small things with great love

I've been reading "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne and it's simultaneously very challenging and very inspiring.  One of the people he quotes in his book is Mother Teresa (who he "interned" with in Calcutta for a summer), she emphasizes that we do "small things with great love" rather than focusing on doing "big" things with little love.  That is something I've been thinking about and trying to practice lately.  I have found myself doing this as I just take each day as it comes (although to be real sometimes I also fail miserably).

Today I substitute taught in a school that I always brace myself for because there is bound to be chaos and lots of misbehavior.  However, I felt like today went rather well considering.  I actually got some help from a social worker who sat in a majority of the classes leading one of the reading groups.  It helped tremendously to have her there!  Also, I had a few bright points in my day where I got to share personally with the kids (middle schoolers).  I introduced myself to this general "advisory" class that is supposed to focus on study skills and the like and I actually told them I like substitute teaching because it's different every day and I like variety.  I also told them that I like sledding and had all the kids share one thing they like about winter.  All in all, it was fun to hear their responses.  Then, later, I was trying to teach a small group of girls about goal setting and I was using an example of myself and how I like to write songs and this one cute Hmong girl just lit up when I told them that. She said, "You write songs, like rap?"  I told her no, more like folk or pop rock.  She was still interested though  :0)
Later in the day, after we had read through an article and answered some questions about it I let a boy draw and he showed me the anime characters he could draw and told me how it took him a really long time to learn to draw them.  I showed him how to do some of the "mathy" drawings Vi Hart does and I gave him the web address (you should check it out - Vihart.com!) so he could learn how to draw/doodle more cool things.  It was fun to connect with kids in that way.

I've just realized, I guess, that as I come in to substitute I have to have an attitude of love because I am doing this not just to get a paycheck but help children learn and they will only want to learn if they know I love them (even if it's hard to show in just one day, I can show them somewhat by how I respond to them and my attitude overall).  It truly matters.  I only want them to learn things because I love them anyway (and I am called to love all people because God made them, and the Holy Spirit helps me do this).  Lord knows I always need his grace to do this in all areas in my life.  Life is about small things with great love, not "big" things without much love.

some poems (possibly a song)

I am taking part in a 7 songs/7 days writing challenge.  Yes, it's tough.  Anyway, it's made me unearth a little bit of poetry I may turn into a song:

 Gray and cloudy day, wisps of blue come in view
I wonder about my world, what should I do?
Life is any number of things
Love is what will give me wings
Yet it all adds up to You

There is not one thing without You
I can be fascinated, dedicated to
All your creatures that live
Lest I forget, you did beget it all
You will not let me forget and fall


Praise You, Illuminate
Let my heart shine with your weight
I know not how to sing to You
I only know praise is due


Let colors shine brighter
Let winds blow the trees
Let all of Creation
Fall on its knees


I want to see lighter
I want to see all the miracles of the ordinary
To augment each hue


.....


There is none before me
There is none beside me
Except and only
Jesus my Friend
The King of all worlds
Of Beginning and the End
Unfurled his royal robe
Naked, became man
Now who can deserve this?
Truly I don't know one
You never could earn it
To worship Creator's Son
It's only the mercy
Uncontested beauty of Love
We did not know that there was
Until He revealed it
And then our eyes were opened

Wider now


The Cross, see the height, see the depth, see the length, see the width, He would come
Extraordinary, extraordinary love has come

death and life

Chris' grandpa died yesterday.  I am so grateful that we went to visit him this last Sunday and talked with him, prayed with him, joked with him, held his hand and hugged him in his bed.  It's difficult to know how to feel times like this.  He was not doing well at the end of his life although he was still extremely pleasant.  He was such a delightful, sweet man.  I didn't know him very long or very well relatively speaking but as much as I knew him he was wonderful.  He was my grandpa too.  He always said what a pretty girl I was and gave me compliments and just seemed to relish being with people when he was around, even if he was tired sometimes.  I will never forget last Easter when Chris and I brought Sumita to his parent's house for dinner and he chatted it up with her and told her he liked her and her tattoos (you must see Sumita to know why this means so much, most people would be a little wary of her from her looks).  He also talked with the African people that Chris' parents had over.  He was just so open and it was grand.  We will miss him very much but I feel that he is with Jesus now.

