So after months of reading my friend Lindsey's blog here, I saw just how much I wanted to blog... even if no one ever reads it.
This week has been one of the strangest, most stressful, but most spiritually fulfilling weeks I've had in a long time. There hasn't been any real big event or life change to cause this to happen -- its one of those things that just happens on its own, and I am happier for it.
For those who don't know me, I'll fill you in on a few things... I'm from Seattle, I'm a college student in in NCali, and this week was the first week back at school after an unnerving vacation to Washington over winter break. I say unnerving probably because it wasn't anything like I thought it would be, and probably less than what I had hoped. This is the beginning of my second semester here at school, and I realized in going back home last month, that here at school has become more 'home' than Seattle is; I can't explain how both relieving and heartbreaking that realization has been.
Onto my week... I flew home Monday. I sat in the airport alone, then I sat on the plane alone (there were at least 3 empty aisles between each passenger on the plane) and then I got picked up by a friend from school that I'm not so close to, and so that felt like a long car ride home alone.
Tuesday through Friday is where things sped up, and became a messy blur of events... classes started, throwing away money on books took up a grievious afternoon, I began reading incessantly for my classes because thats what you do to not fail here at Simpson -- you read until you go blind. I've always liked reading, but I think I've read more this week than all of last semester.
The two most pivitol moments of my life this week were a fight and a class session. The class session was the latest in my Spiritual Formation class, on Friday. From what I gather, the idea of this class is to teach you how to consistently keep your own spiritual formation alive (or for some of us, get it started again), with spiritual disciplines. Yes, we all need a class in this I think, me most of all. It's not taught as if to condemn us, but rather remind every student of God's grace, and the humanity that's involved with being a Christian -- ya know, all those things that we deny we need to deal with, because we're too holy. It's a good class... the only class I want to really take right now.
The fight was with Richard. Many of you who think you know me best have yet to even know who he is... and that's fine. I will say that he is a good friend of mine, and this fight was definitely effecting me throughout the week. It was in fact a mini-series of arguments, seemingly over the same thing, but onspurred by little different situations. However, all of this is not really why it was important to my week.. fights happen, and people get over them, but the pivitol point was that I realized something about myself.
I'm a very unforgiving person.
What happened, is that after one particular argument, I saw a scary pattern -- he was trying to make ammends, and I was shoving his apology in his face, to make him feel worse. It was a devastating awakening for me. As I looked back on my track record with other friends, I saw the same thing happening. I called my friend Annetta and asked her to confirm my fear, and she said 'basically yeah... I've wanted to strangle you at times, and so have other people, but we all love you now...'
So that brought me to the weekend, where in between book-reading for classes and dorm dramas (uggh...), I've been contemplating the issues of grace and forgiveness. I don't have too much to say on those two, other than 'The Ragamuffin Gospel' is the best book about grace I've ever read... and it is no coincidence that its required reading for my Spiritual Formation class.
Next time it won't be that long... for all of you who made it, kudos.. I know how hard it is to read something so long about someone else that has nothing to do with you -- you're a trooper. | 
