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