A new day
I sit in my chair typing this, reflecting on the life that has opened itself before me.
A lot of things come to mind. One certainly runs along the lines of never quite totally fitting in wherever I go. In Montana I was more nieve than most. In South Dakota I was either smart as most, or I didn't have the same endurance/dedication as most, depending on your view of smarts. In Hawaii I wasn't worldly enough. Same with my stints into Seattle. I never quite fit. I always found myself sitting in bars or out at parties a little akward. Wishing I could find a girl to chat up that was christian and dedicated to God. Then, by golly, I'd have a topic to go on about.
I was never really blessed with the gift of casual or anecdotal conversation. My friend Andrew took prize there. I thought that once I got to school here at NW, then I'd be home. That's not true either, although it's not a real disapointment. No here at Northwest I'm also a sort of odd man out. For starters I'm 25 and living in the dorms. While I'm not the only one, I am the only one with 3 more years of schooling to go. And although there are countless women available on campus, most are arround 18. Also there's the not being a virgin and having done drugs. There's the extensive experience with drinking... there's the "problem with porn" Dominic so subtly mentioned to Jeff one night.
Yet I'm comforted. Because here it's not about being in, or being that "guy" that everyone associates with. Sure that exists here... but there's a not so subtle difference at this campus... it's not about fitting a mold. Here the recoveres as well as the rightous are celebrated. Here the outcasts are included. Here on campus there's a spirit of love and family alien to any other place I've been (except for the IV group in South Dakota). Here my faults, the things that would alienate me to a group, are used to grow and edify the rest of the body of students.
I'm not running arround telling everyone I'm 25, slept with two women, can drink a lush under the table, and did eccasty enough that the drug no longer has any effect on me, or that Marajuana makes me so paranoid I become dissasociated with reality. That I reserve for my online blog. A friend I look up to, Caleb the ASB president and my room neighbor across the hall described it as "seeking to become like Christ and working to live a life he would have lived." That, instead of walking arround trying to delve out advice which only pushes people away from you.
Here on campus it's much less about showmanship (although there's plenty of room for that) or being an Alpha character and much more about learning to love and edify your brothers and sisters. For example there were people to cheer on the winners of our last scavanger hunt, but there were much more arround to cheer for those that came in out of a winning place. In the dorms people meet and greet one another as total strangers, but there's a great spirit of acceptance... it permiates through like a waft of insence.
Where crass and belittling comments have been par for the course at other schools, here they seem to all but fall away. In classes the teachers pray when they open or close classes (not all do, and not all do both). In chapel the long haul of a semester is recognised. Endurance is encouraged even in difficult times. "Even when you don't think you can go another day because you can't see the end in sight," you are encouraged to pray and seek help. The staff is full of encouragement. Here the professors genuinely want nothing more than for you to succeed. Difficulty is merely a tool used to help you overcome greater obstacles. There's room for you to fall and cracks exist, but there are people all the way down to the bottom that will help you get up, dust off, and carry on.
Excesses of the flesh are discouraged. First from the conservative heads, next from those overseeing the dorms, then the community of peers in the dorms and finally by the whole student body. Drinking is against policy at the school. But not for a mindless reason or a legalistic one. At first glance (my first glance) it seemed to me that such rhetoric was old and stale. But then again I'm an alcoholic. Still, as time went by and not only oppertunities for drinking didn't come, but a very real threat of disaproval from both my brothers and the women on the campus manifest, slowly over the last three weeks the desire to drink began to evaporate. Just for good measure I recently got drunk and much to my suprise just as I found cigarettes distasteful and displeasing after having quit for a few months, so too had the drunk feeling become ... iritating and distasteful.
Not because the feeling was unplesant. But because I found there was so much more reality involved with being sober on campus. Not even in a comical way, like I found I wasn't hitting on unattractive women anymore, or I was more incontroll of myself at night (see mourning all of humanity on various occasions or giving a begger 100 dollars). No, now when I get drunk I see myself throwing away potential. Potential time, potential sociality, potential brain cells. Yes, drinking a lot does make you stupid. Lately I've found there's so much available to me... and getting drunk frequently only means I spend a good deal of it "out of it" or unconcious.
Really I've found people who interact purely, or "real people" are a blessing alcohol doesn't add to. And all those strangers I recall dancing in a club with other strangers, or drunkedly hitting on one another have lost something precious they don't even likely recall loosing.
Here on campus social rejection is reserved for akward romantic blunders. And those are followed up with "he's a great person, I don't mind him... I just don't want him spending all that time arround me" (note: One female friend of mine commenting on a male friend of mine). Even in rejection there's no bitter sting past the initial realization you wouldn't get along in that capacity with another person. Still though, there is room for genuine friendship. Where as my experience in other places has had such rejection followed with bitter comments and scorn in heap fulls.
No here on campus I see, for the first time, a body of life and love. People working together to further themselves and God. People concerned with other people, not just themselves. Interestingly enough, here on this campus despite the social hoops that exist on any campus I have found a resounding peace. Peace because when I do fall down or do lack encouragement it waits only a few doors down where borthers are waiting to pray for me, edify me, and instruct me.
For the first time anywhere I've been there is a community of people who heal one another and collectively use one another to grow stronger opposed to using the corpse of another person to gain stature. It is here on this campus I see the living spirit of God undeniable and permiating nearly every facet of existance. Here, on campus, there is a reflection of a very real heaven. No one is perfect... everyone accepts that first and formost. But no one is letting that fact get in the way either. Interestingly enough here I see people looking at and nurturing the good in everyone opposed to people pointing out the bad everywhere else. In the world, the world points out it's own decay... in a living body working to become more like Christ you just can't deny the river of life that overwhelms all the other blemishes that normally take center stage.
