Dear Hopes and Dreams

Dear Hopes and Dreams,

I'm going to need you to be more realistic. I mean, I know we're going to Europe and that's awesome and a great triumph for us, but you have to realize that Europe is the exception to the rule of our life. It worked out through our efforts but it could have just as easily failed and you, friends, would have been crushed.

And I know that you have been crushed by people this year. Be honest- we know that all three of us look better on paper than we do in real life, and we know that our brain lies to us about what we're capable of. It lies about a lot of things, like what people are probably thinking and how we come into that. We've got to take it in stride, though. People are always going to disappoint, to do less than you hoped they would, to forget about their commitments and forget about me and you. They're not going to trust me like you wish they would and honestly, they're not going to love me the way you want them to. You just gotta let these things go, you know, bounce off those malleable outer layers that you cover yourselves with. I know you're good and I know you're only trying to help but Hope and Dreams, you can't just crash after one disappointment.

Listen, I know what the idea you nursed all fall meant to you. I didn't realize how deeply invested you were in those looks and hints, though. But you have to admit that you build guys up. You always do. One day, a guy is going to make it obvious, you know, and you won't have to guess. You'll be able to entrust yourselves to him and he'll keep you safe because he'll realize how important you are to me. Set your sights on the future because, as much as you want to hold onto guys that you already know, I'm not holding my breath for any of them to step up.

I know you're not going to listen to me and I know that I encourage you to ignore me, but if you're going to hope for something ridiculous, make it something epically cool like me becoming an astronaut as opposed to something pathetically lame. You gotta let me sleep, friends. You can't wake me up with this mess anymore. Dreams, I'm looking at you now.

I don't want to discourage the two of you, Hopes and Dreams. We've accomplished quite a few impressive things with some grace and some determination and I'm glad you've been around. You look at this world and you argue against Despairs and Fears and I have to thank you for that. You've always bee around, keeping me company. I trust that one day, we're not going to be alone. So live and breathe and stay by my side, friends.

Just... don't keep me up all night crying over a boy I never knew, OK?

Love,
Addie Jo

John, Jesus and Micah

John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”  And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.

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He proposed another parable to them.
"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?' He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' His slaves said to him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' He replied, 'No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest, then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, "First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning, but gather the wheat unto my barn.'"

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He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
   And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
   and to walk humbly with your God.

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I have acquired a love for the prophets in recent years.Recently, they've seemed like the only things I want to hear. I want to hear someone proclaim that everything's going to be made right in the day of the Lord and that one day, all people will walk together in peace. I want to hear that the wrongs in the world will be fixed. Basically, I want a voice calling out, saying that it's going to be OK, because God is working for good in the world. I want that promise. I want it so bad. I'm afraid to put my trust back in God without it.

I think that's why I get so frustrated. I don't have to look very far for something that I see as wrong. I don't have to go global to see pain. It's always around me, something I can't fix, some unresolved problem that eats away at me as it works against a friend or a loved one. Every one of these pains, these problems, puts another brick in the wall between me and God. Why don't You step in here? Why aren't You working here? Where's the miracle, God? Where's the answer? Where are You? Why aren't You here with me, with them, making this better now? Or have You gotten out of the caring business? They stack up higher and higher.

And I hate this wall because I love God. Now, I don't think I really realized this until just recently, but I honestly do. I've loved the church too well to leave it, but I don't think I've ever stopped and thought about God. I like loving God. I like being a person that loves God. I like getting up and going to church on a Sunday morning and I like praying before meals and I like staring up at my ceiling talking until I fall asleep. I like singing hymns and meaning what I say. I like looking boldly up at the sky and I hate the attention I give the bricks beneath my feet. I love God, I love loving God through music and I love the world God has given me to see Him through.

It's just... how do you love someone you don't agree with at all? I think that God should be in the business of making things right and making them right now. I just don't understand how He can even appear to sit back and watch the world go by. I want Him to be just and righteous and I want Him to make the world just and righteous. I want Him to build up a kingdom. I want Him to make it better, to stop the pain and bring everything back to what it should be. I want the time to come when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling. And I want God to make that happen in some big, powerful way.

But no, that's not what He says. In Luke, John stands there calling, saying that Jesus has His winnowing fork in His hand, to burn those who aren't righteous. John's been waiting for the same things- redemption for the poor, a making right of things- and he thinks that Jesus is the one to bring it. But Jesus doesn't do what John expects. In a parable in Matthew, He says to leave the weeds in with the wheat so that the wheat isn't cut down with the weeds. The harvest is yet to come. Yes, everything will be separated out later, but for now, let them grow. Let them live.

I don't want that. I want action now. I want the Son of Man come back to Earth to fix all the problems with heavenly armies. I want the wicked cut down. I want change and I want it now. But no, God says. My kingdom will not be built like that. My kingdom will be built with love and kindness, with humble grace and mercy. It will be built slowly, but this is the way it must be if it's going to be built right. Take your peace for a season and know that I am working, though you may not see it. I am working and just as I placed each star in the depths of space, so I will place a seed in each heart and those seeds will grow a better world. Help Me tend them. Tend My garden, love My people and understand why I work in this way. And then work with Me.

Work with Me.

Play by Play of my Score of the Day

With a little help from this blog post (yeah for former physics majors and their blogs!) I have discovered the beauty of self-encouragement through winning. On Tuesday, I had a massive paper (don't judge, people who write papers on a regular basis- I am a science major) due and so I had to encourage myself. My outlet for this was my Facebook status and so, in an entirely self-centered blog post that will hopefully be vaguely entertaining, I will give the play by play of my score of the day. Enjoy!

Score update- Sleep: 7, Paper: 7, Class: -1, Addie Jo: -15. ARG!
After attending an exciting basketball game and working a few hours on the paper, I decided on a 4 AM nap that lasted, unfortunately, until 11, causing me to miss my first class of the day. So, with 7 hours of sleep (which in any other situation would have been a positive), 7 pages at least lacking in my paper and 1 class missed, I was pretty much at a loss. 

And at half time, the score is: Mini-paper due today: 3, recovered keys: 15, INTERVIEW HAPPY DANCE!!!!!: 4, mailed letter and turned in forms: 5, Paper: 7 with promise, Addie Jo: 6.
At noon, I had completed my 3 page classroom management plan for my education class (I'm going to have a lot of pictures of stars, encourage questions and have many physics books and fun demos to play with), gone to the music department office and recovered my keys (of which there are 15, not counting the awesome keyrings I have) which had been locked in Hill Hall over Thanksgiving break in a story that is considerably less epic than the story of the lost key. Luckily, housekeeping found them and the world was better. Also, my former college roommate and I have awesome plans to go to Europe next summer through a travel scholarship. I had gotten the email saying that I had an interview, but she had not. I spent most of Thanksgiving being vaguely saddened by this (and my paper) but then she was informed via late email that she, too, had an interview. This prompted exactly 4 uncontrollable happy dances on my part. I turned in 4 pages worth of forms for student teaching and mailed 1 letter, feeling like the good adult-in-training that I am, and though I hadn't finished another whole page of my paper, I had started on a good run, hopefully to finish the paper. All in all, considering my last score, it was a great leap in my attempt to win over the course of the day.

