in honor of you, my friends, and your lives, and how in the darkest of times, GOD's glory can come through and make you a living testimony. there's something beautiful in darkness...and it is the Lord's presence and goodness to His children as they struggle and emerge to find Him faithful.
Psalm 33:11
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.
Psalm 36:5
Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
Psalm 89:1
I will sing of the LORD's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.
Psalm 91:4
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
Psalm 98:3
He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Psalm 115:1
Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.
Isaiah 25:1
O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
your goodbyes bring me back
I savored these lines from a poem set on my desk by my favorite Norton Pub. rep. He saw it on the office wall of one of my grad school peers and thoughtfully brought me a copy, knowing I would love it. It's entitled "Goodbye, Tuscaloosa" and is composed by Paul Guest and Eliot Wilson, who were also in the grad program while I was there. I only wish I had time to type it in its entirety. But, there's a good chance not many of you care about ole UA.
Goodbye flying cockroaches you, too, were my ontology.
Goodbye magnolias. I will keep the memory of your shade like a secret.
Goodbye braless chain smoking attendant at the Cleansing Tide Laundromat. Your teeth are as yellow as crime scene tape, but your heart is as clean as a hound's tooth.
Goodbye Mexican roofers, burning in the sun or falling to your deaths. When I asked you what day it was, I meant what century.
Goodbye Tuscaloosa News--how I lived your oxymoron.
Goodbye coca-cola, goodbye sweet tea. You are as advertised.
Goodbye honeysuckle.
Goodbye darlin, suga, goodbye bless his heart.
Goodbye undefinable Capstone. So many times I asked and no one knew.
Goodbye to fried corn, fried steak, fried toasts, fried okra, and fried water.
Goodbye Pepitos and however one says joie de vivre in Mexican.
Goodbye Shelton State Community College students. Yours is the true devotion. For you I am a poolside father, reluctant and mindful.
Let me lie down between the bonfire and the library.
Goodbye Paul Bear Bryant--drop-kick me through the goalposts of life.
Goodbye Tuscaloosa. Your red clay roads do not run out.
I speak to you, and you to me, together, in praise.
Goodbye flying cockroaches you, too, were my ontology.
Goodbye magnolias. I will keep the memory of your shade like a secret.
Goodbye braless chain smoking attendant at the Cleansing Tide Laundromat. Your teeth are as yellow as crime scene tape, but your heart is as clean as a hound's tooth.
Goodbye Mexican roofers, burning in the sun or falling to your deaths. When I asked you what day it was, I meant what century.
Goodbye Tuscaloosa News--how I lived your oxymoron.
Goodbye coca-cola, goodbye sweet tea. You are as advertised.
Goodbye honeysuckle.
Goodbye darlin, suga, goodbye bless his heart.
Goodbye undefinable Capstone. So many times I asked and no one knew.
Goodbye to fried corn, fried steak, fried toasts, fried okra, and fried water.
Goodbye Pepitos and however one says joie de vivre in Mexican.
Goodbye Shelton State Community College students. Yours is the true devotion. For you I am a poolside father, reluctant and mindful.
Let me lie down between the bonfire and the library.
Goodbye Paul Bear Bryant--drop-kick me through the goalposts of life.
Goodbye Tuscaloosa. Your red clay roads do not run out.
I speak to you, and you to me, together, in praise.
Friday, January 20, 2006
that man named jackson
Our Humanities faculty have been spending a good deal of time with Harvey (Hardy) Jackson over the past week. He's considered to be a historical guru of all things Alabama. His ambitious book Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State covers nearly every thing an Alabamian could think of...and quite a bit more. It's written with a somewhat dry tone as histories are prone to, but one quote "got me to laughin' real hard." Jackson on the early Alabama Native Americans:
Around A.D. 1000, the Alabama Indians began to build their mounds. We don't know why. Maybe one of them saw some on a trading trip into the Ohio River Valley, came back and told his friends, "what this place needs is mounds." (3)
Ha. "We gotta get us somma dem mounds."
