My heart

poem by, Kori

I've searched the World
knowing my needs
wishing i had the strength to hold on to them tightly
instead i stare
stare into the void
a void of a world that cannot hold

only along with one another
standing or kneeling
but not alone
side by side
shoulder to shoulder

This is the answer
This can hold the world
Love one another
Thy greatest commandment
Love one another
There is nothing I know more powerful

I suppose that in some small way
this is me reaching for my needs
like a kid during recess
holding on tight to each monkey bar
this is me
girl with worth, offering herself to the world
please, give me a "call back" won't you?
I Need to hear from You.

What's your love language?

After coming off of one of the roughest weeks (psychologically) of my life, I would like to start things off on a uplifting and instrumental note, to reflect for a moment on What my love language is? This may sound random and quirky to some, but indulge me; for I think, if belief in providence be true; that this whole "love language" thing has been persistently coming up in my daily life through different people (you know who you are) for a good reason.

After knowing your love language you can ask and answer this question--What have i most often requested from significant others? I think for me personally, Number 1: requesting something of people is not what i do best. I think this is because something inside me has me convinced that that shows weakness and is too painful and uncomfortable. Number 2: I do better asking anonymous or professional "people" when I absolutely need something, (i.e. My psychiatrist, a small group, the Alanon group, my counselor, a distant acquaintance or old friend i've been out of touch with, my stuffed animal pig Gilbert or even Mr. Frumples) Number 3: After taking this quiz, I realized my number 1 and 2 need to take a little turn towards my significant others (namely: friends, family and those I work for and respect) because my primary love language is "Quality Time" and my next two (just so happens-it was a tie) "Words of Affirmation" and "Physical Touch" are my secondary love languages. This is a fun exercise to see how well you know yourself and your needs as a human being. And please don't kid yourself like I have--You DO have needs, and that is simply part of what makes us who we are as individual people.

lyrical thoughts...

These Bethany Dillon lyrics have been running through my head all day. Perhaps because what my life is like at this moment seems so far from what i want it to be, so naturally i wish to be someone else, someone other than me. Why is this so natural though? As soon as something goes wrong or unplanned, the grass is always greener, right? Well, why can't we embrace the yucky moments, the unproductive hours, the late nights up alone, the allowance of one's body, especially the mind, to wander aimlessly for a moment with no purpose or goal other than mere curiousity and interest? One thing I have learned is that life is definitely, atleast part of it anyway, is out of our hands. Knowing this I want to strive to embrace every moment, good or bad; perfectly planned or awfully unprepared, with the wind at my back or the rain in my path (or snow covering my car). I desire to live each moment the best I can and not look back or look at others reactions.

I think evidence for my spiritual growth is when I find myself more willing to ask other people to keep praying for something.

Lyrics running through me all day long

"Sometimes i wish i was someone other than me...

trying to find whatever is missing

Won't you help me back, to Glory?"

Bethany Dillon

She moves in mysterious ways

I chose Depression today.
Why did I invite her in to my bedroom this morning? Why are some days harder than others? Why do i hear her so clearly some days and so faintly other days? What is a day even worth? How much effort we put into making it a productive and successful 16hours? My day today has been worthless then in this regard. Back to my choice this morning; I invited her in reluctantly and slowly, letting her take down each of my defenses i had set up in my mind. Then inevitably she became the easy out and the more comfortable alternative, so i picked her. For those next few hours spent in deep sleep (seemingly peaceful) I am unaware what she was doing during that time. Could she have been manipulating me further while I was unaware of it? Or was I already aware of this because it has happened too many times to count? When i awaken though, she begins to converse with me; bombarding me with ill qualified advice, remarks and comparisons. "Kori, you are scaring yourself with how far behind in your work you are getting" "look at you, how will you amount to anything in life with such lack of motivation and confidence?" "Kori, come here, stay, i'm here for you, I can understand what you must be feeling...although no one else can"
I chose to be friends with depression today; but what kind of a friend is this?

wondering in class

The other day in my New Testament Literature class we were learning about the different paradigms to make sense of Jesus. (New Testament Story: An Introduction, by David L. Barr. 3rd edition. Wadsworth, 2002.)
*my favorite was Wisdom
"Wisdom existed independently and eternally...Jesus became Wisdom, a revelation of the divine"
...but then i got on a rampage/tangent in my mind and wrote this down:
Does it really matter if we get the exact theology right? That Christ is God and God has three parts, the Trinity, yata yata, yata. When I picture us (humanity) before God; I do not see this rule book of boxes to check off and lists but of simply recognition of the Divine, of Wisdom, of Goodness and Evil, of SOMETHING greater, that further outweighs anything and everything.

