A friend reminded me the other day that I don't hang out.

"Well, I know, but if I did. . . "
"But you don't, so. . . ?"
"But I could if I wanted to."
"So then why don't you?"

And I didn't have a good reason.

But tonight it's raining and all my friends are busy, dancing in pretty satin dresses or fingerpicking on their guitars or playing games or working or pretending that the world is them and they are the world. I am doing the last one too, only I am doing it by myself, listening to the rain fall and the cars drive by, their tires soaking up the moisture off the asphalt.

All of my astute plans for this weekend are smoldering before my eyes. I am idealistic about my time, thinking it is well spent alone, seeking out art galleries in the city, being creative with written words, and finding a lake into which to dip my toes. I am idealistic in the sense that it sounds better being thought about or written about and very lonely being practiced.

There are a few people I could call, new friends with whom I wish I were brave enough to initiate or old friends with whom I know wouldn't be good for me to inititate, but my phone remains unused of yet today. I am bored--but that's not what I would tell them, friends don't want to be friends only when other friends are bored. But I find that I've unlearned how to be friends with people unless I'm bored. I'm too busy for friendship without purpose.

And now all my friends are too busy for me.

The sounds of the soccer game I abandoned as fan come through my open window. It is past midnight and still the game continues. There are, contrary to my roommates opinions, disadvantages to living across the street from the soccer field. Still it keeps me awake, thankfully, I have too much to do to waste it on sleep tonight.

I was a little unwise with my afternoon, spending it playing frisbee, taking walks, eating spaghetti with girls from my hall, and catching up with a couple people I love and never get to see.

Words plague me. They always have. I am fascinated by them and disgusted by them. They affect me deeply, maybe sometimes too deeply. I shouldn't listen to them so much, but I do.

My legs are shaking. I am in bed and still they shake. I think it's weakness, the kind of shaking legs do when they climb a very tall mountain and they get to the top, only to find that the body to which they belong is weak and lightheaded. That's how I feel. That is how tired I am.

Last night I went to a lecture on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ie. god of the southern democrat. It was actually quite good, the speaker was intelligent and lively and a little bitter about the conservative agenda. One friend sat on one side of me watching my handwriting, which she loves, and another sat on the other side of me drawing, which I love; I don't know what he was watching. We were an observant assembly, the three of us. The lecture counted for a couple points of extra credit. Yes.



Things I'm excited about this week:

• Church
• The Living Room
• Being one week closer to the end of this semester (only to take a week off and begin right back again).
• Being friends with people.
• Maybe going to an art museum in Chattanooga on Saturday. I've been meaning to go all year, but the weather looks nice this weekend, and I'm itching to get out of Cleveland, and I only have one paper [!] due next week.
• Creative writing (Every few months I determine in my mind that I'll get serious about creative writing and every few weeks my determination gets waylaid by other serious determinations. I should set smaller goals. By the way, my word collection is growing.)
• Eating good food. I've been eating corn chips and spinach and black beans and carrot sticks and peanut butter and jelly on whole-wheat for the past two weeks. This poorman's diet gets old. But this poorman isn't getting any richer. . .
  
• Having a really good quiet time. A friend showed me a place that has practice rooms with real windows and tuned pianos: I hide out there often, though not so much this past week.
  
• Flowers.
  
• Danica and Nancy coming home. I've missed having a tie with home.
  

Things I am not excited about this week:

• Deciding once and for all how many credits I need to take in order to graduate. Nobody here has answers and I'm not sure who to ask; no one wants to deal with transfer students because they're difficult.
• Catching up on all the homework that's been piling beside my bed, waiting for an opportunity to be done.
• Looking for a summer job.
• Officially saying I won't be an RA next semester.
• Working on my portfolio--it's seems such a waste to work on something as a means to an end, when the end is not really something I want to do.
• Figuring out what it is I really want to do.

The thing about hope is that sometimes the only result is shame.

I've hoped for a lot of things in my life; I'm an idealist like that. I see what can be and I wish, wish, wish for it until I'm shameful in my desire for that thing for which I've wished so hard. Like the sister I wished so hard for that I convinced my class she'd been born and named, even when no such sister ever had or ever would result. Like the full amount of time I was supposed to spend in Guatemala and didn't. Like those ten or twelve boys I'd very easily convinced myself were the one. Like one hundred other things I wished for and never saw the fruition of. There's shame in that.

