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As you can see...
03/01/04
As you can see...
...the undergrad life isn't all it's cracked up to be. You'd have thought I'd have had this figured out long ago, considering that it has been somewhere in the realm of five years that I've been studying in a collegiate setting.
It gets frustrating to be asked what I got for a grade in some class by Tattoo Girl #47836 and then have her say, "Wow. Well. You must be smart." As if my grade just plopped into my lap and I didn't spend the time on it while #47836 was out getting sloshed every weekend.
I abhor trying to convince people of the validity of my opinions, since not one of the many people I have met in these few short months seem to share my opinion - on God, on family, on time management, or friendship, on lifestyle... on anything, really. Since so few people live their lives based on anything, it?s entirely foreign to them to comprehend the fact all of my choices in life have to stem from my standing with God.
But I guess it?s nothing new. It?s not like I?ve never been out in the world before. What very few illusions about the world around me that I had that managed to slip by my very practical, down-to-earth yet godly, parents, fluttered away in the wind of being thirteen and in a secular college in the city. I had very few illusions, as I said, even before that, but now I could likely say, with surety, that there are even a fewer percentage of that ?very few? which remain. Somehow, though, every once and a while, something manages to be said by people around me that manages to surprise me. Somehow, when I tell people that something I heard at school bothered me, they assume it?s because I?ve never heard such a thing before, or didn?t believe that it could be true, or that somehow I had to have had my narrow homeschooler mold of cognition broken in order for it to have bothered me. But then, I wonder why things can?t just be shocking. Why am I not allowed to be shocked? So what if I?ve heard all these things before? So what if I know that everyone makes fun of my mother for staying home to raise her kids? What if I can see why people don?t agree when I say that I think that Buddha was full of it? What if I know all this stuff, and understand why people don?t understand, and have heard it a million times, but it still bothers me? I guess this is nothing I haven?t said before.
I?m feeling my ?lone reed?-ness here. I?m feeling the oppression of society in a way that I never felt before, because I never let it bother me before. It?s so much easier not to think of myself as being alone in a sea of faces and bodies and breath and thumping of hearts when I?m not tired. When I am, as I have been lately, suddenly it?s just a sea of souls that can?t understand mine. How can I be a light to all these people? Sometimes, when I walk around wherever I am, I feel like Neo in the Matrix, the world slowing to a halt so that he can look around and see everyone in the middle of living a split-second of their lives. I hear bits and pieces of everyone?s story, about who they sleep with on whatever given night, about their Aunt Mabel?s death in ?98, what they drank last weekend, and probably who in the class that they effing hate so effing much, but I never get the whole deal. I talk to people all day about themselves, and they sometimes ask me about myself, but they never seem like they really care what I think. People talk so much about themselves ? Dale Carnegie was never truer when he said that one way to win friends and influence people was to get people to talk about themselves (their favorite subject) and then truly listen. I ask, I listen. Then they ask, but I can tell, they don?t listen. I just want one word to penetrate ? Jesus. Everyone can talk about The Passion(!!!!) until they?re blue in the face. I can?t count how many times I?ve heard how ?impacting? the movie is. But what did it impact? Where is the change? Everybody asks what I think, but their ears close when I tell them. It?s all about life and living, not about just being.
Sartre was wrong when he said, ?I was just thinking ? that here we sit, all of us, eating and drinking to preserve our precious existence and really there is nothing, nothing absolutely no reason for existing.?
There has to be something else. Why can?t anyone see it?
Lord, how am I supposed to be a light? I am only one woman.
21 comments
Gosh, Cass, you have no idea how much that coincides with my own recent experiences. Especially the "I'm only one woman..." thought! Every person I work with and go to school with is hurting right now... some have illnesses, some have lost close friends over petty issues, some are just dying inside because - I KNOW! - because they don't have Jesus. one way to begin being a light is to stop bashing sartre. *angelic look upwards*
just joking. ;) You know, in the interest of avoiding writing an essay on something I've been asked to write an essay on, I'd like to say, for the record, and for the those who haven't a clue who I am, that I'm not just a heartless watergirl shloshing hot grammatical insults all over Cassie's beautiful ice sculptures. Not that I just sloshed one, but I usually do, when she says anything of a serious nature. And I am talking to the random stalker, in this case, to tell her what she knows already, mostly, as I said, to avoid the essay I don't want to write, and partly, for whatever deep truth she may want to muck out of all the space I take up.
