Word.

"This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." -Joshua 1:8

This verse and the whole Book it comes from are why I write obnoxious posts for class.

Just a Mini Post To Express My Manufactured Frustration

After my 6:00-7:15 Digital Storytelling class, I headed to Dodd with Brenda to watch the Religious Freedom speech given by Professor Robert T. Pennock, being pretty much ready to listen to any of the worst sorts of religious blasphemy coming out of this man's mouth. The title of his presentation suggested something about Intelligent Design Creationism being totally scientifically unfounded. Since I myself have tried to sit down to watch Ben Stein's Expelled and had to stop probably halfway through the documentary due to a fine mixture of boredom and admitted distaste for the "scientific" approaches taken, I figured sitting through this presentation really might not be that bad.

And it wasn't.

He made the basic case that teaching evolution in schools is not a malicious atheistic scheme. Evolution does not disprove God, nor does it make any attempt to do so. He suggested that a belief in both evolution and a Creator is mainstream.

Fair enough, right? I got to thinking during his presentation that the real problem here is that both sides of the rope are so intensely being pulled by frustrated extremists that no one is bothering to inspect the rope itself. No one is saying, "Oh hey, I'm not going to believe all of what you believe, but I can acknowledge that you are not trying to dispel my beliefs. Let's try to teach that to our kids as well--that they don't have to let science tear them away from a belief in God, but they can instead embrace what they choose because this is not a dichotomous situation." This is why kids get to college and lose their faith. They've never had to own it, and they've not been encouraged to own it. They're finally learning to think for themselves in a time that universities are telling them how to think for themselves. Contradictory much?

I'm not sure. I just know that the Q&A portion of this presentation was ridiculous and went nowhere. It simply boggles my mind sometimes how well people can dance around an issue. It's almost like they want the hatred and hostility. With *God's* help, perhaps we can *evolve* into something that looks far from this.

Large Letters

Doing hardcore homework on the Saturday after the first week of classes seems a bit much, but I'd rather this semester not trick me into thinking it's going to be the cakewalk I've been pretending college has been up until now. But it's good, because I've gotten a chunk of homework (that I'd already fallen behind on) done here at the Caribou, AND I got 10 cents off my order due to my past as a literature aficionado (er, of sorts) on my high school Scholastic Bowl team.

Also, I have to start another blog for my Digital Storytelling class. This class is crazy in the best sense of the word. I mean, Jim Groom has already thrown all kinds of "assignments" at us, which involve setting up a Twitter account, purchasing a domain, getting a wiki account, and other assorted cyber things I haven't gotten around to yet. And apparently on this new blog, I have to discuss meta-media. Trippy. I could tell UMW's once best professor Gardner Campbell had his hand in this project before he showed up via Skype on a big screen in class on Thursday evening. Turns out he is the reason for the aim of this class. THE AIM: To explore how technology shapes us, our culture, and our relationships. Gardner asserts that it is absolutely necessary and essential for students to embrace the technology we have and purchase domains of their own upon entering college so that they can develop as adults without airplane-acting spoons flying toward their mouths. What he's saying is he hates 5-paragraph essays and blackboard. Understandable. But for real, he makes a valid point. How many underqualified job candidates are colleges throwing into "the real world?" Countless, without a doubt. I mean, I could be one of them with my half-assed anti-collegiate efforts in the world of academia. Education is no longer governmentally mandated for me, and it is something I really should be embracing beyond the required boundaries of syllabi. Countless times I've heard my father say how much he's always wanted to be a college student again ever since he graduated with his doctorate in Theology/Philosophy. This reminds me of my dad's Psalm 111 sermon...

"Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them." -Psalm 111:2

And here I am not taking advantage of one of the most amazing opportunities I may ever face in my life. I'm thanking my parents for their all-too-generous payments to this institution by daydreaming in class, not doing my homework, and minimal amounts of study time for exams.

In the words of my beloved good friend and roommate of my first two years of college, Gilmore McLean, "I guess we've all got priorities. I f***ed it up with considerable ease... please, please, please forget about her sh**ty, awful, guilty priorities."
She wrote this song for her baby nephew she knew she wouldn't be around to see grow up. She laments feeling like she has to go out into the world to truly live her life at the expense of not being there for him.

