Third Year Goals

School has started, and God is just as good as ever! I feel unsettled and unruly in my heart, though, and I can't imagine what would quiet me. I doubt I'd do it if I knew. I am ready to call it fatigue and leave the question to be sucked up by the fan in the window.

I'm undertaking a few challenges this year, friends. The first is a prayer challenge: to pray in the girls' lounge for a half an hour two nights a week, from about 10:15 - 10:45. The second is to read one book from my writing class's reading list every two weeks. I often say, rightly, that I don't have time to read; but I want to make time, because I enjoy reading and because I have the happy excuse of calling it career development.

This being my third at the residence hall, I have two points, and am able to finally draw a navigation line between them. Year one, I thought my job was tough, filled with apathetic or annoying teenagers who were inherently my excuse for not building community. Year two, I thought it was my sole job to build a community, to pray it into being, and then, when I failed, to accept that I should have done more and better.

Year three, it seems obvious now that building a community is not something a person can do alone. There's no amount of willpower or hard work that can form it. No way. It takes a friggin' village, and the grace of God. The residence hall is a village. Sorta. By the end of last year, it was time for me to admit that the students of the RH were a big part of my community, and therefore my calling and my ministry.

Also of note, a writing student informed me today that she is considering getting a tattoo of a semi-colon, because though the sentence seems to have stopped, like life, it goes on. Awesome.

Attempts at Hospitality

I believe in offering what I have.

Me: See ya, Lachelle! Thanks for visiting me!

Lachelle: See ya! Thanks for the water, the icing, and the offer of cold, cooked chicken!

Ready For School?

Yes, sure. No, not really.

It's almost unfair that school-centered jobs have so much build-up before beginning. In late July, back-to-school "sales" begin, and right on cue this question begins to circulate. I have nothing against the question, let me be clear.

The truth is this: I feel like a different person in the summertime. I let down my guard and say yes to doing things. During the school year, I am focused on a whole different set of joys and challenges. It's like crossing a border into another country. Not good or bad, really, but entirely different. The comparison doesn't stand.

I suppose the point is that neither the summertime nor the school year are paradise in their own right. The only paradise is where Christ is.

Check this out:
"Anchor" by Beautiful Eulogy and Josh Garrels

Productive Day List

On Facebook, I often see lists of things people did on their most productive days. A few of those lists, and I am sure that I am unsuccessful at living. I make to-do lists all the time, and rarely cross off more than two or three items before day's end. BUT, if you make the list AFTER the day is over, it's much more rewarding.

Here's what this morning's to-do list would have consisted of, if it had been accurate.

Drive to Philly and back.

Turn around only three times.

Attend a doctor's appointment with a friend who will get sutures removed, right in front of me. 

Do not throw up.

Have a stimulating conversation.

Leave windows down during a rainstorm.

Eat Vietnamese food with Elizabeth.

Buy two cute shirts at a thrift store.

Read Steinbeck.

Clap loudly to scare off a skunk while Lachelle unlocks the building. 

 Ignore other lists. 

Rumblings

I think it may be time to be uncomfortable again. What's next? What's next?

Off Day

Snatched this gem from my old xanga (xanga.com/carolynofgreengables). It's appropriate for today. And the past week.

Off-Day: Is there some French word for that?

It's easy to believe that off-days never really happen when you're not having one. But today has taken that notion's family hostage and made it beg for mercy. (I started with "But today has blown that notion out of the water," but it felt too cliched. We have cliches for a reason, though. Tested and proven.) I showed up late to my last final of the semester. I mean a half hour late kind of late. Then I couldn't understand the directions. After asking if I was on the right track (I kid you not) three times, I finished and left the classroom with 40 minutes to spare. Wow. Easier than I thought. Then I got to the restroom where some girls who had just finished the test were saying that it was harder than they expected. I ascertained the instructions from them. Then I swallowed whatever shreds were left of my pride and whispered the situation to my professor. "Carolyn, is this an off-day for you?" she remarked. I think she thought that I was going through something especially difficult: heroine withdrawal, a break-up, a death in the family. Praise God, no! I just can't seem to FOLLOW DIRECTIONS EVER. So then I finished and it may have been "B" material at best. Also, why can't we find any stars for the top of the tree? Or, more to the point, where can we find a star for the top of the tree? haha, "to the point"

Posted 12/11/2008 10:54 PM

Asking Better Questions

In the teaching ESL class I took this month, we watched a video from the late 1970s about Mexican-American acculturation in southern California. They were experiencing all the racism, poverty, and loss of identity that comes with immigration. The most striking part of the video was when the interviewer asked some of the Mexican-American high school drop-outs, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" This is a familiar question, and it seems to me that it is really asking, "how will you make money when you are old enough to do so?" It's a good question for an individualistic, transitory, capitalistic society to ask of its members. But the teens in the video, who come from a communal, stationary society just stared blankly into the distance, and responded with a nervous chuckle, "I don't know."

I wish the interviewer had gone on to clarify, "You mean you don't dream of anything happening in your life?" Then it would have been clearer if they merely didn't know how they would earn money, or if they had not been encouraged to dream about their futures, and to picture life differently. The tragedy would be if they had not been given the power to view themselves as agents for change and betterment in the world. That possibility was heart-breaking, and everyone in my class felt it.

I recently attended a party of about 25 bright, enthusiastic young people. They are certainly exceptions to many rules. They carry the hope of Christ in their hearts. They walk with confidence wherever they go. They change the world by listening to God and people. If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they might also stare at you blankly for a bit. They are entrenched in that very battle of deciding how they will earn their bread. For them, too, the question doesn't have a more inspirational answer than a stare into the distance, and a faint, "I don't know." But, if we change the question a bit, and begin with "what do you want in life?" or "what are your hopes for the future?" we will get to the heart of the matter.

Here are a few of their responses:

• I want to be a father to children, and not just in the biological sense, especially for boys.
• I want to teach, and help build a community.
• I want adventure, love (maybe getting married, but maybe not), and wisdom (because I love to read books).
• I want to do everything, go everywhere, and meet everyone.
• I want to serve. I like where I am right now.
• I want to do one of the following before I die: star in a show, or start a camp for troubled youth, or...
• I want to write a novel, like War and Peace, that follows a person through all of life.
• I want to have a family, and have an outlet for adventure.
• I want to adopt four boys.
• I want to do something that matters, that no one ever gives me credit for.
• I want to have the ability to go off on thinking tangents for as long as I like.
• I want to play Encore all together with my giant family.
• I want to live outside of the ordinary.
• I want to know people and encourage them to know God better.

I'm far more satisfied with these answers than with those I gave as a child, "nurse, vet, waitress [ahem, little Carolyn, you mean 'server']."