Now Playing: Brahms, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in D minor. Track 1, Maestoso. (Drumroll shaking my laptop! Intense, dramatic, full of pathos. I will never forget the way Syneva played this piece. It brought tears to my eyes.... So incredibly lovely.)
So far these past few days have been "social butterfly" days!
On Thursday, Laura and I had an "outing" together. We went clothes shopping, which was good fun, making fun of all the outrageous items of clothing in the stores where we went. Laura found one strip of cloth which she was sure was a miniskirt. "Ick! How could anyone wear that!" she exclaimed. "That's not a miniskirt. It's a strapless top," I said dryly, and she was even more disgusted--justifiably so! But we found an elegant green gown for her and a white eyelet sundress for me, which was nice.
Friday I went to work at the usual time but was let off at six o'clock instead of at nine-thirty. I drove over to the community center for the Irish Dance performance in which Laura, Anna, Ruth, Dani, Hannah, Rebekah, and Susannah were all dancing. I got there in time for the last half. The group did brilliantly, of course, and after the formal dancing ended there was a set of the bag dance in which the audience was included. It was fun to watch Elizabeth and Danielle skipping down the lines together, tall over all the little girls, and Mr. Spitler stooping to hold hands with Susannah.
Laura and I spent Friday night with the Spitlers. We watched a couple of episodes of "Dr. Who", a British sci fi TV show. On Saturday, Laura and I helped the Spitlers clean house to prepare for the Memorial Day picnic that evening. We also had a mini ceilidh (three hand-, two hand-, four hand-, and fairy reel). Sarah and I scrapbooked and ran errands for Mrs. Spitler, being as silly as possible while we were about it. People started to show up at the Spitlers' house at five o'clock for the picnic. Despite the threat of rain and the soggy state of the pasture, almost everyone in the church turned out for the picnic. We ate, and then people split up for various activities: volleyball, ultimate frisbee, fishing, or just sitting and talking.
After church on Sabbath in the evening, my family went to the Enid Bible study. I rode in the Fishers' van, which was crammed full of noisy kids. The sunset was absolutely beautiful, huge thunderclouds glowing gold and purple and icy blue against the dark eastern sky while the sun sank in the west. On the way back to Stillwater, Elizabeth, Danielle, and I sat in the front bench and had a heated discussion with Mr. and Mrs. Fisher about marriage, which was interesting to listen to.
Today my father and I installed a webcam and Skype on my computer, for use while I'm in Ireland. The whole family ate lunch together, a very unusual occurrence, and watched part of Spider-man 2. Philip and I went out for ice cream after lunch, and then we drove out to the Fishers' house. We found Greg, Calvin, and Christa on a frog hunt in the front yard. They'd already collected eight fine amphibians in an empty plastic ice cream container, which they proudly exhibited to us. Philip and I picked up Anna and took her to my grandmother's house, where we spent the rest of the afternoon talking, teasing, drinking cranberry juice, and eating cookies. My grandmother told us all about her Bible school, her trip to Kansas with my mother over the weekend, the doings at Golden Oaks, her views on immigration, etc. We looked up woodpeckers in her bird guide, and Philip helped her make hotel reservations.
After taking Anna home, we went back home ourselves. Laura and Stephen were just getting back from an afternoon at the Parnells' house. We found that Logan had come over for supper, so the rest of the evening was spent in a good fellowship.
And now I'm sitting alone in my room, listening to crickets in the trees outside and an owl down in the creek bottom.
Time to hang a "Gone to Texas" sign on this blog! Woo hoo!
28 May 2007
22 May 2007
The way a Monday should be....
Now Playing: Flook, "Haven". Track 1, "The Tortoise and the Hare". (Thanks to Philip!)
A brief request, for those of you not on the church mailing list: One of my friends had one of her friends from college killed in a car wreck with three other members of his family. Some of his siblings are orphaned, and his girlfriend is very "cut up" by his death. Please pray!
May 21, 2007.
This morning I was roused out of a very strange dream, promising to turn into a fine nightmare, when my alarm clock went off at five-forty. I shook my head, dressed, and snuck downstairs. The house was dark and quiet, but there was a light on in the half-bathroom down by the garage door, where my mother was getting ready to go walking around Boomer Lake with Mrs. P, the good 'ol Dawn Treaders still in fine form. She had invited me to join her on her early-morning excursion. We drove over to Boomer Lake, the early morning chilly and grey. In the east there was a bank of low clouds, but the sky over the clouds was turning silver and pearl. Nighthawks dove and dipped through the cool air, chasing mosquitoes. Mrs. P pulled into the little parking lot shortly after we did. I had decided that it would be better for me to run than to walk, so I hopped out of the car, put on my MP3 player, and set off jogging north along the sidewalk, leaving the two women to follow more slowly.
