How Hot Are the Hub-caps of Hell?

Tonight was the traditional torch light parade and bonfire as a part of Homecoming Week Festivities.  It was a blast as four hundred torches lit up the sky and blazed through the path, seeking to dispel all darkness and all thoughts of the Red Devils losing on Saturday.

(Yes, the Eureka [Christian] College mascot is the Red Devil.  What perfect Disciples humor, eh?)

As we got to the massive bonfire and it came time to throw my torch in, I had the thought that I always do when I step close enough to feel a bonfire: “Is this what Hell feels like?”

I can attribute this thought to my good friend Colin Earle, who was speaking at Steffani Silva’s sixteenth birthday party.  As part of her large party, she wanted a huge bonfire that rivaled the size of the Eureka fire I had tonight.  The party-goers could not stand within ten or fifteen feet due to the excessive heat.  As clear as water, I remember Colin saying, “I wonder if this is what the Hell is like?”

Little did they know that I was undergoing a large faith crisis at the time, so his words cut me up like a knife and I stared in awe at the fire that could be the fate for my soul. (Interesting enough, it was a rainy day when Steffani had her party.  She was freaking out, and, knowing me for the good Christian chap that I am, asked me to say a prayer to make the rain go away.  I did, but I felt very hypocritical doing it.)

I still wonder if that is what Hell is.  Is it that massive bonfire that scorches the skin?  Are souls like chickens roasted over a spit?  Is there such a thing as Hell in the first place?  An even harder question is: if there is, would it necessarily be how we conceptualize it? 

I think that Hell, assuming its existence, is much more based on the idea of utter loneliness.  It would be a separation from love in every definition and left with the cold dregs of hate, anger, fear, and jealousy.  There are things worse than physical pain.

           

Would my faith change if I didn’t believe in Hell?  Is it necessary?  Why does it exist?  Such questions, such a puny amount of answers.

An Interesting Story

“You know, it’s an interesting story,” is how most of my tales start out.  Sometimes the story is indeed interesting and sometimes, well, it’s not.  However, I will say that all of my stories are interesting to me, it is others who find them disenchanting. 

So this blog will be interesting too.  I was speaking to Meme the other day about one of my papers for English.  It was about money and the traditional American dream based on two articles, one “A Lavish Wedding Costs More Than You Think” and the other “Her Body, My Baby”.  “A Lavish Wedding” is about how the typical wedding costs are actually much higher because of the money that could have been made if the $17,000 median wedding expenses had been invested.  The second article “Her Baby, My Body” was about a woman who had a baby with the help of a surrogate.  Both are good articles, one based on numbers, the other on more “matters of the heart”.  In my work, I asked the question why people are willing to pay so much for weddings and babies, and if the answer to that is that Americans are trying to spend their way into happiness and/or attempting to buy the American Dream.  It was a delightful paper to write, and I sincerely hope that my professor will see it the same way and grade it accordingly (thankfully she is relatively easy graders SO… we will see…).

After Meme proof-read my paper (at which she is almost too good having spent so many years as a secretary; she frequently texts me my grammatical mistakes in my blogs as well) we discussed whether she thought what I said was true.  She believed that the large wedding costs in our culture were due to “Keeping up with the Joneses” syndrome.  We talked on a bit before I said that it would follow that she would perceive it that way as she and Papa eloped.  It suddenly dawned on me that EVERYONE who raised me had eloped.  Mom and Dad… Meme Janice and Papa Ted… Meme Jayne and Papa Jack... Effie and Lloyd.  Why was my life filled with quickie weddings??  I guess that they were rebels in their time… or cheap… or just in it for the love.  Who knows?

So that was my short and interesting story for you BUT! I have a request.  I have to write a LARGE information paper and argumentative paper over a topic related to marriage and/or family.  SO, if you have an idea, please comment it below, Facebook it to me, email it to me, text it to me, snail mail it to me, or simply call me and tell me what a good thing to research would be.  I have a few ideas, but I would love a few more to broaden my perspective before I choose the topic that I will write 45% of my English Writing grade over. 

Thanks!

Clott

Do It Right

Here in the real world…

Thankfully this academic week is pretty easy schmeasy.  I only had one English class, today, and it was a mid-term exam.  It is a small grade per the entire course and I think I did okay on the paper we had to revise. We had written a paper in the first week of class and today’s test was on revision of ideas.  I kinda think I did better the first time… but I hope not!  Spanish was decent and nothing big there either, Modern Philosophy is normal, and Greek is not expected to throw any curveballs, except perhaps a quiz on Thursday.  Freshman Seminar has no homework until next week- SO I get to catch up, get ahead, and breathe.  It feels nice to do that every now and then.

So this week, with all my extra spare time, I am filling it (mostly) with hat making.  I really enjoy the knitting of the hats as it is not only calming but very productive.  Right now I am in a race against the clock to finish as many of these hats in maroon and gold for Saturday’s homecoming game!  I hope to finish five before Saturday, which is $50 for the Eureka Heart House as well as five hats displaying that good ole Eureka pride.

