Death is a stranger with tricks up his sleeves

"No one's gonna find us here. They don't know to look; the rescue is comin"

The other day I was talking to this odious, foul, unfeeling man about our 'agree to disagree' pact on the whole Iraq war. Haha.. It funny cause we have same opinion. And then later that night Rob Bell said, "Can you think of anyone who's just been amazingly, beautifully made?.." and we rekindled our feelings and now are perfectly good friends again. *heart*

Today's order of business has been to successfully open and operate (yes, I spelled that right after 13 tries..) the Center for a few hours, set an appointment with a dude to fix his PC, and apply for as many jobs as I could. I also had time to txt people and read another chapter of "Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman's Soul." Don't judge me. You haven't read it and now you're jealous.

I've been getting 'word of the day's for a few weeks now, and I find them kinda funny (especially the ones from Oxford English Dictionary Online, cause it's mostly words we use everyday with the British usage defined) Today I added dictionary.com's w.o.t.d and also got to play a fun little game! They would give clues and you had to guess the word before your little cave man fell into the water (from guessing incorrectly or taking too long to guess) - which was totally bogus cause it would give clues like (7 letters) "Perspires; of mammals" and the answer is 'sweater' since we always use definitions like that. There was one really annoying one cause even when I saw the answer the clue still made no sense..

Anywho. I've been sick-ish lately. Woke up with a little gaggy throat action and kinda wore it off through the day. I think our house is dry (or at least my mom thinks our house is dry and I say whatever she says is cool)

-----MEAT-----

I had a good talk with dad the other day. I love that phrase "the other day" cause it can stand for any gap of time from then till now. Brilliant. But in our talk dad was instructing me how to appropriately apply for a job and nag them till they're eyes bleed and give you what you want or send you away. In most basic and honest sense: making yourself stand out of the crowd in the most professional way. It means a lot to me to hear his knowledge. He'll say things like, "Half of what I say you won't remember" or "You're probably thinking 'What does dad know?? He's only dad, it's not like he's a genius or anything..'" - It kinda hurts when he thinks that's how I think of him, but I also hurt a little when I find myself in the midst of trying to prove him wrong: to secretly unmask another way that maybe dad was holding out on, or maybe he never learned and I want to be better than him.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to 1-up your dad. What's wrong is circumvention of his will. Isn't it so obvious when you tell someone to do a certain thing and they come back exclaiming they 'accidentally discovered another way' that they never even trusted your first instruction enough to try it out once? That's how it is with dad. Obviously his way worked, so what's wrong with me keeping that as a backup plan in case my theoretically better way doesn't pan out? It's wrong, and I've been through it. Maybe there are some things my dad doesn't know, but it's not for me to test his authority.

I feel so good when I make dad proud. Like, this is my dad, and he's proud of me. Proud of me. Proud of something I did. He put his approval on my work. He condones my efforts. I've grown up, I'm becoming like him, I'm gonna be as awesome or more awesome than my dad, and he likes it.

I don't know how your relationship is with any of your parents, but LIVE IT UP. Make the most of it. No, they aren't just people you HAVE to deal with till you can move out. Be willing to brighten their day

Boxing Day

So Christmas is practically here. I think this year is the most unusual for me. I'm a college student again, and still at home, but so much more involved with things outside of the house. I've practically been adopted by the Capps, and Haley finally likes me enough to let me pick her up (which makes me feel so much better)

I got to thinking about how much it would be impossible to go through life without them from this point. It's kinda like chai. It's just that good.

This time of year tends to have a lot of depression. After Christmas, life is forced back to the same old mundane, hopeless shuffle to pay bills and be HAPPY. Its always too freakin cold and never snows and never enough hours in the day and never enough hours at the job. Taxes. Gah.. It's like life took a second glance at that hot chick passing by and when it faced forward again ran into a pole and fell into a manhole and had to take the sewer home.

Lets not have that happen this year. I want to keep up some hope and faith through these dreary, bleak months. It's not the condition you find yourself in, but the condition you bring to your environment. Make it a point to smile, and not complain (just suck it in and deal; we all have problems and get through them)

As Relient K sings in their song, "Christmas makes way for spring" -Boxing Day

[listen to "Glass of Water" by Coldplay today]

I made a deal with God / Therapy

It's been 1/3 of a year since I've written anything. I thought of it as a break, maybe a recuperation period. And I also thought of it as a fearful time, uncertain that I had value or validity. I'm sticking with the first one, and I made a deal with God that I would write this for today.