I listened to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. I skirted out from a thicket of cottonwood trees onto the northern end of the lake. Geese were paddling out by the island, and an early cliff swallow was already darting under the bridge, skimming low near the water. The sky was turning hazy colors, grey tinted red, blue overhead. In the meadow, where the sidewalk curved east, there was coreopsis, yarrow, and indian paintbrush blooming. Geese on the path honked and waddled in front of me as I jogged toward them. By one of the peninsulas there was a heron fishing, and a red-winged blackbird flashed colorful shoulder patches as it darted up from the long grass. The air was cool, with a slight south breeze, just enough to keep the bugs off.
Back at the starting point, I walked out onto the peninsula across from our little parking lot, turned off my music, and sat down on the bench at the end of the peninsula. A heron flew low over the water, its wings nearly touching the low waves. It made a harsh croaking call that reverberated in the stillness. The sun was higher now, from deep magenta to orange to gold, coming brighter through the clouds. A big yellow-bellied fish flopped up out of the water. The waves were full of splashes--lots of other fish, jumping up to catch bugs. Geese and goslings and mallard ducks paddled quietly in an inlet under the shelter of the trees. I sat for awhile in the stillness on the bench and prayed until I became chilled from the cool breeze and my own sweatiness. So then I sat in the car and dozed until my mother and Mrs. P returned, at about seven o'clock.
My mother and I drove home. Mandy and Sandy were waiting for us, and I fed them. My father was fixing breakfast in the kitchen, toasting and buttering waffles for Philip and Stephen, cooking oatmeal for Laura. My mother disappeared into her room to take a shower, but I had cooled down enough. So I made myself a cup of tea and then sat down to breakfast with my father, just the two of us. He told me a little bit about the undergraduate math class he's teaching this summer: analysis (if I try to spell the full name, I'll misspell it, so ask him!) of the same sort that the human ear does naturally, analyzing sounds by their frequencies. He told me about a talk he'd done one time at a Christian college, an elementary discussion of this sort of analysis. After the talk, one of the students had piped up and asked him confrontationally, "How can you say that such an intricate thing was made by chance?" My father laughed, remembering. "I said, 'Well, I don't'." I grinned. "He thought you were just the garden-variety university professor," I said, and thought about how neat it would be if such a thing were to happen where I go to school--not likely!
My father and I had family devotions together, reading Deuteronomy and praying, and then I went upstairs and took a shower. After my shower, I settled down to attend to the duties of the morning: my own devotions, writing e-mails, etc.
At ten o'clock, my mother, Laura, and I drove over to O'Higgins, a garden supply store, to meet my grandmother. She was to take Laura to her house for the day. We found her browsing out in the open-air lot behind the store, which is full of plants for sale. My mother and I poked around out there for awhile ourselves, looking through the plants. My mother picked out a fuzzy, shimmery little artemisia plant and also a butterfly bush promising to shoot out flower stalks. There were also mahonia bushes, hollies, azaleas, roses, grasses, young trees, and hydrangeas--I like hydrangeas; they remind me of when I was younger because they used to grow around our "old house". Whenever I see their big clusters of blue blooms, I think of water splashing down in cool places among lush leaves, and remember playing with the big dried flower heads, collecting them in plastic tubs and stashing them in my "fort" under the lilac bushes. With our plants we walked back through the open shop, big high-ceilinged rooms with concrete floors loosely stocked with fertilizer, garden ornaments, tools, etc., and opening off on either side into greenhouses full of flowers and herbs. While my mother and grandmother paid for their plants, Laura and I looked at a display full of packets of seeds, trying to decide which ones to buy. Impatiens, sunflowers, snapdragons, asters, columbines, hollyhocks, zinnias, marigolds, daisies, and poppies, California and Oriental.
My grandmother and Laura drove to my grandmother's house out at Golden Oaks, but my mother and I drove into town. We stopped by the First Presbyterian Church to return the keys (they let us use their chapel for the baccalaureate service), then Wal-Mart (so that I could buy backing for Philip's quilt), then Hobby Lobby (where my mother bought picture frams and I bought a big stack of scrapbooking paper--selling back textbooks means a nice little sum of money to use for fun!).
It was just my mother, Stephen, and me for lunch. We watched an episode of Superman--Stephen and I laughed at it a good deal, I'm afraid. We helped my mother clear away the lunch things. Then, while Stephen and my mother did some yard work, I listened to a Dorothy Sayers mystery on cassette tape and worked on scrapbook pages left over from the end of March. The wind rushed coolly through the maple trees, a sound like endlessly-falling water, silver in the leaves.
At three o'clock, my mother dropped me off at OSU so that I could go to work in the parking garage. I marched over to the Student Union and down the rattling metal stairs, down the long narrow hallways like a mole tunnel, to clock in. Since this was the afternoon shift, my "trainer" today was a highschool girl, Ginny, not the woman I worked with last week. The girl was nice enough, though neither one of us were much inclined to talk. We chatted a little bit--basic facts about our families, school, etc. Once I was settled in the booth, she sat across the drive on the sidewalk with a box of colored chalks and drew stars on the concrete. I read Agatha Christie mysteries between cars, and so the long hours were whiled away. I watched a kite soaring, swinging, swooping over the tall cypress trees by Theta Pond. Its tail veered and tipped to the wind, its wings scooped like a hand to catch warm updrafts. The wind powdered Ginny's jeans liberally with colored chalk dust. She lay down on the sidewalk to snooze. People driving by looked at her and made various interesting comments: several people wondered if she was dead and asked her if she was alright; one woman who drove past laughed, "Having a slumber party?"