My dearest Meme has had an interesting role in this.  Meme crocheted afghans at the earliest I can remember (she stopped after I was about five or so) and had lots of advice.  Her most important was, “If you screw up, go back and fix it.  If you’re gonna do, make sure you do it right!”

My, “It’s only charity!” excuse didn’t fly with her.  After I digested what she told me, I discerned her to be right (Meme- I don’t say it often, keep this comment near and dear to your heart).  So the hat I was working on soon became garbage when I noticed that I skipped three stiches down towards the bottom.  It didn’t become garbage until I tried to “fix” it and the hat became unraveled.  Oh the trials and tribulations of learning a new craft!

It rained here considerably today.  I feel bad when the folks here go complaining about it, knowing how many farmers in Oklahoma need the rain like most people need a paycheck.  If you, my blogging community, could, please keep praying for rain.  Also, please pray for Kathy Standridge and Chitwood Farms, because they have been holding out for some of “that wet stuff from the sky” and I know they are hurting bad for it. 

That is all from my lofty position in Darst 202.  Have a wonderful day/night and remember- if you want/need a hat- I can make it with my hands and love for the low low price of $10!!!  Start thinking of Christmas now!

Returning With a New Bag of Tricks!

Back to normalcy I come!  “The Week” finally wrapped up, my professors hold my (hopefully graded with A+) papers, and the two exams I had took the sweat, blood, and tears right out of me, but they too, hopefully, have beautiful A’s.  There is no letter prettier, after all.

Although, I must say, grades look different to me now.  Grades still have importance in my education, do not get me wrong, but I look at them with less meaning. Instead of viewing grades as almost a competition, I see them as bars by which I can judge my performance.  If I get a B, I get a B; however, it simply means “try harder”.  I’m trying as hard as I can, so I want the A’s, but I refuse to freak out over all the other letters.  Except F, I will throw myself into a tizzy over an F, and probably a D.  In fact, a C would get me down… Maybe I am not quite as reformed as I thought!

Some of this stems from how much I love my classes.  I would not trade for the world what I am learning now.  It captivates me, it enlightens me, and I am amazed at the knowledge I bring back home every single day.  I could flunk and still be happy with the education I received at Eureka College because of how it has already changed my life.  Not that I am going to flunk out because that would mean school would no longer be an option and I DO like me some school.

In other news, I knitted my first hat today!  It made me quite excited.  I did it through Bearded Men Knitting Hats.  BMKS is a student group that celebrates “No Shave November” by having bearded guys break stereotypes and knit hats to sell for $10.  The money raised goes to the Eureka Heart House, which is a home for domestic abuse victims and the homeless of the community.  Breaking down societal barriers to break down economic barriers sounds like my kind of program!

To be honest, I did not set out to join this group.  One of the sophomore ministry fellows, Zane, started the program. I thought it was a worthy program, so I donated a bit of my “God Money” (my tithe and offering) to the group to do some of that good Jesus Work.  Then Zane asked me to come to the knitting lesson today.  Not only is it another skill I get to learn, but I get to help people.  How awesome?!  I am on cloud nine right now.

Speaking of skills, I have also started to learn the piano.  My good friend, Belle from New Zealand, is my teacher.  She plays so beautifully, and she is really quite the professor.  Not that she acts necessarily friendly whilst teaching, but she surely gets the job done efficiently!  I can now play “Old MacDonald”.  I have yet to learn “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” I suppose the lamb is still on Old MacDonald’s farm.

So, while my week was not the most fun, I enjoyed life even more.  I missed you, my blogging community.  I hope that in the week that I haven’t got to talk to you, you all have not deserted me.

With God’s peace and love,

Clott

P.S.- Hand knitted hats for $10!  Colors are pick-able, and all money goes to a good cause.  Contact me if you are interested by phone, commenting, or by emailing: coldlott@gmail.com

Persecution

Sorry to all of my readers for not writing the last couple of days.  My grandparents came in and I politely spend the time with them instead; I hope that nobody minded too much.  All is well, mostly anyhow.

I may not get a blog in every day this coming week; I have three essays and two tests in the next six days, so I’m just slightly (read: all out, freak out) nervous and rather busy.  So patience, definitely need a bit of patience.  And prayer never hurt anybody.

Today Meme and I went to the Morton Pumpkin Festival, which is allegedly the largest Pumpkin Festival in the United States, if I understand right.  In reality it was just a community event that involved a lot of pumpkins but most of all a well-organized chamber of commerce.  The Morton Chamber of Commerce directs the event and they couldn’t do a better job with arranging all the pumpkin foods, craft show, carnival rides, and parade.  They did well, and it’s a well-oiled machine.  I give them a definite A+.

