today, on a paper sac, sitting in the coffee shop.

I need to challenge myself -- challenge myself to think, and to preserve those thoughts through writing. What is the point in thinking if you can't remember your thoughts? If these things are important now, they will certainly be important again later. Or, maybe it isn't an issue of time, but of making my thoughts and thus my mind and essence available to others. There is nothing that I want so much as to be known and then accepted.

On Faith
I think there are those, and a few who are close to me, who would say that if you question your faith, then you don't have faith at all, and you are not really saved. Frankly, I disagree. I truly believe that everyone questions the validity, the absolute truth, of their faith. Not just once, but multiple times of life. What I think is bad is when we are too scared to face those questions, and so ignore them, deny them, trivialize them, or "answer" them with sub-par rationalizations. I will question my beliefs. I will seek out answers...from people on both sides of the fence. I will have moments of doubt, and I will not deny that. From these I will grow to have a better understanding of truth...Because that is what we all want... truth...

Why do we all want truth? We want security. We want to know what to expect, and we don't want to be caught off guard.

I love stories. I love people's stories; I love fairytales. I love happy endings and tragic endings, and I love "to be continued"s. I believe in the power of hope. I see the beauty of birth, of sickness, of health, and of death. I find simplicity more appealing than money. I value relationships but I can't sit still long enough to let someone know me. I pretend to hate rules, but really I like to know where the boundaries are so that I can get the thrill of sticking my toes over them, or plow over them head first. I need rules. Ugh, I Hate that I just said that.

Birth - I don't think that bringing another soul into this world is beautiful. I see this life too much as pain and brokenness to warrant putting another through it. Birth is beautiful because of the purity and innocence of a fresh heart.

Sickness - We never feel in such desperate connectedness with our bodies until we are ill. It is when people have cancer or some other intense debilitating experience that they, their minds, and they, their bodies, become one.

Health - It is when we are healthy that we can enjoy life--that we can jump, skip, climb trees, go on walks, hold hands, cuddle, stay up late, get up early, smell the flowers and leaves and rain, enjoy the touch of a breeze, give of ourselves for the sake of another.

Death - Death is the ceasing of the pain of this life. Also, if death is not a surprise, or even if it is, the intensity of emotion and of love felt and expressed is itself beautiful--to feel so much.