new deep

"Stop trying to figure it out / Deep will only bring you down"

John Mayer, Heavier Things, "New Deep"

"Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don't try to figure out everything on your own.

Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;

he's the one who will keep you on track.

Don't assume that you know it all.

Run to God! Run from evil!"

Proverbs 3:5-7, The Message

"Don't be lured away from him by the latest speculations about him. The grace of Christ is the only good ground for life. Products named after Christ don't seem to do much for those who buy them."

Hebrews 13:9, The Message

I don't like to admit when I have questions of faith. I feel like whatever I say might do something to disprove the God I believe in. But that's something I can't do: disprove God. But lately, some beliefs, supposedly Christian beliefs, have seemed to disprove God to me. Seemed. They haven't, but they sure have set me off into a whirlwind of questioning.

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living for the human being." For the most part, I believe this is true. How can we believe those things on which we stake our lives without even considering their validity? But what I don't believe is that we must be determined to find every answer to every question. Some questions, we just can't answer. That's not to say they are unanswerable.

Faith, belief, and knowing are different from understanding. I believe that God is fully wise, even if I don't understand it. I don't have to. And so much of what has had me confused is people trying to make answers to questions they don't even understand, questions that really make no difference. And maybe that's an immature statement, and I'm willing to grow out of it. But there's no sense in stunting my growth.

"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shine bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!"

1 Corinthians 13:12, The Message

bottom of the barrel

So I was weaving my way through a series of blogs, linked by association, and I found one I rather enjoy. There was a subtitle of sorts that went like this: There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.

After reading through the blog for a while and moving on to others, I recalled that line and realized how true and beautifully articulated it is. But I remembered that there was no attribution. Though the author of this blog seems to be very insightful, I couldn't quite conceive that he penned it. So I took to the search engine. I was and was not surprised to learn that this was written by C. S. Lewis. What did indeed throw me off was that I've read it. In The Last Battle in The Chronicles of Narnia.

It took a lot of frustrating searching and skimming, but I finally found the context of it, which I felt was necessary for my own benefit. I learned a lesson through this process: It is very helpful for people looking for the origin of a quote to not only name the work from which it came, but also to guide, at least loosely, them to the location. So for anyone looking for the place where this quote can be found through a search engine, as I just did for far too long, and having stumbled upon this page:

"[T]here is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious."

C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle, near the end of "Further Up and Further In"

Okay, I just felt like I owed that to the internet.

I find myself in the midst of a terrible mess. In the wake of the first three weeks of school and being sick, this place has collapsed in on itself. Or something like that. So much laundry needs to be done. So many dishes need to be done. (I need someone to train my incompetent self in the skills of dishwasher-using. Sad, I know.) I haven't straightened the couch up since Dale left last Saturday. And books. Sweet mother at the books. Strung from one end to the other. It's driving me insane, but all I really want to do is sleep. Yes, yes. I know this sounds much like the symptoms of depression. I don't think that's it. Though I am not sure what it is. Laziness, maybe? But I feel that it's possible that I am on the cusp of a cleaning spree. Might I add that the word cusp disgusts me?

So, uh, I have a new guitar. Yeah, I know. A friend of my cousin's was selling it for $50, and my cousin thought I might want it so she told my Mom. Well, they bought it sight-unseen. I don't need it, but hey, it won't hurt to have another, right? It's an acoustic Yamaha. That's all I know. Oh, and it came with the case. Mom has it at home. I guess I'll eventually get it. But right now, what I need is a tuner.

Um. Yeah. I'm out of boring things to talk about. How's that for the bottom of the barrel?

hoopla

They're having a showing of Napoleon Dynamite at the BSU tonight. I'd like to have stayed to see it, but I have a lot to do as far as homework goes: read on The Republic for philosophy, read whatever it is that we won't talk about in women's lit, and all kinds of Spanish hoopla. (I know hoopla isn't the right word there, but it sure is fun...) And I over-achieved and went ahead and did my advanced comp stuff. BarbCobb's a crazy woman having us email her two assignments with two different deadlines between two classes. But whatever. I wasn't about to wait until the last minute (being 7:59 tomorrow morning) to email her the second assignment. I'm going to try to go to bed at a decent hour tonight and sleep until at least 8:00. That'll be glorious. (Note that this is the only reason I didn't go and get a Caramel Macchiato after TNT.)

