a thought.

New summer blog posts coming soon, but for now, a quote by A.W. Tozer:

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.

This quote always feels nostalgic to me, though I'm not totally sure why since I've never spent a chunk of time by the sea. Sounds divine to me, nonetheless...

'Personally, I want the sea always...and with it sunshine, and wine, and a little music.'

- Max Beerbohm

( I promise to get back to regular posting with my own words soon.  But right now, I have to write papers for school, and they are stealing most of my words, every drop of creativity, and all of my energy.)

And the point is, to live everything.

You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. 

Rainer Maria Rilke, "Letters to a Young Poet," 1903.

a few things.

1.  red mango.  this if one of my favorite places in my neighborhood.  it's a frozen yogurt bar, with dozens of healthy toppings, like fresh fruit and granola and dark chocolate.  but it's frozen yogurt like you've never had before--tangy and creamy and completely natural.  i went there after my run today and ordered a huge cup with strawberries and blackberries.  PERFECTION.

2.  so so so much homework to do in the next month.  i'm kind of in denial about it.  which is why, even though i stayed home tonight to do homework, i'm sitting here watching this week's episode of 'lost' for a second time instead.

3.  and here's another reason to love jason bateman;

oh, tie me to the end of a kite.

I've been itching to travel lately.  To get on a plane and go explore a new city.  Or even a city I've been to before, like Seattle or San Francisco, but didn't really have a chance to fully tackle the first time around.

Here is a photo of Seattle.  Doesn't it just look like the perfect place to spend an afternoon??  Bliss.

But here I sit in my office in Chicago.  Thinking about how I have class tonight, and then will go to the gym, and then will write an audience development plan for my marketing class.  And even if I had the time for a vacation, the money just isn't in my bank account.

But really, I shouldn't complain.  As much as I would like to escape right now and spend an afternoon on a hill with friends and fly a kite, my life is good.  And maybe I need to be better at the living the life right in front of me...instead of dwelling in my favorite land of nostalgia or pining for my next adventure.  That can be difficult, when past experiences are remembered as being so perfect and the future seems to hold so much promise.

But fully living and embracing the possibilities of each day is something I want to get better at.  I love sitting in bed at night, reflecting on my day, knowing that I worked hard, didn't waste any time, and managed to laugh along the way.  I need more days like that.

And I bet, if I look around, I could find a kite hill, like that one in Seattle, in Chicago.  Well, maybe not a hill, but a similar spot.  All cities have them, I think.  It's just a matter of opening your eyes to discover them.

quote of the day:

"I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books."

- C.S. Lewis

Listening to this right now.  And so grateful for it:




And I wish I could have a little of this right now:

drink water to give water.

For Lent this year, I'm participating in Blood:Water Mission's 40 Days of Water.

Make water your only beverage for 40 days, keep track of what you would have spent on coffee, soda, wine etc., and then donate that amount to Blood:Water Mission at the end.  Your money will go toward providing clean water for communities in Uganda.

Check it out: http://40days.bloodwatermission.com/

*****
Edit: Already craving Diet Coke. Sigh...

"Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one." -Stella Adler

I used to be good at blogging. My last three years of undergrad are beautifully and hilariously documented on my old blog--posts with photos and quotes and ramblings and new discoveries--and I'm so glad because I can nurture my fits of nostalgia by going back and reading about moments and ideas that had long ago totally escaped by memory.

But I've gotten really bad at blogging. I have really great intentions and really bad follow through. It's like flossing. And calling my grandma. And the half read copy of "Middlemarch" that's been sitting next to my bed for two years. So, this is me reattempting to blog. Because life is good, and in the future, I think I'll be glad that I documented it.

This weekend, I've been working on an assignment for my Marketing and Public Relations class, so I've been thinking a lot about how to connect artists and audiences, how to help people fall in love with a certain art form. I've been reminded that experiencing the arts should never be a passive act. It should be an active process of imagining and engaging, for both artists and audiences. Sir Joseph Campbell once said that "perhaps we do not so much seek a meaning for our lives, we seek a shared sense of having been alive." In this context, I like the idea of that, as this is what happens when we engage with the arts. We together share a sense of having been alive. And we are richer for it.

I am reminded of a story in Ronald Blythe's book, "Akenfield, Portrait of an English Village,” which records the life stories of the inhabitants of a tiny village in Suffolk County, England. The names of the village and villagers have been changed, but the harshness, isolation, and beauty of their lives shine through their memories and observations. “Fred Mitchell,” and 85-year-old ploughman, recalls his difficult childhood:

“I never did any playing in all my life. There was nothing in my childhood, only work. I never had pleasure. One day a year I went to Felixstowe along with the chapel women and children, and that was my pleasure. But I have forgotten one thing—the singing. There was such a lot of singing in the villages then, and this was my pleasure, too. Boys sang in the fields, and at night we all met at the Forge and sang. The chapels were full of singing. When the first war came, it was singing, singing all the time. So I lie; I have had pleasure. I have had singing.”

I've always loved this story because it embodies that idea of an individual feeling more fully alive because of his having shared in a meaningful, communal, and art-filled experience. I could write for pages and pages about the various times in my life that I've experienced moments like this, but I know that miles and miles of description could never do them justice. You know when it happens. The world stops for a few moments, everything is more clear, and you feel more...well, alive.

This video was shared in one of my classes a few weeks ago. I got chills the first time I watched it. And immediately watched it four more times when I got home that night.

I think it's incredible, inspirational, and yes, maybe a little idealistic. But hopeful, for sure. And I think it sums up what I'm talking about.