Back to the Beginning

Now that I'm finally back home for Thanksgiving break, I'm automatically picturing myself elsewhere. (The curse of Homewood, a.k.a. "The Bermuda Triangle.") Actually, I'm looking more thoroughly at seminaries. SCARY. I can't believe I'm really applying to grad schools (or starting to do so). In six months I'll be graduated. Goodbye Taylor U.

I feel as weirded out by the concept of my future as I did back three years ago when I was applying to undergrad schools. Some things have hardly changed: I have no idea who I'll ask to be my pastoral reference, the idea of rejection is as intimidating as ever, and I don't know when I'll have time to visit all these schools.

And some things have changed beautifully--I know myself. I've come more fully into an understanding of God's direction in my life. I know how I'm gifted. I know my weaknesses and yet I have confidence that I only feigned back in high school.

Every year, my faith becomes more and more my own. Every time I'm forced to look back in simple self-reflection, God shows me His faithfulness. I often think, "You've taught me everything. Now all I have left is to serve you." And each time, He laughs and says, "Child, you hardly know what I still want to reveal to you. You who think you have Me all figured out, just wait and see."

So I'm faced with uncertainty, and confidence. CONFIDENCE. I think I've come into a better understanding of that than ever. Confidence doesn't come in knowing yourself, but in knowing your Father and how He is working in your life.

It's a funny thing--with God, we perpetually have new beginnings. It's a new paradox for my mind to play with, horrible and wonderful at the same time: wonderful because the horror of our sin is perpetually wiped away, leaving a clean slate and a new beginning; horrible because the wonder of our Savior will always be incomprehensible, beyond our understanding, and beckoning us to seek Him out.

I will soon be beginning a new chapter in my life. Unknown, unexplored, unimaginable. Intimidating, frightening, unreal. Potential yet unrealized. Promises waiting to be revealed. Hope of something new, building on what He's already given.

Back

I'm back.

Whirlwind summer: wonderful, excellent, encouraging, invigorating. A change of major (media communications to philosophy) is also bright and sunny in my life right now. Everything is peachy - mostly.

I'm excited about classes (Metaphysics and Principles of Ethics, mostly). I'm excited to see the girls on the wing - my second family. I'm excited for my final year at TU and the good times that will come with it. But certain prospects are intimidating. I'm nervous about seeing some people again after awkward interactions not-so-long ago. I'm anxious about the work load that awaits me with the stimulating and challenging classes I'm taking.

Now's the time to put all the things I learned over the summer into action: trust in a faithful Father, commitment to the wellbeing of the brothers and sisters around me, and willingness to put my very raw and sinful self into their hands and prayers.

Shane Claiborne and Thoughts

He visited campus yesterday and spoke last night.

Nothing new, really. I've heard most of it before and I've read his book. But oh, was it good. I needed/wanted to hear all of that so badly.

Lately I've been frustrated beyond words (literally, sometimes) about being so self-consumed. College campuses only facilitate that self-centeredness. I don't have to worry about anyone except myself, for the most part. This is about MY classes, MY grades, MY resume, MY friends, MY life. I'm so done with that.

I realized it especially because even my prayers seem self-focused, thanking God for what He's done in MY life, considering MY flaws and moral failures and how to improve MYself. And really, that's not horrible; at least I'm talking to Him and giving Him credit. But I've always wanted to learn contemplative prayer, being able to focus purely on God and not in relation to anything else. But a friend pointed out to me that our minds just can't work that way. And I guess that's part of being finite.

But still, I want to get outside of myself. Yeah, people say that crap all the time, I'm sure. But really, I want to pursue Jesus with single-mindedness. Singly focused on Him.

