quietude

bathtime.

2007-01-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

i'm back.

nova sort of back and blogging sort of back. i think.

i'm back, and i am discovering that i love everyday life. i really do. the sort of life that involves trips to the bank and checks in the mail and church on sundays with no homework afterward and movies and sleeping in late on saturday mornings and working during daytime, knowing i get to relax after the clock gets to six. it's a good feeling.

i've done lots of nothing, lately. really. nothing at all at all at all. and i read my bible every morning, from romans and psalms. every night, from proverbs or isaiah or whatever strikes my fancy. and i relax. deeply.

read a verse.

inhale.

wash, rinse, repeat.

i'm in a comfortable place. and it is good.

another autumn song

2006-11-07T22:15:00.000-08:00

so i wrote a lovely post intended to announce my re-introduction to the blogging scene, but it got erased.

suffice it to say that i am back and my life is pretty dang good right now.

in current naomi-news, i'm buying a car, i'm going home for thanksgiving, i'm freaking out about moot court, and i'm still amazing at procrastination.

so. that shall be all for the moment. i have other things to do. but yes. hello, world.

and goodnight moon.

picking paths

2006-06-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

so i haven't written in a while mostly because i've been so busy living. my family is WAY louder than i remembered, way more insane, and very awesome. sometimes, though, it gets to be a bit much. in the words of my friend steve, "they should make a movie of your family. i would pay to see that movie, but it wouldn't be the kind of movie i would want to OWN."

i haven't updated in a long time, so this post will be a jumble of random scraps from my life, all tossed together in hopes of reacquainting everyone with something of naomi.

i took this picture ^^^ a few days ago, and it's a significant one. it's symbolic of a lot of questions i've been turning over in my mind. the paths i have before me are completely different, and i want to go both ways at once. i've been discovering the truth of my younger brother's frustrated and grammatically disturbed verdict of yesterday: "there just isn't enough me's!"

God was so faithful this last semester. it was the hardest semester for me so far, pesonally, academically, emotionally... it was so. difficult. but God is so good, more good than i deserve, and grades came back, and i won! 3.55 is mostly a gpa i am not ashamed to own. and i am happy.

i leave for costa rica on sunday, and i've been reading up on the country. one of the things i've learned is that costa rica is the central american country with the worst child prostitution problem. about three thousand kids between the ages of 9 and 17 are on the streets of san jose on any given day. my first response was, "oh, that's sick and twisted and terrible; what a great story!" i am properly chagrined. the journalist is coming out. but it really is a terribly wonderful story, and samantha and i mean to get it. and not just for the sake of "getting a good story." it's not a well-known fact. all the information i found was from united nations reports and human rights watch bulletins. it makes me upset that i didn't find this information sooner. all the glossy advertisements for the country merely serve to emphasize the anaesthetized view of reality held by most americans.

that's pretty much all i have to say right now. just a little to tell you all what is on my mind.

and of course, i've been picture-taking with abandon. a few from the last week or so:
my little sister amy: barney meets texas chainsaw massacre
amy and i: the nice thing about shadow pictures is that you don't have to worry about blinking.cheating the nose/spoon relationshipa new favorite picture. i've gotten really into doing portrait-type photos lately.another.

yay for people who live on the coast. that up there is the pier, last night.
and yay for palm trees. i miss these when i'm in virginia.

and especially yay for naomis who irritate their friends because they live their lives from photo to photo.

scraps of truth

2006-05-17T19:10:00.000-07:00

i love packing.

so many random bits and pieces of my life fall into all the cracks between the places i'm paying any attention to at any given moment, and they all come out to play whenever i am packing.

*
i have the bizarre tendency to scribble random scraps of thoughts on used envelopes that always seem to fall between the cracks when i'm not looking.... and then i find them at the oddest times and have something to think about or laugh at or wonder what on earth i was thinking when i wrote them. like the one i found that simply said, "god in the blender."

yeah.

but today i found another bit of envelope truth from about two years ago that made me surprised that i had written it. especially because i can't remember writing it. it made me stop and think.