Afternoon became evening, and evening became night. I listened to NPR, which turned from its national news broadcasting to Native American broadcasting to Performance Today to random Classical music.... A premier of a beautiful new piece about the Orpheus legend, a thoughtful, echoing piece. Big storm clouds came over, but it didn't rain. I turned on the little light in the booth, and leafhoppers and gnats buzzed annoyingly around it, hopping accidentally onto my book and me. At about nine o'clock, we counted the money, filled out the shift forms, etc. Ginny went to raise the gates. We walked back down to the office together at about nine-fifteen to drop the money in the safe. Then I said good-bye and walked up to my car. I was cold, thanks to the breeze and the chilliness in the air.
At home, I found my mother lying on her bed, reading, with Mandy to keep her company. I warmed up some leftovers and ate supper. The house was quiet--all the other kids were in bed. At about ten o'clock, I went up to bed myself.
A brief request, for those of you not on the church mailing list: One of my friends had one of her friends from college killed in a car wreck with three other members of his family. Some of his siblings are orphaned, and his girlfriend is very "cut up" by his death. Please pray!
May 21, 2007.
This morning I was roused out of a very strange dream, promising to turn into a fine nightmare, when my alarm clock went off at five-forty. I shook my head, dressed, and snuck downstairs. The house was dark and quiet, but there was a light on in the half-bathroom down by the garage door, where my mother was getting ready to go walking around Boomer Lake with Mrs. P, the good 'ol Dawn Treaders still in fine form. She had invited me to join her on her early-morning excursion. We drove over to Boomer Lake, the early morning chilly and grey. In the east there was a bank of low clouds, but the sky over the clouds was turning silver and pearl. Nighthawks dove and dipped through the cool air, chasing mosquitoes. Mrs. P pulled into the little parking lot shortly after we did. I had decided that it would be better for me to run than to walk, so I hopped out of the car, put on my MP3 player, and set off jogging north along the sidewalk, leaving the two women to follow more slowly.
I listened to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. I skirted out from a thicket of cottonwood trees onto the northern end of the lake. Geese were paddling out by the island, and an early cliff swallow was already darting under the bridge, skimming low near the water. The sky was turning hazy colors, grey tinted red, blue overhead. In the meadow, where the sidewalk curved east, there was coreopsis, yarrow, and indian paintbrush blooming. Geese on the path honked and waddled in front of me as I jogged toward them. By one of the peninsulas there was a heron fishing, and a red-winged blackbird flashed colorful shoulder patches as it darted up from the long grass. The air was cool, with a slight south breeze, just enough to keep the bugs off.
Back at the starting point, I walked out onto the peninsula across from our little parking lot, turned off my music, and sat down on the bench at the end of the peninsula. A heron flew low over the water, its wings nearly touching the low waves. It made a harsh croaking call that reverberated in the stillness. The sun was higher now, from deep magenta to orange to gold, coming brighter through the clouds. A big yellow-bellied fish flopped up out of the water. The waves were full of splashes--lots of other fish, jumping up to catch bugs. Geese and goslings and mallard ducks paddled quietly in an inlet under the shelter of the trees. I sat for awhile in the stillness on the bench and prayed until I became chilled from the cool breeze and my own sweatiness. So then I sat in the car and dozed until my mother and Mrs. P returned, at about seven o'clock.
My mother and I drove home. Mandy and Sandy were waiting for us, and I fed them. My father was fixing breakfast in the kitchen, toasting and buttering waffles for Philip and Stephen, cooking oatmeal for Laura. My mother disappeared into her room to take a shower, but I had cooled down enough. So I made myself a cup of tea and then sat down to breakfast with my father, just the two of us. He told me a little bit about the undergraduate math class he's teaching this summer: analysis (if I try to spell the full name, I'll misspell it, so ask him!) of the same sort that the human ear does naturally, analyzing sounds by their frequencies. He told me about a talk he'd done one time at a Christian college, an elementary discussion of this sort of analysis. After the talk, one of the students had piped up and asked him confrontationally, "How can you say that such an intricate thing was made by chance?" My father laughed, remembering. "I said, 'Well, I don't'." I grinned. "He thought you were just the garden-variety university professor," I said, and thought about how neat it would be if such a thing were to happen where I go to school--not likely!
My father and I had family devotions together, reading Deuteronomy and praying, and then I went upstairs and took a shower. After my shower, I settled down to attend to the duties of the morning: my own devotions, writing e-mails, etc.
