Mmhmm.

"Hey, Lyssie...what's goin' on?"

"Oh, you know. Nothin'. Just hanging out. Josh's birthday party."

"How are you, baby?"

"Great! I love you! Wish you were here!"

"Oh my god - I wish I was, too! Who all is there?"

"Well...my engagement ring is here..."

And thusly, my best friend announced her intention to marry Joshua Sulzener.

I like to write letters to artists I admire. I especially like to write to artists who may not get letters every day from people telling them how much their work is appreciated. Artists who never seek or find the spotlight may at times feel dejected or feel that their passions aren't being channeled toward some greater good. I like to let them know that, in fact, someone has seen that little spark of the divine in them, and has become brighter for it.

A Thing

Last night, I was angry at a man who gets to be happy - who gets to get away with sin while I have to bear its pain. Sin-repentance: the thought gets to me, I'll admit. But what value has a confession of sin to god, if that sin was against another person? Should not, rather, the victim of that wrong be either paid back for what he or she has lost, or at least given some measure of closure or help toward emotional contentment (and of course, if the victim was the self, equivalent amendment be made)? I don't understand what right is done when sin is confessed not to its victim but to an unseen, unknown entity in the sky. Is anything made right? Certainly not on earth - or, if sin was committed against a person of another faith, perhaps not ever...

-

Regarding a broader yet more immediately relevant issue, what of doubt? What a power it is to possess a mind full of doubt, for it prompts such glorious and pointed questions. Among them, "How then should we live?"; "Why ought we have faith?"; "In what, precisely, can we believe - and in that, to what degree of certainty?" "Can ANYthing be relied upon with complete certainty?" - It is common to quickly respond, at least among my closest Evangelical Christian friends, "Yes; the LORD God can be relied upon fully." But how so for one with no experience upon which to base such profound trust?

For a Christian, perhaps experience is such that it leads to a greater certainty. But for one of another or no particular brand of faith, is the experience of others enough to sway a decision so seemingly foundational to one's life? Has it gone that way with many who call themselves Christians? Are those who practice but do not "experience" the faith even in existence?

I want to speak with one who has chosen such a life so that I may gain the knowledge of precisely what led her or him to that particular intellectual standpoint, because I simply cannot conceive it, at this juncture. Can Christianity, then, be a matter either of the head or of the heart, rather than one or the other or necessarily both?

Oh, what it would be like to live upside-down, for a day.

The room, upside down.

All of the photographs on the walls look distant, as they are, but unrecognizable.

The ghosts haunt only right side up. They can't get me here.

I'd walk on the ceiling and fix the light bulbs with no ladder.

Dust the tops of the curtains. Clear the cobwebs.

Nothing would seem real.

Which would mean that nothing in my past...

nothing dark...

would seem real.

Upside-down.

Check out this pretty little thing.

Look What I Found.

I found a few old photos from my first-ever trip to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit my sister a few years ago. I had this fascination with stair-steps, apparently.

and

were discovered on our walk down from Coit Tower.

Lisa's feet on Mt. Diablo.

The La Brea Tar Pits

Yes, but why?