Oh, look, an actual post.

There is a reason I have not been writing much lately.

It is mainly because I am afraid of cliches. Yes, here I go again.

The thing is, that words are so limited. I still haven't gotten over this. They simply do not capture the depth of what truth is.

I'm sitting here, thinking and feeling and understanding and knowing all sorts of beautiful, complicated, twisted things. Things I want to say, things I don't want to say. I'm existing, and so are you. And I want to take you by the hand and race you to the top of the mountain and show you what it's like.  I want the essence of me to be able to communicate freely with the essence of you. I wish we could kythe.

Because, you see, it's very frustrating to hear the knowledge of a truth (like, "everyone needs to be loved,") and to grow up and suddenly understand the depth of what it means, to glimpse a tiny fraction of its eternal depth and then have to limit all of that understanding to the exact same cliche words you've always heard over and over. They used to not have meaning, but now they do -- yet the words themselves have not changed.

I am always fighting with the words, with the language that holds me down. I fear being another voice that says the same thing. I have ideas in my head of what I would like, but they lack the experience to put them into action.

I believe I have made the mistake of living for the words themselves. I think a lot of people do that, but I could be wrong.  But that instead of living for truth, I have lived for an ability to write about it. I have been a poet, not a warrior.

We think that in this age, so much has been thought and we have so many resources. And we do. But we also need to think for ourselves, we need to write even if the thought has been written before. I cannot shy away from thoughts that have already been said. I must embrace them.

I need to live the truth, not the words.

It hurts like heaven.

My brother writes beautiful things.

The Tricky Part of Dreaming

Two delightful reads for you, friends:

This amazing article on teaching and learning,

And a post about the beautiful, complicated, very twisty turn-y thing we call growing up.

There comes a day when, you look at your life and realize you are in that place, that time frame that everyone reminisces about when they are 30. You're no longer "too young" to live alone or have a boyfriend -- because right now, you are living those precious days that shape the rest of your future, forever. It's when you're young enough to do stupid things, but old enough to make it happen on your own. It's when life begins to change in ways you never thought it would -- not drastically, not tragically, neither for the worse or for the better -- just change. When you realize you are growing up, not in that way of turning 12 and being allowed to stay home by yourself, or turning 16 and being able to drive. It's your person, it's your being, it is struggling to free itself into the new world of adulthood without losing the joys of childhood. When you realize that your parents' stories of "we met freshman year" and "that's when I decided to major in history" is the timeframe of life that you are living right now. There is so much at stake, so much that could change at each move -- yet to recoil and hide in fear would be detrimental. You have to fight for what you want, risk failing at it, you have to be able to be in wonder, to be vulnerable, like when you were 12 -- but to respond to it with a heart and soul that has been molded by time. You have to move forward, you have to take a deep breath and cling to the people you love, who love you back, to what little truth you know, because the world is dark, and light is precious.

Landing in a bucket. Or an umbrella. Or possibly a lampshade.

You know that "trust" game that we used to play as kids?
Or in Sunday school during youth group?

You fall back and you trust the person behind you to catch you. (or supposedly. That was the point, at least)

Faith...trust...it's not just that. Because when you're standing there trusting that person to catch you, you are also expecting them to. You know they're going to do it. (or at least try to. You get the idea.)

Faith isn't like that.

Faith is wild.

And God is not always going to catch you with his arms.


Earth shattering, I know. We like that picture to go with the song, oh, I'm happy in your arms or something mushy like that.

Sometimes he's going to let you fall for a long time before he catches you. Sometimes he's going to use a parachute and make you think you're falling and then you realize you're not. Sometimes he'll use something bizarre, like an upside down umbrella. Pokey. but it works, you know? Or maybe a blanket, or a swimming pool, or a tardis. Or a bucket. That would be painful.

The point is, he is going to catch you, you just don't know how.

Trust is not expectation.

Trust is placing your faith in the truth that God knows what you need, not what you think you need. It is knowing that it is not up to me to decide whether I get land on a fluffy mattress or a bed of pillows. Actually, it might be a bed of blackberry bushes for all I know.

The choice is not mine. The outcome is unknown. But the peace is transcendent.

Now if you'll excuse me while I go crawl in a hole with my textbook....

