Live large.

http://ashleyinczech.blogspot.com/2010/06/greatest-thing-in-world.html

Seriously, just read it.

Mission Blog.

So. Apparently this is the trendy thing for missionaries to do:

Instead of irksome email forwards, my ma will be posting all the emails I write home to this blog.

Not THIS blog, this blog:
www.ashleyinczech.blogspot.com.
It will also have any and all contact information you will need in order to talk to me.


I suppose this is a good time to offer up my 18-month guarantee:
If you write me, I will write back. Promise.
This offer may only last for the duration of the mission. Unless you prove yourself to be a worthwhile
correspondent. $20 instant rebate. Other toys sold separately.



This is me giving you permission to stalk your little hearts out. Ready, go.


photo.

Some thoughts.

Monday I was reading Ether 12 again. I feel as though I’ve read it hundreds of times, but this time I stole to eternity on it.

Remember Ether 12:26—maybe the second most popular scripture in the Book of Mormon? The one that people cling to in hopes of becoming better men and women? Well, the context is HUGE. Or perhaps I made it huge. I couldn’t really help it, it just steamed off the page in hot importance and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Why did I never realize this before?

Moroni’s talking about his weakness in writing. That’s the weakness he’s asking God about. And that’s when God tells him that, with faith and humility, He will make weak things become strong unto him. He will even make him a better writer.

And he speaks of the brother of Jared’s writing—it shakes souls, that’s how powerful it is. I would probably have a mad crush on him if I could read that. But the writings were sealed up until we had faith like unto the B of J—faith to see God. Perhaps that’s the only way we’ll believe it. Accept it for what it is, rather than ranting and raving and tearing our hair out like wild things, because the truth hurts.

We’ll eat you up we love you so.

Then I thought, maybe, with that kind of faith, I could be that kind of writer. And I thought of all the great writings of truth and the faith that those greats must have had. I’ve taken it for granted, I suppose. Thinking they just dipped their quills in ink and the genius flowed out of them in a long series of scribble scrabbles that I will never be able to achieve. The tikka tikkas of their keyboards must ring louder than mine do. But “faith is the moving power of all action in us”*. It even makes us write. Faith in what? In God? In myself?

In all truth, I suppose—in the way things really are. Who wants to read someone who’s fooled himself about the life and lives around him? No delusional sentences, we want palatable evidence of those mouth-watering things that keep us going. Real reasons to hope, great lasting loves, honest humor. Actual pains, not gilded ones.

Perhaps, for this reason, I have difficulty stomaching the over-dramatized. The truth is forceful enough, there’s no need to get in its way.

The difficulty is noticing the truth through the smog. But once we’ve found it, truth practically begs us to take hold.

And then the genius happens.

Note: this is why I have the hots for Paul. I’m pretty sure he and I were spirit lovers before we came to earth.

Another note: I shouldn't have written 'great lasting loves'. Because not all loves are great or lasting. Not all truth is strength, it's also weakness.

*Lectures on Faith 1:10

Can I possibly get enough of this song?

Not a chance. Ladies and gentlemen: Laura Marling.

D r i p p p p p i n g .

Today I am dripping for good—in behalf of good.

Last time I dripped for injustice and misromancing and all sorts of hurts, but this is different.

This is Spring at her finest, baptizing the earth with her sorrow. It’s not just rain, yet it’s very mildly hail—perfect for soaking the grass, the street, my hair. I play they listening ear and let her cry onto my shoulders, though I’ve never quite understood the need for shoulders in sadness. Your head is already pushing out all the emotion anyway—it should be feeling lighter and lighter all the time; however they almost always sag. And if shoulders are good for anything, they are good for staying square and supporting things that are feeling circular. And when circles themselves finally bottom out we have tears. Tears for washing away grime and accidents and weariness and death.

[Harder tears—hail—could be like exfoliating. Man, I love exfoliating.]

