for the love of God, no more

can't....grade....another....essay....

seems my shift in the auditorium this weekend was tonight as opposed to tomorrow night as i believed. no big problem - had planned on staying in mason anyway and heading to hamilton to see rhonda in the crucible tonight. now i'll just do it tomorrow. or maybe i'll go sunday afternoon. don't know yet, just know i'll be going sometime.

caught myself doing something strange lately - whenever i pass a window in my house, i find myself waving randomly. why, you might ask? i guess i like the idea that someone could be looking in and see me wave and think that i had seen them and either wave back or quickly stop looking at my window lest they be called a peeping tom.

i worry about my brain some days.

been doing a lot of thinking this week about religion, mostly because the idea on it keep crossing my proverbial threshold. starting with a reading in my buechner:

Unless you become like a child, Jesus said, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and maybe part of what that means is that in the long run what is good about religion is playing the way a child plays at being grown up until he finds that being grown up is just another way of playing and thereby starts to grow up himself. Maybe what is good about religion is playing that the Kingdom will come, until - in the joy of your playing, the hope and rhythm and comradeship and poignance and mystery of it - you start to see that the playing is itself the first-fruits of the Kingdom's coming and of God's presence within us and among us."

then tonight, through a posting on one of my mailing lists, i read an e-mail exchange between sam harris and andrew sullivan looking at the question, Is Religion 'Built Upon Lies'? fascinating discussion. at some point i dismissed sullivan as someone who annoys me (probably because he's conservative), but i found his arguments, especially his most recent post, inspiring. these words in particular resonated with me:

You write: "whatever is true about us, spiritually and ethically, must be discoverable now." Yes - absolutely yes. But now is always and everywhere a function of all that we have ever been. The key contribution of religion is to grapple with that fact at a far deeper level than science, to see human life as an intersection, in Eliot's words, of the timeless with time. Religion at its deepest is the attempt to reconcile this profound human predicament: that we exist in bodies but dream beyond them, that we are caught between the irrational instinct of beasts but endowed with the serene hope of angels. This paradox of humanity - which you would erase into a clean slate - is what religion responds to and has always responded to. The genius of the religious life lived to its fullest lies, in Oakeshott's words,

"in the poetic quality, humble or magnificent, of the images,

the rites, the observances, and the offerings

(the wisp of wheat on the wayside calvary)

in which it recalls to us that

'eternity is in love with the productions of time'
and invites us to live 'so far as is possible' as an immortal."

seems appropriate to be pondering these ideas as we move into the most "religious" of christian seasons, lent. the rites and observances of this season echo blake's verse: "eternity is in love with the productions of time." much of what we do during this time seems strange - the sacrifice, the rituals. but it's our attempt to make sense of this mystery, to play until we become, to try and align our mortal lives with the Immortal.

hard to believe i lived more than half my life unaware of the season's significance.

recommendation: you should be listening to woxy vintage. now. best collection around. turn off your ipod and turn this on: http://woxy.lala.com/vintage/ like shedding 20 years of worthless music.

night. Æ

Tunes: poi dog pondering - spending the day in the shirt that you wore

see previous post title

so the thought's been running scattershot through my brain lately, ricocheting 'round and making a general nuisance of itself. it's not a new thought, but it's been gaining in frequency and strength, especially with the experiences of the past few months. the thought is this: maybe it's time i gave up my belief in romantic love. blasphemy, i know, especially coming from a self-professed, hopeless romantic. i've lost my faith in romantic love. i still believe in it, that it exists and is a truly wonderful and magic-filled force. but i no longer believe (or at least i think i no longer believe) it exists for me.

let's look at this logically (a stretch for me, but i'll give it a try). if love was going to happen, wouldn't it have happened by now? it's been over 21 years since i first jumped in and began actively seeking for love and here i sit, alone, eating dinner, scratching my thoughts into this notebook. twenty-one years is a long time to seek without finding. ok, so that's not completely true - i've found it a handful of heart-wrenching times, but never anything lasting longer than a sprinkling of weeks. this lack of significant experience makes me wonder if i'm capable of sustaining a romantic relationship. so far the evidence points to no.

