Josh,
It's with deep gratitude and joy that I welcome you to our team this year. I give this journal as a tool to use this year as an RA and in so many more ways. May it be a place of reflective thoughts and feelings. My hope is that it becomes a safe place where the Lord can move on your heart. May He search your life through these pages and display His goodness and kindness. Use this journal for your dreams, thoughts, visions, gratitude, memories, prayers, and everything in between. I'm praying for His Spirit to move mightily in you this year. May this journal help you slow down to listen.
- Alex
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August 8, 2017
Genesis 40:7 - Joseph asks his fellow prisoners why they looked sad, revealing a steadfast and joyful heart in the midst of affliction. His drive is to do the right thing, to care for his neighbors wherever and whoever they are. That drive leads him to deep humiliation, but he does not allow immediate consequences to be the ultimate judge of what's worth doing.
The glory of Christ is seen in this narrative, the glory of a passionate and suffering love willing to be humbled before being exalted. It's a glory that does not endorse itself, but waits for its time. Even in the depths of weakness and shame it shines with persistence.
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August 11, 2017
What is truth?
Truth is both what is and what should be. That means, in a sense, that the real is ideal, and the ideal is real.
In a fallen world, truth causes pain. Pain is antithetical to truth, and so is made manifest when met with truth, like how darkness only gains its name when it is distinguished from light. Truth is always good. Whenever pain is felt, there a truth is available for learning.
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August 12, 2017
So much of my pain is traced back to guilt. So much of what I seek for is found in forgiveness. I often don't realize this.
I need forgiveness, but I don't want it, for that would necessitate that I be wrong, deeply and truly and irreversibly wrong. I would be in wrong in such a way that nothing I could do could make up for it. I would be a sinner.
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August 18, 2017
Grief is necessary. What kind of people would we be if the whole of creation was groaning for the Second Coming and we were just fine? No, let's not be always happy now. There's a time for that, and it's not yet here. Now we sit together in silence and ride these waves of grief, these birthing pains. That's love.
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August 24, 2017
There is freedom in daily repentance. I don't need every effort to be perfect, because forgiveness is available. In fact, it is this forgiveness that allows me to strive for perfection; the fear of failure is often a crippling one, keeping a person from performing at his best.
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August 29, 2017
I had a very vivid dream last night. I was in the mountains. I don't remember seeing any buildings, but there was a stone path that went up the steep slope, made a turn, then came down the slope to circle back to the beginning. There were monks (I think) going around and around upon this path. They held banners and clanged cymbals—looking and sounding very much like the opening scene of the Curse of the Golden Flower. As I passed by, one of the people at the end of the procession declared: “耶稣是主！” (Jesus is Lord) I was surprised; it was a Chinese group of monks worshiping Yahweh.
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August 30, 2017
I used to pray for God to mold me through suffering. I meant it, and God was faithful in granting my request, but only recently did I realize that I didn't mean all of it. I intended the suffering, but I did not intend the molding.
I'll have to explain: there is a proactiveness in sanctification that I increasingly realize I need. I want God's will to break into or to become manifest in my life, but I'm not actively seeking it. It's a kind of laziness, really.
In other words, my view of religion is a little too fatalistic. I neglect my duty to fear and to tread the path of life carefully, because of a faulty sense that God wouldn't hold me accountable for the mistakes he determined I would make anyway. But look at Moses; one error and he was kept from the Promised Land. The consequence was real and irreversible, all because Moses was careless. Like me, he surely meant well much of the time, but not well enough. He didn't know and didn't seek to know God's heart deeply enough.
Faith must involve an exercise of the will.
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August 31, 2017
This morning I recalled a fond memory. Last year there was a humanities lecture given by Betty Douglas, in which she performed several jazz numbers. I had a Hebrew exam that day, and Dr. Curtis encouraged anyone who completed it to walk straight to the lecture hall, which was opposite our classroom.
So I did. At the end of the lecture, she sang "When All the Saints Go Marching In." Dr. Curtis and Dr. Meek became so excited that they started dancing down the aisles of John White Chapel. Unfortunately for me and my friend Shannon, Dr. Curtis had gotten the four of us to hold hands, and we paraded in front of a bewildered and bored class to the classic hymn. I wasn't even in that class.
For some reason, it struck me this morning that their dancing came from the heart, from a deep well of joy and knowledge and truth. They heard in the song a proclamation of eternal hope, and they could not help but sing and dance. How different is this from many young people, who sing and dance for attention, who express not an overflowing richness but poverty. How blessed I was to have experienced that overflow.
I remember Dr. Curtis laughing heartily at the end of it, embracing me and Shannon. I think his eyes were teary. It seemed for the briefest moment that he was already there in the eternal kingdom.
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September 4, 2017
I've been listening to music as a way to block out voices, both from within and from without.
I walk through campus. Why do most people feel sad to me? Dinner at Alex's dining hall is like a great funeral feast. I am deeply grieved and filled with a sense of despair that, I think, is not my own.
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September 8, 2017
I desire the day when I finally learn to want the things I already have.
---
The last six lines of a love sonnet by Dante Alighieri:
My wasted eyes I find I cannot keep
From gazing at you ever and again.
For by a tearful longing they are led.
Beholding you then so augments their pain
They are consumed by their desire to weep,
Yet in your presence tears they cannot shed.
