This post is fresh off the current state of reality in which I am sickly and slightly feverish. I may or may not have the swine flu. Essentially what it comes down to is that I was sick last weekend and into this week. Unfortunately the symptoms are more or less the swine flu. I am not super jazzed on that, especially because it amounts to a mild cold in which I don’t get to go out or talk to people. My world has been a muddled existence of sleep, eating some food, and watching my new favorite TV show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Not gonna lie, it’s the  Best show I have ever seen on TV that doesn’t have to do with WWII (band of brothers). I finished 22ish episodes in about a week. Realistically this means that I spent 22 hours with fictional characters in fictitious situations…all of which seeming better than my sickly reality.

Bah. Really though, you’ve got to check this show out. I’m telling you. It’s about a Saturday Night Live sort of show with the same title as the show itself. Great stuff. The guy who wrote it is the guy who wrote the West Wing. He’s a fantastic writer.

It’s vaguely sad that this is the only thing I have to tell you about. It shows the amount of nothing that I have been doing. I should probably read more, but the thing about reading the books I’m reading is that they require more attention than my feverish mind can manage at the moment. I can’t exactly take a legitimate stab at GK Chesterton’s “The Everlasting Man” with a fever. I wish I could.

One of the things that I have realized lately is that the show that I watched featured a lot of the arts. By that I mean writing and acting. Maybe I’m just swept away on one of those “I want that” sort of mentalities…but I really like the idea of writing. Not necessarily sketch comedy like SNL, but writing seems like a lot of fun to me. Then I was talking to my friend Ben Troop (the one mentioned at the end of the title) and stumbled on to the fact that I have this blog. Could one of the things I like so much about this blog be the writing that takes place here? Hmmm…Just maybe.

I think I should take a few steps out of fictional reality for awhile. It’s wonderful and overly glamorous, but it’s not real life. I think that sometimes shows and movies have this effect in my life where I am vaguely disappointed with  life as it IS due to its contrast with fictional representations of life as it IS NOT. I think the thing that always gets to me is my inability to fall in love with and be loved by beautiful women like the ones who exist in film. I know that it’s a stretch to hope for such things, but am I the only one who after watching 22 hours of TV show featuring Matthew Perry falling in love with wonderful girl then goes to bed wondering just what is wrong with my life?

Okay, so that was an overstatement. Not wrong necessarily, perhaps rather why is my life so very pedestrian in the moments? I know that following Jesus isn’t pedestrian…it’s the true fulfillment of who I am meant to be, yet even in that I sometimes find myself sitting in strange moments of boredom. Not unhealthy boredom, just not super fun boredom. As though there is such a thing.

I’m going to go in circles soon if I don’t stop. In any case, you can ask Jesus to help me get better. Sickness is dumb.

So, if you’re an avid follower of my blog then you may have been disappointed for the last month. I haven’t blogged in a long time. I think it had something to do with getting used to a real life schedule that necessitates bed by 11pm. It’s a lame transition after college at some level, but it is what it is. So there you go. Mostly I didn’t blog because it seemed in convenient. Then I realized that I was going a little crazy. I don’t talk to as many people about as many things anymore. I don’t have 2 one-on-ones per week, I work 8 hours a day, and generally see very few people aside from the people I work with, the people I live with, and select others during the week. I need to process. So here is where I’ve decided yet again to process some. The goal is at least 3 posts a week to stay healthy. Here we go.

I’ve been learning a lot in the past month about the nature of God. It’s been good, but really hard. Surprisingly being a Christian in the real world takes effort and sacrifice. Camp and Christian school are good, but it seems that they lend themselves to coasting and taking things for granted with the Lord. Thus real life is hard, most of the time it’s me and Jesus rockin’ it in a really challenging job space where I wish He was physically there to give me a hug when I need it. It’s not always the most fun thing, but then again it’s nice to know that when Jesus says we are to “carry our crosses” he actually means what He says. We are walking towards the death of the things we want and think are life and giving ourselves over (and being given over by the Spirit) into the things that Jesus thinks are life. So while it sucks somewhat to do the things that I do on a daily basis, it’s comforting to know that I was never promised that it would be easy.

