India, 2014

It’s funny that God only gave me a few hours to decide. It’s as if the opportunity was tailored to me.

I know you like to make decisions quickly, and then stick with them, Gianna. Have a go at this one.

Yes. Yes I’ll go.

And in about six hours, I’d committed half of my October to traveling to India and learning about human trafficking.

It should be quite exciting! Especially considering I’ve never been out of the country. And considering I’ve got a layover in Paris, and one in Amsterdam. Considering that I’ll be able to make necessary contacts in the event that I pursue an internship.

So many “considerings” are bouncing through my mind. There’s a bit of a rush as I fill out my passport application. I get a tingle when Donna tells me that I’ll need shots. Needles. Fabulous. There’s a quiet prayer when I see the schedule and training and travelling and begin to feel the weariness that will touch my bones and pull my eyes. And yet, it sounds amazing. I’m not alone. Everyone I tell grins and exclaims how exciting it will be. Yeah. Except, we must consider why.

Consider that women and girls are promised jobs – and then work long hours without pay, with abuse. Consider that some are lured romantically, and when they enter that most holy matrimony, they discover that they are not loved, but ripped open. Not nourished but drained. Not cherished but used. Used and trapped. Consider that some are desperate enough for food that they will sell their own sister/daughter. Consider that some aren’t desperate for food, and will still sell… Consider that an estimated 27 million of God’s loved ones are enslaved, and perhaps 14 million – FOURTEEN MILLION – are in India.

Considering –

My passion to help end trafficking has a very local focus. It started in my school-room, for one. I honestly 

didn’t know God would every use my dawdling on facebook, but that is where I initially learned about trafficking. Then my community. I and an amazing team hosted a 5k last year and this year to raise funds – funds we could disperse to American justice and anti-trafficking organizations.

I still want to focus on the U.S. with my abolitionist efforts. Why India, then? And yes, I asked this of myself too. There is much less poverty in U.S. Girls involved in human trafficking here are often abused at a young age, or live with someone who set an example of slavery and domination, or overrun, trampled upon prostitution. Many U.S. girls are kidnapped. Some are regularly stalked and lured. In India, selling or false promises of a job are much more likely. Impoverished girls live on the streets and see others making money there nightly, so they follow suit. So the situations vary a bit between the countries.

But a girl’s heart is the same. A rescued child feels the same shame. A woman taken from trafficking has the same lowly, downtrodden spirit. A girl who’s been abused, kidnapped, overworked or stalked still carries the pain and humiliation that should never have been placed on her shoulders.

That is why. Because I know girls that age – girls who would have been at risk in a larger city, or a poorer family, or even at the right place a moment earlier. Thus, anything I can learn about trafficking will only aide me in educating my own community again and again in how to protect and heal our daughters, sisters and friends.

That is why I am going. I want to learn. It will hurt, I know, but I want to learn everything I can about trafficking, the trafficked ones, and what strategies we can use in this combat. I want to teach. The things I learn cannot stop with me. I want to take them to our community, and take them to the 5k, and to the churches, and wherever else I can. People need to know what goes on before they can raise their hands to stop it. I want to pray. The better I understand what happens in the heart and mind of an abused child, the better I am able to agonize over them when I talk with God.

If, after learning what I’ve shared, you want to know what you can do – please pray. Pray for emotional and spiritual strength. We are learning about a very dark, very sinful practice, and it will not be easy. Pray also for physical stamina and health. And thank you, because prayer is the most important support we can receive.

If you would like to give financially, please message me on facebook or text me.

Thank you so much for reading, for caring, and for your prayers. 

Cedars and Fawns

Psalm 29:5

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

Ahh trees. I love trees and thickets and windbreaks and woods and bottle-necks of woods.

Tall glorious growths that breathe our air backwards in benevolence and exhale that we might fill our lungs. Quietly sociable rustling creatures in the breeze, waving creaking monsters during storms, and pleasant, shady statues during the summer days.

Trust in a tree’s strength is true-placed. As a child, I never doubted a tree. Surely the branches that barked my shins and scratched my palms with their rough, delicate skin could withstand the light stand of a girl. Surely limbs that waved themselves only slightly in the wildest of winter winds could bear the weight of a wanderer.

Yet cedars. Cedars have thick boles and branches that shade each other and reach out under each other like people spreading their hands palm-up to reach the sun. The cedars slant and thicken around their middles and squat to stretch further.

I think of the boles of the redwoods, for the branches I scarcely saw. I recall thick trunks with knobby supports that dived underground to become roots. I remember backing up and staring in fascination at the lens of my camera because I could not see the edge of the tree in it. I remember looking up at the smooth, ancient grooves in their reddish bark and watching them stretch like lightning bolts up the sides of the trees to where the lower branches were – high above the rest of the forest. The tops of these trees? I never saw them.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

Cedars – redwoods – indisputable signs of strength, and yet the strength of a shout from heaven snaps them over.

These trees are majestic like natural pillars to the entrance of a king’s remote palace, perhaps the palace of heaven. But when the king cries Welcome! even the supporting pillars wilt.

These trees grow in beauty and glory season by season, and extend themselves in their assigned shapes with graceful stretch and silhouette. Yet when their maker’s beauty beacons from afar, even their full glory is disfigured next to this radiant embodiment of beauty unborn.

Yet some in this torrential rain of glory hear only terror. In pain and anguish they decipher not soft syllables but slavery. The powerful voice is the voice they have come to fear and revile, for the only powerful voice they know is a voice that beats them the while.

And over these, I pray the Psalm 29:9, for The Lord makes the deer give birth.

He is over the long-lived glory of the cedars, and the miraculous coming forth of the fawns. Just as his voice causes cedars to crumble, so his gentleness cradles new life. His glory triumphs over that of the earth, so his tenderness tends the weak.

And so our God is a God of glory and thunder and babies, a God of declaring beauty and a God of delicate birth.

A God of the strength of cedars, and a God of the fragility of fawns.

Remember This, Israel.

Isaiah 44:21-22

“Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant;

I formed you;

you are my servant;

O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist.

Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

Do you see these things, child? I made you. Your form was made precious and beautiful by my hands, and because I love you. You are my servant. You are here to work in my vineyard, and to bring others home with you at the end of the day. O Israel, lovely, you will never be forgotten no matter how many people lose track of you. I will always remember you. Your life and faith are always on my mind. Your sins have been hidden as surely as a billowing white cloud hides the blue sky in summertime. When you feel blinded on a misty morning, remember that I am that blind to your sins. And when you get lost in that mist, return your soul to me, because I have purchased you from wandering and all that follows lostness.

It’s the simplest of lessons. I formed you. You are my servant. You will not be forgotten by me. I blotted out your transgressions. Return. I have redeemed you. The words are short and simple! It takes seconds to read through them and continue on to the next verses. The truths, though. Can such beautiful truth be so simple? It’s practically a complete compilation of answers to those questions life smears tauntingly in our faces

Where in this universe DID we come from?

I formed you.

Why does that matter?

You are my servant.

Who cares about that? Nobody pays attention to your servants.

I will never stop paying attention to you.

Well we messed it up. Sorry. No can do.

I am as blind to your forgiven sin as you are to the sun at night.

Oh…

Return! I have redeemed you. Come back.

And that return is the most glorious return of all.

“Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it;

Shout, O depths of the earth;

Break forth into singing, O mountains,

O forest, an every tree in it!

For the Lord has redeemed Jacob

and will be glorified in Israel.”

Dusk.

I tried something new here. Something new new. I invented my own poetic meter. The lines are vary in length and number of poetic "feet", but there in each is a break before the last four syllables. The rhyme scheme is a simple abcb one. Each line becoming a sentence in itself was not intentional.

Dusk

Blooms abused as weeds dance light-footed, on whispering breeze.

Birds share songs of night; ignore the moon.

A pure westward glow shrinks shyly upon itself – blinking at dusk.

Traffic sounds blur miles away: tonight they will not reach, in my cocoon.

Evening sighs a happy breath, its colors fade.

The silver maplett tousles, wrestling wind.

Pale colors transform white, dark becomes black.

My soul’s asleep, now, with nature’s twinned. 

Vessel

I do not understand the living water.

I cannot comprehend what lot I play.

I struggle, stagnant, sorry day by day,

And meekly pray my life might please my Father.

I know my soul’s seen ransom: I’m his daughter.

Yet my influence is but molded clay.

His light must sparkle, dance inside each day,

Instead it stales; and dies; this living water.

Live not upright, instead I must pour out!

The living water thrives when it is spilled.

His life, his light I’m giv’n to write about –

I write: my tarnish is restored to gild.

In silence naught but usefulness goes out.

In pouring – suddenly room to be filled.

The Last Lesson - Summit Ministries

I can't seem to get the hang of retreats.

Basic recipe: laugh, listen, pray, take notes, fellowship, talk to God.

I can do most of that, no problem. But in the midst of such strong fellowship, in the center of Biblical learning, surrounded by stories of God's grace and truth is where I lose sight of God.

It seems to happen every time.

At home, I can sit on my bed with my Bible on my lap and pray God's grace over my family, my friends, my tomorrow, my sins and never lose that sense of communication. But then when I'm surrounded by people who lovingly expect me to be so strong spiritually my faith gets lost in the shuffle. I know God's there. I know he hears me when we're singing our worship, when we're hiking on faith, or when we're serving with his love. I know God is listening when we're praying, that the Holy Spirit is interpreting when we're learning, that he's inspiring the teachers.
But my heart wonders, and feels empty.
And so my mind begins to wonder.

Colorado was great! We went hiking three mornings, and got to see the sunrise over the hills in the east from the top of Red Mountain. The puns they put on the kitchen walls every lunch were hilarious! We'd sit and laugh about them through our meal. Pikes peak united us in fascinated misery as we hiked 8 oxygen-deprived miles to the most breathtaking view in Colorado. We were encouraged to chat amongst ourselves before and after lectures, and by the end of two weeks, everybody had met everybody, I believe.

But I still felt alone. Until they brought David into the last Foundation session, the last morning.
"Does doubting mean you've lost faith?" Our speaker searched our faces, letting the question settle into us.
"Divide into your small groups and read Psalm 42."

In Psalm 42, David is in agony. He reveals his very soul as downcast, says his tears have been his food. And in the next breath he tells himself "Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." (Psalm 42:5b)

He doubts, and he cries out. But he will praise still.
He questions, but he reminds himself that the One he questions is faithful.
He is downcast and disturbed, yet he will praise.

"Alright. Who wants to answer the question? What did you find as you studied this in your groups?"

"Um...What was the question?" Nolan asked quickly. His group chuckled, embarrassed, and gave him the answer quietly.

"Oh! Ok," Nolan recovered nonchalantly. "Well-"

But I've already tuned out. I realized I'm wasn't losing faith. I hadn't lost track of God through all the noise of the camp. Even through the pain of wondering where God has gone, we can worship and fellowship and trust, and praise.

And God is there.

Love Story

I have a gift for you.

It was like gravel, dumped before her on an ebony backdrop. But diamonds made magnificent gravel.

Do you like it?

The largest gemstones caught her eyes first, crudely boasting in their irresistible purity. Each one swelled under her awestruck scrutiny, stretching out its glorious rays without letting an ounce of power escape from its diamond-hard core.

The smaller stones melded themselves into patterns and constellations, bending their iron-points of light to bring her eyes pleasure. Each pin-tip throbbed with white fire, lending life to the mental pictures that impressed themselves but momentarily over the living star-points. Then.

Look at this side too. On the edge.

Scattered in the folds and corners, the lesser star-gems made themselves brilliant, like glistening dew-drops on the points of a web, gloriously and humbly avoiding the center of the arrangement.

There’s still more.

Her eyes probed the center of the amassed diamonds again, searching for anything that might signal the end of these depths of stars. Only the beautified points of light stared back at her. Their thickness hazed the night-shades of their resting place in a deep and wide band across that velvet contrast and only the few stars resting on the backs of the others twinkled enticingly.

It’s all for you.

She strained her eyes, trying to capture all the beauty in the eroding permanence of memory.

I love you.

Me?

Yes.

I … love stars.

I know.