Lately I've been thinking about II Corinthians chapter 13. You know the one, the love chapter. The one that old ladies needlepoint onto white cloth and the one that rookie calligraphers always practice on white paper. You know the one. I know it too, but recently I've been thinking about only one section: Love hopes all things.

What does hoping all things mean? And how do we remain bouyant in light of the negative outcome ratio in our lives? To be sure, for every one thing we see the fruition of that which we'd hoped, there are nine more we may never see.

Today I was reading in Isaiah, chapter 49.23:

...Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame.

The difference in hoping all things, hoping for all things, hoping to see the fruition of all things, and hopefully waiting for the Lord is that the latter is a perspective change and not an effort change. I can exert the same amount of hoping for some thing that I exert in my pursuit of the Lord and the outcome will be totally different because my perspective is different.

And there is no shame in the end because He doesn't fail.

Just a spoonful of sugar and some positive confession helps the medicine go down and the blues go away.

I've spent the entirety of my day stirring myself up. In church it was hard. At lunch it was getting easier. By mid-afternoon study group time it was almost back to normal. At chapel I kept saying amen if for no other reason than to insist to myself that to God be the glory. At bible study, even though I had nothing prepared, I spoke and I felt joy. Talking with individuals who stir me on toward love and good works, I exuded joy and felt it too. Dropping a friend off at his apartment I knew that intelligent conversation I was looking for three days ago might just be attainable and dropping his sister off at her apartment we parted with prayer and I knew that even if intelligent conversation was never attainable, communication between believers always will be.

Tonight my heart is full. It doesn't take much to fill me back up, just confidence that He who began a good work in me never stops working until I'm completed.

The weather down here is so unpredictable and so is my mood.

I'm in a funk. I have been a for a few days now. Obsessed with the wrong things and plagued by want of the right things which seem all too unattainable right now. I know the right things to do to get myself out of this, be vigilant, be serious, be extroverted, be all the things I don't feel like I have the energy to be, and so I wallow in melancholy. My brow is even furrowed.

The rain doesn't help. I used to love the rain, it meant a full day of reading or cuddling with a blanket and tea. Now rain means walking to and from classes in the frigid air, getting wet and grouchy.

In glad joy I told myself it had really been about nine months since I'd seriously had a cry about anything. Last night at prayer meeting I sobbed into my arm lying on the floor in the back of the sanctuary. I couldn't even say why. Ask me, I won't know.

Today I know. Today I know it's because I've been listening to lies and letting them interupt the more important things. I've been dwelling on thoughts which have no right and no presidence in my mind. Today I know it's because the moment I think I'm strong enough is the moment I find I'm weaker than ever.

Today I'm weak. And it's easy to blame it on next week's five exam two paper load, or the lack of a job, or the ensuing amount of money for summer classes, or the fact that I feel as aimless as a blind man trying to figure out what blue looks like, it's easy to blame weakness on circumstances and situations. But that's only fooling myself, the real weakness is encapsulated upon what my mind dwells. It's pride, really. It's in the thinking that because I love the Lord and I know he loves me I won't feel the darts when they're shot at my weakest parts.

May your heart break enough that compassion enters in
May your strength all be spent upon the weak
All the castles and crowns you build and place upon your head
May they all fall come crashing down around your feet

May you find every step to be harder than the last
So your character grows greater each stride
May your company be of humble insignificance
May your weakness be your only source of pride

-Kendall Payne "Pray"

You must think I have tons of free time, what with all the writing that's been going on here. But if you look closely (but not too closely), you'll see that most of the writing that's been going on here is a smattering of incoherent thoughts and not the really good stuff I pretend to know how to do. The reason for that is because I am spending almost every moment not spent in class, on this computer, and (as much as I love her) I grow weary of Zora Neale Hurston, and Existentialism and metatheatre and psychoanalysis.

Things I'd rather be doing:

Listening to NPR: I recently had battery problem with my car and so all the cheesy radio stations that someone set in my car were lost (insert brief accolades of worship here), so I, technologically inept moron that I am, actually began the process of learning how to change my radio station and program my radio. Yes. Aren't you impressed? Now sometimes I want to drive my car just to listen to the great NPR station we have here in Cleveland, TN. There are almost three whole hours of super music in the afternoon. I love it. Plus it makes me look smart when I listen to the news and know what's going on around here. I really love that.