That being said, the rest of life is strangely going well. Job is great, but hard. I have a house that my friend Cate described as “Kick ass.” I eat food that I enjoy that I cook and sometimes buy and eat outside the house. I use my major every day of work. I am making new friends and deepening older friendships. It’s really quite wonderful.

Although, it is strange to be outside of an institution Christian setting in which everyone is talking about God and the things He does like they are the most obvious things in the world all the time. Honestly, God is (in the words of Forrest Gump) “mysterious.” I think everyone who is Christian seems to attest to this, but I think that sometimes we forget that God doesn’t do stuff in front of our eyes and wave a huge flag to get our attention shouting “HEY! IT’S OVER HERE! THIS IS WHERE I AM DOING VERY IMPORTANT THINGS!”

I took a break from this post for a couple days and lost my train of thought. I don’t remember what I the point I was trying to make was. An old man called me a “operator” today. If you ride the bus enough you find that the bus becomes this strange community of sorts. You’re all riding the same means of transport repeatedly over a long period of time. The thing about the bus is that  even given this strange sense of constancy, weird things happen lots. Crazy people come out and rap, little kids declare that “Killer whales are the superheroes of the ocean…and mermaids too.” after having a tedious discussion with their fathers regarding why they have to give back their friend’s tiara, there’s also this occurence of the “bus friend.” That’s where our story begins.

I have had a couple “bus friends” thus far. My bus friend Mark sat next to me for a long time and then moved closer to his work where he could ride the bus. We never got to be super great friends, but the day he left was a moment when I realized “I probably won’t see Mark ever again.” Sad day. Mark’s friend Mason is now my bus friend in his place. It’s not the same though.

In any case I met this lovely woman on the bus who is in law school at the UW. I have sat next to her twice. Her life is really interesting. In any case she appeared for the second time today and we talked about books and law school and other things. When she got off the bus this old man looked at me and said something like, “I suppose a cultured fellow like you knows about the Maltese Falcon.” I said I did, my dad likes it afterall. I’ve seen it once or twice. Then he said, “You’re quite the operator. Talkin’ to that girl for fifteen minutes.” An old lady said something that seemed to give an unintelligible form of assent to that idea. Then I started reading to cut off conversation. Yes, my bus friend is an attractive woman. No, I don’t expect anything to come of it. Like I said, the bus is a strange place…

Lately I’ve been reading my friend Mike’s blog. He is far more of a theologically deep thinker than me, or thus I declare. I could be wrong. In any case lately He’s been really good at answering responses to his blog posts. Something that I usually neglect to do because of the breadth of people who exist on the internet that want to randomly participate in dialogues. There are simply too many. Not to say that said dialogues wouldn’t be good, but rather that I would prefer to talk to real people in real life about the things I think about.

In any case, Mike has been having this great thought process about this concept of a Neo-Atheism and been doing a good job of interacting with people as they interact with his ideas. Neato I say. I was reading a blog post of his that I couldn’t finish at the time because something interrupted, but the bit that I did read was the discussion of atheism lacking an ontology to match its eithic. That means it lacks a dimension of what it means to be human that backs up the drive to do good. ( I had to google search ontology to tell you that. Another reason I made that declaration regarding Mike earlier.) Essentially, I interpret that sentence as  why care about people or society if we are all bound to not exisit at the end of life? I think this is one of the problems with atheism. Another one is why do atheists want other people to stop believing things other than atheism? It would seem that the atheist could and should be content to sit back in his/her own supposed knowledge and understanding and allow other people their “illusions” (i.e. Karl Marx). This doesn’t seem to be the case. Whereas people who believe in an eternal creative God who empowers His creation to participate in its own redemption certainly have something that needs to and must be shared. Sorry atheists…I’m not being objective very well.

Ummm…but I suppose that postmodernist thought seems to have rejected the idea of objectivity anyway, but on the other hand perhaps being empiricist atheists you don’t really care for experiential truth whatsoever and regard the only true objectivity to be a scientific or historical one, but then you would be coming to that objectivity with philosophical presuppositions anyway…it’s not as though an electron doing something really tells you whether or not there is a God…Bah.

