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?

More Stress Information

Really, calendars are my problem, I decided. I was sitting here talking with Amy Palmer about a Daniel Fast that she's doing - who thinks about fasting anymore?! - and the schedule came up, since we were talking about when we want to try to do a harp-and-bowl cycle on Kingsley campus sometime. We were going to do one next week, but we will be traveling on the weekend to Wilson's Promontory, which is supposed to be some fantastic photography :-) Our other free night, Wednesday, will be taken up by a performance of Titus Andronicus that I am going to - that we thought was tonight, and then wasn't. Anyways, I was saying we could do it the first week in November, but we have a lot due that week - Our final paper and project for Australian History (we are actually in the same group for our presentation), a book for Life in the City, and then I have a church report for Christianity and Postmodernism. AAAAHHHH!

How did this happen? How did I end up with a knowledge of when all my major assignments are due? That isn't supposed to happen 'til the end of the semester! Granted, that's only four weeks away or so... But still! I can say what I have due every week for the rest of the semester, and that's just ridiculous. Should I have so much of the future in mind, or should I be more concerned with the present?

As we were working on our IS today, another point was made - I often lose sight of how much work I actually accomplish. I read two books and wrote two papers, one on a movie that I had to watch, in the space of two days. That's a huge accomplishment! And instead of being grateful that I was able to do that much in such a short time, I was too focused on what I still have left to do. I'm so worried about how things will turn out and about the grade that I'll get on them that it's causing me all sorts of undue stress.

Part of the problem (I can't remember if I've said this here or not) is that I don't have non-school activities to keep my school-activity-time focused. I feel like everything I do is either goofing-off and free time, or it's doing homework. I don't have soccer or working out or koinonia or music or the cafeteria or chapel or theater to do just to do. Everything that I do, whether it is running a couple miles or spending time playing the piano, usually sightreading, or reading my Bible, seems to be geared towards some end, some goal, some growth in my life.

Shouldn't that be a fabulous thing? I'm growing and changing and challenging and stretching myself. I'm trying to be conscious of how I love the people around me. I'm attempting to become more like Christ. I'm using my gifts and talents and resources to become more well rounded.

Somehow, I have missed out on the "play" aspect of this semester. Yes, I've done a lot of amazing things. But it almost seems as though they are all things that I should be using and internalizing to understand and shape my identity for the future. What happened to playing cards just because it's fun? Why do I have to now think of it as something that I can do to interact and build relationship with those around me? Why can't I just sit and watch a movie? Why do I have to tear it apart and analyze it? Why do I have to run for fitness, instead of having the option to play soccer just because it's fun?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to growth. And one of the quotes that I have held onto since Great Ideas in high school - one of the few, as the more I think about it I hated that class, especially senior year - is Chesterton, saying "The Christian life has never been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."

The other quote is one that is also from GI, but also from a dear friend: "We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we do, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future... So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."

Now, in theory, I'm all for learning and growing and changing. It just seems like everything in my life right now, especially in academics, is geared towards that. What can I have and hold onto that it is just me, and not what I am growing into? What can I do just to have fun, without worrying about what will allow me to have fun or joy or happiness later? And how do I balance that with the very real needs of doing homework and assignments that I have now?

I'm very much excited for Christmas break, to come home and relax and let my mind slow down a little. Granted, that may not be what God has for me, but I'm hoping. For some small part of it, at least.

For now, I am trying to live out two things that I have read and learned in the last couple weeks. The first is Biblical, from 1 Peter: "Cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you." The other is from one of the books from my Independent Study - the idea that lamentation to God is still a very vital and important part of worship, because it is giving Him His proper place in your life - the place of Lord. It is claiming the promise that He is in control of your life and will bring you to the end of it allright.
No, I'm not presuming to know when that is, or how far away it is - but if God is for us, who can be against us? He is in control, and He provides for and loves the sparrows, so who am I to worry about something as trite (on the eternal scale) as homework?

Not easy, but I'm trying to learn.

Stress and homework!

I seem to be really bad at timing... Or keeping track of time, anyways. I barely feel like I've gotten back from break, but here it's been two weeks already... Geez.

Sometime, maybe tonight, I will devote a period of time to a longer post, but for now these are the assignments I have due this week, and I'm freaking out.