For me, this translates to feeling like I need to take this approach with God. I tell Him I can go out there and figure things out on my own. Then I tell Him to help me, but I ignore His hand when He holds it out. I started this semester telling God I need to get out of my mind-mess, and then I arbitrarily opened my Bible to Galatians. Arbitrary my butt. Galatians addresses the fool I've been, and God is pretty clearly saying, "Um, yeah, it's about time you want to get out of that mess. Here, I already told you what to do a long time ago, so how about you really learn it this time, k?"

Paul says in Galatians 6:11, "See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand," in his final warning. Perhaps I should make my font clearer and boot it up a few sizes myself.

Will do.

All Kinds Of Amazing Crazy

How to calm down from a near anxiety attack.

AND Jesus. More of the latter than the former, but you know. God has blessed us with some wonderful tangibilities for ease, particularly the Scriptures. And also music. All. Kinds. Of. Music. Such a phenomenon. Really, there is so much flipping amazing going on here and there and everywhere, and I'd like one of those amazings to be my Abstract Algebra grade. So I guess I should try to figure out these crazy symbols whilst figuring out what the heck God wants me to do with these crazy symbols, crazy overall academic semester, crazy times with friends, and crazy good music. Katie Jones out.

Baby Steps

Taking baby steps would be a big step for me.

That is to say, I should probably consider tak[e]ing them. I was talking to a friend last night about me lacking patience, diligence, and probably other -ences. Then I caught myself in the position of a person who is pointing out some pretty glaring and serious flaws in the most nonchalant of manners, as if I shouldn't care either way... as if God shouldn't care either way. I can fool myself about my own desires, but I surely can't do that with God. And I've most often been opposed to the whole setting goals thing under the excuse that I am not a girl of structure. Well, in this continuing trek of discovering needs over wants, I'm figuring I do need structure--at least to the extent of structuring my life around what God desires out of me. So while I do have a list of things in my head I'd like to get done this semester, I know the most difficult of them will be sticking with sticking with. And sticking with God will put that kick into every baby step along the way.

IDK

"Now I'm gonna go get fired," finished my freshly encouraged mother.

Yeah, we had another inevasible confrontation during which we discussed my issues as a daughter, friend, and servant of God. No, these talks aren't a barrel of monkeys for me, but they are all too important for me to keep wanting to run away from them. Too bad they can't always be timed so perfectly so as to get my mother to work on time and not an hour late. (Doubtful she gets fired--they love her. Understandably so.)

The thing about these conversations is, I know. However, I realize saying, "I know," is generally one of the most dismissive things you can say to one in a conversation, so I've worked pretty hard on getting it out of my bank of responses. What's equally difficult to this erasure is refilling that empty space with a constructive response, and I think I may be getting a little better at that as well. Evidence of this is how amicably this morning's confrontation flowed and ended. Further evidence is how much more insight I feel I have after coming out of it. The best result is that I don't believe as I staunchly did before that my relationship with my mother will always have to be a battle as we're trying to maintain a close mother-daughter and even friend-friend relationship.

Because I found out that at the root of all her frustration and misunderstanding, she really does just want to see me loving and living for God. I know she's wondering, Is that so much to ask? I say, Shouldn't be. But what kind of bull-crap response is that? I'd want to slap me in the face and say, "WELL FIGURE IT OUT ALREADY BECAUSE I'VE BEEN WHERE YOU ARE, KID, AND YOU'RE GOING NOWHERE." So all things considered, she's been handling all of this really well. Really well.

So while I refrain from verbal "I know"s, they still blare in my mind as strong retorts, and I can't say that's much help either. 'Cuz I don't know, and I know that I don't know.

What to write? Hm, Katie Jones just handed me her computer and told me to write so here goes! 'Imma let you finish'--ha ha, that was Kanye West. Now I'm back. Hm, still don't really know what to say. Being in Mathews is the best! I love spending time with Katie and being at Katie's house. It's great, really.
Hello.

More Questioning Ramble Blahs

There's stuff laying kinda heavy on my heart. Hm, I'll save the vague speech for a less meaningful post. My high school friends are laying heavy on my heart. This is where I say that only one of them is saved, but it's not where I say how much I wish they all were and how much I pray that they all will be someday. Perhaps that would be the right thing to say here, but I'm just gonna keep typing and see where I end up on all this. Hope you don't mind.