"i am able to forgive myself for being human. knowing that life is hard and virtue rare, i keep the ancient faith, believing it is better to love than to hate, and to live fully, even if imperfectly."

cheers, darlin's

2006-05-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

it's 8.30 on the night before the midterm that i really [really really really really] need to do well on. so here i am. blogging, of course. what could be more natural?

i can't believe that i'm going home in a week. i really can't fathom it. there's so awfully much to do in the in-bewteen time that i'm going almost-but-not-quite insane.

i've been re-discovering people, of late. last night, leila told me that god has been showing her things through her solitude. well, god has been showing me things through my unsolitude. my friends are amazing. really, they are. don't laugh. they've taught me how to love more.

kimbell's poem to me
["when a riot of sunlight caresses our faces, we grow onward and upward, toward heaven" and there's something in your eyes... "it tickles me joyous"]

my poem to kimbell
["to be wrapped in the words and the thoughts and the flavors-
foreverness, sweet on our lips"]

coffee from abram, just because.
["double-shot espresso?"]
["you got it."]

georgetown with sarah, wet to the skin, and laughing and dancing and dreaming and
["we're wet. let's buy clothes."
"no. let's buy MORE PIZZA!"]

chinese take-out that wasn't really take-out, with adrienne
["i know, i know, i'm a biotch."
"nah. satan just talks to you a lot.]

charity and angelise and i in the hottest room on campus, and laughing crazily at three in the morning when that's all the energy that we have left .

[can i have an eeentsy weentsy tiny little backrub? again!]

jules and hannah and sarah in the dark in hannah's room

[i have money to give you!"]

-a long pause-

["NOOOOOOOOOO!"]

i am a quite firm believer in reciprocal affections.

so thank you, to all the ones who have helped me over rough patches. you've been a godsend. literally. here's to us. and if you ever need someone to keep up on an especially bad night... well, you have my number.

paradox

2006-04-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

take me prisoner, father. bind me with your chains that cannot break, for in so doing, you will sanctify me to yourself and make me free.

with i- bound with thy bonds, yet flying.

caged in thy cage, yet singing.

shackled with thy fetters, yet running.

imprisoned; held fast, yet truly free.

a thousand drops

2006-04-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

today we had rain.

it came down in bucketsful like it was the deluge again. the sky was totally clear and all of a sudden an impossible wind was blasting from out of nowhere, and then even more all of a suddenly, it started to rain. within two minutes, everyone outside was completely wet. it threatened to swallow me.

i stood there, with my arms raised up to the skies, my whole body dripping there in the downpour. my hair clung to my face in curls of sorts, and it felt as though i was being cleansed of my sins again, in a thousand drops of the Christ.

incantation

2006-03-31T21:28:00.000-08:00

dark eyes sheathed in mystery and all the enigma of
an onion-skinned soul that never ends, but simply peels
again
to discover layer over layer of the hiddenness...

they, seeing all, somehow understand deeply what was given not to them
for understanding.
they, piercing beyond all superficialities, comprehending even
past the incomprehensible to the fundamental being of the
infinite indefinite
possess the knowing of an ancient sage.
earthy erudition
as of old.

ancient, aye, and infantile.
those mystic eyes be either- or be both
at once.
times once, they, young and open, wond'ring see
times twice they sorrow-laden be
as age
that knows the aching of a world gone wrong.

peeled soul, exposed yet not laid bare
in dark eyes of uncertain age.
seeing, almost uncomprehending. seeing, understanding more than
they can truly know.

enigmatic eyes conceal a paradox surprise.

this is a look into the past: written by naomi laine, about age 16.

of hope. and money.

2006-03-27T07:14:00.001-08:00

spring break?

hah.

'twasn't lazy at all, but it was obscenely lucrative. i've been trying to decide if it's a fair trade, and i think i'm about to conclude that it is. money as a value might be petty and temporal and shallow, but you know what? it's handy.

a while ago i told hannah i felt like a hoarding, miserly wretch. she said that's perfectly okay, sometimes, and not to let my conscience get the better of me.

how freeing. this is what RAs were meant to be.