Weekly Goals of a College Student

Stay on top of school work
No sleeping past 9 am
Swim/Lift 3x
Eat good meals and stay hydrated!
Make all my meetings and classes and other engagements (and be 10 min early to them)
Reward myself with light reading, currently that is "Pigs in Heaven" by Barbara Kingsolver
or with a fix of the movie, i heart huckabees
Talk to a friend I haven't spoken to in a while
Be prayerfully minded
Ask others to be - Pray for Mom Shelden who is currently in the hospital undergoing tests
Enjoy V Day with Freddy

Don't try and fix/plan my whole life in a day/week- One step at a time...

And: Just for kicks, I'd like to share some of my own, "6 word memoirs"

(idea taken from a post I found on my Professor's blog)


Continual Pursuit of Balance and Stability
Little Sister, Big Aunt, New Girlfriend
My Mother's 40th Birthday Present/Surprise
Suffering Accepted in Faith will Redeem
Do Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly

Now--> YOU post/comment some of your own 6 word memoirs, its rather fun!

Repetitive Wisdom

Due to the many hardships/struggles/life events I myself have endured (which i do not in anyway compare or contrast to any other's, but simply recognize them) I take such comfort from these simple and profound words of direction from Mother Theresa,

"66 years of God's darkness...It's not enough to say you love God, you have to love the poor, your neighbor"

It is the beautiful struggle of necessary storm.

I feel as though this is a lesson I need to learn and re-learn every season of life...

Unlimited, my future is unlimited

A thought to myself: "Something happened in you tonight"

"Something has changed within me...something is not the same"-Wicked (the Broadway Musical)

And I decided I will be a beautiful and famously sought after, belting Broadway singer/actress, along with my friend Laura!! (in my second life that is:)
It was after tonight, when I was reunited with this friend; it brought me right back to my study abroad semester two years ago in Belize...when, this friend and I would belt these songs to each other constantly, laughing and having a ball doing it.
I find it hilarious and amazing that friendships of such a kind can so easily be jolted back into vibrant "song" and it's like flashbacks the entire time! I also was reunited with two other friends I saw in the union today by surprise (they were just in Zambia for the month) and I about toppled them over with hugs! These girls had gone to Belize with me too. I really do think experiences shared like that really bring you to a special level of understanding and genuine interest and care for the other people you spend it with, and right now I am thankful for such a thing.

Recently, I have had a number of people tell me how envious they are of me- because I still have a year yet to finish my undergrad and they are approaching the end quickly with this spring being the last semester in college. I have some thoughts on this.

I agree with them in that I am pretty darn glad I have another year to mole over things some more and get familiarized with the new subjects of study(Religions and Anthropology) I am in now. However, I also think: if they only knew how different my outlook was 8 months ago when I was trying to put the pieces back together after leaving the career path of Nursing...I said and believed such awful, painful, self-degrading things about myself, like:

[experts from journal entry in April 2007]

"I feel like I have already defeated myself. Why can't I just get over the difficulty of this time and just get my work done so it will all be over and done with. So many people believe in me but I don't believe in me. Music is my only comfort right now. Dance is my outlet. I want to do what I love, not do things I don't feel good about or confident with (a.k.a. nursing school)
I am starting to get used to the sound of that. FAILURE. I feel so behind everyone and everything!"

But now I am whistling such a different tune...but it took time, for healing, forgiveness, understanding and revelations. It really is crazy how in one moment your life seems so unfixable and chronically failing, declining, digressing and the next (grant you, months later) moment you can only see opportunity and potential and relief from escaping something unfit for you.

I'd like to just conclude for the evening-appropriately with another quote from one of my favorite songs from Wicked,

"Something has changed within me, something is not the same.
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.
Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and...leap.
Its time to try defying gravity, I think I’ll try defying gravity and you can't pull me down!"

eat, pray, love

Elizabeth Gilbert is an amazing writer! I loved her book (Eat, Pray, Love) and felt so connected to her emotional upheavels- Amazing considering- I am 21 years old, never married, nor divorced, nor a journalist for a magazine, but i still could take so much meaning from this book and her life as she "found herself" in the various countries-Italy, India and Indonesia. Here are a few quotes I wrote down as I read...