Do you love me?

I … yes.

The stars are yours. But there’s more.

There’s Me.

I am yours.

A Dangerous Journey

Dear friends:

Once upon a time, I posted the first chapter of a story I wrote.

This is the second chapter. Enjoy. Comment. Critique.



Normal is Write (part one)

            Maleya slammed the front door to vent and turned cheerfully down the sidewalk. The writers gathered weekly in a park only a short distance from where Maleya lived. Leaves both shaded and carpeted her walk. Emerald filtered light fell around her.

            "He-ey Leya! Whatcha got written?" Straight blond hair danced around the face of Maleya's friend.

            "He-ey Liss! What's your guess?"

            "Nope. You have to tell."

            "Fat luck." Maleya smiled up into the face of the taller writer.

            "Pout." Liss frowned at Maleya and bounced beside her on long legs.

            "Suck it up, cupcake." Maleya laughed at Liss's irked face.

            "You know I could take you any time. Then you'd have no choice. Cupcake." Liss bunched her fists.

            "Yeah, yeah. You think you're stronger than me."

            "Think?!" Liss was always easily riled. She attempted to control herself. "I can take you, Leya." Somehow the telling wasn't enough. Maleya found herself unceremoniously draped over Liss's lofty shoulder, watching the leafy cement receding.

            "I get your point, Liss."

            "Thought that might help." Liss dropped her friend on her feet and let her stumble a few steps.

            "You know something?" Maleya grasped the manuscript and pert-paper that had fallen. "Your story's gonna feel like that. Real soon."

            "Like what? I can't claim to know how that felt, honestly," Liss said savoring her victory.

            "Punched in the gut, dropped from a great height, and left in pain and awe to ponder."

            "Good to know you respect me," Liss swallowed the complement for it's worth.

            Maleya turned to an arch between two of the trees and let her feet plod as a hill ducked out from under her.  Sunlight had plopped itself in the broad lap of the lawn and Maleya's finger print on  her lens made the lenses of her glasses into shades. Fellow writers stood and sat everywhere – most talking, some writing, some glancing around snobbishly.

            At the bottom of the hill sat Hendlic Todd, the writer the whose expertise they had all been assigned to learn from. The hill sloped into a natural amphitheater around the man at the bottom. From the top there was a glorious view of forest covered hills and peaceful country villas fading into purpleness. Maleya sat at the bottom and closed her eyes. She felt – but did not see – Hendlic look up and narrow his eyes at her. It was a sweet moment.

            A sharp whistle stopped several writers short in their mixed conversations.

            "Shut up, Liss!" Hendlic's voice cut the whistle short and secured the attention of the proteges. Maleya looked up. Liss was standing behind Hendlic with her lips still pinched into an o. She let out another short blasting whistle and grinned. Hendlic backhanded her and glared at the writers. The author wasted no time.

            "Today's lesson is about beginnings," he said simply. He stood up and did not wait for Liss to take her seat, or writers to pull out their electric, note-taking pert-paper. Maleya turned up the volume on hers and watched a heading fade into view – "Today's lesson is on beginnings." Maleya scribbled out the first four words with her fingernail and capitalized the word beginnings. It would do for a title.

            "Do you know how people decide which story to read?" Hendlic dared anyone to answer incorrectly. The beautiful blue in his eyes had practiced this menacing glare for the extent of his career.

            "The first sentence," a newcomer bellowed from the top of the hill. Writers nodded and glanced apprehensively at their instructor.

            "Why?" Hendlic always had a question ready. There was a moment of silence.

            "Because the general public has a short attention span. They must become interested in the first sentence or two, or they will decide the story is not worth their while." Maleya answered without looking up from editing her notes.

            "Read me your first sentence."

            Maleya took a breath to start reading and paused suddenly. She had two stories prepared. One was normal. The other not. It was dangerous; the merging of areas of expertise always was. It would serve as a signal flare for Maleya. The future of her mixed writing and techy inventions depended on the reaction to her story. But it's about time, anyway. And the first sentence won't hurt me. Maleya tried to shrug away the knot in her mind and read her sentence aloud.

Run(-)On Praise

When I sat down at my desk, I just wanted to see how long I could make a sentence. Like a challenge. This is where it led me.

