Gone.

mmmm.... *warm fuzzies*

i love brac. i love the people there. i love watching our guests' faces light up at the stuff i had brought in. i love seeing my supervisor's exceitment in response to my work. its fabalous.

and then delivering a bulging plastic bag of kid toys to the fire station... mainly my old beanie babies, some other stuff. its good passing it all on. cuz i can't take it where i'm going.

***

butterflies/adrinline ecmb. its only a matter of hours....

ahhhh... there's nothing like disney's Anastascia to get me stoked about going to St Petersburg...

i think im getting it... or at least understanding the part about the telmarine boy in CS Lewis' The Last Battle. see, the boy thinks hes following tesh (Lewis' spin on Allah/Islam/satan), but he finds himself face to face with a pleased aslan (Lewis' spin on Jesus/Christianity). reading the book, my first reaction was "wha??? has Lewis gone mad?"

but perhaps Lewis hasn't gone [that] batty after all.

a few snippits flash before me:

snippit 1: my roomie goes out to a buddist seminar and comes back with Augastine's Confessions.

snippit 2: a friend sought "the One" (panthesim) and somehow came to Jesus.

snippit 3: in a poem written on one of BRAC's walls, the last line reads "in the end, it is said that all gods bow down to God" (or something along those lines)

snippit 4: "you will find me when you seek me with all your heart" -- God (through Jeremiah)

the magi sought the stars (for they were astrologers) and came to the Christ child. in both of snippits 1 &2, the "real-life, real-time" person sought out something that wasn't of God, yet in the end found the TRUE living God. (similar to the part in TLB) how does that happen?

perhaps snippit 4 is the key, with snippit 3 being a bit of an explantion of 4.

it seems to me, that when one seeks something (God or something of God), one starts off on the path they know, and if they seek ernestly, what they find at the end of the known (often not of God) path they know isn't satisfactory, so they search a bit harder and find God--the true, living God. (the last part is a bit sketchy, cuz something supernatural happens so that the person can jump from the false god to the true God). hence thats why all other gods bow down to the true God (cuz only he can fully satisfy...)

perhaps Lewis has picked up on that (or at least snippits 1&2) and has incorporated it into his work vis-a-vie the telmarine boy in TLB. or perhaps Lewis is suggesting how salvation is possible in an un-Christianized culture.

sounding board anyone?

time cannot be stopped.

everything is meaningless.

i was formed from the dust and in a few years to dust i shall return.

time marches on.

I think I found God again. Kinda sorta, and there's definitely some mending to be done. But...

I saw the boy last night, at the town carnival. I was with some friends; he was alone. We politely conversed for a few minutes, my friends and I, with him, and then he leaned over and quietly asked me if i had enough money for him to buy some cotton candy. Reaching into my wallet, thats when I saw Him. Not literally, but in the boy, and in our interactions. And in myself. I pulled out $5, and gave it to the boy, and was quickly met with the biggest, most sincere hug i've had in awhile.

After the boy had gone, I turned back to my friends who were looking at me quizzically, and my action took on a whole new meaning. One friend had spent the whole time at the carnival (until that point), calling other carinval-goers freaks and another word i wont write here. My other friend had helped grow my faith throughout high school and was going through a tough time.

In that swift moment though, my nature was revealed and they saw who I am clearly; I can't help but to believe they saw Him. Because I did. And it startled me.

do they see Christ in me?

***

[do i see Christ in myself?]

yo Lynds, call me crazy, but for some strange reason i've taken an affinity to talking to friends and cell phones... ;)

***

you know, the more i dance, the more i remember how much i enjoy/love dressage. not in the "oh yes, i remember that" sort of way, like when you're listening to great-aunt matilda's family stories, but a deeper type of remembering...one done without the mind.

it made me want to go out to the barn at night and school.

yet the irony; almost seems like an injustice.

i came back, in part, to WA this summer so i could ride. but i've done anything but. inadaquacies and technicalities, stripped me of passion, and i can count on one hand the number of times ive ridden in the last 4-5 weeks.

ballroom will never-- can never-- replace riding; i dont have the same drive, the same aspirations, the same aplitudes. yet it can be a subsitute, something that i can do-- and enjoy doing-- when riding isn't there. it opens up a whole new area of the globe for me.

***

:)

it will be ok. i will go to russia, and while im in route or shortly after my arrival, i will retreive the person that the LORD made. i will regain myself.

meanwhile i sit tight.

there are so many ways i want to love on the people down at the advocacy center...bring them food, necessities and such. $0.75 is such a limited act. i serve, i exalt, i empower, i love on. i haven't found a church, fellowship or even friendship, really, in this town. but i've found them. the toothless, the mentally ill, partially blind, the physically ailing; the city's homeless. yet they are priceless. this afternoon during one of the introductions, a boy a little younger than me, looked up at me, and ever so politely said to me, "don't mind if i say this, but you're pretty" with a sheepish smile. bread & roses.

Jekell & Hyde revisited.

i went to my cousin's wedding today. second cousin, really, but i do so much with my extended family (and way far, yet still somehow related, relatives), we usually just leave it at "cousins" and call it good. it was a fun and beautiful ceremony on lake washington, and the weather couldn't have possibly been better. somehow though, hanging out at the wedding afterwards brought the peace and the restoration that i have been searching for this summer. it also brought the longing, but a different type of longing from what i've experienced this summer.

it made me remember. and dream. and realize that everything will be alright.

something about the fellowship time and the reception, and meeting of long-lost cousins and the bride, her friends and her family and all of the church ladies, my social skills (that i've so "proudly" acquired in ma) popped back up and it was like i became my new-self again, and not the saddened, sulken person of the old-self. and it made me smile again, laugh the deep belly laughs until my sides hurt and then some, and my life became like blue skies-- a joyous blank canvas filled with possibilities and potential. it also brought the longing for more and for a future-- not like the longing ive experienced for most of the summer for what was.

and for a moment there, it made me want to ride again.
and dance with gladness again.