Anyway, back to the point I was thinking of. The discussion Mike had came to the idea of the metanarrative. This is a key feature of Christianity. I will roughly define it as a story that encompasses existence. God’s story specifically. The biblical metanarrative places our existence and the world within the context of God’s story of redemption. The argument at the moment I was reading from one of Mike’s thinking dialogue buddies was talking about the nature of the christian metanarrative and whether it would be possible to put said metanarrative into a generic form and have it do the same thing. That is where my idea to blog came from.

The story of God interacting with people (the metanarrative that we are a part of) is one that is marked by God’s self-disclosure. His revelation. Specifically His revelation in Jesus Christ. While the viewed effect of Christianity at times does not look different from a variety of other do-gooding folk (bless them. They are doing great things probably the work of God without knowing it.) it is absolutely different in that the work that Christians do is being done in and through the Triune God. The thing that I took from Mike’s friendly thought-friend was the idea of a metanarrative as seen as APART from Christ. As though Jesus didn’t change anything…As though we could just build houses and feed people and that would be enough to sustain a generic rip-off of the Christian metanarrative.

Here’s the issue I have with that. I’ve got to be honest and frank. Either God worked in and through Jesus Christ in space and time and reconciled man to Himself or He didn’t. There is no other option. There’s no “well…mostly.” or “sort of…” If Jesus Christ lived as the incarnate God, died on the cross, and rose on the third day then the Christian metanarrative is the only metanarrative that matters. Any generic metanarrative that takes things from the Christian metanarrative without Christ is dropping the ball. Christ’s life,death, and resurrection is the point where the metanarrative changes forever and the world cannot be seen as the same again. Before one can claim a definitive option to the Christian metanarrative one must first deal with that great question posed by CS Lewis, “Who was Jesus?”

Generic metanarratives that take the manifest outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers (good works) and run with them are missing the point. We don’t (or shouldn’t) do these things because they are what simply must be done, we do them because the Lord moves us to do them. We do these things as a part of the eternal communion of the Triune God. We are moved to action and participate in the work of God.

This is the reality of the Christian metanarrative, like Christ each individual Christian must say, “I can do nothing by myself.” We move, act, live, and love in and through God Himself. A generic metanarrative that interacts with the world claiming to have taken that which makes the Christian metanarrative as beneficial without Jesus as a part of the Holy Trinity misses the emphasis of the Christian metanarrative that makes it absolutely unique and beautiful and (by my reckoning…true). God revealed Himself to us. It is by this that we know Him. The apostles told it like it was. Christ rose from the dead through the power of God.

To construct an alternative to the Christian metanarrative that can ever vie for philosophical ground…it would seem that one must denythe resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Yet at that point it would seem that the foundation of said metanarrative cannot fully engage in dialogue with the Christian metanarrative. For the centerpiece of the Christian metanarrative is Christ as resurrected and exalted Lord. The very foundation of our worldview begins and ends with faith, it is necessary to have that faith to see the Christian metanarrative as true, and that all begins (for me at least) with the resurrection. Thus…In the quest to possibly create a generic alternative to the Christian metanarrative, atheists must start with Jesus. Unfortunately for their perspective, He’s not dead.

It would seem that anonymous thought guy has some ’splainin to do…

I’ve been learning to participate in this space that people call real life. Whether I like it or not I get to do it for the rest of life. Hmmmm. What are my thoughts you ask? I’ll tell you.

I have lots of free time now. I find that Chauncey, unburdened by the task of homework, enjoys things more. It’s lovely to not be forced to operate in existence with the ever-unseen, ever-looming reality of homework. I get home from 8 hours of work at the end of the day and get about 7 hours of time that is mine to decide what to do with. I have nothing but options. I am learning to play the dave matthews band songs that I have wanted to learn for the past two years. I am finishing a book that I want to read. I am making dinners for myself  that I enjoy.