the question often arises from well-meaning (and mostly attached) friends: why is someone as (insert your favorite adjective here) as you not taken/in a relationship/dating? this question has plagued me for a while now. unlucky? a little. poor timing? you don't know the half of it. emotionally unavailable? probably less than most. too picky? possibly. too pessimistic? perhaps. a coward? most definitely.

some days i feel like a Duplo block in an Lego world. i look like i should be able to connect, but i'm just not created to.

some days i feel like a noble gas - maybe my outer electron shell is already complete, so there's no need to combine with other elements.

some days i feel like my wiring's bad, that i'm only attracted to what i cannot have or to those not attracted to me.

some days i wish i couldn't feel.

so what if i just gave up on romantic love? i could stop looking at every face in the crowd, wondering "are you someone i could love, who could love me in return?" i could stop casually glancing at every new possibility's left hand. i could stop despairing over missing out on something i was never meant to have. i could accept the way i was created and use my strengths instead of trying to be someone i'm not. i could focus on the relationships that do work in my life - my amazing friends, my beloved family - and stop wasting my time and energy on those that don't. i could get on with actually living Life instead of whining about the life i don't have.

and yet....

I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.*

i suppose i could give up, declare it a lost cause, move on and focus on other things. would save me a lot of time and a lot of headaches and a lot of heartaches. but then no one ever promised this journey would be an easy one (well, except for those telling me to be patient and wait for "the one" God has chosen for me, but that's a topic for another time). it's the attempt - the nervousness and the awkwardness and the embarrassment and the rejection and the occasional success - that provides what is needed to keep going: hope.

so logic be damned. i'm not quite ready to abandon my faith in the power of romantic love. won't keep me from complaining occasionally and whining periodically. but it will keep me looking forward to the next horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of startling eyes searching like mine. Æ

*before sunrise

Tunes: uncle tupelo - sandusky

WARNING: it's VD

"People wonder if movies reflect real life. Hell yes, they do. I'll tell you how. Both make it as difficult as possible for two people to find each other and fall in love. Think about it. All the barriers that get put in the way of romance which in movies is exactly the point. That's what holds our interest for two hours. But in real life, love would hold our interest. Movies end when two people finally embrace, but that is exactly when life begins. Everyone is aching for magic. Everyone wants that moment in the third act when their eyes meet and the music swells, and they fall into their lover's arms. But no one talks! No one connects anymore. Life is a very long movie, and everyone is stuck in the second act. This is what I wanna know.... why can't we cut to the climax?! Why can't we move right pass all the barriers and go straight to the part that everyone's waiting for --- the part where the guy gets the girl?"

Trevor Hale - "Cupid"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HV-PnXiLbw

the good side of media hype

so many wild predictions of what is going to happen tomorrow (no precipitation! freezing rain! 14 inches!) have led TPTB at mason to start us off on a two-hour delay tomorrow, which is probably a wise choice - better to wait and see then to have students try to drive in inclement weather or get to school and find ourselves stuck by the weather. me, i'm convinced we'll get nothing. or at least i'm trying to convince myself we'll get nothing, if only because then, if we do get something, i'll be pleasantly surprised and not disappointed. ye olde pessimism defense mechanism - if you always expect the worst, at least you're never disappointed. which i'm first to admit, is a crappy way of living life.

i struggle between the poles of optimism and pessimism. strangely enough, my natural inclination is toward a guarded optimism - i do believe tomorrow can be better than today, that love could wait around the next corner, that the experiences coming could be as wonderful as those past - but my most common outward expressions are pessimistic in nature. again, trying to protect myself from disappointment. but what if what i think of as protection is only keeping possibility at bay? what if this wall keeps not only the bad out but the good as well? but then when i open up the wall, it seems the bad comes stampeding in, leaving me unable to appreciate the good all around me.

there i go, overthinking things again.

it's actually tomorrow now - started this last night and lost my momentum, so decided to see if i could pick it up again. and see, my philosophy worked - what a great feeling to get a call in the middle of morning prayers letting me know we were taking a whole day instead of just two hours. just need to make sure i use this extra time wisely - will head down in just a bit to finish off the mockingbird tests and get started on the next set of essays - i just hope they're better.

