punch brothers

check out Chris Thile's (formerly of Nickel Creek) new band, Punch Brothers.

They are coming to Columbus March 7. If you're game, I'm game.

my life in couches

My English class this quarter is called "Environmental Autobiography: The Nonfiction of Place." So I've been thinking about my life through the lens of place lately... trying to break it down into specifics and not just Columbus, Springboro, Atlanta. I also just finished Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love which essentially is a work of nonfiction of place. And Gilbert's documented journey from Italy to India to Indonesia quickly worked its way up on my list of recommended books. So, in thinking about my life through place, my mind jumped to... couches. (Can couches be a place? Well, they are now.) When I think about how much time I've spent sitting, lounging, snuggling, napping, jumping and occasionally spooning on couches, it adds up! And I think, if I can name and recall specific couches from different places and periods in my life, then a couch must be identifiable as a place.


To begin with: Those big, comfy, fall-into-them jean couches which always find their homes at Young Life camps. My first experience with them being at Rockbridge. Granted, they are rather old and you might have to give the cushions a good coupla punches, those worn jean couches feel like home. They swallow you up the way your friend or grandfather hugs you when reuniting after a long time apart. Soft, warm, home.


Next: The couch in the lobby of Deer Creek. I think I spent most of my weekend there last year. Catching up with my friends, sharing what God was doing in our lives, laughing too much for the people around us, taking too many pictures. Being reunited with these friends who helped shape who I am. That couch became a part of our weekend as we uncovered truths together, sought to know our Maker, and shared triumphs and defeats.


Starbucks. Big leather couch or old purple velvet armchair--take your pick. Countless hours have I spent in the welcoming couches of Starbucks. Sure, occasionally I have probably taken too much liberty in feeling comfortable and at home in them, slipping off my shoes and snuggling in...but then again, isn't that what they are there for? I can't even begin to consider all the conversations I've had with people in those couches and armchairs at Starbucks. But I can recall piling too many girls onto a couch, falling into that velvet armchair with my arms up in defeat, and jumping out of the same armchair at the sight of a much missed friend.


This is the couch at a house in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland where I recently spent a weekend with my roommates. Very quickly, we transformed that living room into our own by relaxing, lounging, and playing in the couches. I don't know what it is about girls, but for some reason we really do love to just pile onto a couch, regardless of where we are. The house became our home for the weekend and that couch our couch as we learned more about each other.

I've read so many books, watched countless movies, had endless conversations and done innumerable other things in couches across the country. But more than these tangible things, I've built relationships, witnessed lives changing, and encountered my Savior from the comfort of these listed places. It seems trite, but I truly have grown and lived in and from these couches. I've buried my face and cried in them, laughed uncontrollably in them, battled through some of the hardest conversations in them, collapsed into them praying for God to just meet me there. Consider the actual physical places where you've spent your life, I bet you'll be surprised to find some unexpected ones.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

http://www.worstpreviews.com/trailer.php?id=92&item=0

disregard the "worst previews" ...it's one of the few links that worked and came out clear.

also, get excited!!

chicago and 21

free hugs and "home for christmas"
they offer
he begs, hopes
sitting on newspaper
with soaked-through shoes
Ezekiel in Starbucks and gloves on feet
in the midst of dry bones
"home for christmas" and happy birthdays
snow and snow and snow
am i really any different?
only a child of the Creator,
and that is enough.

love and love
and home for christmas.

books.

this is my bookshelf:

I haven't read all the books in it yet. I think this is okay? but some, I've read into the double digits.

Anne of Green Gables reminds me of Jenna, Julie, and Abby. I found it in the children's section at Half Price Books. It even has pictures in it. And I love it.

The Dharma Bums is my link to Shannon, my fellow barista/Starbucks extraordinaire.

So what if there's a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms?

And two full copies of the entire Chronicles of Narnia?








some of them are children's books, some are theology, classics, or maybe just favorites. But I think I figured out what I want to do... I want to have my own bookstore with a cafe, and I want kids to come in and sit for hours reading, beginning to appreciate literature, expanding their knowledge, riding across America with Kerouac, discovering Narnia with Lucy. Journeying from Savannah to London to Africa to Seattle, and maybe even out of this world. I want it to be like a library, where they can grab a book off the shelf, read a bit, and put it back when they're finished. They don't have to buy any books, but maybe once they've read a certain one a few times, they'll decide it's time. Time to have a fresh one to be personalized; to be worn, underlined, and distinct. To fill someone else's shelf.

spurgeon just rocked my world.

wow. you need to go buy CH Spurgeon's Morning and Evening. Here is today's Morning (it's long but I just had to copy the whole thing):

The LORD is a jealous...God. Nahum 1:2
Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did He choose you? He can't bear that you should choose another. Did He buy you with His own blood? He can't endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that He would not stop in heaven without you; He would sooner die than have you perish, and He can't endure that anything should stand between your heart's love and Himself. He is very jealous of your trust. He will not permit you to trust in an arm of flesh. He can't bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the overflowing fountain is always freely available to you. When we lean upon Him, He is glad, but when we transfer our dependence to another, when we rely upon our own wisdom, or the wisdom of a friend--worst of all, when we trust in any works of our own, He is displeased, and will chasten us that He may bring us to Himself. He is also very jealous of our company. There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in Him only, this is true love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret communication with Him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord. He would preferably have us abide in Him, and enjoy constant fellowship with Himself; and many of the trials which He sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the creature, and fixing them more closely upon Himself. Let this jealousy which would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us, for if He loves us so much as to care this much about our love, we may be sure that He won't allow anything to harm us, and will protect us from all our enemies. Oh that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!

true confession

you know when you're having a bad day, or even just an off day? and people say things to you like, "You know, it's okay to smile." Well, things like that just make me more upset or pised, or wanting to punch that person in the face. Sorry, a little extreme, I know... but when it's some random person who comes into Starbucks and I am making his $4 latte and for those 3 minutes I am not smiling (because making a latte is really not that exciting) and he tells me it's okay if I smile, I kind of just want to throw the latte in his face.
don't judge me please..

The other day I found out that my parents had our dog put down, and didn't actually take him to a farm like they had told us. I haven't had a dog since 3rd grade, and I just found out about this 4 days ago. Maybe you're thinking, "Well, the whole 'going to the farm' scenario has been used countless times and you should have caught on" but I was 9 years old people! And now I am 20. While it is kind of hilarious that I'm just now finding out, it's also pretty sad... and this is what I wanted to scream at the guy who told me to smile at Starbucks.