Happy Tomorrowday!

Tomorrow's the big day, or so I hear. But I think I like the idea of a holiday named Tomorrowday regardless.

The Importance of Being Christian

I've had a few conversations in the recent past (recent past being that period of time between whenever "now" is for any given point of time and whenever "now" was at the time I posted in the blog three posts ago. If I blogged daily, then the recent past would be in the last 3 days. As it stands now...the recent past started about 4 months ago) which were trying to figure out why it's important to me that a significant other in my life be Christian. Either that or I imagined that these conversations happened (a very likely possibility. My memory over the last 4 months isn't perfect, and it's prone to invent conversations).
While driving home the other day, the reason hit me. I mean, it's never been an issue that was a question for me. I know that "she" (whomever "she" might be, someone I currently know or someone I haven't yet met) is, she'd have to be Christian, but it's important that I be able to explain to others why this is.
The easiest way I found to explain it is to just phrase some hypotheticals. Imagine that you met the woman¹ of your dreams, but she completely refuses to acknowledge the existence of your dad². Now, I'm not saying that she ignores him or that she doesn't like him, but that she simply is convinced that he doesn't exist. She may put on airs that it's okay that you have conversations on the phone with him, she's polite (but condescending) when the two of you have dinner with your parents. She enjoys talking to your mother, but when any of you discuss Dad, she starts to look uncomfortable as though you're talking about an imaginary friend.
When Dad (who's right there at the table with you) tries to talk to her, she's oblivious.
Somehow, this situation is completely absurd when discussed in these terms, but when it comes to Christianity, non-Christians seem to puzzle over the fact that Christians can't seem to be bigoted and/or biased against people who refuse to subscribe to this "crazy notion" that God exists, interacts with us daily, and is a very real part of our day-to-day lives. I don't see where the puzzlement is. If those two people try to build a relationship, at the foundation is this part of each person which thinks (at best) that the other one is fundamentally crazy. And not the good kind of crazy.

¹I'm a guy and a chauvinist at that. My writing follows the absolutely "horrid" trend of using masculine pronouns instead of the socially-correct-but-stylistically-abhorrent "him or her" or even worse "s/he"-type constructs. I'm also going to write as though you're me and let you do the work of substituting the appropriate other characters/situations/whatever.

²Everyone has someone in his or her life who is important to the person. It could be a relative or a good friend (or both). Whatever, it's not important. For sake of ease-of-writing, I'm going to refer to this person as "Dad." Replace this character with whomever makes sense for you.

Pet peeve

When I'm standing in line for fast food and the person behind the counter says, "I can help whoever's next."

I make a conscious decision every time I hear that not to tell the person that it's "whomever."

More ramblies! Yay!

Some fun things I found on the internet today:

Double Fine Productions' News page (there are some really hilarious entries in here - especially if you've played the excellent Psychonauts)
Double Fine Productions' Job Openings page (it gets pretty funny towards the end)
GrumpyGamer (Ron Gilbert's blog)

Ok, so after those two random but yet semi-related links, I present the following: Introspection. Today I realized that I haven't much talked about any of the peculiarities about myself that I have observed set me apart from how it seems other people act/think, but that may not be apparent from merely observing me. First, I would like to point out that I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It's not debilitating, I'm not Monk (in terms of level of condition or genius), and I've never suffered from it - but it does affect me. For example, I have a very strong (but not absolute) aversion to stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. Unless something is actively drawing my attention away from my footsteps, I will make significant effort to pace my stride in such a way as to look natural and avoid the cracks. If for some reason I become conscious that I'm doing this, I usually continue to do it while chuckling at my own silliness, but I have been known (even today) to consciously step on a crack. I've heard of my mother's back suffering no ill effects.

I count steps. Usually in multiples of four or twelve. If the bell tower is chiming, I count the number of steps I take between tolls - I try to time my steps so that I have exactly ten. There's nothing special about ten except that it's the number of steps I naturally take in that period, I simply attempt to adjust the cadence of my footsteps so that the tenth step falls exactly at the time of the bell. When counting my steps in multiples of four or twelve, I'm simply counting to myself "one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four" over and over. Rarely do I keep track of how many times I count to four or twelve. Also, I count the number of steps in a flight of stairs. I am annoyed to no end when confronted with sequential flights of stairs which do not have the same number of steps - ESPECIALLY when the difference is an even number (usually 2). Why didn't the designer simply move one step from the flight with more stairs to the flight with fewer? Then they'd have the same number of steps. Then I could count to the same number both times. *sigh* Some things I may never know.

