(January 7, 2014)
Heal this disconnect, between my desire to believe and my really believing. It is not helpful to live so doubly, with a collection of firm truths set before you—you can see them, acknowledge them, desire them—but you’re unable to absorb them, assimilate them, live them through to the core of your being.
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(March 26, 2014)
You can’t compromise when it comes to love. You must hold out for the love that’s going to fill you up like you never imagined. You’d be missing so much if you decided to settle for something less than this.
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(March 28, 2014)
There’s at least one mouse in our house. I saw one in the basement, shrieked, and cautiously (“gingerly,” as Mom says) stepped around him, and darted up the steps. Later in the evening, as I was making ready to go to bed, I saw a mouse on the kitchen stairs. Maybe he was the same one; both times, the mouse was small. Mom was up in arms and filled with terror! She hovered over Dad until he got off the phone to help. He scooped up the little mouse—he laughed and said it was just a cute little baby mouse—into an old box of Ziploc bags. But the mouse was quick-footed and scampered out—and all chaos ensued. Mom was screeching and cowering in the armchair, Lucky got spooked by the shrieks and ran to hide in the corner, Dad was chasing the mouse, and Grandma was sitting in her electric scooter and laughing. Meanwhile, I was tiptoeing around in the dining room, half-curious and half-scared, trying to peer in at the ruckus. At some point, Lucky glimpsed the mouse and darted after him, but the mouse escaped into the dark recesses of the living room, not to be seen again for the night. Now I’m in the habit of seeing mice everywhere I turn—from the dust balls under my bed to the balled-up socks on the bathroom floor.
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(April 3, 2014)
After a while, you get tired of the nonsense, and you want something cleaner, clearer, that tastes a little more of sense and—that word—meaning.
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(April 4, 2014)
The rain is here again. My old friend, the rain. Sometimes I’m terribly sad and I don’t even know why. Like a mystery, the tears come, and flood, and go. Go out? Or recede back in, stuck in some little cavern of my body where they dwell in darkness? Who’s to say?
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(April 9, 2014)
There’s a cross on my desk, a gift from my aunt and uncle. Daisies (is that what they are?) and roses (or are they tulips?) grow from the base, and a butterfly lands on one arm of the cross. The cross has become one with the earth, and new life, simple life, grows out of a sign of death. If the cross only signified death, there would be no hope in Christianity. There must be the promise of new life—death conquered—or the suffering is useless, the meaning is lost.
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(April 9, 2014)
I have become freer with my opinions lately. I am not so petrified of having my own voice and sharing it, even if it happens to be a dissenting voice. I don’t want to become pushy or close-minded, but I don’t think it’s necessary to live in fear of those outcomes. A good rule of thumb seems to be: Don’t go around hollering out your opinion at every occasion, but if you’re asked for your thoughts, freely and graciously give them, without fear.
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(May 5, 2014)
We’re stopped at the edge of the street. Bus driver is waiting for man in wheelchair to find some shoes and put them on. We’ve been stopped for a few minutes now. People are starting to get impatient. One man burst out the back door, tired of waiting. The man is on the bus now; the bus driver is strapping him in. I feel bad, knowing that someone has to live daily with handicaps we know nothing of—the man seems to have cerebral palsy, or Down syndrome, or something else—and we’re so quick to get frustrated because he’s causing us some small “inconvenience.” How easily we get used to expecting certain comforts and lose sight of the big picture when we fail to get them.
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(October 11, 2014?)
A pie-pecked pilcher of a man
Stopped in for soup.
He laid his hat on his lap
And said, “How d’you do?”
His beard was black,
But his hair was gray
Like the sea in the evening mist.
How many women
Had that man kissed?
There’s no way to say,
But the grin he grinned made your knees go creak!
And your apron go limp as a fish.
—
(May 17, 2015)
When the rubber hits the road, we must always choose to be ourselves, and never a feeble imitation of someone else (unless we are acting out a game of impressions—but, even then, we must draw out the likenesses in our own way).
If, right now, you say that you hate yourself—ask why this is so. You must not see yourself in this light. Your identity is precious in the eyes of the One who made you, and without your particular combination of talents and gifts, the balance of the world would be thrown off. What can I do to show you this truth? If you want to know how you are seen in the eyes of the One who knows all Truth—tell yourself you are loved and made in the image of GOD, who is Beauty itself.
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(June 24, 2015)
If you are on the fence about telling someone you’re sorry, have the boldness to admit your error and ask forgiveness. You needn’t worry about looking foolish or weak—only the humble and true-hearted have the courage to make a sincere apology. If these words don’t apply to you, then keep them in mind for future times, when forgiveness may be required of you. And if the only thing you learn today is that to cause another sadness is a real offense—and to apologize, a real salve and the act of an unselfish heart—then I am content and send you off to attend to your duties in peace.