Life was meant to be shared.
Joy is not our own.
Laughter is best with another.
Freedom is sweet in the company of many.
Love was not meant to possess, but to be poured.
Community is sweet,
   and in it we have safety.

One is mighty,
   Two is strong.
        Three is not easily broken,
But together we can be unstoppable.
                                       Together we can change the world.

But we are not delirious, not disillusioned.
Not blindly optimistic,
not shouting out happiness just because we can.

We are all hurting,
      but we are finding healing.
We are selfish,
      but we are finding out how to love.
We screw up,
     but we will continue to forgive.
Heartbreak is necessary,
     and I will embrace it.
We are finding -- not a hope that is naive,
     but a hope transcendent.

A strength beyond feeling.

This is not a battle cry.
It is not a blundering, blind pressing forward just to get through.
It is not an inspirational high.

It is the transcendent,
it is peace,
and it is beyond my understanding.

Desperate for a Desperate Heart

My fire is dying.
The toxic smoke
    smothering.
Numbing.

To love is to be vulnerable.
To come alive is to know sacrifice.

Light my soul on fire.
Burn these things I cling to,
   teach me to let go
to sacrifice
and then set it ablaze

So I can run,
   so I can feel
   so I can keep fighting.

You are the source of my flame,
   do not let it die.

The process of creativity must be found within the greater context of our pursuit of God. If we pursue creativity outside of this context we open ourselves up to self indulgence and competitiveness where the end product can impede, rather than aid, the church. As we pursue after God, the Spirit crafts His heart within us. The desire of self recognition and attention dwindle in the light of the divine desires for God’s glory and the beauty of His bride. 

-Rend Collective Experiment

The Abyss of Adventure.

This life is wild and precious.

I only have one.

Each day, each moment, each year -- it will only happen once.

It is not a safe journey. It is not a comfortable trail.

And I am not fearless. I am a coward, I am afraid of pain and suffering, I am afraid of losing, afraid of letting myself go into the unknown.  Afraid of not being liked, afraid of failure...the list is endless.

But that fear is alright, because I am not on a journey to become a fearless hero. I am on a journey to know my Creator. To seek and find the truth.

That fear is alright, because I have a God who is beyond me. Even if I don't feel comfortable in my own skin...my God did not make me for this world.

There was this moment this past weekend in which I found myself sandwiched in the backseat of a friend's car as a surprise for her birthday. Head down, feet tucked under -- trying to be as inconspicuous and small as possible.

I watched glimpses of trees blip past my small, poorly angled view of the window -- able only to wonder what was really going on when the brakes were slammed on or the road suddenly got bumpy. And I had no concept of when we'd get there or how long the trip was.

But listening to the music coming from the speakers, loving the voices and conversations of the driver and passenger, I realized I was able to enjoy each moment while it was there because there was no telling -- not even the slightest hint -- of how long it would be there.

The end of my story is unknown.

The reasons behind events I encounter are unseen.

My view of reality is skewed, narrow, limited.

And I am not fearless.

But perhaps I can be brave. Perhaps I can have courage.

Perhaps this abyss holds adventure.

Scenes from a summer

{location: outside on the deck under the stars}

Me: "This is perfect. All we need is a blanket and some tea."
John-Luke: "And a big sister."

(later)
Me: "I wish I had a big sister."
John-Luke: "I don't."
Me: "Why?"
John-Luke: "I'm not sure I could take two of you."

Me: Look at that tiny star. It's moving, but not like a plane, like a little bug.
John-Luke: "Maybe it's a mosquito. With a flashlight."

Questing.

There are days where it seems as if transcendence is lost.

As if this quest might be a lost hope, deep in the darkness of the dungeon. 

  

But it is not. We will refuse to believe otherwise.We will press on through the darkness.

"Do you think it is a terrible thing to hope when there is really no reason to hope at all? Or is it (as the soldier said about happiness) something that you might just as well do, since,in the end, it really makes no difference to anyone but you?" (Kate DiCamillo)

Savour for a moment, if you will, this beautiful song, written by a newfound fellow blogger, Keeper of the Tardis.

One step closer to the end, my heart learns to sing again,

Life’s a journey, not a trial, not a race.

And when I am long gone, they’ll tell my story in a song.

I’ll have lived with a smile on my face.

