I've Never Ripped off a Limb Before

Let me explain. No, heck, I won't explain. You guys probably get it by now. Hopeless romantic, can't stop crushing, I could say so much more, but it should be clear if you've read half this blog. Which would be a pretty big feat, I should remind you.

So I need to change. This constant obsession with a single girl (both single in the sense of being just one person, and in the sense of being unhitched) is really getting in the way of me doing useful things, loving people, loving God.

But how? I want her!

Like, really badly.

So?  You've liked girls a lot before. You'll forget it, of course, but mere months ago, you were obsessed with this other girl. Let's call her Girl Q, just for the heck of it. She was similar in a lot of ways. She laughed! She smiled! She joked, she did interesting things, she had a few ridiculous quirks in common with you.

But what of it? My heart is elsewhere now!

So? It all changes. It all ends, even. The simple truth is that, while not taking the position of a miser of time, never waiting, never patient, always doing, always thinking, always dreaming, you similarly can't live your life with no time to do nothing, but neither can you live your life with only time to obsess, dream, hope, and be eventually crushed in dissatisfaction and folly.

But isn't this the way it's figured out? Isn't that how it's done? Trial and error?

Sure, but trial doesn't have to be blind, neither error meaningless. If you don't think about what you're trying beforehand, how can you change? Similarly, if you don't understand your error, how can you learn from it?

But when is that moment? When am I sure? How can I know? I wish I did! I've done nothing so long, for the simple reason that I knew I was ignorant!

I don't know, but since neither of us do, you might as well wait until you do. It'll be like a thousand mosquito bites all asking you to swat them, but you can do it, if you really try. Naturally, the God of the universe can help as well.

Sigh. It had to come to this at some point. Patience, like always, but also love, like never. This is going to be a rough ride.

(Garg contributed to this post.)


!Noah!

Absolutely Nothing

The translation being I need to do better.

(for those wondering, this is a response to Bush Maid's comment on my previous post.)

But I can't do better separate from God. Am I separate from God? No? Well, then why can't I be better? Because I don't believe? My faith is from God alone. But something must be mine! But no, nothing is mine. No action, no thought, no intention, no well-placed advice, no pride, no goodness, no honesty, no meekness, no money, no family, no badly-chosen shades, no silvery silence, no joyful noise, no happiness, no wonder, no glory, no love.

Nothing.

But Jesus' love! That must be mine. His actions, his thoughts, his intentions, his fabulous parables, his pride, his goodness, his honesty, his meekness, his riches, his family the church, his well-seeing eyesight, his unwavering silence, his good words, his happiness, his wonder, his glory, his love.

But is it? How can it be? In order for it to be mine, I must have something. Right? No? Then how am I different from the heathens? How have I become his, if not solely, absolutely only because of his love and choice? Am I merely blinded by the human idea of exchange? Is giving simply not human? Is it merely not something we understand, in our heart of hearts, in the deepest chasm of our being? But are we not in his image? Have we not some essence of the God we are called to love? Is that it? Do we give him what he first gave us, and in return he gives us more?

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?” -- Romans 11:34

"Speak to me, God, that I may have words to say! Think, that I may think as well! Dream, wonder, love, hate, imagine, work, love, LOVE, LOVE, that I may too love. I am nothing!" -- Swishkin


!Noah!

Do Better

So a couple nights ago, I was laying in bed, thinking about my day, what had happened over the last few weeks (rather a lot, actually), and thinking about what God's given me. I recently got a job pretty much dumpster diving and ripping apart consumer electronics in a mad search for modern-day gold...which turns out rather to be steel, brass, bronze, and copper. At the very best, there's the gold in all the circuit boards, but you can only imagine how little there actually is in them.

Still, I'm grateful.

Or am I?

For some stupid reason, I found myself thinking, "God, you could do better."

Multiple times, actually. I spent a bit of time regretting it, and then thought it again.

Eventually my heart got involved and explained to me that God couldn't do better with me.

And that naturally opened up a furious firestorm of misunderstanding in my mind.

Of course, God COULD do better, in my specific instance.

But God WOULDN'T do better for me, specifically. It's weird, trying to say God's doing something perfect in the world and still trying to say his ability isn't limited. If an artist creates a masterpiece, it can later be eclipsed by an even better work.

I guess at this point I don't really know what I'm saying. But the point is, God is good.

Also, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. It's not a sure thing yet, but I might be losing my job.

Dirtbag McSpleen. That's me.


!Noah!

Trip to See the Birds Day One

Brighter than the Sun just came on the radio. God is pretty crazy awesome. Breakfast is reasonably priced and should be amazingly good. We stopped at Perkins at about 10 today for coffee and cinnamon rolls, although I'm getting a hot chocolate instead.  We just left Marshall and should be on I90 as soon as noon. From there we'll go on into South Dakota. I'm not sure yet if we'll be stopping there on the way over or on the way back, but I might get to see the Badlands and the black hills again, which would be great. It struck me today that Grandpa might be where I get my quiet tendencies from. While he talks a lot more than I do at this point, I'm inclined to believe it's because he's got more to talk about than me, being more than four times my age.  He was a large-animal veterinarian and has many stories of giving birth to calves and of building roads in Alaska. On the other side of things is Grandma. She's not along on this trip, but I've always felt, since going camping with Grandpa and her earlier on in my life, that I probably got my make-do attitude from her. Now that I think about it, it doesn't really seem that apparent in her as I thought, but I guess it doesn't always show on top. I should have mentioned acouple things earlier. First, it's ridiculously cloudy and even foggy today. Second, I brought along Eat Pray Love, and it's an interesting book to read at a time like this. As for the fog, it was so foggy earlier that we could see for perhaps a thousand yards ahead and then it was just gray. We passed a number of large grain elevators barely a stone's throw from the road without seeing them until the last second. Just south of Jasper, near the SD/MN border, a couple of female deer waltzed across the road in front of us and Grandpa had to slow down in order not to hit them.  We're coming into one of my favorite parts of America, where you can see half a mile while sitting in a low-riding station wagon. Not sure what I like about it, but it seems like i just like to observe, and wide open spaces without visual obstructions of any kind really help that.  I just realized that my last crush didn't culminate in some sort of truth-telling or confrontation. At some point in me liking some girl I decide either to give up and move on or to tell all. Usually the case is the latter, and while I sort of took the easy way out (acquiring for myself a new direction for my affection), it somehow surprises me that I didn't ever actually tell said crush how things were. Inexplicable joy is the best kind.  Grandpa decided to sleep a bit as he fears he'll fall asleep while driving. Mere yards away is a 55 MPH speed limit sign. This worries me a bit, but I reminded him to turn on the hazard lights. Well, it seems grandpa wasn't having so much trouble staying awake as he was merely driving. I drove for probably an hour at about 55 MPH on a two-lane highway. Hands are still shaking a bit, but I think it helped. !Noah!