Around A.D. 1000, the Alabama Indians began to build their mounds. We don't know why. Maybe one of them saw some on a trading trip into the Ohio River Valley, came back and told his friends, "what this place needs is mounds." (3)
Ha. "We gotta get us somma dem mounds."
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
my world
today
I'm so glad my classes went well and soaked up all that good grammar gravy
I miss my grandmother and wish I could communicate with heaven-people
I called Nathan about the amoebas he left at home, and he played along
I miss my friends, even the really moody ones
I still haven't changed my name and am struggling with it
I hate getting up in the morning because I have a snuggly Nathan who lets me sing morning songs to him
I'm so glad my classes went well and soaked up all that good grammar gravy
I miss my grandmother and wish I could communicate with heaven-people
I called Nathan about the amoebas he left at home, and he played along
I miss my friends, even the really moody ones
I still haven't changed my name and am struggling with it
I hate getting up in the morning because I have a snuggly Nathan who lets me sing morning songs to him
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
humming on the way to work...
O Lord, my heart longs to be
A habitation fit for Thee
A place where peace reigns, and love can flourish
A heart where You will feel at home.
O Lord I want to be like You,
My tongue to speak the words You do.
My hands to stretch forth in healing others,
My feet to carry the good news.
That You are God, You're the Way,
You're the Truth and You're the Life.
King of Kings, Lord of Lords,
Prince of Peace, Lord Jesus Christ.
By Your shed blood, the Great Redeemer
You saved my soul, You paid the price.
A habitation fit for Thee
A place where peace reigns, and love can flourish
A heart where You will feel at home.
O Lord I want to be like You,
My tongue to speak the words You do.
My hands to stretch forth in healing others,
My feet to carry the good news.
That You are God, You're the Way,
You're the Truth and You're the Life.
King of Kings, Lord of Lords,
Prince of Peace, Lord Jesus Christ.
By Your shed blood, the Great Redeemer
You saved my soul, You paid the price.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
rachel wannbes
We all want to be Rachels. Rachel ("little lamb") who Jacob worked seven long years for, then another seven when he was tricked into marrying ugly, weak-eyed Leah ("cow"). Rachel who was beautiful of form and face, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. No one wants to be Leah--ugly and unwanted, unloved, always in the shadow. I can't imagine how she felt when treated so harshly.
Leah's main heart's desire was to be loved by her husband. Scripture tells us she even traded food with Rachel to "buy" a night with her own husband. Scripture also tells us that the Lord saw she was unloved. How beautiful--the Lord sees us when we are not loved, hurt, alone, frightened. He knows our every state and responds in love towards us. He blessed Leah with children while Rachel could not conceive. Leah, finally hoping she could win her husband's love, gave birth to three sons, naming them significant, symbolic names that reflected her hopes to win her husband's love. But, she didn't get it. He did not decide all of sudden that he would love her or that she was special. Her motherly radiance did not outshine Rachel's beauty and the power with which Rachel could draw Jacob's attention.
Finally, with her fourth son, Leah surrenders her desires to the Lord. Instead of sulking or growing bitter, she looks at the last son, and takes her life--so seemingly absent of love--and turns it into one of the greatest love stories of all time. She names her son Judah ("Let us praise God"), saying, NOW I will praise the Lord.
The result? The Lord took her offering of praise--her son--and with her heart of surrender, he gave her heart's desire. While Rachel died years later in childbirth and was buried on the side of the road, Leah lived a long life with Jacob who carried her back to the burial cave of Abraham, Sarah, Issac and Rebekah. When Jacob is dying, he tells Rachel's son Joseph, prepare my body for a journey, and bury me in the cave where I buried Leah. Bury me by LEAH. Not Rachel. It is Leah who has the place of honor, whose deep desire to rest with her husband is written of so tenderly in Genesis 49. Bury me with Leah, the loved.