As I think about his life and death I think about mine as well.  To know there is an end makes me realize how strangely short this life is and how much I should cherish it and use it to do things that are good, to be good (through God's strength and grace).  I've been substitute teaching since last November and I've thought about what I want my "career" to be but as it were I have also been given a word from God that helped me not fret about this.  I know I want to work with children but I also know that I don't want my career to consume me.  In fact, I feel more and more like putting all my energy into a job is not what God asks of me at all.  I feel most alive when I am serving in ministry whether that be Jesus Kitchen or leading musical worship or learning about different cultures within the Church.  I love being part of the neighborhood we live in and taking walks in it and visiting people who live nearby.  I feel called to create music and write.  I feel called to care about the "least of these" and do something about it.  I feel called to live in a way that is not just surviving but is honest about struggles while transcending them by the Grace and Power of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.  There is so much more life in that than trying to pursue being an "expert" at something.  I just want to live and in the end I want my life to have glorified God and helped others in that process.  All this is much easier said than done but I think the key thing is to keep perspective.  When I think about the big picture of things it makes my decisions about now clearer.  I need so much grace to be who God really made me to be and I am glad that I do not live (or even die) on my own strength.

My new favorite thing, etc.

So, Chris' college friend who is from Africa came over for lunch the other day and we offered him tea.  He asked, "tea or chai?" mostly because tea and chai I think are the same in some cultures/languages.  So I thought, hey, we can make chai from this English Breakfast tea - add a little cloves (which we have from Indonesia!), cinammon, ginger, sugar, milk, etc.  It totally worked and it was delicious.  This is, if you were wondering, my new favorite thing.  *smile*

Today I am enjoying it as I sit in my house fearing the gruesome outdoors (it's fierce wind and rain out there).  Yes, and I am thinking about a lot of the same things I've been blogging about recently - injustice, racism, poverty, etc.  I wonder, 'What am I supposed to do about this?'  I've been craving talking with some people about this IN PERSON.  Things are so much better in real life.  Truly.  I don't mind this blog and facebook and email and the like, but social interaction is so much better when you are actually face to face or side by side doing something daring or fun.  Well, anyway, yes, so I am going to go to this "Come Together" conference that is going to address many of these issues from leaders in the church.  I am thrilled to go and do this.  I just hope it leads to hope, you know what I mean?

Love and hate

 Well, I just wanted to put a little well of refreshment out there in this desert.

 I had a very rough day substitute teaching today and I actually sat after school and read a book written by an inner city teacher with some writings from his former students about teaching and seeing these kids (who I had a very hard time "seeing" today).

I also read some of Madeline L'Engle's "A Wind in the Door" later in the evening and one of the themes of it (without giving anything away) is being Named.  Being Named rather than being annihilated.  Being Named rather than being nothing.  Sometimes I go to substitute teach without love and what I need most is love.  
Yet, I can't bring love and life if I don't get if from the Life-bringer, Love Himself.  I can try, but I will fail.  I need to know I am Named to Name others.  Love really does overcome Hate.  It can never be the other way around.

Here's a track that I just knew the chorus to and then found this online after I had been singing it (with my uke) a little bit ago.  Yes, creativity is very rejuvenating as well.

http://romadiluna.bandcamp.com/track/tree-of-life

The song is interesting to me because it is kind of hopeful without being hopeful.  I feel like it paints a picture of what our lives are like sometimes and it's true, we need to be taken to the Tree of Life (although that isn't just going to happen "when we gather in the sky"). I do believe that God's purpose is to bring his Kingdom of Life and Truth and Love even now because He is going to fully bring it here when he comes back.

The City (and thoughts about privilege)

I live in the city.  I live in Minneapolis.  I love it.  I truly love it.  I love that I walk in the Wells Fargo on Franklin and I feel that I could be in Somalia because it's almost all Somalis serving me.  I love that someone put art on the Greenway by one of the signs on a little post so that you have to stop on your bike to see what it is.  I love the parks and the lakes and the great throbbing mess of people who live here with so many hopes and dreams and so many stories of triumph or defeat (or both).  I was born here and raised my first 9 years of life here.  I feel that is rather significant.  Even when I moved with my family out to the suburbs (or especially when) I had a sweet affection for the city of Minneapolis. I have only lived here for one year and a few months of my adult life and still it is close to Saint Paul (not even a mile away to cross the river).  Yet, I guess I have the feeling that I have lived here much longer because I grew up most of my childhood here and for about 5 years I have been hanging out almost exclusively here.

