Paradise Lost

From Philip Yancey's work with Dr. Brand...

It's interesting how much of the world fights against medical plagues like
malaria
dengue fever
polio
leprosy
etc.
People in those societies might think, "If we could just get rid of these things, we'd be in paradise."

In the U.S., we have essentially eliminated the list above. The US list would be
tobacco-related cancers and illnesses
obesity
drug-related conditions
STDs
It's the condition of the world is that even paradise creates its own plagues.

Hmm.

Aubrey

New Game for Work

Who can be the first to use the words on this list (without misstep) in conversation at the coffee shop? I'm going to w i n!! :o)

Torpid: sluggish or numb
Pert: saucily free and forward
Scrappy: having an aggressive and determined spirit
Trappings: outward decoration or dress
Seesaw (v.): back and forth; to change one's mind

Fruity Dirt (still editing)

From Matthew 13 and a visit to PCBC June 14th.

The tenuous fate of scattered seeds
crash-landing somewhat haphazardly
Depends on the dirt, grounded in the earth
nurturing fruit, or spiritual loot ...
What will become of the seeds?

Seeds in the road are crushed
By the weight of cruising cars
Birds swoop down and munch on crumbs that could've been gardens
but the seed cannot see fruition
digested too early by theives

Seeds in the rocky soil produce shoots
that are spindly and weak
wither in the sun, bend in the wind
Can't hold their own weight,
let alone bear nourishing yield

Seeds in the weedy areas get taken over
by invasive species that grow quickly
and are hard to corral once they start.
The harvest is thorny commotion
The fruit is strangled and bland

I want to be faithful with the seeds. I want to produce fruit with immediate relevance and eternal consequence.

I pray for the good soil, but I can see myself as each of these others. My heart is hardened, and I don't digest the truth I hear. My heart is untilled, shallow, and filled with a thousand songs. I want to be focused, diligent, and repentant... <-----in a way that involves dancing around the living room, lots of grilling and baking, p90x, and crafting with textiles, if possible. :o) ??

laughing, fighting, living...
Aubrey

Thanks Nickel

Love is always worth the risk. Some part of my head has always known that. Some part of my heart never bought it.

Some time ago, a good friend said something like, "Aubrey, how can you love too much? Can you ever really give so much of yourself that you run out?"

People pass one another like cars on the highway. We're all vaguely considering destinations, driving tunes, and bathroom breaks. We're going different speeds, taking different routes, and waving at various traveling companions along the way.

Today, a friend who had recently started spending some time at the house with K took his life. It is surreal, unfathomable, maddening, and absolutely wasteful. These feelings are quite a jumble in me. As hard as it is to make sense of all of this, the sum of my experience with this guy is greater than the loss. I think K would say the same. That is to say, when the answer to "what's the worst that could happen?" happens, love is still worth it.

Love is exponential. The more you give, the more you have to give. The less you give, the more hardened your (my) heart becomes. Life is a gift, not a rat race. Each moment we have to know someone is a blessing. Satan is a clever bastard who knows how to twist truth into despair and pain into hopelessness. He wants to rob our lives in whatever way he can. The Lord is justice and light. He will have the final say.

My friend was right. There is no such thing as too much love. There is such a thing as too few moments. Life is too short to waste a second on anything less than 100% love for those in our lives . . . however quickly we pass on the highway.

Evil sucks. The devil is the ultimate deceiver. I want justice.

Aubrey

Insomnia

Sucks. I haven't slept all week. I can't sleep with...
giant moths flitting against the walls
half-asleep dreams of wandering the Siberian tundra and stopping in pseudo-Starbucks
So, I'll blog about it...yeah, that'll induce sleep...immediately.
warm milk and leaping cows are not the answer.
Even excessive exercise isn't helping!


Dear sleep, I miss you. Pllllleeease come back.
Drat. daggle. dorg.

A

Ode to accidental dialing

In December, I got a new phone because I wanted to be able to send and view pictures. It turns out my service provider, not my phone, was the problem, but I digress. This new phone is more high-maintenance than my previous flippers, and must have its face locked when not in use, or it will retailiate by dialing randomly.



I admit . . . My "handbag" is a wild place. Its contents are shaken, slammed, tossed, and stirred more often than not. The bag usually swings against my hip as I walk and (I find out later when browsing my missed call list) throws the corner of my wallet into the buttons on my phone. My phone is an eager-dialer. One of its favorite dials is "77644".

