my LOVE/HATE relationship with romance

my biggest temptation right now is to FLOAT.
i want to just play guitar all day and read TUMBLR.
most of my blogs are made up love poems that i post
to make the reader think i'm in WONDER.
i'm not there.
haven't been there for a VERY, VERY long time.

--

i'm so interested in romance. i admit i find it fascinating.
i grew up in a home that constantly surrounded me with it.
my mom still gets nervous when my dad knocks on the door.
and so i've found in myself an inclination to daydream, write, dialogue
about romance ALL THE TIME.

--

i also have found that nothing in the world scares the hell out of me
like romance does. the thought of it makes me run back to my cave
with Don Miller. He's really good for lonely people like myself.

--

i learned recently that there are some people that aren't fascinated
by romance at all. they actually daydream about being single all their lives...drinking tea and becoming a Secret Window character. it doesn't bother them at all. they write about things that matter, like Obama's progress as president or the comparison between Macbooks and PCs. some of them even write about Jesus all the time.

lucky souls.

just going to go ahead and say that this weekend ranks amongst the greatest.
thank you miami.

ten steps to becoming a better writer

according to brian clark:


Write.
Write more.
Write even more.
Write even more than that.
Write when you don’t want to.
Write when you do.
Write when you have something to say.
Write when you don’t.
Write every day.
Keep writing.

--i think its nearly the same method for photography .
and love?

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
— Jim Morrison

i daydreamed today for nearly three hours on whether Jesus would want to have coffee with me or not. At first, i thought that Jesus might be a tea kind of God.
i concluded that if i'd ask Him to coffee He'd probably shrug His shoulders and say "shoot, why not?". then i imagined that He asked me why i talked about romance so much on my blog.
he said that he agreed with Torres.
i complained to Him saying that He messed up when He made it this way. i told him that it should be a lot easier, without headaches, phone scratches,etc. oh, and i told him that hormones was a bad idea too.
overall, it was a pretty sweet daydream.

Yikes! The truth is known: what transpired between us- love or infatuation or whatever it was- here is the proof. it was real,it was deep. i didn't think it was this deep did you? i moved thousands of miles away but there's this annoying room with a locked door in my mind. there's conversations and memories locked in there. on nights like these i feel hopeful enough to crawl in - I PEAK. and every time i do it takes me back to this place. i dream, you know that right?
course you do.

oh, how many times have i tried to forget
that god-forsaken table.
the story of the kiss rejected
(any thoughts of kissing another)
i know what you said (they told me)
and i walked away
trying to convince myself that it was
ALL A HOAX.
all lies, right ?
noel you're wrong.
i left but she's gone.
LADIES AND GENTLEMAN:
only the good-looking guys win them back at
THE END.

“I am no one special. Just a common man with common thoughts. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived. I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul and for me that has always been enough.”
-the notebook

“You are everything
I have always dreamed of but
never woke up to.”

nightmare.

“[reading, about Noah] She had come back into his life like a sudden flame, blazing and streaming into his heart. Noah stayed up all night contemplating the certain agony he knew would be his if he were to lose her twice.”
— The Notebook

dreams.

as i lay next to one of my best friends last night, i said: " i don't want to ever lay next to someone and have them ask me about my dreams and my answer being so moderate that their only response would be " oh, that's cool."

i've always been a dreamer. and i think it's alright.

on the subject of THE GIRL: I'm still trying to figure out the line between DREAMER AND CREEPER. :) ( just kidding people . )

art and coffee.

I recently listened to a lecture by John Piper in which he spent an hour talking about his story and how he got to the place that he's at. If you do not know who John Piper is and for some reason are interested in getting to know him, you could tune into his podcast titled " the pastor as scholar ". In his lecture he goes on a 5 minute rampage on writing and why he loves the art. Piper says that poetry is a way of putting words together that awakens things in people that wouldn’t have been awakened unless it had been written. writing to me is one of the things that i do for myself. i don't usually have my readers in mind when i'm writing. that's probably why i go through journals at the pace i do. i started this blog after struggling for a while. my struggle was that because my writing was mostly a thing i did to function properly, or as a means of venting, THAT it would be pointless to publish my ramblings to the public and that maybe i should just stick to journaling.
that's when i started to love art.
the beauty of art is that it is all about expression. some would say that it IS expression. i enjoy listening to music because it is like sitting at a coffee shop with your roommate telling stories to one another. music lets me sit down with the likes of Mayer and Fitzgerald, Upton and Dylan. i just sit quietly drinking my mocha while they spend 90 or so minutes telling me their stories, the drawings on their heart. that IS how they say we know one's heart (they say): by LISTENING.
and there's something beautiful and enticing about the opportunity. we all want to know that we are not alone on this God-made planet.
that's what art gives us.
her songs, although sung for the sake of venting or expression, will beckon millions to coffee. sit down and share in this gift of life called fellowship.
we all need it. and that's why i blog.

the least jealous of loves

"Lamb says somewhere that if, of three friends (A,B and C), A should die, then B not only loses A but "A"'s part in C, while C loses not only A but 'A's part in B'. In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; i want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald's reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him 'to myself' now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, 'Here comes one who will augment our loves.' For in this love 'to divide is not to take away'...we possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases. In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious 'nearness by resemblance' to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed [which no man can number] increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision are crying 'Holy, holy, holy' to one another [ Isa 6:3 ]. The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread, the more we shall all have."

-C.S Lewis.

