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Thursday, 14 August 2008

Saturday, 03 May 2008

  • I know I should be excited, but I'm honestly just dreading tomorrow.  The thought of having to attend and participate in a four-hour-long meeting just makes me want to curl up and hide.  I think this feeling is especially profound right now because I'm just exhausted.  Getting out funding letters is one of the most stressful things ever.

    In fact, fundraising is one of the most stressful things ever.  I just re-read Laura's blog and I was SHOCKED at how busy we are this summer.  I mean, I knew it in my head, but seeing it written out like that was just shocking.  I don't know how I'm going to maintain my sanity.  I'm going to need lots and lots and lots of prayer.

    I really shouldn't be writing right now... I need to go to bed and wake up and clean.  I just felt the need to post because it's been over a week.  I'm trying to get into the habit of updating this regularly.

    P.S.  I really really really like my community group in Boston.  It's made being here 200% better.

Tuesday, 22 April 2008

  • It's really important for me to connect to God through beauty and art.  I've always wished I could create beauty, that I could draw, or play music, or make films, or just have some creative output.  But since God chose not to bless me in those areas, I've had to make myself content with enjoying the beauty and art created by others.  Which isn't really a bad thing, I'm just saying...

    Anyways, I just watched Vertigo on the big screen this evening, and it really connected me to Christ.  I feel like most good movies do that in a deep, significant way, and that definitely happened tonight.  It was a perfect way to enjoy my sabbath.  I'm so glad Laura and I joined the Coolidge theater; it's been such a treat and so good for my soul.

    And speaking of my soul, I feel like it's starting to emerge from the depths.  I'm realizing that I need to take a lot more initiative in caring for my soul.  Xaris's comment on my previous post got me thinking... I think I really got used to having people care for me and push me to grow while still nurturing me.  Now that I'm out of college, there's no one there to do that for me anymore (well, arguably Laura, but I think that's debatable for a number of reasons).  I think I expected that working for The Navigators would be the same experience as being a student in The Navigators, but that's really not the case.  And that's not necessarily a bad or good thing, it just is what it is.  Like Xaris said, I think I need to just take a lot more initiative in creating the environment that I was once a part of. 

    I think the only complicating factor is that my job requires me to do this for the students here at BU, so at the end of the day I don't want to, in essence, keep working in creating this community for myself.  Because that's what it can feel like... work.  It's kind of the same reason that quiet times and reading books and Bible studies just don't seem to be as refreshing for me as they used to.  It's because those things are my job now. 

    But even if I had a normal job, I suspect I'd feel the same way.  I'd still not feel like working on my own relationships because I'd be so tired by the end of the day.  There's just no easy answer, no way around it.  I think I just need to get off my ass and do something about it and stop making excuses.

    So that's where I'm at.  Come September I'm definitely going to make a more concerted effort to care for my own spiritual walk, whatever that takes.  My students are important, but if I'm not healthy then I'm just useless.  Maybe I'll really try to live out Psalm (reference currently eludes me) which says, basically, that my first goal in life should be to know and love the Lord.  That's what ultimately matters.

Thursday, 17 April 2008

  • Today has been a nice big self-awareness day for me.  One of those days that kinda sucks at the time but is really rewarding once it's over.  I spent most of today just wandering around Boston, alternating between praying and reading and thinking about other things.  It wasn't rejuvenating at all... in many ways I felt more exhausted once it was over.  But it was good.  I had some time to think about what's going on inside my heart, which I rarely find the time to do anymore.

    Something I spent a lot of time thinking about was the gospel and the ways I'm demonstrating this to the students here.  I feel like I've been spending a lot of time getting students to trust me, and I've been feeling more and more like I need to make a transition to speaking truth (in love, of course).  Now anyone who knows me knows that speaking truth is so not my forte, but I kept thinking that it's a change that needs to happen for me.  Whether I like it or not, God has entrusted some of His work at BU to me, and while of course it's only God that can do anything, I'm still expected to obey, trust, act in reaction to Him.  Have I really been doing that?  Have I been speaking truth to these students?  Or have I devolved into that person that ultimately cares only what others think about him.  I don't think I totally have, but I still feel those pangs sometimes, and sometimes I give into them.  I so do not want to be that person.  I want to care only what God thinks about me, and since I know what that is I want to be bold.  I want the students I'm working with here to leave BU that much closer to Jesus, and if that means that I'm expected to speak truth then that's what I want to do. 