However, there was one odd moment.  When we were walking back to my car to head back to Meme and Papa’s hotel room, we went by the path of the parade.  The TEA Party float was going by and they were shouting their views and values.  As they passed by, people would clap and cheer and the head shouter-lady would scream back, “Protect our values!  Defend our constitution!  Join the TEA Party!” 

I was wearing my Ada High School Young Democrats shirt.

I carefully walked in front of the people who were cheering against my political beliefs and I felt afraid for a moment- you never know how mob mentality will work.  Seriously though, I realized for the first time that my political beliefs are more persecuted than my religious ones.  I’m not sure how to feel about that.  In one sense I am happy because it is nice to not be persecuted about one facet of myself.  However, what about liberal Muslims who live in the corn (or oil) fields? 

Chaplain Bruce was speaking about a conversation he had had recently (or maybe he had read an article) that Muslims, “Stay inside on 9/11 at all cost.  They fear being persecuted.”  Where has our society gone?  Where are the Christian values of “turning the other cheek?” Where is our moral compass with the persecuted?  Where is our love of ALL God’s children?  Where is any of Christ?

I’d like to think that the (low) percentage of terrorist Muslims is equal to the number of Christian war-hawks/bigots.  I do not know if I’m right, I hope for the sake of America and Christians as a whole that I am right.    

After all this, where do Christians stand, really?  Are we in solidarity with our neighbor or on the line with rocks in hand?

Now That I Have My Mouth Open... What Do I Do With My Foot?

Another day has come and gone and still I remain standing.  I received some work back and I feel slightly more confident and slightly more nervous.  I had an Ancient Greek quiz today that I do NOT feel confident about… we’ll see how that goes…  I also have my first “real” essay due in Modern Philosophy next Tuesday.  My stomach knots up whenever I think about it.

On another note, Meme and Papa are coming this weekend to visit!  It was a surprise to me last night when they called asking if this upcoming weekend would be a good time to come, but now that it is all settled, I’m very excited.  It’ll be a very fun weekend.  I certainly love my grandparents.  (And they obviously love me to drive 702 miles!)

To those of you who replied to yesterday’s blog about what should my response be to Pontiac…  I wrote the Pastor back.  I thanked him for his letter and told him about my goal to visit all 23 churches in my area, but I did tell him how Pontiac captured my heart and that I would be back sooner than I had originally anticipated.  I went on to say that I would probably be back to visit my new friends in Pontiac in early October.  I thought it was a nice compromise that satisfied both sides fighting within me.

So today’s story of the day starts with an observation.  There is more cigarette smoking here.  I do not know if it is Illinois based, or simply college based; my guess is that it is college related as for the first time I am around people who can all legally buy tobacco.  However, every time I see one of my peers puffing away, it makes me a little sad.  It is little pieces of life that they are inhaling and exhaling mixed with the toxic chemicals, nicotine, and other various things in the drag off of a cigarette. 

Anyhow, I was walking to my car to investigate a hotel Meme had found on the internet when my friend was sitting with two girls who were taking a smoke break.  He called out, “It doesn’t rub off, come over for a minute!”

So I walked over, and we talked for a minute.  We actually discussed, kinda lightly, smoking as a habit and how that contrasted with “social smoking”.  My friend believed that I thought negatively on smoking and he seemed to want my opinion on what I thought about smoking.  (I used the word “seemed” because I cannot remember if he specifically asked me or if it was intended for it to be said, but I would not have said the following without an invitation of some sort.)

“Well, I don’t think badly of smokers, I just think smoking is plebian.”  My friend, who was an extremely rare smoker it came to be known, just looked at me and said, “Ouch!” 

I wrote off this experience as yet another example of when opinions are best kept to ourselves and that what we think other people want (or what they think they want, as well) is often the exact opposite of what they wanted you to say.  Oh well, for better or worse, I have said far worse things. 

The Kink In My Plan

Today has been a good day insofar.  The Campus Activities Board brought in “Wax to the Max” which is a free craft for students to participate in.  Basically, you dunk your hand(s) into warm wax and it holds a pose.  For my hand I did a jolly Oklahoma “OK”. 

I tried to get creative and do it in multiple colors, but I failed.

Other than that, classes went swimmingly and I think I may have my HELM project in the works.  I’m pretty sure it will be similar to Last Sunday Supper, but it may take on a more environmental and health conscious mission. 

The only “kink” comes in the form of a letter.  As some of you may remember, over Labor Day I visited the First Christian Church of Pontiac (following worship I went to the Threshermen’s Parade).  Today I received a letter from the minister, Pastor Jerry, in which he not only invited me to come back, but asked that I come to Sunday School to share with the class my “presence and perspectives”.  He’s really a swell guy, but to prove his intent, he wrote that he would ensure that the cost of gas would be reimbursed.