"I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings."

After attempting meditation in India at an Ashram she lived in for four months...
"What i'm alarmed to find in meditiation is that my mind is actually not that interesting a place after all. In actuality I really only think about a few things, and I think about them constantly."

A few more...
"When I get lonely these days, i think so be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around lonliness, make a map of it, Sit with it, for once in your life welcome the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."

"And when you feel/sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face first out of the dirt-This is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

"And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person-the magnification of one life-is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody's but my own."

my own poetry dabbling, clearly influenced by this lady:)

More Than Just Girl Power
I won't back down
I am Strong
I do have discipline within me
Allow myself to love myself
I greet the divine in me

Suffering Accepted in FAITH redeems

February 3, 2008
It's a Sunday that i start this thing (a blog) i have been thinking about for weeks- so I think I will make it tradition to entry (at least in the beginning) on this "day of rest"

This blog is going to consist of the following:
Normal day to day journal entries
Poetry (a new development)
Favorite lyrics and quotes
To do Lists
Movie, Play, Book, Music reviews
Personal musings and philosophical questions...
and probably some major venting sessions

Since I just completed a January Term course this past Wednesday, I will share some of my closing thoughts on it. I took "Harrisburg and the Neighborhoods" for an anthropology topics requirement, and a group of 2 other girls along with my self did an in-depth (for a month-so not that indepth) study of the neighborhood, Midtown in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, approximately 10 minute drive from Messiah College

I wrote Jan, 28, 2008
What preconcieved ideas of yours-about Harrisburg (abbreviation now: Hburg) or about cities in general-has been challenged?
I thought Hburg was pretty small; i only had seen Market Street and the Capitol District because of a friend who had started working and living in the city for his first job out of college. He has given me somewhat of a perspective-and it has been that socially it is pretty lame and he's said to me, "I'm over Hburg" (as in he will move in the next year). Work-wise he likes his job and the company very much, but unfortunately Hburg's other aspects are not fulfilling my friend's needs and desires. I have gone to City Island to watch a soccer game and eaten out on 2nd street a few times with my friend. We also saw a Shakespeare play outdoors at Resevior Park in the summer.
My preconcieved notions were that Hburg was a rather poor and needy city with much needed economic growth and activity. It didn't seem thriving to me- besides for 2nd street (a.k.a. Restaurant Row) and the Strawberry Square, which are both in the Capitol, Downtown district. I think traveling around Midtown, which is much more residential than Downtown (boundaries go from Forestor to Maclay and Front to 7th Street) and talking to many developers, that my notion of a dead city has been challenged. Also the large amount of the population being young professionals and/or empty nesters was news to me. Earlier i never thought to consider that, but now because most of the buildings in the Capitol/downtown district make up most of Hburg; that is translation for who or what type of people inhabit the city. I never did think of how this also effects what happens at night after five when they all go home. Alot of my flat assumptions of the city (that it is small, not much to offer, dirty) were challenged during this course by trying to figure out why these things were that way? Learning that every place has a unique history and that so much goes into the success or failure of a shop, realtor, restuarant, retail store, book store, movie cinema, and green spaces. And meeting residents we interviewed was a challenge because of how much they cared and were involved in their neighborhood; I guess I just would not have even imagined such people. Silly me:)

What does an urban spirituality (an urban life of faith, a journey of faith in the city) look like? What does "the city" mean for your spirituality?
What does an urban spirituality look like; to me an urban spirituality no matter what condition the city is in, the faith communities are rally alive and vibrant. I think it cannot help being so because it is surrounded by poverty, crime, and opportunities to better those problems as a Christian is called to do-service. Also in an urban setting there is so much change that happens and so new people groups and organizations come and go and can contribute greatly to a sprititual vision of the city. An urban setting provides long term residents too, who can give much wisdom to the area the faith community may desire to reach out to. I think in the city it is much easier to be diverse; be surrounded by all sorts of races, ethnicities, perspectives, professions, etc. and this can increase one's spirituality by preventing stagnancy and sameness.