A Brief Note on Science, Faith and Definitions

There is beauty in even the smallest things, organic, inorganic, living or dead. And within this beauty is strength. A spirituality develops with the limits of human knowledge--what we don't know is the basis of any spiritualism. There is so much unknown to us still, and so much beauty in the unknown. Yet it seems far to difficult to limit everything inculded in spirituality into the confines of one religion, one denomination, one faith.

search for grace

In a dream

I walk

the empty streets
that lead
to nowhere
sending me on
an eternal

search

for

grace.

I lose my  way  again
as I find
I've 

circled back 

to 

my beginning.
With a 

deep 

breath
my hope  somehow  intact I 

continue on 

my 

journey towards 

the end.

I travel in the dark
with silence 

consuming my being
And realize my dreams
now grow dim
And
Just as the last
bit
of
hope flickers
out
I hear the laughter
of children
a wisp
of a memory.

With this

rush

of 

oxygen

my hope is

reignighted

and I 

push fowards

towards

Eternity.  

a prayer

so much depends

upon

a tear falling

silently

down a pale

cheek

alone in the

darkness. 

on poetry

my words flow eagerly from my pen

spilling over page after page of brightness

Without ever finding just the right contrast

between black and white.  I could write

what one would call a 'happy' poem, but

Darkness is so much easier to write about

it's what we know. 

About darkness. . .

some said I was too young to have such thoughts. 

youth has nothing, nothing, to do with it. 

so I write my poetry.  

darkness spilling onto bright open pages

and sometimes it frightens me, 

once so much that I almost gave up writing altogether.

But, an empty paper called to me-

the pen laying innocently aside, demur,

urging me to lift it, and allow darkness to flow out again

into the light and there 

it didn't seem so scary or even so profound.  

Who can judge my poetry and not judge me?

so it stays locked and hidden. 

away from blinking eyes, for only mine to read. 

and still I squint at these blurred pages and wonder what troubled me so.  

in Just NIGHT

in Just

N I G H T

when all is

sleepy-quiet

i am awake

watching

stars twinkle

N I G H T

i let myself become

surrounded in its thick

black-inkyness

searching

stars twinkle

N I G H T

i watch it's peaceful sleepers

and curse it as it taunts me

urging me to join the ranks of it's dormant military

fighting

stars twinkle.  

There is beauty in the world. I found it.

At thirteen I wasn’t very well traveled.  In fact, the farthest I’ve ever traveled from home is a couple hours’ drive away to a small town in Tennessee where my Aunt Evon lives.  My sister Krista and I spent a summer there and MAN did we have fun.  We went to Dollywood, the best place on Earth, and spent long, lazy afternoons at the local pool.  Krista and I were raised in the Catholic tradition, so when my Aunt took us to her small-town Baptist church we experienced a bit of culture shock- and came home promising not to fall into the mire and wondering what it meant to be saved. 

The most memorable experience that summer was a one day trip into the Smokey Mountains.  The drive up was fantastic and terrifying.  We took a ‘rustic’ one lane road up and around the mountain bends, praying that no one was trying to come down into the valley.  We stopped for lunch at a little picnic area, where we ate fried chicken and wandered around the woods for an hour or so.  After another short drive we parked the car and took a walk down a little mountain trail.  As I walked through the woods surrounded by such ancient trees, with all their wisdom, I felt incredibly small and young, they must have been as old as my Grandma Genevieve, at least. I realized then how important this place was, and vowed to myself that I would protect it.  The small stream running beside the trail had become a calmer, wider creek, and on that hot July day it was all my aunt could do to keep from laughing as Krista and I ran into the water, only to hurry back out wishing we had tested it first.  As we reached the end of the trail the trees parted and revealed an overlook.  It was there, watching the sun set as the mist settled on the mountains that I promised myself I would learn everything about this place, and hopefully discover other places just as fantastic and sacred. 

For the past four years I have studied biology, the study of life.  I have been exploring the environment around me since the moment I opened my eyes; I’ve learned about the ecosystem and animals in my own environment, and recently got to explore the eastern coast of Australia in a Marine Ecology study abroad program.  Australia is the biologist’s dream, a place isolated from the rest of the world in which a fantastic array of diversity has evolved.  I had a chance to study the ocean, the reefs and the island environments that were so incredibly foreign to me. 

While living and studying in a tropical environment certainly has its advantages, I missed my home environment, which I knew so well.   I will be graduating this May with my B.S. in Biology and minors in both physics and chemistry  My own curiosity and interest has gotten me this far, and I’m looking forward to beginning the next step, wherever it may lead.