Stars

by Sara Teasdale

Alone in the night

On a dark hill

With pines around me Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars

Over my head, 

White and topaz

And misty red; 

Myriads with beating 

Hearts of fire

That aeons 

Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven

Like a great hill, 

I watch them marching

Stately and still,

And I know that I 

Am honored to be 

Witness

Of so much majesty.

Psalm 145

A Song of Praise. Of David.

 ¹ I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.
²Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.
³ Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. ⁴One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.
⁵On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
⁶They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.
⁷They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
 ⁸The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
 ¹⁰All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you!
¹¹They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power,
¹²to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
   The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.
¹⁴The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.
¹⁵The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.
¹⁶You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
¹⁷The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.
¹⁸The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
¹⁹He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.
²⁰The LORD preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
 ²¹My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

English Standard Version. Biblegateway.com

think think think. and repeat.

Worldview Academy taught me to 'Think Hard. Think Well.'this summer.

I've learned in these two and a half months since camp that we need to think all the time.
For example: my cousin sent me a forward a few weeks ago. She doesn't usually send forwards, so I thought that this one would be fun. I opened it, and sure enough, it was interesting. It talked about how on the third week in August the planet Mars would be so close to earth it would be as big as the moon, and that it wont happen again for 200 years! I did not even stop to think.

It came from a trusted source, so I assumed it was reliable. Was it? Well, did you see any planet as big as the moon? No, I think not. It was a scam. I did not bother to check the credibility either. It would have been easy. A quick stop at the NASA website, or even a google search.

Another example? Alright: In Sunday school, one of the attendees (or whatever you call people who come to your Sunday School) brought up the verse that says 'I can do everything through him who gives me strength.' Sounds good and dandy, doesn't it? Well, if you're not thinking. But if you think, and decide to go look it up, you realize that IN CONTEXT Paul was saying he could be content in anything. Because it was in church, and in Sunday school, you might turn your brain off thinking that everyone knows what they are talking about. But you can't turn your brain off. (unless you want to believe everything that people tell you, and never think for yourself. And that could become very difficult, because people are going to tell you all sorts of things, and they will often conflict one another.)

Actually, I think that the times we think it is okay to lay back and not think about what information is being fed to us are the times we need to have our brains working twice as hard as normal. It is easy to think and evaluate things you arent sure about, but when you trust the credibility of the presentor you ought to turn your brain on. You don't want to just accept whatever people tell you as truth, no matter who they are, without checking it out a little. See if they have people backing them up. Look at the research, or the places they got their information, and see if all the facts align.

 It is those times we allow our minds to run slower that the Enemy bombards us with lies and half truths. We don't notice it because we trust the person presenting it. Beware! And keep thinking. It could be something as silly as believeing Mars will be as big as the moon, and just looking silly, but it could be something as big as the doctrine your faith adheres to. 

What does this mean for me? That even though I go to a Christian University, I don't want to just accept what the professors say. I want to look for information that backs them up, or that refutes what they say. I want to make sure I'm not getting information that is too biased (although, technically, I guess all information is biased to a point), and I want to make sure I am getting the truth. I want to keep thinking, and be critical. And sometimes (hopefully more often than not) thinking hard and well will mean realizing the professor is right, and accepting what they say.

Just don't stop thinking.

Ever.

All Things Bright And Beautiful

         Each little flower that opens, 
 each little bird that sings, 
 God made their glowing colors, 
 and made their tiny wings. 

All things bright and beautiful, 
 all creatures great and small, 
 all things wise and wonderful:  
 the Lord God made them all.

The purple-headed mountains, 
 the river running by, 
 the sunset and the morning 
 that brightens up the sky.  

All things bright and beautiful, 
 all creatures great and small, 
 all things wise and wonderful:  
 the Lord God made them all.

The cold wind in the winter, 
 the pleasant summer sun, 
 the ripe fruits in the garden:  
 God made them every one.  
 

All things bright and beautiful, 
 all creatures great and small, 
 all things wise and wonderful:  
 the Lord God made them all.

God gave us eyes to see them, 
 and lips that we might tell 
 how great is God Almighty, 
 who has made all things well.  
 
        All things bright and beautiful, 
 all creatures great and small, 
 all things wise and wonderful:  
 the Lord God made them all.

One False Note by Gordon Korman

Korman writes the second book in the 39 Clues series, and overall I liked it.
However, there are a couple things that irked me.
For one, there is Nellie. She is Amy and Dan's au pair, their adult supervision as they travel the world on the quest for clues. But in this book, she keeps letting them go off on their own and then regretting it when they aren't back hours after they should have been. Maybe this wouldn't bug me if it happened once. But happens several times, and I lost respect for her and what seems to be her irresponsibility. I just didn't think that was the sort of thing Nellie would do.
I suppose this comes of having a different author for the first several books. They think of the characters a little differently than each other, and it shows in the way they have the character act.

