Let's be Honest

i need to be more honest when it comes to this "dying of yourself" idea, the idea of wrapping up oneself around such a divine Love as Jesus's and those who pursued the same existence. As much as i say that i want it, it's not easy. In fact, it's terribly exhausting to constantly give up your fears and desires. When i find myself surrendering to love consistently and actively, sometimes when i realize what i am doing, i just want to stop and be lazy and selfish and bad to myself and others. i want to lie in my bed and have my doors and heart locked up and lament over my life. All the while, i know what i find myself pitying myself for isn't really who i want to be.

It's not easy. Love is tragic in this sense. If you are aware of what you are losing; time, energy, control, the world becomes a draining place. The more i talk to my wiser friends, the more i realize that i am afraid of losing control when really i should realize control wasn't mine at all. i laid in bed last night so still that i heard my heart beating, and i felt that, and i knew, that besides perhaps sneezing or breathing oddly, i don't have much control over my own heartbeat, my life.

When i begin to pity myself, i wonder if i have anything at all except for this thing that i and others dispersed throughout the earth insist on, this burden called "Love". i don't really know sometimes. i feel like a little hopeful child with the idea of love and beauty on my mind day and night and it can be daunting when faced by the more "realistic" minds and souls i encounter. But i see that those who love with such an intensity tend to forget their own troubles. i see that those who love with such an intensity find wholeness in their lives. Love is the most "realistic" possibility to them. They know what they were made for.They look human. And bright. They found what they need, they found the love of G-d, and i find that i want what they have. i think that is what i want too, to be human, to have love and grace and mercy, all those things. And so then, i don't pity myself anymore, despite the fact that i may not have an identity in anything else, and then i am happy.

Yours,

rachel virginia

Does beauty mean anything?

And upon being reminded of the incredible amount of waste in the world, as always, i feel inclined to do something about it, if only i didn't find myself too lazy or too uninspired or even defeated at the challenge that it is too much work for one girl with an impossible dream to do alone and knowing that the vast majority of society wants nothing to do with anything that requires a little extra work, movement from the comfort zones or thought on their part. i aim to be more positive, as my wonderful example of a human, Barry, insists, but it's tough to be in a society that isn't positive at all and lives content in things that are empty, and lead to a quality of life that very much resembles death.

i keep thinking of these lyrics from a Psalters song "i will dream the impossible dream over lies lies lies." Hope is the only thing that keeps me from being depressed.

The "lies" are the belief that there is no hope for the world, that inheritantly, there is nothing we can do about everything that is ugly and destructive. But the biggest reason for me to believe that there is hope for the world is that a smidget of it can be seen in almost everything i see, even if it doesn't last, such as the beauty of the world around me, how people long for it, how people long for something good, meaningful, worthwhile, even though evil seems to be always present around the world, 24/7. Beauty is always fleeting, yet the question, the possibility and the longing for it seems to always be in my mind. "i want the world to be beautiful." "i want to be a beautiful person". Beauty, beauty, beauty. Does it mean anything? Or is it just a delusion percieved and manifested from the accident that is our brains and "minds"? (Whatever the heck the mind is). It would be terrible to have this hopeful feeling that something can be done with the millions of trash spiraling in the center of our seas, the trash clogging up our earth, just for that hope to be dashed in the end. A final realization that there is no G-d; that really there is no such thing as divine Love, no reason for having and expressing joy, if joy is such an expression of hope, no reason to hope, no reason to be, but to wander helplessly, maybe even willingly towards the further decay of the universe.

My biggest influence of the idea of symbols that create feelings of awe and beauty in our universe leading to something greater, allusions that is, comes from one of N.T.Wright's writings and maybe C.S. Lewis? Maybe? Read Wright if you haven't. Actually, just read everything in general. i'm sure it's Wright, not so sure about the book title however, but something there has heavily influenced my thinking for the past year or so. Surely all of these wonderful, awesome, yet short-lived things can't mean nothing?

i wish i could rally all the credit cards and junk CDs that i see and have the creativity to do something with them, make something beautiful. i will if i continue to believe in such a hope. i wish i could do all of it, but i am one girl with a whole lot of limits. There is so much trash and waste to transform into something beautiful. Nevermind the fact that someone may think you are crazy for diving in and digging up the dumpsters. There are so many resources in the world already just waiting to be used again. Nevermind the folks who say there is not enough for everyone. The American culture has produced more products than we could ever imagine. Remember that there has never ever been as much people in the world as we have had in only a small period of time, meaning the last few thousand years that human kind has walked the planet. Remember this chart from class?

What i am trying to express is that the wealthy nations of our world has produced much more than we could ever imagine and essentially, we are wasting it all and ceasing use of it by convincing ourselves that we need to make more stuff. i am positive that Americans and other citizens of rich countries have thrown away enough clothes to clothe everyone in the world at least one time, maybe more. i may not have the numbers, but i am convinced by my constant reasoning.

i have made the decision a long time ago that my role in the visual arts is to share the beauty of resurrection and transformation in a society that too easily replaces the "ugly" once it is no longer to their use, with new things that are more "beautiful". i want to inspire people to seriously kick their waste habits, not for me, but for our planet and all that lives in it. A fear that haunts me is the loss of this desire, to lose my soul to the always up-to-date business world. The earth is a gift to humanity, without our mother we would surely have no physical existence to express life. We cannot simply throw her away, we cannot simply replace her by rejecting her and trying to find another planet. If there are other earthlike planets out there, that is wonderful and to be in awe of, but why give up on this one while she still gives so much to us? It is like falling in love with a beautiful man and then finding another as though you never knew him. From my understanding, Love requires service and if intensified goes into concious commitment. i know that an intense Love requires commitment because my brothers, sisters and i have a Lord who never ceases to woo us and the rest of humanity into falling into his Light. He is committed to His creation. So forth, i want to be committed into loving my home, the planet Earth just as much as the Church insists we should love our neighbor. i want such a love for my home to not be a "fling" or a "hook-up" but a full fledged romance.

i think this is what beauty is for, even if it is fleeting: to be a reminder of all the things that are worth living for, worth doing, worth dying for. And if beauty means nothing at all, then at least i performed upon these hopeful convictions i've been given, to think there was such a thing as hope, maybe a renewal, for a fractured universe. That all things can end well.

Yours,

rachel virginia