Far, Far Away

I want to go someplace far away from here. Someplace warm. Where the sun shines brightly. Puffy clouds floating lazily by. The grass is lush and vibrantly green. Soft. Soft enough that I can lie on it without my skin itching. Daisies. Gerbera daisies. The colors shocking. Pink, purple, yellow and orange. So many that one cannot possibly take it all in. With me, I would have a book in hand. A good book. Plugged in my ears would be the earphones from my IPod. With all kinds of relaxing music. Leona Naess, Sixpence None the Richer, Dave Matthews Band, David Crowder Band. All that mellow music. Me, my book, soft music, the warm sun, colorful flowers and the soft grass. That is all. No people, no noise, no problems. Just me and my book. Far, far away.

Why the Hate?

As is common knowledge (or at least I think...?), I am taking an Introduction to Philsophy course at NCC this semester. I cannot express how glad I am that I only have to sit through two more class discussions. We are now discussing the topic "Philosophy of Religion". The first day of class while reviewing the syllabus I noticed this topic was scheduled and immediately I felt sick. I knew I would be hearing some mind-boggling opinions kids of my generation had about God. And indeed, my high hopes were met.

Today, was especially interesting and equally frustrating. The beginning of the class people did not have much to say about God being our intelligent designer. He wanted us to disprove a philosopher's theory who said this world being created without an intelligent designer does not make sense. I had nothing to say and I am glad no one else did either. He then entered another branch dealing of the philosophy of religion. We began to discuss the ontological (an account of being) theory of God. A follower of this theory was St. Anselm, a major theologian. His essay in our textbook dealt with his rebuttal tactic for theists debating with atheists about God.

Our professor asked the class to give some reasons as to why someone would not believe in God. One girl gave a cliche response, "I can't see him how do I know he is there?" As I sat in my chair, grinding my teeth, all I could keep on thinking was how stupid that reason is! I mean, seriously? What about gravity, air. Can anyone out there "see" that? No. But, we hold onto its existence for our existence. Why is it so hard for people to get that? No, we don't see God, but oh, how we all need Him like the air! Even now, I have that burning feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just want to get up, scream and say, "OPEN YOUR EYES! WHY CAN'T YOU LET HIM LOVE YOU?! ALL OF THE ANSWERS YOU LOOKING FOR ARE RIGHT THERE!"

My favorite response of the day, though, came from a young gentleman. His apology on God was this: Let us suppose that predestination exists. God plans a person's life from the day he/she is born until the day he/she dies. If this is the case, God makes a person kill another person. So, doesn't that make God a murderer? If a person cannot control his/her life, everything done is God's fault.
I must give the guy credit for creativity. It is a sick, disgusted, perverted creativity, but an interesting thought nonetheless. Very original. When I heard that, though, my heart sunk. He said it with such firmness, bitterness and conviction, I cannot comprehend how someone could hate the God I love so much. I mean honestly, what has God ever done to these people?

What is even worse about all of this is I sit in my chair silent. My professor is looking for us to bring up topics that do not deal with God's goodness or love. He just wants us to prove that it is a necessity to have an Intelligent Designer. That is it. I sit in my seat wanting to yell and scream at these people, but cannot. For me, I love my God becaise of His kindness and goodness. Do not get me wrong, I do believe that this world does not make sense without a Creator. I mean seriously, everything in existence would have to be a pretty fantastic accident. Like my professor said, if this world was an accident, there should be no continuity among species. None.

When I hear these kind of upsetting statements or comments in class, I have to write little prayers or poems in my notebook to vent out those intense emotions I experience. Otherwise, I would be creating a ruckus and not demonstrating self-control as I walked around to each person smacking them upside the head. Here is what jumbled off of my pen today:
I sit in your world,
I feel your pain.
Oh, those words that pain.
Worse
Than the stab of a sword.
The nausea,
The knots,
I can't believe
My ears.
God,
Your beautiful creation
Hates who you are.
God,
Your beautiful creation
Wants to live on their own.
Rescue their souls.
Save their lives.
Touch them.
Be real to them.
Oh, God
Your beautiful creation.

