A Burst of Domesticity

Do you think about the feeling of folding warm laundry? About how it feels to smooth out the wrinkles in your clothes and sheets and towels? About letting the warmth seep into the bones of your fingers and breathing in the clean smell of home? About the victory you experience when you realize all your socks have escaped the clutches of the sock-eating laundry monster?

It's a good feeling.

Or grocery shopping. Think about grocery shopping, especially as a college student: you've stopped eating cereal because you ran out of milk, and you had to make a sandwich with the end pieces of your bread, and you haven't cooked green things in a long time, and there are no bananas within reach —and then Giant. Wegman's. Costco.

There are grapes in my fridge right now, GRAPES.

You'd be hard-pressed to make me any happier in this moment.

Thoughts on John 6:60-71

Like Peter, I do not want to leave my Lord.

The world I see around me is dark, frightening, and powerful. In looking at myself, I have come to understand my own weakness--my helplessness to control anything around me. How, then, could I venture into that place without the protection of my Father's mighty hand?
The thought terrifies me.

The pleasures of this world are plentiful and persuasive in their promises. It would be easy to submit to their allure and let myself be drawn in until I hardly know myself. But I know from the stirrings of my soul that it will not be satisfied with such meager fare. I have tasted of a greater joy than the world can offer me. I will not leave the source of living water to drink at broken cisterns.

The Creator of the universe does not disappear simply because I turn away from him.
I am not guiltless. I am not shameless. I deserve eternal punishment.
To flee from the arms of my Savior is to expose myself for the judgment my sinful soul requires. Without my Redeemer, the knowledge of a holy God's existence is the most horrifying thing I can imagine.

Like a lost child come home, I do not want to leave this shelter my soul has found.
I am not afraid that I will. I know this:
Like steel melted onto steel, my Lord will never, ever let me go.

Almost Forgotten

Worn wooden table. Chairs scraping against the floor, children's chattering, laughter. Hot chocolate in old mugs, cupped by little hands.

We made the hot chocolate with microwaved milk, instead of using boiled water like I did at home.
It was never quite as hot, but always warmer on my insides as we sat there, cheeks pink from the snow outside and all of us thinking hard what to do next.

Tents, or houses, made from blankets. Some of them were so heavy, we had to use our schoolbooks to pin them to the couches. There was barely enough room underneath for even our smaller bodies to crawl, especially after we padded the carpet with cushions. It was okay because we were being Cats, and cats don't stand up inside anyway.

Sometimes we made hot chocolate with only half the powdered packet, and ate the other half, which I never did at home. It stuck to my teeth in little gooey lumps, and I thought that was funny.

When we got tired of talking, we lay down and tried to read in the dimness of those quilted shadows. Eventually we took the books and migrated back upstairs to where the winter sunlight poured in through the window.

Sometimes we didn't make hot chocolate at all. If we had played long enough, if the house was warm enough that we didn't care about the cold, we had cups of apple juice instead.

We asked to sleep under those blanket-houses, so we could keep playing even in our dreams, but ended up in proper beds anyway.

Still it was the roads that

caught our attention and

my recollection: there, 

reality blurred, and we found 

a doorway into our own world.

On the roads, we were

adventurers, explorers,

or warriors as we wished--

what exciting journeys

to remember! and how

simple to forget the quiet

comfort of the house that

waited, waited patiently

until the weary travelers

returned.

Typical Conversations #11 and #12

DAN: (screeches from bathroom) There's a spider in here!!
MOM: Haha. Did you hear that? He has to deal with a spider.
DAD: Let's see what he does.
ME: (yelling from other room) SQUISH IT WITH YOUR FINGERS.
DAN: (another screech, louder)

Silence.

DAN: (coming out of bathroom) I emerge victorious.

~•~

STEVIE: Can I have a knife?
ME: Here.
STEVIE: Thanks. I was just thinking, like, I have this pork chop and no knife...
ME: You could have just torn at it with your teeth.
MOM: Yeah, just hold it in your hands and go nawnawnawr. Like eating a squirrel.