It’s not a normal day but I treat it like any other and lie there and watch the effects of the sunrise on my eyelids and listen to my family doing morning things; they’re nice morning things, like getting ready for Easter and feeding our dogs and going in to church early to help the kitchen crew get ready for the fundraiser breakfast which is between the ambitious-bird service and the head-screwed-on-straight service, which are identical, and I take up the wish I wished the night before that our family would screw their heads on straight but no, enough of us are ambitious that my vote doesn’t count, and “besides, the family is coming for lunch, and they’ll be here before we’d get home from the late service,” and so my vote really doesn’t count, and I decide that I probably never had a vote to cast anyway, so I put my wishing aside and go back to telling myself to get up and telling myself I’ll get up in just a few minutes, but I’m so comfortable right now, I can’t and so it will be ok if I get up in a minute – it is, but those minutes must have counted against me, because now we have to “really hurry” to get the dressing ready for the family who are coming and I don’t have much time to do any make-up or anything, but then I do it anyway, as fast as I can because if I’m going to be late to church, I at least want to look good, and it makes very little difference in minutes because I move quickly; and there is my brother telling us all we’ll be late, and then that we are late, and then that he can’t wait to live on his own because we’re always late and he never would be except for us, and he doesn’t ever seem to stop, so for the longest time on the way to our Easter morning service, it is so hard to think of the peace and the joy that are just waiting to be taken up and taken advantage of, and then we walk in and I didn’t see any heads turn, and then my heart turns and everything stops, because nothing matters except what we are singing about, and the glorious way God has loved us and chosen us and suffered for us, and purchased us, and given us to Christ, that – unless my heart were deaf – I cannot avoid falling on my heart’s knees and raising my hands and shouting that my God is alive and he loves me, and he is reigning so everything will be ok! and I just want to look at his face and know, and then I do know, and I want to keep looking in his face; and after church each moment seems holy and beautiful, as if I can do no wrong, and we all file slowly and talking into a huge herd pretending to be in line and talk our way through heaven-sent sausage and French toast and sanctifying syrup gluing your silverware to your fingers and your fingers to each other, and your hair to your forehead, and for breakfast the pastor has included grace in his benediction so the only words spoken are conversations about what they did last night and how that worked out, and how much she got done, and what was he working on again? and did it turn out and is it worth trying for myself? and then I call Happy Easter and suddenly the sun and the wind and the blue sky and the green grass are infinitely more beautiful than they were  when I walked from my house to my car before church and I know the afternoon ahead is going to be wonderful, even though something inside me knows it’s not and I can’t really pretend it will be much longer, so when we come home I am less happy, and I do not try to cheer up but I do wish I could be the same person all of the time and how much nicer I would be if that were the case, because if I just got stuck being the right person of the many who are inside of me, I know I could be perfect – but the perfect one is Christ Jesus, and he is not the only one living in me, because I am like every other human on this planet in one way, and that is that I’m human, and it means that even though Christ has the victory over sin, my sin still fights to often, so even though I side with Christ as much as I … can? I lose so often and then I know I’ve failed and I go on failing because failing has made me moody and I think that winning is impossible, even though I’m failing with the very people who gathered to celebrate that Christ won, so there is no more failure, and I become meditative and unhappy in my meditation, so I write it so that I can understand it, and when I write it I find that I can’t understand it so I give up and make an excuse for writing, and say that I was just trying writing to see how much I can cram into one sentence, and it turns out that a lot fits, even if not a lot should, and I wonder where my writing has taken me, and I find that I’m happy again; writing has taken me to a place where I feel the joy of creation and the satisfaction of having achieved something I’ve never done before – perhaps even that I’ve done it well for it being a first time around – and I decide to contemplate, but this time I’m contemplating cheerily and it takes me back to praise; praise for that glorious morning when Christ stopped the people’s contemplating his death and did something about it…basically reverse it so that they’d have something new to contemplate – the indescribable glory of the God who raised him, and unfathomable love which inspired the planning of this action before the planning of the people that necessitated this action, and the inescapable beauty that surrounds this entire day and it’s glorious celebration.

 (I tried reading this out loud. Now each short sentence feels like a needed revival. Gives me time to breathe.)

Oh Happy Day!

It's amazing how theology happens to you sometimes.

I've been to rock concerts before. You buy a ticket, find your seat (sometimes - usually you don't) and spend the rest of the evening plugging your ears and jumping up and down. I've been to worship concerts too. You stand there feeling like you should raise your hands and look dedicated, but you think everyone's looking at you (they aren't) so you don’t.

This was a worship rock concert. I was confused. We bought tickets and found our seats. We performed the whole pre-concert crowd roar; people were leaning over railings, standing in their rows, running out to the bathroom and back, finding tee-shirts, or sitting in their seats – and everyone was talking to someone. We all knew the drill and played out the same scenario that’s happened at every concert I’ve been to. It was when the music started that I was confused.

All the worship I’ve been too has had a toned down beat and gentle lyrics. This worship concert was different. The drums and the lead guitar didn’t sound nice anymore, they sounded wild. Party wild. Kinda took my breath away. But after all, they’re the opening band. Guess that’s what you’d expect. I shrugged and smiled, moving a little to the beat. And then the lead band came out.

Music ripped through the air and battered our willing ear drums. Vibrations shoved themselves up through the cement floor and rattled my feet, like laughter. Lights flashed on their rotary stands, stabbing into my eyes for a millisecond before beaming at the next eager face.

Thoughts tumbled slowly and thickly through my mind.

The idea of worship left me and I began to just sing. There was no hope of hearing my own voice above the roar, but I opened my mouth and joined with hundreds of others to let the band know that we were singing too, however unnoticeably.

The pointlessness of trying to make noise turned my mind back to the words I was singing. “Sing, sing sing, and make music to the heavens! I will sing, sing, sing, Grateful that you hear us. As we shout your praise, lift high the name, Of Jesus!” I began to feel them. I stopped trying to sing well and sang to God. I lifted my face and closed my eyes. “Grateful that you hear us…” Almost without my consent, my arms lifted and I reached for the God I was singing to. I was no longer thinking about who was watching, because God was watching, and taking pleasure.

Finally the rumbling beneath my feet and the drum beat rattled me back to the auditorium. I began jumping with the rest of the crowd. And I wondered where the worship had gone. Here we are, having a celebration, I thought with something bordering on fear, but this is a worship concert! What were we doing wrong?

Nothing. We’re not doing anything wrong! We’re celebrating GOD! Call it a thunderbolt moment if you will, but I think that’s an understatement. I found myself unable to stop bouncing and singing and reaching up. I had so much praise inside, and it kept coming out in action and song.

Realizations demand thinking time, which there was not a lot of during a rock and worship concert. I simply discovered that God enjoys a celebration. And that it doesn’t take a degree in theology to discover something like that.

It was a second incident that completed my lesson. I took up my usual evening stance – sitting cross legged on the bed with my Bible and journal in my lap, enjoying the silence of my family asleep. Tomorrow was Bible Study with a few girls from youth group. My brain slapped me to point out that perhaps I should actually read the chapter we’ll be studying tomorrow.

John 2:2- “Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” …Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water… and take [some] to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine…” (Bold mine)

And I stopped. Jesus’ statement caught me. “My hour has not yet come.” Before this night, my question always remained: If Jesus’ hour to do miracles had not come, why did he do a miracle? An answer dropped into my head. “To let the party continue.”

What?!  “Yes. To let the party continue.” I shook my head and read further, waiting for a testimony of somebody’s life changed, a soul given new life through this incident. There was none.

And gradually, the concept merged with my experience. God enjoys celebrating.

My first, fleeting thought was Could it be? And then I wondered, more accurately, Would I want it any other way?

It’s a bigger lesson in theology than I’ve had in a while. And I’m still celebrating it.

I tried.

You have to want something so you can try it.
You have to try it so you can make mistakes.
You have to make mistakes so you can figure you out what you did wrong.
Once you figure out what you did wrong, you can do it right.

I want to be a good writer. So I tried.

