Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Add To The Beauty
Yes, I stole the title. But I like it.
Two nights ago I rode in a van full of friends, speakers blaring Modest Mouse, up to the top of a hill and stopped. We all piled out into the summer night that felt like it should be cold but was only pleasantly chilly, and we stood and sat and lay in the road and looked at the sky spread out above and around us. There was a meteor shower that night, which was lovely, but even more lovely than that was the quiet stillness and darkness of the night, the brightness of the stars, the closeness of friends, and the warm smell of cigar smoke in the air.
We looked at the pictures drawn across the sky by the clouds, and pointed out old friends like Cassiopea and the Big Dipper. We laughed and tickled each other, and we also sat still. We craned our necks backwards until we could see the curve of the sky around the earth.
There are few moments as beautiful as that one.
Two nights ago I rode in a van full of friends, speakers blaring Modest Mouse, up to the top of a hill and stopped. We all piled out into the summer night that felt like it should be cold but was only pleasantly chilly, and we stood and sat and lay in the road and looked at the sky spread out above and around us. There was a meteor shower that night, which was lovely, but even more lovely than that was the quiet stillness and darkness of the night, the brightness of the stars, the closeness of friends, and the warm smell of cigar smoke in the air.
We looked at the pictures drawn across the sky by the clouds, and pointed out old friends like Cassiopea and the Big Dipper. We laughed and tickled each other, and we also sat still. We craned our necks backwards until we could see the curve of the sky around the earth.
There are few moments as beautiful as that one.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Nothing and Everything
I feel like I should write something, since I haven't posted in such a long time. The trouble is, I don't know what to say. Writing is the same for me as reading or art or biking or playing the piano, or almost anything else that I love to do, in that the more I do it the more I have to do it, but if I take a break for a while it's really hard to get back into.
I saw pictures of my babies in India a few nights ago. They're all really big now, and the ones that were the littlest while I was there are losing all their front teeth, and have made the transition from "little kid" to just "kid". It was strange to see. I know it's been almost two years since I've seen them, but I forgot that kids grow a lot in two years.
I also watched a video of Prem, one of the older boys at the orphanage and also one of the sweetest kids you will ever meet, singing a hymn. His distinctly Indian voice and his thick accent chnaged the sound of the familiar hymn a little bit, but almost from the first word I knew the song, and while I listened to Prem sing the beauty of it all overwhelmed me. A sixteen-year-old boy on the other side of the world, a person whose life is completely different from mine in every possible way, was singing one of my favorite hymns, proclaiming the goodness and faithfulness of the same God that I try to follow. To me there's nothing that can compare to listening and watching as people from completely different backgrounds and ways of life sing a song that is familiar and dear to my American, Evangelical self.
But even more beautiful was the assurance that the boy singing has not forgotten the God who loves him. "[God's] word does not return void", and in Prem it has found good soil in which it is growing strong. Even though I can't be there to see it, at least I know it. That might be enough.
I saw pictures of my babies in India a few nights ago. They're all really big now, and the ones that were the littlest while I was there are losing all their front teeth, and have made the transition from "little kid" to just "kid". It was strange to see. I know it's been almost two years since I've seen them, but I forgot that kids grow a lot in two years.
I also watched a video of Prem, one of the older boys at the orphanage and also one of the sweetest kids you will ever meet, singing a hymn. His distinctly Indian voice and his thick accent chnaged the sound of the familiar hymn a little bit, but almost from the first word I knew the song, and while I listened to Prem sing the beauty of it all overwhelmed me. A sixteen-year-old boy on the other side of the world, a person whose life is completely different from mine in every possible way, was singing one of my favorite hymns, proclaiming the goodness and faithfulness of the same God that I try to follow. To me there's nothing that can compare to listening and watching as people from completely different backgrounds and ways of life sing a song that is familiar and dear to my American, Evangelical self.
But even more beautiful was the assurance that the boy singing has not forgotten the God who loves him. "[God's] word does not return void", and in Prem it has found good soil in which it is growing strong. Even though I can't be there to see it, at least I know it. That might be enough.
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