Its Great having a brother-in-lawOne you can surprise...





On his Birthday...


hklio

My Tangerines...

They grow in my back yard!!! In December...

Sleeping Bags & other tricks

I like saving time...
by sleeping in sleeping bags,
brushing my teeth and rinsing out the sink.
I hate wasting time...
as in pumping gas: it plummets my mood in short order.
Or that sucky second when Facebook sucked me in again.
I hate saving time...
as in texts when I wanted voice...
or voice when I wanted touch.
I like wasting time...
by working on things of no tangible importance...
as in blogs and books and other brilliant things of imagined importance.
I like saving time...
to wasted it on things of imagined importance.

The Vision

My heart didn’t get what it wanted…that’s the short and the long of it: A collage of disappointments, the big break, a love of my own. A season of creeping bitterness unlike anything I have ever experienced wove a dampening-fog-web within me. At first I thought I could shake it off with reasoning…logically deduce my disappointment away…but there was no real reason. Where a logical reason appeared, its voiding retort flipped right up. It was unfair and not right. My conscientious bent to life, my spiritual world-view had made me choose principles above inclination, the right above the feel-good. And by contrast and comparison; I had received less then my due. Asaph had it right. “I’ve been stupid to play by the rules; what has it gotten me?” Ps.73:13. I was discouraged, offended and betrayed.
I dared not voice the volcano of emotions that churned within me...I am a spiritual leader, a counselor friend, a good-little-church-girl, according to one facebook tag. And that’s the jab. I am questioning God. More than that, I am comparing my life-plate with that of others…and it comes up short. I’m sick of thinking of those less fortunate, I am tired of looking at the ‘eternal perspective’, I am fed up with ‘dieing to self.’ My normally surrendered, your-will-be-done prayers are turning into stony- blockade silences or outburst of answer- demanding tirades.
My disaffected spirit troubled me. The lack of feelings of loyalty and affection for the God of my childhood and youth jarring me more then the reasons that had prompted those feelings to begin with. In a moment I sensed how easy it is would be to walk away from the One you have centered your life around. If feelings kept me believing, then they weren’t there so where was my belief?
What was my belief in? Maybe that was the point. With a dawning dread I was brought face to face with a picture of me; maybe, just maybe, I was serving God more for the cookies and milk than any altruistic, high principled reason. My real loyalties might lay more with a Santa- Claus-God or the unconsciously God projected by my self-centered consciousness than by any biblically faithfully revelation of God.
It was about that time that my devotions took me to the book of Job. The submersion into the Job-story was uncannily perfect, even though I expected no ‘new’ insight. The raw edge to my devastated hopes glued my heart to the solitary Job, questioning where he questioned, extolling my ‘virtues’ where he did his and wonderingly admiring his steadfast faith in the face of it all. What would normally have taken me a couple weeks I finished in a couple days! The climax of God’s whirl-wind arrival into the conversations paused my heart. Maybe this time I would find an answer to the ‘whys’ on my heart. But the disappointment was real. God’s marshaled answer was an eight-plus question session; with more statements to back up the questions! He didn’t answer Job’s questions! He didn’t clear up Job’s charges, He didn’t even explain the big picture!
I didn’t get it. I just didn’t. Whatever it was Job got it. He humbly repents for “babbling about things far beyond him”. Job 42:3 Of course, good ‘ol faithful Job would get. But I didn’t it. It just seemed like a blow off, a rudeness par-excellence! But Job’s repentance is premised by a statement: “I have heard of you but now I see you” Job 42:5. Job saw a vision of God that put Job’s questions to rest.
I walked on my frustration, because I couldn’t certainly walk it off! If that is the answer to my questioning heart, then God “I want a Vision of You!” I went back to the text and shimmered in the questions. According to the passage, God’s questioning discourse disseminates from within a whirlwind. The vision of God is a verbal palate that sets of God’s phenomenon Creative genius from the cosmic scale to the earth seasons and creaturely order, detail and sustaining power.
I’m still pondering its significance.

"It is for our own benefit to keep every gift of God fresh in our memory.

By this means faith is strengthened to claim and to receive more and more.

There is greater encouragement for us in the least blessing we ourselves receive

from God than in all the accounts we can read of the faith and experience

of others."

