the less i know

"seems like everywhere i go, the more i see the less i know"

isn't that the truth.

ebb and flow

its strange isn't it?

how things come and go.

this tide.

this ebb and flow.

this rise. this fall.

for the past five days, the sun has been excruciating. shining with a warmth that is no longer pleasant, warm, or inviting. but instead. pushing past soft cottons to delicate skin. burning. this source so necessary for life begins to assault life itself. contradiction on the greatest scale.

and then.                   

today.

i slept in. and woke up this morning to a most unusual thing. to the rushing coolness of this summer breeze. the ironic turn of the hot land colliding with lake air and rushing in and down the streets of this sleepy summer town. 

and thats it. right there. the burning, scorching, hungry heat comes. but. so does this cool, rushing wind. 

 

for always is always now.

For we have thought the longer thoughts
And gone the shorter way.
And we have danced to devil's tunes
Shivering home to pray;
I take you now and for always,
For always is always now. 

-Philip Larkin,

'we are far to easily pleased'

thoughts today in quote form:

"God isn't calling you to a mediocre life. And don't you dare settle. DON'T YOU DARE. It's not what you thought it would look like. so what!? When does it ever look like what we think it should or thought it was going to? Never. It never looks like we thought it was going to. God has been making you promises. He is just and faithful to those promises. He did not die on a cross to give you a life full of empty promises and have baked plans. He has a plan, a beautiful, full, abundant path for you!"

-my own words in a letter to a friend [funny how our own words are often preached to ourselves]

"There is no passion to be found in playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."

-Nelson Mandela

"Indeed, if we consider the the unblushing promises of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

-C.S. Lewis [The Weight of Glory]

"for no other reason that that he is himself an extension of life around him"

Just moments ago finished a book that I have loved for many years. My mother gave the book to me about 10 years ago (i've read it several dozen times), trying to satisfy my insatiable appetite for reading and love for nature. The book is written by my hero, Jane Goodall, and is called Reason for Hope. In it, she speaks about her beloved chimpanzees, her love for nature, for people, and life. Among the many wise words she has to say about the deep rooted relationship between spirituality and science, her focus, as it always has been, is on our responsibility now. She describes a lecture she gave at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. 

"I took, as my text, Genesis Chapter 1, verse 26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." I explained that many Hebrew scholars believe the word 'dominion' is a very poor translation of the original Hebrew word 'v'yirdu', which actually meant to rule over, as a wise king rules over his subjects, with care and respect. It implied a sense of responsibility and enlightened stewardship."

Stewardship is an uncomfortable world in western vocabulary. Responsibility for the world, the animals, the creation around us. We were given stewardship over creation. Instead, we move about our days recklessly. We pillage the land for its resources. We rape the earth of its wild places. Our planet is increasingly becoming a sad place to live. Our forests are smaller, our land is over farmed and infertile, our livestock are crammed into disgustingly small spaces, our fruit is grown to abnormally large sizes, injected with hormones. Our air becomes increasingly poisonous, we pour toxins into the atmosphere and destroy the layers that protect our very existence. 

There is really no such thing as an environmentalist, as a "tree-hugger", as a "green" person. There are simply those who understand the responsibility of stewardship and have the desire to live. There is simply no reason, that anyone with the desire to live life, cannot carry the weight of stewardship. Buying local produce. Purchasing meat raised and slaughtered humanely, or not at all. Picking up trash. Exploring better ways to do the necessary day-to-day things we do. Its not remarkable. Not even difficult. But necessary. 

Someday, I want my children to play in trees older than myself. I want them to romp in fields of wild flowers. I want them to swim in the lake that runs through my veins. I want to take them on hikes of the wild island I fell in love with as a child. I want them to see a peregrine falcon in its natural habitat. And I want them to wonder. I want them to wonder that even in the midst of our destruction, mankind turned, saw the world, and began to undo what it had done. I want them to wonder at creation and say, "It is good."

"A man who possesses a veneration of life will not simply say his prayers. He will throw himself into the battle to preserve life, if for no other reason than that he is himself an extension of life around him."

-albert schweitzer

things i'm obsessed with this week. my weekly emails of art, music, food, style, life, etc. are going over a little transformation!

coming soon via video to an art blog near you.

also.

vimeo vs. youtube--feedback anyone?

to search deep.

"Most people are like: oh this is nice, this is bad. No one wants to search deep. Sadness. You so would."

-m.a.

[i've never been so flattered in my life.]

you yourself are capable of both

go camping. fish for dinner. and sleep on the forest floor with me. 

"Adventure is a path. Real adventure - self-determined, self-motivated, often risky - forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it, Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of human kind - and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever be black and white again."

-mark jenkins