Musings on Life and an Aeropostle Ad

There's this Aeropostle commercial running right now that asks the question, "Are you who you were a year ago?". The ad pictures these trendy teenagers running around with their Aeropostle clothing and friends against sunset skies.  They might even be jumping into pools, but I can't remember. That being said, the ad's question goes a smidge deeper than an attempt to sell more hipster clothing. That question "Are you who you were a year ago?" is something we all ought to ask ourselves. Our culture values speed, moving forward, faster until we collide with the horizon. We're too busy posting selfies to take a look at who we really are behind the façade. Pausing for reflection about the people we once were and the changes in our lives should not have gone the way of Myspace and cassette tapes . If we are better people than we were a year ago it can draw gratitude into our hearts, becoming a shield from the bitterness of whatever circumstances we find ourselves wandering in at this moment. If instead of progress we have done some backtracking, it also gives the opportunity to realize those mistakes and make the necessary life changes. For me mulling over these thoughts also makes me gasp at the faithfulness of God through the amazing, the depressing, and the simply bizarre of this year, as well as giving great hope that He is continuing to change who I am as a person. It is a great comfort that God sees passed all our nonsense and sees our potential--the people we will someday become.

It also can be plain humorous to think about who we were a year ago. Last year at this time I was getting ready to head off to college, and I was excited, but more nervous than I realized at that moment. I remember being scared silly at freshmen orientation, trying to be friendly and find friends, but also being nervous out of my mind and feeling rather awkward as I surveyed the gym with all these eighteen year olds some of whom looked like they stepped out of an Aeropostle ad. It didn't help things that most of the activities were athletically themed which I woefully stunk at, but I survived and now a year later I am going back to help with said activities. A year ago if you had said that I would be doing this I would have laughed in your face, and then apologized later. But God knows who He wants us to become and used the challenges, the now amusing failures, and successes of that year to produce a stronger, and more confident person who is learning to embrace some of their quirks, and laugh off the little mistakes. And it's about time! Can I get an amen and a hallelujah from my charismatic friends? Now I am pumped to head back, grateful, and no longer a nervous freshman.

Sooooo......let me leave you with these questions, "Who were you yesterday, who do you want to become, and do you trust God enough to get you to that point?" Trust Him infinitely. He's got this.

A Collection

         These are a few poems I've been writing, a collection you could call it. I'm no Billy Collins but all of these poems reveal some of the thoughts and musings I've had throughout this year, and I also think that poetry of any sort is always something worth blogging about and sharing.                                       

                                               The Night I Saw Infinity in The Soccer Field

             Some people say that fog rolls in, but that fog sunk into the world, throwing its

             grasping hands through everything--even through people.  

The fog grew and the day dimmed, cloaking the trees, making the lights fuzzy, giving cataract vision to the world.

I left the library, as it was due my time to leave that place.

The world outside was different, like the prelude in a novel you cannot read before bed 

because it makes you afraid.

My feet drifted onto the path by the gym, beside the shrubs that cower in winter and blaze in

fall.

The fog clung around me, and I purposefully wandered onto the soccer field.

It was wet and mushy, and I could sense the grass beneath my feet.

The fog swept around me, and I could see the fuzzy lights of the boys’ dorm.  

I felt a little  self-conscious, standing there in the middle of the soccer field on this eerie night.

The field and the fog wrapped around my eyes, as I stared across the field.

A sense of infinity overcame me, borderless, awful infinity that grabbed the darkness, staying forever.

Not eternity, like they talk about in the Bible, this was infinity, meaningless stretches of time and space into which there could be no end.

Everything and everyone would stay the same here, the world would stagnate, and our souls would meld together like too many watercolors that fade into brown in the end.   

Hell will be like that.  Eternity in Heaven can be no such thing.

The neverending there is full, vibrant, living, forming each new breath, breathing in and out again, and again.  Eternity and infinity are not the same.

These thought I pondered as I moved back towards my dorm.

Lights from cars swung in the darkness.  The fog obscured everything and the shadows were not afraid.

The few bodies I passed were people, and my heart grew warmer towards them, knowing that we were out here alone on this night, infinity shrouding the living, sinking into the depths of all of us.

But still.

Stars, those electric balls of fire, burned somewhere, existing still--though they were hidden by the smoke.  The stars still echoed on, eternity spinning, dreaming, breathing,

answering, calling again, calling out that one day the dawn will come.

It came, three hours later.

            I wept and closed the door to my room.

 

 

Friendship and Schizophrenia   

        What would it be like to touch and see, and lose your grip on reality?

        When would it happen? Where would you be, when you lost your grip

        on reality?