And once it all begins to fall you know you’re finally allowing yourself to be cleansed. To get all the yuck from the inside, out. There is nothing so immediately healing as a cry, except maybe a sleep. Then why do I fear tears and not zzz’s? (I don’t even snore, so why did I put that? What do zzz’s have to do with anything if you don’t snore?) Ahem. Then why do I fear tears and not naps?

Perhaps if I were a witch doctor I would cry people instead of bleeding them. It would hurt just as bad, in some cases, but I’m sure that the effects would be much more therapeutic. I would employ my apprentices to sit and hold drooping heads with their square shoulders; they would be forbidden to ask about “the matter”, but would merely sit and hold and be that one person who cares without requiring any explanation—without any words at all—and makes the whole world right; there would be no problems for fixing, merely the crier and the holder and the liberated tears. That’s healing.

I begin at a run, but the wind overpowers me and DK’sJungleMarioKartspikeballs of a hailstorm pellet that maybe I should just go back where I belong. Reprimands. So I slow to a walk and soak myself in it, taunting them and enjoying the seconds in a self-inflicted, who cares about anything, 7 years-old and invincible sort of way. For a while now I've prayed to understand crying and to embrace the fact that I cry. Today I know, even the earth cries. And today it's not scary at all, it's meaningful. At the end of the street someone has left the sprinklers on and the wind blows them at me all the way around the corner, angrily.

We are unburdening ourselves, relieved and optimistically new, this earth and I.

I count seconds between lights and applause—a mere mile away. I even think to myself for a brief second: wouldn’t it be romantic if I were struck by lightening?

I take the sprinklers at a run, the second time around. They (and the wind) are surprised by my agility and hold back their onslaught just slightly.

As a last tribute to Mother Earth I approach the back yard and strike a tree pose, fingertips needled at the sky, right leg bent.

It just seemed appropriate.

Impulsive Me.

Good advice from anonymous rebel of Iași, Romania.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about impulses. I’ve come to determine that the closer you are to God--to the best version of yourself--the more you can trust your impulses. And the more you must disregard second thoughts. A few weeks ago, I had an impulse. Looking back, I’m sure it was a divine thought, because it definitely wasn’t my own. But all my fallible human “intellect” pushed the thought away—hid it, buried it, tucked it in a place where I thought (hoped) it could be ignored. And the moment passed me by.

Later. I thought about it. I realized that acting would not have yielded any real danger--maybe some slight discomfort. But this discomfort made itself huge and important in my thoughts, until I allowed it to overwhelm the original idea. I allowed it to. And did nothing.

I am learning from this.

Today, I am on a special quest to follow all good or even harmless impulses.

Often they’re trivial victories:

Didn’t put on foundation this morning.

Drove to church for a meeting, left the car there, and walked home.

Stopped and sat on the bench facing the fountain pond for a while.

Read for a while there.

I prayed there. And knelt down on the grass. Cold damp earth, and tights. Where people might see.

I read the end of Job. And wrote down all sorts of thoughts about it.

And those aren't even all of them! But they made this morning all its own. And I loved them for it.

Nearly home, I found myself rejoicing in all these simple impulses I’d decided to follow—and in the glorious morning I’d had because of it! Why wouldn’t I follow every one of my impulses? Life was good. Life was unpredictable and spontaneous. Life was purposeful.

Then. THEN. Just as pride filled me near full, I took a look at the house across the street from mine. My parents knew them—I’d met them once or twice before, nice people. They had a son home from college. From afar he seemed quite good looking. I’d had an ongoing joke with Molly about finding ways to meet him ever since Christmas. No such luck. I’ve seen him climb into his truck as I’ve clambered out of the Camry, already inside the garage. I’ve mistakenly stared at him as I jogged by, forgetting that when I don’t put my contacts in and can’t see others, they can still see me—especially when I’m squinting and staring in a laborious sort of way.