The Ministry of Healing, 49

Three dollars and some odd cents. I had milk in the fridge, a few cans of beans, some left over white rice and peanuts. There was less than half a tank of gas and work to do in town...seventeen miles away. I decided not to tell a soul...to bring it before the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

I half wondered if it wasn't my pride speaking. I mean after all, independence has kind of been my trade mark. Not that its all bad, but I had sort of overdone it at times...the self-sufficiency turning into an obnoxious block against all kinds of what I perceived as neediness behavior, which actually was often just healthy inter-dependance. I don't exist in a vacuum; I totally need other people and I'm getting better about being open and vulnerable; but on the other hand I wanted to exercises my Sunflower-Impulse. My turning to God as First, Best and Last in my life.

He did it! I didn't breath a WORD to a human and He did!

I was given a loaf of Berry Bread...

A jucy watermelon...

Gas money in exchange for a ride...

and cash sent because of an impression...

The Lord is faithful...the Lord is faithful to little ME! My bread and water was provided and it even came back buttered!

Yoked and Harnessed

I must say it is faith-building. 

No, I mean it really is. I'm still some times such a skeptic that Godly and Great marriages can be made that God sometimes spins me around to take a second look at a few of them. And with my peers falling of the single-band wagon left and right (literally!) I'm having plenty of opportunities!

Vienna found me catching up with Rina and Cosmin!

Rina being my Weimar College roommate and once-upon-a-time fellow conspirator to a life single devotion to God. Meaning no marriage! PTL some things do change! They were on a European Vacation that throbbed with mission. It included a whole array of tracts in several languages, a youth mission in Romania and consistent other-centered love to those around them. They never seemed to meet a stranger! It was our first time together after their Evangelistic Wedding in December and as we traded stories I felt a smile creep into my inner being. The are not only yoked in marriage but boy are they harnessed into ministry together...Rina just finished her Master in Music and Cosmin is in the throes of the end of his English one! Ministry together on a small college campus has its challenges but what a duo of influence! Rina had a certain calm glow that I haven't really seen before and Cosmin surprised me with being humble and intelligent...I mean to say that his servant's heart compliments his brains...and vise versa. Did I save myself or what?
The garden's hard work was catching up with me and I was dead-tired all over Vienna that weekend but not only was it fun to hang with these guys but it was soul-filling was well. I was thrilled to hear Cosmin's testimony and their mutual focused committed to God's ways and will was truly inspiring. I'm still working on all the fascinating books English-minded Cosmin recommended!

Kamila and Eric!

I hadn't seen Kamcha in years!

We attended College of Evangelism of Canvessing together. I hadn't seen her since. It was rumored that she had married an American-boy (she is Czech) and that they were doing ministry together in Czech. It was all true! I bused myself over to a charming town a couple hours south of Prague. A laughing Kamila (PTL some things don't change ) tumbled out of a car loaded with canvassing books! I was deeply impressed. Turns out they are full-time L.E.er's in Czech. Making a living by spreading His Word! Eric turns out is laid-back fellow SAUer who had left it all for Mission-Calling without a clue of where or what. His story was amazing and I thought again how perfect he seemed for Kamila's sanguine sunshine.
As we talked and walked around the town and tried Kamila's [pasta-poppy-seed master piece. I marveled at God and His ways. Their Love-Story is principled and tender and humorous! Their current lives a true testament of unselfish love for each other and others.
No wonder that counsel says that the greatest testament to the validity of the Christian message is a Christian home! When I arrived back at the Farm the next day, someone asked me if I'd fallen in love. I laughed out loud. "Why do you say that," I asked. "Because you're glowing" was the replay. I thought about that. Being around pure, unselfish love had rubbed off a glow on me.
Faith-building. Not so much in the sense that maybe it could happen to me, though I would be lieing out right if I denied it, but more in the sense that God's power can take two different and imperfect humans and create a harmonious and happy home! And it blesses others. It did me.
Love is real...God is love.

Czech[ed] in the Garden

Celery stalks...

Row upon row of beets...

If I were to be totally frank. It's not what I had in mind when I came to Czech.