However, free time itself is a bit of a mystery. There comes a moment in free time for me where there is nothing to do. Maybe you’ve seen it coming before and you call a friend to make sure it never gets there. Recently though I’ve been resisting the urge to fill the silent moments of vague boredom with something. I think that I’ve been scared of these moments for a long time. So instead of running from them I am looking forward to being present in the moments that somehow scare me. The question I look forward to wrasslin’ with is “Who am I when nothing must be done?” or “How do I glorify the Lord with the insignificant?”

I think that something that people today struggle with (particularly Christians). Our lives are full. We work to make them that way. A life that isn’t spent in obvious ministry for the Lord is often seen as tedious or dull or even less than what we are made for. The thing is about life as a Christian is that our entire lives are meant to be ministry. Each moment is meant to reflect the glory of God, even the seemingly stupid and boring things. I don’t think that the quest to please God even in our tedious small things is wrong. “He who has been faithful with small things…” So in essence what I’ve been thinking about is what it looks like to make my waking moments a part of my life (ministry) which glorifies God. How do I glorify the Lord in making a sandwich? How do I glorify God in doing my laundry?

I think that I’ve asked these sorts of things before regarding life before. Now though, they seem to be something in which I can undertake the process of discovery. I’ve even made some progress. I think it has to do with being present. Do you know those moments in which you get to be fully where you are? It isn’t very often, but there are those moments there is nothing that you would rather be doing because you are THERE. They exist almost randomly and they forge reality into this beautiful work of art in which we get to participate in. They change arbitrary dinners into valued meals, a cup of coffee becomes THE cup of coffee, even a small peek outside a window becomes a fantastic glance at the glory of God displayed in the sky.

“Aha!” You say, “Yes I know those moments!” Then you realize like me that they are few and far between. In between them there is a mulititude of moments that are forgotten and tedious. Yet, is there a way to live that way deliberately? In which all moments take on the character of life and life to the full? Welcome to the journey I hope to be on this year.

I just got done watching “Star Dust” again. It’s my third time or so. Let me tell you. That is a heart-warming film. If there’s any film that makes me wish that stars were indeed beautiful women that fell from the sky sometimes causing crazy adventures in which vaguely gay sky-boat captains taught me to fence and dance and whatnot…that’s the one. I get this really great fuzzy feeling that “maybe someday I’ll find a girl who loves me like that star loves Tristan…”

I’ve noted a trend in my life. For some reason I tend to get myself into unrequited love sorts of situations. I fall for a girl who does not fall for me. Watching Star Dust this time, I realized that the star-woman telling the main character that she loved him is very much what I want romance to be. I want to be loved by someone who was attractive, sassy, intelligent, and loved Jesus more than me.  If that girl happens to be a human/star that can shine and destory witches that would be awesome. Now, whether or not that seems likely at the moment is not a part of the equation (it doesn’t by the way).

Basically, in stories I watch and read, the main characters stumble upon something that takes them by surprise and in the midst of adventure they find the person they love who loves them. I know that Jesus has taken me by surprise and though perhaps this journey we’re on (He/Holy Spirit/the Father, I, and the rest of the church too) is going to be that thing in which I fall in love with someone who loves me…I guess watching movies like Star Dust makes me wish the good part of the frustrating romantic life (or lack thereof) that I lead would, to quote John Mayer, “hurry up and get here.”

Still. the kingdom of God functions on Kairos. That’s greek for the fullness of time. In other words: God’ s timing. God’s timing is not my own. I would hazard a guess that real life is better than stories. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him.” If that’s the case then I imagine that real love is indeed better than star-woman love (albeit somewhat less cool in the nerdy Lord of the Rings meets Star Wars fantasy world that I dream in). I reckon its worth waiting for?

If it does come, it’s got to be pretty great. At the very least I hope it makes all those people who read Twilight stifle their sighs of absurd delight in vampire romance. If star-woman love story is great and real life is better than that…vampire-bound love is stupid. Grow up. Read real books.

So, I’m in Seattle again. I just completed two days or so of Americorps training. Oh yes. That’s right! I got a job. I am a member of Americorps and I will be serving at a center in the U District that works with hispanic street youth. I’m super pumped about it. I get some health care, and money, but I’m mostly pumped about my work out of all the options.