And though it’s just a simple story, one more to join all the rest.

I lived, I loved, I gave it all I had.

I know that in the tales we dream, we dream of these same things.

Because it was you know… it was the best.

One step closer to the future,

Once more tread upon this road.

Roads go on whether I follow or I stay.

I have found a greater peace,

So come and sing with me.

In this love, I am happy, I am free.

Though I’m just a simple thread in the Tapestry of Time,

I mattered – we all matter in some way.

I’m content to live in grace

And to love with each new day…

And I think love’s all that matters in the end.

See the full lyrics and listen to it HERE. It is simply beautiful.

A thread in the Tapestry of Time.

Excuses for Empty

We've all heard those testimonials -- the story of a friend's struggle with sin and their redemption from it. They say things like "I was chasing empty pursuits that ultimately left me unfulfilled." 

Uh-oh, you say. Hannah's going to take apart another cliche again. 

Well, sort of. Stick with me, okay? 

Every time I hear someone give that kind of testimony ("I was chasing after money...I was pursuing external beauty instead of internal beauty...I was trying to be loved instead of loving others first..."etc etc) I always get this picture in my head of the person sitting down at their desk in the morning and making a list of all the ways they can pursue that sin. 

I imagine them living for it 24/7 the way a homeless man might worry about staying alive. "I was living for myself," they say.

I get this picture of these people praying to themselves. Of them reading books on the topic and listening to sermons, going to conferences...then they literally and deliberately proclaim: "This is what I live for!!! This is my ultimate goal in life!!" 

And despite its incorrectness (although it is possible for people to be obsessed), one can understand this viewpoint, right? If you take the opposite of all those, it sounds just fine. "I'm living for God. My goal is to glorify Him. I am seeking to love others before myself."

But see, the opposite of love is not hate. It's pride. It's complacency. And those aren't things you have to deliberately obsess over in order for them to rule your life. That's the trick of the word. Complacency.

You have to actively seek God. You don't have to actively seek sin. You were born into it. 

Evil sneaks up on you from behind.  It doesn't start out as an obsession. It starts out as a little idea, a harmless idea -- just a little lifestyle improvement.

"You should get some nicer clothes." 
"You can't afford to lose any piano students."
"It would be good if you sounded more polished and confident when you say that."
"A pair of shoes to match this outfit would be nice."
"Your blog posts need to be more winsome and well-written."

...and on the list goes. Are these ideas bad? No, not really. But every time I hear someone say "Now don't get me wrong, these things aren't inherently bad," ...I begin to use it as an excuse for me to continue thinking that way. 

You don't realize it when it becomes too much. It's not an obvious. It's not like you're deliberately trying to be evil. Soon, though, you discover that it has more control than you thought.

Is it my every waking desire? No. Is it obvious to public view? Probably not. Is it the reason I live? Of course not. 

But still has a grasp on me. A grasp I am fighting to be free from. We often limit evil to a proactive thing -- like the bad guy in the movie who is trying to do wrong. But evil is not like that. 

It's not a matter of finding the men in black suits with masks. There is a much deeper battle at play.

Summer Bucket List

Read the Lord of the Rings (Hey...at least I started it! I got lost in the forest somewhere.)
Read the Space Trilogy
Write a New song (only sort of. Like little bits of 3 different songs)
Get permit
Then get license (I AM SO STINKIN CLOSE.)
Climb a new mountain (I did climb old mountains though)
Vacation to the beach
Camp in the backyard
Learn Beethoven's Sonata Op. 10 #3 in its entirety
Buy a violin
Stay off the computer
Pikes Place
Cook dinner more
Read 5 nonfiction books (okay, I started 5…I didn’t actually *finish* 5…)
Learn calligraphy/lettering
Learn to draw
Get a job
Learn to ride a horse (more like clomping around on my friend’s chubby pony…let’s just say I have a ways to go till I’ve actually “learned.”)
Go to the Highland Games (well, I missed the Highland Games due to awana camp. But I went to a rodeo instead. Not the same thing obviously, but I decided it qualified for long-distance outdoor fair-type/entertainment sort of thing)
Learn archery
Find a medieval dress/cloak
Taking a shopping trip to the thrift store
Take pictures in a photobooth at the mall
Get a toy from "THE CLAW"
Write Nana a letter every week
Get hair cut

It was a good summer.

