{Tuesday, November 11, 9:21 p.m.}

:thoughts for my commonplace book:


Sail forth — steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all seas of God?
O farther, farther sail!

–Walt Whitman, from Passage to India

***

Emotional intensity is in itself no proof of spiritual depth. If we pray in terror we shall pray earnestly; it only proves that terror is an earnest emotion. Only God Himself can let the bucket down to the depths in us. And, on the other side, He must constantly work as the iconoclast. Every idea of Him we form, He must in mercy shatter. The most blessed result of prayer would be to rise thinking, ‘But I never knew before. I never dreamed…’ I suppose it was at such a moment that Thomas Aquinas said of all his own theology: ‘It reminds me of straw.’

–C.S. Lewis, from Prayer: Letters to Malcolm

***

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more ‘gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

–John Burroughs, “Waiting”

***

and so i wait. and hungrily delve into Lewis and the mystics and the poets and those who have gone this road before, and copy the best bits into my commonplace book (which is a lined notebook designed for the express purpose of copying the best bits of stuff into it, in case y’all were wondering).

today i attempted to trot down the hill from the lecture hall to the main hall for lunch. trotting a la Crystal Jackson is an energetic movement not unlike a staggered gallop. trotting a la Katie Geiger is a doubly energetic movement not unlike a spastic skip. at the bottom of the hill i was told by my kindly roommate Kim (the Little Blonde Princess with dark hair and eyes and a phobia of the colour pink) that i resembled a mentally challenged fairy. i forgot to mention that the reason my “trot” was doubly as energetic as Crystal’s was that i incorporated flowing arm swishes into the overall movement.

i am rapturously in love with Herman, Hobart, and Dillon at the moment. Herman, that blessed companion who serenades me every hour! he has his cranky moments, i’m afraid to say, eliciting uncouth outbursts from yours truly – his most rank fault is refusing to let me listen to any of my CDs, more especially the burned ones. but however he may annoy me from time to time, i do indeed pledge undying affection for him. and Hobart! what refreshing brilliance, what a hard-working companion, how nice and toasty he keeps me on nippy afternoons! i can’t help singing whenever i’m around him, and while he doesn’t exactly sing back, he keeps up a steadily harmonious bass line. three weeks of bliss, and now we are parted for a time by the changing of the daily duty schedule – but i spend an hour in his near vicinity after supper, drying dishes and thinking of him fondly.

and then of course there’s Dillon, that elusive charmer. i haven’t met him face to face yet – but sometimes when i walk by myself through the dew-laced grass in the early mornings, i feel him calling to my very soul. round every corner, ‘neath every brownish leaf, i look and look and look. someday soon i am sure he will reveal himself to me, or else i could bear it no longer! i wish y’all could meet them. you would be quite impressed with all three. iiiii am, iiiiii am, iiiiii am the luckiest…to quote ben folds.

is it possible to be completely absorbed in C.S. Lewis, the pristine beauty of a winter sunset, and contemplative journal entries, AND still plan on getting a semi-permanent tattoo before Christmas break? if not, perhaps the world will fall apart shortly, for that’s what’s happening in the life of a girl on an island who really really really likes watching the full moon. it’s watching me now, through the window…i think i shall go say hello to it properly without this barrier of window and wall. ’til next week! xoxo

p.s. keep quiet about the tattoo. mommy & daddy don’t know. and i shall let them get good and scared about it before revealing that it DOES come off in about 3 months.