"Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways. Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts." -Flannery O'Connor

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke, The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, and Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. J'adore all of them. They are lovely works of fiction. What I do not understand, though, is how little fiction I actually read. I avoid it, really, and always find myself in the biography section of the library or B&N. This is even weirder considering how much I love to write fiction. It is to me what eating is to my little sister, what painting was to Picasso, what military stratagem was to Napoleon. It is my #1 form of self expression, yet I avoid reading it. Perhaps this is because of the voice in my head that insists reading fiction is a waste of time. I must get too much joy from imagining what isn't to listen to that voice. Here are some fictional things that I've been really wanting to exist this week....

Naturally blue highlights
Unicorns
Literary Osmosis
Garden gnomes that walk and talk
A white Jeep Wrangler that requires absolutely no gas to run, registered in my name
Blue pandas
Reggae style hymns.

If I were honest, I would tell you that your hunger makes me cry inside. I would tell you that my heart cracks over the uncertainty and insecurities in your life. If I told the truth, you would know that I never wanted to see tears rolling down your proud face. I would tell you that you can have everything that belongs to me, because your happiness means more to me than my own, if I were honest. You would know not only that I love you, but that I love you more than life, and you are more precious to my soul than all the wealth in the world. If I told you the way things really are, you would know that I would rather be struck, than see you hit one more time. If I were honest, I would tell you that I love you, and that my mind and body silently cry out in agony when you say that you feel alone.
Would you help pick up the pieces of my shattered heart, if I were honest?

In school right now I am reading literature about the Civil War era and just before then. Of course, with that comes the study and critique of American slavery. It is something that has been talked about in my curriculums to the point of just being annoying. It was terrible, yeah, but it is over. Can we talk about something else, maybe?
Well in further studying that time I am reading more about the other side of it. Everyone seems to look back at it and think "I would never do that", or "that kind of cruelty would make me sick no matter how many of my friends supported it", and that may be true-who can know?-but what about if we had been one of the people enslaved? In Uncle Tom's Cabin, (A work of fiction? Yes. Truth? Mostly, I believe.) the "slaves" blow my mind with their calm, submission, and strength. They sang, and they wept, and they supported one another.
I love to think that the many Africans who were Christians were more free than their "masters", because they were free from eternal bondage, to sin. I am amazed by how backwards things can appear on this earth, and hope that had I been a slave, I would have had that same graceful perseverance.

This scene is ever so prevelant in Egypt right now. People are fighting. People are rioting. People are dying. Civil unrest has become uncommon in this place. Change needs to happen.

All of the unrest we're seeing right now in Egypt hasn't been going for a really long time, and already I think it is possible for us to become numb to the heartache and pain of the country. I pray that this doesn't happen. I pray that we would not turn a blind eye to these people and the pain they are enduring. Let us pray without end for the people and for the country of Egypt. God can and will bring peace.


Brianna

The last couple days have been pretty average days with the occaisional mix of highly unusual occurances (another time). As always I've been caught up in school and work. Yesterday I did my Bible lesson and had the idea of temptation and things that go along with that further explained.

When we sin, we are following after the wrong desires of our heart. These desires are not rooted in Christ, but rather in Satan. Satan leads us slowly to the realization of these desires; he builds them up and makes us rationalize them until we make them "okay" in our minds. Satan does this just to pull us further and further away from God. Satan is crafty, he doesn't do this all at once, but little by little he pulls us farther from God.

Kind of makes you think about what the little evil genius Satan is, right?



Brianna

I like to pretend that National Freedom Day has nothing to do with a President, or something being signed, but rather that it is a day dedicated to the commemeration and vision of liberation from wickedness and deliverance unto perfection. I like to think that it is about all the bad in the world being taken away, and being replaced by the power to do boundless good: to speak without restraint put on by the cold and irreligious bonds of society.

Happy (National) Freedom Day!



(I am not sure who the poem on that painting was written by, so I can not tell you to whom the credit is do. I can only tell you to whom it is not do, and that is me).