Thinking Differently

Hello There!

Last week I took a new, rather large, step in my life: I put down a security deposit on a small apartment. This will be my first independent dwelling place, and I am very excited (though not as excited as my fiancee…more on that later).

It is a one bedroom apartment, actually located beneath a large house about 2.5 miles from the campus of Messiah College. It has a rather large bathroom (and it is private!! which, after 4 years of sharing a bathroom with college guys, is a Really Big Deal) and a large, spacious kitchen. The bedroom is about average sized, and the living room is slightly small, and all-in-all it is a terrific place to live.

I will move in around the 15th of May, and live there for year. Hannah, my fiancee, will move in the middle of December, but won’t start living there until we get married January 3, 2010. This would be why she is soo excited! Hannah is realizing that this will be our first “home” together, and where we will spend the first 5 months of our married lives. She literally bounced all the way home, and couldn’t keep a large smile off her face. It was very cute!

The grounds around the house are large and beautiful, with two weeping willow trees and many shrubs and flowers. A small creek runs along the edge of the property. Next to my apartment is a recreation room, which my landlords have graciously allowed me access to, which includes a pool table which is also a table tennis table, and a treadmill for exercising. This is a huge plus.

Also, this apartment is at a fair price, especially considering that it includes utilities, cable television, and internet access.

I am very excited, and cannot wait to move it. I praise my Father God for his provision and blessing.

This will be another big step for me, and I feel ready to make it!

Hello readers!

It has been awhile since I have posted on this blog, and I therefore apologize. Ironically, I spend alot of my time these days writing, but writing poems for my Workshop class, and writing essays for my Advanced writing class, and writing reports for my Ethics classes, and not writing insightful blog posts.

Lately, spring has been sluggishly arriving to central PA, with a few warm and sunny days interspersed with many rainy and overcast cool ones. I don’t mind, I enjoy rain, both literally and physically, but also metaphorically and spiritually. The rains outside my window run off the top of my dorm, down my window pane, and out across the brick and concrete of the campus. It trickles across the branches and drops off the leaves and sparkles on the green green grass. It washes clean the grime and dust that collects across our hives of rooms and classes.

Last night, I experienced a rain of a different sort: I had a good cry. I consider myself to be a real man and crying isn’t something that I do often, but once in a while some things just get to an overwhelming point. Hannah came by, and we sat in the room and cried together. After a bit of time passed, I needed to hear a song that often encourages my heart, and one that I had not played in a long time: Ready for the Storm by the late great Rich Mullins. The song talks about a lonely sailor at sea during a storm, desperately following the dim light of a lighthouse, and finding out that, after the storm, he was near to shore and safe the entire night, and had “no reasons to be frightened.” After that, I listened to a great many of Rich’s songs. After about an hour, my heart was uplifted, and I felt cleansed and refreshed.

Rich Mullins, known by many as a “ragamuffin” (n: person who is poor, tattered), wandered around most of his life, and sang about the trials of life while praising God through strange Scriptural references. He was on the outside, the fringe, and the edges of popular Christian thought, but he really had a notion of what it meant to follow God and really serve him.

Today, I actually spent most of the day sleeping. I think my body and mind got so weary that I needed to recharge. And it was raining again, and was just one of those days that want to curl up next to a fire and read. I am thankful for the opportunity to slow down and renew.

I feel like a ragamuffin, wandering about and working hard to understand life, God, and the universe. Most days I can’t explain my faith, even to myself, but I do know that God is worth following, in spite of my doubts and confusions. Some days, I enjoy a nice rain shower to wash the stress away, and make things new, clean, and young: like a spring time that creeps upon a wearied winter world.