My tendency to sing full volume in the shower has started cropping up during bucket baths. My family probably gets a good laugh.
My memory has a special place for colors.
I need to go swimming at the lake again, and this time take my snorkeling gear.
Sometimes I get a sensation in my nose when I look at people. It's not what they actually smell like. More the memory, or maybe a “prediction” or guesstimate, of a smell conjured up by/about their appearance. It doesn't happen all the time, and it's not always a bad smell or anything like that. It's just that for one reason or another my mind connects the idea of them up with a certain smell. Maybe I'll give some examples sometime.
Traveling from place to place like this feels like waking from one dream into another.
I remember one night, back at the Manor (Jamestown), I had a dream that it was morning and my mom came into our (Aaron and I) apartment room at school, which was strange but didn't seem out of place during the dream, to tell us that breakfast was ready. I could smell the glory of cinnamon rolls wafting in with her, and thought: yum, cinnamon roles! Then I actually woke up. I lie in bed for a moment relishing the rich sunlight of Saturday morning pouring through the window, thinking about how nice yet random a dream that was, when Aaron rolled over in his bed and said: mmmmm, cinnamon roles. Apparently he had bought some Pillsbury ones earlier that week, which aren't as good as Mom's but miraculous enough, and happened to wake up in the mood. So we had cinnamon roles for breakfast.
I smelled deep, rich dirt this week for the first time in . . . well, awhile. There are times when I really miss working in the yard, or on the ranch or even construction. It feels good to work the land. I went up with Tat Lu to his terreno (land) Tuesday morning. I actually woke up at five to watch the sunrise behind the mountains visible from the backyard. It's nice to watch the world awaken and open like an eye, the shadows slowly “stand up” until they vanish. The ducks and chickens and the chucho (dog) all gradually stirred and wandered, chattered up water from puddles and pestered the pretty, yellow millipedes, while I sat under the peach tree and did some reading/writing. I found some poems in the Best American 2008 that blew my mind. Then I went up with Tat Lu to see his corn. It's beautiful up there. There's a terrific view of the lake, tons of wild flowers and towering, elegant Cyprus trees. The corn is coming along great. Sometimes animals try to dig up the infant plants and eat them, so whenever he finds one that he can tell has been dug around he constructs a little shelter for it. Tat Lu love's his land. Ramona, his wife, bought it for them. He and one other guy work the corn together. I guess he has some beans too, and an avacado tree. According to Mayan tradition, people were made from corn. Well, first the gods tried a couple of other things like mud and wood, but none of them worked out. Corn is a big deal for them. He kept calling it the santa milpa, and he brings up candles to burn under a tree in his fields for protection. He showed me around and then went to work. I hung out for awhile down by where he leaves his horse, Canela, to feed and just enjoyed the view and watched her graze. Supposedly she's pregnant. Horses are such impressive/beautiful animals. I thought of “All the Pretty Horses.” All that was missing was Penelope Cruise. Haha. But it's strange to me that horses lend themselves to man's uses with a little “encouragement.” I guess maybe they were made for us, but I'd like to meet a horse that never breaks, or doesn't have to be “broken.” Eventually Tat Lu came down and sat with me for a bit. Then a couple of guys came up and started arguing with him. Apparently the land where the horse was grazing is under dispute. Tat Lu says the real owner of the land lives in Santa Clara. They've been good friends for years, and he doesn't have a problem with Tat Lu grazing his horse on the land while he works. But some guy came up from San Pablo, maybe San Juan, and pretended like he owned the land and sold it to these two guys. It's being disputed in court right now, but the two guys don't want Tat Lu's horse grazing on “their” land, or at least not grazing on it until they figure things out. At least that's what I gathered. Most of it was in Quiche. They got pretty upset, but Tat Lu stayed impressively calm; “Only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.” One of them had his zipper down the whole time, and I almost interrupted to point it out, to throw a small wrench in the conversation and see what would happen. But I didn't. My sense of humor isn't exactly Guatemalan. I just smiled and took some pictures of dew on grass blades, occasionally straightening my straw hat whenever the view from the hill felt crooked. It's also kind of interesting that people own bits of land all in the same area and everyone ends up traipsing through everyone else's land to get to theirs. While I was looking out at the lake from the disputed lands, this whole family came cruising up the mountainside, each person with a big load of firewood tied to their backs. There's also a strap that comes around the forehead and they walk leaning forward. Even the youngest kid had his little load. So they all come up the mountain and walk right through a bunch of land owned by various people. And people use that area as a mirador (lookout) all the time, as if it were public. A very popular spot for guys to bring their girlfriends to after school. Nothing like a breathtaking view to induce the vertigo of love, to make you feel like the whole world lies ahead of you and nothing and no one behind you . . . Except for the gringo poet on his burgundy tarp reading Mary Oliver and watching the fog roll in overhead.
I started reading Hamlet that night, and, strangely enough, it kind of starts out with a land dispute. Then later that night, at the Internet place, I went to pay the guy up at the counter and right in front of me in a glass case was a candy bar called “Hamlet.” Haha. I took it to Andy's where we did a little picture-exchange + hangout night, and split it with him. It wasn't the tastiest. I think it was a little old.
On the way back from working with Tat Lu I played some soccer with Juan Antonio, a lone kid just kicking a ball in the street. I think I'm getting better? And I guess some guys entered us in a basketball tournament that starts this weekend. Oh boy.
“I faded away along with my thoughts, and like a train in the night trailed off mystically.” ~Sun Kil Moon, Like the River
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Read Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
After reading this passage by Mary Oliver I saw this poem in a whole new light. A quick lesson in sound (poem included):
"Read the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost, keeping in mind exactly what is going on—the pause within a journey, the quiet, introspective voice of the speaker, the dark and solitary woods, the falling snow.
The initial four lines are rife with w's and th'; f is there, and v. Three sets of double ll's. The heaviness of the vowels is increased by the use of diphthongs. The two words that end with a mute (think and up) are set within the lines and thus are softened. All other mutes are softened within the words themselves. One could scarcely read these lines in any other than a quiet, musing, almost whispered way.
