Eavesdropping

So I realized this week that I really love to eavesdrop. It's a guilty pleasure. I just think it is so interesting to hear what other people have to say: sometimes I learn new stuff, sometimes I am entertained, sometimes I feel better about myself and other times I am incredibly humbled. 

Some recent examples:

- I was walking across campus today and I passed these three guys that were talking excitedly about something (I never gathered what it was they were talking about...). When I say excitedly, I mean it. They were doing that thing where you are saying words, but the words are simultaneously laughs. And they were loud. And the fact that they were so excited made me smile and laugh out loud. It was fun.

- When I was trying to study at common grounds with Kimberly yesterday, we both ended up just listening to a couple of girls on a rush date for a sorority (I won't name it here...). It was ridiculous ... I know that I have my dumb-girl moments, but this was every stereotype of sorority girls wrapped up in one conversation. One of the girls used the word "like" nine times in one sentence. My favorite part was when they started talking about politics ... it was clear that they wanted to make sure that their daddies have secure bank accounts so they can accumulate more true religion jeans. It was awesome.

- I caught the jist of a conversation that occurred in the isle of HEB -- and it was in Spanish. Love that. Eavesdropping is a good way to keep up on your foreign language skills.

This love for eavesdropping is probably a result of my hatred for being left out of the loop -- anyone who knows me is more than aware that I loathe being left out on something. So I eavesdrop. And the result of this guilty pleasure only adds to my lack of productivity and focus while studying. Oh well.

Baylor Girls

Man, I am blogging a lot this week. I must have a lot to say :-)

Here is some good stuff from "Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis. The speaker is a demon, telling one of his little demon buddies how best to tempt humans:
"We now teach men to like women whose bodies are scarcely distinguishable from those of boys. Since this is a kind of beauty more transitory than most, we aggravate the female's chronic horror of growing old and render her less willing and less able to bear children ... the figures in popular art are falsely drawn ... they appear firmer and more slender and more boyish than nature allows a full grown woman to be ... as a result, we are directing the desires of men to something which does not exist -- making the role of the eye in sexuality more and more important and at the same time making its demands more and more impossible."

I, as a 21-year-old woman, am deeply feeling the consequences of this. Just a few days ago, I was in the middle of a conversation where several girls (really awesome ones, I might add) were talking about their relative skinniness, and they were throwing around jean sizes like 0 and 2. How is that supposed to make a size 6 or 8 feel? Turns out, I have a butt ... and hips ... and thighs. Why shouldn't I? Why is the "standard" so small when the standard woman is not?

I know young women as a whole suffer the consequences of this unrealistic standard ... Baylor has one of the nation's highest rates of anorexia and bulimia. I feel significantly more attractive while I am wearing man clothes and sweating in Philly than I do on some of my best days here. I love Baylor, but the atmosphere is toxic when it comes to this issue. 

I just needed to vent about that ... and I need to let the Lord's thoughts on me dictate my self-understanding. 

Superficiality

I really want some superficiality in my life. The task set before me each and every day as a student is to think about big questions ... most of which do not have any kind of concrete answer. Don't get me wrong ... I love it; in fact, the most frustrating thing about my science classes was that you either got a question right or wrong. But to have something like 15 of these big questions in your head is incredibly overwhelming! For example, at various points today I have considered (1) whether leaders should be moral exemplars or if it is valuable to expose flaws (2) a list of 10 different scriptural mandates and whether they are negotiable or not in the context of missions (3) what I would do if the sufferings of other people depended on my personal decision to apostasize (4) whether God has grace with apostates (5) predestination and its relationship to grace and (6) how they get all the little potato bits to stick together in tater tots [this is relatively inconsequential, but I really am stumped]. Thats a lot to dwell on.

Because I am always in the thinking zone, I have a hard time getting out of it. I went for a walk tonight with a friend, ended up back at her apartment, and started talking about Calvinism with a different friend who was over studying. We talked for a good hour, and when Christy mentioned our discussion to her roommate, they laughed about how it was no big suprise. I always find myself in the middle of really intense conversations, and my brain is tired. But really ... it is tired. But I can't seem to escape all the questions that are floating around in my head... I HAVE to think about them for school, and I can't just turn that on and off. 

I think I am way less fun now than I used to be. I watched a video documentary on Winston Churchill I made in high school, and it made me miss my old self in some respects. I don't miss being flippant, but I do miss freedom from the burden of constant contemplation.

I want to talk about boys and movies and music and ... well, anything that isn't explicitly deep. I want some superficiality.

I couldn't think of anything to title this post

Here are some unrelated thoughts on my life right now (as per usual) ...

(1) I am reading this book called "Silence" for my Christian Missions class, and it is really intense -- it is about the persecution of Christian missionaries in Japan in the 1600's. The beginning of the book reminded me of the weakness of my faith. It describes the torture of some faithful Japanese, and the fact that they didn't even cry out in the midst of persecution blows my mind. But the book ends up following one western priest in particular, and the reader is privy to his thoughts on his ministry. And we find him frustrated, angry at the silence of God and desperate. It was a powerful reminder that no human in and of themselves is capable of any measure of real faith ... but with the aid of grace, he is given the endurance and peace to deal with his circumstances. I haven't finished the book, so I don't have any decisive thoughts yet, but it is a good one to read when pondering the tension between death and ineffective ministry in countries of persecution. Pick it up.

