Echoes and Moments

I'm home after our first day of New Student Outreach (NSO, for those fluent in InterVarsity acronyms).  Spending the day meeting new students and connecting with old friends is one of my favorite times as a staff worker; there is a joy that I look forward to every time I jump in my truck and make the 30 minute journey down the coast to Hancock College. Unfortunately, as an extrovert, I find that I tend to overdraw my bank of energy and need a quick nap and prayer time to re-orient myself in the midst of my day. Today I read a beautiful prayer that my Dad gave me recently; it's one I treasure because it helps me understand a little better how much of a joy, how serious, and how desperately inadequate I am at saving any of those students in the same way that Christ actually saves them. It's from a book called Let Us Be What We Are   by a Catholic lay writer famous for his devotional materials. I'd like to share it with you, now! In my spiritual notes the other da...

This poem is inspired by my recent relapse into the post rock records I loved when I first came to college, plus those old psychadelic rock, classic rock, and glam rock records I loved to mime on guitar.   Our mind's web reaches to the far ends of the deep. Space, A place where the paintings turn to dreams And the light unshielded shines. Out there no thought can break what is not matter, what cannot be pierced, And though I fire these questions like volleys They are lost without an echo, without a tracer to guide the next shot. I am sick as I search for you, the great Dreamer whose masterpiece weaves through all thoughts, and binds what I thought was clearly meant to fail, This experiment I secretly feared was doomed from the start. But the Breath spells hope in those cold deep spaces, in The darkness no soul can bear, Your silence breaks in like a tornado It repairs all my engineered disasters, that I a happy fool, spend these eons to make.

Transition can bring out some creative ways of viewing your life decisions. Since I'm young and (partially) unemployed, I face many difficult questions about what I want my life to look like, the goals I want to achieve, and the hopes that I have to remain unflinchingly faithful to Jesus along the way. Such questions can test the limits of my sanity. A recent conversation with my Dad reminded me that the ancient Greeks had two ways of viewing time, and it is why there are actually two words in the New Testament for time: chronos and kairos (yup, I know, nerdy professor stuff, but I love it!). For a description better than any that I could give, read this great article  by an Orthodox priest describing the two. Basically, chrono s is the quantity that describes, days, years, decades, millenia, eons. But kairos is different, it is eternity encapsulated in the moment, a perpetual "now." I know, I don't really get it, either. The way the author describes kairos ...

Note: friends, I originally wrote this as a journal entry on August 1, yet hesitated to share it because it is a very personal entry, even for me. Don't worry, there's nothing graphic or revealing in here, it's just good to let you know that this is pretty raw stuff straight from the heart.  It's okay, because you're probably not going to read the whole thing, anyway! At El Morro National Monument, New Mexico Today I found out I did not get a job that I applied for, one that seemed to match my skills and experience in natural resource management very precisely. I did everything to the best of my abilities and even surrounded myself with the prayers of those closest to me. I got a great recommendation from the CEO of the nonprofit I interned with as a student, typed the best cover letter I could muster, and even gave them electronic and physical copies of my resume. You know, all the stuff the university's career services and those industry professionals ...

It is late, but I have been up because I can't go to sleep. Unfortunately, I didn't get a job that I interviewed for, and it has been the latest in a laundry list of frustrations that have marked 2012. I will post an entry that gives you a better idea of how I'm handling this, but beware, it's long and personal. Don't worry, I'm okay. In the meantime, join me as I pray with the words of Thomas Merton: "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  No do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will, does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire, and I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.  ...