Help Me Believe by Nicole Nordeman
---------------------------------
Take me back to the time
When I was maybe eight or nine
And I believed
When Jesus walked on waters blue
And if He helped me, I could too
If I believed

Before rationale, analysis and systematic thinking
Robbed me of a sweet simplicity
When wonders and when mysteries
Were far less often silly dreams
And childhood fantasies

Help me believe
'Cause I don't want to miss any miracles
Maybe I'd see much better by closing my eyes
And I would shed this grownup skin I'm in
To touch an angel's wing
And I would be free
Help me believe

When mustard seeds made mountains move
A burning bush that spoke for You was good enough
When manna fell from heavens high
Just because You told the sky to open up

Am I too wise to recognise that everything uncertain
Is certainly a possibility?
When logic fails my reasoning
And science crushes underneath
The weight of all that is unseen

Help me believe
'Cause I don't want to miss any miracles
Maybe I'd see much better by closing my eyes
And I would shed this grownup skin I'm in
To touch an angel's wing
And I would be free
Help me believe

When someone else's education
Plays upon my reservations
I'm the first to cave, I'm the first to bleed

If I abandon all that seeks
To make my faith informed and chic
Could You, would You show Yourself to me?

Help me believe
'Cause I don't want to miss any miracles
Maybe I'd see much better by closing my eyes
And I would shed this grownup skin I'm in
To touch an angel's wing
And I would be free
Help me believe

Seriously, my shoulders are aching this am from yoga... soon they will look like this though:

As I prepare for this coming year at school, teaching small children the ways of the alphabet and the world, I struggle with what I can and can't say. We had dinner with Marjie and Beth this weekend and of course talk of what's going on in Palestine came up. I'm glad that it's emboldened Beth to do what she's wanted to for some time. I'm thrilled that she's making plans to go back. It just all made me wonder how I'm to explain yet another of this government's actions that I disagree with to my nine and ten year olds. As I often do when questioning these grand injustices of the world, I turned to the poetry of Suheir Hammad. If you haven't checked her out, she's amazing. I ran across my furious underlines in her piece called

On the Brink of.....By Suheir Hammad

On the brink of
tears, sanity and war,
I feel powerless, hope
less and less than alive.

What do we tell young
people? How do we say, "..your
voice means nothing to those
who think life is about power
over others and greed?" And where
is it safe to think for yourself and try
real hard to not want to hurt nobody?

......

How do I tell American you
that popular culture means nothing to
justice and everything to keeping
them numb to the world? And how do I
scream when I have no voice left? And who
will answer these questions for me?

......

What do I tell you people about non
violence when they can see for themselves
how even orange bright and megaphone loud
and cameras and US citizenship will
not stop your murder? I recall
the days black boys were lynched and dis
membered for looking at white women, now
tax dollars are crushing dissent wherever it blooms.

Human Shields for human targets...

........

God has a better imagination
than all of us combined and I do not
know what form retribution will take, but
I have seen Karma happen and it will
again, and when it does I will chant
the names of the innocent and I will stand
with those who have kept their hands clean of blood
and their hearts clear of hate.

It is hard not to hate right now. But I
have been loved, I have loved and I know
that those who de-humanize their enemy are
only doing so to themselves. Peace work
is justice work is God's work......

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Pens (There is a Reason)
by Dan Sully -Check out the link above-

Osip Mandelstam exiled
for writing
“Stalin’s Epigram”
wife persecuted thoughts
like his life
she preserved his work
by reserving to memory

poems.

Boris Pasternak exiled
“Doctor Zhivago”
forced by country
to reject noble prize

Anna Akhmatova expelled
from writer’s union
poems banned 15 years
stripped of ration card
hungry for food
she fed herself with pens
forced to rely on friends
to live. remainder of days.

Dante Alighieri exiled
pen morphed
Italy’s poetry with journey
from satan’s fields
through purgatory
to heaven’s haven;
riddled with epitaphs
of his own banishment

Dennis Brutus jailed
enlightening change
imprisoned in South Africa
cracked stones with Mandela
now writes in US as political refugee

Federico García Lorca lost
feared loved
compassionate, penned
to make art heard
martyred, chastised
because his ink
had men rethink themselves.
Died by the blade of his words.

So tell me Lorca,
what does it mean
to control pens
tattoo blood
into the forearms of paper

be soothsayer
salivating words

at 5 in the afternoon
what does it mean

to gargle stanzas at the end of a sword
chew on line breaks when bullets are locomotives
spit verse to shadowbox perspective

what does there is
it mean a reason

youth are pumping blood into microphone hearts
spitting ink through hungry teeth onto willing paper

there is a reason
maturing spirits are vice
gripping pens and pages
mics and stages
with readied faces searching
for placement and individuality
in a society that tells us we are
everyone else.

there is a reason
teething babies are biting
the hand feeding carnage
to bulimic souls unable
to keep down regurgitated
stream of comatose.

men and women have died
for their writing
made difference where there couldn’t be
change where once was
enslaved hearts, panicked minds
men and women have died
for their writing lived for their writing
bled for their writing loved for their writing
starved for their writing left family for their writing
been exiled sacrificed for a pen.

