A Corporate Suit

As much as I think I'd be happy living in a field and growing my own vegetables and writing poetry, it seems like a remarkably selfish existence when I consider what I have to give to the world.

I think last semester I tried to make sure I had a lot of time to be creative. Or just to chill, or work out. Or think. The thought of a full schedule made me wince. I don't want to have to give up anything. I want to be available.

But if giving up sitting around mulling over the green greens and sunshine is the price of being successful, I think I'll choose to give it up.

Time management - that's the crucial element, isn't it? The people who succeed and keep planners and never have an idle minute - they know how to "budget" their time. I need that to be me.
(My imagining of 28 year old ad exec Rachel)
I say all of this because I'm going to be interning at the university paper - the NT Daily - and I'm going to have to do work. At first when I went I considered the possibility that they were going to ask me to work every night, and I realized that eventually, it comes down to what's important. Was this important? What else was important? Why did I hate giving up my time so much?

In a world where events collide and corporate suits don't have "time" for anything, the key is to have your priorities clearly defined.

What is important?
What takes precedence?

If I claim Christ as the center of my life, what does that mean for my priorities?

How do I embody Christ in a corporate suit?

Breaking the mold.

When you're young, it's easy to turn people into heroes and villains.

One good example is our first impressions of our parents, but our perception changes over time; we have many phases, but the last and most beautiful picture we have of them comes after years of learning to appreciate them. We can see their flaws (unlike the child) and we can love them the more for them (unlike a headstrong youth).

But this hero-villain exaggeration isn't limited to parents.

Some teachers I completely and totally turned into villains. It became impossible to believe that they had any good qualities at all.

I think part of growing up is learning to get rid of the distorted view and to see people like Christ, and to treat them like Christ (both how you would treat Him, and how He would treat you.)

But an interesting effect of the "hero" effect is what happens when you dig deeper into your hero's story.
It's an odd thing, to mold yourself after someone, only to discover that they had someone that they molded themselves after, and so on...
It's even stranger to meet that person and to hear them talk, the way that your hero talked, and the way you tried to talk.

Heroes. I am choosing not to be impressed except by that which is truly impressive. To set my gaze on heavenly things.

So much of learning to live is to have a correct perspective - if my hunch is correct, the correct perspective is if not wisdom, then directly related. I want to be like the righteous man who answers the call of Wisdom calling in the streets, who seeks after her.

Hard lines.

People who operate out of their emotions and make every decision based on intuition and gut instinct, based on my reactions, find concepts like justice and obedience and truth very hard to not only grasp, but to dwell on.

What is truth?
What is good? Just? Fair? Right? You can't give a post-modern, vague answer when the allegiance of your heart is on the line.

As much as we paint things in shades of gray, the fact is, good and evil do exist.

I find that in my topsy-turvy, abstract world, a sweet resting place is in the absolute truth that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is something that everything I have seen and experienced points to, and something that I want everyone to see, that my life might point to that truth as well.

Crude Matter

Today was my first class!

Physical Geology, or I guess it's Earth Science. I think it's going to be a little different from the other geology class I took. This teacher seems really excited about how humans interact with the environment.

I wish I were more excited about that kind of thing.

Planet earth isn't as fragile as environmentalists like to make it sound. People try to talk about climate disaster and things like the rise of carbon dioxide and the destruction of rainforests.... man, those things ARE important, but I never think of myself in physical terms.

Me and my body have always been more like partners in my mind - the body, outfitted with limitations and desires, and me, my soul, everything that is essentially ... well, the core of what I consider myself. Desires are separate - they push and pull my core, my spirit.

Taking this and applying it to the world, we are a bunch of everlasting souls, and no natural disaster can destroy the soul except for the disaster of sin. So... what concerns me is sin and darkness and despair. Disasters like earthquakes can be vehicles for those things, but in my mind, who we are is more important than the bodily "vehicles" we drive and maintain.


So when people get really excited about environmental protection and saving the planet, I have a hard time feeling worried.

That being said..... it's still important, regardless of how I feel about it. I need water to live. I am, in fact, operating through the "crude matter" I discount so often. Until I get sick, I never realize how dependent I am on my health. Maybe it's because I'm young and invincible. (Really, in my mind, I feel that way... a lot)

I heard Maggie say once that the remedy for the world isn't salvation in conservation, but salvation in Christ.

Well-o, me and Jacob are gonna jam-town. Catchya later.