At ten o'clock, my mother, Laura, and I drove over to O'Higgins, a garden supply store, to meet my grandmother. She was to take Laura to her house for the day. We found her browsing out in the open-air lot behind the store, which is full of plants for sale. My mother and I poked around out there for awhile ourselves, looking through the plants. My mother picked out a fuzzy, shimmery little artemisia plant and also a butterfly bush promising to shoot out flower stalks. There were also mahonia bushes, hollies, azaleas, roses, grasses, young trees, and hydrangeas--I like hydrangeas; they remind me of when I was younger because they used to grow around our "old house". Whenever I see their big clusters of blue blooms, I think of water splashing down in cool places among lush leaves, and remember playing with the big dried flower heads, collecting them in plastic tubs and stashing them in my "fort" under the lilac bushes. With our plants we walked back through the open shop, big high-ceilinged rooms with concrete floors loosely stocked with fertilizer, garden ornaments, tools, etc., and opening off on either side into greenhouses full of flowers and herbs. While my mother and grandmother paid for their plants, Laura and I looked at a display full of packets of seeds, trying to decide which ones to buy. Impatiens, sunflowers, snapdragons, asters, columbines, hollyhocks, zinnias, marigolds, daisies, and poppies, California and Oriental.
My grandmother and Laura drove to my grandmother's house out at Golden Oaks, but my mother and I drove into town. We stopped by the First Presbyterian Church to return the keys (they let us use their chapel for the baccalaureate service), then Wal-Mart (so that I could buy backing for Philip's quilt), then Hobby Lobby (where my mother bought picture frams and I bought a big stack of scrapbooking paper--selling back textbooks means a nice little sum of money to use for fun!).
It was just my mother, Stephen, and me for lunch. We watched an episode of Superman--Stephen and I laughed at it a good deal, I'm afraid. We helped my mother clear away the lunch things. Then, while Stephen and my mother did some yard work, I listened to a Dorothy Sayers mystery on cassette tape and worked on scrapbook pages left over from the end of March. The wind rushed coolly through the maple trees, a sound like endlessly-falling water, silver in the leaves.
At three o'clock, my mother dropped me off at OSU so that I could go to work in the parking garage. I marched over to the Student Union and down the rattling metal stairs, down the long narrow hallways like a mole tunnel, to clock in. Since this was the afternoon shift, my "trainer" today was a highschool girl, Ginny, not the woman I worked with last week. The girl was nice enough, though neither one of us were much inclined to talk. We chatted a little bit--basic facts about our families, school, etc. Once I was settled in the booth, she sat across the drive on the sidewalk with a box of colored chalks and drew stars on the concrete. I read Agatha Christie mysteries between cars, and so the long hours were whiled away. I watched a kite soaring, swinging, swooping over the tall cypress trees by Theta Pond. Its tail veered and tipped to the wind, its wings scooped like a hand to catch warm updrafts. The wind powdered Ginny's jeans liberally with colored chalk dust. She lay down on the sidewalk to snooze. People driving by looked at her and made various interesting comments: several people wondered if she was dead and asked her if she was alright; one woman who drove past laughed, "Having a slumber party?"
Afternoon became evening, and evening became night. I listened to NPR, which turned from its national news broadcasting to Native American broadcasting to Performance Today to random Classical music.... A premier of a beautiful new piece about the Orpheus legend, a thoughtful, echoing piece. Big storm clouds came over, but it didn't rain. I turned on the little light in the booth, and leafhoppers and gnats buzzed annoyingly around it, hopping accidentally onto my book and me. At about nine o'clock, we counted the money, filled out the shift forms, etc. Ginny went to raise the gates. We walked back down to the office together at about nine-fifteen to drop the money in the safe. Then I said good-bye and walked up to my car. I was cold, thanks to the breeze and the chilliness in the air.
At home, I found my mother lying on her bed, reading, with Mandy to keep her company. I warmed up some leftovers and ate supper. The house was quiet--all the other kids were in bed. At about ten o'clock, I went up to bed myself.
20 May 2007
are we asleep yet?
Pictures from the baccalaureate service are up on photobucket.
Can I find anything more edifying to say? It is, after all, Sabbath evening.... Well, here's a poem, written on one of those long drives back to Tulsa, on a Sabbath afternoon, as a matter of fact.
Can I find anything more edifying to say? It is, after all, Sabbath evening.... Well, here's a poem, written on one of those long drives back to Tulsa, on a Sabbath afternoon, as a matter of fact.
In Place
Shadows swimming, sliding down the road,
These rippling hills shaken blue beneath the sun,
Like green sand slipping as the shadows run,
The silver grass slides past and cannot hold,
This scalloped foam that shimmers as it rolls.
Such shining sheaves lie shaken to the sky,
Blade on blade, leaf on leaf, branches underlie—
Black net of veins through earth, through dusty sky.
Can any count the number of these seeds?
Enlist each branch, or census every tree?
Who holds the matted roots when autumn comes,
Or knows each falling leaf as it burns down?
Who sends the winter wind to bleach the grass,
To blacken trees, turn limbs to candle-ash?
And when night comes, who keeps the rolling hills,
Who keeps their colors as the darkness fills
The empty valleys till the morning comes?
