Sectarianism

This was probably something I needed to be reminded of. And by probably I mean definitely.

Falling Snow

One thing I like about falling snow is that it is not coercive or demanding. Instead, it is silent and full of mystery. Except not the suspenseful kind of mystery that leaves you unsettled. Each individual snowflake carries with it its own distinctive story of wonder.

Also, a snowflake is not particular about the kind of person it befriends. Everyone's eyelashes are beautiful enough to kiss.

More Happies

To remind myself that life isn't all anxiety and stress:

1.) Yesterday I got my first-ever free drink from Eastern's cafe just because a certain human being named Ian is an amazing barista.

2.) (Also) yesterday, my friend that used to tense up every muscle in her body when I even touched her on the shoulder rubbed my back for practically 10 whole seconds. Yay physical touch! I was so honored.

3.) This morning I sat in the planetarium for an hour and felt 10x less anxious than I have for the past 2 days.

4.) Two of my professors from Oregon are here recruiting. It's surreal. And wonderful. And a much welcomed teensie smidgen of escapism.

5.) Oregon Extension recruiting = free Clif Bars. =P

Enough Time

"Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life." --Brian Andreas

I still believe this to be true, but what do you do when you feel stuck doing so much of the unimportant stuff? Does mature adulthood call for you to just suck it up and deal? If that's the case, I don't really want a part in mature adulthood.

Mambo #5

So periodically in Oregon we wrote these things called Memos. I posted a few of them while I was there. A bunch of us decided to keep writing memos after we left and share them with each other. I wrote one this weekend and figured I'd post it since it sheds light on a few of my thoughts on being back at school. Apologies for always being so opinionated and dramatic on here. I guess this blog kind of gives me an outlet for my voice where I don't have to filter it quite as much as I do in other places. As for the title of this particular blog, this is my fifth memo and I always thought about how memo #5 and mambo #5 sounded really similar. For some reason I never failed to find this slightly humorous. So, without further ado, mambo #5...

One thing I’ve been in the process of learning for the past 3 years is to be a creature of the present moment. Last August, people asked me if I was excited to be going to Oregon and if I was honest, I answered that I was pretty invested in and present to where I was at the moment; spending a lot of time thinking about where I was going to be wasn't doing anything for the place I was right then. When the OE was ending in December, I asked (in my last memo) for everyone to be as present as they could be right up until the end, and I tried to do the same.

Now it’s February and I’m back in Philly at school. This is where I am, and if I learned nothing else from my transition from Mission Year into college, it’s that pining for the return of the past doesn’t bring it back. It only pulls you away from the one place that you have the opportunity to be at the present.

That being said, there are plenty of times I tell people I wish I was back in Oregon – back under the stars, back stoking Cabin 9’s wood stove and talking with people I love, back baptizing our absurd family of chickens with a cascade of rancid compost raining down on their feathered heads. It’s easy to wish all of that back. And I do miss it terribly. But I don’t think my heart is really asking for the Oregon Extension to return. I mean, I know it won’t, and I’m not holding out and refusing to make my home here on the chance that some miraculous opportunity to pack up and go back will arise. Still, there’s a large part of me that is reluctant to settle in where I am. The fact is, I don’t want to be content here.

The things that make me discontented are things that I think should be making me discontented. I’ve been disenchanted with a lot of things lately: the bigness and unavoidably dehumanizing nature of our global economy, the Almighty God of so many theologies and churches that ultimately teaches people to hate themselves, the busyness of my typical American lifestyle that’s chock full of commitments and appointments and devoid of the time necessary for rest, self-reflection (or any kind of holistic thinking), and agenda-free conversation.

Currently, I feel trapped in an educational system that doesn’t give me space to really study the things that I most passionately want to study. College seems to be created to (a)cater to students who haven’t been given the opportunity to discover what they really want to learn about and (b)keep them off the job market for at least four years.

I could drop out and read a ton of books, have conversations with a diverse range of people, intern at a handful of places, and come out on the other end having learned (and actually retained) a lot more theoretical and applicable knowledge, but I would be lacking that important piece of paper I get for coming to this place and reading third-hand critiques of Marx and spending class time taking tests to make sure I’ve done my homework. (Apologies for the painful run-on sentences.)

I’m being a tad harsh right now. Actually, I feel like I’m harsh all the time. I go to meals in the dining hall and look at the food, the catering corporation and the garbage cans with sadness, knowing it’s possible for people to tend their own gardens, buy locally from farmers they actually know, and compost more than what they throw away. I see majority white students on campus, observe the Black and Asian ones hanging out in mono-colored groups, cross paths with outcast gay students, and think wistfully of places where I know that color, age, sex, and orientation are better integrated, and all the better for it. I’m hyper-sensitive to the things people say that rub up against the new thoughts I have about God, and every time, I see how the ideas they hold so tightly to are wounding them just like they wounded me.

In response to all of these things that make me feel sad and frustrated and unalive, I’m a mad dreamer – and an optimistic one at that. I desire racial justice and gender justice and food justice; locality, less busyness, and more authentic, life-giving interaction; jobs that actually enhance self-worth, creativity and community-life. I dream of ways that these things could look and ways that I could actualize them with my own future, but at each stage of my dreaming I run up against walls that leave me feeling defeated and uncertain.

All of that to say, I don’t want to nestle down into Eastern’s happy structure too comfortably. Not having enough time to hold and ponder the things I feel most strongly about sets me on a continuous wave that crests in optimism and crashes down into pessimism, over and over again, and it feels like all I’m capable of portraying to the people around me is how bi-polar, dramatic and cynical I am. I’m kind of waffling around, trying to figure out where the balancing point between idealism and reality lies.

So currently, I am an overwhelmed college student, holding onto a lot of relatively new (to me) and not-very-popular ideas with pretty tightly clenched fists, afraid of what will happen if I open my hands. Opening my hands seems to be the only way that I can be present here, though. So I guess I’m trying to figure out how to do that, without betraying the things I’ve been feeling and thinking and experiencing lately. It’s a process, but a good one, I think.

Forgiving

I've noticed that I tend to speak and write a lot more unforgivingly than I feel. I wonder why I do that...

Hump Day Happies

1. Auditing classes

2. The guy that just walked past my window at work wearing a 2 foot cone shaped cardboard hat.

3. The thought that maybe, someday, I'll actually be able to hold a conversation with someone in Spanish

4. Sloppy joes for lunch

5. Knitting

6. Having a roommate that listens to me vent about things like God and how I think school is getting in the way of my education

7. The grandfather that called in at work and wanted to know how to deliver flowers to his granddaughter for Valentine's day

8. When Ellie tries to tell a story and laugh at the same time (I sincerely wish I could clue in everyone that's clueless about this post.)

9. Being texted a random ridiculous fact on the hour for an entire day by your best friend who read your blog complaining about a lack of spontaneity in your life and decided to change that.

10. Memories that make you look like an idiot when you crack up at the thought of them.