Mr. Riley and Me

I visited the home of one of my favorite poets when I was a child, James Whitcomb Riley.  Read poems to your kids, everyone!

LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE

by: James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)

INSCRIBED WITH ALL FAITH AND AFFECTION

 

To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

 

ITTLE Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,

An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,

An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,

An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;

An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,

We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun

A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,

An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

 

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--

An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,

His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,

An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!

An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,

An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;

But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--

An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

 

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,

An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;

An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,

She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!

An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,

They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,

An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!

An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

 

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,

An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!

An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,

An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--

You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,

An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,

An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,

Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

"Little Orphant Annie" is reprinted from Complete Works. James Whitcomb Riley. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1916.

"You can never go home."

I've been back four days and it's not home.  But I'm still having a good time.  I forgot how late nights go here.  I haven't gone to bed before 1:30am.  The first night a we watched a friend's band, the second night we went to my friend Sharlene's wedding and danced late into the night, and last night dinner and a movie with friends turned into a bizarre evening of Catholic youth group and San Mig Lite.  This is Never Never Land.

Today we're going to church in Makati and then somewhere with Christine's family to go swimming.  Yesterday we stayed in bed most of the day.  My first day we had lunch at Cibo which thankfully has not changed a bit.  Mostly things are the same.  The weather is the same always- around 85/29, high humidity, chance of rain.  I've heard the same The Corr's song five times that was big 10 years ago.  For the most part the fashion is the same.  There have been some renovation changes to Alabang Town Center, but it's basically the same.  Everything smells the same it always did.

What has changed?

I'm different.  And I see it all through different eyes.  Eyes that ask the question, "Could I live here again?"  I feel a lot of peace here.  I remember parts of my soul that came alive here.  I grew up a lot here.  But I like where else I've been and where I am now.

Sharkey Resurrected

Look who's back... again!  

For those of you from Taylor who were fortunate enough to know this little guy, my class LOVES Sharkey.  I first got Sharkey many years ago and has been my travel companion through many, many phases of life.  And now he has big celebrity status in my classroom. 

Please speak well of me

Dear The Weepies,

Thank you for making good music.  Just thank you.

I've had such a procrastinating evening.  I came home.  I worked on the 1500 piece puzzle I got for my birthday (it's honestly the first puzzle I've ever voluntarily attempted).  I ate dinner.  I made brownies.  I tried to read for my online course, but the document is 47 pages long and I can't find a good study groove.  I wish I could go to Paynes and get lost in learning. 

I keep waking up feeling like autumn.  Like I could just jump in my car and drive around the back roads of Indiana with the windows rolled down and the music cranked up, breathing in the scent of changing leaves.  Maybe for the rest of my life whenever the weather cools and scarf season begins, I will remember my 5 falls in Upland.  The other night I made Judy's curry dish and so many things came back to me.  MuKappa retreats, late nights in the Souphouse, fall break trips, and everything I loved about fall semesters.  Truly, I could not have asked for better friends.

I've been away
a year and a day
you recognize love
after the fact
you did what you did and that was that
dont say words that you dont mean
when I'm gone please speak well of me

looking back now
I only wish I had been kinder
did I ever know love?
did I ever know love?
and could I have been blinder?
dont say words that you dont mean
when I'm gone please speak well of me

dont hold back 

~The Weepies 

Lima, Ohio

Lima (pronounced /ˈlaɪmə/), Ohio is where I lived from age 3-10.  That makes it the longest place I've ever live, but I hadn't been back there for about a decade.  My cousin's wedding last weekend was in a town about 2 hours away from Lima, so Sunday morning my mom, Jake, Kim, and I decided to swing by there to see our old houses and go to church.

It was crazy to see our old houses.  The look smaller than I remembered... As we drove past shopping centers, banks, grocery stores, the old BP refinery, houses, hospitals, the public library, and restaurants, so many memories came flooding back to me. 

