You've won my heart

And you've won my heart.

Now I can

Trade these ashes in for beauty

And wear forgiveness like a crown

Coming to kiss the feet of mercy

I lay every burden down

At the foot of the cross.

Thank you for allowing your unfathomable wrath and your limitless love to collide and to vanquish.

Thank you for fighting for me.

Thank you for making living an infinitely good thing.

Alyssa

20 years ago Alyssa Sutherland was born.

Our friendship was destined to happen the day we we banded together like a flock of monkeys to fight the onslaught of the previous years STUB team. We found out they were going to "initiate" us into our new positions with a raucous and perilously early morning call and a series of possibly uncomfortable activities and decided to one up them - armed with nothing but the element of surprise and a healthy quota of water balloons.

I have been blessed to know this girl and am so happy to call her friend. She is strong, full of passion, zeal ambition and is beautiful in every way. She has also been favored with a knack for politics, robust and witty banter and Dutch roots - yep, she's going places. I was honored and so pleased when she asked me to take her campaign shots and I thought I'd share some of them with you.

Happy Birthday miss!

Girl meets World.

Capstone is a bit of a drag. That said, I have decided to take away something from every class. It'll be a game, kind of.

Yesterday we read Boy Meets World, ie, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015:11-32&version=NIV)

Blah until proven unblah. I thought for a second about good story telling. What makes Shakespeare Shakespeare? What makes the stories of Cinderella and Rapunzel as magical now as they were a hundred years ago?

We identify with them. We become invested in characters because we see traces of ourselves in their joys and sorrows and fears and hopes. These are human things and as it turns out, humans haven't changed a whole lot across the centuries.

Jesus knew how to tell stories. We were asked to write our own versions of the story, and here is mine.

* * *

Sometimes I am the lost brother. I love the idea of being independent, of taking off into the wild world with all the gusto, enthusiasm and fervor that is in my young, if admittedly naive self. So I go. I pack my things and pluck the pen of authorship from Abbai's hands with a quick smile and a Thank you and I am off.

Dancing

running

walking

shuffling

crawling

sitting

curled up and broken because I can't dance anymore.

My joy is gone.

I come home, into the presence of my father - I dare not call him Abbai now - with hands behind my back and my eyes to the ground. I mumble an apology.

He sighs - a sigh of relief, exasperation and love - much like my mother does when she catches wind of adventures of the thoughtless variety. He lifts my face to face his. I still can't quite meet his eyes but I see that smile I know so well. For a moment I am almost angry - why is he letting it go this easily?

But then I am suddenly weak, suddenly aware of how tired and small I am. I hold the pen out to him, my hands are smeared with ink. He takes it back with a smile and a Thank you. My hand feels weightless suddenly in his.

Gung-Ho for Senioritis and Such.

And so we bid our adieu to break as we once knew it. It's gone, having given way to what we've fondly termed "The Beginning of the End". Spring Quarter. Yep, this is is it, the last quarter of my undergraduate career. It's a strange feeling and one that is, for the most part, still a vague, distant thing that is by and large not real. But then there are those moments of clarity...like when I ordered my cap and gown or when I trip over my own tongue in response to that really insightful question "so, what are you doing next year?" Fear not, I too have asked that question many times and oft. Of others and of myself. Or when the kindly gentleman at the next-door ticket stand offered me a job application with a schedule that was flexible for students, and I replied with an aura of chagrin that it just didn't matter, "I wont BE a student, sir."

Despite the timbre of angst you may be gleaning from this post here, I really am excited. A few days off was just the ticket to the final stages of senioritis and the beginning of the steady march to the finish line - whereupon we will start a new race altogether.

Revival, let me tell you, is a great thing. The best remedies in the world include:

Coffee, Agatha Christy and snider bits at Nielson's.

Theatre, champagne and Steinbeck accompanied by only the best.

Thai food by the canal, almost being run over by Dan Armading and sunshine.

But now we have Shakespeare to look forward to. And capstones and sailing. And then to join the bandwagon of some of my favorite alums (mainly I'm excited about this so I can finally feel deserving of my Alumni mug.)