Tonight Instead of making my way back home to my house in South Minneapolis after my work at Euphoric Ambiance I made a detour downtown and to North Minneapolis to my mother’s house.

I’d had the intentions of coming around to these parts ever since my mom told me that my cat Snow was dying and that she had intentions of putting her to sleep.

I’m highly against putting animals to sleep especially when I can come home to my mom’s house and see my cat in the exact same health condition as she has been for months now.

The only difference between this cat and my normal cat is that she can’t control her bladder, that’s the beginning of the end they say.

Last Tuesday I completely lost it when my mother told me that she had intentions of taking my Cat in last Wednesday. I cried and cried and I refused to get out of my mother’s car and go home until she promised that she’d give snow one more day.

It frightens me that the vets will be taking my cat and making her die alone with gas or a shot that will slowly make all her vital organs just stop.

I love my cat dearly and I can’t handle not having her around after she’d been in my life my whole life.

I thought my mom was possibly lying to me but boy was I surprised to discover that my cat was still alive Wednesday afternoon after i got out of my class and I was headed to work at my second job. I wasn’t able to get out and to my mom’s house to see my cat until nearly nine at night when there would be no chance of me getting back home after the fact to change and get ready for Thursday day at work and school.

Thursday wasn’t any better and everyday until now Sunday…and my cat is still alive because I asked that I be able to see her before she is put to sleep so I can say goodbye in anyway I can.

Coming tonight though I am unable to see anything wrong with her which just frustrates me because she seems like she always is, a tired old cat just laying around and being cute, she’s walking around, eating and meowing for attention as she always has. She even spent some time following me around when I first arrived at my mother’s house.

She’s laying right next to me sleep right now so I’m sitting here thinking…to put her to sleep would be to kill a innocent, yet a little sickly  animal.
I go to my mother and ask her why she wants to put Snow down now that she’s showing such little signs of being sickly enough to die.

My mom says that she can’t deal with any stress right now, and I ask her what stress there would be in snow’s being the same as she usually is and my mom makes me sit down in front of her and she informs me that she thinks she’s relapsing.

My mom has had cancer for about two years now and she’d had Multiple Sclerosis for twenty two, she was diagnosed with it when she was pregnant with me.

“I’m relapsing Corinne and as hard as it is for me to deal with Snow right now I can’t take this stress while I’m relapsing.”

“Into Cancer?” I asked knowing my mom had cancer.

“I’ll always have Cancer” my mom said “it’s not going anywhere anytime soon” she says

“Than it’s the MS?” I ask

And she nods.

My mom has relapsed into MS twice in my life, the first time I was in Kindergarten and i found my mom laying on the ground in the hallway and she couldn’t get up, I remember I thought she was dying the second time I was about sixteen and i remember having to change her iv for the steroids they put her on to make her stronger. When she lapsed from stage one to stage two she was forced into taking shots daily.

This time my mom tells me she is having trouble with her walking, I noticed it today this morning when she didn’t walk straight up the stairs and she used the handle railing at church to assist her.

So I think this is the more than just a relapse, people with MS have lost their abilities to walk and have ended up in wheelchairs.

So this just became  an issue of if I want to cause my mom more stress and kill her or if I want to let my childhood cat be put to sleep.

I am having a hard time letting go of my childhood cat because I don’t believe in killing and innocent creature and that it is God’s place to do so but this whole business with my mother and the way she’s sprung it on me has me thinking that I have no other choice.

It’s my mother or my cat.

I was listening to The Band Perry’s song “If I Die Young” and I decided to watch the music video when I’ve found I really like for some reason.

It’s based loosely on Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott Poem it makes perfect sense when you see the book and the poem drying out in the end on that poem’s page…so I decided to look it up and read it.

It’s a beautiful and sad poem and after reading it I wondered if there were any versions of it that we in audio so I could add it to my playlist on itunes or WMP and I discovered a very nice song that uses bits from the poem to tell the beautiful story. At first I was weary of it for the woman spoke in an accent and accents of any kind still really get to me but I really enjoyed it and decided it would be nice to share because I haven’t for awhile.

And here’s the poem itself:

The Lady of Shalott

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro’ the field the road runs by
To many-tower’d Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil’d,
Slide the heavy barges trail’d
By slow horses; and unhail’d
The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the bearded barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly;
Down to tower’d Camelot;
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, ” ‘Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott.”

