In need of a bandaid as big as all this.

We are so fragile, every single one of us.

Human life is more akin to a spider's web than any sort of rope, even with the vitamins we take and the utmost care we devote to keeping ourselves as death-free as possible.

Life: it is just so delicate... & the way it is taken from us?

Horrible.

I know we've just celebrated Easter & all, but today it's been harder for me to grasp. "Easter's over? It can't be! You don't understand, there's so much more that needs to be saved!" It's a little more of a desperate plea for reassurance than anything else. Not exactly the joyous living that usually follows this holiday.

This was mostly brought on by a documentary on World War II that my class & I have been watching for our 20th Century course. It's very well constructed, informative, and uses almost exclusively real footage from the war. Now, this is great & everything, very authentic.

But this is where my stomach and heart start to take over, and the appreciative side of my brain fades almost entirely into the background.

Just keep in mind that this blog post is being written by a person who claims violence in movies doesn't bother her at all, that zombies are the greatest, and give her slasher films by the dozen!

Now?

I don't know that I'll be able to stand it again.

Corpses don't look so bad in movies. After all, it's just a stunt actor, or a fake body. Either they'll get up after the shot, go home and eat dinner with their families, or they'll be recycled. No big deal.

But when you see the real stuff, the shells of people, the homes of souls lying there on the ground... You know, for the first time, that no director will call "Cut". There will be no getting up tonight.

There was a story in the episode today about two soldiers, one a Japanese, the other a good 'ol American Marine. The marine had just caught the Jap, who was injured in the back, unable to move his arms, after taking over one of the islands in the Pacific. The marine dragged the Jap by his feet along the ground. As the man screamed, one of the other soldiers noticed his teeth were covered in gold; the marine was going to claim his trophy. He pulled out a knife, and forced it under one of the crowns. The knife slipped, stabbing the roof of the man's mouth. As he struggled against the marine, still screaming, that good 'ol American boy forced his knife back into the man's mouth, slitting his cheeks from ear to ear. A fellow soldier finally noticed, and shot the Jap in the head, putting him out of his misery, but all he got from the marine was curses at the mercy. Even after this however, he didn't stop, but finished extracting the teeth.

And we have the audacity to call war a heroic action.

We have the presumption to say that human life is this expendable.

We have the utter, pure, unadulterated, fucking arrogance to say that it's worth it.

Is it?

Life: it is just so delicate.

We are so fragile, every single one of us.

...

I don't want to think about what seeing these things has done to my soul.

I don't ever want to know.

Because, after knowing that? Death, you do sting. Easter, in all of its reported glory, seems so worthless.

How thankful I am to know that our God doesn't leave us there.

He can't leave us there.

We are so fragile, every single one of us.

We need a Savior, and quickly...

We are so fragile, every single one of us.

More Senior Shots

Numbered Lists

So it is very late at night, and I cannot sleep.

3:31 a.m. precisely.

One of those nights where I decided drinking a soda around midnight really wouldn't affect me much... (For those who don't know this: I'm highly affected by caffeine. Every time I consume it. Without fail.)

Result?

Correct!

Late night and no way to end it.

But, a few exciting things happened tonight:

#1) I attended a Good Friday service at my church, the first one I had experienced there. It was grand.

#2) I actually knelt during the prayers during the service. This may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but it really was for me. Posture and position can have such an effect on the way people engage in worship, and for a long time I have felt convicted to kneel during confession and/or prayer time. Why the reluctance? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe an attempt not to seem hollowly pious? Maybe a general fear of the unknown reaching through my subconscious from a forgotten corner of my childhood? Maybe a fear of carpet imprints on my knees? It could be just one of these reasons, it could be all, but I overcame them by God's grace and knelt. Let's just say that it will become a common practice. Helpful much.

#3) China Wok. P-nut and I ate there after the service ended. Our family inevitably ended up there for several childhood birthday dinners, and other days when we just didn't have any food in the house. Nostalgia factor. Also: I've been craving Chinese food like crazy lately. Satisfaction factor. To top it all off, there was a strange family sitting behind us. Smelled funny, sounded funnier, reacted the funniest when I accidentally made a face at one of them. (To top it all off, P-nut mistook the mom for the dad; she did look a little masculine, it's true, but really? C'mon P-nut.) Funny factor. The food was awesome as well. It was the first time celery tasted good in my mouth... Gotta love those deep-fried-too-many-times-for-your-diet egg rolls. Heart failure all 'round! Fried factor. And I was out to dinner with my sister, which hasn't happened in a while, so that rocked. P-nut factor.

So:

Nostalgia + Satisfaction + Funny + Fried + P-nut = feeling pretty damn blessed.

#4) I found the only video game I'm even interested in playing: Crysis 2. Is this bad? I don't know. We'll see where it all ends up.

...

Well, this is certainly the most random post I've ever posted... But no one is perfect. And their blog can't be either.

Here's to imperfections that, praise the Lord, will be washed away on Easter morning.

Good night, and good sleep!

common experience.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. This girl, though we might find her strange, looked exactly as she should have in her world. She lived in a dark place, with a single spotlight, but somedays it was so dim she couldn’t see it, no matter how hard she tried. This lack of vitamin D caused her ankles to be bony, her skin to be corpse-gray, and her kneecaps never to have blood in them. As she got older, as happened with many of her peers, she began to grow. However (& this is what we might find strange), her bones were the only things that grew. Not the cartilage on the bones, not the skin surrounding it, not the muscles that helped her move. The tendons were able to stretch for a short while, but even that gave out eventually. Her nose disappeared. Her toes made scraping noises on the floor when she walked. It was painful, yes, but so are our lives here. See? It is a simple difference in methods, but when the rubber hits the road we’re just the same.

This is the first of my senior pictures that I've been able to see...

Looking forward to getting the rest of them!

Dimly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JiOCJXeaTU&feature=channel_video_title

This was a video a friend and I made for a 20th Century Class art project.

Thinking about sending it in to the band... & I'm leaning towards that at the moment. :)