One can say any number of things about the little horse of the second stanza. It is the only object in the poem on which the speaker focuses. It is the only other living thing in the poem, and it is as willing as the speaker for the moment is hesitant to continue the journey. In any case, we are drawn by the speaker to look at the little horse too, and as we do so the sounds of the whispery introduction, the interior monologue, no louder than the snow falling, are interrupted with little raps of sharper sound—not mallets, not that heavy, but different. “My little horse must think it queer” is not a very rattling line, but the sound of “think,” with its lightly snapping k this time followed not by a softer sound but by the snippet “it,” and “queer,” an echo of the k, makes it altogether livelier than the first stanza. “Stop” is a rap of a sound, then it is quieted by the rest of the line. After “lake” there is a momentary chasm, a fracture of silence out of which a different kind of electricity flows before the line swings and the adjective “darkest” repeats the k once more, two taps of disquietude.
In stanza 3 the reversal has taken place. Instead of the guttural mutes being quieted—swallowed up in a plash of softer sounds—they rise up among and after the soft sounds, insisting they be heard.
The first hard g in the poem occurs on the first line of this third stanza: “he gives his harness bells a shake . . .” Though the g is instantly quieted by the two h's, the moment of introspection is almost over, and the ear anticipates this with “bells” and with the word “shake”--louder than “lake,” more forceful. In the following line the k repeats in the very meaningful word “ask” (the traveler is not the only “asking” creature in the poem); and this line as well as the following lines of the third stanza end with mutes. Altogether, in this stanza, we have “shake,” “mistake,” “sweep,” and “flake,” while, in the two stanzas preceding, there has been only one such moment (the end word “lake” in line 7).
Something is stirring in the very sound; it leads us to ready ourselves for the resolution in 4. There, “the woods are lovely” takes us exactly back to the mood of the first stanza, but the second half of that line thumps out “dark and deep,” both words beginning with a mute and ending with a mute. They represent, in the sound, themselves, and more than themselves. They say not only that the woods are dark and deep, but that the speaker has come to another place in his mind and can speak in this different way, designating with voice, as with the gesture of an arm, a new sense of decision and resolution.
Line 2 of the last stanza both begins and ends with a mute, and there is the heavy p in “promises” in the center of the line. Lines 3 and 4, the same line repeated, are intricate indeed. “Miles,” that soft sound, representative of all one's difficult mortal years, floats above the heavy mutes pacing to the end of the lines—“go,” “before,” “sleep.” The unmistakable, definite weights that are the mutes help to make the final line more than an echo of the third line. Everything transcends from the confines of its initial meaning; it is no only the transcendence in meaning but the sound of the transcendence that enables it to work. With the wrong sounds, it could not have happened."
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds' the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"Read the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost, keeping in mind exactly what is going on—the pause within a journey, the quiet, introspective voice of the speaker, the dark and solitary woods, the falling snow.
The initial four lines are rife with w's and th'; f is there, and v. Three sets of double ll's. The heaviness of the vowels is increased by the use of diphthongs. The two words that end with a mute (think and up) are set within the lines and thus are softened. All other mutes are softened within the words themselves. One could scarcely read these lines in any other than a quiet, musing, almost whispered way.
One can say any number of things about the little horse of the second stanza. It is the only object in the poem on which the speaker focuses. It is the only other living thing in the poem, and it is as willing as the speaker for the moment is hesitant to continue the journey. In any case, we are drawn by the speaker to look at the little horse too, and as we do so the sounds of the whispery introduction, the interior monologue, no louder than the snow falling, are interrupted with little raps of sharper sound—not mallets, not that heavy, but different. “My little horse must think it queer” is not a very rattling line, but the sound of “think,” with its lightly snapping k this time followed not by a softer sound but by the snippet “it,” and “queer,” an echo of the k, makes it altogether livelier than the first stanza. “Stop” is a rap of a sound, then it is quieted by the rest of the line. After “lake” there is a momentary chasm, a fracture of silence out of which a different kind of electricity flows before the line swings and the adjective “darkest” repeats the k once more, two taps of disquietude.
In stanza 3 the reversal has taken place. Instead of the guttural mutes being quieted—swallowed up in a plash of softer sounds—they rise up among and after the soft sounds, insisting they be heard.
The first hard g in the poem occurs on the first line of this third stanza: “he gives his harness bells a shake . . .” Though the g is instantly quieted by the two h's, the moment of introspection is almost over, and the ear anticipates this with “bells” and with the word “shake”--louder than “lake,” more forceful. In the following line the k repeats in the very meaningful word “ask” (the traveler is not the only “asking” creature in the poem); and this line as well as the following lines of the third stanza end with mutes. Altogether, in this stanza, we have “shake,” “mistake,” “sweep,” and “flake,” while, in the two stanzas preceding, there has been only one such moment (the end word “lake” in line 7).
Something is stirring in the very sound; it leads us to ready ourselves for the resolution in 4. There, “the woods are lovely” takes us exactly back to the mood of the first stanza, but the second half of that line thumps out “dark and deep,” both words beginning with a mute and ending with a mute. They represent, in the sound, themselves, and more than themselves. They say not only that the woods are dark and deep, but that the speaker has come to another place in his mind and can speak in this different way, designating with voice, as with the gesture of an arm, a new sense of decision and resolution.
Line 2 of the last stanza both begins and ends with a mute, and there is the heavy p in “promises” in the center of the line. Lines 3 and 4, the same line repeated, are intricate indeed. “Miles,” that soft sound, representative of all one's difficult mortal years, floats above the heavy mutes pacing to the end of the lines—“go,” “before,” “sleep.” The unmistakable, definite weights that are the mutes help to make the final line more than an echo of the third line. Everything transcends from the confines of its initial meaning; it is no only the transcendence in meaning but the sound of the transcendence that enables it to work. With the wrong sounds, it could not have happened."
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds' the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
A Poem I Understand a Little Better Now
The Troubadours etc.
Just for this evening, let's not mock them.