This growing up thing.

Yeah. Not cool.

Where the Stories Go.

I wanted to do a nice re-cap of my summer.

Tell you about what life was without the computer. How positively freeing it is, even though I didn't quite manage it. How I realized that my freedom isn't tied to the internet, it's tied to me.

I wanted to capture the awesomeness of the life I lived this summer into a blog post so you could experience a piece of it. To powerfully put into words the things I discovered.

But...I feel as if...the moment something is written down or expressed in spoken words, it is like you have put a bird into a cage. You have confined it, stripped it of meaning, limited its existence.

Words simply cannot capture the essence of truth. It is beyond, even, what humans could possibly comprehend even with their spirit. Not only is it not limited to words and understanding, but it is completely beyond this reality in which I live.

So much of my life has been lived trying to capture bits of truth into "my book of days." To write it down, to treasure it so that I know exactly where it is and how to find it and can pull it out at the right moment in a way that makes people think I am awesome. Trying to fit the ocean into my cup, to stretch my finite capacities to understand the unreachable limitless world of the infinite.

And I can't. I can't hold onto truth because truth is not mine to hold and keep.

In the words of a dear friend: "I'm not losing something by unfurling my grasp on it. Every single thing that occurs on this earth, that touches me, is still changing the world and molding my journey, my person, whether or not a record is kept of it. "

We are stuck in the in between, we are waiting, pressing on for a goal unreachable on this earth -- yet the very pressing on in and of itself means that we are not failing.

I had hoped to come back to blogging full of fire for writing, but now I find that writing cannot capture truly living. I will still write, I suppose -- but hopefully not in a way that lives for the praise I desire from readers, or from my need to know and understand everything, but simply for the living, for the discovering -- sharing, growing, becoming. To seek understanding without becoming a slave to it.

Mike Donehey (lead singer for tenth avenue north, in case you forgot) said, "I don’t write,
because I know what I’m talking about, I write precisely because I don’t know what I’m talking about....I write to unriddle my heart."

To unriddle my heart.

Farewell for the moment

Ack! It's the first day of summer and I'm frantically posting all of the things I wanted to post before summer began and...well...yeah. So scroll down 'cause I posted some cool things. ^.^

At any rate, I am going "off-the-grid" as they call it around here, and spending my summer free from the computer/internet/technology in general...as much as is physically possible in this world of ours.

I feel as if I have finally reached the point where I can do it without caring about how much the internet world will suffer for lack of my impeccable presence. (snort)

I am, however, posting it on here as a form of accountability to myself -- not because you really need to know, but because embrazening it on the internet somehow makes it official.

Lately I've been really sick of the kind of command technology has over my life and how dependent I am on it.

I think I still might blog occasionally -- as in, write it out in a notebook and type it up on a library computer or something. Anything so that I'm not confined inside the house to a hunk of technology during the summer, but am still free to share thoughts and discoveries.

If you need to contact me, my email is on my profile, and I'll check it every once in awhile. =)

Happy Summer!

Summer Bucket List

Read the Lord of the Rings
Read the Space Trilogy
Write a new song
Get permit
Then get license
Hike a new mountain
Vacation to a beach
Campout in the backyard
Learn Beethoven's Sonata Op. 10 No. 3 in its entirety
Buy a violin
Stay off the computer
Adventure through Pike's Place
Cook dinner more often
Read at least 5 non-fiction books

...and that's just the beginning.

The Games I Play

I've been holding off posting this because, as I've mentioned before, I don't like the possibility of being categorized as one of the screaming fangirl masses. Argh. Here it is anyway. And for those of you who haven't read the series, you can still read this post. =)

My original thoughts about The Hunger Games was mostly that it was a fad, a typical thing-that-everyone-was-into, and that while it's a great series, it wasn't all that deep.

And to an extent, that's still true. It really isn't like Plato or Lewis or even Kate DiCamillo. The second time I read the series through, I was hoping to glean brilliant quotes as I went, and there just weren't any. But there is one genius thing for which I must give Suzanne Collins credit, which I believe most of the screaming fangirl populous doesn't get...which is sickly ironic, especially since they've now made it into a movie.