My Creative Writing class is interesting. It's very laid back. For the poetry section, we have to post an original poem of any form to the forum online and revise it over the next few weeks. I guess what really bothered me was that there weren't any requirements as to what kind of poem we had to write. In another class I took (from a different school) we were required to write three poems of three different styles.

Anyway, it was really tempting to sit there and post a poem from the other class, because I had already been told it was well written. But I challenged myself and wrote a new one. Then I posted both of them to the forum.

The first one I wrote for Intro to Lit last year. It's a Shakespearean sonnet - the rhyme scheme is ABBA ACCA DEDEDE {with a subtle break between the first and second groups of four lines, and between the first 8 and following 6}. The form overall is that during the first eight lines, a dilemma or situation is described and in the second six, it is resolved or changed.

Battle Worthy Spring

I fain would have a battle-worthy Spring

To spite cold Winter's crude and cruel designs.

Invoked by her, our tired and weary sighs,

Our dirges and our mournful carols ring.

And winter's vice!—her mortal arrows sing—

Snow; snow; in drifting, streaming lines

The rain and weeping, howling wind betimes

Encircle dwellings all, with icy wings.

But sunlight warms, inspires our tongues to dance

With soft, sly songs of coming season's cheer

And words of buds and blooming. Every chance

Of stolen sunshine gives us reason more to leer

As wounded Winter with her shattered lance

Admits a battle-worthy Spring for one more year.

{It's coming guys!}

Second poem: (no name yet - another Shakespearean Sonnet)
We hold our breaths one season of each year.
Fall, spring and summer bring us joy; surprise;
Winter freezes through – snow in shocked eyes,
And cold outlines the warmth within our cheer.
A stouter heart arises out of fear
Our motto: we will champion, not enjoy.
We suspect charming Winter’s beauty ploy.
We hide our weakness from those held most dear.
But restlessness drags us outside in guilt.
One moment, just to feel the wind, I swear.
We laugh, grasp living white as if a hilt—
For the innocent spectator to appear.
And soon the snow is unarranged and spilt –
It’s pattern spelling love of winter clear.




Um...let me know if you have a good name for the second poem!! Critique is welcome. That's what they're here for. Like I said, we have to try so we can make mistakes. 

The rest of the gulp.

Chapter 1: Of Dangerous Bifocals  Part 2
   Hunger was the only force that could pull Maleya out of her area when she didn't want to. She pressed her thumbprint into the handle of the fridge before opening it. When she did, blue light shone on her favorite foods. Maleya pulled out feta cheese curds. She turned and leaned against the counter. To her right the counter ran in a U shape, curving around in front of her again six feet away. Across this counter from her, tan-ish hair bobbed and twisted, disappearing momentarily sometimes before coming back into view. Maleya smiled and threw a cheese curd at it. The tan-ishness ducked behind the counter and Barley tossed her a thumbs-up before nimbly retrieving the fallen cheese curd.

            "Leya."

            "Mmm."

            "You have writers 'spert stuff in a while."

            "Mm-hmm. S'why I'm eating." Another cheese curd. She savored the spices and the crumbling tangy cheese against the roof of her mouth.

            "Kay. Leya, think I'll ever be an expert?" It was a ridiculous question, which may have been why Barley loved asking it so often.

            "You're not practiced in the art of failing, so my suppositions are that yes, one day you too will be a spert." Half of a face appeared above the counter, cut abruptly off at the bridge of a nose. Tan hair and blue eyes stared at deep brown hair and green eyes.

            "Good." Barley's eyes thanked Maleya seriously. "In what?"

            "What do you love?"

            "Knowing."

            "Barley!"

            The eyes widened. "Why not? Other people have made up new expertesses before."

            "Areas of expertise, Barley."

            "Expertesses. It's a new word."

            "Um...Barley? Words are not invented." Maleya looked serious. Barley rolled his eyes and propped his chin on the counter.

            "D'they really? You're such a parrot, Maleya. You say everything you hear in your writer's class thingy because you're so scared to be different, a cross-over, to be a writer-techy, because people don't like that. So what? What can anyone do to you?"

            "Lot's of things."

            "Leya, seriously."

            "People could take away everything I've been working on. Everything. You don't know what that means."

            "Ok, ok. But whadda you really think about words. Aren't they invented? Do they always gotta come from the right people?"

            Barley, you know too much. You figure out so much more than anyone else would. It's because you always have to know! Maleya didn't voice her exasperation. It was better to just answer Barley's question. "Ok, fine. I don't think words grow. But I don't think they're invented either," she cast a superior glance at Barley, "they are discovered. They wait, hovering on the fringe of consciousness, dancing out of reach of our thoughts when we reach for them, and then slipping in when we need them and forget to look for them. It's perfection."

            "That's why you're a writer," Barley stated. They stared at each other for a few minutes.

            "I want a drink," Maleya intoned, pushing her off the counter. A cupboard opened and the tap started running.

            "That's why you're a techy." Barley stood up all the way and leaned against the counter, watching Maleya drink her water.

            "Barley, you have no idea."

            "But I will." Barley grinned and held a slender black wire, barely visible even in the brightness of the kitchen.

            "Is that a microphone?"

            "Mm-hmm. I've got a bunch. Dad brought 'em home," Barley championed grinning. Maleya sighed. Her father was the only real techy, and it was dangerous for him to be bringing supplies home to his family. It was hard to say exactly why, though. All areas of expertise just kept to themselves, without sharing what they had or what they knew with other areas, unless there was a finished product that would benefit everybody. Maleya's dad had always been bringing things home because his literal area was in the house, where he preferred to work on things. Naturally Maleya and Barley had grown up with more than their share of tech knowledge.

            Knowing some things about tech wasn't so much a problem, because everyone was allowed to have some tech. But not too much. The Hominy's had too much. Even that wasn't such a problem, except that they used it, instead of just knowing. Of course using the knowledge made them more proficient in it, and soon Maleya's dad had begun telling the children not to flaunt their tech knowledge. They obeyed. But Maleya still used it.

