Nessa, Toot, Shane, Ajyt, Aaron, Vidhi, Dranko, Thompson, Jannie, Si Ying...and everyone else who keeps me sane
We're built to last :)
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Memo
Dear God,
It's probably a good thing you're omnipotent. Because I sure as hell am not, and I'm gonna need quite a lot of help this week. But there's no fear in love, is there - and You've always got my back. I love You.
Thanks in advance for a mind-blowing success.
Love,
Val
p.s. if You could engineer a guitar appearing at some point...that would be nice too :)
It's probably a good thing you're omnipotent. Because I sure as hell am not, and I'm gonna need quite a lot of help this week. But there's no fear in love, is there - and You've always got my back. I love You.
Thanks in advance for a mind-blowing success.
Love,
Val
p.s. if You could engineer a guitar appearing at some point...that would be nice too :)
From za's blog:
Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fighting.
Noah:Well that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I'm being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Allie: So what.
Noah: So it's not going to be easy. It's going to be really hard. And we're going to have to work at this every day. But I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, every day.
The Notebook
I refuse to be cynical. I refuse to be the kind of person people think I need to be if I want to get to where I want to get. I maintain that I don't have to be vindictive, I won't need to manipulate, I can still love, and trust, have faith, and teach, mentor, and give in to - give up for, step back for - and be a success. I refuse to be the person some people are trying to turn me into - people I respect, and love, but never want to be like. People who are unhappy, but think that's the only way they can achieve what they want. Because it's not true. Because this life is about happiness. Not indulgence, but true happiness. And I know, and always have, that that happiness demands and requires nothing but love, truth, trust, and faith. And no matter how many times I get screwed over by people for loving, being truthful, trusting, and having faith, I know, not even very deep down, in fact on the surface enough for them to wonder how the hell it's possible, that really, I am happy.
I just wish they were too.
Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fighting.
Noah:Well that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I'm being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Allie: So what.
Noah: So it's not going to be easy. It's going to be really hard. And we're going to have to work at this every day. But I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, every day.
The Notebook
I refuse to be cynical. I refuse to be the kind of person people think I need to be if I want to get to where I want to get. I maintain that I don't have to be vindictive, I won't need to manipulate, I can still love, and trust, have faith, and teach, mentor, and give in to - give up for, step back for - and be a success. I refuse to be the person some people are trying to turn me into - people I respect, and love, but never want to be like. People who are unhappy, but think that's the only way they can achieve what they want. Because it's not true. Because this life is about happiness. Not indulgence, but true happiness. And I know, and always have, that that happiness demands and requires nothing but love, truth, trust, and faith. And no matter how many times I get screwed over by people for loving, being truthful, trusting, and having faith, I know, not even very deep down, in fact on the surface enough for them to wonder how the hell it's possible, that really, I am happy.
I just wish they were too.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
I'll put a spell on you
and when you wake up/you'll realise that you love me.
It's nice, I guess, that I'm happy for people. Besides, I'm fairly happy myself. Busy, a little stressed, dealing with constantly shifting friendship dynamics, but mostly happy.
It just gets a little lonely sometimes, and real hugs aren't all that easy to come by.
It's nice, I guess, that I'm happy for people. Besides, I'm fairly happy myself. Busy, a little stressed, dealing with constantly shifting friendship dynamics, but mostly happy.
It just gets a little lonely sometimes, and real hugs aren't all that easy to come by.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Clearly, Someone does know.
From the newsletter in church today
Though God is an almighty lover, he can find himself shut out, and he longs to find an open door of vulnerability in us. It is extraordinarily hard for us to realise this, conditioned as we are by a secular ethic of success and a religious ideal of moral perfection, which may owe little to the gospel. God calls us, implants his life in the deepest centre of our being at baptism, and loves us into growth. He does not propose to us some lofty, rigid ideal to which we must attain by our own unaided human resources. We are more sinful than we know, more deeply flawed than we can recognise by any human insight; but grace works in us in the deepest places of body and spirit. We must live from our weakness, from the barren places of our need, because there is the spring of grace and the source of our strength, as Paul discovered: "When I am weak, then I am strong." When we can stand before God in the truth of our need, acknowledging our sinfulness and bankruptcy, then we can celebrate his mercy. Then we are living by grace, and we can allow full scope to his joy.
For many of us it is difficult to live honestly from this place of failure and weakness. Even if we know with our heads we should, we may still slip back into the old attitudes and behave as though God were expecting us to succeed and making his love conditional upon our achievements. If we have become hardened in such an attitude it may take some deep experience of failure to disabuse us. When a crisis occurs I may find in myself the sheer moral impossibility of obeying God. It is not simply a matter of emotional rebellion, or of knowing that "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"; the will itself is unwilling. I am rebellious to the core and do not even want to want God's will. Perhaps I can push it one stage further from me, and say with a kind of tortured effort, "I want to want to want your will," and then ask myself if there is even a grain of honesty or good will in that. I am helpless; and as the father of the epileptic boy cried out to Jesus, "I do believe, help my unbelief," so I can only say to God, "I am rebellious down to my roots, help me."
