well, it’s been a minute, aint it? i want to further move my brother’s latest post at themattitude.wordpress.com into a blog of agreement, and addition. i 100% agree that being little panty pew pushers gets old. i don’t go to church anymore. as weird as it is for me, it’s also nice and relieving. that is, i never went to a church i felt like i belonged to. i guess because i never sang or had much interesting to say. i don’t know. i never got to know the old people or shook hands with anybody when i went. i felt kind of dirty. it’s probably only my opinion of myself that did that to me and not anyone else, but i just never felt clean enough. if i did something silly in my youth, it was talked about behind my back, without a chance for me to defend myself. when i was depressed, some friends abandoned me in the lost world i was in, and quit hanging out with me. friends from church. and for a while i let that establish a firm place in my mind that church people and i just don’t mesh. i felt a sense of rebellion, of treason, in myself against that church. i felt like i could be driving around and parking at rivers while church was going on and learning more of God and truth on my own time. i didn’t feel judged that way, or compelled to appear attractive and happy. so that’s what i did. i drove around and parked at little old white churches to pet horses and read my bible and write. i got in a lot of trouble for doing this weekly, during the service, but i didn’t care much.
i have a lot of great friends i met inside of church–a lot of people who’ve impacted me solidly and shown me how good church can be, even if the people are few and far between. but most of my friends i met in other ways. in secular, god forbid i use that word ever again, atmospheres. they taught me about God and what it means to be a real human being. they showed me that even in my trials they won’t talk about me or judge me. they brought church to me. my friends and i have these elaborate conversations of God and who he appears to be, and what it means to follow him, and how we can do it better. we embolden each other’s faith by multitudes, because we are accepting and understanding of one another’s shortcomings. none of us claim to have this mighty faith and none of us use faith as a vessel to this sense of empowerment or security. we don’t feel safe. we’re terrified of our pride and lack of love for one another and find ourselves treading seemingly dangerous waters this way. but maybe we are safe. maybe we’ve managed to find real church, and even God this way, in an atmosphere opposite to the cordialities we all grew up with. maybe us sitting around playing guitar means more than singing some lines to a song we all deem cheesy and ineffective. i don’t feel ashamed that i’m not in church anymore. i don’t care. if one that gives me that freeing sense of being loved and understood as i am rolls around, i’ll gladly join and take part in everything that goes on. if i feel as if i’m being singed by truth, painful or not, then i will be in the pew every time the doors are open. until then, i’m satisfied with the people around me representing what it means to be a broken, shameful, dirty follower of Jesus.
“Forget every idea of right and wrong any classroom ever taught you..
Because an empty heart, a tormented mind, Unkindness, jealousy and fear are always the testimony.. You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those who would imprison your wondrous spirit with deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company of the King’s beggars – Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns and those astonishing fair courtesans who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous who have no choice but to bet their entire world That indeed, Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle Of the Beloved’s cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues –
The ones you can trust for true guidance –
Who can aid you In this Blessed Calamity of life.
O dear one-
Look at the Perfect One At the Circle’s Center: He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass…
Beyond all that is Rational, To show this dear world That Everything, Everything in Existence Does point to God.”
for everyone who saw the “gay fish” episode of south park about kanye west and haven’t seen his response, i’m posting it here.
“SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT’S PRETTY FUNNY. IT HURTS MY FEELINGS BUT WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOUTH PARK! I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MY EGO THOUGH. HAVING THE CRAZY EGO IS PLAYED OUT AT THIS POINT IN MY LIFE AND CAREER. I USE TO USE IT TO BUILD UP MY ESTEEM WHEN NOBODY BELIEVED IN ME. NOW THAT PEOPLE DO BELIEVE AND SUPPORT MY MUSIC AND PRODUCTS THE BEST RESPONSE IS THANK YOU INSTEAD OF “I TOLD YOU SO!!!” IT’S COOL TO TALK SHIT WHEN YOU’RE RAPPING BUT NOT IN REAL LIFE. WHEN YOU MEET LITTLE WAYNE IN PERSON HE’S THE NICEST GUY FOR EXAMPLE. I JUST WANNA BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM. I NEED TO JUST GET PAST MYSELF. DROP THE BRAVADO AND JUST MAKE DOPE PRODUCT. EVERYTHING IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. AS LONG AS PEOPLE THINK I ACT LIKE A BITCH THIS TYPE OF SHIT WILL HAPPEN TO ME. I GOT A LONG ROAD AHEAD OF ME TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE I’M NOT ACTUALLY A HUGE DOUCHE BUT I’M UP FOR THE CHALLENGE. I’M SURE THE WRITERS AT SOUTH PARK ARE REALLY NICE PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE. THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO DRAW MY CREW. THAT WAS PRETTY FUNNY ALSO!! I’M SURE THERE’S GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN THIS… THAT’S HOW YOU KNOW IT’S ME!”
and then, on his blog, he had a clip of the south park episode where he is underwater being a gay fish, but won’t work now due to copyright claims or something of the sort. anyway, yeehaw.
moved
August 7, 2009
welp mathius told me to keep a blog about living here or something, i guess as an indirect way to keep in touch [halo is the most direct way] so i took some pictures of our finished home. the night after we moved in, we went midnight grocery shopping. it took us an hour and a half. i thoroughly enjoyed it.
this is the end result of our 200 dollar shopping spree.
this is my room.
mine and amanda’s bathroom.
amanda’s room.
the kitchen
living room
jake’s room.
so that’s that.
