Mistaken identity

Shock and grief all over again. I rejoice for the Ceraks but WEEP for the VanRyns. Please follow this Taylor Web site link because I can't process this fast enough to expound.

Pray.

Back to the grind

I broke down and bought a coffee grinder yesterday. It was bound to happen eventually. This morning after a lovely breakfast with my boy, I sat down with my first homemade cup of joe in three weeks.

See, I'd been using my apartmentmate's grinder for the whole school year (thank you, Lane), but cellar apt living is long over and she moved her grinder home a week before school ended anyway. Therefore, for the past several weeks I've relied on the DC, Starbucks, church and (blah!) McD's to fill my cup.

So I did it. I went to WalMart and purchased a grinder. It was on sale and as I fetched the box from a high shelf an elderly woman in a motorized wheelchair paid me a nice compliment. All in all it was a delightful WalMart experience.

And what's more... next week I'll begin filling my grinder with my mark-out pound of Starbucks coffee per week! Oh, the joys of employment.

"For what it's worth, it was worth all the while"

Fortunately for my wallet and waistline, Ivanhoe’s addiction is not a requisite to the Taylor University experience. Although admissions counselors may claim otherwise, life in Upland does not revolve around this famous ice cream vendor. In fact, during my last four years I rarely sampled its cold confections, only discovering my favorite shake in the last semester of my senior year.

“Try the chocolate peanut butter pretzel shake with Peanut Butter Iditarod ice cream instead of the soft serve,” my friend Jess advised. “It’s orgasmic.”

And she was right.

So after four years at University of the Corn Fields, I can at last name my favorite Ivanhoe’s shake. But that’s not all.

My undergraduate career ended a week ago tomorrow on a sunny football field in north central Indiana. My family came to cheer me on and buy me lunch. My gratitude goes to them for enduring the three hour ceremony perched upon ancient bleachers which faced toward the sun. At approximately 12:45 p.m., I claimed my bachelor of arts degree and shifted my tassel to the opposite side of my cap, thereby officially joining the ranks of thousands of Taylor alumni.

It’s hard to look toward the future right now as my prospects remain hazy. Instead, I find it much more comforting to reflect on the past and know that the last four years were not a waste. No, I may never use my degree in exactly the way I thought I would in the fall of 2002, but at that time I didn’t know what I know now. My time in Upland, in Maryland, in Washington, D.C., in Hong Kong, in Ireland, in Finland/Estonia, and in Evansville produced valuable lessons that stretched, pained, and developed me into the woman I am today. The thing is, I’m still learning. I may have graduated from Taylor, but I remain enrolled University of Life.

The term “commencement” signifies new beginning. What is this new road on which I tread? Will I falter? Will I persevere? Only time will tell, but in the meantime, I’ll trade in my Ivanhoe’s spoon for a G.D. Ritzy’s cone. Their cookie dough ice cream is pretty amazing.

Whether the weather...

In Upland, storms overnight bring with them arctic temperatures, even in May.

In Evansville, storms overnight produce warmer weather and the distinct feeling of living inside an armpit.

Geography changes everything.

Prayer request

Laura VanRyn, the only survivor of the recent accident who is still in the hospital, has a blog with updates about her condition. Check it out and remember her in your prayers.

Kids these days...

... got no respect.

I've got the mudstain on my windshield to prove it. :(

Innocence shattered

Current mood: Devastated.

The bubble has burst. Aaron just told me that the dinosaur commonly known as a Brontosaurus is a hoax. It is actually a mixture of two different dinosaurs. This means Little Foot (from The Land Before Time) is nothing but a lie.

How can I go on?

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand

Twenty-two years today. Surprisingly, it’s been a good birthday. I’ve been resisting celebration due to recent moods, yet I’ve enjoyed the milestone.

In contemplating life as of late, I’ve returned in my mind to Sligo, Ireland AKA Yeats Country…

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
-from “The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats

"Lying on the floor, lying on the floor"

“Grief is good. It is cleansing. It undoes my world—and that’s the best part of it. I need to be undone; simply undone.”
--John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire

Five dead. Five injured.

My hometown paper had a short write-up on the accident last Thursday. The online format allowed readers to make comments. There was only one comment. It read: “sad.”

Sad. That doesn’t come close to describing the mood oppressing our campus right now. To put the tragedy in perspective, 4 students dead from Taylor would be the mathematical equivalent of 84 students dead at Purdue. But then, numbers don’t always mean much. I mean, how many thousands of children are kidnapped, tortured, enslaved and murdered by Northern Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army and yet it’s so easy to forget. No. For any kind of tragedy to truly break your heart, you have to know the victims.

The commenter I mentioned above didn’t know the deceased. He didn’t question Monica about the nature of each day’s fish selection in the DC. He hadn’t marveled at Brad’s grasp of the teleological argument for the existence of God. He never sang beside Betsy in a nursing home lobby or saw the joy on her face as she waxed harmonic. He hadn’t painted large Garamond letters into the wee-hours of the morning across the table from Laurel. He didn’t witness Carly’s elation when her sister Whitney decided to come to Taylor.

He didn’t. But I did.

Taylor University is an intentional Christ-centered community. This means every person here is somehow connected. When any part of that connection is broken, we feel it and we grieve. I’ve received hugs and words of comfort from classmates, professors, administrators, secretaries, card scanners, housekeepers, maintenance men… the list goes on and on. If tears spontaneously come throughout my day, I feel no need to hinder them for I know they will be accepted. There’s something incredible about this place. It’s painful. It hurts. Several times the last few days, I’ve wanted to flee. And yet, I’m thankful. I’m thankful that there is at least one place on earth that acknowledges the need for open, unrestrained grief. We embrace it because to do so is to be human.

I thought I saw mountains today. They were only clouds.