So what do I do?  I have a church that would benefit exponentially from my presence; however, I decided weeks ago not to settle down until I completed my entire list of 23 churches (which I didn’t get to work on this Sunday, I went to Eureka Christian Church’s “First Light” service at 8:15).  Do I quit my list?  Do I decline to Pastor Jerry?  Do I compromise and go to Pontiac on a semi-regular basis? 

SO!  I actually need advice… as much as you want to give, and as many people want to give it, I’ll certainly take it!  I’m torn between what I want, what my true goal is, what they need, and most of all what God wants me to do in this situation. 

It’s not a crisis by any means, indeed, it is a good thing!  I just would appreciate a little opinion.

Although I will say that if all churches were so giving and friendly, it might make a difference.  Inviting someone to the parade, or to lunch, or just to be a part of your family is what makes them part of your family.  Just as we love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19), they might love if we first love them.  Food for thought. 

Ten Years and One New World Later

What is in a name?  I talk about names more often than I should and sometimes my name obsession makes me sound like John Proctor from The Crucible.  However, how many of you know that today has a more proper name than “9-11”?  Today is actually Patriot Day. 

So in honor of this, realistically the tenth Patriot Day (But technically the ninth as I believe that Patriot Day was first observed in 2002), I thought that I would recall a few of my own memories.

I was a third grader, and a strapping young lad, if I do say so myself.  I had a backpack with wheels that year, which I remember were very popular.  In fact, it was more common (and therefore WAY cooler) to have a backpack that was NOT an actual backpack.  They either had wheels or were a side pack or some were even designed to strap across only one shoulder. 

I headed up to my classroom on that Tuesday morning.  I was feeling nothing special; it was just an average day to me.  If I recall right, it was decent weather, with blue skies and white clouds.  I remember the general feelings of happiness and contentedness.  If I was to guess anything about that day, I think I might have been running a little late to school.

I get to my classroom and I see the television is on in Mrs. Fulton’s class.  I was confused and thought the kids must have persuaded our teacher to watch cartoons before class, but that did not seem right.  Then I looked and noticed it was news.  “Blah!” I recall thinking, “Mrs. Fulton’s watching the news!”  Back then, I didn’t have the love of news that I have now.

Then I realized something was odd in my classroom.  It was quiet.  My class, which I distinctly remember being the loudest class I had in all my 14 years in the Ada Public School System, was silent.  That is when I really looked at the television sets and looked at what was really going on.

My grandmother picked me up that day.  Again, that was something that never happened; it was always my grandfather that picked me up from school.  As we were driving to Glenwood to pick up Chase, I recall Meme saying, “It’s just like Pearl Harbor.”  I wondered silently what Pearl Harbor was, but I knew it must have been bad too.

Beyond the actual day, I only recall one other thing that happened that year that was expressly related to September 11 (although, looking back, I see that many things were repercussions of the attacks).  It was an indoor recess two weeks or a month later.  Normally I played with Legos, but on this day I played with the other boys and we built a large building out of building blocks.  It was probably two feet tall, maybe three.  We then grabbed dinosaurs and started demolishing it. 

The teacher who was on duty came by and started screaming at us.  I remember that she had the reputation of being the “mean teacher”, but I was shocked.  We were just playing dinosaurs!  She was about to put us into time out, when the other boys and I quickly rattled that we were just playing dinosaurs and that it was just part of the game.

She looked at us for a second and said, “Oh,” very softly.  She gazed around the room for a second and said, “Well, let’s quit playing that game.  We’ve all had enough of buildings being torn down for a long time.”

 I now believe that what I always recollected as anger was just sadness… fear... and the pangs that come with losing innocence.  However, that may be over analyzing the situation. 

The other thought that I have had today, one decade older at 18 instead of 8, is this.  Someone Tweeted “what we should do”, and I have thought of it off and on… it is the words to my LEAST favorite hymn in the whole history of hymns that I have ever sang, but today it makes more sense to me than ever before.  I leave you with the words to “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep

Silence”.

      Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

            and with fear and trembling stand;

            ponder nothing earthly-minded,

            for with blessing in his hand,

            Christ our God to earth descendeth,

            our full homage to demand.

Commenting Made Simple!

Okay, I know most of this information is to the right of the page (under the "About Me"), but I figured that it would be helpful to MANY people if I would post a slightly more in-depth instruction list on how to comment on my blogging.  This is very in depth.  I tried to write it as if I was talking to a person who was older than Methusalah trying to operate a computer.  So it SHOULD be easy to follow.

It is very simple, but the first time can seem a little, dare I say, frightening and confusing.  Don't panic!  A monkey with a wrench could figure this out.

After each blog there is a reddish bar that runs along the bottom.  In it is has buttons to link this blog to other sites, such as Facebook, or Twitter.  It also says what time I posted the blog.  Underneath all of that is a comments link.  It looks like text, but if you scroll your mouse over it, it will turn a different color (from gray to pink).  It will say something like "0 Comments", "2 Comments", or "534 Comments".  Click it to proceed.