Camp finished up well. I had to leave a week early to move down here and that saddened me a good deal. I had a great summer with my CITs and the rest of the staff. There were people there that I’ve worked with for many years that I realized are going to be my friends for the rest of life. At least, if I have anything to say about it. They may disagree. I got really tan. I learned to drive boat like a champion. I felt good about the work I did  and good about the work God did through me. One of those things where I didn’t see what He had been doing in and through me until I was done. High five to the Triune God. Amazing.

Otherwise, I’ve made a few changes lately. I moved to square frame glasses, bought a messenger bag, and got some nicer shirts for work. In essense I’m going off the few stylish people I know (JJ Kissinger, Tyler Gorsline, Ben Troop) and hoping that gets it done. I think it is working. I stepped onto a bus the other day and found that all the working sorts of people in the Queen Anne area are dressed EXACTLY like me. The whole deal. I felt like a trendy chump. Oh well. I had to dress more professionally anyway. Certain things are sacrificed in life. Sometimes those things include desires to not look like Rob Bell.

In other news, I have discovered two of the most interesting streets in all of Seattle. 11th and 10th Avenue. they are both similar, they’re both in Queen Anne, they’re both lovely…but they’re different.

11th avenue is like the spiteful little brother who offers you some cake only to eat it right before you get there to put your fork in it. It follows a strange and winding course through Queen Anne branching off and randomly forbidding automobile travel by means of several well-placed staircases. If one should overcome the obstacle of the staircases, you would be mired in a completely new part of Seattle where all the side streets run for 2 blocks only to be stopped by a row of impenetrable houses. The people are all very pleasant, but the desire of the street on which they live seems to be to spite the unwitting visitor.

10th avenue on the other hand seems to be in an identity crisis. It winds through several different neighborhoods. There are times when it would almost seem to be a street in Costa Rica. There are seemingly haphazard locations where spanish architecture is employed to the fullest extent. Sometimes I want to jump out of buses and cars and either prepare myself to be faced by steel swords and gold-thirsty conquistadores or prepare to speak spanish with people who are a good deal shorter than me. On the whole though 10th ave is great. It reminds me of other places that I have been and keeps me where I am at the same time. Strange, yet very pleasing to the eye. 10th avenue also presents me with buildings I’ve never seen before. What is the First West building? What’s inside it?

The sun is totally out. It has been shining for some time. I am growing more and more tan. Life is at a challenging stage. Ok, not entirely.

There are some interesting things though. I have learned how to pilot an innertube behind a boat to an extreme degree where the kids get thrashed in a fun way. High fives go out to Will Carter.

I am learning lots of things out here. Things about Jesus, things about life, things about how much I dislike camp food, and things about friendship. It’s been a great summer thus far and I have few complaints, if any.

One of the really interesting things that I have been learning while I have been reading my bible has been in Exodus. It’s been fascinating to me to learn that God’s presence doesn’t seem to be connected to comfort or lack thereof. The israelites in the desert run short on water and instead of trusting God to provide and asking for water they lash out at Moses. “Did you bring us out here to die?” they ask. Eventually God gives them water and the passage ends with the naming of the location in response to the quarreling of the people when they asked “Is the LORD among us?” Here are my thoughts/observations:

A) the people complain against Moses, but God was the one who brought them out into the desert. It was God who did the miracles, Moses was the representative. Moses even says earlier that by complaining against him they were really complaining against God. It struck me that the Israelites were lead by God to the desert where there was little water. God lead them there. It wasn’t Moses saying to himself “Let’s go to the desert.” It was God calling them into the wilderness. In any case it’s interesting how often I find myself in their position that somehow I forget that God is faithful. He doesn’t call us to arbitrary locations so we die without support, He is our support and provides for us. It would seem that we just have to ask and trust Him to deliver.

B) The people asked “Is the LORD among us?” They didn’t get that God was there in the middle of the desert in their thirst. He was there the whole time. The water came from the rock because God was with them. So often I expect to see God in the midst of the comfortable time I spend on my couch or the easy time I have when I am relaxing. It is clear from the passage that God is there all the time, and perhaps the times when we need to see Him work are in fact the times that He does. Whatever the case may be, it cannot really be argued that thirst, hunger, pain, suffering, or death can possibly negate God’s election of us as His people nor his presence among us in the midst of these things.

