FACEBOOK

In case you hadn't heard, the new website, Facebook, has taken over the college world. You can meet people from EVERYWHERE, and it's more addicting than playing around with StalkerNet for hours, so much more fun. If you haven't tried it yet, you should allow yourself to be sucked in by the strange fascination, because everyone else is succumbing to it- why don't you? Try it! www.thefacebook.com

End of the Year. . . . .sigh. . .

Well, it's the end of this year, and I guess I'm feeling pretty weary, but also kind of wistful that it's ending. The friendships that I've had this year have been incredible, and I have had the HARDEST year of my college career, but by far, the best. It has been so crazy to live with freshman girls, and see them grow and struggle and change and learn and question. It has been amazing to find a fellowship of like-minded friends, who struggle with faith and politics and philosophy and the state of this world, and the state of their own hearts. Part of me is ready to be done with this really intense year, but another part of me feels like I need to just sit and deeply think about all of the things I have learned and understood and seen this year. I have found compassionate friends, learned a lot about brokenness, found my writer's voice, and thought about a lot of things. . . . . . . .We shall see what after college holds (not much time here left, just a semester) for me, and I must say, even though I had such a hard year, I wouldn't have traded it for anything. Really.

thoughts on a wednesday

Some days I think too much. Today, I'm thinking about everything. Relationships, summer, technology, my old church, disbelief, precious friends, family, poetry. . . . . .sometimes I feel like I have more clarity than ever, but then other times, I feel like I'm even more fucked up than before.
I read an article for my philosophy class, about holding the "tragic view" in relation to the world and life, and how we cannot be completely pessimistic about everything, and thus, we ought to hold a healthy tension of optimism and pessimism; REALISM, if you will.
I cannot count the days this year that I have wanted to give up, but yet there is something that is keeping me asking all these questions and thinking through all of these things. There are people that I know and are my dear friends that also seem to be seeking the same thing. To quote Garden State: "Maybe friends are just people who miss the same imaginary place."
Today is just yet another day. . . . .not really sure what I think. . . . .but I DO know that I want to learn, I want to know people, I want to understand this world, I want to never settle for just ordinary life. I want to read the great poets, and be able to quote them (maybe more than Scripture memorization- egads, I'm a heretic!), I want to learn to appreciate great works of art, I want to be immersed in music again, I want to climb Kilimanjaro, I want to get my master's degree, I want to live abroad (maybe forever), I want to read all the great literature. . . . . . . . .I'm so blessedly ordinary, but I guess I won't resign myself to be as such.

"SAVED"

I just watched the movie "Saved" with some of my freshman comrades here while I'm on duty, and it is always quite a thought-provoking film. I have seen it countless times, and each time again, I am refreshed to know that someone else is asking the same questions that I am asking, and questioning the institutions just like I am.
I grew up in the evangelical church, and it made me pretty bitter by this time of my life. All of the pat answers and well-formulated theology began to grow pretty tasteless to me by about senior year of high school. Somehow, I knew that there was something more to this life than just having all the right answers. In the words of my good friend Walt Whitman: "Logic and sermons never convince, the dark of night drives deeper into my soul." The dark of night, driving deeper into my soul puts it so well. There is something that drives me to keep seeking the "divine," whatever that may be, and somehow the shortcomings of the institutional church aren't that bad. I have my own share of brokenness, and how many people in my life have I judged, looked down upon, or ostracized- when I should have listened, embraced and had compassion?
What would life look like if we lived to see people as they are, rather than as we choose to see them? What if we lived to give compassion, serve others above ourselves and be honest and real with everyone? What if we all dared to be ourselves, not caring what the world says about us?
Sometimes, actually a lot of times, I question my place in society, in life and in the greater story of history and of life. I wonder if anyone will ever care to hear my voice and listen to what I have to say- and actually, do I REALLY have anything significant to say? Do I dare to speak from the depths of myself, and not care what others think about my expression? There's something so human about the idea of expression. I love words so damn much, but they also seem to become my biggest curse. Sometimes it's so beautiful to say something or write something that truly expresses my heart, but sometimes I am caught with the problem that there are things so deep and so poignantly beautiful, that WORDS will never be able to express them. I wonder if I actually dare to seek out my own original style of expression, or if I only just copy and imitate what I have read, heard and learned all of my life? How much of my expression is due to my socialization, and how much really just flows out of the depths of who I am? In the movie, Little Women, Laurie says to Amy: "Your paintings are like my compositions, mediocre copies of another man's genius." Ouch. Is that all my poetry and writing truly is- mediocre copies of another man's genius? How does one stumble upon, or rather, seek out, original art?
Do I only want to write and produce art for the masses, or simply for the sake of my own expression- the sweating out of my own thoughts and ideas, apart from the definition of society? But yet, I exist within society, and EVERYTHING I do is influenced by this world that I live in- or rather, the tension of myself within this world.
Maybe I should write a book with that title: "The tension of myself with this world. . . "
What do you think? So much rambling. . . . .so many thoughts. . . . .