I don't understand why people say that God is an invisible being. God is visible. He shows Himself every day. In flowers. In the grass growing up between the cracks in the sidewalk in an inner city where nature is suppressed and rarely seen. In a baby's giggle.
 People always say that God is silent. That He no longer communicates with men. People just aren't listening so they call the whispers silence. The stillness death. The waiting breath aloofness. The peace disinterest. All we have to do to hear God, is talk to God.
 I wonder if God ever feels vulnerable. He is constantly showing Himself and being rejected. Speaking and being ignored or, worse yet, mistaken for something else. And yet He keeps putting Himself out there. He keeps speaking even though few heed His voice. He keeps showing up even when people get so caught up in their mundane, trivial, insignificant little lives to notice Him.
 God is everywhere. He is in the wind. He is in the rain. He is in the music. I love that because that means that we can feel Him when we walk across the beach or down a street. We can dance and sing in Him. We can be called to worship through Him.

fall

 Wow, it's been a long time. It's no longer warm outside everyday (although it has been pretty beautiful as of recent days). It's now October. The end of October. The halloween decorations are displayed on almost every lawn. The trees are no longer beautifully covered with yellow and red and orange hues. Now they are brown. Today, we (my mother, sister, friend, and I) blew all our leaves onto the garden and burned them. That aroma, combined with that of the freshly mowen grass to brought much joy and jubilation to my heart. And nose.
   Now I am showered, no longer smelling of fall's perfume, and ready to walk out the door to spend the evening sitting in a church house, listening to someone I don't know, talk. Good-bye.  

last year

      A year ago, I wasn't in too great a place. I couldn't go to church because I was petrified of running into him. A year ago, I didn't know what the next year would hold. I still don't know what the next year holds. A year ago, I had very few goals beyond getting out of bed in time to not be late to drag myself through yet another dreaded day of school. I didn't go many places. I didn't see many people. I was very shy and could barely get up the guts to talk in class. I had such a terrible stage fright that I had to enunciate carefully in order to not have my words come out all jumbled and disoriented. I was disoriented. I could barely keep my thoughts separated from my conversations. My stories from books I'd read. My dreams from movies I'd watched.
   Now: I start mini conversations with drive through people. I sometimes get a minor glare from my teacher telling me it's time to be quiet. I go to church ever Sunday. I have goals. I have even more stories but I can keep them straight. I watch fewer movies but my dreams have exploded. Sometimes I wake up barely rested because of my dreams. I actually have to wait on the clock sometimes in order to not show up at my charge's place before he's ready to go. It's a good change.

9/11

    Today, nine years ago, some one left there child at day care and never got to pick him up. A man kissed his wife good bye but never hello. A daughter was too rushed to call her mom and never got the chance. Someone got on a plane and never walked off. Someone had dinner plans and never showed up. Someones baby never breathed air. Today, nine years ago, lives were lost. Let's never forget them.

voices and music

    I have a confession. I hear voices. I'm not talking about schizophrenic, talking to myself and twitching sort of voices. It's background noise voices. I also listen to music in my head. A lot. I'll read my Literature to a marching band tune with tubas and snares, and I'll absorb my Algebra to a grand orchestra. Science is jazz.
    But getting back to the voices. I will think "out loud" to myself. I will write parts of my many half finished "novels". I will replay segments of conversations in my head. The funny thing about that is that sometimes the voices of people I know and hold dear to me will become distorted and change and though I will know who it is, I just can't hear their real voice. And strangers. Sometimes I can't forget their voices. The exact enunciation of their words. Sometimes the hello from the Wal*Mart greeter will play over and over in my head until I realize that I've composed an imposing refrain with the echoes of the stranger's voice. The superficial dip for "to" will be a resounding low tenor and the slight rise in "Wal" will promote itself to a resonating crescendo. I will close my eyes and picture myself as the small boy from August Rush, directing the orchestra that plays in my head. Then I'll get distracted by how cute that T-shirt is or how cheap the chicken is and the song will be over. Later in the day I'll try to get it back but it will be gone.
    Have you ever tried to remember what was just circling you mind? It's hard, but it is possible. Our brains are never silent. They bug us nonstop and the only time we can really tune them out is when we lie, inert, in a deep dreamless, sleep. But the alarm sounds and we are instantaneously bombarded by questions and thoughts and sections of barely remembered songs. Sometimes we went to bed too late the night before and we don't accept thought back into our heads for a few minutes but just because we close our eyes, does the world no longer exist? 
   Have you ever read your newest discovery in an accent? I do that. I use that technique to help me to remember the content of my Social Studies and last year's Biology. Scottish is my favorite accent. I can't speak it, but in my head, it's perfect. 

