So its another lazy sunday. The last day of my senior spring break. i wish i could say i lived it up, went to the beach, had a crazy, awesome time. but i cant because i didnt. I stayed at home alot. didnt get alot done, just chilled, colleged, hung around, smoothied, well i did get back from disney, talked to friends, showed Jacob around memphis, got a prom date and stuff like that.

But today i did something different. I made a paper chain. Takes ya back, doesnt it? back to the days of waiting with bated breath for Santa to come down the chimney, for whatever else you make paper chains for to happen. This chain counts down to 1: Graduation, and 2: Lutheran Camp. 2 i am without a doubt excited about. Today in sunday school Twinkie, Adidas, Speedo, Ziggy, Diva and I went around to the of age classrooms and sang songs and told the kids about camp. we wore camp shirts and we were totally pumped. Its honestly our favorite thing.

It strikes me though, every time we talk about it. I dont know how to explain it. They just love it so much. which is normal. we all love it. but because i know them outside of camp its weirder. not how much they love it, but how much... it loves them? it really means something to them and just watching them get SO excited about it is something, well, godly. its amazing that hangin out with 3-6th graders and a coupla other counselors for a week could mean so much. something makes it so pure, even if we're not. maybe thats why campgrounds are so special. Maybe Jacob's right; maybe there IS a bubble, not just around Lakeshore, but around every camp like that. How else do you explain this? I cant. Its God. this love IS GOD.

things

Its been a heckofa long time since ive posted. my bad. this is probably just a summer fad. but whatever. so anyway, the musicals ended. Lifes over, right? of course. everythings a little messed up. Playin a show tonight at Woodland Hills named the Liberia Loco Talent Showco. should be an awesome thing. a coupla kids that graduated last year are puttin it on to raise money for their trip there this summer. noble cause. one good enough to miss the ever so important girls basketball game tonight. but its all good. i gave up facebook for lent so i seem to have alot more time on my hands now. maybe i will get a little bit more into blogging again. maybe not. well see.

Undivided Life

“I Live by Faith”

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1) But is that all Faith is? Is Faith without works not dead? (James 2:17) If someone were to go through his life proclaiming to be a Christian, but then lived his life and acted conversely to that statement, he wouldn’t be the best witness. His Faith wouldn’t be played out in his life and therefore the people around him wouldn’t see it.

Christians are called to live their faith out, to show the world what the most important thing in their life is. Ideologically, Christians’ “Ultimate Concern,” in the words of Paul Tillich in the words of James Fowler, should be God. However, as Fowler states, love, sex, work, power, and other ego boosting things tend to get in the way of the Unified Life that Christians should be living.

But how does someone’s living a Divided Life, divided between God and man’s greed and worldly desires, affect other people? A church camp counselor lives a good, godly life all summer long, impacts hundreds of children in the best of ways, and changes lives. That life’s a godly life, that person’s life can’t possibly be divided. After those 12 weeks of camp, that counselor becomes a “normal person” again. But can someone like that counselor ever really be a “normal person” again? In the fullest sense of today’s stereotypical college goer, that counselor can never return to “normal.” The “normal,” “average” person, doesn’t have hundreds of 5-17 year olds that look up to them and think that they are the epitome of everything godly and right.

But, a camp counselor can still live that divided life. At camp, they are surely the epitome of everything godly and right, but when they leave, when that “Mountain Top Experience” is over, they do become normal people again. While ideally, counselors, and all Christian people, for that matter, would keep setting a good example and keep showing their faith by what they do when they reach the “base” of that “mountain,” ideally is usually far from the reality. So these hypothetical counselors continue to live their divided lives, one person in the summer, or when they’re around their former campers, and another person everywhere else. Who does it affect? Ask the hypothetical camper that went to that party and saw their hypothetical counselor drunk as anything.