If you didn't know, I've been in a long and drawn-out process of applying for an internship in Washington, DC this summer. It looked super promising and I thought it was the best opportunity ever. I would be able to explore how media fits into public policy, maybe learn more about non-profits, etc. etc. etc. Well, they've been frustrating and haven't even gotten back to me since the final interview over a week ago (I can stand rejection, but heaven and earth, don't forget about me.) Anyway, I don't even care anymore. I don't want to work for them. Even if they showed up and apologized and wanted me desperately for the summer, I probably wouldn't take it. Instead, I'm going to work at a youth camp in Colorado. Hm, let's look at this: prestigous non-profit, exciting field, competitive pay, DC, independence, and portfolio pieces vs. small youth camp, cabins, pay?, angsty teen campers, being totally tied down to one location for two and half months... Easy decision!! (Of course, there are lots of plusses to Colorado that I didn't put in that list. For example, Colorado. But still, you get the idea.)

Anyway, for once, I'm stoked about life after May 23. Yeah, there are still a lot of uncertainties (heck, I don't even have the Timberline job yet) but God didn't create us to be omniscient. So in the midst of everything, I am left with one option:

#4 Embrace the fact that you are finite.

Lewis speaks what my heart feels. Yes.

Most recent favorite book: A Grief Observed. This book has contributed to an out-of-self experience I've had over the last two days. Overwhelming...and ultimately very powerful.

Without going into the grimy and incriminating details, I've experienced something very much like the death of a dear friend. I picked up A Grief Observed accidentally almost, because another book I have references it in several places. I only happened to have it with me when I was struck with grief over the loss of my friend.

I was shocked at how closely it described my own experience. The emotion, the physical pain, the anxiety, the anger, the fear... I felt it intensely. More than anything, I had to come to terms with how I would respond to this loss. What do you do when you lose someone you love? How do you respond? Do you "get over it," rationalize your emotions and move on with your life? Can you ever return to the happiness that you once had, whether with your friend or before the two of you ever met? How can you return to that kind of happiness after knowing how much a truly special person impacts your life? It's naive to think that anyone can do that.

Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left? You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared. I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the amputation. I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one.

I wrote something before all of this that became more real to me after it actually happened. "Whether you are near to me for the rest of my life or this is the last time I say goodbye, I thank God for you." Before my period of grieving, I though I meant these words; but I only meant them half-heartedly. I knew that I could thank God for how my friend impacted me while were together, but part of me would eternally resent that we were ever separated. But no. Now I know fully--I can and will thank God for the continued influence and impact of my friend's life.

I wrote the other night that bereavement is not the truncation of married love, but one of its phases... What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase, too. If it hurts (and it certainly will) we accept the pains as a necessary part of this phase....We were one flesh. Now that it has been cut in two, we don't want to pretend that it is whole and complete. We will still be married, still in love. therefore we shall still ache. But we are not at all--if we understand ourselves--seeking the aches for their own sake. The less of them the better, so long as the marriage is preserved. And the more joy there can be in the marriage between dead and living, the better.

But I don't just want to remember my image of my friend. No, there was so much more that I can't capture in simple and happy memories or in a collection of photographs.

Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage--is it not in some ways an advantage--that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me?

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want H., not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle.

And finally, I learned so much about God in this brief and miraculous time of grief.

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "no answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand."

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask--half our great theological and metaphysical problems--are like that....

"They say these things are sent to try us..." But of course one must take "sent to try us" the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't... Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs. But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment. Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out. Rather, your grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a "spiritual animal." To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, "Now get on with it. Become a god."

Quite Content

In this moment I am content. I am... not HAPPY, per say. Indeed, I have hopes, dreams, desires, and ambitions that are yet unfulfilled. But the state of my spirit does not rest upon emotions. Those change and morph with hormones, chemicals, situations, and people. But my true heart of hearts is at peace, knowing that I don't have to depend on uncertainties. My Father (our Father) is in control.

In this struggle, I am discovering what God wants us to give to each other through friendship. We lift each other up, rejoice in each others' victories, mourn in each others' sorrows, and praise our great God together in all things. We force each other to look to Him. We enhance each others' existences. We build upon the completed foundation and framework that God already put down.