think of a wonderful thought

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
~ C.S. Lewis

how often does our life feel this way...?
...i think about this quote a lot. Quite a lot. especially when i am hit with the almost uncontrollable urge to fly.
yes, that's exactly what i said. sometimes i want to fly so badly i almost feel like i'm crawling out of my skin.

yesterday i was musing to Edan about how, at times, i could compare my thirst for flight to a desperate thirst for water. not being able to quench it feels unnatural, wrong, sometimes almost excruciating.
to which he replied: "I can fly."
i ignored him. "seriously, though...i really think--"
"I can fly," he said again.
"no you can't! i just wish--"
"yes I can"
i let out an aggrivated sigh. how dare he interrupt my lofty expoundings??
"I can! I can fly!"
"No you--" Suddenly i realized he was telling the truth. Sort of.
"Oh yea," i said. "You can fly a plane."
"yup!" he replied triumphantly.
"that doesn't count."

i have had so many dreams about being able to fly. sometimes when i can't sleep i imagine what it would be like to fly from my apartment so school, or to Pasadena where i could surprise my sister. i can be the star of my own heroic adventures...
i once thought up a pretty elaborate graphic novel about someone who discovers they can fly...but i never even drew a single picture. don't you dare steal that...i may just try to flesh it out someday!
i'm a little bit obsessed with it. but i don't talk about it much because...well, what's the point? at least being overly interested in things like clouds, cheese or Quenyan can serve some purpose to something...in that at least they exist...

anyway. this week i have badly wanted to fly. and it's been really frustrating because sometimes i literally feel like i'll explode. it's a terrible itch, a burning in my chest, a rock in the pit of my stomach...
if i could just push myself a few inches from the floor...


that's all i guess.
i'm going to go home now and draw all night. tomorrow's going to be fuuun...



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Current inspirations...

Chuck Close




Nicolai Fechin




C.S. Lewis



Last night's Sunset...











what's inspiring you?




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I wish i could see better

I'm sitting here at school, preparing for the drive home and the long night ahead of me. There's a western movie playing on the TV.

Saturday night Pip and Jeff played a show and i got to see

Half Handed Cloud!

That was awesome. A musician named Vollmar played, too, which i also enjoyed. There's nothing like seeing any of those guys live. I bought a tour EP and was thoroughly and utterly happy about it.

Yesterday in class (yes i was at school all day on Sunday) someone told me that when i cut my hair i should donate it. I said that that's what i was planning on doing. Lance, (my...uh...painting teacher) who was listening from the sidelines said to me:
"You can't cut your hair! You have ONE good quality and you're going to get rid of it??" I was eating a dehydrated peach slice and i threw it at his head. Nick and Omar chuckled sympathetically. I sat down and continued my painting. A minute or so later i heard him say, "wait...that didn't come out right..." Yeah, uh-huh, thanks a LOT! I thought it was funny.

I'm reading Lewis' "The Problem of Pain"...and I can't even express my appreciation for his wit and wisdom...one of my favorite excerpts being:

"If you choose to say 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it', you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words 'God can'...It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even if we talk it about God."

Nothing is more frustrating to me these days than people who can't stand to settle for not knowing everything there is to know about anything there is a possibility of knowing anything about. One of the greatest and most beautiful things to me about God is the mystery, the trust i have to have in Him, the impossibility of my own insignificant little life that He chooses to let go on anyway. I guess it's just insecurity...some man just knocked another guy into a water trough on TV.

It's a fantastic book. I've felt so chaotic lately...and right now i'm so tired. It's nice to be able to settle into something with a ring of truth and some semblance or real divine inspiration. It's like taking a cold shower after a long hard day in the dirt. I felt the same way when i read "Walking on Water", by Madeleine L'Engle. It was as if i had just sat down with her and told her all the stuff i had been thinking about and struggling with, and she knew exactly how to encourage me. Exactly how to reassure the things i was doubting in myself. It was a little bit like i sat down with God Himself. He really blessed those two authors with extraordinary gifts.

Well, i'm fading. i almost don't even want to push the "publish" button because i feel like i'm writing like a drunk elephant who just inhaled too much clove oil and paint thinner...well, part of that is actually true.

