which it is, really, even though it’s dark and cold.

dark and cold times are for sleeping.

so i’ll go to sleep, wake up in the morning, peer out my window and say:

“here comes the sun.”

you see, i’m going to win the war.

one of my friends occasionally calls or texts me just to tell me she’s thinking of me.

that gives me the warm fuzzies. maybe i should do that more often.

anyway. sometimes it is just time for something ridiculously cute.

Oh I miss you so very much so much in fact i gotta call you up
It’s not that I have news to bring
I just wanna make your telephone ring
So it shows

something ridiculously cute and slightly macabre, when you add pon and zi to her space holiday‘s “sleepy tigers.”

God isn’t needy. i am.

“one of our great problems today is that we have gotten caught up in our culture-wide quest for authenticity. we want our jeans authentic (pre-ripped at the factory), we want our apples authentic (grown locally instead of somewhere else), we want our music authentic (underground bands nobody ever heard of), we want our lettuce authentic (organically manured), we want our literature authentic (full of angst), we want our movies authentic (subtitles), and we want our coffee tables authentic (purchased from a genuine peasant while we were on some eco-tour). in short, we are a bunch of phonies. we are superficial all the way down.

“we are not going to get out of this snare until we see the quest for authenticity for what it is — a hypocrisy factory, cranking out tight-weave superficiality by the yard.”

— douglas wilson, wordsmithy

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

— 1 john 4:7-12, the message

since today is st. valentine’s day, i feel inclined to say a few words on the subject of love.

i’m not going to talk about romantic love, because whatever i could say there would only amount to an uneducated opinion.

i think, however, that it is unwise to limit our definition of “love” to romantic love, as so much of the valentine season buzz tends to. we can — and should — love each other deeply and fiercely. Jesus and the apostles talk about love all through the new testament, so, obviously, it’s important.

Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.

— john 13:34-35

that’s Jesus talking to His disciples. essentially He’s telling these guys:

1. love one another.

2. don’t hide it.

3. when people see you love another, they’ll see Me in you.

so here’s a question for you: to whom do you say “i love you?”

i should probably mention two things at this point:

1. i’m not good at loving people.

2. i’m not good at verbally expressing to people that i love them.

there are probably lots of solutions to these quandaries, but i thought of two, just to keep it simple:

1. humility.

2. practice.

the reason i’m not good at loving people is because i tend to be proud and judgmental. also, i really don’t like being vulnerable. but i think you have to be willing to be humble and vulnerable so that when you tell someone you love them it’s real and not just that cardboard phrase that tradition stuffed in your mouth.

i like what c.s. lewis says about this. it’s a weighty thought to digest, but a true weighty thought.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

i don’t know about the broken part, but my heart has definitely been wrung before. ow! it seems counterintuitive to allow ourselves to be hurt for the sake of loving someone else, doesn’t it?

He was despised and rejected by men; 
   a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; 
and as one from whom men hide their faces 
   he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 Surely he has borne our griefs 
   and carried our sorrows; 
yet we esteemed him stricken, 
   smitten by God, and afflicted. 
But he was pierced for our transgressions; 
   he was crushed for our iniquities; 
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, 
   and with his wounds we are healed. 

— isaiah 53:3-5, english standard version

Jesus, who as God was invincible, made Himself vulnerable to the point of death in the most humiliating form possible to bear all the hurts and wounds and sufferings of each of several billions of people who despised Him.

Jesus says we should love each other like He loved (loves) us.

i think reminding one another of this love we have among us is

a. healthy and
b. necessary.

yes, i know things can possibly get a little awkward in this regard among younger men and women in the age of twitterpation, and i personally am chief among awkward people with or without any feelings of emotional entwanglement. i don’t think that’s how it should be, though.

i think that when we say “i love you” to a brother or sister in Christ of any age, the weight of sentiment those three little words carry with them should be “i love you because Christ loves you and died for you. i love you because Christ loves me and died for me and enables me to love you. you are precious to Him and therefore precious to me, and i will serve you, protect you, and gladly fight and die beside you for the sake of the gospel.”

