Words are exceedingly important (not as important as actions, I think, but that's a discussion for another time).  When I hear irrational and uncivil arguments, especially ones that escalate in volume but go nowhere, I wonder why so many wonderful words are being squandered on something so wasteful.  (This week, our neighbor decided that for two months we have been exceedingly loud and that it's basically because we hate her.  No amount of insistence from us could convince her otherwise.  It was a pointless and prolix encounter.)  Unending arguments aren't the only way we waste words, either.  Even friendly debates can cause us to fall into the trap.  (I have some friends who love to debate, and it inevitably comes down to them repeating their arguments and examples over and over with no semblance of concession or conclusion.) 

If you know me at all, you'll realize that I'm a proponent of brevity and directness (particularly when it comes to speaking, and even more so when I am the one speaking).  I want my words to be careful and deliberate, meaningful and memorable.  I'm not looking for the cessation of speech but for an economy of language.  We should manage our resources with care, thrift, and order. This guy gets it:

Granted, variety in people is good.  If everyone were like me, Oliver Twist wouldn't exist and Milton would have been booted from the creative community.  All people should not be epigrammatic, and I recognize that creative endeavors are allowed a certain liberty; stories have a higher market value.  (As you can see, my propensity for pithiness sometimes causes me to sacrifice diversities in opinion and style.  It lends me toward stating universals and sounding close-minded.)  Overall, though, here's my point: If words were a currency, you would be more careful of how you spent them.

I know less about God than I  used to. 
Not really . . . But the more I study, the more that I realize how many answers I don't have.  I learn more, and my view of God gets bigger and bigger.  You know the cliche about putting God in a box? The more God teaches me, the more I realize how laughably small I tried to make that box in the first place.  It's comforting, though, to know that God is so much bigger than I can imagine, so much more gracious and just and merciful. 

My grandpa died four years ago today.
It seems like he's been gone for a really long time.  I remember him, I loved him . . . but my memory of him is more like a story than a reality.  I've kind of forgotten what it was like for him to be alive.  That sounds weird, maybe, but so much has changed in my life since he was around.  I sometimes wish he were still here to give me hugs and make scrambled eggs and tell stories.  He's in a better place, though.

I want to make a documentary.
The other night I watched a documentary called Steal a Pencil for Me about a Jewish man and woman who fell in love with each other while they were in a concentration camp in the Netherlands.  The story was even better because they were real people, telling the real story of their lives.  There were photographs of their family, interviews with their sisters and daughter and granddaughter, excerpts from the letters they wrote while in the camp . . . It was inspiring, and now I really want to make a film about the lives of my parents and grandparents, about how I got here. 

I like to do things when I can't.
When my sewing machine is inaccessible, I really want to make clothes.  When someone else has my video camera, I really want to film a movie.  When my day is completely full of work, I really want to write a story.  But when I actually have *time* to do things, I lose my motivation and my inspiration to do them.  I guess I work better under pressure, when I am forced to structure my time and organize my day.  That's part of my frustration with unemployment--loads of free time and nothing I want to do with it. 

There'll be more.  Rumination is a great word because it gives the freedom to deduce, to mull, to reevaluate conclusions.