Let me start by saying Happy Birthday to my sister, Sarah. I love you :)

One of the least-liked tasks at my house is clearing the yard of the leaves during the fall. This year, as I was taking classes for college and running the Center a lot and being a lazy bum who never went home before 10pm, mom did most of the leaf removal. At one point, she actually hurt herself and couldn't do it anymore. So I thought, "Oh, no big deal, it's not like there's much of the year left" and planned to keep up with them. Somehow that didn't happen (haha, yeah..). This past week there was a lot of precipitation, and thus the leaves HAD to go. I somewhat dreaded the task, mostly cause I didn't have much time for it. My schedule opened up suddenly and I had a whole morning to work on it. And I did. In those moments, where I'm working on the yard or home projects, I get to think a lot and feel a lot. I listen to music. I get lost in another world and the time just flies by. Before I know it, I'm done with my job.

I want to touch on this bit about music. "This is just therapy.. let's call it was it is.. and that makes God the only one who's left here listening." Those are the words to Relient K's "Therapy" - one of the many tracks to come across my ears during this crisp morning leaf extraction. What it really comes down to is the heaviness. I crave something heavy and manly. I want to have a goal, something to live for, and fight to win. The next song, "Storm the Gates of Hell" by Demon Hunter is one of those songs that just make you want to kick some ass. "Raise the lifeless, Dies to fight this, Stand beside me, Storm the gates of hell"

I encourage you to find your therapy. A lot of people get paid to tell you what to do for therapy, and most of the time it's just doing something you would normally not want to do (but really need to do).

On another note, I really love chai. I finally got an Oregon Chai shirt to match my hat. If you drank one cup of chai every day, you would be a happier person.

kthnxbye

In Pieces

Too often we associate or down-play/down-grade love to something less than it's full potential. For example, "I love tacos!" is not equivalent to "I love you, baby!" yet we use the same word. Obviously we understand that the meaning of the phrases aren't comparably similar (and as for the same word, lots of words share spelling and pronunciation but have various meanings which can be derived in the context of the sentence, so that's understood as well), it is implied, though, that 'love' is the height of pleasure, joy, etc..

My beef is that we use it too much. Lets get frugal for about 30 seconds and make up something else. Most people who truely love something more than other things (collectively, their 'love' [reminds me of 'my precious'])devote more time to those, and that is where we get art about or for said 'love', and songs or poetry are written. You rarely hear songs about how much someone is infatuated with a taco unless it's a parody.

But let's push past that. making exceptions for the use of the word 'love' is like making an exception of what you love the most. If you say to your spouse, "I love you!" and then to another woman, "I love you!" you will come away with some confusion and possibly a highly angry spouse. How then does that compare to anything else?

The point behind this is to tighten up on the American slack. We make short-cuts for everything, and defining the things we highly enjoy or like exuberantly is one of those short-cuts. Our language is losing it's value.
______

When I say the word 'love' I (and possibly you) think of the color red, maybe flowers, heart shapes, someone special, romance, etc.. While all of those can remain true (it gives me those thoughts, so thats proof enough that they are all valid expressions) 'love' is still so much more. We are all aware of the 'love' chapter ("Love is patient, love is kind..") and the idea of ultimate sacrifice (Jesus or anyone giving their life for someone else to benefit, in love of course [see, "there is no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for another"])

The element we tend to miss (and sometimes, in church, find inappropriate) is the helping side. What I mean by inappropriate is a little reversed from the definition; let me explain the way it (helping love) should be, then come back.
The honest care for someone's life so much that you make every effort to assure they don't hurt themselves; and when they do hurt themselves, make every effort to help them heal. That is helping love.

More specifically on that: This includes the attitude of love that doesn't lavish with gifts 24/7: this attitude restricts and prevents in the name of love.

I can already see examples of both sides taking that statement too far.

Know this: God likes balance. Both attitudes of love must be exemplified.

Back to the inappropriate thing: this would be things like spreading info (particularly reputation-damaging info) around in order to "guilt" someone out of their sins. This is WRONG. And it's found most, where? In the church.

"Oh, we all need some understanding; we all need love.
..and every time you love, let it lift someone else up.
If somebody tries to burn you, give them your hand and turn and pick him up when he's all alone. And if you find yourself getting frustrated, try not to get too jaded..
So have some faith, you say? And hope will find it's way? .. It seems to me, the greatest of these is love. But it's so hard to love.. "

I was talking with Sarah on the way to the Mae concert (which was pretty good. I happen to highly enjoy Mae at just about every moment of the day) about life. Her's, particularly. She expressed her awkward feelings on current life situations. This really sent me into a thought frenzy. I'll try to recapture (and possibly shorten) my response to her.

It's not up to God or Chance to decide your life path. Obviously God, Chance and Satan have plans for your life already, but it is ultimately up to you. God has the best plan created: He knows every perfect route to take at every moment (Bible time? Jer 29:11 I think.. "I know the plans I have for you... plans to prosper").

Let's zip out of what we know, and start with the freshness of.. existence. Our role as humans is not to let the world happen around us: Evil/negative forces are set on auto-pilot, so we're guaranteed bad stuff happening on its own; but positive forces are up to us (dun dun: not on auto-pilot). It's pretty unfair, I know. Leave the world alone and it will die.