2 papers for Engaging Australian Culture
Movie review for Christianity and Postmodernism - I just watched the movie
Paper for my Independent Study... By far the biggest thing
A book review for Life in the City - I haven't started the book yet.

2 weeks from now I have both my major assignments due in Australian History, as well as another for Christianity and Postmodernism. And a paper for Australian Literature. And another book review for Life in the City.

My head hurts... Keep my stress level in prayer!

Greetings from Sydney!

So, I'm alive and in Sydney, after sleeping most of the train ride curled up in a ball on the floor - thank you CP bus trips! The things that I can call comfort that other people would die from :-)

We are sitting at out hostel right now, but we can't get in our rooms 'til 1. Which is a real shame :-( But hey, we have free wi-fi!

Last week was loooooong. Like, maybe one of the longest weeks of my life. It didn't seem as bad as some other weeks I can think of, but by the end of it I was pretty much snapping at everyone and not a happy camper. We were doing a divorce care ministry for children all morning, and then I spent all afternoon trying to write my paper for my IS. After three tries I finally finished the dang thing, but at the expense of a whole lot more stress than I ever really wanted to incur.

But it's ok, because I'm in Sydney :-D We're planning on heading out to the beach for most of the day, and then we'll probably come back here and chill and watch a movie. Tomorrow we'll probably explore more, and then beach for a while, and then chill. Wednesday and Thursday we are heading up to Maitland to visit Jesse Ryals, and Friday we are going to visit David from Kingsley. Saturday is open, and Sunday is church (Hillsong maybe?) and the symphony at the Sydney Opera House, I'm all kinds of excited. Then the train ride back and return to school - ugh!

Mostly, I've been feeling like this whole semester is nothing but one giant deadline. The IS is the real killer, especially because the book that we are on now is so incredibly dense - it takes me a good five minutes a page or so, which is nothing anywhere close to my normal reading speed. I understand it, but it's a nightmare getting through it. And then we have all kinds of group projects and such that we have to be working one, at least one of which the "group" is fairly (incredibly) unmotivated.
Really I just care way too much about school, and I shouldn't, and I usually don't; and I don't like it.

Ah well. As the phrase of the last couple days has been: what happens, happens, and you can't do much to change it. Just keep moving on and try not to freak out about things you can't control, and do a lot more trusting - both of God and of other people. I'm not really so good at that.

No pictures yet... The library wireless wouldn't work for me on Friday and we were gone all day Saturday on a day trip, and I led worship on Sunday... Maybe I'll be able to get last week's up while we are here, but don't hold your breath! I promise they'll be up by sometime next Monday though.

Churches

Well folks, this is the second post within seven days and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself!

Things in Aus are going along swimmingly... Except for me, since it is in fact too cold to swim. We begin our three week break on Friday, and I'm hoping that when we get up to Sydney it will be much warmer and worthy of time at the beach :-) All my other plans you'll just have to wait for so I can tell you about them after they happen :-D

I have been so blessed with my church situation here. I absolutely love the services at St. Paul's, and have had an amazing time getting to know and participate in the liturgy, as well as weekly communion. There is so much that happens in the weekly service, and so much more than simply worship, offering, announcements, and sermon. And the sermon is way shorter than the typical half-an-hour tirade that I'm used to. Not that I don't appreciate and grow through that, I just think that there is more to be offered in a church service than that. Not only that, but I've also met some amazing people at St. Paul's as well.

To start, two of the pastor's there have made the effort to talk to us every time we go (it's usually Becky, Bekah and I that go every week) and they are starting to get to know us and we them, and it's really good. Pastor Jim (lol) is going to NYC today to spend a couple weeks with his son, who teaches school there.
We've also met a family that has already been such a blessing to us. When we went three weeks ago, we just sat at the end of a pew not paying attention to who was there. After the service, the dad (Matt) came down and introduced himself to us, and talked to us for half an hour to forty-five minutes. We also got to meet his wife, Jo, and their four kids. Later on we met Fiona, Jo's sister, and talked with them about the joys and frustrations of homeschooling - they have all 6 of their kids doing it, and all three of us have had some experience with it as well (Bekah was homeschooled until going to college).
Last week was amazing getting to talk to them - Fiona's younger daughter has some pretty serious medical issues, that will leaver her open to the possibility of having regular seizures for about the next six months. As I was talking with Matt about it, he said something that just floored me: "We aren't asking God "Why would you do this to us" we are just trying to ask Him what this means for us now, and how we should act; and more importantly, we are trying to just be still and know that He is sovereign and in control of all things and that He loves us." I was absolutely amazed to see that kind of faith - because I know that I certainly don't have it!