God's love did not end there. Leah's legacy continued and resulted in the greatest love story of all time. It was not through the mighty and favored Joseph that Christ came. It was not through the line of priests (Levi) that Christ came. It was not through the oldest Rueben or the youngest, most beloved Benjamin. Christ is the LION of JUDAH! He came through the son of surrender--the one who's mother gave up everything she wanted, worked for, and thought about, to give her heart and her son to the Lord. Leah's faithfulness and act of courage in the midst of heartache is the line through which God brings Christ. Christ comes not from the beautiful Rachel, but from the ugly, unloved, "cow" of Laban.
How much God loves us! --the unlovely ones, spotted with sin, who He makes holy, pure, and white. Those desires and thoughts that we don't surrender (though we often see them as innocent) are really barriers that prevent us from being all the Lord wants us to be. I want to be so wholly surrendered that the kingdom of Christ can come through me...I want to know that love.
Leah's main heart's desire was to be loved by her husband. Scripture tells us she even traded food with Rachel to "buy" a night with her own husband. Scripture also tells us that the Lord saw she was unloved. How beautiful--the Lord sees us when we are not loved, hurt, alone, frightened. He knows our every state and responds in love towards us. He blessed Leah with children while Rachel could not conceive. Leah, finally hoping she could win her husband's love, gave birth to three sons, naming them significant, symbolic names that reflected her hopes to win her husband's love. But, she didn't get it. He did not decide all of sudden that he would love her or that she was special. Her motherly radiance did not outshine Rachel's beauty and the power with which Rachel could draw Jacob's attention.
Finally, with her fourth son, Leah surrenders her desires to the Lord. Instead of sulking or growing bitter, she looks at the last son, and takes her life--so seemingly absent of love--and turns it into one of the greatest love stories of all time. She names her son Judah ("Let us praise God"), saying, NOW I will praise the Lord.
The result? The Lord took her offering of praise--her son--and with her heart of surrender, he gave her heart's desire. While Rachel died years later in childbirth and was buried on the side of the road, Leah lived a long life with Jacob who carried her back to the burial cave of Abraham, Sarah, Issac and Rebekah. When Jacob is dying, he tells Rachel's son Joseph, prepare my body for a journey, and bury me in the cave where I buried Leah. Bury me by LEAH. Not Rachel. It is Leah who has the place of honor, whose deep desire to rest with her husband is written of so tenderly in Genesis 49. Bury me with Leah, the loved.
God's love did not end there. Leah's legacy continued and resulted in the greatest love story of all time. It was not through the mighty and favored Joseph that Christ came. It was not through the line of priests (Levi) that Christ came. It was not through the oldest Rueben or the youngest, most beloved Benjamin. Christ is the LION of JUDAH! He came through the son of surrender--the one who's mother gave up everything she wanted, worked for, and thought about, to give her heart and her son to the Lord. Leah's faithfulness and act of courage in the midst of heartache is the line through which God brings Christ. Christ comes not from the beautiful Rachel, but from the ugly, unloved, "cow" of Laban.
How much God loves us! --the unlovely ones, spotted with sin, who He makes holy, pure, and white. Those desires and thoughts that we don't surrender (though we often see them as innocent) are really barriers that prevent us from being all the Lord wants us to be. I want to be so wholly surrendered that the kingdom of Christ can come through me...I want to know that love.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
"be ye perfect"
Nathan and I were talking last night about the command to be perfect as the Lord is perfect. Seems like such an impossible task--I am rarely, if ever, perfect, but I seem to expect other people to be. I sometimes look down on friends in their imperfect moments--holding them to a higher standard than I hold myself. Sometimes when I am not perfect, I watch them look down on me in the same way.
Nathan reminded me last night that we must have grace. We must have grace for each other (he will fail me; I will fail him); we must have grace for our friends; and we must have grace for ourselves. I need to move on...we must allow ourselves to move forward and we must believe that we can, by God's grace.
I hope I am surrounded by grace-full people, who will love me, forgive me, and let me (help me) move forward as Christ works a whole lot on my flesh and on perfecting me according to His will.
More than that, I hope I can be that person to them.
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