Our role is comparable to the role of an ambassador. Ambassadors go from a 'base' to a 'foreign territory' armed with the power and complete understanding of the [desires] of the 'base'. The Ambassador must be on constant update/communication with the 'base' as to know what to do in every situation in the 'foreign territory'. And then HE DOES IT.

Now our part's analogy: We are the ambassador. The world (all the peoples) are the 'foreign territory' and the Kingdom of God is our 'base'. Yeah, it sounds weird and probably not original, but follow me.
Goal 1: get to 'foreign territory'
Goal 2: understand the [desires] of the 'base'
Goal 3: act on the [desires] of the 'base'

How are we doing?

The world hurts. God's plan is to fix that hurt, using us. We HAVE to learn His mind so we can act on it (remember, He knows every best move)

So what of these [desires] of Chance and Satan? We are NOT here to just let them happen and sit idle: We are to overcome. Be more than conquerors.

Don't wilt, waiting for the future. You are the future. You have the dreams.

I'll finish with this AWESOME quote from the Message

31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Avoid the Noid

Someone thought it impertinent to scratch out 'flu' and write 'noid' on all the "Avoid the Flu _ Wash Your Hands" signs at school. I think it's absolutely hilarious (and heck, everyone remembers what the sign says, so a good advertisement, too)

Yesterday was a slow day at the Center, but quite funny, still. There are two young girls that came in (and are actually currently here again) that talked quite loudly to Mary about all the new stuff in celebrity gossip. One lady left shortly after and said, "The good thing about coming here today is that I'm caught up on all the latest info."

I'm glad we can facilitate.

Ever since Della or Jason introduced me to chai (I'm pretty sure it was Jason: at the center, he made me a chai latte and I can recall making notes on how it stunk but tasted REALLY good) I have been pretty much in love with it. I like it very strong: very spicy. I like it iced or hot or blended (like Starbucks' chai frappuccino)

I'm even drinking one right now.

I can assert that God invented chai, as he did pizza, chocolate, cheese, baked chicken, coffee, black beans and rice, rice pilaf, and the super burrito from La Hacienda.

God is good.

On Top

I name most of my blogs after song titles. I don't think the content of the song and blog match, but the titles are somewhat helpful and generally I'll quote from the song. We'll see here.

Been thinking a lot about.. everything, really. I don't want to sound like a broken record by writing yet another blog about destiny, so I'll shake it up a bit.

Let's talk about coffee. And alcohol.

I think I've heard that it's not possible to purge oneself of insobriety by consuming coffee. I don't know how true that is. I only know that coffee makes me happy.

So I watched, "The Queen" (2006 Miramax) last night [which made for a late nate, considering a 9:30 ferry and work at 9am] and then talked with Mary today at the Center about the real Queen of England and her possible response to the movie's portrayal of her. An interview of the actress who played the Queen (Helen Mirren) on NPR had her answering what she thought the Queen would say. Mirren actually went through a lot of preperation to understand how the Queen acts, etc.. in order to play the part, so her response was based on the understanding she had devoloped over the course of filming. She presumed that the Queen would inevitably succumb to curiosity and watch the movie, and if asked for her oppinion would probably say something like, "Well, that could have been worse. Hand me another gin and tonic."

Just a little funny for you.

So back to the coffee.

I worked the Center this morning. A rather slow day though. Good ol' Pat came for some (typical) unusual request..
[some back story: he used to get a 12oz doubleshot extra extra dry cappuccino. That was easy enough (right..) but then he went to Europe and fell in love with authentic European espresso. So on his return, every drink was a little different, starting with the Macchiatto, then some variation of the Macchiatto, then on to some other drink I can't remember, and now to this:]
..for a doubleshot with steamed heavy cream. It's actually not bad tasting. Della and I made one when he left.

"I'd say I'm the luckiest one you know."
Theres my quote for the song. /laughs

I'm currently waiting on a video to finish rendering. Super Christian Fighting Team. I'll be uploading it to Facebook soon as I get it small enough..
It's a funny video :) Go watch it

_short post_ Up and Up

Lately it seems I've felt a need to focus on trusting God / having faith in God's power. It seems lately like so many people are complaining about something; more like worrying about something that is coming in the near future. I myself am not entirely worry-free. But like I said yesterday, "It's not what you think, it's what you say. 'There is the power of life and death in the tongue'. Speak positively" and the positive will become what you think. (I'm pretty sure that's a Mark B. kind of quote) As you do, you become.

That's as you do, you become.

Do negative, become negative.

Do positive, become positive.

Let's take a look at our self-image. If you are a human, then gratz, cause you've been made in the image of God: which is perfect.

If you don't feel adequate, start worshiping God.

Quit talking about bad things.
Quit complaining.
Start speaking positivity.