Please, pray for my class. Pray for my professor. Pray for me. I hope I am presented with a good opportunity to talk about my God before class is over. An opportunity when I am level headed and able to control those feelings of anger and disappointment.

Christmas Time is Here

Today I am going Christmas shopping! I actually began yesterday at an old book store and I got some awesome presents that I am super excited about. But, today I am actually going Christmas shopping. I am going with the complete intention of looking for people on my great big list! I am so excited.

I love Christmas. It has always been my favorite. The music, the atmosphere, the shopping. It is just fun all the way around! But what I like most about it is that our people are forced to remember and acknowledge the Christ child. People are made to recognize the wonderful thing Jesus Christ did for us, for everyone. I do not think everyone does, in fact I know they do not. The commericial aspect of Christmas does drown the important things out. However, it is easier for me to remain hopeful. It is Christmas time after all!

Blessings

We are an ungrateful creature. Humans, that is. God has blessed us with so many things in this life, yet we tend to forget. He blesses us with friends, good friends. Relationships, steadfast and loyal. Family, loving to the end. Food, plenty of it. Shelter, a house that is warm and cozy. Transportation, a car to get me from point "A" to point "B". Education, college that is affordable.

All of these things in my life are present and are so tangible and real. They are there by the grace and mercy of my mighty Savior. A Savior that seeks a relationship with me, yet I push Him aside. A Lover, that sticks by my side no matter how fickle my mind is. A Friend, He is ever-listening and ever-present.

But, I find myself seeking more and more and more and more. Nothing is ever good enough for me. My education could be better, I could have more friends, I could have a better lover, I could have a nicer car, I could go out to eat more often. Why? How will this completely my life?

Be content. Love what you have. Never take advantage of any moment, any person. Be thankful and constantly praise the One who is worthy. Constantly. In good times and in bad times. In sure times and in confusing times. In happy times and in depressing times. Always. Always. Why? Becuase He is always there loving me and you. Why not return the favor to your best friend? Why not only worry about that in life? Not things, not people of this earth. Life Him and you will receive all the love and contention you need in everyday life. Why not?

School's Curse

I never did mind homework. I still don't, it just is not my favorite and as the semester continues those feelings of dislike have reached hate. I have two papers due tomorrow and I have been working on them for about three hours now. I love to write, I am sure you all assumed that considering I am blogging. Even though I love writing when it comes to writing about stem cell research or reflecting on two visits from a lady who has a son with a disabillity, it all of sudden does not become fun anymore. I sit at the computer desk and stare at the computer feeling frustration arise as I continue to stare at the screen and write nothing. When I do start writing something, it is not inspired or creative. It just is.

The same thing is true of reading. I love to read. Give me a book and I will gobble it up instantly if time allows. Give me a textbook and all of a sudden my vigor leaves. I hate reading textbooks. I hate reading about students with hearing and visual impairments, African art, essays by major philosphers. OK, maybe not hate, but I feel so forced to do it. Do not get me wrong, if it was my choice to read about these topics, then great! I would probably be blogging about all the cool stuff I just learned, but since I am assigned it, forget it.

I guess I need to tweek my mindset when it comes to homework. I probably should keep this blog in mind when I begin teaching. I do not want my students to feel this way when they have to do my homework. What a vicious cycle. I am the student hating the work I have to do and then I am going to be the one assigning that stupid homework. Odd....

Digital Age

I am being inspired to write simply because the drugs I am taking to cure my cold has lots of caffeine!!!! Yay! Thank God for the medicinal drug, it does amazing wonders.

I realize more and more every day how different my generation is from the past. The one drastic change is the heightened use of technology. Internet, I-Pods, GPS, cell phones, you name it, we got it. While there have been many positive outcomes from this technological age, there have also been many downfalls.

The biggest one for me is the loss of person-to-person communication. When texting first began I declared that I was going to ignore that whole establishment. It is worse enough that a majority of conversing happened through e-mail and instant messenger, but now to lose the phone conversation as well! Unacceptable. For the longest time I refused to sign up for a texting program and then it happened. People began texting me, constantly. Some would text me just because they thought it was funny that I would be paying for it (ha). I finally surrendered and signed up for the smallest texting plan. I thought, "Okay, fine. I will receive texts and respond back when I have to." Again, I was mistaken. I am now on a higher plan and have found myself texting and texting all day long!

