I'm going to start a new blog

I'm going to address my being such an Angry Person

I'm going to address other things, that come up again and again and again. 

And I'm going to reflect on 'how i did life' differently autumn and winter quarter.

And then again, I'm going to reflect on where God will have me a year from now,
ordering a cap and gown while booking flights to Stockholm, Athens, Seoul, Bogota? 

Or faithfully applying for Mortar Board and preparing a speech for AAA e-board elections?

And I'm going to journal. I AM GOING to journal.

i wanted a blank entry.

xanga won't let me

normally i'd insert a . and hope it'd be too small to notice, 

but i couldn't put a 'period' on 'love'

and i couldn't put a 'dash'

and so now i am a-wondering, which of these squiggles & intersections is love

& cheesy

* side dish

$ idolized wealth

# quantification

@ pinned down to chronology and the location-based associations of our personal history

! what.

~ forever

^ elevating

` i can't even tell what this is

( ) inclusion, completion, protection

_ loose connections

+ for carving into bark

= summation, neat & clean packaging

| division

? my favorite

> catalyst

: ; < { ] ' ; " , / 0123456789

what is love (in symbolism)

Locked and celled, confined, dis-recognized.

My captors clothe me, claiming me.

They'll beat me down with lies and tries

To convince, this life is worthy for a "hoe."

My time is up, Marg-"I've grown up"

The base board I'm muted by

is Eucharist, is Laundry Mist, is dancing naked in perversion's Holy midst

I'm strong, I'm strong.

For night I'll battle brick

While keys latched weighty in his palm

A liar's emerged conscience, establishing some innocence, will ruin me

The defeat, blood binding me- compliance-ing

I throw my hair loose.

My long, brown morn-combed hair

Life comes loose. The rain de-knots

A Magdalene's psychological noose

I bus out, retaining disillusioned truth.

I'm Bernadette, I'm Margaret

My son though, calls me Rose.

Inspired by The Magdalene Sisters. Only to be understood by watching the film, sorry to alarm or confuse.

How can I excerpt this? How can I distort/filter out the rich authenticity of his long-developed thoughts?

--------no copyright infringement intended-----------

Posted on The Poached Egg: "Bono Interview: Grace over Karma"
an excerpt from Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

[[ ref: http://www.thepoachedegg.net/the-poached-egg/2010/09/bono-interview-grace-over-karma.html ]]

Bono: My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor. I don't let my religious world get too complicated. I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is. God is love, and as much as I respond [sighs] in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that's my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now that's not so easy.

Assayas: What about the God of the Old Testament? He wasn't so "peace and love"?

Bono: There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. When you're a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

Assayas: Speaking of bloody action movies, we were talking about South and Central America last time. The Jesuit priests arrived there with the gospel in one hand and a rifle in the other.

Bono: I know, I know. Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. [laughs] A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship. Why are you chuckling?

Assayas: I was wondering if you said all of that to the Pope the day you met him.
 

Bono: Let's not get too hard on the Holy Roman Church here. The Church has its problems, but the older I get, the more comfort I find there. The physical experience of being in a crowd of largely humble people, heads bowed, murmuring prayers, stories told in stained-glass windows

Assayas: So you won't be critical.

Bono: No, I can be critical, especially on the topic of contraception. But when I meet someone like Sister Benedicta and see her work with AIDS orphans in Addis Ababa, or Sister Ann doing the same in Malawi, or Father Jack Fenukan and his group Concern all over Africa, when I meet priests and nuns tending to the sick and the poor and giving up much easier lives to do so, I surrender a little easier.

Assayas: But you met the man himself. Was it a great experience?

Bono: [W]e all knew why we were there. The Pontiff was about to make an important statement about the inhumanity and injustice of poor countries spending so much of their national income paying back old loans to rich countries. Serious business. He was fighting hard against his Parkinson's. It was clearly an act of will for him to be there. I was oddly moved by his humility, and then by the incredible speech he made, even if it was in whispers. During the preamble, he seemed to be staring at me. I wondered. Was it the fact that I was wearing my blue fly-shades? So I took them off in case I was causing some offense. When I was introduced to him, he was still staring at them. He kept looking at them in my hand, so I offered them to him as a gift in return for the rosary he had just given me.

