"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty"--John Keats

Too much happens too fast here! Some new pictures are up on facebook of my visit to New College and to Hampton Court Palace. Brief descriptions of those times are below.

New College, Oxford
Rachel (one of my residents from last year) and I visited New College last week. Most of the colleges are fairly private, and New College is especially so. Each college has a porter who lives in an apartment near the gate and directs visitors. We told him we were going to be studying there for Michaelmas term, and he said, "Let me guess, you want to have a look around the place?" Yes, we did. And it was absolutely amazing. It looks like a castle. The grounds have flowers and trees everywhere, and there is an enormous lawn around a mound with steps like an Aztec temple. The mound is off limits to everyone except students, and shrouded in trees. Rumor is that we sacrifice students from the other colleges up there. They also say that if you stand on it and clap, it “claps” back. We couldn’t go in the chapel or the JCR (Junior Common Room), but we’ll see all of that when term starts in October. The cloisters are lovely and very quiet, and there are funny little gargoyles around the tops of the buildings. The New College gargoyles are featured on many, many postcards in Oxford.

Hampton Court Palace
Outside of London, this palace was built by King Henry VII, I believe, and was the home of several Tudor monarchs. Later, King William and Queen Mary renovated two-thirds of it. Finally, King George renovated the back section. It’s been remarkably well-preserved, and the gardens are extensive.
The fountain courtyard and the Chapel Royal (which, unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to photograph) were my favorite parts. I sat in the chapel for about 20 minutes. I lit a candle and prayed, and then sat and stared at the place. They had angelic music playing in the background; the ceiling was painted royal blue with little gold stars, and all of the molding was golden, with cherubs everywhere. The red carpet and wood paneling of the walls were beautiful, but everything made you want to look up. I can’t imagine going to church every week in a place that beautiful!


That's a bit of what I've been up to, but I'll post about my weekend in Whitehaven (and put those pictures up on Facebook) soon!

"I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful"--William Butler Yeats

I'm in my flat eating honey, plain Greek yogurt, and raspberries. I feel like you can't understand the biblical honey imagery unless you've had honey and plain Greek yogurt. I want to live in a land flowing with milk and honey; what is sweeter than honey on your lips?

But now about Oxford, haha. I just got back from the Ashmolean Museum. Really gorgeous exhibits. I took pictures of jewelry across many centuries. I also stood face to face with a bust of Nero, gaped up at an enormous statue of my favorite goddess, Athena, and stood with my nose six inches from an Assyrian relief.

Last night, we went to the Turf Tavern. It's through a winding alleyway under Oxford's Bridge of Sighs (Hertford College). The wall in the back courtyard is from the 13th Century. Amazing!

One of our lectures yesterday was on Children's Lit authors circa WWI: Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Graham, A.A. Milne, J.M. Barrie, Rudyard Kipling, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Many of these authors had ties to Oxford that are evident in their writing. Carroll's Alice, for example, searches for little doors leading into wondrous gardens. Oxford is full of these. Many of the doors are just as tall as me, and lead into the gorgeous, lush grounds of the colleges. It's easy to feel like Alice, for many of them are locked, as if the city is keeping you out of Wonderland. Once you get in, it's not quite as pleasant as it seemed, for someone may well shout at you for a confusing reason. I haven't had that experience yet, but some of the other students here have been shouted at or laughed at on a bus or in a store. It can be a little harrowing walking around here, because you forget you're in a foreign country and all of a sudden you've offended someone by saying "cents" instead of "pence."

Though prices are expensive here, there's a market in Gloucester Green every Wednesday that is very affordable, if you can stand to walk a few miles with your arms full of groceries. They had HUGH bowls of apples, oranges, and bananas for £1 each. I was shopping for a flatmate and myself, so I carried 2 bunches of bananas, 7 nectarines, 6 oranges, 6 apples, 4 peppers, and 1 HUGE butternut squash (only 80p!!), around town all afternoon.

My first night here, I took a shower, but since then I've only taken baths. Many British homes still don't have showers. And, if you take longer than a 15 minute shower, you've used more water than it takes to fill the tub. I brought Maud Hart Lovelace's novel, Betsy and the Great World, with me. It's near the end of the Betsy/Tacy series, and tells of Betsy's trip to Europe as a 21-year-old in 1914. It's also impossible to read without wanting to take a bath. Have you ever taken a shower in the morning? Or when getting ready to go out in the evening? It is fabulous! Especially when you're living in a narrow, four-story flat in Oxford, Oxfordshire. Plus, next to drinking a steaming cup of tea, it's the easiest way to warm up while feeling British.