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower’d Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two.
She hath no loyal Knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
“I am half sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armor rung
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, burning bright,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower’d Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river’s dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance –
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right –
The leaves upon her falling light –
Thro’ the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot.
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”

Do you know those scary movies where the bad guys die in the end so you are happy.

Bin Laden’s name has been like the name Voldemort in Harry Potter films…no one speaks of it though we associate it with pure evil.

Well, this is real life and I’m shocked to have just heard that Bin Laden was killed.

When Saddam Husain was hung I remember posting something about how I didn’t know how to react, but now that Bin Laden is dead I realize that real life is so much more terrible than movies make them.

The reality is that someone has died. Yes that person is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Even though conspiracy theorists may think it’s the government (some who I know and speak to on a regular basis) but I don’t want to think of my government being responsible for the deaths of all those people.

I remember how happy America was before 9/11…how untouched and unscarred…

The reality is to me that just because Osama Bin Laden is dead, that doesn’t mean that there is justice and peace and complete healing left behind for those who are still suffering from his tyranny… or recovering still from losing a lost one. That pain and the scar 9/11 created isn’t just going to go away now that Bin Laden is dead. He was just a name and an icon since the time this whole thing began…we couldn’t find him so his name was buried and we forgot about him and now that he’s dead I don’t understand how this is a new sign of hope.

What does this say about what we value in society? What does it say about what kind of people we are…you know, Osama is getting the standing ovation after his dead that he probably wanted…he wanted everyone to feel something when he left and this is exactly what he’s getting from the press. Everyone will remember his name and his legacy now and especially because those people who are writing books on him are now able to find themselves conclusions.

This doesn’t change anything…people have still died…and Osama was still murdered, doesn’t God say in his commandments that ‘Thou shall not Kill’ there should be no exceptions made now because it was Osama Bin Laden…murder is murder and the dirty deed was carried out.

I don’t mourn Osama or his memory but I do mourn the fact that human beings are reveling in his death. That’s just sick.

In church we had freedom Sunday today, this was really an intense Sunday because we had a woman named Gerri come in and share her story to our congregation about her struggles as a child that made it so that she found herself working the streets as a prostitute who married her pimp who was HIV positive.

The story was really sad and it made me think of the song “Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain” (Not the Boring Old Version but Aldrich’s Version) in a brand new light as we sang it.

I loved seeing that the song touched Gerri’s heart and the hearts of many others in the congregation because I saw a few people brought to tears over it. I don’t normally believe in seeing signs that God is working in a church but I felt that God was truly present with us this morning.

After church I had the third session of the N.T Wright series: ‘Surprised By Hope’ on what being a Christian truly is and what as a Christian we look forward to and set our Faith on. In this session the concept of Heaven was disgusted and it was talked about that Heaven and Earth are interconnected, in the Bible there are many couplings of the word together which proves that they are one entity because the New Covenant speaks of a New Heaven and a New Earth, meaning that there was or is an old heaven and an old Earth that exist together.

This is a video on NT’S personal opinion of what he said (I don’t completely agree with all that he says here because I am beginning to become more of a Preterist...thanks to Adam, but I think that was he has to say is satisfactory.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjElNncC-dg

In some churches especially orthodox NT says that there is a symbolic veil placed in some churches that seperates two particular parts of the physical church buildings. One side of the building is decorated and made to look like Heaven and the other side is dedicated to human beings and mankind. Drawn on the veils NT says were often pictures of the Saints in heaven interacting and symbols of Christianity such as the sacraments.

But NT says that the concept of Heaven being a place you go after you die isn’t what heaven really means. In the Holy Bible the word heaven or the phrase Kingdom of Heaven means In God’s Kingdom. The fact that God’s Kingdom and everything under God’s rule was and is still happening now than the concept of Heaven being interconnected with Earth is completely plausible.

Everyday Christians can feel and see the connect of Heaven and Earth when we have to ability to see Heaven in the acts of Love that we see in others. God is Love, and many traits come with being in God’s love and are reflected in the actions of those many Christians. A Christians goal is to be more like Christ who was the purest example of Heaven on earth that any Christian knows. Christ embodied God on earth and Christ embodied Heaven on Earth.

I’m not the best person to explain this but it was said that when Jesus was on the cross and he turned to the criminal next to him and told that Criminal that they would be together in paradise than it doesn’t mean that they would actually physically going to a place that is a designated separate spot for Heaven but rather than they’d be in a peaceful place together in the end (Some describe this peaceful and magnificent place like a garden because giving that paradise a physical embodiment thinking of the peaceful feeling that comes upon us when we are in a garden is the only way our Human minds can relate and grasp such a concept of actually being in God’s presents.)

