So let me do a little recap of xmas articles I've seen in the last few days:
1) Santa-on-a-cross
2) We wish you a minimalist Christmas
3) No use for Yule
Gotta say, overall I'm pretty happy.
In Tim news, in the midst of a discussion with my mom about why exactly I had spent 544.5$ on a Playstation 3 after I had failed two of my classes in part due to video games (not quite like it sounds, but definitely just as awkward/defensive) somehow we got to talking about what I was like as a child which yielded this story:
When I was about 4, because we were still living in Seattle my mom was telling me the story of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt, specifically the bit about the Red Sea. I can remember thinking that it was all well and good that it was opened up for them or whatever. But then, apparently, she told me the part about God closing the sea on Pharoah's army. I guess I looked up at her and said, in all seriousness, "That naughty, naughty God".
Monday, December 24, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Substitution
I've felt a lot of lonliness this semester, maybe this college career. It has resulted (predictably) in reflection on lonliness.
I love how angsty this gets.
There is this paradox. People have spoken of feeling alone when they are surrounded by people, at a party or workplace por ejemplo. And this experience is certainly not foreign to me. I think that feeling can be named 'alone'. What I've been experiencing is almost the exact opposite. When I'm completely alone, when walk up the stairs, returning to a cold room with not even the traces of company, it's in those moments that I become aware of this closeness to someone. When no one is around, that is when I believe, when it's true, when I feel more tangibly than anything the presence of someone I love. My imagination plays a role, of course. That's probably why this person is most often a woman. Which sheds light on another interesting side: waiting. Because after I've settled in my room and it's clear no one is actually here, I usually engage in this sort of active waiting, or preparation. I do work, mostly. But it is always this attitude that this whoever could come walking in at any moment. And there's two layers to it: the first is the obviously longterm one, that this presence I feel or expect to feel is just the deepseated desire for one other human being that, in the word's of a friend, I would "do passionately and often". And no mom, that most certainly would not be the extent of the relationship (but if I have anything to say about it, it'd be a factor for darn certain). The second kind of waiting is that although I'd be far from bored or disengaged, when that person arrived, you could bet cash money just about everything except for them would be the farthest thing from my mind. That's the second kind of waiting.
Of course, there is no physical presence. I mean that's the whole point of this message.
In place of sharing kisses and conversation with my lover, I heave a sigh to my God. And it feels good.
I love how angsty this gets.
There is this paradox. People have spoken of feeling alone when they are surrounded by people, at a party or workplace por ejemplo. And this experience is certainly not foreign to me. I think that feeling can be named 'alone'. What I've been experiencing is almost the exact opposite. When I'm completely alone, when walk up the stairs, returning to a cold room with not even the traces of company, it's in those moments that I become aware of this closeness to someone. When no one is around, that is when I believe, when it's true, when I feel more tangibly than anything the presence of someone I love. My imagination plays a role, of course. That's probably why this person is most often a woman. Which sheds light on another interesting side: waiting. Because after I've settled in my room and it's clear no one is actually here, I usually engage in this sort of active waiting, or preparation. I do work, mostly. But it is always this attitude that this whoever could come walking in at any moment. And there's two layers to it: the first is the obviously longterm one, that this presence I feel or expect to feel is just the deepseated desire for one other human being that, in the word's of a friend, I would "do passionately and often". And no mom, that most certainly would not be the extent of the relationship (but if I have anything to say about it, it'd be a factor for darn certain). The second kind of waiting is that although I'd be far from bored or disengaged, when that person arrived, you could bet cash money just about everything except for them would be the farthest thing from my mind. That's the second kind of waiting.
Of course, there is no physical presence. I mean that's the whole point of this message.
In place of sharing kisses and conversation with my lover, I heave a sigh to my God. And it feels good.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Rent-a-Rower: Uncommon Projects
Last weekend, I got to ride in an elevator just shy of 100 years old, built in 1908. It's the oldest elevator in Tacoma. At that time I was helping a church move their organ out of storage. So we moved all of those pieces, saw cotton/canvas insulated wired that powers the bellows and stops from the console. It took about 5 hours. The organ is going to take about a year and a half to construct, apparently.
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