This evening, I was walking down into the sunny basement where I live, and I heard this ringing as if some contestant on a radio-show-turned-down was about to win a prize. I got a little freaked out because I don't have a radio. I heard this twangy, "Hello... Hello?" and froze on the stairs. I dug for my phone, saw it lit up, and learned that it had just called "D", the recently-engaged "Sometimes-blind-dates-are-dishonest-about-their-curves" guy I hung out with that one time. Heh. Hm. Um. Congrats on your engagement, "D". *Machacaré mi teléfono!*

Moral of the story: D E L E T E that Charleston tour guide I stuck in my phone in case we needed to contact him while in town; D E L E T E that guy I always wanted to take me fishing; D E L E T E that guy I bought furniture from on Craigslist...

... and return to my old phone as soon as possible. :) Mmmmm... I might do an iPhone someday, but only if it flips!

Returning to my fave. Photo booths. Summer job. Sometimes, there's something *so r i g h t* about going back.

Aubs

From Last Year's Ceremony...

I thank you.
Family, friends, strangers who give their lives, long after the publicized battles are over.



Cheers to love that really is an action word.
Cheers to you!

Salud.

Gregory Alan Isakov-- Muy Sabroso

Wordle is fuuun

Check it:

This app picks out common words and makes the most common words most prominent. Fun. It's interesting to see speeches compared.

LINCOLN




GW BUSH


I got the speeches from http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tag_clouds_of_obamas_inaugural_speech_compared_to_bushs.php>Click
You can find wordle, of course, at Click


B OBAMA

The Foot-ish Hilton Head

Off the Rim

My friend J is a former basketball pro and an avid follower of Tennessee lady college ball. Recently, I told her I was planning on playing in the eighth-grade student v. staff basketball game and she said, "Aubs, you h a v e to get out of it." Heh. Hrmm. Eeeh?

I didn't get out of it. I played. I should rephrase that: I ran back-and-forth across the gym, waved my arms around, and looked confused while all of my students, the kids I sing to in the hallway, and the staff watched. During my entire circus performance, I somehow managed to feel completely invisible. At one point during the game, I asked a student of mine (a fierce opponent at the time) where I should be standing. Folks, they call those skills. :P Put on a pair of Air Aubreys and see how high you can jump. That's right.

In middle school, my family lived in the farmland of the Pacific Northwest. We had a garden, an old horse shed, and a half-court in the "yard". This half-court taught me everything it knew about basketball. Apparently, that wasn't much. ;) Since then, I've wondered if I'd ever get the chance to hone my skills.

Here's what I learned on the court last week:

1. Basketball is not "my thing"-- I don't have to wonder anymore if perhaps I should be giving basketball more of my time. I've given it enough time. Game over. It's time to focus on things I really enjoy.

2. The pressure is OFF--Now, when I shoot hoops (if anyone ever lets me back on the court) ;) I will be over my dramatic inner-monologue and will be able to have fun.

3. Sometimes, it's only in-the-sweat-of-it that I realize what I want. Had I never played, I might always wonder if my life was missing baskeball. Now I know, I want something other than dribbling and passing.

4. A team really is stronger than an individual. In order to be a good leader, you have to know every player's strengths and weaknesses and milk them. In order to be good to yourself, you have to recognize what you want and don't want and only volunteer for things you really want. EVERYONE will benefit. :)

I'd say the game was worth it.
Sleep. immediately....nownownow.
Aubs

Almost Summer!

:)

When I signed up at the gym, the guy mixed up my first and last names. Every Monday, when I check in at the counter, the check-in guy says, "Have a nice workout, Chaffin." What an odd name for a lady. :P

I want the wonder

I love this. T.S. Eliot said,

Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness . . .
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Dorothy L. Sayers said,

It is precisely because of the eternity outside time that everything in time becomes valuable and important and meaningful. Therefore, Christianity . . . makes it of urgent importance that everything we do here should be rightly related to what we eternally are. "Eternal life" is the sole sanction for the values of this life.

Thanks, Philip Yancey.

I hope, even when I've seen the most vivid colors on Earth;
I hope, even when I've woven myself into another person's life;
I hope, even when I've heard the Lord whisper my name ...
That I will hold on to the wonder of it all.

Jean Vanier said,
"We all have to choose between two ways of being crazy, the foolishness of the Gospel and the non-sense values of our world."

I hope, even when I'm wandering through lonely doubts;
I hope, even when it's painful and culture s c r e a m s "DO do do DON'T don't";
I hope I will walk barefootly in the turf of that other world
and live in the foolish wisdom of the Gospel of Christ.

