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.

So I’m writing a literary theory paper analyzing Hildegard’s theory of the cosmos in Scivias. I seem to be reaching the conclusion that literary theory itself is on some questionable moral ground, so long as it involves a stage of critique which attempts to assert authority. It seems like all attempts within the Hildegard text to ground the authority of the text involve some sort of a turn away from the transcendent, something which attempts to subvert God as ultimate authority…

All this basically means is that this branch of literary theory is highly suspect (as is might be my attempt to analyze it)

~david

You know what really stinks? Getting the flu the day of Spring Fling and staying inside all day and not getting to see anyone. But I guess it happens. The good thing is that I’m feeling much better today. I might even be able to eat solid food by the end of the day. One can only hope, right? Maybe I’ll take the top off my car and go cruising.

In other news, it turns out I have a good amount of work to do, but don’t really feel like doing any of it. Between now and May 7, I need to write two essays, and study for two finals. One final and one paper should be fairly easy, the other final and the other paper will be tough.

Essay 1: History Paper… 5 pages
Essay 2: Literary Theory… 20 pages
Final 1: History Final
Final 2: Dante

I’ve also been wondering how we as Christians should treat those in authority over us (within the church). I was reading 1 Thessalonians, and Paul makes a point about how we should appreciate them. But I also wonder how much we put people on a pedestal. How do we make real relationships available between clergy and laity. If every time pastors and congregations interact they view each other in some sort of a councilor / councilee way, when to real friendships develop. I think we need to be careful that we provide times a places for pastors and congregations to meet in a more peer-to-peer sort of way. But how do we do that, while still recognizing the charge that pastors have to support their congregations?

So, I’m writing a paper on the response of the community to people who fail at romantic relationships. This is particularly strange, since I haven’t actually managed to figure out what a “successful” romantic relationship looks like -except that, since this is a paper on Dante, I’m really just trying to follow my impression of his lead. In Dante, it looks like romantic relationships begin and end in communal love. Hmm. Is it weird that I’m writing this essay? I mean I could have chosen pretty much anything in all of Paradiso and I choose Venus, mainly because I like this one 6 line simile. And then it turns out that I start writing about the one thing that I think I have absolutely no clue how to write about. Crazy.

And this whole paper just brings up how our society values being in romantic relationships, so much so that being single seems like the problem. Or maybe I’m just stuck in some 1950′s dream world. But this is really something which we need to address. How do adult singles get along in society, how does society support them? How does that happen in a way which doesn’t negatively impact singles?

Finally, how does the church, as the basis of communal love on earth, provide for those who are not in relationship without pressuring them into it? Sure I think relationships are great, but I detest the crazy amounts of social pressure to be in one. And luckily that pressure isn’t coming from my friends. Still it’s there, and maybe more so for those of us who grew up in more conservative parts of this country, where it seems like something is wrong if you’re not married by the time you leave high school, or college at the latest. Heck, I can’t visit my grandparents without being inundated with questions as to why I haven’t found a wife yet.

Of course all this is complicated again by the bifurcating social norms which put my own religious convictions into some sort of spotlight of scorn.

Oh well… no answers tonight.

If yesterday was such a long one, perhaps the next morning was one of the shortest. But maybe it was long in its own way. Maybe it was just so filled with so much running around, so many messages that must have seemed more like rumors to them, that the day was completely outside of time. They must have been incredibly confused. First He was dead, now he’s alive.

One moment your walking into Jerusalem, thinking, now we have a new king, now we have somebody who knows us, who listens, whom God has incredibly blessed. The next moment, our hope is gone, raptured away. Then this morning, we hear that He’s not in the grave anymore. My heart just leaps within me. The doubt which doubted doubt now ruptures, explodes, and tingles in the arms. Really? He’s alive? But He was dead? Yes! and Yes! When have such things happened before. Not even did Moses do this!

They must have thought that Jesus was now going to continue to take on the thrown. That he was going to march up to Herod, as God’s chosen one, as the next messiah. Instead, He was the Messiah. This week was going to be different.

How do I imagine what they felt? Barely rested. hardly awake. Their savior dead. Was it all a lie? They must have wondered. They must have felt dejected, maybe like a lover rejected. They must have longed to see his face, to see their savior again. But could they bring themselves to confront a very real death? Could they confront the loss of their hopes and dreams? What would they do now? What would they try next? Maybe they should rebel, throw off the Roman oppression. Maybe they should just get on with their lives, start fishing again. Maybe it was all wrong anyway. They were just testing fate to see if Rome was the big bad giant they imagined. But where did this courage come from? This tiny bit of courage that felt like nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. It was there; they could just barely feel it. What tempted them to believe that it wasn’t over yet? Why didn’t they just all leave? Why was it that their hearts burned within when they were near him? Why did it seem like Christ was so much more than they could ever comprehend? Why, when he was dead, did this nagging hope keep percolating through their thoughts? This is it. It’s time to decide what we are doing here. How do we continue His ministry? What do make of his promises?

Day 1.

Me: 0 – Headache: 1