Grandma's breakfast

1 banana
1/2 avacado
1 egg
vitamin pills
medicine pills

throw it all in a blender

she can't eat solids anymore, so everything is thrown in a blender--meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, medicine, etc.--and spoon fed to her. she is ninety years old. but she can still walk, can still open her eyes, can still sing some songs, and when she's up to it, can name all her brothers and sisters and kids' names. her eyes are closed most of the time, yes when she's sleeping, but also when she's eating. it's like her eyes are too weary to be opened all the time. i like to imagine that behind those closed lids though, are memories, memories that she plays over and over in her mind and heart, even if they now go unheard.

you were made for someone, not everyone.
so be careful not to make everyone into your someone.
and not to make someone your everyone either.

i read this on someone else's blog. i think it was said for sappy, soul mate type purposes but i also saw it as a response to the things we idolize in our lives. we're so quick to give ourselves away, and to what, to whom? is it/are they worthy? if it's not God, reevaluate. is it more important than the Creator of the universe, the one who calls us by name?

yes, we were made for someone. and that Someone is Christ.

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?
Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men,
I would not be a servant of Christ.

-Galatians 1:10

__________________________
edit

i'm a daughter, a friend, a sister, a cousin. i haven't been doing my part in these relationships. i've been so lacking and never really realized the full...i guess seriousness of that. i know we can never fill these roles perfectly, but isn't it up to each of us to try?

life?

what does it mean Lord, to truly live?


because i got a feeling that this ain't it.

__________________________________________________________

originally i had the post at just that, but i thought that maybe i shouldn't resort to dramatic antics and instead try to sort, to shift through my feelings to maybe get to the heart of it. loneliness is something that's been with me for a while. the first time was really in middle school, in the first few weeks of 8th grade, when i just felt this emptiness well up in me and spill over. i had a good group of friends, i was doing what i usually did, but i'd go home every day crying, and i didn't understand why or how. i came to understand later that even though i was surrounded by people, i felt so alone. after another few weeks it went away, but there would be more of these moments in the future.

freshman year. a new state, a new school, a new me? i felt so out of it, and out of practice for making friends. after about a year and a half i finally felt like i had found a place at high school.

and now, now i feel it creeping up on me again. loneliness is not my friend. but i feel like it's something i've grown used to over the years, and it is no stranger. i think though, a lot of the times it's me. i take myself too seriously, and sometimes my flaws become so magnified in my head and heart that God's grace and love is squeezed out a bit. too much selfishness going on here. self pity is selfishness, and a kind of boasting too, because it's saying look at me, i'm so pitiful. pity me, feel sorry for me, and i loathe to be in that trap. i was listening to cj mahaney's sermon yesterday on troubled souls and it really struck a chord. every one has this internal conversation going on in their heads. it never ceases, even though we may be unconscious of it. and...is it a wonder we get so troubled? this internal conversation is what we hear most in our lives, and we listen to it. we're so busy listening to ourselves that we don't talk to ourselves enough. a troubled soul will tell you that you're not good enough, that God isn't powerful enough, that hope is not really there, that your friend? not really your friend. but if we talk to yourself, if we spoke truth, the Gospel into our lives, our souls would be a heckuva lot less troubled. mahaney pointed out something else that i've felt a lot too but could never really explain it. when we're praising God through song, a lot of the times it all becomes so clear in our heads. i know that after i worship, my heart is a lot less troubled, and more than once i've gone to that person that i was upset with, given them a big hug and told them that all is forgiven. why? it's because when we worship through Biblical songs, we're speaking truth into our lives as well as worshiping the Lord. praise God for that.

i know i've been rambling on and on. but the point is this...we're all going to go through loneliness, we're all going to have troubled souls at some point. but we can have the assurance that even the greatest theologians like John Edwards and Jesus' disciples had troubled souls and felt like God was far from them too. it doesn't mean that Christ doesn't love us, it doesn't mean that we have been abandoned. because He hasn't. maybe he is just pruning us, like the gardener prunes his vines. when we grow back, we'll be sweeter and be able to glorify God better, even though the pruning process can be excruciatingly painful.

so my heart is still sad, i still feel troubled and burdened and i still don't really know what to do except pray about it. but praise God anyways, for He is good.

wasting time

is so easy. i've done nothing for the past few days...reading books, listening to music, reading random people's blogs, and when i run out of things to do, i sleep. i'm trying so hard to not do my work. everyone else is studying they're butts off for finals (i think), but here i am. and i can't concentrate. it's like there's this nervous tick in my head, this restlessness, and i don't have the heart to sit and concentrate. so instead i enter into someone else's life for a day, or two. or three. through a book, or two. or three.

sigh.

you wrote a letter and you signed your name

I read every word of it page by page
You said that You'd be coming,
coming for me soon
oh my God I'll be ready for You

I want to run on greener pastures
I want to dance on higher hills
I want to drink from sweeter waters
in the misty morning chill
and my soul is getting restless
for the place where I belong
I can't wait to join the angels
and sing my heaven song

-phil wickham

i can't wait for this beautiful place where we can worship God forever.

why do you like or love someone?

i've thought about this question a good number of times. if someone were to ask this question, the answer to why you love someone should sound really special right? traits that no one else has that makes this person really different. but the answer i always answer sound so generic, so nondescript and unworthy of the person. i know they're special and i know i like them, but why? but maybe that's just it. maybe we aren't supposed to put a why behind it, to try to explain it. perhaps there's no real rhyme or reason to it. maybe it's unexplainable.

