Lost in translation

"Mixing without restraint beingdarring when no-one can see she plays with all her possible identities."

So profound, yet so meaningless. That's a quote from a shirt I bought in Hong Kong. I like it.

That reminds me of an ancient proverb. The one about how awesome William Yu is.

"You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose."

Grille muffins are from God. Seriously. If you eat nothing else in your life, you should eat a Grille muffin. It just might change your life.

Eaten alive

On Monday at lunch, Bekah was discussing how she was turning into her dad. "The apple never falls far from the tree," Alison said. I exclaimed my discomfort at the thought of being near "the tree" and Alison said maybe I'm a seed that a bird picked up and is taking to some distant land. Bekah said that must mean that the bird ate me and I'm going to get pooped out. Yeah, nice word picture, huh?

So I am presently in the metaphorical digestive tract of a bird. That actually explains a lot.

A new kind of world that's takin' over

I love a good revolution. Third floor English made Airband last night. This marks the first time English has been in Airband since we made it my freshman year. It's like an evil dictatorship has finally been deposed. Ladies and gentlemen, a new age is upon us.

Stickers and salvation

There’s a car parked in the Cellar lot with a sticker on it that reads “When Judgment Day comes, you’ll wish you had a Jesus sticker.” Wow. Words fail me. I’m no Bible scholar, but I’m pretty sure Romans 10:13 doesn’t go, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord and affixes the appropriate bumper sticker to his/her vehicle will be saved.”

On Thursday, I had the refreshing experience of attending Campus Crusade at nearby Ball State University. At Taylor, “fellowship and Christian community” is an everyday expectation. All one needs to do to be surrounded by fellow believers is get out of bed. It’s easy to take common worldview for granted at Taylor, so I think it’s a good thing to burst the Bubble once in a while and be enveloped by a world where such an expectation does not exist. It’s healthy to have to seek out Christian community and be challenged by a world that disagrees.

I don’t know which girl owns the asinine bumper sticker in the Cellar lot, but I have to wonder how many people she’s encountered that don’t share her worldview. I doubt that she honestly believes that car logos could lead to exclusion from the Kingdom of God, but that’s certainly what the sticker communicates. I also have to wonder how many non-Christians have seen that sticker and thought, “Wow, I want to have Jesus in my life!” More likely, they scoffed and sneered at this misrepresentation of Christ’s gift of salvation.

Woman in the White House

I'm in the process of writing a rhetorical critique of Margaret Chase Smith's 1950 "Declaration of Conscience" speech. Smith was the first woman elected to both congressional houses but interestingly enough refused to be aligned with the feminist movement. A lot of people speculated that she'd run for president. In my research, I discovered a response that literally made me laugh out loud. When asked what she would do if she woke up in the White House, Smith said, "I'd go straight to Mrs. Truman and apologize. And then I'd go home." Amazing.

Why I blog

For the last several months, I've been thinking about why I blog. I wondered if it was just a ploy to get attention. I now doubt that. Although I enjoy it when others read and interact with my thoughts, readership is not my primary objective. But what, then, is my primary objective?

I haven't been able to answer that question with any degree of satisfaction until last night. I was sitting in Ball State's library waiting to meet a friend after doing some research. I took a break from reading about Adlerian therapy to enjoy my new pleasure, Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner.

Buechner has this to say about the vital importance of telling one’s story:

But I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, on the other hand, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine … but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity … that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also
spiritually. (30)

I suppose I was onto something in January when I discussed blogging for mental heath. Blogging is not so much about the self-important broadcast of thought (or at least it doesn’t have to be), it’s a means by which we live in community. I still keep a private journal as I process some of my deeper secrets, but I’m learning to reach out in my introspection in counseling, in relationships and in this blog.

I’ve been told on several occasions that I write differently than I speak. Some people think this is a horrible trait while others see it as an interesting quirk. I’m choosing to believe the latter. I don’t think anyone needs to read my blog or any other writing I’ve done to get to know me, but I do think it adds a dimension to who I am that would otherwise not be there. For some reason, God created me with an ability to make my thoughts somewhat clear on paper (er… word processor), much clearer than they’ll ever be in my head. I’ve tried to fight this fact for the last several months, but I can no longer hide from the truth. This is just the way God made me.

So I will write, in whatever form that takes. Writing is not my identity; it is a means by which I can explore who I am, who God is and what this world is all about. Feel free to join me on this journey.

Breaking fast

I always loved it in Stephen Lawhead books when he referred to breakfast as "breaking fast." There's just something romantic about that. For a good time, read Taliesin and then read the rest of the books in the Pendragon Cycle. They sustained me through my freshman year of college. :)

The purpose of this post is actually to inform the reader that yogurt burst Cheerios are delicious. I purchased them in Muncie yesterday (along with Girl, Interrupted on DVD for $5.50. I know! It's ridiculous) when searching for morning sustenance. They were actually cheaper than the cereal I usually get, so I thought I'd give 'em a whirl. Thanks are in order to Sarah Janke for her rave review at dinner the other night .

