My Sermon

Do you realize how ridiculous the thought of God is? I find the thought of God to be absolutely laughable sometimes. For me, trying to know God is like this puzzle that defies all logic, as I have to reconcile paradox after paradox and get rid of a whole lot of baggage from my past and from the world around me before I can ever really think that I know Him at all.

If you don’t believe me, read the first couple chapters of First Corinthians. God’s ideas turn man’s ideas completely upside down. God’s idea of victory is the death of His only Son on the cross. God’s ultimate achievement in the world of men is to see His son bruised and beaten and bloodied on the cross, gasping for breath.

We have our own ideas of what is good, what is right, what is normal. And usually it’s exactly the status quo of the culture and the society around us. The ways that we dress, the ways that we eat, the ways we entertain ourselves – TV, movies, sporting events, the music we listen to, you name it – are all more or less determined by the world around us.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. You’ll hear people argue back and forth about whether we should be a part of the culture around us or whether we should be radically different from it. That’s not what I want to consider today, though I do think it’s worth considering. I simply want to put that idea forward as a fact that is relevant to our lives, one that is normative for how we understand our day to day lives.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve heard that idea put forth in sermons and seminars and devotional thoughts. It’s supposed to comfort us in the middle of our uncertainty, to give us not just a hope and a future but a hope for the future. It’s a reminder that God is sovereign, God is in control, we shouldn’t worry about where our life is going because God will take care of it all, in the end.

Strangely, that doesn’t really comfort me all that much. Physically saying the words out loud that “God is in control” doesn’t really give me the “peace which passes all understanding”. If anything, it only makes me more upset, because it leaves me just where I was – lost, confused, and hurting – with nothing to hold onto but some vague theological truth that I’m not in control of anything anyways. That didn’t stop people from pulling that verse out of their Bibles and using it to “encourage” and “comfort” me all the way through middle school and high school and even into the first of my college years.

All that verse does is make me feel hopeless and insecure. It makes me feel like what I do doesn’t really matter, because somehow in a strange and twisted way God is going to turn whatever I do for good anyways. So why worry about it? Why not just go along and do exactly what I want to do anyways? Why not just keep living my life according to the status quo of what society and culture and the world tell me to live? If God has a plan for me, and nothing that I can do will change that plan, then why do I need to be all bent out of shape about trying to figure that plan out? Why do I need to act like every decision that I make matters? Why do I need to organize my life and try to plan it out and figure out where I’m going years beforehand?

And all of a sudden, the world is a very dark place. What I do doesn’t matter. Where I’m going doesn’t matter. My life doesn’t matter. And God becomes merely a puppet-master, pulling the strings and jerking us this way and that way, to accomplish His will, and we just have to be ok with that.

That’s why the next two verses (that I never heard in conjunction with verse 11 until just this summer) matter so much. God doesn’t just say “I have a plan for you, and I’m going to accomplish it no matter what.” God tells us that “you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Our life once again matters. Who we are once again matters. God’s plan for us isn’t just the script that our lives are going to follow no matter what. God’s plan for us involves a relationship with Him. To know the plan that God has for us, to live in it, there is an assumption that we will seek God out and look for that plan. There is an assumption that we care enough about our own lives, and about God’s plan for our lives, to search it out, to come before Him and willingly give Him control and ask Him what the plan for our lives is. God isn’t the puppetmaster pulling our strings like a marionette, but a loving Father who knows that is best for us.

Well, good luck selling that one on the streets. If you want to go out and tell people that there is a “God” who loves them and knows what their life should look like better than they do themselves, you are far braver than I. Or maybe more stupid, I’m not sure – though, with the kind of things that I like to do, probably not :-P

If anyone is ever going to give up the reins of their life enough to listen to that message, they have to be convinced of something else first – how big a mess their life is without the touch of that heavenly Father who loves them and who knows best. If you’re life is great and you have everything under control, and you know where you are headed, what need is there to seek after God?

Even at the age of twenty, I can say that I have definitely grasped that much of life, if nothing else. My life, when I try to take control of it, is a mess. I find myself fighting authority, fighting with my friends, fighting with people I don’t even know. I find myself emotionally torn and hurt and confused time and time again. Even if it looks like I have everything all together, on the inside I’m a wreck and I have no direction, no plan; no hope for my life. I haven’t a clue where I’m going. I haven’t a clue why I’m living. This is why I need the Father in my life. This is why I’m so thankful for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. This is why I daily try to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance in my life.