Pre-symphony band update: Blog posts: 5, Citation websites: 3, Bible study: -9, Phone charger:1, outlets that I can plug my charger into: -2, Paper: 9, Addie Jo: -15.
I sat in the student union for a couple of hours writing my paper. I ran up against some writer's block and decided to take a break and read some more of this awesome blog. I got five posts under my belt in full-on procrastination mode. I then attempted to figure out the Chicago-style of citations at the request of my professor (also, how in the world are you supposed to cite Native American church websites and podcasts of their services? I don't know either) and 3 confusing websites later, I was still pretty much at a loss. I also skipped Bible study in my paper-writing roll (pre-procrastination) and I felt pretty terrible about letting down the 9 other girls in my group. My phone was on its last legs battery-wise, so I, being the brilliant and wonderful person I am, brought my charger with me to campus. The 2 outlets near where I was sitting, however, were cut into tiny crevices and they didn't permit my admittedly bulky phone charger to be plugged in. After a writing roll, my paper held steady at 9 pages, only putting me 3 under the required minimum (12-15 pages) which was looking like the goal at this point. So, after quite a roller coaster time, I was back at this morning's score.

At the start of my education class: Mini-paper: 1.5, Symphony band: -2.5, french horn mouthpiece: -1, sisters and friends: 4, awesome french horn playing: 6, Paper: 10, Addie Jo: -11.
Symphony band was a party on Monday. Most of the party comes from the fact that I am one of two french horn players and I'm used to sitting happily on 4th chair without very much effort needing to be exerted on my part. You can only be the root of the chord for offbeats so many times before you just give up caring. Now, though, it's almost like being first chair again, except the music is harder and everyone else is so much better than me. I printed off my classroom management plan, which was 1.5 printed pages (yeah saving trees by printing back and front!). I got to symphony band 2.5 minutes late because I forgot my mouthpiece at my apartment and had to borrow a friend's (Official news: Caresse Bridge is the most awesome person ever, the end). Over the course of the day, 4 of my awesome sisters had helped me through things, such as forgotten mouthpieces and stressful rehearsals. I also played french horn much better on Caresse's mouthpiece and felt like I sounded pretty awesome, which is saying something because I normally feel like I sound like a dying water buffalo. I also wrote up about another page during rehearsal (the woodwinds needed a lot of work, apparently), so all in all, a net gain of 4 for the hour of symphony band.

And heading into the late stages of the game with a study session at Caribou, the score: Education Class: 1, Paper: 12, Large Mocha: 4, Addie Jo: -7.
My education class got out an hour early, holla praise, and I headed over to Caribou to hopefully type out the end of the paper and have celebratory friend times with my former college roommate. Another couple of pages had been written during my education class (my eyes start to glaze over whenever the current student teachers start talking about their students. WARNING: Your eyes will start to glaze over next semester because I will be doing the exact same thing all the time. I will also be less social. I will also blog probs less than I already do. You have been warned, dear readers), putting me at the limit, but not done with my ideas, so a -1 in the convoluted point system I made up myself. I'm practicing for my career as an ACC ref. I purchased a large mocha for the low low price of 4 dollars, and considered myself as having stepped up in the world, another net gain of 4.

 In the home stretch: Coffee Spill Napkins: 5, Happy Dances: 3, Christine: 21, Avett Brothers Songs: 4, Paper: 12, Addie Jo: 16. Yeah!
As I sat in crowded Caribou, I had the beautiful grace to knock my large mocha onto my computer. I sprung into action, grabbing a handful of napkins and saving my page up and down buttons and mopping up my battery. Fingers crosses, the computer is still kicking. 5 napkins later and the only problem with my computer is that is smells vaguely of chocolate, which is not really a problem at all. My former college roommate arrived and we celebrated multiple times about our interviews, resulting in at least 3 more happy dances on my part and 20 smiles on Christine's part (21 by the time I had updated my status). As we sat and worked on things, Caribou started playing Emotionalism by the Avett Brothers, prompting a change in my About Me on Facebook. I felt bad, because this was the first time there wasn't a Bible verse (read: Jesus quote) in my About Me. Former College Roommate insisted it was OK. Jesus understands- He gave us the Avett Brothers. True story, Former College Rommate, true story. 4 Avett Brothers songs always make my life happier. The paper was stagnant at 12, but having reached the minimum, I was no longer freaking out. Good times, good times.

Final Score: Books: 10, Websites: 8, Footnotes: 78, Notebooks: 2, Cups of Coffee: 9, Pages: 14, Addie Jo: 125. VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the late hours of the morning, I finished my paper. I had used 10 books in my research, cited 8 websites, created 78 footnotes for my citations, written many pages in 2 separate notebooks, drunk 9 (large) cups of coffee, and ended with 14 pages. The sum total of this (each footnote definitely counts as a point, those suckers were pains in the kneecaps), I ended up with a higher score than any Carolina game, including the 2008-2009 season, which I am desperately missing. Good college basketball, where have you gone? At the same time, I felt a major sense of accomplishment and went to sleep for a few hours before heading to class intending to present my term paper, the work of beauty that is was.

 Editorial note: My professor began class on Tuesday by saying, "So I think we all agreed that the papers would be handed in on Thursday..."

Anonymous Poem

It is only a tiny rosebud, a flower of God’s design;

But I cannot unfold the petals with these clumsy hands of mine.

The secret of unfolding flowers is not known to such as I,

God opens this flower so easily, but in my hands they die.

If I cannot unfold a rosebud, this flower of God’s design

Then how can I have the wisdom to unfold this life of mine?

So I’ll trust in God for leading each moment of my day.

I will look to God for guidance in each step of the way.

The path that lies before me, only my Lord knows.

I’ll trust God to unfold the moments, just as He unfolds the rose.

Awake My Soul

So I've had a rough week. The thing is, though, it never had to be this bad. All the things that have weighed my heart down this week have been unnecessary hurt feelings and hurtful comments. Let's face it: most of the things that we let stop us from the fellowship with one another and with our Maker are small in the course of a life, tiny in the course of history and absolutely minuscule in the course of the life of the universe. Or most of the things that bring me down are. We need to step out of this and sing the song of sincerity and universal peace. Oh, dear people, we need to be better.

And that has to start with my soul. There's a beautiful peace that comes with fall leaves and their bright colors in death. Chapel Hill is vibrant with fall and I need my heart, my soul, to wake up to that reality.

Mumford and Sons. Their whole album is great and I love listening to it. I'll leave you with their lyrics.

How fickle my heart
and how woozy my eyes
I struggle to find
any truth in your lies
And now my heart stumbles
on things I don't know
This weakness I feel
I must finally show

Lend me your hand
and we'll conquer them all
But lend me your heart
and I'll just let you fall
Lend me your eyes
I can change what you see
But your soul you must keep,
totally free
Har har, har har, har har, har har

In these bodies we will live,
in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love,
you invest your life
In these bodies we will live,
in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love,
you invest your life

Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker
Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker
You were made to meet your maker

Inspired by Laundry

I really like for my shirt drawer to be clean.

