Rilke Part Deux

For it is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

This guy is sick with profundity. That's right: "profundity!" I've since realized (from the first Rilke/poetry post) that this is not poetry. It is rather a letter. It is published in a book called Letters to a Young Poet. I really like Rilke, who, unbeknown to me, is "arguably the most important European poet of the modern age." Wow. Now that's praise.

Again, I say, I live by the Word of God, but there's nothing wrong with acknowledging truth where you find it. I sit here wondering if I'm pacing in the corner, not realizing that I am in a very large room. This almost relates to my study of faith. Like I've said before, we live beneath our privilege...in all senses (spiritually, physically, financially, emotionally, etc.) because we're so focused on "safety." I love the oxymoronic notion that there is danger in safety. But I see it. Do you see it? If you're ready for everything, does this mean you expect and or anticipate anything? Does this mean that you look at situations and even the sky is NOT the limit. Who decided we were so limited? And does our perception and acceptance of this supposed limitations keep us confined to a corner of a very large room? Food for thought.

In other news, Sasha and Lucia got married! It was wonderful. Shout out to them. Good luck! Tears today because they are moving to the great state of Illinois, awesome city of Chicago; this was the previous home of our President who lived in Hyde Park (where all the hardcore buppies live). I once aspired to be such a buppie. Yet, here I am in Arlington, VA. But hey, I'm trying to get out of my corner, I'm expecting wildly awesome things in DC Metro, even the most enigmatical.

Side note: red lines appeared beneath both "oxymoronic" and "enigmatical." Come now. These are words!

He Was There

So, I have to post this. I've been listening to it all day. I'm so jealous (in a good way) of this chick. I wish I had:

1. Her voice. I mean, I've listened to this dozens of times and I can't mimic her AT ALL. That's when you know someone is amazing...when you can't even copy it.
2. Her hair. That is slick. I want a short jazzy haircut, but I'm not emotionally ready. I am a coward.
3. Some fake eyelashes. I've decided for $25 I can let someone put eyelashes on me, ditch the glasses for 2 weeks, and see if I feel prettier.

I came to Sunday's Best late in the game, but I will definitely watch next season.

Does anyone like Poetry? I do!!!

So I'm sitting at home, under my hair dryer finishing a couple of poems. Poems which may or may not make it to the open mic at Busboys & Poets this summer. One of them has one INCREDIBLE killer line. That's right! I praise my own poem. I throw modesty to the wind when it comes to my poetry. I have admitted to many that I have a lot of really crappy poems (I mean flat out TRASH), a bunch of so-so ones, and a handful of awesome ones. I don't know if this poem is awesome...but...that one line sure is. Hit me up if you want to read it, it's not quite ready for the World Wide Web. I would be curious to know if someone can pick out the line that I love.

In other news, I was up last night watching Kissing Jessica Stein, and was struck by the use of a literary passage that is QUITE profound. I know everyone isn't a reader, and trust that I know nothing is as profound as the Bible (I mean it is the word of God...), but this is very impressive. Has anyone else ever heard of Rainer Maria Rilke? Sounds like it could be a girl...but totally a dude! I think he is now my favorite poet. I'm going to give you a couple of snippets of his writing. A little today, a little tomorrow, maybe a little on Saturday. It's all the same piece, but it's a little lengthy, and I don't want to bore you. ...Hopefully you're not dead already. I've underlined the pieces that made me SCREAM in my apartment (literally, I screamed. Good poetry gives me chills). This guy is awesome:

We must assume our existence as broadly as we in any way can;
everything, even the unheard-of, must be possible in it.
That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us:
to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter.
That mankind has in this sense been cowardly has done life endless harm;
the experiences that are called "visions," the whole so-called "spirit-world," death,
all those things that are so closely akin to us,
have by daily parrying been so crowded out of life that the senses with which we could have grasped them are atrophied.
To say nothing of God.
But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished the existence of the individual;
the relationship between one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the bank,
to which nothing happens.

This poetry makes me question: Do I let fear run my life? Have I allowed circumstance and societal norms, and "intelligent conversation" to rob me of the my sense of the magical? Has it taken away my ability to attain a higher level of faith? A higher sense of self? And has it doomed me to boredom and mediocrity? I want to go back to the riverbed of endless possibilities!! Who is going with me?

Where do you get your advice from?

Okay, I'm super random and super sarcastic today, so I have to pose the question: where do you get your advice from? Or if we want to be accurate: From whence do you receive advice? (can't end a question with a preposition...or can you?!)