Our first travel break is coming up, September 23rd-October 2nd. If all goes as planned, I'll be in Italy for the second part of it with APU girls Heidi and Hannah. We might go to Italy for the whole time, but I'm also considering Paris for the first couple of days. I have another travel break from December 5th-13th, and I just received news that I may have a place to stay in Switzerland (cross your fingers!). It's amazing how random friendships from my past are popping up. God's definitely taking care of me. A girl I went to AWANA Camp with in 10th grade and have kept up with on facebook is in Florence for the semester, so we'll be seeing each other when I'm in Italy. If any of you have suggestions for things to see/do in Venice, Florence, Rome, or Verona, feel free to comment!

Before I go to the Continent, however, I'll have at least three amazing adventures here in England.
First, next Wednesday, we'll be taking a field trip to Hampton Court Palace (home of the Tudors). This will be my first castle visit!
Second, Saturday I'm going on a trip to the Kilns (C.S. Lewis' house!). Our tourguide is a G.K. Chesterton expert, and we're going to go visit a pub GKC used to frequent.
Third, next Thursday I'll be taking a train to Whitehaven, Cumbria, in the Lake District. My mum, as some of you know, went to Capernwray Bible School (Carnforth) when she was 20, and did a homestay with the Bowmans (Harry, Jennifer--for whom I'm named--and their sons Warren and Elton). They've visited us in the States a couple of times, and I'm going to stay with them Thurs-Sun. I spoke with Jennifer on the phone a few nights ago, and she listed some of the extensive itinerary they're planning for me, including a trip to see Beatrix Potter's house!

I really can't describe how grateful I am to live here for this term. There's so much to see--so much history--that it's overwhelming sometimes. Today, in the Ashmolean, I was looking at art from hundreds and thousands of years ago. I've been listening to lectures from absolutely brilliant scholars. I'm going to be in college with future authors and politicians, come October. It's a heavy and beautiful opportunity, and I'm still in shock that it's happening.



P.S. For pictures of some of the things I've described in this and previous posts, look at my Oxford (Beginnings) album on Facebook.

Exploring

Yesterday was orientation, and we received all kinds of information on where to shop and eat, how the term will go, and who/what our resources are. As an APU student, I'm studying through something called OPUS (Oxford Programme for Undergraduate Studies). The way this program works in the Fall is that for the month of September we go through a lecture series, with about 7-8 lectures each week from various Oxford faculty. During this time we write some papers, go on some field trips, and become acclimated to Oxford. The first week of October, we begin Michaelmas term (Fall Quarter, essentially). That's when the rest of the Oxford students arrive, along with the very hard work of tutorials. For those of you who don't know, Oxford, while it has some seminar classes, uses the tutorial system, where students meet one-on-one each week with their tutor (professor) to discuss the paper they have written for that week.

Last night, I could not sleep at all. By 1am, I got up and washed a bunch of dishes, read a magazine, and watched the first half of Breakfast at Tiffany's. I finally went to sleep around 3:30am. My alarm went off at 9, but I turned it off and went back to sleep.
Next thing I know, I'm waking up and looking at a clock that says 3:35. Yes, it was 3:35 in the afternoon (I confirmed with one of my roommates). And the APU students were meeting at the train station at 4pm for a bus tour. I threw on jeans and a t-shirt and ran out the door. Thankfully, Oxford has an excellent bus system, and even directionally-challenged American Jennifer can navigate it. Paying is another thing, however, since I can't decipher the coins without reading them yet. I got on a bus to the station, spent about five minutes digging the correct change out of my wallet, and made it just in time. The tour was fabulous. We got a map of the city, and our tickets are good for 24 hours. It's a hop on/hop off tour, so tomorrow I'm going to get on again and do some exploring. I cannot believe how beautiful the colleges are here. From the outside, the architecture is gorgeous, but that's nothing compared to the vast gardens and lawns inside. They say the easiest way to recognize a tourist is by hearing them say, "Where's Oxford campus; I want to see the university campus." There's no such thing. Oxford is made up of 38 separate colleges. They all share the University administration which examines students, confers degrees, and keeps the Bodleian Library up and running. The Colleges, however, admit the students and teach the classes. They're each beautiful and unique, and I can't wait to walk through a few tomorrow.

After the tour, we went to a pizza place and then to our APU Faculty Advisor's flat for dessert. It was really lovely. To get there, we walked along the canal that connects to the Thames, and past Port Meadow. Port Meadow is an enormous expanse of grass where the law permits any Englishman to graze their cattle and horses. It has a path through it where people run or bicycle.

It's becoming very difficult to keep an American accent. The more I'm around the British the easier it is to slip into it without thinking. We'll see if I sound different when I come home.

Signing off now; hopefully I'll sleep tonight!

Departures and Arrivals

I'm in my flat in Oxford, after 24 hours of traveling. Packing was a nightmare, but I finished and got out of the door somewhat in one piece.