And frankly, sometimes I find it a little ridiculous. I still don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know the plans for my life. And I have to keep on living anyways.

This is what I really want to talk about. The faith that that kind of living requires. The faith that you need to keep going, even when the steps that you need to be taking aren’t clear.

I can’t say I know exactly what it looks like. I can’t say that I live it out consistently. I can’t say that I have it. So, since it’s something that I don’t have huge amounts of firsthand experience with, let’s turn to the Bible to find it.

Hebrews 11 lays out many of the great heroes of the faith, and the great heroes who had faith. By faith, Abel brought his sacrifices before God. He didn’t keep the best for himself, like his brother did, but gave the best of what he had away. Exactly the opposite of what the world does. By faith, Enoch did not experience death, for he walked with God and God took him (sign me up!). By faith, Noah built an ark in the middle of nowhere, and filled it with animals, even though there were no signs of rain. And the world ridiculed him. By faith, Abraham left all he had ever known and went on a journey with no definite final destination to head for. “By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had mad the promise” that his descendants would outnumber the sand on the seashore.

Yes, this happened by faith. But do you remember what came before the faith? What happened before either Abraham or Sarah fully believed that even in their old age they would have children?

Sarah laughed.

Before faith, laughter. Ridicule. Disbelief.

We see a similar story in Jesus life. A man comes to him in faith, begging for his daughter’s life. The man has faith, it’s true – otherwise he never would have bothered Jesus. But the people around him don’t have the same faith. They see the “death” of his daughter and they read finality. It’s the end. Everything in their senses, their ideas of normal, everything they have been taught and conditioned to accept and think of as normal says that it is over.

And Jesus rebukes them. “She is not dead. She is only sleeping.” It is not over.

And what happens? They laugh at him. Laughter. Ridicule. Disbelief. They have no faith. Just like Sarah, these people can’t (or won’t) believe in something greater than their own everyday conceptions of life, than what everything in their day-to-day world would tell them.

Yet, despite the laughter, despite the ridicule, despite their disbelief, God still works in mighty ways in these people’s lives. Sarah bears a child – and her descendants do indeed outnumber the sand on the seashore. Jairus’s daughter is raised to life. God works in the midst of and in spite of the laughter, the ridicule, and the disbelief that something – anything – out of the ordinary will happen in these people’s lives.

I wonder how often we are like that. How often we laugh at what God is doing in our lives. How often we ridicule that plan that God might have for us. How often we can’t/don’t/won’t believe the ways that he’s trying to work on us and in us. How often do we think that our lives are just supposed to be normal, that they are just supposed follow exactly the path that they are on (even when we don’t really know what that is!), that they are supposed to look just like the lives being lived in the world all around us?

Here’s what that looks like for me ~Gesture to myself on stage~. If you’d told me before coming to Australia that I was going to preach while I was here, I’d have laughed at you. I know that I did laugh at the first person to suggest it. I ridiculed the idea. I disbelieved the idea. As a matter of fact, I fought the idea. And sure enough, here I am.

I can easily enough explain it all away. I can say that it’s just the path that I was always on and it was going to happen sooner or later. I can say that I made a choice to do it – I did – and so it’s not really God working in my life, but it’s me just making a choice about what I want to do or not to do.

And that’s how most of the world goes, living their lives on their own with no thought to how God is working in their lives or what His plan is for them, because they know well enough how to live it on their own.

But for me, that isn’t true. For me, it has been a long process of laughing, of ridiculing, of disbelieving, of fighting; and yet, here I am. And believe me, it’s an act of God.

I tell you how it looks for me not just to complain about being up here. I tell you this because you have to be intentional to see God’s plan and God’s works in your life. If Sarah doesn’t turn from doubt to faith – if she and Abraham never take that step together – then Isaac is never born. If Jairus sends Jesus back when he receives word that his daughter has died, she will not be raised to life. If they don’t keep on living, keep pressing forward, then they have given up. They have lost faith. They have lost the chance for God to work in their lives.

So what I want to leave you with is this idea. God has a plan for you. God wants to work in your life. And there’s a good chance that you’ll laugh it off. That you’ll explain it away.