But as is often the case when God shifts the plans, it was exactly what I needed. My original impulse to go to Country Life Czech was to shimmer in the Vegetarian Restaurant Ministry for future reference.                                                                                             I arrive in Czech and 

for one or another reason I'm planted in the Organic Farm. Restaurant vs. Farm...Farm vs. Restaurant--just a tad different I'd say. But I've been on this journey long enough to once in a while remember that the Master knows what He is doing, even when I'm lost in transit. Still I couldn't help but think, as I struggled in a particular obnoxious patch of weeds, that I could have just as easily pulled weeds in the states! The thought quickly evaporated.
I'm not the least bit exaggerating when I say that the it was a sterling 20-odd days! I absolutely relished the hard work. My childhood-trained stamina competed with the forces of nature in one glad race. The sun, rain, mud, aching-muscles all of it rested my mind and strangely enough, also my body. The sleep of a working-woman is sweet!

There is something about productive physical labor frees the spirit like no other. Forget the rush of the RUSH or any other Fitness Complex. Give me a garden! I knew all this of course. But after years of academia, the absolutely vitality of it all had faded some from my imagination.
I wish with all my heart I had been dutiful to recorded all the insights and spiritual objection lessons that bloomed in between the beets and celery patches...suffice it to say that the Mighty Counselor watered my heart and strengthened my spirit in between the rows upon rows of dependant little vegetables.
The Farm was fertile ground for the Father's Business. Not only where there more than a few agnostic or spiritualistic individuals, but also more than a few seekers and babe's in Christ. Our impromptu bible-truth discussions took on a new meaning for me surrounded as we where by God's Second Book. Even as I remember the people and their stories and questions, tears come to my eyes. For it never seems that I have Done enough. Been enough. Prayed enough.
I distinctly remember one time. An especially eclectic man, he had recently began reading a children's Bible hoping its simplicity would lead to understanding. His observations and questions where keen. Not to be misunderstood as a seeker though, for he was still very much a skeptic. Near the end of my stay and after several stimulating conversation in which he listened intently and asked pointed questions. He pauses between a row next to mine and keeping his head bowed asks. "And who is Jesus to you?"
Oh the rush of inadequacy! Cursed be my failings and life-long inarticulateness. I longed to be unhampered by the limitations of language and experience to describe who EXACTLY He is and what He Means to me! I don't recall how I started or even the majority of the content. But I remember pausing in between an exposition on WHO Jesus is (I was immensely glad I'd read 'The Case for Christ") and switched to WHAT He MEANS...the experiential route. I noticed a reaction that had nothing to do with logical astuteness or a skeptic's appraisal. A heart awakened. No, not responding but awakened. I don't know where this conversation or others we had will play out in his spiritual walk... But I do know this: Jesus, His all-encompassing reality and love for me have never been as real as in that moment when I tried to share a glimpse of Him with one who never really has heard about Him-exponentially.

So what about the Vegetarian Restaurant Ministry? I believe in it more than ever and the Farm was the perfect place (reality) to shimmer in it for future reference. But that's a tale for another day.

Czech the Morning

Jetlag has several benefits, one being you get to enjoy unhampered by regular distractions, free exploration of the land landed in. It will never feel quite the same as that first glorious morning when everything feels fresh and new. I think I would go thru the flip side of jetlag, the odd alertness and the off slumbering, just to exprience the climax of curiosity with the wonder of experience. My first morning in Czech is no exception. I was up at 4 a.m. and wandered off without concern by dew-dropped fields and around the evergreen forested patches, everything misted by a fleeting vail of white. The gentle hills that make up this part of the country lend themselves to a stacking of gray-blue against a blushing sky. The wildflowers are abundant and the cottages a maze of colors. Discovering a hunters' tower I scampered up and marveled at the view! A breakfast table of brilliant-hued horses turns up after a sharp curve and I am reminded that my own meal awaits...I turn back and as I descend into the Complex a shimmering morning sun floods it with a soft glow of light...the adventure has began

a Gift

She laid her blond head on the table next to me. Her quietness alerting me that something was up. "What wrong", I asked as I continued my web work.

She was quieter still.

The thought came to me to be just as quiet...I'd show her I really did care to know.

After a while her head came up, dashing her brilliant-yellow hair away from her eyes, their blue filled with the unspoken question: "Why are you quiet?"

"I'm waiting for you to tell me what's wrong" I answered.

