life.

life. ah, that word: life. so, I'm one of those crazy people who happens to fall in love with certain words and phrases sometimes.  there are just some words that, when I read or hear them, stir up this feeling in me.  it's like a strange combination of excitement and hope and expectation and like there is so much more to the world than the mundane things we see and do and think every day.  and life is one of these words.  there are so many facets of life and details and intangible things that we can't see but we know exist in life; it makes it hard not to notice how beautiful it all is.  at the same time though, there is so much pain and hurt and hate and disappointment.  but I feel like these things only serve to deepen life.  we're caught up in the midst of them while they're happening to us, but the moment we get the chance to zoom out and see the big picture, we understand it all.  that's the way I feel at least, and it's a beautiful feeling sometimes. 

but it's so easy to get caught up in the daily things - the things that drain our energy and make us waste our emotions.  and we forget to enjoy life.  more importantly, we forget to enjoy God.  I got this facebook message from this rad sista that I sometimes refer to as my best friend about enjoying God more.  this is what she said (here's your big spotlight, lc!): "You know what I just realized that I've been missing? I've completely lost the thrill of the love of God, the excitement... I've been so concerned with trusting Him and loving Him and focusing on Him that I forgot to enjoy Him. All of the aforementioned are important and necessary, but the Christian life is not supposed to be like fighting to walk through a hurricane. We're supposed to dance in the rain. Though we get off balance and fall or slip on a slick bit of pavement, we still get back up and begin to dance again."  beautifully put, my dear.  and so true.  I have really lost my joy in Christ's presence because I have been so concerned with trying to live my life every day and fit Him in there as much as possible.  I was pushing Him into my life as often as I remembered.  and forgetting that He is with me at all times, giving me strength and peace and sending me little love notes.  I've forgotten that I'm fiercely loved and enjoyed by Him and that He wants me to enjoy Him also.  it's hard in the midst of a day's worries, but it's worth it.  I've been reminded of Christ's love for me by several different things today, and each time I've been filled with joy.  and not that flighty, sillly kind of joy that only stays for a moment, but that deep kind of joy that makes you want to dance around and sing and smile at everyone you walk by.  it's like a peace kind of joy.  it rocks.  today I am thankful for friends far and near, for surprises and cold weather, and for the ability to outwardly express happiness.  who knows what would happen to me if I couldn't.  I just might burst or something.

good Lovin'

it's crazy the way human beings crave attention.  we crave all sorts of attention in all sorts of ways.  some call it "not conforming" or just "being different," I call it craving attention.  some call it "just wanting a boyfriend or someone to dance with," I call it craving attention.  some call it "wanting to succeed" or wanting to "exceed people's expectations," I call it craving attention. 

and it is.  it is craving attention.  we all just want someone to see what we are doing, to acknowledge our existence, our lives.  for some, it is the sole motivation for all the things that they do - working, writing, dancing, dating, performing, anything.  sometimes I just feel like the only reason I'm living the way I am is so people notice it.  why do I care what I wear?  who I hang out with?  what sorority I'm in? what image people have of me?  because I want attention and I want people to think of me a certain way. 

and I get depressed when I haven't been noticed.  I feel like this is especially true when it comes to guys.  I cry out for male attention above all else, just like the entirety of the female population. 

yet.  that single solitary word that lets me know there is more to the situation.  there is another side.  yet, I hardly ever recognize the Love that is right there with me, every movement I make, every thought I think, every emotion I feel.  and it's this crazy, fierce, indelible, indescribable, expressive, wild-about-you Love.  this Love that will never, ever leave me or forsake me.  this Love that so beautifully died a horribly painful death that I might live and breathe and believe and love as well.  this Love that envelops me and protects me, and at the same time exposes me to this world so that I may spread it to the ones that haven't experienced it yet.  this Love expresses and reveals itself to me constantly in so many ways, and I ignore it.  I relegate it to a secondary position in my life.  secondary to the human love that I crave so badly. 

