Real Church

     I watched "Jesus Camp" for the second time the other day, and in it there's this little girl who talks about how some people go to "dead churches", as in churches that God doesn't visit because the people's hearts aren't in the right place.  (It's in this section, 4:05.)
     But I think... I think they're ALL dead churches.  Opal Whitely at 5 years old wrote in her journal, "To me all God's out-of-doors is one grand cathedral."  I think she's right.  You have to find church.  Good places to look include under fir trees and near creek beds.  

     What made me think of dead churches and Opal Whitely's real churches was reading some Ralph Waldo Emmerson.  When he was young he began as a minister, but then he left it writing in his journal, "I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers."  I think he is right too.

     I love Opal Whitely by the way.  Her writing is absolutely the most heart warming stuff.  Here's an excerpt I found online:

By and by, I came to a log. It was a nice little log. It was as long as three pigs as long as Peter Paul Rubens. [Peter Paul Rubens is the name of her pet pig] I climbed upon it. I so did to look more looks about. The wind did blow in a real quick way -- he made music all around. I danced on the log. It is so much a big amount of joy to dance on a log when the wind does play the harps in the forest. Then do I dance on tiptoe. I wave greetings to the plant-bush folks that do dance all about. Today a grand pine tree did wave its arms to me, and the bush branches patted my cheek in a friendly way. The wind again did blow back my curls -- they clasped the fingers of the bush-people most near. I did turn around to untangle them. It is most difficult to dance on tiptoe on a log when one's curls are in a tangle with the branches of a friendly bush that grew near unto the log, and does make bows to one while the wind doth blow. When I did turn to untangle my curls, I saw a silken cradle in a hazel branch. I have thinks that the wind did just tangle my curls so I would have seeing of that cradle. It was cream, with a hazel leaf halfway round it. I put it to my ear, and I did listen. It had a little voice. It was not a tone voice; it was a heart voice. While I did listen, I did feel its feels. It had lovely ones. And then I did hurry away in the way that does lead to the house of the girl that has no seeing. I went that way so she too might know its feels, and hear its heart voice. She does so like to feel things as she has seeing by feels.

     Oh and speaking of incredible journals, I just bought a book of excerpts from Edward Abbey's journal called Confessions of a Barbarian.  Good Gracious!  It was $7, which is far more than I like to spend at Half Price Books for a single book, but it's sooooooooooooo good!  It's like riveting and gut-wrenchingly personal, witty and eloquent in this uncouth way.  :D  I'm in love with him.  I mean if he wasn't so terrible with women (and 20 years dead) I would write love letters to his uncivilized ass.

Transitions

So I'm all moved in to Ian's apartment.  It feels pretty weird.  It's like all my random crap like bongos and a sewing machine and kites and libertarian propaganda among his uber modern minimalist decor that I never would have picked for myself.  But then I see J. Alfred Prufrock, my gold ceramic duck in the bedroom and the peanut butter we got together at the grocery store because I like chunky, and I guess I really live here now.

I cried like a little bitty fucking baby last night for at least an hour leaving the co-op with all my stuff and when we got home.  God I still feel like crying for another hour about it.  I loved that place.  I don't care if it was a shithole, it was my shithole and I loved everyone in it and everything about it.  When you live there, you don't realize how much your stuff smells like stale cigarette ashes and pot.  Such a beautiful experience to know so many true authentic people, people who care about me and looked out for me.  Of course I'll visit, but I'll miss out on stuff I know it.  Like when we had a huge snowball fight with newspaper in the dining room, and all the late night dance parties in the kitchen making french fries, or just all the times I came home for lunch and laughed until my sides hurt.  Submission parties, Molly cuddle fests, sitting around on the back porch shootin' the shit.  Ahhh, it's so heartbreaking not being there!

Looks like it's time to cry some more.

Ian Ian Ian Iann IaaaaaAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love love love love love him and I think I'll be with him for as long as he'll have me.

Party Bears

Being in love has turned me into the most creatively lame person ever.  :P  All I want to talk about is Ian, and make giant lists about all the things I love about him, and write terrible love poetry, and post all these pictures with stupid happy smiles on our faces on Facebook.  I've turned completely lame sauce.  I feel like making all these weird declarations to the world.  For instance, today I wanted to yell from the rooftops -
GOD BLESS ANAL SEX!  AND GOD BLESS IAN MILLS!
Sigh, I do a lot of sighing.  Falling in love isn't too complicated.  Mostly you just sigh a lot, and think about how sweet his eyelashes look making dark Cs against his cheeks while he's sleeping.  And then you sigh some more.  There's this weird paradox where you feel as natural and as comfortable as you do when you're alone, except you have company and your companion thinks to give you friendly kisses every so often.   Sometimes I feel like the sun is shining on my insides and warming them up.  I mean there's a lot more to it than that, but Ian's the best.  Best Best Best!!!!

Flowchart To My Heart (and other bits)

*Click for larger image*

I have this tendency to make charts and graphs and rubrics and the like, in an effort to prioritize what’s important to me – including the stuff of love and relationships.  My logic is twofold:  1) How are you supposed to find what you want if you can’t articulate it?  And 2) When entering semi-uncharted territory, scientific analysis is invaluable.

Imagine my excitement when I found out that OkCupid had a "Flowchart To My Heart" application.   Basically you answer a bunch of questions and then it randomly generates a flowchart that someone can look at and immediately decipher if you'd go on a date with them or not.  I thought it was a cute idea, but unfortunately the flowchart has some fatal errors in its presentation.  I found that certain questions needed higher priority than others, and also that for some questions, giving the wrong answer would be an immediate deal breaker in real life.  Furthermore, not all the questions they asked were relevant to a "dating" relationship.  For instance, I probably wouldn't marry someone who was kindof useless around the house or who didn't make smart decisions about their money, but I might still date them.

So I made my own flowchart that looks and reads exactly how it should!  It’s so tempting to make this sort of thing because I’m obsessed with relationships being about compatibility.  I fit your flowchart, you fit mine.

Sometimes though, I think maybe I’m being silly trying to engineer all this and wanting/expecting things to match perfectly.  There’s no magic in that.  Maybe love should be about finding sparks and chasing them.

I guess I’ll figure it all out soon enough.  (maybe)

On a related note, my dad says it's foolish to be so concerned with a potential mate's political inclination - libertarian or otherwise.  But I think someone's political opinions can be indicative of many other things about their personality.  Plus everyone knows that men who subscribe to the Austrian school of economics are better in bed.  It's just true!