Here, as we teeter on the edge of despair, beset by every kind of temptation and feeling as though we had already fallen, the Spirit is released. This is his own place, the deepest place of our being where he is wedded to our spirit, where he can act and give life, where he can free us from all that hampers the true thrust of our will. God himself creates our freedom; he gives us freedom as his continuing gift of love, and he alone can influence it from within, in no way violating or diminishing it. Entombed Lazarus is a sign not simply of a certain group of people who have obviously closed their hearts against Jesus, but of each one of us. In this hopeless situation, where you are nothing but stark failure, you know the miracle of grace. This tomb is the place of resurrection, and if you believe, you will see the glory of God.
(Maria Boulding OSB, Gateway to Hope, London 1985, pp.109 - 10)
He's actually really good at this 'right time, right place, right words' thing.
Though God is an almighty lover, he can find himself shut out, and he longs to find an open door of vulnerability in us. It is extraordinarily hard for us to realise this, conditioned as we are by a secular ethic of success and a religious ideal of moral perfection, which may owe little to the gospel. God calls us, implants his life in the deepest centre of our being at baptism, and loves us into growth. He does not propose to us some lofty, rigid ideal to which we must attain by our own unaided human resources. We are more sinful than we know, more deeply flawed than we can recognise by any human insight; but grace works in us in the deepest places of body and spirit. We must live from our weakness, from the barren places of our need, because there is the spring of grace and the source of our strength, as Paul discovered: "When I am weak, then I am strong." When we can stand before God in the truth of our need, acknowledging our sinfulness and bankruptcy, then we can celebrate his mercy. Then we are living by grace, and we can allow full scope to his joy.
For many of us it is difficult to live honestly from this place of failure and weakness. Even if we know with our heads we should, we may still slip back into the old attitudes and behave as though God were expecting us to succeed and making his love conditional upon our achievements. If we have become hardened in such an attitude it may take some deep experience of failure to disabuse us. When a crisis occurs I may find in myself the sheer moral impossibility of obeying God. It is not simply a matter of emotional rebellion, or of knowing that "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"; the will itself is unwilling. I am rebellious to the core and do not even want to want God's will. Perhaps I can push it one stage further from me, and say with a kind of tortured effort, "I want to want to want your will," and then ask myself if there is even a grain of honesty or good will in that. I am helpless; and as the father of the epileptic boy cried out to Jesus, "I do believe, help my unbelief," so I can only say to God, "I am rebellious down to my roots, help me."
Here, as we teeter on the edge of despair, beset by every kind of temptation and feeling as though we had already fallen, the Spirit is released. This is his own place, the deepest place of our being where he is wedded to our spirit, where he can act and give life, where he can free us from all that hampers the true thrust of our will. God himself creates our freedom; he gives us freedom as his continuing gift of love, and he alone can influence it from within, in no way violating or diminishing it. Entombed Lazarus is a sign not simply of a certain group of people who have obviously closed their hearts against Jesus, but of each one of us. In this hopeless situation, where you are nothing but stark failure, you know the miracle of grace. This tomb is the place of resurrection, and if you believe, you will see the glory of God.
(Maria Boulding OSB, Gateway to Hope, London 1985, pp.109 - 10)
He's actually really good at this 'right time, right place, right words' thing.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Just more than halfway
And still not there yet.
Internship applications, essays, portfolios, deadlines, dissertations, tickets, being around, being involved, perfection, ability, trying hard enough, being uninvolved, falling away, inability, just basically sleeping through everything...and sometimes it all amounts to too much. Though technically, it never really is. And that's the frustrating thing. That it can never be too much. And so I can never not handle it. And therefore shouldn't need anyone around. Because I have Someone. The One.
And though that gives enough comfort to keep me sane, I guess I'm not strong enough for that to give enough comfort, period, though it should. It probably does. It actually does. I just wish there was someone who knew, too.
I miss you, best friend.
Internship applications, essays, portfolios, deadlines, dissertations, tickets, being around, being involved, perfection, ability, trying hard enough, being uninvolved, falling away, inability, just basically sleeping through everything...and sometimes it all amounts to too much. Though technically, it never really is. And that's the frustrating thing. That it can never be too much. And so I can never not handle it. And therefore shouldn't need anyone around. Because I have Someone. The One.
And though that gives enough comfort to keep me sane, I guess I'm not strong enough for that to give enough comfort, period, though it should. It probably does. It actually does. I just wish there was someone who knew, too.
I miss you, best friend.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Just because.
The Five Love Languages
My primary love language is probablyQuality Time
with a secondary love language being
Physical Touch.
Complete set of results
| Quality Time: | 11 | |
| Physical Touch: | 8 | |
| Words of Affirmation: | 6 | |
| Acts of Service: | 5 | |
| Receiving Gifts: | 0 |
Information
Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.Take the quiz
No surprises, really. Ah well.
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