Laurel, dear, i am praying for you...

"The sides rose up high above him like walls..."

I'm at my grandparent's house---no, correction, our new house--- taking care of them today. We just got back from a hair appointment, I've got some muffins in the oven, and they're resting. Which means i have a bit of downtime...as long as my Grandma doesn't need to use the bathroom. Living here is going to be interesting. Sarah and i officially move in this weekend. Hooray!

I finished Perelandra (quite reluctantly, i may add, as i often am when i finish a good book). And have started That Hideous Strength. I remember a couple of years ago when i tried to get into the third book, and for the life of me i couldn't. I'm ecstatic to find that now i'm enjoying it quite thoroughly, much to the pleasure of my dad, who has been eagerly waiting for me to read it, as it is his favorite of the trilogy. After that? Not sure. Either the Sil, or another Lewis work. If you hadn't noticed, i'm having a bit of a love affair with Lewis' writing at this point in time! I could, however, think of worse things.

I'm back! I was just dying my sister's hair. Bright auburn red. It should be just lovely.

I remember when i was talking to a guy i work with. As our conversations usually turn to music, books, &c, he one time mentioned that he had read Mere Christianity. He then, to my surprise, said that he despised it. "Made him sick", to be exact. Me, of course being the tactful, well-spoken person i am, blurted out "What?? Why?!?"
He hated the way Lewis presented the unbeliever, despised how he dared to assume so much about someone who didn't share his beliefs. My astonishment and initial frustation turned almost immediately to pity. Not one of a patronizing kind, mind you. That he could take Lewis' words of concern and personal observation for anything malicious fascinated me. It further stressed to me how fragile is the mind and heart of someone who is stuck between belief in the Lord, and it's counterpart. He felt as if he had been attacked, offended, taken for granted, even.
I told him he should try reading it again.

I'm so grateful to have an assurance. I've been upset, i've been confused, i've been bitter...but i've never lost my belief that the Lord is there. There are too many tangible proofs and manifestations of the work of His hand in my life, and in the lives of those around me, to ever convince me otherwise. And for that I'm so grateful.

"'You must cover my eyes,' he said presently; and the two human forms went out of sight for a moment and returned. Their arms were full of the rose-red lillies. Both bent down and kissed him. He saw the King's hand lifted in blessing and then never saw anything again in that world. They covered his face with the cool petals till he was blinded in a red sweet-smelling cloud."...

~Perelandra

Ransom asked what she meant.

"What you have made me see," answered the Lady, "is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before, Yet it has happened every day. One goes forth into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before--that the very moment of the finding there is an the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for the moment, before you. And if you wished--if it were possible to wish--you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other."

~C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

The Simple Wisdom...

C.S. Lewis never ceases to inspire me. In the midst of desires to write a story, particularly one for children, i chanced to come upon some essays of his concerning, ironically, storytelling. In his writings on children's stories, i've been pleased to find the following instruction:

-"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty-except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better to have not read at all...I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children's story."

-"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are marks of childhood and adolescence...When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." (with a little "shout-out" to Paul there...)

Then, referring to the notion that people should only read age-appropriate books, there is written on of my favorite quotes form him: "No reader worth his salt trots along to a time-table."

Perhaps this means nothing to anyone else but me. But i couldn't pass up a chance that perhaps someone could share my inspiration. I'm finding a great deal of joy in reading these essays, as I find myself relating to so much of what Lewis says. This isn't a new occurrence, as i often find when reading him, i can apply myself and understand myself much more. It's really very liberating, and i'm particularly pleased to find such a sense of knowing him on a more personal level, and being able to relate to him as well in some other way than spiritually.

I love to write, and it's fun really, to explore Lewis' own ideas of something i'm particularly interested in. To read works of his that go beyond even his stories and spiritual exhortations, as much as i love them, is refreshing. Like reading Tolkien's letters, to see a greater glimpse of someone you admire and peek into their other passions, and read what they have to say about life and family and, in this case, theories on the actual act of reading and writing. They were both so young at heart, and yet so wise...it gives me hope that i don't always have to be grown-up, or even feel so, to make an impact in this world.



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