coffee attack

May 30, 1940. New York

2009-05-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

Instead of having faith, which is a virtue, and therefore nourishes the soul and gives it a healthy life, people merely have a lot of opinions, which excite the soul but don't give it anything to feed it, just wear it out until it falls from exhaustion.

An opinion isn't one thing or the other: it is neither science nor faith, but has a little bit of either one. It is a rationalization bolstered up by some orthodoxy which you happen to respect which, naturally, starves the mind instead of feeding it (and that is what people who have no faith imagine faith does, but they don't know what they are talking about, because faith is a virtue and active habit which cannot even pretend to rationalize anything it seeks what is beyond reason).

In this situation, where there are hundreds of people which no faith, who don't really believe anything much, long inquiries are constantly being carried out as to what various persons "believe." Scientists, advertising men, sociologists, soldiers, critics, are all asked what they believe inasmuch as they are scientists, advertising men, etc. Apparently there is a separate belief appropriate to every walk of life. Anyway, they all answer with brisk one thousand word articles stating some opinion or other that they have picked up somewhere. The result is enough to make you break down and sob.

H.G. Wells has tried to spend his whole life telling people "what he believes." that is, trying to get them to accept his own confused opinions about the purpose of human life, if any. Since, from what I hear, he isn't even a particularly good scientist, he hasn't even got the basis he thinks he has for all his other statements: but even if he were a good scientist, his science isn't a sufficient basis for the metaphysical and moral statements he tries to make. At the same time he complicates his position very curiously by denying that metaphysics or morals are really relevant at all. His life work would be a spectacular failure if there could be anything spectacular about someone so completely unimportant as H. G. Wells.

It should be the great pride and strength of every Christian that we have no ready, ten-minute, brisk, chatty answer to the question what we believe, except in the words of the Apostle's Creed which are not really comprehensible to scientists anyway. It should be our greatest strength that we don't have, on the end of our tongues, a brief and pithy rationalization for the structure and purpose of the whole universe, only a statement that, to a scientist, is a scandal: an article of faith. God created the world and everything in it for Himself, and the heavens proclaim His glory. It should be our greatest strength that we don't have any rationalizations to explain the war "scientifically" and have no "scientific" solution to all our economic problems.

The greatest weakness of Marxists, for example, is the readiness with which they can explain absolutely anything in brisk and chatty and pseudoscientific terms. They have not yet begun to feel ridiculous since their explanations have taken to contradicting themselves completely from one day to the next: they still believe that the are being scientific. Surely, the faith that science can contradict itself and still be science is a faith that doesn't honor science at all, because the only value science pretends to have is that it is certain and cannot contradict itself.

Faith on the other hand is always contradicting itself, because everything we say about God is so inadequate that it always runs us head first into a paradox.

In certain things, it is even more the glory of the Catholic than that of the skeptic to say "I don't know."

As a matter of fact, the true skeptics doubts in order that he may know. If there is no other certainty, he doubts so as to reduce everything to the level of his own, human, and fallible notions of certainty. But a Christian believes in order to submit all the products of his own fallible judgement to the test of a revelation that is infallible and divine and eternal-- as obscure as it is infallible, obscure and mysterious because it is as simple as it is divine.

Thomas Merton-Run to the Mountain, page 126-27

2009-04-20T21:24:00.001-07:00

I think I want to blog again.

Frida Kahlo

2009-02-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

'The value of Kahlo's art, apart from its memorable self-expression, lies in how it investigates and lays bare larger issues of identity. This work(see below) focuses most on the mixed heritage of Latin America; others deal more directly with sexuality, feminine identity, and gender equality, all in the context of Kahlo's own life.'

Egon Schiele

2009-02-04T14:23:00.001-08:00

haha

2009-01-31T14:42:00.001-08:00

Anti-Theft Lunch Bag

like omg

2009-01-28T21:57:00.000-08:00

2009-01-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

I need to read these words everyday

2009-01-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgement he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Isaiah 53:1-9

2009-01-22T23:42:00.000-08:00

So she told me more and more of her beautiful land; and I told her as much, yes, more than I wanted to, about mine; and we became inseparable. Then this deeper recognition came and grew. I felt my own soul rise and lift its wings, as it were. Life got bigger. It seemed as if I understood--as I never had before--as if I could Do things--as if I too could grow--if she would help me. And then It came--to both of us, all at once.

A still day--on the edge of the world, their world. The two of us, gazing out over the far dim forestland below, talking of heaven and earth and human life, and of my land other lands and what they needed and what I hoped to do for them--

"If you will help me," I said.

She turned to me, with that high, sweet look of hers, and then, as her eyes rested in mine and her hands too--then suddenly there blazed out between us a farther glory, instant, overwhelming--quite beyond any words of mine to tell.