Now, we are soul prostitutes
singing lipstick bladed songs
on the corner of ocean-smoke

soul prostitutes in this imploding supermarket of spirits
(don’t be pimped by society’s suppression)

wade in the waters of artistry
join Mandelstam, Pasternak, Akhmatova,
Alighieri, Brutus, Lorca

make change and difference with pens
live into word
weave culture within breath
reconstruct the fallen temples of art

have society help us join these epic banshees,
exile us, slice our wrists and eat our heart
so they can taste poetry
then ask writers
what does a pen mean to you?

Ordered Chinese two nights ago, our typical General Tso's Chicken with Shrimp Fried Rice- yum. Didn't eat my cookie until just now, fortune:

Stop searching forever, happiness is just next to you.

I love it.
Going dancing tonight, I really wish Sean would come. I guess I'll just have to have a good time without him. I'd really like to go out with him....

Sometimes I believe all the lies
So I can do the things I should despise
And every day I am swayed
By whatever is on my mind
I hear it all depends on my faith
So I'm feeling precarious
The only problem I have with these mysteries
Is they're so mysterious
And like a consumer I've been thinking
If I could just get a bit more
More than my 15 minutes of faith,
Then I'd be secure
My faith is like shifting sand
Changed by every wave
My faith is like shifting sand
So I stand on grace

-Caedmon's Call

Ordinary no, really don't think so, Not a love this true, Common destiny, We were meant to be, Me and you

Like a perfect scene from a movie screen, Where every dream comes true, Suited perfectly for eternity, Me and you

Every day, I need you even more, At the nighttime too, There's no way, I could ever let you go, Even if I wanted to

Every day I live, I try my best to give, All I have to you, I thank the stars above, That we share this love Me and you

Every day, I need you even more, At the nighttime too, There's no way, I could ever let you go, Even if I wanted to

Ordinary no, I really don't think so, Just a precious few, Ever make it last, Get as lucky as, Me and you.... Me and you

so I talked to a friend yesterday for a long time about choices in her life and my own. She said something about how you have to question your life choices in your twenties, or in your thirties you'll screw your whole life up. She was talking about what she's going to do, how her life plan keeps changing and we were questioning why that is. Then last night at softball, another friend was talking about her husband, how he just moves aimlessly from one thing to the next, never being happy and never staying long. She was saying that she thought it was just him, that he is lazy and unfocused. I was saying that it's a gender thing, that I think a man will stay in a job he hates because he feels the need to provide for his family and that women won't stand for it, they'll quit. Maybe he's just more feminine than she thought! A man sees a job as a means of money, but a woman connects her job to who she is. I think women really need to love their jobs to stay in them, Where as a lof of men hate their jobs, but they get paid really well and so they stay with it. But Sean was talking about this book he's reading, the two income trap, and how it talks about how it used to be that the woman in a family could work if she wanted to or if she needed to, but that now it's really become a necessity to have two incomes in a family in order to support it. It just all brings me again to this place where I'm questioning. There are so many things I would like done for this house. I would love to get artwork up, to get real furniture, to buy new dishes. I go back and forth on these things. I mean, I know that most people our age don't have houses, but we do and i'd like to make it nice inside, not like we're still in college and just throwing some stuff in it while we're here. I know that is all expensive, but like I said, I'd just like it to be nice. Then I go back to well do we really need all this stuff? Is this just society just telling me I need more stuff? I hate this debate. I would love to go out and get some new clothes, some pants that fit and I don't look bizarre in them, but do I really need this stuff? DO any of us really need all this garbage that we spend all this money on? Or does more stuff make us feel more secure/ I don't want a huge house, just a nice one that reflects who we are. I don't want an enormous closet full of expensive clothes, but I'd like to feel like I can get a new shirt or skirt or whatever without feeling like I have to defend it to myself or anyone else. Augh, I don't even know where all this came from this morning. I need to get in the shower, have a great weekend.

SO I watched the movie 50 First Dates the other day. I've seen it several times, Drew Barrymore is my favorite, Adam Sandler is up there. I had forgotten how much I love this movie. Over and over towards the end, Lucy keeps saying, "There's nothing like a first kiss." I adore how he comes up with creative ideas to make her meet him, trying so hard to make her fall in love with him. I love how it seems like the perfect situation for him to be able to skip out on her, but instead it convinces him to stay around. I love how when she decided it was best to cut him out of her life, how she thought it would be best for him, he helped her even though he hated it. When she asked for one last first kiss in the rain, he gave her what she needed even though it killed him. I love this movie. I love how the situation was so unfair to them both, but they came up with a situation where it could work for them. Where they could do it. They figured out a way to make it no matter what. life... ups and downs....