People have lost the true art of communication. E-mails, IMing and texting have taken away beautiful vocabulary and well, thought-out conversation. The whole point of technology is to be short and quick. And now that conversation has been moved to technology, it also has become that, too. Short and quick. I find it depressing and I am ashamed to admit that I keep on falling into the trap.

I am Sick

My title has told it all. I am sick and I hate being sick (I guess no one enjoys it really...). This life has too much going on in it in order to let a small ailment get in my way. I am so sick that I have decided to skip lab today! This never happens in my life. The only time I have ever skipped school is to go down to sunny Myrtle Beach to visit the fiancee. I mean, it is not as bad as I am making it to be because all I have to do is go to the college at nine o'clock on Tuesday and make up today's lab, but shhh...I want the melodrama to remain.

You know what is even more crazy? Even though I am sick, I have no time to let myself get better. Today I have school beginning at 12:30 and will not be done with school until 8:45 tonight. Tomorrow, I am going to a concert (probably not a good idea, but I want to enjoy my young adult idiocy as long as I can). Oh, and let us not forget that I work at 6:30 a.m. both Friday and Saturday!! Ick...

When I was younger, I always promised myself that I would not let my life get overrun with a full agenda. I wanted to have time to relax, enjoy my family, read a book and plain ol' get time to myself! HA! I seem to have let myself down considering the life I lead. I cannot remember the last time I just sat down with the mindset, "Okay, Christen, time to let life simmer down and let's relax!" Perhaps it was over the summer...maybe? I do still enjoy my family, once a week, if I am lucky. Their busy, hectic schedules always seem to collide with mine. I am home, my family is not....my family is home, I am not. You get the picture. Reading a book!? I am almost tempted to sit down here and weep for I have not read a book since the end of summer. In fact, I bought two books with a birthday gift card (which was in September in case any of you did not know) and I let my older sister read them first! Simply ridiculous. The only thing I can classify as having time to myself is when I shut all doors, stick my I-Pod in my ears....to study for a test. If that is time to myself, I would much rather avoid it.

As is undoubtedly obvious to all of you out there and to myself, my little girl dream has vanished. I am confident that my schedule will only get more and more full as life continues to whiz by, me being unaware of it the whole time. So, I am going to eat some breakfast and cough my little lungs out...they are being quite impossible lately, anyway!

Life

In a couple of my classes students have been challenged to define life and then distinguish life from human. I honestly never really thought about it, I just took advantage that people would know the difference. But, it is important to know this distinction so that one can defend unborn babies and people who have severe disabilities.

My philosophy professor had us watch a video in class on Thursday. It was a silly Stark Trek episode. Sorry for all those Trekkies out there, I was never interested in the show. The cheesy dialogue and predictable events never caught my attention. Well, anyway, we watched this particular episode where this one scientist wanted to disembow and study a human-looking machine. Of course, the commander in charge has a close association with the machine and feels that "he" has rights. So, a court case is held to decide whether the robot should be respected as human or not.

The only thing that kept on popping into my head is how come people in this world have more affection and compassion toward robots compared to unborn babies? I don't understand, I never will, and I am certain this is a good thing. However, it is hard to define the delicate difference between life, human and inanimate objects. So, I challenge everyone, what do you think? How would you define and distinguish each of these things? While you all think about this, I am going to go and write a paper on it. Have fun.

My Life is such a Whirl

I had mentioned in my first blog that I was a bit touched to begin blogging in my already hectic life; this prediction has indeed proved to be true. There has been three special events in the past few days that made me think, "Oh, I need to blog about this" and yet, there is no time to sit at the computer and type about these experiences. These include my day celebrating the arts when I went to the Allentown Art Museum and that same evening saw an epic production of Julius Caesar. I also spent three hours one day not speaking at all and only used this crudely made device called a Communication Board as my only means of communicating. Then, the infamous election results, I could have expounded on my immediate woes and the consolations I received afterwards. But, alas, I have not the time to tell you all about these things. Maybe one day I will. But, tonight I am going to focus on another event.