You will then be taken to the commenting page.  Under the words "Post a Comment" there is a white box.  Click  in the box and the cursor comes up.  Write what you want to say (Ie- "This was terrible and my neutered cat could write something more flavorful than this!" or "This is the best article I have ever read in my life!  Please keep writing for the sake of all humanity!").  That's the easiest part! 

This is the hardest part.  After you are satisfied with your comment, look below the comment box.  There is a "Comment As:" then another small white box.  Click the down arrow and you will see many choices.  Click NAME/URL.  It will then ask for the information.  Put the name you want displayed in the name box and nothing else.  Do not worry with the URL, it will work fine without it.  Click continue.  Then click post comment.


It may ask you to put in weird funky letters.  Just type them in accurately.  Not hard, it's to stop computers from blanketing the world with spam.
You are done!*  You have just successfully commented on one of my blogs, and I thank you very much for taking the time to do so.  If you ever do get a chance to leave a comment, I invite you to do so.  I absolutely love getting feedback.



*I do not guarantee this will work as advertised.  It did, however, work for both me and Meme.  I hope it works for everyone in the same manner.

Circular Language

Outside I hear chanting.  It is from the Greeks because it is… rush week!  What is interesting about Eureka is that they do two rushes, a spring and a fall, and freshman can only participate in the Spring Rush.  I think that allows freshman get their heads on straight when it comes to college, not to mention that on a small campus like Eureka you get to really know who is in each fraternity or sorority.  By the way, the chanting ones are the Delta Delta Pi Sorority and the Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity.  I’m pretty sure I won’t join a fraternity at this point, but if I ever did, it would probably be the Sigs.  I’m friends with quite a few of them.  Sorry Ronnie and Paul… I just don’t know any of the TKEs!!

On to more pressing matters!  It’s quiet around here tonight.  Most of my friends are at the Reagan Leadership Retreat, others are watching the Lord of the Rings, and yet others are doing college things in which I do not wish to partake.  You know how it goes, right?  So I am very solitary tonight.  Not a bad thing at all, as I have had a very frantic week with many a paper due and the continued acclimation into my new lifestyle.  One never has as much free time as he or she thinks that they do. 

It is also funny how what we think will be hard is actually easy.  Like my Spanish class, for example.  I thought that Spanish would be horrible to take this year, and I was 99% sure I was going to change it.  I’m glad that I didn’t because it has been my easiest class by far and I am still strengthening my language acquisition skills.  This is where I want to give a nice little shout out to one of my favorite teaches, Kris Earle, for not only instilling in me great amounts of practical knowledge, but also the love of learning something so foreign as, well, a foreign language.  Everyone should try to learn another language if they have the opportunity, because it opens so many doors. 

Speaking of which, I do want to point out that learning a language, particularly Spanish, but any language for that matter, is not “un-American”.  Many people know this, but when I hear “that one or two” it goes all over me.  Learn a language instead of fearing it, because whenever we hear more “protectionist” language, it is simply vocalizing fear.  (I could open a can of worms there, but I won’t.  But… if you really DO want to go there… email me!)  If you're dead set on not learning another language, don’t!  Just don’t fear those that speak in a different tongue than you.  Come on, it’s silly and it tends to make you look more foolish than you actually are.

Speaking of which, English is such a wonderful language because it is incredibly diverse.  It all goes back to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (My writing teacher taught on this the other day, but I already knew it… so I feel the need to give partial credit to Dr. O’Malley).  That is when a Norman named William the Conquer did what his name implies and conquered what we now know as England.  He was from France (Norman… Normandy- see the connection?) and he brought in his Latinate French language to our Germanic style language.  So while English is Germanic at its core, many of our words are also French.  French is a Romance language, which means it originated in Latin (Hence Latinate French “back in the day”).  Latin has its base in Greek, which is what I’m studying now.  Whoo-hoo for circles!

Anyhow, long story short is this.  English was the collision of two very different languages and that is why it is not only the largest language, but the hardest language.  That is why it is so delightful to write in English (what I’m doing now!) because of the plethora of words.  In fact, we are the only language that requires a thesaurus. 

If you don’t know how we got from chanting Greeks to thesauruses, I don’t blame you, as I only vaguely understand it myself.  Oh well!  However, if you don’t understand any of the words below I invite you to look them up in the only book to outshine the thesaurus… the dictionary!

The Importance of Naming Things Properly

I know, I know.  I skipped not one but two whole days of blogging.  I apologize for the emotional damage I caused many of you (I’ve counted upwards of three).  I was incredibly busy with my “real job” A.K.A- college.  I hope to actually get ahead on my homework this weekend.  Don’t worry. I probably won’t, but the hope is always there, right?

