Hey Everyone!
I'm at camp, and i love it. I have to go. Bye.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Summer and Everything After.
On Monday night, I will begin working as a counselor at a camp in southern Missouri. That means that I'm currently in the midst of my last "Summer" weekend. I return to school four days after I get back from camp. So if you think about it, this is my last summer break (making this my last summer weekend). After next summer, I will most likely not return for classes in the fall (thus nullifying it as an official summer). I have very little knowledge of what life will look like at that time. But I digress.
Tonight it's time to reminisce. I've had a streak of about 17 fun-filled summer breaks--not bad, if you ask me. I started school at my church's Academy. I spent my elementary school in classes never bigger than 20. One year, we had 6. My life was good then. Not that it's not now, it was just really good then. I had a problem every once in a long while, but they were normally overshadowed by recess. I started my love/hate relationship with Christian culture there. I also began to undertake the thing called faith there. My summers consisted of neighborhood games, neighbors, and the occasional sporting event.
Junior High took me from the protected gulf of Traders Point Christian Academy to the lion's den--Brownsburg Junior High. A very different education awaited me there. I learned that people weren't all Christians. I learned lots of things, socially and otherwise. I found that most people hated Junior High. I loved it--decent grades for minimal effort and girls. Neighborhood night games (oh, how I love capture the flag) were the mainstay of my summer nights.
High school was pretty much the same as Junior High, but harder work (harder, not hard) and more sports. My life through high school was very enjoyable. I loved hanging out with people, liked flirting with girls, and liked playing sports, probably in that order. Driving opened up choices--choices that (luckily) I was sufficiently insecure/goody-goody to screw up too badly. Summers took on a different air when I got keys. My first car was a Jeep; may she rest in peace. My love for Indiana was forged on summer nights with windows down and stars illuminating thousands of acres of corn. Each summer was different and wonderful. The summer after senior year brought a budding faith and a waning first love (strangely intertwined, I suppose).
I should also mention the blessing of other friends--I could not have asked for better people to know and love. In both high school and college, they've made life wonderful.
Ahh, college--new friends, harder school, and actually realizing my potential in sports. School became a passion instead of an obligation. Adulthood seemed imminent when I college began, but I've since learned that its a facade anyway. Still, adult life has slowly enveloped me in it's methodical droning. My friends--high school and college alike-- have begun to spread out and embark on life as grown-ups.
So here I sit, looking back on a great run of summer breaks, hesitant to move forward into my own "real" life. Thus far, life has been good. The past few years I've tasted the joys and pains of becoming my own man. I can't say that I'm fearless. Actually, I'm quite fearful.
This would be a good time to believe the words of a Jewish carpenter who had something to say to the world.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? "
If worrying added hours, I'd live forever.
Tonight it's time to reminisce. I've had a streak of about 17 fun-filled summer breaks--not bad, if you ask me. I started school at my church's Academy. I spent my elementary school in classes never bigger than 20. One year, we had 6. My life was good then. Not that it's not now, it was just really good then. I had a problem every once in a long while, but they were normally overshadowed by recess. I started my love/hate relationship with Christian culture there. I also began to undertake the thing called faith there. My summers consisted of neighborhood games, neighbors, and the occasional sporting event.
Junior High took me from the protected gulf of Traders Point Christian Academy to the lion's den--Brownsburg Junior High. A very different education awaited me there. I learned that people weren't all Christians. I learned lots of things, socially and otherwise. I found that most people hated Junior High. I loved it--decent grades for minimal effort and girls. Neighborhood night games (oh, how I love capture the flag) were the mainstay of my summer nights.
High school was pretty much the same as Junior High, but harder work (harder, not hard) and more sports. My life through high school was very enjoyable. I loved hanging out with people, liked flirting with girls, and liked playing sports, probably in that order. Driving opened up choices--choices that (luckily) I was sufficiently insecure/goody-goody to screw up too badly. Summers took on a different air when I got keys. My first car was a Jeep; may she rest in peace. My love for Indiana was forged on summer nights with windows down and stars illuminating thousands of acres of corn. Each summer was different and wonderful. The summer after senior year brought a budding faith and a waning first love (strangely intertwined, I suppose).
I should also mention the blessing of other friends--I could not have asked for better people to know and love. In both high school and college, they've made life wonderful.
Ahh, college--new friends, harder school, and actually realizing my potential in sports. School became a passion instead of an obligation. Adulthood seemed imminent when I college began, but I've since learned that its a facade anyway. Still, adult life has slowly enveloped me in it's methodical droning. My friends--high school and college alike-- have begun to spread out and embark on life as grown-ups.
So here I sit, looking back on a great run of summer breaks, hesitant to move forward into my own "real" life. Thus far, life has been good. The past few years I've tasted the joys and pains of becoming my own man. I can't say that I'm fearless. Actually, I'm quite fearful.
This would be a good time to believe the words of a Jewish carpenter who had something to say to the world.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? "
If worrying added hours, I'd live forever.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Realities in Contrast.
A friend of mine recently did some research on the human eye as a part of his biology major. He explained to me (in the short, simple words I requested) how our eyes work and how they deliver a picture to our brains. One thing stood out to me in his description.
Without contrasts, we are blind.
The human eye relies on a basic system of contrasts to provide our spectrum of colors, shapes, and textures. I dont really understand how it all works--but the connection between contrast and clear vision struck me.