why is this?  I mean, I could spout off something about the human condition, but I don't think that really addresses the root issue.  of course we're human and so we do stupid things and don't recognize what we ought, but I think we crave attention the way we do because of our unbelief.  we don't really believe (though we might say we do) that God is right there with us, loving us and giving us attention and expressing Himself in all kinds of different, beautiful ways.  we don't believe it because we know we don't deserve it.  we know we haven't done a single thing to earn it and there isn't a single thing in the world that we could do to earn it.  some of us are aware of this, aware of the grace that is so apparent in creation.  but so, so many aren't.  and even those who are aware rarely live, and I mean truly live, like they are aware of it.  it is a tragic story, a dull life.  I am one of these, these "half-hearted creatures" as C.S. Lewis calls us, that has been shown the grace and mercy and beautiful Love of God and yet lives each day like it doesn't exist.  if I know of all these things and yet live just like those who do not know of these things, how will others ever be introduced to them?  it should be my duty and my joy to display the love and grace and mercy and glory of the beautiful God that I serve. 

the movie life

in the best kinds of movies, there is no narrator.  there is no one to tell the audience the characters' pasts or thoughts or beliefs.  the audience must simply figure it out by watching how a particular character conducts himself or by listening to what he says.  and the actor must know and understand everything about his character so that the audience can see his personal story.  I wish that we could all live in such a way that anyone could see our stories just by how we are and what we do.  I wish we weren't afraid of showing people the real us.  I wish we weren't afraid of getting hurt.  I wish we didn't only feel safe revealing our true identities in art and music and writing.  I wish all these things, but I am guilty of them as well.  I write all these things that I think and feel and know, but I don't let everyone I come in contact with see the whole picture.  few are allowed the privilege of seeing all of me - my hopes and dreams and beliefs and my thoughts in their rawest forms.  this is a shame.  not because the world needs my hopes and dreams and beliefs and raw thoughts, but because the world needs sincerity and authenticity.  the world also needs love.  the love of Christ, specifically.  and how can we show the world the love of Christ if we're too busy hiding behind our prefabricated identities?  instead we should be displaying for everyone who we really are - the good and the bad - in order to display God's glory and grace.  I am guilty as charged, and pledging to start trying to live more authentically.  we'll see how it goes...

rain.

it's raining today.  rain makes me want to do a lot of things.  it makes me want to sit in my room with a big sweatshirt and fuzzy socks on and listen to chill, acoustic music and write (which is what I'm doing).  it makes me want to paint.  it makes me want to wrap a big blanket around myself and watch a sweet movie.  it makes me want to nap. 

life is so weird sometimes, the way that it happens.  one thing happens in order for something else to happen.  you meet one person in order to meet someone else.  I do a lot of life thinking and planning.  but not in the way that you might think - you know, like the big events and decisions.  no, instead I think and plan the silly little moments that make up a day, thinking that there will someday be one little moment that will change everything in life.  John Lennon once said that "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."  I'm guilty of missing out on life because I spend all my time thinking about what I want to happen.  most of my plans don't even come to fruition anyway.  and I know this.  and yet I continue to live like this.  if you can even call it living. 

today, it stops.  or starts to stop.  it will be a slow, continuous process, learning how to exist without constant planning.  but I will learn; I will live more fully.  there's this book that is teaching me all these things.  it's called 'Cold Tangerines' by Shauna Niequist.  it is about celebrating life - celebrating all the little moments that we do not plan, that culminate into a life well-lived.  thus far it is a fabulous little book.  I'm sure there will be many more life lessons to be learned from it and I can't wait.

will the real me please stand up?

