Songs and Words and Stories

So, I’ve had one of those weeks that pulls everything from your insides, tosses it in a blender, then throws it at your face.  I am proud to say that I pulled off a successful Thanksgiving dinner with the help of a few other volunteers.  Becca, thanks a MIL!

It did leave me quite drained, then I had to go to a training event near Sofia for several days, where drama ensued.  All in all, my Thanksgiving celebration was a good experience, even with the drama that was a result.  It would have happened anyway I’m sure.  One thing I know right now is that I NEVER expected drama in Peace Corps.  I saw myself too busy in my school and community to have drama with other Americans.  I guess because we are in this bubble of loneliness, all of our weaknesses come shining through, and perhaps we cling and trust and choose to see the best in people.  It’s a funny thing when everyone around you sees what you did not until you trip over it and break your nose as you hit the ground.  I guess that is love though.  You have to let people make their own mistakes rather than showing the potentially damaging character flaws of those you associate yourself with.  What do you do?  Well, I’m not worried too much, winter has set in and I don’t expect to get out of the ‘Log much in the next four months, even if I wanted to.  

So this post is my attempt at uncreative creativity.  Sometimes they are out of the context of the song, but it the context of my life.  Sometimes the unquoted context of the song explains the unwritten context here.  

I bruise easily
So be gentle when you handle me
Theres a mark you leave
Like a love heart carved on a tree
I bruise easily
Can't scratch the surface
Without moving me underneath
I bruise easily
(Natasha Bedingfield “I Bruise Easily”)

I got bruised.  I learned that:

Anyone who can touch you
Can hurt you or heal you
Anyone who can reach you
Can love you or leave you
(Natasha Bedingfield “I Bruise Easily”)

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before
(Switchfoot “I Dare You to Move”)

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he's bent for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly, fly
We were meant to live for so much more
(Switchfoot “Meant to Live”)

Learning to breathe
I'm learning to crawl
I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall
I'm living again, awake and alive
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies
Hello, good morning, how you been?
Yesterday left my head kicked in
I never, never thought that
I would fall like that
Never knew that I could hurt this bad
(Switchfoot “Learing to Breath”)

These next lines, I’m speaking things that aren’t true as though they are…  My shadow has yet to prove sunshine, but “we know all things work together for the glory or those that love the Lord.”  

Sunshine, won't you be my mother
Sunshine, come and help me sing
My heart is darker than these oceans
My heart is frozen underneath

To scared that I'll run always
Hold fast to the break of day light where
The shadow proves the sunshine

Oh Lord, why did you forsake me?
Oh Lord, don't be far away away
Storm clouds gathering beside me
Please Lord, don't look the other way
(Switchfoot “The Shadow Proves the Sunshine”)

There’s a certain Eamon song that is rather explicit and won’t be quoted on this site, but mm, I’m kinda feeling it too these days.

One Stab: She was like the water that freezes inside a rock and breaks it apart. It was no more her fault than it is the fault of the water when the rock shatters
(From Legends of the Fall)

Sometimes we need to believe that things happen not because of malicious tendencies of other people.  We can choose to believe that they follow these behavior patterns because of their own weaknesses and choose to feel love for them.  Perhaps it is our own naivety that would rather believe in that option than to believe that people willfully manipulate and use people to get what they want.  I know, for me, the only way to heal is believe that the water is not to blame for the rock shattering…  the rock had to have a crack in the first place right?  And is that the fault of the rock?  Or just the way the rock was created to exist?  Everything happens for a reason.  The lesson is in the learning (that was in a movie I just saw…  I forget what movie)