Excerpt from Perelandra

"It is not for nothing that you are named Ransom, said the Voice....My name also is Ransom. It was some time before the purport of this saying dawned upon him. He whom the other worlds call Maleldil, was the world's ransom, his own ransom, well he knew. But to what purpose was it said now? Before the answer came to him he felt its insufferable approach and held out his arms before him as if he could keep it from forcing open the door of his mind. But it came. So that was the real issue. If he now failed, this world also would hereafter be redeemed. If he were not the ransom, Another would be. Yet nothing was ever repeated. Not a second crucifixion: perhaps-who knows-not even a second Incarnation...some act of even more appalling love, some glory of yet deeper humility. For he had seen already how the pattern grows and how from each world it sprouts into the next through some other dimension. The small external evil which Satan had done in Malacandra was only as a line: the deeper evil he had done in Earth was as a square: if Perelandra fell, her evil would be a cube-her Redemption beyond conceiving. Yet redeemed she would be. He had long known that great issues hung on his choice; but as he now realised the true width of the frightful freedom that was being put into his hands-a width to which all merely spatial infinity seemed narrow-he felt like a man brought out under naked heaven, on the edge of a precipice, into the teeth of a wind that came howling from the Pole. He had pictured himself, till now, standing before the Lord like Peter. But it was worse. He sat before him like Pilate. It lay with him to save or to spill. His hands had been reddened, as all men's hands have been, in the slaying before the foundation of the world; now, if he chose, he could dip them again in the same blood. 'Mercy', he groaned; and then, 'Lord, why me?' but there was no answer."

Soup: A Comfort and a Crisis

Sick and somehow the pressure in my sinuses is causing my eyeballs to expand to a greater size than my eye sockets can accomodate and it is affecting my vision. In need of a natural remedy my mind automatically fell on the obvious solution. Soup. Hot steamy soup will deflate all swollen face parts and solve all of the other world's problems for that matter. Tomato in its finest form looking back up at me saying, don't worry, everything is going to be ok. If it had arms it would give me a big hug, which it still managed to steamily do. The first bite is somehow exceeded in comfort by the next and the next held still more healing ecstacy. I plodded dreamily through my little world of me and soup, my being at equilibrium. I was just about to deem the world good when I noticed something. With each spoonful of throat-coating tomato soup, I was diminishing the volume of the soup in the bowl. And a dastardly thing happens to hot soup when it is of a small volume, it gets cold really fast. So the shocking story of soup is that while the bowl is full the soup is hot but towards the end, you can't eat it fast enough to maintain the exponentially decreasing temperature. When there is just a spoonful left, even if it was boiling only seconds ago, it is tepid in an instant. If I could draw a graph with a curve to illustrate this piracy it would be gently sloping at the beginning but changing to a hyperbolically steep curve at the end with you and an empty bowl of room temp soup as the asymptote. Diabolical in its nature, this phenomonon along with everything else only serves to remind me that all things are in conflict. An activity meant to sedate dips you into its joys only to bring you back up and spit you out as if you had gone nowhere peaceful. This conclusion is in no way nihilistic, on the contrary, conflict is expected in a world that means something.

flight of the balsa 4000

umm.....hi

I probably have now lost my readers as they have had nothing new to look at in several weeks due to my computer being out of commission as it now remains. Cari has so saint-heartedly let me put up my pictures on her computer.

The barrage of orchids is from a really amazing orchid farm in Walla Walla, the women folk are my mom and sister(aren't they magnificent).

The girl in the purple dress is my beneficent friend, hot Christina posing as Ursela from the Little Mermaid minus the fat and ugly(and the tentacles).

Is anybody still out there? Tyler? Maran? Amanda? Cari? Christina? Don't let your hearts grow cold to me because I've neglected you!

Che ha da dichiarare?

I forgot my camera cord in my rush to pack 30 minutes before leaving on break so all the pictures I want to post from being at home will come in one offensive, startling wave sometime next week (offensive and startling because of the quantity not because of the content).
While I am at home I am trying to learn italian for the big trip this summer. Thanks to my Grandpa, I have a complete audio tape learn italian read along kit. So far, I am able to greet people, say my name, say where I'm from and say how many packs of cigarettes I have at customs. Or at least I know how to say I have twenty packs. With the help of my keen self-discipline,(ha!) I will be a broken-italian speaking machine without delay. Lets try a little dialogue:

customs officer: Che ha da dichiarare?
Natalia: Delle sigarette.
customs officer: Quanti pacchetti?
Natalia: Venti pacchetti!

You have no idea how much I love wasting time! goodnight friends

The Cute Bunny

I would like to call God by a diffreent name than just God, because I want to talk about Him in this post but just saying, "me and God had a heated conversation" or something like that doesn't make this Person really seem like a person. I don't know if I really want to say, "me and Jesus had a heated conversation" either, that just sounds wrong. I can't really think of a good name for the collective summation of God, I don't know what to do! There is no title that rings true for my purposes. Maybe I will refer to Him as "the Tao" just to tease Him. So today I asked "the Tao" or more appropriately for this particular title, I sought unity with the Tao because my rhythm was out of sync with nature and the river-like natural path of the Tao made itself known to me. I now realize this may be confusing so I will translate: today I had a heated conversation with God, and asked Him to show himself to me. Almost daily I pray for God to give me examples to follow. Like people who are wise and happy and have happy family lives and actually know Jesus well enough to discern His quietness. I can't imagine having a more thoughtful and sincere example than my friend Nissa. This I realized anew this morning while listening to her excitedly divulge to me what she had learned from reading C.S. Lewis and how it helped her see how to love God more. While this blessing is far greater than anything I can imagine, I left her house and continued my day frustrated at the disconnect I was feeling between God and me.
So as I was walking around in the student park, I prayed, "you know God, I sure wouldn't mind just listening to You do the talking right now." Later, as a cute little bunny became so offended by my presence that he didn't care that he made a scene in exiting the viscinity, I thought of how I would have liked to watch the bunny and enjoy its cuteness for awhile. It seems that every time I ask God to show Himself to me lately, something like this is brought to my attention. A bunny running away is hardly a sign from God, but it made me think about how good things hide themselves. I am reminded of the importance of me seeking God. Seeking Him as if He were running away or withholding something from me until He knew I was really listening, and running full speed after Him. Until I have waited as long as one might wait by a foxhole. This may seem sort of backwards (at least I am used to the Hound of Heaven way of looking at God, "I fled Him down the nights and down the days") but I think the expereiences we have with God are quite new at every turn and with every person and maybe even seem to vary to the point of uneasiness when comparing stories and giving advice to others based our own experiences. At any rate, in the midst of all this running away, God still manages to be exquisitely good to me.