Soundtrack to my Life-Part 5

Hello all,

Sorry this is late, yesterday was a pretty busy day/evening :)  Thank you lovely Faith online kids for letting me sit in on your class!!!

1) Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto-:)  That's pretty much all I can say...so beautiful.  Must listen again.

2) Soli Deo Gloria-new worship song we're learning for this Sunday, very pretty esp. with the latin

3) Eye of the Tiger-fun song which we're using for a David and Goliath skit in the Dominican

4) Breath of Heaven-Amy Grant...yes I know it's a Christmas song, so what?

5) Viva La Vida-Coldplay

Under the mercy,

Elizabeth

The Last Hero

Today in class, Mr. Bartel read us a very lovely poem by Chesterton which got me to thinking about a lot of things.  Below is the poem, and below the below will be some of my thoughts.  

The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.
Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,
You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.

The chance of battle changes -- so may all battle be;
I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.
I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise,
More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes.
She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine;
The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine.
Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse?
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.
O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown,
You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.

The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day,
They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way,
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers,
As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.
How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave,
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.
Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,
When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.
The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose,-
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.

Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans,
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.
To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given,
The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven.
The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see,
To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me;
One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:
You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.

Beautiful, yes?  This picture of a man abandoned by country and lover, pursued by enemies, fighting, falling, dying.  And all the while, he rejoices.  He finds more beauty in the rain, in the abandonment, in his death, than we can find in light and life and love.  Chesterton shows us an amazing picture of the relationship between beauty and love here perhaps.  This man sees the true beauty that is in the world, and loves it all.  Perhaps...do we need to see a thing as it truly is before we can truly love it?  

So maybe you read this and say, "Beautiful?  What?  This girl has a pretty twisted of beauty if she thinks that a lost and lonely man dying alone in a fight is beautiful."  But are you looking at the world properly then?  There is beauty all around you, in the light and in the shadows, in the sun and in the rain, in the smiles and the frowns, in life and in death.  Look around you!  See the beauty in the world!  Love more truly!  Rejoice!

Soundtrack to my Life-Part 4

First off...I know this is late.  :(  I'm sorry everyone...but life happens, and I couldn't get to this yesterday.

Secondly...I know this announcement is also late, but I want to celebrate the last post as my 25th on this blog!!!!!  Hooray!!!!!  *balloons and confetti fall*

Alright, and now for the songs...

1) We're So Far Away-by Mae...thank you thank you thank you Amy for getting me into Mae, they are so beautiful, and there are so many of their songs that I could put onto this list :)  But I will show restraint and only do two.

2) Bach's 2nd Fugue from the Well Tempered Klavier-I have more of a love/hate relationship with this song...it's a very good fugue, but I'm having to learn and memorize it for Certificate of Merit this year, which tends to make me hate perfectly good songs :(

3) The Cure for Pain-Jon Foreman

4) The Ocean-by Mae

5) Awesome is the Lord Most High-Christ Tomlin; and actually yesterday, I just read the psalm that inspired this song...Psalm 46 or 47, I believe.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Suffering

Last night during family devotions, we read the first chapter of 1 Peter.  One verse that especially stood out to me was verse 7.  

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed."  (1 Peter 1:6-7, NIV)

I think it's interesting that frequently we as Christians pray to God that our trials may be taken away, and that He would take us out of the valley of the shadow of death so that we may go on our way rejoicing and be merry little Christians for the rest of our lives.  But Peter counters that view very effectively here.  He makes it quite clear that we have to suffer trials, in order that our faith may be proved genuine, and that God may be glorified.

Sometimes yes, we suffer because Satan is tempting us as he did Job.  Sometimes, we will suffer because of our own human stupidity and fallen nature.  But always, these sufferings are meant to make us grow, to purify our hearts and burn away everything that is not of God.  Therefore, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice!

What is love?

...baby don't hurt me.  A rather commonplace trivial answer to one of the most important questions that this inkblot has ever sought to wrap her head around.  