The week between those two Jeremiah and Aimee and Lydia and Becky and I all did some special music at a Chinese church. We sang a couple four part hymns (I miss choir!) and did some more modern songs in the second service. The hymns went really well... The modern songs were the worst musical experience that I've ever been involved in.
Luckily it was made better this last week. I have been going to St. Paul's Anglican in the morning, and then I catch the train back and get picked up at Kingsley to go to Hilton St. Wesleyan-Methodist (if you want to know why the denoms are combined, ask me and I'll explain later...). I have been doing some kids ministry affiliated with that church - I may end up at family camp and helping do a religious education class at a local school because of that as well (and I may actually preach once...!). It's been pretty great. My friend David, who lives in the dorms at Kingsley, leads worship for the afternoon service at Hilton, and he's amazing. But this last week he just asked me to come up and jam with him while he led, and I got to play the piano, and it was fantastic! I mean, I don't know how it sounded out there, but I just had such a wonderful time getting to do that. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy using the piano as a color instrument instead of a lead instrument, since that's what I do so much of the time.

I do miss that a lot though - Kingsley has a 15 minute devotional every morning, but it's not the same as having chapel three times a week and MercySeat (OneThing) or Koinonia on a regular basis as well. We tried to set up a worship service the second week here, but no one came :-( I may put together a couple more later on in the semester, but with break coming up it won't happen for a while.

I miss home more and more. There is much drama at Houghton right now with the possibility of the Soc. department becoming defunct, and it's casting a lot of doubt onto my future. Not that I really had much of any plans for anything after graduation... But my thought now is to be confirmed in the idea that if I do go to grad school at some point, it will probably be after a couple years spent at home. I wouldn't quite call what I feel homesickness, but I am incredibly excited to spend a good long chunk of time there at Christmas.

I struggle so much with spending the time in meditation or in prayer trying to figure out where the Lord wants my future to go, and I'm so bad at it. I know that it is a discipline, and a process, but that still doesn't mean that I don't want results now! Patience, I suppose, is a fruit of the Spirit and I could do well to develop all of them and just wait on the Lord. Be still and know is what I need to do; but I struggle with both.

Oh, and the new set of pictures:

http://houghton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010339&l=f2af8&id=100301115

Heaven

It has been frustrating for me, the difference between myself and other people. It's so hard to want to engage the culture and the city so much, yet feel held back by the people I live with and am surrounded by. My idea of a full week includes a couple days of homework, going to my classes, and spending a huge amount of time in the city exploring and meeting people and having all kinds of experiences, going to two different churches, etc.. Other people's idea of a full week includes complaining about classes, not doing any work, sleeping through church, watching tv, being online, etc. I understand that I'm fairly unusual for most of humanity; but I can't understand why you would want to come to Australia to immerse yourself in American tv shows, American friends, and spend lots of time thinking and talking about America and how much you miss it.

This is not saying that I don't miss people in America!!! It's simply saying that I'm very content to spend one morning/afternoon a week putting up a blog post, catching up on facebook, and getting my e-mail taken care of. I don't want to be on the phone three hours a day and online another two. I like doing things, not thinking about other things I could be doing or will be doing in the future.

There are people I miss horribly; there are people I kind of miss; there are people I miss because I don't conflict with them anymore; and there are some people that I miss precisely because they have fallen to the periphery of my mind and I don't consciously think about them all the time.

It all plays into a spiritual/theological phase that I've been going through: I don't want heaven. Eternity scares the crap out of me. I can't think of anything more pointless or boring. I don't know why anyone would want that. It scares me; and it scares me that it scares me. That's not what I'm supposed to feel as a Christian, right?

I did write a long rant on this, that I'll try to get up mid-week sometime.


One of the things that strikes me about this is the number of people that I really miss that I don't really know that well. People like Anthony, Tommy, Libby, Jim, Carrie, Chris, Scott, or Abbie that I met during the summer that I only knew for the period of a week. these are people that are very dear to my heart. I loved spending time with them, and my spirit was so refreshed by getting to know them and spend even just one week with them. And my heart hurts to think of the very good possibility that I won't ever see some of them again.

