amid the whirlwind
of absolute calm
amazing surrounds me
and i dance along
velvet sky overcomes me
as winds rock me to sleep
in this comfort that holds me
o'er canyons so deep

because i havent yet found words of my own...i'll just use some which ive heard recently to say a little of my mind for the moment.

may our standing ask permission
to be a kind of benediction
to a love we know is bigger than ourselves
the spirit and your witness
is bearing light upon our weakness
giving weight to what we cannot see above
we come with what we are
we come with what we've done
we come with what we are
we are a beginning
in faith we look to comfort
she is laying her old hands
upon our souls as we discover
we are waking more to hope
your commited celebration
is part of our salvation
holding onto what we know
we cannot hold alone
because we are not that strong
sometimes afraid of what we've done
we are not that strong
but we are a beginning
we are a beginning
pray for the bravery
to act upon the kindness of forgiveness
and the mystery of clarity sometimes
mercy is grateful to go under all our failures
thanks be to Christ for severity
that's kissed us on our cheeks
may our standing ask permission
to be a kind of benediction
to a love we know is bigger than ourselves
the spirit and your witness
is bearing light upon our weakness
giving weight to what we cannot see alone
because we are not thatstrong
most times afraid of what we've done
oh we are not that strong
but we are a beginning...
~Sarah Massen

dear car,
please stop eating alternators. its unhealthy for you and unsafe for me.
getting frustrated,
your driver
--

dear jen,
thank you for opening the shop without me. when i asked you to, i had no idea how needed it would be.
fashionably late,
the barista

ps-i dreamed you got to the store at 3:45am. i told you to show up earlier..but not that much earlier. im glad to know it was only a dream.
--

dear brother,
thank you for offering to take me to work this morning. your attitude about waking up at the same time as the sun makes me feel good.
much love and gratefulness,
the beccasister
--

dear grandma,
today is the best day for oyu to not be a morning person. thank you for the use of your car.
love love love,
becca

2:05PM
"i wanna dance...i wanna move around the room just like a woman in a trance..."

last night at my church groups' christmas party held in a beautiful old house with marvelous flooring and molded walls in the older downtown area of augusta we learned to swing dance..mostly shag. it was the most enjoyable party i can remember, realy.

dancing made me realise a lot of things about myself and many other women in our culture that carry into life away from the dancefloor..well..i already knew them, but it showed them to me again in a light i hadnt realised.

first of all, the guys ask the girls to dance..the girls wait.
that in itself, is a marvelously freeing feeling for me as a woman, though i know the concept takes a lot of guts for some guys.

further into the night, when my partner, jonathan, and i were being shown a new step..chad, who was teaching us, had to keep getting onto me for trying to lead. i realised that through most of the night up till that point, i'd been trying to lead these men through the steps as i could remember them..instead of letting them do their job as the male dancer.
i know that i do this all throughout my life..lead when i should let men lead in things. my friend, daly, helps me realise this constantly by practically running over me or beating me up if i dont wait for him to open doors. (men, take note...learn to do this insistantly for the ladies you spend time with)

i think dancing..real dancing..should be a bigger part of growing up (as in, where i am now in life) i didnt understand that till last night. not only does it teach me what it means to follow, it teaches you to be a bit more confident and carefree about who's watching, because its just that much fun.


*added sunday evening*
10:05PM
further thoughts on dancing...

my always wanting to lead is similar to our relationship with God.
yes, i can live life leading myself and hoping god will follow, but its a lot more fun and freemoving if i just relax and look to him for direction. thats EXACTLY how it works with dancing. sometimes i had no idea what jonathan wanted to do next, but i just went with whatever direction he turned me and we did some pretty amazing things.

im moving into a house!

well..im living in a house now, but its not mine at all.
my wonderful friend jen an i started toying with the idea of moving into an apartment or something together..both of us are currently living with others (she at her parents', me at my grandmother's) and realy want some privacy and freedom and a place we can feel at home in. we looked at a couple of things last week and then a friend of ours told us of a lady she knows who has a house for rent. we checked it out and fell in LOVE with this opportunity.

the house is three bedrooms (though one room has no closet..so its more of an office) and one bath with lots of windows and its set back in some trees...almost feels like its in the woods. it comes with all the applicances and the ower is paying for the water and trash pickup. all we have to pay is electricity and rent (rent is 550 a month)
not only all of this, but she's working a lot on fixing it up and said we could paint as long as we LET HER BUY THE PAINT! hah! how great is this?!
since agreeing to rent it (with no lease time-period!), she's told us all sorts of things she has that we could use..a small kitchen table and three chairs (that we can paint!), an awesome antique desk, a wingedback chair, some curtains, and she found a loveseat and couch at goodwill this afternoon for $100 and called to see if we wanted those too! she offered to buy them, truck them over to the house, and let us pay them off with rent whenever we can afford to! this woman is an absolute BLESSING!
she said we could start moving in at the first of the year.
we're going to start out just the two of us, and perhaps take on a third housemate to lessen the payload if/when we come across a girl we could live with who wouldnt mind to lack of a real closet (there's furniture one can use in place of these sorts of things)
anyhow...i'm realy realy realy excited about moving into a house:)
oh..another cool thing: the yard has lots of trees, thus we wont have grass to cut:)
AND its about half as far from work as where im living now...maybe even closer.