2009-01-22T00:32:00.000-08:00

'And lord I truly am awake
And lord, truly I am afraid
And, lord, truly I remain…'

2009-01-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

2009-01-21T15:59:00.000-08:00

2009-01-15T15:31:00.001-08:00

If anyone knows someone trying to sell or get rid of a turntable, let me know!

luv

2009-01-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

2009-01-07T20:48:00.001-08:00

creeped out of the house like a mouse.

2009-01-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

being in this house is making me so depressed. i really hope i feel better tomorrow and can go on an adventure.

I like this photo and the tattoo.

2009-01-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

photo taken from here

2008-12-31T22:28:00.001-08:00

2008-12-30T08:24:00.000-08:00

"We tend to identify ourselves with those we love. We try to enter into their own souls and become what they are, thinking as they think, feeling as they feel, and experiencing what they experience. But there is no true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude. I cannot be united in love with a person whose very personality my love tends to obscure, to absorb, and to destroy. Nor can I awaken true love in a person who is invited, by my love, to be drowned in the act of drowning me with love.

If we know God, our identification of ourselves with those we love will be patterned on our union with God, and subordinate to it. Thus our love will begin with the knowledge of its own limitations and rise to the awareness of its greatness. For in ourselves we will always remain separate and remote from one another, but in God we can be one with those we love.

We cannot find them in God without first perfectly finding ourselves in Him. Therefore we will take care not to lose ourselves in looking for them outside Him. For love is not found in the void that exists between our being and the being of the one we love. There is an illusion of unity between us when our thoughts, our words, or our emotions draw us out of ourselves and suspend us together for a moment over the void. But when this moment has ended, we must return into ourselves or fall into the void. There is no true love except in God, Who is the source both of our own being and of the being we love." Thomas Merton

Listen to Saint Margaret. 'Skinny And Hungry' is my favorite.

2008-12-29T21:29:00.000-08:00

my first memory of music

2008-12-29T21:20:00.000-08:00

Wham

2008-12-28T13:25:00.000-08:00

dreary

2008-12-28T13:09:00.000-08:00

doo doo saturday

2008-12-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

sleepy sunday

2008-12-21T13:51:00.000-08:00

2008-12-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

Yusan arrived yesterday

So far we have

drank coffee

drank more coffee

played scrabble many times

and tonight we're watching Wall E.

2008-12-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

'Therefore it is possible, and very probable, that we shall see the corporeal bodies of the new heaven and the new earth in such as way that, wherever we turn our eyes, we shall, through our bodies that we shall be wearing and plainly seeing, enjoy with perfect clarity of vision in the sight of God everywhere present and ruling all things, even material things.'

2008-12-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

i'm cold. it's raining. i just want to go home.

2008-12-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

I can't stop listening to Post-War.

2008-12-03T23:05:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to blog about but feel that I should. The semester is almost over, duh. I need to do really well on my finals, duh. I drink too much coffee, duh. I don't have anything to say that isn't a duh. I LOVE YOU, duh.

2008-12-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

every tear

every heart ache

every tossing

every disappointment

i do not overlook

i do not disregard

i cry with you

i plea with you

my hand is upon you

my kiss is more powerful than the world's

give me your burdens

give me your heart

i want to help you

i love you precious daughter

my love for you overpowers your darkness

Lovely and beautiful is your name

2008-11-28T15:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27955316/

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."

2008-11-28T13:36:00.000-08:00

I tend to just sing Christmas songs and not really pay much attention to the words. It's easy to do when you hear them everywhere and they so easily lose their meaning. I was paying closer attention to 'Joy to the World' and realized how powerful the song really is.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, wonders, of His love.

2008-11-25T00:18:00.000-08:00

I miss being 19 and listening to Maria Mena.

2008-11-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

2008-11-23T16:49:00.000-08:00

2008-11-22T17:51:00.000-08:00

before I forget to write about this..

i love the feeling when you're at a green light and you're turning and the person across from you is turning the opposite way and just for a moment there is a connection between two people getting to help each other get where they are going. i've been thinking about this for quite some time but haven't mentioned it to anyone.

2008-11-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

'You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.'

2008-11-21T12:28:00.000-08:00

'Good endless surprises.
Good reasons for waking.
Good friends are good family
with hearts over flowing
from kindness from strangers.
The will to survive.
When our hearts are all pounding,
God knows we're alive.'

2008-11-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

my bangs are almost all grown out! (pretend you care)

2008-11-18T21:33:00.000-08:00

more than anything right now I want to wrap up in a blanket and be held by everything that is God and for him to whisper that It's all going to be okay and that I don't have to try so hard.

2008-11-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

Today is the first time this semester I've felt stressed out. I don't like it.

