranky peeps had to say. i was shocked to see how angry and judgemental the commenters were being, but that's probably another post for another day. ANYWAY.

so i've read the first country...italy. 4 months of pleasure. the way that she explores pleasure in italy is through food. she stays in rome primarily and takes trips around italy- naples, florence, venice, somewhere in the tuscany area. and finds amazing food anywhere. i'm loving the book, i think partially because right now the prospect of taking 4 months off and going to another country and indulging in such a rich culture sounds like a dream. i also just love the voice of the author. now this is a personal thing, and i think if you don't like her voice, you'd hate the book. her writing style is that of someone who's writing in her journal, or sending you long letters. it's like she's really there telling you these things. so i think it's brilliant, but other people just hate it. i'd be interested to see if anyone else has read it or has opinions. my perception of the commenters on amazon was that they were soooo above this book and she was being selfish and she had everything why was she unhappy in the first place. so i'm just intrigued. i'll probably post a few quotes, right now i'm totally spent and want to go to sleep. been feeling kinda sickly lately and want my full 8 hours of sleep tonight :)

hugs,r

happy december!

it's cold and snowy and windy here. perfect for december :O) november was a trying month, i'm hoping december is a bit easier to handle. they're moving dad into a rehab hospital as soon as room opens up. hopefully in a few weeks he'll be home!

i think i'm going to take a yoga class in the spring, and i really need to get cracking on my seminary applications! i'm thinking i'll apply to rochester, lancaster and richmond. it's a diverse group of schools ranging in size and denomination, but they all seem amazing. so i think i'll get the applications filled out and start asking people to be references and then probably just apply to all 3 and visit in the spring. yay.

happy monday :O)