Writing something of interest: I suppose with every major there comes a time, like the whole of this week has been for me, where doubt sets in and something you used to love with extreme amounts of passion now feels like a chore of the greatest kind. Writing has become that for me. Sadly. And yet I know next semester, when I'll be taking less analysis classes and more creative classes, I'll still feel the same way. Writing under pressure is not my modus operandi.

Choosing next semester's classes (Developing other skills): I am realizing more and more, as I complete my liberal arts education, that I'm interested in far too many things to take any more than two or three seriously. I have to take two electives to complete my degree and I'm torn: Digital photography? Painting? European History of the 21st century? Basic Counseling? Needlepoint and crewel? How to change your oil if you're a mechanically inept 25 year old female with no mechanically apt male in sight? You can perhaps see my dilemma. I can perhaps not make a decision this late at night. Some things are better left to mornings.

Going for a late night spelunking/hiking excursion: Last semester a few friends and I went all out at all hours of the night several times. Exploring caverns, caves, mountaintops, starry skies, and overlooking vast valleys. We got dirty, had fun, built relationship, and made memories. I love that kind of stuff. And I wish I had more time this semester to do more of it. Anybody up for camping Easter Weekend (We'd be back for Church, to be sure)?

Wishing I had a really inspiring friend/person with whom to converse: Oh, please don't get me wrong. I love all my friends exceedingly, but I'm hungry for the game which is conversation provoked by wit and intellect. Today alone I thought of at least ten conversations I'd like to have and, as it was, there was only myself with whom to have those conversations. So I did. And I find that I am not a very good conversationalist.

Wishing I were more disciplined: The knowledge that I am allotted one B in one class this semester has me playing a juggling act I'd rather I didn't know to play. The benefits of knowing exactly how elastic of a GPA I have do not outweigh the negatives of stretching that rubber as far as it can go. Like I'm doing right now, by thinking of all the things I'd rather be doing and writing them down so you can all see just how irresponsible I'm being.

Going home again soon: I had such a wonderful time at home last time, the best really. If I could somehow do this and that simultaneously, that would be excellent.

Do you ever just get writer's block? I get it all the time. All the time. I've been working on a pretty big writing project for the past two months and every time I sit down with the sole purpose of writing I end up distracted by the enormous magical qualities of google search or the dismal abyss of writer's block. An overload of information or a vacancy of it.

When I was younger I vowed to read through the entirety of our World Book Encyclopedia set; I think I got through F before I grew bored. I tried to read through the dictionary as well, but it seems that large goals are not profitable for me to make; I fizzled out around B.

My newest, and most attainable, goal is to keep track of all the words my smart professors and academic colleagues use and begin adopting them in my everyday speech. This was last weekend. I have them saved on my desktop in a file called "Words I wish I used today, but will use tomorrow." So far accumulated:

Promenade
Innocuous
Fallacious
Phenom
Pedestrian (as in ordinary, not streetwalker)
Ipso Facto
Repugnant

The problem with this is that I rarely have really really good conversations with anyone else, and I don't want to waste such royal words on that person in the mail-room.

"My, I see you promenading around campus in your innocuous way all the time! Why can't you be more pedestrian in your manner and cease your repugnant and fallacious actions. Who do you think you are? A phenom?"

You envision, I'm sure, the lack of conversation which would follow? I'm just not willing to risk it. And so, I collect all these cool words to use on this page because, after all, you're not talking back anyway.

People call it the upperclassmen crunch: that feeling inside that you must be making a mistake, and why now, with only three classes in your specific major left to complete, you suddenly feel like you really want to be an artist or a intercultural studies major or maybe something practical like a first grade teacher or a counselor. It happens with almost everyone I think. It just feels less pressing with it's someone else.

I'm feeling it now. I have three classes of my major left, Shakespeare, Advanced Grammar, and English in the Christian Perspective, and I'm suddenly rethinking all the certainties I've had over the past several years that this is what I need to be doing at this stage in my life.

Perhaps it's the resurfacing knowledge that I'm sure I'm not called to be rich and prosperous in the American Dream sort of way (and how could this degree ever lead to anything good unless used in that American Dream sort of way?). I don't want to teach. I don't want to work in some big city, wearing black tailored suits and shuffling paperwork from one intern to another. I don't want to be a journalism correspondent, getting my assignments and milking information from reluctant informers.

