Sick

So im in the bathroom getting ready for school, minding my own business, thinking that im alone, since, i mean its my bathroom. I go to wipe my face with my towel and a HUGE cockroach JUMPS OFF MY TOWEL. IN MY BATHROOM. and normally im ok with cockroaches, they dont really bother me. But on my towel in my bathroom is a clear invasion of privacy. im just sayin. I just thought you should know

Copy-cat

We have an Africa Grey Parrot. The newest addition to the Mozley menagerie. and when i call it a menagerie i am not even exaggerating. Not even a little. We have a ridiculous number of animals in our house. Anyways. This grey parrot was a very exciting addition. My mom and i have been wanting to get one since we moved here. However, the only person this parrot seems to tolerate is my dad. Go figure. Birds just tend to do that in our house. This parrot, whose name is Nooma(shout out to Rob Bell), likes to bite anyone else who comes near her. very anti-social. Its slightly annoying. Anyways, one of the cool things about grey parrots is that they can learn to talk. Or more accurately, to mimic whatever they hear around the house. Our bird has begun to test out this ability. So far she can mimic our puppy whining, luke's very loud scream (she can do this one perfectly. There have been a couple of times that ive gone into the living room to tell Luke to stop screaming and its the bird), the cat crying at the window, some form of hello, and the fart machine.

Yes i did just say that our parrot can mimic the fart machine. How sad is that? Maggie owns a machine that makes very convincing farting noises, activated by a remote control. We made the mistake (or maybe it was on purpose...) of putting this fart machine near the bird cage. And she is very talented at mimicry(?), what can i say. Thankfully (/dangit), shes only made the lovely noises a couple of times.

So the other day i was thinking about how accurately she mimics things. Which made me consider how amazing it is that she can fully sound like Luke screaming. To the extent that i mistake it for him. And then i thought about how much of the stuff i do is just an imitation of what ive seen other people do. Nooma doesnt really have her own noises. I mean a couple, but the older she gets, the more stuff she will simply mimic. And that made me wonder, how much of who i am and what i do is me, and how much is other people that i try to mimic? Do i do stuff because its who i am or because it looks or sounds like someone else? Or simply because i know that whatever that stuff is will allow me to be liked or admired? Thinking about this was a little dissapointing. Because I started to realize that a lot of the stuff i do, ive gotten from other people. And im not saying that all of it is bad. Im just saying that im not sure if its me, or a copy of someone else. And should that bother me? Probably, at least a little.

But then there's the other side. Is it possible that i could mimic my Jesus that convincingly? To the extent that Nooma mimics Luke for example. How cool would that be? Could i mimic His love, His patience, His ability to see people's hearts rather than their faces or attitudes, His grace, His beautiful way of hanging out with the hard, often fallen, 'fishermen' of a society and influencing them without being influenced and without seeming at all pushy or religious? Cause i want that. And all those things I said i want to mimic about Christ is all that im not. At least not in my heart.

So my grey parrot has made me seriously ponder myself. and how much im like her. hah. sorry reading over that last line was funny. So i think im ok with mimicry. As long as i mimic the right Person. But i have a feeling this process is going to take awhile. AnD it will probably be hard. But i think thats ok. Im gonna have some growing pains for awhile.
love

The Grade

So i kinda have a new motto if you will. Im getting kinda fed up with school so...ive decided that grades should be a means not an end. deep i know. and im sure this has been said before but i dunno i guess it just hit me recently. Cause Lincoln is a VERY competitive school that prides itself on very good grades. And that can be a good thing, it motivates people to do well. but im sick of it, quite honestly. And the fact that grades will get me into college drives me crazy. SO i think that grades should be a means of motivating people to pursue the knowledge that we hopefully come away with at the end of our schooling days. But they definitely shouldnt be the end or the reason that we're in a class or working hard in a class. Cause thats retarded. I mean, sweet, ill be able to say i got an A in Biology in highschool 20 years from now, but do i remember anything from Biology even now? Nope. Almost nothing. So thats my rant about school and grades. But i think that this can have a bigger meaning for my life as a christian too.