She paused before whispering, "I don't want you to go!"

I reasoned in eight-year-old language why it was actually really great that I was going and how no matter what happened, because we love Jesus we'd see each other again and what fun she'd have while I was gone. I think I blabbed to much. The next thing I knew she was sobbing, her shoulders heaving and her soft tears dampening her shirt sleeve.

"It won't be the same without you!" Came the muffled cry.

We talked it out.

But after I tucked her in to my sister's bed I couldn't help but wonder at it all.

The simple, sincere, deep love of a child.

That beguiling childhood sensitivity.

It awakens wonder and tenderness and protectiveness.

No walls, no falseness, no edge...

Just love. just love.

What a gift.

Bald Creek Falls

I grew up in land-locked southern Illinois. Our nearest body of water was our appealing sea-green sewer pond or man-made muddy Rend Lake. 

Who knows when I feel in love with water but I did! These falls are over an hour away from my current home...feel the rush!

Trinity Travels

"Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things in life."

~James Frances Brynes

The Trinity together in Savannah and Orlando...

This is Tamster avoiding a picture...somethings never change=)




We were leaving an art musuem in Orlando. A soft Florida

rainstorm had just showered everthing, enhancing and

highlighting Tammy's navy blue Toyota and the multi-

colored brick drive.

I love this candid shot of Tammy!!! Not only because its next to impossible to get her willing to cooperate in such things...but secondly because it captures Tammy's natural beauty in a languid state...and Tammy is NEVER languid for long!

Jenni's a much more willing victum to my re-occuring requests for poses...Thank you Jenni! I enjoyed shoting her on Tammy's stairwell and this shot captures her smile let loose...

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling

Myself

I have to live with myself and so I want to be fit for myself to know.
I want to be able as days go by always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun and hate myself for the things I have done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf a lot of secrets about myself
and fool myself as I come and go into thinking no one else will ever know
The kind of person I really am, I don't want to dress up myself in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect I want to deserve all men's respect;
but here in the struggle for fame and wealth I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to look at myself and know that I am bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me;I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know, I never can fool myself and so,
whatever happens I want to be self respecting and conscience free.
~Edgar Albert Guest (1920)

What is Love?

Sometimes the easiest way to define something is to contrast it with something it is not.
The best example I have now of that fact comes from my journey in understanding what love really is. Contrasting love and dependency have really clarified some gray areas in my head.
The best description of dependency vs. love that I've discovered is found in Could It Be This Simple? Written by Timothy R. Jennings, M.D.
According to Dr. Jennings dependency is characterizied by a clinging and self-centered need, not on mutual love and respect. The dependant person will look to another to be their source and supply of an internal craving. A relationship based on internal needs impairs the ability to give, as such the motivation for the relationship is primarily driven by the impulse to satisfy a personal drive. Since the dependent party is dependent for its internal feelings of well-being from the other party it will exert pressure, manipulation and control to maintain a relationship. The result is feelings of rebellion from the other party, which threatens the other other's security which increases their attempts at manipulative control. A downward spiral if there ever was one.
This recipe results in a volital relationship, characterized by intense feelings and is unstable and erratic. The bottom line is that dependent behavior violates God's law of love and liberty. It leads to loss self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence. These person's are constantly seeking to emotional filled by others and will do and say whatever it takes to keep their nurturer around.
That is dependency. And it is often mistaken for love. But it is not love.
What is love?
"True love is the Principe of doing what's in the best interest of the other person, the principle of giving." (p.75) Of other-centeredness, of unselfishness. In other words, it is not natural to the human heart. It is the opposite of our natural desires. "True love stems from knowing God...we come to love, admire, respect, and trust Him. We learn His methods and principles, and then we begin to walk on a higher plan of existence, free from fear and insecurity."
"Love heals, while dependency destroys. Love liberates, while dependency always seeks to control. Love gives, while dependency constantly takes. Love is fearless, while dependency is fear-ridden. Love is interested in another, while dependency focuses on self. Love is stable, while dependency wavers. Love is orderly and reliable, while dependency is chaotic and unreliable. Love is based on principles, while dependency is based on feelings. Love is consistent while dependency is inconsistent. Love is honest and truthful, while dependency is dishonest and deceitful. Love is patient, while dependency is impulsive. Love is kind, while dependency is cruel. Love is forgiving, while dependency is resentful. Love protects, while dependency exploits. Love scarifies self, while dependency sacrifices others. Love never ends, while dependency never lasts. And love never fails, while dependency never success." (p. 76,77)