            And then had come her idea to use it in conjunction with writing. There she had crossed a line. Nobody knew about it yet, not even Barley, to whom Maleya told everything. It was too dangerous. It was mixing two areas of expertise. It would change the way things were. It would blur lines and confuse both techies and writers. It was a fascinating secret, and Maleya was confident that it was worth the time she spent on it, and worth the difficulty and the isolation of hiding it, but it was getting more difficult.

            "Leya."

            "What?!" Maleya scowled, confused by her thoughts.

            "You really should go. The writers' expert meeting is in a few minutes." Barley only used full words when he was serious.

            "I know." Maleya tried to ignore what she was thinking and went to her room – her area – to gather her manuscript and pert-paper for notes. Confounded technology.

             
{Hey - same rule here as before. Comment. And thank you kindly for reading, friend.}

*GULP*

Eyes closed, fingers crossed, I'm handing it over. 

Taggitenreadit. Pretty pretty please?

I'm posting the first part of a story I'm working on. Before you proceed, you must promise to comment. I don't care if it's only one word - I just want to know what you honestly think. Except still be nice. But comment regardless. I command thee. (I will be sneaky and check my page views and compare them to comments to make sure you all did. Don't think you'll get away with it. -_-  )

Chapter 1: Of Dangerous Bifocals
{Part two of chapter one to follow in a later post.}

Wind snapped through the grass with angry speed.

            "Nope," Maleya muttered darkly. She slid her fingers across the screen and tapped a different tab. Another tap and a keyboard appeared below codes dictating grass texture and strength. With one fingertip, she highlighted a section of code, deleted it, and typed something to replace it. She grabbed a pair of bulky, thick-lensed bifocals and slipped them on over her own tiny glasses. Tapping the screen again, she changed the control from touch to voice.

            "Wind snapped through the grass with angry speed."

            The bifocals – screens in reality – glowed for a moment, then grass appeared in them, waving and bending under a heavy wind. Maleya watched five seconds of footage before the motions began to repeat themselves.

            "Um...." she searched desperately for a word or a sentence that would keep the story going. “The two field mice were...were...unperturbed by um...the fury above them." Images flickered belatedly across the lenses. Two something-or-other’s blobbed together sheltered by the waving grass. Maleya grabbed the microphone and pulled it as far from the touch-screen as the limited cord would allow.

            "The mice scurried!" she exclaimed trying to keep her tones natural. Frustration was taking over. The blobs in the vision of the bifocals shrank and became detailed images of the tiny rodents specified. With deft fingers she took control of the screen again, delicately dragging an iconic marker back to the first word, which had appeared on a digital paper with handwriting coded to her own.

            "And...open book." This time she paused the pantomime before the mice came into the story. Sky: blue. Grass: improvised mixes of green and tan. Soil: barely visible through the thick growth. Slowly Maleya nodded. Tap. Story deleted. Maleya removed the bifocals and slipped them into a soft velvet bag.

            "Now..." Maleya dug a sloppy sheaf of notebook paper out of a drawer in her desk and began to read it aloud to the screen.

            Maleya was a writer. Well, really she was a renegade. But she was supposed to be a writer. Writing was what she did. It was what she knew. It was her passion. Everyone knew Maleya was a writer. Even Maleya did. But that didn't change her mind about anything. It just scared her.

            Barley wasn't an anything yet. He would be, soon enough. Everyone knew that. He'd be an expert in something. He'd be the talk of the town. He'd learn from the best and improve on their methods, until he was the best. But he was still trying to figure out which pert to ex.

            Well, currently he wasn't figuring anything about exes or perts. Barley was rather viciously concerned with knowing. He seemed to always know what was going on with everybody in the family. It was his business, somehow. He'd pop up whenever anybody had an idea, or a new plan, or a change of plan, or a challenge. He was always the first to know. How he knew when to pop up was a mystery. Most likely he had programmed his intuition to sense that sort of thing – that time when someone is bursting with an idea or nervous about an appointment and just aching to tell someone. It wasn't an annoying thing. Barley was the family calendar. It was his quirk. Everyone had one of those too, just like they had an area of expertise. Things just were that way.

            There was really nothing wrong with the way things were. Everyone was an expert at something and their expertise usually became obvious when they were 10 or 11. Everyone had a quirk, and it always lasted at least a year or too after you became an expert (only cropping up occasionally thereafter.) Everyone was beautiful in some way. If you didn't have soulful eyes, you were bound to have beautiful lips. If you didn't have those, well your complexion was probably perfect. More people than not had several of these handy features. Most people only had a limited amount of techy stuff. It was typical. But the Hominy family had a bunch of tech knowledge and equipment. That part wasn't supposed to be that way. Only Maleya really took it too far though. But no one knew, so even though it wasn't supposed to be that way, it was, and it didn't matter.

***

       

Something Beautiful

I think I have an inverted hole in me somewhere. Probably in the region of my heart, seeing as those things are generally located in that area. It's a hole because I have a need - I need to make something beautiful. It's inverted because it's not something I need to receive but something I need to do. Inverted hole.

I tried to do that singing.

I think I'll leave the singing to someone else. It's not that I don't like singing. I love music, and I love choir. But when I perform, I blank out technique (while words - Italian though they be - remain rooted stubbornly in my mind.) I don't think I'm cut out to be a soloist. It's fun when I do it right, but it takes a lot of work. And then I'm focusing on technique, not beautiful.

I want make beautiful. So I have to go somewhere else, try some other voice. I think my fingers speak better than my vocal chords sometimes. Make that all the time. It must be why I've always liked loved writing. When I write, I put something together that's never been put together before. I can choose my words, my tools, and I can sit and play them until they sing to me.

A singing mosaic. That's the goal. Each word a piece of glass?! - and each synonym, however close in color, never quite the same shade. And when you want a subtle, alluring shadow, you have to take the darkly shimmering bit of clearness that is exactly that color. Too dark and it's menacing. Too light and you don't need to explore it because you can see through it from across the courtyard.

Words are like that. Each gathering of letters, syllables and emphases has it's own personality. The more alike one is to the next in the thesaurus, the more vital it is that you know which one you want. Which one will tint that shadow with perfect justice, perfectly despised rightness.

Not for the reader - for me.