Travel went without a hitch. In fact, it's very apparent that God is watching out for me. The worker at Seatac who checked me in didn't weigh my checked bag because he said it "felt right around the weight limit." I found out during my layover in Calgary that it weighed 64 lbs (that's 14 overweight). The lady in Calgary said she couldn't charge me because they should have done it in Seattle. But, she weighed my carry-on (who's ever done that before?), and it was overweight, so I had to shuffle things around a little. All in all, if they charged me for both bags as overweight, I would've had to pay $170.

Traveling alone wasn't lonely at all, as it turned out. In line to check in at Seatac, the woman in front of me asked me where I was going. 5 minutes later, she and her husband (who were going on a Rick Steeves tour of Europe) declared me their adopted daughter for the trip. We waited for our flight together. In Calgary, I hung out with a recent UW graduate who was meeting a friend in London to travel before she starts grad school in 3 weeks. We talked about travel, the Philippines, and school during the 7 hour layover.

I got out of the airport and managed to find the bus to Oxford. I fell asleep on the bus, and woke up incredibly confused. Oh yeah, I'm in England. That's when the jetlag was hitting me. But I forced myself to stay up, and my goal is to stay up at least 5 more hours.

The appliances in my flat are pretty new; the kitchen's gorgeous, and there's lots of natural light in the rooms. There are 8 or 9 of us in this house, and I got to pick between 3 rooms. I'm on the bottom floor, and my room has its own sink. I'm just probably going to need earplugs, because sound carries here, and we're right on the street.

Time to go unpack!

Cielo

My recent lack of posting has not been due to a lack of color in my life, but rather a lack of energy to describe it eloquently.
The first snow of the year, however, is magical (just ask Lorelai Gilmore). I woke up this morning to flakes the size of quarters floating down outside my window. I've found that coming home is hopelessly interlaced with deja vu--the way the air feels in my bedroom, the boys yelling at the football game in front of a fire in the fireplace, piling onto my parents' bed to harass mom and argue with James (quoting Toy Story and talking over each other).

The world feels smaller when it snows. I used to think that was because the area turned into a real neighborhood with the snow. Families tromp down coated streets to sled the good hills, then tumble into each others' houses for hot chocolate. Today, however, the closeness, the shrinking world, was a product of nature herself, not society. The clouds are like a layer of cotton balls hovering over the earth, dropping snow to build up layers on the ground.


Heavy Snowstorm Sky

My story of beauty and color, all snow aside, came bright and early yesterday. I was sitting on a plane at Ontario Airport at 6:00am, waiting to taxi out. I had just read the part of J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey where Zooey is talking with Franny in the living room, and looks out the window to see a little girl playing hide-and-go-seek with her dog (one of the most precious descriptions in literature!). He concludes that there are "really nice things in the world," but that we get too sidetracked to appreciate them. He then quotes something Buddy once said about beauty:
He said that a man should be able to lie at the bottom of a hill with his throat cut, slowly bleeding to death, and if a pretty girl or an old woman should pass by with a beautiful jug balanced perfectly on top of her head, he should be able to raise himself up on one arm and see the jug safely over the top of the hill.
Then, Zooey describes the religious philosophies of several of his older siblings, including Walt's, which is that it's God's punishment for "people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world."

After reading this, and the page or so that followed, I looked out the plane window. Tired and feeling a little sick from getting up at 4am to get to the airport isn't quite the same as lying with my throat cut, bleeding to death, but outside the window was my pretty girl with a beautiful jug balanced perfectly. The ashen pavement shone with water, and rain was coating the gray stairs and loading tunnels, while a blue-white sky, furry and overcast, hovered overhead. The lights splattered on the ground in shiny stripes. The rising sun bathed the scene in a glowing blue cast. This dawn periwinkle contrasted with the few orange cones dawdling in the foreground in a manner evocative of Monet's painting of dawn in the harbor.


"Impression Sunrise," Claude Monet, 1873

A few minutes later, I looked out again, and the scene had descended to a grayness far less arresting. But for a little while, even a patch of gray and white, metal and white, metal and plastic, orange and cement, completely manmade corner transcended to an esoteric realm of ethereal blue light and rain-blurred neon orange triangles. And I saw it do so. I with my hard, ugly little soul was blessed with beauty for a moment before a 6:30am flight.

I'm Gonna Drive Under Skyline and Sunshine

I keep starting to write this entry, and then not finishing. I've already abandoned two different topics in the process.
Also, according to my Lit Crit professor, women tend to write more stream-of-consciousness than men do.


There are two roads that I always love to drive.