So I'm plagued by doubts, that's all. Plagued by the doubt that all this debt I'm incurring (which isn't much at all compared to the normal college senior) will hinder me from doing the things I really want to do.

And what was that again?

There hasn't been a lot of room for art this semester. Updatating you all on my life is about the best that I can do. I loathe those weblogs which apologize for lack of content so often that the content becomes the apology. So I won't apologize; just excuse my dust, my life is being rearranged and the art is leaning up against the wall until I can find a good place to hang it.

Is it public yet? I think so. The verdict is in, folks, that blond headed beaut you all met while I was home will be taking up residence in perfect Potsdam this summer. Yes, you heard it from me. The magnetic north calls up from the south and she will make a temporary home in the place I call home.

I try to conjure up jealousy, but the joy I have in the fact that she loved with immediacy the place I love with intensity masks any jealousy I might have conjured. Of course there is the issue of her knowing a certain Dunphey baby, arriving in late summer, before I have the opportunity to make its perfect accquaintence, but some things must be forgiven.

So welcome with open arms, lots of love, and plenty of Potsdam fun as Kelly Sue Berg joins the ranks of Christian Fellowship Center and all that entails (You can show her all my favorite haunts, since I won't be there to do it myself).

I've been down this road before, more times than I can count. Sometimes I think I must not have enough faith in the Lord, and sometimes I think it's only because I have faith in the Lord that things like this happen.

The lesson program at Dogwood Farms, my place of employment and giver of sweet weekly paycheck, has been discontinued. I am, once again, out of a job. Within the hour of finding this out, I was also informed by a very nice and empathetic lady from Financial Aid that financial aid does not cover summer classes. I will owe them a very nice and non-empathetic sum of too much to mention at the end of my summer semester. I breate deeply and remember that I've been down this path before and look how squeakily clean I came out before.

Isaiah 50 says that "I awake with the ear of a disciple" and so that's what I am choosing to do. A disciple knows the answers because he's heard them, had them drilled into his head, into his heart, and his response is to awake not with the ear of someone who does not trust, but awake with the ear of someone who has faith.

In any case, pray for me as I figure out what a disciple would do in this instance.

Last night we crowded, sixteen of us or so, in a living room, each hoarding our instruments of choice like a man who has discovered he works best using his own gifts. Some held guitars, some their ibooks, some held conversation with some more, and some held to the belief that we work better when we work together. It was fun.

Can I tell you a secret? You musn't tell anyone because I haven't and I don't want the word getting out. There is a darling little house in which I want to live. It is carpeted with hardwood and will be papered in beautiful colors, there is a fireplace and built-in bookshelves. A kitchen, a front porch and back porch, and my favorite part is the tiniest room of them all: a little breakfast nook amassing the morning sunlight, all of it.

I talked to the owner yesterday and he led me through the whole thing pointing out the little things most people don't care about. I do though. I've lived through enough remodeling projects to appreciate the little things like a lightswitch that works and original woodwork and, glory be, attention to the art of restoration instead of reinvention.

I'm a sucker for houses, I sometimes wonder if that is reason enough for me to never own one--I would grow too attached.

Well, it is suddenly occuring to me with insistent need for attention that I am living out my 26th year. I like that I was born in the year of a decade change; when I'm 56 and think I'm still 53 I'll be able to remember with ease how old I really am. But then I wonder if it really matters so much. Four years ago I couldn't wait to be 25 and now I am and wishing I was 21 again. People say it's so, but I didn't think it could be true. Now I know, though, and am wondering where all the time is going so quickly and with no regard for me.

On that same note: I am reading, for my world literature class, Rainer Maria Rilke, who I remember as being one of my favorite author's favorite authors. She named three of her characters in three different books after him.

Now I see why. Aside from his obvious humanistic tendencies, as a poet he is pure joy to read:

"Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland.
speak and bear witness. More than ever
the Things that we might experience are vanishing, for
what crowds them out and replaces the is an imageless act."

I love it.

We placed in pleasure pairs, in equitation over fences, and in hunter over fences. We smiled widely and that pocket of joy inside of us felt complete. Three days later I laid with my head against his cheekbone, still feeling the warmth that was slowly dying away. We buried him at the bottom of the hill, beneath the daisies. I was devastated.

