Hush and hark!

My harvest withers. Health, my means to live—

All things seem rushing straight into the dark.

But the dark still is God. I would not give

The smallest silver-piece to turn the rush

Backward or sideways. Am I not a spark

Of him who is the light?—Fair hope doth flush

My east.—Divine success—Oh, hush and hark!

- George MacDonald, from Diary of an Old Soul -

Boundless Summer Challenge - Task 5

Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love...

~ Romans 12:10 ~

This was Wednesday's assignment:

1. Visit or call your closest friend. (No texting, Facebooking, tweeting, or IMing.) Ask them how YOU can be a better friend to THEM. 
2. Ask if there are any areas you can improve, or ways that you can be there for them in a better way. Don't let them get off the hook by saying that you're doing just fine.
3. Spend some quality time asking questions about their life, focusing the conversation on them instead of yourself.
4. Write a comment [on the Boundless Line post] letting us know how it went.

What a good assignment!  Oddly enough (or was it more than chance?) this was another case of the task fitting right in with what I needed to do anyways!  My dear friend Catie, who I've known since I was 7 and she was 3, has been on my mind a lot lately.  Lots of changes going on in her family, what with lots of traveling, and her older brother marrying one of her dear friends... I've tried calling and emailing her these last few days, and she left a message on my phone and sent a reply email... and tonight I finally called and got to hear her cheery voice for real!

We talked about various stuff going on in our lives, books we're reading, struggles we're having...  I asked how I could pray for her specifically, something she started a while back but which I thought to bring up this time.  And I finally asked what I could do to be a better friend.  She thought about it, and finally said, "Keep in touch more!"

Duly noted.  Not complex at all.  But vitally important.

The single biggest problem in communication 
is the illusion that it has taken place. 
~ George Bernard Shaw ~

(Do look at this card - the illustration is perfect!)

 

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, 
but their echoes are truly endless.  
~ Mother Teresa~

Barren

Our desires for fruitfulness are inborn. 

Certainly we can try to be fruitful in greedy, selfish ways, or by wrong means.  But the desire itself is not wrong.  We were designed that way, which is why God told us at the start to be fruitful and multiply.  He didn't say it as a burden - He meant us to be happy, satisfied in His abundance, to fulfill our role of kings and queens.

Yet after we let the Serpent twist our views of God and His goodness, we were sent from our perfect Garden.  Now, roaming the dark and thorny world, we are thwarted at every turn.

Barrenness.
Poverty.
Broken relationships.
Unsatisfying work.
Thoughts that wander into gloom and despair.

I went out yesterday with a friend to the middle-of-nowhere West Texas desert prairie, and walked around a bit amongst the thorn-laden mesquites and rocks and dirt. I thought of a choice I felt I had to make recently, which hurt someone dear to me and made me sad as well.  The consequences of that choice are more difficult to bear than I could have imagined.

Crackling grass scorched in the summer wind.

Earth parched and dusty.  Nothing could hope to grow here.

But then, in the death and stillness of the air, there rises the sweet smell of wildflowers, and their tenacious blossoms, prickly and small and lovely, shine at my feet.

I think, perhaps, our lives can be like this.  Sometimes everything seems not only unfruitful, but even dead.

Wait.  Out of the death of loss, something is about to grow. 

Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls —
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

All the food, all reason to keep working, all the hope for the future appears to be gone.   Nothing is fulfilling its designed purpose. 

Yet the writer is not simply accepting the death and barrenness as his lot to be born mournfully, with a face of woe and despair.  Instead, he's actually choosing from deep in his soul to smile, to be glad!  Because he remembers God is good, and He saves in more abundance and more mysterious ways than in making wildflowers spring up in the desert.

I want to choose joy.  I want to grow old with smile wrinkles outnumbering my complaining lines.  I want to rejoice in the Lord when my life feels like a barren desert.  Because that is the best growing soil for faith in God who makes all things new.

~

Authentic Relating

"Authentic Relating" is something I've been trying to practice lately.  It means being willing to share the truth about what we think and feel with others, to show them our real selves, and to be willing to hear them without jumping to conclusions.  It means not using manipulation, or trying to find out what they want to hear.  When it's working well, it's two people interacting - with each other, not with pretend versions of themselves.

Let me tell you, it's tough!  But after all the pain and tears, I think it will be worth it, because truth and love always are.

"Authenticity is the courage to love 

with a rigorous inside-out consistency."

Authentic Phony, from Boundless  

"Truth is the lifeblood of relationships."

Glaen, by Fred Lybrand

Study, Random, and a Goose Egg

When was the last time I challenged myself to find out if a long-held belief or way of doing things was actually Scriptural?

When was the last time I dove into some serious Bible study, taking notes, making lots of observations, seeing what is there instead of what I want to see?