The First Road
Last weekend I went back to Seattle. On Saturday, we drove up to my nana's house, north of downtown, so we went across the viaduct. I drove that way Monday through Friday this summer. Driving North, you can look left and see across Puget Sound. The water shines silver if it's a gray day. Green and white ferries are sitting on the sea, headed to or from green islands partially hidden by fog. On the shore, there are the shipping yards. Orange cranes stand guard like metal dinosaurs over while red and blue crates that look like train cars. If you look to your right, you see Lady Starbucks peeking over the top edges of her tower.

Pardon my tangent...
Straight ahead is the city. Somewhere on the ground between those skyscrapers are sidewalks at steep inclines and store windows displaying long gowns or lingerie or handbags. There's a place somewhere--maybe by Pioneer Square--where Jordan and I went to look at art galleries one hot afternoon. The brick buildings looked like they were straight out of the opening of The Sting, and there were trees all along the streets. On those hot days where the sun shines from sky bluer than a crayon, the breeze comes off the ocean and you can smell the water. That salt/seaweed/sand-dollar/seafoam scent is something you can smell as you walk up the steps from our driveway when the tide is at a certain stage.

...and back to the road
If you're driving on the viaduct at sunset, the sky is all lavender and peach, pale tangerine and aqua blue. The water sparkles, and puddles of orange and yellow slide away from the low sun. The sun at sunset, edges so perfectly smooth, reminds me of a necklace my nana wore often when I was younger. The necklace had a single gold pendant in that same perfect circle as the sun, hanging from a gold chain.

The Second Road
This is turning into a 9th-grade creative writing assignment, so I'll move on. The other road I love to drive (and my dad can attest to this, because whenever we drive home from the airport, I turn left at 148th and 1st ave instead of getting on the Burien Freeway all the way to 160th) is 152nd through Old Burien. This is one you have to do at night. Does it remind me of Downtown Disney at night? Or is it the other way around? There are lights on every store and couples walking out from restaurants. It beautiful, and I've been there hundreds of times.

Here's where my mind goes from the idea of memorable roads to the idea of sacred space...
On Tuesday night in my Lit class on 20th Cen. novels dealing with the concept of belief, we talked about spiritual space. At one time, worship required a sacred space--that was very important to people. Now, however, there has been a shift toward a more freeform spirituality. People can have "spiritual experiences" anywhere. As one girl read in class, "For some people, looking at the moon can be a spiritual experience." Not gonna lie, I often pray when I'm looking at the night sky. I think the moon is the most beautiful think I've ever seen in nature; even though it varies in appearance, it's the same everywhere.

...and from the night sky to the weather...
Last night looked like a movie set on campus. The clouds were golden, and painted on in swirls. This morning felt like a scene in the movie. Walking onto West Campus, a thundercloud followed us, rumbling. The bell from the tower on West tolled through the heavy, hot air. This ominous setting culminated in a torrential downpour of warm rain. Raindrops as big as your fingertips made rivers in the parking lots so your flip-flops flicked splashes all the way up your legs. No chill from that rainstorm, as it transformed into 85 degrees and sunny within 30 minutes.

I Love the Java Jive and it Loves Me

Quick entry tonight, and on a much lighter subject than last night.
Let's talk about coffee.

Growing up, my Nana would often take us out to breakfast at a restaurant called Huckleberry Square in Burien. She would always get a cup of coffee, and she would drink it black. I remember her telling me how everywhere she went, waiters and waitresses would always ask if she'd like milk and sugar. She'd always refuse, but they would always bring it anyway. As associated with my Nana, a cup of black coffee seemed as classic as a little black dress. It's what Holly Golightly drinks with her danish as she walks down the sidewalk in the opening of Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Another habitual experience with coffee growing up was with my dad. He'd take us to coffee most Saturday mornings. Whichever kids were up early enough could come with him, and get a donut and a cup of hot chocolate or steamed milk with vanilla. Or maybe we had to choose, donut or drink. I can't remember. My dad's famous rule was, "Don't come, don't get," meaning he wouldn't bring us back something if we chose to sleep; but if we came, he would give generously. There were actually many times when he would bring home donuts anyway for the kids who chose to sleep, but we knew not to expect it. All this to say, my dad's drink of choice was always, "Vente americano, no room, light ice." I remember tasting it on several different occasions, each time saying something like, "Gross, how can you drink that?"

At some point in high school, James decided he was going to start drinking coffee black. He literally made himself like it. James could always do things like that. He'd just decide, and then actually do it. I was a dreamer and an idealist, but I rarely exercised my will like that. Anyway, he decided to drink coffee black because it was an awesome thing to be able to do. Black coffee seemed so much more impressive than coffee with milk and sugar.