Advice [ad-vahys] noun - an opinion or recommendation offered as a guide to action, conduct, etc.

I HATE advice. I know that's messed up, because there is many a Proverb about "good counsel." For example:

Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end - Proverbs 19:20

Let's not get it twisted though, in verse 21, it clarifies that the "counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." Other counsels?...They might leave you twisting in the wind.

I was just doing some random googling of a question that is plaguing me and noted that there is a startling number of people seeking advice, DAILY, from some yahoo named Yahoo! (hahaha, that was super cute, wasn't it?!). But really, if you pose any single question to Google, an answer will appear for you at Yahoo! For example: Should I Stop Beating My Wife?

Admittedly, there are three results, two of which (when you read the body of the question) refer to beating her at chess, as opposed to beating her in the face. However, that third post is suspiciously deleted by the Yahoo! community. You know what that means? ...Neither do I. Though, it could mean that someone was fool enough to ask Yahoo! if they should stop punching their wife in the stomach. Maybe...?

Let's try another one: Should I Keep My Baby?

Are you kidding me?! Someone asks a stranger a question that affects three lives for the REST of their lives. The "Best Answer" Chosen by other strangers begins with:

If I were you, I'd keep it. But that is a very personal decision!

And ends with:

You would be surprised how easily a baby wins people over.

Wow. "You would be surprised how easily a baby wins people over"...that's a winner. This is by far THE BEST advice I've ever heard. Even better than "don't put your fingers in electrical sockets." This here advice, could possibly save a baby's life. Or flat out doom it. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. So I'll just shake my head.

I wonder if a study has been conducted: Why People Ask Yahoo! for Answers. I googled it, no formal study. However, there was a small, heartbreaking comment:

I do it because i have nobody to talk to at all and it’s like an outlet sometimes

Awww...I feel terrible now. Don't you? I mean, if you agreed with my lighthearted, sarcastic tone up top...you have to right? It's messed up that people don't have the luxury of getting bad advice from their friends and family. They have to get it from people they can't blame and hold accountable for the consequences that result from the horrible advice. Super tragic.

...

Crush Syndrome - That's Life

Do you know what it means to bite? Well, I'm totally biting off of Checker's blog style today...almost 100%. You know what they say: "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

In the season finale of House (entitled "Help Me"), House and Cuddy are at the scene of an accident where a crane collapsed onto a building, injuring and trapping many people. During the search and rescue, House finds a woman named Hanna trapped beneath the concrete rubble. He attempts to free her, but her leg is pinned beneath a beam.

Saving Hanna
The easiest way to rescue Hanna would be to amputate the trapped leg and pull her out. However, due to:

• his own physical disability (House has a bad leg that is the source of excruciating pain);
• the desire of the patient (she doesn't want to lose her leg), and
• the fact that Cuddy is on-board with this idea (he wants to be contrary),

House opposes this plan. He's positive that he can keep her stable, and that the firemen/rescue crew can drill her out of the concrete before Crush Syndrome (the real definition) sets in.

Things Never Go as Planned

• When the crew attempts to dig Hanna out, the building suffers a second collapse.
• Hanna suffers a collapsed lung, and so House has to re-inflate it.
• Now, tragically, amputation is the only choice...but the patient refuses.
• So House, in very non-typical form, opens up about how in trying to save his own leg he ruined his life. He explains to her that she has everything to live for, and that the amputation is the only choice.
• She's moved by his candor and the reality of the situation and agrees.
• House performs the amputation, down there in the rubble, without anesthesia, with the screams of this woman in his ears.
• She is successfully extricated from the building. The people rejoice.
• Then...through no fault of House, she dies in the ambulance because of a "fat embolism" which causes an air bubble, restricting the flow of blood to the heart.

House is crushed.

He has the following conversation with one of his employees, Foreman, at the hospital:

Foreman: There's no way to prevent a fat embolism. Even if you'd done this in an OR, you couldn't have saved her.
(House stalks away angrily)
Foreman: (following House) You can't blame yourself for her death. This wasn't your fault.
House: THAT'S THE POINT! I did everything right and she died anyway! Why the hell do you think that would make me feel better?

The Point

This episode is about what I've decided to call: Crush Syndrome. My definition is different from the medical definition, but it's still pretty grim (and reads like a real syndrome!):

Crush Syndrome - the occurrence/release of toxic emotions stemming from the feeling of being mentally squeezed or pounded into small fragments or particles; it is characterized by both the outpouring of ill-will, and the infilling of despair, originated and experienced by an individual overwhelmed with confusion, chagrin, or humiliation related to a seemingly unfair and unexpected turn of events. SYN: disappointment.


