index on courage and appendix of miscellaneous thoughts

on courage (an index of quotes such as these might be considered "inspirational," meaning cliche and embarrassing, but i like them...and -- frankly -- i like feeling inspired. so shoot me already!! ...):

He who is brave is free. ~Seneca~

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace. ~Amelia Earhart~

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. ~Robert Cushing~
You can't test courage cautiously. ~Annie Dillard~
The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life in order to keep it. ~G. K. Chesterton~
Come to the edge,' he said. They said, 'We are afraid.' 'Come to the edge,' he said. They came. He pushed them... And they flew. ~Peter McWilliams~

it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~e e cummings~

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on. ~La Rochefoucauld~

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." ~Ambrose Redmoon~

"Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD." ~Psalm 27:14~


on another note, i have found an apartment for this fall. it is less than a block away and on the same street as i currently live. (NOTE: it's unnerving to me how many things have worked out so easily and so well in my life: i have three jobs which i am whole-heartedly excited about and which pay more than sufficiently, an amazing network of friends and several surprising new friendships that have meant more than i can say, a new apartment just down the road... the only thing that could make my life more complete would be a chocolate shop just around the corner!!!) ...anyway, i'd like to take this time to explain my planned moving technique. it is simple. i must first wheel a few shopping carts from D&W to my current house (one block away). i will then fill them with my crap and push them down the middle of the street to my next house. to move my couch, i intend to use two shopping carts and place the couch across them horizontally. the person pushing the shopping cart on the left will wear a sign on her ass reading "WIDE" while the person on the right will don a sign reading "LOAD" on her ass.

i just wish

so much happens each of these days. so much that i almost forgot that i have no living arrangements made for september, and i'm going out of town the last week in august!! ...tomorrow is a day to crack down and find a place to live, as well as make some job-related calls to make sure everything's in place. i guess this explains why i can't sleep right now...too much on my mind for tomorrow.

so much happens everyday. i'm grateful for all the opportunities to learn the life lessons i'm learning, for sure. i just wish i had time to process and internalize them. ...i've got it: i'll make a list of all the things i want to think about, then i'll take them on my road trip with me next week and think up a storm. so now for a list (i'm such a list girl...):

~on being alone. when it comes down to it, we are all ultimately alone. we can share our life with people in varying degrees of intimacy, but we are still all responsible to ourselves in the end. ...i've spent much of my life using friendships and relationships to cushion this reality, but i guess i'm growing up now and growing more and more into independence. ...i still often feel compelled to "start over" somewhere far, far away where no social network exists to stifle me and i can then and only then truly "find myself." a friend of mine put it this way:

When I have friends around I sort put my emotions and psyche on cruise control - I am in my comfort zone. I know what to expect, I know how to deal with issues. All of a sudden when I get thrust out on my own I have to deal with everything internally. I don't have somebody to call to complain about my boss, I don't have that social network which sometimes supports, but most of the time stifles. This time alone - while I certainly hope it doesn't last longer than it has to, I will cherish because I know that when I come out on the other side it will have shaped me into somebody stronger.

of course, then there's the problem of self-prescribing this experience of finding myself. the danger with self-medication is that a girl starts believing her life is about doing things her way istead of about God and what God is doing in and through her. what if God wanted me to be in grand rapids with the same people for years to come? this is one of my greatest fears. ...i guess the thing to do is to pray in all honesty to God about my desires and trust that God wants only what's best for me and will work with me either to fulfill my desires or take away my need to have the desire fulfilled through strenthening me. ...yes, i need some good prayer time during my road trip next week.

~anyway, the whole discussion of aloneness brings up questions about marriage. i'm very much driven to ponder these questions because, as terrified as i may be of the whole idea, i do still hope very much to be married someday. so...if we are all ultimately alone, my question then is this: what exactly is the purpose of marriage anyway? i'm not so sure i want kids, so this isn't a driving force moving me toward marriage. and if i have the most amazing friends of my life right now, what reason would i have to want a husband?? i'm thinking it has something to do with the marriage covenant and serving someone until death do us part, and somehow that's beautiful, but i just don't see it yet....

~and most of all, despite my disenchantment with mainstream Christianity, i'm beginning to want to grow with God until i can't function in daily life without conscious interaction with God. this is what it really comes down to. i want to fall in love with my God and with my faith. fuck cheesiness and cliches and misguided Christianity; i want a vision of God in the form of objects and lyrics and conversations and music that speak nothing more than the simple truths of Christianity; and these simple truths will have a voice of great power. God, bring these materials for this growth. i want it real.

~finally, this is some heavy shit. so i return to my original thought:

so much happens these days. enough has happened today, this long day...it's 4:11 am!!! ...so i guess put myself to bed now...