Ironically, I also accomplished James' plan. I think James succeeded too, though I can't remember when. I started drinking coffee with milk and sugar on occasion when I was 12 or 13; it was delicious. Then, Starbucks became a huge craze, and I switched to frappuccinos and caramel macchiatos. Then, at some point--I can't remember exactly--perhaps Junior year when I commuted to HCC and had no money, I switched to americanos. Ever since, I've been a devoted fan of cafe sin leche ni azucar.

While I may not be as much of a coffee addict as Lorelai Gilmore (we must keep striving after something, after all), I adore the drink. The smell was something I loved long before I could stand the taste. I used to open the burgundy canister that held our coffee grounds and smell it, sometimes scooping some of the contents into the coffee pot for one of my parents with the little wooden spoon that hung on the side of the canister. That smell is thousands of years old, and if you close your eyes you can feel ancient Arabia or Machu Picchu in the steaming, rich aroma. Coffee is another name for Tchaikovsky's Arabian Variation from "The Nutcracker Suite" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua6aCFJqhQs).

Those are all the random stories related to coffee that I can recall at the moment. How it relates to living in the moment and finding color in life? I love that it's something you can experience with multiple senses. You smell the aroma, even from across the room; you see the deep brown color; you feel the heat of the steam on your face, and the smooth liquid on your lips and tongue and even down your throat; you taste the bitterness--not too harsh. It's a four-sense experience in a world where we use one sense at a time. They say one of the best ways to retain information you learn is to study it with as many of your senses as possible.

Christian application? I'm going to have to rely on my dear friend Gilbert Keith here, and say the way I drink coffee is an expression of wonder. What is wonder? I'm going to quote Professor Bruner here, and say that Wonder is one of the four elements of joy. It is manifested in curiosity and deference, and is a disposition of the body. It directly opposes boredom, distraction, and autonomy. To live in a state of wonder is to notice the amazing occurrences that surround us--to make too much of them, even. It reminds us we are not dead (for more on this, muddle through G.K. Chesterton's Manalive). Too often, we do not even realize we need that reminder.

So here's to coffee, one of those simple pleasures that allows us to take a deep breath and escape into a few moments of comfort. Tonight, it rescued me from drowning in Marxist Literary Theory.

Stream of Consciousness Thoughts on Death

A few years ago, James (my older brother) and I were up late in the back room of our house, talking about philosophy and life and ourselves (a common occurrence over our high school years). I remember describing myself as a "passionate person," in the sense that I want to fully experience whatever I am feeling in the moment. We talked about the pros and cons of that, and decided that intensified negative emotions like sadness, or anger, or jealousy are outweighed, overall, by immense joy. Yes, we were crazy kids who enjoyed dissecting our psyches too much.

This story came to mind because the idea of living in the moment seems almost beyond reach right now. In the second Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book, Lena describes feeling too stretched out. In various books, characters have the feeling of watching themselves from afar as they do things. When I feel detached from reality like this, it's akin to the color seeping out from the scenes of my life and leaving them in grayscale. I'm walking on a stone street by a river in a city I don't know, stuck in black and white; I sit on a bench, and the rain falls all around me, but I don't feel it. Maybe I'm the indifferent heroine of The Postal Service's song, "Clark Gable."

This entry is disconnected and wandering because that's how I feel. I've already missed my family much more this year than I did last year. I miss Seattle too, that feeling of autumn with the smoky air and the misty rain. I have a boyfriend who'll remain 3,000 miles away from me until Thanksgiving. And tonight my mom called to tell me that my Grandpa probably won't make it through the night. He's been deteriorating for a while, and we thought he was close to death earlier this summer.

Death is an odd phenomenon. The ultimate gray, if you will (Tolkien's "Gray havens"), death seems a place of mossy, quiet decomposition. Even in the Bible, the Hebrew 'sheol' evokes images of a shadowy underworld. Rocky Votolato wrote, "I'm going down to sleep on the bottom of the ocean...there's a secret place that I know, and if I could I'd dig a grave and then climb underground for good" ("White Daisy Passing"). This summer, I read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Before that, I'd never read anything explicitly about death.

Dr. Glyer said (and I believe she was paraphrasing Lewis) that death is one of the strongest clues we have to the fact that we are eternal beings. It's so unnatural. When someone gets ripped out of our lives like a picture from a magazine, how can we read the page? The edge is jagged--raw--and the torn remnants of the page are left to be creased and crumpled as the rest of the magazine goes on living, unscathed.

As Shauna Niequist reminded the student body of APU at chapel on Friday, God brings life out of death. We often want to forget about the death part and skip to life. But before He resurrects us, we have to die.
The last week was one of death for me; death of idolatry, death of self-pity, death of absorption in my struggles. Missing someone, dead or alive, is a feeling that makes each of those things--idolatry, self-pity, absorption in my struggles--far too easy. It interferes with how I live in the moment, for the thought of what or who I'm missing invades my studies, my work, my eating, my waking.