God made us, and loves us. God made us because he loves us, and that full expression of his love is made complete when we turn around and worship and glorify Him. because since we were made to love him, then loving him should give us the greatest joy and pleasure. but WHY does God love us? we're so...wretched sometimes. and we are born into this world in sin, hating Him. yet he loves, loves us. it's unexplainable.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:9-10

It's falling from the clouds
A strange and lovely sound
I hear it in the thunder and rain
It's ringing in the skies
Like cannons in the night
The music of the universe plays

You are holy great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I'm so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are

Beautiful and free
Song of Galaxies
It's reaching far beyond the milky way
Lets join in with the sound
C'mon let's sing it loud
As the music of the universe plays

All glory, honor, power is Yours amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours forever amen

anne spelled with an e

i've been feeling in a very bookish mood lately (my roommate sharon can vouch for me) and went to the local library to check out a whole bunch of books, just for fun. last night i stayed up until 4:30 reading Graceling, which was really quite a wonderful book, full of adventure, with that ability of a good book to suck you in and feel the characters' pain and joy. i'm 19 but i still love reading YA books...i hope that doesn't make my taste of reading sophomoric. there are some really good YA books out there! the author of the book Graceling, kristin cashore, has a blog (click here) with just life observations, funny videos and polls, and tips on how to write. i love reading blogs, they're so interesting. it's weird because for people's blogs that i read on a consistent basis, i feel like i know them, yet they don't know me. kind of creepy huh. haha oh well, blogs are put up for people to read aren't they?

on kristin cashore's blog i stumbled across a post where the opening lines were, "The other night, feeling overwhelmed by life, I crawled into bed early with Anne of Green Gables and a beer. And let me tell you, what I had there was a winning combination."

and minus the beer, i know exactly what she means. anne of green gables is my childhood book, and every time i open up, a wave of nostalgia hits me. what a great book. it reads like poetry, and the characters! they move with a quiet subtlety yet charm vibrancy which makes them so real, so human. so in light of reading so much about writing on her blog, it put the idea into my head to write a book. probably short. but a book. huh. what an interesting proposition.

i have a praise! yesterday at the last intervarsity meeting of this semester, i really fell into worship. i don't think i've had a really worshipful heart towards God for a while it feels. i just...felt this incredible need and longing for God. maybe it's because recently i've been thinking about how so many things just aren't...right. you know? like a broken piece of pottery. you see all the pieces, and you know that it would all look so beautiful if it just fit, but when you try to put them together the pieces don't line up and it's just off. and it makes me long for the way God initially made this world: perfect. but it also made me appreciate more that even though, even though our world is so broken, God restores and protects and loves.

there was an old lady who swallowed a...pie?

yesterday i went running with my neighbor sammy to the library, and while i was waiting for him to finish playing his computer games, i saw a book on the shelf called "there was an old lady who swallowed a pie." i did a double take because dude, it's supposed to be "there was an old lady who swallowed a FLY," not a pie. i still remember in first grade when the teacher taught it to us, and we all carried around a picture of a different animal and chanted "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly, i don't know why she swallowed a fly, perhaps she'll die!" and when you think about it it's kind of depressing, but at least you know it's kind of fictional because who swallows a cow and pig and other animals whole right? right, not possible. ANYWAYS, i was reading this book about this lady who swallows pie and perhaps dies, and it's about thanksgiving. and first she swallows a pie, then a turkey, then a pot or something, then a cake, etc. and as she eats she gets fatter and fatter and fatter until she's this big chunky nasty blob. i must mention that the first thing to get super duper big is like, the upper area of her body ahem, and it just looked really disturbing. and like, i wouldn't have minded the offensive change from fly to pie as much if she had eaten weird things, but some of these things were legit things you eat during thanksgiving. like bread or turkey. and at the end of each page it said, "perhaps she'll die." now how is that for disturbing? kids will read the book and refuse to eat thanksgiving dinner because first off, they don't want to die, even if the books says perhaps. because perhaps means there's a chance no? and they don't want to be like this monstrous old lady, rolling around on the ground, bigger than an elephant. yah no joke. so anyways, there's my rant. i'm done with this old lady.

today is thanksgiving. for some reason, i'm not feeling very thankful. i don't know, my head and heart are feeling kind of muddled, like someone dipped a spoon in and mixed everything up. i don't know if that even makes sense. it's just a feeling of restlessness, like something is going to happen (good or bad i don't know) and i'm anticipating it. but at the same time i'm not sure what i should be feeling. oh Lord, what does it all mean? i can't quite make sense of it.

a prayer that i read (first from tim shin's blog then someone else's) that comes from valley of vision: a book of puritan prayers. it's beautiful and is such an encouragement. feels like cool water to a thirsty soul.


Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,
Where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights;
Hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
That the way down is the way up,
That to be low is to be high,
That the broken heart is the healed heart,
That the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
That the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
That to having nothing is to possess all,
That to bear the cross is to wear the crown
That to give is to receive,
That the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
And the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;

Let me find thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
Thy joy in my sorrow,
Thy grace in my sin,
Thy riches in my poverty,
Thy glory in my valley.













i long to be in this valley.

why you runnin?

today i went for a run after a week of not running (boo) and i wore my new pair of nike spandex that i got for cheap from marshalls. the latter has nothing to do with my point but i just thought i'd add it because i got them for $15 which isn't shabby at all.

so i was doing my thing, sweating buckets, when i passed this 7 or 8 year old kid holding a lacrosse stick and violently hitting it against a tree. as i ran by he yelled angrily, "why yoo runnin?!" why am I running? why are you hitting a lacrosse stick against a tree, you little punk kid?, I wanted to ask. i guess he's not old enough to know that running is indeed a sport (if you want to argue with me on that we gotta take this outside). but this kid's question made me think a little. why you runnin? why do i run? in high school i ran for the competition, but now the competition with others is gone. it's just me. am i running to hold on to that last bit of running glory days or because i'm nostalgic for it? because i don't want the pudge to pile on and see my fear of looking like a triple chinned hippopotemus come true? because i've always thought athletes were cool? or because i truly enjoy it for the pounding rhythm of the pavement, marvel at the capability of the human body, enjoy the wind and the crunch of leaves and the colors and snow and rain and the humidity as the seasons come and go? maybe it's a mix of everything.

what do i run away from in life? i run away from people's anger, their criticism. i hate being wrong and letting someone down. this became really apparent to me today in rigby's class when he asked me a question i was supposed to know the answer to, and he said, "i can't believe you didn't know that. what have you been doing in class?" and then he asked another question i didn't know the answer to, and he said, "you just keep getting lower and lower i can barely see your head." and he didn't say it in a nice considerate way...i could see his opinion of me sinking by the seconds, and it crushed me inside. and as much as i didn't want them to, tears started forming and brimming in my eyes. and he kept asking me questions for the remaining two hours of the class, and each time i wanted to cry again. i think he noticed too. they were tears of frustration. i hate being frustrated. as i walked out of class i was kicking myself. tiffany by tougher. tiffany get some thicker skin.

why do i care what rigby thinks? because i fear and respect him. i care so much about rigby's opinion of me to the point where when i do something wrong i start bawling. but what of God's opinion and approval? doesn't His count infinitely, eternally more? i wish i seeked his approval more than anyone elses. my prayer is that as more and more of God's nature is revealed to me by His grace, awesome fear would be produced.

as for the whole color theory crying incident, these verses really encouraged me to be strong despite my weakness. i am weak but God is strong, and if He is for me who can be against me?

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
- 2 Timothy 1:7

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
- John 14:27

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
- Galatians 1:10















Fall has arrived. say hello =]

-tiffany

untitled because i can't think of a good title

i looked through my last couple post and i've realized i'm pretty doom and gloom. haha i don't mean to be, honestly, but maybe i tend towards the pessimism more than the optimism, though on the outside i seem like a pretty cheerful person. it's encouraging to know that even when i'm grouchy, when i'm jealous, when i'm spiteful...God is still working in me and in the lives around me. it doesn't matter what circumstance i'm in or how good or bad i'm feeling...God is, and i love that.

brandon heath's song "give me your eyes" has been replaying in my head over and over again so maybe writing about it will help it stop. but then again..maybe it's good that it's constantly in my head because it serves as a reminder.

Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide what's underneath
There's a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
Too ashamed to tell his wife
He's out of work
He's buying time
All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Chorus
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
Yeah
Yeah

I've Been there a million times
A couple of million eyes
Just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong
Well I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way you see the people all along

this song is such a reminder that we can see so many people throughout the day, but not really SEE them. not really look to see that they're hurting. and if you can't see that someone is hurting, you can't even begin to meet their need. and how often have we pretended that everything is okay when it's really not? how many people have we fooled? sometimes it's so hard to be vulnerable and raw and real.

on my xanga xanga.com/momentzzz a long time ago i once blogged about how it made me feel so sad to see some people in the hallways looking down at the ground while walking, not meeting the eyes of people, as if they were ashamed. afraid to look into another person's face and see themselves through that person's eyes and not like what they see. looking back i realize i wrote that post with the attitude that i was not one of these people. but the truth was, i was, i have been..and sometimes i will be. because the fear of man still grips me and i'm afraid of what people will think and don't really want to know. because a lot of the times i don't like what i see in myself. because though i'm being regenerated, i still trip up. and i still gotta admit to God that i was wrong. and during those times it's so hard to face God and confess. i think it's pride or just...shame. it's like telling your parents that you did something that disappointed them. it's so hard. but the Bible says "he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6)" i'm so glad it's not up to me, because if it were...i'd be a goner.

