soupy sunday

It has been a loooong time since my last random blog and I have a few partially started ones just hanging out in space. So, they’re all being thrown together in one, huge, bubbling pot of random. Here’s a heaping helping of random for your Sunday.  🙂

I wonder how much easier life would be without expectations. I read somewhere that disappointments are the difference between what one expects and what one receives. How simple would life be if we didn’t place our expectations on people? On circumstances? What if we just allowed ourselves to accept anything that came along and didn’t fret over what could have/ should have/ would have happened? With out expectations there are no disappointments, right? But then, would no expectations color life in a monochromatic way? Or would pleasant surprises be all the more pleasant? I’m a deep thinker, today.

Sometimes, I just don’t feel like doing anything except being silent and ignoring my thoughts.

Love doesn’t leave you where are: content with your shortcomings and slipping into complacency. It challenges you to grow, change, morph. I’m sure a butterfly experiences some level of pain while being transformed. But what if the butterfly shunned that temporary discomfort and chose to stay as a caterpillar? It wouldn’t experience anything extraordinary. Our old nature is comfortable, but our new nature is freeing and beautiful. Pain? Sure there will always be some level of pain. But what makes the butterfly beautiful is not her new, colorful guise- it’s knowing what it took for her to get to her new state. The mystery entrapped; visible to no one but God. An intimacy between the Creator and the Creation, experienced by only those two during a specific season. It’s envy-evoking.

I just saw this quote on Twitter and I really like it: “What if God doesn’t owe us an explanation? What if He is…God!?” and it reminds me of answering one of Malachi’s many causewhy?! demands with, “Because I said so! Because I’m the boss!” And also because I know what’s best and he, with his little four-year-old-mind, knows nothing of the world I know. And I, with my twenty-seven-year-old-mind, know nothing of the world that God does.

“Our worst prayers may really be our best. God seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us off guard.” -C. S. Lewis

I’ve been wriggling around with a certain beef I have with this new social society in which we live. After using Twitter for about a year (I closed by account, re-opened it and haven’t used in since) and since being on Facebook for almost four years, I’ve found this inability to form thoughts or sentences (read: blog) consisting of more than 140 characters; it’s driving me absolutely bonkers! My attention span just calls it quits and I have to concentrate to think beyond my initial thought. Maybe another sabbatical is in order; you know, to maintain the human part of me; to connect with real people in real life and have real heart-exchanges.

I cannot even tell you the glee boiling up in my soul for Japanese thrift stores. I LOVE THRIFTING. And I feel like I shall have to dedicate a blog or two to the epic things I find. I don’t even need to accumulate material possessions to appreciate the cathartic experience of just exploring. Textures, patterns, weird art, teeny tiny appliances- it all adds up to , I feel, the real Japan.

I think my new thrill in life, besides Japanese thrifting (obvsly), is refurbished… anything! When I see old, rugged chairs I want to take them home and make them pretty. My refurbished vanity has sort of lit the spark of excitement, of what could be;  but I’m not, you know, at the point of digging through garbage bins or anything, *laughs nervously*…