bookend.2

i promise, i won't bore you with anymore of these pictures, but i had to show you the planter i got to harness all those little things that make a mess next to one's bed (books and pens and lip balm). more importantly, i am 32 years old, and i still wear my retainer (especially since i'm going to the dentist tomorrow...one must look one's best you know)!

a little secret for you (don't tell my brother): i just started flossing on sunday so i wouldn't have that icky bleeding at the dentist tomorrow (oh how i despise flossing). do you think i can fool him?

nightly bookend

before i went to bed the other nite, i decided to quickly take a picture of my bedside table (i think a bedside table says much about a person--it's the things that happen right before one goes to sleep and right after one wakes up that bookend your daily tromp). my bedside table configuration changes daily (i'm thinking of taking a picture every nite to see the progression), and this evening proved to be telling.

this picture represents the two things i'm working toward in the next few weeks/months:

first, pray for china during the olympics...the persecution is staggering. to get one of these bracelets go to voice of the martyrs. for a small donation to a great ministry (thanks mom), you can have one too.

second, yes i'm seriously considering it: vote for someone who can't possibly lose (even if the popular vote is for someone else). He is sure not to disappoint.

oh, wait...

we can't forget this little gem....this one i'm starting tonite (i'll let you know how it goes):

(environmental stewardship in the Judeo-Christian tradition)

reading and toes

the toes are a bit icky i agree. but the book? well, that's a different story altogether....

The Naked Seed

My heart is empty. All the fountains that should run
With longing, are in me
Dried up. In all my countryside there is not one
That drips to find the sea.
I have no care for anything thy love can grant
Except the moment’s vain
And hardly noticed filling of the moment’s want
And to be free from pain.
Oh, thou that art unwearying, that dost neither sleep
Nor slumber, who didst take
All care for Lazarus in the careless tomb, oh keep
Watch for me till I wake.
If thou think for me what I cannot think, if thou
Desire for me what I
Cannot desire, my soul’s interior Form, though now
Deep-buried, will not die,
— No more than the insensible dropp’d seed which grows
Through winter ripe for birth
Because, while it forgets, the heaven remembering throws
Sweet influence still on earth,
— Because the heaven, moved moth-like by thy beauty, goes
Still turning round the earth.

c. s. lewis

a seed

"the disposition...to leave the dearest objects of our hearts in the sublime keeping of the general and unspecific belief that GOD is now answering our prayers in His own time and way, and in the best manner, involves a present process of inward crucifixion which is obviously unfavorable to the growth and even the existence of the life of self."

t. c. upham