Glimpses.

Last night I watched Saving Private Ryan, and I saw and felt something of the brokenness of this world.

This morning people were baptized at RH, and I saw a true renaissance.

This afternoon, I read the end of The Last Battle, and caught a small glimpse of Aslan's country.

And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, God is good.

Commencing

On Saturday I graduated, and it was a strange thing indeed.

Everything went well. I drove to SB with my parents, met up with old friends, followed the bagpipers through the formal gardens, listened to speeches and award presentations and the choir, moved the tassel to the left side, made my way across stage, shook hands, smiled for the camera, and it was done. A blurred moment set a sharp boundary between three magical years and all that lies ahead. Leaving college is an awful lot faster than getting there.

How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back?

For all that, I'm still an undergraduate. I (unofficially) have my BA from Westmont, but have a year and a bit left at UCI. I have classes and finals and homework and labs and research. And I don't have chapel, or the DC, or the prayer chapel, or Stan the Man, or all my friends within a five minutes walk, or vespers, or early morning runs on Butterfly Beach, or PW, or potter's clay. 

But- and it's a big but- I do have access to all that filled those things with goodness. If Westmont was a training ground, and was that full of Goodness, how much more joy will there be from here on out? Those kinds of good things--Stan's wisdom, and the prayer in the chapel, and pure joy in worship, and so much more--may not always come so easily. But they are worth fighting for.

And I will fight, through to the end of the race at the Great Commencement.

Fundraising.

If anyone has £270,000 they don't need, please let me know. I have found my boat. 

Heading: second star from the right.

Wooden sailboat.

Good books.

Cote d'Azur

Imagine that.

Why blog?

A good blog is a powerful thing. The opportunity to eloquently and transparently convey all manner of thoughts in word or image to an unlimited audience is historically a rare thing indeed. And yet many blogs are taken as little more than an opportunity to vent. Perhaps that is what I am doing now- but I pray not. Why do desires for power, whether money, or authority, or time, come so easily, while dreams consistent with the true end of those same things are so fleeting?

Several weeks ago I came across this proverb:

"As water reflects a face

so a man's heart reflects the man."

And just now I recalled Lewis writing, aim for heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim for earth and you get neither. (Paraphrased. It is so SO Lewis-ian- I love it.)

It would seem that on "our own," only the corrupt form of powerful ideas are visible- only the forms, the distorted and reduced forms by which to serve ourselves. (It's all but cliche putting it that way- but there it is). Only in the Kingdom can the true potential of that which we would otherwise corrupt be revealed. Even a blog. I can use this blog to draw attention to myself- or, in faith, to share my encounters with Light, to others, for His glory.

(to be continued)

Word

Words confuse me, though in truth they dissolve confusion. The predefined meanings with which they are given and the preconceived ideas with which they are received are a powerful combination for communication- or miscommunication. Even as I write these words, I know they don't hold the (full) meaning I intend.

Obviously I can only expect so much from limited space. To know something truly demands a broad perspective. I am not defined by a few words, but can only convey something of my identity through a more complete picture- through heart mind body and soul. 

The words of this blog, then, are eclectic things trying to convey eclectic thoughts that result from eclectic experiences. Tonight, then, I am grateful to the Author for Truth, for that which is really real. For there, there is life indeed- life to the full.

This blog needs a new name.

Be patient. The name will come.