Resurrection.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes about redemption. What he really does is talk about resurrection but they are one and the same. He says that life would be futile if Christ had not risen from the grave. If Christ would have died, and stayed dead, it would have been the greatest downer the world would ever see. I mean how can a Man who preached that everything needed to be resurrected ( redeemed, if you will ) not come back to life after His own death ? It would be foolishness. Life would be futile without the resurrection. We would have no hope. We would live like the pagan who thinks that life is not eternal, and consequently - we should just live to bring pleasure to our bodies while we have them.
What hope would creation have? The trees would stay barren, satisfied with it's winter dress. It would groan with no avail for all of its days.

*Right outside my window stands erected a 100+ foot tree. I have been watching this tree go through its seasons since i moved up here. In the winter time, i would look out my window at "my" tree to find it barren and very emo-like.
it was dead.
My tree is green again. It has come to life again ( although it was only it's appearance that was dead-like ). Signs of life all over campus again. Resurrection.

Creation still groans, but with hope. It hopes for a better day. All of nature hopes for the day with Christ will be on the throne, on earth. All will be redeemed. The curse will be removed.

We too wait in hope. Our bodies will be redeemed. As for now, we believe that when Christ rose from the dead, so did we. We are not dead anymore. We can now live the Christ-life here on earth. He put in the grave our lust, greed, selfishness, hate.
We are a new creation, filled with love, joy, peace , and righteousness. Filled with hope.

We share our material possessions ( because nothing is really OURS... ). WE fast our food and give it to someone who could really use some. We put away our time-consuming electronics and commit to live life WITH OTHERS. We pray TOGETHER, eat TOGETHER, laugh & cry TOGETHER, because this is how it's supposed to be. We live as if we had hope of a heaven on earth. Because we do.

I'm not blogging anymore of my ideals. I'm trying to live this out before i ever tell someone about it.

My friend and I put away our electronics for a few weeks to live life more simple. My friend lent me her laptop to type up my paper and i thought i'd write something. SO here it is.

( ..the SIMPLE WAY is so under-rated )

This is very disheartening (Kiva loans statistics).

This was brought to my attention via twitter update from Zach Lind:

Below is a screen shot of the two highest lending groups on the micro-lending website Kiva: Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious, and Kiva Christians. As you can see in the "Total Loaned" section it shows the Athiest group with $432,950.00 loaned, and the Christian group with only $349,250.00 loaned.

(click for larger view)

It's pretty interesting to see that the group with the Savior who spoke so much about the poor is more reluctant to loan out money than the group with no Savior, or God with a heart for the poor. This should be pretty disheartening for those of us who call ourselves Christians, especially since this is the loaning, not even GIVING of your money.

Here are three of the over 300 verses in the Bible on the poor, and social justice:

Matthew 5:42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Deuteronomy 15:7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.

Luke 16:19-25 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell,where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.

If you are not yet a member of Kiva or have never tried micro-lending, the passages below were taken from their website. I signed up for the site today and made my first loan to a man named Haytham in North Lebanon for his CD & Cassette shop on behalf of the Kiva Christians group. They're doing some really cool stuff with this site, please consider it.

---

What is Kiva?

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT: julioanta.tumblr.com

my thoughts exactly

before conversion of course...

www.eatsleepdraw.com

twitter.

i'm also on twitter. why the rut? well i'm just getting to ready for when I'm a million miles away and i want to keep in touch with the world. either way, twitter is a fascinating networking site, to say the least. if you're too busy to check out multiple sites, my twitter updates are right on the side of melast. what's twitter noel?!

once again, wiki comes in to the rescue.

"♦Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length."


TWITTER .

tumblr.

i'm currently working on a site where i will be sharing from as soon as i move overseas... it's still under construction so don't expect anything, but you could bookmark it and check back on it sometime in January, twenty-10. meanwhile, i'll still be blogging on melast.

to who it may concern.
noel.

my fingers are on my keyboard at this precise moment all because of one man's suggestion. he suggested that i update my blog, probably because it's easy to lose my readers if i don't blog frequently. i understand that this is true, and i do care about you guys, but I'd much rather facebook or talk on the phone. see, on this blog thing, it's only me putting myself out there (or here).

[and for what reason?]

either way, I'm putting my fingers to a task that they have come to abhor. and before you make the assumption that i have lost my love for writing, consider this: i have spent most of my time [outside of class and work] on this laptop of mine, doing an exaggerated amount of Theology homework. it has consumed my life, nearly. after spending an hour & 1/2 on my report prior to this,



i thought that it would be o.k for me to invest into the blogosphere. i don't feel as though i have much to offer today, (or for the last few weeks), so please pray to God that my mind would not be so caught up on learning [guitar and theology] and looking at/drawing random pictures on random scraps of paper.



my life lately has been pretty mundane. i have been experimenting with some new things lately, like fasting and interacting in class.

broomball is quickly becoming one of my favorite sports; not so much because i'm any good at it, but mostly because it gives me an excuse to hit people. broomball, for you southerners, is a lot like hockey, except without skates. it is played on ice.
which means that you fall a lot. A LOT.



oh, BIG NEWS ! I'm [almost] officially going to Kenya in January for sixteen months. for you new readers, I've been training to be a missionary for the last six months, and part of my training involves going to school in a country overseas. the options are to either go to Austria, Central Asia, France, or Kenya. I've decided to go to Kenya!

and that's where i am at. on the outside. for more intimate details about my life, call me... or wait for me to post a blog at one of my weak moments.

i would really love to hear about you and you're life (wow, i made it seem as though they are separate).