Random thoughts

Obviously the whole picture a day thing didn't work, my brother took my camera to New York for the summer.

I haven't much to say, just posting for the sake of posting, I suppose. Nobody really reads these posts anyways, which honestly doesn't bother me at all. I figure once I move to New Zealand I might post more religiously, as I'll have more to post about.

I've been thinking about words recently, and how some have a gift for writing, and some don't. How some people have a natural talent for expressing their thoughts and visions vividly using the perfect words and sentence structures to prove their point, or express what their trying to say. And then there's the larger amount of the population-such as me- who, even if they do have a large vocabulary; can never seem to get out what they want to say.

It's just interesting to me, because most people that don't have the gift of words desperately want it, and the people who do often don't even realize that they do at all. I suppose it goes back to human nature, and always wanting what you can't or don't have.

Over the past month or so I've been too busy to think about this, but the last week I've had much more free time on on my hands to evaluate how I'm living my life. And while I'm living it serving others and with a cheery disposition, I still feel like I've kicked into survival mode. Do you know what I mean? You're not fully enjoying life, and "Taking time to smell the roses" instead you're just going through the motions of day to day life. I feel like my spiritual life has kind of been withering away, I'm not necessarily straying away, and I'm dishing out handfuls of advice to my struggling friends; but I just haven't made the time for me and God.

I think it's time to step it up. I'm a young woman of God now. I'm tired of slacking off. Well I suppose I haven't just been slacking off recently, quite the opposite, but I haven't been giving my fullest, which is often times more draining than enjoying everything to the very max. I really want to get my life more organized before this school year starts again, I know it's going to be busier and more exhausting than the year before-if that's even possible.

Well, I suppose that's all of my rambling thoughts today, I'll leave you with one of my new favorite poems by a brilliant writer called Paul Laurence Dunbar. I think it sums up nicely how many of us feel when we go into "survival" mode.

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheek and shades our eyes,-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh, the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!