Night eyes these hills, veined where the small lights run,
The skies and hills both seeded with bright stars.
Who holds the lights so that no darkness mars?
Who keeps the lights that pulse across the land,
Or holds the constellations where they stand?
Who banks the fiery sands till morning breaks,
And then re-ripples hills for winds to rake?
If forces only keep the small things fast,
What holds the forces in their place? At last,
Behind the powers of the ringing world,
Must live some brilliant stillness who can hold
From oak to ash to pulsar in its place,
As Word well-woven veil before His face.
17 May 2007
15 May 2007
eavesdropping
Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack by Howard Shore. "Evenstar".
"I ain't been droppin' no eaves sir, honest! I was just cuttin' the grass under the window there, if you follow me!"
"A bit late for trimming the verge, don't you think!"
***********************************************************************************
I'm feeling very pressed for time. Rachel, forgive me, but I'm having to post some of the e-mail I sent you up here as a blog post to let people know what happened at summer conference.
Last week I was in Florida at Laguna Beach Christian Retreat with RUF for Summer Conference.
I spent the night in Tulsa on Saturday (May 5), sleeping on the floor of Syneva's stripped apartment. On Sabbath morning, I helped Stefni, Syneva's younger sister, pack the car. We went to Christ Pres for the morning service, and after the morning service, all the RUFfians gathered in the parking lot to get organized before we started off for Florida. Syneva was in charge of the expedition, and she was incredibly patient. She managed to gather all the drivers around her to hand out gas money, maps, and walkie-talkies for staying in touch, as well as coordinating which cars were going to caravan together. Since there were forty-two students total, and about ten or eleven cars, we split up into caravans of two or three. I rode in Syneva's suburban with Amanda, Stefni, Mary, Nicole, Tara, and Syneva. Mattlock's truck and Amy's car completed our caravan. We grabbed lunch at Sonic before we set off on the highway, and for supper we stopped at a grocery store somewhere in Mississippi, bought bread, cheese, and fruit, and ate standing in the parking lot. The whole group met up and spent the night at a campground in Mississippi, and started off bright and early next morning. Unfortunately, our caravan took a wrong turn so that instead of driving in the fast highway down to Laguna Beach, we were on a slow, two-lane highway that took us through every little tourist town along the coast. It took us twice as long to reach our destination, but we arrived safely at least.
Laguna Beach turned out to be beautiful. The Christian retreat center there is made up of white buildings with green roofs, built on either side of the little two-lane highway. The girls all stayed in a "dormitory" overlooking the beach. I was in a room with Jenny H., Amanda, and Hannah--the rooms were like hotel rooms, but they had extra bunk beds in them. In the mornings, we'd wake up at about seven o'clock for breakfast and then go to opening exercises, which consisted mainly of prayer, singing, announcements, etc. Then there were two sessions. During each session, everyone could choose a class to attend. You could go to one four-day class and two two-day classes. I went to a four-day class with Rachael, Tara, Jenny H., Alisha, and Nicole about sin, to a two-day class about worldview, and to another two-day class about total depravity/idolatry. Then we'd have lunch, and after lunch the afternoon was free. I spent every afternoon on the beach. :o) Syneva, Amanda, Stefni, and I lay on the beach together, and Syneva read some of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins to us. We also went out on sea kayaks, and I went for walks on the beach. The water was very clear, and the sand was white. In the evening, there was supper and then a worship service. Pastor Jones from the Redeemer church plant in Tulsa was the speaker. He preached about sanctification--very, very good sermons, about how Christ's work applies to our lives, giving courage. He really emphasized the power and fullness of Christ's love for His people, so it was wonderful to have a deepened understanding of that.
On Saturday (May 12), we spent the whole day on the road, a sixteen-hour trip through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. We reached Tulsa at one-thirty Sabbath morning, and then I drove home. I was in bed by about three-thirty--oh, I was so tired when I woke up for church!
Yesterday I spent the morning doing business transactions with my father's help. We went out to eat lunch with the grandparents to celebrate Mother's Day, and in the afternoon, my family went to see Spider-man 3. It was alright. I thought that the bells were the best part--all the imagery surrounding bells of the power of the voice of God, the majesty of the church, the call of holiness, etc.
Today I started my job at OSU. It's alright. My coworkers are older women who are all very talkative, and very rough, but also friendly and patient so far at least.
"I ain't been droppin' no eaves sir, honest! I was just cuttin' the grass under the window there, if you follow me!"
"A bit late for trimming the verge, don't you think!"
***********************************************************************************
I'm feeling very pressed for time. Rachel, forgive me, but I'm having to post some of the e-mail I sent you up here as a blog post to let people know what happened at summer conference.
Last week I was in Florida at Laguna Beach Christian Retreat with RUF for Summer Conference.