       

        Would you be in a dark room or a very cold place, far from the sea

        and the human race?

        What would life be like there?  What would you see, far from the human

        race and far from me?

       

        What would you hear in that place, beyond our own time and space?

        Would you hear sounds, chants, and whispering too?

        The garbled sounds of demons and biochemistry floating through you--

        becoming your reality, far from the human race

        and far from me?

        Would you be followed there by your thoughts, and the reality that you thought

        you knew?

        But we all knew it couldn’t be true.

        Would they persecute you there, chase after and follow you with snarls and

        laughter?

        Would you hide in a corner, bent and stricken, a monarch of sorrow,

        far from the human race and far from me?

        How would people treat you there?  Would they even care? How would you say that your mind

        is not well today, tomorrow or maybe even for the next month of May? Would you find     

        yourself locked in a hospital room, a living and white tomb?

        Or would you find yourself living on the streets, with living

        and breathing becoming quite a feat?

        Would you live there with your grip on reality gone, empty of each and every song, far from the

        human race and far from me?

        Then the question appears, of how would I treat you in your ramblings and

        fears, in your reality of untrue?

        Would I forsake the you that I knew?

        If you lived tied to a hospital bed what would I do?

        Would I draw pictures and bring flowers, just to remind you, if not myself,

        that the world still holds grace even though your face seems to have been erased?

        If you were on the street, losing your grip on the human race,

        would I bring you muffins and coffee?

        Would I make sure they were hot, because it’s cold outside the human race,

        reality, and me?

        This is how it would go, this is how it would be.

        You living and alive, but living among the dead,

        survived by me, your one true friend.



                                                               The Age of Discovery
                           Sea-salt against your face, wind chasing and tangling your hair.
                           You are me and the ship rises heading into a new space.
                           That smell--can you sense it, can you drink it in?
                           It's the smell of adventure.
                           Christopher Columbus said there's a new world across the sea.
                           Can you imagine all the things we don't know?
                           Can you sense the curiosity?
                           Maybe you'll come back a sultan, clinking with bags of gold, or maybe
                           you'll have a pet monkey perched on your shoulder?
                          You'll meet new peoples different from us, and you will learn.
                          You'll be learning for all of us, you know.
                          The adventure, this seeking, it's something that echoes inside our
                          humanity.
                          Set sail go seek and be sought.
                          The world is a mystery and you are curious, dying to know,
                          to touch, taste, and understand what is beyond the sea.
                          Welcome to the adventure.

                          
                                                After Reading "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry"
                           I reached the last page, my fingers closed the book,
                          and I was finished.
                          But the emotion still rolled through me, rocking through my chest in
                          the silence of the library.
                          The Logans' plea became my own, and as they suffered so did I,
                          as I read through the rhythmic laughter and pounding sorrow of the book.
                          The Logans became my family, and I became an attached observer.
                          Books teach us more than just metaphors and vocabulary;
                          they teach us empathy.
                          They teach us to feel beyond ourselves.
                          That's something worth teaching in school.
                          I had to write this, for it just didn't seem right to unfeelingly head into another
                          assignment and forget.
                          Forget what had been done, what had been felt, what had been understood.
                          To lean empathy we must grow to walk beyond ourselves.

                                                                     Iron Maiden

            Bitterness is a cramped room and a claw.

            It shoves you in and locks the door, promising that it will last and protect you

forevermore.

But really it gnaws at your bones and skin, drawing you deeper within.

It whispers spells of protections, urging you deeper into its embrace,

but those arms are acid and nibble furiously at your heart.

It never leaves you quite as you were before.

But oh, sometimes it feels sweet, breathless and delicious--

makes you feel powerful, like maiden wielding an iron

rod of destiny.

It makes you feel cold and hard, full of uncracked, impenetrable ice.

Bitterness is a prison of protection.

You can see if they’ve felt bitterness’ embrace.

It’s always in their eyes.

You can fake laughter, you cannot fake the eyes.

Those eyes have lost their warmth, and have turned to steel.

It’s putting up walls and striking cannon fire,

yelling, screaming, that the flames I will shoot you with will grow

hotter and hotter if you try to enter in.

May I begin again to make or renew this acquaintance?

But no, she laughs with that bitter, callous laugh, an iron maiden

wielding an iron blade with an iron grasp, and a beating heart protected by

an iron gate.

And I must say that I understand this now.

I understand how people become this, as it becomes them and they are changed.

I understand now.

But now I also know that deep within us all a choice must be drawn,

to close ourselves off and rail at the night or to still believe in something,

someone, and allow laughter and heartache both to enter our sight.

