Absence

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"Or forgetful."

(I will be honest, that's how I always finish that line in my head.)

I'll spend forever wondering if you knew

I was enchanted to meet you

Nationals always requires a blog post, right? Right.

I'm sure I have to put up with a lot of sad things in my life. Forgetting my lunch when I have my heart set on what I have packed. Not being able to go home for a weekend. Not running into friends at school. Not getting to spend time with my family. Little things, big things, huge things.

But I have decided that the saddest thing I consistently have to put up with is how far away my best friends live. I have awesome friends here in Ohio. There are some really amazing people who do actually live within an hour of my house (or one of my houses) but there are just so many brilliant, funny, amazing, sweet and wonderful people who live too far out of range. It's incredibly hard to only see all of these people once a year or so. It gets worse/better every year as I just keep meeting more and more awesome people.

Having nationals two weeks or so before my finals has kind of made me confront my priorities. Despite being a little bit lazy I am also a little bit obsessive about grades, it's my competitive nature. But apart from needing good grades for scholarships I've had it pointed out in many Biblical lessons that I really have no reason to obsess about grades because there are so many more important things.

To that end for the most part I give my friends' crises precedence over homework, as long as I don't completely blow off homework irresponsibly. I also long ago decided that Nationals was more important than perfect attendance for many many reasons.

There is a bit of a hitch in this plan, though, and it is, in fact, even addressed in the material we covered at nationals this year.

"Jesus replied: '"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'
Matthew 22:37-40 (Yeah, I used NIV, I'm old school.)

I'm becoming somewhat accomplished at the loving your neighbor part. I love doing things for and with friends so much and have sacrificed a lot for close friends. However, as admirable as it is to put your friends first at all times, there is that other step that should be the first step.

But encouragingly, the (annoyingly few) times I've managed to make it my first step I do find that everything else falls into place much easier.

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

A Long Expected Adventure

I had a bit of an unexpected journey today. I didn't go in search of any dragons but it was just as invigorating. Let me explain: it's been one of those awesome days where you just have to tell someone all about how awesome your day was. Unfortunately, you all are that someone.

Despite waking up with the usual feeling of "I'm either going to not go to school or take a nap later today" school went surprisingly well, involving (wonder of wonders) a successful group project, a postponed quiz, only 2 1/2 out of 4 classes and the best literature class I've been in yet. (Why? The teacher showed up late. The class kind of mutinied. He gave in. In a cheerful sort of way.) Besides that all of the usual suspect (and one unusual) showed up at our usual "hang out and plot world domination" spot (you know who you are) and I ran into an intriguing individual about campus who I've been meaning to meet for a while. (You also know who you are.) So school was awesome. And I just saw a car with a dragon on it go by. (I had a bottle of Mountain Dew. My attention span....)

Then I went home and Liz was cleaning the carpets so I decided it was a good excuse to go for a walk in the woods. And kind of got purposefully lost. I originally went looking for some birds who were making interesting noises. I never found the birds but I found unexplainably green trees, a flower garden in the middle of the woods, some very cool stonework and all of those other things that make getting lost in the woods worthwhile.

All of this is to say that at this point in the day, with writer's group to look forward to, can it really get any better?

Well the answer is yes, it can. On earth I'd never ask for more than this in an awesome day, in the middle of the school year this is as awesome as it gets and it's pretty great. But an exciting thing is to think about some, you know, really awesome days we have to look forward to in heaven. The nice thing is, this doesn't diminish the awesomeness of days here on earth. It kind of makes them better, just as the bad days on earth prepare you for things, maybe the good days on earth prepare us so we won't be overwhelmed with the awesomeness in heaven.

Who am I kidding? There's no comparison and that makes it even better!! But in the meantime I'll go back to enjoying the awesome days here in the most enthusiastic way possible.

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."
-G.K. Chesteron

Always Just Beneath the Dawn

There, now I've used both my blog title and by domain name as titles for posts. I'm so bad at thinking of titles...

"Every day I was with you in the temple courts and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour - when darkness reigns." - Luke 22:53

I know a lot of people, myself included, have a fascination with dark things. Gothic literature is interesting stuff. Darker movies are so much more intense. Depressing music is just so moving.

Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this in small quantities. But it is good to remember that letting dark thoughts rule your mind all the time just isn't good for you. If you're depressed you're likely to despair and hope becomes so hard to believe in. If you're obsessed with darkness it's hard to find joy.