    And for me, speaking truth does not mean turning into a Navigators sound byte factory.  The Navigators is a great organization, but that is not what should define me.  I'm allowed to have my own convictions as long as I'm acting on them.  I want to challenge and push students to grow, to think about the gospel, REALLY think about it and consider how it applies to every single aspect of their lives.  I want students to remember why it is that they are Christians.  Hell, I want to remember why I'm a Christian.  I want to live in a constant state of awe and wonder and passion.  I want the gospel to transform my life. 

    And that made me think.  In so many ways I'm not pursuing transformation of my life.  I feel like I've heard so many times over the past few weeks that ministry needs to come from an overflow.  That my spiritual growth is essential.  I don't think I really believe that, or at least not enough to live my life that way.  I mean yeah, I'm pursuing it in ways that I think others would approve of, but am I really growing?  Or am I just pretending?  Is the gospel really transforming me, or am I faking it so that I feel like I'm doing ministry the right way?  Am I deluding myself?  Am I stagnant? 

    I just don't feel like I'm in love with Jesus right now.  I feel like I'm learning a lot about Him, but I'm not learning Him.  And as a result I feel like my work with the students is not nearly as significant as it could be.  I just want to recapture that love I had for Jesus.  I want to be excited about sharing what He's doing in my life.  I want Him to actually be doing things in my life.  I don't want my times of personal transformation to have happened years ago, I want them to have happened days ago.  I want them to be happening now.

    I just want to do what He's called me to do.  I want to know how.

Monday, 14 April 2008

  • I know it's been about eight months since I last updated, but I'm in a particularly bloggy mood, so here goes.

    I'm feeling pretty homesick right now.  Homesick for New York.  And I totally realize that this is a "grass is always greener" type of situation, but it really doesn't minimize how I feel right now.  This all got triggered by my listening to "Boston" by Augustana.  I really like the song, but once I started actually listening to the lyrics I got all melancholic.  Have you ever actually listened to the lyrics?  It's all about this girl who is so overwhelmed by all her problems and by no one caring about it or understanding her, so she just wants to go to Boston where no one will know her and she can start all over.

    I totally understand that sentiment... I felt it many times in high school and in college.  It's the whole really wanting to be known but too afraid to be known opposition.  It can be paralyzing, and a lot of times the easiest solution is to just run, promising yourself that next time it will be different.  But it never is.  Things never change.  I'm convinced that I'm always going to be in this struggle of wanting to be known desperately and wanting to run whenever someone gets too close.  I'm understanding more and more why marriage exists now.  If we didn't make a vow, there'd be no obvious reason to stick around with the same person for decades.

    Anyways, I'm getting off-track.  I think the song made me sad because I don't relate to it anymore.  Like I said, I get the idea and why you'd want to do that, but it really just isn't true.  I have to admit, it sucks being in Boston where no one knows my name.  I mean I'm trying to make friends, but it really just isn't the same.  I feel like I had something special in New York, and I guess I'm just sad that that will probably never happen again.  I won't live in a community where everyone knows me on a much deeper level, where I can talk openly about things I'm struggling with, where I can whole-heartedly rejoice with others about the awesome things God does in our lives because we really know why said things are important to us.  I mean honestly, I know everyone is happy that Laura and I are getting married, but I really think the only people who are going to truly understand and celebrate what a momentous event this is for both Laura and I are the people who have been there for all the crap that we had to go through to get here, who have sat with us at the lowest points of our lives, and who have seen God lift us up out of all the crap and make us into something new and beautiful.  Everyone there will be happy, but I think our NYU friends will feel a profound sense of joy, of awe, of beauty, of hope.  They'll be witnessing that God really can redeem filth and turn it into something beautiful.

    So here I am again, wanting to be known and yet afraid of opening up.  It's like I've forgotten how to make friends.  How did I do it at NYU?

    Well, I'm off to the Coolidge Corner to get quarters and watch Persepolis.  Yay for sabbath!