(2) I am afraid of my kitchen, because there are nasty waterbugs in there sometimes. But seriously ... sometimes I want to make food, but I don't want to be in there so I eat somewhere else. And, currently, there is a trapped waterbug under a glass in our living room. I don't have the strength of character to kill it. EW! [Side note -- I just want to clarify that I am not such a girl about all bugs. It is just these nasty waterbugs and cockroaches that I can't handle, and I will be the first to admit it]

(3) Vitamin String Quartet is awesome!

(4) I want to encourage everyone I know to buy Fair Trade items for Christmas presents! It is an awesome way to bless and aid in the flourishing of impoverished communities around the world ... and you get really unique gifts! If you are looking for a place to go in Waco, hit up World Cup Cafe or the World Hunger Farm. If you don't live in Waco, look it up. 

Ok, I think thats all I've got. Love y'all.

Exit Interview

Oh my goodness ... I am done with my exit interview! As of Weds at 5:40, I passed!!!! Get so excited! For those of you who don't know, it was an interview in which I was held responsible for a reading list that I created my freshman year. Here is a list of the books that I had to be able to speak intelligently about:

• Aristotle, Politics
  
• St. Augustine, City of God
  
• Homer, Odyssey
  
• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
  
• Aristophanes, Clouds
  
• Cicero, On the Republic
  
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
  
• Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
  
• Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict
  
• Luther, On Christian Liberty
  
• Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
  
• Machiavelli, The Prince
  
• Thomas More, Utopia
  
• Cervantes, Don Quixote
  
• Shakespeare, Hamlet, Othello, Tempest , and Macbeth
  
• Chesterton, Orthodoxy
  
• John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
  
• Alexander Pope, Rape of the Lock
  
• Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
  
• Hamilton, Madison and Jay, The Federalist Papers
  
• Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  
• Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
  
• Eliot, The Wasteland and Other Poems
  
• Toni Morrison, Beloved
  
• Beckett, Waiting for Godot
  
• Kafka, Metamorphoses  
  

Ya, its a good thing Jesus had my back, because otherwise I would have failed. But God is good and faithful, and I survived the hour long interview. They mostly asked about the philosophy and theology on my list, but I ended up getting to just kind of wrestle with the texts along with one of the professors. This interview stirred up two thoughts in me: (1) I really would love to go to graduate school, and stay in academia ... I want to wrestle with these texts and others for a long time! (2) that I would never be able to do grad school in my own strength :)

It was an interesting interview because the two passions of my life kind of collided in the two professors that were interviewing me ... Dr. Miner representing my thinker side and Dr. Singletary representing my doer side. I am so excited to do youth ministry for the first few years post-college, and (as Dr. Miner wisely said) I have the privilege of working both in the trenches and in books ... my experiences speak profoundly about my academic learning, and vice versa. 

I am not sure if any of that was coherent ... it been a long couple of weeks. I had a midterm and a story due today, so I am finally getting to enjoy the freedom of being done with my exit interview. And as a special gift from the Lord, I got to hear Bethany Dillon tonight. Just her voice, an acoustic guitar and Jesus made for a special evening. And as she so beautifully sang, I want to throw a "Hallelujah!" up to the Lord for sustaining me, gifting me, humbling me, growing me and perfectly loving me. 

Peace

God is so good. I mean, it is pretty ridiculous. Sometimes I just look up at the sky and wonder if He can really be for real ... I mean, why he takes such care in loving me escapes my grasp. For example, I have been given several moments of preemptive love and wisdom in the last few weeks ... how cool is that? To think that I am on His mind, and He uses his foreknowledge to prepare me for circumstances is awesome. Who am I?

An extra special gift that he gave me this weekend was a large dose of his peace. Two things that have been harassing my spirit in the last week are discontentment and fear ... and the Lord literally went out of His way to rescue me from those torments. Friday night, at the sisterhood retreat for my sorority, one of the local college pastors came to preach for us. And it was straight up from the Lord for my life. He talked about tests from the Lord, and gave us two examples out of Exodus:

(1) When God brings the Israelites out of Egypt (and out of slavery), they get to the desert and start whining to the Lord about how they miss their pots of meat (haha, thats kind of a funny thing to miss). Ok, so in 16:4, God says that he will rain down manna from heaven in order to TEST them. The Lord is giving them an opportunity to trust Him, and to lean solely on His provision. Just like they Israelites were discontent in their bellies, I have been discontent in relationships. God is providing manna, and I was whining for something more. I felt like over 3 years of manna has been enough, and I deserved something else. Turns out, the Israelites ate manna for forty years ... which means I may be single for forty years, or more. Instead of viewing this as a problem, God reminded me that this is a beautiful opportunity to show my devotion to Him. Hard to hear, but good.

*Side note -- this reminds me of lembras in Lord of the Rings ... it is elven bread given to the fellowship of the ring to sustain them on their journey. When Sam and Frodo get near the end of the journey, they have nothing else left  -- and the book says the the lembras "had a potency that increased as travelers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods." 

(2) Alright, and now for fear ... check out Exodus 20:18-21. God is settin' off all kinds of fireworks on the top of Mount Sinai, and the Israelites tell Moses that they don't want to hear from God, because they will die. This pretty clearly reflected my attitude about my impending exit interview ... I was afraid to pray about it, for fear that God would make me fail as an opportunity to seriously humble me. I was cowering in front of a powerful God, and forgetting his goodness and abundant love for me. How this happened, I am not really sure -- the Lord has made a point to be good to me, and I am so quick to forget. But God reminded me that they display of his awesomeness is a test, where I can respond in fear or in holy fear (or reverence). So I am now choosing to pray for my exit interview :)

So those tumultuous places in my heart were calmed and covered in peace. Seriously ... how is God so good?