A New Life, it's exhausting.

Well-- the past three months that I have been ignoring this blog have been CRAY.

I'm living in New York City.

I live across from Macy's.

I go to college.

WHAT?!

I know it's completely crazy.

I love it here. My roommates are great, my house is great, my school is great, my professors are great, new york is great.

I have never been so homesick in my life. The last month has been better homesick wise than it was when I first moved in. However, even though it sucks, I'm really thankful for this feeling.
I have had to cling to the Lord like never before. I'm finally starting to make friends here, but the first month I was kind of lonely (*besides having my roommates etc).
It's amazing how the Lord answers your prayers.
I have seen, in the past three months, God bless me EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. in such obvious, tangible ways. I've realized that I have no room to complain because the Lord is providing.

In my Introduction to Old Testament Literature class we've been reading through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers (et al) and it's hit me like never before How Much the Israelites Complained! EVERY DAY. No matter how YHWH provided they still found ways to be discontent and to complain! It's ridiculous.

I don't want to be an Israelite. 

This is my goal every day: don't complain, the Lord provides. && Love Unconditionally.

Here are some highlights of my life::

• hanging out with my roommates families when we moved in
• getting to know the girls in my house via the great race (dislike: all the running and getting pooped on by a seagull on Cony Island)

my roommates: Alex and Erika. I love them

• Shake Shack
• roommate family dinners
• Cafe Lalo with the roomies
• labor day brunch with my cousin
• labor day dinner with the guys
• Fashion Night Out with the best girls
• my friends Amber and Tyler getting married (such a beautiful event and it also meant I got to go home)
• All the mail I get from my family
• going out for my Big's birthday
• drama comp
• SNL with friends. to see JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT AND MUMFORD AND SONS. it was a highlight of my life.
• my mommy visiting
• high school friends coming to visit for the day/ seeing my sister/ seeing my best friend derek
• FALL BREAK
• presidential debates=food and friends
• sunday lunch in central park with my girl Alex
• dinner in the LowerEastSide with Jon, Alex and Chandler
• walks by myself in central park
• Lydia's birthday dinner
• helping with Inviso
• the MET with Erika, Bethany and Alex
• Hurricane Sandy
• seeing Jimmy Fallon
• All Movie Nights
• SEEING NEWSIES and winning the lottery for it
• Serendipity with friends
• Redeemer church

and that's not even scratching the surface. 

the Lord is so good.

The Age of Anti-heroes and A Point of Reference

"But this is the Age, among other things, of the Anti-hero. This is the Age of Do-it-yourself; Do-it-yourself oil paintings: Just Follow the Numbers; Do-it-yourself Home Organ Lessons; Do-it-yourself Instant Culture.
But I can't do it myself. I need a hero. Sometimes I have pretty shoddy ones, as I have chosen faulty mirrors in which to see myself. But a hero I must have. A hero shows me what fallible man, despite and even with his faults, can do: I can do anything: not as much of a paradox as it might seem.
In looking towards a hero, we are less restricted and curtailed in our own lives. A hero provides us with a point of reference." -Madeleine L'Engle. A Circle of Quiet, p. 180

In light of the Olympics going on at the moment, this quote stuck out to me. I sat in Prince Street Cafe, my littlest sister sitting across from me reading The Hard Winter, pondering the idea of having a hero and trying to figure out who mine was. Sure, Team USA is inspiring but are they my heroes?
I don't think so.
There are many people I admire and look up to, but I don't know if, according to L'Engle's definition, they qualifies as my "hero".
I agree with L'Engle in all of these. I'm not a do it yourselfer. I do need others to do things that I cannot do. I like the idea of a hero being a "fallible man doing, despite his faults, things I cannot". However, I don't think I have that "one person" that I look up to, that I strive to be like, that I idolize.

There it is. I think in my head, I view having a hero the same as an idol. There are many people in my life that can do things that I cannot; That are fallible, and yet I see the Grace of God in their life and the things they can do as a blessing in this way. I feel this paradox and it's shaping me into the person that I'm becoming. So Yes, I don't have one "hero", I have many people in my life that I admire, thus shaping me into...me. 
So thank you Dad, Mom, Mrs. Jones, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Madeleine L'Engle, C.S.Lewis, Audrey Hepburn, Joy, Danika, Susannah, Kinfolk, My FamilyFriendsForever(you know who you are), Billy Collins, Burberry, New York, Wheatland.. for shaping me into the person that I am becoming and for being my point of reference.

