Teacher...

…thank you that something mattered today. Something really physical invaded our metaphysical talk.

Time to count blessings:

Because of my aforementioned discontent, I ought to find no less than twenty good things. I've got at least fifty blessings on just a square inch of the back of my hand I'm sure, but twenty to start with for now.

One. My more-than-comfortable bed.

Two. Advil for headaches.

Three. A roommate to motivate me to take said Advil.

Four. A pair of glasses to help my eyes see.

Five. Strings of christmas lights in our room and wrapped around trees.

Six. Texting that allows me to laugh with a sister who is on the other side of the country.

Seven. Hot, running, clean water to turn on and off without a thought.

Eight. A finger ring of mysterious black wood, found floating in the ocean by my sister who eventually passed it on to my hand.

Nine. A welcoming and generous family taking me in for the holiday.

Ten. Socks on my feet, with ten more pairs in the drawer.

Eleven. A full stomach.

Twelve. Memories poked and pressed like a mint leaf by the Christmas decorations that are appearing.

Thirteen. Hugs, hands, respectful human touch that grounds a person so well.

Fourteen. Color in the world - color that changes too.

Fifteen. Megan laughing across from me with her headphones in.

Sixteen. A patient book of true holy things that will remain true when I don't.

Seventeen. Frost on the grass.

Eighteen. Frost disappearing in the morning when the sun comes up over campus.

Nineteen. Classes to go to.

Twenty. A ticket home.

It's hard to make a happy list when you aren't happy. Even when you have no reason whatsoever in the world to be unhappy...but God won't forsake me to my own greedy dismissal of the good things that more than half of the world is denied.

I want more humility - I've been asking for it, and He gives it to me in sticky red spoonfuls. Maybe I could write a Christmas list with those kinds of things on it...

Ich fühle krank.

Und Arbeit gefällt mir nicht heute.

This is dreadful. Timing couldn't be worse for apathetic lethargy to set in - I have finals to finish in a blaze of glory, people!

I just watched an hour's worth of a movie instead of working on a paper and I've never really done that before. Now I have a headache and want to go to bed early, but the paper must still be written and my 'big picture perspective', which is also unhelpfully timed, makes me waste energy trying to even justify writing it, instead of just going at it with blind, persevering industry.

I keep digging out motivational quotes and paragraphs, convicting lines written by church fathers and historical heroes.

Like BB gun pellets bouncing off Jack and the Beanstalk's giant, all of it. Still sitting here finding the relative importance of my assignments almost funny.

Autumn is coming to a close.

I would like this. Everything about it....one day.

The sunlight is beautiful now; its becoming winter light, but because we haven't had snow yet, there is still life that you can see and feel in the grass and the trees. I love the solid, clear blocks of sun that come with such clarity, neat and geometric as life settles down because the harvest parties in the woods are being replaced by gentler discussions inside our homes.

Everything is getting colder and harder and I look forward to the soft acoustic of snow. Its easy to romanticize, easy to forget how the ice comes too, and how it melts and mixed with dirt to become wet, sloshing mud.

But we aren't there yet. Winter is on its way, yet late November crispness still gives the fallen leaves a skeleton (the snow will make them limp and flat) as they are tossed everywhere by strong winds. Green still spreads across the ground like an aging carpet and like everything else it has some grey around the edges. Frost comes in the mornings too, glorious spiked crystals of white helping the world get used to the cold before December finally comes.

I am glad for the winter, for the humbling quiet it can force us into. I just wish I was a wild animal who could hibernate as we are probably supposed to. Instead, rigorous study is my lot - something I'm grateful for too, but sleep would be most natural and I am tempted to follow Annie Dillard's advice when she says “I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.” Surrendering to our instinctual needs, and ceasing to live by the ‘additions’ we have built on to our humanity, that is what I want. I don't do it very well, but oh how much I want to! I am grateful to have been created and to live embodied, to be clay infused with life from the breath of God's own mouth feels good - and I know that He is my one, my great necessity. I want to 'dangle from it limp.'

Dixie moonlight, Swanee shore

Headed homebound just once more

To my Mississippi delta home

Southland has that grand garden spot

Although you believe or not

I hear those breeze a-whispering:

"Come on back to me"

Muddy water 'round my feet

Muddy water in the street

Just God don't shelter

Down on the delta

Muddy water in my shoes

Reeling and rocking to them lowdown blues

They live in ease and comfort down there

I do declare

Been away a year today

To wander and roam

I don't care it's muddy there

But see it is my home

Got my toes turned

Dixie way 'Round the delta let me lay

My heart cries out for muddy water

I do wish I was Southern sometimes. Such romance.