from "The Soloist" by Steve Lopez

"I've never had a friend who lives in so spiritual a realm as Mr. Ayers, and I know that through his courage and humility and faith in the power of art - through his very ability to find happiness and purpose - he has awakened something in me."

grace, mercy, Jesus

Grace: a. the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God. b. the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.

Mercy: a. compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power. b. something that gives evidence of divine favor; blessing.

Hebrews 4:16: Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.

this is what happens when you take lortab in the middle of the day:

me: i haven't taken that long of a nap in my whole life
or that hard

jenny: hahahahahah you were sooooo out
AND talking in your sleep
you told me you loved me
hahahaha
or someone!

me: i did???
hahahahahahahahaha
OMG
i'm loling

jenny: hahahahahahaha i know!
it was really funny

me: did i say anything else?

jenny: i couldnt understand the rest
it was very full of expression though
whwatever it was
not coherent at all, but very emphatic
hahaha

today's lessons

1. i have a new appreciation for josh carroll, king of crutches and dominator of broken bodies.

2. submerging your whole foot in ice water hurts almost as bad as a badly sprained ankle.

3. i have the best roommates in the world. many thanks to them for putting up with my lame self that can't even get a meal from the kitchen to the table without help.

4. it's not a good idea to run from my apartment to the neighbor's apartment in the dark. apparently, there are many holes.

5. the doctors weren't kidding about me having vaso-vagal syncopes. or whatever it's called. the second i feel pain, i'm out like a light.

6. stairs are not my friend.

7. it's really, really, really hard to get dressed with the use of one leg.

8. steve lopez is a really beautiful writer. i love the journalistic feel of "the soloist."

9. this guy who is in both of my m/w classes has been creepily staring at me out of the corner of his eye for weeks.

10. i love my house church family.

hollaaaaaaaaa

http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/customcounter.html?month=3&day=11&year=2010&hour=2&min=00&sec=00&p0=66

linked in?

so my dad talked me into making a profile on linkedin....anyone know why i would want to do this? what are the benefits?

i know the rumors have been swirling for a while now, so i'm just going to come out and confirm it. yes, the producers of lost are writing me in as a character on the show. i will be in next week's episode as jack shephard's off-island junkie wife. the name written on the wall? yeah, that's me. jordan shephard. i'm the candidate.

every time i put a profound and beautiful quote up as my facebook status, my parents FREAK out and think i want to kill myself. i don't. in fact, i love life. but i also love this quote from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:

"I can't live, I've tried and I can't. If that sounds simple, it's simple like a mountain is simple."

formspring.me

would you rather go on an adventure to narnia or hogwarts?

dearest larkie,

this might be the hardest decision i'll never have to make. and it depends on a few factors.

first off, what time frame are we talking about here? narnia is a totally different place in each of the books. if we're talking lion, witch, wardrobe narnia, i'd have to go there. hogwarts was also very different at different times. if it's hogwarts circa prisoner of azkaban, i'd have to say hogwarts, just because sirius is around. also hogwarts circa goblet of fire would be great.

i think you have some clarifying to do. give me two specific time frames to work with here.

Ask me anything

"for out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks"

"The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

i've become too dependent on words i shouldn't say. words that don't speak life.

so, for lent, i'm giving up those words.

it's going to be hard. there are certain times and situations where only those certain words are appropriate. times that it becomes more difficult to express my emotions in short words or phrases.

on the top of the list of things to go is "that's what she said." because, let's face it. it's funny, but how much good is it really doing?

From "A Circle of Quiet" by Madeleine L'Engle

"And if I ask about this fear, do not offer me pie in the sky or talk to me in the narrow world of logical proof. Answer me, please, with the St. Matthew Passion; with Twelfth Night; with Guernica; with simile and metaphor, image and icon. There isn't any other way to express or to understand anything which transcends material facts."

birthdays....

true life: my little brother was born on my second birthday.

this means that, growing up, we ALWAYS had joint parties. for the first ten-or-so years, it made sense. we both ran with the same little hooligans and were into the same things. around 13, i started to grow quite weary of the joint parties. for his 12th birthday, he wanted to have a paintball party. me, being a 14-year-old female, did not.

i think that was when we started having separate parties. (i think that was also the year i got my first camera. Nikon N55. good times.) anyway, we had separate friend parties from that point on, but the family celebration was still the same. we fought about where to go out to eat. i always wanted french or italian. he always wanted japanese steakhouse.

when i got into high school, i found out that one of my best friends was also born on march 10, 1988. in the delivery room next door to me. i think i'm something like 2 hours older than jenn agee.

my freshman year of college, march started looming. when it got closer, we realized that three of us were born within a week of each other. there goes the idea of my own birthday. the three of us now live together. kathleen was born on march 8, i was born on march 10, and larkin was born on march 15.

there's been talk of having a joint birthday party. it's a great idea, really it is. saves everyone's time and money, both of which seem to be scarce these days. but i can't help but not want it. i want my own birthday celebration. i'm a selfish 22-year-old.

for my birthday this year, i don't want any presents, i don't want any surprises, i don't even want anyone to have to pay to go out to dinner to celebrate. all i want is to go on a really long hike with my closest friends. i want to walk and take photos and talk and fellowship and maybe even stop at a beautiful spot for a pb&j.

(hint: also, i realllllly dislike theme parties. which is why i left town sophomore year when people lovingly tried to throw me one. i'm sorry, i'm just not a fan.)

dear bonnaroo....