I rode another on Tuesday. I don't ride much, but he's my favorite to ride. We went for a trail ride, two students and I. He was docile and a pleasure. I praised his forward bound ears and his willingness to please me. Two days later, this morning, he is buried in the field, near some dogwood trees. I am not so devasted as I was the first time something like this happened, but in about six hours I will have to break the news to five little girls one by one. Five little girls who are me ten years ago.

That is what devastates me this time.

And even though the pit in my stomach and the grief, which somewhat numbs my body until I can get it to focus on other things like Psychology and American Literature and work, are a reminder of the loss just as much as fear of the task ahead, I'm okay with it. It's tangible things like this that remind me that even though lessons may take ten years to come to fruition, the purpose is always easily recognizable.

There has been much pain in my life, I don't pretend to be unscathed or unaltered by it. It has hurt in innumerable ways. I don't pretend to be unfazed by the seeming lack of pain in others' lives either--their papercuts are just as real of a pain as my wounds are, and likewise my wounds are just as real as another amputation. Pain is relative, and I am no concise judge of it.

But this I do know--pain is what enables us to preach with confidence and experience is what enables us to experience again with faith. When I was 15, and sure that my life was ending as surely as my riding career was ending, I had no foresight of what I would be spending my afternoons doing ten years later, or the explaining I would be doing about an empty stall and a mound of dirt out back. I had no foresight, but now I have learned that hindsight is the best foresight.

The present hindsight helps with the next big hurdle; knowing that whatever life throws my way I'll be standing on the other side someday with an experience learned no other way.

I always mean to make this little piece of the World Wide Web not too much of a personal outlet and more of a personal pulpit. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. I let people know what's going on in the deep recesses of my heart and sometimes I regret it, sometimes I don't. I tell people of the flightiness of my soul and sometimes I can't believe I'm so easily swayed by fables and foibles, sometimes I wish I were more easily moved.

On that note, a few things of note:

I went home for spring break expecting cold, expecting friends, and expecting to rest. I got all three and some other things too. I got a word from the Lord, or maybe just perceptions from the Lord. Whatever. I don't know what it was but it was from the Lord. It was peace and assurance. It was rest and a renewal of trust. I'm not sure why, He didn't meet me on some great mountain-top or rescue me from some deep valley while home; He just assured me in inumerable ways of His faithfulness to me.

That said. I'll be staying in Tennessee this summer. I know that's disappointing to some of you, namely almost all of you, but I really feel like I need to be a good stewart of my time and by staying here and taking classes this summer it will enable me to do one of two things:
1. Take 22 credits this fall and graduate in December.
2. Take 13 credits this fall and 13 credits in the Spring and graduate next Spring.
While 1. sounds very tempting, it also sounds very tiring, but it means being done sooner. 2. sounds perfect though and it will enable to me focus on church and my job as a Resident Assistant more excellently. So. I'm terribly sorry to disappoint all my lovely friends abiding in New York, but I'll be sweating it out with the best of them in humid Tennessee this summer.

That said. Whenever I go home and get refreshed in the Lord and in the place where my feet feel most firmly planted I feel like I come back with renewed expectations for what the Lord will do in my life while I'm here. Sometimes that means deciding to spend more time on my studies. ometimes that means building new or different relationships. Sometimes it means just a refocus on the right priorities. I feel like all three of those areas have been touched in the past three days since coming back down here.

1. I met with one of my professors today. I met with him because I'm desperate to not get a B in his class and am presently hovering on the precipice of that dreaded B. But it's not just the B I don't want, it's the loss of a scholarship that B signifies. By the time I'd left his office ten minutes later I had tears smarting in my eyes and a refreshed respect for the professors here. He said, basically, to not worry about my grade, I'm doing better than fine, and then moved on to more important things, like my future plans and my personality pitfalls. For nine and a half minutes he spoke truth and life into my life. I'm one of 300 students and he knows my name. Not only that, but he knows my job[s], my academic load this semester, and my insistance on perfection until that pre-testday meltdown. And he spoke to all of those things and helped me to see the Lord's goodness and His provision amidst the business of it all. A reworking of academic priorities.