for (maybe) the last time

My grandma is dying.
We are all dying, but she is nearing the end. She sleeps all day and eats very little, and when she is not awake, can barely muster up the energy to open her eyes. They are shut, no longer taking the world in, and the world can only nudge her to keep living, but no more. You see, the world cannot open her eyelids, make her laugh, put the spark of recognition in her eyes. Only God can. and now her eyes are dull, her shoulders droop, her head peaking out of a weary body that no longer recognizes itself. i remember two visits ago. i hadn't seen her in one or two years, and she could no longer recognize my face or say my name. i think she knew that i was family..knew that she had loved me, still did, if only she could remember why or how. she didn't remember anyone's name anymore, accept for instances of clarity where her eyes lit up and she said your name, making you laugh in relief and joy and gratitude at the sound of those syllables. but after that visit we knew not to ask any more. she simply...didn't know. we were at a family friends' house eating dinner and my aunt asked her who i was. she paused and looked blankly up, and said the only name she could remember, Eileen, her most beloved granddaughter and my favorite cousin. but eileen was not tiffany, and the tears welled up in my eyes and i couldn't stay in the room. Ecclesiastes is pressing on my heart right now.

Ecclesiastes 12

"Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
"I find no pleasure in them"-

before the sun and the light
and the moon and the stars grow dark,
and the clouds return after the rain;

when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
and those looking through the windows grow dim;

when the doors to the street are closed
and the sound of grinding fades;
when men rise up at the sound of birds,
but all their songs grow faint;

when men are afraid of heights
and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags himself along
and desire no longer is stirred.
Then man goes to his eternal home
and mourners go about the streets.

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it."

This passage is telling us in our youth to remember God our creator before we grow too old to remember or be able to acknowledge Him. "Before the sun and the light and the moon and stars are not darkened" is before we lose our sight. before "the keeper of the house trembles" and we lose our teeth. before the "sound of grinding is low" and we can no longer chew our food. before "men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint" and our hearing fades. before "the almond tree blossoms" with it's white flowers, and our hair turns white as age creeps up behind us. before all this comes to pass, remember Christ.

i'm going to go visit my grandma before or after Urbana through a connecting flight. my parents told me to prepare for it to be the last because she's going. my beautiful grandmother. i'm so thankful though that she accepted Christ as an adult and followed Him. so thankful that before she lost consciousness of time and thoughts and faces, God knew her and she Him. and even though i'm sad that her time to leave this earth is drawing close, i know that she will enter into something more beautiful and perfect than we could ever imagine. Christ is now as we speak preparing a home for her in heaven. soon she will be able to live again.

mistakes

how many mistakes do we make in life? unfortunately, many. today i made a mistake, not a big one, but still a mistake.

i sold a book through half.com and the girl asked for expedited mail, so when i went to the post office i said "expedited mail please" and the lady said that would be $17.50 (wtheck!) because expedited mail means that the person receives it the day after you send it. ...but i figured this was what the girl wanted because she was in a huge hurry to get the book, and i figured half.com would reimburse me anyways. wrong. half.com's definition of expedited mail is sending it out 1-3 days earlier than normal, so you'd have to pay like, an extra two bucks to do that. USPS' definition is ship it out as fast as humanly possible so that the person gets it the next day. so i paid an extra $12 bucks, and when i figured out my mistake an hour later, it was too late. a waste of twelve dollars...i felt like i had lost something even though twelve bucks isn't a ton of money. still, i was thinking of all that i could have done with that extra twelve dollars. MY 12 dollars. i could have bought 9 pints of halo ice cream, gotten a nice on sale shirt from gap, saved it up, and the list goes on. and all this was going through my head because i felt like it was my money. All mine. And i had a right to do whatever i wanted with it. but as i was driving back (i seem to do a lot of thinking in the car), i realized it's not my money. it's God's. He's the one that provided it. so i apologized to God for wasting his money and tried my hardest not to feel resentful that i had spent an unneeded twelve dollars.

hey and who knows? maybe like me, this girl's classes start tuesday and she HAS to have the book by then. and if she gets it monday she will be so so thankful and amazed that it came so on time. and maybe this would save her a lecture from her parents asking why yet again, her books came in late. and maybe her teacher is super strict and checks to see that everyone has their books on the first day. and after the first day, there's already a reading assignment, and thank goodness she has her book which was sent on saturday and came on monday. maybe i will make this girl very happy. or maybe she won't give it a second thought. so many maybe's...so few definitely's.

i hate losing money, but i think i have to let it go more. i think it's time to tithe tomorrow. i keep forgetting, but maybe this incident will serve as a more permanent reminder.

classes start tuesday!

today i gave everyone the stink eye

so today i went into new york with my dad and i felt like i was giving everyone i met the stink eye. i couldn't think of a better term so i drew on juno where i remember them mentioning a girl in there with a funny looking face that makes it look like she's always giving the stink eye.