I'm starting to realize how right she was in the whole series: about the Games. Apparently most of my intelligent peer group understood this way faster than I did...perhaps because I just let myself live in its alternate reality for so long.

My life...is a Game. I'm my own tribute in my own Hunger Games. Fighting to stay true to myself and my values while living in a world that is constantly pushing me to play by their rules while they broadcast false generalizations to the public in order to control the masses.

I have to submit to some form of government. I have to follow the rules when I sign a job contract. I am fighting, always fighting, to stay true to myself, to not be defined by anything else but my Creator. Living in a culture where looks can kill, in a place where media and technology pushes us to form a presentable self that is perfect and conformed -- but is not truly who we are.

Media is mostly a lie. Have you ever watched a video editor at work? Have you ever seen the kind of material they slog through in order to make a finished product? My brother makes movies, and as you know I'm a huge fan of them, so I'm definitely not bashing them.

But they're illusions. They're false realities. Do you know how many takes it took to get that scene right? How many voice overs, sound recordings, lighting changes, and script edits it took to make that 2-minute shot you see in front of you? The costumes, the makeup, the rehearsals. It's not what really happened. In real life they had dozens of cameras and sound equipment hovering over them while they pretended to fall in love or jump off that cliff (onto the cushy trampoline at the not-so-deep bottom).

Video editing -- putting it all together to make it look nice -- is a frustrating process. I've never done it, but I've been in close observation of people who do. You have hundreds of angles of the same shot to choose from, and the splicing and dicing and hours it takes to even get a single scene done can be agonizing.

We allow ourselves to be infatuated with this alternate reality and then become frustrated when our own doesn't line up: but the truth is, it will never line up, because the alternate reality simply is not true. Movies, media -- they are all false perceptions of reality that were jacked up to look fancy, to make us think our lives should be something that they are not.

Television, news, facebook, social media: it's all edited to what people think the world will want to see and hear. It becomes not only a false perception of reality, but a false perception of yourself.

And not only that, but we soon become a slave to it. I still fight my own slavery to the internet. I'm a compulsive email checker. It's like I have to check it every other half hour for some odd reason, in case I miss something awesome. I've probably clicked on the open gmail tab next to this post about 6-10 times in the last hour as I've been writing this post, despite the fact that I know a little (1) will show up if I really have a new email.

I'm a slave. I'm a piece in the Media Games.

We become slaves to false selves. To somebody that does not even exist. To a system that's making us numb, dumb, and complacent -- just like the people of Panem: blindly and hopelessly supporting an atrocious, disgusting game. What other terrible things am I blindly supporting?

Or perhaps worse -- what horrible things in this world am I refusing to take a stance on, to fight against? The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

In the Hunger Games, the gamemakers could do whatever the wanted to get the kids to kill each other. From materializing fireballs from nowhere to creating animals that screeched the voice of someone you knew, they cut the cameras away from the things that they didn't want the public to see, and only showed the gory fighting.

I feel like that's the culture I'm living in. Dressing up the media to make you think your life should be a certain way. Yeah, we don't kill each other -- but maybe we're even worse. We're building up false realities and ideas of perfection and labels and trying to fit everything into it. We're not murdering physical bodies, but we're destroying our souls.

But somehow...somehow, Katniss and Peeta managed to overturn the system. They refused to play the Capitol's Game.

What do we need to do to overturn the system of our culture? Is it even possible? This is the call for something beyond ourselves, the cry of our soul to our Maker. Somehow, none of this is possible without Him. I honestly don't know how yet, but that's the kind of quest that I'm on. The kind of purpose I was made for.

To discover the One who defines me and conform to His version of what my life should be: not my culture's. And then somehow...share that truth with the world that I live in.

Yet another beautiful reason why I love the word 'transcendence'. Watch this video again, or for the first time if you haven't yet. The message is so, so powerful.



It's that moment when you realize that your life has been lived in the face of a projector screen. And suddenly you feel that pull, that call: you were made for more than this. You have a greater purpose beyond letting everyone else just shine their light on you -- you have your own light to shine.

To fight the good fight, you need a drive. You need a purpose -- and it doesn't come from yourself. It doesn't come from your culture. It comes from your Maker.

It's my own, literal, real life Hunger Games.