How am I supposed to think about that as a Christian? What does that mean for my life?

For me, I have chosen (though it may be theologically faulty, I don't claim to know) to use that as the lens that I view heaven through. Heaven is going to be more than simply endless praise to God - which, admittedly, I usually tend to view as people sitting/standing/jumping around and going crazy in something like a church setting. Granted, I love doing that, and it's very much a part of my identity. But there is so much more than that!

I think of the kingdom of God, of heaven, as a party (which blatantly steals the title of a book by Tony Campolo that I have yet to read). I think of it as a place where the party of 4444 will occur. For those of you who don't know, that's the party that Dr. Bressler wants everyone to come to so we can fellowship and meet up with one another once again.

I want heaven to be a place where I can truly love people. Where I can spend all the time in the world with them, where I can get to know them, where I can see them through the eyes of Christ and love them perfectly. Where there isn't a bonding of spirits that leaves the flesh so disappointed at having to part. Where we can know and love each other in ways that we never had time or opportunity to do on earth. Where we can be united because of our love for Christ even as we experience the diversity in that love that we share.

We hit on this the other day as we were walking around, and someone made the point that we can't forget about trying to enact the Kingdom of God on earth - indeed that is one of our chief commands as Christians. And it's probably more important than wanting to be in heaven - especially if you come to a place where longing for heaven becomes escapism.

And again, by no means do I want to ignore this. I want to get to know people here. I want to be in relationship with them. I want to love them ; and I want to love them as Christ would love them, though I will admit I usually do a fairly lousy job of that. I want my love to be marked by the fruit of the Spirit and by a Christ-like attitude, I don't want it to be a hooked love that simply points back at me in the end.

I want to see people in unity, in community, loving each other and taking joy in each other's presences. Being edified and built up by each other's spirits. That's what makes people stick out so vividly in my memory and in my mind and in my longing - the people whose spirit reaches mine, the people who I miss even though I spen (t/d) such a short amount of time with them. I want to have more and more of those experiences on earth. And I want to see those around me having them on earth. And I want to see joy and laughter and mirth and love flow in abundance, even as they come out of the tears and the struggles and the strife that so often mark our experiences here on earth.

But I know that those things are impossible to attain perfectly on earth. And that because of the fallen nature of man, and indeed of my own fallen nature and selfishness, they are almost few and far between. May Christ in me work against that; may the Spirit guide me and my actions so that I will love those around me purely, and not for my own sake; but, overall, may the Father direct my thoughts and my longings toward heaven, so that my treasure - the joy of other people's spirits and souls and lives and loves - may be in heaven, and not on earth.

Amen.

New Pictures! Let me know if you have trouble accessing them, we'll work something out. Someone from church do me a favor and get the link to Jerika Swatek, so I don't get killed :-)

http://houghton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010269&l=e61b6&id=100301115

Pictures!

Well folks, I finally managed to get some pictures online. However, it took me two hours... and they are all on facebook. The rumor is that blogger won't let me upload pictures anyways (or so I've heard from other HDU students who have tried in the last couple weeks) so I guess you are all stuck.

Since that will please none of you, you can try this link: http://houghton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010100&l=cfdff&id=100301115. I have no idea if it will work, but facebook says it should. Hopefully from there you'll be able to get to the other album as well, but no promises.

Should that link not work for you, get on facebook. If you can't / have no desire to, track down someone who does have it and make them get on for you so you can see pictures :-) Mom and Dad, just make Jaron or Ivy get on and show you. Anyone at church, just corner Jaron and make him do it at church for you :-)

This week has been much more relaxing... kind of. I'm still struggling, since right now I have 150 pages to read by Friday morning for my Independent Study, and I have a paper due for Australian Lit. tomorrow by 7. That doesn't really help one relax and find the balance between work and play... But, then, I did just put about 100 pictures online over the course of about two hours.

Really, one of the things that we American students have found out is the difference of communication styles, specifically the technological, between Australia and the US. You pay for internet here by download rate, instead of playing a flat-rate for continuous service. I can't imagine what the library's bill is every month! And even with phone service it's different. You have to pay a monthly fee, but then you pay for every minute on top of that; and at Kingsley, you have to pay 50 cents every time you dial any number on top of that! I imagine that they waste less time online here; but even for me, who doesn't really use it that much, it's quite frustrating.