SO, what does a stink eye mean?
well since i couldn't find a definition in the normal dictionary, this is what i found on urban dictionary:

	stink eye
	a surfer term meaning a glare or lingering dirty look ie: when that dude stole my wave I gave him total stink eye

and what does it look like? something like this:












that's pretty much the way my face looked this morning when i woke up. a misquito bit me right under the eye and my whole eye swelled up, making my eye smaller then it already was, red, and puffy. i won't put a picture up..it's not very attractive.

but other than that, NY was fun! haha. there was this really interesing exhibit called "waste not" that showcases an old chinese woman's belongings that she collected over a lifetime. She never threw anything away because growing up poor in China, she always saved everything in case there was ever a need for it. So she never threw away bottles, tooth paste containers, floss containers, shoes, watches, hats, string, plastic bags..well you get the point.

what a world

included some pictures from my trip to d.c. haven't really been any where this summer so my wonderful cousin Eileen and i drove down this weekend. i don't have enough motivation to plan these trips myself so thank goodness for her. i wish i could take this initiative but...well i guess i'll just have to try harder haha.

d.c. was amazing. i've forgotten how fun it is to travel and see the sights and go on unexpected adventures. we went to "china town" only to find that china town was really just american restaurants with the chinese signs next to the english signs. ie: Chipotle, Subway, and every other american restaurant in the book. except it was china town because there are chinese words next to it. cue bewildered expressions from Eileen and i as we walked down the street desperately looking for a dirty chinese restaurant with scrumptious food. and there were no chinese people walking on the streets! haha. going to all those memorials made me feel so small, but in a good way. america's history is only like, 200 years old, which is relatively short compared to other countries, but i was still in awe of those memorials and old documents. it made me feel like a speck in history. i'm so excited for the people to come after us who get to see the documents when they're 300, 400 years old! coool i wish i could be them. i already feel like a speck in history next to those old statues...i'd feel like a microscopic fiber next to God. well..maybe more along the lines of invisible. sorry my nonscientific mind can't come up with a comparison that is super duper small. how amazing it is to be a part of history..WE'RE a part of history, if only for a blink of an eye. 

traffic lights

hello! its been a while. i kind of forgot about it and maybe i didn't have that much to say or was too lazy to say it.

while i was driving to hannah's house to pick up my lost but soon to be found cellphone, i was thinking of how many stop lights there are. so many darn stoplights. if i happen to be stuck behind a stoplight though, i always want to be first in line so that there are no cars in front of me to get in my way. yeah i know, pretty impatient, selfish, me first! mentality huh. which got me thinking...what IS the point of stoplights? well duur tiffany, it's to let other cars go too, you might say. but it also serves another purpose: to separate the long stream of cars so that the distance between each car doesn't get too short, causing traffic jams, collisions, and impatient tempers. If it was always green light then pretty soon it would be a whole line of bumper to bumper cars, honking horns, and cars shifted to park in the middle of streets. given, that already happens, but stop lights try to minimize it as much as possible.

in the same (or similar) light, if God always gave us the green light on our desires, think of how much in a jam we would really be. what comes to mind are relationships. say two people like each other a lot and start going out. months down the line however, they find that maybe they had less in common than they thought, they weren't spurring each other on towards Christ, and that connection they had or they had imagined existed between them is not quite there anymore. yet, you've spent months with this person, investing your time and energy and emotions. you don't want to let it go. but what if you keep going? this relationship that is leading no where but selfishness keeps you from giving it up. and sooner or later you're stuck in a jam--sort of like a traffic jam. but if we could listen to God more...stop when He says stop even though we so badly want to go. Wait when He says wait even though every fiber within us wants to leap forward. To listen doesn't just take discipline. It takes transformation...a transformation of hearts, which Christ does for us when we become Christians and begin our path of sanctification.

right now i'm reading Putting Amazing Back into Grace by Michael Horton, and he's tackling the much debated predestination issue.

"If the will is no more than an expression of character, it will never choose something contrary to the character of the chooser. Hence, our Lord's remark to the Pharisees, 'You are unable to hear what I say. You beling to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire' (John 8:43-44) You really want to obey the one to whom you are bound. That is the point. If God left you to yourself to decide whether you would choose or reject him, you would always refuse God as long as you 'belong to your father, the devil.'...I thank God every day that Jesus is not "a gentleman" who lets me have my own way."