Do you have the faith to deliberately seek out the ways that He is working in your life?

What I’d like to do is just take a couple minutes to reflect. What opportunities do you have that you think are ridiculous? What chances have you missed out on taking because they aren’t in your daily routine? What things are you so scared of, so disbelieving that God could use them in your life that you won’t let Him?

What if you gave those things to Him?

Just take a couple moments to consider those things. Maybe they won’t come right away. Maybe you don’t have anything like that in your life right now. But I hope and I pray that the next time someone comes to you with a crazy suggestion, a crazy idea, a wild opportunity, that you will take the time to look at it and consider it – to PRAY for it – and to see if it’s something that God can use in your life. Even if you don’t believe it could happen. Even if the idea seems laughable to you. Even if you’re scared.

Don’t have a blind faith that only says “God is in control, God has a plan for my life”. Pray to Him. Talk to Him. Give Him those things in your life that seem ridiculous or out of the ordinary or far-fetched. And when you seek Him with all your heart, even in those things, you will find Him and the amazing amazing ways that He wants to work in your life, and that He’s already been working in your life.

Go now, with the peace that comes because He who began a good work in you – a good work, not a normal or ordinary or usual work, but a good work – will be faithful to complete it, if you are faithful to let Him.

Amen.

Headed for Home, Soon...

Wow. I'll be back in Kansas in just a few days. I could say that it's hard to believe that my time here is almost over, but in some ways it will be a relief. This semester has been a long one in many ways, especially the last few weeks. I won't really go into detail here, but I'll be glad to be home where I can rest and detox for a couple days, and I have the "jetlag" excuse to back it up.

Not that I'm not excited to be home regardless :-D

I was up 'til 6 am this morning, and then slept 'til nine. Jeremiah and Ellen and Becky and I stayed up together - Jeremiah and I just because, Becky and Ellen still had packing left to do. And cleaning. And now, the girls are gone, and the "Four Musketeers" (christened at around 1 am or so by Jeremiah) are down to two. And he is out at dinner with a family from church, so I sit here alone.

It's an interesting feeling. Knowing that while most people are responsibility free now that classes are over, I do not have such a luxury. I have a sermon to write, 300 pages of theology to read, and a paper to write. How do I end up with so much to do?

Right now, I'm not really stressed about it - I think I'd call it more resigned. I don't really want to do any of it, but I know that I'll end up doing all of it eventually.

Today's been kind of a daze, to tell the truth. I stood around and talked with Jeremiah and his pastor after the 5 girls left this morning. Then I sat with the rest of the guys and ate pancakes. then I watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and loved it again.

I could go take a nap, and my body probably needs me to. But, as I've come to realize over the last few years, the afternoon is positively my favorite time of day. Here, I love the light that comes in the afternoon, creating a mist (without any actual mist) that you view everything through. And recently, it means that you get a small break from the real heat of the day. It's probably still just a little too warm to wear my jeans, but because of the gaping hole in my knee i don't mind it too much. I'll rollerblade down to get fish and chips and return the movie later on, and it won't be too warm at all. I'm kind of excited :-)

Speaking of pancakes - going home will be an interesting nutritional experience. Let's start with the fact that a three-meal day is a rarity. And while that's true most of the time at school, usually I eat lunch and dinner, being too tired or too busy or too rushed to eat breakfast. Or too lazy to get up that early ;-) But these days, I eat a bowl of cereal around whenever I get up and then I don't eat anything 'til dinner. I imagine that it will take some getting used to to try to do lunch and dinner everyday.
On top of that, it will be interesting having a varied diet again. Michelle and I tend to eat well, but around the flat I'm usually limited to pasta, pizza, or sandwiches. Usually of the peanut butter and Nutella variety. It's far from healthy, I imagine. I'm actually kind of excited to go back to vegetables :-)

Anyways, people are starting to have the bug that indicates that it really is the end of the semester, and that we are going home. There is an abundance of laundry being done. People are rushing to the market to buy those last minute souvenirs for people. There isn't any food anywhere to be found on campus. And, on days like today, when some people leave, you are likely to see friends sitting around not really talking about anything, but all looking off into space and lost in their own thoughts.

