what’s heavier? taking in the world from your back, or standing up in it?

They get the better of me every time.

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
                         – Slaughter House – Five

Possibly my favorite line in all of literature. Certainly, for me the most memorable.  Because it’s brief, no doubt. I’ve been thinking on it. At night, lying in bed. Wishing in someway that it was possible. To come unstuck in time. I’d make use of the gift. Would you do the same? If you could travel to that precise point in time that you, or someone you knew became stuck, paralyzed, wounded, left to hobble or spin or crawl along more blind, more meek in a forsaken way, would you meet them there to pull them unstuck?  
 

The person I imagine myself to be accuses me of being only who I am.

I have been a lot of things already,

The worst being a man with no good ideas.

It’s a blank day.

How will I see that as a gift?

This is an intriguing project  and, to me, rather disturbing.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/11/21/magazine/1194833565213/immersion.html

A certain kind of man will always be in love with two women, simultaneously:

The woman who loves him way better than he ought to be loved. 

And the woman who is, to him, one part mystery and one part imagined perfection. 

That certain kind of man would be wise to figure out it’s not two women he loves, but G_d:

G_d who loves him way better then he ought to be loved.

And G_d who is one part mystery, and one part perfection beyond our imagination. 

Then, finally, that certain man might find himself able to get on with loving just one woman, completely.

Do me, Hmong artists and the community at large a solid by coming out to Visage Night Club this Saturday for their Masquerade Ball. Proceeds from the event go to support the Center for Hmong Art and Talent (CHAT) and their forthcoming documentary project about the emerging expressions and identities of Hmong art. It should be bananas as the kids say if they’re still saying it. There’s even a hefty prize for best dressed couple ($1,000). 

When will I resolve to dissolve?

This is what the sky looked like the day of the Presidential Inauguration. Look, I voted for President Obama. And yes, there seems to be a borderline exaggerated swelling chorus of optimism and relief surrounding the beginning of this new administration. And to his credit he has made some swift and resolute moves, some that I agree with and some I disagree with. It is clear to me, and this is where I very much agree with the man, that as the volume of impending economic doom raises, and old and new wars flare, it is only with the work of our hands that the world can become what our best hopes long for it to be. And rather than thrusting all hope on the governments and princes of this world, I firmly believe that the good acts from any of us are measures of G-d’s grace, unlocked by faith in Him. My personal hope for 09 and for the balance of my days is to be fully free to be indebted to such a living and lifting grace. My sense is that all of creation is yearning for the same thing.