I realize that's a little odd. If you've seen my room, you might think it's very odd. With clothes strewn all over the floor, shoes piled up in a corner, my band jacket hanging on my telescope and piles of papers and books littering the rest of the available space, I might be forced to admit that out of all of this mess, a poorly arranged shirt drawer should be the least of my worries.

And it's not like anyone's going to see it. I mean, the last thing I do before I open my room up to the rest of the world is make sure that my shirt drawer is shut, so it really is just for me. I like seeing my t-shirts folded and arranged in neat piles in my drawer, half the space being taken up by blue shirts of the Carolina variety, stacked by the probability of my wearing them. It gives me some peace and control in my life to know that there's at least one thing the way it's supposed to be and you can usually tell how hectic my life's been by the state of that drawer.

My life's been overly hectic for too long. I just want to do everything, you know? I want to take a leadership role in every organization I can, I want to go to every event that I can cram onto my Google calendar, I want to spend time with every friend I encounter and I want to be better. I want to be that kid in class that the professor compliments, I want to not worry about my grades because I've got it all in my head and I never want to let anyone down again. I want to shine, but not just for myself. I want to be beautiful so badly.

You know, all it takes is a little bit of time. I just have to set aside some time and give my shirt drawer a little bit of loving and it'll be in order. I have to keep on spending time on it, though. Every time I rustle through it to find my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt or every time that I tear it apart looking for my SAI shirt that's sitting on my chair or the dress shirt that's hanging up in my closet, I have to sit back down and put it back together and that takes time. And I suppose if I did that once every day, then it'd stay neat, but then I'd feel like a robot. That's why I don't clean my room and make up my bed everyday. That's my excuse for not dragging my lazy bum out of bed every morning to have a devotion time with the Creator- because adding that extra bit of structure is taking away my humanity, atom by atom, converting me into a little tin Jesus machine that spouts Bible verses and quotes from commentaries but has never felt the absolute redeeming love of Christ and beautiful power of the Holy Spirit as it works through the mess that my life in this world is every day.

That's ridiculous, right? I mean, you shouldn't force God into action in your life by ignoring your discipleship. You shouldn't make Him bring out the everyday miracles just to remind you that He is working in powerful ways in this place of so much good and yet so much pain.

But I do. And that's my confession for today.

A Little Wisdom from the Avetts

A Gift for Melody Anne

I want to get back
I want to get square
I want to get back on the hopes
and dreams that I have
that the good Lord above us can spare

I just want my life to be true
just want my heart to be true
just want my words to be true
want my soul to feel brand new
I just want my words to be true
I want my soul to feel brand brand new
like a fresh coat of paint, we can make it anything but blue, anything but blue

Like that actor said
I don’t wanna lose heart
I don’t wanna get beat beat down
By the big big world
Or quit
Before I even start

Lord, I just want me life to be true
Yeah, and I just want me heart to be true
Yeah, and I just want my words to be true
I want my soul to feel brand new

I wanna hold hands
Yeah, and I wanna make love
And I wanna keep running all day
And all night even when my mind tells my body that’s enough

And I wanna stand up
Yeah, and I wanna stand tall
If I ever have a son, if I ever have a daughter
I don’t wanna tell ‘em that I didn’t give my all

And, I just want me life to be true
Yeah, and I just want me heart to be true
Yeah, and I just want my words to be true
I want my soul to feel brand brand new
Like a fresh coat of paint
We can make it anything but blue
Anything but blue

Now when your dreams start saying, I can’t come true
You’d be better off without me
Don’t let ‘em go
Don’t let ‘em go
I don’t wanna go broke
Not from one bad deal
I don’t wanna be up all night
Crying in my hands
For a girl that isn’t even real

Lord, I just want me life to be true
Yeah, and I just want me heart to be true
And, I just want my words to be true
Yeah, and I just want my song to be true
Yeah, and I just want my heart to be true
Yeah, and I just want my life to be true
Yeah, and I just want my words to be true
And, I just want my heart to be true
Yeah, and I just want my life to be true
And, I just want my song to be true
And, I just want my life to be true
I want my soul to feel brand new
I want my soul to feel brand new

-The Avett Brothers

But Then I Remember that I Know Better

You know who's aggravating? God. God, because He keeps on blessing everything I do, in spite of me. He keeps on doing these wonderful things through me and the people I'm around and it doesn't matter to Him that I'm a doubtful unfaithful collection of atoms and dust. He's going to accomplish His good work anyway. Here I am, jumping up and down or stomping my foot or crossing my arms saying, "I'm mad at You," and He just shrugs and tells me that His kingdom is not going to wait on me.

I guess it's so aggravating because it reminds me of the tiny pebble person I am in the wake of God's unstoppable force. And I don't choose to be better. Sometimes I think that the human heart is an immovable object.

Churches

One of my favorite buildings (up there with the Smith Center and the planetarium) is the old sanctuary from my church back home. It's not around anymore, not since we tore it down to build the new sanctuary back when I was in elementary school or middle school, but I love it in my brain. I love the ugly green carpet and the dark wood paneling and I especially love the way the stained glass windows would light up the room on Wednesday afternoons when I was a kid in kid's choir crawling around on the pews. I loved the way I could sneak out of my pew at the end of the last hymn and run over to the nursery to provide what I saw as a vital service to my mother, to tell her the service was ending and to pack up the kids. I love the memory of feeling small in the choir loft, and being too short to look over the divider between the congregation and the choir loft. I loved standing in the very front of the chancel when I was in kindergarten to deliver my one line in the kid's choir musical: "I wouldn't miss it for the world!" I don't remember what I wouldn't have missed, but I'm pretty sure I was precious and adorable, so just smile and laugh at kindergarten me. I hear she was a good kid.

I also remember sitting in the pews and Ron teaching us the words to Handel's Messiah, the kid version, and I was convinced the angels were singing about Oreos in egg shells, day-o, and I was really confused as to why the angels got oreos and why they were in egg shells, but ours is not to question why. I mean, I also thought that the flying monkeys sang about Oreos. Or orioles. Anyway. Beyond all of that, I remember time and again being told to be kind to the pews because they were furniture in God's house. The church is God's house, the adults in charge of us would say. You wouldn't put your feet up on your sofa, so don't put your muddy, mulchy shoes up on the backs of the pews. This problem was, of course, handily solved by leaving your shoes somewhere else, but somehow, I don't think that made anyone any happier.

God's house. I think one of the problems with growing up in the same place with the same church is that I was convinced that God only had one house. If I'm being honest, if you asked me where God lives, He lives in the old sanctuary at St. Luke's. He's got a penchant for green carpet and wood paneling and he loves colors in the afternoons. He's also got other sections of His house he can go chill in, though I'm pretty sure He stays away from the office. I mean, if you were the deity, wouldn't you avoid paperwork at all costs? But He definitely stopped over in the children's building all the time, and in the fellowship hall. He also chills in the courtyard a ton, everyone needs some sun. All in all, if I was God, I wouldn't mind having my house there.