I have also been substitute teaching in the Minneapolis School district since November of last year which has opened my eyes to the scope of Minneapolis and the disparity between minority and white students.  I think this, and living extremely close to Lake Street, has made me see how much privilege I really have.  I was part of an intentionally diverse community at my college called Antioch.  We would meet once a week to talk about race, culture, ethnicity and issues surrounding these things.  When I was there I did feel I learned some things and I could, in some ways, peel back the layers of my perspective to see other people's experiences and perspective.  Yet, it was so different than me stepping into a truly diverse community.  My college was far from diverse in reality and even though I have always loved talking to people of different backgrounds I feel I barely understood what minority students were saying about privilege.  My parents have never been conservatives politically but I think I was somewhat trapped anyway by the affluence and privilege I had experienced my whole life.  Now that I've worked in different Minneapolis public schools I see the same thing happening to most of the white kids in the mostly affluent Southwestern part of Minneapolis.

Honestly, my husband and I do not make a lot of money.  I emphasize: we do not make a lot of money.  In fact, there have been times we have been just scrapping by, and this being the recent past.  The difference between my husband and I and maybe a Latino family in Phillips neighborhood (who could truthfully quite easily have the close to the same income) is that we have grown up with middle-class or even upper middle-class families.  Our immediate families do well financially, all in all.  They may have not inherited this from their parents (Chris' dad was on welfare because his mom was widowed while he was young), yet the fact remains that because of our parents Chris and I both have college degrees, not much debt, and mostly comfortable lives.  Our families constantly support us by letting us know they are able to help us out financially if need be even though we are adults.  Our families give gifts to us a lot, whether that is taking us out to eat or giving us hand-me-downs that are actually really nice.  Not only this, but we have a great community of people from different churches and ministry who also may not have a lot of money but pool their resources often and they have been an amazing blessing to us.  I guess I've just really come to the conclusion that I really do have privilege recently because of my experiences being an adult and living in Minneapolis.  I just see it so much.  I am very, very blessed.  It's not all just "privilege" but I do think every blessing I have is a privilege, so to speak.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this because it's been something I've been thinking about even when Chris and I lived in Saint Paul.  I just feel like I have so much even if it may seem to be not much.  Of course, I sometimes get jealous and wanting things and I don't always feel this way, but I definitely do right now.  I have really seen that the Minneapolis Public Schools have a disparity of learning between white and minority students and I feel like there are a million conversations to be had even around this observation.  I just wanted to get that out there and if anyone feels like commenting in order to have a real conversation about these things I'd welcome it.  Whoever you are I hope that you are grateful for all God gives you today - all of it is truly a privilege.

This astounds me...

"And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the LORD to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace."

Zechariah to John the Baptist, his son, prophesying through the Holy Spirit
Luke 1:76-79

MUSIC and the gift

I love music.  I have been falling more in love with music lately.  It just inspires me, awes me...I love it.  I love hearing different kinds of music and hearing bits of pieces of each person's soul as they sing or play.  It is an amazing expression.  I love how it can convey so much.

I just watched some youtube videos from 89.3 the Current.  I watched Mumford and Sons, Haley Bonar, and Chastity Brown.  Earlier I watched a Paul McCartney video "Good Morning Sunshine" from a concert he gave not too long ago (I was playing it to help Chris get out of bed!).  It also, for some reason, had a space/astronaut theme which is perfect for Chris.  Hehe.  I also saw a youtube video from the band Dark Dark Dark for their song Daydreaming.  So, yes, I've been watching a lot of music videos....but it's for the music mostly...I need to get out and see a live show soon.

Anyhow, this is more or less a jumble of thoughts just like my last post, but I just want to put my thoughts and feelings down somewhere and I decided that I would just do it rather than worry if it is consistent and coherent.

