what does your love look like?

The love for equals is a human thing--of a friends for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer...this is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the unfortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich...the world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.
~Frederick Buechner

since I can't actually be there

here are my favorite memories:

1. eating ABE pasta and watching home dec. shows
2. sipping tea at the St. James
3. rolling out cookie dough
4. washing dishes at our old house
5. learning to read ;-)
6. talking on the phone as I walk to school
7. shopping/trying on clothes for hours
8. watching you sew our indian costumes
9. Anne of Green Gables every time the guys left
10. learning how to sew
11. perms. for you, for me
12. 8:00 chats with you and whoever else would join us
13. staying up "super late" helping you pack for Clovis, cause I couldn't sleep =p
14. decorating with Nativities and celebrating Advent
15. Hot Cross Buns
16. Christmas school
17. talking late into the night on the patio
18. working puzzels
19. catalogue shopping
20. waking you up (that alone is special, haha) and you rubbing my legs for hours
21. friday night pizza night
22. tagging along to Mom's Meetings
23. flying to Nashville and exploring Franklin TN
24. baking with my Easy Bake
25. next time, long time
26. reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time
27. Sew Creative Club
28. making dinner on my own
29. letting me dress up and wear it all day long
30. Soufflé and Cinnamon Rolls
31. Mother-Daughter Retreat
32. JoAnn's for hours!!
33. ABQ Uptown window-shopping
34. making snow ice cream
35. naps on the couch
36. scrapbooking
37. Ramen Noodle Salad
38. talking through my plans and all that I want to accomplish...
39. crochetting/coloring while you read to us after lunch
39. days at the library
39. getting you all dressed up to go out with Daddy
39. wrapping presents for you
39. making big breakfasts on Saturdays
39. designing kitchens just the way we'd like
39. looking through your wedding book and asking you again and again the names of the same people
39. shoe shopping
39. McAlisters
39. my first manicure
39. reading Love Comes Softly (all of them!) with Risse
39. pesto pizza

daily motivations; getting down to the basics

Tonight my roommates and I shared some verses from the past week that were particularly insightful to us. I thought it was great how they all pieced together (guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it was pretty awesome). here they are: 


Philippians 4:11-12
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.


That means having the mindset of being thankful for everything, even when it's not what we would choose or how we wish it was--learning to find joy in ALL things.


1 Peter 3:3-4
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.


So in all our striving to be pretty, wear nice clothes, and fix-up our hair (which I do quite a lot of these days!!), we need to have the right motivation. Really, the spirit behind all the adornment is what needs to be in-check before hand...oh so much easier to write than to practice!


Jonah 2:8-9
 Those who pay regard to vain idols
    forsake their hope of steadfast love.
But I with the voice of thanksgiving
   will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
    Salvation belongs to the LORD!


And then what we set up as gods is all for not. We need to organise our lives in a way that first and formost brings honor and glory to God (that is what our chief end is to begin with!). Only then will our loves come together rightly, and we are freed to flourish as the best we are made to be.


Ps. 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

grecian woman

Wrapped in folds of cloth draping over the shoulder, she stands. Both feet flat on the ground and strapped into sandals. Belted, the robe gathers and crinkles to the stone. Her hair is braided around like a crown, intermingled with a vine or two. Time has deepened the creases in her skin and stolen appendages—once she had hands whitened smooth to hold.  Now a board of sundry tools is perched in the crook of an elbow. But for a moment she is caught contemplating. Eyes cast down, a smile plays at the corners of the lips, but the sincerity of life tugs at the joy and damps the sparkle of life.  

history as myth

“History can become myth; myth can become history...Myths are not created by an individual but by the retelling of stories in different contexts—bedtime stories, public performances, visual representations—until they become part of the ‘cultural heritage’ of society...[myths are] about the telling of stories for pleasure, even if those stories also have a deeper meaning; history ostentatiously claims to be concerned wit the truth of what happened, regardless of whether is makes a good story or has any deeper meaning.”

Morley, The Writing of Ancient History

In history class, we have trekked through the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars and begun to see the parallels between Herodotus and Thucydides, comparing the ancient “myths.” These two examples of ancient histories deal with events and people of the past, relating details regarding the world wars that were raging, but in two very distinctive styles; one is description-rich and the other explains the motivations for war.

Some people might say that Herodotus dwells on outlandish details, while Thucydides simply states the “facts.” This estimation, however, is not correct. Both of these men represent what they see as the important details. After all, history ultimately isn’t about what really happened in the past but what people choose to remember—it’s a matter of people passing on tales of bravery and adventure, losses and victories, accomplishments and trials. Thucydides is concerned with getting to the bottom of the issues and analyzing military tactics, political nuances, and motivations behind actions. Herodotus, on the other hand, wants his reader to be able to identify specific places and understand the customs of the people he deals with. His tone is that of a grandpa telling epic adventures to his grandkids. He lays out a very broad scope of the hostilities and skirmishes between nations, but never delves into policy or devotes precious page-space to public affairs causing the war.

These two have become legend. How much of what is recorded really happened (how could Herodotus know so much about the fantastic? And there are so many verbatim speeches in Thucydides…those can’t be word for word, can they?). Neither of them is truer than the other; they are told from different perspectives. They have been passed down through the ages, mythic in nature. Enjoy the sagas and continue their legacies.

marginalia

(it's about time, right?!)

"We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language and can build metaphors as skillfully and precisely as ribosomes make proteins. We have affection. We have genes for usefulness...and, perhaps best of all, we have music." Lewis Thomas, Medusa and the Snail

moniker- a name

what I do outside of school:

...or something like that

Fortune suddenly smiled upon Cait, and dropped a brillant idea in her path. Not her homework, exactly, but I doubt if half a million would have given more real happiness then did the inspiration that came to her in these wee hours.

Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and "fall into a vortex," as she expressed it, writing away at her paper with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace. Her "scribbling suit" consisted of fur and leather slippers, athletic pants, and a gray sweatshirt, adorned with a hood of great depths, into which she could bundle her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This hood was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her roommates, who during these periods kept their distance, merely texting smily-faces semi-occasionally to ask, with interest, Does genius burn, Cait? They did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an observation of the ponytail and WMP, and judged accordingly. If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on, in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew, and when despair seized the author strands were twisted and pulled, and pinned up and un-done and once again tied back. At such times the intruder silently withdrew, and not until the unruly curls were seen gaily atop the freckled brow, did anyone dare address Cait.

She did not think herself a genius by any means, but when the writing fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon, and led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat safe and happy in an imaginary world, full of friends almost as real and dear to her as any in the flesh. Sleep forsook her eyes, meals stood untasted, day and night were all too short to enjoy the happiness which blessed her only at such times, and made these hours worth living, even if they bore no other fruit. The devine afflatus usually lasted a week or two, and then she emerged from her `vortex', hungry, sleepy, cross, or despondent.

***i figured y'all would notice, but this is mostly Allcot's work, I just substituted my own description. I don't want to take credit for what's not mine, just sayin