Tomorrow night my church is hosting a Youth Lock-In. Those who attend church, I am certain, have heard of a youth lock-in. Some associate this type of event with a positive experience. Others, like my Mommy, associate lock-ins with children coming home looking green in the face from lack of sleep. Personally, I have only had good experiences with lock-ins and cherish the memories of every one I have attended.

The interesting thing about tomorrow's lock-in is I am no longer a participant. I am not one of the young children coming to theevent, but a leader. Yes, a youth leader. As I am preparing for this event, setting up the groups for our scavenger hunt, looking for devotions, planning my lesson for the devotion, preparing time to go speak to businesses about the scavenger hunt teams that are going to be coming, I just feel strange, overwhelmed, busy, confused, etc., etc. It is amazing how quick life passes by. I feel as though I should be the one all excited about going to this event, not leading it.

The purpose of this blog: just to vent about how busy life is and about how quickly time passes by. My favorite play is Our Town by Thornton Wilder (if you have not read it, I strongly encourage it). This play is done in three stages and it stresses to its audience and readers how precious time is. It emphasizes to take in every, single moment and appreciate it, to not throw anything aside as if it is worthless because when life is done its done. Getting older, it astounds me at how fast time goes by. I feel like Hook in Peter Pan who is constantly being chased by that old alligator with the clock stuck inside it. Time is an ever-present enemy in our lives, always lurking by and without fail it catches up to us. In some cases it is good, in others not so good. Oh well, what can one do but keep on living... I guess.

On Halloween and Evil Things

Today is Halloween...whoop-de-do. My family never and I mean never-ever celebrated Halloween. To be frank, I think this year was the first year my Mom even handed out candy to trick-or-treaters (and that was three pieces to our backyard neighbor's grandkids). Even when the church held functions to "light the night", we never attended. I never trick-or-treated, never dressed up, never carved a pumpkin, none of it.

I work at a residential home, as I stated in my last post, and when I revealed this information to my coworkers I was met with utter shock. My one friend, just looked at me, mouth agape and slowly processed what I had just said when I told her, "I never celebrated Halloween. I never wanted to". And it is true, I have never been interested or intruiged by the whole matter. It is a holiday that is meant to scare and who likes being scared? Not me!

Today was a monumental day in the insignificant life of me: I actually dressed up for Halloween. Well, sort of. Me and my fellow workers dressed up as bums; we walked into work laden with funky pajama bottoms, t-shirts and pony-tails. Any excuse to wear pajamas to work is good for me. I also went to a Halloween party! (I am feeling like a heathen). The residents were encouraged to dress up and play some fun, festive games. I must admit, I did enjoy dressing up one of our darling residents, Miss Rice, as a scary business man (I wish I had picutres).

Participating in this frightening holiday really did not make my life feel more full than it was before. I still do not like Halloween, I would rather not dress up and stuffing myself with tons and tons of candy just does not sound healthy. Whether you celebrate Halloween or not, I hope you have a scarily, fun night :)

Another Stone in the Creek

It is amazing how I am so quick to follow the crowd. I believe my sister Faith started the epidemic of blogging. It quickly spread to my other sister Beth and now I have discovered that my best friend has started a blog of her own. Should I alienate myself from what I suppose to be this great experience called blogging? Indeed not. Besides, I always love to try new things, especially if these things contain writing.

While my blogs may not be as exciting as some, I am sure that once in a while I will entertain those who decide to waste their time and read these with a semi-interesting tale. I say this because my life is dull, boring, typical and predictable. My life is as exciting as a fruit fly. My existence consists of going to Northampton Community College as a full-time student, work part-time at a retirement home and my days off are spent doing homework. Therefore, these blogs will mostly be accounts of frustrating events that happen at school or work. Oh! I guess it might be important to mention that I am engaged (weird). So, I am sure my wedding planning woes will bless these pages.

So, there you have it. Another stone has been added to the ever-growing creek of blogging. I pray, for your sake as well as mine, that I will have dramatic and entertaining events to retell to all of you.

I just realized how insane I was to create this site. My life is already busy and I had a mental break down last night because I could not handle all of the things that were going on in my life. Now, I just added another thing to my "to do list". My high-intelligence will never cease to amaze me.