Work Crew

work crew was this weekend. it was amazing. i had never been to sharp top cove before, but it is beautiful. i love the mountains. maybe i will live there some day. i was on the am cook crew, which was a lot of work, but good. it was great, because after spending about 8 hours in the kitchen, josh, josh, chelsea, and i waded in a little stream and explored the woods a little. i spent some time in the stream with erin too, wich was nice. and laying in the grass. it was cool, because after working pretty hard, it was nice to just be. and know that He is God. i don't think that we do that enough. but i'm not sure if i would have had the energy to keep working in the kitchen that night and the next day if i couldn't just be with God.

it was also great to be with some of the college guys. i didn't realize how much i missed them untill they were back. and it's kind of funny, because i was never really close to some of them. and i didn't have a chance to talk for extended periods of time with some of them. it was just nice to have them around, to be there with them.

i think that is how i feel about God some times. you don't always have to be in the middle of a conversation with him, or be reading the Bible, or journaling something. i mean, those are all good things, don't get me wrong. and we should do them, but we also need to stop and just be with Him. never under estimate the power of a comfortable silence.


To change the subject, I was thinking about Spoon River Anthology, wich is one of my favorite books. these are possible two of my favorite poems in the book.

16. Reuben Pantier
WELL, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,

Your love was not all in vain.

I owe whatever I was in life

To your hope that would not give me up,

To your love that saw me still as good.
5
Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story.

I pass the effect of my father and mother;

The milliner’s daughter made me trouble

And out I went in the world,

Where I passed through every peril known
10
Of wine and women and joy of life.

One night, in a room in the Rue de Rivoli,

I was drinking wine with a black-eyed cocotte,

And the tears swam into my eyes.

She thought they were amorous tears and smiled
15
For thought of her conquest over me.

But my soul was three thousand miles away,

In the days when you taught me in Spoon River.

And just because you no more could love me,

Nor pray for me, nor write me letters,
20
The eternal silence of you spoke instead.

And the black-eyed cocotte took the tears for hers,

As well as the deceiving kisses I gave her.

Somehow, from that hour, I had a new vision—

Dear Emily Sparks!



17. Emily Sparks
WHERE is my boy, my boy—

In what far part of the world?

The boy I loved best of all in the school?—

I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart,

Who made them all my children.
5
Did I know my boy aright,

Thinking of him as spirit aflame,

Active, ever aspiring?

Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed

In many a watchful hour at night,
10
Do you remember the letter I wrote you

Of the beautiful love of Christ?

And whether you ever took it or not,

My boy, wherever you are,

Work for your soul’s sake,
15
That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you,

May yield to the fire of you,

Till the fire is nothing but light!...

Nothing but light!