So there is this one girl in a few of my classes.  She has a name but most of the time I call her Annoying Girl.  She’s that person that whenever she opens her mouth, you immediately start dreading the next five minutes of your life.  Not only is she obnoxious, but she never knows when to stop.  It’s logorrhea, or diarrhea of the mouth with this chick.  I curl up in disgust every time she comes near. 

It’s not totally out of place, mind you.  She’s a very hard person to love… a very, very, VERY hard person to love.  She curses frequently for public reaction, thinks she’s cute, and says things out of context in the hopes of sounding intelligent and analytical.  In other words, think of the whole nine yards of annoying, wrap it up in a five foot body and you have Annoying Girl. 

And today she shut up.

I was flabbergasted.  My whole week (I have her in one class every day) depends on bracing myself for her voice which cuts up my patience with the efficiency of a steak knife.  Okay, not my whole week, but a good minute before class starts.  But today, miraculously, she was silent.  I was worried.

I saw her this evening on campus as I was talking on the phone to my grandmother (Meme Janice will now be ticked as it was not her) and she was walking towards me so I waved and she courteously waved back.  When she came close enough to whisper I asked, “Doing okay?”

She replied, “No- bad phone call from my sister.”  She was dejected… emotionless, something Annoying Girl never was.  I patted her on the shoulder and she kept walking and I felt like even more of a jerk.

I feel rotten for having these emotions about her until she does something so nerve grating that I forget all humility.  However, when she does act vulnerable, I remember that no matter how hard she is to love, I HAVE to love her.  I have no option, I have an obligation. 

So this is the last time I call her Annoying Girl.  Ever.  Instead I go from today treating her more like the Child of God that she is.

Pray for me, as I will have difficulties, but I go into this looking for deep success… and most of all, love. 

Common Ground

My labor day was characterized by two things, in all.  Beyond sleeping in (which was a possible third), I did/am doing homework and Sam and I re-arranged our dorm room.  The fun part about the redo, besides the fact that it felt like I was on an episode of Trading Spaces, was that in twenty minutes it felt like I accomplished tons of things.  We organized our new setting so that all of the spare room we had was held in the middle of the room so that we could actually use the little spare room that we did have.

It involved moving my bed so that the foot of the bed was near the foot of his- our beds now make an L.  My desk then goes between the wall and my bed.  Under my bed is my dresser, my kitchen-esque supplies, and we have a large area for storage.  Then on the wall where my bed used to set is his dresser and desk.  The wall that holds his high lofted bed is now bare, so a couch or chairs can fit underneath and the entire middle of the room is open. 

                                   

What I noticed as I was moving all of my furniture around with Sam was that it involved a lot of trust.  Dorm rooms come designed to be two halves.  On one half is a closet, a bed, a dresser, a desk, and a chair.  The other side is the exact same.  Now we have broken the “mine/yours” barrier.  There is no “Colton’s side of the room” because the lines are blurred.  My bed ends and his bed begins; my desk is near his.  We hold the middle in common, and our fridges are now stacked on top of the other. 

There is a higher sense of community between my roommate and me.  There is less mine and more ours.  We share the empty space under our beds as mine is storage and his is the living area.  We have been able to become comfortable enough that we can do this, but we can also do this successfully.  It required a lot of trust on my end, at first I honestly didn’t want to do it.  However, because I did, we now have the most free space of almost any other dorm, and it is the most aesthetically pleasing. 

The only payment that was required was that over-individualism that we all too often harbor.  I had to replace the rigid ownership I held over “my stuff” into the trust that we can still respect it the same. It sounds like I got married… Promise I didn’t, but I think the thought process must be similar, but on a grander scale.

Never fear- I still have my own bed, and fridge, and desk.  But it’s on “his side” and his stuff is on “my side”.  However, the resulting bad news is we get to both clean “our room”.  Alas and alack, some things never change.

The Third Chair

Yesterday was a fun day that involved playing in the rain and friends and many memories that I cannot even begin to think about and recount.  Alas and alack, that is the problem with waiting to blog.  So you, my most loyal readers, will have to suffer through only today’s adventures and forgive me for not giving you the ¾ I left out of yesterday’s blog.

Today was incredibly exciting as I worshiped at the First Christian Church of Pontiac, Illinois.  It is almost the farthest on my list, with only one other being the same distance away at 39 miles away.  I chose it because of the time I would have to go and experience Pontiac.  Tomorrow I can do the homework I would have done today, and it turns out I will definitely need tomorrow to complete all of the piles of work left to me by the good professors here at Eureka College.

 I left Eureka at ten to nine.  The church was an expected forty minutes away, so I knew that I would just squeeze in with no time to spare.  Naturally I got behind a truck with a camper on it that felt it was a deep sin to go any other speed but 51 miles per hour.  The camper added the complexity of seeing around the cab to pass, so I tailed, slightly agitated, for roughly fifteen miles. 