Inspiration is Key #2

I've made another list of things that I'm inspired by. Here it is:

#1- Madeleine L'Engle

#2- Hebrews 7:24-25

#3- The Dictionary

#4- This Song

#5- Kate Middleton

#6- Olly Murs

#7- The Olympics

#8- Lauren Conrad

#9- My New Camera(!)

#10- The Fact That I have 19 Days Until I Move To New York City. (AH!)

Hubris and a Good Time

I have so many ideas, thoughts, emotions, flying around in my head. I know you probably thought that I forgot about you, that I didn't have time to write. This is not the case.
I just have had no clear post in mind. Nothing that would make one, flowing, intelligent blogpost.
And I think that's my problem.
I want it to be intelligent.

Let me start by saying Madeleine L'Engle.

This summer has been spent between working, reading books that I want to read (I know.. what a novel idea...), hanging out with friends, throwing dinner parties, and getting things for school.
The biggest deal, though, is the fact that I don't have to catch up on any school this summer. I'm free. and that's a fantastic feeling.
I just finished To Kill A Mockingbird (omgsh amazing), I read an Agatha Christie, caught up on all of my Kinfolk magazines, and am now reading A Circle of Quiet by L'Engle, Antigone, and King Lear.

While reading A Circle of Quiet this afternoon, I came across a section about self-consciousness and what it has to do with creativity. The section that I want to share with you expresses perfectly my feelings about this idea in a way that I wish I could emulate. And yes. I'm going to share the entire quote with you, thus going against all writing rules.

"When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves.
The Greeks had a word for ultimate self-consciousness which I find illuminating: hubris: pride: pride in the sense of putting oneself in the center of the universe. The strange and terrible thing is that this kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation. The great tragedians have always understood this, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. We witness it in history in such people as Tiberius, Eva Peron, Hitler.
I was timid about putting forth most of these thoughts, but this kind of timidity is itself a form of pride. The moment that humility becomes self-conscious, it becomes hubris. One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time. Therefore, the act of creating- painting a picture, sining a song, writing a story- is a humble act? This was a new thought to me. Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else."

OH there is so much more to this quote. And I would put it all down here, however I think this is the time for an endorsement for this book. GO. Read it. Have the world make more sense.
Or at least have my world make more sense.

So all that to say. Happy summer. Excuse me while I go try to not be self-conscious. Meanwhile, Here's one of my favorite songs right now.

Fashion: art or artless?

This past weekend I spent time in New York City. My bestie is up in Brooklyn this week and last week dancing at a Mark Morris summer intensive. I decided that I would kill multiple birds with one stone. 1) see the bestie dance in a demonstration of what she learned last week. 2) hangout with my cousin who lives in the upper east side. 3) navigate nyc and the subway system by myself before I move there in 65 days (not that I'm counting or anything...). 4) just hangout in one of my favorite cities. 
SO. I did all of these things. and it was amazing. and my bestie was amazing dancing. and hanging out with my cousin was amazing. and hanging out in nyc with three of my girl friends was amazing. I had NO desire to come home to LancLanc At All. 

On saturday, three of my girl friends, my cousin, and I spent the morning at the MET. we saw a special show called Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations. It was a fascinating show, exploring the similarities of two different fashion designers from two different eras, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada. I was struck, while moseying my way through the exhibit, how different my idea of fashion is, and what Schiaparelli and Prada's view of fashion is. It's safe to say that we all differ completely. 
Schiaparelli viewed fashion as art. She said that if she hadn't become a designer she would have been a sculptor. Prada, on the other hand, did not view fashion as art. She seemed to only do it as a rebellion to anyone and everyone. However, I was confused. If she did not view fashion as art, as she had stated, then she had a strange way of expressing that. Her clothing is unwearable for the average person. It Is Art. There's no question. It's elaborate and unflattering for most people. And thus, I realized my opinion on fashion.

Fashion should be beautiful.


Fashion should be flattering to the wearer.


Fashion should be graceful.


Fashion should be classy. (However that doesn't mean it can't be fun and take risks)


Fashion should be art, but art that the wearer wears, not that wears the wearer.


I didn't realize how strongly I felt these things, until observing Schiaparelli and Prada's exhibit at the MET.

So that's what I've been thinking about recently. {all photos either found on tumblr, the met website or my instagram}

Tell me your thoughts. CA

Dancing and Silin

this accurately shows my reaction to today (found on photo bucket)

Today is an exciting today. Life is good. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. It's not too hot outside. I'm headed up to New York City (!) tomorrow on the train. and I FINISHED HIGH SCHOOL TODAY.

I am so happy.