As far as contacting me goes... Keep sending me e-mail to my Houghton website. But, since it's been ridiculously patchy - I'll get nothing for four days and then get a weeks worth of backup - go ahead and copy my hotmail address as well (keyboardsoccer@msn.com). That way you will definitely get ahold of me.
The caveat here is that I'll only really be able to get on my hotmail once a week or so, unless I make it more of a habit to spend long periods of time at the library on more than one day a week. Which isn't really my plan, with so much else I want to do.

Fun events at Houghton (and by fun I mean not so much) have added to my stress, mental and emotional, so if you could keep that in your prayers it would be great. It's weird to me that something so far removed from me can still affect my emotions here, especially when I feel very little most of the time. So, in one sense, I suppose it's a plus that I'm upset about what happened; but in another sense, it does still suck.

I'm starting to get excited about a couple opportunities that I have to get involved with leading worship, as well as connections that I'm starting to make with some Kingsley families and some families from St. Paul's, where I've been going to church. It's especially great to have opportunities to be surrounded by kids again - after two months of camp I've missed that so much!

Well, I should get to working on my paper, even though I know I'm going to write a couple e-mails before I start on it. And then it will be time to leave, so really I'll just be up late tonight. Hurrah!

Work

Something is horribly, horribly, horribly wrong with me.

I have done way to much work this week.

No, really, I spent most of the day Wednesday in my room, reading books. For class. It was awful. To rebel, I had to spend two hours in the grass tickling little children. Which, by the way, was probably the most relaxed I've been since being here :-D Seriously, it hasn't even been a month since being in camp, but I miss little kids :-(

I was writing a friend just a little bit ago, talking of how I feel like I was wild and crazy and fun all summer, and wasn't ever really that serious. In contrast to that now, I feel as though I have been too serious since being here - at least when it comes to work. It's so unusual for me to do work when I could be watching tv with the guys, or playing basketball with whoever happens to be out there, or finding some random event and joining in.

I think also that the proximity of my workspace to everything draws me in like a magnet and forces me to read. Maybe I should grab a permanent locker down here at the library, then I'd only do work once a week!

I think that I am growing intellectually though. I no longer have the desire to just do the minimum amount of work so that I can look like I know what I'm talking about in class, I want to fully grasp the material so that I can understand it and pick it apart. In some classes, that's a fairly easy task - in others, it requires me to spend 3-4 minutes on a single page of reading. That's way less than fun for someone who doesn't like to do homework.

I really just need to find the balance or work and play, and make sure that I'm staying sane and not being overwhelmed with school itself. I'm pretty sure that that would go against everything that I am (or at least have been) in the last, oh, 6 years, and I'm not really into that.

I'm planning to come down here Sunday or Monday and figure out the picture thing if it kills me! I have around 400 for the trip so far, so maybe we'll just have to have a massive party (or, several, since I have readers (in theory) in so many different states) to look at them all. We'll see!

At Long Last

I am finally online! In a manner of speaking, anyway. I am at the State Library of Victoria using their wireless (which as of yet won't allow me to upload pictures), so I can sit down and give something of a real update on my life down under.

This is (seeming) hugely long, and no doubt many of you will find it unspeakably boring. If you can follow my often errant train of thought. It's mostly a chronicle of my week, except the last paragraphs at the end. If nothing else, read those :-)

I flew KC to LA direct, and was pretty famished by the end of the trip, taking from around 3 CST to 8 CST. The warm chocolate chip cookies they served on the flight did help though :-) I got to LA airport and walked around and called my parents to let them know I was there, and ended up having to ask for help to get out of the domestic flight building and into the international terminal. I got over there and ate some Mcdonald's - hopefully for the last time in a long while - and then walked around the terminal reading magazines and such. After a while a few more people from the program showed up, and we all walked down to the gate.

After a three hour wait at the gate (or something like that - I was asleep for a good twenty minutes of it) we finally got on the plane, something like 45 minutes after we were supposed to. And thus began our 15 hour flight... Good times. Minus the part where I was on a window seat and could only get out by making two other people move for me. I slept about 6 hours of the flight, watched a couple movies (Borat and 300, neither of which I think is worth seeing again), and did some reading.

