waiting for the bus

the blinking yellow light pierces the darkness
"how long until the bus arrives?
maybe I should have just driven home"
a hurried traveler accelerates quickly through the intersection
to where I don't know
its cloud of exhaust is the only thing left to remember it by
yet that cloud is gone in a blink of the yellow light
I step onto the bus
an unintended gratitude greets me
"the coin machine isn't working, this one's on me"
as I get off three other riders follow
we split off into three different directions
a long walk home is still before me
"drip, drip, drip"
the melting snow is playing me a cadence to guide my steps

it seems as though winter is ending before it truly began
I am impatient for Christmas, longing for more snow
yet, I desire a cadence to slow me down, to appreciate
the drip, drip, drip of the snow ...
the clink, clink, clink of un-used change ...
the cloud of exhaust lit up by the yellow blink, blink, blinking light

what would you say?

I just saw an old friend of mine who had just graduated. It was great to see him and hear what he is doing and re-cap over our summers and life. But it made me realize something. The conversation we had was fantastic, but it was too short. Funny thing was that is what we ended our conversation with. We talked about what we want to do with our lives, what we enjoyed about last year and then we finished by talking about graduation a moment in my life I am not particularly looking forward to right now.

College lasts for four years and before you know it people are getting engaged, finding jobs, planning amazing trips, and figuring out life after college. And it is extremely exciting to realize you have complete freedom to decide what to do with your life. For a brief moment you have the opportunity to do whatever you want!

But in order to do all of that you have to say goodbye.

That is what is most frightening.

Every year I begin the year seeing everyone I have gotten to know over the years we hug and share our excitement for a new school year and after doing this four years I have realized that those parting words, "I'll see you around, don't worry!" are more of an excuse to avoid making plans. We all get hyped up into the excitement of a new year and we forget how busy and complicated college life actually is and in reality we won't see them again unless we make intentional plans.

What did not fully occur to me until last night was the number of seniors who graduated last year who I never got the chance to say goodbye to. I have shared many memorable moments with many of these people, and I wish I could have spent countless more moments with them. But what happened instead? I finished up my exams and room checks running like a dying battery doing the best I could to keep up and finish well. I got to say goodbye to my RA friends, and that was great, but what I didn't realize was that I forgot something important, my friends who were graduating.

I don't think I said goodbye well to anyone who graduated. Instead it was a goodbye much like the hello I offered them at the beginning of last year, "Bye! I'll see you around!" Let's be real for a moment here--I won't.

The majority of these people are now spread around the country. The only thing that held us together was Calvin College, and now that is gone.

College is fantastic, especially Calvin. This institution gives its students the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds in Christian Scholarship but more importantly it brings together some of the most passionate and interesting people to learn from and grow with each other.

So what do you do, what do you say, when you have to leave? I cannot maintain deep relationships with everyone I have ever met. This is a reality I do not want to accept and I have no idea how to accept.

kiss me goodbye I'm defying gravity

- Wicked

After reflecting on my last post I realized that I did not quite hit what it was that has been bothering me the last couple weeks.

It is true that I find the habits I formed at Calvin to be more difficult to maintain in Jamestown. But to be more specific I just spent a year immersed in being an RA. I was focused so much on how to be a servant to my dorm community and how to model a good Christian faith that it really rubbed off on the way I lived my life. Coming back home, where I no longer had the responsibility of being a model or servant for anyone in particular I didn't. I automatically became more focused on doing what made me happy or fulfilled for the time being.

And that is what the problem is. Partially due to past baggage, and my previous experiences living at home and without the concrete understanding of what God wants me to do to serve him where I am at, I have become more selfish. I realized this more clearly when I was talking to a friend of mine at church. We were talking about why we find it difficult to go to our home church. We both had found other churches we enjoyed going to much more and felt partially guilty for not wanting to go to the church our parents attend even though both of us are members.

This made me think, what is it about this church that I don't like compared to Mars Hill, the church I attend when I am at Calvin. Well one obvious thing that sticks out is the fact that Rob Bell is the pastor at Mars Hill, but I realized that its not just Rob Bell. The problem was, my church in Jamestown, Zion Covenant Church, has gone through four pastors since I have graduated from high school. The pastor we have now seems great, but I leave not particularly empowered to change the world. Whereas, at Mars Hill, usually when I go I feel recharged to do something and change the world I live in.

Here's the difference, Mars Hill because of its size and resources is capable of making big dents in fixing the worlds problems, one of the great blessings of a large church body. But what about Zion? My parents talk about ministry Zion could do, but because of it's location in half commercial half middle class homes, nothing exceptional stands out to me. There isn't much Zion can do to reach out to its neighbors that it isn't already doing.

Yet, Pastor Rick pointed out this Sunday that one of the ways the kingdom of God is realized on earth is by its church taking care of one another. I realize now that that is the biggest ministry that our church needs to focus on right now is how to take care of one another. After a huge fiasco over opinions about our pastoral staff a huge rift was created in our church and we have been working for about five years to mend that. Most of that time I have spent in college away from the problem, which is why I forgot how important it was. Moreover, after realizing how awful Christians can treat one another within the same church I kind of wanted to remove myself from the situation. I was very angry and upset to realize that Christians would treat each other in such an un-Christian and hurtful way.

Therefore, I cannot expect Zion to re-charge and empower me the way Mars Hill does because it is a completely different place with different people and problems. Instead of focusing on how Zion can serve me I need to think about how I can serve the people of Zion, where I am now. It has been an interesting shift to go from having tons of responsibility and having a feeling of purpose in day to day life to complete vacation. I still have not figured out what God wants me to do this summer. I feel pretty hopeless in Jamestown because there are much less opportunities to serve my community, as well as less drive to do so because it is harder to see the potential for change in Jamestown. We shall see how this summer turns out.

when will the bubble pop?

