before i go to japan...

...i thought i might drop a g. k. chesterton quote on the ol' blog. enjoy.

"Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other. "

There's a certain kind of pain that can numb you
There's a type of freedom that can tie you down
Sometimes the unexplained can define you
And sometimes the silence is the only sound
-nickel creek

My hopes are so high,
that your kiss might kill me.
So won't you kill me,
so I die happy.
My heart is yours to fill or burst,
to break or bury,
or wear as jewelery,
which ever you prefer.
-dashboard confessional

oh simple thing where have you gone?
-keane

more lyrics

I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away
(bright eyes)

questions of science, science and progress
do not speak as loud as my heart
(coldplay)

choose to chance...

i've been on the road a tad recently. therefore, i've been listening to music a tad as well. so, i think i am going to share some lyrics from music that, well, "gets at" my heart. some are serious. some maybe are not. i am too lazy or busy or both at the moment to remember all the good lyrics i've heard recently so this will be sort of a continuous blog that i will edit as i remember more. enjoy:

choose to chance the rapids, and dare to dance the tides
-good ol' garth
(new year's resolution 2008)
---
Tell me a story that'll make me feel
Something far flung but something real
Something that's human but not depraved
Somebody endangered, but somebody still saved
-waterdeep
(this gets me every time for reasons i don't even completely understand, although i have my theories.)
---
I'm not sure why it always flows downhill
why broken cisterns never could stay filled
I've spent ten years singing gravity away
But the water keeps on falling from the sky

And here tonight while the stars are blacking out
with every hope and dream I've ever had in doubt
I've spent ten years trying to sing these doubts away
But the water keeps on falling from my eyes

And heaven knows...and heaven knows
I tried to find a cure for the pain
Oh my lord! to suffer like you do...
It would be a lie to run away
-jon foreman

---
So I have become the Middleman
The gray areas are mine
The in-between, the absentee
Is a beautiful disguise

So I keep my footlights shining bright just like I keep my exits wide
'Cause I never know when it's time to go, it's too crowded now inside
The dead can hide beneath the ground and the birds can always fly
But the rest of us do what we must in constant compromise
-bright eyes
(interesting thoughts)

"You cannot and dare not. I could and dared"

--A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis (for some context, the "Grief" he is dealing with is the recent death of his wife)

"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."


"What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know he is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?
Yet this is unendurable. And then one babbles-'If only I could bear it, or the worst of it, or any of it, instead of her.' But one can't tell how serious that bid is, for nothing is staked on it. If it suddenly became a real possibility, then, for the first time, we should discover how seriously we had meant it. But is it ever allowed?
It was allowed to One, we are told, and I find I can now believe again, that He has done vicariously whatever can be so done. He replies to our babble, 'You cannot and dare not. I could and dared.'"

some lines from dickens' great expectations

We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

...suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.