i've been listening to anais mitchell a lot, recently - often the child ballads, but i have her album The Brightness in my car and i've been doing a bit more driving than usual, recently.
there's a few lines in the last song on that album that always punch me in the gut a little when i hear it:
i've fallen victim to one of those horrid summer headcolds, so i know i'm already prone to be in a down mood anyway. but: the world feels a very sad place, right now.
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people on my facebook keep talking about a girl from L-S who was killed in a car wreck this week. she was just a month or so out from graduating high school, all ready to go away to college. and now she's not, and that's that.
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sometimes i see headlines about syria, or israel, or the west bank, or the gaza strip, and i just can't open the articles. i can't make myself read them. other times i read them and just feel very heavy and tired.
i happened to see pictures, this week, of the crowds teetering on the edge of riots in east jerusalem; streets i could have walked on, maybe, the jerusalem stone familiar in the photos; streets now full of anger and bitterness and the stench of hate. israeli teens: murdered. palestinian teens: murdered in retaliation. stones thrown.
i happened to see pictures, this week, of parents running with small children in their arms down the streets of gaza city, smoke billowing up in the background.
the spirit groans.
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a couple from my university is traveling - soon, very soon, in their orientation even now - to iraq, for three years. it is hard not to be afraid.
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and yet the world is still there, somehow, despite it all.
like: holding two very small humans this past weekend; twin baby girls born into a home fairly shimmering with love for the created earth.
like: getting letters in the mail from old friends.
like: a weekend with my family, camped out in the backyard.
and like this:
and like this:
and like this:
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the world is a very sad place. but headed, i hope - i believe (help me with my unbelief) - for redemption.
there's a few lines in the last song on that album that always punch me in the gut a little when i hear it:
you can hold her hand-
you can kiss her face
go slow if you can
cause the world is a very sad place
and when she leaves she'll leave no trace
and the world will still be there
i've fallen victim to one of those horrid summer headcolds, so i know i'm already prone to be in a down mood anyway. but: the world feels a very sad place, right now.
-
people on my facebook keep talking about a girl from L-S who was killed in a car wreck this week. she was just a month or so out from graduating high school, all ready to go away to college. and now she's not, and that's that.
-
sometimes i see headlines about syria, or israel, or the west bank, or the gaza strip, and i just can't open the articles. i can't make myself read them. other times i read them and just feel very heavy and tired.
i happened to see pictures, this week, of the crowds teetering on the edge of riots in east jerusalem; streets i could have walked on, maybe, the jerusalem stone familiar in the photos; streets now full of anger and bitterness and the stench of hate. israeli teens: murdered. palestinian teens: murdered in retaliation. stones thrown.
i happened to see pictures, this week, of parents running with small children in their arms down the streets of gaza city, smoke billowing up in the background.
the spirit groans.
-
a couple from my university is traveling - soon, very soon, in their orientation even now - to iraq, for three years. it is hard not to be afraid.
-
and yet the world is still there, somehow, despite it all.
like: holding two very small humans this past weekend; twin baby girls born into a home fairly shimmering with love for the created earth.
like: getting letters in the mail from old friends.
like: a weekend with my family, camped out in the backyard.
and like this:
To love is to feel your death
given to you like a sentence,
to meet the judge's eyes
as if there were a judge,
as if he had eyes,
and love.
and like this:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
and like this:
Surely I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.
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the world is a very sad place. but headed, i hope - i believe (help me with my unbelief) - for redemption.
