Introspection, O how I hate you!

I go to school on a really beautiful campus. There are times when I know that and other times when I talk about it (at least I think there are) but today I really feel that. I'm sitting on the chapel steps after chapel, reading and just having some time to myself - shocking I know - and watching the clouds blow in over the trees and the NAB and library. The sky is a gorgeous blue today, and the sun is out. I know that in osme ways I only feel so strongly about how beautiful it is out today because it has been grey and dreary for so long, but I can't help it. This campus is gorgeous, and as the weeks pass and the leaves change, it will only be more so :-)

I tried to upload a picture, but Blogger hates me right now. Probably because I'm on wireless and the connection can be iffy.

Anyways, I was talking with my parents last night about the way I live my life, and there are some interesting things that came up during/out of that conversation. My friend Kyle wants to get his PhD in English and teach at the college level, and even as a sophomore he is practically married already... It's kind of ridiculous, to tell the truth. But he is so caught up in that dream that he has for his life that he is really struggling right now to enjoy each day as it comes.

I am very much the opposite. I live each day as it comes, taking each moment and making what I can of it with what I have, but I don't have any idea where my life is heading or how I'm going to get there. Generally I think that that's a great thing, but now I'm starting to wonder.

I really do believe that it's good not to worry about the future, to know that it's not in your hands and that you'll be fine - His eye is on the sparrow, after all. But what I realized this last week, and got hammered into me talking with my parents, is that you still need to plan and prepare for what is coming ahead. Not that you need to be worried and bogged down in that, or that you need to cause yourself all sorts of undue stress about it, like so many do, but how can you get where you are going if you don't know what target you are aiming at?

it's caused me to spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to major in, why I want that major, what I'm going to do with that major, what I want the rest of my life to look like. Do I have a clearly defined future that I want? Heck no. Am I searching for what God wants me to do? Yeah. Am I serachgin for what I want to do? Yeah. Amd I trying to make those two things fit together? Yeah. But it's hard, and I don't like it, and I hate not having anything to do with my time and having to do all this thinking and introspection and soul-searching! It really drives me crazy, because I don't know what to do with it. And it makes it harder for me to focus and get things done because I'm so unused to it, and I haven't adjusted yet.

But I do believe that it's a good thing for me to do. And so I'll keep trying to take time for myself, sitting and listening to music and thinking about my life as it fits in with life in general, and more importantly what God's view of life is. and I'll probably continue to hate it, at least for a while. But it's good for me, so try and try again. Right now, at least, I'm perfectly content with where I am. Todd Agnew is singing, the clouds are blocking the sun, but only for now, and this campus is a truly beautiful place.

All of this, God has blessed me with.

Ephesians 3

I'm totally convinced that this is a huge chapter that the church needs to focus on right now. And this post is only so I"ll remember to try to come write about it for real later.

Noise

In the last few weeks I've come across a couple of ideas having to do with noise. The first was from NOOMA film by Rob Bell that my floor watched for Bible study a couple weeks ago. The most compelling part of it was when it was a black screen with white print that read "does your life look like one that is slowing down to hear God's voice?"

But I was reading Screwtape again today and Lewis was talking about the same thing. This is what good 'ole uncle Screwtape has to say on the subject:
"Music and silence - How I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell - though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could expreess - no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise - Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile - Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth..."

It's really too bad how busy we can all get as people, as humans, that we stop slowing down to get in tune with God. Last night in Bible study we were talking about how in some way, each person has a part of the reflection of God in them. If we were slowing down to see that, how radically different would our campuses, our workplaces, our schools look? Instead of this individualism and desire to get ahead, cliq-ishness and exclusivism and competition, wouldn't it be awesome to see a loving community always supporting each other in everything? Always loving and encouraging each other?

For my part, I'm trying to live that out, but it's hard. And impossible without taking the time to connect by reading my Bible (which I'm horrible at) and praying (which isn't really smart unless you are grounded in the Word.... As I'm slowly learning. I'll post on that someday.). But hopefully, things will slowly move that direction as people see how horrible Noise is and how wonderful Silence and the music that is the life that God wants us to live (another Rob Bell thought from NOOMA) really are.

An Apology

For those of you who haven't noticed, I hate my cell phone. No really, I hate it. And I know that you all said that I wouldn't, and you didn't believe me when I said I wouldn't use it, and I know that for a while when it was new and everything I did use it quite a bit - or maybe that was still a byproduct of being at home. But now I'm here at school, and I just don't use it at all.

By I don't use it, I should preface that by saying that I don't hardly call anyone. I tend to have it with me non-stop, whether to use it as a watch or just because I've grown far to attached to having it on my person. But even though I have it, it's on silent, so if you call me it's highly unlikely that I'll answer. And even though I'll still listen to my voice mails and be touched, it's even more unlikely than me seeing you call that I'll call back.

A number of people have been mad at me because I don't keep in touch with them - or they think that I keep in touch with other people more than I do with them. It's really hard for me to explain to them that the people I keep in touch with the most are the people that call me the most - I'm wicked bad at going out of my way to stay in touch.

And I don't know how to feel about that. There are times when I'm perfectly OK with that because I have a life here and I have friends here and I'm the same way now with it that I always thought I would be: yes, I have a cell phone, but I'd rather talk with people in person. So I'm not going to sacrifice that time or that chance to connect with real, solid people to spend time on my phone.
It is also related to how much time I spent on my phone the first few weeks of school and how much crap I took for it and how people were always telling me that I was missing out on so much by not engaging the things and opportunites around me (which is one of the reasons I came here in the first place...).

But on the other hand, I am still missing out. I'm missing out on some of the deepest relationships that I have in my life, some of the best that I've ever had and some that I can't hope to replace. I'm missing out on spending what time I can with the people that love me more than anyone else, and the people that really make me feel loved - something that I have always really struggled with.

Yet it's hard for me to use that argument with myself because I still have the thought and the knowledge that even though I myself am an absolutely horrible friend because I don't keep in touch with people, the people that mean the most to me at home will still love me in spite of that. I'll be able to go back after 6 months at school and still have so much connection with them and still be able to act like there was really no separation at all.


But today I was reading The Screwtape Letters and I was hit in the face with a metaphorical brick, which hurt especially in the face of the issues that I've been dealing with and how much I've been dealing with my own rampant selfishness! these last few weeks. I don't know how much it will sink in, and I certainly can't promise that I'll change all that much because I'm not perfect and I still don't know how what I read will apply and actually work out in my life... But this is some selections of what I read.

"Now, you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him." ... "They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen."

"This assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defence."

Oh boy. I guess this relates to my last post and about how self-centered I am, and how one commenter said that the failure comes in that I haven't really allowed my thinking to be reformed. I mean, I have the data, just as he said, but I haven't really let that sink into my heart so that I am living that out.

So to all of you out there to whom this applies, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I have been such a lousy friend, such a lousy communicator. I'm sorry that I don't keep in touch. I'm sorry that I'm so focused on myself and how I want to use my time that I don't give anything to you. I hope to start to regress into a progress where I can fix that. I hope that you'll be patient with me as I try.


p.s.
If I were to bold all the first-person pronouns in this post, it would be severely depressing. Although, this is sort of so that you all can somewhat keep up on me... I wonder what ways a blog can only add to self-centeredness?