I do very little of that - I think the rest of the day will be an interesting one. 3/4 of the persons that I spend the majority of my time with are gone right now, and the other one is off campus. it's not that I'm alone, because of course I know all the people that are still around campus. But there is just something like a hole that comes from not feeling intimately connected to the people around you. I tend to avoid that situation and that feeling like the plague - usually by not being intimately connected to people.

It's hard. Even in the midst of discussing it early this morning, and seeing that everyone more or less felt the same way, it's so funny to see the ways that we distort actions and thoughts and glances between people and we miscommunicate. And make ourselves feel on the outside, even when we aren't. It's so hard to KNOW that we are loved, even all the while while it's being communicated to us.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return. That's pretty much where I'm at right now. And while I can't say that I'm excited or ready to go home and continue to learn those lessons, I know that I will. And I'm hoping to try to trust the Lord that He will take care of me and bless me while I learn.

Here's to that hope!

And here's some more pictures:
http://houghton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011627&l=
23c64&id=100301115

On a Happier Note

So, I've been depressing lately. This is not entirely accurate to how I'm doing on the whole. But, somehow, this turned in to my other blog in disguise. Not that that's bad, and not that they should necessarily be separated, but I was reflecting the other night on how this blog hasn't really included much of the normal activities of my life.

Last weekend we went to Tasmania. If you don't know (I kind of didn't) Tasmania is actually a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, not a separate country. I had to wear shoes on the way there, which was disappointment - in the last three weeks I've worn shoes twice. I quite enjoy being barefoot - which is hilarious, because I used to abhor going anywhere without shoes.

Anyways, the reason I had to have shoes was that we were going on a tour of the Cadbury Factory. So, not only did I have to wear shoes, but also a hairnet and a snood for my facial hair, since I haven't shaved in something like three weeks. The ridiculous apparel aside, the tour was alright. The chocolate, however, was fantastic! I have all kinds of chocolate to bring back, if I don't eat it :-) My favorite is the individual triple-layer bars I got: milk chocolate, white chocolate, and raspberry from the bottom up. It's pretty much the most fantastic thing ever.

After that we went to Mt. Wellington, which overlooks Tasmania's capital city of Hobart. We did a lot of rock climbing and exploring while we were up there. We took pictures and talked funny and screamed a lot, and it was marvelous. If the internet didn't hate me, I'd have had that week up right now, but it took me two hours to get three weeks ago up, so I got lazy and stopped. Maybe later...

We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens after that, and then back to our hostel in the middle of the city. We ate at a seafood place right on the wharf called the Drunken Admiral, and it was some of the best Salmon I've ever had.

The next day we went to the Salamanca Market, the largest and best Market in Australia. While we were there it was crazy busy - although that's not surprising, since it's only open on Saturdays. We spent several hours there just walking around and browsing through little shops. The highlight was definitely a musical group called Mangus (his cd was called Bare Feet, and I smiled). He played the digereidoo, the guitar, and a percussion box and tambourine at the same time. We bought several copies of his cd just because we were so impressed!
From there I went to the Tasmania state art gallery and museum, and it was pretty cool. They had an Antarctic exhibit out, and it was interesting.
We went and had seafood again that night :-D

The next day we went to church at St. David's Anglican Catherdal, and it was fun to have a huge group of us instead of the normal 3. St. David's definitely doesn't see as many tourists as St. Paul's does - they had the books out for the liturgy instead of having the whole thing printed in the service program. They were good about explaining most of it as they went, but a couple times I got fed up of trying to flip pages and just recited it from memory, where it was appropriate. I really enjoy being able to do that - I'll miss the liturgy when I go home! After that Michelle, Becky, Jeremiah and I walked around and explored the route that Jeremiah and Ellen had been on the day before. We walked something like 6K on gravel, and I was barefoot the whole time :-D
We stopped at a park and I climbed a 60 foot cliff face - maybe not smart. I would have died had I fallen, but providentially I did not. I was ok most of the time, but right at one precarious moment Becky came around the corner and screamed and it was not helpful in the least. I got up and around after 45 minutes or so, and vowed to lay off rock climbing for a while :-) We'll see if that actually happens.

