a sweet reunion.

Oh my little blog, how I have missed you!

My how you’ve changed.

I can barely recognize you, in the best way possible.

This summer we will be great friends again.

Stay sweet.

Love, Blair

magical sparkly things.

This is going to be short and simple. I often try to have these long and complete posts before I can blog and I do not like that. As you can see by my past few, I’ve been a bit intimidated to write. One because of my stupid long and complete post philosophy and two because of Holly and others’ writing skills. But you know what? I’m not an English/Journalism major and I am fine with that. Tangent, wow.

So during a brief facebook chat conversation with Jared Lacroix, I finally was able to put to words why this Christmas seemed so, well, off. Off not necessarily in a bad way. Off in a different way. So as we age, Christmas seems to gradually get dimmer, less extravagant, even a little boring. I was wondering why this is so. Is it like those adventures we went on as children that when revisited now seem eerily lame? Or is it our physical stature that has changed and therefore has changed our perceptions of the size of reindeer or the crazy neighbor’s Christmas light extravaganza? Well whatever it is, it seems to remind me that the magic isn’t in the sparkly things. Or the shiny, bright, or fuzzy things for that matter. As these aspects of Christmas seem to dim, the reality of the day seems to brighten. The dimming seems to make a statement that these temporary sparkly things do fade. They do lose their sheen. And they do become insignificant when compared to the birth of a little babe that would come to rescue his people from this present darkness. So that is my Christmas epiphany.

don’t believe your eyes.

Crazy photographer, Denis Darzacq. I love when I see (or read or hear) things that I can’t immediately wrap my mind around. I nearly always find that I appreciate it more.

pencil love.

So creative. so innovative. so dainty. More here.

ghost goblets!

Is it a glass? Is it a goblet? Well actually, it’s both. I am in awe.

The proper nap.

I love naps. However, I do not know how to take a proper nap. If you are having the same issues, you might want to go here. Who knew there was so much thought that went into taking a nap?

On cynicism.

First, let me define cynicism and a few characteristics of it. In the modern sense of the word, cynicism is a personal belief that people are motivated primarily by their own self-interests, and the natural order of things leans towards disintegration and corruption. Those who embrace cynicism often separate themselves from the rest of society, believing that society-at-large has largely abandoned its core value system. Cynics see through people, God, situations and give negative interpretations. Cynics are often skeptical, stay away from being passionate, assume the worst of situations, are critical of institutions for unnecessary reasons, and love playing devil’s advocate.

Recently I’ve been wrestling with cynicism. I’m not going to define myself as a cynic because I don’t think I have to. But I often feel like I’m alone in this inner battle of thoughts and often outward expression from these thoughts overwhelming me. So it came as a surprise when I had a conversation with a good friend about this exact struggle. We talked about how consuming cynical thoughts can be, what are the cause of these ideas, and how the heck can they possibly cease? It came as even more of a surprise when Richard’s talk at RUF centered around the idea of cynicism. He talked of the passage(s) in Genesis (17:15-21, 18:9-15, 21:1-7) where God tells Abraham that Sarah will bear a child in her old age. After hearing of such news, her first reaction is to laugh. God then asks why she laughed. He then asks, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14).

It’s Sarah’s first reaction to laugh. In disbelief. So she won’t cry. For us, too, we laugh in the face of God’s design because we’re too scared to believe that our deepest longings can be met. We laugh to protect ourselves. The beautiful thing is that God is not put off my these cynical attitudes. He challenges us by asking, “Do you really think I am not capable of that?”

After Sarah’s son, Isaac, is born, her cynical laughter is turned into laughter of joy. “Sarah said, ‘God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.’ And she added, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Gen. 21:6-7). How beautiful is this? That the laughter of a cynic is turned into laughter of joy through the inconceivable works of our Father.

Laughter can take on many roles. It can be smug, as a cynic is laughing at the object of their criticism. Yet it can be joyful, as we laugh with people. It can be the product of fear or the product of amazement.