Another thing I didn't like (Warning, MINOR SPOILERS) was that they decide to break into on of their competitor's rooms and steal something, and they justify it by saying everyone else in the quest is stealing. They even say they 'cant be the good guys if they want to win'. (END SPOILERS)
But here is what I think: if they break their moral code in the quest for the clues, what is to keep them from from not breaking moral rules if they win and have all that power? Honestly, what good will come of their power, what good change could they make, if they get to power having made these bad ethical choices? Maybe in a story it will all come out alright, but it doesn't work that way in real life. Thats what some kids reading these books might not realize, that it doesn't work that way in real life.

One of the many places that made me smile and laugh (again, MINOR SPOILERS) is when Nellie needs to provide a distraction. She loads her arms up with different CDs in the store, and the clerk says that she must really be a music lover. She smiles and says 'no, I'm a kleptomaniac,' and runs out of the store. (END SPOILERS)

Overall, I liked the story. It was interesting, (though slightly predictable, but the books were meant for younger readers than myself, I think) and although Korman provided some answers to Amy and Dan, there are still plenty left unanswered for the rest of the series.

Things That Are Making Me Happy

I've noticed that Holly, over at Eating a Tangerine, frequently posts 'things that are making me happy'. And because lots of things make me happy, and its good to share happiness, I thought I'd give it a try.

*reading a 400+ page book in less than a day
*being all moved in at school, ready for classes to start tomorrow
*that one of the walls in my dorm room is covered in postcards my roommate and I got from around the world (postcrossing.com)
*having pen pals
*writing letters
*that my cousin comes home soon
*planning the first grocery-store trip of the semester for this afternoon
*the Fudge Petites my roommate brought
*that, after being on campus a day or two, it doesn't really feel like I really left for that long.
*that the showers in this dorm have hot water. Last year, that wasn't always a guarantee, unless you got up early enough ;)



what about you?

Midnight Snack

A friend and I wanted to have a movie marathon.
But not a traditional movie marathon.
No Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, or whatever other movie series' there are.
We planned to watch movies that had the same actress in each movie.
We decided on Audrey Hepburn.

When the night actually came, our 'marathon' was only two movies long. We watched Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady.

Between movies we took a picnic break.
We closed the sliding door behind us a few minutes before midnight.
We walked barefoot through the wet, wet, wet grass and laid the white sheets in the middle of the yard.
We ate pre-sliced peaches and blueberries under the stars.
The air was chilly, I was glad for my sweatpants.
I wished for a hoodie.
We tried to find constellations, but the Star-Finder was lost, and neither of us know our stars very well.
We talked about traveling to Europe.
The mosquitoes decided to have a picnic, too.
We picked up the blankets and went back outside, ending our picnic, and the mosquito's picnic, too.

The Ghost of Dreams that Never Happened

Now that the summer clock has one week remaining, I'm thinking about all the things I never did. Thinking of all the ghosts of dreams I created at the begining of the year, never to give them shape, and substance, and color.

To begin summer, or anything for that matter, with so many expectations can be exciting. So many aspirations on my to do list, so many ideals about what the day to day experience will be like... but if you don't stay focused on each goal, and get rid of the little distractions, the next thing you know you will look back over the weeks and months, and at your to do list, and in your journal, and see very few things worth noticing.

You may see the ghosts of dreams that never happened, the things that could have happened if you had given them a chance. You may wonder where you lost focus, wonder how you managed to waste so much time, and wonder why in the world you haven't learned yet. A ghost of a dream is never as exciting as looking back at the actual dream fulfilled.

So many things I wanted to do this summer never got done because I had the mentality that 'The summer is long, I can do that some other time!'  Note: that doesn't work well. I would go so far to say that it is a form of procrastination. Of lethargy. This happened with many of my goals and aspirations. I never gave them substance, so they float around as ghosts of dreams that never happened. Dreary, dull, and see through. 

When I think that I have all the time in the world, or even that I have time to spare, nothing gets done. Thats part of the reason I am eager for school to start: I'll have a regular schedule again, a routine. The trick is making a routine for myself over breaks, weather they be a long weekend, a month for Christmas, or three and half months for summer.

I need to have my goals always in front of me, if they are serious ones like contacting the senate about some important issue, or goofy ones like having a picnic in non-picnic weather, so that whenever a chance arises, I am prepared to seize it.

I'll be able to add substance to the ghosts of dreams, and build memories with them. I will be able to look at that dream as something that actually happened and not something I just wanted to happen. Because if all my dreams are just something I wanted to happen, but never do anything about, I will look back over time and look right through those ghosts of dreams, not actually seeing them, because I never gave them substance.

Give your goals a chance, stay focused on them. Don't let your life fill with Ghosts of Dreams that Never Happened, because that is a very dull life, indeed.