I've been reading, and a thinking, a bit, and I keep turning over the problem of pain. If God answers prayers from a faithful heart - if Jesus healed the lady who only touched his cloak - if Elijah called on him to raise the widow's son from the dead - then why do people die horribly painful deaths of cancer and leukemia and AIDS? If prayer is answered, then why not those prayers? Why only some?

Somebody said, the other day, that there were some questions that had no answers. Perhaps this is one, but that doesn't mean that I can stop looking. Even if there is no perfect answer this side of the great divide, the search for one is still important.

"For every minstrel hath his tune;
and some are strong and some are soft,
and each would bear his song aloft,
and each a little while be heard,
though rude the note and light the word."

Taken from the Lay of Leithian, this has got to be one of my favorite quotes - whether writing or singing or sketching.

My wrists hurt, especially my left one. I'm not quite sure why, but as I have a piano session today, it is rather inconvenient.

Have you ever been to the Masquerade?
You might find me there: I'm on parade
with my paper face and painted mask
so that I can bask
in the crowd's applause.
They see furred paws and lacquered claws
and scaly faces and flowing feathered crests
and they cheer and they stomp and beat their breasts
for my paper face: I'm on parade,
and I'm going all out for the Masquerade.

Have you ever been to the Feast of Fools?
You might find me there, decked out in jewels
and silken luxuries I don't own,
on the beggar's throne
for the backwards day
(when the kings are common and the commons play
at being kings - and the village fool
has applause and prestige and the power to rule
from a borrowed throne) - see my borrowed jewels?
I am the Queen of the Feast of Fools.

Saturday-morning cartoons. Bleh. Disturbers of the peace and quiet they are. And the animals never look quite right. Whales do not produce sound out of their mouths, nor do they "spray water out when they breathe." And jaguar kits of perhaps two months old are not allowed away from their mothers - and vines, in the rainforest, do not hang down like a hula dancer's skirts!

I miss my peace and quiet. Sithspawned cartoons.

I have lost my tea strainer, and I do not know where to find it. C'est la vie - it will turn up somewhere, I suppose. (Eventually...)

So today, I threaded wire. It's not as easy as it sounds, since the wire in question is rather intractable and does not want to be woven into the mesh that will eventually be the sides of an aviary; but I finished the top and got a good bit of the sides done anyway, so I'll probably finish tomorrow. Then the door needs to be installed, and then the entire contraption painted, before food and water and perches and nests and toys are arranged. It might not be done this Saturday, but it will be done soon.

I've been wondering, lately, what friendship is. How much of it is emotional? - rational? What makes it form? Are there certain people that simply "click," so to speak? How much of it is based on common background and similar interests? Why should it be so swift and easy for some, and so complicated for others? Is it a true give-and-take formula?

Some of it seems logical, but then - if it truly were, several I call my friends would not be, and others might be indeed.

I'll think on that later. For now, I think I'm going to go look for that strainer.

Green - yes,
that is the color of the trees,
and blue is the sky.
The bird keens in the tree
far away,
and the jay rasps an answer.
Buzzing black bumblebees bounce.
Something is rustling in the grass,
the dead pine needles,
but I cannot see.
God?
Is that You?
No - a jay springs to the air
with a raucous laugh, and then,
there is silence, but for the bee.
Look! Three squirrels are on a stump.
Grey - yes,
they are grey, and cloud-white about the neck.
And there - another is down,
amid the needles, and another.
Five? Yes, five.
Five squirrels, and a bumblebee, and a jay.
But where is God?
There - motion,
and a fern moves, sways, is caressed
by an invisible hand.
Look up, and the pines shiver,
touched by inaudible mirth;
down,
to see light spark, pick its way
across the green of young trees,
the straw of old grass.
The bird keens.
When did it go behind me?
I did not see,
but it is there -
yes, there.

Today is a work day, I think. We are trying to build an aviary - and finish it! - on the hill in our backyard, before next Saturday. Personally, I'm excited. The sooner it's up, the sooner I can get a tiel, which is something I've been wanting for - oh - ever since one flew into our backyard some years back.

Next Saturday, of course, is the first gathering of the Bird-Brained Bunch, or whatever the group decides to call itself. Admission: one finch, canary, or tiel, to be fed and sheltered in the (not-yet-finished) aviary. This should be fun!

Thanks, Dad, for that wonderful lovely discussion we had a while back. However, I cannot seem to get that scene out of my head, and it's been going round and round (and round) without cease, forcing me to attempt to corral it, and, hopefully, understand. At this point, I'm getting a little fatigued. Perhaps some thoughts from any who feel like commenting might help?

There is a very high, very sheer cliff, and at the bottom is a pile of dead bodies. You are standing at the top, at the edge, with Jesus.

"Step off," he says.

"Lord..." You're hesitant, understandably, and feel compelled to point out, "There's a pile of dead bodies there."

"Just step over the edge," he says, and now you have two options. You could turn away and refuse to do it, or you could have faith in him - in whatever he chooses to let happen. You choose, and step off. And then you fall.

You look at him, after you die, and you're frustrated, confused, maybe angry. "Why did You tell me to jump?!" You don't understand why he would tell you something for the sole purpose of bringing about your pain and death.

But he smiles at you. "Because," he answers, "I wanted you here, with me."

Comments, anyone?

I want some milk.

I have a cold.

Problem?

Oh, yes.

And... I am home. It is strange, I will admit, to find that seven people in the same home seems too few; but then, I have just returned from Puppet Tour with twenty, and from AIM with five more than that. Perhaps I have reason to find the lack strange, after all.

Or, perhaps, I am simply tired. That is certainly a viable hypothesis. Two weeks of AIM is not synonymous with rest or peace, and I had been tired before going. Tour was... better, perhaps, but still not providing of the sleep that is now needed. Normally, I think I would be irritable, perhaps cantankerous, but I have been too long in this place of exhaustion. I no longer have the energy to spare on snapping at an offensive sibling.

No, now I am - detached. I know the taste of apathy, and it does not have hold of me right now, but neither does the world. Unnecessary thought is still, as am I, and the voices playing in my head seem to sleep. I feel... "like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can." Strange as the sensation is, I cannot summon the necessary strength to care; I can merely note. And could I change it, I am not sure that I would. There is a clarity to the world when emotion and needless chatter is gone, when one is separate and not part of the events unfolding before one's eyes. There is content in being but one who observes.