Gold Treehouse: 2010

Words of Wisdom for us 20 Something's...

1. First up: Stop worrying so much! It's useless. (I.e. Jesus was right.)

2. Being a saint means being yourself. Stop trying to be someone else and just be your best self. Saves you heartache.

3. There's no right way to pray, any more than there's a right way to be a friend. What's "best" is what works best for you.

4. Remember three things and save yourself lots of unneeded heartache: You're not God. This ain't heaven. Don't act like a jerk.

5. Your deepest, most heartfelt desires are God's desires for you. And vice versa. Listen. And follow them.

6. Within you is the idea of your best self. Act as if you were that person and you will become that person, with God's grace.

7. Don't worry too much about the worst that can happen. Even if it happens, God is with you, and you can handle it. Really.

8. You can't force people to approve of you, agree with you, be impressed with you, love you or even like you. Stop trying.

9. When we compare, we are usually imagining someone else's life falsely. So our real-life loses out. I.e. Compare and despair.

10. Even when you finally realized the right thing, or the Christian thing, to do, it can still be hard to do. Do it anyway.

11. Seven things to say frequently: I love you. Thank you. Thank you, God. Forgive me. I'm so happy for you! Why not? Yes.

12. Peace and joy come after asking God to free you -- from anything that keeps you from being loving and compassionate.

An excerpt from Rev. James Martin's article for The Huffington Post, '12 Things I Wish I Knew at 25: Spiritual Musings On My 50th Birthday"

This is not an Elegy by Catherine Pierce

At sixteen, I was illegal and brilliant,
my fingernails chewed to half-moons.
I took off my clothes in a late March
field. I had secret car wrecks,
secret hysteria. I opened my mouth
to swallow stars.

In backseats
I learned the alchemy of guilt, lust,
and distance. I was unformed and total.
I swore like a sailor. But slowly the cops
stopped coming around. The heat lifted
its palms. The radio lost some teeth.

Now I see the landscape behind me
as through a Claude glass—
tinted deeper, framed just so, bits
of gilt edging the best parts.
I see my unlined face, a thousand
film stars behind the eyes.

I was every murderess,
every whip-thin alcoholic,
every heroine with the silver tongue.

Always young
Paul Newman’s best girl.
Alwaysa lightning sky behind each kiss.
Some days I watch myself
in the third person, speak to her
in the second.

I say:
I will meet you in sleep.
I will know you
by your stillness and your shaking.
By your second-hand gown.
By your bruises left by mouths
since forgotten.

This is not
an elegy because I cannot bear
for it to be. It is only a tree branch
against the window.

It is only a cherry tomato
slowly reddening in the garden.
I will put it in my mouth. It will
be sweet, and you will swallow.

via Poetry 365

For Raechel

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not at all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exsists. It is real...it is possible...it's yours."

~Ayn Rand

Valentino Love

Valentino may be a snooty, crusty ol' sob but I would still kill to spend an afternoon in that pretty, shiny, strange fairytale world that he calls a brain.