still most loved after all these years

O! Holy night! The stars, their gleams prolonging,
Watch o'er the eve of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error, longing
For His appearance, then the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn...

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.


Read the literal translation from the French here.

going north for thanks

A peace that springs soon after sorrow
of hope surrendered, not hope fulfilled.

warm winds & last flowers of the year

It's 64 degrees here. (I am still cold, but) Unbelieveable. My sister, 250 miles farther north, had a Snow Day today. Their place had twelve inches Saturday, and I think several more today. Meanwhile, Kia and I are walking home in the wind, twirling and laughing and speaking in accents.

''You're not becoming more free in order in order to weep more and more sincerely,'' I heard a girl say last week. ''No, you are becoming free to dance and sing karaoke in public and laugh harder.'' Freedom will bring tears, but so much more than that, freedom brings joy.

I've never been so silly in my life as I am this fall; I haven't laughed more in many, many years. And everywhere I walk, it's like I can hear the flowers and trees and streets themselves singing: you are free, you are free, you are becoming free.

the thrill of possibilities

I've been madly scribbling down notes from interesting seminars lately, and mulling over possible dreams-to-make-happen for 2012:

#1) Katie & Pekos' wedding!! SB, Feb.
#2) Visit Elle in Colorado.
#3) Run Denver Marathon with her?

But besides this, I'd like to announce that I am now a grad-school applicant, to one-and-a-half programs so far, and one-and-a-half more (at least!) coming.

I love school, I love taking notes, it's been almost three years, and I am so excited!!

However, also exciting: knowing that maybe I will just move to Mexico instead. Wide open skies, honey.

And now to the dock where I arrive each night: to jump or wade into the waters of dreams, worlds where I am immersed, swimming, one third of my life, fluctuating between English and Spanish, kicking and pulling my weight through the blue. There are so many portals, so many doors to enter, and return to.

Sometimes I see you,
even we talk
Does this mean you also dream of me?
Or is it a only a projection,
a mere copy of you
sailing the waves of my mind?

When I dream of you, things are never settled,
never well between us
but perhaps they are getting there
or perhaps not.
Who can say?

Here where the subconscious rises to the surface,
submerged cedars and sitka spruce surfacing for air,
where fear and desire uncoil
loosen and probe their snaking possibilities
in worlds where you are only an actor,
an observer, and yet a participant.

You awake where you began,
to find your testimony forgotten,
and every dreamed truth lost.

But take regard, young one,
do not disdain what you have beheld,
for you will be a witness
on a fogged and shining earth.

patterns of numbers

Today is a Thirteen, and I've been thinking about all the important Thirteens in my life.

13.11.08, three years ago today: spending the night in the gym while the Tea Fire burned through campus.
13.7.10
13.8.10
13.01.11 the first day of teaching quinto grado en Nuevo
13.06.11 the day I left Honduras
13.09.11

Strange you know, how days can carry so much weight.

on loving your women

and how going out for breakfast is my new favorite thing: confession (I've done it five times in the past eight weeks, even once with Kia at 6:30 before school). Come on.

sorry, but this book is just so good

''Thanks is what builds trust.

...Every time fear freezes and worry writhes, every time I surrender to stress, aren't I really just advertising the unreliability of God? That I really don't believe? I shake my head at the wonder of it: Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks.

Remembering frames up gratitude. Gratitude lays out the planks of trust. I can walk the planks, from known to unknown--and know: He holds.''

-A. Voskamp

Trust: the antithesis of stress / belief as everyday work; to gut-believe in the good touch of G-d towards me
*a discipline, a practice, a vocation: the work of trusting Love. Intentionally.

''The full life, the one spilling joy and peace, happens only as I come to trust the career of the Lover, Lover who enver burdens his children with shame or self-condemnation but keeps stroking the fears with gentle grace.

Trust in the wholeness of the gospel--including this moment, good news too--and be saved. Choose stress, worry, anxiety, reject what God has given now, which is good news too--refuse to trust--and be condemned.

Without trust in the good news of Jesus, with out trust in the good news of God's saving work even in this moment, without an active, moment-by-moment trust in the good news of an all-sovereign, all-good God, how can we claim to fully believe? This is the trust I lack, to know that if disaster strikes; he carries me even there.''

-A. Voskamp, A Thousand Gifts