Follow the Yellow Brick Road

I like it here better.

Saints and Soldiers

A movie worth watching, even if you don’t like war movies.

Deacon: Do you believe in a life after this one?
Gould: Not a chance in hell. When we first got here I was working on this kid, and he was shot up pretty bad. He kept saying, “Please God, please God,” over and over, like it meant something. He was so sincere about it; I thought it might work. And two minutes later he was dead. There wasn’t a thing I could do about it. And when I looked into his eyes, there was nothing there. Nothing. That’s when I realized that this is it.
Deacon: It’s funny.
Gould: What could possibly be funny about that?
Deacon: No, I don’t mean funny funny, it’s just that….We were just outside Sainte-Mere-Eglise and we were getting pounded pretty hard. And I was holding this kid on my lap, and he was shot up pretty good. And I remember him praying, and I was praying too, and then all of a sudden he was gone. And that was it, really. That was the first time I really watched somebody die. But right then I knew that he was in a better place than that.
Gould: How convenient for you.
Deacon: Convenient? Yeah, that’s what I was just thinking about what you said. Funny, huh?

Ecclesiastes 7:14

There’s a girl on campus who lives in Milwaukee and can give me a ride for Thanksgiving break. My roommate, who lives in Chicago and orchestrated it all, was hoping just as much as I was that it would all work out. When she found out I could ride with them, she breathed a relieved, “Thank God.” I could not have said it more eloquently or truthfully.

I scheduled my classes for spring semester, and it gives me a little volt of excitement whenever I think about it. I am most looking forward to

+ Christian Theology with Dr. Anderson, whose 8:00 a.m. Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes never come soon enough. (“I’m not tired, but the sooner I go to bed the sooner 8:00 comes around!”)
+ Dr. Vincent’s T.S. Eliot seminar, which meets none of my Creative Writing major requirements but meets the requirement of my heart to hear Dr. Vincent read poetry in a voice like water gliding across glass in slow motion.
+ Small Business Management, which will probably be nothing like I am imagining but sets my entrepreneurial dreams ablaze with bookstore/coffee shop flames.

I endeavored to last the 3 1/2 weeks from fall break to Thanksgiving break without washing my clothes – I would have made it in triumph, if it weren’t for the lessening number of underwear I find in my drawer each morning. I guess I’ll have to shell out the $1.75 for a load of laundry, after all.

I have only to survive the remainder of this week and I’ll be sailing on smooth seas until Thanksgiving. An exam this morning and an exam tomorrow morning have been hovering above my head like a raincloud ready to burst all week, and even if I fail both of them I’ll be glad to be out from under their shadow.

I like

I like the fact that it’s now the season to carry Chapstick in every coat pocket.
I like that I keep my coffee in the refrigerator, so whenever someone opens the door the air is permeated with the scent of coffee grinds.
I like seeing my breath when I walk to class in the morning.
I like sitting in Barnes & Noble and drinking Starbucks coffee while reading a book I don’t intend to purchase.

I like watching football on Sunday afternoons.
I like reading personally relevant things in required class reading.

“All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.”

I like that today in two weeks I’ll be on my way home for Thanksgiving.

Truth and Football

As I sat in the small, wooden-smelling church this morning listening to the pastor preach about God’s truth, I thought about how God has been showing me so much about truth in the past few weeks. When I’ve been asking where He wants me, what He wants me to do with my life, what my next step is, He teaches me His love and His truth and His faithfulness. But why won’t He answer my constant questions?

Then I pictured a traveler on a journey, unsure of which direction to go. He asks his companion to show him where to go, but every time his companion simply gives him something else. Once it’s a walking stick, once it’s a new pair of sandals, once it’s a bottle of water. All are helpful things, but none are what this traveler keeps asking for. Then his companion tells him, “My friend, I’ve known all along which path you were to take, but if I had shown you right away, you would not have been ready to take it. What at first seemed random objects have now prepared you to take your appointed path.”

In a mere hour and 45 minutes, the Colts play the Patriots in a game that reminds me of the symbolization of earthly marriage to eternal matrimony with Jesus. It’s not the Super Bowl, but it’s preparatory and brings me the same excitement.