2. A few new friends and reworking of old ones.

• She and I went home for spring break together, and while we've been friends since last semester, I don't think I truly appreciated her fully until the past week. And even though she thinks I only value her for her great taste in style, she's wrong. I value her for a lot more than that.
• We used to see each other almost every day, but that class has ended and now we only see each other a few times a week, always promising to see one another more. We rarely do. We are busy people. But every time we do see one another our eyes light up and we can't stop talking about what's new and what's old and what the Lord is doing and when we get together but all the reasons we can't. I love her.

Before I came to Lee one of the things on my pro-list from Pastor Rick was "Going to Lee will expand your circle" and it's cool to watch that happen. A rebuilding or reworking of new or existing relationships.

3. I looked at my schedule today. It's busy to be sure. I never dropped the class I said I was going to at the beginning of the semester and I'm feeling those 19 hours heavy around my person faily heavily, but I also feel the grace of God on my studies and it makes it okay. Being an RA has been a little difficult from the start; I don't know whether it was the middle of the year entrance, or the fact that we live in apartments instead of dorms, I'm not sure. But giving the girls toilet paper and checking their fire alarms a couple times a month seemed a great disappointment to me at first. But tonight, stealing a couple of minutes after college and career group was over, I visited a few apartments and meshed with a few girls. One of the yelled as I was leaving "You're the best RA ever!" I smiled and said thanks. But really I meant Thank-you-very-much-you-have-no-idea-how-much-that-means-you're-the-best-thing-that's-ever-happened-to-me-and-the-reason-I'm-an-RA. That's what I really meant. God blessed us when we put the right priorities first.

So basically this is just a little update. A little sharing of my heart. It's not prettily written and probably could use some of those editing skills I've been paying $16,000 a year to learn, but it's also late and I just wanted to share what Lore's life looks like on paper.

I'm happy. Deliriously happy. People keep asking me why I'm so happy, and really, I haven't got a good answer. I just really love the Lord and keep seeing His faithfulness in every aspect of my life, I know some of the best people in the world, I go to an incredible school, I'm blessed by not one, but two amazing churches 20 hours apart, and the Lord speaks to me. He blesses me by His presence.

That said.
The unresolved bells are resolving with twelve chimes, and this person needs to put her head to bed.

The sounds of summer are wafting through all the open windows in our little house. Suddenly life will be okay. I'm not sure why the change of scenery, the green grass, the breeze blowing through my hair, and short sleeved shirts make all the difference, but they do. It's why people fall in love in the spring. It's why animals fall in love in the spring. It's why people graduate in the spring. It's why daffodils bloom in the spring. It's why we make decisions, all of us, in the spring.

It's why I'm happy today.

And maybe that's not an altogether good reason to be happy, maybe it superfluous of me to blame happiness on the season, and maybe this weather isn't the reason for the smile pasted on my face. And then again, maybe it's okay to love new life and because of the newness of it all, maybe it's okay to love life in the process.

It's why I'm happy today.

Things I've been doing to distract myself from him:

This is funny. Watch the clip.

Congratulating my beautiful friend Julia. See there are millions of people under the age of 19 in the world. In those millions, there are a several hundred thousand who play guitar. Among those several hundred thousand there are a few thousand who play guitar well. And squished among them are a few hundred who are really excellent at their craft. Included in them, there are eleven who stand apart from the rest. Eleven. Yes, eleven. In the world. And she is one of them. Julia Marie Sinclair, from Madrid, New York, will be competing against the best guitarists in the world under the age of 19 on May 30th in California. So, regardless of the outcome of this competition, she is still counted among the top eleven guitarists of her age in the world. And I'm so proud of her.

Sitting on the couch with her. She came home with me, in case you've forgotten, and I love being with her. I remind her often of my original impression of her, in case she's forgotten, just so I don't forget that first impressions of people, though not easily forgotten, can be remedied. She remedied very nicely thank you. And she's pretty to boot.

Realizing that a good majority of Keith Green's songs use Pachelbel's Canon in D chord progression. D, A, Bm, F#m, G, D, G, A. Boring when played over and over again without words, but okay when they've got words to them.

Tonight we talked, me leaning up against the counter, she against the sink. She sipped her tea and I looked down a little to keep my eyes from tearing up. She said she hasn't ever known a place like this and that it helps her to understand him and me a little better. I said not very many have ever known a place like this and even he and I don't understand all the time why we're blessed by it.