Yesterday in Foundations, Mr. Bartel read to us 1 John 4:7-12.  Love...does this passage reveal something to us about what it is, how we should show it, why we do it?  

God is love...what does this mean?  When I love, does that mean that I am giving God to someone?  If I love, then God abides in me, and His love is perfected in me...how can God's love be perfected in me?  If God's love is perfected in me...perhaps that means that the more I love truly, the more I will be able to love truly.  But, how do you truly love?

Is love self-sacrifice?  Is it sharing?  Is it God?  Or something more?  Love is not merely an emotion, yet it is not merely actions devoid of all feeling.  It is a choice, but sometimes we don't want to love.  

Love requires not just our hearts, not just our hands, not just our heads, but all three in combination.  Love is a feeling, a decision, an action...love must be an act of the whole soul.

Love...is an amazing thing.  Often, it hurts to love others.  When we give someone ourselves, they will hurt us, they will fail us, they will reject us.  Yet God still commands us to love one another.  Sometimes we love out of selfish motives...we think that if we just show enough love to this person, they'll love us back and we'll be accepted and safe.  Sometimes what we think is love is really shallow emotions or trivial affections.  

But still...we love.  Because when we do, something beautiful happens.  When we love one another, God is made manifest in us.  When we love, God's love is perfected in us, and we are able to love even more.  I don't know what love is, or what it is like, or why or how I am able to love.  But this I know..."Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." 

-1 John 4: 11

Round Table of Truth

Hello all wonderful friends!

Thank you for your wonderful and encouraging comments on the last few posts.  I am very proud of you all for rising to the occasion :)  

As some of you may know, I lead a discussion group once a month on Thursday nights, which sadly has been somewhat sporadic as of late.  However, we recently began discussing G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, which I think shall prove to be a wise switch.  After a suggestion from a friend and some careful consideration on my own, I decided to head up another blog to go along with this discussion group.  The address is The Round Table of Truth so please, head on over there and check it out.  If you can't make it to the discussion group but would still enjoy something of this sort, please let me know and I'll add you as an author to the blog so that we can all benefit from your brilliant ideas.  The more the merrier, especially in blogging, right?  

I'll be trying to post something before and after every discussion, and please feel free to add any of your thoughts on either discussions or the book in general.

Under the mercy,

Elizabeth

Soundtrack to my Life-Part 3

Hello everybody, and welcome to the weekly "Soundtrack to my Life!"  Confetti falls, hooray!!!

1) Amazing, Because It Is-by the Almost-wonderful song, and my new favorite Speechless pantomime

2) Beethoven's 21st Piano Sonata-especially the third movement.

3) How to Save A Life-The Fray-ask me about Tim Chan's parody of this, it's amazing

4) Save the Last Dance for Me-Michael Buble

5) Nessun Dorma-performed by Paul Potts

To Comment or Not to Comment?

Is this seriously the question you all ask when  you read a blog post?  Do you sit there and deliberate...well on the one hand if I comment it will make this person very happy, but on the other hand I have nothing to comment about, but on the other hand I don't really have to have much to say, but on the other hand...etc.   

Well then, cease your deliberation and comment please!  For those of you uninitiated few who are just now beginning to learn the delights of blogging, let it be known that we bloggers thrive on comments...the more you comment, the more you shall write.  

And so I have decided to take a leaf out of Joycelyn's www.hebegebes.blogspot.com and Jane's www.janeandellen.blogspot.com books and go on temporary strike!

But when I return to this blog is all up to you my dear readers.  When I have recieved five comments on this or other posts, then I will begin to write again.  And it's make me even happier if you'd comment to tell me what you'd like me to post in my blog.  So comment away!

Under the mercy,

Elizabeth

 

Speechless...

was. absolutely. amazing.  Seriously, it was totally a God thing the way last night went.  Bit of a background story...our youth group has put together a series of pantomimes set to various songs that performed together tell the gospel message.  (www.speechlessoc.com)  Last night we went up to a Hispanic church in Lancaster to perform the program in Spanish there.