The last thing I had to do today in order to be done was to finish reading the last book in my church history class called Turning Points by Mark A. Noll. I have to say that it wasn't my favorite. It was ok but not the best. HOWEVER the last part of the book was worth reading all 315 pages. I wanted to share it with you. I had never heard about this man, however I do know about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and this unknown man was known by Solzhenitsyn.

"If the survival of Christianity under Communist regimes comes to be regarded as a major turning point of the twentieth century, it will be because the church as a whole takes to heart the witness of believers like Anatoly Vasilyevich Silin. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was drawn to Silin during his own incarceration in the 1950s, because of the dedication to poetic composition he shared with Silin. Silin was raise with atheist instruction in an orphanage but then found Christian books while in a German prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War. That slight acquaintance was enough to set him on a life of dedicated Christian witness. When Solzhenitsyn met him, Silin had spent his entire adult life in the camps. With no formal training, almost no access to religious books or even other believers, Silin went on writing and memorizing poems in his head, which he could recite at great length when he found a sympathetic listener like Solzhenitsyn. Untutored, untrained, persecuted, usually along, Silin could yet rise to supernal heights of theological reasoning. He believed, for instance, that Christ suffered, not only to atone for human sins, but because God himself, out of pure love to his creatures, wanted to experience the full measure of human suffering. Silin could express a serene theodicy, or explanation for the existence of evil in the world:

Does God, who is Perfect Love, allow
This imperfection in our lives?
The soul must suffer first, to know
The forfeit bliss of paradise...
Harsh is the law, but to obey
Is for weak men the only way
To win eternal peace.

According to Solzhenitsyn, Silin also displayed a gentle meekness to all who crossed his path, despite the extraordinary harshness of his lot.
... A hint as to how Christianity survived under Communist oppression, as well as a suggestion why the reasons for that survival could define a turning point in the world history of Christianity, are contained in part of what Solzhenitsyn reported about his friend Anatoly Vasilyevich Silin.

'Before the war Anatoly Vasilyevich had graduated from a teacher' college, where he had specialized in literature. Like me, he now had about three years left before his "release" to a place of banishment. His only training was as a teacher of literature in schools. It seemed rather improbable that ex-prisoners like us would be allowed into schools. But if we were- what then.
"I won't put lies into children's heads! I shall tell the children the truth about God and the life of the Spirit."
"But they'll take you away after the first lesson."
Silin lowered his head and answered quietly: "Let them."' "

WOAH. Considering that his man had no formal training in the gospel and, as it sounds, no Bible even, His Faith Was So Strong. I'm so inspired by this man who had nothing, yet would do anything to spread the world of the Lord. My Mind= BLOWN.

The last thing that really got to me at the end of this book was this final quote:
"The church survives by the grace of God, not because of the wisdom, purity, or consistent faithfulness of Christians."


What a merciful Father we have! He doesn't need us, but out of His grace and mercy, He continues the church so that we may be in awe of Him, Glorify Him and Enjoy Him Forever.

Well. This is my last post as a high school student. Whatever the next post will be, it will be as a free woman. After August 25th, any post will be as a college student.

This is what I want my summer to look like.

SOLI DEO GLORIA.

inspiration is key

I've made a list. A list of what I'm inspired by Right.Now.

Here it is:

#1- Psalm 46:10

#2- John and Idelette Calvin

#3- New York City

#4- Emma Stone

#5- Madeleine L'Engle

#6- C.S. Lewis

#7- my Fred Astaire Pandora Station

#8- My Blog: An Ode To Glitter

#9- Church History.. History in general

#10- This album

What inspires you right now? Tell the world below.

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” -C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity

Hello June.

I have a list.
A list of names that I like that I could potentially name a future child.
This list is located on my phone and every time I hear a name that I like, it's added to the list. If the name isn't just super cool I want it to have some significant meaning. I'm tired of everyone naming their children bible names (not that that is a bad thing. It totally isn't) I just think church history is important too. So half of the names on my list are from people from church history that I want my child to be proud to be named after.

It's June. 19 days until I graduate. The end of the tunnel seems so far away!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I was sick all last week and didn't have much to say, between trying not to be sick, watching tv and reading school books (which i'm sick of by the way).

Last night was one of my last youth group nights. I got pretty sentimental. I don't want it to be over!- because when it ends, that means I'm growing up. I'm not ready for that. Hence always listening to my Disney pandora station. I know, I'm in denial. You don't need to remind me.