Monday we went to Port Arthur, a historical site dedicated to the beginnings of Australia as a convict society. I'd just written a paper on the topic, so I didn't find it highly informative, but it was neat to see everything in person nonetheless. We snuck up into the belltower of the cathedral, but left after a short time because we didn't want to get caught ;-) It was pretty fun though.

This week has been mostly homework and hanging out around Kingsley, except for Wednesday. Michelle and I spent the morning and afternoon at Werribee Park, home of enormous mansion, a winery, and the State Rose Garden. After that we celebrated Jeremiah's birthday, and took him to the World cafe for dinner. It's easily his (mine as well) favorite place to eat; and that just for the FANTASTIC cheesecake. I had some Moroccan spiced penne and a piece of Bailey's cheesecake and almost melted into pleasure.
Then we went and met up with Becky to see the Melbourne Chorale perform the Lamentations of Thomas Tallis - AMAZING. We were the only people under 60 or so again, but you get used to that after a while :-) I got a cd of some of their work, and it's wonderful - I miss choir, I'm excited for next semester!

Today I've just chilled and read a book and put pictures up. The newest set is from a couple weeks ago when we went to Wilson's Promontory, the southernmost point on Mainland Australia. Enjoy!

http://houghton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011466&l
=caa93&id=100301115

ABCs

I've recently been struggling academically - not in the sense that I'm not learning things, or that I'm failing any classes or anything like that. It's just that I don't get the whole process, and another thing altogether.

The whole process: in conversations with my dad and a couple other friends, we have found that none of us really like writing papers. Not that there isn't value to it, both academically and in the training of the mind. But it doesn't really make me feel like I've learned all that much. I learn a ton through reading and the research process, but then I have to put my thoughts down on paper, and I have to footnote sources and use / credit other people's ideas, and so far it never seems that my own ideas and the connections that I have made independently as a cause of that reading ever come out. It's like in my IS, where I have learned a ton of theology and grown so much, but only a tiny fraction of that is ever expressed in the papers that I write. To put a letter grade on that one effort doesn't really seem to accurately show how much I've learned and changed.

That's the thing that I have come to hate about grading. If you do poorly on one test, it screws your whole grade for the semester (at least it usually does at Houghton). The way that grading and weighting work, you have to be solid in your information the whole semester to get a "good" grade. If you work hard at something all semester, and move from a D level to finally getting an A at the end of the semester, the only way that is reflected is that you'll probably get a C in the class. That doesn't seem fair to me. It doesn't really reflect the whole process in terms of what you achieve at the end.
Hmm. Maybe that is more fair than I thought. It just seems like writing an 8-10 page paper in response to very specific and detailed prompts doesn't really allow for the personal growth and opinion to come out.

The other thing I have been struggling with is the concept of the grade itself. I remember a conversation last semester where we got our papers back in class, and the people sitting around me were stymied (almost to the point of being angry about it) that I didn't automatically flip to the back of the paper to see what my grade was.
What does that reflect? It says that all you care about is the grade. It doesn't matter what you wrote, or what the grader had to say about it, it only matters what grade you got. As a friend has been reminding me for about a year: "who cares? It's not about the grade, it's about what you learned."

In spite of that, I've still struggled to really put that idea into practice. What does it mean to let my work stand for itself, and not expect that because I've done well in other classes I should automatically do well now? And then when I get a grade that I feel doesn't reflect the work I've done, what should my response be? Do I go and talk with my lecturer about it, or do I jusgt let it slide and hope to do better next time? That's particularly challenging here, where it's often the case (or at least in one class) that I didn't receive a single grade until right before everything was due. I found out 60% of my grade today, and the last assignment is due tomorrow.

I often find that I can't argue with the grades that I've received. But I want to receive something higher. How do I reconcile that? When I get a B that I feel that I probably deserved, but I'm still upset that I didn't pull an A, what do I do?
I don't even know.

For now, my response is to let go and entrust that as much as my grades matter for anything in the future, God will take care of it. That doesn't mean that I plan to slack off and not care, but I'm seriously considering not looking at my grades when they come out online at the end of the semester. I will have done my work, and it will be over. Why do I need to focus and worry about how it was graded by someone else? Wouldn't it be more positive to say that how I did was a matter between God and myself, because it was between He and I how closely to my best I performed?

Is Exhaustion Physical or Mental?

Oh man am I tired.

