Experience of God

Tonight at my church, Solomon's Porch, the girl who gave her "story" talked for quite a while about experiencing the beauty of God in every day life, especially in nature. She admitted that she does not wake up every morning with an innate faith in God, but rather it is a tentative search throughout the day to wait for God to reveal himself, so that she might trust him once again. The beauty of her experience of God was so refreshing, to know that there is someone else who is tired and restless with traditional notions of faith, and knows that God is so much far beyond that.
I guess I am often reminded of the blessed U2 song, where the lyrics say:
I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for. . . . .

All I can say. . . . .is that I, too, still haven't found what I'm looking for. . . . .

Walt Whitman

Here is a verse from my love, Walt Whitman, the immortal poet:

O my soul supreme!
Knowist thou the joys of pensive thought?
Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender gloomy heart?
Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the suffering and the struggle?
Agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day or night?
Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space?
Prophetic joys of better loftier love's ideals, the sweet eternal perfect comrade?
Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul.

A little poetry of my own. . . . .

Questions flow endlessly
From my heart
Searching for something
Beyond reason
A beauty I once glimpsed
Now I will forever search
For a freedom
Away from this stoic realism
Fleeing into the purpose
For which I was formed
And I deeply long for
with an inexpressible desire
which will always cripple me
but will also make me fly.

The age old college question. . .

Okay, for those of you who are in the college stage of life, I am sure that you have all heard the famous and inevitable question: "So, what are you going to do with your life?" Or, "What are you going to do after you graduate?" To be honest, I have no frickin' clue. Tonight I talked with a good friend about the future, and we realized that it is looming closer than we would like to admit. It's kinda scary to think that I have to be in the "real world" someday and actually make a living. . . .but I guess the bigger question seems to be: "What is this life going to be about?" I run from the future, but yet I can't escape it, it is always coming down upon me. And also, I often forget to value the precious moment that I have been given in the here and now. I want to always value the people that I have around me, for the short time that I have them near me. I want to love deeply, and be changed because of it.
I don't want to wake up one morning when I'm 40 and realize that I have wasted my life and settled for some mediocre existence. . . . .I only have one life to live- why not do it for all it's worth? Here is one of the most profound monologues EVER in a movie, that I have taped up on my desk. It's from Dead Poets' Society:
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!. . . . .of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here- that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.' That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

Little Women

Last night, when I was on duty here in Getsch Hall, I decided to watch the movie Little Women, which is one of my all-time favorites; maybe because I feel like there is so much of me in the main character of Jo. She is a restless tomboy that doesn't really fit in and finds her only solace and expression in writing. In the end of the movie, she finds a companion in a professor named Frederich who challenges her to write. There is a powerful line that he says to her, which I liked so much, I had to write it down:
"Jo, you should be writing from LIFE! From the depths of your soul! There is nothing in this writing of the woman I am privileged to know. . . .there is more to you than this; if you have the courage to write it."
When I hear that line, I feel like it is also an admonition to myself- there is so much inside me, inside all of us, but do I have the courage to write it? I love writing, and honestly, for all of my childhood and teenage years, I was assured that I was going to be a writer. It was something that I loved to do, and it always came easily to me. But maybe, when I came to college, I thought that it was maybe too irresponsible of a career pursuit, or that maybe I had to do something more noble and tangible than just become some wistful, dreamy writer. But lately, I have found that there is a writer's voice within me that I cannot silence. . . . .
I once read a quote by C.S. Lewis: "We read to know that we're not alone." I suppose, I want to turn that statement around and make it my mission: "I want to write to let others know that they're not alone."