So I started another blog. Don't worry, I'm not leaving you behind. This new blog is not a writing my thoughts down blog. It's called "An Ode to Glitter" and it's a small visual journal dedicated to all things beautiful. Check it out!

quote tiiiiime

I'm sorry that I've been a bit absent recently, I've been very busy and have not been very inspired. But I thought I'd stop by quick and post a photo I found on pinterest that I just happened to read in Weight of Glory by C.S.Lewis. I'm in love with this:

Inspiration of the Day

Pursuit of Knowledge and Beauty

"I mean the pursuit of knowledge and beauty, in a sense, for their own sake, but in a sense which does not exclude their being for God's sake. An appetite for these things exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain. We can therefore pursue knowledge as such, and beauty as such, in the sure confidence that by so doing we are either advancing to the vision of God ourselves or indirectly helping others to do so." -C.S.Lewis

If God Made the World, Shouldn't We Travel It?

Danika and Me

My grandparents have a specific couple that they travel with. They have been friends with this couple for years and have been all over the world with them. 

My best friend, Danika, and I took a walk this morning. We live six blocks away from each other (on the same street, different blocks) and theres a pharmacy in the middle of our houses. We met at the pharmacy with our dogs and went on a walk. We talked about all the places we want to go to and all the things we want to see. We realized we want to visit a lot of the same places for the same reasons (hey we're best friends, what can I say). After we said goodbye and walked to our separate homes, I realized that I want Dan to be the couple to my grandparents. We talked about where we want to take our husbands. So my dream right now? Travel the world with my future husband, my best friend, and her future husband. Maybe Danika and I will get started early. Who knows. First stop? Moving to New York together.

Travel Dream List:
Italy
Britain
France
Germany
Austria
Spain
Anywhere in Europe really

Mondays, Museums, and Fashion

It's raining. Rain makes sitting in cafes so much cozier. which is a hard thing to do since cafes are pretty cozy to begin with.

My mom sent me this poem this morning. I thought I would share it with you.

On Mondays by Marilyn Donnelly On Mondays when the museums are closed and a handful of guards look the other way or read their newspapers all of the figures step out of golden frames to stroll the quiet halls or visit among old friends. Picasso's twisted ladies rearrange themselves to trade secrets with the languid odalisques of Matisse while sturdy Rembrandt men shake the dust from their velvet tams and talk shop. Voluptuous Renoir women take their rosy children by the hand to the water fountains where they gossip while eating Cezanne's luscious red apples. Even Van Gogh in his tattered yellow straw hat seems almost happy on Mondays when the museums are closed.

It ^^ makes me think of Philly and the art museums and of new york. Which makes me excited. Cuz I'm moving there in t-minus 103ish days. I'm excited. can you tell?

I've been thinking a lot about what my options might be for jobs after college, ie. what I like, what I don't like, where do I see my self thriving, what are my strengths,
For some reason I keep coming back to the fashion world. Sure, I don't design, I'm not artistic like that, but I love writing, I love fashion, I love photography. All these things add to up some kind of magazine job. So is that where I'll be in four years? Who knows... (besides God..) So I'll just spend the next couple months..years.. researching. Besides, the fashion world needs more lights in it anyway.

oh I got to talk to two of my besties today, one stopped by and the other we chatted on the phone. What a nice break from that madness that is my school.

speaking of madness... time to return to it.
Happy monday.

Re-Humanizing. And Paused.

So yesterday at church my pastor was talking about those pauses we feel before a change God is bringing. Our sermon series right now is focusing on the appearances Christ made after his resurrection. It's a wonderful series, just seeing God show himself to his followers who were so broken. Anyway, yesterday's sermon was based on John 21: 1-14, when Jesus appeared to the disciples on the Sea of Galilee. Anyway, I was just thinking this morning about what my pastor said about the pauses.
I feel paused. Paused, yet still moving. I am in the same place I have been in for the last year, but I feel that quiver of something new coming. I'm ridiculously busy, but I feel paused. I'm waiting for God to press the play button.

This morning my mom emailed me an article and I wanted to share a part that really stuck out to me.

"Do you get it? The point of being Christian is not to be super-spritual. It's to be re-humanized. Returned to our God-given, human task of loving Him and loving others."

^^I forget this a lot.

Saturday night, my friends and I had a bonfire. We're all done our outside classes, so getting together that night was kind of a victory statement of "Holla! We're done! We've arrived! We're still friends after all these years of dying at the hands of school!" lots of singing, laughing and dancing around while eating pizza.

Favorite outfit of the day. I'm excited to move to New York.

Song of the Week.

Thanks for reading my random thoughts.

Have a fantastic Monday....now. back to school.