A boy loves Jessie

He said he thought she was the sort of woman who, if you had a bug on your face, would slap it off. He then said, "I think I'm in love!" and walked off whistling.

an old-timey post

I haven't written to you about the happenings in a while! It's mostly been thinkings!

Me and Haley went to Jupiter House this morning to do our Bible study and she was so nice, she bought me my favorite - banana bread!!! So good!
Then we went to the bookstore to get my Geology workbook. (I can't wait for that class!)

After that, she played a wonderful song on the piano - it's called "Turn to Stone" by Ingrid Michaelson. It's so beautiful! Especially the way Haley sung it! She's such a phenom!!

We have dinner plans tonight. Jon's coming too! All of my favorite people, how wonderful for me! ♥

Taco night & chasing

Going back to the BSM tonight was a bit of a wild whisker-twister. It felt like the first day of high school - seeing all your friends.. and acquaintances: "Heyyy... you?"

I ended up just once again being blown away by meeting "old" friends. I'm amazed by how tragic I find unchanging... well, people. I met some people who seemed like they were growing in grace and understanding and MAN! such an encouragement. But then there's those people that just... I didn't get that impression. I don't mean to be judgmental, but, after visiting Fort Worth, I've been deeply convicted of holding on to the past.

Perhaps it's not the tragedy I make it out to be. Change is good, but there are some sweet things that are worth holding onto. Good friends, good habits and virtues... keep those, huh? I never want to look at things without being dazed into wonderment and worship.
I read some posts from last year, but check out this old post I wrote. I was so silly those days, but at least my cup was empty, and I desired the Lord so, so, much! I think I can get obsessed with trying to figure out how to "do" life and I just forget... dang.... I have to trust the Holy Spirit to guide and protect my heart and to teach me virtue through my pursuit of wisdom - and to rely fully on Jesus for grace....

It's such a hard line to walk. I don't want to be lazy and just say that it's the Holy Spirit's job to make me feel like not sinning. I don't want to take the knowledge that my righteousness is like filthy rags and turn it into an excuse to be an arrogant fool. I want to chase after Jesus - I want to chase after wisdom...

Proverbs tells us we should strive for wisdom, but I've been hearing so much about how knowledge is meaningless and how virtuous was the uneducated prostitute that wiped Jesus's feet with her hair. "We don't need wisdom to love Jesus" is the message I hear. But we still need wisdom, don't we? We don't want to be fools who bury their coins in the sand!

So that is the line I try to walk. Loving Jesus. Loving others by trying to grow in wisdom and understanding so I can be better equipped to minister - and loving myself, because wisdom is such a treasure.

Sunday-Monday-Funday

The freshmen have started moving in. Excitement is in the air! Also, severe heat. And the new vegan cafeteria. Dormies aren't pleased. Good thing I ditched that meal plan.

I am pleased to report the creation of "Sci-Fi Sundays." Jon, Parker, Matt, and I have been watching the original Star Wars every Sunday after church. After we finish them? I'm secretly hoping for the X-files.

Tonight is first flight week. Tacos and game night is tonight. I think I'll go =-)

In other news, I need to change my residence address to the REC center. (Get it? Because that's where I'll be all the time...haha..ha)

I've been amusing myself lately by telling jokes that fall pathetically flat, and I forgot how to make real jokes.
Scary thought: the real difference in my jokes is that they're deliberately bad.

Oh, I wrote a new doodle called "redemption"

The Scientist

Algorithm(al´g&-rith-&m) (n.) A formula or set of steps for solving a particular problem.

As much as I consider myself someone who wars against logic itself, a person motivated almost exclusively by emotion.... I've realized that I'm more of a scientist than I thought.

The popular idea of personality is two big boxes. The goofy, fun, spontaneous people, and the introverted, calculating, reserved people. And I always say, "Oh, I'm silly, I'm box number one."

But as much as I like to show people a bright-eyed child, passionate and fun-loving... man, as much as I wish I were entirely innocent and well-intentioned, that's only a sliver of who I really am. Even those bad traits of the child: insecurity, even foolishness - those seem like "manageable vices."

I'm not building a "false self." I am what I am. I'm young and stupid. But I'm not always well-intentioned. I'm not always abstract and artsy. I've come to grips with the fact that I'm more calculating and manipulative than I ever want to admit.

My recent quest has been "learning to love people well." I've gone about that in a frighteningly scientific way.... Analyzing what makes people feel loved, trying to compute and measure affection, and spending all my time just trying to figure out why people don't get along and how that can be fixed.
When I'm unhappy, my reaction is a purely scientific one. I analyze. I calculate. I make lists. I diagnose.