About four weeks ago, my uncle Dan died. My dad's younger brother was the picture of health, a vegetarian, a high school athletic trainer. His heart stopped on a Friday night as he fell asleep in his favorite chair.
My sister and I were in Missouri--a week into staff training at our summer camp. The camp director pulled me aside at lunch on Saturday to tell me there had been an emergency call from home.
An anniversary cruise limited my parents cell-phone reception, so my brother was the first person I could get on the phone. My sister and I waited as my brother prepared us for "really not good news."
News like that has a way of stealing your breath. We sat, stunned and breathless, waiting for our heads to clear. We decided to leave right away, and I walked down the gravel path towards the cabin to pack. Cabin nine was my home for the week, and I followed the familiar path, my head still reeling.
How could Uncle Dan be gone? I'd seen him two weeks before, alive as ever. He spent Mother's Day with us at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Leaves and gravel passed slowly beneath my feet. The same path I had walked all week seemed different. The same place, the same cabin--all somehow changed.
I spent a lot of time staring that day. All day, an empty feeling deadened my mind and senses. All day I thought, "Really?" We drove all evening, arriving at a hotel just after dark. The hotel was clean, air conditioned, and empty.
Sometime during that evening I remembered my friend's description of the eye. The eye relies on contrasts--without them, shapes and colors fade to black. So it seems to be with life.
Some realities in life must always be held in tension with the contrasting reality.
Life and Death, for example. We get accustomed to the reality of being alive. But we must not forget--it will not always be so. It is not until we realize that we will die that we will truly see life.
Two weeks ago, I was at my family's lakehouse--the realization of my late grandfather's dream. He and my grandmother have since passed away; unfortunately, my grandfather did not live to see the lakehouse finished. Grandma did, however, and I recently found myself in her favorite room, looking at the pictures of their life together. In particular, I found myself looking at their wedding picture.
My grandfather stands to the right of the wedding cake, in his dress Army uniform. My grandmother smiles vibrantly, foreshadowing the smile she would pass on to six daughters. Her dark hair and eyes imbue life into the picture. They stand together, smiling sweetly into the camera, enjoying the first moments of their marriage. And what moments they must have been!
Fast-forward seventy years. I stand in a quiet bedroom with a wooden floor and picture frames dotting the walls. Forty miles away, the couple rests in side-by-side burial plots. Standing in front of the picture, I contemplate the irony of my position. I am alive, contemplating the fact of death, looking at people who have died, but have no thought of anything but life. An appreciation of life slips through the irony.
The only remnant of their day is a faded, sepia-toned facade. But their experience was in vivid color.
Life will always boast more vibrant colors if we maintain a healthy respect for realities in contrast.
Without contrasts, we are blind.
The human eye relies on a basic system of contrasts to provide our spectrum of colors, shapes, and textures. I dont really understand how it all works--but the connection between contrast and clear vision struck me.
About four weeks ago, my uncle Dan died. My dad's younger brother was the picture of health, a vegetarian, a high school athletic trainer. His heart stopped on a Friday night as he fell asleep in his favorite chair.
My sister and I were in Missouri--a week into staff training at our summer camp. The camp director pulled me aside at lunch on Saturday to tell me there had been an emergency call from home.
An anniversary cruise limited my parents cell-phone reception, so my brother was the first person I could get on the phone. My sister and I waited as my brother prepared us for "really not good news."
News like that has a way of stealing your breath. We sat, stunned and breathless, waiting for our heads to clear. We decided to leave right away, and I walked down the gravel path towards the cabin to pack. Cabin nine was my home for the week, and I followed the familiar path, my head still reeling.
How could Uncle Dan be gone? I'd seen him two weeks before, alive as ever. He spent Mother's Day with us at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Leaves and gravel passed slowly beneath my feet. The same path I had walked all week seemed different. The same place, the same cabin--all somehow changed.
I spent a lot of time staring that day. All day, an empty feeling deadened my mind and senses. All day I thought, "Really?" We drove all evening, arriving at a hotel just after dark. The hotel was clean, air conditioned, and empty.
Sometime during that evening I remembered my friend's description of the eye. The eye relies on contrasts--without them, shapes and colors fade to black. So it seems to be with life.
Some realities in life must always be held in tension with the contrasting reality.
Life and Death, for example. We get accustomed to the reality of being alive. But we must not forget--it will not always be so. It is not until we realize that we will die that we will truly see life.
Two weeks ago, I was at my family's lakehouse--the realization of my late grandfather's dream. He and my grandmother have since passed away; unfortunately, my grandfather did not live to see the lakehouse finished. Grandma did, however, and I recently found myself in her favorite room, looking at the pictures of their life together. In particular, I found myself looking at their wedding picture.
My grandfather stands to the right of the wedding cake, in his dress Army uniform. My grandmother smiles vibrantly, foreshadowing the smile she would pass on to six daughters. Her dark hair and eyes imbue life into the picture. They stand together, smiling sweetly into the camera, enjoying the first moments of their marriage. And what moments they must have been!
Fast-forward seventy years. I stand in a quiet bedroom with a wooden floor and picture frames dotting the walls. Forty miles away, the couple rests in side-by-side burial plots. Standing in front of the picture, I contemplate the irony of my position. I am alive, contemplating the fact of death, looking at people who have died, but have no thought of anything but life. An appreciation of life slips through the irony.
The only remnant of their day is a faded, sepia-toned facade. But their experience was in vivid color.
Life will always boast more vibrant colors if we maintain a healthy respect for realities in contrast.
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