-Kevin
A lot of things come to mind. One certainly runs along the lines of never quite totally fitting in wherever I go. In Montana I was more nieve than most. In South Dakota I was either smart as most, or I didn't have the same endurance/dedication as most, depending on your view of smarts. In Hawaii I wasn't worldly enough. Same with my stints into Seattle. I never quite fit. I always found myself sitting in bars or out at parties a little akward. Wishing I could find a girl to chat up that was christian and dedicated to God. Then, by golly, I'd have a topic to go on about.
I was never really blessed with the gift of casual or anecdotal conversation. My friend Andrew took prize there. I thought that once I got to school here at NW, then I'd be home. That's not true either, although it's not a real disapointment. No here at Northwest I'm also a sort of odd man out. For starters I'm 25 and living in the dorms. While I'm not the only one, I am the only one with 3 more years of schooling to go. And although there are countless women available on campus, most are arround 18. Also there's the not being a virgin and having done drugs. There's the extensive experience with drinking... there's the "problem with porn" Dominic so subtly mentioned to Jeff one night.
Yet I'm comforted. Because here it's not about being in, or being that "guy" that everyone associates with. Sure that exists here... but there's a not so subtle difference at this campus... it's not about fitting a mold. Here the recoveres as well as the rightous are celebrated. Here the outcasts are included. Here on campus there's a spirit of love and family alien to any other place I've been (except for the IV group in South Dakota). Here my faults, the things that would alienate me to a group, are used to grow and edify the rest of the body of students.
I'm not running arround telling everyone I'm 25, slept with two women, can drink a lush under the table, and did eccasty enough that the drug no longer has any effect on me, or that Marajuana makes me so paranoid I become dissasociated with reality. That I reserve for my online blog. A friend I look up to, Caleb the ASB president and my room neighbor across the hall described it as "seeking to become like Christ and working to live a life he would have lived." That, instead of walking arround trying to delve out advice which only pushes people away from you.
Here on campus it's much less about showmanship (although there's plenty of room for that) or being an Alpha character and much more about learning to love and edify your brothers and sisters. For example there were people to cheer on the winners of our last scavanger hunt, but there were much more arround to cheer for those that came in out of a winning place. In the dorms people meet and greet one another as total strangers, but there's a great spirit of acceptance... it permiates through like a waft of insence.
Where crass and belittling comments have been par for the course at other schools, here they seem to all but fall away. In classes the teachers pray when they open or close classes (not all do, and not all do both). In chapel the long haul of a semester is recognised. Endurance is encouraged even in difficult times. "Even when you don't think you can go another day because you can't see the end in sight," you are encouraged to pray and seek help. The staff is full of encouragement. Here the professors genuinely want nothing more than for you to succeed. Difficulty is merely a tool used to help you overcome greater obstacles. There's room for you to fall and cracks exist, but there are people all the way down to the bottom that will help you get up, dust off, and carry on.
Excesses of the flesh are discouraged. First from the conservative heads, next from those overseeing the dorms, then the community of peers in the dorms and finally by the whole student body. Drinking is against policy at the school. But not for a mindless reason or a legalistic one. At first glance (my first glance) it seemed to me that such rhetoric was old and stale. But then again I'm an alcoholic. Still, as time went by and not only oppertunities for drinking didn't come, but a very real threat of disaproval from both my brothers and the women on the campus manifest, slowly over the last three weeks the desire to drink began to evaporate. Just for good measure I recently got drunk and much to my suprise just as I found cigarettes distasteful and displeasing after having quit for a few months, so too had the drunk feeling become ... iritating and distasteful.
Not because the feeling was unplesant. But because I found there was so much more reality involved with being sober on campus. Not even in a comical way, like I found I wasn't hitting on unattractive women anymore, or I was more incontroll of myself at night (see mourning all of humanity on various occasions or giving a begger 100 dollars). No, now when I get drunk I see myself throwing away potential. Potential time, potential sociality, potential brain cells. Yes, drinking a lot does make you stupid. Lately I've found there's so much available to me... and getting drunk frequently only means I spend a good deal of it "out of it" or unconcious.
Really I've found people who interact purely, or "real people" are a blessing alcohol doesn't add to. And all those strangers I recall dancing in a club with other strangers, or drunkedly hitting on one another have lost something precious they don't even likely recall loosing.
Here on campus social rejection is reserved for akward romantic blunders. And those are followed up with "he's a great person, I don't mind him... I just don't want him spending all that time arround me" (note: One female friend of mine commenting on a male friend of mine). Even in rejection there's no bitter sting past the initial realization you wouldn't get along in that capacity with another person. Still though, there is room for genuine friendship. Where as my experience in other places has had such rejection followed with bitter comments and scorn in heap fulls.
No here on campus I see, for the first time, a body of life and love. People working together to further themselves and God. People concerned with other people, not just themselves. Interestingly enough, here on this campus despite the social hoops that exist on any campus I have found a resounding peace. Peace because when I do fall down or do lack encouragement it waits only a few doors down where borthers are waiting to pray for me, edify me, and instruct me.
For the first time anywhere I've been there is a community of people who heal one another and collectively use one another to grow stronger opposed to using the corpse of another person to gain stature. It is here on this campus I see the living spirit of God undeniable and permiating nearly every facet of existance. Here, on campus, there is a reflection of a very real heaven. No one is perfect... everyone accepts that first and formost. But no one is letting that fact get in the way either. Interestingly enough here I see people looking at and nurturing the good in everyone opposed to people pointing out the bad everywhere else. In the world, the world points out it's own decay... in a living body working to become more like Christ you just can't deny the river of life that overwhelms all the other blemishes that normally take center stage.
-Kevin