hmm.

When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neightbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces on the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy’s side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father Below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.


This is from The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis.

What would it mean to be "a great warrior on [God's] side" ?

lovers so less wild

I'm very blog-ey this week, first of all.

Thought of the day: why do I go to anything and everything besides God to fill the lonely void inside of me? It's only after I've clicked on every facebook link and searched for fulfillment from every meaningless thing that I think to go to the one Person that can actually meet that need in me! Duh, Elsa!

I'm getting back to the place where I want it to be just Him and me, no one else. Ironically, as my life has become more simple with the summer, it has become more cluttered with meaningless things that I somehow fill my days with.

He is the last place I go to, the last Name I call. I can read about Him all I like, but it is somehow much harder to me to sit down and just talk to Him. It's easier to relate to Him as a vending machine or an ATM then as a Person, as THE Person.

Why?

Another mystery of my fallen self, I guess.

But thankfully, He's always there when I stroll, meander, or run back to Him. No lectures, no condemnations, just delight.

And thankfully, each time I get in that place of loneliness again, it becomes easier to choose Him first.

"Take my self and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee"

Ever

Only

All

for Him.

I want that now more than anything else.

New Men

from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

"Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognizable, but others can be recognized. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different than ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognizable; but you must know what to look for.

They will not be very like the idea of 'religious people' which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less...They will usually seem to have a lot of time; you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognized one of them, you will recognize the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognize one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of color, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun."

convicting.

from the Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer

"A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapters, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting of listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar...

Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image. The flesh whimpers against the rigor of God's inexorable sentence and begs like Agag for a little mercy, a little indulgence of its carnal ways. It is no use. We can get a right start only by accepting God as He is and learning to love Him for what He is. As we go on to know Him better we shall find it a source of unspeakable joy that God is just what He is. Some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead. In those holy moments the very thought of change in Him will be too painful to endure."

favorite song ever

"Love Song for a Savior" by Jars of Clay

In open fields of wild flowers,
She breathes the air and flies away
She thanks her Jesus for the daises and the roses
In no simple language
Someday she'll understand the meaning of it all
He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call her and she will come running
And fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and she'll pray,

"I want to fall in love with You"

Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
The sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it calls to the people
Who stare into nowhere, and can't feel the chains on their souls

He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on our lips
Someday we'll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call us and we will come running
And fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and we'll pray,

"I want to fall in love with You"

It seems too easy to call you "Savior",
Not close enough to call you "God"
So as I sit and think of words I can mention
To show my devotion

"I want to fall in love with You"

"My heart beats for You"

playlist for novel-writing

I'm trying to write my first-ever novel! It's something I've always wanted to do, but I'm really truly pursuing it for the first time.

This is my ideal playlist for novel-writing:

1. Dare You to Move - Switchfoot
2. All We Are - Matt Nathanson
3. Chocolate - Snow Patrol
4. the Dance - Rachel Portman - Emma Soundtrack
5. Closer to Fine - Indigo Girls
6. Father I Adore You - Matt Brouwer
7. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
8. Falling Apart - Matt Nathanson
9. the Legend Spreads - James Horner - Braveheart soundtrack
10. Primavera Anticipada - Laura Pausini & James Blunt
11. Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee - Charlie Hall
12. If I Had Words - James Cromwell - Babe soundtrack
13. End Titles - Rachel Portman - Emma Soundtrack
14. Love Song for a Savior - Jars of Clay
15. Jesus Saves - Tim Hughes
17. End Credits - James Horner - the Braveheart Soundtrack
18. Everything - Lifehouse
19. O, For A Thousand Tongues to Sing - David Crowder
20. Be Thou My Vision - 4HIM
21. Sooner Surrender - Matt Nathanson
22. Ode to Joy - Beecham Choral Society
23. the Homecoming - George Fenton - Ever After Soundtrack
24. Outlawed Tunes on Outlawed Pipes - James Horner - Braveheart Soundtrack
25. Jesus Paid it All - Kristian Stanfill
26. Paperback Writer - the Beatles
27. Love Me Do - the Beatles
28. the Holly and the Ivy - George Winston

On a different and unrelated note - if anyone knows any good websites with eighteenth-century slang, let me know! :)

hope

"Hope" is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops at all --

-Emily Dickinson