Since I've been writing and playing music more it has made me love music more as well.  It's truly a gift from God.  I have been reading from Madeleine L'Engle's book about Faith and Art and she says how the we are given gifts that we may serve them, not that gifts are given to us to serve us.  As she states:
         "The important thing is to recognize that our gift, no matter what the size is, is indeed something given us, for which we may humbly serve, and, in serving, learn more wholeness, be offered wondrous newness." (p.237, Walking on Water)

I think what she says here is so key to being an artist.  I feel I have only begun to serve my gifts, but I am given life in return when I do it.  It's also good for me to be part of the worship team because it causes me to be disciplined and humbled in a setting of friends and other believers.
When I was about 16 I was part of a small youth group and one of the leaders of this group told me a nasty lie (he didn't know it was nasty but it was).  He said that he believed that music can't glorify God unless it is specifically written to do so.  I didn't believe him at the time but I thought about what he said anyway.  Now I know without doubt that he was wrong but it makes me mad to think that sometimes people like him limit the glory of God so rigidly and wrongly.  God can be glorified by any true piece of art whether or not that person knows God, because:
       "Provided, he is an artist of integrity, he is a genuine servant of the glory which he does not recognize, and unknown to himself there is 'something divine' about his work.'" (p.25, Walking on Water, L'Engle quoting Rev. A.M. Allchin of England).
Certainly, some "Christian art" is not art or Christian at all.  Sometimes people are not given the gift, even if they are a Christian, that non-Christian or atheist might have in abundance (this I am paraphrasing from L'Engle again).

So, I've gone off on a tangent, but I think it's worth restating these points because they have been really eye-opening for me in some ways. When I was in Indonesia on a mission trip a few years ago instead of feeling called overseas one of the things I felt God telling me was to continue to do art - writing, music, etc.  I realize now how important it is that I do this - to worship with the gift.  I love realizing that I am serving the gift that is placed in me.  I think often when I was younger I was reluctant to share the gift because I thought I would only be serving myself with it.  Now I see that is not true at all.  Now I see that it is a service to others even if I benefit from it.  It's sad because now looking back I see that perhaps I felt that way not just because of immaturity but even the way that some artists and musicians use their gift to serve themselves and that is what our larger culture has believed as well even if it isn't said.
      "To serve a work of art, great or small, is to die, to die to self.  If the artist is to be able to listen to the work, he must get out of the way, or, more correctly, since getting out of the way is not a do-it-yourself activity, he must be willing to be got out of the way...in order to become the servant of the work.
      To serve a work of art is almost identical with adoring the Master of the Universe in contemplative prayer...not to find self, but to lose self in order to be found." (pp.234-234 Walking on Water)

Adventures in Time

Woooot!  So I know I titled this something very exciting, although what I'm going to say does not really have to do with time travel...though maybe a little. 

Here goes:
So today on my way home from substitute  teaching I was driving on Minnehaha Parkway and thinking just how gorgeous it was outside and watching the bikers and people walking by on the path.  Then I was thinking, well, I could stop my car and get out and walk on the path, and then I was like: I feel lazy, and then I though: how stupid for me to keep driving simply because it takes a little extra effort to park my car and then I will lose some time at home (but I will gain infinitely more as I explore outside!).  So, I turned on a street and parked my car!  Yep, that's pretty much how the conversation in my head went.

Ah, how amazing it was outside today.  It was (and still is) one of those perfect autumn days where leaves begin to change color and you can crunch the fallen ones under your shoes and the air just has this tremendously pleasant aroma that only seems to smell that way this time of year. As I was walking I went over a small bridge and kept going up a hill until I found that I was overlooking a preserved prairie.  I just looked at it wondering if that's what it would all look like if us modern people didn't care about lawns.  Then I trotted down the hill again and I found a little path that cut right through the prairie/plain and I followed it.  It lead me to a massive log that spread across the creek.  It was actually a tree that had somehow toppled over and it was just right for climbing on.  I then decided that I was going to do just that.  As I did I felt that I may as well have been 13 as much 27.  I felt like a child discovering the natural world so splendid and rough.  I remembered the woman with the stroller and baby wrapped around her who had been walking a few yards behind me as I walked up the hill back by the prairie and thought how strange it is that I could be like her in a few, even a couple of years, with a child or children of my own, and yet...here I am.  I am more of a daughter than a mother.  I am more youthful than aged, and yet I never 'believed' in age the way some people do.  I want to live enjoying every moment as it comes.  I know there are different seasons and different times of maturity and I want to cherish them all, whatever they bring.  And truly, life is beautiful that way.