I guess i had never really thought of it that way. If we had our own way we would never choose God because we were born sinners and we are bound to that. It is only by God's grace that he gave us a will to seek him instead of sin. it is only by God's grace that we are saved and nothing more. to believe in predestination is giving up any belief that humans did anything to make their way to God. it takes the power from humanity (as if we had any in the first place) and puts it into the hands of God, and rightly so.

self visualization project

illustrator word visualization

Poetry book

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

Billy Collins

Change of plans. I was originally going to do the Robert Frost or other Billy Collins poem, but after reading this one, I felt such a personal connection to it. In the poem the boy is mourning turning ten, because he feels that his childhood has ended, and he is turning an age that marks the beginning of another chapter in his life that he does not necessarily want to start yet. While the poem is sad, it is also charmingly humorous, because the boy is only turning ten but already he is nostalgic for his past. We often hear about forty or fifty year olds complaining about how old they are...but we rarely (or at least I rarely) hear is from a ten year old. He is a wise young boy.

For my book I want to keep it a simple book format. I am considering cutting the book into a specific shape but I have not decided yet. I want the illustrations to be black and white with an emphasis on lines to create movement. The black and white also adds to the more forlorn tone of the poem. I want there to be an occasional splash of color on each page that links it to the words of the poem. For instance, the bicycle that's leaning against the garage will be blue, but the blue is dripping off it and onto the driveway.

Poem Visualization

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

I love the imagery in his poem and how he effortlessly personifies what a poem should be. In high school I took AP Literature and I really learned to analyze and appreciate poetry. Sometimes however, in my eagerness to dissect the meaning of a poem and squeeze out whatever I could from it, I missed the experience of the poem and did not grasp what the poet wanted the reader to understand. Yes, we can pull out all these metaphors and crazy deep meanings, but that is not always necessary. Poet Laureate Billy Collins is telling us that a poem speaks on its own...we don't need to speak for it.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Call it a cliche Robert Frost poem but I love this poem because it is so nostalgic with its quiet scene. The speaker of the poem however, is torn between watching nature unfold in all its marvel of the woods filling up with snow and the things he must do...things to cross off his list of things to do to put it practically. The allure of nature is so powerful, but the horse serves as a reminder that he has promises to keep and places to go.

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices? 

I read this poem as a senior in high school for my AP Literature class and it really struck a cord in me. How many times have I known and seen my father work hard and not appreciated, thanked, or acknowledged his efforts? In this poem it is a Sunday. Sunday is a time of rest, a time of thanksgiving--the Sabbath day. But still he worked in the "blueblack cold." The speaker is the son who, looking back as an adult, realized his father's love through his own experiences and hardships. More than in a worldly sense however, I compared this father's love to God's love. Jesus who was innocent died on the cross in place of our sins so that we did not have to be punished. Yet how many people take it for granted? Trample on his sacrifice each day?

Dia: Beacon

The Dia: Beacon was a very different experience in comparison to any other museum I have been to. As a frequenter of New York’s Metropolitan Museum and the MoMa, the Dia: Beacon was a breath of fresh air, literally. The galleries were spacious and the white walls expansive. It made the viewer feel small and the artwork seem bigger, not in a grandiose sense but in a kind of homage to the artwork and the artists who designed it. The presentation of the works was a fuller and more complete experience than just a piece of art on a wall or a sculpture amidst a room of other sculptures.
The series of giant colored shapes by Imi Knoebel was especially powerful in engulfing the viewer in color. The piece embraces you, surrounding your vision so that it is all that you can see—massive canvases of color on a sea of white space. I also greatly enjoyed the floor to ceiling string frames by Fred Sandback. The string frames encompassed space, yet the series of frames took on a whole other dimension. Sol Lewitt’s drawing on walls redefined the typical use of line, and used lines, spaced at different intervals, to create hues of color.
While the museum contained many types of design and art, a unifying theme that I kept seeing was the great respect the artists had for their materials, and the specificity in which the materials were chosen. Wooden boxes with crazy wood grains (Donald Judd) were left unlacquered or painted, and the beauty of the organic material was allowed to breathe and to be exposed. Much of the artwork was on bigger scales, but instead of being menacing, there was a friendly, quirky element to many of the pieces, inviting the spectator to become a participator.

Self-Visualization Project

My outer identity has always changed a little with each place that I move to. I have been all over the place, starting with West Virginia then Japan then California and finally New Jersey. Each time I moved I had to readjust, to face myself once more and ask the questions that everyone at one point has asked: Am I likeable, what are my strengths, and how do I make new friends? Even though my environments were always shifting however, one thing remained steady. My identity as a Christian and as a child of God has been with me through the years, and for that I am eternally grateful.

For my self-visualization project I want to do a mural representing all the sides of me. Humanity, I feel, is always unpredictable. We have our mood swings, our ups and downs. Even the kindest, most steady person, is not always that way. I can speak up for myself and wouldn’t call myself shy, but I have always been afraid of a lot of things and moving around has forced me to step outside my comfort zone. Childhood fears of water and clowns and my sister’s face hanging upside down on the monkey bars have evolved into something less tangible. I think that often I fear the future—what it holds and my role in life and in the lives of other people. I fear what others think of me, why I act the way I do sometimes. I know though, despite my doubts and misgivings, I am loved by the creator of the universe, which is an awesome thing.