I like the fact that a person can see glimpses of Heaven on Earth. As a Christian I like that I have the ability to be able to discern what things are Heavenly because of the feelings we get in our hearts about those things. In this idea we can quickly be distracted though because we can easily begin to idolize worldly things.

I feel though that there are times that my conscious self which I believe is God trying to guide me makes it quite clear what things are right and wrong in his eyes. I have a feeling of loss when I am without God in my decisions and with that feeling of loss comes guilt.

The good news is that in God there is no guilt or loss.

The concept of Hell in the case where Heaven is interconnected to living on Earth comes when a human being who God gave a free will to make their own decisions decides that they do not want to have God in their lives. The Hell comes in the pains of loss and torment that person feels in not having the many joys that come in being in God’s presents as we get glimpses of it in our Heaven on Earth.

It reminds me of an old doughnut man song;

‘Life without God’s Love
is like a doughnut
Like a Doughnut
Like a Doughtnut
Life without God’s Love is like a doughnut
Because there’s a hole in the middle of your heart.’

Being void of God in one’s life is like Hell because it’s a never ending black hole. No matter how many worldly things we try to use to make ourselves feel better and to try to fill up that hole we never find our peace because we aren’t in the presents of God. The Lack of God in our lives is like an eternal fire that burns in our hearts and hurts and is never extinguished.

I remember before I became a Christian how lost and alone I felt in the world. I cried out to God to ask him to fill me up and make me a whole person because I felt as if I was truly missing something, everyday that I walk with God now my cup is filled a little more, I want my heart and my cup to be overflowing by the time I am able to be in God’s presents and with God.

I want to feel like a whole person and I want God to fill like hole I have in my heart left there by the guilt and shame of sin, Because in God there is no Guilt and in God there is no Shame.

In our small adult education group we talked about the fact that we meet people everyday who we can see are empty vessels who have not been introduced to God. And we spoke about how we all agreed that we could actually see their emptiness in their eyes. We spoke of how we pass by people who are working the streets and how we choose to not deal with the fact that these people are feeding their eternal hellfire. We are also feeding the flames when we don’t tell people how God can fill that void they are feeling in their lives.

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On a more personal note I went out with Adam and Paul today after adult studies and I was able to talk for the first time about the fact that I’ve been struggling with an addiction that is beginning to create a void in my life between me and God.

I have been committing a terrible amount of sexual sin in lusting after men and wanting them to be my new idols. I’ve been acting on that lust in ways I know aren’t what I should be doing as a Christian.  It was nice to be able to talk about it with Christians and seek their advice and I hope to be able to seek the advice of Paul and Adam more in my life.

In creating new Christian friendships like the one I have been starting to develop with Adam, and the one I hope to begin creating with Paul  I’ve actually had a great time. I’ve been able to have some great conversations about God and the Bible which I haven’t ever been able to have outside of my life group friends in places like, the gym, a car or a Chinese food restaurant.

I think it absolutely fascinating that Adam and Paul are both former missionaries. Especially because they aren’t shy about telling me the realities about the world outside of MN in other countries and hearing the stories they tell about their memories is really interesting to me!

I’ve gotten this crazy inkling of an idea in my head that I kind of want to be able to have that experience one day.  It would be cool to become a missionary and explore the world. Adam told me that he’d like to return to being a missionary but I’m not sure about Paul, if they do decide to become missionaries again I think it would be nice to try to convince them to drag me along. On my own I  don’t feel that I’d be able to become a missionary because I don’t think I am strong enough in my own journey with the Lord to be confident to lead others. I don’t want to be ‘the blind leading the blind.’

Paul asked me what I did for fun and I realized that I’m sort of boring and that I don’t get out of my room and away from my computer much when I’m not spending my time working. I used to spend a lot more of my time hanging out with my friend Heidi but her presence recently has been scarce and I’m unsure why. When it comes to getting out and interacting with new people I think that soon that my patterns in that are going to change.

Part of the reasons I don’t get out with my house mates is because they all have their own agendas and I don’t seem to fit their mold entirely when they are partying till 3 am and I need to be in bed by midnight on most school nights. They are still extremely nice to me and I like most of them a lot. But I don’t think they are the influential friends I need to start hanging out with all the time, they aren’t Christians and I’d like to grow more in my faith.

I’m praying that everything in Adam and Paul’s lives will allow me to become part of their circles. I really do enjoy hanging out with them and I can see us becoming a real threesome for fun Christian fellowship.