We often feel better when something is our fault, or when we can point to the flaw or the mistake that created the bad situation. That's what House was saying: when you do something wrong, there exists an explanation for the bad outcome. It's when the outcome is bad DESPITE all the right moves that we have a crisis of faith. We start to question the "fairness" of life, and we let a dark cloud of disappointment descend upon us. But here's the truth of the matter:

...for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:45

Good times and bad times...that's life yo!

We are so busy planning. Making sure we do all the "right" things to create a certain outcome. We plan for our education, our jobs, our relationships, and sometimes all of this comes to nothing, because sometimes it simply "rains" on you.

True story: yesterday I found my 1995 diary in my mom's basement. At 13, I had dreams and ideals. I wanted to be an actress and a writer for the Guiding Light (which was canceled last year, btw), I wanted to be married at 22 and have 5 children with terrible names. As I was reading the diary, I was struck by the fact that I am a single, childless, ACCOUNTANT. How did this happen? Crush syndrome started to set in. But then I thought about the Word of God.

The Take-Away

Here is the hard lesson: disappointment is a lack of faith. What do I mean? Well, you either believe the word of God, or you don’t. Either I think God somehow allowed me to miss out on my soap opera career, as well as love and marriage, or I expect BETTER (for me) in the future.

In true Checkers style, I’m going to lay this out in a table. I would actually love to use a flow chart, but I don’t know how…



And the church said "Amen."

That was by far the longest blog EVER!! I'm so happy it is behind me, I hope you won't find it too disappointing. Pun intended!

Super Sunday Post - Down the Rabbit Hole of "Faith"

When I was a kid, I thought that faith was like a super power, and that with faith I could do anything...if I just believed hard enough. For years I would walk to school attempting to use faith to either make it rain, or make it stop raining. I would sit at my mother's kitchen table, staring at bottles, trying to use my faith to make them fall over, or levitate, it would be nice if the bottle just exploded into little shards of glass/plastic (that did no harm to anyone, especially not to me). I spent probably a year praying every day as I walked to school believing that if I asked God to--and if I believed that He would--that one day I would hear His voice. I wanted to hear God speaking to me, one-on-one, like He talked to Moses. One-on-one like I would talk to Sasha or Checkers. These things never happened. And in my childhood angst, I gave up on the thought of creating balls of fire with my hands, or of saving the lives of children ill-advisedly crossing the street into oncoming traffic, by stopping time with my mind...even though I would have done it ALL in the name of Jesus Christ, and never for personal gain. Glory be!

A few months ago, I had a small debate with a co-worker about faith, the power of faith, "Faith as a Force" (a phrase I had never even heard before), etc. And basically, we were arguing over what faith can and cannot do. And at some point, I feel like we were mixing in logical arguments, making assumptions about the mind of God, etc. So, I decided to go straight to the source: THE BIBLE. It's a good place to start when discussing religious matters. It's also a good place to end...but I digress.

So begins what may/may not (depending on length) be my series on: FAITH

I think we all know what faith is but let's define it:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

A CLASSIC!! What I love about this scripture is that it is, in fact, a definition of faith. Faith is so key to every aspect of the Christian's life, from initial salvation to everyday living. However, I think somewhere along the way faith has been conceptualized and put into a box that is ridiculously restrictive.

Let's break down Hebrews 11: 1:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for...

substance /ˈsʌbstəns/ Show Spelled[suhb-stuh ns]-

1. that of which a thing consists;
2. something that has separate or independent existence;
3. the actual matter of a thing

...the evidence of things not seen."

evidence /ˈɛvɪdəns/ Show Spelled [ev-i-duh ns] -

1. that which tends to prove or disprove something;
2. ground for belief
3. proof

Proof?!! AHHHHH!! This is amazing. How often does this conversation take place?


Random Seeker: "But...how do you know God is real?"
Random Christian: "I just know. I have faith."

How many realize the awesomeness of that statement? It's not that God is just some concept you believe in. Your faith, which is something OUTSIDE of you, has become the very grounds for your belief. Faith has become your proof of God's existence. Am I the only one who thinks this is hardcore? Please...tell me!