... and to my surprise, I found my summer math class incredibly, incredibly fun.

I'm a scientist when it comes to so many things. I like to have a schedule. I hate being unproductive. Gosh, even in junior high, I thought I was going to be a scientist.

Nobody sees me like that. No one would call me a scientist. I don't know how many people take me seriously. I make a lot of jokes. I know some people think I'm kind of dumb. And that's okay. I would rather people think that, honestly...
But I know I've really made a connection with someone when I let them see the dark scientist in me.

I'm not unique in this. I don't mean to say that I'm secretly more intelligent than I make myself out to be - I just mean to say, just because I'm happy and young, doesn't mean you can't take me seriously.

I mean, seriously.

...How the heck am I supposed to come up with a lame joke at the end now?

Two important things happened today, I feel that these things are important enough to mention.

During my stay in fort worth I did two silly things. I looked deep into my old journals and thought about my old dreams and thoughts and passions. I also reread an old blog that used to inspire those dreams and passions. It was very self indulgent.

After dwelling in the dreams of the past, I bumped into an old high school friend of mine. My life was so different while hers seemed so similar.... I realized how foolish it would be to live in the past and how dangerous it was to regret things... Seize the day, huh?

It got me thinking about that blog and how dreamy and idealistic it was and - golly, I think a lot of bloggers, including me, tried to blog to make people think they were funny and cool and deep.

And I thought, if I'm not doing it to make people think I'm cool (nobody reads blogs anymore) what am I doing it for? 

This blog is the closest I've come to trying to be innocent as a dove yet wise as a serpent. I want to examine the world and figure out how to operate in love, all the while doing so with wonder - accepting that I am, and will always be, a child: young and dumb. Every day getting (as Jon said) "less young and less dumb." 

Isn't it strange, how we change, who we turn out to be? Sometimes watching people change is sad. Or the tragedy of people that stay the same. But I've seen a change in my own heart that has been the best thing in my whole 18 years. 

...Goll-eey!

Next time I'll talk about something funny and cool, huh? ... Life is strange, dadgummit.

Pancake brunch

Today the church had a pancake brunch! Kody made these super great pancakes and gave us yummy fruit salad to put on it! So good!!!Everyone came to help fix the cds that we recorded! Everyone is excited about passing them out!
Me and Jon got a lot of cds done, just by ourselves.

Then we went to Jupiter House. Jon's friends were there. They're so cool and friendly. Judson, the guy who started Baruch the Scribe (I'm so glad I finally got to meet him!!! ahh!! do you even KNOW how long I've been listening to them? I think junior year of high school.)

Better than that, I got to play WII with JUDSON! I can't believe I HUNG OUT with him!Mario Party was so much fun.

Have a good day! =-)

WHAT?! CAR.

I used to drive all the time. All the time. I was so good at driving. I think I could even parallel park. I think I was pretty good at that.

But it's been a long time since I've driven a car.....

I know of three gears in the driving universe.
P, R, and D. I thought, I'm good if I know how to go forwards, backwards, and stop.

So I got in this car and it's 1. not even a stickshift and 2. a regular car, or so I thought.... but I REALIZED THAT I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO DRIVE.
And this is why.WHAT THE.

I don't know how I made it home but I did.

Also, those yellow lines going down the road mean you should use "caution" when you're on the left side of it, right?

Laundry

Jon brought his clothes over to do his laundry at our house.

Here's the thing: I've never used our washing machine before. I'm kind of scared of it.I heard from some of the other girls that it was dysfunctional.

But Jon's clothes came out fine. I guess there was nothing to worry about.

Toil

I was writing in my notebook today, eating some ice cream that Jessie had shared with me and I got some on my hands. Which of course got on my notebook, because I am very messy.
This thrilled me because I decided it was going to be an endearing reminder of the day that me and Jessie ate chocolate ice cream together. I wish seeing the good in everything and everyone were as easy as ice cream drips...

***

Me and Haley met for our Bible study and she said something quite wonderful.

God has commanded us to toil the earth, but He also enabled us to enjoy our work, so that we can continue. That is why we enjoy the struggle to learn to love God and others, because it is toil, and it goes on and on.

I want to learn to enjoy every kind of work!

... Round Two?

"Who the heck writes 'The End' in their diary?" - Friga
***

I have strange news. The news is... Life is not exactly rolling credits and Elton John music.

Exciting things are happening still!

So I will write back when they do!

Love, Rachel