Jump and Jive

I went to ballroom dance club tonight and finally learned how to swing! I learned a double turn, the cuddle, and the hip bump. And you know what? It was so nice to just let loose and be ok with messing up and be ok with the awkward sweaty palmed guy holding my hands. I liked being led and learning not to lead with my own beat, but to follow. Swing is so much like faith. You have to completely trust God and his hand so that at the flick of a wrist you will be able to whirl about, smiling. But you're still responsible for the beat in your own heart.

Talking to Bevin and Amy has brought me so much joy these past few weeks. River City is a family to me. Caledon is encouraging and loving and silly. I am growing and HEALING and GOD IS SO GOOD!

So I guess that's all I really have to say. I'm keeping a fine tuned schedule. I go to see Bevin on Mondays. I work out at the gym Tuesdays and Thursdays. I dance on Tuesday evenings. and I worship with a congregation of Christ loving followers on Sunday mornings.

Tonight I started reading Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot on loan from Katie Beth. I'd recommend it to anyone. Tomorrow I even have a lunch date with the DC of my brother hall, to share testimony and fellowship and talk about what it means to fill the role of DC.

 Praise the lord, I am free at last. :)

The Shnausberries SMELL like Shnausberries

Or at least that is what keep crossing my mind as I walk around the pentagon shape of our hall (yes I finally counted) with my nose pressed to the pages of old books and the squishy aromatic tea bags dangling from clothes pins. I truly love this hall, these women, and in particular the Bigelow Vanilla Chai tea that hangs right outside my door. I breathe it in before I enter my dorm in between classes. My room wavers in its scent. Sometimes it smells like the linen oil diffuser by my window, or the Starbuck's coffee Ashley brews in the morning. Still others it is the mingling scents of our perfumes, the sea salt spray she curls her hair with or the apple detangler I have loved since I was a girl. This week a new scent has entered with Will's roses sitting beautifully on Ashley's desk. Popcorn and Nutella often send tendrils of scent our way from the commons. My senses are alive here on Caledon.
It's amazing how ablaze my spirit has become too. Day of Prayer was spectacular. Sitting in Lyss' room and praying is beautiful. Swinging to In The Mood and wearing dresses on dreary days. I've been cheering for my brothers at football games and attending a regular church. I'm discovering who I am again. and I like it.

In a bit I am going to the gym with Hannah and Patty G in our first attempt (outside of Caledon dance parties) to take pride in our health and wellness and work out. I miss the feeling of working hard and the adrenaline that races through your sore muscles afterwards.

Today Dr. Tate used Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost as the poem we were analyzing in English Comp. and I can just remember the breathy voice of Johnny in The Outsiders as he said, "Stay gold, Ponyboy."

So Genevieve Schatz is super awesome and pretty.
If you don't already listen to Company of Thieves, well then you should because you've been living under a rock.

Kilter 2011

Kilter was this weekend. And though it didn't go how I pictured months ago, it was still one of the best nights of Freshman year so far. Erik and I covered our costumes in real cherry pie filling, ate some Sticky Fingers BBQ, and danced (or rather shuffled) the night away. Who knew dubstep would so quickly become one of my favorite pastimes? It was super awesome, and great to let loose with really cool friends. Dani, Erik, Aaron, Gordon, and I went to Waffle House afterwards and that was interesting. It was a good night, despite not being what I had anticipated. We pet some goats at the zoo and laughed at the incredibly creative costumes of our classmates. Covenant really knows how to throw THE BEST dance parties. For real. Anyway, here's a photo of Erik and I's get-ups:

Anyway, I guess I should get back to studying for my test tomorrow. yay Early American history! Probably making a study run to the Yellow Deli later. mmmm yummy cult food. ;) Chattanooga truly is a magnificent city. 

I've been here a month.
While I feel like I've made some really awesome friends and learned a lot, somehow it's still surreal and a little bit painful. I miss my mommy and John and my puppy. And I hardly see my brother. I don't want to be boy crazy and I am. I want to be liked and I'm scared I'm not. Classes have become mundane and I just don't care.
I'm tired of being sick.

I love Founders.

Really, Covenant's whole community caught my attention. But staying on Jungle in January during scholarship weekend solidified my desire to not only come to Covenant, but live in Founders Residence Hall. Where else on campus can you hear bagpipes, guitars, and saxes all harmonizing from different stairwells? Where else is it not only acceptable but celebrated to have a toilet as your hall relic? What about eating pancakes, sushi (made by boys across the hall in the lobby), and yummy garlic and tomato pasta all at once for a family reunion dinner? What other hall besides Catacombs would have a tattoo party where multiple boys let a tattoo artist ink their hall symbol onto their bodies? What about piercing parties where your RA skillfully pierces the cartilages of willing women? The doors are always open. It either smells like coffee, cinnamon, or coffee in the girls' halls. You really need a treasure map to find your way around....unless you live here and constantly have to direct people to the exits. Our halls take on earth tones and we all listen to Jonsi or Raenbow Station. Indian missionaries come at midnight to give testimonies (Benny Prasad). Whenever you take the elevator, you simultaneously pray and fear that there is a couch in it with Catacombian men reading the newspaper and eating milks and cookies. Needless to say, Founders is more than a home away from home, it's a lifelong love. Caledon <3

I am being so irresponsible.
I have a paper to write on King Henry IV Part 1 but instead I am writing this blog in the laundry room in Founders.
It's been a really hard day. And I need to remember that my works I've been attempting to use are not going to heal this broken heart. But God CAN and WILL.
I drove to Taco Bell at 11pm in the pouring rain. It only stressed me out more. I can't help but feel like I just lost my best friend (because I did) and the only person I've ever been in love with (because I did) and that even my attempts to lose this feeling through non-contact will have me reading his blog EVERYDAY (because I will).
I hate myself.
I'm sorry for changing.

Then he caught hold of me

Today was AMAZING.
Lord you are MERCIFUL!!!!

I got the greatest red beret at Goodwill today. Had a pretty splendid car ride all over Chattanooga this afternoon.
But, by far the best part of this Saturday was the hike I took with my sisters.
Words cannot describe.



James 3:17-18 says "But the wisdom that comes from is first of all pure; the peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."

C.S. Lewis' The voyage of the Dawn Treader reads:
"The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I dont know if he said any words out loud or not.

I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I jsut stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

The the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was do deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.

After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me - (with his paws?) - Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. and then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

The necesity of arrival

Here on this mountain, I've not only regained the desire to write more. But I've acquired a need. An endless pulsing in my heart to get things out. So here you go, I came back.

Let's start with something easy...Day 26 – A photo of somewhere you want to go. OCEAN SHORES, WA
My soul is aching for the Pacific.

Being here at Covenant I am learning a lot. It's going to take time to heal this broken heart, but I am resting in God's love and grace. His arms encompass all my fears and HE is STRONG. ALMIGHTY.
I've got a lot to think about and a lot a lot a LOT to say. But for right now, savor this. Say it out loud. Feel the juicy squelch of the words in your mouth, between your teeth, on your tongue.

Blackberry Eating
Galway Kinnell

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths and squinched,
many-lettered, on-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry-eating in late September.

P.S. Katie: no matter what you think, ladybug: God showed me my own strength to start again through your love and your spirit. Keep the hugs coming

Trust

I told him about that time when I was 8 and walked into the Washington living room. He didn't run away. He told me I would be ok. He told me he would never run away or leave me. I know I'm gonna be in love with this boy for a long time.