libros abril

extremely loud & incredibly close
by jonathan safran foer

i'm loving this book right now. actually, i'm having a hard time figuring out how to write about it, it seems kindof impossible to just describe it. the basic jist of the book: it's about a 9-year-old boy who's dad died in the world trade center on september 11. most of the book revolves around how he finds a key of his dads & goes on a journey around new york trying to find the lock that it opens. the book has gotten reviews calling it "the first great novel about september 11." personally i love this guys funky style of telling a story (he also wrote the book "everything is illuminated"), but more than that i just think he delves into the nastier side of life in a way that is truthful but also hopeful. here's a random sampling (the whole book is told from the perspective of 9-year-old oskar.)...

'an ambulance drove down the street between us, & i imagined who it was carrying, & what had happened to him. did he break an ankle attempting a hard trick on his skateboard? or maybe he was dying from third-degree burns on ninety percent of his body? was there any chance that i knew him? did anyone see the ambulance & wonder if it was me inside?
what about a device that knew everyone you knew? so when an ambulance went down the street, a big sign on the roof could flash

DON'T WORRY! DON'T WORRY!

if the sick person's device didn't detect the device of someone he knew nearby. & if the device did detect the device of someone he knew, the ambulance could flash the name of the person in the ambulance, & either

IT'S NOTHING MAJOR! IT'S NOTHING MAJOR!

or, if it was something major,

IT'S MAJOR! IT'S MAJOR!

& maybe you could rate the people you knew by how much you loved them, so if the device of the person in the ambulance detected the device of the person he loved the most, or the person who loved him the most, & the person in the ambulance was really badly hurt, & might even die, the ambulance could flash

GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!

one thing that's nice to think about is someone who was the first person on lots of people's lists, so that when he was dying, & his ambulance went down the streets to the hospital, the whole time it would flash

GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!'

on the road by jack kerouac
weeeellll... i read 'jane eyre' for the first time when i was about 11. but i read 'the catcher in the rye' for the first time when i was about 24. which is to say, my obsession with british books seems to have kept me from some of the good 'ol american classics. so, i'm trying to catch up now. considering the importance of travel in my life & philosophy, it's kindof insane that i'm only now reading 'on the road.'
i'm getting ready to move to seattle for the summer. then... chicago? so i thought now would be a good time to read some kerouac & remind myself that i live the way i do on purpose, & not just because i can't bring myself to stay still.


'what is that feeling when you're driving away from people & they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? --it's the too-huge world vaulting us, & it's good-by. but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.'





the year of magical thinking
by joan didion

'life changes fast.
life changes in the instant.
(the ordinary instant.)
you sit down to dinner & life as you know it ends.
the question of self-pity.'


joan didion (who is apparantly one of 'america's iconic writers,' although i'll be honest & tell you i'd never heard of her 'til i randomly picked this book up off a shelf in borders one day) started writing this book less than a year after her husband died. in late december 2003, she & her husband john gregory dunne came home from visiting their only daughter in the hospital where she had been, in a coma, for the last several days. they were sitting down to have dinner when john had a heart attack & died on the spot. her daughter survived, only to collapse 2 months later at LAX & be rushed to the hospital for brain surgery.

the next year is what joan didion calls 'the year of magical thinking,' in the middle of which she sits down to write with brutal honesty about grief, life, marriage, death & 'the shallowness of sanity.' this book is crazy good. i've read alot of stuff about grief, & i personally think this one is right up there with 'a grief observed' by c. s. lewis.

'grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. we anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. we misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. we might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. we do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body & mind. we might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. we do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return & need his shoes. in the version of grief we imagine, the model will be "healing." a certain forward movement will prevail. the worst days will be the earliest days. we imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. when we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to "get through it," rise to the occasion, exhibit the "strength" that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. we anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will i be able to greet people, will i be able to leave the scene, will i be able even to get dressed that day? we have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. we have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others & the gravity & meaning of the occasion. nor can we know ahead of the fact (& here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it & grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.'

see! the winter is past

an hour spent with

green grass.

a cold beer.

& the hot, hot sun.

winter is over.

my (overly optimistic?) philosophy, as summed up by 4 british guys

i don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love

words, wide night

by carol ann duffy

somewhere on the other side of this wide night
& the distance between us, i am thinking of you.
the room is turning slowly away from the moon.

this is pleasurable. or shall i cross that out & say
it is sad? in one of these tenses i singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

la lala la. see? i close my eyes & imagine the dark hills i would have to cross
to reach you. for i am in love with you

& this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

sex & candy

RAYA ~ love (hebrew) ~ 'friend, or companion - somebody you hang out with.' (rob bell)

'kulakh yafa RAYAti umum ein bakh.' (transliterated hebrew)

'you're beautiful from head to toe, my dear LOVE, beautiful beyond compare, absolutely flawless.' (song of songs 4:7, msg)

AHAVA ~ love (hebrew) ~ 'making a decision to join your life to the life of another... an emotion that leads to a commitment.' (rob bell)