Now for more Spanish hoopla. I was extremely bored in the library today--though I'm not sure why because it seemed everybody was having a computer problem--and I was looking up the suggestions that dictionary.com returns when you search my name. No. I don't know why. Anyway, it turns out that my name is very similar to the scientific name for plants, usually flowering ones. Way to go, botany. But I also noticed casita, which I thought was pretty and looked rather Spanish in nature. And I was right. It means little house. So I looked up the word for prairie, and discovered that yes, Little House on the Prairie is La Casita de la Pradera on Spanish-speaking television. I felt much better after I settled that. Then I thought on the fact that adding -ita or -ito as the ending to lots of nouns makes them little. So at my favorite translating site, I began making my own Spanish words to see if they meant small this or small that. I had both successes and failures.

So ladies and gentlemen, for your multilingual pleasure, here is my presentation of

Words That Do and Do Not Mean

What I Thought They Did in Spanish

Cuadernito does mean little notebook.
Pezito, pesito, pescito, and pescadito do not mean little fish.
Librito does mean booklet.
Hombrito does not mean little man.
Gatito and gatita do mean kitten.
Vacita does not mean little cow.
Mesita does mean small table.
Carrito does not mean little car, but it does mean cart.
Perrito does mean little dog.
Estafadorito does not mean little racketeer.

Yes, so that was very fun and enlightening, no? No? No. It wasn't very much fun at all. So now that we're done not having fun, let's begin the real fun with Plato and Socrates and social justice.

whatever is all this mess?

I'm sick. So far, let's see what I've got in my system: Four ibuprofen. One can of chicken noodle soup (John Progresso, if you will). One cup of Equate knock-off TheraFlu. A couple swigs of Gatorade. A popsicle. An orange. I'm trying everything. Except Nyquil or Sudafed or that Tylenol Severe Cold and Flu stuff I bought last time I was sick. I never took any of it because it intimidated me. But the last thing I need to be at about 6:00 (or 6:20, depending on the snoozes) in the morning is comatose. So hopefully, I've pain-killed, nourished, steamed, chilled, electrolyted, and citrused myself back to health. I have N'Ice throat drops on stand-by. I'm sure the cashier at WalMart thought I was crazy. As well as everyone else in the store.

After my mom me callled while I was trying a different method--sleeping it off--she called my sister. She, in turn, called me and gave me a strict WalMart shopping list. So I rolled out of bed pretty much out of it and went to purchase my wellness. Needless to say, I was still asleep as I was perusing the aisles of the store. And it took me about four times as long as a normal trip to get in and out. I would just stand in the aisles looking at shelves and shelves of things going, "What is all this stuff? And what am I looking for?" I still feel that way looking at the words as I type them.

I think that means it's bedtime.

he doesn't even wear socks

Considering this is the first time I have actually seen my redesign on an actual computer screen, I just now discovered how terribly uncomfortable it is. I'm sorry. Not fixing it. At least for a while. I did change the picture, though. I didn't realize how crappy that "washed up" looked against those trees. But I really did like the font. So I'll probably change it again when I get home. You're right. I'm never satisfied.

This is what, the third week of school? I'm already quite tired of it. I'm already habitually getting up later and later. And that first burst of academic ambition is waning rather rapidly. I'd rather stare at a brick wall (or some other exercise in futility) than actually do what I need to do for class.

:-/ And the semester finally just reared its true, ugly head. The crazy lady just came into the library. Why can't she just go to Applied Science? I think she's following me. Okay, now I'm the crazy one.

That's not an impossibility, either. Last night I had a rather humorous dream in which I was a drug dealer. Okay, so even in the dream, it wasn't something I was used to. I just happened to have a small stash that I needed to get rid of. I haven't a clue how it came to be mine. I finally decided who I was going to sell it to, but I was mortally afraid I would get caught, so I dumped it into his socks. Yeah, I don't know. The funny thing is that I'm pretty sure what I was selling to him was itty bitty wild onion bulbs. Maybe that's why he ripped me off. He paid me with a $120 bill, and he and his friend took off with my cell phone and the contents of my wallet. So what's the moral of the story, kids? Don't try to sell baby onions to Justin and Ryan. By the way, I miss those boys.

Alright, alright. I'm going to focus on homework now. I need to do something different. 'Cause I'm pretty sure I just saw Steve Zissou and the three-legged dog walk by the library.