Assayas: Didn't he put them on?

Bono: Not only did he put them on, he smiled the wickedest grin you could ever imagine. He was a comedian. His sense of humor was completely intact. Flashbulbs popped, and I thought: "Wow! The Drop the Debt campaign will have the Pope in my glasses on the front page of every newspaper."

Assayas: I don't remember seeing that photograph anywhere, though.

Bono: Nor did we. It seems his courtiers did not have the same sense of humor. Fair enough. I guess they could see the T-shirts.

Later in the conversation: 
Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like afather. What do you make of that?

Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.

Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics; in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.

Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled . It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

Assayas: That's a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it's close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that farfetched?

Bono: No, it's not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we're gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you're expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he's gonna keep saying this. So what you're left with is: either Christ was who He said He was the Messiah or a complete nutcase. I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we've been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had "King of the Jews" on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I'm not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that's farfetched

Bono later says it all comes down to how we regard Jesus:

Bono: If only we could be a bit more like Him, the world would be transformed. When I look at the Cross of Christ, what I see up there is all my s--- and everybody else's. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man? And was He who He said He was, or was He just a religious nut? And there it is, and that's the question. And no one can talk you into it or out of it.

I like you, Bono. I like you.

Guard us, oh God, who are haunted in our sleep & now frightened to enter into it.

Guard us, oh God, who become ugly in our hearts & are in fear of succumbing entirely to it.

Guard us, oh God, who detest our own unrighteousness & have exhausted our cognitive resistance against it.

Guard us, oh God, your servants who flee from evil with fear and faith & clamor to escape through you,

Guard us with your thunderous rescue & arresting power. We plea in confident helplessness, that you would look mercifully upon your people, Lord. May the faithful find your favor, may your grace rain down in showers upon us all.

"Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." [1 Tim. 1:17]

"The righteousness of the upright delivers them..." [Proverbs 11:6]

from "Forgetting to Remember" by Bradley Moore

in Christianity Today

"When faced with an extremely pressing day, rather than skipping his morning prayer time, Martin Luther said "I can't afford not to pray!" That man knew his priorities. He was spiritually disciplined, certainly. On his busiest days, Martin Luther woke up an extra hour early in order to have his time with Our Lord, giving him the spiritual strength that he would need to manage the pressures of his life."

from "The Art of Worship" by Chris Tiegreen (I accidentally wrote "Christ." I am-a thinking that is a no-no combo, daddy-o)

in the One Year Walk with God

    "Observe any Christian who is perpetually struggling with personal flaws or overwhelming circumstances, and you will likely see a Christian whose eyes are on himself. It is a natural human tendency, but it is rarely fruitful. Worship changes that. It gives us a new perspective, taking us out of the realm of oppression--an unnecessary state for anyone who takes the Bible's promises seriously--and placing us in the realm of God's power, wisdom, and love- the realm of eternal truth. It opens the eyes to what is real.

    With natural eyes, we often see our struggles as huge obstacles and our chances of overcoming them as slim. We are easily overwhelmed. We know our limitations, and God's omnipotence seems distant. When we acclaim Him, as the psalm says, we shed those earth-bound illusions. Our worship brings us into the light of His presence and reminds us of who He really is. It radically alters our perspective."

--

When I sit down to pray for discernment these days, I only ever hear God repeating who He is back to me. It doesn't strike me as a concession or a rebuke. It's just a shift in how I am to think &operate. When I break down in distress over her faithless up-and-down life, what so-and-so has done, and this weary life, He supplies me with His faith-building response, Spirit-driven praise.

--

From Hebrews 12

"Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of th Lord, not be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he received."

... For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

 ... Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

...

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."

Hope once was lost, now stands renewed. Hillsong's "Savior King"

i love lists, i tend to dislike biblical lists. faith hope & love. there is so much more depth under-represented when you list them. faith, hope, love. these three remain

... she'll believe it

... she'll ask me to pray it

... she'll un-tense her shoulders

... she'll look me in the eyes

... she'll break down

... she'll open up

... she'll stop needing him

... she'll leave both of them

... she'll go dry

... she'll stop at kissing

... she'll redo her friend circle

... she'll begin having faith

begin having hope. and begin feeling loved