God bless those brits!

There's a band called "Dogs Die in Hot Cars." :)

The blink of an eye

This afternoon, I was walking outside and the sky was bright blue with a few clouds. The air was warm and mildly stale, but a good breeze could be felt every now and then. I go inside for thirty minutes and emerge to a dark and stormy world, the once-clear sky now heavy with anger and rain.

The perfect allegory for my mood.

Telling Secrets

“[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all … rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.”
– Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

The other day at breakfast I came across the above quote in John Eldredge's The Sacred Romance. It reminded me of Jennifer Lewis and our Ireland group therapy session cleverly disguised as "Cross-Culteral Living" class. She read to us from a lot of books including Buechner's Telling Secrets and even had us write a short paper on the "shimmering self." Jennifer thought it should have been called "Telling Stories," but that doesn't matter.

Anyway, a few days later I was in Jenny's apartment in Indy and she had Telling Secrets and we got to talking about it. She offered to loan it to me, but I said, no, I probably should read for class (lol).

Well, I think God wants me to read Telling Secrets because not 48 hours later, Vance gave me my own copy of the book. I started it on the way to/during Media & Rhetorical Criticism and it's quite good. I may need to put it on hold for a few days until I can get digital video out of the way, but we'll see how long I can resist. Stay tuned for more comments.

A dream deferred

I want to live in Colorado.

My cheatin' heart

The following is a part of a hymn I've found myself meditating on lately. I have been having a hard time reading the Bible lately, so God has been ministering to me in the strangest ways... comments from professors, homework, DC conversations, friends, the weather, hymns that mysteriously get stuck in my head...

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm contstrained to be.
Let thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart,
O take and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above.

-- from "Come Thou Fount"

We all float face down

I don't belong here.

Johnny can't decide...

On the streets you hear the voices
Lost children, crocodiles
But you're not into
Making choices, wicked witches,
Poppy fields, or men behind the curtains,
Tiger lilies, ruby slippers
Clock is ticking, that's for certain
--from "30/90," tick, tick... BOOM

A few weeks ago, a psychology friend of mine asked if I was a minor (as in psych minor). I said, "No, I'm 21." Ahhahahaha.

Anyway, even though I'm technically not a kid anymore, I still think of myself as such. Let's face it, my inner-child is probably six-years-old. I dodge responsibility. I whine. I hide in corners. And I HATE making decisions.

It seems like every choice I have to make has undesireable consequences. I don't want to deal with those consequences, so I put off making a decision until the last minute. Not a very "adult" way to behave, huh? Oh well.

In a lot of ways, I see myself in the characters of Jonathan Larson's tick, tick... BOOM (which I have not seen, but I know the soundtrack). Just like Johnny, I can't decide... anything. Just like Susan, I long to get out of the rat race and settle down. Just like Michael, I've bartered my heart for survival.

I'm challenged by a line from The Journey of Desire where John Eldredge writes, "Do we reach for nothing in life because our reaching opens us up to tragedy?" I honestly don't know what to do with this question right now. As usual, Megan can't decide.

"You're fit but, my gosh, don't you know it."

I've been in Upland for the past three Labor Day weekends but only this morning did I venture out at 6:30 a.m. to the annual all-Upland garage sale. Basically, the entire town has yard/garage sales on the same day. How did I miss out on this these past few years? Well, it probably had to do with valuing sleep. Anyway, it was quite a good time. UCC was giving out free popcorn and ice water. Upland Friends Church also had free sodas and cookies. While my friends stocked up on furniture and appliances, I spent 55 cents and aquired two new books, both in great condition and both of which I'd been planning to buy. The first was Love Must Be Tough by Dr. Dobson. The second was The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. I'll look forward to blowing off scholastic reading this semester to indulge in these treasures.

Gather ye rosebuds...

What's with all the psuedo-international cuisine in the DC? We're an American institution. Let's eat like it.

I'm learning a new trick. Instead of constantly rushing from one thing to the next, I'm training myself to welcome spontaneous conversations and activities. Today I was going to the post office to mail something and an old friend was in the Union. Instead of running off, I stayed and talked for about 45-minutes. It was amazing and refreshing. I'll admit I struggle with wanting to rush off. Last night we were talking at dinner and I kept trying to get up and leave to go to senior sem. I was so paranoid I'd be late! But, no, I restrained myself and we made it to the recital hall with plenty of time even after stopping several times to converse with random people.

Yesterday, Vance called me the "new and improved Megan Elder." I suppose he's right. Margaret says I'm a LOT more laid back. I like myself better this way. I'm actually able to enjoy the blessings God has given me instead of rushing with my head down from one thing to the next. Unfortunately, even Type-B Megan has to do her homework. Oh well.