When was the last time I was able to flip open a Bible and humbly explain a concept or principle, without fear of having taken anything out of context or of making it say what it didn't?

Too long ago, that's when.

Well, I plan on doing some deep digging in the following days.  I might even post some of my findings here as part of the process.  And hopefully at the end I'll be able to explain with Scripture, clear thinking, and personal conviction why I believe some of the "odd" things I do. :-)  And if my views change in the process, so much the better!  What better to change me than Scripture?  

In other news, I've been:

• spending time with my dear dad, who visited this weekend - I love you Daddy!
• lunch at my grandparents after church
• good conversations with my friend Erik :-)
• drinking some lovely white and herbal tea I got for Christmas
• writing book reviews 
• learning to write press releases 
• picking early flowers from our garden and putting them in a teacup
• eating chocolate 
• cooking 
• watching Arsenic and Old Lace with two sweet friends (I hope I didn't scar them for life, hehe!)
• admiring my brother Zach's muscles (he's getting ready for the Marines)
• listening to barbershop quartets while my mom cuts Bob's hair
• thinking about the blessing of children, homeschooling, and media discernment
• helping my mom carry little seedlings inside every night, and outside in the morning
• taking my Puppy to AWANA for Stuffed Animal Night
• listening to Adventures in Odyssey
• fiddling with piano and irish whistle
• not wanting to buy anything else from China
• pondering the amazing beginning of the sentence "But God..."
• walking with a mom, her little girl, and their dog
• drinking in wisdom from an elder
• chatting with my Thinkling friends on Google chat
• getting on Blogger too often without actually posting anything ;-)
• looking at my goose egg I painted and scribbled on 
• taking too many pictures with my webcam

Well, I don't have anything else to say, and it's getting late, so adios from the West Texas hobbit hole!

Am I too comfortable?

Disturb us, Lord, when 

We are too well pleased with ourselves, 
 

When our dreams have come true 

Because we have dreamed too little, 
 

When we arrive safely 

Because we sailed too close to the shore. 


Disturb us, Lord, when 

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life, 

We have ceased to dream of eternity
,

And in our efforts to build a new earth, 
 

We have allowed our vision 

Of the new Heaven to dim. 


Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, 

To venture on wider seas 


Where storms will show your mastery; 


Where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. 


 

We ask You to push back 

The horizon of our hopes; 

And to push us into the future 

in strength, courage, hope, and love. 


 

This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. 

 

Sir Francis Drake, 1577 

 

 

*"The Hostage" was painted by Edmund Blair Leighton.

The day our King comes o'er the water

I may sit in my wee old house
at the spinning wheel to toil so dreary

I may think on a day that is gone,
and sigh and sob till I grow weary

I ne'er could brook, I ne'er could brook
a foreign king to own or flatter

And I will sing a ranting song the day
our King comes o'er the water


I heard this lovely Scottish song the other day and was struck to the heart. The entire song, here, speaks of a Scottish lady's longing for the return of Stewart rule in her land. Being of Scottish ancestry myself, I felt a kinship with Lady Keith, and even now thrill thinking about "the day of pride and chieftain's glory":

I have seen the good old day,
the day of pride and chieftain's glory

When royal Stuart held the sway
and none heard tell of Whig or Tory

Though silver be my hair one day,
and age has struck me down, what matter

I'll dance and sing that happy day,
the day our King comes o'er the water


This song reminded me of Arthur Pendragon, who I have been thinking of quite a bit lately already.


Legends say that one day he will return to England in its time of greatest need. Stories continue to be written portraying this event, and I have no doubt there are many more to come. Sometimes they're lame. They're all a little disappointing. But they will keep coming. Because despite our modern, democratic, individualistic ideals, a longing lurks deep inside us all for a king who will come and make everything right again, with a sword of justice in hand, and compassion and glory shining in his eyes.



Gondor waited for their king for nearly a thousand years. Even the Hobbits had a saying "When the king comes back," though they used it "of some good that could not be achieved, or of some evil that could not be amended."

I also think of another King whose coming has been anticipated long. His arrival shall be no anticlimax. No, it will be more wonderful and terrible than I can begin to even imagine or want (at first - think of Puzzle the donkey, shrinking away in Aslan's presence!). Though I will always be His child no matter my poor choices (thanks to His unfathomable grace!), yet I do not always walked by faith as He asks. Too many of my works will likely be burned up as the worthless straw they are, because I was trying to do things my way, not God's way.

Do I grow too comfortable here, submitting to the rule of the "foreign king" and evil ruler of this world?

Oh may I live as a faithful servant for my King who I cannot yet see! May my smallest actions be based on trusting Him. And may I eagerly await with my life the day when"our King comes o'er the water"!