Can you attach mp3 files to a blog?

Does anyone know how to attach mp3 files to this?  I would like to do that with some things I've recorded on Audacity.  Let me know if you know how!  Thanks so much.

Contrast

I've been wanting to blog but I haven't made the time to write lately.  I have been working a lot (for me) and also, I suppose, playing a lot too.  :)

Well, today as I was driving over highway 55 eastwards I saw the Purina Plant which is being demolished and above all the piles of rubble there was about twenty or thirty dark colored birds (crows, perhaps) sitting on a telephone wire, but what was striking was that in the middle of these was a single white bird of almost exactly the same size.   I was gawking from my car as I drove by and continued to sing with the radio.  I turned my head back a ways to make certain I was seeing it; yes, indeed I was.  Now, I do not know what kind of bird it was (nor what the other birds were actually).  My only guess is that it may have been a dove but even knowing that still doesn't explain things.

As I biked later on I thought of this image in my mind and Jesus (or followers of Jesus) could be like that white bird.  When everything else is falling apart all around and everyone else is darkness, those who follow Jesus can be light.  This also connects with a song I heard in my car by Sara Groves,

"You are the sun/ shining down on everyone
Light of the world/ giving light to everything I see
Beauty so brilliant/ I can hardly take it in
And everywhere you are is warmth and light

And I am the moon with no light of my own
Still you have made me to shine
And as I glow in this cold dark night
I know I can't be a light unless I turn my face to you"

Simple but beautiful.  I want to be like a white bird that makes someone wonder, but I know that I don't have light, I don't have goodness - without Jesus my Savior. 

Sufjan Stevens: sustenance for the soul

In my college years I discovered a remarkable musician/artist:  Sufjan Stevens.  My husband and I had one of his songs, "Vito's Ordination", play as the recessional at our wedding.  It was very fitting to us.  It's been a number of years since he's released anything resembling an album until just a couple of weeks ago.  I find myself craving his new songs just like I used to his old ones (which I still must listen to every now and then).  They are like sustenance for the soul.  The way he sings, especially on this album, captures a myriad of emotion and depth of heart.  His lyrics are raw yet whimsical yet enigmatic at times.  So, please, I beg you, have a listen.  At first you may find it too strange, just keep listening and I think you will discover why Sufjan is one of the artists I most love. 

The link:
http://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/album/all-delighted-people-ep

Lonely

This is a poem I wrote when Chris was gone for a few days for a work trip.  It's kind of funny because since we got married (5/31/08), we really haven't been away from each other for longer than that.  So, just to let you all know this was the one of the first days he was gone.  It was actually kind of nice to have our place to myself...but of course I missed him.  Here is the poem:

Lonely

Tonight I am lonely

I feel a bit aimless

Unsure of who I am 

In relation to these walls

So used to contrasting myself

With you

To sharing myself, my everything

Forcefully, always, 

With you, my Love

My heart is with you, 

Though I am not

And the tension causes a pang

Of desire for your being

Not sensuous, not just physical

But your soul interrupting mine

Your stubbornness against mine

Is that strange to miss?

Ah, but that is why we are

The best of friends

excerpt from Madeline L'Engle's "Walking on Water: Reflections on Art and Faith"

I've been reading this book now for a couple of weeks, slowly...it is very good.  It is kind of like eating a really delicious food.  You want to read it in small pieces to really take in it's full flavor. 