Old Testament Hebrews thought that God had a home, too. He lived in the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple, and it was quite a blow when the Temple was destroyed. Ezekiel talks about His glory leaving the Temple stage by stage, and then leaving Jerusalem so that the invading forces could come and break everything down. God has a home, He has a land, He has a building, and if He's gone, so is His grace and so is His protection. You can mess up and you can make God angry, and God's going to peace out of His house and then, my friends, it sucks to be you. Or so my Intro to the Hebrew Bible class taught me.

Now, of course I don't actually believe that God lives in one place. He doesn't have one house that He lives in. I mean, it's not like God needs a place for an afternoon nap or anything like that. He doesn't need a kitchen and He certainly doesn't need a TV with all the comedy that my life provides for Him. But, you know, I always put my feet down off the pews when someone reminded me that the sanctuary was God's. I love to be in sanctuaries by myself because God's there. And when you say that God's everywhere it takes away from the feel of the building. If God's everywhere, why do you need a church? And we have an awfully large number of churches.

I know that a church is more than a building, but what about these buildings? What about these huge houses we have laid out for God? Is it limiting? I mean, you can never build a ceiling high enough for Him. The Ark of the Covenant was God's footstool, for crying out loud. You can't hold him in a church. Do we just use them to gather? Maybe God can just peek in when He's interested in what's going on, one giant eye staring in through a window. Is it just for the music? Maybe we just intended these spaces to amplify the sounds of our songs, so that God will hear our worship and forget our acts.

I spent the last week staring at 324 churches, narrowing them down one by one to put them into a proposal to go to Europe next summer to study sacred space. Did you know that churches are patterned after the Jerusalem Temple? In the temple, you had an outer courtyard for the Jews visiting the temple, then an inner holy space where the priests could go and finally the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest could go once a year. (Point of reference- I always thought that janitors could go anywhere, or repairmen, or people like that and it made me laugh to think that a cleaning lady dusting could go into a place that even the High Priest couldn't. Oh, the things you don't understand when you're a kid.) We put our altar or our pulpit in the place of the ark in the Holy of Holies and we've torn down the curtain (though we still keep a mini-one, if we have a chancel rail) and especially in Protestant churches, anyone can go up to the altar- there's no inbetween space where only the priests can be. After that basic pattern, we added on columns when we mixed in basilicas and the temple and later we added the horizontal hall to make our churches shaped like a cross, and then afterwords, we threw out these designs to make our sanctuaries functional for the kinds of modern churches we wanted to have. But traditionally, liturgically, this is where we've come from.

Of course, it's all more complex than that, because it always is. You have to add in nuance, and I hoping (fingers crossed) that I'll get the funding to see the nuance first-hand. But you know, I never once looked at a cathedral and thought, "That, that has to be God's house. Just look at it! If I were God, that'd be my place." You know what I think, though? I think we have these buildings to remind us. To remind us of the beauty of God, of the grandeur of God, of the power of God, of the ancientness of God, of the practicality of God and of the diversity of God's designs. I think the buildings remind us. I think we bring God in with us. 

Or maybe God was always there, just waiting on us to notice. Did you ever notice?

Not Right Yet

I have to remember that I am still a work in progress.

I have to remember that I am not yet a perfect tool, finely tuned and worked for the task at hand.

I don't already know all the answers.

There is still work to be done.

I can't solve every situation right yet, try as I might.

The killer thing about Carolina is that we're so sure that we already know everything and we're already prepared to change the world, because the professors and the administration, they all think we can do it so we think we can do it and we don't remember that there's still work to be done on ourselves before we can work on others in the perfect way we envision.



But, God, we're going to be wonderful one day.

Application Humor

So I'm applying to go to Europe next summer and the application requires consideration of an applicant’s "sense of humor." Please read below my responses to the request to "Describe why you believe you have this characteristic."

I mean, have you seen my nose? Walk around with this sucker on your face and you have to have a sense of humor. 

I’m in the band. Have you seen what I have to wear for eight hours on game days?

I have this great joke involving the constellation of Pegasus and baseball.

Link to blog.

Do inside jokes count as humor?

I grew up in Caldwell County, in a town that was too cheap to pay for the extra side to the town square, so we had a town triangle. Apparently the county was broke too, because we lost the l and the d in our name.

I watch The Office.

Your mom?

That’s what she said. Last night. Ooooooh! (OK, that’s really what she said.)

How do you tie your shoes in space? With an astronaut!

So this guy is walking around his neighborhood and he notices this three legged pig.

Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead!

I have often been described as endearing. I take this to be a good thing, though people may have just been laughing at me. I laugh too! It helps ease the awkwardness.

Take My Feet

I like dusty feet.

I was going to say that I like dirty feet, but that's a little less poetic sounding. It's just as true, I guess. I love looking down at my feet and laughing at my surprise at their color. I love it when my feet are covered in dirt. I love summer, when you can spend your entire day barefoot out in the garden of this Creation and I love the feel of cool bricks in the fall. I mean, I appreciate shoes and I love the way my converses look with my dress pants, but nothing beats standing on grass and feeling the blades stick up between your toes.

I love tired feet, too. I hate the ache, but I love it when I have tired feet. It means that I've been doing something. Right now, I have these awkward blisters from standing all day at a football game (Dinkles, you may be the world's greatest marching shoes, but you have not saved my feet) and all of me aches, but it's an ache that says, "Hey, you accomplished something today. Wear me as a badge of pride and I'll be gone in the morning."

And it might just be this soul that I inherited, but I feel like tired, dirty feet at the end of the day are better than anything else. And sometimes I wonder if my heart got to aching like my feet, would I be more willing to work for  better world around me? Because I can watch the dirt of this world cover my heart and soul with a light dusting as I live and as I love, but I never feel that ache. I never go through the trouble of loving someone the entire day long, until I go to bed with that ache of an overused muscle to accompany my thoughts to sleep. I know I beg for God to create in me a clean heart, to wash the dust off me each day, but maybe I should be asking for a tired heart, a heart that's being used. A living heart. Maybe that's why they sing about hearts of stone.

I don't want to feel guilty, you know? I don't want someone to guilt me into being better, because it's not going to happen. I think I'm pretty awesome right now. I got my senior sticker, I have a job I love, I'm taking classes that are interesting, the football gods have been appeased and have decided to smile down on Chapel Hill and send those pirates and tigers (and bears oh my) back home a little sadder than when they came, the weather has been gorgeous and I've gotten enough sleep. On top of that, my birthday was beautiful (I'm convinced that God allowed Facebook to be invented so that on our birthdays we could all have a mini-reminder of the people who love us), my grandparents and parents came up for the weekend and I had a great show on Friday with awesome friends who came to listen to my Pegasus-baseball joke and a great game on Saturday and an awesome observing session tonight, and this is the second beautiful weekend in a row like this. I got tickets to a talk I wanted to go see, my Europe application is coming together. Life is good. And I feel like I'm getting what I deserve. I'm like Aladdin floating down on the magic carpet. Things are finally starting to turn out right.

