Thoughts from Culhwch

I’ve noticed this attitude about myself over the past few weeks. It seems like I’m waiting. I’m not sure I can describe all of it, I just noticed that I have a lot to wait for. A job, an apartment, a graduation ceremony, a trip back home. There are so many things that are going to happen and have happened over the last month that I have almost no control over, that I have just decided to wait for them to happen. Now I don’t mean to say that I feel like I don’t have any agency over my life, or anything of the sort. It’s just I have come to one of those big points in life where everything suddenly changes, and I have to wait for the next step, and take it when I see it.

Maybe it’s something like the feeling that God has been guiding my life and has planned out my path. What I do is step here, and hop along over there, and run a bit, and maybe fly, but I go from each point to each point, and for awhile I just stay put until I can see where I’m going. Some step really stretch me in new ways. In way that I’m not used to. I start having new conversations which feel really awkward. I start thinking seriously about my finances, about what I owe on my college loans. And I start figuring out how to actually pay them off. Suddenly, it’s not so scary anymore, even though there are a whole host of unknowns.

At the same time, I think I’m starting to get to a point where I can make a few plans. I’m starting to get to that point in life where all those little hints that I felt, when God would tug this way or that on my heart, are starting to become things that I can pursue. Maybe I should list them out, or put them here so I can think about them. First, I want to be doing something with regard to social justice, finding ways of making life better for those less fortunate than myself. Second, I want to use my skill’s as a writer to minister to people. Third, I want to work on a project of literary theory/theology. I think all three of these are really linked together, in some deep and profound way, but I’m not really sure how. I wonder if the last one has a bigger role to play in how they all fit together. Even if it seems to have a lower priority in my life.

If life is like a roller coaster right now, it is also like that point when a roller coaster can be either scary or fun. It is scary whenever we forget the care with which the builder studied every curve to make sure it would all work. It’s fun, when we remember that it’s going to take us new places, show us new heights, and new depths, and be full of new experiences, when we remember the builder’s plans.

~david

Graduation pictures to come.

Here's a pic

For the first time in months, I can actually sit back for a second and try to take it all in. In a week, I’ll get my degree, and hopefully get a job and apartment… and the list goes on, such that I fail to actually take it all in anyway. I guess I’m feeling a tad bit overwhelmed by it all. I guess that’s normal. Only I just now have the time to actually feel overwhelmed. I don’t think it’s a bad kind of overwhelmed either. I think it’s more of a feeling that I cannot possible keep track of everything, or manage it all, or really even come close to making it work out. But I guess, at the same time, I’m just trusting that it will. Or, more accurately, that God will be in this big transition and make it all work out.

At the same time, I sometimes wonder if that attitude isn’t quite right. Am I just writing off God as this strange force which makes my life happy, when I don’t deserve it? -or when I can’t make myself happy? I don’t know. I don’t mean that I’m unhappy, more that I cannot figure out if I’m really playing my part.

I think sometimes big life changes are good, though. They make us sit back and examine where we are and what we are doing. Are we living out the message of the gospel. Are we forgetting about it? Are we assuming that the gospel is only a kind of toy just to make us happy. Or are we believing that it is the power of God? Do we believe that Christ is lord? Do we act on that belief? Sometimes shaking up the flow of life makes us look back at the priorities. What stays? What goes? What needs changing? What things have become automatic, for good or bad?

I’m looking forward to life outside the academy. And in a certain way, I think I really need it. I don’t want to write just about the academy, I want to write about all of life, and in order for that to make any sense at all, I have to experience it. I’m also looking forward to working on something new. I’m looking forward to seeing how my education fits in with what I’m going to do.

I’m also dreading a few things. I’m dreading moving away, and partially afraid that I’m going to lose something, that I’m going to miss my friends, that I’m going to miss school, that I’m going to miss some part of me that will always be connected with the academy.

But on the whole, I just find myself a little lost. I mean, not really lost, but more like that moment this afternoon when I was driving on streets that were new, and I didn’t know exactly where I was. I knew that I was close to familiar roads, but at the same time I wasn’t really sure if I was going the right way to my destination. I think that’s what it feels like. Sure, graduating is fun and all, and I know the outline of where I’m going, but the path I’ve taken and the road I’m on are a little unfamiliar, unknown. Half of me is dying for the adventure, and half of me is just a little less confident than I would like.

I would try to tie it all into something deep or profound, or theological. But for the moment, I’m not sure if I have it in me to write it out. I think can only follow, and not lead. Only wait and see what God’s got for me, but not really try to peak around the corner.

And yet, I want to get it all over with too. I want to get through this week so I can finally get to the other side of this adventure and start the next one.

~david

ps If you know any Christian guys looking for a roommate in NYC, let me know.

This week has been insanely busy. six hundred miles of travel by car, two train rides, Washington DC and New York. When was that break supposed to happen? After I finished classes I thought I might have a break, but it seems like I just got busier. Hmm, well we should all try to find some time to hang out.