I exchange my life for words.

Weak, uncertain currency.

*     *     *

Saint Augustine calls the kingdom of the saved “Jerusalem,” and the kingdom of the damned “Babylon.” Maybe that’s what Norwid has in mind when he says “I write from Babylon to Jerusalem—and the letters get through.”

*     *     *

As a spring makes its way to the light, to air. Its toil, its drudgery, its dark transit, like despair.

That’s how the poet works for words. Through muscles, movements. That’s how J.* wrote poems. He paced, he muttered, he waved his arms as though gathering and grasping words.

*     *     *

I wasn’t looking for God at all.

I sought my Dead One.

I’ll never cease repeating this, amazed.

-Anna Kamienska, from “Industrious Amazement: A Notebook“

-Anxious for Nothing, John MacArthur

Somang is as Asian brand so you won’t find it in the U.S., though you can find products from its Beauty Credit line in New York and Los Angeles. It is reputedly one of Korea’s top affordable beauty brands.

I picked up a bottle of this while living in Korea for three months. I had a feeling that it was 80% water with a few schmancy-fancy things thrown in (the label says “hair aqua essence”) and that it wouldn’t work, but I was desperate (my hair did not like the Korean winter) and it was cheap. I tried this multiple times on my hair, spraying on liberally while hair was both dry and wet, and as far as I could tell it did absolutely nothing. Added no shine and no softness and hair was no easier to brush out. To all intents and purposes, I might as well have been spraying water on my hair, and let’s face it – I probably was. Do not recommend.

I went to Bible study with Amy tonight and it was amazing. It started out slow and I fought impatience and the critical side which always rises when faced with church situations that are less than perfect. Realizing that the pattern of the past few months has been God teaching me patience. Not God teaching me faith, or survival in trails, or any of the other things he’s been teaching me in the past two years, but a new one: patience. To simply wait, and let go of the controlling side of me which demands that I run from or remove myself from situations which make me uncomfortable.

But the second half of it? Was amazing. Just listening to and talking to a woman whom I feel is a matron in the best possible way – not in that she is overly feminine, or even motherly, but simply that she has opened her huge home and her huge heart to anyone and everyone, welcoming in any stranger who happens to visit the church. Pastors visiting for the Shepherd’s Conference at Grace Church, temporarily homeless grad students or 20-somethings in transition, international students – people coming from all over the world and with all different backgrounds come in and out of her warm, seemingly effortlessly organized home. Hospitality has become such a deeply ingrained part of her lifestyle that there is no sense of  effort or even awareness of the novelty of this flowing from her.

With unaffected, down-to-earth ease she listened to us, laughed with us, shared stories with us, and finally, in the moment which Amy and I both perhaps loved the most, prayed for us.

In the warm glow emanating from her home and lifestyle, I realized again how deeply I crave stability, and how responsive I am to mother figures. It’s been years since I had any kind of permanent home – in a way you could say the last one I had was when I was 15. I’ve moved from house to house in high school and from apartment to apartment in and after college, staying in each place an average of 6 months. And it is only when I am faced with the alternative – faced with a home that is the essence of stability, family, and solid, every-day warmth, that a certain kind of emptiness rises up and I realize how deeply I crave exactly this. I don’t need it exactly yet – but I want it for the future. As an adrift 20-something, the immediate sense of peace I find when I step inside the doors of a real family home, especially a Christian one, is perhaps not surprising.

Laughter and sharing with Amy on the way back about the future. Jill Scott’s “When I Wake Up” floating through my head – too much on my mind. Coming back and finding Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over” in my head instead – happiness, it hurt like a train on a track.

Emma Stone

Once I learned what was important to me, I had to choose to stand by my convictions, even if it meant losing a relationship. Femininity meant learning to say no, without apologies.

What I learned is that when I was willing to say NO it gave incredible power to my yes.

Femininity isn’t harsh because it doesn’t need to be. When femininity speaks, people listen. Real femininity is powerful. Real femininity is strong.”

–Allison Vesterfelt

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