Glass Hut. wondering. wilderness. wandering. the wander. Er.
Aubrey

A Slow Walk Away

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944

Click

Like It

Saw TB with the Blue Man Group a few years ago. :)

A Yard Sale Addiction

On Saturday, there was a neighborhood garage sale in a neighborhood with more Mercedes than the parking lot at a Streisand concert. It may have been at or near the shwank Country Club of the South (real yard salers do not give away their prime locations).

--Our Finds--

Fun new friends, including a lady with awesome taste in books (we may be starting a book club). I bought two current paperbacks from her for FOUR QUARTERS.

Two blue glass candlesticks for TWO DOLLARS.

A pretty scarf for TWO QUARTERS.

A nice leather jacket for TWO DOLLARS

A twenty dollar BIKE.

--Thoughts on YSE (Yard Sale Etiquette)

-We followed one speed saler around to a few stops and noticed he was packing his car full. At one stop, he talked a man down from $7 (which was a SuTEAL for a Fisher Price playset) to $5. Then, once the yardowner agreed to five, decided he didn't want the playset after all. This type of shopper is known as the YSoB (Yard Sale Bully). Incidentally, the lady who sold me the leather jacket stood up to a pair of YSoBs. The conversation went something like this:

Spokesbully: We'll give you $5.00 for that t.v. stand.
Lady: No. Don't do that. I don't like that. This is for charity. That's a solid wood piece of furniture.
Spokesbully: *Stomping feet and snorting like a bull*
Lady: No, thank you.

I was proud of her.

-Yard sale shopping is somewhat like gambling. You put twenty dollars in your pocket, hit the subdivision, and hope to leave much richer than you arrived. Sometimes, there is gold in the hills, and sometimes, they seem to be overflowing with stuffed pigs in wedding gowns and gold, plastic light fixtures. There is something so much more rewarding about leaving a sale with a two-dollar set of candlesticks than checking out at Target.

-Yard sale shopping always reminds me that people are really decent. Families in this ritzy neighborhood spread out their crap, covered it with stickers, and invited strangers into their yards and garages. I met an older man spreading pine straw who had lovely landscaping, an older woman with twin puppies who was selling her daughter's stuff, the lady who told the YSoBs where to stick it who had the loveliest clothes, the sixty-something would'velikedtobeagolfer who was getting rid of his nice golf outfits. I love it. I love neighborhoods and remembering that most people are pretty cool.

-Yard sale-ing is pretty dang funny sometimes. Some woman was selling her shampoo (info-mercial?) for $400! There was, in fact, a bride and groom stuffed pig pair. One lady was selling designer kid clothes for $25 an outfit ($100 originally!). Crazy.

Good times, those yard sales. Good fun.
'Tis the season, indeed.

Aubs

Faith, Sheep, Circumstances, and Walking in the Dark

Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moods. --C.S. Lewis

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. --Elie Wiesel

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
--Voltaire

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. --Saint Augustine
***

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want
According to W. Phillip Keller, who wrote A Shepherd's Look at Psalm 23, each ewe must be caught and razored in the ear with the mark of its owner. Similarly, Hebrew slaves in the Old Testament, when choosing to bond themselves to a certain family for life, would stand at the doorway to the home and receive an awl through the ear, literally binding the slave to the doorpost of a house.

What does it really mean to say that God is master? How are we marked by Him?

***

Spring Break this year was an odd mix of family, travel, old friends, Easter, Passover, and thoughts of my personal history with God.

I was hanging out with A and she said something that made me think. She said, "Sometimes in relationships, you go through the motions even when you're not *feeling it* because you *know* the foundation of the relationship is true," or something like that. Sometimes, circumstances make me *feel* like I'm walking in shadows. I feel like I'm walking dead. The truth is that because of Jesus, I'm walking in the light. I am a.l.i.v.e. I was marked for darkness and graciously passed over for a mark of his Light. Sometimes, I think believers consider salvation as something to experience during death. Really, salvation is experienced every day in the character of Christ alive in us. I think it's easy to leave those things unrecognized--unreasonable love, joy, patience, peace, goodness, kindness, self-control, and faithfulness.

What's my point? I think real faith is only experienced when feelings and circumstances point away from God. Real faith says, "I'm experiencing bunk, gunk, and sludge, but I know a deeper truth." The deeper truth is that in Him, all things hold together. Even when I don't feel it or see it, that's the truth. Louie Giglio did a talk once about lamanin, the cell adhesion protein molecule. It's the molecule that holds the linings of our organs together. Check it:



Stormy Praise. Letter Catch-Up. Lanolin. Lamanin. Light.

Aubrey

some spring break pics

Heh.