"The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be."

found it an interesting juxtaposition that this was one of the lectionary scriptures for this week, it being VD and all tomorrow. i like the balance of this verse - God searches both the heart and the mind. too often we rely on one to the detriment of the other. the problem is, most of us are more comfortable with one than the other. though i'd like to think i rely more on my heart, i usually think too much about things. wonder what would happen if i gave my heart a bit more space to roam. how might my life be different? but if the heart is dark and deceitful (and hopelessly so), how can we trust it? questions for another time.

time to grade. stay safe out there, those caught in this wonderful weather. me, i'm not going back out if i don't have to, mostly because i'll probably get stuck in my driveway again like i did this morning. seriously, my driveway isn't that steep, yet poor lorelai can't seem to navigate it. little frustrating. but she's safe and warm in the garage and will stay there until i need to drive again, hopefully tomorrow morning....or maybe even thursday.....
Æ


Tunes: the go-go's - head over heels

i'm a sucker

lots of sucking this weekend (and yes, all you physics people out there, i know nothing really sucks, but it all blows). players just asked if i could stay later tonight and i said yes. they're worried about the snow/icestorm coming in tomorrow and being stuck without rehearsal either tomorrow night or tuesday. no big deal, though i had hoped to possibly catch candice, who is at springdale for a praise fest or something. if it happens, it happens. if not, not meant to be.

finished one class's worth of papers. only one A, and that one was turned in late, so they actually will end up with an F. feel bad, but those are the rules. no real improvement in today's grading - same problems. need to figure out some way to have them do corrections without me having to regrade all the papers, which i simply don't have the time for. have to ponder this some.

been breaking up the grading today watching episodes of cupid on youtube. felt like a valentiney thing to do. and they're all there, so i can catch a couple of the one's i missed the first time around. also followed a link to rob thomas's website, which had lots of great stuff, including a commentary track for the pilot of veronica mars, which i'll have to watch sometime. if you never saw cupid, i recommend checking it out - great writing, fun premise, amazing chemistry between the actors. shame it only made it to 15 episodes (at least i think that's what it was).

small moments: julie thompson came up to me at lunch and said she was glad i was part of the vc community, that i brought something needed to the group. i stammered a thank you (gosh, at least i hope i did) and felt my heart strangely warmed. so often i feel like i add little to the conversation- not in a "oh woe is me" kind of way but in a "i'm not leaving much of a footprint here" kind of way, like i'm a ghost floating by, insubstantial, barely seen. we all have a desire to make an impact, to make an impression. makes me happy to know i'm leaving some kind of impression.

it also reminds me how much i need to share with others the impact they make. jule's comment made my day - i would hope i could do the same for someone else.

there was a posting to the wesseling list this afternoon - a production is looking for someone who can do an english accent for an upcoming show. it's performing in hyde park and i had actually thought of auditioning originally, but didn't. the only rub - the performances run over the st. patrick's celebration going on at vc. and i want to be there for that. decisions decisions. am jonesin' for some theatre action, but this may not be it.

ok, one more hour to go. probably sit and watch another episode of cupid. should probably be putting together lesson plans for this week, both with and without a snow day tuesday (rumors have it being pretty bad, though i'll believe it when i see it. been burned too many times before by faulty forecasting). guess i could try and catch the police reunion on the grammys, but i don't know if we get that station up here or not. i'm sure it'll be on youtube tomorrow anyway.

night.
Æ

Tunes: tori amos - angie