We arrived in Melbourne airport and spent an hour getting our luggage and getting through customs, and were then greeted by Dr. Walters (the head of the religion department at Houghton) and TK, our faculty advisor. We hopped on a bus and made our first sighting of Kingsley College, where we are studying and staying for the semester, much to our relief.

The problem was that we had about 2 hours before they were going to serve us lunch, no food, and no local currency. So 5 of the 6 guys (minus Scott, one of the other Houghton guys on the trip) decided to walk around the neighborhood and get a feel for it. I was much excited to have a soccer field only two blocks away, and there is also a milk bar (a convenience store) and a video ezy right across the street. We slowly made our way back to campus and called home and then had our first lunch. The rest of the day was unpacking and getting into our flats; which took Tucker (from Seattle Pacific), Scott and I quite a while. There was someone living in the flat the three of us have for the semester, and he was just moving out. Before the end of the day, we got our $75 for food for the week and they took us down to Safeway to do our first shopping. After that, we settled in to watch our first Footy match!

Footy is Australian rules football, and it is insane - I've heard it called "organized chaos" many times. It's similar both to rugby and football. It's played with a rugby ball (or something close to it). It's played on a huge oval field - there are two 5o meter arcs, with another 50 or so meters inbetween them - and the players sprint the entire game, which is four 20 minute quarters. They can only pass the ball by punching it or kicking it to each other, and when the ball is in the air players are fair game for just about any type of hit, grab, shove, or tackle you can imagine. There have been something like 10 injuries in the 3 games we've watched, including two in the one we got to see live last Saturday :-)

We all crashed pretty early the first night, going to bed around 9. the next day we got up and took the train down to the Queen Victoria market, a huge outdoor area full of shops for food, clothing, and pretty much anything you can imagine. We walked around the market for a couple hours and then a group of us (Jeff and BJ from Messiah, Tucker, and then Jeremiah, Lydia, Janelle, and Aimee and I, all from Houghton) walked around downtown and explored. On the way we found a huge indoor climbing gym, where we spent most of our Friday - we climbed for about 5 hours with an hour break for lunch, and all for only $27.

Sunday I went to St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral for church with TK, Dr. Walters, and a group of about 10 other students. The service and the choir and the sermon were all excellent. The sermon was on the passage in Luke where Jesus says that he comes to bring division, not peace, and both in the sermon as well as chapel Monday morning we explored what that meant. I took those thoughts and ended up writing a rather long rant about faith that may find it's way up here in due time.

We travelled down to St. Kilda beach for lunch, and then tried to meet up with the rest of the group for an evening service, but ended up horribly lost. Michelle, Rebekah A. (from Houghton) and I walked around the city 'til around nine, exploring downtown and one of the parks we ran into.

Monday morning we got up and had all our Kingsley orientation, as well as our first "class period for Engaging Australian Culture". Really all it amounted to was TK going through what he wants us to accomplish for that "class" for the semester and how he hopes that we will be encouraged to interact with the culture and the people of the culture that we are surrounded by.

Tuesday started classes, with Australian History in the afternoon and Christianity and Postmodernism in the evening. Australian History was a typical intro class followed by a movie (we have three hour class periods once a week). Christianity and Postmodernism looks to be a good ride for the semester, but much of the intro material was stuff that I have previously read, so it was a bit hard to stay on task. It is, however, the only one of our classes with Australians in it, so the discussion will be much broader on many topics and I'm excited to see where that leads us.

Wednesday Michelle and I went exploring in downtown and worked on our Independent Study materials for The Doctrine of the Trinity. We found our way into the beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens and spent most of the afternoon there. We also ended up on a little side-street cafe for dinner, and that was a fabulous experience :-)

Thursday we had Life in the City class, taught by one of the nine city councillours for the city of Melbourne. He did a lot of intro, including giving us a lot of his story - pastoring a church in the slums of St. Kilda, getting two psych degrees, being the head of Kingsley College, and finally ending up in politics where he is working to be a missionary to the city as a whole. For our final project in his class, we will have to take one of the sections found in the city report and work out our own ideas for it, criticize it, and come up with a plan for where we think it should go. It all sounds pretty fascinating.
We stayed around campus Thursday afternoon and had Australian Literature that night. The first hour of the class was fantastic, and I'm excited for the potential of where we could go for the semester. Unfortunately, the rest of class was disappointing and frustrating, as he read the 20 page syllabus to us, and then read the first reading to us. We ended up feeling a bit like we were in kindergarten - or that we wanted to pound our faces into the desks.

