Queen Esther

Intentions, intentions.

We have so many.
Unreliable.

Must depend on calling.

Must not demand unnecessary answers from God
To fit His plans into my desires.

His purposes are more important than my having clarity.
Clarity for the sake of knowing?? Doesn't simplify anything, does it...

Esther was a queen... of excuses.

It's Not Absence

Hidden depths of sin,
Hidden why's of suffering,
Hidden modes of grace.

To 21218?

Well spring break isn't for another two weeks for me. Uber lame, since everyone else will be gearing up for finals and finishing up the term by then.

Josh and I talked about visiting him at JHops for part of break. Guess I must have been thinking about it before falling asleep because I dreamed I was there... And there was a carnival for some reason. But anyway, part of it went something like this: Maybe it was prophetic ;)

I ran into a few familiar faces and maneuvered a few "Esther! Where've you been all year! It's almost summer and this is the first time I've run into you on campus..." and delighted in $6 burritos at the Chipotle by Charles Commons.

Later that day I somehow met John Latting, the Director of Ugrad Admissions. We exchanged courteous pleasantries; he didn't seem to recall who I was and the ordeal he had put me through in this last whirlwind of a year. I bid him goodbye and smugly quipped "So nice to finally put a face to the name. Now I can hate you more completely." And I reveled at the look of horror that crossed his face as the magnitude of his injustices dawned on him. Unlikely, since he's probably actualy cruel and stoic.

And as I turned and walked away from him in this very self-aware dream, I wondered to myself why I had said such a thing when I really didn't hate him. I'd reminded myself many times that the man was just doing his job. Although it was... a very dick job he did. My next thought -- well, realization really -- was along the lines of "Esther, you're going straight to hell," the repartee to which naturally followed as I nibbled on an elephant ear: "Oh well, better make it worth it."

I awoke from the dream highly amused at my very witty and pagan subconscious.

(To which my next thought -- well, realization really -- was, "Esther, you're going straight to hell").

Oh boy... Lord have mercy.

The Soul of Wit

I would like to start
Simple drills in brevity --
Not my strongest suit.

More on Work & Play

"There is nothing better for a person than that he should... find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God" (Ecclesiastes 2:24).

So meaningful work, or at least the meaning part, is apparently a gift.

Without that significance, the only thing that keeps me at work is fear. It's a sad strife.

At death,

Buddha: "Strive unceasingly."
Christ: "It is finished."

Hmm...

I loved those verses from Romans 5 once. These days I feel more like testing demands perseverance, perseverance requires character, character allows hope, and hope sets ya up for another whoppin letdown.

Why so inclined to feel victimized? Am I actually so virtuous? Powerless? Probably not as much as I'm attracted to think. Why the martyr complex... To be long on love, grace, humor, compassion, patience. Short on pride.

God I could plow through all this... as to You. But I need to know that what I'm doing is from You! Why, if You won't lift the storm, won't You increase my belief? I'm clearly not enough, come and be strength. God O God...

I hardly even suffer.
I have not persisted as Job.
I have not endured the cross.

Perspective, please.
Come and be light.

EMETHed!

Learned today that je suis excite is more accurately translated as i'm aroused than as i'm excited, similar to how embarassada in Spanish is actually the feminine modifier meaning pregnant, or how mahal kita in Tagalog means je t'aime, te amo, I love you, 我爱你, but is understood in Malay as we are very expensive (though Love often is ultra costly). And Pearl I'm sure you'll be delighted to learn that eehee apparently means to pee in Tagalog? Filipino? so calling you Peehee is now twice the fun. I wonder how many people I've told I was turned on while lost in translation.

With the arrival of Emeth "Capri" the cute little miammy bread bundle of April foolery (future JKoh?), Mrs. Sun is no longer an embarassed woman. il n'est pas grand! HOORAY!! Can't wait to meet the lil guy.

Learning new languages, or even little brain fart phrases in other languages, is too much fun for me. Someone told me once you live a new life for each language you learn and it's occurred more than once to me that maybe when we do this we begin to undo what we did or at least remedy what we scattered at Babel. Koine Greek, Medieval Latin, maybe even Biblical Hebrew. French, Italian. Mandarin, Taiwanese. Japanese, Atayal. Paiwan, Amis. Worthy pursuits? Holy burden? or flights of ADD?

I can't remember why I thought I could stand doing BME, it is so much work... And that's about all it is to me, although for another (maybe you) it could be a lot more meaningful and maybe even redeemable. Guh I'm hoping and praying with all self-interest (oh and for your good too I guess) for a yes to p-relgoog (err... okay I'm not quite as aroused by these languages) and the legos and Odwalla supply and NYC residence that would come to you with such an answer. We should converse in dead languages more often, goof. I love you for putting "fluent in conversational Latin" on your resume.

What if I could also find something, some major, some vocation so d'lovely that work and play would be one and the same? I suppose many pondered these questions even while in high school; I unfortunately am way behind since without receiving (or at least without recognizing) the soggy fleece I'd feebly asked for I had mostly only considered factors such as Joshuaness (ballerness, leetness, proximity to my closest genetic match, distance from my two favorite genetic donors) and Asianness (lucrativeness, pragmaticalness, pedigree, nerdiness)...... Mallory I miss those days of incorporating Dictionary.com Words of the Day into our convos each day and of practicing seducing each other in French and Italian during Latin class and promising to learn and e-mail each other in both of those when you went off to Yale and I to JH. But now you're there and I'm here, and we're both not learning either life!

I guess this substandard interim is an okay time and place to consider all this and discover that maybe I'm not cut out for your major after all Josh, though I have to thank you for being contagiously and genuinely passionate about it. I'd like to love something on my own and infect others with its contagion. If I were where you are and paying what you pay to be there how long would it have been before I realized my tedium? How long now that I have will I still stick it through? How much of it is even up to me?

Anyhow what if I were so arrested by vision that discipline would be more than just drudgery? I suppose this is what makes QTs bearable and psets un; the latter takes similar effort but to me lacks purposefulness delightfulness (purpose delight?) and d'loveliness.

I mean seriously! How does circuitry conjure any of that.

CHANGE

my heart, o God!

Help me to ask not who is my neighbor, but where?

Luke 10:37b