So I don't want someone telling me that I can be better. I know that I can, but I don't feel like I need to be. I can only think of one thing that's missing and I am honestly content to just wait and see how life surprises me on the romance front (oh, dear blog readers, I have a story, but I shall have to sneak it in later because if I talk about it, it won't happen). But through all these beautiful things, I have this nagging feeling that my feet aren't tired enough.

I want to make life beautiful for someone else, preferably many someone elses. Now I just need this desire to be strong enough to make me do something about it.

The Church at Auvers

Listen, I know you can't help everyone. But it's kinda driving me crazy that you can't. High school boyfriends? It'll all work out in the end. Grad school applications? You know, God will guide you to the right place, you just gotta trust. Money? The money is always there, and if it's not, you know, God is good, all the time. It'll work out. I promise.

But there are some things I can't promise. I don't know if your family member is going to get better and I know it's hard and I know I can't help. I am, in fact, entirely unencouraging because my former college roommate is going to buy me ice cream if I have cancer, so there's only an upside to that. I don't know how to be an upside for you. I can't make your aunt listen to you and understand you. I can't bring someone beautiful into your life to help you through everything you need right now. I can't pick you up off the street, train you for a job and get you a job and a house. I can't bring anyone back. I can't help. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

And not that everything in my life is a reference to something else, but I was watching Doctor Who and the Doctor had to leave someone and go on and be the Doctor somewhere else and the man said something like, "We've fought monsters together and we've won. I'm not sure I'll do so well on my own." I'm watching the Doctor's face and I think I understand it because your heart breaks, you know, you just want to take them all and protect them all forever and you can't. You can't always be there and you can't fix everything. How do you leave someone when you know you can't help? When you know what they're headed towards? You can't fix everything.

But give me a time machine and a sonic screwdriver and I'll sure as hell try.

Of Statuses and Zombies

Facebook statuses can be really inspiring.

No lie. Some people put the best bible verses up there in wonderful translations, or they put crazy encouraging song lyrics up, or occasionally just life testimonies that are powerful, even in their simplicity. If you don't have some Christian friends on Facebook, go and grab a couple and friend them just for the happiness they will randomly pour into your day.

Especially Wednesdays, apparently. I just scrolled down and counted about five status updates that were God/Jesus related. Also, got wind of a sweet Augustine quote today- when you sing, you pray twice, or some variation around there. Regardless of the actual intent, I like the idea as it comes from that little excerpt and the snooty snob in my head who hates things when taken out of context can get over herself. But yeah, cheerfulness and faithful hearts abound on my newsfeed right now and I love that about my life.

At the same time, I look at my status updates and they're not anything like that. Why am I not so uplifting and encouraging? I took a screen shot of my newsfeed, which included my status, just to get a sense of the discouraging face-palm that is my status. Here you kids are talking about God making a temple out of this land, or about the way He leads you through valley or the joy you're experiencing and I'm complaining, again, about the love of my life. He's a pretty common theme in statuses and would probably be the biggest thing in a wordle of my life. And you know, I don't think it's a bad thing to think about the people you care about, even if you care about them more than you're supposed to. I just think that somewhere along the way, God should be glorified in something that I do. Why not take the easy route? A status can even be copied and pasted. Ten seconds to bring a little bit of happiness into the world instead of a little bit of sadness.

And I can't do it. Selfish little soul of discontent and quiet sadness, I can't take the least little bit of time to share some goodness with the people around me. No one cares about my loml. My loml doesn't even care that he's my loml. You know the best thing about Zombieland? No Facebook status updates. Yes, I think in a zombie apocalypse, the best thing about it would be that my protests against the world's oppression of hopeless romantics and silly girls with flowers would be over.

But the bright side of all of this is that I don't have to wait for a virus to mutate and spread throughout the world making us all into brain-craving drooling cannibals (though it probably wouldn't work out anyway) to stop my status from being a burden. I can choose to be better now. And you know, I don't think I can come out of the negativity rut by myself- none of us are in a vacuum- but I think that I don't have to live in the rut.

Did you know that 80% of the thoughts you think are negative? Don't do that to yourself, friend! Carve out a new path for your thoughts and sing a new song. Best lesson I ever learned from my former college roommate? That no one is ever too good for someone else- we all have worth just because we're human beings. Don't you dare think of yourself as anything less. You're worth something, dammit.

Now go live like it.

The Unlikely Disciple

The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose. If you have the funds and the time, I recommend it. And really, it doesn't take that much time to read- I just swallowed it whole for my evangelicalism class in a total of maybe 5 hours. It's about a student from Brown University who transfers to Liberty University for his second semester freshman year in 2007. He was raised by non-religious Quaker parents, so definitely in the non-evangelical camp, but decided to spend a semester at Liberty to debunk some stereotypes, stuff like that.

It's been really interesting to read a book like this and to place it in the context of my class (The Evangelical Tradition: America and Beyond) and then to put my class into the context of my life. I never realized how weird it is to hear a professor talk about Jesus. Separation of church and state is so ingrained in me, I guess, that I almost flinched the first time my professor said Christ in class, like it was blasphemy or something. At the same time, it was super weird to read this book and see the two halves of myself staring back at me. Roose writes about all the good little Christian girls that go to Liberty and the prayer groups and the Bible studies and things like that and he also writes about the doubters and the rebels and his own struggles with loving the saint and hating the religion.

I never really took the time to reconcile the kid who could be a counselor at a Christian camp and the kid who can go to college and analytically study the Bible. I mean, they're not irreconcilable, it's not like I'm going to live in two halves the rest of my life, but it does take some thinking to take the devotion of the first, the prayer and the bible study and the wholeness and add it to the reason and skepticism of the second. Not that you're unreasonable if you're an evangelical. Ugh. See what I mean?

Anyway, one point I really wanted to take away from the book was Roose's comments on Jerry Falwell, who founded Liberty and was the chancellor until his death. The first impression I ever had of Jerry Falwell is one that Roose references many times (because everyone does)- he's the guy who made the 9/11 comments, saying it was God's punishment on America because of abortionists and gays. Not exactly what you want representing your faith. But, as Roose says,
"Over the course of the semester, as my thought about faith and people of faith became more nuanced, so did my opinion of Dr. Falwell. I could appreciate his love for his flock in large part because I had learned to love them myself. And at the beginning of the semester, when all I saw in Dr. Falwell was hatred, I may have been saying more about my own heart than his."

I think the last line is really important. It struck me. I'd put it in italics, but I think they're cheesy.

No matter which side of the aisle you're on in the Christian faith, I think you have a lot to learn from the Bible, either by reading its spirit or reading it in the Spirit. We need to work on mending the Church. I've never heard this passage applied to that kind of work, but I like it, for this and for general life application, so I leave you with Ecclesiastes 3: 9-14:

 What does the worker gain from his toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on men.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

‎"Learn from every single being, experience, and moment. What joy it is to search for lessons and goodness and enthusiasm in others." -Eve Carson

Overflow of the Heart

I'm all about choices. I'm also all about late night heart to hearts with good friends who are headed far away from me whom I will miss quite a bit.God inspires you in the most unexpected times, even after you've been disappointed. Friends, He is there for you. I don't care if you don't care about Him, the Man is working, and it's going to be beautiful.

