Fabulous.
On a brighter note, I got the job on the custodial staff and have already put in two days. I love the lady I work with, and the work load isn't bad at all. Besides, I'll do just about anything if it means I'm making money.
....I'm not as desperate as that comment made me sound. :/
Since I've been back at school I've been reading Blue Like Jazz. Actually, re-reading it - I've gone through twice in the past few years, and I wanted to do it again as I was coming back to campus. In my opinion Donald Miller presents such a good representation of what Christianity is supposed to look like: not according to the religious institutions of today but as it was set down at the original foundation of the church in the books of Acts. To some people his approach is a little...shall we say "hippie-esque;" I explained the book to a very conservative friend of mine, and I realized halfway through my explanation that he prolly wouldn't appreciate it.
But personally, I like it. I agree with it.
You would think that it would be ridiculously deep and heavy. I mean, just take a gander at the title - this ambiguous phrase about a genre of music that is deep, moody, pondering, emotional. But then you crack open the book to find cartoons of sexy carrots and astronauts whose helmets are taken over by their beards when they are launched out into space for fifty-three years. You find chapter-long descriptions of the amazing people that Miller experienced on his journey to find God. Instead of referencing the Great Lord Reverend Whosoever, master of all things divine and sacred, he turns to "Julie the Canadian," "Tony the Beat Poet" (who is, in fact, not actually a poet), and "Andrew the Cussing Preacher" for his theology. He - and subsequently his approach to faith and God - is intense but at the same time very simple and basic.
It seems that somewhere between Christ's ascension and now, the mission and procedures of His followers have become seriously overcomplicated when it all started as "love God, love others." We have placed so many addendums around that relatively-simple mandate and have so emphasized those additions that we bog ourselves down and chase away other potential believers. When did loving your neighbor become something to do only when you can fit it into your schedule? Where did we pick up the notion of tithing only when we have nowhere else to spend our money?
And when did the Christian walk because a solitary one? Miller says so much on the importance of community among Christians - people in general, really. (That's been awesome to read lately since I'm trying to be more social.) But whether it's an American thing or a human thing, Christians are isolated in their spiritual growth, only sharing what they're dealing with over an hour-long coffee date or an intense chapel service. We feel content to give the "fine" answer - or the worst one, "oh I'm just so blessed" - and never get past the surface level, both in our questions and our answers.
Why is that? What are we afraid of? We're all a family, right? In my family we love each other even when one of us doesn't put his dishes in the dishwasher for days, or accidentally forgets to pick us up from school, or even disagrees with us on something that we feel strongly about. Why don't we race past the surface level and see what's lurking under the "blessed" face? How much deeper would our love and community be if we knew the true person and chose to love them anyway? Why don't we do that?
Yesterday we awoke to find that classes had been cancelled until noon because of a power outage. For about an hour and a half during our free morning, I sat in the lounge with five other girls in my unit, all of us half-ready or still in our pajamas because we had nowhere to be and no way to do online homework. One girl brought out a loaf of zucchini bread that her mom had made, another girl made tea, I made coffee (of course). And we talked. Like, face-to-face, "how's your semester starting out," "thank God we don't have classes this morning." It was small-talk, yes - there was no "diving into deep things," like I've been harping on for most of this entry. But nobody was sitting alone in their rooms on Facebook. Nobody had their headphones in, being unsocial. We were talking, enjoying each other's company. True, it was because we had nothing else to do, but that's not the point, is it? It was awesome.
Why do we only reserve that for when the electricity is out?
~
Loneliness is something that happens to us, but I think it is something we can move ourselves out of. I think a person who is lonely should dig into a community, give himself to a community, humble himself before his friends, initiate community, teach people to care for each other, love each other. Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall.
If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a big of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live.
Rick told me, a little later, I should be living in community. He said I should have people around bugging me and getting under my skin because without people I could not grow - I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human. We are born into families, he said, and we are needy at first as children because God wants us together, living among one another, not hiding ourselves under logs like fungus. You are not a fungus, he told me, you are a human, and you need other people in your life in order to be healthy.
-Donald Miller
Blue Like Jazz
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