Thankfully even in the dark good things start happening. What time could possibly have been blacker than right after the crucifixion? And yet:

"Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. Going to Pilate he asked for Jesus' body." - Luke 23:50-51

Joseph of Arimathea came forward, a little belated perhaps, but right when he needed to. Right at the hardest time possible to start believing, in the middle of the dark.

Thankfully, not having to personally live through those three days, we know that all darkness must eventually end.

Darkness can't perceive the light

Though lightlessness has chilled us numb.

And though its wings may cloud the skies

The dark shall never overcome.

Light of the world,

Your love has never failed.

The Hypocritical Post

The hypocritical post. It's judging you. Feel the judge.

Actually, that's not what this is about. I'm not going to write about hypocrisy. That would, of course, be hypocritical.

Instead I'm going to write about something that I've noticed in other people that could use some improving. I could also use some improving in the same area. That makes this quite a hypocritical post.

It's hard to exactly pinpoint what to call this problem I've been seeing. I guess it's kind of an intolerance of anything that you view as less spiritual than your own preferences. That's a wide area. It also falls into the category of things in Romans 14. Don't bother looking it up, I'll summarize.

That's the chapter that talks about not eating meat or not drinking wine if it will cause your brother to stumble. The reason it would cause your brother to stumble is because your brother has weaker faith and you'd be leading him astray by doing something if he can't understand why it's all right to do it.

So what I'm seeing are some weird ways that people do this.

1. Praise music This is possibly the number one thing I hear people complain about in church. Whether it's people who don't like modern music or people who simply can't stand hymns, everyone objects to one or the other in some way. I personally am slowly but surely developing a vendetta against a lot of praise music. I happen to like hymns because they're more prone to having really really meaningful lyrics. Don't get me wrong, I love so much praise music and it moves me more often than hymns do. Also, hymns can be preeeeetty shallow too. But the point here is that, as annoying as it is to put up with music that you don't like, guess what? Someone else is getting something out of it. I mean, I won't mention any names but I know someone who absolutely loves the responsive readings in hymnals and gets more out of those than out of music.

2. Christian movies I made sure to bring this one up because this is one I'm completely guilty of. I don't like them. I like Amazing Grace. I like Veggie Tales. That really might be it. It's just that in my honest opinion there isn't too much out there in the Christian film industry that isn't unbearably cheesy (like cheese on pizza. ... whoops, relapse...). But I do know that the majority of people I know love these movies and find them inspiring. Or something to that effect. I'll try to curb my dislike.

3. Devotionals/Bible Studies Maybe I am just restricting myself to hypocrisy I'm guilty of. Sorry guys, confession day for Elizabeth. There are very few devotional books I've read that I've gotten much out of. Short of Chesterton or Lewis. I also often have difficulty in large Bible studies because I just get sidetracked when no one will answer obvious questions. It's no one's fault, I'm just an impatient human being and have been in waaaaay too many Sunday schools.

So on the surface what this actually looks like is "A List of things Elizabeth Finds Annoying But Other People Appreciate." That would look like I was trying to seem a little holier than thou. "I don't get anything out of these things because I'm so much more spiritual than you."

Goodness, no!

It really makes me a lot less spiritual. God had a hand in making both the deep praise songs and the shallow hymns. He certainly had a hand in making those Christian movies come about and kept an eye on the authors creating the Bible studies. If I can find inspiration in fog and spiderwebs shouldn't I be able to find something new about God in even the things that seem shallow to me?

Here's kind of what brought this on, I'll give you one of those overly familiar verses:

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Most little kids I know don't object because I don't use the right version of the Bible or sing "I Am A C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N" rather than "Father Abraham." (If you're that little kid you're obnoxious. Don't take it personally. I was probably that little kid.) But also, key word: Humble. It's probably about time to start humbling myself and not think "Why is this guy teaching us a lesson we could learn in fifth grade Sunday school?" and start thinking "Why is God sending me this lesson?" He does have a lot better grasp of my maturity level, after all.

A World of Poetry

"The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station?"

Permit me to write another blog about an idea from Chesterton.

Yesterday I read through just the first few pages of my favorite book (because LotR doesn't count), The Man Who Was Thursday. In that first chapter the main character, Gabriel Syme, is a poet arguing against anarchy being poetic. He states that the "most poetical thing in the world is not being sick."