I cannot wear long sleeves without wearing long pants. It makes me feel top-heavy. Of course, this rarely is a problem because I am rarely without long pants (and when I am, there's probably no good reason to have long sleeves on), but still it's something that I have noticed. A friend of mine (some of you know him as Uthalinus, others perhaps as Jerm) used to regularly wear shorts with a sweatshirt. I would boggle at that because I could not under any circumstance imagine voluntarily choosing that outfit for myself. Clothing has a hierarchy - shirts are dependent upon shorts or pants (it is improper to don one's shirt before one's shorts or pants), long sleeves are dependent upon long pants, and also: long sleeves should not ever be worn unless there is a short-sleeved shirt underneath. You will rarely find me breaking any of these conventions.

And, in case you're curious for any reason - I won't be found existing in the state of shorts or pants without a shirt. That is simply a temporary state that I go through when getting dressed or undressed (the shirt comes on first, goes off last). Some may prescribe these things to "habit" - but I consider it to be stronger than habit. "Habit" is which sock I put on first. I actually don't know which one I put on first. I probably put one on first more often than the other (probably by a significant amount), but I don't know which one it is. If I were conscious of the order I normally do it in and reversed it, it wouldn't seem odd to me at all. That is not at all how these other things feel - there is something in my mind that compels me to obey these very arbitrary principles. I can break it if I choose to do so, but I rarely do because I rarely have any non-arbitrary reason to do so and I am overly conscious of being in violation of my own arbitrary rules - and that distracts me from whatever it is that I'm trying to do with my life at any given moment.

So...there you have it. Paragraphs of my personal quirks. Enjoy.

Untitled Composition #1

Yes, I know that You have paved a path for me
Yes, I know that You see what I do and don't need
But when it comes to the deepest things,
I have a hard time relinquishing control
Letting go

(chorus)
God, it hurts to give You what I must lay down
But when I let go, freedom is found.
God, it hurts to give You what I've held so dear
Because of Your love, it's clear
I can trust You with this
I can trust You with me
I can trust You

Lord, I know that You are worthy of my trust
You have shown me time and time again
You're faithful And yet,
I'm so scared of letting go of this
Afraid of what You might do with it
How could I forget Who You are like this?

(chorus)

Me forsaking
Heart is breaking
I let go of what I’ve held so tight
Freedom’s mine now
For the taking
I move in faith, not by sight
Let Your will be done

(chorus)

--Rebecca St. James

There was a time in my life when I experienced more growth as a person than any other period of my life. For about a year of my life, I gave in to what this song is talking about, turning my life over to God's will as much as I was able and knew how. So many things I just decided, "You know? I can live without this and instead dedicate the energy I was focusing into that to God instead." It was something that I had tossed around in the back of my mind for a long time before I actually did it, but I was always afraid that I'd be giving up something that I really didn't want to live without.

When I finally surrendered, I experienced the most alive year of my life that I've ever had.

I'm so scared of letting go of this
Afraid of what You might do with it
How could I forget Who You are like this?

Those lines express my feelings so well. After having done that, then falling back into the comfortable "live life as though there's nothing more than what you can see" lifestyle, I still look back at that as the best year of my life.

Why is it so hard to decide to do it again? Maybe I no longer actually do trust Him? I don't think that's it though. I think it's that I don't want to live there. Part of me - that depraved piece of corrupted humanity in us all - would rather just live life being no different than anyone else. It doesn't mind being quirky, and it never hinders me from being the center of attention, but it absolutely hates the idea of being the person that I was turning into.

Who was I turning into? I was turning into a man of God. Someone unashamed of Who he served, someone longing for a deepening of the most meaningful relationship a person can have. When did all this end? Soon after moving to school I found myself away from all of the influences who helped me back home and I found myself in the midst of a whole new set of influences.

For the most part, I despised everything about these new influences. Many of them were vulgar, crass, and rude. I knew that I didn't want to be influenced by them, so I did the easiest thing I knew how to do - I withdrew. I closed myself off from as many as I could and retreated into the quietness of my own mind.

Except that's not what a Christian is supposed to do. We've not been called to retreat from the world or to alienate ourselves from it. We've been called to live in it, to touch it, affect it, send ripples through it, and be an influence to it. I can't imagine a single person on this campus to whom I've been an influence in any way - I don't know that I've had conversations about anything more interesting or weighty than the weather with more than...2 people on this campus. Both of them are graduated, only one of them do I keep any kind of contact with any more. Now I find myself just enduring school, hoping to graduate and be done with it so that I can just go home and be away from this place.

Home won't be the way I remembered it, though. It's changed, I've changed...the relationship that inspired such strong changes in me no longer exists....

Where does this leave me? I don't know.

Yivarechicha Adonai V'yishmirecha;
Ya-Ayr Adonai panav Aylecha v'yichunecha;
Yee-saw Adonai panav Aylecha v'ya-saym l'cha shalom.