:: of objectivity ::

Beauty does not have to be affirmed to be beautiful. The sun does not have to be seen as it comes up over the ridge. Truth doesn't have to be believed in order to be true.

It. Just. Is.

:: on purpose ::

So this is my search for purpose. Not meaning. I know I have value and meaning apart from anything that I do.

That's why euthanasia is unethical, why Aunt Helen makes almost no sense most of the time and does very little besides sweep up crumbs on the dining room floor, but no one would ever speak of her lack of value or importance. She is a human being.

That's also why people on life support or with down's syndrome or who have other "limiting" situations are not sent out to pasture. There is no pasture. But there is an important difference between living and letting life happen to you.

I just got off the phone with Curt. I cried. It was quite a miserable conversation on many counts.

First, he is ready to plan my life out for me. I couldn't even book a wedding one year in advance much less decide in a 30-minute conversation what my new life path will be.

Second, he says things to me like: it would be a waste for you to go to the mission field, or work as a nurse, or (insert other vocations I've considered for what looks like their intrinsic value). No, that would not be right for me. Other people, they can do that. Those jobs anyone can do. But someone with organizational skills, now that actually matters. But I'm wondering -- how on earth could I come up with some little nonprofit business in a few minutes or hours or weeks that could somehow be of more value than the years of people's lives that are spent doing "those things," those things that anyone could do.

AHHHHHHH.

Third. I don't remember what's third, I just know that it's the intangible that made me cry. He said I need to be thinking, to stay in a place with nice Christian guys because, you know, you're not going to find a guy by hiding in a cave. It's a numbers game, after all; probability. If you don't talk to guys, it is very unlikely that you'll find one who wants to marry you.

So I feel like someone just took my journal, photocopied its pages, and passed it out to a group of suit-donned type-A's who were given five minutes to dismiss every dream I've ever had.

I know he means well. Above all he means well, otherwise he wouldn't even bother. He's a man paid for his time and advice ("its what it's worth to them, not what it's worth to you...") taking time to give me advice. If he thought I'd fail, he wouldn't bother. If he thought I was just like "everyone else," you know, all of those people who are fine to just go ahead and do regular jobs without multiplying themselves, then he wouldn't have spent an hour convincing me that I can change the world. And I can do it with a brochure and a nice website and someone to make a nonprofit out of it all.

I don't know what I thought I'd realize by writing, but it feels a little better just to have it out there. So here's to feeling better about not having a plan, feeling threatened by other people's plans, and sitting on a blue couch at midnight trying to understand when I'll start understanding life.

:: rain ::

I love when it rains. Especially this time of year, I'm always hoping for a torrential downpour. There just haven't been any yet.

But tonight. Tonight, after feasting on the usual Thanksgiving items at a potluck, we made sandwiches from the leftovers and packed brown sack lunches to take downtown. There were four cars of us, probably about 12 people. It took less than two hours of our comfortable little Sunday night to give away all of the sandwiches and bottles of water. We stopped at every blanket on the sidewalk, sometimes waking people up. It was getting cold so they were all bundled up, and grateful.

One man I talked to had set up his bed a few feet from the dumpster, in the parking lot behind some kind of grocery store. I asked him if he was warm enough and he said he just hoped it wasn't going to rain. If it did, he'd have to walk over to the gas station to stay dry.

I still love the rain, but tonight I'm hoping it doesn't. No torrential downpours, please. Not tonight.

:: chocolate ::

I love it. Especially Cadbury, or European hazelnut-filled chocolate.

Tonight I was over at a friend's house for a quick dinner before going back to church. Right before I left, I went to the living room to grab my shoes and saw the candy bowl: Hershey's miniatures. "Quick dinner" didn't include dessert, so I decided I could throw a few in my purse without making any hostesses feel like they hadn't done their job well enough. And I'd have my chocolate.

So I did. I took a Krackel bar, because those are the best, and started to leave. But I didn't make it through the kitchen before the hostess, generous, went to the freezer and: behold! The giant bag of Hersheys miniatures that fills up the bowl in the living room. She made me take a handful, at least eight or nine, and I left thinking:

I think that's what God does. I pool my resources in my best efforts at getting by, and He's around the corner ready to dump the whole bag of Hershey's miniatures into my purse.

:: carousel ::

She has dementia and has lost most of her memories. Sometimes things come back; sometimes they don't. Today she told me the same story six times. In a row. What I thought was a comma between two clauses was just a pause before she began the same sentence again, like a merry-go-round.

Today the person on her carousel was her great niece. Like many of the people in her life, this niece has been reduced to one fact: she (apparently) threw a party every year to raise money "for people who needed help."

I don't know what kind of help she gave people but I thought: if I had to be remembered in one story then that would be a good one. I'd ride that carousel.

:: vent ::

I don't care if it's a Mac or a PC, there is no computer I want to be on for more than half a day.

:: what now? ::

Most people don't even know I have a brother. I do. His name is Jamie, and he lives in New York state. We were usually the first ones awake on Christmas morning and have a long tradition of opening our stockings together. I love him.

And tonight, he was a most unlikely source of wisdom. He spends most of his free time playing online role playing games; the rest of it is devoted to eeking out a living doing something he hates in order to support a lifestyle he doesn't believe in. He said tonight that he wastes most of his time on a computer because he knows that it matters about as much as the other things people do all day: shop, update their myspace profile, watch t.v. I guess I understand that, it just feels less guilty to do those other things.

Maybe.

Anyways, that wasn't really what we talked about. Mostly I listened while he said things like: Mandy, don't waste years of your life doing things that don't matter. Ultimately, all that matters is sharing the gospel with people who don't know; the rest is either the means or the distraction.

I heard this message twice a year, once a semester for four years in college. Watched it being lived most of the days of my early life. Hear it in my unwillingness to commit to being a fulltime: photographer, designer, writer. If it isn't eternal, I don't want it. Did you hear me? I don't want you, temporary, sucking-in, dollar-signed highway to retirement. I don't want you.

:: last night ::

The moon was full and bright last night. Two of my roommates called me within an hour to say I needed to go take pictures of it. So I did.

I didn't know how far I'd need to drive before I'd have a good view, but I saw it just above the mountains, just a few blocks from my house. I stopped and took a few pictures, then drove a little further.

I was just looking at it, thinking about being little, about when Dad would get out the telescope, when a car slowed down, stopped in front of me, and rolled down its window so the driver could ruin my peace.

"What are you doing?"
"I'm taking pictures of the moon. Did you see it?"
"I saw you. You were taking pictures of houses."
"No, the moon." I started to turn my camera so I could show him-
"I'm going to call the Sheriff!" Angry.
"Umm... ok." I didn't know what else to say. He drove away.

Sometimes, I hate America. Like right then.

So I drove to Jamul. I think they still let you take pictures of the moon in Jamul.