It's a good thing that Panera Bread is not exactly a sanctuary of silence...if you get my drift. 'Cause sex was on the word menu paused only by salad and sandwiches gulps and tittering laughter. Most of the five girls waxing eloquent on the topic were pretty well convinced we were never going to fall into a 'frigid wife' category. Not with all the hormones raging around inside us anyways! Only one pretty face seemed visibly disturbed by the whole conversation, turns out she was under the understanding the whole thing

 was taboo.
Taboo? you mean talking about our sexual drives...if it had been purely superficial, yeah sure. But it wasn't. Sex and its drives is a real time issue that impacts our daily interactions with one another.
Sexual purity is neither denial that we have drives or deception that we are born knowing how to manage them. Not only do we need each other's mutual 'hey, I'm there' and 'let's keep strong' mantras but especially the mutual accountablilty to 

the biblical call for sexual

purity! I've heard it before and every time it makes me shiver in the naivetee of the assumption. 

It goes something like this: Our lustful battles will be over once we can freely enjoy the glories of the marriage bed. Come on now!
If marriage was the solution to a properly satisfied, balanced and managed sex drive. Then there wouldn't be problems with pornography or infidelity or other sexual indescretions that there are today. One thing's for sure. Unlawful sexual impulses, thrills and desires as incapsulated in the word LUST will be a life long battle on this side of eternity! That is unless you are gifted with celibacy...man, I used to think I was...what a deception!
My point is this: first of all, we're not angles so sex is not taboo. Halelujah! It was after all designed by God so its not at all surprisng the devil has done his best to destroy its true beauty.
Second of all, the best things in life have distinct boundaries. Think land & water, a break of the boundary equals a flood. Sex's joys are best discovered objectively not subjectively, so any messing around has the real tendency to erode that joy exponent.
Next time sex is on the word menu, I think I'll pass...for a while anyways. =)

To Dance

Dance...the word sparkles in my mind and twinkles in my eyes...Dance.
Some words are visual in their very sound and dance is one of them. My idea of dance is a rhythmic movement in response to inner or outer music. A release of emotion that requires no words...that is a glorious truth that makes me smile for I am by my own admission a lover of words. There used to be a running joke in my family that I made up words...and sometimes I did; but it was never in a premeditated way, rather it was a on the spot response to an idea or experience.
All of us have non-verbal ways of expressing ourselves...I've had a babyhood tick of ringing my hands...one I suppressed as I got older.
I suppose you realize by now that I am intrigued by dancing...and as those who know me know...intrigued is all it is...I'm so for real! I've never taken a dance class and am not exactly the most graceful creature around. But part of my fascination with dancing is the heated response one get to the topic. It is definitely not a causal conversation starter.
Maybe that is why I've chosen it as a vehicle to share something. Most of my life I've looked at the world as the devil's kingdom. But while its tragically true that this unique planet is the devil's playground. He hijacked it only after my Creator Lord designed and set it in motion. The enemy is regulated to disarray, distorting and destruction. To extinction or extremes is his motto. And though he has limited power to miraculously glitter and glamour his death traps, they are all an appeal to instincts that beckon to the glory of God's original purpose. Dancing, in my dictionary, is no exception.
I was created to be a beautiful, graceful, harmonious, intimate creature...sin leaves me ugly, awkward, at odds, and relationally broken. No wonder I have a pull to an art that graces me with a promise of the first! That said I will agree that dancing has been for the most part successfully hijacked. It is now commonly viewed, at least within conservative Christian communities, as a practice of the flesh and a sinful pass time. One preacher I recently heard commented on the whole topic with a dismissive "it is an advertisement of your sexual prowess". If dancing is an expression of emotion--then it can be good or bad; there can be a time for it to be and time for it to be not. Interestingly enough that is exactly what Ecclesiastes 3:4 seems to be saying. There is "A time to mourn and a time to dance."
I've come to at least one conclusion while writing this. The devil doesn't deserve the credit of creating dancing. It is not his tool exclusively. Now the ramifications of what I'm saying I've still to flesh out...does that annoy you? I am being honest though...
In order to set some of your hearts at ease, I will say that because of some of my other conviction you won't find me studiously dancing away under the hand of a master dancer...though that fantasy has crossed my mind...but neither will you hear me condemning the whole concept as an art bred in the devil's workshop.
I am becoming more and more all about reclaiming the Lord's design. The devil is a liar and I don't want to assist his propaganda campaign. If we approached things in this light don't you think we'd do a better job of presenting truth as the beautiful thing that it is?