If I live to see the day that I
have begged and begged from heaven

I'll fling my rock and reel away,
and dance and sing from morn till evening

For there is One I will not name
who comes the beingin bike to scatter

And I'll put on my bridal gown
the day our King comes o'er the water

If I did it, so can you!

I tend to be a broken record. I get one idea in my head, and can't seem to lose it. The idea, that is. My mind I tend to misplace quite often... ;-)

But for those of you who want to know more about my NaNoWriMo experience and thoughts, here you go.


I tried NaNoWriMo two years ago, but only reached about 12,000 words, I think, and then go so far behind that I decided to give up. But I had a glorious taste of its joys that first time.

This last year, I tried again and actually won! The feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration at the end was simply indescribable. Of course my story was corny and often very predictable, but when you're writing furiously, when your inner editor is banished for the month (on pain of purposely mispelling every word to torture it untill it leaves), things start to happen that you could never have planned. Weird characters come out of nowhere. Dull characters start to say and do the funniest things. Long and twisty slides just happen to appear as perfectly handy escape routes.

Yes, that actually happened in mine.

The whole thing was definitely worth while, even if my wild tale never ends up going anywhere beyond my own editing. Some NaNoWriMo novels have been published, so it is possible. But it's not the main goal.

If you can get your hands on a No Plot? No Problem! book (the "official" NaNoWriMo guide), it's a great encourager. It does have a bit of crude language, so beware. But even if you just flipped through it at a library or bookstore, it's highly motivating and quite hilarious. And it mentions ninja monkeys.

Last year I posted my story on a private blog and sent invites to family and friends who I thought might be amused and/or interested. That was actually quite motivating for me. They were constantly commenting and wanting more, urging me to not leave my characters in dire situations, and I had more fun torturing readers (and myself) with horrible cliff-hanging chapter endings and corny mysterious lines left dangling.

Another thing that helped was having a good friend of mine in another state do it with me. She and I sent each other chapters as we finished them, and even though we didn't always have time to read them, it was a extra nudge to write my own story when I saw she'd just written a new bit. This technique might only work with one other person, and the best thing would be if it was someone you knew wouldn't mind typos or corniness or plot holes, because of course they will abound. Taking time to edit in the middle will kill your creative impulse. Find someone else craz- er, creative, and do it together!

As to times, try to figure out a good time to write. Away from sight of beds or comfy couches, if possible! If your days are very flexible (mine were last year, since I stay at home a lot and help my family and do all sorts of random and odd tasks every week), then it might actually be harder than, say, writing mainly in mornings or at night. But make yourself do it.

When you're in your novel, in "the zone", watching the story unfold before your very mind's eye, time is no more. You become a pioneer, going where no man or woman or kid or squirrel has ever dared to stick a toe before. And I think you get a wee, tinsy tiny glimps of the joys of creating which God had when He spoke the world into being.

I might be saying more about NaNoWriMo in future blog posts... The bug to write has really bitten me early this year, and I want other people to share in the joys of NaNo! ;-) If you decide to do it, please let me know, and I would love to encourage and urge you on! If you live nearby (you know who you are), we might even organize some writing days to meet at a bookstore and type together furiously for a few hours of literary silence. With coffee. Lots and lots of tea, chocolate, and coffee. :-)

Jane Austin vs. NaNoWriMo

(my inner debate) "What about that novel over there? Why don't you finish it" "It is...tolerable. But not Austin-ish enough to tempt me."

Oh dear. Today and tomorrow are the last days of November, and thus the last days of NaNoWriMo. I have about 6,000 words to go. It might be pulling teeth to get them.

It was probaly a bad idea last night to start watching the A&E Pride and Predjudice... "Just a litte," said Rael. Ha.

Now, the problem was not that it took much time. After a full day of writing (I cranked out almost 5,000 words yesterday!), it felt like a well-earned treat. I didn't even finish the first disk before I started dozing off and had to hit the bed.

But now that I've already written the turn of the climax in my story, I'm feeling rather unmotivated. Sure, the heroes are surrounded by hordes of evil minions, but we know they'll get out of it. Then it's all happy ending stuff.

At the moment, I'd much rather keep remembering why the long P&P is my favorite, savoring the lines, and chuckling at the humor. A cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows would go along nicely.

But no! Must keep writing! Must must must!!!!!! Lizzy and Co. will still be there when I'm done! Hmm, maybe if I can get out 3-4,000 words starting now, I'll be able to watch more, guilt-free.

I needn't be thrilled to death over my story at the moment to write it, I suppose. Maybe I'll fall into it again as I write, but otherwise, the main thing is to get my words on paper and get my characters out of trouble. And then to get back to Lizzy and Co.