beyond the "thingness" of things

a list of things that make today, today:

burden no. 2 i.e. project work consultation (from four reduced to one, but still it went surprisingly well), lunch with y & a few classmates which was quite lovely (despite-), sourcing for a new placid reading spot in school, & finding it with rapture, relished reading at the new quiet reading spot & watching occasional people pass by while believing that they could not see me because i didn't want to be seen (not because i was abashed but because i was content to efface into the same walls that i was leaning on), listened to the smiths & sang along to/with myself, took breaks from my book by glancing at the unobstructed sky (& soaking in its blissfulness), more reading & feeling (fiction built on the holocaust is terrifyingly enthralling, yet really terrifying- faced with the same circumstances, would you question the existence of god? would you accuse your friend to save your family's skins? would you choose to give yourself up into diabolical hands as an act of sacrificial love to your friend in need, if you lived only for yourself & had no family? would you snatch the gun out of the general's hands, only to plant it to your own head because you wanted to be in control of your own fate, even when you were already hovering at death's doorstep? // "i am a good person who has lived in a bad time" //), cca meeting with batchies to consolidate & make the best out of the remnants of the cca's fate, danced for a while & felt innately beautiful again despite occasional forgetfulness, penned a letter to an anonymous stranger who is a deserving recipient of love despite what the world will ever tell him/her, read some more & finished the book with tears that were a product of a harrowing ending that was imperfectly perfect

(sometimes i find myself being so pretentious to myself- is my creation of self the product of an idea of an ideal self???)

"so she had to satisfy herself with the idea of love- loving the loving of things whose existence she didn't care at all about. love itself became the object of her love. she loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for. it was not the world that was the great and saving lie, but her willingness to make it beautiful and fair" 

"they reciprocated the great and saving lie- that our love for things is greater than our love for our love of things- wilfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, wilfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life" (pg 80, 83, everything is illuminated, j.s.f)

trust

so spent until all that i can think of is this chronic lethargy & this relentless chase that seemingly won't end even though i know that this too, shall pass 

i really don't know how everything is going to work out in the end

but when my heart is overwhelmed, 

lead me to the Rock that is higher than i am 

immovable

not to be moved by man, but to be stoic to everyone except You,  

& to be unshaken by everything except Your works

 lead me with strong hands

one day this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy & what i've been led to believe about myself will cement into a cold, brick wall- apathy & malaise sealed into its heart

before that happens, break down the foundations of this wall at its core

let Your love arrest me instead:
redeem me from thoughts that only threaten to drown me in this sea of inexorable sadness

drawing parallels & seeking

i think i am getting increasingly enthralled by my lit book even though it may come off as dry & unpalatable

crude epiphanies that are askew but real- relentless cold buckets of iced water slapping one's face awake

scales ripped from one's eyes when one realises that what had been deemed as obsolete- a closed-minded society regulated by societal conventions, a society where judgement was so prevalent and executed mercilessly when one failed to conform to what was "normal"- is still existent, right before one's eyes

what had "come to pass" has obstinately chose to stay, faded into the background & taken on the role of an invisible hand- buried under the choice to believe every single trace has been eradicated - that we are liberated

one particular dialogue in the novel struck a chord in me: 

"does no one want to hear the truth here, mr archer? the real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!" (ellen olenska, AOI)

it is so easy to scorn the animated antics of the characters in the book until you realise you are actually no better than them- carnal, fallible, governed by worldly thoughts 

i used to dismiss archer as overly romanticised- too romanticised for his own good, old new york as extremely hypocritical & sickening: before i drew parallels between archer & myself & the anatomy of the society then and society now 

(i really need to stop drowning in my own romanticised ideals- there is something so alluring with dwelling in things that will never come to fruition, because of the warped kind of safety unreality brings) 

i also realised that as humans, we inevitably become a hypocrite in one way or another, even if it's for just a fleeting moment- there is no running away, even if those thoughts have never escaped one's lips

(who are we then, to condemn those who are more blatantly...hypocritical than us?)

this makes me realise how lacking i am, and how much i need Your purity in my life. let me not stray from Your Rock, and let me seek You first in everything that i do. i do not want to be like a pharisee, doing works to gain man's recognition and praise. please, never let me use You as a means to any end, but be an end in Yourself

i need to be a better human- more of You and less of me, because the best of me can never compare to the least of You 

sovereign

if this place of imminent struggle is where You ordain me to be, grant me the grace to struggle freely, to struggle with the knowledge that Your hands are over & underneath- reigning sovereign & ready to cushion any fall

if You should lead me to a place of internal chaos & malaise, arrest me with the heart knowledge that Your love is more than able to fix any brokenness that is to come

shepherd

"for He is our god, & we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand" -psalm 95:7

(imprint this in the deepest crevice of your heart)