Choose to be better. I know you've got problems, you've got commitments, you've got things going on. Choose to be better through them. Choose to be the best person you can be. Choose to be devoted. Choose to do the work. Choose to wake up. Choose to be more. Make the choice to change something instead of complaining about it. Do something. Be something. Choose to be more.

Don't just say it. Friends, words don't do much. Do things. Do unexpected things. Do wonderful things. Don't be afraid, because you have been promised. It has been promised that you can do all things. Nothing is going to get done until you choose to do it. So choose. Do.

Let the Spirit work in you, my friends. Be encouraged. Be lifted up. Be pushed forward. Choose to be more and choose to let Life fill you. Choose to stand up. Choose to be full. Choose to be more. Don't let anything pull you down.

Because you can. I have faith in you. You. Can.

Make the choice.

A Summer of Ambiguity

Just like Voldemort learned when he had his body back that life is messy and complicated and that killing people doesn't make them like you, it just makes them dead, I learned some things this summer. This being the second year of the blog, I figured it's time to start some traditions. A Summer Well... Spent meet A Summer of Ambiguity. But I can't make you a nice list because this summer wasn't like that. And this post might be helpful to no one but me. To address that possibility, please scroll down to the last comment and pray for me, that I may be a more faithful disciple who doesn't need an entire summer to learn to love again.

If there's one thing that I've learned, it's that I like to define my life and that my life likes to defy definition. What would I want to call this summer? "The half-summer", where I spent some time being me at home and some time being me at college? "The summer of continuations", where I let go of nothing and simply held on tightly to all the wonderful things that have passed my way? "The summer where I took that online class, when I went to Tennessee and took two trips to Boone, when I stayed half at home and half in Chapel Hill and got to see kids from the camp I used to work at"? Yeah, that'll fly. That's a great definition. But that's not what the summer is, it's just the events that make it up. "The summer when I watched the all the episodes of The Office and bought a subatomic physics book thinking that I'd actually excel at a physics class for once. Hahahahah. Hahah. Hah."

Maybe "The summer when I learned how to depend on people." I stayed with a wonderful roommate when I came back to Chapel Hill, a sister of mine who waited patiently on the rent and woke up in the middle of the night for a panicked text and let me play Zelda all the time. The apartment was in Glen Lennox which is far enough from campus to depend on a bus or on rides from other people. It's weird how it gets easier and easier to ask people for things even though you know you can't repay them. It's frustrating how easy it is to take money even when I don't need it to get by, just to allow me to have the same level of luxury that I've had in the past. Yeah, things would have been tight this summer, but they should have been tighter. I should have been better. I've been depending on people's kindness for rides places, for shower curtains and white shoes, for mouthpieces and shorts and shirts and all those random little things that you don't even know that you forgot. I need to be more responsible, but at the same time, I am uniquely blessed by wonderful friends who gave me the opportunity to learn these lessons without ever seriously endangering myself.

Or maybe "The summer when I learned about home." I learned a little bit about where I'm coming from this summer. I love my bed at home, have I ever mentioned that? I talk about it a lot. It's my substitute lover- I always look forward to sleeping with it. I love my room with the glow in the dark stars that me and my brothers put up back when it was their room. I love love love having my own bathroom and my own space and I love my horribly out of tune piano that I got from my church and the dresser and vanity that I got from my relatives in Pennsylvania and I love how my room really seems like it would be my room. I love my creaky old house (I'm going to sound like the "I like my whole house!" girl for a little bit) and I love my yard and I love my family and I love my church and I secretly love how it sounds like that place I'm from and not the place where I am. And I love Camp Joy. But you all knew that. I also had to a community profile project for my education class and so I drove around and took pictures of places around the area and learned that Hildebran connects to Connely Springs and I did not know many of these things beforehand. I also found these awesome abandoned houses out in the middle of nowhere. One day, when I'm a photographer/writer and still living in my parents' attic since the basement is taken, I'm going to go back and take pictures and make book out of them:

These kinda don't have much to do with back home, but sometimes when I think about my life, I think about these old dead houses. At first, I was really angry when I saw them, thinking, "Who let people let their houses fall into disrepair like this? Who didn't value the beauty they'd been given to leave the paint to bleach and chip away and the land to care for itself? Why are these houses here?" Then I started to imagine the things you could do in houses like this- there's maybe ten or twelve abandoned houses in the middle of nowhere by a body of water. You could go fishing or play an epic game of hide-and-go-seek or sardines or tell ghost stories in the dark houses at night before running outside to take solace and comfort in the stories of the stars above. In short, it could be wonderful, if you were in the mind to let it be. And then I thought of what these houses might be like restored and I wondered who was at work here and if they were serious about the signs they left up. Then again, it was Burke county, so they were probably waiting for me and my green minivan to pull away quickly and so I remembered that no matter what something can be, you can't separate it from what it is now. And I don't like stories about falling, I like stories about redemption, about how people are a work in progress. And so I think I stared at these dead houses with a fascination that one can only have when looking at oneself and I drove away because I couldn't see anyone working.

Maybe it's "The summer when I learned things about myself." I learned which things mean something to me and the things that mean something to you are indicators of who you are.I also learned what's on the periphery of my life. I love random sci-fi shows. I watched all of Firefly and then Serenity (WASH!) and then I watched all of the revived series of Doctor Who and some of the older ones and I learned that these things are not vital to me. I love them, but I can live without them. I visited camp and I worked at a camp and I went on tour and I like reprisal roles. I like doing things again, I like being familiar, I like having that power of knowledge that makes me in some ways better than you and in some ways not. I like having keys, but I like doors that are open better.I like ice cream. I hate scooping ice cream. I love to talk, but silence was wonderful for me. The longest conversation I had with God was on the rock face side of a mountain, interrupted by a woman trying to steal my flip flops and a kid walking more boldly toward the edge than I ever will. The conversation ended abruptly with worry over a friend's ankle but I was kinda okay with that. I must be the only person to climb a mountain and feel like a giant.

Give me the stars and I don't feel small. I know I am, but I don't feel it. I watch my shadow stretch down the grey of the mountain and my soul shrinks in shame because my pride swells as the area of land that I block from the light grows. I didn't read any this summer and I learned that I am a snob when it comes to the difference between movies and TV and books. I feel much less accomplished than last summer. I'm sure no one else is inwardly squirming when they say that they had a good summer. I just don't want to look at myself after this summer. And that's something to know about yourself as well.

Listen, it's all tied up in a mess, you know? I am inextricably connected to people who I may never see again in a web that's just as complicated as convoluted group of connections that makes up my daily acquaintance. And I'm never going to look at the sky and just see lights ever again, because there's so much up there that people have seen and then beyond that, there are just things that we can't see, that we have to tell machines to look at for us because these things had to be revealed to us in time and I can't decide if this was all good, but it must be. I might not be able to tell you how I have such faith that despite everything, there is still good and so much good, but I imagine that it's the same way that Toulouse knows about love.

