enten_eller's Xanga

the only questions I ever really ask myself.

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:56:22 GMT

Do I want to participate in the most beautiful thing in the world?

Or to create something beautiful, but to a lesser degree?

Most of the time I think I go with number one.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:14:19 GMT

I was thinking about esperanto (a constructed language) for some time. I've always had this gut reaction to it, that it is just wrong. I couldn't really place it, I thought, every language is really constructed, why is this one so bad. Its not just this one, but most of the modern constructed languages. I read something today, about there is an unavoidable and creative power in languages in them being tied to mythology. Languages work because they have songs and stories. Powers and beauty and mysteries of ancient tongues, of the ancient things of mankind. I was thinking about that, as an orthodox christian, what I know of God:

Is all sung,

In ancient melodies,

In more ancient languages.

all the places

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:57:21 GMT

I've been thinking about earth, good, green, God-breathed, growing earth. This summer when I was in Malawi, I sat on a porch watching some goats and some kids. I thought to myself as I dug my fingers in, I love this earth. Honestly I feel odd about it, but I truly love it. God's goodness fills so many things on it. In class today and over the past few days I was thinking about the goodness of earth. In 4 Kingdoms (also known as 2 Chronicles) it ends with this passage about the land putting people in exile so it could enjoy sabbath. In the Torah itself it says that the land is good. The land is substantially good. There is this famous peninsula of orthodox monasteries in Greece called Mt. Athos, also known as the Holy Mountain. I was reading this monk and this is what he says, "The entire Mountain, Nature, the peak of Athos - the monasteries, forests and rocks - had all been filled with joyful light and imbued with heavenly beauty. The Mountain was invisibly revealing itself as being indeed 'Holy'. It was apparent that the holiness in its name was something inseparable from its very physical substance. And you felt that if it could be crumbled like a clump of earth, then from this very dirt would come forth a dazzling light, the very same fragrance which had filled the universe on the day of Resurrection. The souls of the saints fly and flutter about, luminous and full of light. The relics of the saints emit the same uncreated and scintillating light; an indescribable and uncreated fragrance pours out from their tombs. Everything around is filled by the beauty of contrition and the fragrance of heaven." It is not a simply a place of holy people, but the mountain is itself holy. The land is holy. I think that this is something that I coming to really understand, understanding God showing himself forth in love in all things he touches, it is imbued as much as it can hold of the presence of God.

Anyways, be well.

Ian

saturday

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:52:24 GMT

I have started out this day building a kite. That is right, I have a kite, apparently before my adoption of the lil' tyke; it was named "SMOKE ADDICTION". I'm really okay with that name, its a moniker fit for a king. So I decided on a whim that I should get a kite as the season is really nice for catching some updrafts. So I find a kite store in Chicago, on Harlem. Jon says he thought it would be on Milwuakee because all the bizarre stores are there. True enough Jon Bukiewicz, true enough. So I mosey on in walk out with smoke addiction at a discounted price. Soon she'll be singing with the saints!

I think my Saturday will consist of this and perhaps ........VVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSS! That's right, my favorite part of the ol' saturday line-up Vespers. I love it, its so gentle, and all song. Maybe I'll fuse the two and kite fly during vespers.

mmmmm

I like it.

My mystical suppers.

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:23:41 GMT

I have been having this really odd sensation. I've been really keenly feeling that one day I will be old, and possibly bed ridden. I was riding the train today and saw some flowers growing off the top of a metal fence. I was thinking that when I am old and in bed I won't see those flowers with my eyes, but feel this memory so very sharply. I also thought that my legs would be frail, maybe from being hit by a car when I was young. So I just reached down and held my legs to feel their strength and and remember them intentionally.

But what this really made me think of is the fact that my view of the end of my life is that it is a sorrowful thing. Then I thought back to this piece from st. John of Damascus that a friend sent me. It is from the burial service for Orthodox priest and ends like this: "Youth and the beauty of the body fade at the hour of death, and the tongue then burneth fiercely, and the parched throat is inflamed. The beauty of the eyes is quenched then, the comeliness of the face all altered, the shapeliness of the neck destroyed; and the other parts have become numb, nor often say: Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

With ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder; that there is Paradise, wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth. Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that all we may cry aloud thus unto God: Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia."

indeed.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:52:51 GMT

Well life life life. Its really coming up on me. I'm pretty sure of two things about my bedroom, its growing things. Incidently, that may be a majority my fault leaving grapes places. Secondly, I put some icons on the wall who have all turned towards my bed, lovely and unnerving. Jesus, Mary, and the Trinity are all lookin' on over here as we speak.