Not their curtsies or cross-garters
Or ever recurring pepper trees in their gardens
Promising, promising.
At least they had ideas about love.
All day we've driven past cornfields, past cows poking their heads
Through metal contraptions to eat.
We've followed West 84, and what else?
Irrigation sprinklers fly past us, huge wooden spools in the fields,
Yellowing flowering shrubs.
Before us, above us, the clouds swell, layers of them,
The violet underneath of clouds.
Every idea I have is nostalgia. Look up:
There is the sky that passenger pigeons darkened and filled—
Darkened for days, eclipsing sun, eclipsing all other sound with the thunder of
their wings.
After a while, it must have seemed that they followed
Not instinct or pattern but only
One another.
When they stopped, Audubon observed,
They broke the limbs of stout trees by the sheer weight of their numbers.
And when we stop we'll follow—what?
Our hearts?
The Puritans thought that we are granted the ability to love
Only through miracle,
But the troubadours knew how to burn themselves through,
How to make themselves shrines to their own longing.
The spectacular was never behind them.
Think of days of those scarlet-breasted, blue-winged birds above you.
Think of me in the garden, humming
Quietly to myself in my blue dress,
A blue darker than the sky above us, a blue dark enough for storms,
Though cloudless.
At what point is something gone completely?
The last of the sunlight is disappearing
Eve as it swells and waves.
Just for this evening, won't you put me before you
Until I'm far enough away you can
Believe me?
Then try, try to come closer—
My wonderful and less than.
Just for this evening, let's not mock them.
Not their curtsies or cross-garters
Or ever recurring pepper trees in their gardens
Promising, promising.
At least they had ideas about love.
All day we've driven past cornfields, past cows poking their heads
Through metal contraptions to eat.
We've followed West 84, and what else?
Irrigation sprinklers fly past us, huge wooden spools in the fields,
Yellowing flowering shrubs.
Before us, above us, the clouds swell, layers of them,
The violet underneath of clouds.
Every idea I have is nostalgia. Look up:
There is the sky that passenger pigeons darkened and filled—
Darkened for days, eclipsing sun, eclipsing all other sound with the thunder of
their wings.
After a while, it must have seemed that they followed
Not instinct or pattern but only
One another.
When they stopped, Audubon observed,
They broke the limbs of stout trees by the sheer weight of their numbers.
And when we stop we'll follow—what?
Our hearts?
The Puritans thought that we are granted the ability to love
Only through miracle,
But the troubadours knew how to burn themselves through,
How to make themselves shrines to their own longing.
The spectacular was never behind them.
Think of days of those scarlet-breasted, blue-winged birds above you.
Think of me in the garden, humming
Quietly to myself in my blue dress,
A blue darker than the sky above us, a blue dark enough for storms,
Though cloudless.
At what point is something gone completely?
The last of the sunlight is disappearing
Eve as it swells and waves.
Just for this evening, won't you put me before you
Until I'm far enough away you can
Believe me?
Then try, try to come closer—
My wonderful and less than.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Tat Lu is a Dragon Slayer (Sounds like a Minus the Bear song title.)
So, things are going really well. I love it here. Here are some stories from the past couple of weeks:
I sat on my glasses. They were bent pretty badly. The screws ripped out and I think they had stripped their holes. I was able to reshape the frames back to normal . . . almost normal. Supposedly there's an eye doctor who comes to town now and then and who was supposed to be in town the next day for market day, but didn't show. So I was visually impaired for a little while until I finally I bought some super glue and glued them back together. (Not the prettiest solution, but it works fine.) Suzana asked me if I have trouble seeing things from far away without my glasses, so I put my hands up like three feet in front of me and said that I can see well without my glasses up to about here. She laughed and said oh, so all you can see well is your metz (girlfriend in Quiche), and we both laughed, and I said that it's better to have them off in that case anyway. They keep asking me if I have a girlfriend and never believe me when I tell them no. They say that all the students start out saying they don't have girlfriends back home and then it comes up at some point or another that they actually do. Supposedly one student went home early because of an “earache.” Maybe I do have someone out there whose name I can't remember, or I haven't met yet; an anonymous emotional “penpal” I've shared a connection with that defies space and time; some soul on my same frequency I've been sharing transmissions with my whole life without ever knowing what it was I was feeling. Maybe that is why I never feel totally lonely, and might explain this strange connection to some near yet distant beauty that burns for me across the sky. Or maybe my true love has simply always been beauty; in that case I've never been alone. But of course they don't have any of that in mind when they're asking me if I have a metz. Oh, and there also seems to be some controversy about that being the right word for girlfriend in Quiche. My host family says it is. Everyone else says it's not but can't offer any alternative.
Ramona beat me 140 to 0 at soccer. I was a little confused by the score myself, but then again I don't know much about soccer. After the game we went into what I guess you could call the living room and I sat in a chair as the patient while the girls played doctors. Then they bought these fruit drink things that come in bags, almost like otterpops but a lot bigger and melted. They gave me one and I looked at it for a minute trying to figure out how to open it. It's completely full to the point of bulging. Supposedly you just snag it with your teeth and rip. But to do that you have to be holding it in your hand. So I'm squeezing this bulging bag in my hand and then give it a rip with my teeth and juice squirts all the way across the room and all over me. Of course that got Jackie laughing her adorable laughter.
Dinner turns into story time for Tat Lu almost every night. I love it. One night last week we started talking about snakes somehow. I think I told him about finding some big bugs in my room and so he started telling me that the real danger around here is snakes. Black ones will hurt and make you swell up, but the green ones will kill you in half an hour. Supposedly they're only up in the mountains though (?). So then he launched into story after story of how he'd killed poisonous snakes when he was young. Once when he was a teenager he was up in the mountains working and decided to take a rest. He ducked under a tree to lie down and as soon as he was on his back he looked up into the tree and saw a two-headed snake—two of the green snakes with their tails tangled together. So he prayed a lot and then took a big stick and knocked one out of the tree and then the other with another stick, and finished them off with his machete (something like that). Then later that day he needed to take care of some “personal business,” and just as he was undoing his belt a rattle snake came cruising up through the brush. Suddenly he no longer needed to use the bathroom. He stood there wondering how he was going to kill it while it moved closer and started rattling, etc. He ended up killing that one too, I can't remember how though. Maybe another stick machete combo. That was just the first of many dragon slaying stories.