Living the “Undivided Life” that Palmer speaks of would suggest that those Christians who are concerned mainly with themselves and the things they have, may want to reflect upon the story of the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18:18-23. This text deals with a young man, virtuous though he was, who was too much obsessed with his possessions to give them up and wholly follow Jesus. Had this ruler been more willing to give up the things he possessed and cherished, his life would have been possibly undivided.

Similar to Luke 18:18-23, Matthew 8:18-23 is about leaving worldly possessions behind and following God. There seems to be a pattern of people wanting to live undivided lives, but the world, their world, keeps holding them back. People that want that power, that love, that prestige, appear daunted by the idea of giving everything they’ve worked for up. Faith these days is stifled by the world and human greed. If Christians were to live with an attitude more like “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” then perhaps there would be less polarization in their lives. (Galatians 2:20)

Perhaps the people of God would remember that they are supposed to be just that, the people of God. What would happen if Christians lived like Christ was in them? What would the world be like if people didn’t keep God just in the church building, if people didn’t just take God to the work place or in the home? What would it be like if Christians let God live and work through every thing they did and everywhere they were? This world would be a better world, a more undivided world if people just lived their faith, if they didn’t let their faith die by not letting it out to breath every once and a while.

Dear Butterfly,

Dear Butterfly,
Your wings just flapped.
Did ya notice?
Did ya noticed the Hurricane you started in my heart?

Dear Butterfly,
Could you feel your effects?
Did ya notice?
Did ya notice when I got sucked in to your swirlin Vortex?

Dear Butterfly,
You're in a different Hemisphere.
But did ya notice?
Notice what ya do over there comes on over here?

Something really hit me tonight. The people in my life right now, those that i love and care about more than anything in the world, might not be in my life like they are if ONE decision in someones life had been different. Not even necessarily OUR lives. Just someones. What if somewhere along the way, ONE person, say the guy who founded my Lutheran Camp, say he decided to make the camp go all through highschool and not stop at going into 7th grade. My life would be SO much different. I cant even think what my world would look like right now. Its impossible to imagine. Absolutely impossible. And to think that this "choose your own adventure book" life of mine has met up with the "books" of the people i love in this way is simply unfathomable. I just cant believe ive gotten so lucky. But its scary the power we have over our own lives and other peoples lives and how it affects EVERYONES future. I just... I cant fully understand.

PRIDE

I made a discovery about myself today. The thing I seek almost more than any other thing, the thing that I Strive for, Work for, Yearn for, its not Approval, or Acceptance, or to "Fit In." Its not a Simple Task. Its not Changing This or That about myself to make other people Like me. My Goal, it seems, is to make people PROUD of me. I could name off person after person that I would want nothing more from them but for them to be PROUD of me. I want to look into their Eyes and KNOW and FEEL that they are PROUD of me, that they know that I Am Something and that i have Done Something worthy of them.

And the need to make them LOVE me. I know they do. I KNOW it. But I often reject that fact and do anything that I can to Make them Want to Love me more. So Much More. I Want them to Love me as Much as I LOVE them.

These are the things that make me Sick at night. That I lie awake thinking about. These are part of the reason I Write Letters like I do. I want them to Know that I LOVE them and that I SEEK their PRIDE in me, though I may not directly say it. I want them to put This or That Page up on their Cork board.

I want them to be PROUD of me. LOVE me. That's it.

Im slightly drained. And a tad bit lost. This past month and a few weeks has been all over the place. My emotions have been dragged all over; from the highest point in west Tennessee, to the hoods of Memphis, its been quite the summer. From counseling the coolest two cabins of girls and making new best friends and painting and signing guitars and sleepovers and high ropes everyday for a week and lazy river swimming and laughing and inside jokeing and loving and peacing and friendsing and "just wanting to be a sheep"ing and being "hi-def", to break ups and late night crying phone calls that break your heart and finding out who your friends are and coconut rum and getting plastered (not me) and reading Frankenstein and crying for a whole chapter and missing friends and leaving camp and going to your last seniorhigh and having your camera break on the first day and having to say good bye too many times and not knowing exactly what the future holds anymore. Ah summer