Hey World! I am alive here!

Yes indeed. I have sucessfully transitioned to the life back in the big city. I bought myself eggs and milk for the first time ever. I didn’t go with organic eggs. I would buy organic bananas because I have seen the people working in the banana plantations and know about their lives, but I will have to work up to eggs. I don’t feel much compassion for chickens at the moment. Today’s justifcation for buying cheap eggs: Chickens smell bad. Eggs come from things that smell bad. They should not be too expensive.

Things are a bit strange here lately. Coming back to Seattle I find myself seeing so many people that I want to be spending time with, but with whom I will inevitably lack the opportunity to accomplish this desire with. I will do my best, but I will be frustrated with whatever happens. That and I live in a house (albiet one filled with wicked tight roommates) which is completely different than anything I have experienced. I cook for myself and while I like it I still feel like it is too quiet sometimes.

My quarter is a miraculous mix of classes that are really beneficial. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I get to take classes in which I learn more about Jesus. A gospels class, a discipleship class, and a theology class. All classes I am blessed to take. Simlpy marvelous. Every day is a new day in which the Lord ministers to me in a different way and shows me things I have never seen before. What’s the downside? Having to use “biblical resources”. Did you know that there are entire books filled with references to articles on specific passages in the bible? Huge Frikkin’ books. Ginormous. Who are the people who do this sort of organizational frustration that enables biblical scholarship? No idea. I looked at 5 different translations of the text in which John the Baptizer gets beheaded today. I got a morbid pericope (passage) for my biblical exegesis paper, but hey…I get to write a paper about the bible that is the inspired word of the Living God. That’s cool.

Related tangent. I have been thinking about the fact that the God I and other Christians worship isn’t just some sort of God who is impossibly far away. In some senses He is, but more than that he is impossibly present everywhere we go. When I read the bible I am trying to determine what it is that the God who lives within me, surrounds me, and gives me value is trying to share with me in the present. That is odd. So very odd and hard to understand. The fact that I don’t understand it makes me want to be all skeptical about it, however…It’s true. So, now I get to figure out in the best way possible how to learn to read/study the bible while listening to the ever-present God who created the universe. On today’s list of challenges, this is pretty far up there.

Another thing I find myself learning is about the moment. I keep coming back to the fact that I am a planner. I like to have things mapped out. Sometimes I do a pretty good job of it. However, sometimes I do so at the expense of the present moment I am in. For example I could start thinking about what I will cook for dinner in the middle of an incredibly valuable conversation with a human being. Human beings are immortal. Dinner is temporary (while nutritious). It sucks to realize that I missed important parts of a converstaion because I wasn’t present. It also sucks to think about the amount of things that I have missed God telling me because I have been too busy dicking around with things that go like this: “I might  like her. Maybe we’ll date, then we’ll get married. But where will we live? What will my job be?” Then it gets out of control and I lost 20 minutes of a day that I will never get back to useless daydreaming. Unfortunately this happens more than you think. Sometimes instead of girls I could be dating I imagine superpowers I could have and how sweet that would be…oh yes. The eight-year-old within never dies.

Lately I have been getting blessed like crazy by people who want to give me free food. I have really enjoyed it. I hope that more comes my way, but while free food is good I find that I usually appreciate the relational context of the food more than the food itself. Which I suppose is a healthy thing.

I stopped blogging in December for some time for several reasons. One: Computer had a virus and I didn’t want to compromise my blog. Two: I just needed a break. I blogged my entire trip to latin america and while useful I just needed to live life without feeling the need to tell people about it. Things you missed are as follows:

- My brother’s wife is pregnant. I am pushing for the name Chauncey Diego Francisco Handy II. It’s a solid name.

-I turned 22. I feel old, but I have people telling me with great consistancy that I am in fact not old. Well. They may be right, but I sure feel old.

-We celebrated a new year in which I had some of the Cuban rum I brought back. It wasn’t quite what I had expected.

-Snow happened. There was way too much of it for too long. Robb Watson may not think so, but I guarantee you that the rest of the world hereabouts wished there wasn’t so much. I got stuck in Seattle for an extra day because of it. I got to hang out with Kile Petersen more and that was awesome, but I had no idea that the train could ever be stopped for any reason related to snow. I learned new information: The train is weak.

So, that’s about it for now. I will try to put some semblance of a regular blog back together.