I made my way to the town of Pontiac, which is a decent sized town with 12,000 residents and countless farmers who use that community as their “urban hub”.  However, I did not copy the address from the Disciples website correctly and navigated myself to 1314 E Indian, when I wanted to go to 1314 E Indiana.  IndianA not Indian!  I decided not to be the stereotypical egotistical male and to stop at the gas station just ahead of me to ask for directions.  I soon understood why men rarely stop for directions- the attendant spoke little English. I don’t begrudge him this, but it did make my quest for FCC of Pontiac even slower and by now it was 10:40.  My hope was that somehow, someway, they started services at 10:45 or that they were even one of those radical churches that pushed the limits and started at 11:00. 

On a stroke of desperation, I whipped out my iPhone and told it to calculate to “First Christian Church, Pontiac IL”.  In my mind I thought there was no way it would get it, but it identified the location!  I was shocked, and I told it to navigate the some odd two miles to the church.  Please note that I don’t consider navigating and driving with a smart phone very safe, but it is not the same as texting while driving… although, even I will admit that they are very similar.  So I’m cruising the streets, checking the phone, looking for the streets, fixing the errors I make along the way (which if you're me, which I was, it was every other direction that I was missing) when I look up and I see a big truck coming down in my lane. 

“Look at that idiot!” I think as I’m in my compact Saturn staring down this double cab Chevy Silverado, “He’s passing a car on a city street!  Wait a second, that’s a white line!!” I soon realized that I was going the wrong way on a one way road and I quickly ducked into a parking lot to let the truck go by.  As he passed he did the “turn and gawk” and his face clearly read, “Look at that idiot!”  Karma stinks.

So I get to the church at five minutes until eleven, clearly late even by normal standards.  I ran the car into a parking spot, jumped out, clicked the lock button and did a half jog to the doors.  According to Murphy’s Law, the plate beside the door declared that Sunday Services started at 10:30 (for those of you not too fond of math or have had trouble keeping up with all the times floating around in this blog, it makes me 25 minutes late to church).  So I took a deep breath and barreled into the church.

I desperately hoped that all that I missed was the “call to worship” or the beginning, slightly more boring, things.  For once luck prevailed and I walked right in as the minister was instructing people to “please turn in your bible to Luke…”  I plopped down in the last row and started paying attention to the half of service that I made it to.

The message was okay, fairly basic on joy that Christians should have.  It was an older audience where gray hair was the norm, just like in most churches in the denomination.  From the looks of it they were a church long gone that were now living the days of “hospice ministry” and if I had to guess, this minister had even been plucked from the congregation to give a sermon on Sundays.

I was wrong, thankfully.  However, it was almost worse news.  The man, Pastor Jerry, was an interim until they found an acceptable part time minister that could accept the reduced salary package the church was offering.  Not only that, but the church had just recently gone through an “advanced membership reduction” or “split” as most of us would call it.  It was just a mess, and the twenty five left in the sanctuary were saddened to see death was written on the walls, and they now were urging their eighty year old bodies to do all they could to see life for their beloved congregation.

Two people, a mother in her eighties named Wanda and her fifty year old son Bruce invited me to go with them to the Threshermen’s Annual Parade.  They said they had set up three chairs, and that I was welcomed to be the third.  I was scared to accept, because I was planning on going back home to the college, but I decided friendliness was to be the order of the day.  They lived in Saunomin around seven miles out and had brought their lunch as they would make their day in Pontiac.  They offered me part of their meal, but I declined as I did not want to make three portions out of two, so I ran through the Dairy Queen (a leap of faith for me because I suffered from food poisoning the last time I ate there) and grabbed a bite to eat.  I consumed my food (read: inhaled) and headed back to the church to meet up with Wanda and Bruce. 

It was yet another leap of faith I took when I accepted their proposal to carpool to the parade.  Wanda drove her Chevy Venture, which was a good thing, because she definitely needed all the safety a minivan offered.  God was absolutely in the car with me, but he too was screaming his head off as he worked miracle after miracle to prevent an automobile accident.

We arrived at the parking lot safely and we then watched the parade.  It was lovely with tractors, old cars, new cars, bands, walking groups, and the infamous politicians.  It was almost two hours’ worth of parading!  I then received a tour of Pontiac from Bruce and Wanda and saw one of the highest maximum security prisons in Illinois, Chicago’s trash mountains (the landfills were literally as tall as mountains) and a Caterpillar factory.  It was lovely and I got to know the mother and son on a deeper level.  They were family already.

 Bag Pipers!!

 Very neat American flag

 Pontiac Firebird- probably the coolest car ever.  Christmas, anybody?

The American Legion of Flanagan's Water Tank.  Kids throw water balloons at the tank as it shoots a water gun at kids and adults in the way.  Not sure if this has any deep psychological problems to worry about later on... ha ha.