Andy came over Thursday night to plan our trip to Antigua the next day. We ended up listening to stories from Tat Lu for about an hour and a half—I like seeing how long he can go, it's really impressive—and then we planned. Then Tat Lu and I walked Andy home because it was late. It was a beautiful night, great for a walk. I love nighttime. On the way back I asked Tat Lu how he and his wife met. He said that when he was seventeen his grandma came to him and told him that she could feel that she was going to die soon. She told him how she loved him and wanted him to be happy and taken care of, and then she told him he needed to marry Ramona (who is his wife now). Ramona spent everyday up in the mountains herding sheep and cattle and such, which is rare/odd for a girl here. His grandma said that he needed to find her and marry her. Her dad had lots of land and Tat Lu would always be taken care of. As a seventeen year old kid he just laughed. I think he said that she came to him one more time and told him that he needed to go find her, that he would date other girls, but none of them would end up liking him and he would eventually marry Ramona anyway. He shrugged it off again. Time went by. He started working for the post office and dating girls from different areas. Nothing seemed to work out though. At twenty seven he started to worry about how old he was getting when he suddenly remembered the words of his grandma and decided to go look for Ramona. He found her up in the mountains with her animals and struck up a conversation. They spent TWO YEARS like that, hanging out and getting to know each other. After two years of talking he finally was like, so if you want to and don't have another man, if you do that's totally fine, but if not and you want to, let's get married. And so they did. Writing this I just remembered a moment I had on a street corner here, watching all the people walking up and down going about their business. Suddenly I wondered, does the Lord take care of all of us, direct and guide us in life, even if we don't know Him or recognize His hand in all things? And then my mind opened a little and my understanding of the Lord's title of Shepherd expanded and it all made complete sense for moment. And while the logistics seemed impossible, the reality of it overwhelmed me.
Antigua was tons of fun. The first day we strolled around to get the lay of the land, got Andy a new camera because his had broken, and checked out a really cool Cathedral that has been converted into a five star hotel and has a bunch of museums. We ate at some great places like Cafe Sky, La Escudilla and La Pena del Sol Latino. Cafe Sky is a a restaurant that has places to eat on the roof where you have a great view of the city and surrounding volcanoes. We had dinner there the first night. I had some excellent battered mushrooms. It's also where I started a small experiment with music. When I'm somewhere I know is going to be very memorable, I pull out my music player and listen to a song or two. I want to see if that song will become a memory trigger. Will Mark Kozelek's “Bad Boy Boogie” always remind me of looking out over Antigua from Cafe Sky, or Minus the Bear's “Guns and Ammo” of eating lunch with my hiking group and a stray dog on the side of a volcano after stabbing lava with a stick I bought from some kids for 5 quetzales, or Sun Kil Moon's “Lost Verses” of riding up the canyon to Santa Clara in the back of a pickup with three kids (brothers) huddled in blankets and pillows? We stayed at La Casa Rustica. It was a pretty nice place. The lonely planet says that, like the Texan owner, everything about this place is big. I guess that includes the dogs in the entry way and the slowness of the computer I used to transfer my pictures from my camera to a jump drive so I could take pictures on Pacaya the next day. I did meet a very nice lady from Ireland while transferring the pictures. It actually was a really nice place. One thing to remember to do on your trip to Antigua is to forget to bring socks for your volcano hike at six in the morning. Bring the shoes, you have to wear shoes on the hike, but forget the socks (I wore my chacos down there and had my shoes in my bag.). This will get you up at five thirty, the sun already up, hurrying past the big Texan dogs out into the street. Once you are outside you can ask the nearest Guatemalan, who will speak to you in English even though you're speaking Spanish, if there is a place you can get socks this early. He'll tell you to try the market a ways down the road. Then start power walking like Mom Dukes down to the market. As you do take a moment to realize how beautiful Antigua is in the morning when the streets are empty and the lighting is photographic (this would be the best time to take pictures because there's no one around to get in the way of a great shot of the arch or an old cathedral). Hurry past the pink and blue and yellow and green and ayayay buildings toward the market. If you're lucky, like I was, there will be one lady at the front of the market (the only one around) getting a head start on her market set up for the day, and the only thing she'll have set up so far will just happen to be a sock stand. By three pairs for ten quetz and run home because it's five to six (but if you know better, don't run, because the driver of your tour van is going to have a cold and wake up late). Also, be careful when you ring the very annoying doorbell to get back in, because it will break and stick and scream forever, at six in the morning. Pacaya was awesome. There were four others in our group: a couple from Australia, and a guy from America who was with a girl from Spain. We were the “Pumas.” Before you go up, there are a bunch of kids that want to sell you walking sticks for the hike. “Stick is good.” The hike was beautiful. Lava is amazing. I poked my stick in it. It was very hot though. Soles of shoes melted, and there was this crazy sulfuric gas that burned the nose, throat and lungs. On the way back we saw a bunch of people running down this really sandy side of the mountain. I wanted to do it so I left the group and hiked up there. When I looked down it was so foggy I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me. I did the run, which was fun, and then caught up to the group. That night we ate at La Pena del Sol Latino. It had some very tasty food, sinfully delicious brownies, and a band that played some excellent Incan music. It was a good trip. Oh, I also found some pretty good book stores. One of them had a whole section of Neruda. I already own a number of the ones up there, but I was surprised at how many good books they had. Most bookstores around here are actually paper stores. I found a book at another store by Humberto Ak'abal that I need for my work here. I also bought a couple of used classics, including Hamlet, at another store. My embarrassing confession is that I've never read an entire Shakespeare play but have recently become very interested in reading some. Actually, watching V for Vendetta again one night here—I actually watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, V for Vendetta, and half of The Thin Red line that night—really got me hungry for some Shakespeare. I also noticed something interesting while watching V this time. There's a scene when the detective is explaining his predictions on what is going to happen, and it shows a quick scene of EV in a green dress and in the mirror on the wall you can see a reflection of a man at the kitchen table. Can you tell who it is? I've been wanting to read more classics in general, plus I'd just visited a volcano, so I picked up Dante's Inferno as well. The trip back wasn't bad. The last leg we took in the back of a pickup. There were three brothers in the back huddling in blankets. It was a breathtaking drive through the mountains at sunset. We got dropped off a little ways from home and walked the rest of the way. A great way to end an excellent trip.
