When we talk about complex subjects, the important thing is to remember the process is often more important than any conclusions the majority, or perhaps the loudest voice may come to - unless we're seeking to convert (which is sometimes the case) - tho even in these cases, i'd argue that we must speak to the heart, to stir up power and voice rather than to silence in victory lost. complex subjects are often the springboard into people's souls- thus we should go into these conversations with the goal to understand, to connect - if not on the level of the actual topic of matter, on the level of a common sympathy that we share a genuine desire to seek truth. In such a way, we care more about the person with whom we converse than about convincing them and the world that we're, in fact, right. Perhaps, then, speaking the truth does not correlate so well with being right.
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"Listening means more than thinking about what you will say next"

semicolons and commas

the problem with writing a journal entry after a long hiatus (vocab word for my students this week) is that there's an expectation (from whom i'm not sure) that it will be a compilation of reflections from the last entry until now. something of the substantial sort perhaps. it is and it is not. it is in that this moment contains all moments prior i suppose (and in some sense all following as well if you take it in a c.s. lewis style).

but nevertheless, it is here, and i have no clue what it will be.

tho the only wisdom this entry can endeavor to touch upon is that i'm so far from good (more suprise than i'd ever think) and very much in want.

of the following:
peace from God
comfort
acceptance
ability

and that there is much else i don't have mastery over. not even 80% (tfa joke, unfortunately).

myself
responsibility
love
kindness
selflessness
joy

and everything else that makes up the fruit of the spirit.

especially self-control. strange that when i feel like i have no control, self-control quickly dissolves as well. tho this is not how it's supposed to be. supposedly i'm to be able to have self-control because i have hope and find stability in something greater. perhaps it's not enough faith that i won't drown while i walk in this new storm. that's something else i just realized. jesus walks on water during a storm. so thus peter does too. maybe he would have been learned to trust jesus with the sea. maybe he was at that point where he has enough faith in the ability for God to use him during calm waters. but now there's the storm factor...(it's only a new factor because it is only now that i realize it was there, thus it's new to me...maybe this is not that that significant, but for some reason, i believe it is because a new layer of blindness has just been stripped in my memory of the story i've been obsessed with for the past few months, and will probably continue to be for a while). and he gets scared.

so the lack of self-control manifests itself in a lack of actions: i miss people but i don't contact them. people reach out to me but i don't always respond. and i'm insecure so i watch tv. when i'm supposed to be lesson planning, writing emails, being...responsible for those i've committed to, at least in my most idealistic moments, to be committed to. according to that darn personality test, i'm supposedly a crusader. but i'm also paralyzed a lot of the time in ...what is it? fear? hopelessness? stress?

i don't like teaching. there i said it. i know it's a great privilege, and some side of me likes that i'm here...but i don't like playing the bad guy. and i hate seeing my weaknesses directly affecting people i'm supposed to be serving positively -are these weaknesses (selfishness, inexperience, being unorganized, etc.) a deep injustice i'm committing against my students? ... and i haven't been able to tap into the juices of goodness and meaning creativity for those God-filled lessons i dreamed about - helping my students discover the world as it is meant to be, to understand eden - instead i'm being sucked into to the realization of my nakedness, some bitterness that even my students have noticed (miss, why are you so morbid all the time?) we're reading lord of the flies, which i'm a little nervous about because what if all i do is focus on evil and forget to keep my heart grounded upwards towards good?

is what i'm doing exuding Jesus? probably not because i miss Him. I miss Him in friends, in church, in the godpod i adored last year. and i miss Him in prayers. i miss Him in community and individually. not even "in anything" - i miss Him. yes, He's here, and yes, I have moments when i realize it's all Him - but i have yet to see myself change into a better teacher because of Him - and maybe that's it. maybe i need to see my identity fully in Him rather than as a teacher or friend, or whatever - of course that's always been the case - that's always been the answer. but i still have yet to understand a)what that means and b) what else that does not explain. so maybe that's it, but it's not all of it. maybe once i seek to just be His, everything else will reflect Him as well - in the meantime, tho, i still feel guilt for not doing what i'm supposed to be doing according to what i - and everyone else - believe i should be doing - which is committing fully to children.

do we all suffer with illusions of greatness in the future?

i can't even handle myself - at this moment i never want to handle anyone else. i have to give hugs and kisses and love without any responsibility. of course it's pretty much the opposite right now. and so at this time, it's mostly desert desert desert.

