The End...

Just some thoughts from the end of the year…

There have been a lot of things on my mind lately. I’m about to send in the last of my Grad applications, which in a way is a huge relief but at the same time the beginning to a whole new set of worries. Worry may be too harsh a word, but it’s the best I can use to describe where my mind will be. I always get a nervous feeling when I’ve done the best that I can do and am about to let go and let God finish the job the way he always intended. I know that some of you out there are thinking that I should be giving it all to God from the start, but the school frown on applications that aren’t filled out by the applicant, kind of a catch twenty-two. It’s not that I don’t trust God or that I believe that old adage of “God helps those who help themselves,” but I do think that God expects me to hold up my end of the deal. I’ve never been the kind of person who is comfortable with waiting for someone else to do their part; it’s actually why I like working alone. I don’t like being dependent, which in itself causes a huge problem. I won’t get into that, trust me you don’t want to hear it, and honestly I don’t have much more to say about grad school. I’ve done everything in my power, so now I have to wait whether I like it or not.

Christmas was good, the weeks before it kind of sucked though. I got talked into singing in the churches Christmas musical which all in all was an enjoyable experience. It allowed me to meet and really talk to some people in the church that I hadn’t up to that point. Though that’s where the enjoyment stopped. I can’t stand hokey, and this musical was the hokey king. What was even worse was that the solo that they wanted me to sing was beyond hokey it was down right pathetic. The whole musical was based off of 1940’s style music, which I love, but the lyrics, the plot, and really everything else was in desperate need of an overhaul. It was probably more frustration that it was actually worth, but any opportunity to where my choral tux is a welcomed one. I meet up with friends for a movie the Friday before Christmas; it was a short meeting actually. We just met up, watched the movie, and then went our separate ways. Not a great grand meeting but it’s a start, you know. I’ve had problem’s meeting up with people since I got back; I made a lot of hard breaks when I left. It’s hard to cross burnt bridges, and I’m not proving very adept.

But Christmas was good. It took me forever to get in the mood. Christmas music just grated on me this year. I couldn’t stand it, and only started really listening the week before Christmas. I’m not sure what it was, but there was just something odd about the whole thing. Nothing this season has felt like Christmas to me. Lots of things have changed and a lot more will change before all is said and done. I think that’s had a lot to do about it, but I don’t really know. Maybe it was the fact that it was warm, unseasonably warm. Freakishly warm, even. I mean, it’s not 55 degrees on Christmas, that’s just not right. There’s just so much about it that bothers me though, the commercializing, the bad spirits even on my part, the plodding horribly played Christmas carols sung Christmas eve. I hate the feeling that with all of this going on that I’ve missed the point completely. I hate faking things, and to be honest I’ve gone to Church late these past couple of Sunday’s because I didn’t want to stand through badly done Christmas carols that I would only sing out of a feeling of obligation. So much of it felt like obligation, right up to the point I woke up Christmas morning and my family gathered round the tree like we always do. That was when if finally felt like Christmas, and I had a sudden sense that no matter how many things change there will be those parts of my life that will always be constant. That Christmas isn’t what the rest of the world has made it. That Christmas isn’t even what the church has made it. It’s not even what I’ve made it. I heard a song a couple of days ago, when I turned the radio back on, that really hit me. “Here With Us” by Joy Williams, actually I have no idea if she wrote it or not, it an amazing song. The whole song is about the simple wonders of who God is, what He has done and Seen, and juxtaposing them with the image of the baby lying in his mother’s arms. There are several lines, the whole song actually, the just hit me hard, but I think the line that hits the hardest and brought the biggest revelation was this one:
“Jesus the Christ, born in Bethlehem. A baby born to save, to save the souls of man.”
At first, it’s not thing but the simple statement it seems to be, and maybe that all it was written to be. But this simple fact becomes so much more when we think of how he came to save us. He was born so that He could die. None of us, while we all will inevitably reach the end, none of us was born specifically to die. The song is amazing, you should try to find it; it’s on “come Let us Adore Him.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the past year, where I started it, and where I am now. I’m having trouble coming up with whether it was a good one, or a bad one. I’m just not sure. It’s been a year of being up in the air, and with the New Year at hand I don’t see much of that changing, at least not yet. I’m asked on all but a daily basis how the grad school thing is coming, and what I’m planning on doing with it. It would be annoying, but I like talking about it, though I get about four lines into it and I start to get glazed over eyes, so I keep going. Don’t get me wrong; this year has been anything but bad. I don’t think I could call this year bad in anyway, I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with calling it good. I don’t know. It’s an interesting little problem, at least to me it is.

Novus Orsa, New Beginnings, the new year. It’s a time to start over. Thank God, cause I need one. We all need one. I’m not talking about resolutions that you’ll forget by the end of the week, but a real chance to start over. We all have our resolutions; I’m going to try to run every…other…day or something like that, but I know that I’m not going too. I’m busy, but I’m going to try, I swear I’m going to try. But I hate to run. I’ll play soccer until I drop dead, but I hate to run. I’m defiantly nuts. This is a time of Novus Orsa, new beginnings, and I plan to make the best of it. I hope you do as well. Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you’re all doing well. I miss you all, and I hope to hear from you soon. Love you guys, plutonicly though, only plutonicly...

A.T.H.