Let's quickly recap the week: Monday I worked from 8-5 on my History paper - outlining the convict society in the earliest days of New South Wales. From 6:30-9:45 we researched and put together our group project for History, on William George Taylor and the Sydney Central Methodist Mission. I went to bed right around midnight, completely mentally drained.

Tuesday I woke up around nine, did my devotions, and by ten was editing my paper - which had been 300 words over the limit. Then I wrote my short essay for the group project. Then I kept the kids (who had the day off school for the Melbourne Cup - why they get off for a horse race don't ask me...) out of Becky and Jeremiah's hair while they finished their papers. Then I made lunch and got set up for our presentation. That went well, and then I went to Coburg to return the library books I'd gotten out for our group project. I came back and started on dinner - single-handedly making spaghetti and meat sauce (OK, Scott actually cooked the meat) and corn on the cob. Halfway through that, Jocylin comes to tell me that our group church report for Christianity and Postmodernism is not in fact done, and I need to come write a conclusion. So I go over and type the whole thing up in about 15 minutes, while e-mailing back and forth with her about what we need to include in it. Then we have class, and then Jeremiah Ellen Becky and Michelle and I had hot chocolate adn then I went to bed.

I got up Wednesday and mucked about for a while because I didn't want to to any work... But by 2:30 I was in full swing with our group project for Life in the City - we were suppoesd to canvas the business aspect of the city - retail, rural, commercial, corporate, international, intellectual, small, independent... the list goes on - and give a report on where Melbourne is currently and what we think they need to do for the future. I did that for most of the afternoon. I went downtown to sneak into the last couple minutes of evensong, and then Michelle and I went to eat - at a vegetarian restaurant on Lygon street, where I had Onion Quinoa with the most amazing mushrooms :-) - and then to Starbucks to work on our IS. We came back and watched the Butterfly Effect with Jeremiah - Ellen started it but didn't finish it with us.

Today I got up and showered and went to class, and we gave our presentation, which went infinitely better than I thought it would as of a week ago. Then I laid on the floor of my flat and colored and listened to the spring concert on Becky's iPod. We had lunch with Tucker's parents who got here today, and then I took a nap :-) Ellen and I rollerbladed for a while and then came back and I played some tennis with Jeremiah and then the three of us went and made pizza and chips and salad with Becky and Michelle. Then we had Australian Lit, and then we all sat around and talked for a couple hours.

Anyways, we are going to Tasmania in approximately four hours... I can't decide if I want to sleep or not. But next week I have another three papers due, and three more the week after that. And one more after classes are over. I thought I was mostly done with school for the semester, but this is clearly not the case. However, in a positive note, I'm not really that stressed about it - just tired.

In my postmodernism reading for last week, there was a section about right v. left brained people. I forget which is which, but I'm definitely the one who thinks more in visual terms instead of cold hard analytical. I can do that, but I think more in visual terms. Example: I write my papers by imagining myself writing them. I don't know if that makes sense, but what happens is I see myself sitting at my computer and making some great point as I write (whether or not it is actually great...) and I then physically sit and write until I get to that point. It's not like I have a detailed logical argument and outline at all. That makes me sick.

I'll maybe put up other observations about that later, but Jeremiah and Ellen and I are going to fall asleep in front of Toy Story in the student center, and then get up and shower in the morning. It took me all of 5 minutes to pack, it was great.

Come to Tasmania, Come to Tasmania, Come to Tasmania-
WE MEAN YOU!

Music and the Student Center

Funny story:
We are told to keep our flats locked at all times, because the rate of theft in Australia is pretty high. Being accustomed to Houghton standards, and not really seeing much of a difference between Houghton and Kingsley in that respect (the events of last semester aside...), I don't usually lock the flat. Tucker and Scott usually do, but I just don't care.
So last night around 11 I went in and changed out of my jeans into my pink scrubs and grabbed a blanket before going to the student center to watch Moulin Rouge with Ellen and Jeremiah, since Ellen had never seen it before. And as I walked out I though "My key is still in my jeans pocket. Oh well, they won't lock the door... And if they do, the window is partly open so I can open it the rest of the way and crawl in."
Oops. I got back around two, after e-mailing my Houghton roommate, and not only was the door locked but the window was closed. So I asked Jeremiah to be my alarm clock, and then went to sleep on the beanbags in the student center. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't bad either.