Here, I'm throwing out more lyrics, because this song came to mind. It's one of the few songs that hit me the first time I heard it. Jon Foreman wrote this:
"And I said, 'Please,
Don't talk about the end
Don't talk about how every living thing goes away'
And she said, 'Friend,
All along, thought I was learning how to take
How to bend, not how to break
How to laugh, not how to cry
But really
I've been learning how to die'"

If I were to choose one biblical connection that's floating around in my head right now, it would be from Hebrews 11.
Verses 13-16,
"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them."
Then, verses 38-40,
"The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect."

We can grasp bits and pieces of this death-to-life concept while we're here on earth, but we cannot grasp what we hope for--Whom we place our hope in. We will die hoping. We will long for a better country. We will wander. Perhaps this is why we miss people; perhaps God wired us with those emotions to remind us to long for something, someone.

But one day, we will be made perfect. The author of Hebrews gives the children of faith the eulogy that every human on this earth wants: "The world was not worthy of them." We want to be made for something more. We want to exceed our surroundings.

When I don't know how to feel alive--when the color is gone, because it sometimes is--I declare my life anyway. Job said, "Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him" (13:15). I am a daughter of the Living God, raised with Christ, and so I rejoice in Revelation 21-22, and maybe sing something like what The Afters wrote,
"My heart is in You
Where You go
You carry me
I bleed if You bleed
Your heart beats
Inside of me
You're keeping me alive...
You're like the morning air
Before the light arrives
No more lonely and
No more night
No more secrets to hide"


"I will extol the LORD at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt His name together."--Psalm 34:1-3

The Experiment

Last year, I began this blog as a way to keep friends and family updated on my life as a student. Unfortunately, I was a hopelessly negligent blogger. I wrote more facebook notes than blog entries. Most of those consisted of quotes from literature I was reading at the time. This year, inspired by one of my roommates (Kate, whose blogging expertise far exceeds my own), I'm going to attempt to resurrect this blog. However, I would like to have a focus in my posts. For the next few weeks, I'll try out one or more options for the focus of this blog. If the first one works, I'll keep it. If not, I'll try another.

Thus, for the immediate future, I will be attempting to find and describe the color in my life. I use the term color as a concrete concept, but also as an abstract one. I will write about ways I have encountered color in what I read, see, hear, and experience. However, I will also include ways my life has become more colorful in the sense that it has become more full. There are several reasons I'm doing this. First, I am a student. As such, my education should be a process that leaves me more enriched--better able to live a fuller life. Second, I am a student of literature. The only reason to study literature is to gain a broader knowledge of the human experience, and thus to live a fuller life. Third, I am a student of Christ. Learning to imitate Christ brings the freedom to live a life full of color, rather than the gray life of enslavement to sin. Paul said that we learn to walk in righteousness so that we can "take hold of the life that is truly life" (1 Timothy 6).

The Dead Poets' Society read poetry in an attempt "suck the marrow out of life." Patients of Freud and Lacan embraced new theories in an attempt to break out of their psychological imprisonments. Jesus' disciples followed Him because they saw that He had the words of eternal life (John 6:68). The people in these three cases were searching for that "life that is truly life," that life full of color. The reason I think noticing moments of color, literal or figurative, is so important in our lives is that I believe these moments give us a glimpse of the world we were made for. The imagery of heaven in the book of Revelation is one filled with hard, shining color. Much of it seems harsh and glaring when I read it; it's for creatures more powerful than I with my unresurrected body (yes, I'm recalling Lewis in "Weight of Glory" and "Great Divorce" here). Learning to pay attention to the moments when that world of terrible beauty breaks through ("the kingdom of God is forcefully advancing") can make an enormous difference in our lives. Living in a state of wonder at these moments reminds us of God's presence, of what we were created for, and it brings us great joy. Truth be told, that's the real (selfish) reason I'm focusing on this in my blog. I need to be reminded to pay attention, to look for color, and to live in wonder.