The time to say good bye had come once more.  I thanked them for the time and the invitation.  I thought to ask them why they had set up a third chair.  Miss Wanda replied that they had the three, and they thought the minister or someone from the church would want to come so they thought it would be nice to go ahead and set it up.  Little did we know that God would set up a situation where I would be the one to stay in the third chair.  I wrote it down as a God thing. 

Today was good and I saw a place that I can be used.  It is possible that I can be an instrument of hope and change for Pontiac, and if I could I would love to go there each and every Sunday.  However, by the same token, I would do the same with Eureka Christian Church.  So I press on, and I will complete my list.  It gets hard though when you know that happiness could happen anywhere, and that in my own way this is a delayed gratification.  Church doesn’t work well like this, it is in the community of faith that the bonds and the workings really take the presence of God- but that is also how it works for me.  So I am getting tastes, not the real thing. 

By the time this is over, I will have sampled every flavor of ice cream I can get my hands on from this one ice cream shop.  However, the more pressing question is will I be full?  Or will I be so full I won’t want to eat a single scoop and that my samplings will be sufficient for me?  Or could it be that eating all of this different ice cream makes me sick?  Oh the questions I ask before my bedtime snack. 



Really Just a Quarter...

Today was a long day but it was a fulfilling day.  I decided to stay local and explore more as well as take time to build up my fledgling relationships with all of my campus friends.   So I just stuck around here, talked, swam, goofed off.  Not much homework… which means tomorrow will be hefty.

This is really like one quarter of a blog, as I will flesh out today’s adventure later.  So sorry for posting this both late and incomplete, but I figured that if Minor Musings was a DAILY blog, I needed to put something up.

Speaking of writing, I have been thinking about it more lately.  My dear youth minister friend from Sulphur, Kathy, is always telling young adults to have the “second job” that you do on the side.  I think mine may be writing.  I doubt I’m that good at it, but for some reason I have been hearing a lot of positive feedback from this blog.  The compliments are stroking my ego- enough that I think writing may be a part of my professional life.  We’ll see.

Blessings to all.  I will put pictures of today’s travels up tomorrow with the full story!

Ardmore No More!

Never before have I wanted to go to an Ada High School football game more than I do tonight, 702 miles away.  It’s not because I want to go be a part of that ritual, because I really don’t, even though I would love to see my friends and my Ada community.  Rather it is because my brother is playing tonight. 

Chase (who gets to be a part of the first stinking play, against Ardmore, as a SOPHOMORE!) will be out there tonight and I desperately want to be there to watch him.  I actually thought about driving, and if I would have made the game (leaving at 7:00-8:00) I would have totally been there for the weekend.  However, alas and alack, I cannot and I did not, but it took a lot of self-discipline. 

So while I heard the faint whispers this morning of “Ardmore No More” all the way from Ada this morning, know I won’t be there to yell it with you.  But I can say that I am earnestly saying it in my heart.  You have supporters, even 702 miles away.

Chase, you’re going to do well!  Know I am watching the best I can!  Love you brother!

Community

I have been blogging late for the last two days.  I promise, it isn’t intentional, but it has indeed been the pattern.  Not totally sure why, but I have been busy with a lot of nothing.

Yesterday, my Resident Advisor, Cody, took me into his room for our introductory session.  Basically, he asked questions about if I was doing okay, classes weren’t too hard, he could do anything to help etc.  However, we soon came upon the subject of homesickness.  I could tell that he wanted to get there; I don’t know how that “6^th Sense” is suppose, so I bluntly addressed it.  Yes, I write many letters and it looks like that I am the most homesick guy here.  But I’m really not.  I simply have rekindled my love of writing and I keep myself well entertained.  I love the college life and this is my home in many ways.  I’m a red devil! 

However, I also noted that I am cold to the guys on this floor.  I discovered this during my personal reflection time last night, rather accidentally.  I realized that I hadn’t spent time in the lounge, by and large I kept the door closed, and when open I was busy at my desk and rarely invited community or conversation.  So far, I was doing well at avoiding the young men on my floor.

I’ll fess up, some of it was elitism.  Some of it was that I enjoy my private time.  A lot of it was that I keep my door closed because my room is right outside of the lounge and therefore it acts as an “extension” of the lounge when my door is left open.  But, it really doesn’t matter why I was acting cold, the simple fact of it was there.  The part that really kinda twisted and turned in my heart was not only was I not responding to the community, the guys were really trying to reach out to me. 

So today I resolved to be more a part of the community.  I don’t know if they realized it, but I did.  I spent an hour just talking in the lounge, particularly on Affirmative Action.  I did my readings in the lounge with them, I just spend a half hour talking to Louis about God and the great things that surround us.  Life is so much better when lived in community, and I cannot believe that I forgot that.

For that is how it happens.  We slowly and surely start shutting people out until we realize that our community is a shoe string and we are hopelessly lost alone.  Here’s to people, here’s to friends, and here is to living with people rather than without.