Things Said

an selection of some of my favorite quotes

1)Annalyssa: Wade, you’re not on youtube?
Wade: No, I took a break from youtube to write my paper. Every five minutes I’m taking a break from youtube to work on my paper.

2)Andrew (in sing-song to Lion King): Oh I just can’t wait…to be done!! …or to be king. I want to be king. Let’s just be honest here…the depravity part is coming out.
Criz: So do you prefer to be called Andrew or Andy?
Andrew: So you know Gandalf from Lord of the Rings? He was called one thing by the hobbits, and then he went somewhere else and they called him something different. But he didn’t care. He was the same person.
Annalyssa: But he didn’t go by Gandy!
Andrew: If you were to go to Maine, to Waldoboro Maine, and ask them about Andy, they would say, “We know Andy!” Because they put me in the schedule at the diner as Andy. And everyone called me Andy. And I obliged them. Just like Gandalf. Only Gandalf never became king. I do enjoy the Lord of the Rings, it’s a masterpiece written by J.R.R. Tolkien. A literary masterpiece. Some people don’t like it because they say it’s boring. But once you get going, you get going.
Annalyssa: I like Lord of the Rings. (Andrew gives her high five) But the books are boring. The movies are exciting.
Andrew: You just unendeared yourself to me. I take back that high five.

3)Andrew: Taisha. Doesn’t that sound like a black girl’s name?
Criz: It does!
Andrew: It does right? But it means ‘9’ in Hebrew.

4)Annalyssa: We never were going to give our dog a person’s name. That’s against my dad’s rules. My poor dad. His uncle had a Labrador retriever that my dad would play with when he was a kid. The dog’s name was Mary. It was a boy dog.

5)David: There’s also wisdom in not liking a guy before he likes you
Annalyssa: When does that ever happen? When does that ever happen?! It only happens when a guy who you don’t even like in the first place asks you out and then you have to entertain the idea of liking him.

6)Criz: I am eating oatmeal. I am going to a women’s brunch in half an hour and I know I’m going to be hungry so I’m eating at home so I don’t take all the muffins and look like a glutton. How many muffins can you take without looking rude? Anyway, I’m basing it off that proverb about not stuffing yourself at a rich man’s home.
Oms: I always stuff myself at a rich man’s home! I stuff myself anywhere!

7)Annyalyssa: I just hate how the Catholics think Mary is perfect.
Criz: Do you think she has a uterus in heaven?
Annalyssa: Probably a golden uterus…

8)Oms: Is there a book to teach you how to not be selfish?
Criz: The Bible?

9)Criz: And then Annalyssa and I were discussing what kind of dancing angels might do. Can you imagine an angel doing the jitterbug? Annalyssa said that maybe they’d have dance moves named after angels. Like The Guardian. And then I said the Seraphim Shuffle!
Den: I wonder what the angel of death would dance…whatever it was, I’m sure he’d have killer dance moves.

10)Annalyssa: What I’m really worried about is having to be here for the tribulation. That is like the worst news ever. I’m sitting in class and I’m like, “Am I the only one here who took the Left Behind series to be authoritative!??”

11)Criz: Hey! How are you?
Dennis: How are you? (in a weird voice)
Criz: Ah! Don’t do the creepy voice!
Den: That’s not my creepy voice. That’s a pirate voice!
Criz: Oh! Are you a pirate?
Den: Yes.
Criz: Are you wearing a patch?
Den: Yes, but not a pirate patch. A nicotine patch.
Criz: That counts. Are you wearing it on your eye?

12)Dennis: I’m sitting down. You sit on the floor.
Criz: I thought you said Christians sit in chairs.
Dennis: Well you’ve been behaving like a heathen

13)D: And your teeth are so beautiful. They’re so sharp. Like a monster…”

14)C: Have you ever picked cotton?
D: Yeah, I mean I’ve picked cotton off a cotton plant. But it wasn’t fun.
C: You’d make a terrible slave.
D: I would make a terrible slave. I’d always be thinking about running away or murdering my master.
C: Would you join the Underground Railroad?
D: I’d start my own railroad. Above ground.
C: Where would it go?
D: It’d have a lot of stopping points. If I had an underground railroad I’d use it to take slaves to freedom but I’d have them give me 10% of their earning once they were free as payment.
C: So you’d wean them off slavery?
D: You can’t just go cold turkey off of slavery

15)Oms: I wonder if Vietnamese people eating dogs is like us eating cows to Indian people.
Dad: No, it has to be different. Can a cow help you hunt? No. Can a cow retrieve ducks for you? No. Can a cow be a watchcow? No.