“rain usually makes me feel mellow: curl up in a corner time, slow down, smell the furniture. today… it just makes me feel wet. what is it about owning things? why do we feel the need to own what we love, and why do we become such jerks when we do? we’ve all been there, you know: we want something; we own it; and by owning it we change it. when you finally win that girl of your dreams, the first thing you do is try to change her. that little thing she does with her hair, the way she wears her clothes, the way she chews her gum. until eventually, what you like, what you don’t like and what you change all merges into one. like a watercolor in the rain.”
backwoods, a lil bit more…
June 17, 2009
jack mitchell first saw sue-ellen at a local bar. she was different than the women he was used to charming. she had a stern eye, kind of, like she’d been through some emotional war and had to fight her way out to keep from sinking into it. by “it,” i guess i mean despair. she was never a suicidal woman, but the hard times she faced kept her close to death, in a sense. she probably knew more about death than most people, having been at the very surface of it, nearly as close as you can get without actually being there. she had a sense of doom about her for a long time, but she disguised it well. she wasn’t trying to get sympathy from anyone, so she spoke outgoing and kind to whoever happened to pass her way. the only thing that gave off her immediate desperation was the look on her face. when she smiled, you could still see it. her brown eyes were locked at an angle unfit for an easy life. she looked hard at whatever she was looking at, as if the object could show her it was more than what it appeared to be. jack mitchell thought she was the epitome of beauty. a rare gift in an unbelievably true form. he thought in her eyes carried the same weight the savior of the world’s eyes would have. he thought her slender figure and her collar bones could probably change his life. that was what he wanted, afterall.
sue-ellen stood around five foot six, with a thin, feminine physique that she wore well. she wasn’t especially sexual-looking. she was the kind of woman you wanted to take care of, to protect. he knew if he went to say hi, he would probably tower over her, and he wasn’t drunk enough to think about what he would say. she sat in a corner with a friend for a while, not speaking to anybody. she didn’t really know much of anyone there, but she was okay with that. in fact, she probably preferred it. she just sat sipping on something and gazing around, probably seeing something more beautiful than what you or i could in that dimly lit room.
people were dancing all in front of jack mitchell’s line of sight. he hated that more than he’d ever hated anything. he felt they were keeping him from her, and none of them had a clue. they were just dancing around, having drinks, singing songs. there was a country band playing, some local band that always got a lot of drinks as gratitude.
my father is a hard man. i don’t remember many times where he’s been genuinely happy. it seems his only interest in the world is cars. he would always, no matter where we lived, come home from work, eat dinner, and then go promptly out to the garage or shop to work on a car and drink a whole lotta liquor. he wouldn’t speak to any of us unless he was telling us our work ethic needed to improve, or something along the lines of “you are not yet what you need to be.”
he owned a car dealership for most of my life. it caused him great pain when things weren’t selling well and he would take it out on all of us. his mercies were limited, if even existent, and he remained silent when he knew he’d not done right by us.
once he found me crying in the kitchen. i was sitting in the dark at the table, with just a bit of light on my skin from a lamp in the living room. my father walked in holding a glass of bourbon and coke and sat down in front of me.
“what’s wrong with you?”
“i’m alright.”
“stephanie, you are beautiful.”
“daddy, i–”
“that’s all.” and he walked away, his boots so loud on the floor that it sounded as though there was nothing covering the woodwork. it was the only time i’ve felt comforted by my father, except from probably infancy.
when i was too young to have felt this way, though i don’t know that there is an ideal age, i could so verily feel pain that i didn’t know if i would make it all my life that way. if a disabled or upset person would walk into the room, i had to leave. i didn’t do it because i didn’t care, it was mostly because i cared too much. i knew that something was not right in the world, that these people who would give me candy and let me sit on their laps did not deserve what they’d been subjected to. i believe my father was also this way at some point, and life wore on him, for whatever reason. he learned early on that sometimes believing in hope proves fruitless.
i’m seeing this more and more in myself. today i sat beside amanda while we were making some silly video. she looked so young and pleasant, laughing and all. i sat beside her, just as humored, but i noticed i have a hard face these days. i look like i could cry at any moment. i look weathered. stern. not curious or bright. i don’t mind. i don’t feel the same way. i think i’ve learned a bit of life lately. of life and myself. the beauty in my face and in my soul, is dying, the youthful wonder and the lively eyes, and i’m glad for it to die. i’ll let it rest.
that doesn’t mean that i can’t have a good story or a falling star absolutely bring me to tears every time, it’s just that beauty speaks new words to me. it means that i’m no longer dancing in the moonlight and now i’m lying on my back, watching the world resolve itself, and smiling on my own. like the “in love” feeling that once was has turned into patience and understanding. i still love life, just differently than i did before. as though the dawn is fading forever. and i see people just like me everywhere, and i feel that i understand them. i can smile and keep walking without a word, cause i know all about those who make the decision to walk through the desert and find the oasis–sometimes you get hammered into the dusty ground and all you can do is lay there and try to enjoy the rain when it comes. and sometimes you die out there. but sometimes you find it. it may be nothing like what you expected. in fact, it probably won’t be, but it’s there. there is peace to be had. and, though i’ve only had small glimpses of it in the past, and though i feel as if i’ve been lying in the rain for years, i know it’s out there somewhere. i know it is. and i will rest there with my father, with my mother, with my brother, with jake, with amanda, with you, with the fallen and the victors, if only in my mind, the world will slumber, the dawn will fade, the horn will sound, and our eroded faces will watch it all. we’ll understand, i believe.
tolkien, you saint
June 9, 2009
lord of the rings,
you are the greatest.
sincerely,
steph
let's fighting love 