I think you can learn from everything. I leave you with an extended football analogy (spoilers), because summer ends, as it always does, with fall. Sometimes you spend months being excited about something only to find out that it's not as great as you thought it would be. Maybe someone ruined it for you. Maybe things continued to get worse, until something like this is really the only thing that can make you laugh about the whole situation (dear goodness, and it was made by a State fan, so you know my soul has to be dead for me to be able to share that). Still, through all of this insanity and all of this doubt, you still stick with it, because, hey, it's Carolina. You are not proud of what's happened, you wish that someone would have told these people what was expected of them when they agreed to wear that blue jersey, but what else can you do? You hop on a bus to Atlanta knowing that you're missing ten starters, fully aware that you're probably shucky-darn out of luck. No, you probably don't deserve a miracle. You expect less and less from the team as the day goes on. At the end of the first half, you want to pull out your hair and the one sane part of you wonders what football demon has possessed you because you probably scared your freshmen out of their minds. But really, 3 touchdowns in 6 minutes? I don't care if the entire defense had to stay in Chapel Hill, you must have played football at least once in your life, you ridiculous... And so you shut down for the third quarter, because if you can't say something nice, you better stop yourself from screeching obscenities.

And then, after a scoreless quarter, there is a beautiful score. You hold your breath, because light is peaking through again. Oh, by the name of everything that is beautiful, they score again. And by some kind smile from above, they get the ball back and it's close enough and you don't dare breathe because then they might not pull it out. Part of me wants to leave you there, on the six yard line with less than ten seconds on the clock. I don't want to let you see the ball slip through Pinalto's hands because that doesn't make a great story. But you have to know that that's how the game ends, 30-24, with a one in the loss column and a long trip back home. But the score isn't the point here. The point is that people deserve to have their faith rewarded. The point is that you should focus not on the people who've let you down, but on the people who lifted you up. Because somewhere out there, there are people who are going to renew your faith in the good things in this world and though you might feel dead on the inside and sick and tired of all of the mud that is slung around, you need to know that people, though imperfect, don't have to be bad and that they can get better. They can surprise you with wonderful things.

For a year, maybe, for me, the church has been Carolina football. I've been frustrated, excited, disappointed, angry, all of these things. And now, I'm hopeful. The problem with having to see God through the church is that the church can really suck it up sometimes and the entire world will mock it or be angry at it and you have no good defense for it, and you loose sight of the Good Things. I've wandered and I've waited and now, I'm ready to see Good Things again. I'm even ready to work for them. So even if this summer was only purposed for me to see this analogy, I'm glad it happened.

Sorry to be selfish.

If you were coming in the fall

I promise, wonderful things are coming. Here to distract you is an Emily Dickinson poem, introduced to me by one of my wonderful new roommates.

____________________________________________
If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemens land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

Quote Stealer

I'm a quote stealer. It just happens. In my extraordinary effort to procrastinate thinking about anything actually worthwhile, worthwhile things come to me. And so I share them with you. 

Also, this song. Which probably explains the vast majority of my current ambivalence a Dieu.

Happy Thursday! On with the quotes! 
_______________________________________________________________

"Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However sheltered this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while.
Allons! the inducements will be greater,
We will sail pathless and wild seas,
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.
Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,
Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity."
-Whitman

"There is no fear in love."
-1 John 4:18

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."
-C. S. Lewis

"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air."
-Emerson

You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me, then,
And we’ll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And I knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
Open to me!
For I will show you places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!
I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I’ll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.

- e.e. cummings

Shoulda Coulda Woulda

I'm one of those people who wants to know what they should do so they can go do it. These people are the natural teacher's pets and overachievers because someone somewhere along the way figured out how to manipulate us by making us think that we should do everything we can to help out everyone we can in every organization that we can find. What blows my mind is that this is not what I have to do, it's not something like eating or breathing or singing, but rather it's something that I'm supposed to do, that I should do to be successful in life or fulfilled or something. Nobody made me be in the band, nobody made me be in SAI, no one forced me to play handbells, no one pressured me into joining a committee, no one pushed me into one organization over another. No one's making me consider my future and plan it out. It's just what I should do.

It's an interesting line between should and must. There are quite a few things that I must do now because I'm so invested in them, I don't know that I have a choice in the matter. I mean, a while ago, say three years or something like that, I'm sure I had a choice but now I'm so caught up in the workings of the organizations that if I left it'd feel like a cog was missing from the clockwork and I'd be so jealous I couldn't stand it. I'm trying to remember that I'm replaceable, because everyone is, but I love this feeling of necessity and importance. I'm in charge of things. I get to decide things and do things. I get to guide and lead and help shape and form and I love that. I'm terribly afraid that if you take away the frilly words, I just like being bossy. And I like it so much that taking away all these things that I should do would be pulling the crutch out from underneath my recently restored happiness. Admittedly, it hasn't been all that recent and the injury wasn't that bad and so the crutch should not be as necessary as it is but there you are. [Blogger's note: I promise I'll deal with things more directly in the future. I'm even getting a little confused with the extensive imagery.]

So I do all of these things and I fill up my calendar and I feel quite accomplished because I should be doing all of this. I should be living my life to the fullest because I will never have another opportunity like this again. I should be enjoying every last toll of the bell tower because it will only be around in my life for another school year. I should have meetings and plans and things because that's how I'm going to leave a mark on this wonderful place that's left such a mark on me. I should be doing all of this and I am and at the end of a busy day, I'm smiling because this is what I'm best at. I'm accomplishing things. I should be doing this.

But there are also these other things that I should be doing that I am not and the little guilt monster that lies hidden in my stomach jumps when I think about these things. I should be looking at applications. I should be writing essays. I should be asking for letters of recommendation. I should have this all figured out with a plan, because that's what you do when you're a senior, is you have a plan and you follow it through and you have a backup plan and you follow that through if you need it and at the end of the day, you're really just planning what stuff you can take with you out of your parents house because you are actually moving out because suddenly it's May and you're on the field in Kenan at graduation and the real world is actually at your door step because you cannot hide in college any longer and what are you going to do since everything you know and know well has now become obsolete knowledge because there's no more time for you here and there's going to be another freshman turned senior in your place in four years and where will you be in four years aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh breatheinbreatheoutbreatheinbreatheout. Sigh. And I know that other seniors don't have it figured out either, but you're supposed to, you know, successful people have a plan and I am a successful person and I have a plan.