I spent the night in Tulsa on Saturday (May 5), sleeping on the floor of Syneva's stripped apartment. On Sabbath morning, I helped Stefni, Syneva's younger sister, pack the car. We went to Christ Pres for the morning service, and after the morning service, all the RUFfians gathered in the parking lot to get organized before we started off for Florida. Syneva was in charge of the expedition, and she was incredibly patient. She managed to gather all the drivers around her to hand out gas money, maps, and walkie-talkies for staying in touch, as well as coordinating which cars were going to caravan together. Since there were forty-two students total, and about ten or eleven cars, we split up into caravans of two or three. I rode in Syneva's suburban with Amanda, Stefni, Mary, Nicole, Tara, and Syneva. Mattlock's truck and Amy's car completed our caravan. We grabbed lunch at Sonic before we set off on the highway, and for supper we stopped at a grocery store somewhere in Mississippi, bought bread, cheese, and fruit, and ate standing in the parking lot. The whole group met up and spent the night at a campground in Mississippi, and started off bright and early next morning. Unfortunately, our caravan took a wrong turn so that instead of driving in the fast highway down to Laguna Beach, we were on a slow, two-lane highway that took us through every little tourist town along the coast. It took us twice as long to reach our destination, but we arrived safely at least.
Laguna Beach turned out to be beautiful. The Christian retreat center there is made up of white buildings with green roofs, built on either side of the little two-lane highway. The girls all stayed in a "dormitory" overlooking the beach. I was in a room with Jenny H., Amanda, and Hannah--the rooms were like hotel rooms, but they had extra bunk beds in them. In the mornings, we'd wake up at about seven o'clock for breakfast and then go to opening exercises, which consisted mainly of prayer, singing, announcements, etc. Then there were two sessions. During each session, everyone could choose a class to attend. You could go to one four-day class and two two-day classes. I went to a four-day class with Rachael, Tara, Jenny H., Alisha, and Nicole about sin, to a two-day class about worldview, and to another two-day class about total depravity/idolatry. Then we'd have lunch, and after lunch the afternoon was free. I spent every afternoon on the beach. :o) Syneva, Amanda, Stefni, and I lay on the beach together, and Syneva read some of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins to us. We also went out on sea kayaks, and I went for walks on the beach. The water was very clear, and the sand was white. In the evening, there was supper and then a worship service. Pastor Jones from the Redeemer church plant in Tulsa was the speaker. He preached about sanctification--very, very good sermons, about how Christ's work applies to our lives, giving courage. He really emphasized the power and fullness of Christ's love for His people, so it was wonderful to have a deepened understanding of that.
On Saturday (May 12), we spent the whole day on the road, a sixteen-hour trip through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. We reached Tulsa at one-thirty Sabbath morning, and then I drove home. I was in bed by about three-thirty--oh, I was so tired when I woke up for church!
Yesterday I spent the morning doing business transactions with my father's help. We went out to eat lunch with the grandparents to celebrate Mother's Day, and in the afternoon, my family went to see Spider-man 3. It was alright. I thought that the bells were the best part--all the imagery surrounding bells of the power of the voice of God, the majesty of the church, the call of holiness, etc.
Today I started my job at OSU. It's alright. My coworkers are older women who are all very talkative, and very rough, but also friendly and patient so far at least.
04 May 2007
leaving the inn
Now Playing: Vivaldi, "The Four Seasons". Track 10, "Winter: Allegro non molto."
Well, I'm back in Stillwater now.
What happened last week?
Monday was the day of that nutty post, which I don't need to rehearse for you.
On Tuesday I had my Music History II exam, which went fine. Afterwards, I went running, sold back my books, and ate lunch. I met with John in the afternoon, which was pleasant: good to have one final talk with him, to be reminded of the justification--God's love for me means that I can love others unreservedly because He has supplied my needs, and I must love others, must reach out to them for His glory. A fitly-timed reminder before I go to Ireland. In the evening, I took my supper over to the Chalet and ate with Syneva, Amanda, Stefni (Syneva's younger sister), and Rachael. Then we all drove over to the Knorrs' house for RUF at seven-thirty. Instead of having a sermon, tonight was a hymn-sing. I squeezed on a bench near the door with Rachel, Tara, and Stefni, and listened to the singing. Syneva played mandolin and piano; Spencer played guitar; Alisha played her violin; David even played his harmonica, and Jenny S., Joanna, and Ange led the singing. They did sing Psalm 51, and it was an immense blessing to be able to join the rest of the group--all the well-known faces upturned in the lamplight. After RUF, people hung around for awhile. I got Kevin and Jenny S. to write in the little black book that I'm taking with me to Ireland. Then I went back to the Chalet with the girls, and we (Syneva, Amanda, Rachael, Stefni, Tara, and I) watched an episode of "Foyle's War", a detective series set in World War II. After the show ended, Amanda found a spider in the bathtub, which put everyone into a great uproar. Of course I was the one who had to kill it. It was midnight by the time Tara and I left. I walked back to Lottie alone, feeling a bit nervous because the night was so still and dark. (One of my friends had recently been accosted by a strange fellow on such a walk across campus, and I was not eager to repeat her experience.) But then Kevin came along, so we had a nice chat, and then I finally went up to bed.