16)Dad: Come on, Sam. Stop hauling this little wimp and go throw the ring in yourself.
Mom: He can't. He's not the appointed one.
Dad: That's a bunch of baloney. All he needs to do is go up there and throw the ring in.

17)C: Could you ever marry a murderer?
K: (thinks about it seriously) Umm…depends on who they murdered.

Know

Waiting for letters that don’t come,
Perhaps the mail is slow,
Perhaps they have not yet been sent,
Perhaps they have not yet been written,
Or even thought of.

Is it not foolish to expect what is not?
What will not, presumably, be?
Ah, presumably. You mock me.
Much better it would be that hope died
than that hope lived on only to cripple its host.

God, what creatures are we?
Creatures that want and long?
How very uncomfortable,
How very inconvenient.

It is one thing to want what is good,
And grief to have the good denied.

It is another to want what is bad,
And horror to have it supplied.

And to want a thing,
A thing glistening
That perhaps
Is gloriously good,
Or that perhaps
Is desperately bad
Is worst of all.

But you are good,
You are the ultimate good,
Everything good comes from you.

In my core,
In the center of my soul,
In the essence of my being,
I know that I long for you.

And in my heart,
In my emotions,
In my passions,
I know that there too,
I long for you.

And I know that I know that I know,
And I know that I don’t know at all.
And I know that you are patient with me,
And I know that you are good.

Oh my God,
MY GOD,
Dear God,
God who is mine,
Am I yours?
Are you mine?

Such conflicts of emotion,
Sort them, sort them, sort them.

You who give life in the morning,
And sleep to the weary at night,
You who sustain by the Word,
Who carry the universe in might.

And you, who have known me forever,
Will you not help me know you?
Not many years have I,
To learn before learning anew.

Enoch walked with you,
Is it wrong that I am jealous?
Jealous for what is available to me,
Jealous that he found a way,
Or that you found him,
When I cannot seem to keep on the way for very long.
Keep me Lord.

I do not understand myself
The wiseman paints a picture of the self that is so complex,
Only you could know it truly.

How strange!
To not know all of oneself,
To know only a fragment of what is one’s being!
I know more than most,
More than any other,
But the Other knows more than I.
Infinitely more.

Reality

Overwhelmed.
Are words sufficient to capture, to encase, describe, grasp?
This steady drumming of goodness- the weight of my awe.
Can man tell, in faltering, inadequate lines,
And paint even the vaguest shadow of the Almighty’s love?
What is reality then, my God?
For I tremble at whispers,
Quake at glimmers,
Am wrecked by subtleties,
And undone by dreams.
What then, my Lord, will it be to see you face to face?
The earth, the whole earth, is filled with the glory of God-
And I drink of the only good which was meant to be worshipped, adored.
I drink of life,
And love
And the Spirit testifies that I belong,
For the love of the Lord is very great.

Skipping Stones

I think I skip steps,
Skipping stones.
Let me be sanctified now,
Without the purging of the dross.

Let me love sincerely,
Without taking the first awkward steps of knowing, of giddy infatuation, of misunderstanding.
Let me be aged and wise,
Without the childishness of childhood,
Without the angst of youth, the pain of defeat, and love lost.
Perseverence without trials,
Joy without suffering for the higher good,
Humility without humiliation,
Perfection without perfecting.

I want to know you without the embarrassment of getting to know you and failing.
I want to pray with all goodwill.
And I shame those joys that seem ego and selfish.
I cut out the base, the base on which one learns to love.
I want Christ without grace.
I am ashamed of needing it.
I am afraid, for it seems my self worth is tied up in my own goodness.
For I am so ashamed of failure, of being wrong...it seems I internalize my inadequacy. And so I strive for wholeness without addressing those broken, fractured pieces of self.

I run on weak knees.
Marathon on broken bones.
"I am well! I will be well! I can!" I say.
But I am broken and breaking, I must be mended first.
Mending through experience and growth, trying and failing, and trying again.
Not being so afraid of failing that I neglect trying.
I hate sloshing through the mire of my soul.
And so I sit on the bank and wave to you from afar.
But you are on the other side...

Do I want you more than I want to think well of myself?
Do I love you more than I despise feeling my own failure?
Do I want you more than I want to save face and preserve my own pride?
I want you enouh to try to love you and risk, and I want you enough to drink of your grace.
I need you more, desire to be near you more,
Desire to be broken with you,
Than to be lonely and deluded as to my "wholeness"
I will trust your care enough to depend on,
Expect, Your mercy.
I will trust your character enough to accept that I will live on your grace.