Roomate-Bride

It was a wedding I had been looking forward to. My Weimar College roomate was getting married! It was to be a December wedding and I was sure, it was to be a study in contrasts.
My roomate-bride is Korean, her groom Romanian, the Church chosen Japanese-American and the bridal party an assortment of Asian-European-Hispanic-African-American young folk! I expected it to be a unique and special celebration not only because of these facts but because having co-habited with the bride, I knew it would be a reflection of her: delightfully simple, spiritually deep and muiscally oriented. I was not disappointed.
The music enchanted the charming sanctuary from the echos of a small orchestra, the pathos of a latin sole and perfect-mood setting pieces. A reverant, spiritual atmosphere undergirded the entire ceremony apart even from the beautifully crafted wedding sermon, the first I will remember I think. And simpicity was the code of mode as only black and white outfits can be, completed only with a Bible and a trinity of red-roses on evergreens. The groom was sporting an hour-old-haircut at the hands of the Canadian bridesmaid and looking for all the world like he'd managed somehow to shallow the golden egg! The bride's jet-black hair framed her beautiful fresh-faced glow, with only a hint of lip-gloss setting off her natural pearl pink cheeks. Having a blond groom that towers over you, made the bride appear only more adorable!
The mood before the ceremony was seriously light: if that is possible. I mean to say that the groomesmen were a serious lot, only now and then breaking into a sheepish grin at one or two of the ridiculous comments springing in gales from the bridesmaide's side. A light mood was making me join in with the best of the girls. But behind my teasing and jesting words, a slightly disconcerting unease was taking hold of me but for all the world I could not put my finger on what was wrong.
From my vantage point in the ceremony...and let me say that this is the first wedding in six that I've been a part of that had the bridal party sit down for the ceremony-great idea if you ask me! I searched the bridal scene and crowded church for some sort of an indication of what was causing my disrest. Many of my Weimar-College-days friends were there, some as dear as always and others reminders or co-partners of mischievousness glory! I scanned the bridal party and internally grinned at the demure faces the girls now sported, one or two appeard quite taken with the scene, dreaming of their own day perhaps. The married girl was the only one still having a hard time being serious, she was always the leader in fun no matter what the occassion. One bridesmaid for sure was having an internal struggle over her outfit, anxiously reviewing all its flaws. The boys, I mean, groomsmen were perfectly composed.
My eyes lingered on the bride. And my feelings intensified...ahhh...at last. The source of my disconcerted feelings had been discovered. In her flowing vail and soft glow I searched for that girl: my roomate. The connection between that girl and me was missing. That was what was disconcerting. It had been over four years since we shared extended time together but my spirit longed for a spark of connection, the kind that exists apart from words or gestures. I longed for that spark of the girl that had made me laugh like no other, who loved music and hated kimchi. the girl who disliked beds and gave strong backrubs. The girl that had joined me in a blood-coveant of swearing off boys after a climatic discussion on boy-distractions and the virtues of focused service for God...ahhh the passionate reasoning, earnestness and youthful...misguided ideals?!
The composed bride setting before me seemed far removed from that girl. Then it happend, the one moment that changed everything.
She laughed.
No, you don't understand. She laughed her no-holding-back-Rina-laugh! I don't even remember what she laughed at, some witty remark from the preacher I suppose, but who cares...she had laughed. And in that one laugh I heard, I saw, I connected with the bride-who-had-been-the girl-that-had-made-me-laugh many times before.
I settled back in my chair and watched the smiling audience, heard the earnest speaker and smiled at the bride...an inner peace flowed through me. Brides are still girls the were roomates who laughed and cried and made strange covenants...brides are the best!