oh hey there, mr. blog.  I know, I know, it's been awhile.  I'm quite sorry I haven't posted in basically forever (at least it feels that way), but, you see, I got a bit embarrassed of you for a time.  the world doesn't really need another blogger and I felt a little too narcissistic for writing a blog, as if I felt that the whole world needed to know what I, sarah, was thinking; I am sarah, read my stuff!  but as I was thinking earlier about my feelings (which I do altogether too often), I remembered the reason I started writing this blog in the first place: me.  I am the reason I started writing it.  I wanted a place to empty my raw thoughts into sentences, ideas.  just as talking makes me feel better about everything, blogging helps me clear my mind by forcing me to organize it. 

now that I'm done with my excuse, I would like to begin by saying that the way I feel now can be simply summed up by my very last post, though it was written just shy of four months ago.  four.  whole.  months.  that is crazy business.  to explain myself yet again, school just started two months ago, and that has been a whole new beast.  and by school I mean my first year of college.  I am, in fact, a freshman.  a freshman who has only very recently started running again (I was a delinquent runner for much too long), who has not gained the freshman fifteen, who has joined the best darn sorority in the world, who moved into the sorority house and is downright loving it, and, who has lost a bit of herself again.  I know what you're thinking.  you're thinking, "geez, how often does this happen???"  but rest assured, I found myself rather quickly after that last post and have been fine since.   until a few days ago when I realized it had happened again.  but this time, it is my fault.  completely and totally my fault.  it turns out, I really like being liked and known.  I believe this is a disease that has affected the vast majority of the population (a bit of an epidemic, if you will), but I have taken it too far this time.  it seems I have lost myself in trying to make people know me.  I have forgotten that there are parts of me that are secrets and parts of me that people should discover on their own.  people who have just met me do not need to know right off the bat that I am an english major and therefore love reading and writing and feeling artsy.  or that I just LOVE to run and am therefore athletic and fit.  or that I will do anything for a laugh and am therefore ridiculously hilarious (I have done a lot of dumb and/or silly things to make people laugh.  this by no means makes me funny).  it's like I have this view that I think people should have of me - that's right, I made sarah up all by myself this time - and I feel that people just need to know all about me.  like they want to or something.  which is crazy business.  the world does not need to know who I am.  who I am is irrelevant because I am living for Someone much greater and cooler and smarter and better than me.  who I am only counts if others can see Christ in me.  if I am living the life that He has willed for me and being the person that He has willed me to be.  I have not been fulfilling these things, and so I must apologize.  so here it is: dear world, who cares who sarah is?  she is empty if not for Christ.  she is only a facade, a colorful wall with no substance behind it.  and everyone knows that when you have too many colors on a canvas, you get brown.  boring, lame, brown.  that's what you get when you let an unskilled artist try to paint a masterpiece.  what you need is the only true, great Artist to commission the masterpiece.  I have not let this Artist paint the canvas of my life recently and it is obvious.  So, world (and Christ), I am sorry that I tried to put the brush in my own hands, trusting this fragile life to an even more fragile soul. 

getting back on track is the hardest part.  it always has been for me.  it's like I start to push forward a bit, but I only get a few feet before my momentum shuts off and I'm pulled right back into the rut.  but I suppose recognizing it is the first step and I've got to just keep fighting.  don't worry world, 'tis only for a time.  the cooler, realer, livin'-it-up sarah shall be back.  sooner or later I'm going to have to start living outside of myself again.  sooner or later I'll be shoved toward a higher cause by that great, loving, Force-to-be-reckoned-with.  and I'll have no choice but to move on, to see outside myself.  until then...

ill-fitting sweater (girls night)

So, last night I spent the evening with several of my girlfriends in the proverbial "girls night."  There is a long story of my friendship with these girls, but suffice it to say that what we have can hardly be called a friendship any longer.  Save for one of them (who is the blonde, rational version of me and who happens to be my best friend), I find it difficult to spend any lengthy amount of time with them.  Two years ago we all began to sort of drift apart, which is when the blonde, rational me (who is also a part of this little group of girls) and I started becoming better friends.  I suppose this did not help matters much, but we didn't care because we had become the "black sheep" of the group, or at least that's what we called ourselves anyway.  Blonde, rational me - who I will refer to as LC from here on out - and I have never really fit in. 