In Exodus it is on the edge of death (slavery) that God brings life (the Exodus to the promised land). It is in the midst of starvation that He brings food and deathly thirst that He brings water. In every case it is in the places that I am least likely to expect God in the story that He shows up. The times we think God least present and ourselves most alone strike me as the times (according to my read of exodus) that are perhaps the times in which God is closest and most active. The times when our thirst is most oppressive, our hunger most dire, and our nights the darkest that living water, bread of heaven, and the light of the world are most real, close, and necessary. If anything Exodus is the story of a God that does not leave us in our own obstinant claim that the sky is falling. He shows us that He is the one holding it up.

hey everyone. I am still alive. Current University graduate who has two jobs. That’s cool right? Of course right. I am the waterfront director at camp and I am a CIT (counselor in training) lead. These things have several implications:

A) There are always things for me to be doing if I want to be doing them. Some of them are more important than others.

B) I get to hang out with lifeguards and a series of high school types everyday. The days are full of safe swimmers and high school girl drama. I only hear about the drama because the “dream boat” in my cabin is the one causing all of it. Funny.

Life at camp is a swirly mess of doing stuff all day until I pass out at night. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) I haven’t had much time to process the fact that I am a college grad. What does it mean in real life? No idea. Camp is cool and fun and at times really frustrating (teaching waterski/wakeboard with junior campers who almost cry when they get in the water is taxing), but really I don’t think that being a college grad will feel like this when the summer ends. Somehow I doubt that real life is camp. Surprising? Okay, so not really. Not really sure what’s going to happen with all this, but I suppose it will be okay eventually. I am starting to recall oodles of time before graduation in which I was stressing out about it, but at the end of it all…I am still myself, and life is different only in the new context that I am presented with.

It’s a bit of an odd transition going from doing really awesome academic reading and papers for Dr. Spina to doing really awesome boat driving and running around for camp. Both of them are of use to the Kingdom of God, but both of them are very different. For example, at camp I don’t get fried egg sandwiches that I make by hand. I do get eggs out of a bladder. In Dr.Spina’s class I didn’t drive boat, but I did learn a lot of things that I find myself wanting to employ in real life all the time, but have very limited time/space to do so.

Time to drive kiddos in the boat that they don’t want to be in. Bye for now.

I am about 2 hours shy of moving out of the house forever.

I finished doing the best job possible of cleaning the black death from the window sills, I fought off the man-eating evil that dwells in the empty refridgerator downstairs, and I killed the fiendish dragon that was the upstairs bathroom by cleaning it’s dirty scales ’till they shone like the dawn.

All in all. The house is cleaner than I have ever seen. I just ate my last bowl of breakfast oats here. It’s time to go to camp.

If ever you wonder, it has been great living here. I will miss all the guys, I will miss things about college, but at the end of the day…I think the Lord moves us to better things as we go. Thanks for 4 great years SPU. Thanks for several months of great living my housemates. Thanks to all the friends and family who stood with me as I walked through college. You are great. I’ll be back in seattle in September.

I will be living with 8 high school guys the whole summer. Pray for me.

Yes. I officially am a graduate. Very strange feeling really. I woke up today feeling like I was fixin’ to be on the brink of a new and different day. As I ended it, that feeling didn’t change so much.

I spent time trying to be ready for what was to come, but I really feel like there was no real way to do so. I guess that maybe I was just lying to myself. Oh well.

I got to graduation and spent a significant amount of time trapped in a subterranean basement chamber trying to be organized into numbers that allowed for an alphabetical arrangement. Lots of people ended up going against the grain and sat with the people they wanted to sit with, that seemed silly to me because there was an order for a reason. Right? Of course right. In the end I got to sit with friends who did that, but I held strong. Their choices made my time far more bearable when we sat.

Then I trooped out to my seat amid a crowd of graduates to general screaming from families and friends.

I sat down. For about 3 hours. It wasn’t bad, but it was surely not the most comfortable thing ever. I sent many text messages. I also critiqued middle names with Amy McNair and Maisha Seebeck. Fun stuff.