Wednesday was very wet and rainy. Rachel and I went out in the morning to Wal-Mart, and she spent the morning packing up while I wrote out journal entries and e-mails and poems. All her odds and ends somehow, after a great deal of deliberation, managed to fit into a few boxes and suitcases. We ate lunch together. After lunch, she went to a final exam, while I went to Borders to use the prize money from "Stylus". I bought a book of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems and prose, a book of poetry by Seamus Heaney, and a journal. Then I spent the afternoon reading and praying, alone until Rachel finished her exam. We had a bit of a chat, and I helped her carry her boxes down to the car of a woman from her church, who was going to store the boxes over the summer. Then I walked over to the Penthouse, and Jenny S. and I drove down to south Tulsa for Jamba Juice. Good fun. We laughed at all the awkward moments that happen and at a group of rather silly highschool students hanging around in the shopping complex where we were. Back on campus again, we said good-bye, and I walked over to Lottie. I stopped to chat for a bit with Katie, Crystal, and Grant, and then drove down to Christ Pres to do babysitting. In the evening, Hobgoblins met. We went to the coffee shop and sat outside on the rather damp patio for our last meeting. Rachel read us some poems by G.K. Chesterton and some limericks that she'd written about Herodotus, which set everyone laughing. Asher, Andrew, Tara, Leslie, and I all shared poems, a mix of sonnets and limericks. When the meeting ended, Tara, Rachel, and I went back to the Penthouse. We spent the rest of the night drinking chai tea, eating raisins and popcorn, and watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was good fun.
Yesterday was the last day at Tulsa.... In the morning, I packed up. The hardest part was stripping posters and pictures off the walls, taking down the two paper cranes that Rachel had given me at the beginning of the semester, peeling the maple leaves off the window. Rachel and I took our lunches over to the rose garden. We spent about three hours there, eating, walking around, talking. Long, quiet, serious hours. Watching the frogs in the lily ponds, watching a kite swing elegant arcs across the sky, laughing at a squirrel that boldly sniffed Rachel's boot, watching a little sparrow bathe itself in the dust. Talking about the past year, about God, about family and friends. The wind combed gently over the roses and blew their sweet smell up to us, and our feet sank deep in the wet grass under the oak trees. Late in the afternoon, Rachel went to the library. I moved out of the room: four suitcases, a bag of blankets, my lamp, a piece of posterboard with pictures on it, a paper bag of cleaning supplies, and my messenger bag, all hauled down to the car and stowed away. Then I checked out. Rachel walked with me down to the car, and we said good-bye. The atmosphere was rather damp, in more ways than one.... I left feeling as though I had been kicked to pieces, and drove back to Stillwater in a thunderstorm. Back in Stillwater, after I'd eaten some supper, my father and Stephen helped me carry my things to my room. Laura chattered excitedly, showed me her garden, showed me the guinea pig, and even helped me unpack. With her help, I unpacked amazingly quickly and got the room set to rights. I went to bed early, but I had a hard time falling asleep at first--I wanted to hear someone else's quiet breathing on the other side of the room, but of course there was no one.
This morning, after I ate breakfast, I drove over to the Cottontails warehouse. They're going out of business, so they're selling clothes cheaply. I bought a pair of brown slacks, a sleeveless blue sweater, and three shirts for nineteen dollars. Not bad, considering. The rest of the day I've spent tidying things, putting away papers, writing up yesterday's journal entry, doing some laundry, helping my father with the car, playing with the cat, watching Narnia during lunch, etc. The house is quiet. Philip will be in Tulsa until Saturday, Stephen is playing on the computer, my father is administering a final exam, and Laura and my mother are at Irish dance class.
It is hard to remember: "Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home." - C.S. Lewis
Well, I'm back in Stillwater now.
What happened last week?
Monday was the day of that nutty post, which I don't need to rehearse for you.
On Tuesday I had my Music History II exam, which went fine. Afterwards, I went running, sold back my books, and ate lunch. I met with John in the afternoon, which was pleasant: good to have one final talk with him, to be reminded of the justification--God's love for me means that I can love others unreservedly because He has supplied my needs, and I must love others, must reach out to them for His glory. A fitly-timed reminder before I go to Ireland. In the evening, I took my supper over to the Chalet and ate with Syneva, Amanda, Stefni (Syneva's younger sister), and Rachael. Then we all drove over to the Knorrs' house for RUF at seven-thirty. Instead of having a sermon, tonight was a hymn-sing. I squeezed on a bench near the door with Rachel, Tara, and Stefni, and listened to the singing. Syneva played mandolin and piano; Spencer played guitar; Alisha played her violin; David even played his harmonica, and Jenny S., Joanna, and Ange led the singing. They did sing Psalm 51, and it was an immense blessing to be able to join the rest of the group--all the well-known faces upturned in the lamplight. After RUF, people hung around for awhile. I got Kevin and Jenny S. to write in the little black book that I'm taking with me to Ireland. Then I went back to the Chalet with the girls, and we (Syneva, Amanda, Rachael, Stefni, Tara, and I) watched an episode of "Foyle's War", a detective series set in World War II. After the show ended, Amanda found a spider in the bathtub, which put everyone into a great uproar. Of course I was the one who had to kill it. It was midnight by the time Tara and I left. I walked back to Lottie alone, feeling a bit nervous because the night was so still and dark. (One of my friends had recently been accosted by a strange fellow on such a walk across campus, and I was not eager to repeat her experience.) But then Kevin came along, so we had a nice chat, and then I finally went up to bed.