Whenever I return from college I forget how much of a bubble Calvin is. Life at a Christian school is not normal life. It may be normal life for those of us who attend because we choose to go to a Christian school for a reason. However, when I return home I remember how much more unique my life at school is.

My college experience has been amazing and life changing, and I wouldn't trade it for the world but it is not typical. It really is amazing to me how being a Christian is so counter cultural. I never really thought of it that way in high school partially because I never read through the gospels in their entirety and partially because I worked hard to fit into the culture of my school.

Yet, I am more aware now how different my life at college is from what my life was like in high school. It is hard to mesh those together, when I am home I tend to slip back into who I was in high school because that is who everyone expects me to be. I mean when I sit back and think about things and have conversations with people it is obvious my ideas and opinions have changed, but I tend to slip into the same habits.

I went to a wedding this past Sunday that was really great. Eric and Alanna are two of the most thoughtful, passionate Christians I know and their wedding reflected that. Yet, it didn't seem to fit in what I feel Jamestown is. Jamestown to me is not a place that I associate with spiritual growth. I think more of maintaining my faith or watching it stagnate. I don't feel moved to action.

What I came to realize is that how I live my life in general is extremely different in Grand Rapids, versus being in Jamestown. In Grand Rapids I am comfortable talking and expressing my faith because the majority of people around me expect it or agree. Whereas, in Jamestown, I feel like I have to be more secular. I have church friends in Jamestown but I am not that close with them. My closer friends generally don't go to church on Sunday. At school, it is almost the complete opposite; it's pretty much assumed that everyone goes to church.

At school I feel like it is easier to live my faith because the majority of my friends are encouraging me to to so. My faith at home was always based much more on guilt of what I am not doing instead of learning and growing. The question that remains is how will my life be different when I am not at school? When I am not at home? When I finally have my own house in the potentially new city I find myself in after I graduate?

what a wedding

check out our second edition to jen and my summer vlog series!

It was an epically cute wedding. Eric and Alanna Landin set the bar pretty high. The wedding was at Zion Covenant Church and the reception was at Camp Mission Meadows.

Check it out!

life as a couch potato

This past week I realized how easy it is to become addicted to the Sims. My sister and I rediscovered our love for this addicting computer game. I started playing it on Wednesday morning on a whim and then all of a sudden my parents were coming home from work. Slightly embarrassing but way too much fun to care a whole lot.

However, I realized as I was doing dishes with my madre today that I am going to have to come up with something else to do otherwise I am going to feel like an utter couch potato. Of course this is only going to last for about 2 weeks until I start work--but I hate feeling lazy, it literally makes me feel sick to my stomach. Nevertheless, I have come up with a list of things to accomplish this week. Unfortunately I am not as spontaneous as I like to think I am.

Current goals:

-weed the garden
-finish Life of Pi
-sketch in my new sketchbook
-finish sewing a skirt I started three years ago
-go for a run every morning
-go around town and take pictures
-go hiking in the Adirondacks
-stop spending money I am not making
-fix my bike
-attempt to bike around Chautauqua Lake

Purpose and Benefits of Letter Writing

I will begin with a question, is there one? Is there a purpose and/or benefit to letter writing? The Jane Austen fanatic that I am initially cries "of course!" But after some reflection and pondering I do wonder.

In all of Jane Austen's novels letter writing plays a central role in the overarching plot--and as Bernadette in the movie, The Jane Austen Book Club, points out Austen allows the gentlemen to explain themselves to the women, often through the art of writing letters.

This art form was practiced much more in the days of Jane Austen, and many people, myself included may complain about why that art form died. I love receiving letters in the mail, they are more personal in my opinion because it, most likely, took more time and thought to write the letter than it would to spit out an email or, thanks to advances in technology facebook, twitter, et cetera.

Here is the problem I run up against, is direct verbal communication better than written form? Many people I know have an issue with technological communication--texting and facebook is an abomination to communication. I do agree that it diminishes the importance of personal, real communication because now people believe they can have relationships with others without ever talking face to face! (a fact I find completely ridiculous) Yet, in that sense is not letter writing just like writing an email? Both do not allow for face to face conversation and allow the opportunity for the receiving party to avoid a response. Moreover, the person composing the letter or email often feels the need to do so because he or she believes that what is contained in the letter would never be said aloud. If one feels uncomfortable saying something to another person's face, should it be said at all?

I do admit that there are circumstances in which the answer to this question is yes. But then I wonder, what is the benefit? If I write a letter to get something off my chest and the person I am writing to has the option to never respond, what good does it do? Now I am sitting in limbo wondering not only what did that person think, but was it ever read to begin with--that is a very dangerous situation. Furthermore, written communication is devoid of body language and tone of voice.

So now I find myself back to my original question, what is the purpose and benefit of letter writing? I would argue that benefit is found in the purpose. If a letter is written to encourage and uplift then the benefit is great. That topic is not a topic that can be easily misinterpreted, it is written to be positive, and therefore, most likely it is. Conversely, if the letter is written to explain a problem or a feeling the benefit could be positive but it also could be negative (its pretty much 50/50). Feelings can be very easily misinterpreted even in person, therefore attempting to communicate them via the written word can lead to an undesired event to put it mildly.

So what do you do when you have something you need to say but you are terrified to say it in person?

If you figure that one out, please fill me in on the lucrative secret.