Eventually after cheering for lots of people, I got up there, gave President Eaton a hug (lifted him off the ground), got my degree holder, and then went back to my seat. It was all over in seconds. I sat down and I was a college grad.

After this I went out to dinner with the folks, Came home, Saw some friends, bought myself a beer (yes, singular), and then hung out until now.

These are my thoughts:

In general graduation happened really fast. There was a massive build-up in which I have experienced most emotions known to man that lasted about 2 weeks, but the event itself was really quick and easy. I would say it was too quick and easy.

For all the time that it took us to get there, it ended fast. Not that after 4 years of university I really desired a long and drawn out sort of experience to end it. I was ready to be done, but somehow I think being done only really started with graduation. Does that make sense? I mean in most ways we have finished college. We graduated. Yet, it seems to me that there’s a lot more work to be done in fully and properly processing this time.

I have been in college for 4 years. 4 years of my life is built around and in patterns related to higher education. Suddenly, I am no longer in college. How do I learn to deal with the reality of life in a completely new and foreign context in which all decisions suddenly become my responsibility? Ah, yes. That’s why I say that we’ve only just begun to be done. I doubt that we will ever be done fully. There are things that we will never be done with founded in college and rightfully so. These are things like learning, relationships, staying healthy, and so on. These thing should keep going.

On the other hand, 16 years of my life has taken place in school. I know the world of being a student. It’s comfortable. Being a graduate means not being a student anymore (for the time being). It took me 16 years to learn to be a student. How long will it take for me to learn to adapt to life not as a student? That needs to happen. Sadly, we can’t keep running out to Dick’s burgers at 2am. I get tired. Bed time gets earlier. Dare I say that at some level we all need to stop being in college so we can learn to be adults? Perhaps it’s too bold. Still, think about it…How would you do the things you want to do after school if school never ended?

It hit me every once in awhile today that I am going to go to camp for the summer and when I come back, the likelihood of some people having left is fairly high. How many of my fellow graduates will be about? How many of them will I never see again? Those are hard questions.

On a more theological standpoint, I suppose that we need to step into the unknown. If we stay where life is safe, how can we learn to trust God with our present and future? Interestingly enough, I believe that the same God that brought us to this place and helped us cultivate the community that we are graduating out of is the same God that goes with us where we go in the future. God gave us what we have for the time in which we have had it. He was with us the whole time. He never left.

Our present and future as graduates (and otherwise) are being guided and shaped by God’s relation to us. It seems silly to expect anything less than more and more great experiences and growth from the God that shoos us into His service through an inexorable moment like graduation that is itself only the culmination of 4 years of blessing.

Perhaps what I am trying to say is that the Lord is was with us when we came to SPU.  He was with us while we were attending SPU. He is still with us now as we leave SPU. In each of the first two stages I have seen God bless me. Through friends, experiences, hardships, etc…You name it, and I have been blessed through it. My life has been used for my good (and hopefully for the good of others.) The Lord has drawn closer to me. That is super cool. Why would the God of the universe who loves us all more than we could ever know or explain want to stop drawing near to us? I can’t conceive of anything.

With that in mind maybe we should be rejoicing. I guess if we’re really realistic we know that in college the Lord has revealed more of himself to us and will keep doing so. Graduating means more Jesus. So in that case I submit that perhaps graduation is the best thing for us at the moment. We get to keep moving forward towards God. It hurts, it’s confusing, we lose things we know, but what we gain in the Lord outweighs everything else.

Yes. Today I am no longer a college student. I am a graduate. I have experienced some loss as a result and will continue to experience more. However, it is because I am no longer a college student that I am given the greatest of possibilities. I am given a life in which the Lord can work. I am given the grace to follow. I am granted the fullness of opportunity to follow the Lord like Abraham did when God called him to a land that God would show him.

He didn’t know where he was going, but the journey with God that was Abraham’s made his life one that reflected God so much that He is the father of judeo-christian faith. In graduating we get the chance to be like Abraham. We get the chance to have a relationship with God that takes us somewhere new, unexpected, and altogether worthwhile. Cool, isn’t it?