I plan to do a four panel mural, each panel representing each place I have lived. Each panel will have a photo of me, simply standing, at each stage of my life (age 3, 8, 13, 18) looking out at the audience. There should be a gradual increase in height, showing that in each time period I am getting older, growing taller, loosing the baby fat you could say too. I want these photos to be obviously photos...something very real. Maybe they can be in black and white. Around the photo however, I will use photoshop to add buildings, food, events etc. I want many of the images however, to be personal photographs from that actual time. In this way it would actually be sort of an autobiography. Each panel would be specifically distinct from the other, but there will be a piece of string running through each panel, and on the string will be words, a Bible verse, that spans in width all four panels.

Photoshop Manipulation

My photoshop project, entitled "Spring," is a celebration of spring as we transition from winter, which is dark (the days are shorter too!) into sunlight and life from the seemingly hard, lifeless seeds. The copper lilly gradually transitions to a real lilly with green leaves. The x-ray looking seeds diminish in appearance, giving a sense of distance. The smallest x-ray seed is barely visible as it fades into something else, life, as light penetrates the darkness.



My Illustrater version is a contrast to the photoshop version in its colors while still managing to keep the same concept.

Self Portrait

Cui Xiuwen's recent series of work, entitled "Angels," portrays a young Chinese girl who is pregnant. Her face and body are repeated, sometimes a couple of times, sometimes multiplied to the point of frenzy, in each picture.
All of the faces are of the same girl and identical in their expression, muted and surreal. The repetition of the same face could either be that she is alone, or that she is one in a sea of nameless faces that have simply become a statistic or a burden to society. Her haircut is short and symmetrical with straight cut bangs, adding to the eery, robotic feel. She is ghostly pale, her white dress enhancing the effect. The only color comes from her pink stained eyes and mouth. Yet her eyes are unseeing because her eyes are closed, and she is left only with her sense of touch, arms outstretched. Or perhaps the hands signify a yearning for something to grasp on to or someone to hold. I do not think, that there is supposed to be a negative connotaion of the girl, but rather the situation that society has cast her in.

What disturbs me most are the rows of expressionless faces. If the girls are cast out of society or treated poorly, shouldn't there be some kind of sadness shown in the face? Every picture, save one, is of a girl or girls with her eyes closed. Her body is bent into all kinds of positions, from fetal to lying on the street to standing hunched over or to the side. She is almost like a puppet, bent to do the will of others. There is no shelter for her--she is always outside, next to the sky, walking in the ocean, or on a rooftop. The horizon is always in view and the environment appears to be calm or serene. Yet inside that porcelein face is a battle raging. She has become so used it however that she has learned to hide it well.
I also noticed that in some of the pictures the perspective is off. The girl is strangely large in comparison to the building behind her. Maybe her situation was too big, too strange for society to handle...she is larger than the life that people have convinced themselves to be "normal" and because she does not fit into their schema, she is no longer accepted.

Cindy Sherman, like Cui Xiuwen, positions herself in interesting positions that give a special meaning to form and gesture. In most of her photos she chooses not to look at the camera, making the photo more realistic, as if she was completely immersed in her own world. While Cui Xiuwen's photos have very similar scenarios with the same face, Sherman manages to create totally different personas and narratives while using just one person: herself. Yet each photo seems completely different in character and each character has a story to tell. The transition goes from housewife to goth to fairytale to tomboy to borderline psychotic. Many of Sherman's photos have dark lighting.

They evoke a kind of surrealism while other times...nostalgia. It as if the character is saddened by something and has fallen into darkness. Even when there is bright lighting, there is always shadow, and the light is often eerie green, yellows, or blues. There is always a backdrop that is always as important as the people in the photo. The props and surrounding provide vital information to the situation at hand. While Cui Xiuwen's buildings in the background have definite meaning, it requires one with preconceived knowledge about China's important historical buildings to understand their significance. I also think that while Cui Xiuwen is making a commentary about the role of women in China, it is one opinion she takes that she translates into every one of her "Angel" series. Sherman presents her photos from women of all walks of life. The women have expressions, the women are REAL. That's not to say that Cui Xiuwen's girl is a robot, but she represents a more generic outlook on how women are perceived. The two artists emit totally different feelings through their choice of style. I understand Cui Xiuwen's message and the girls are spooky in their unseeing eyes and chalk white skin. I find Sherman's work more intriguing however. It stirs in me something nostalgic...like the characters are l
onging for how something used to be...for another time that no longer is. Xiuwen's art is pristine and clean with even blood dripping cleanly and as a pure red. But in Sherman's photos she is not afraid to be soiled...to lie in the dirt with leaves and moss growing over her skin. It is more disturbing and makes me think a little more because the art makes me a little uncomfortable.
Frida Kahlo uses a more different approach from Xiuwen and Sherman in that instead of using photography, she uses oil to paint herself. Xiuwen's model is very feminine, and Sherman emits a lot of sexual tension in her photos as well. Kahlo's self portraits however, do not follow either trend. Rather, her portrait leans torwards masculinity. The jaw line is set and stiff with a stubborn mouth. Her eyebrows (or should I saw unibrow?) are dark and thick, arching over her firm eyes. The photos of Frida Kahlo are of a small woman who yes, has a unibrow, but is undeniably feminine. Yet, her self portrait is how she sees herself. Unlike Xiuwen or Sherman's work, all of Kahlo's portraits make direct eye contact with the audience. In the piece on the right her head is turned slightly with her pupils focused on the viewer. It makes her look slightly suspicious. It makes me wonder what she should be suspicious about. What does she need to hide? What is her story? She is both aware of someone looking at her, yet she does not seem to fully care.

