Nostalgia That Isn't Really Mine

My Great Uncle John died this past week and his daughter was given the task of cleaning out his basement. She found stacks and stacks of letters that he wrote to his mom, dad, sister and brother while he was in the war. plus a ton of other love letters and accounts of events (from 1937, 1945, etc) from him, my 2nd cousin Alex, my grandma and grandpa after they were married, and more. Some are typed on a typewriter, some are handwritten...
Adrienne and I have been reading through them. One of them says "Have you been to the movies lately? I went the other day with Fred. Have you seen State Fair? If not, you should. It's pretty good." It makes me feel so small and insignificant. These were normal letters, at the time my Great Grandma probably thought nothing special of them except that they were from her children while they were in the service. The only thing that makes them special is that they're from over 50 years ago, written by people who lived life over 50 years ago...
Makes me think about what is normal to us now that, in 50 years, will be special and sentimental. What are people going to handle with care? What are they going to read as though there was some magical spell contained in the words? Xanga archives? Blogspot accounts that have been long forgotten? I hope not. There are no magical spells hidden in there (here). This isn't anything special.
But then again, isn't that what they thought when they wrote those letters in 1940?

Hmmm...

"I saw these shells and saw beauty in what they went through. Every chip missing shows that it went though hardship and came out on the other end. Every scratch means it had lived; it had adventure and came out alive with a story to tell. Every broken piece... but that's just it, isn't it? Every broken piece is a piece that is missing, not there, incomplete. Every wrack it has experienced has taken a bit of its victim with it. It will never be whole again. It will remain broken, incomplete.
These shells, these broken shells are my life; boring, dull to look at, and broken. I am broken. I have traveled a long time on the ocean's waves, traveling places and seeing things, going through hard times, rough times, going through beatings. Though I wasn't keen on it then, maybe some good will come of it now. You see, someday, like these shells, somebody will see me; a broken, incomplete thing, and rejoice in my existence.
Completely bare and unhidden are these shells. There is no secret to them, no mystery. I know how it works and how it doesn't. And in that, it is complete. Complete because I know.
Therefore, incomplete I will remain until someone sees me and understands; until someone sees me and knows."

Oh to Grace How Great Debtor...

While growing up, "grace" was simply a term used in hymns and sermons at church but meant very little more than that. I could define it without a bat of an eyelash, a textbook definition, if you ask me or anyone who knew me then. Until 5th grade I knew nothing personally of any significance attached to any spiritual term. While in 5th grade, my family stopped going to the Church of Christ and begin attending the Wesleyan Church in town. One of the first sermons I heard there was taught by Dennis Jackson and included in the message was this quote: "While mercy is the holding back of something that is deserved, grace is the giving of something that is not deserved." I scrawled it in my notebook I carried around with me, tore it out when I got home, and put it in my top dresser drawer. Every morning I would look at that slip of paper, intrigued by the quote, but not yet understanding it.
As the time wore on, I found myself praying regularly for grace. My life had quickly bloomed into something I had never imagined and something that needed desperate grace and mercy. While mercy sounded lovely and was certainly well appreciated, I needed something to fill the empty spot that was supposed to be filled by what was being held back by mercy. I prayed for grace because it gave me something.
Though selfish, I learned a lot through those nights. I began to feel comforted and loved by my Savior. He forgave me every time I asked and he gave me exactly what I needed: Grace; what I didn't deserve. For ever situation that called for it, he gave me precisely what was needed.
I quickly found that grace was not something that was only meant to be received, it was also meant to be given. I used to think that I had received grace from God to be able to give to others and for the most part that was true. But I was giving grace through God, not necessarily because of him. Where would we be without grace, without the giving of that which we don't deserve? We would be hallow shells, attempting to live this life to the fullest but failing disastrously if we had been given no grace.
God gives us life and breath. He gives us passion and compassion. He gives us love and the ability to carry out the love that he has given to us. Are any of these truly deserved by humanity? Yet they are given anyway. Grace, given to us though not deserved...

I guess grace in the "graceful" dancer sense of the word is also something that is given to clumsy and klutzy people... as someone I know says, "Dancers are graceful until they stop thinking about where they're putting their feet."

Sometimes I forget.

Dedicated to all Christians who fight some sort of battle that they want desperately to win and desperately to lose:

"Why is it that this vice I have is something that causes me such pleasure and such grief? Why must this addiction be mine? Why would God bare to my my shoulders something that imprisons judgment? Give me something I can conquer! Such a thing I have now poisons my mind and my soul. Pleasure it gives me, yes! But how it does torture my conscious more than I can bear. Oh God!
My heart pounds with shame, yet in its shame it revels! Will this never cease? Will I never be free? What must I do? What must I say? What semblance of penance can I offer to even begin washing away my wrongs?
This seems to me the end. There is nothing to be done. Oh, how weary of living I have become. It only trudges on by way of my beating heart.
Then Heart, to thy rest! And leave me to sleep, for sleep after such a journey as this is so sweet.
Heart; cease. Eyes; close. Ears; discontinue your hearkening to the voices of the sinful pleasure that I love all too dearly. Ah, sweet voices, you have kept me company for too long. What other way shall I silence your insufferably subliminal whispering shriek? You are too stubborn to leave by you own accord... I have no choice. Of own accord then; Vice, I banish you hence! Can you not see how weary your company has made me? Pleading is too low for my pride and you will not allow me to silence my heart. Is it too much to ask for one hour of peace, one hour of rest? Yet without you, I know not ... I know not what to do.
I... I am at a loss. In the same way that I receive both pleasure and torture in this case, I also desire your company and your absence.
My heart will beat on and my vice will stay. It will not leave and I am not able to banish it. And so its company I will keep until my eyelids are fastened closed with the tears of those lingering nights or, by its own treaty, surrender. There is nothing more I can do than what I have already done."

I Heart Huckabees

Some people heart Huckabees... I don't. Huckabees' makes me ponder life and, where some people can think about this that and the other thing, I can't. It makes me re-evaluate my entire existence and all of my relationships. Are we all just a part of the blanket? Is the saving grace of the mind dismantling all that you know to be true? Is it all just pain or darkness? Is nothing all that matters?

When I watch movies like these I find that my brain, unaccustomed to the process which it finds itself in, seems to completely shut down. Not shut down in the sense of "not working" but shut down in the sense of "this isn't normal, what is happening" panic.

This is not a good time for my mind to panic. I've been on the edge of something more massive than the Mississippi for a little over a week and I think I'm rather tired. My mind is not used to such exercise and strain. I'd like to not have to worry about my brain shorting, but I can't make any promises.

I think there's something more... but I'm getting there... give me some time...