*
things are hard right now, in more than one sense and in more than one way. but Rest comes soon, and oh it will be beautiful when we are Revealed- for now, we are breaking, broken, and bleeding. but then again, so was He. and that's okay, too.

come find me at sunrise.

i'll be waiting.

in memoriam

2006-03-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

find rest, o my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.
he alone is my rock and my savation;
he is my fortress, i will not be shaken.
my salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
trust in him at all times, o people;
pour out your hearts to him.
for God is our refuge.
ps. 62:5-8.

[next stop: anywhere but here.]

time.less

2006-03-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

"in the reality of Now, the clock is always ticking. one might suppose, looking at the glossier advertisements of watches -ever more exact, ever more spectacular flashings of the passing second- that modern man considers time to be a lovesome thing, or, possibly, has a watch-fetish. we might be better advised to throw the lot into already-polluted lake erie.

and yet, after all, the clock is not always ticking. sometimes it stops, and then we are happiest. sometimes -more precisely, some not-times- we find the still point of the turning world. all our most lovely moments are, prehaps, timeless."
-from A Severe Mercy, by sheldon vanauken.

***
[reflections]

"the still point of the turning world..."

storms have an eye. a calm place in the midst of intractable fury. in the storm, but not partaking of its essence. the world is composed of time-things -watches and schedules and dayplanners, color-coded for convenience, just in case having your every move pre-planned is not constraint or indignity enough.

but somtimes, or rather, as 'van' says, "some not-times," i find the eye of time.

the eye of time is that indefinable non-moment (however long it lasts, whenever it chooses to come) when i am in the world, yes, but beyond it. not of it, not of its limitations and the things it is subject to. like the eye of a storm, it is a place composed of the storm, yet daring to defy its very essence. a place not subject to itself.

i can remember many afternoons spent with friends in the eye. friends and coffee (both unquestionably essential to existence), and long, drawn-out conversations of life, the universe, and everything. discussions of love, and reality, and captial-T-Truth, and beauty.... always beauty. other times, we would simply be quiet (as the best friends can). outside on a sheet, our ship on an ocean of rainbowed, flowering fields. we would play pretend (yes, pretend! and me nearly 20...), or read (silently, independently, though we always shared the good parts). we wondered. we dreamed. we thought. enjoying the eye. and each other.

they are, these measureless moments, foretastes of eternity.

if we really all have a kind of appetite for eternity, we have allowed ourselves to be caught up in a society that frustrates our longings at every turn.

although time is like air, in that it is part of our environment, we hate it instead of loving it, as we love air. time spoils our lovliest moments. animals don't seem to notice time. it doesn't trouble them. time is their natural environment. why do we sense that it is not ours?

we try to subject ourselves to time and always go away unsatisfied.

....i have seen the burden God has laid on men. he has made everything beautiful in its time. he has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end....

blue like [jeans]

2006-03-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

don't forget me, god.
looking through these ragged soul-strands that
(stragglingly) hold together just enough so that
i don't go spilling
everywhere.
*
see me in my worn out jeans.
broken- bent, but beautiful
(i think)
in the way a child's misshapen masterpiece has beauty-
poignantly.

fighting, no holds barred, for a glimpse of Reality.
*
yesterday, i saw an old man, smiling on the sidewalk in his
torn and dirty clothes. his face was worn and creased with
all the parts that make people old, you know. the worries about
bills and kids and family life.
his smile was young, though. young and bright, despite the yellow of his
uncorrected teeth.

somewhere near the origin of his smile, there is hope.
*

yet i am still confident of this: i shall see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living. wait for the lord. be strong, and take heart, and wait for the lord.

a small reflection.

2006-03-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

so. numero uno.

i'm realizing how much my soul has missed contemplation. i'm not cut out to be a college student. i thought i was, at one time. but i'm not. i was made for quiet. for slow. for coffee and, yes, intellectualism, but over a fire.

for tonight, i burn my candles on every end.

the mercies cover me still.

on prayer.

2006-03-13T16:53:00.000-08:00

Then a priestess said, "Speak to us of Prayer."
And he answered, saying:
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words.
God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."

-kahlil gibran