Or do we just become just those with iron lungs, breathing after and not before

the dawn, wielding iron rods, commanding our own iron destinies?

But for me and myself, I choose life and I choose it all--

the laughter, the heartache, the kindness, and the woe.

I choose to open my gates to let others mingle within and to not let my heart harden               

to stone as the iron maiden would have done

            forever and within.



                                                New England Fall: Written on Simpson's Grave
              Feet dangled over edge and stone, bumping, smiling, dreaming girlish dreams,
              the earth a fog of leaves, clouds, and morning dew.
              Your eyes dive into the river that cannot be separated from the sky.
              You wonder if this is the time that angels travel between heaven and earth, whispering
               to men and women.
               But you know that is not correct theology.
              
               The call cries out--the silence void of all conversation, and yet
               You hear the hum of cars on the highway, endless and unceasing, the sound
               the roars like breakers on the ocean.
               You see a woman with a scarf around her neck, a tell-tale sign of Fall, and you feel the
               cold coming, rising, sinking--but not here yet.
               The stone is cold though, perhaps it has stood here far too long, between the ages
               and triumphs of men.
               Now this stone is your seat and it is cold, but it is this you love--
               the air, the atmosphere, the utter silence, your belly filled from a hearty breakfast.
              
               You sense the ghosts of New England poets, the ones you read in school.
               You wonder if you could catch a glimpse of Longfellow straining at the oars of his boat.
               Somewhere between the mist and fog he disappears.
               You sigh, enchanted by days deep filled with mist and mystery.
 
               You wonder about this new life and college, as you stare out over the river.
               You hear a fog horn call out to the halls of humanity.
               A grin lights up your face, and you are glad that it is fall.





             


                        
                      
               


 

Ours and the Ones that Change Us

Right now I'm sprawled on our futon as evening sinks into afternoon.  Winter evenings are like that.  In the summer there's more warning for the change.  Winter evenings sneak up on you, delirious, grinning that now it is dark and there is nothing to be done about it.  There is nothing as mystery filled and yet gorgeous as a winter sunset though.  This blog post is not about the pros and cons of winter.  That was just a side trip.  This post is about stories, the leafy and coffee stained ones written down kind, the dusty ones with creases and marks in the corner.  At school my friends joke that they're going to write up a list of all the movies I haven't seen.  I hadn't realized how many movies and TV shows I'd missed until I went to school.  I watch movies, plenty of them, but growing up I read a lot of books.  I'm okay with that.  But whether it's a book or a movie, there's just something about stories, and the kind of stories you can't forget.  They pop into your head while waiting at the bus stop or fidgeting in class.  Those kind of stories help us remember that we are human.  They help us remember that our bones are connected to a soul, that we're not just veins and arteries. They help us remember what it means to be a human, what it means to live.  Over break, I've been thinking a lot about stories. "laughing" reading Don Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and seeing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty might have something to do with that.  I've been thinking that I want to live a really good, story, a first rate one.  A story that once you close the last page, makes you better for having read it.  Those are the best stories, and I have been thinking a lot lately about what that looks like. "laughing" maybe that will be a future blog post. Who knows? The tricky thing about living a story is that you don't know how the one you're in ends. But I do know Someone who does.  I trust that Someone. For now, let's raise a toast to stories: the ones that are ours and the ones that change us.

Shout Outs and Education

Finals are over, and we all made it through all the delayed flights, rerouted buses, carpools, and the eventfulness of traveling home.  At the airport I saw this obvious college student who pulled an entire box of Kleenex out of his backpack. Home for Christmas with a cold. I had to pity him.

We did make it through finals. I didn't understand how much coffee and lack of sleep that phrase would entail. There's a scene in Clueless where the teacher announces who has the most tardies in class. This kid named Drugs stands up and gives this speech thanking all the people including the crew at McDonalds for making him late. It's an amusing scene, kind-of satirical, and goofy. With a nod to that, I would like to do some thanking of my own for helping me get through finals week. Shout out to my mom. She sent me a box of gingerbread cookies. My school is pretty far from home, and gingerbread cookies taste like nothing else but home. Seriously, where else can you buy a good gingerbread cookie? My friend and I had a devouring session with them. Second shoot out is to my roommate and friends. Thanks for being there even when I got grumpy, and being people to laugh with on our free weekend. You are the only people I know who could spend an hour and a half in a bookstore and enjoy it. Third shout out would be to the Glitch Mob whose weird, electronic, futuristic music contains almost no words and amped up those study sessions.

