the meaning of creation

so back to the world wide web... it's really great being back with people i know and love but it sucks having to face 6 weeks of typing and computer slavery... but i could have worse to complain about so i'm done with that...
south africa was amazing... i realize that i had a very sheltered experience, isolated on a wildlife reserve for a month, only seeing the same 20 people most of the time, and when we did go out in public, we got stares cuz we hadn't looked in mirrors for weeks...
i loved it
yesterday when deliriously walking up the street in edinburgh to get lunch and good banter, i realized i love the rural lifestyle... life in a city is fun, and it is a convenient, exciting, and efficient, and often productive way of living, often with more opportunity and jazz anyone could ever fully comprehend or utilize... but there's something so much more personal about sitting around a campfire with a beer and laughter and good people before dinner, something about waking up to really annoying geese while in a freezing cold and dark tent, something about the work day starting and stopping with the sun...
for me, that's living... flowing with the rhythm of nature and God's creation and revelling in the beauty of a running giraffe, a wailing jackal, and the sting of an acacia tree... instead of working against the clock, deadlines, time, everyone and everything...
different ways for different people...
what a wonderful world

i flit i float...

i leave for south africa tonight... well, early tomorrow morning but i consider it tonight... i'm packed, mostly ready to leave, and have no idea what to expect... i'm anxious, excited, nervous, hyper, but mostly have no idea what to expect...
so au revoir for now, the game reserve i doubt will have access to much of any contact, so take care and love you all...
see you in august...

sharp yet soft

i've been reading a lot lately -- about poaching and bushmeat, GIS and stats, and Philip Pullman's trilogy "His Dark Materials"... its a fantastic tale about the struggle of humanity to understand and control good and evil and its discomfort with the "the fall"... and it all revolves around a 12 year old girl... they've turned the first one into a movie "the golden compass" which comes out in december... it looks fantastic, like harry potter meets pirates of the caribbean... anyway, in the book, people of the girl's world have their souls represented on the outside of their bodies, their "daemons" -- and yes its pronounced demon but lets not get silly and start going heretical on me ;) -- so of course in the era of the world wide web you can go to the book's website and take a test and find out what your daemon is, what animal form your characteristics (in 20 questions) would take...
it's fun... and a great read... and looks like a great movie... so for all of you wondering what's after hp #7 and you haven't read this series, i'd recommend it... and then go figure out your daemon! :)

the cracked vessel

there are tons of verses in the new testament that talk about how we are saved through faith... how people were healed through their faith... how people failed because they had no faith... how people won't be saved because they don't have faith... Peter sank because he didn't have faith... "oh ye of little faith"...

if it is perfect faith in the Savior that saves us, i don't know if i have that... i don't know what that looks like...

but i know believing in everything else got me nowhere, when i actually sit down and pray i feel more reassured, when i leave a church service or conversation or worship jam where spirituality existed and God was present i carry the sorrow in my heart with a smile, and when things seems impossible, i know God's got it in control...

i am a proud person, i find it really difficult to give things up to God and believe he'll take care of all... but it takes perfect faith to do that... and i believe he'll work with me and love me even in the majority of the time when i'm not loving him back...

i don't have perfect faith, but i am perfectly loved...
how crazy is that?

realizations

racism is still real. and still pointless. and still hurtful.

the most intelligent people in the world are still people.

i'm not afraid of commitment, i'm afraid of settling.

i'm too good at procrastinating.

when life is boring, its my own fault.

even really unique looking pubs can belong to chains.

cuff links are the funniest accessory ever created.

i take my luxurious life for granted.

american ice cream is so much better than british.

tree huggers

i've just finished reading "blue like jazz" and after reading "the time traveler's wife" and "perfume" i have to say that the style miller uses in his book doesn't make par with my standards, but wording and editing aside, the messages are solid and i agree with a lot of his disgust with religion and issues with christianity and inspired by his admittedly wavering desire to do something about the mess the world is in and not lose the faith in the process...

one thing that has stuck with me is something he brings up around the middle of the book... he lived with a bunch of hippies in a forest for a month... and they were loving, accepting, non-judgemental, very contrasting to the christian environment he grew up in, and i find this very true of many (but not all, by any means) christian groups i've been in... christians judge people, i judge people, there's usually a watchful eye and unfortunately a lot of gossiping voices at any christian social / meeting / potluck / after service coffee hour... is it just something of the nature of the history of the church? we're aspiring to be on the golden paved side of the pearly gates when judgement day comes along and we like to look at everyone else in order to reassure ourselves of our secured place in heaven? but even Christ said he has come to love, not to judge -- to save the world, not condemn it (john 3:17)... so why are we so quick to condemn, smirk, whisper, and ignore the skeletons in our closets? why are the liberal "pagan" communities often viewed as more loving? is it a marking difference between hippies and the conservative world?

i think there's a difference between tolerance and love, i don't know how to paint it in black and white but there's a difference... and if anything, i think i'd like to live in a forest for a while...

the perspective of a spoon in a nyc cafe

i've been sitting in a cafe in edinburgh, coming up with random phrases for book titles...
the crystal labyrinth
intermission
a whisker of thoughts
the footsteps of bel air

and other random stuff...
if only i could have the ambition to sit down and write something needing a title...