Forgiveness

is when you look past the pain someone has caused you and choose to love him or her instead.

Sometimes it's the only thing you can do.

Winter // Great minds

it’s all in your eyes;
this quarter has been so long
and you look so tired.

on an entirely unrelated note:
Maybe we've got it all backward, this society of ours, perpetuating the myth that great minds think alike, that we all have to have the same opinion in order to be right.
What a lie.
Great minds don't think alike.
Great minds think differently.
Great minds think for themselves.
Isn't that the point?
That's why there aren't many great minds, because that single task, to hold firm to one's convictions in the midst of a clamoring sea of dissent, is really, really hard.

Bench.

When I die, I want a bench. Some people want to burn out bright with lavish funerals or moving memorials, but I only want a bench that's dedicated to me. I don't care where, really, but maybe I'll think of a good place someday (hopefully I have a while before I have to choose). Somewhere where you can go and think. Somewhere you can go with a friend. Somewhere you can go by yourself.

Anyway, wherever that is, I just want a bench.
And on that bench, I want a plaque that says, "You are not alone."

Someday

Someday you will see
I was not the one who left;
You gave up on me.

http://www.resolveuganda.org/node/979

Congratulations. You did it, and I'm proud of you.
But I miss you.
And I still don't understand.

Dostoyevsky.

"I ask myself, 'What is hell?' And I answer thus: 'The suffering of being no longer able to love.'"

In the middle of "The Brothers Karamazov," Dostoyevsky takes a minor detour and explores the idea of hell, which he believes is a state of eternal inner torment. "I think that if there were material flames, truly people would be glad to have them," he writes, "for, as I fancy, in material torment they might forget, at least for a moment, their far more terrible spiritual torment [which is] within them."

But here's the part that breaks me. The people who suffer in hell are so wicked that, to take their torment from them would only increase their unhappiness. "For though the righteous would forgive them from paradise, seeing their torments, [...] loving them boundlessly, would only increase their torments, for they would arouse in them an even stronger flame of thirst for reciprocal, active, and grateful love, which is no longer possible."

Love deeply, people.
No wonder I can't sleep at night, reading things like this.

1 a.m.

and the moon is high,
which means I've stayed up too late,
and my paper still isn't written,
and I'm listening to good music,
which I used to think was terrible music,
and it's cathartic,
which means I have a heavy heart,
and I can't stop thinking about it,
which means I don't know what's wrong,
and I feel too much,
but that's how I was made.
And, at 1 a.m., that's okay, too.

Time

Time can hold us back;
Whole lives play out in moments,
And we all have years.

[I'm a little obsessed with haiku right now. I don't like them, but they're the only poetry I've mastered. Sometimes structure is nice.]

Anyway, time seems to be the one thing of which I cannot get enough, these days. There is so much going on that I can't even begin to fathom how close it is. When I do, though, I don't like the view.

Day. By. Day.
Hour by hour.
Home tomorrow.

Secret

I have one great fear:
I won’t find a heart with room
To hold all of me.

I want to hike today.

I want to be here instead of where I am.
I want to breathe the air of freedom.
I want to stand in awe again.
I want to be back in this moment in time.
I want to realize its significance.
I want to never let it go.

I want your friendship back.

You are the Sun.

This is what I ask / For all my days / That I may / Never look away, never look away / Captivated by you / I am captivated by you / May my life be one unbroken gaze / Fixed upon Your beauty / Fixed upon the beauty of Your face.

As Christians, the Bible calls us to fix our eyes upon Jesus and never look away. But we do. We focus our gaze upon Him, but we’re distracted as the things of the world – friends, work, school, love, possessions – vie for our attention. And we look away.

Looking back at my past experiences, I’ve always thought it was strange that I would choose to focus on the things of the world instead of on the glory of God. I’ve been confused as to what allure these things hold when I have the promise of perfect love fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

Yet, as I sing this song, this answer comes.

As humans, it is our natural tendency to want to look at the sun. There is so much power in the sun, and so much about it we do not know. We shade our eyes, squint a little, and raise our gaze – just for a second – before we blink and look away. We can never focus on it for more than a moment, though it is rarely because something else grabs our attention. There is no plant, no creature, no single thing on earth that possesses as much mystery as the sun.

We look away from the sun because it is too bright. The sun, after all, can blind us in only seconds. So much mystery. So much power.

Just as my eyes are not made to stare into the bright light of the sun, I look away because I never feel worthy to look upon the Son of God without lowering my gaze. It’s so hard to look at Him and not feel insignificant. It’s so hard to see His radiance and not feel unclean. It’s so hard to raise my eyes and adjust to the Light.

It is impossible for a human to stare at the Son.

But He is the light by which everything is illuminated. He reveals that the diamonds I hold near are just pebbles in the light of his glory; these tangible treasures contain nothing I desire. They are dull and ugly and worthless.

And when I see things in this light, I cannot help but rightly turn my eyes upon Jesus. He is the only thing I see, and He is so glorious. So majestic. So radiant. So bright – the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

And even though it hurts my eyes, I would rather go blind than ever look away.