From the start of the long drive up, everything seemed to go wrong.  We had crazy directions that took us through Angeles Forest on impossibly windy roads, and got there between 1/2 hour and an hour later than we had planned.  There were major tech problems with lighting, audio, video, and just about everything.  At 6:30 (1/2 hour before scheduled start time) they had just gotten the entire program to play through without skipping or stopping for the first time the entire afternoon.  We started behind time by at least 1/2 hour.

And then...there were the pantomimes themselves.  At the beginning, every thing seemed to go ok, but by the time we got to the third pantomime, things started happening...timing was off by 30 seconds or more, people missed their cues, props were lost, etc.  

As our leader later said, from a performance standpoint this was by far the worst performance we've ever had.  From a performance standpoint, that is.

But God was definitely working last night through all the trials we encountered.  Talking to people afterwards, it was easy to see how much God was able to use us to work in the hearts of others.  It was a hard lesson to learn, but a good one...that God can use even our most messed up attempts to serve him, and moreover, that God is most exalted when we are most humbled.

Which is why Speechless was so absolutely amazing.

A Rather Queer Occurance

Well, today something rather strange happened, though I'm still not quite sure what.  To begin with, my dad took Josh and I into the doctor's early this morning (as in 7AM) to get our blood tests.  Last time I was in for a blood test was between two and three years ago, so it's been quite a while.  But still, I wasn't too concerned.  I remembered that it wasn't too painful, they'd just take out the blood and be done with it.  

So we go in, wait around a while, and finally get our blood drawn.  I go up there and sit down, the guy takes the blood out, and I'm done.  While I'm waiting for my brother, I go lean up against a table because I'm feeling a bit light headed and queasy.  Gradually, the world begins to recede from view as the ringing in my ears grows stronger.  Before I know it, I'm lying on the table with voices buzzing around me.  "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," my dad calls insistantly.  Reluctantly, I respond, hoping to clear my clouded vision and calm my spinning stomach.  As the world comes slowly into view, my dad offers me a sip of water .  In a few minutes everything is normal once again.  Sitting up, I eagerly declare that I'm ok and slide neatly off the table.  Concerned, my dad and the assistants urge me to take it easy.   Protesting against all thoughts that there might be a problem, I nonchalantly leave the office.

For some time, I staunchly declared that I was fully conscious the entire time and never passed out.  But now I've come to accept the inevitable truth.  I have fainted for the first time in my life.  And it was a rather scary thing...but at the same time, if I had not fainted, what would I have to blog about?

Soundtrack to My Life-Part 2

Hello all and happy Thursday!  As promised, here's another list of my top five songs of the week (top ranging from all time favorites, to newly discovered, to whatever I happen to be listening to).  

1) I Need You-by the Swift...recently re-discovered this one.  Good worship song, nice piano part 

2) Yours-Steven Curtis Chapman...this one's had a lot of meaning in my life over the past month.

3) Sandstorm-by Darude...not the sort of thing I'd typically listen to but since it goes to a wonderful Speechless pantomime, it's a fun song.  Ask me about it sometime and I'll tell you bout the pantomime.

4) Summer of '69-Bryan Adams

5) Ne Irascaris, Domine-ever since Wheatstone I've loved this song so much, it has such beautiful painful agony behind it.  

Well, there you are, 5 songs from my life this week :)

Soundtrack to my Life-Part 1

Hello lovely friends!

Created for your pleasure is a playlist of the top 5 songs I have in my head right now...expect weekly updates to the soundtrack to my life.  I would love any recommendations for new music to listen to :)

1) Elgar Cello Concerto- Thank you Gabriel for the lovely music!  Such beauty, such pain, such soaring heights of musical bliss :)  

2) Meant to Live by Switchfoot

3) Love Story by Taylor Swift-even more fun than the song is the music video...such gorgeous period costumes :)

4) Lovebug by the Jonas Brothers-my sugary indulgence of the past few weeks...

5) Canon in D by Pachelbel