Crazy Week and Life

No, I haven't updated the chicago entry yet. Not enough time. But I'm taking a few minutes here at the end of the day to write up this intense week as I'm in the middle of it.

It's been a strange combination of terror and happiness. I entered it high on the wave of the Chicago trip, and descended into the trough of terror Sunday night/Monday morning as I realized all I had to do: Process Control homework Wednesday AND Friday (I thought there would be none this week), Health & Safety lecture summaries due Friday, Lab progress report due Thursday, Health & Safety homework Friday, and, I was later to find out, History of Symphony homework due Thursday.

But then I left Pitt, drove to NOVA for 3 hours of work, and drove from there to Akron for a glorious overnight of Pure Boss practice! That was one of the reasons I was so pressured this week--all day Monday was gone. Despite that, the time in Akron was deliciously sweet. It started when Brian came running out of the Chimas house with his guitar over his shoulder screaming and waving his arms, psyched for practice. It was like the good old days--we ripped off some great Pure Boss standards, and then we worked up two brand new songs! Then we doodled around tearing down a bit (most of it I left 'cause we'd be back Friday), smoking a lot of cloves, and drinking Steve's pure sugar cane Dr.Pepper he brought back from Texas. I figured out how to blow rough smoke rings, and that was pretty exciting. Don't worry, I don't inhale (perish the thought *shudder*). After Brian had to head to bed Steve and I took down the dance flooring at the church, filled up our gas tanks on wonderful $2.09 Ohio gas, and watched Shrek II in the Hoffman's den. I got up the next morning and left at about 8:00 for Pittsburgh.

I started my caffeine-by-necessity on Tuesday, picking up a latte at Starbucks before hitting recitation. I'd been fighting sleep the whole drive down (which is one of the most grindingly miserable states I know of being in), and couldn't afford to miss the lecture in a drowsy haze. The latte actually tasted fantastic. Strip away all the sugary stuff, and Starbucks coffee definitely kicks butt.

Tuesday I also took my daily nap, which has become another necessity since I don't have time to sleep much when I'm finishing all my assignments the night before they're due. When I'm working out, as I have been, my body just gets torn down if I don't get enough sleep. I can feel a clear difference after an hour of sleep in the afternoon--before then I just can't imagine working out being very productive.

Every day this week I pretty much got up and got to class on time or late, made it through classes, slept, worked out if I had time, and either went home to work on the next day's homework or went to work. Every night I finished what was due in the morning, worked out if I needed to, and went to bed around 1 or 2 or something. A crazy, crazy week that I look back on in wonder, 'cause it's just so ridiculous and out of control, and once again I feel like I'm barely hanging on as the wild bull of life throws me around.

Ultimately, I'm feeling pretty crappy about life these days. A job position came up at NOVA that's exactly what I would have wanted two years ago, but I have no desire to pursue it, and my resume is in a three-year-old shamble. I don't want to go to grad school, which would be the next logical step to becoming a college professor, and I don't think I'm good enough or have any connections or training to work at a studio or something, which is the one thing I'd really really like to actually DO. Jonathan is all pumped for getting a job and starting his professional career, and I watch him interview and job hunt and feel like I'm a lazy little kid sitting in a puddle of mud pouting 'cause he doesn't want to take any of the great opportunities presented to him. Like Jonathan said, I just need to pray, and God will provide whatever it is I need.

And that's what I keep coming down to as I filter through all the layers of my failure, laziness and lack: I need what only God can give. I need SOMETHING to change inside me, 'cause from where I stand now I am categorically unprepared to enter normal adult life in America. I'm tired of trying to figure out what that something is, 'cause there's so many ways my life could go, but the bottom line is I need to PRAY.

Now, I could go through the exact same process of despair again because I haven't been praying or having devotions or anything consistently for months and months and I see no desire for that in myself, and thus I feel like not only do I lack what is needed for life, but I lack what is needed to get what I lack.
However, though that train of thought appears logical to me, I've learned enough in the spiritual desert of the past years to just believe that Jesus meant what He said when he told His disciples "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." Ultimately--and there's no away to avoid stinking Christianese here--I think this place of desperation I'm feeling right now is right where God wants me: face to face with my weakness, and no way out except Him. It feels wrong, because it is, but I think God basically has to drag us through sin to make us actually learn truth.
I guess the fight my mind puts up against that view of things is that over the past years fundamentally nothing seems to have changed in me, while life seems to be appropriately falling apart around me as I fail to rise up to meet it. Other than the mental truths of the Bible and the people around me, I've got no reason to think that any changing grace will ever be given to me. Those are pretty dang good reasons, you say, and yes they are, but when life is falling apart around you, it tends to make a far more compelling argument for its view of things :-) So, onward I go, scraping the bottom of the barrel of my capabilities and waiting for God's grace to come up under me and help.

Is anybody out there sick of me writing about this same crap in this blog? It's like no matter how many times and ways I feel it and write it out, I never get it out clearly--there keep being more ways to look at it, and the more I write about it the more it crumbles upon itself and evades expression. I'll try one more brief shot, and then leave it.

Given all I said above, looking at that last sentence, the analogy comes to mind that God's grace is like flying. You can't fly yourself, obviously--it's silly to think you could--, but neither should you sit in the airport and wait for the plane to come pick you up.
It seems like any hopeful statement of God's free grace and our total weakness comes with the caveat that you have to "put yourself in the way of God's grace." Well folks, I don't have whatever gumption it takes to put myself in those ways. I can try for a few days, but the fact is, I'm sitting here in dirty clothes on the floor of the airport, unshaven, jobless, with about 83 cents left in my pocket, hoping something can come pick me up 'cause however much I try to "rise up," I don't have what it takes to make it out to that big comfy plane waiting on the tarmac.

So I ask again: Am I a lazy fool, or am I being realistic and this is where God has to take me?

I myself answer that I'm a lazy fool, and I beat myself up for that.
I my-"The Bible is True"-self answer that God hasn't forsaken me and ultimately joy is there for the having, no matter where I am or where I've been.

So, I listened through the Gospel of John on the way to work today.

Speaking of listening, tonight I went through some interesting music. I'll close out this blog by taking it back to the details of life. I started with the Beatles, then I hit Chemical Brothers, which I've been enjoying more and more with every listen. Mmm, it's so good! Tasty. After that I was in the mood for something similar so I listened through "Kaleidoscope Superior" by Earthsuit--an album I listened through a ton about a year ago but haven't played much since then. Then, going for the same sort of feel, I put on "Pungent Effulgent" by Ozric Tentacles--something I haven't listened to much at all ever. In keeping with my ever-increasing capacity for musical appreciation, I enjoyed the album to a pretty real degree. Lastly, I scanned through my playlists after Ozric finished up and decided on Muse, which appears to be settling in as a really good album ("Black Holes and Revelations") and was very enjoyable. It makes me think of Daniel in Grove City, 'cause we played some bass and guitar to that album when I was up there a couple weeks ago.

Now I go upstairs and, good grief, pack for Akron! Tomorrow I get up at 7:00am, somehow make it through 5 hours of classes, either work out or sleep for an hour (hopefully work out, unless I'm feeling terrible, 'cause the Peterson is so sweet), and drive to Akron for a quick practice and a Pure Boss concert at the Orange Street. *Sigh*. That's why I'm such a bad student, and so bad at living life: there's too much else going on.

But I'm happy, and I think that comes because I'm saved, and ultimately I believe in Jesus.

Thank you, Lord! I reckon' that's a lot more than I should take for granted.

Cool.

--Crazy Ambassador