(random mind wandering mm dessert.

rita's water ice has great pumpkin-flavored italian ice. not everything is symbolic or great. some things just are.

maybe. mirages. mirages of desserts. that's pretty hellish. like those cooking shows. i'd imagine hell to be a place where they show you delicious food without giving you any.)

anticlimactic. because i'm about to end here. but maybe it should be anticlimactic because that's what i feel at the moment, even tho there have been some wonderful moments with love from friends and family and the realization that my students are wonderfully loved by God as well (though i have yet to fully grasp that in my heart so that i can realize this all the time). still at this moment, i feel like i ought to hide behind this bastion (another vocab word for the week) of hope/hopelessness? that separates saturday from sunday (the last layer of security for the weekend) and maybe myself from others.

which leads me to a recent thought that i haven't quite mapped out (maybe instead of settling with anticlimactic, i'll just push on forward blindly - which is also what i feel like i'm doin)- if the church is one body what exactly does it mean for us to have an identity? is alice 1) me, my identity that He created for me and 2) the lens thru which i'm supposed to develop an understanding of humanity/ our relationships/ and our brokeness? if i am not my own, then does that make this "me - mind, thoughts, body" somehow (not irrelevant but) no longer the center of my world, and simply a temporary being for me - a soul- to reside and grow into something greater than just itself?

ok trippy. maybe also completely wrong. in fact dino says it is wrong to say individual identities don't matter because names are important. and dying to ourselves isn't dying to our identities - but rather dying to our desires. somehow i'm not really clear about how that works anymore.


nevertheless, i only wonder about this because i am beginning to see more of the fall of humanity thru an understanding of how i act and react to new obstacles. if i ever thought myself wise and kind/good - almost beautiful because i (thought i) loved people - i am now realizing how superficial this goodness was - not to deny power to any lessons i learned and character i gaiend before, but i think the genuine good was, after a while, glossed over with a veneer of goodaliceness that covered also the bad - and i guess just recently, some deep scraping away of such has been occuring - and maybe it's a good thing - i just wish that will be the last, and that this isn't something that will happen throughout my life (this = learning a lesson and growing painfully, then peace until i realize the peace is only temporary and is covering up some more darkness that must be uprooted in a difficult process) - tho i'm almost certain it will. yes for my own good. ("my"? what's that again?) but misery! where's the joy?


of course, i know just because i can see the world's fall in my heart doesn't mean that's the only purpose for me to have an identity that is alice. maybe it's just one "perk" and one way God works.

so i know i can't separate myself off, but i know i'm not indiscriminantly mixed with other people, so and i know that i can't go the other way around which also cuts me off in a sense - and claim that my identity does not exist... but at the same time, i also hate feeling a bit diluted. teacheralice is never completely away. work never ends abruptly, tho it may roll into rest. same with this whole growth and peace business.

and knowing the importance of others makes it that much harder knowing that i don't have a stable church body here in philly because i'm too scared and/or exhausted to commit to one - in spite of knowing it's so important - is that what it feels like to decide to go into rehab?

so the line between then and now and forevermore does not quite exist, because this moment contains all moments and every decision i make is just a compilation of all other decisions...and if i say i'm connected to everyone else, am i going to enter the boundaries of a major eastern religion? but we already established that identity matters. and what about forgiveness? where's forgiveness and how do we settle that with consequences? are we the sum of our actions? i don't think so...tho now i'm getting a little more confused...

well so sleep and wake - here i go enter into sleep - sorta - i'll probably still dream about the things i fret over while i'm awake.

of course i want some things to be destroyed/purged forever. die to myself. so that i can be part of something/someone greater. so that i don't have to feel like i'm choosing this or that so and so versus so and so, but that i can be "forever friends" (a la elizabeth and sunday school) with you even if at this moment i feel disconnected from you.

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. (a la donne and w;t if you've ever seen/read the play)

i think i'm at some state of spiritual confusion.