I do have a plan. In my other window of Firefox there are several tabs concerning certain theological schools and I have a couple of dates boxed in on my calendar for visits to schools. I'm also finishing all those exciting education classes and student teaching in the spring, so the backup plan is in full swing as well (though I feel like you shouldn't teach in a school unless you have a passion for teaching in a school and I can't say that I've grown that yet so I shouldn't teach, right? Right). I like to daydream about staying right close to Chapel Hill because I am in no way ready to leave this place yet. I love North Carolina. I love our green state and our mountains and our beaches. I love walking in the quad listening to the music of southern accents as they float along in the general symphony of speeches that only campus affords. I'm not sure if I could be happy anywhere else. It's funny, four years ago I was looking at out-of-state colleges because I had no desire to be stuck here forever. Some things change. And even if that daydream bursts at the seams, I still have plans for other places and it'll be good to go somewhere different and experience a different life and all that jazz. The problem is, I'm happy here. I don't want anything else. I'm one of those seniors who is stolidly ignoring graduation day because I think my heart might actually break. I should move on to other things and I do have a plan for that. But this might be the first time in my life when what I should do is different from what I want to do a large, painful way.

I start to think about this post-college life thing and I want to do something impulsive like move to a large city and become a bartender and spend my days reading and writing and sneaking peeks at astrophysical journals. Sometimes you want to go where no one knows your name. I want to be an effing mystery for ten seconds, some enigma that no one can figure out, from the name that I use to the place I say I'm from. I want to run away and find myself and see if there's anything to me beyond the choices that I make and the plans that I lay down.

Then again, I have never been a nomad- where I'm from is who I am. I have the feeling that I'd scream North Carolina even if I went to live in Illinois or California or Alaska. There are chunks of me that are unexpected, like chocolate chips in pancakes, but all in all, you'd look at me and say, Yup, that's a pancake. Most of me is happy with that- what would I be if I wasn't this? But I have this little restless part of me that thinks that adventures are still to be had, that thinks you should run out your door without your handkerchief or walking stick because life only happens to those people who live and I want to live. But I look at me and I see a pancake. Pancakes don't have adventures. Well, Pancakes might have adventures, but he's led a much more exciting life than me. But the point is that I'm not sure that I'm suited for the outside world. I'm a church mouse. Some people are just like that.


But.


I'm not sure that I should be.

Friends Part the Next: The Epic of the Lost Key Concluded

The next day did not prove to be fruitful for the key search. Wolfie called the Methodist Church and was rewarded with a long conversation by a very kind old lady who suggested that she put the key on a key ring and get one of those key chains that lights up or something like that to assist in the finding of the key. She even called down to the maintenance man at the church to have him check the sanctuary for the key, but with no success. However, Wolfie was invited to come to look for the key herself. As the precious old lady said, "It might be worth your time to come look for yourself because I'm sure that no one would be looking for a single key. You know, it just wouldn't cross many people's minds. Even though I told John to look for a single gold colored key, you know, he was probably looking for a key ring. So just come on over, around four o'clock, and you can have a good look around yourself. I really think it would be worth your time. All right, dear, see you at four o'clock."

The conversation at Panera was much less cheerful. After a brief conversation with the burly male voice that answered the phone at the bread company ascertaining that there was not a key in either booth, she was invited to come and look for herself later in the day as well. Wolfie asked all of her friends at the planetarium, but no one had seen a key (strangely, a single silver house key had been turned into the gift shop that was dishearteningly dissimilar to the missing key and which made the ninja-like trip to the alarmed ticket office a bit pointless, though no less epic). After a long day at camp with kiddies, Wolfie trudged over to the church and had a look around herself. She left the church empty handed after a long conversation about birdhouses, brought on by the offhand comment, "I'm just going to hope that a bird took the key for its nest because that's more cheerful." Wolfie trudged down to a key-less Panera and then trudged once more down to the bus stop and back to the apartment.

She found Smalls on the couch beasting another temple in Wind Waker. Smiling apologetically, she explained that she had not found the key anywhere and sighed apologetically as she flopped down on the opposing couch next to Tiberius. Smalls was quite understanding and offered to show Wolfie how to unlock the door using the credit card and Wolfie gladly accepted, feeling that this skill, along with picking locks using hair pins, would come in handy in later life. They headed out the door, leaving Tiberius to jump up to the couch near the window to watch their progress.

Wolfie first handed over her license, since it needed to be renewed anyway. Wolfie, having both recently turned 21 and recently been mistaken for a middle schooler, was not concerned about the safety of a piece of plastic that compounded the problem by declaring that she was underage. She settled back against the black rail of the porch to watch a master at work. She exclaimed when she heard a click but was tempered in her excitement by Smalls' assurance that "That might sound like a good noise, but is, in fact not." She settled back further as Smalls demonstrated the best way to insert the plastic into the space between the door and the door frame and nodded understandingly as she watched the technique. However, the lessons progress was interrupted by the snapping of plastic. Smalls handed back Wolfie's license in two slightly bent pieces. Even in retrospect, Wolfie said that this was not a big deal at all- in fact, in removing that incriminating picture, it was probably actually a good thing. In fact, since Wolfie did not own a car, it would be months before a new license would be required.

It was at this point in the lesson that both the student and the teacher realized that the key to their relief lay on the other side of the immovable front door, both literally and figuratively. A few feet from Tiberius' faithful perch were Smalls' keys and both of their cell phones. Wolfie handed over her check card and Smalls fought the lock with renewed motivation. The oppressive heat, humidity and blood sucking insects of a late Hapel Chill summer drove the two of them to consider various other options. With locked and screened windows and a locked rear door, the only option seemed to ask the community office to let them back into the apartment. Wolfie set off down the road as Smalls had walked onto her porch barefoot. After a brief conversation with the lady in the office, she headed back to the apartment to find Smalls on the porch watching a new neighbor move in what looked like stolen paintings into her apartment from a large unmarked truck. Tiberius had abandoned the situation to hunt down a wild bone in the jungle that the living room must appear to a foot high terrier.

Smalls and Wolfie sat on the front porch shooting the breeze as package after large package was moved from the truck. The maintenance man never came, but the lady in the office came by on her way out for the evening to let them in. Grateful for the artificially cooled air, the two sunk down onto the couches and vowed never to speak of the incident again. Wolfie only gave me details under extreme duress, forcing an oath of secrecy upon me. However, it's too good of a story to keep silent. (For reals, who loses their key, knows they can't open the door with a card and then locks themselves outside without keys? Pretty intelligent and awesome people, that's who.)

Later that evening, Wolfie went to have a movie night with Sarah. On the way out of the house at the end of the night, Sarah noticed that she didn't have her keys. Her dutiful friend attempted to pick the lock with Wolfie's beaten and now unusable check card, but determined that the card was too flexible to force the lock back into its slot in the door. Wolfie was now satisfied that she was among three people in her life who were capable of unlocking doors with credit cards and considered the whole experience a combination of cursed luck and awkward happenstance. She slept well that night knowing that an extra key was being made the next day.

Of course, the next day Wolfie was greeted with a voicemail from Panera, where her key had been recovered. She gave it a place of honor on her key chain and smiled ruefully as the clerk at Wachovia mildly judged her when she showed her battered plastic. She would have you know, dear friends, that though her epic ended happily, do not allow your story to become a tragedy. Buy a large exciting key chain that lights up and practice opening your doors with those fake credit cards they send in the mail. Because clearly there are no other moral lessons to be gleaned from this story.

The end.