My Portable Heart.
“What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”
—George R.R. Martin - a Song of Ice and Fire
January 2012
Beauty.
I was in my bed, about to go to sleep, when I stopped for a moment and just sat there looking around my room, saying “thank You” for stuff. I was looking at some books on my shelf and I thought about how I just liked how they looked sitting there and I was thankful that they are, or I am made in such a way that I can find them beautiful. I’m not just thankful that I have books, and that books exist, but that they are beautiful, because they need not be. Books could still be books, with all their words and information, but it is the beauty of them that attracts us to them and makes people continue writing them and reading them.
Imagine what it would be like to live in an ugly world. To live in a world that was unattractive, or to live in the same world but for us to be fundamentally different in such a way that we were not capable of finding it beautiful; if we were not attracted to it. Even if everything else was the same, I don’t think anyone would really want to live in that world; there would be no joy or happiness, even if there were still good things and good people. Even if we could still advance science and technology to fight disease and make our live easier, why anyone would choose to do this if no one found the universe beautiful and wonderful and if no one saw beauty in other people is unclear to me. If no one could fall in love with the world and the people in it, no one would be driven to make any improvements, or to add any expression—I don’t even think there would be any expression of sadness, because you only get sadness when you take something you love and care about away.
The fact that we can care about this world and everyone and everything in it is pretty wonderful and amazing and it is so unimaginable to live in a world where we didn’t see beauty. See how incredibly linked and important these small details about our universe are?
“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.” –C.S. Lewis
Thanks, God.
Thank You God for my life today
thank You for Casey, who is far away.
Thanks for my bed, where I lay down to sleep
and thank You for everything that I get to keep.
Thank You for taking the time for me
I know that You’re busy and have others to see
I know You’re needed much more far away
Yet in Your love You decided that right here you will stay
So thank You God, for all the gifts you’ve provided
they could have been anyone’s, but they’re mine, You decided.
Your mercy and graces have shown me Your love
and the glory and majesty of Your home up above
I know that You didn’t have to give us a thing
but You decided instead to deliver us a King.
You decided that each of us deserved a good home
So You stepped down from Your eternal throne
You stepped down from above and You stripped down for us
and for all of our Sins You walked to the cross
You walked there and died so that we may live
We, who take, and have nothing to give.
When I open up with gratitude and love
I can see all the traces You’ve left from above.
So thank You God, for all that I have
You know, this life here, it isn’t so bad.
“3D can sometimes be gimmicky, but when it’s done right, you know it’s worth it and you can really tell that it makes a difference. Life, so far in my experience, has got the 3D perfect; God didn’t do it for the gimmick.”
—
“Have you not seen that in our days
Of any whose story, song or art
Delights us, our sincerest praise
Means, when all’s said, ‘You break my heart?”
—C.S. Lewis
“It is time for the new to replace the old, for the seed to grow into a flower, and for the withered and grey to turn to dust and pass on into the ages.”
—The Longest Journey.
Sincerity.
Sincerity is important to me. Talking from the heart, which doesn’t necessarily mean feelings, but just thinking deeply, and honestly about things. Really being quiet (with yourself) and taking the time to look honestly into your heart and understand what it is that’s there, and then to bring that forward with you and have it on the surface (at least in some areas).
Something like that is appealing to me, and I don’t think I could be like that with everyone all the time - and I dont think I’d want to be anyways - but if I can be like that with just a few close people then I think I’d be doing pretty well for myself.
“We’ll quote Doctor Who
and Lord of the Rings
and C.S. Lewis
and awesome things.” —Casey a.k.a., customizable
and Lord of the Rings
and C.S. Lewis
and awesome things.” —Casey a.k.a., customizable
“I am neither a modernist nor a post-modernist but a pre-modernist. That’s why I habitually feel like a little kid living in a big house full of endless surprises, nooks and crannies. (I’m only 73 and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.) I find the real world wonderful rather than ugly, fascinating rather than boring, mysterious rather than predictable, something that invites wonder, exploration, hope, fear, and innocence rather than cynicism, ironic distancing, and what the philosophers call a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion.’”
—Peter Kreeft (via importable)
Look up to the starlit night
the vast expanse of black, and white
The past lies there, before your eyes
stretched across the starry skies
I miss you in the morning
when I wake up all alone
when everything starts anew, again
into my memory you roam
The morning is always quiet
and your absence fills the space
and in the silence I can hear you coming
but your footsteps leave no trace
But I’m reminded again at daybreak
that my affections carry through
enduring the long and lonely night
and, once again, I think of you
*feel free to do what you want with this poem, just know that it was written for a specific individual. All the words are for her personally. I just wanted it online so I would always have it there with my other writing.