Friday, as I said, we went rock climbing and exploring, and Saturday was taken up by Footy.

Yesterday we traveled to the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary, and got to see a lot of the native Australian animals: kangaroos, koalas, dingos, wombats, Tasmanian devils, and a huge number of birds. One of the coolest parts of the day was that we got to see a display of the Australian birds of prey, which was amazing. the trainers would stand at the back of the crowd and have the birds fly right over your heads - I was almost hit once!
When we got back we did some reading for class and then played some poker :-) Today has been sleeping in, breakfast, and coming down here, where it's already 3 in the afternoon!

Hopefully the picture situation will work out soon, as there are a lot of pictures from the above mentioned things I'd like to put up. Also, in my mind I am a much more disciplined person, and write my blog posts out ahead of time so that they don't ramble all over the place for pages and pages and pages. Props to those of you who read this whole thing!

Speaking of discipline, however, I have done very well (in my own eyes, at least) when it comes to forcing myself to have some kind of a routine and get my responsibilities done. I finished all my History and Postmodernism reading by last night, with class not even until tomorrow! I have journaled every day - or at least for every day, if not on the day itself. I have gotten into the habit of playing the piano a little bit every day. And most importantly, I've also been trying to spend good time reading my Bible and praying and meditating, which has been a mostly enjoyable experience. The one area that I still need to work on is communication, but there have been issues with that (see the last post if you haven't already...)

I should probably go and do my IS reading for Wednesday, and maybe start on my Thursday reading.
What happened to the good old days when I never had to read anything more than a day in advance because it would take me an hour tops?

Oh well.

Oh yes, I keep forgetting to mention. If you want/need to get a hold of me, fly to Australia. If you want to contact me, you can use my Houghton e-mail address (Shane.Marcus@houghton.edu) and it will forward everything to my Kingsley account, which is the only one I can access from campus. If you want a reply, it will be hit and miss until I get my laptop working on the network there; or, there might be a way in your own e-mail server to recognize my address here: smarcus@student.kingsley.edu.au (or smarcus@kingsley.edu.au I'm never sure which). If you want to send directly there, there is a chance I'll be able to reply straight to you, which would make everyone's life easier. Or at least my own. I haven't explored that option/possibility yet, but hopefully someone pc savvy can work that out. Until then, I can't send anything to anyone because it rejects my domain.

So, I am angry beyond all belief. I have spent well over an hour in the computer lab trying to get my own laptop to connect to the internet, with no luck whatsoever. This is not the first attempt. I can only go to sites that end in .com.au on the computers here, so to do anything else I have to steal someone else's laptop, which doesn't usually go over too well. Thus, it's been forever and I haven't done anything up here. No pictures yet, sorry :-(

I am alive and well in Australia, however, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. The weather here is gorgeous! It's the middle of their winter, which means that on most days I could wear shorts (even though we don't because we are in the middle of a Muslim community) and jeans and a t-shirt during the day is fine, and at all other times it's jeans and a sweatshirt weather. With sandals. If not barefoot. The air is crisp and clean here, and it reminds me very much of the beginning of fall... Which means that I want to play soccer. A lot :-)

I haven't yet, but I'm hooked on Australian Rules Football for the time being, we saw our first game today. I've done a bunch of other cool stuff, with more cool stuff waiting to happen, so that's really cool.

That horribly written sentence to say that it is very late and I need to go to bed... Mostly so that Jeremiah can have his computer back and he can go to bed, and stop fighting with the blackjack on the computer.

I miss you all, I hope to have some pictures up and a real post actually giving some information about my time here soon!

Start-up

Hey all, this hopefully (internet availability permitting) where I keep some kind of record / photoblog of my goings on in Australia. I leave tomorrow afternoon, your prayers would be greatly appreciated as I travel! Not only for safety, but also that can learn and grow in the ways that God has for me over the next three months.

As I look at it now, I'm already going to struggle a lot with communication, so this will be an experiment with varied results. Thus, I will need your prayers to be able to discipline myself to communicate. And in any other way you feel led to pray for me. Really. Over the summer, I have learned that if I'm not grounded and backed up in prayer, things fall apart really quickly. I'd like to avoid that as much as possible!