Anyway, all that to say that our little group didn't see much of each other very often and now it seems to me that they all have this identity for me that they packed away in a little box and now pull it out each time they see me, like that sweater that you sort of like, but don't really love, but you pull it out of the box each fall anyway because it keeps you warm, so you need it, and you sort of like it and it always stays the same, but you don't really know what else to do with it.  This "me" is just a really simple girl who runs a lot, is medially intelligent, uncreative, rather quiet, and wears running clothes nearly all the time.  Now, this is not going to turn into a "sarah101" class, but things have changed a good bit since those days.  It is true that I love to run, that I am no genius, and that I have the capability of being quiet - but that is about all that has stayed the same.  The rest of sarah-world has basically been turned on its side and I have a whole new angle on things. 

I suppose all of that was to say that I did not like being pulled out of the box and put on like the sort-of-liked sweater.  Because it is now an ill-fitting and somewhat itchy sweater.  The evening left me with the feeling that I don't know who I am, all because a few girls who are supposed to know, don't.  Which is crazy, that I would let it affect me that much, but I did.  It has been tough today, regaining the real sarah and all, which is partially (or maybe mostly) why I am writing right now.  Because it is safe, and something I love to do, and part of who I am.  It is also why I am listening to Sondre Lerche on the Dan in Real Life soundtrack.  It is warm and comfortable and inviting, like the sweater you love so much that you keep it in your closet year round becase you simply can't bear to pack it off in a box for a few months.

This is the longest post I have put up yet, but I saw somewhere that blogging is a better alternative to therapy, which is something I would never, ever subject myself to (not that I need it).  But that is for another day and another post.

creative: conventional wisdom

they tell you not to rock the boat,
to go with the flow,
to Let it Be.
they tell you to be different,
to swim against the stream,
to fight the machine.
they tell you to stop and smell the roses,
to wake up and smell the coffee,
to enjoy the simple things.
they tell you all's fair in love and war,
that it's better to have loved and lost
than to have never loved at all.
you can bet your bottom dollar
that conventional wisdom
is the sugar that helps the medicine go down.

written circa november, two-thousand nine

creative: frail

A frail thing am I,
Fraught, I am, with selfish desire,
Uncertainty, and pride.
With greedy aspirations have I fashioned my own funeral pyre -
But with His graceful hand has He turned the tide.

Frail though I am,
He sought me, pursued me,
Never yielding, though I ran and ran.
I fought, but my body gave out, my legs grew weary.
And I collapsed, bone-tired, into His strong, waiting arms -
And never was the same.

written june the eighth, two-thousand and ten

creative: twilight spectrum

a spectrum of blues overtakes the sky -
above the horizon lies
dark blue and
bright blue and
sea blue and
royal blue and
color-of-your-eyes blue.

above a facade of black trees lies
cerulean blue and
sapphire blue and
purple-y blue and
robin's egg blue and
shadow-on-the-sidewalk blue.

well ,if the sky wears his mood on his sleeve,
he might be a sleepy sort of
sad
tonight. or,
he might be a vibrant sort of
satisfied
tonight.
Mr. Sky, could you please
clarify
your emotions tonight, sir?

written may the fifth, two-thousand and ten

beginnings

It is currently roughly halfway between two and three in the morning and I am embarking on the very new adventure of my first-ever blog. Perhaps it is because it's halfway between two and three in the morning that I am even doing this. Perhaps it is because I have a narcissistic need to put my thoughts into words for other people to read. Whatever the reason, I am committed, for now at least.

Anyways, I am quite suddenly tired. I had to christen the voyage of this baby though. That being done, I think I shall say "Bonne nuit!" Even though it is techinically morning. But whatever. More later.