It's late on a Saturday night (or early on a Sunday morning), so I'll just give one example before I get some sleep.
Boys Like Girls' newest album, "Love Drunk" has a song called "Real Thing," and the chorus goes like this:


"'Cause this is the real thing
When love changes everything
This is the night when every heart's exploding
The real thing
Slow down, it's happening
'Cause you got time to burn in the heat of the moment
That summer radio
Fireworks off the patio
A 3am string of green lights in a row
And the real thing
Love can change anything
If you can just let go"

First off, I have to say that the "string of green lights" reminded me of "The Great Gatsby," (sorry, sorry, I couldn't help it!). But the real reason for me posting those lyrics is that they demonstrate that we all recognize the feeling of the "real thing." Yes, this band's talking about a crush, but a crush can be a kind of color in our lives. This is "just" a punk/pop song written by some twentysomething boys, but it might as well be Byron's "She walks in beauty like the night" when it comes to describing human experience. It feels like summer radio, driving with that song turned up loud, singing with your friends on the freeway. It's like fireworks, making you jittery, exploding in light and sound, giving you a rush like when you light them off your patio.
The initial crush is an obsession with a person as a whole (yes, this is Lewis on Eros in "The Four Loves"). Every little thing about them seems perfect. It's infatuating; it reminds you have great life can be. It can actually be a quick snippet of unconditional love; for a short time, the beloved can do no wrong--we feel he or she was "made for me." Like all glimpses of color in this world, this life, it comes to an end. It may come and go, or it may disappear forever. For a brief time, however, it brightens our sight with crackling fireworks of color.

P.S. Sorry for writing about something as shallow as lyrics and crushes, but it's Saturday night; what's on your mind?

Part Two: Questions Fade, You Remain

"Questions" from Frederick Buechner's Wishful Thinking

On her deathbed, Gertrude Stein is said to have asked, "What is the answer?" Then, after a long silence, "What is the question?" Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start by listening to the questions it asks.

We are much involved, all of us, with questions about things that matter a good deal today but will be forgotten by this time tomorrow--the immediate wheres and whens and hows that face us daily at home and at work--but at the same time we tend to lose track of the questions about things that matter always, life-and-death questions about meaning, purpose, and value. To lose track of such deep questions as these is to risk losing track of who we really are in our own depths and where we are really going. There is perhaps no stronger reason for reading the Bible than that somewhere among all those India-paper pages there awaits each man and woman, whoever they are, the one question which (though for years they may have been pretending not to hear it) is the central question of his or her own life.

Here are a few of them:
-What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? (Matthew 16:26)
-Am I my brother's keeper? (Genesis 4:9)
-If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)
-What is truth (John 18:38)
-How can a man be born when he is old? (John 3:4)
-What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:3)
-Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? (Psalm 139:7)
-Who is my neighbor? (Luke 10:29)
-What shall I do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 10:25)

When you hear the question that is your question, then you have already begun to hear much. Whether you can accept the Bible's answer or not, you have reached the point where at least you can begin to hear it too.


So I guess this is part two, my note on personal/spiritual life. The theme of questions has been with me from one of the first weeks I was at APU. I was homesick and incredibly uncertain of what was going on in me here. I called a friend, and they told me that I should journal, even if it was just to write out the questions running through my head. They said once I could figure out the questions, I could begin finding the answers, and even to discover that some of the answers are not important.

In the wake of our third prospective student weekend, I am so refreshed and encouraged. I've been reminded of the incredible journey God brought me through to get here. I've seen how different I was a year ago, how much the people and the Spirit here have changed me.

I've found my questions in this place, questions like these:
What does it mean to be human?
How can we be humans like Christ was, the humans we were created to be?
What is it in the people we encounter that brings God great joy--the gift in them the He loves enough to die for?
How can we help bring forth those gifts that God loves?

I hope you find yours.

P.S. Since I'm slightly obsessed with Philippians lately, here are some of my favorite verses from it. And that just made me think of Carina, who is amazing and memorized the whole book! I miss you, and you should know how much you encourage me :)

"I thank God every time I remember you...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus...And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God."--Philippians 1:3, 6, 9-11

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus."--Philippians 2:1-5

"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained."--Philippians 3:10-16

"Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you...and my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus."--Philippians 4:9,19

Part One: Knowledge is Power

There's something about new years and birthdays that makes me want to write. Obvously, there's been a journal involved, but I'm a product of the facebook generation who, for better or worse, feel the need to broadcast ourselves to the rest of cyberspace. Have you ever noticed that your facebook page is essentially an advertisement page with yourself as the commodity? Kind of bizarre, but c'est la vie.

The first week of my second and penultimate semester at Azusa has ended. All the talk I heard last semester about the horrors of multitasking is ringing eerily true, much to my dismay. Once I get into class-mode, there's rehearsal, and once I switch into a rehearsal mindset, it's the weekend, i.e. time for friends. Thus, three Jennifers are attempting to compile themselves into one volume (why yes, I am taking three literature classes this semester! However did you guess?).

Because it's morning, I'm not sufficiently awake to write creatively about my theater life or philosophically about my personal/spiritual life. Thus, I'll simply write explanatorily about my scholastic life. I've obligated myself to cover the other two categories in the future, however, by labeling this "Part One."