Wednesday was very wet and rainy. Rachel and I went out in the morning to Wal-Mart, and she spent the morning packing up while I wrote out journal entries and e-mails and poems. All her odds and ends somehow, after a great deal of deliberation, managed to fit into a few boxes and suitcases. We ate lunch together. After lunch, she went to a final exam, while I went to Borders to use the prize money from "Stylus". I bought a book of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems and prose, a book of poetry by Seamus Heaney, and a journal. Then I spent the afternoon reading and praying, alone until Rachel finished her exam. We had a bit of a chat, and I helped her carry her boxes down to the car of a woman from her church, who was going to store the boxes over the summer. Then I walked over to the Penthouse, and Jenny S. and I drove down to south Tulsa for Jamba Juice. Good fun. We laughed at all the awkward moments that happen and at a group of rather silly highschool students hanging around in the shopping complex where we were. Back on campus again, we said good-bye, and I walked over to Lottie. I stopped to chat for a bit with Katie, Crystal, and Grant, and then drove down to Christ Pres to do babysitting. In the evening, Hobgoblins met. We went to the coffee shop and sat outside on the rather damp patio for our last meeting. Rachel read us some poems by G.K. Chesterton and some limericks that she'd written about Herodotus, which set everyone laughing. Asher, Andrew, Tara, Leslie, and I all shared poems, a mix of sonnets and limericks. When the meeting ended, Tara, Rachel, and I went back to the Penthouse. We spent the rest of the night drinking chai tea, eating raisins and popcorn, and watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was good fun.
Yesterday was the last day at Tulsa.... In the morning, I packed up. The hardest part was stripping posters and pictures off the walls, taking down the two paper cranes that Rachel had given me at the beginning of the semester, peeling the maple leaves off the window. Rachel and I took our lunches over to the rose garden. We spent about three hours there, eating, walking around, talking. Long, quiet, serious hours. Watching the frogs in the lily ponds, watching a kite swing elegant arcs across the sky, laughing at a squirrel that boldly sniffed Rachel's boot, watching a little sparrow bathe itself in the dust. Talking about the past year, about God, about family and friends. The wind combed gently over the roses and blew their sweet smell up to us, and our feet sank deep in the wet grass under the oak trees. Late in the afternoon, Rachel went to the library. I moved out of the room: four suitcases, a bag of blankets, my lamp, a piece of posterboard with pictures on it, a paper bag of cleaning supplies, and my messenger bag, all hauled down to the car and stowed away. Then I checked out. Rachel walked with me down to the car, and we said good-bye. The atmosphere was rather damp, in more ways than one.... I left feeling as though I had been kicked to pieces, and drove back to Stillwater in a thunderstorm. Back in Stillwater, after I'd eaten some supper, my father and Stephen helped me carry my things to my room. Laura chattered excitedly, showed me her garden, showed me the guinea pig, and even helped me unpack. With her help, I unpacked amazingly quickly and got the room set to rights. I went to bed early, but I had a hard time falling asleep at first--I wanted to hear someone else's quiet breathing on the other side of the room, but of course there was no one.
This morning, after I ate breakfast, I drove over to the Cottontails warehouse. They're going out of business, so they're selling clothes cheaply. I bought a pair of brown slacks, a sleeveless blue sweater, and three shirts for nineteen dollars. Not bad, considering. The rest of the day I've spent tidying things, putting away papers, writing up yesterday's journal entry, doing some laundry, helping my father with the car, playing with the cat, watching Narnia during lunch, etc. The house is quiet. Philip will be in Tulsa until Saturday, Stephen is playing on the computer, my father is administering a final exam, and Laura and my mother are at Irish dance class.
It is hard to remember: "Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home." - C.S. Lewis
03 May 2007
ooogh....
Pictures are up on photobucket!
Username: Elfellyn
Password: psalm84
Album: Rachel Rose Garden
I'm exhausted in every sense of the word.... Physically, mentally, emotionally. I have a cold and I said good-bye to one of my very best friends today. And I nearly drowned in a thunderstorm on the way home for about ten minutes.
Username: Elfellyn
Password: psalm84
Album: Rachel Rose Garden
I'm exhausted in every sense of the word.... Physically, mentally, emotionally. I have a cold and I said good-bye to one of my very best friends today. And I nearly drowned in a thunderstorm on the way home for about ten minutes.
01 May 2007
the best days of the year....
Greetings and salutations everyone.
Guess what I found hopping around my computer this morning?
A WHITE RABBIT!
:o)
Guess what I found hopping around my computer this morning?
A WHITE RABBIT!
:o)
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