...you had me at jay-z...

http://www.bonnaroo.com/artists.aspx

graduation present? ohhhh yeah.

Lessons - Walt Whitman

There are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love,
That they readily meet invasions, when they come.

now I got lots of friends, yes, but then again, nobody knows me at all

last night was the best. got to do six of my absolutely most favorite things:

1. play in the snow.
2. take 203948203498 photos.
3. hang out with some quality people.
4. cook copious amounts of food for said quality people.
5. edit 203948203498 photos.
6. go on a long walk at night by myself.

if only i had:
-finished a really good book.
-gone swimming.
-kayaked.
-slept on the porch in my hammock.
-painted.
-had my dog with me.

it would have been the best day ever.

as it stands, it's probably in my top ten.

ask me....anything?

http://www.formspring.me/jordantreads

(i'm an internet bandwagon-jumper.)

sustainable hypocrisy

this morning in lieu of class, we went to listen to catherine reeves, head of environmental management operations for xerox, speak about environmental sustainability. she said some really great things and has had great results in implementing environmentally-beneficial procedures for the company, however, she started her presentation off by explaining what sustainability is and why the world isn't sustainable. she described how over 2/3 of the world's population lives on less than $4 a day. and how if everyone lived according to first world standards, we would need three planet earths to sustain it.

it caught my attention. i've heard the statistics before, but it hit me harder today. these companies are trying to achieve environmental sustainability, but what are they doing for the people who literally live off of $4 a day? i'm just not sure i buy into this corporate fad of sustaining the environment for the sake of a profit. if i take a job for one of these organizations, am i a hypocrite?

am i a hypocrite anyway?

Quotes from Larkin's 2nd Graders About Black History Month:

Fantasy: "I leared adout Harry it tabmen. She tryed to free the slavs."

Blake: "Dr. King Guner he won the first nodil prise."

Destiny: "OhBomMu He tace cere of us He give us food"

Kemuel: "Louis Armstrong was the first african american that played trumpet."

Haley: "Rodrt Patsn wud Not sher a set with a whit Prisn so she went to jall:"

Anonymous: "Michael Lake Son He Helped Peolpo dance to the bete"

Power and Freedom and Joy

“When we are caught up in power we are not free, but in bondage to the power we have grasped. God is completely free because power has been laughingly thrown away in order that love may reign. The throwing away of power requires enormous power.”

“The impossible is all that makes life itself possible, with all the anxieties and griefs and pains that come with experience. Joy, too, I don’t forget joy, but joy sometimes comes in the midst of pain.”

“Freedom is not an easy choice.”

“Love. Love is not power, but is that humility which leads to freedom. A terrifying freedom!”

-Madeleine L’Engle

also....

also i got two new hats yesterday for helping my uncle set up for EORA and i haven't taken them off!

i begged my roommates to let me go to the grocery store last night at 11:30 so i could show the purple one off. they wouldn't let me.

i made a promise...

i made a promise to katie keenan. and then broke that promise. so i'm following up a week and a half late.

so...uganda.

when i was at passion in january, i felt like the Lord was calling me to uganda. calling me in that non-english voice. the one that makes you sound crazy when you try to explain it.

so, because i'm jordan treadaway and i don't tell anyone anything, i didn't tell anyone. until about two weeks later when someone asked me what i was doing after graduation and it just came out. "i sort-of have a job in greenville (that still has not called me back. geeeeez.) but what i really want to do is move to uganda and start a vocational school for kids who have grown up in orphanages." expecting raised eyebrows, i glanced up to see his reaction. "wow," he said, "i have a friend who wants to do that exact same thing. i'll hook you guys up."

what, Jesus? i didn't just make it all up?

so i sat with that and prayed about it for a while. and then i told my mom. let me just say....that didn't go over very well. i accidentally told her that my goal in life is to die. it just didn't exactly come out how i wanted it to. i meant to say that i didn't want to live my life just for me, that i wanted to live out God's glory, and if that got me killed 30 years earlier than i would have had i been living the american dream, then great. i get to see the face of God earlier.

so i'm waiting on the Lord. i feel like i'm supposed to be in Uganda on January 12, 2011. why that date, i have no earthly idea. what am i going to do before then? again, no idea. but i'm looking. at jobs in greenville, jobs in charleston, and maybe even jobs in hilton head. but preferably not, because i know that if i move home, these dreams will start to become silly again.

and this, this is why i pretend to be hardcore. because i'm the softest person you'll ever meet. and if i start to care, i only get hurt.

"i can see a lot of life in you..."

i can read thousands of words a day. millions of individual letters, put together to mean something. something quite beautiful.

but when it comes to putting my words to paper (or screen, as it were) i can't string two thoughts together. and, on the days i can, it doesn't come out as richly or as splendidly as the concepts look in my mind.

but i need to get it out. somehow.

a story? tried that. it was a quick fix. but beginner's luck had me wrapped in it's coils.

a painting? who has the time? i will never live up to my high school work.

a song? am i really to believe that anyone wants to hear the saxophone's hum buzzing about his or her eardrums? least of all me?

so i give up. but if i someone doesn't understand me soon, i'm going to die. no, i won't keel over. i won't stop breathing. but i die a little bit inside every time i'm misunderstood. every time someone says "oh, i totally had you pegged for a twilight fan." or "you're a business major, why do you spend your time reading unnecessary things like dostoyevsky?"

i need someone to get me. and soon. please.