I want a mosaic that will stun me. I want to look at the beauty, created by words - chosen, sprinkled, cast out, placed with care. I want something so beautiful, it chains my hands when it looks I look it in the eye.

When my fingers can procreate that beauty, then I will be a writer.

*Deep breath* You choose the title!

...is something I love to do. I had to write a paragraph using setting to insinuate mood. And not just any setting or mood...I had to choose from a list of settings and mood.

Settings: City in the Rain; Midnight on the Farm; 1890, in the Parlor; High Noon on the River; A Spring Morning; In the Bar, After Hours; The Dusty Road; Dawn in a Foreign Place.

Mood: sinister, sick with love, full of promise, suicidal, dangerous, suspense, happy-go-lucky, lonely.

Sooooo...here be the paragraph, and you see if you can determine which I chose from each list! Leave a comment with your guess before I tell you!

Droplets made music in puddles. Singing water filled damp air, thrusting out delight and receiving its delight thrust unceremoniously back, leaving ripples. There was work to do: high rises and business men with newspapers, Hyundai Sonatas honked angrily, afraid of spoiling their polish on the wet city freeway – uncheery, all. Rain’s embodiment, wearing mother-enforced galoshes and brown ringlets, mad the weary water smile by leaving vanishing footprints on the drowned sidewalks and kissing the raindrops with green eyes wide in wonder. Rain fell, surer of its task of joy, and bathed the world in sweet dancing sorrow.

When I was Young...

When I was young, perhaps 5, our homeschool co-op hired a science teacher to give once-a-week lectures to the kids. It must have been interesting, because while I was not the oldest, I was certainly not the youngest either. But regardless, this man was very patient - he must have enjoyed children as much as science - because he encouraged us to bring our own science experiments to class. One day I decided to do so. I read through a book that had scientific concepts in it and picked the one about condensation. The instructions were to fill a jar with ice water, cap it, and wait for condensation to collect on the outside. I had no idea what the word condensation meant, but I figured doing the experiment would help. So I duly brought a jar, filled with ice water and neatly capped, to class. The teacher was kind and allowed me to interrupt the lesson a few times to check my jar, which was slowly but surely getting wet on the outside. All of the adults were proud of me. "Yes, yes! There you go! That's what condensation means!" and in my young mind, I understood. 

Condensation was the concept that ice cold water could seep very slowly through glass and get the other side wet. Even when there was a lid on the jar. 

I was surprised by how miraculous science was, but I did not question my theory. It was amazing. And I half ways still wish I could believe it. 

Tale of Two Maidens

I wrote this peom years ago when I lived and breathed Middle-Earthen air and almost literaly believed I was an elf.

Once there were two lovely maidens,
One's hair was light, the other darkened,
Every night they danced and sang,          
A few could hear them when they harkened.

Tall and fair, her name was Ilsa
Through the trees her laughter rang
When moon and stars were shining bright
Every night she danced and sang.

With fairer skin and darker hair,
Gianna played upon her pipe
With Ilsa far she roamed and wide
Always by moon and fair starlight.

Strain not your ears for their fair music
Long ago they went away
For they were led by faery elves,
And no one else can go that way.

Into a different world, they followed,
Where it lies though, none can say
For days their song and music echoed,
Now it has long died away.

Where they live is now named Dethen
Few have been there and returned.
Gianna, Ilsa, they had done so,
But now they these worlds have spurned.

Some say thew dwell among the woodlands,
Others claim in mountains high.
Where the truth lies none can tell you
But for Gianna, Ilsa and I.

Their home is near the ocean shore,
But in the woods they dance afar
They bring music to all dwellers
And often dance beneath the stars.

This tale I tell you, listen well
Forget not your childish dreams.
Elves and faeries only exist
While you believe in magic things.

Those young maidens really danced here
Though now gone, they truly live.
If not here, then still in Dethen
And they have a gift to give

To anyone who will believe,
They give a gift of greatest worth,
That of the imagination
which brings one laughter, joy and mirth.

Character Sketches

I love the little things in life so accurately and clearly portray some one's character. It's an instant in time when everybody is doing something different - oblivious to the fact that I'm furtively sneaking glances at them, the object in their hands, and pausing occasionally to scribble notes. Mwahahahaha - if your name (or something representative of your name) appears in this post, keep a look-out behind you for a short fella with glasses (lime green rims,) a tall yellow hat and an epic beard. He's my insurance policy*.

My brother and two sisters sat on the couch one evening. For blogging purposes, their names are Nonchalant, Shutterbug, and Art Maniac.

Nonchalant was flipping through a magazine, discussing with another irrelevant the engine sizes of particular cars and small trucks, comparing estimated miles-per-gallon averages, and generally drooling over anything less than 17 years old and rust-free.

Shutterbug was intently perusing resale sites online in hopes of finding the cheapest perfect ipod on earth. If it was there, she was going to find it and she was going to drive a hard bargain. Her only presence in the room was denoted by the space she took. Consumer reports and "SAVE MONEY NOW!" advertisements manipulated her attention in turn.

Art Maniac was blissfully unaware of my photography as she studied products and pictures from a horse magazine. Horse and Rider? Quarter Horse Associated? Didn't matter. I don't even remember - all I know is that it had horses, which is all it took for her to sit mesmerized for as long as it would have taken me to memorize the thing.

See what I mean? It is as clear a picture of (that facet of) character as one could wish.

And another instance. Art Maniac, Shutterbug and myself were miles from home, talking, giggling, getting bored and otherwise enjoying our life-long sworn friend, Lari, when the idea came (it is not difficult to imagine how - we were goofing off) to give ourselves tattoos with the mascara that Lari was in possession of. Lari began to tattoo herself on her upper arm. In a minute or two of pondering and painting, a little black heart appeared, outlined and then filled in.

Shutterbug snatched at the idea and the mascara and in another minute or two, a face with a jolly smile and sarcastic tongue took life on the arm of my sister. I watched in amusement but without particular interest; the sleeveless dress I would be wearing for the next day's piano competition would advertise a tattoo rather  more distinctly than I really cared for.