Ok Im gonna try and get this out, and i hope it makes sense. So first of all my Jesus says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. So heres my thing. Stuff we do in our walk with the Lord and things we 'accomplish' is awesome. And its very important. I mean, He calls us for a purpose, absolutely, and Im not trying to negate that or say that its unimportant, it is SO important. BUT its not the most important. Its not the end. He has called us first and formost to LOVE Him. And to let Him pour His love for us over us, that we may spread it to everyone around us without even consciously doing anything but loving HIM. Talk about cool. He's showing me that this, above all, is my main purpose in life. I know that. I claim it. Cause it is just too awesome to let go of. And too important to ignore.

And I Pray that you, being rooted and established in LOVE may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the LOVE of Christ, and to know this LOVE that surpasses knowledge-- that you may filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

A Picture

is worth a thousand words, or so they say. But i think i disagree. I think a picture is a whole lot more than a thousand words. Seriously there have been many many times when words completely fail me...like not just that i dont have enough, its that i literally cant express something in words. It has happened several times with this very blog. and im sure if i could figure out how to put flippin pictures up on this thing i would use them a lot more. gosh. anyways this thing does have a point.

So tonight was family night at the mozley house (minus my mama which was very sad). And the first activity was to look through very very old pictures. Some of which should never have been taken and which will hopefully never be seen in public. But that is beside the point. The point is that those pictures brought back so many awesome memories. Like they didnt just capture the one moment that the picture showed. when i looked at some, i could remember the whole day, everything that happened, in detail. It was so cool. It made me miss people a lot. And it was funny because when i stepped away from looking at the pictures it was like i was back in the real world. as cheezy as i know it sounds, it was really like i had stepped away from real life for a few minutes. And it was nice. Thats the great thing about memories. So often you remember all the good things. I mean there were probably some memories that went along with those pictures that werent very pleasant but i didnt remember them. It was so good is all im sayin.

And no worries guys. Me and Amy and Tatum are going to figure out how to scan them and put them up here. hah. You know yall are good friends when i let you see some of them. so yeah. i just needed to get that down i guess. I feel very refreshed after enjoying those pictures. refilled. its nice.
love lots

Deep

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls all your waves and breakers have swept over me"

How incredible is that? deep calls unto deep. That phrase refuses to stop going through my head. and i didnt even know what verse it was, where it came from, and i dont think i heard someone say it recently. I mean i guess Someone did say it cause thats what the Lord has been speaking over my heart lately. the image that hits me when i think of this is from Ted Dekkers Black Red and White. the 'real' people had to continually bathe in water that at first hurt, made you feel like you were drowning, but took you to depths of light and an incredible, all-encompassing love and peace that didnt exist outside of the water...except through those who had bathed and experienced the depths. Going deep is scary. Every time that phrase 'deep calls unto deep' plays through my head i get excited but if im gonna be honest, i cringe a little too. the white flaky people in the series (its been awhile i cant remember what they were called) were terrified of the water. despite the knowledge that those who had bathed had become whole people, real people, people who could truly live. They were scared because the water changed people. You couldnt bathe without being stripped, pulled, torn a little, and, i mean the reality was that you drowned before you came up. you died. Thats a scary thought. Depth is not an easy, comfortable concept.


I love in the Great Divorce how Clive describes heaven. The grass hurt, you could walk on the water, even the light hurt those who had 'come up' from the misty town below. because the place they had come to was so real, so deep, so firm that it made you look like a ghost in comparison. " i had got 'out' in some sense which made the solar system itself seem an indoor affair. It gave me a feeling of freedom, but also of exposure, possibly of danger..."

The deep that the Lord is i guess drawing me to is going to hurt, my feet are going to take some time to harden so i can feel the beautiful softness of the grass, and i am probably going to have to drown. But the hurt of the thought of not going deeper scares me more. i want this desperately. Right now my toes are in the pool, i just have to let go and fall in. Ive never been very good at that. letting go of something that seems solid, comfortable, terrifies me. But i guess thats where He can work the most.