For those of you dying to know about the life and times of a Literature major, here's what I'm taking this semester:

1. Principles of Language--The "hard" class. This is linguistics, or the study of sound and speech. Linguists study language to discern what's going on in the mind (as opposed to psychologists, who study of behavior to do the same). It's considered difficult because almost everyone comes into the class with zero background. The first half of the semester is on theoretical linguistics, or understanding the mores of language and characteristics of sounds, syllables, morphemes, words, and sentences. Second half is on applied linguistics, which covers grammar and language acquisition theory. If this all seems a bit nebulous, you're not alone. I swear I've never seen half the words in the reading for last week.

2. English Literature since 1789--The "easy" class. It's a true literature survey course, which means we'll read a tiny bit by dozens of significant authors from the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods of British literature. The 1789 is the French Revolution. The prof's specialty is Victorian Lit, which should be interesting, but it will be frustrating to use the teaspoon method (reading snippets of "everything" important, rather than studying anything in-depth). We do, however, get to present a scene either from Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," or Beckett's "Endgame."

3. World Literature to the Renaissance--The "honors" class. This is 4,000 years of world literature in 15 weeks. Though technically a survey class, we're not using the teaspoon method. Rather, the semester is divided into three segments (Heroes, Storytelling, and the Afterlife), in which we'll study a few selected works. Here, at the beginning, we're reading the epics. Part two will consist mostly of fairy tales, and part three will be almost entirely devoted to Dante's "Divine Comedy." Thank you, rhetoric, for giving me a foundation of this stuff. I would not want to be reading these for the first time. By the way, Epic of Gilgamesh is the original bromance. I'm just sayin.

4. Significant Authors: C.S. Lewis--The "in-depth" class. This is what my prof described as "a true seminar course," which means she does not know the answers to the questions we'll attempt to answer throughout the semester. It's a one-shot deal, that is, she's never taught it this way before and won't do it again. We're studying Lewis' works chronologically in an effort to prove her theory that you can divide his life into three distinct segments. Last week, we read excerpts from "Boxen," the collection of writings he and his brother wrote in their early childhood. Can you say "genius child?" Oh, Jack.

5. Topics in Film: The 1960s and 1970s--The "fun" class. Somehow, this class counts as an English elective. We'll cover key films of these two decades and explore how the culture of this twenty-year period affects us today. There's one required film per week, and 5-7 suggested ones. I splurged and got netflix just to see how many I can watch. Hitchcock's "Psycho" was last week, and right now I have "The Hustler" with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason. The people in the class are intriguing to say the least. Mostly upperclassmen, and you've got everything, including the film snob, the star wars fanatic, the rebellious wild child, and the no-nonsense future screenwriter. Observing feels like I'm in the Breakfast Club.

There's my 15 units. Next time we'll talk about something other than school, I promise.

Welcome to the Most Outstanding Year In the History of Azusa Pacific University

I'm writing this from my dorm room at Azusa. After a looong day of moving in and orientation yesterday I'm all settled.
It's about 85 degrees outside and only getting hotter, but I love it.
I had to change classes about 6 times, but my final schedule works out nicely.

Christian Faith, Life, and Ministry
Intro to Literature
Intro to Philosophy
Luke/Acts
Advanced Spanish
Health

No classes before 9:45am. My poor roommate has 8am classes every day.

God has been amazing, and it looks like I can graduate in two years. We'll see what happens, but He knows.

Yesterday we watched a video on APU's study abroad program in Oxford and it only strengthened my desire to go.
I am so excited for this year though. It is gonna be more challenging and rewarding than I can imagine now.

Introductions

Friends and Family,
I've created this blog as a place where I can post updates throughout the next year.
As most of you know, by September 4th I'll be at Azusa Pacific University.
I may not post for a while, as I'm quite busy this summer (lifeguarding, teaching swim lessons, coaching the six-year-olds on swim team, etc.), but once I get down there I plan on posting somewhat regularly.

A tiny bit of background on my education thus far:
I was homeschooled by my mother along with my five siblings until 10th grade.
In 5th grade we joined H.I.S. Ministries Co-op for history, science, Bible, and electives (Latin, geography, and Apologetics).
For 11th and 12th grade, I was a full-time Running Start student at Highline Community College. Last Thursday, I graduated with my A.A. degree with an emphasis in Spanish.
At Azusa Pacific University, I plan to major in English (the Literature track) and minor in Spanish.


Last week I registered for Fall Semester classes, so right now I'm signed up for the following:
Freshman Seminar
Intro to Literature
Intro to Philosophy
Health
Exodus/Deuteronomy
Christian Life, Faith, and Ministry
Though I'm trying to switch either Intro to Philosophy or Health for a Spanish class once my classes from this quarter at HCC transfer.

Thanks to all of you who came to my grad party! It was amazing.
I'll update again eventually :)

~Jennifer