But Art Maniac would not be outdone. She held out a well-muscled arm for decoration. "But I don't want a  ridiculous heart," she explained scornfully. A moment's conference and the design was decided upon. I was rather shocked; she was scheduled to compete in a piano competition on the morrow also, but she rebuked me for my fears, claiming that her sleeves would hide the "beautiful thing" and that it would help her endure the wearing of a dress. Shortly thereafter, she proudly displayed a barbed-wire tattoo before my bemused father and shocked mother. I believe she thought the reactions more than worth it.

You never knew watching people could be so amusing, did you? Another secret is to listen to the way somebody talks about a book they're enjoying. In my family it goes something like this:

Short Stuff (little brother): "Storyfingers! Guess what! Mom's reading me this book about the Pony Express and I'm going to be a rider for them!" "The Pony Express doesn't exist anymore, S. Stuff. See, it says in your book that..." "I know that, but I'm going to start my own. And if you want to ride, you have to come see me in my office." Some hours later (representative of days, perhaps?) I find mail, hand scrawled on torn note-book paper and dirty from a ride across the prairies and mountains of our backyard, safely resting on my bed.

Art Maniac: "Hey, get this. There's this book about a girl and her horse, and she rescued the horse from a ranch that was going out of business. And read this description - 'White with a perky medicine hat...'! Storyfingers, don't you know what that means?! It's like, the coolest marking a horse can have! And if you can get a well trained, papered horse with a medicine hat, you could sell it for, like, thousands! Storyfingers, isn't that, like, amazing?!" Receiving mostly a confused response, she returns to the book to retrieve more astounding facts about this miraculous dream horse.

Shutterbug: "Storyfingers, the book I'm reading is sooooo sad! It's about this girl, and her dad goes off to war, and her brother dies, and she's like, made fun of at school just because she's _____! I mean, can you believe it? That's just not fair! And her family isn't nice to her either. I mean, her dad was the only one who liked her, and he's gone. You know, the only way I can stop myself from crying is to keep reminding myself that it's just a book. It's not true, after all. But you should read it! It's soooo sad, I mean, just look at everything she goes through and none of it's her fault!"

Storyfingers: "Oh! I loved that book. I had to read it twice, I just had too. The author is such a good writer! Look at how she develops the lead character! It's so realistic and well written. It's so subtle and yet powerful how she changes the character throughout the course of the story! You should really read it." Or, "Yeah, I know it was about punctuation, but it was so humorous! Lynne Truss does is so skilled at laying out the guidelines for and the history of punctuation in a clear and interesting way! I don't see why anyone wouldn't want to read it. Her puns, dry humor and play on words are all so captivating." Or yet, "Not just his message, but his style really drew me in. I love the way he uses his adjectives. He writes to give every word it's full worth and potency. I love the way he balances simple, poignant sentences with a lengthy use of adjectives; it seems to create a much more vibrant picture."

Ahhhh. Just reading what I've written makes me want to go re-read some of those authors!

Now. Comment. Wait-wait-wait. Slow down. You didn't let me finish. Comment with style. Sketch a character you know well, and in so doing, sketch yourself in profile.

*Insurance policy: If you're looking for him, you'll never notice me. *Grin*

(Pr)Icy Starlight

Ttttttttooooooodddaay................IIIII mmmmmeeeeaaaann toooonight, *pauses to blow furiously on fingers*...I went ouside for my first observational lab in my Astronomy course. I appologize for the wacky spelling, my fingers were a bit numb.

I'll provide you with the story.

I had the advantage--for such you could easily call it--of not being able to do the observation right away. Basically, a bunch of people who are taking this online class with me did the observational rather half-heartedly, or on a cloudy night, and my professor sent out an email warning us that we were expected to see more than three or four constellations! (He didn't put it so gently.) It behooved me to take note.

So tonight (and incidentally my father) found me practicing piano dilligently at about 8:15. Dad pointed out that the sky was clear and I shouldn't take my chances or sit on my duff (something I have done before). Sumarily he told me to make hay while the sun shines.

An aside: Sun shines? Truthfully? What is the world coming to? Something tragic, to be sure.

So I gathered a skymap that I'd printed off (here), a pencil and notebook, and booklight, a real flashlight, and a garbage bag-turned-desktop to protect my scientific studies from the snow.

I'll admit I was a bit queasy as I left the circle of light and the yard in favor of the open prairie/CRP where I could actually see the sky. It felt strange and alien to be outside of the protective windbreak of trees.

I crunched through and over the snow until I had a reasonable view of most of the sky. The snow was hard enough that my garbage bag did make a nice desktop. With the precision of a mad astronomist (astronomist sounds more mad than astronomer, agreed?) I arranged my notebook, pencil and skymap by the light of an LED flashlight stuck between my teeth.

The actual observing came by way of looking at the map with the light and then back at the sky while I muffled the light in my coat. The skymap, being such, has the directions reversed, so that facing north, east is to the left. It makes sense when held up against the backdrop of the stars, but that was difficult, and the light affected my night vision. The process ended up going something like this:

Locate a constellation on the map. Check the orientation of the constellation against the printed directions on the map. Close your eyes and try to re-orientate yourself to the sky. Lay down and look for the constellation, but only notice the few brightest stars. Sit up and look again at the skymap. *Lightbulb* Lay down and look at the sky. Pick out a few more of the stars in the constellation. Look at the skymap again. Oh, duh, those ones. Right there. Yep. I got it this time. Look back at the sky. Squint because you forgot to hide the light. Pick out a few more stars, enough to see the general shape of the constellation. Roll over and hold the light between your teeth as you try to write the name (usually borrowed from Greek and Roman mythology) with your mittins on.

Blow on your hands.

Start the whole process again.

It was a blast! I really did have a good time. I missed the Great Square of Pegasus, but I think that's because I got outside a little to late. Missed Jupiter too, but there was light pollution on the horizon where he was supposed to appear, so that wasn't my fault. Mom came out once I'd been out there a half-an-hour and we finished up together. I did find 13 constellations total.

I should mention the individual stars that I found too. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, was out and in his glory. He was a part of...something Major. Can't quite remember. And Polaris, the North Star, was twinkling from his position on the end of a jeweled dipper.

Here's a picture of stars taken from a camera with a shutter left open. It shows how the stars rotate through the night.