I always think people must think we're idolizing, or fixated, or obsessed with this home, this haven. Obsessed with our church and our fellowship of friends. Fixated on sermons we ruminate on for months. Idolizing the greatest men and women we've ever had the pleasure of knowing and loving. I'm always a little self-conscious whenever I talk about this place; it's home to me, but that makes me subjective, other people wouldn't be of course. I always fear men when I talk to those who haven't really tasted this place for a season.

Today at lunch, though, I said to my dearest friends that everyone ought to experience this place for a season of their life and, as much as I'm biased and a little bit sweet on everything here, I can't help but really think I'm right.

I can't explain it. I won't even try. And you're entitled to your opinion, about me, about this place, about the church I call my own, and about the people I call my family. But I've seen the Lord here and His presence is undeniable. So as much as I'm biased, and fixated, and staunchly resolute about belonging to this community, I'm also okay with you not knowing the wonder of it.

But still hoping someday you will.

Even if one sleeps in another bed for three hundred days of the year and in their own bed for 65, or less, one still knows the feel of their own bed and loves it.

I do.

I sleep better in my own bed; I'm not sure whether it is because in my own bed the only sounds I hear are the heater running downstairs and the quiet chime of the clock at the bottom of the stairs. I'm not sure whether it is because it's dark, so dark that I can't see the outline of any of my furniture. I'm not sure whether I sleep better in my own bed because I know all of the people in this house and all of us love one another. I'm not sure whether it is because my room smells like candles and woodsmoke at night and bacon and coffee in the morning, making it easier to go to bed and wake up. I'm not sure why I sleep better in my own bed, but I do. In my small green room with slanted ceilings and low windows, with the white duvet cover and white dresser with child sized knobs, with a thousand books on the wall in front of me and a thousand thoughts put to rest with me, I don't know why I sleep better, but I do.

I've slept very well the past two nights, thank you very much. Very well indeed.

I came home with five options for my summer to be discussed, slowly they are being wisely abbreviated. I now have three very possible and one very probable. This makes me feel protected and under the shadow of a Very Important Person's wings. I like that feeling.

I'm pretty busy, you know, with all the coming home and all that's going on. I've had four classes today, run on the elliptical machine for 22 and a half minutes, checked twelve girls out from the apartments, two midterms (one which I'm sure I aced and one which I'm sure I didn't), played switcharoo with a black car from New York on the way to the bank (I'm sure he had dark framed glasses, corduroy pants, and was listening to NPR. Well, I'm sure he had dark framed glasses at least.), made travel plans with a few girls, caught a head cold, and received about twenty emails and phone calls from people who "ARE SO EXCITED THAT [I'M] COMING HOME!!!"

Allow me to quote from a recent email to a best friend:

I am coming home. Today I checked prices, they're pretty steep, but Nancy is convinced that she'll pay for me to come home. Goodness, if I'd have known how much people would miss me I would have never left. I just felt so expendable this time last year. Selfishness does that I guess. I'm grateful for the rock from which I was hewn, but Lord, let my life never repeat last year.

I did feel so expendable this time last year. Just one more person in the shuffle of life, school, church, engagement, marriage, babies, life. But the further I get from that season, and the more clarity my hindsight gains, I'm able to see that it wasn't my expendability (or lack thereforeof) that drove me to seek change, but the fact that everyone seemed to have a life but me. Everyone was living life to the best of their abilities to the best of their faith. And I was meandering along trying to find joy in everyone else's ability to find faith. I was as lost as Wallace Stevens on a good day.

A friend and I sat in the car last night, long after we were finished with our steamed milk and a conversation about losing one's salvation were finished, I remembered Psalm 84, one of my favorite scriptures: How blessed is the man whose strength is in you, and whose heart is set on pilgrimage to Zion.

Pilgrimage to Zion. A stop on the highway of life, brief, prolonged, however much time as necessary to make that season drift sweet fragrances to heaven. I was stopped a long time, longer than I'd ever want to repeat, but the pilgrimage which finally occurred, the sense of belonging in the Kingdom whether I felt that I belonged on earth or not, happened. And then, only then, could I move on closer to Zion.

So I'm a little busy today, packing up, getting up, throwing out, and leaving. I'll be home soon, tomorrow night, to the land of the frozen season of spring. And I don't feel so expendable this season as I did this time last year. We all make our pilgrimage somewhere, the point is not to envy everyone else's, but to make your own wholly and heavenly.