Most ridiculous question asked in Antigua: “Did you take one of me in baby mode?”
Today is the first day it's rained in like five days. It's miraculous, but I missed the rain. “God is in the rain.”
Every time I tie up the curtain on my window these birds come and hop around on the sill and peck at their reflections.
Random Memories:
Heather, riding home from school on her bike, looks back to talk to me and ends up hugging a mailbox.
The night Heather came to tell me she had decided to go on a mission.
The time I was driving out of the neighborhood, fiddling with the CD player, and looked up to realize that I was flying through someone's yard, up and over the driveway. I still don't know how, but I made it back to the road safe and sound.
Julie telling me that once, when her and Aaron were both at BYU in their first few semesters, she ran into Aaron in the grocery store and asked him if he wanted to come over to her place for dinner. He said he wasn't sure because it was chicken-cat week and anything could happen.
Julie's laughter and music on Sunday afternoons.
My mom doing her drill team routines in the kitchen while cooking.
My mom, the time I took a u-turn without looking and got in an accident. I walked home slowly, my friend Rusty trying to console me. When I got home my mom seemed excited about something and started to tell me about it, but I interrupted her to confess that I'd wrecked the car. She stopped for a minute and asked if everyone was OK. I said yes, and then she said, “Listen to this missionary experience I had today.”
Watching a movie with Tami for the first time on the mood-lit steps because there were no more seats in the theater, and the time we watched Signs in that same theater and she asked me to cover her eyes at one point but ended up peaking anyway, and the time she came down to the house and watched IQ with me and my mom.
Also the time she kidnapped me after “curfew,” and we played basketball in her driveway at night, and then danced to the radio in her dad's truck, unconcerned with how sweaty we were.
Mowing fields in tractors with Bryce on the ranch. Once I was driving right behind him, staggered a little to cut a double row. While we were taking a corner I started looking around daydreaming. When I turned around I realize he had come to a complete stop in front of me and quickly slammed on the brakes and started flipping gears. I ended up giving his tractor just a little nudge. Apparently he'd decided to take a nap. I also remember trying to memorize the old discussions together during lunch breaks.
Tami, wearing a pink shirt the night we first held hands while walking on the beach, and how we were late home because a sea turtle was laying eggs in the sand in front of the boardwalk stairs, and because of a very long train at the crossing in downtown Melbourne. Also that her favorite color was yellow.
Sharing a mango Italian ice with her at Busch Gardens when she fist realized my eyes are different colors.
Katie laughing harder than I ever heard her laugh when I joked with Bryce about spraying cologne on my belly everyday after getting out of the shower.
And how she wanted me to come see her at three in the morning when I got back from a week long trip with my brothers to see my sister and her family in Oregon.
Also that she fixed my watch as a surprise birthday present before we were “together,” and I wiggled my way out of work to spend time with her.
Finding a great Mexican restaurant that had wifi and the funniest painting of all time on that trip to Oregon. And how we slept in the car and fished for a few days on the way up.
When my dad took off work and let me skip school in sixth grade and took me and my best friend, who was moving away the next day, fishing at Sebastian Inlet.
Nate taking me to the water park, Wet N' Wild, with his friends the summer before his mission.
Our babysitter, Jodi, teaching us how to do a crazy frog sound with our throats. I think I was the only one that actually learned how to do it.
Neighbors coming to tell Nathan and I to turn down our amps.
When I came out to Provo a week early before entering the MTC and went fishing with my Dad, brothers and uncle, and forgot one of Aaron's rods down by the river. He ran back with me to try and find it. The sun went down on us while we were coming back. We followed the train tracks too far and almost got lost.
Aaron slipping out of work to see me off at the MTC.
Kyle, when he was like three, dancing and singing, “Don't throw turkeys at my jamis (pajamas) Batman.”
Catching dog fish with shrimp between the rocks at Sebastian.
Jumping off the bridge at Sebastian.
Being too afraid to step in and help a kid who was getting bullied in elementary school.
Kyle sharing his testimony after going to the temple.
Finding Ralph Waldo Emerson's poems and essays for the first time.
When we went to the keys and I made friends with the crazy midget key deer and then they swarmed our camp and started dipping their heads into our coolers and biting our melons and we had to chase them out with squirt guns.
Riding back on John Huberty's boat from the coral reef at John Penny Camp, singing out loud, because no one could hear me over the motor and rush of water, “It Was Just My Imagination . ..”
Dunking off Paul Pahulu's back during a Stake basketball game.
Doing a Jackson five song in a ward talent show, with afros and full choreography, with Paul, David, Shiblon and Tony. How Paul fell down in the hallway laughing before we stumbled back on stage for an encore.
Eating cow tongue.
Eating an entire Little Cesars pizza before anyone else got their food from the FAST food joint in the same parking lot (I swore those pizzas off a long time ago).