The idea behind is argument is that in every day life things go wrong. Things never go exactly according to plan. So the most poetic things are not the disastrous and unintended things, those are just normal. It's epical (in the original sense of the word) when things go exactly according to plan.

This is a cool idea in and of itself but I thought maybe it was an applicable sort of idea, I've found myself back on the topic of thanksgiving. The example Syme uses to explain this is our digestions "going sacredly and silently right." As slightly crude as that is, how often do we thank God for our bodies working correctly? We ask him to fix it when they start doing something wrong just like we ask him to fix our cars and our houses and everything else when they stop working.

I wish it didn't take my own car acting up and having to drive someone else's car to appreciate my car doors working and my car heat being sufficient. It'd be nice if I could remember to thank God for a healthy immune system without having to sit in the doctors office for a few hours first. Perhaps I need to start composing some poetry to the wonders of correctly functioning computers.

Life is...

Remember your Creator

in the days of your youth, 

before the days of trouble come 

and the years approach when you will say, 

“I find no pleasure in them”— 

I have to admit, I enjoy Ecclesiastes a lot and I like finding reasons to quote it every now and then.

I can name off the top of my head four popular songs I've heard lately that have the message (or directly say) "Live while you're young." From the first song I heard like this it struck me as a pretty shallow meaning for a song (I mean, I've heard much worse but it's still not too inspiring.) Being the analytical person that I am I eventually decided to think out why exactly it's shallow.

It's not that it's flat out a bad idea. You really shouldn't spend your whole childhood, teen years and young adulthood playing video games, reading books or watching TV (or whatever other useless things you had in mind. Sorry). But I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing these bands have in mind, considering they're some of the more secular artists I've heard. The problem is more their definition of living, usually partying and shallow relationships.

But if you have a correct definition of living then this is a wonderful sentiment. Live a life of Christ while you're young rather than putting off a serious relationship until you're older and ready to settle down.

It still needs a little adjustment though, these artists also all imply that you can only live while you're young, so you need to get it all done while you still can. A better strategy would probably be to learn how to live while you're young so that by the time you're ready to "settle down and mature" or whatever your plans are this living is already first nature (yes, first nature, not second nature) because I can honestly already say from my own experience that I just get more stubborn and harder to teach as I get older. Learn how to learn from your creator while you're young so that you can continue to learn when you're old.(er.)

How can a young man keep his way pure? 

By living according to your word. 

And no, this post wasn't brought on by the whole turning twenty and decade thing, thank you for asking... ;)

Advent Part 2ish

Well here's the post I said I was planning when I wrote my last post. (Oh my, that's such an obvious statement. That's painful.) This is in fact my second and last advent post, yes, I did miss a week or two. Finals and midnight showings do that. But the other week I saw from my dad's Facebook post (don't question) that one week of advent was about joy. Ooh! I know about joy too! Or so I claim.

Right now I'm feeling something that feels a lot like joy. I've been doing a lot of walking on air recently with really no reason for it besides the fact that God's awfully awesome. I could give specific reasons; The Hobbit is fantastic, finals are done, the Hobbit was everything I dreamed it would be, I have freedom to actually do things, the Hobbit. But as much as I could say those are "because I'm awesome and I rocked finals" or "because Peter Jackson is a genius" they're really just because God is awfully awesome. He likes to overwhelm me every now and then.

I did actually have something slightly new to add to my view of joy though. On the list of my personality quirks (such a long list, we'll never get through it) is my inability to express things I love. If I really really want something it's going to be the one thing I can't get myself to ask for. If I really really love something no matter how hard I try I can never get across to anyone how much I love it (this can be frustrating, it's why I like talking to people who similarly love whatever it is.) So the few times a year when I'm really joyful and overwhelmed with the amazingness that is God I can't possibly get it across. You may see a lot of exclamation points and geeking out but believe me, it's not anywhere near what I'm actually feeling.

I like to think that's how God feels about us. His love is so enormous that we can't possibly grasp it, as much as we try to understand it our concept of God's love will always fall short of the reality. His blessings that we see in our every day life are just the tiniest bit of how he displays it. But right now, of all times, we can probably remember a little better just how much God loves us and his greatest attempt to show us. What a great reason for Christmas joy.