We went to Lima Community Church (of the Nazarene, when I went there).  It was the strangest thing to be there again!  While we went there in the '90's they added a gym and new sanctuary, but even though the population grew a lot during that time, now there are even more people attending.  There is even a separate building for high schoolers.  As some of our old friends, including my former dance teacher, led us around, I felt like I was in a dream.  Some things had changed, but a lot of it was as I remembered.  I spent so much time at this church as a child.  I was in countless plays and productions, VBS, Bible quizzing, kids church, and "Impact" in 5th grade.  I knew all the secret staircases and rooms.  It seemed like the church is thriving and involved in some exciting ministry.  As Jake said, it's always nice to go back to somewhere and see that it's doing better, as opposed to worse. 

In the sermon, the pastor referenced this passage to emphasis how important it is to teach the next generation about the Lord. 

Psalm 78:4-7:

    ⁴ We will not hide these truths from our children;
      we will tell the next generation
   about the glorious deeds of the Lord,
      about his power and his mighty wonders.
    ⁵ For he issued his laws to Jacob;
      he gave his instructions to Israel.
   He commanded our ancestors
      to teach them to their children,
    ⁶ so the next generation might know them—
      even the children not yet born—
      and they in turn will teach their own children.
    ⁷ So each generation should set its hope anew on God,
      not forgetting his glorious miracles
      and obeying his commands.

As I sat there, I felt it was very fitting to be hearing this teaching at the place that basically gave me all my early Christian education.  I felt very thankful to have had grown up in that community.  I don't remember the exact lessons or the names or my teachers, but I know their impact on my life.  As cheesy as it is to say, I am who I am because of this church.  I am so thankful for everything I learned and those who poured into my life at a young age.

Scribbles and Nostalgia

Dear Biographer, I'm sorry I'm not more organized.  

Today I tackled my bedroom closet, which is full of journals, assignments books, and class binders.  For the last 6 years, this closet has been getting progressively more disorderly and it was finally time to take the plunge...

and throw some things out.

Ok, so it wasn't that much, but it felt really good to finally go through everything and objectively put things into the bin.  Every other year I've attempted to clean, I've gotten stuck reading old journals and never finish.

Now, I'm talking notebooks and notebooks of class notes, journaling, notes from Bible studies and youth camp, and most embarrassingly, teenage poetry.  It was scattered everywhere.  I might be coerced into publishing some of it someday, if you haven't already found me on poetry.com (who remembers this?  All my friends and I wanted to get the coffee table book with our poetry published in size 8 font).

I couldn't believe how much I wrote throughout my teenage years!  The hardest part of sifting through everything was that I would write 5 pages in one journal and leave the rest blank, or 85% would be class notes, but interspersed would be scribbles about how I was feeling that day.

I spent the afternoon listening to Switchfoot and Jennifer Knapp and remembering what it was like to be 15.  I really only cared about God, friends, getting into the school play, and boys.  I did silly things like take notes with my left hand, or completely in highlighter, and drew lots and lots of doodles.  I feel like periodically reading this stuff will make me a better teacher.

I found the first research paper I ever wrote.  It was from 7th grade and it was on Elian Gonzalez.  I also have a bunch of IB English HL essays, I'd be willing to sell.

Just Kidding.  But really.

Thoughts on Church (and still thinking)

(I wrote this about a year ago, as I was taking my last semester of classes at Taylor)

My history textbook had this to say about the collapse of the church in America during the late nineteenth century- "Some churchgoers tended to solve their intellectual confusion through sheer activity."

Activity seems like a logical thing to do when you don't really know what you're doing, but want to seem like you do. It is a good way to add a qualitative element, something that can be counted and presented, to thing like how many people you're reaching, how much change you're affecting, etc. For the past year, however, I've had this growing interest in understanding Church roots, especially as it related to me as a Protestant. I have been embracing the individualistic attitude of protestantism by reading a little of this and a little of that, trying to construct a tapestry of what I believe. I'm trying to solve my intellectual confusion, I suppose. It's harder to be individualistic in this respect, however. For many people, it is easier to set up laws in their lives, like "go to church every Sunday and Wednesday," "read the Bible half an hour a day," or "go to a Christian college" (;-) ), and feel as if they are in line with God.  I think this is, at least in part, our humanly effort to make the will of God come about the way that we want it to. God has been getting messier for me. You can't standardize His will, the Holy Spirit, or discernment. That leaves people in a tricky place. How do we have any sort of organization as a group, either to simply encourage each other or mobilize as a movement to enact change, if our lives don't all have the same plan? Today I read a quote by FB Meyer, a pastor from England who lived from 1847-1929, that sums up my style of Christianity, the one I think I grew up understanding:

"Trust in God gives clearness of vision. When we are thinking partly of doing God's work in the world, and partly of lining our own nest, we are in the condition of a man whose eyes do not look in the same direction... We are endeavoring to serve two masters, and our judgment is therefore distorted. Who has not often experienced this? You have tried to ascertain God's will, or to form a right judgment about your life, but constantly your perception of duty has been obscured by the thought that, if you decided in a certain direction, you would interfere with your interests in another. Your eye has not been single, and you have walked in darkness. When, however, you feel so absorbed in God's interests that you are indifferent to your own all becomes clear and you leave Him to care for all the results... The ungodly may worry about the maintenance; but a child of God may be sure that His needs will be supplied."

There is no way for me to judge whether a church is putting activities over personal spiritual life (or the reverse for that matter); of course, God works through activities. "Faith without deeds is dead" (James 2:17). It gives me comfort to know, however, that activities done because of the leading of the Holy Spirit are the only way for them to succeed.

I read somewhere else recently that Christians have become known for their meetings, as opposed to what those meetings actually accomplish. I know that MuKappa isn't a church, but as a subpart of the body of Christ, I hope that this isn't how we're perceived. One of my goals for this year was to add "quality" to our events and I think that we've been accomplishing this... Our Spring Retreat was last weekend and I think it went very nicely. All praise to God for that. Truly, everything good that happened was because of Him.

So, another thing I've been thinking about is... if you could be part of any social movement throughout history what would it be and why?

I think that I would work with Jane Addams in the slum settlement houses of the early 1900's...

It's in the past

I've been sifting around my old xanga site for inspiration. The finds are fascinating. Not only was I a more dedicated blogger back then, I was more introspective, believing that one day I could truly find what it means to be "real," and quoted more Breakfast at Tiffany's. I had more online friends, filled out more online surveys, knew more little-known bands (who eventually left me cold, COPELAND!), had more interesting interests, wore a bigger nose ring, wanted to find a Pentecostal-Anabaptist-Orthodox church, wrote more poetry, loved sociology more, prayed everyday for God to take my apathy, and I was way more into the "tea-music-philosophy" crowd. There was more pain and emo suffering, some of which seems a bit silly now, and I was making mistakes right and left and didn't even know it. Oh, it was wonderful :-)
I think I've gotten kind of boring, but seriously when did I have time to be that interesting??? I'm gonna try to get back into some it. The things I wrote back then are absolutely fascinating to me. It's like a museum of... me :-)

So,

here's a list from Saturday, September 17, 2005

Reasons why my dad is pretty much the coolest person ever:
1. He read a book on the history of coffee
2. His music- everything from the who & jim croce to yo yo ma & vanessa mae
3. He learned Chinese (and now Russian) to be better at his job
4. He's got a pretty cool job
5. He grew a beard look more Chinese in a play
6. He's pretty much a genius and knows something about everything
7. Two words... New York
8. He's really good at getting upgrades in hotels, airplanes, and boats... for freeeeee
9. Let's face it, he's a pretty financially secure guy and that's something I can't help admiring in a man
10. The whole dragging me overseas thing... I really liked it.
11. Starbucks is his currency of repentance

And another thing... This would have been interesting to take before taking Historic Christian Belief and the semester in Russia

What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 86% Neo orthodox 68% Emergent/Postmodern 68% Roman Catholic 57% Fundamentalist 50% Classical Liberal 46% Reformed Evangelical 39% Modern Liberal 36% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36%

Two Pictures

One from my 3rd Gerig Formal freshman year

and one from Airband a few days ago.


I like them and I just thought I'd share :-)

Tired, happy, and full.

Happy 30 days since the last time I wrote :-P

I just got back from the MuKappa Fall 07 Retreat and it was pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. Ben, the former le dictatur, came back with his wife and a few other old friends; it was nice to see them all. Now for shower, homework, and sleep. I very much want to reverse the order.