OMELET

Nathan and I made omelets for ourselves on Wednesday.
Ingredients: eggs, "Mexican Blend" shredded cheese, diced barbeque chicken, and some green salad stuff we found in the fridge.
Seems like it should have gone well, right?

It turns out we are not that great at the whole cooking part.

Had too much salt (mine)

Had no salt at all (Nathan's)

---

However, despite the, uh, less-than-perfect presentation and salt discrepancy, they ended up tasting pretty good.

I'm left alone...

WITH TWO MEN TO TAKE CARE OF. Well, just one now, but that's beside the point.

Mommy and Jeremy left for Boston early on Saturday morning, and until today, both my dad and Nathan were home--which meant that I had to be domestic and clean the house and cook for them and stuff.
I'm not very domestic naturally. I will confess that it felt (feels) odd to me. Mom is the kind of mom who does everything while hardly talking about it, and Jeremy is the sensitive brother who takes care of almost everything else that Mom might have missed. So...I'm the spoiled youngest child who usually just sort of sits there and expects to be served. Most of the time, I take initiative to do something if I'm absolutely sure that no one else might just maybe in the near future do it instead of me. Otherwise, I only do stuff that I'm explicitly told to.
Bad, I know. I have to change that mentality. (Pray for me in this area. My family will love you.)
However inexperienced I may be, this weekend went pretty well. We ate a lot of leftovers, but there was some successful cooking involved. The kitchen hasn't caught on fire. In fact, it's quite clean right now, because I was provided with this nice little checklist of daily chores that I have dutifully followed. Never mind that I lost it on Saturday afternoon and freaked out for a few hours before Nathan found it again.
I've even done laundry by myself, which I never do, which is kind of pathetic. If you feel inclined to scoff at me right now, feel free. 
But besides all that, my brother and father make great company. Dad has watched like four different documentaries in this weekend alone: something on Yellowstone, something about Martin Luther, something about the history of jazz, and another one that I forget. It may actually have been a movie. I watched some of them with him. That was fun.
Nathan and I went out to practice frisbee on Saturday, when the ground was soaking wet. Lovely. He made me practice lay-out catches (I CAN'T DO THEM RIGHT), then practice sprinting, then practice long, accurate throws. That was fun too.
Other than those highlights, we mostly wandered around the house, occasionally bothering each other.

We also had brownies and ice cream.

"Davina," says Nathan, "I want you to scoop the ice cream with this."

↓

That didn't work out so well...

We also watched two episodes of 24: Season 2.
I like it.


Unfortunately, I'm really alone this afternoon, as Nathan is back in the city, and Dad's at work. Fortunately, Kelly is coming here in less than an hour to break my loneliness.

Well, I should probably go put in another load of laundry. Bye.

Home

The sunset sky last night was beautiful, bright red and orange and yellow streaked across a soft blue-purple canvas. I watched it through the black naked branches of the trees stretching up into the west, and it took my breath away. Just a day before that, crystal-white snow covered those same branches and blanketed the ground, while sparkling icicles hung from every twig and roof and windowsill.
There is something about the quiet beauty of Nature that stirs a longing in me, a yearning for something else. It is a longing that I have always had, but mostly stays sleeping within me, only awakening from time to time. I think this is a longing that everybody has, though each person has a different perception of it. It's perhaps funny, because many people look to Nature to satisfy that longing, but for me, it only makes the longing worse. I stared out the window the other day, thought of forested hills and golden moonlight, and wondered what I was looking for. Then it occurred to me.

I want to go Home.

It is as simple as that. I see the sunset and I think of a wider sky, perhaps painted with more colors. I see the trees and I think of taller ones whose branches will hold me without fear of falling. I see the rivers that we pass by while driving and I think of walking along one's side, marveling at the sweet clear waters and the joyful rushing sound, walking, walking under dazzling open skies and over higher, greener hills. Following the river on and on until I come to a shining city where the gates are always open.
What will it be like to open my eyes to a brighter world, to wake up free from sin, to finally run to my Father and feel His arms around me?

I can't wait to go Home.