'mayim rabim lo yukhlu lekhabot ethaAHAVA uneharot lo yishtefuha im yiten ish etkol hon beito baAHAVA boz yavuzu lo.' (transliterated hebrew)

'many waters cannot quench LOVE, rivers cannot wash it away. if one were to give all the wealth of his house for LOVE, it would be utterly scorned.' (song of songs 8:7, niv)

DOD ~love (hebrew) ~ 'to carouse, to rock... the physical, sexual element to a relationship.' (rob bell)

'yishakeni minshikot pihu kitovim DODeikha miyayin.' (transliterated hebrew)

'may he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your LOVE is better than wine.' (song of songs 1:2, nasb)

(from flame, rob bell)

'all you need is love' (the beatles)

'what sits at the center of (biblical) sexual ethics is not a negative view of sex; the vision of marriage is not, at its most concise, merely "no sex before marriage." rather, the heart of the story about sex is a vigorously positive statement: sex was created for marriage. without a robust account of the vision of sex within marriage, the insistence that unmarried folks refrain from sex just doesn't make any sense.' (from lauren winner)

mamita

ahh, daniellita. this is the girl who introduced me to 'the alchemist,' taught me to salsa, & showed me the hilarity that is the shrekswampdancepartymedley. i got to talk to her on sunday. best part of my easter. suddenly i was sitting on a rock in the middle of a sheep field in england. i love the kind of friends that know your heart despite time, & living on different continents. te amo!

this i know.

Jesus loves me
this i know
for the bible
tells me so.
little ones
to him belong.
we are weak
but he is strong.
yes, Jesus loves me.

i'd like to know where the riverboat sails tonight

my heroes...

'no amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. we shall of course be very muddy & tattered children by the time we reach home. but the baths are all ready, the towels put out, & the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. the only fatal thing is to lose one's temper & give it up. it is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of his presence.' ~c.s.lewis

the musician/activist...

"

you've been gilmored

true confession: when i like something, i tend to really like it. some might say i get obsessed. this dates back to when i was about 3 years old & first became a crazy fan of fozzie & all the muppets. (my sister, who is younger & thus missed the thrill of the muppet days, still rolls her eyes whenever i mention anything about them.) then, growing up, i had a long lasting obsession with avonlea... i wanted to be anne of green gables, or maybe diana, or, ok, actually, make that felicity. to this day i can qoute not only all the movies, but entire episodes of 'road to avonlea.' other phases have included everything from pippi longstocking to lois & clark (come on. seriously. that show is a classic.) so all this to say... a few years ago i moved back home after a year away & discovered that my sister & my mom had both become die-hard fans of the gilmore girls. i hated the gilmore girls. mainly because they talked really fast & their hair was always perfect. so, for an entire year, i made fun of my sister & groaned everytime she & my mom sat down to watch it. then one day, jenny looked up & realized that i had been standing in the corner of the room the whole time the show had been on. because i 'wasn't watching it,' so i hadn't sat down, but i'd actually stood there the entire hour. so yeah, don't knock it til you try it. now you can know where i am on any given tuesday at 8'oclock, pretty much... and for those that claim it's a chick flick show... last summer i was living with some friends of mine. we three girls of the house would tivo the gilmore girls re-runs & watch them every morning (those were good times.) of course the 2 guys of the house always made fun of us. but i noticed that one of them (who will remain un-named) started coming in the room whenever we were watching it. he'd fain busyness -- working on his computer or something -- but still, he'd always be there. then one day, we're sitting there watching & he said 'wait a minute, i thought that guy was dating lane?' so you see... not only for girls.

just can't get enough...

'live the life... love the Lord... laugh loud & long'
~sue gilmore

(stuart & jenni got married aug. 27, 2005!)

(noah scott jackson was born nov. 5, 2005!)

(butch & kristin are engaged!)

(melanie visiting andrey & his family)





Christ in you...










...the hope of glory.











God has promised me his comfort, but not a life w/o pain.
God has promised me his joy, but not a life w/o sorrow.
God has promised me his fairness, but not a life w/o injustice.
God has promised me his power, but not a life w/o weakness.
God has promised me his faithfulness, but not a life w/o need.
God has promised me his wisdom, but not a life w/o folly.
God has promised me his righteousness, but not a life w/o sin.
God has promised me his guidance, but not a life w/o confusion.
God has promised me his victory, but not a life w/o conflict.
God has promised me his resurrection, but not a life w/o death.
God has promised me his presence, but not a life w/o loneliness.
God has promised me his vengeance, but not a life w/o forgiving others.
God has promised me his grace, but not a life w/o repentance.
God has promised me his blessing, but not a life w/o obedience.
God has promised me his love, but not a life w/o loving.
God has promised me his reward, but not a life w/o service.
God has promised me his goal, but not a life w/o endurance.
God has promised me his sufficiency, but not a life w/o faith.
~peter reid