so life fills my veins

I finished The Waves two nights ago. It was brilliant, astonishing, everything I dreamed it would be. I can't imagine having a mind that facile; to be able to conceive of such radiant phrases and such thin yet durable connections between people and perceptions and the spirits of life and beauty and death. I wrote up six pages of passages that I loved, but here's a brief spattering of the outstanding ones:

“I know what loves are trembling into fire; how jealousy shoots its green flashes hither and thither; how intricately love crosses love; love makes knots; love brutally tears them apart. I have been knotted; I have been torn apart.” Neville

From Jinny:
"Thus, in a few seconds, deftly, adroitly, we decipher the hieroglyphs written on other people’s faces.”

And, finally, Bernard:
“That is, I am a natural coiner of words, a blower of bubbles through one thing and another. And striking off these observations spontaneously I elaborate myself; differentiate myself and listening to the voice that says as I stroll past, ‘Look! Take note of that!’ I conceive myself called upon to provide, some winter’s night, a meaning for all my observations—a line that runs from one to the other, a summing up that completes. But soliloquies in back streets soon pall. I need an audience. That is my downfall. That always ruffles the edge of the final statement and prevents it from forming.”

Some time soon I'll try to write something more substantial--if I can catch a spare moment between teaching essay strategies and packing and spending my last summer days with the family... (writing might not happen as I'd like it to.)

God has met me strongly this past week, which has been a difficult one. I don't, as a general rule, have difficult weeks. I do not know how to persevere in trials, and I especially don't know how to consider them "pure joy." But the Lord has been infuriatingly faithful and has met me every morning in His Word. Whether I want to see Him or not, He's there. Staring me in the face. I can't forget this reflection; it's idiocy if I do (James 1).

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And being with you, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. Psalm 73:25, 26