When do we get to the knowledge that faith is MORE than mere belief? More than a concept...it's a kind of really cool, really super "thing." What kind of thing? We'll talk about it in the next installment of "Faith"while I go further down the rabbit whole of independent bible study. Yea!


It's so hard to pick a song for the week. I wanted to find something about faith...couldn't find anything that matched. I wanted to do Donnie's "Stand" (I sang that ALL day), but couldn't find an mp3 link for it. So I decided to kick it WAAAAAAY old school with this Fred Hammond classic. Enjoy:

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Heading Home Soon...

So, one day last week at work, I was overcome with homesickness. What do I mean by overcome? I mean I was at the workplace, at the lunch table, eating a salad, having this conversation:

Me (after talking about how much I miss my fam): I think I've talked myself into a tizzy...I'm going to cry!
Claudette: Don't cry! Talk about something else!
Me: I can't think of anything...YOU talk about something else!
Claudette: blah, blah, blah
Me: Excuse me, I'm just going to go to the restroom...cry, and come back.
Claudette: ...okay

I don't believe in crying at work. I almost don't believe in crying EVER (except on all manner of movies, and while reading exceptionally moving books).

So I requested some time off, and on Tuesday I will fly away to Toledo, OH -- the 8th poorest city in the country. Home sweet home. Now that Urban Dictionary definition is true if you've only ever visited Toledo. If you've lived there, it has it's own brand of charm. The Toledo Zoo is really nice! The Centennial Mall at the University of Toledo (my undergrad alma mater) is one of the "100 most beautifully landscaped places in the country." Not to mention we have Tony Packos!

Admittedly, it sucks, that's why I'm gone...but it's great too! I can't completely turn my back on the place of my birth! Which is why I'm headed home to see the family and friends I left behind.

So, once my 3 best friends (Tummie, Tagee, and Crystal) got wind of my arrival they called me up conference-call style to set up a sleepover. Sleepovers ALWAYS include music playing and a movie along with all of our regular conversation. However, over the years we have grown and changed, and one of us has turned her back on secular entertainment. This is the individual hosting the sleepover, so NO secular movies and definitely NO secular music will be played in her home. Understood. Now...I'm a Christian. I have nothing against Christian-themed movies. I do however, have something against bad acting, bad lighting, ridiculously bad effects, and just flat-out bad scripts. I won't be subjected to that. In times past this has resulted in some annoying viewing experiences, and I REFUSE to be put to sleep prematurely by the likes of Fireproof (I won't lie. Fireproof wasn't TERRIBLE, but the acting. The acting!). We also once watched The Secret...which is NO "secret" at all! I get mad just watching the trailer again. The secret is just good old fashioned faith, except used to get a great parking spot every time you go to the mall (eyes rolling). --Pause-- Faith is crazy powerful. I know that. And I think that, as Christians, we often live beneath our privilege because of our lack of a greater measure of faith than we received when we first believed. We need to grow. That is valid. The presentation of this film and the way it circumvents God bothered me--UnPause-- We once watched Christian stand-up comedy. I could hear my pillow beckoning me soon after the first joke. Just because something is Christian doesn't mean it has to be wack. So now I'm on a search for awesome Christian films. So that maybe from now on, regardless of the host, we'll watch a Christian movie during our sleepovers. Maybe it won't be Oscar-worthy, but at least it won't be worthy of the dumpster. That's all I ask. Which I feel isn't too much.

This is the movie that my friend told me we are GOING to watch/ She is so bossy!!! But little does she know...:



This is EXACTLY the type of film I fear!! First off, I don't want to see another Left Behind type flick. Why?

A. It's been done (In a movie called Left Behind starring Kirk Cameron--which was wretched)
B. It's not really all that biblical
C. I hate scare-tactic evangelism (even in movie form)
D. The title says this is a 90 second preview when it is, in fact, one-minute-and-fifty-one-seconds!!!!

If I am forced to watch the above...I'll get my sleepover kicks by laughing the movie to scorn. TO SCORN! However, that's the stuff that our sleepovers are made of. Other notable bad movies we watched during sleepovers:

1. In Search of a Midnight Kiss (my pick)
2. Really bad bootleg of Butterfly Effect (Tummie's pick)...this was a great movie though.
3. Hard Candy (Crystal's pick) This one was so bad, that I told people it was good just so they would suffer as I had suffered.
4. The Edukators (Tagee's pick) It was bad AND subtitled.
5. Scream 4 (I can't even find a trailer for this because it was a generic FAKE Scream; Tummie's pick).

I'm so excited for home!!!