"I was amused and somewhat astonished at a critic a few years back who wrote an article analyzing Dandelion Wine plus the more realistic works of Sinclair Lewis, wondering how I could have been born and raised in Waukegan, which I renamed Green Town for my novel, and not noticed how ugly the harbor was and how depressing the coal docks and railyards down below the town. But, of course, I had noticed them and, genetic enchanter that I was, was fascinated by their beauty. Trains and boxcar and the smell of coal and fire are not ugly to children. Ugliness is a concept that we happen on later and come self-conscious about. Counting boxcars is a prime activity of boys. Their elders fret and fum and jeer at the train that holds them up, but boys happily ocunt and cry the names of the cars as they pass from far places." - Ray Bradbury

"Not because sin isn't serious, but because I am taking seriously who God says I am. The point isn't my failure; it is God's success in remaking me into the person he originally intended me to be."

"If people were taught more about who they are, they wouldn't have to be told what to do. It would come naturally. When we see religious communities spending most of their time trying to convince people not to sin, we are seeing a community that has missed the point. The point isn't sin management. The point is who we are now."

wrestling with being humbled and recognizing I am nothing without God while finding self worth because of the creator and the cross. walking on water and finding little faith in, not His ability, but in my ability to be used. "You of little faith, why
did you doubt?"

don't live life trying to prove - or becoming immobilized by the suspicion that you must prove- that you have great worth. be confident you do and act accordingly.

mirror mirror 20 degrees on the wall

i have a flattering mirror. the angle in which it is placed makes me look taller and fit (sorta). t has noticed it too and pointed it out. t is beautiful. she keeps an unflattering mirror in her room. i had almost forgotten mine was a flattering mirror (but now i remember and in the process of actively forgetting)

there's a missing piece in my mirror from falling off the armoire one day. j is a believer of the 7 years of bad luck. i don't believe in it, but this year has been tough. i suppose even though i don't believe in luck, i believe in bad. i stuck a sign covering the hole: "look for beauty (beyond the mirror)."

we have a certain way of ignoring things when we get caught up in the clutches (obsessions) of the here and now.

some days i look at the mirror and think i see something attractive. sometimes i see the opposite and spend countless hours ripping apart the closet to remedy that (to remedy me) if not just for the next few hours, ignoring the sign on the hole on the mirror and the sign of a growing gap in the heart as well. other times i just get disgusted or give up and figure looks don't matter anyway and that i can be a better person by just forgetting about silly things such as these. those times i congratulate myself for being secure. but perhaps it's really just insecurity about my insecurity.

very rarely do i see the beauty beyond the reflection.

and even rarer do i see the beauty beyond who i am on what they call the inside.

in a way we're blinded by thoughts of what has become the glorified "inside". thoughts of look, i am growing/i am a better person. question of am i good? am i beautiful inside? too much of these now distract us from the real source and thwart actual growth, goodness, and beauty. when the focus is on me, no transformation can occur. when we see simply the reflection of ourselves in the now, we can't be pulled beyond and see our actual true self (which is no longer us, but Him who is beyond). something needs to be poured in and others cut out (yes, crucified). it's simple. we can't be mixing the same material over and over again (naval gazing) if we are to ever become something else. and we can't become something else if we're focusing our thoughts and hopes on ourselves, even ourselves becoming something else.

and so sometimes we see what's before us and forget what's in us. then sometimes we get caught up with what is in us that we don't realize that our desire to see only who we are right now actually prevents us from becoming who we are meant to be. and who we are meant to be (our truest of true selves) is no longer us but part of something greater with someone greater now living in us. so we couldn't possibly become true if we didn't seek Him first (over even getting our little selves to become more like Him). if we get so caught up by where we are in our process of becoming who we are meant to be, being so pleased with how we're growing, we detain ourselves from being immersed in the source that allows us to do so.

a sign of the ill is too much dreaming about being someone who loves the world, loving the idea of love, when we do not actually act in ways of love towards our closest neighbors; and when we cannot serve in the most mundane of ways rather than clinging on to illusions and dreams of self-glorifying sacrifices. love and beauty then remain faraway ideas only.

and even now as i type this, i'm moving towards that which i have proclaimed we ought to avoid. because honestly i'm seeking distractions. it's a sort of spiritual inertia that means turning my eyes upwards and beyond is just about the hardest thing in the world right now.

but as i recall, sometimes all it takes is just giving this too a chance. the hardest thing often takes the simplest step towards allowing oneself to be carried the rest of the way.