when i say “i love you,” that is what i want it to mean.

happy valentine’s day.

my heart is Yours for life
i need Your hand in mine
no one else will do

three pieces of my heart are moving to taiwan wednesday to begin volume two of their great adventures with the Master Planner of all Adventures.

i much prefer natural light to artificial light. if there are sunbeams streaming through the window, no matter how wan they may be, i don’t like light bulbs harshening up things.

when i am tempted to be irritated or annoyed with men, i remember that i and my fellow womankind probably annoy them just as much. touche. it is oddly comforting.

sunday solitude, sunday sleep — two blessed, blissful things.

some days we all are blessed
we sing the world to rest
until the moon shines through
the broken window pane
and calls you back again
— harper simon, the audit

—

God’s glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon. 
   Madame Day holds classes every morning, 
      Professor Night lectures each evening. 
 Their words aren’t heard, 
      their voices aren’t recorded, 
   But their silence fills the earth: 
      unspoken truth is spoken everywhere. 

— psalm 19:1-4, english standard version/the message

— — —

i’ve had a bit of a hard time lately, as hard times in this part of my life go. oh, it is not hard in the real world sense. it’s been hard in the sense that i glued my eyes in backward in their sockets and they’ve been spending so much time looking at the insides of my mind that i don’t know how to understand what’s going on in there, or how to burn out the things i know (don’t always like to admit) are not true.*

in other words, i’ve not been seeing and hearing clearly.

when i get that way it’s as if i have cataracts — my view of God gets awfully fuzzy and, while things aren’t so bad, maybe … nothing is quite right.

then yesterday i came across one of my posts with an excerpt from n.d. wilson’s “notes from the tilt-a-whirl.” this part leaped out at me again:

but why would any Christian claim that God has stopped talking? did He speak the world into existence? does matter exist apart from Him? is it still here? are you still here? then He is still speaking.

step outside your front door and look at today’s stage. speak. God will reply. He will speak to you. He gave you sense. use them. He will parade His art. He will give you a scene, a setting for the day. He will give you conflict to overcome, opportunities for your character to grow or fail.

but do not expect Him to speak in english. and do not expect Him to stay on whatever topic you might choose. His attention is everywhere and no story should be easy, as every reader knows.

you are on your porch. look at the blue sky.

He can speak in english if He wants to, of course. apparently He doesn’t always. that doesn’t mean He’s mute. doesn’t mean He has His hands over His ears. doesn’t mean He’s waiting to be talked at before He’ll pick up the conversation.

He is here with me as i type and He knows what i’ll write before it arranges itself in my mind. He is, and my not listening won’t have any effect on Him.

i was tired this afternoon, tired and bored. all i wanted to do was go home, eat ice cream and go to sleep for a long time. this weekend’s a busy one, though, and i’ve sorely neglected cleaning and other necessities of life. i decided to get a cup of coffee after work to jolt my brain awake and get as much done between then and an evening event as possible.

the map i carry in my mind is a little sketchy, and i don’t always take the most efficient route between two points. i was stuck at a traffic light, wishing i had my coffee already and berating myself for driving such a long way out of my way … but then i noticed the cloud of birds swooping, breaking, soaring and reforming, silhouetted against the late afternoon light.

then I’m spinning and I’m diving
like a cloud of starlings

just like that, only i don’t know if they were starlings.

and what i heard was something like this:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. — matthew 10:29-31

i got the sparrow verses entwined with the lilies of the field verses a little in my ruminations, but it came out truthfully, i think.

“He cares about the sparrows. He cares about you, kid. He’s there speaking; you just have to listen.”

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; 
   God will help her when morning dawns. 
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah

Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
 “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.  — psalm 46

— — —

*i speak metaphorically. my metaphor is drawn from — well, somewhere.

driving through the darkness tonight

i put myself on autopilot

and dove into pools of lamplight

thinking of you and your

beautiful minds …

and so alive are you it’s frightening

with the fierceness of genius

and the pain of beauty

— — —

behind your eyes, jon foreman

miracle drug, U2

open mind, wilco

— — —

if you figure out the connection, further suggestions welcome.