A New Start

I have decided to read certain books a different way: I'm going to journal my way through them :-) Starting with Screwtape Letters :-) I'll post my findings here

Home and Homelessness

What is home? I think the saying that home is where the heart is is really saying that home is where one belongs. The greatest sense of homelessness is to feel there is no place one belongs. Home is friendly familiarity, a place where one feels safe.

Maybe I'll never feel that I belong. Perhaps I'm just making the adjustment badly. But I can't feel that I really belong at USAFA. I mean, I know everywhere is messed up, but I just can't feel that I belong there. Slaving away over a bunch of techie stuff I don't care about and listening to a lot of propaganda that I don't quite believe. I have no friends there. Outside (i.e. at church), yes. Cadets, no.

Is it really the right place to be? I don't know. I don't where I should be. Part of me has given up hope that I have a place to live, not just survive. I don't know.

It's a horrible feeling to be visiting one's own room. It's where I've lived for the last 10.5 years, and I always come home to it being really clean.

The world I grew up in disintegrated when I left. Sierra died 2 days before I in-processed. The debate league I loved split. So did my fencing club. People grew up. Some moved on and others moved away. Things changed. It's not so much that I don't quite fit here anymore, rather that that world doesn't exist anymore. And I've learned quickly that USAFA is no place be oneself openly.

I guess I'm a bit lost right now

Escape

It's that subconsciously overwhelming feeling that it's really pointless. All of it. What am I living for? Daily, for what? Fulfilling requirements and meeting needs and desires. On a grand scale... I don't know. There seems no point to being here at USAFA. There seems no point to being in college, aside from the fact that that's what I always expected to do. Because it was considered good. Did I choose it? In a roundabout way, I guess. I didn't really consider it. Coming to USAFA? My pride eliminated one choice, another fell through, so this was it. I tried to rationalize it, but I'm not happy here. Happy. What is it? Maybe the pointlessness of college and stuff is tied to a lack of direction for the future. I haven't a clue what I want to do, aside from what I don't want to do. I don't really want to be in the military. I don't want to have to do math. There's nothing I can really see myself doing. But what's the point of a job? Supporting survival I guess. Sure it's important, but survival is the base line. The alarm bells are going off in me that I'm just surviving right now. Which is why I just want it to end. If all I'm doing is surviving and living a purposeless routine, there's nothing to live for. Why has it come to this? I've run so far. I should be a wreck, but there seems to be a block to the conscious feeling and thinking about important stuff. I wonder if I can still pray? It's the feeling you get when you look at a mess so big and complicated that not only do you not know where to start, you don't even want to try to figure out where to start. Hopelessness. I guess that's why right now I'd just like to walk away. I don't see a way out. I don't see a way for me in the future. I don't have the strength to get up. I know there are things I should be doing, but I can't bring myself to do them. They're the last thing I think of, sadly. And it's not like I lack other things to do. Busy all day, and I come back to a bunch of homework that I really don't want to do. It takes thinking or talking to someone to remind me of this horror. But it's just words. I want to change. But I'm too asleep and afraid to ask, because I feel like I've forgotten... how to live; if I ever knew at all. I'm tired of my words and my anger. Living, followthrough, and perseverance are so hard. What a miserable wretch I am.

I want my life back. Er... Not Really

"I want my life back"

It's the wrong declaration. The desire is not ownership, but life. What I mean is this:

"I want to live"

But what does that mean? I mean, really? In everything, what? This is the journey of life methinks, but not just finding an answer. Life isn't just about questions and answers. Questions and answers help one see where the road begins, and perhaps where it ends, or may end. The business of living is in, well, the living. Knowing where you want to go and who you want to be is one thing, but the being and becoming are another matter altogether.

Something I must say

What you have chosen to do for your country by devoting your life to the service of your country is the greatest contribution that any man can make.
-President John F. Kennedy

Responses

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
Albert Camus


If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were
precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased
to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
C. S. Lewis


"He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself..."
C. S. Lewis

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
C. S. Lewis

Standards

"Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
-Jesus (Matthew 5:48)

Whoa.

How else do you react to something like that? Perfect? Me? Um... yeah right. I'm DEFINITELY not perfect. Not even close.

What is perfection? I like to define it as exact conformity to a standard. What's the standard here? God's character. Whoa. Exact conformity means just that: exact conformity. No deviation whatsoever. Yikes.

Thankfully though, Paul gives us a bit of hope on the subject of conforming to this standard

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"
-Paul (Philippians 4:13)

Thank you Jesus for helping carry us to who we were made to be.

Purpose

What is it we are to do? What about those who don't know?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

Noise

Today I decided I wanted to go be quiet. To get away from all the noise. To clear my mind and get away from the stuffy atmosphere. It's amazing how noisy my life is. It was so refreshing to hear the quiet. To hear nothing but the occasional rustling of grass and the birds. To feel the wind and look up to see the trees and the sky. To be in God's beautiful world. It was so refreshing to be quiet. To be still.