"When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit."

-- Robert Frost

Keep your attitude in the right, actions follow. It's like doing a three sixty, you spot with the head and the body follows; you can't throw the body and expect to land if you don't look first with the head.

Takes Much

It doesn't take much to make a heart heavy. Just a few last days.
It doesn't take much to make a heart sing. Just a few musical tones.
It doesn't take much to make a heart sad. Just a few hard goodbyes.

Time has a way of slipping behind my back and passing me up.

Idiot. Did you really save two four to five page papers for this week when they're due on Wednesday and Thursday? What happened to utilizing the free weekend? Idiot.

In Which I Ask "Why?"

It hit me today in choir as we were singing Abendlied: only two and a half more weeks of choir, then I'm done singing with this group of people (most likely) forever. It took nothing more then a few seconds of dwelling on that thought to make my eyes sting and my paper warp in my vision.

Whenever I reach the closing of a period in my life, like the one I'm presently coming upon now, the word "why?" riddles my daily thoughts. Why? Why was I brought here in the first place? Why am I leaving? Why did I join this choir for only a year? Why am I not going to Europe with the choir? Why didn't you provide the money for me to go to Europe, God? Why am I leaving all of these people I've grown to love? Why?

After talking with several other students, it seems I'm not the only one with the Why Problem. Nobody knows why they are where they are, or why they're going where they're going; it seems a college campus is nothing more then a breeding ground for unanswered Why's.

But why, God, why?

Why not? The Why's--they make you search, strive, endeavor to make something of the circumstances you find yourself in; they ignite your curiosity, and there's nothing like curiosity to drive one to new heights. Right?

The other day I watched a troop of four children as they played in the park. That day the sun was out and the few sprawling green hills that made up the park were speckled with white daisy's. The children zig-zagged back and forth over the grass; heads popping up and dipping down between the knolls. As they neared me I heard one comment on a flower he had just picked and was pressing to his nose,
"It smells like corn."
He asked of the little girl with a bowl-cut standing next to him,
"You smell it." She pulled the wilting stem from his sweaty little fingers and brought it to her face. No sooner had this exchange occurred when the lot of them had wandered off to find some new amusement.

I couldn't help but envy their Why's; so small and simple; they had just gotten started.

"We can gather our thoughts, but the LORD gives the right answer." - Proverbs 16:1

When Sleep Pervades

One of these days I'll dip my hand into the Sea of Sleep and pull out the last of the star fish; asleep on their rock perches, amongst the eninamies and urchins. Tonight, I dream.