I sat on my glasses. They were bent pretty badly. The screws ripped out and I think they had stripped their holes. I was able to reshape the frames back to normal . . . almost normal. Supposedly there's an eye doctor who comes to town now and then and who was supposed to be in town the next day for market day, but didn't show. So I was visually impaired for a little while until I finally I bought some super glue and glued them back together. (Not the prettiest solution, but it works fine.) Suzana asked me if I have trouble seeing things from far away without my glasses, so I put my hands up like three feet in front of me and said that I can see well without my glasses up to about here. She laughed and said oh, so all you can see well is your metz (girlfriend in Quiche), and we both laughed, and I said that it's better to have them off in that case anyway. They keep asking me if I have a girlfriend and never believe me when I tell them no. They say that all the students start out saying they don't have girlfriends back home and then it comes up at some point or another that they actually do. Supposedly one student went home early because of an “earache.” Maybe I do have someone out there whose name I can't remember, or I haven't met yet; an anonymous emotional “penpal” I've shared a connection with that defies space and time; some soul on my same frequency I've been sharing transmissions with my whole life without ever knowing what it was I was feeling. Maybe that is why I never feel totally lonely, and might explain this strange connection to some near yet distant beauty that burns for me across the sky. Or maybe my true love has simply always been beauty; in that case I've never been alone. But of course they don't have any of that in mind when they're asking me if I have a metz. Oh, and there also seems to be some controversy about that being the right word for girlfriend in Quiche. My host family says it is. Everyone else says it's not but can't offer any alternative.
Ramona beat me 140 to 0 at soccer. I was a little confused by the score myself, but then again I don't know much about soccer. After the game we went into what I guess you could call the living room and I sat in a chair as the patient while the girls played doctors. Then they bought these fruit drink things that come in bags, almost like otterpops but a lot bigger and melted. They gave me one and I looked at it for a minute trying to figure out how to open it. It's completely full to the point of bulging. Supposedly you just snag it with your teeth and rip. But to do that you have to be holding it in your hand. So I'm squeezing this bulging bag in my hand and then give it a rip with my teeth and juice squirts all the way across the room and all over me. Of course that got Jackie laughing her adorable laughter.
Dinner turns into story time for Tat Lu almost every night. I love it. One night last week we started talking about snakes somehow. I think I told him about finding some big bugs in my room and so he started telling me that the real danger around here is snakes. Black ones will hurt and make you swell up, but the green ones will kill you in half an hour. Supposedly they're only up in the mountains though (?). So then he launched into story after story of how he'd killed poisonous snakes when he was young. Once when he was a teenager he was up in the mountains working and decided to take a rest. He ducked under a tree to lie down and as soon as he was on his back he looked up into the tree and saw a two-headed snake—two of the green snakes with their tails tangled together. So he prayed a lot and then took a big stick and knocked one out of the tree and then the other with another stick, and finished them off with his machete (something like that). Then later that day he needed to take care of some “personal business,” and just as he was undoing his belt a rattle snake came cruising up through the brush. Suddenly he no longer needed to use the bathroom. He stood there wondering how he was going to kill it while it moved closer and started rattling, etc. He ended up killing that one too, I can't remember how though. Maybe another stick machete combo. That was just the first of many dragon slaying stories.
Andy came over Thursday night to plan our trip to Antigua the next day. We ended up listening to stories from Tat Lu for about an hour and a half—I like seeing how long he can go, it's really impressive—and then we planned. Then Tat Lu and I walked Andy home because it was late. It was a beautiful night, great for a walk. I love nighttime. On the way back I asked Tat Lu how he and his wife met. He said that when he was seventeen his grandma came to him and told him that she could feel that she was going to die soon. She told him how she loved him and wanted him to be happy and taken care of, and then she told him he needed to marry Ramona (who is his wife now). Ramona spent everyday up in the mountains herding sheep and cattle and such, which is rare/odd for a girl here. His grandma said that he needed to find her and marry her. Her dad had lots of land and Tat Lu would always be taken care of. As a seventeen year old kid he just laughed. I think he said that she came to him one more time and told him that he needed to go find her, that he would date other girls, but none of them would end up liking him and he would eventually marry Ramona anyway. He shrugged it off again. Time went by. He started working for the post office and dating girls from different areas. Nothing seemed to work out though. At twenty seven he started to worry about how old he was getting when he suddenly remembered the words of his grandma and decided to go look for Ramona. He found her up in the mountains with her animals and struck up a conversation. They spent TWO YEARS like that, hanging out and getting to know each other. After two years of talking he finally was like, so if you want to and don't have another man, if you do that's totally fine, but if not and you want to, let's get married. And so they did. Writing this I just remembered a moment I had on a street corner here, watching all the people walking up and down going about their business. Suddenly I wondered, does the Lord take care of all of us, direct and guide us in life, even if we don't know Him or recognize His hand in all things? And then my mind opened a little and my understanding of the Lord's title of Shepherd expanded and it all made complete sense for moment. And while the logistics seemed impossible, the reality of it overwhelmed me.