who am i

       Today, my teacher asked me another question that made me think. He asked "Who is Virginia?" I didn't know what to say. Am I who my dogs think I am (ruler of the universe)? Am I who my siblings think I am (that pesky little sister)? Or am I who my friends think I am? I don't know who my friends think I am. Am I any of these things? Do I put up a front or is this who I really am?
       Something that some one (I can't quite place who) said in the barely past past, also caused me to pause: where are you today compared to five years ago? Five years ago I was in 6th grade. I was decent in school. I kicked boys and I was most likely quite immature (at least if I would look at me today five years ago, I would probably think me immature). I was tall for my age (now I'm just under average height) and I didn't have a dog. I was sleeping on a floor and I was probably bugging the day lights out of my cousin who was living with us at the time. I was naive and gullible (I nearly drank diesel fuel). I spent my days outside riding bike and playing on the round bails with my neighbors/friends. Life was good. Since then, I've gone through a period of being unable to get out of bed in the morning. A period where all I did all day was watch movies and read books and sleep. I barely ever ate and I almost never left the house. Life was not good. But I've worked through some things in the last year and hopefully the upcoming year will announce itself in a much more tenacious voice. Life is good again. 

new beginings

       Today, the torture chambers were reinstated. I was awoken at an ungodly hour, dreading what the day would insinuate. Regardless of the trepidation I have about the upcoming year (an ostensible 9 month eternity), I have to admit that I am slightly ebullient at the prospect of new experiences. My teacher said something in the morning assembly/devotions that caused a, brief as it was, hesitation in the goings on of my brain and provoked me to ponder relativity and view points. He explained to us in a way impossible not to fathom, that some times little things are indubitably big things. Example: "I would not have you ignorant, brethren" versus "I would not have you, ignorant brethren." See the difference? A comma is a very small thing but it makes the biggest difference. That made me think of other things that seem small (or big) and are actually the opposite: hugs, the earth compared to us and the earth compared to the "grand scheme of things" i.e., the universe? To us the earth is very large but in reality it is quite diminutive. Another example is myself. To a baby I look large, to a Samoan, I would most likely look small. To me, I am all I am. If you look at the whole world, however, how am I special. It's a point of view.

early hours

        I went out this morning to see a sunrise, but what I saw instead was golden rods. And ironweed. And Queen Anne's Lace. I saw fog and mist and rabbits. I saw spider webs so laden with dew that they bowed the grasses the were attached to. I saw a fluffy white tail wagging among the tall grasses and weeds as its owner sniffed out something to hunt. There was a stillness which built to a climax which together synthesized a crescendo and the phrase: 'and bursting forth in glorious day' took on a whole new meaning. What I saw this morning was God's beauty in a way that few people ever open themselves up enough to witness.

realizations

         Today, as I was driving around town, trying to kill time till my pizza was ready to be picked up, I decided to get ice cream at this cute little shop I'd heard about. I stepped in at it was like stepping back in time. There were antiques every where, a bar with those old bar stools that you don't see very often anymore, and this sweet looking old lady standing behind the bar. She said hi and asked what she could get for me. When I told her that I had never been there before and thus, didn't know what I wanted, she looked shocked and slightly aghast and asked where I was from. I said "here". "But this is our eleventh summer!" she exclaimed "how could you have never been here before?" I just shrugged but that question got to me. "How could you have never been here before?" I didn't know the answer. Then I realized that there were actually a lot of places in our little village that I had never been to before. The answer to the question, I now realize, is that I was always too busy. Too rushed to get somewhere and be bored that I had never took the time to explore. To show interest in my own hometown. I have never read the local paper (we get ours from the nearest big city which is close to an hour away), I had never walked down the sidewalk on a lazy afternoon. I have never played Frisbee in the park. Then I made another decision. I am going on a mission. I will entitle my mission: Mission Ascertain Erudition. My mission begins tomorrow.
       But now I have a longing. I long to be able to breeze through school. I ache to be old enough to get a full time job that I might not even like. I yearn to rent a tiny house with a backyard for  my dogs and a small herb garden and some flowers. A house that I can turn into my masterpiece. Decorated to my liking with miss matched furniture and a blue and yellow tile kitchen where I can perfect the art of gourmet cooking. A house that I pay for and I clean and is mine. I itch to have my own car that I can use without feeling guilty for putting miles on or getting dog hair in. One that I chose when that film of grit become too much and decide needs washing.
    
        The sun has set, the dogs have eaten and are bedded down for the night, the lights are turned down, and the night grows chill. Showers are to be had and a bed is meant to be slept in. An alarm anticipates awakening me. A sunrise is designed to be witnessed. A God aspires to be worshiped.
       Tomorrow, I will rise with that alarm, I will witness that sunrise, and I will worship that God.

the beginning of an experiment...

    Today, I made some decisions. I called someone, I drove somewhere, I started a blog. I rose, I lived, I go on. Life goes on. Tomorrow I will make more decisions: what dress to where, shoes or flip flops, what to eat for breakfast. Life is a series of decisions. Good decisions and bad decisions. I can wake up and decide "I will" or "I won't". Thus far, I think that I've made more good decisions than bad ones. I have hugged a friend when she was crying and felling helpless in the goings on in her life. I have loaned a friend money at McDonald's so that she wouldn't be the only person without something to savor. I have also skipped school when I probably should have gone. I have missed social events because I wanted to watch a movie or read a book. I won't. I have. I will. Life continues.