So Apparently I Was Mistaken

I will begin by making an apology to all of you who were anticipating updates on my Romania trip. And by all of you, I mean all two of you. I was a bit too ambitious, and I grossly underestimated how exhausted I would be every day, after hours and hours and VBS and Ninja and Link Tag and all those other energy-zapping things. But rest assured it was a fantastic trip! It was emotional, intense, and heart-wrenching, and we truly saw God working everywhere we went. I'll be posting again now that I'm back, and I'll be sure to include some stories from the trip. Thank you guys for reading!

An Encounter with Aslan

 ‘Are you not thirsty?’ said the Lion.

‘I’m dying of thirst,’ said Jill.

‘Then drink,’ said the Lion.

‘May I – could I – would you mind going away while I do?’ said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk,
she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

‘Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?’ said Jill.

‘I make no promise,’ said the Lion.

I'm quite ready for another adventure!

For those of you who don't know me, and even those that do, I'll be leaving for Romania on Sunday after church! It'll be my seventh mission trip there in as many years, and ever since my first trip (when I was a plucky little 11-year old with puffy hair and braces) I've felt called to serve over there long-term. After college, where I'll be studying Anthropology/Sociology, I plan to stay there for longer than two weeks. Months, probably. Possibly years. Heck, I might never come back!

No, that's not true; I love the South too much.

At any rate, I'll be blogging daily(ish), so be sure to follow me so you can keep up with my adventures! Thanks for praying!

Affectionately,

 

Silmaril   

Rock City, Pt. 1: God in the Grandiose

"Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all." -1 Chronicles 29:11

I love big things. I love grand, majestic, magnificent, things like the Blue Ridge Mountains or thunderstorms, and heavy old books like The Scottish Chiefs or The Silmarillion (my namesake). So I'm sure it's no surprise to you how much I love Rock City. ("What's Rock City??" you Yankees may be asking yourselves. In short, it's a giant maze of rock formations, swinging bridges, and flower gardens all on top of legendary Lookout Mountain, which boasts a spot called Lovers' Leap where you can see at least seven states on a clear day. Yeah, it's epic.) Rock City is by far my favorite thing in the natural world, besides peaches and unicorns. It's a very big place, not only in physical size, but in spirit as well. It holds a essence of grandeur. (If I could pick a person to represent its spirit, I'd probably pick an Appalachian version of Galadriel.)

Insomniac's Sonnet

I didn't want to go to bed, so I figured I'd do something productive, like write a poem. So I did. And the poem ended up being about the fact that I couldn't sleep.

The day, it seems, is rolling up its scroll
As I, awakened, watch as knowledge fades

Beneath the leaves of the already-rolled,

While darkness blurs the ink with heavy shades.
 

The world has gone to bed, and as will I

(As soon as I have reached some greater plane,

Or grasped some higher truth that may belie

How addled, restless, hungry is my brain.)
 

Just one more chapter, then to bed I'll go,

But night is rolling up her scrolls too soon-

Before my page is done the dark will grow,

'Til heavy-eyed I retire to my room.
 

Is this a love of truth? Or mere delay

To recognize the ending of the day?

Innocence, Pt. 3: Come Back Soon

This is Part 3 in a series about Innocence, and it's relation to my life as a brand new eighteen-year-old. Click here for Part 1, and here for Part 2.

My last post spoke on the feeling of exile- that persistent ache that's common to all humans, the ancient knowing that this world is not as it should be. Thankfully, God would never leave us in the dark without hope. Lots of good things -books (particularly those by Lewis and Tolkien), sunrises, children laughing, fairy tales, enchanted gardens, thunderstorms, meaningful songs- are all like fireflies, giving us hope in the darkness and reminding us of what the true Light looks like. But though they may give us "glimpses of Eden," they still seem so remote at times; though we can observe them, it's from a distance; we can't fully become a part of us, in the truest sense. When you look at that homesickness more clearly, you find not just a longing for paradise or perfection, but the longing to be a part of perfection. In a paragraph following the one I just quoted, Lewis says:

Innocence, Pt. 2: Exile

This is Part 2 in a series about Innocence, and it's relation to my life as a brand new eighteen-year-old. Click here for Part 1.

I ended my last post with the J.R.R. Tolkien quote, “We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.”


Think about the word exile for a moment, and all the weight that it carries.

Adam and Eve had perfect innocence, and they blew it. By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late; they were exiled from Eden, and the gates have been barred ever since. The flaming swords of cherubim are blocking the way (Genesis 3:24). Now, as adults in this modern society, when we catch "glimpses of Eden," or have sudden nostalgia or remembrance for perfection (an aching in the marrow of one's soul that insists, "This isn't how it's supposed to be!"), instead of stretching back into the far collective memories of humanity, we cast the net to a more recent time: childhood.