Antigua was tons of fun. The first day we strolled around to get the lay of the land, got Andy a new camera because his had broken, and checked out a really cool Cathedral that has been converted into a five star hotel and has a bunch of museums. We ate at some great places like Cafe Sky, La Escudilla and La Pena del Sol Latino. Cafe Sky is a a restaurant that has places to eat on the roof where you have a great view of the city and surrounding volcanoes. We had dinner there the first night. I had some excellent battered mushrooms. It's also where I started a small experiment with music. When I'm somewhere I know is going to be very memorable, I pull out my music player and listen to a song or two. I want to see if that song will become a memory trigger. Will Mark Kozelek's “Bad Boy Boogie” always remind me of looking out over Antigua from Cafe Sky, or Minus the Bear's “Guns and Ammo” of eating lunch with my hiking group and a stray dog on the side of a volcano after stabbing lava with a stick I bought from some kids for 5 quetzales, or Sun Kil Moon's “Lost Verses” of riding up the canyon to Santa Clara in the back of a pickup with three kids (brothers) huddled in blankets and pillows? We stayed at La Casa Rustica. It was a pretty nice place. The lonely planet says that, like the Texan owner, everything about this place is big. I guess that includes the dogs in the entry way and the slowness of the computer I used to transfer my pictures from my camera to a jump drive so I could take pictures on Pacaya the next day. I did meet a very nice lady from Ireland while transferring the pictures. It actually was a really nice place. One thing to remember to do on your trip to Antigua is to forget to bring socks for your volcano hike at six in the morning. Bring the shoes, you have to wear shoes on the hike, but forget the socks (I wore my chacos down there and had my shoes in my bag.). This will get you up at five thirty, the sun already up, hurrying past the big Texan dogs out into the street. Once you are outside you can ask the nearest Guatemalan, who will speak to you in English even though you're speaking Spanish, if there is a place you can get socks this early. He'll tell you to try the market a ways down the road. Then start power walking like Mom Dukes down to the market. As you do take a moment to realize how beautiful Antigua is in the morning when the streets are empty and the lighting is photographic (this would be the best time to take pictures because there's no one around to get in the way of a great shot of the arch or an old cathedral). Hurry past the pink and blue and yellow and green and ayayay buildings toward the market. If you're lucky, like I was, there will be one lady at the front of the market (the only one around) getting a head start on her market set up for the day, and the only thing she'll have set up so far will just happen to be a sock stand. By three pairs for ten quetz and run home because it's five to six (but if you know better, don't run, because the driver of your tour van is going to have a cold and wake up late). Also, be careful when you ring the very annoying doorbell to get back in, because it will break and stick and scream forever, at six in the morning. Pacaya was awesome. There were four others in our group: a couple from Australia, and a guy from America who was with a girl from Spain. We were the “Pumas.” Before you go up, there are a bunch of kids that want to sell you walking sticks for the hike. “Stick is good.” The hike was beautiful. Lava is amazing. I poked my stick in it. It was very hot though. Soles of shoes melted, and there was this crazy sulfuric gas that burned the nose, throat and lungs. On the way back we saw a bunch of people running down this really sandy side of the mountain. I wanted to do it so I left the group and hiked up there. When I looked down it was so foggy I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me. I did the run, which was fun, and then caught up to the group. That night we ate at La Pena del Sol Latino. It had some very tasty food, sinfully delicious brownies, and a band that played some excellent Incan music. It was a good trip. Oh, I also found some pretty good book stores. One of them had a whole section of Neruda. I already own a number of the ones up there, but I was surprised at how many good books they had. Most bookstores around here are actually paper stores. I found a book at another store by Humberto Ak'abal that I need for my work here. I also bought a couple of used classics, including Hamlet, at another store. My embarrassing confession is that I've never read an entire Shakespeare play but have recently become very interested in reading some. Actually, watching V for Vendetta again one night here—I actually watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, V for Vendetta, and half of The Thin Red line that night—really got me hungry for some Shakespeare. I also noticed something interesting while watching V this time. There's a scene when the detective is explaining his predictions on what is going to happen, and it shows a quick scene of EV in a green dress and in the mirror on the wall you can see a reflection of a man at the kitchen table. Can you tell who it is? I've been wanting to read more classics in general, plus I'd just visited a volcano, so I picked up Dante's Inferno as well. The trip back wasn't bad. The last leg we took in the back of a pickup. There were three brothers in the back huddling in blankets. It was a breathtaking drive through the mountains at sunset. We got dropped off a little ways from home and walked the rest of the way. A great way to end an excellent trip.
Most ridiculous question asked in Antigua: “Did you take one of me in baby mode?”
Today is the first day it's rained in like five days. It's miraculous, but I missed the rain. “God is in the rain.”
Every time I tie up the curtain on my window these birds come and hop around on the sill and peck at their reflections.
Random Memories:
Heather, riding home from school on her bike, looks back to talk to me and ends up hugging a mailbox.
The night Heather came to tell me she had decided to go on a mission.
The time I was driving out of the neighborhood, fiddling with the CD player, and looked up to realize that I was flying through someone's yard, up and over the driveway. I still don't know how, but I made it back to the road safe and sound.
Julie telling me that once, when her and Aaron were both at BYU in their first few semesters, she ran into Aaron in the grocery store and asked him if he wanted to come over to her place for dinner. He said he wasn't sure because it was chicken-cat week and anything could happen.
Julie's laughter and music on Sunday afternoons.
My mom doing her drill team routines in the kitchen while cooking.
My mom, the time I took a u-turn without looking and got in an accident. I walked home slowly, my friend Rusty trying to console me. When I got home my mom seemed excited about something and started to tell me about it, but I interrupted her to confess that I'd wrecked the car. She stopped for a minute and asked if everyone was OK. I said yes, and then she said, “Listen to this missionary experience I had today.”
Watching a movie with Tami for the first time on the mood-lit steps because there were no more seats in the theater, and the time we watched Signs in that same theater and she asked me to cover her eyes at one point but ended up peaking anyway, and the time she came down to the house and watched IQ with me and my mom.
Also the time she kidnapped me after “curfew,” and we played basketball in her driveway at night, and then danced to the radio in her dad's truck, unconcerned with how sweaty we were.
Mowing fields in tractors with Bryce on the ranch. Once I was driving right behind him, staggered a little to cut a double row. While we were taking a corner I started looking around daydreaming. When I turned around I realize he had come to a complete stop in front of me and quickly slammed on the brakes and started flipping gears. I ended up giving his tractor just a little nudge. Apparently he'd decided to take a nap. I also remember trying to memorize the old discussions together during lunch breaks.
Tami, wearing a pink shirt the night we first held hands while walking on the beach, and how we were late home because a sea turtle was laying eggs in the sand in front of the boardwalk stairs, and because of a very long train at the crossing in downtown Melbourne. Also that her favorite color was yellow.
Sharing a mango Italian ice with her at Busch Gardens when she fist realized my eyes are different colors.
Katie laughing harder than I ever heard her laugh when I joked with Bryce about spraying cologne on my belly everyday after getting out of the shower.
And how she wanted me to come see her at three in the morning when I got back from a week long trip with my brothers to see my sister and her family in Oregon.
Also that she fixed my watch as a surprise birthday present before we were “together,” and I wiggled my way out of work to spend time with her.
Finding a great Mexican restaurant that had wifi and the funniest painting of all time on that trip to Oregon. And how we slept in the car and fished for a few days on the way up.
When my dad took off work and let me skip school in sixth grade and took me and my best friend, who was moving away the next day, fishing at Sebastian Inlet.