Adobe Illustrator Icon

Seeds and cigarettes

Gregory Crewdson's art has a distinct style and has signature characteristics. His drawings feature people, one or a few, in a painfully detailed setting. Yet despite all the engaging things that surround the humans, they seem oblivious to life. The man on the left seems lost in the pouring rain, stranded on the side of the road, perhaps with no where to go. At the same time however, the emotions associated with a situation like that--frustration, panic, an urgency to stay dry--are missing. The man seems oblivious to the rain falling on him and his suitcase. It almost as if he has lost the ability to communicate with the world around him...to react or appreciate. In many of Crewdson's work there is a pattern of open doors (cars and bedroom doors) with a strange gleaming light that illuminates certain objects. The man is lifeless but he is surrounded by life as indicated by the lights in the store window.

Other oils by Crewdson, unlike the street piece above, are in a contained space. In this dinner scene the family members are sitting at the table but are not engaging with each other. What is interesting about Crewdson’s art is that is seems almost photo-like in its attention to detail. Photographers try to capture life and emotion through their photographs. Crewdson instead tries to capture a scene that should be animated but their faces are stoic, devoid of emotion.

Hocks’ art mixes photography and painting to create a simplistic scene revolving around one central character, the artist himself. In contrast to Crewdson’s work, Hock’s is very engaged with his surrounding and has a certain, almost childlike curiosity about his environment. In each piece Hock is the only character and is stuck in the middle of a predicament that he must solve whether it be hanging from chandeliers, escaping from a cat, or being tied down by strings like the picture above. The environment takes on a life of its own because there is no indication of any other human life besides the old man in a business suit. While Crewdson’s color choices are cool colors, Hocks’ colors have warmer hues, inviting the viewer in.

As a photographer Jeff Wall finds many different connections in what he photographs. Many of his photographs are of people on the street and in other natural situations. He is very realistic in what he chooses to shoot and pays close attention to space. In many of his photos there is a depth of deep space that goes into the background. In the photo to the left, entitled Milk, Wall uses the random explosion of the milk to contrast with the strict, tension filled patterns around it. The milk has energy and motion while everything around it remains stagnant. The bricks are orderly stacked as are the stairs in window. Even the man's posture has tension, with his left arm held rigid, muscles jutting. There is also attention paid to the horizontal vs. vertical lines. The bricks, the sidewalk, and the arm are horizontal, but the shadow between the brick walls is vertical and the left strip of wall moves in the vertical direction. The beautiful random motion of the exploding milk is a release of tension. It is never possible to have complete order. Chaos is inevitable.

Cindy Sherman, like Hock, photographs herself as the protagonist. Hock however, stays the same character despite the changes in his environment. Sherman is a different character in each of her photographs. Her appearance is altered through her wardrobe, hair, make up, and lighting. At times she interacts with the innanimate objects around her, but o
ften the shot portrays her face and body in a dramatic or emotional state. She uses body language very effectively in portraying the mood. The consistent message of all her photographs is the different roles that women have come to fulfill and be expected to fulfill from olden days when they posed for portraits to fairy tale princesses and witches to scarcely clad women of the modern era. In this photograph Sherman uses black and white to offset each other. The woman she portrays is mostly clad in dark clothing and has dark hair and makeup. Her stern expression and offensive body language also radiate a rebellioness or angry strength.

In stark contrast to the black and white shot, Sherman shoots herself as vulnerable in the above photo. Stripped of make-up and in a stance of defense, Sherman creates a sense of fearful urgency through the specific illumination of the face and the position of the hands, as if ready to run away. The messy wet hair also suggests a story.

Beauty in the Broken

My inspiration comes from finding and seeing the beautiful things in unexpected places. Even in the most broken, darkest places on Earth, there can still be life, and from that life comes beauty. Take the flower on the train tracks. It is growing among rocky terrain next to the tracks where the air is polluted and heavy with smoke. Yet somehow it found that patch of soil and the nutrients it needed to grow. Hope can spring from surprising places. God placed it there...we just have to look for it.

Art is not always about taking something beautiful and drawing or interpreting it. I think that true art requires more skill and thinking than that. It is amazing when an artist can take something ugly and show the world that there can be something special found there too.