It's funny how easily conversation in college turns to what you're going to do. I'm going to fail this exam. This summer, I'm going to New York, on a mission trip, to work, to save, to party, to sleep, to visit grad schools. Next year, I'm going to apply to grad schools, to have an easy semester, to have a terrible semester, to do better, to focus more on my studies, to audition, to not audition, to study abroad, to stay in Chapel Hill, to be a leader, to be a follower. After college, I'm going to get married (!), go to med school, grad school, law school, to teach, to be unemployed, to move back in with my parents, to take a year off. To do what?
Now, this isn't a post about doing something now, though it is another tragedy of our time that so much potential is locked away in institutions and dowsed with alcohol while the world outside suffers and we learn how to think, make mistakes, describe the Hydrogen atom mathematically, start a business, get inside people's heads, understand the meaning of the actions of various Romans over the course of the Republic and Empire. It's a wonderful mixed bag that you get in college, but for a good example of someone rightly fed up with the negatives of this bag and willing to be something different, I recommend the words of this friend. For the wonderful and blessing thoughts of a good friend doing what she has been called to do, prayerfully, lovingly and in full remembrance of the awesomeness of God, I recommend her words.
I had a good conversation with a friend about what I wanted to do. It came out of talking about classes and, in particular, my teaching class. Guys, I don't want to teach physics. I could go the whole "I hate kids" route, but that would be another lie. I go the "I hate high school route" but that wouldn't be any more true. I don't have an aversion to teaching and I'd love having my own classroom, but it would be my classroom. It wouldn't belong to the kids and I wouldn't be focused on the people I was teaching. I would be teaching. I would hop into their lives as necessary and I would take advantage of every situation to be a positive influence, but it would be me, teaching. Does that make any kind of sense? I'd go home at the end of the day full of myself and miserable.
Now, I could make a conscious effort not to do that, but I fear that I would end up being that anyway because I'm not called to teach high school. You know that fear that you're made for something bigger? Now, there is nothing bigger than teaching, than changing a life, than making a generation prepared to meet the world around them, so I should probably change bigger to different. Can I get an amen from someone who has felt the Spirit move but has been entirely unsure of the direction that it's moving in? We are blessed, we are anointed... to do what?
Same good conversation, we talked about what it's like to be "called". Oh. my. lanta. Being called. What does that even mean? (I feel like a Juno reference is inappropriate here... yeah, you know what I'm talking about.) Like, a mystical voice called you out of heaven and said, "Insert name here, I call you stop world hunger because you've finally all gotten the resources and it disgusts Me to see that you waste so much food without a thought to millions of my children who are starving." Does that happen?
Because, for me, being called is this sinking feeling in my stomach that comes from disobedience (or at least the intention of disobedience). I think about things I said I'd never be, things that I know that I could be, things that I think that I should be, and my stomach just sinks because I know what I'm supposed to do and I don't want to do it. I'm supposed to actually listen to God and obey what He says. I'm supposed to put myself aside. I'm supposed to follow Him anywhere, and in the Easter happiness that has lived in my life, I never remember where anywhere can lead. And all these people have all of these stories about life and how they weren't doing the right thing and then they finally figured it out and I don't want to be that. I mean, I kinda do, because then I'd have a story to tell someone, but if I hear these things, I feel like I should fix my life, learn from their mistakes, improve the human race instead of continuing to make the same mistakes that the ancient Israelites made. So I could go where I'm supposed to and find a way to make it seem like something other than taking people with potential who care immensely about God and the world He made and locking them away in a tower for another three years learning how to think, how to pray, what this dead ancient white guy said, how to deal with what this person is saying now, how to run a church, how to preach a sermon, how to serve God in this wonderfully organized, easily dying system.
Don't believe me when I say I've got it down.
I want to share a lesson with you.
Every year, the Earth, flying through space, with go through clouds of debris- maybe the tail end of comets, what have you- and this cloud of debris will cause this thing that we call a meteor shower. I love the beauty in the idea that a cloud of space dirt comes down to Earth as something worth staying up all night to see, but maybe that's just me. We have no control when this happens. We have people who call the planetarium demanding to know why we scheduled a meteor shower on a school night. Oh sorry, we say. We'll just change Earth's position in her orbit around the sun so your child can stay up on a Friday night instead of a Thursday night. Makes total sense.
If you know your astronomy, or if you listen to the weather report, you know that meteor showers get their names, like the Leonids or the Perseids or the Geminids because of the constellation they appear to originate from. The Leonids look like they're raining down from Leo, etc. But they don't really. Once again, they're just pieces of space dirt falling to put on a show for us. Some people wish on them, so for them, a meteor shower is like driving through town and hitting every single light yellow. It's just a great opportunity. But opportunities come from a lot of places. And if you're staring at Leo, hoping to catch all the meteors, you going to miss some.
Funny how you can be looking where you're told to look, the entire time, and miss the best part of the meteor shower.
No comments:
Post a Comment