Currently Listening How To Save A Life By The Fray see related

So I'm laying in my bed right now, trying to sleep, but the apartment complex put a new bulb in the lamp post outside my room, so now it's filling my entire room with light. I can literally read a book if want to.

It's like they took the sun and stuck on a twenty-foot pole outside my window.

So

Spring Break 2006 is over.. got class in about 10 hours.

Went to Jackson twice, with a 5-day stop to Birmingham in between.

Spring starts tomorrow.. time flys, huh?

Currently Reading The Complete Stories By Flannery O'Connor see related

I bought two books over at Square Books the other week. I couldn't decide between the two, so I got "The Complete Stories" and "The Violent Will Bear It Away" by Flannery O'Connor.

You should read them too!

So I went over to Barry Hannah's office yesterday and handed him a short story I had written. Needless to say, I was nervous as hell. I had already been up to his office once, and walked as far as his office door, but had turned around because I saw that it was open.
      He said he'd read it and that I should come back in a week.

Today is probably the warmest day of 2006 so far. It's amazing. I can hear atleast two birds right now, as I sit typing and working on my chaco tan.

It's gorgeous outside.

I read this the today and thought it was so sunny and warm and dry, just like today.

"When I was boy I first learned how much better water tastes when it has set a while in a cedar bucket. Warmish-cool, with a faint taste like the hot July wind in cedar tree smells."
    -Faulkner

Currently Listening Be By Common see related

And this is the beauty of now:
A kindled glory of the burning,
A light in the briers silent;
Writers who write oppression
On an unwilling nation..

What Egypt consumed, Israel
Took back in a 6-days
with a day to spare, with red time
left on their red hands.

Wrath! God of Wrath?

The Oak leaves are withering,
This dry garden a dry Sinai.

We strike the flint above the tender
setting a bush ablaze..

  * * *

So tell the orphans (hand them pears)
"taste justice and rejoice!" An orange coal
slow burn ingratiate the city of God.

The beauty stuff of now is redemption
amidst the flames

Currently Reading Everything That Rises Must Converge By Flannery O'Connor see related

I got to see King Abdullah II of Jordan on campus Friday.

Yeah. The KING of Jordan. That country that borders Israel? Yeah.

Sen. Trent Lott showed up too (not quite as cool).

So I've got a job.
I work at Kroger.

Yeah... the uniforms are pretty sweet...

But if I can work this semester, then I can buy all the things I've wanted to get for a long time. Such as:

Banjo
Mandolin
Mountain Bike

                                        *****

                                    BIG NEWS

                                        *****

I just called camp.

I'm coming back. Outback 2006!!

This weekend... was something. I got to fulfill a dream of mine.. lay around in my apartment with a certain someone and watch a U2 dvd.

(I got the U2: Rattle and Hum tour DVD last week at Wal Mart for 4.88)

I think I'm coming home this weekend to go to the RUF Spring Conference; its at Red Mountain Church and the focus is low-income ministry!
Ahh! That's right up my alley!

Or

I'll stay here and go to all the Living Blues Symposium events

It looks incredible too

http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/livingblues/bluestoday/

Lastly,

I've decided I want to get my M.F.A. (Master in Fine Arts) in creative writing here.

And I want to get a M.A. in Southern Studies. Our Center for the Study of Southern Culture rocks. What a cool degree!

Also I still want to get my M. Div from RTS-Jackson.

I'm tired.

I love you.

Currently Listening Pretend You're Alive By Lovedrug see related

- Rocknroll

So I've been thinking alot lately.

I think alot as it is.

But recently, it's been taking its toll on me.

Can you love someone and let them go? Is that the price of love? Freedom? I went to Rowan Oak to find out.

I read La Vita Nuova
by Dante Alighieri

He loved Beatrice, and when he saw her, he realized 4 things
 

"One was this: The domination of Love is a good thing, because he guides the mind of his faithful follower away from all unworthiness."

"Another thought was this: The domination of Love is not good because the more faithfully a follower serves him, the more burdensome and grievous are the moments he must endure."

Yet another thought was as follows: The name of Love is so sweet to hear that it seems impossible that it can be anything but sweet in its effect..."

"The fourth thought was this: The Lady for whom Love holds you so enthralled is not like other women whose hearts are easily moved."

"No love's as random as God's love; I can't stand it"
           -Wilco

I'm convinced this is so true in regards to true love, moreover the love of a God; a personable one. God pulls us out of the miry clay and sets our feet on solid ground, we respond by being willing to be put through trials, that we might know and solidify our love back to him:

the mutual self-death.

    *     *     *

"Who does not merit grace
Let him ne'er hope to have her company."

    *     *     *

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ."
    -Phillipians 4:6-7

T.S. Eliot uses the Hindu words for this, taken from an Upanishad, to conclude The Waste Land:

"Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
                   Shanti          Shanti           Shanti"

(Give. Sympathize. Control.
                   Peace          Peace            Peace)

Class dismissed. (haha)