Anyway, here is an excerpt from it:
"A friend of mine, a fine storyteller, remarked to me, 'Jesus was not a theologian.  He was a God who told stories.'
     Yes.  A God who told stories.
     St. Matthew says, 'And he spake many things unto them in parables...and without a parable spake he not unto them.'
     When the powers of this world denigrate and deny the value of story, life loses much of its meaning; and for many people in the world today, life has no meaning, one reason why every other hospital bed is for someone with mental, not a physical, illness.
     Clyde Kilby writes, "Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness.  Meaning makes a great many things endurable---perhaps everything....It is not that 'God' is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of divine life in man.  It is not we who invent myth; rather, it speaks to us as a Word of God.'...
     When I was a child, reading Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, reading about Joseph and his coat of many colours and his infuriating bragging about his dreams, reading The Selfish Giant and The Book of Jonah, these diverse stories spoke to me in the same language, and I knew intuitively that they belonged to the same world.  For the world of the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, is the world of story, story which may be able to speak to us as a Word of God.
     The artist who is Christian, like any other Christian, is required to be in this world, but not of it.  We are to be in this world as healers, as listeners, and as servants.
     In art we are once again able to do all the things we have forgotten; we are able to walk on water; we speak to angels who call us; we move, unfettered, among the stars."
-pp.56-57
Anyone want to share their thoughts on this? 

The world without Coffee

What if there was no such thing as coffee?
Rather, what if there was no such thing as liquidated, easy to consume caffeine?

I wonder if 70% of the world would even be able to function.  If coffee/caffeine somehow became obliterated it would be worse than this recession.

:D

excerpt from my journal..."we live in ideas"

     I was thinking of something earlier today too that may be kind of profound.  I was thinking, we live in ideas.  I truly believe this.  At least, let me explain.  In essence I feel that what we think and believe map out our lives.  I believe in God's sovereignty, but, well, I guess if you look at it knowing God created every person including all their thoughts, emotions, personality, etc. it does correspond.  It just seems that everything I do or don't do is based off of some idea, thought, or belief I have about something (known or unknown to myself).  Also, I see how ideas influence our culture tremendously.
     One example of this is the thinking about homosexuality in the U.S. and how it has changed from being seen as a psychological disorder to seeming, to a great majority of Americans, just another lifestyle choice, and "normal".
     Perhaps, as it were, we are in the "age or information" and this causes ideas to be a constant driving influence on each one of us.  However, even apart from that there are people living in a tiny, remote village in Papua New Guinea who probably live their lives completely based off of a set of ideas or beliefs.  It touches every part of their lives and each decision they make.  They are probably much more honest with themselves about this than our hurried individualized American culture allows us to be.
     So, in all this, I acknowledge God as Creator who seems to guide us in these floods of ideas and beliefs.  This intuition is why I bend toward the philosophical and theological.  God, I pray you would lead me in my thoughts, in my feelings, in my beliefs and ideas.  I want them to match with reality (as you formed it) as much as possible so I can live my life most fully.  Thank you, God, for creating everything amazingly.  Thank you that ideas to you aren't just ideas but deepest truth.

Valued

I see it in my Mas' eyes as she speaks, as she shares her thoughts and stories with me

I feel it in our time together, painting my parent's fireplace living room wall, eating apricot chicken sandwiches, playing ping pong

I experience it by the generosity poured out as she offers to buy me shoes, then gives me money, then buys me a mop at Target I was going to buy myself

"It's only one little thing" she states

Only one little thing that she can do

Each moment of our time I realize more and more the truth:

I am valued

Sweat

Brown skin shines with it
Minnesota humidity creates it
I drink more water to keep myself fresh with it
The ever-flowing, ever-needed
Smell of
Sweat

It escapes through bodies
As we bask in warmth
We feel a little like the eggs
Fried on a sidewalk

Spot

Spot
You were a good car
I'm sorry I didn't fight for you
I see your brothers and sisters
Every now and then
And I think after you

Yes, when you became more of a Swirl
My heart was proudest
You displayed art and truth
You caught everyone's attention
No one could ignore you

I remember a big black lady in a van next to me as I was driving down Franklin Ave near Christen and Annika's house
She rolled down her window and yelled to me
" Hey!"
"What?"
"That's right, King Jesus IS the Living Water!"
I thanked her abruptly and laughed at her recognition

There was also the man pushing carts in the Cub Foods parking lot
"It's true you know," he said, "Thanks for saying it...a lot of people don't say it."

And then there was that tiny 7-year old black girl who was running wildly to the East Lake library
"Aw, that's ti-ai-aht!" She almost screamed to her friends.

Spot, I miss you
Where ever you are
If you are delivering pizzas, or being driven around suburbia
Or both
I hope you continue to brighten the darkness