The thing is really, that I've learned an awful lot about Cassie from listening, and an awful lot about weblogs from everyone in general. Cass says some amazingly thoughtful things here. She even says them in real life sometimes. (:P) From years of her listening to me, I learn to listen to her. Sometimes we girl-talk it and discuss five-thousand angles of an old topic, and sometimes I just shut up and listen. Mostly here, I just shut up and listen. I come online, check out my favorite webboard, and then think, "I wonder what Cassie's been thinking about lately?" and click on her link to her weblog. The funny thing, I guess, is that I know it's not really what she's necessarily been thinking about lately. Sometimes it's more the subconscious birthing out (ok, it's always about the birthing) of her creative, passionate, and/or cynically muses onto the floor of this place in one great please-hold-the-epidural, I-want-to-feel-this-pain all-natural push. All the stuff she's gotten halfway to consciousness comes flowing out in a mess of amniotic fluid, and she gives birth to some sort of daughter-self, which looks like her and leaves her wondering, for the first few speechless moments, just where it came from. Being an unfortunate realist, of course, she doesn't let it bother her for long, and gets on with the diaper-changing. Still, in that moment, I love to stand beside her, counting toes and fingers, marvelling that it's all there, in one piece. And when I say, in a hopeful tone, that maybe SOMEDAY, it won't look so hopelessly like herself, I only fall back on the timeless understanding that I know can only be conveyed in the most annoying piece of Alanish wit I can yet aspire unto. I won't say, "Amazing, Cass!" because I can hear her snorting at me when I do. I won't say, "I was just thinking the same thing!" unless I really did, or else I'm sure she'd know I really hadn't been. And talking about my own feelings like this is only genuine on certain occasions, when it is genuine. You see the quandary? I'm sure you do.
I feel so much better. I shall be much cleaner, I am sure, when I throw my mud. [You, know, Cass, that you're not alone. :) I love you.] I love you guys. :)
No. Seriously. I. Love. You. Guys. And Girls.
Thank you Dave. I need to be reminded of that.
Marti - everything I say seems to coincide with what you have been through recently. Perhaps it's an Arizona thing, eh? :)
John, Sartre has his interesting (actually, very) moments. That just wasn't one of the more constructive interesting moments. I think you're still bitter about my comments on Barth. :D
And Sar. I need to call you, dear. You sling mud so tastefully and eloquently sometimes - it usually happens to be just exactly what I need at that point in time. :) Yeah... When I'm not typing up lecture notes, walking Cocker Spaniels, putting on my socks, or trying to operate garage-door-openers at the same time, I do sound kinda smart! Marti - everything I say seems to coincide with what you have been through recently. Perhaps it's an Arizona thing, eh? :)
Maybe it's just an age thing... :)
I hesitate to say "God thing" because it sounds too trite. :o) ie, Just walk with him day by day and His light will shine through. We are weak- His light will still shine through brightly---MOM "Everyone can talk about The Passion(!!!!) until they?re blue in the face. I can?t count how many times I?ve heard how ?impacting? the movie is. But what did it impact? Where is the change? Everybody asks what I think, but their ears close when I tell them. It?s all about life and living, not about just being."
It's easier to be "impacted" by something when you make it into a historical event at a distance - the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust, the Passion of Christ, etc - than when you actually have to bring it into the present. The Passion provides a starting point. But what your classmates need to see (and will not want to see, because it would require something of them more than a "feeling of depth and spirtuality") is that Christ's death (and resurrection) is a past, present and future event - impacting each and everyone of us here and now.
Cassie - you never know when the seed you plant in other's minds and hearts might germinate and bear fruit. Maybe not now, while you're there. But if and when God brings an event into their lives that causes them to rethink the meaning of life, you may well have provided them the material or the option to say - "what about Christianity?"
Thank you, Mike. That is so true. At the same time, though, I still think to myself, "I'm not fit to be a planter." I know that my heart isn't right enough to be able to plant. But at the same time, God uses the lowest of us, so I suppose I could squeeze in onto His "Will Use" list, though, knowing myself as well as I do, it will always seem impossible. But thank you. All I can hope is that my words and life line up well enough for people to see that I live what I speak, and at the same time see that Christ didn't come to save perfect people, namely, me.
And I also have to say, I love this: "Christ's death (and resurrection) is a past, present and future event - impacting each and everyone of us here and now."
Nothing I haven't heard before. But I like good thoughts no matter how many times they're said.
No problem. And your choice of numbering - is Tattoo Girl the next model off the line that I described on my blog? ;-)
If so, I'm mailing myself to the factory for a recall. I do not want to be part of that line. :-) On a more serious note - your blog sounds very much like my first year in college (except that I lived there with the kindsa people you describe, two hours from home). Your example, more than anything else (of which you described in your reply to me) will start the questions rolling - if not now, then before the end of the year. Why do you go to church? Can you help me with my religion homework? You seem like a normal guy/gal when I get to know you - why did you choose the way you did? Then you have the chance to cultivate ideas . . . I do miss the 3 a.m. chats in our dorm first year about philosophy and religion. :) Cassie. Someday we oughta IM. If you're an MSN gal, I'm elcheapoe@hotmail.com. Peace out. :) Yeah, hopefully the questions will roll in. I mean, I like to think I'm not a Scary Christian. I pretty much just live my life, with all its Christian Weirdnesses and all that. But it's not like the first words outta my mouth are, "Did you know you're going to hell?!"
heh. Hopefully I'll have open doors long before I have to resort to point-blank questions such as that.
And the numbering thing was purely accidental. I think it was a malfunction. You can't be on the same line, my friend. :) Oh, and yeah, we oughta. I'm more of an AOL typa gal, but whatever. Never hurt anyone to download another chat client, eh?
(cue for Mark to run in and scream, "TRILLIAN!!") Go ahead, Cass. Download MSN the same week I lose it.
:-Þ 
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