I stood there on the sidewalk for several minutes, watching the house. Not sure what I was watching for—signs of life? The entire street was still, although his truck was parked right outside. If only he’d appear and I could just walk up to him and introduce myself. At this point, my desire to meet him had very little to do with his good looks. I wanted to cross this alienating distance between neighbors. We were about the same age—who knows? We could develop some sort of friendship. If nothing else, we could wave at each other as we climbed in and out of our cars together. Waving is nice.

What if I just knocked on the door and introduced myself to him? As soon as I had the thought I cringed. No. NO. It’s 10:30 on a Sunday morning—people are lazy and do not wish to be bothered. And how weird would that be to knock on the door just to introduce myself to him? Can anyone else say desperate?! They’d think so.

Then I realized what I was doing. Second guessing. Talking myself out of it. How much harm could meeting him do? A little: maybe they’d be weirded out. But not much. So why was I still frozen to the sidewalk on the other side of the street? I contemplated my situation: I could turn around and go back inside, comfortable. Easy. But hard: I was on a roll. If I let this impulse slip by me, how much easier will it be to let future impulses slip by? I’d soon be picking and choosing impulses as I pleased, until my rationale could be that getting out of bed took too much effort; I was comfortable. Blast it, no one gets anywhere in this life by being comfortable. Soon enough I wouldn’t even be able to recognize an impulse that scratched its way up my back.

Yet, if I did do it—how much easier would it then be to follow my next impulse? Whatever it was probably could not compare much with this. I laughed at myself: only a moment ago I had rejoiced in my own spontaneity. Now, at the first sign of a challenge, I was ready to back down. I had to do it.

Before I realized it, I had begun taking steps across the street towards his house. All I was going to do was knock, ask for him, and merely introduce myself. Tell him that I’d seen him around and thought it about time we’d met, since we lived so close. I was knocking on the door.

Dogs. Barking barking barking. If they were home, they’d know someone was there. Waiting. I should knock again. What—be rude and creepy?! I knocked again, more timidly this time. But still a knock. Waiting and barking, barking and waiting. Finally my stomach made its way back down the walkway and my feet followed.

Nothing!

Buuuuuttt....

I DID it.

Impulses this way, if you please.

HERE I AM, IN ALL CAPS

Things I love, typographically shouted:
(as suggested by Brooketh, in her own cap'd list)


1. HARMONICA. Love learning to play it, love listening to it. Love its portability and versatility. Love how cool and jazzy it is.

2. LIBRIVOX. Last weekend's best discovery. All books that are part of the public domain are available for download in audio format, completely free. And it's not stealing--really!--it's just free. Awesome. Trust me, janitoring while listening to Walden and Emma is way cooler than regular janitoring.

3&4. FREE THINGS. As in, a free JOSH RITTER concert on April 17th at the record exchange. Kind of folky, totally original, Josh Ritter is a cinnamon swirl rain shower for ears. And I love him. Check him out.

5. ROMANS 8: 35-39.

6. BANANAS AND PEANUT BUTTER. I think I've eaten it at least every other day for the past two months. Can't stop.

7. RUNNING. I love escaping the world and pushing myself. I love when I've run enough that it suddenly is easier than I remember it being. I love that slightly bigger feeling in my chest afterward, as though my heart has been pumping iron. All the better to love you with.

8&9. THE TEMPLE. And MISSIONARY WORK.

10. WEARING TIES. But not Avril Lavigne sort of tie-wearing. Today I am basically dressed like a boy. A fancy, churchy boy.

11. STUDYING. Really searching a thing out, gathering pieces of it up in my thoughts and realizing that this is like this, which is tied to that, which relates to all he said before, which is beautiful. The more I study, the more connected I feel to the world around me.

12. ROAD TRIPS. Provo, I'm coming. Brick house, I'm coming. Romania girls, Molls, Beks, Easter, Conference, Dean family gargantuan dinner, Eagle kids, college life, writing center--don't worry, I'm coming. Wed-Sun. Let the wild rhompus begin!

And this is where I pass the invitation on.
THE THINGS YOU LOVE IN ALL CAPS. KAZAAM. GO.