The problem is that I most definitely have a cold. It goes through worse times and better times, but to say that I'm healthy would probably be a lie. I have had a cough for about three weeks, and yesterday my throat felt like sandpaper. Stess, sleep deprivation, poor sleep on the ground at Wilson's Promontory (the southernmost point of mainland Australia), and springtime allergies don't make for a good combination. I just got some allergy medicine, so hopefully that will help me out a lot.

The other night was definitely a melancholy night. Without being too specific, I got a pretty long e-mail from a friend that I hadn't talked to in 10 months, and the e-mail itself as well as the situation on the whole have really messed with me emotionally. It's hard to not have talked to someone that I used to be really close to - something I excel at, unfortunately - and then to have them e-mail you out of nowhere. And when they include some insights into some of your former friendships with other friends that you are no longer close with, it just does something to you.

I actually ended up spending most of Monday night in the student center with Jermiah and Ellen, and Becky was there for several hours as well. We were all kind of in a melancholy mood. Jeremiah and I played piano for a while, and then he played and Ellen and I just sat there, and then I left just as Becky came in. When I got back (all of 5 minutes later) she was really upset about the conversation she'd had with her boyfriend, so we all gave her a group hug and then just talked to her for a few minutes. From there we just sat for a while, and then ended up playing a word association game as we all laid on the floor - which we did for two and a half hours. It was so good for our souls to just sit with each other and be in community, to know that we were loved and cared about, but not to have to worry about trying to make ourselves understood and explain everything that we were going through.

I suppose that goes a bit against the last post I wrote, but only in part.

Anyways, we had a conversation in my Life in the City class the other day about the negligence of Christian songwriters - particularly those who write the 'worship' songs that we sing in 'worship' services. It has to do with the fact that songs about Christ abound, but when it comes to songs about how we should live - specifically how we should live in regards to other people - not much exists. I don't know how well those songs would fit into our 'worship' 'services', but I've learned and thought so much about both of those two terms that I don't think not fitting in is a bad thing.

Along those lines, if you want a taste of some excellent songwriting that has a lot of the theology that I find myself coming to believe, get Todd Agnew's cd "Better Questions". It's absolutely fantastic, and flows right out of his last album. I suppose that if I cared to take the time to do it, I could compare the journey that his songwriting is taking to the one that I am taking in what I believe, but it would likely be a stretch.

I do however plan to start a blog when I am finished here in Australia about the "Theology of Song". Basically I just want to take a bunch of my favorite songs that really get me thinking and write some theological thoughts / biblical reflections out on them. In my head it would be amazing to take a set of Foolish Things songs and make a devotional out of them, but we'll see how that goes. Their new cd comes out in January, and I'm mad excited :-)

I have been rediscovering how much music means to me. I've spent a lot of time playing piano, trying to sightread Chris Rice's collection of hymn arrangements. It's slow going most of the time, but I enjoy it nonetheless. I've also spent some time trying to put some of my own theology and my own questions into songs as well. I have even taken a step out to just play and sing some of the Psalms during my devotional times - it's definitely an interesting experience.

Ellen described herself yesterday as "Not quite to the point where I'm so stressed out that I'm no longer stressed." I myself have reached that point! I have something like 30 pages of writing due next week, as well as a 10 minute and a 45 minute group presentation, of which I've done virtually nothing. It's quite exciting to know that in two classes more than 50% of my grade lies on next week. And by exciting, I mean that it's frightening and it makes me feel awful.

I've been reflecting a lot on what it means for me to be a student. In one sense, that part of my current identity dictates a good portion of what I do. As such, it means that I need to spend a lot of time working on schoolwork, because I should be doing whatever I do as for the Lord, and not for men. However, student is not the totality of my identity. I just don't know where to find the balance, and I fear that most of the semester has been too far on the anti-social schoolwork side. I'm trying to be slightly more social in my schoolwork - reading around other people instead of just in my room alone - but I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, since it's harder to concentrate.

I have three or four weeks worth of pictures to put up, but usually can't bring myself to get down to the library and spend all the time to do it. I was planning on going down there for when it opened (which is RIGHT NOW), but can't because I can't get into my flat to shower, change, get my stuff, etc. I think it's going to be the last straw that makes me ask for an extension - which I hate doing, and I never know if it's because it requires more humility than I want to show 0r if it's because it makes me feel lazy - on my major History paper, because with no weekend and so many other things due, 2300 words with min. 12 sources isn't likely to happen.