Spartanburg, South Carolina

2008-11-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

2008-11-14T20:39:00.000-08:00

I'm in South Carolina visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. Tonight we went to marble slab(my first time) and I had a delicious waffle cone of maple ice cream with walnuts. mmmmmm! Tomorrow is Avi's (my niece) 3rd birthday! Maybe I'll put some photos up from her birthday party.

2008-11-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

Today in Humanities I had to present with 3 other people a section of a chapter. I've done this quite a few times and it's not even a big deal. We just sum up the section we read and read it straight from the book. Well, I started reading from my notebook and suddenly I felt like I couldn't breathe and my voice was getting shaky and I couldn't make it stop so I said "I'm sorry" and walked out. Ahhh! Stuff like that really drives me nuts. There was no reason at all for that to happen. It makes me feel ridiculous. Anyway, a girl from my class came to check on me in the bathroom and then she went back and told them I was sick and brought me back my stuff. Hopefully the rest of my day we will be better than this. I get to dissect a pig in bio lab!! Michele and I will be working on an art piece most of the night, which hopefully turns out the way we want.

2008-11-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

-Today I filled up my car for $20 ! ! ! ! ! !!

-get submissions ready for Night at the Dodd, due on FRIDAY by 4 PM!

-JOG JOG JOG JOG JOG JOG J O G

-collect branches, leaves, whatever i can find.

-sing christmas tunes

2008-11-08T21:02:00.001-08:00

Patience, Patience, Patience..

2008-11-06T15:27:00.000-08:00

Should I post old cheesy poems from my adolescence?

2008-11-05T21:16:00.000-08:00

I visited my friend at the nursing home today and she brought up the elections. I don't think she really even knew about it until today. I asked her what she thought about Obama and she said, "I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm used to the white ones." It was really weird hearing someone say something racial. I mean, I know that those people exist but I don't really hear it first hand much. I honestly hadn't thought much about Obama being black. Anyway, something that really made my heart explode was watching a husband bring his wife lunch and sit with her. I've seen him come there a couple of other times but it didn't really affect me until today. I watched him walk up, go inside to get her and come back out to sit outside. He brings a thermos that looks like its from the 70's with sweet tea. He goes inside and gets two cups with ice and they just sit there and talk about the beautiful leaves. I'm not sure why she has to be at the nursing home; I guess because he can't take care of her. They seem so in love and it makes my heart ache and long for that kind of love.

mixed emotions

2008-11-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

I'll keep my guns, money, and my freedom. YOU can keep the change!! Why are you STUPID PPL picking your president because of his color!! YOUR THE RACISTS!!!
My PRESIDENT IS BLAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
moving to Costa Rica. The place is beautiful, people are nice, 99% literacy rate, etc. Anyone else want to come?
mourns his country's poverty of character and wisdom.
is very afraid for our nation! God help us!!!
is saying congratulations to our new president.. Yea I cried some.
.I can't believe Obama won!!!!! We r screwed!!
s soooo happy "YES WE CAN" GO Obama!!!!!! Yes we can america lets come together and keep the dream alive don't hate plz lets love and keep making change.
doesn't hang all her hopes on this man, but is glad that she helped elect someone who has so much hope!
My President is Black!!! Email Jesus, tellem foward to Moses, and CC Allah!!!
gives up and is now looking for properties in Britain, which will soon have a Conservative government, and has always had The Arsenal!

2008-11-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

Tonight I watched my favorite movie. <3

2008-11-03T22:45:00.001-08:00

“As you are superior to us, we, too, are superior to you. For your need for us is no less than our need for you."

titlebux starbux

2008-11-03T10:38:00.001-08:00

I finally got a starbucks gift card so that I can use the internet. You have to put a minimum of 5 dollars on the card. I'm supposed to be typing a paper but I can't seem to start it. Why do people always ask me who I voted for? I think because they want to learn about who I am through which candidate I support. I don't really like that idea and that's why I don't like to really endorse a candidate. I wish people could understand that being a christian doesn't mean you have to be within a certain political party. I also wish people took into consideration ALL Life issues.

2008-11-03T00:13:00.000-08:00

Untitled from bitsybranches on Vimeo.

2008-11-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

Another reason to hate starbucks: they have wobbly tables that knock over your coffee and make a big mess and josh falls out of his chair and then you have to clean it up with obama and mccain and they get real messy and their faces get soiled in coffee and then the starbuck's employees don't care and josh's phone gets ruined and he thinks its all his fault because that's what starbucks want to make you believe--that everything is OUR fault! But if you were wondering, starbucks is giving away free coffee on election day...only if you can prove you voted for OBAMA.

2008-10-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be Juno for Halloween.

2008-10-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

2008-10-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

I was using Tumblr but it doesn't allow any communication between the blogger and the reader and I think that's important.

Tonight I jogged for a mile and it made me feel accomplished.

I'm going to post some doodlings from my journal.