I went to see "the damnation of Faust" by Berlioz the other day. I think it was such in the mood for hallow's eve. Giving way to all saints day. It was actually really frightening. Percussion kept moving forward and forward marching them into hell, at which the chorus (who I was literally sitting next to behind the orchestra) started singing in a made up demon language composed by Berlioz. Scary. But it all ends with kids singing hosannas, so I left in a right place.

So I'm in this little band called families, consisting of accordion, banjo, and guitar. We sing songs about all sorts of things. But we played in our friend's apartment yesterday and it was good. We were all a tingle in the nerves but got through it. And the friends, sight of sights the friends! Real good. Plus me and Mike are buying bow ties.

I think I want to fall in love (if I ever do) in spring. If I don't I'll wait and be confusing till spring of the next year, just for the sensation.

So I'm trying to figure out where to go, I think I want to go to Europe for school. I've been there twice and loved it a whole lot. Its got real history, real connection. Plus orthodox churches.

we'll see.

skemmtilegur strakur

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:39:31 GMT

I've decided to make a long journey back to xanga. There's not much to say or be said to at the other social networking websites. So I've come back for keeps.

I think that the older I'm getting everything just seems so much sweeter to me. There's an awful lot of beautiful things in this world and I think that I'm coming down with an affliction of sorts. I feel so utterly pulled to them, so hollowed out, that I feel if I don't stand in the midst of it I will never be full. I want to know what I'm made of, like the really ancient stuff. There is where you really find your smallness and your bigness. I think if I do all that we can do small actions (like eating) with so much deliberate intensity and love.

I have other things on my plate here and there. I'm applying for grad school in linguistics. I also thought about folklore, but I thought it was really a silly thing at the end of the day. I mean who wants to study all day about a god ripping wolves in half and the sky catching fire. That's really heavy stuff, you can't really love it unless your real superstitious. I think I'm only half. I believe in magical worlds, but like of gravity and God. Not that God is mythical, but just bigger. And He's certainly enchanting.

Maybe

Thu, 15 May 2008 04:29:33 GMT

I think there is a reason I never vote for really vocal Christian politicians. That being, I think Jesus took the way of powerlessness, and so should we. By not voting for you, I'm actually doing you a huge service. It's hard to be commander and cheif and love your enemies. Well I don't think anyone reads this. I know I can't write well, but I wrote a song, mainly about the last entry. I've been overly reflective after I realized how bad I am to brothers and sisters. But I wrote this

St. Nicholas:

Breathing from your bones

Signed a cross on a child’s eyelid

Myrrh seeping from your bones

May your oil always stain my hands

Angels in your cells

The Lord’s music in your tired bones

Our saint, our defender

Praying for us as we fall

Praying for us as we fell

May your oils always stain our hands

sweet smelling bones

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:43:58 GMT

It's been a while but I remember the day I got precious oils on my head from the bones of St. Nicholas. The priest said some joke that I remember was exceptionally funny. It was really gloomy outside, I had trouble locking up my bike that day. But when I walked a thousand sensations of God ran through me, the inscence like smelling Him, breathing Him in and out again and again. The music, like music angels hum. It gets blended together with the smells and you breathe it in and hum at the same time and God is in all things, even your veins. The icons have eyes that pierce you with love. You have silent conversations with them as God hangs just behind them and springs upon you in all light and life. Its the most glorious feeling of being overwhelmed I've ever had. Like laughing yourself to paradise, like bursting every which way because God's love moving in and out of you like osmosis ties you to a thousand places and a thousand things. A brother I cherish leans over as we line up to get this sweet smelling myrrh from the bones of the saint. "To think, God was so upon this man, this man so loved God that after he died his bones still have the presence of God on them."

I never knew what I thought about this whole thing, I never did this stuff growing up, let alone believe in its beauty. But the most beautifully overwhelming time God has been to me is when that mans bones gave me oils.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:57:48 GMT

I am doomed to be product of what I am accustomed to. The slightest hint of anything overpowering, I just want to move on to the road. To take three pieces of end bread and move into a hermitage in the end of the world and sing songs to the great God who above all fills me with breath. I don't even think I know how to be good and interact with people, and school, and things. If I truly believed all the things I think I would be in Siberia by now. God, my father, put your hands on the small of my back and hold me upright.