Nate taking me to the water park, Wet N' Wild, with his friends the summer before his mission.
Our babysitter, Jodi, teaching us how to do a crazy frog sound with our throats. I think I was the only one that actually learned how to do it.
Neighbors coming to tell Nathan and I to turn down our amps.
When I came out to Provo a week early before entering the MTC and went fishing with my Dad, brothers and uncle, and forgot one of Aaron's rods down by the river. He ran back with me to try and find it. The sun went down on us while we were coming back. We followed the train tracks too far and almost got lost.
Aaron slipping out of work to see me off at the MTC.
Kyle, when he was like three, dancing and singing, “Don't throw turkeys at my jamis (pajamas) Batman.”
Catching dog fish with shrimp between the rocks at Sebastian.
Jumping off the bridge at Sebastian.
Being too afraid to step in and help a kid who was getting bullied in elementary school.
Kyle sharing his testimony after going to the temple.
Finding Ralph Waldo Emerson's poems and essays for the first time.
When we went to the keys and I made friends with the crazy midget key deer and then they swarmed our camp and started dipping their heads into our coolers and biting our melons and we had to chase them out with squirt guns.
Riding back on John Huberty's boat from the coral reef at John Penny Camp, singing out loud, because no one could hear me over the motor and rush of water, “It Was Just My Imagination . ..”
Dunking off Paul Pahulu's back during a Stake basketball game.
Doing a Jackson five song in a ward talent show, with afros and full choreography, with Paul, David, Shiblon and Tony. How Paul fell down in the hallway laughing before we stumbled back on stage for an encore.
Eating cow tongue.
Eating an entire Little Cesars pizza before anyone else got their food from the FAST food joint in the same parking lot (I swore those pizzas off a long time ago).
Be Still and Know
“ 'You still believing in the beautiful light are you? How do you do that? You're a magician to me.'
'I still see a spark in you.' ”
“One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there's nothing but unanswered pain, that death's got the final word; it's laughing at 'em. Another man sees that same bird—feels the glory, feels something smilin' through it.”
“ 'In this world, a man himself is nothing. And there ain't no world but this one.'
'You're wrong there Top. I've seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination.' ”
~ The Thin Red Line
"No time for infinity? Gotta piece together a theory?"
-Huckabees
Lately I've been thinking about the importance of listening. It's a fairly poetic practice, I suppose. I guess I've always been more of a listener/observer, and good listening is one of the most important things poetry has helped me develop (or at least inspires me to want to develop). Poetry leaves me in awe at the power of the human heart to redeem. And when I read the descriptions of a “seer” in the scriptures, I think: That's a poet! (at least when loosely interpreted). Not that we all should be poet's by trade, but perhaps poets at heart: awake and aware, “plugged in,” redeeming even the infinitesimal. When I take the time to relax, ponder and listen (often in nature)—including all the senses—I'm always filled with more than enough to love and treasure. Those who are open to life and beauty seem to live in a world of heightened peace and enjoyment. I think it is a godly trait to delight in life, to be full of love for all, to perceive beauty in everything. I feel deeply that it is important for us to keep tender, full of awe and wonder, sifting the richness; we must nurture our delicate and fine sensitivities, give way to them, and never become “past feeling.” Here's a poem by Mary Oliver I found while thinking about this:
THE SUN
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone—
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too
turned from this world—
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
*Stay tender with awe and wonder*
'I still see a spark in you.' ”
“One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there's nothing but unanswered pain, that death's got the final word; it's laughing at 'em. Another man sees that same bird—feels the glory, feels something smilin' through it.”
“ 'In this world, a man himself is nothing. And there ain't no world but this one.'
'You're wrong there Top. I've seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination.' ”
~ The Thin Red Line
"No time for infinity? Gotta piece together a theory?"
-Huckabees
Lately I've been thinking about the importance of listening. It's a fairly poetic practice, I suppose. I guess I've always been more of a listener/observer, and good listening is one of the most important things poetry has helped me develop (or at least inspires me to want to develop). Poetry leaves me in awe at the power of the human heart to redeem. And when I read the descriptions of a “seer” in the scriptures, I think: That's a poet! (at least when loosely interpreted). Not that we all should be poet's by trade, but perhaps poets at heart: awake and aware, “plugged in,” redeeming even the infinitesimal. When I take the time to relax, ponder and listen (often in nature)—including all the senses—I'm always filled with more than enough to love and treasure. Those who are open to life and beauty seem to live in a world of heightened peace and enjoyment. I think it is a godly trait to delight in life, to be full of love for all, to perceive beauty in everything. I feel deeply that it is important for us to keep tender, full of awe and wonder, sifting the richness; we must nurture our delicate and fine sensitivities, give way to them, and never become “past feeling.” Here's a poem by Mary Oliver I found while thinking about this:
THE SUN
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone—
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too
turned from this world—
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
*Stay tender with awe and wonder*
Some Thoughts I Had While Reading/Praying
Love the Lord. Trust in His love. Never despair:
“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; (2 Cor 4:8,9)”
Have faith that you can accomplish the goals of your heart.
Care more about love and happiness, about pursuing your dreams than wealth or acceptance. The Lord will provide. You will be rich in soul and the rest shall be added unto you, and will then actually mean more to you.
See the beauty in others, and in all. Take the time to pay attention to the little things, and share them with others. Share in the little things that are important to others. The little things, the simple things, are the secrets to understanding the heart.
“. . . and thus be lead by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering; having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter his rest (Alma 13:28-29).”
Lately I was thinking about the story of the prodigal son. How patient and hopeful the Lord is, and, when we finally come around, how merciful and forgiving. I can still see the face of the girl who was baptized yesterday in Antigua: so bright, so happy. “Come, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow,” as it says, more or less, in the first chapter of Isaiah. I know that He lives and loves us. I have felt His love and mercy in my life. When we come to him in faith, He will never forsake us. He answers us when we plead in faith for healing, for renewal, for forgiveness or direction. It seems one could almost spend an entire lifetime giving thanks.
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