I love how I never heard the subject of cynicism come up in my life until the past week when I had been wrestling with it the most. God found ways to shed light on the issue. To bring up the subject in conversations with friends, in the talk of an RUF minister, in the words on the page of a book, and in specific situations. It’s an amazing thing when in the times that we’re so stubburn, so disbelieving, God makes himself so much more obvious to us, as if to say, “Look. See? I can handle that, too. Let me show you.”

Repaving this place.

So over the past week our lovely little street more commonly known as Wrights Mill Road has been getting a facelift. The road was pretty rough to say the least. When the orange little flyers littered the street’s cars and front doors, I have to admit I was pretty excited. New pavement is a beautiful thing. For road biking. For skating. For driving. For rollerblading. For life. So today, the repaving process was complete. And it just so happens that our witty God has used another little seemingly mundane detail to speak life into me. Repaving.

I’m currently reading Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I can’t summarize this excerpt because it is just so good. Here’s what I mean by God speaking to me through pavement:

“When you see so many of your friends waste away in drug addiction, you start to ask where the drugs are coming form, and it’s not just from kids on the corner. When we are staring in the face of the largest prison buildup in the history of civilization, with two million citizens in prison, and one in every three black men under judicial constraint, we start to wonder what good the Thirteenth Amendment is if slavery is illegal unless a person is convicted of a crime. When we are trying to teach kids not to hit each other and they see a government use violence to bring about change, we start to consider what it means to give witness to a peace that is not like the world gives (John 14:27). When we live in the wreckage of an old industrial neighborhood that has lost over two hundred thousand jobs and now has seven hundred abandoned factories, we start to ask questions about the corporate global economy, especially when we see the same companies abuse other ‘neighbors’ overseas. Dr. Martin Luther King put it like this: ‘We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside…but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch, you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.’ ”

I found this excerpt so simple, yet so profound. We always picture the Good Samaritan as picking the stragglers up on the proverbial road to Jericho, yet we never seem to look beyond this scenario. When we picture what is on this road, why it’s there, where it came from, and how to prevent such a scenario, we come upon groundbreaking solutions to age-old problems. I don’t know if any of this rambling is making sense, but the idea of repaving the road to Jericho is just so beautiful.

Some say the Lord speaks to them through dreams, some say visions, some say through a peace or through disturbance. I most often see the Lord speak to me through word parallels and/or repetition of certain concepts. These parallels often occur when some everyday mundane aspect of life merges with spiritual concepts, as with the repaving of my street to the repaving of the road to Jericho. Hopefully I shall continue to write about more parallels as our clever God speaks to me through various aspects of life.

breakfast and the individual.

I stumbled upon this photographer’s series that I kind of love. It expresses an individual’s personality through their daily breakfast. It also helps that the people look as if they just rolled out of bed. Check it out here.

Auburn joys.

I must begin with confessing my love of Auburn. My Mom has been here with me the past week to help me move in to my new house and as she was leaving yesterday she said, “I think I was meant to live in a college town.” I, of course, wondered what exactly this meant, then realized she was alluding to her love for this town. We talked about aspects of the town we like: the small town, yet not quite the small town feel, the fact that you can get pretty much everywhere you need to go by bicycle, the people, the local businesses, the neighborhoods. I love Auburn, I’ll say it. And I didn’t quite realize how much I missed this place until I got here.

So now I am officially living in my new house and couldn’t be happier. Actually, I could. I’m still awaiting Hannah, Meagan and Holly’s return. The Headquarters just isn’t The Headquarters without you three. SO HURRY BACK!

I like not having a license. (Got my license revoked this summer for exceeding Alabama’s point limit). It’s actually so restricting that it is freeing. So primitive, yet so enjoyable. I really love my bike.

I also am really liking solitude. As much as I love spending time with people, I’m learning more and more that solitude is essential. Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart + God’s Ecclesiastes have changed my life. We cannot live without solitude. You might say that is a bold statement, but it’s surely true. Or at least we can’t live joyfully without solitude. It’s in these silent times that our energy, our drive, our passions, our compassion, our lives are restored. Praise God for slowing me down, silencing me.