Roommate Search in DC

Sifting through ads for Christian roommates, a lot of people want someone who’s fun-loving/light-hearted/optimistic, and a non-smoker. Thoughts:

1. It’s going to be hard to find a roommate.

2. There are things I’ll miss about academia.

Augustine Heard a Voice

A friend and I had a conversation about whether mysticism must be in contrast to theological learning, or orthodoxy, or obedience. I ventured a guess that most of the church fathers and famous ancient and medieval theologians had amazing prayer lives — e.g. I feel like I read or heard about some vision that Thomas Aquinas once had. I’m not looking to be a mystic on the order of Catherine of Siena or Julian of Norwich, but I am looking to feel, not just assent to, the loving presence of God. I’ve never heard anyone call St. Augustine a mystic, but even he heard a voice.

But sometimes the step is a distinct and vivid experience. Then we get the strange facts of conversion: when through some object or event–perhaps quite small object or event–in the external world, another world and its overwhelming attraction and demand is realized. An old and limited state of consciousness is suddenly, even violently, broken up and another takes its place. It was the voice of a child saying “Take, read!” which at last made St. Augustine cross the frontier on which he had been lingering, and turned a brilliant and selfish young professor into one of the giants of the Christian Church; and voice which to come seemed to come from the Crucifix, which literally made the young St. Francis, unsettled and unsatisfied, another man than he was before. It was while St. Ignatius sat by a stream and watched the running water, and while the strange old cobbler Jacob Bohme was looking at the pewter dish, that there was shown to each of them the mystery of the Nature of God. It was the sudden sight of a picture at a crucial moment of her life which revealed to St. Catherine of Genoa the beauty of Holiness, and by contrast her own horribleness; and made her for the rest of her life the friend and servant of the unseen Love. All these were various glimpses of one living Perfection, and woke up the love and desire for that living perfection, latent in every human creature, which is the same thing as the love of God, and the substance of a spiritual life. A spring is touched, a Reality always there discloses itself in its awe-inspiring majesty and intimate nearness, and becomes the ruling fact of existence; continually presenting its standards, and demanding a costly response. And so we get such an astonishing scene, when we reflect upon it, as that of the young boy Francis of Assisi, little more than a boy, asking all night long the one question which so many apparently mature persons have never asked at all: “My God and All, what art Thou and what am I?” and we realize with amazement what a human creature really is–a finite center of consciousness, which is able to apprehend, and long for, Infinity.

- The Spiritual Life

some things that bother me on OKCupid

- the 40-year-old man who’s looking for a woman who’s “sweet and fun,” a “girl next door,” has a nice figure and preferably has never been married. BTW, the staff robot totally called it: I am a 0% match and 100% enemy with this person.

- men who are looking for women one year below them and younger.

- This isn’t something that I’m really bitter about, but I’m tired and even wary of men who say they are are Smart, Intelligent, Sensitive, Caring (these words are capitalized, usually)…. Show, not tell, people. I tend to think that someone who states baldly that he is intelligent, etc, etc, most likely isn’t.

My blog title

feels truer than ever right now. But don’t worry, I’m not having dangerous thoughts. Just very aware of my own fragility and finitude. Lord Jesus, come quickly.

The Scent of Water

The Scent of Water, by Elizabeth Goudge, deals with mental illness, and has been one of my favorite books for years. I just ordered my very own copy from Amazon. These are the two quotes (“epigraphs”?) at the beginning at the book.

For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thererof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth the boughs of a plant.
Job 14: 7-9

Still ran Kangaroo–Old Man Kangaroo. He … ran through the long grass; he ran through the short grass; he ran through the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer; he ran till his hind legs ached.
He had to!
–Kipling, Just So Stories

The kangaroo one is surprisingly touching. Makes me remember how much I loved the Jungle Book as a child.

“Being Human” and “Forever Knight”

I really like the American version of “Being Human” (not the British version, which is cheesy to me), but I feel like it owes A LOT to the 90s Canadian show “Forever Knight.” Not being an expert on vampire TV, I can’t be sure.

Thoughts?

sushi

Since when did every one start eating sushi and assuming that everyone else eats sushi? It’s gross, people!

BTW, since I gave up FB for Lent, this blog is going to be pretty inane for a while.

Artsy

And untoward medical diagnosis has brought out my artsy side. In the past 24 hours I’ve written a poem, photo-documented Austarillo life on one day in spring time, and mailed a post card to Post Secret, complete with illustration.

Seasons in a midwestern town

Summer bites.
Fall’s respite from the heat, and adventure.
Winter’s bearable.
Spring is foretaste of heaven.

Weather Girl

I know this has something to do with my current circumstances, but I can’t believe how much I like this movie The Weathergirl, now that I’m watching it for the second time. The scene where the other woman gets her comeuppance and literally loses it, being strapped to a gurney by EMTs … well, I would never have thought that could be funny right now, but I laughed my ass off. It kind of puts my situation in perspective. And the way the protagonist’s enemies describe her, as a dangerous, hurtful, romantically disappointed, possible even psychotic woman … is this what I have to look forward to in my 30s, and how will I deal with it?

I’m not meaning to sound really pessimistic here, I just think that unattached, un-down-trodden, women in their 30s can sometimes be perceived as a threat. I hope I can face it with some of the humor that I feel while watching this movie.

Watch Weather Girl on netflix streaming if any of this sounds intriguing.