"puts on a more serious voice", but really I am grateful for this last semester. Being able to get an education is such a gift. We watched a video in Education class about children in different parts of the world, and the obstacles they faced. I had never given much thought to how hard it can often be for a girl to get an education. One girl they showed who middle school age and only made it to first or second grade. Her life would now be herding goats and getting married, and to me that is so sad. She would hardly be able to read. That could have been me, but here I am for some reason allowed to learn and pursue my dreams. Man, what a gift. When school gets hard, I am really going to try to not complain. I can think about girls in Pakistan in the book I Am Malala who find it difficult or impossible to get an education. (Sidenote: I Am Malala is an excellent book. Her narrative voice is surprisingly sharp and clear, and she has a spirit that can speak through cultural barriers. Great read.) So here's to getting an education. Here's to doing the best with what we've been given. Now Merry Christmas and enjoy the break.

A Shocking Adventure

http://storybird.com/books/an-unlikely-adventure/

Here is a shocking adventure of my own. In education class I was ordered to do an assignment, but I had a lot of fun with this one. Some random person picked up my story weeks later, and it's been spreading around Storybird. I was shocked. This is crazy. This stuff doesn't happen to people, not the real ones at least. This is kind-of like the premise for the story, falling in love, that kind of crazy. That doesn't happen, right? Or maybe it does...."laughing" I don't know. Life's an adventure and I plan on keeping you all guessing.

22 (Read the rest for yourself. What do I look like, Sparknotes?)

    Right now I have an infatuation with lists. I have a sort of deja vu feeling that I read about a writer (one who actually publishes books) with the same infatuation.  Regardless, I am still holding on to this burning love for the listed.  At this very moment, I am in the most pleasant McDonald's I have ever set foot in, and I have been to a lot of McDonald's. This place is a work of art. It is brightly colored, and decorated for Christmas, not to mention the newly retro corporation art all over the walls. Someone, and I don't know who, should give them an encore or a standing ovation. There's just something fantastic about doing something with such excellence, whether it is a Van Gogh painting or a Big Mac.  Anyway, enough of my soapbox on excellence. Of course it's time for the lists, that's why we're all here right?
                                                                   First 3 Months of College Musings
                                      1. Going off on your own teaches you way more than you knew was out there.
                                     
                                      2. God's pretty funny about the people He places in your life, sometimes you didn't know you even needed somebody like that until they're there.

                                     3. Previously seeing another incoming freshman on Facebook and being like, "oh, we're not going to be friends", can turn into the ironic event of them becoming one of your best friends at school.

                                     4. The two weeks of freshman year were some of the most terrifying and embarrassing weeks of my life. I had not a clue of what I was dong. Now I know how to fake it.

                                     5. It's a good idea to actually go to those classes. It keeps you on your professor's good side. You really don't want any hatred aimed at you while your final exam is being graded.

                                     6. The education department at my school is amazing.

                                     7. There are a lot of couples at my school. My single friends and I maintain a loving hate filled relationship of them.
                                      8. John Stumbo is an awesome chapel speaker.

                                      9. Writing your own path is way better than following what you think everyone else is doing or what everyone else expects of you.

                                      10. The silent library section is the best place to study on campus. It is silent.

                                      11. Dressing up as a life-sized M&M and standing on a street corner in the Bronx, will remain etched on my memory for years to come.

                                       12. It's okay to make mistakes at college. (Someone told me that and I wanted to put that here.)

                                       13. Been learning a lot about what it means to love Christ holistically, as a full human being. You know that part where it talks about loving God with all your heart, mind, and soul?  Well, that means all three of those things: your emotions, your thoughts and intellect, and the very essence of who you are. We miss that a lot in Sunday School.

                                     14. Just doing the work at college for the sake of getting it done is fine, and we all do that to some point, but what about actually engaging ourselves in what we're learning? Wouldn't challenging and stretching your mind be right up there with loving God with your mind?

                                     15. I really, really, really, really, really, really enjoy learning. "sigh" alas that it strange. I need to rethink my life, or not. Savvvvy?

                                    16. Air, water, roommate.

                                    17. Dr. Who is......very....popular here. I've never watched a full episode.

                                    18. You get more confident wandering around here. One more thing God does when you let Him.

                                    19. It's okay to pay a fine in quarters. "cough cough" Hey! It's what I had folks.

                                    20. My honors cohort is more like a bunch of kids from the Breakfast Club, and that fact is nothing but awesome. Once again, God knew what He was doing with that, as He does with everything.

                                   21. Blue like Jazz

                                   22. It feels like a perfect night, to dress up like hipsters, something something, feeling 22! blah blah blah

                                   Here are the musings, folks. If you don't like them, well, I'm not getting paid for this so good luck firing me.