tukutendereza.

The Kenyan woman, Anna, who lived in my hall this semester flew back to Africa today. Two nights ago, she had Els and me over for some Kenyan rice, meat, bread, and some vegetables. She was drinking something that looked like hot chocolate but had the consistency of Malt-O-Meal. Somehow, it was very comforting...like drinking porridge. She was also playing Kenyan music videos and explaining to us that Africa is a culture of dance, and no one would buy a song that you couldn't dance to.

Each and every time I interacted with this woman, she blessed me with the love of God and spoke directly to my heart. More stories to come.

In this video, Anna said that the woman is saying when Satan calls, she isn't available to answer.

jealous arm.

And where are they now?
Our silent golden cows?
His swift and jealous arm has thrown them down.

Lift up your eyes, little ones.
Rejoice chosen sons.

manna.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked....But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end...When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever...But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. [Psalm 73:2-3,16-28]

Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. [Mark 1:16-20]

title gets a makeover.

my, isn't this exciting.

hymn.

If to distant lands I scatter,
If I sail to farthest seas,
Would you find and firm and gather
'til I only dwell in Thee?

jane.

I haven't had many years like this one. Its been pretty fiercely bittersweet in its revelations, intensity of emotion, etc. But I have had many moments, seconds, days that are very long, times where I was walking down the sidewalk and looking at the trees with all their interlocked branches like antlers and lengthy patches where my fleshly self simply craved the approval of others. Daily, I am venturing to throw this part of myself over the bridge and into the river and rely more heavily on the Lord for any and all of these gut reactions. I read Gwen's book, When People Are Big and God is Small, last year, and that was the first time I soundly grasped how this fear of man had been shaping me and how beautiful it could be if I only feared the Lord instead and let Him shape me.

I'm reading Jane Eyre right now and there is this portion where Jane, as a ten-year-old child, is sitting before the fire late at night and consulting her fellow classmate and dear friend, Helen Burns, on the trials of her small life. Helen, a prudent thirteen-year-old, pours forth wisdom:

"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt," Helen spoke, "you would not be without friends."

"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough; if others don't love me, I would rather die than live - I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest -"

"Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement: the sovereign Hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere...God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress?"

And so, through a child's wisdom (or rather Charlotte Bronte's and more largely, the Lord's), I am attempting. This is a daily declining that I have to do, unmanageable only if I make it that way. Trying to "lay down these crowns" I constantly "clench with fisted hands."


"Who, then, are those who fear the LORD? 
He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.
They will spend their days in prosperity, 
and their descendants will inherit the land.
The LORD confides in those who fear him; 
he makes his covenant known to them" Psalm 25:12-14

If you're going to walk on the white.

I've been seeking truth in several areas regarding the Lord and His love as of late. I've felt pretty cushioned by the Holy Spirit this last month, like I have pillows on all sides of me. There's really no other place I want to be right now. I know this poem is loosely tethered, but my heart is very much in this place. Trying to aim for truth.


If you're going to walk on the white
side of the curb, by the gutter,
and search for deader plants
behind the sewer grates, slowly,
then I will wait. I guess.
I halted in this frothy glasshouse,
damp
before it was silent, but still
deadening in the weight of
its sliding sheets of pale
or thin light. I sat between the vines
to be in the state of the glorified
libraries and the tilting cathedrals with their
fallen doors, the basilicas
that have torn down their
own wallpapers and repainted
curious images of antiseptic gods
on insubstantial sanctums. We
could always see through
the fake beams the modern chaplains
innately rooted like boorish
trees that snake through the Amazon.
Looking up the curved, impressionistic
dome toward the keynote core that
leveled the force of the angels, you
told me of how it used to be, how it really is -
deep - rumbling down through the stratums
of the ocean and latching on to both
sides of the continent (and we are covered
still). It is an exquisite following.
The smell of the hickory pew
and melted candlesticks is what
I remember the least.

this.

Let this goodbye of ours, this last goodbye
Be still and splendid like a forest tree...
Let there be one grand look within our eyes
Built of the wonderment of the past years
Too vast a thing of beauty to be lost
In quivering lips and burning floods of tears.
- Alice Meynell
via Elisabeth Elliot