Well, hopefully Scott or Tucker is awake so I can go shower and figure out what to do with my day, after I do my devotions. Research will likely take up most of it, until I eat dinner with all the guys at Bekah and Melissa's flat. They decided that they should make a meal for us since they'd been so anti-social all semester. Who are we to argue with any reasoning behind a free meal?

The finish of this week, a weekend at Hal's Gap with an aboriginal community, next week with most of my major assignments, a weekend in Tasmania, the last week of classes, a trip on Great Ocean Road, a free week (Sydney? Brisbane? Cairns? Melbourne? Who knows where I'll be?) and then I'm headed home. It's hard to believe how little of the semester is left!


Oh, and the new sets of pictures. It doesn't include last week, but there are around 300 pictures from that week, so I'll have to have far more time to wade through them before putting them up.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011164&l=991f6&id=100301115

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011165&l=cddd3&id=100301115

Apology

Although, I could apologize for the rest of my life and never have apologized for all the things that need apologizing for. I think that word has been used quite enough times in one sentence, so we'll see how I can manage without it.

Anyway, this week at Kingsley is Mission Focus Week, and the guest speaker is Mary Fisher, who has given some fantastic lectures thus far. She has talked about the missional nature of the church, and the missional message of the church. Both messages were profound and provocative and gave me much food for thought. Her basic message so far is that we need to understand the Bible in its totality - shocking, I know! - and understand how ever since Genesis 4 the story of humanity has been the story of God's recreation of the whole world. Mind you, not just human hearts and souls, but the whole world.

My mind doesn't stop its own internal musings while these messages are going on, and this morning I realized that I have failed one of the Biblical commandments: Always be prepared, in season and out of season, to give a reason for the hope that you have.

If you come to understand the hope that we have as being the fulfillment of this life - as I am fast coming to through my theological studies - in the next life, then the hope for this life must be grounded in the particular and unique person of Jesus Christ. And we must live in relationship with Him to be able to communicate the gospel of His salvation through the Kingdom of God for the whole world to other people. And if we do not, then our faith is dry and bland and empty, like an unused teabag.

So, my apology is this: that I have not taken time to understand and to be able to communicate - much less actually communicate! - the reasons for the hope that I have. I have all sorts of ideas and beliefs about the church, about community, about faith, about life, about heaven. But I very rarely communicate them to anyone. They are left in my own head, like toys in a toybox, never to be taken out and used and shared with other people. I don't often enough allow myself the vulnerability to say what I think about these things to or in front of other people.
The problem is especially highlighted if you were to see me in classrooms. I will very often make a connection with something else that I have learned or experienced, and I will crack up. And laugh hysterically. Tonight I had to put my head between my knees to keep from totally disrupting class - which I'm sure that I've done anyways, at least for some people. But my ideas and my thoughts remain my own, and I don't share them with other people. I don't express them. I don't write them out. I don't allow other people to interact with them, and thus with me. I keep things to myself, so that I can enjoy them, and I rob other people of the ability to enjoy them and think about them with me.

This picture of me paints me as very selfish and self-centered. What is the purpose of my learning and my classroom experiences if I can't articulate and share them with other people? What is the point of being able to connect my classes together, and connect them to my life and to my faith and to my worldview if I don't articulate them to other people?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that I want to parade my ideas around and say "look at me and how much I've learned and put me on a pedestal!" But if I can't and don't learn how to express and share the things that I'm learning, what's the point? I haven't engaged myself in community. I haven't learned in community. I've learned, and been surrounded by other people, but it's most definitely not the same thing.

It's also related to another thing that I've been learning - or at least trying to make much more real in my life. That's how I need to BE, and not to DO. Granted, this is something that I've struggled with and tried to apply at so many times in my life. But to tie up this whole thought process from today, I've realized that for what it matters, I am a student. And as such, I need to relate my identity as a student, and what I do as a student, and what I learn as a student, to other people, and I need to use that as a way to love other people. And if I can't use that to express the hope that I have - or if I can, and don't - what good does that do anyone but myself?