We all hung out last night, and it was really fun... so fun that I didn't roll up my driveway until almost 2:00 a.m. in the 19 degree weather. Ouch. What always strikes me about these times over break when we all make the effort to get together as a group is how much we've all changed but also how much we're all still the same. One major change is that one of us (the only other Christian) is married, and that one couldn't make it to our hangout. Another major change for me personally is how I've grown in my faith and, frankly, how awkward that is to bring to this group. I've never felt like I need to be that person who's telling one and all about what God is doing in my life, but I do believe a faith not lived is not a faith at all. Sure, that's easy to do at the BCM and while hanging out with some good Christian buddies back at school (not that I'm so great at that), but heck if I know what that looks like with my group of friends at home who are loving life and living it up at college without a desire or perceived need for Christ. I tend to linger on the surface with quick quips and frequent laughter--my natural mode of socialization.

When does this whole faith thing become natural? Is that a valid question? Why am I afraid of it turning me into a cookie-cutter mold of that Christian my home friends would never want to hang out with? Am I really afraid of losing my friends or am I afraid of feeling like I've subscribed to something that can be so alienating? I'm sure there's a way of loving these friends that is still honoring to God, but I'm not sure that I can really get much beyond the surface level in my relationships with these friends. This is mostly because I've noticed how prone my own heart is to hardening once I allow myself to dwell in the mindset of my non-believing friends. I even felt it last night. I felt that subtle commencement of disconnect from God just because I didn't want to take on the challenge that comes with the package of faith. The simple challenge of being who God wants me to be and not who the world wants me to be.

With that being said I'd love for all of my friends to live in faith, because I do believe that's where it's at and that's what it's all about. Put your whole self in but don't take your whole self out. But I don't want them to live in faith for my sake... to save me from the unfortunate disconnect I have from them because of who Christ is to me (or rather, who I need Christ to be to me). The biggest challenge for me has been trying to hang onto what I know I need rather than what I want, because truth is I don't always want the God business. Sometimes it gets in the way of my friend fun. Sometimes my faulty judgement fails to see a challenge as worthwhile. Sometimes I am a stubborn fool.

And sometimes I need more time to mull over something before I can make any sort of coherent blog post about it, but sometimes I post it anyway.

Lovies

Break will be over a week early for me. At least, what I was looking forward to out of break. What was I looking forward to? Well, a snippet of insight would be about 10 seconds ago when Deb stood at the door of my room, held up the Glenn Beck book I got her, said, "This is a good pooping book--I especially like that it starts out talking about capitalism," and proceeded to the bathroom. Surely she's in there defecating all of her hyper-conservative frustrations out as I type. Gotta love her.

And I really do. I could go into our lack of loving relationship in the past here, but I don't really think that's necessary. Sometimes sisters just don't get along. You understand. Now that she lives in Tennessee, though, with a brand spankin' new baby, it's really hard for everyone to see her go back after her 10-day stay. Mom was rocking little baby Leo for hours last night and muttered, "What am I gonna do without my boy?" There was hope in her voice, though. The promise of seeing Leo weekly through the mighty powers of webcams and the promise of visiting him in TN again come spring. But it's still sad. The distance. Sharing lives via photographs and videos rather than meaningful looks and hugs. It's truly a blessing to even get that much, but it's still not ideal.

But it does stress for me how important it is to make a family out of who you got whenever and wherever. Ever since I worked at camp, I've realized how incredibly easy it is to just love people. It is. Don't tell me it isn't, because I know it is. It's easy to view my friends at school as family. It's easy to view my friends at home as family. It was alllll too easy to plop myself down in the middle of a campground in Middle-Of-Nowhere, Pennsylvania, and consider the entire 100-person staff and influx of children family.

On top of that, it should be easy to call whoever happens to read these words family and that whole room of strangers I will never see again family and those random strangers I will probably never even meet (or even come within a 100-mile radius of) across the globe family.

I wrote a blog post once back in high school about how strange it is that we have one word for love, yet so many different types of love... love for family, love for friends, love for pets, love for inanimate objects. I proceeded to make up random sub-categories of love out of the fun of it, but now I figure I shouldn't stress the differences (especially since the word "oblendok" probably isn't the best as an expression of love for a stranger since it sounds more like one of L. Ron Hubbard's alien rulers). Once you get all root of the root of the root about love, you wind up at God... a.k.a. the Beginning and the End. Because God is All and in all. Because life really is that amazing and great because of Him. LOVE really is that amazing and great because of Him.

So now I'm gonna go love up on some Martins before they peace out this evening. And then I'm gonna love up on my last week of break just for the fun of it.