you are not hardcore

until you have tried


captain crunch






in five day old









coffee.



















it makes eating cereal.... interesting

... captions?

Pied Beauty

Something a bit different this morning. We're wrapping up my Victorian Literature class with a look at some of the period's poetry. A bit of a shame since this stuff is so fun. I was assigned a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. His name sounded vaguely familiar, but it still gave me those shivers that only curiously worded Victorian names can give you (oh don't snort out there in the back, you know that you have shivered over long 19th century names at least once in your life!!!).

Aaaanywho. I actually had my eye on another poet, so I was a bit bummed when I got this fellow; however, Pied Beauty also sounded vaguely familiar so I held my breath...

Turns out this fellow is brilllllllliant! The things he did with language were amazing, specially for a guy who didn't always feel that poetry was really his proper calling! Apparently he invented his own mini version of the sonnet, called the curtal sonnet (11 lines instead of 14), and he thought he'd share it with us mathematically like this:
.
!¡!¡!¡!
Yea, that's what I said.

Anywho, Pied Beauty is a treat, and since it's only 11 lines long I give it here for your pleasure:

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

And, for a parting shot, wanna have your head blown off by this one? (pun intended :P)
try reading it aloud, it's ten times funner (I include this word for Amy's enjoyment...) that way

The Windhover
To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,	5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion	10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Walking worthy

We were meeting with Mr. York on campus yesterday and I believe all got some comfort an encouragement. We kindof shared how we struggle with scheduling, how to spend quality time with the Lord while still being faithful to our studies (and our families… and our friends… and maybe work…).

Anywho, he told us one thing that was a comfort to him when he was working through these same things in college was just the idea of walking with the Lord. The fact that, yes, we do need to spend concentrated times of worship every day – be in prayer or in the Word, even if it’s really short, but there’s something more too. Mr. York called it ‘practicing the presence of the Lord’ even while we’re just doing the daily activities of life. Christ is the center of our lives whether we’re reading our Bible, or studying for anatomy, or spending time with a friend (or hey, even making our bed in the morning). He hears us, loves us, and cares for us even when we’re not talking directly to Him, so we can treasure up a sense of His presence really at every waking moment (if you think about it) because that’s when He’s with us.

Well the reason all that came into my head at 6:30 this morning was because of a meditation out of Piper’s Taste and See: Savoring the supremacy of God in all of Life that I was reading. One quote seemed to ring a bell with what Mr. York was saying. Piper was talking about the phrase “worthy of” in the New Testament, and he quoted a couple of verses:

“Walk worthy of the Lord, to please Him” (Col 1:10 emphasis added). and then

“Without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb 11:16)

Then he adds:

So think this way. Not: I must have faith and love so as to be worth God’s favor; But rather: God’s favor is free and it is infinitely worth trusting. Walking worthy of that favor means walking by faith because faith is the one thing that agrees with (and fits) our bankruptcy and God’s infinite “worth.” Looking to God’s infinite worth for our help and satisfaction is “walking worthy of God.”

Set your minds on this greatness. Savor the incomparable trustworthiness of God’s promises. Ponder what acts will fit with this. And then rise up and be doing – “worthily of the Lord.”