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September 18, 2017
There are so many people in life for me to impress, but I came to you with nothing. You loved me before I was able to bear the slightest fruit of righteousness. There are so many people to please, and I am swayed left and right by their manifold opinions. But you know who I am.
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What don't I understand, Cara? Please, help me out. What is it? Is it frustrating that you can't be with this person? That there's something keeping you apart? That there's something about this person that you can connect with? And whenever you're near this person, you don't know what to say, and you say everything that's in your mind and in your heart, and you know that if you could just be together, that this person would help you become the best possible version of yourself?
—Dan in Real Life (2007)
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September 20, 2017
God can do anything at any time. Yet it is not so much what he can do that's important, but what he does do. He does exactly what he wants at any given time. What is is what should be. Everything is on the trajectory towards his glory and our joy.
I must not fear the truth. I must not fear the reality that God unfolds before me, even when it dispels my own ideas and ideals. I need his truth, and he gives it to me every moment. I must cherish every moment, even the painful, fearful ones. I must cherish them in humility.
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September 21, 2017
In the United States, conscience has been displaced by system, ethics replaced by power, spirit quenched by nature. The dream here is that we could arrive at a system so perfect that we don't need to be good people.
Tonight, Judge Stegall voiced an alternative: seeking a system so good that we don't need to be perfect.
The world asks, "What is the point of being good if you don't have the power to enforce that good?" Scripture flips that on its head and asks, "What good is it if a man gains the whole world and loses his soul?"
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October 12, 2017
If somebody gave me this card, Mr. Vance, I would eat it. It's... these cards, and the movies and the pop songs; they're to blame for all the lies and the heartache, everything. We're responsible. I'm responsible. I think we do a bad thing here. People should be able to say how they feel—how they really feel—not, you know, some words that some stranger put in their mouths. Words like "love"... that don't mean anything.
—(500) Days of Summer (2009)
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October 24, 2017
Some thoughts:
- God's greatest power is applied in his self-control (an interpretation of Prov. 16:32)
- In the East you pretend to care. In the West you pretend to not care.
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Dreams as Truth
What is truth? Truth is that highest principle which encompasses what is and what ought to be.
A dream is a vision birthed by longing and conceived by beauty. A dream is not a plan; a plan wrestles and compromises with reality, but a dream is free and unrestricted, outrageous and captivating. A dream explores the possibility of fully satisfying a longing.
The phrase "dream come true" implies that there is often distance between dreams and truth. Somehow false beauty can defile and distort longing, producing a dream that cannot come true. A dream that would come true must have been born by truth.
But is there redemption for false dreams and hopes? Do they all die in the abyss? Or can the Truth redeem and cleanse our distorted dreams? Can He take on the form of a fallen dream and be crucified in its stead?
What dreams did Jesus make true?
* * * * *
October 25, 2017
Some thoughts:
- When was the last time I told someone I was sorry?
- If I could exchange some of my GPA for investing in the edification and spiritual growth of my friends, how far would I go before it's too much?
- The man who cannot dream cannot pray. Dreams are not plans; dreams long for things without directly causing them. Prayer is the same.
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October 31, 2017
Reform.
"Do I really love them?" Sometimes people come too close for this self-reflective question to be a safe one. Usually it's just much easier to have tangential relationships and to tell these friends how much you love them, though it's more likely that you only love an impression of them. With family and roommates (people you have constant contact with), time strips away all the facades, the polite words and affectionate gestures, and everyone is laid bare, appearing at once more familiar and more alien to each other. In such times, love loses its romance somewhat.
Why do I have such a distrust of home, such an eagerness to get away from the people I live with? Why am I so skeptical of the idea that the people who live with me know me best?
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November 3, 2017
A human being's greatest need is worship.
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November 16, 2017
We are aware of specific ideas that cultures manifest. But should we not also talk about attitudes and appetites, which influence us just as much, if not more?
If low culture is a necessary thing, what does its redemption in Christ look like?
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December 25, 2017
As Augustine said, the eyes of sinful man reach only to bodies, and his mind to phantasms. On the one hand he is trapped by realism, the demands of the material world stifling the needs of his soul. On the other hand, his fear of reality (of truth) compels him to create mental worlds completely detached from the real world, as he attempts to partially satisfy his spiritual longings by guarding them securely within his daydreams, partitioned from his thoughts of "real life."
But unless a grain of dreams falls into the ground of reality and dies, it cannot truly live and grow. (cf. John 12:24) Courage and patience are required for this endeavor; checking our dreams against reality can be painful and humbling. But only by doing so can we produce new life and new dreams.
"Practice resurrection," wrote Wendell Berry.
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January 16, 2018
How does God help us to talk to each other?
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February 1, 2018
"Sell them their dreams," a woman radio announcer urged a convention of display men in 1923. "Sell them what they longed for and hoped for and almost despaired of having. Sell them hats by splashing sunlight across them. Sell them dreams – dreams of country clubs and proms and visions of what might happen if only. After all, people don't buy things to have things. They buy things to work for them. They buy hope – hope of what your merchandise will do for them. Sell them this hope and you won't have to worry about selling them goods."
—William R. Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture
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February 5, 2018
Insight from Dr. Troup:
Gossip is saying something behind someone's back that you would never say to his face.
Flattery is saying something to someone's face that you would never say behind his back.
* * * * *
February 14, 2018
Does growth involve death? Doesn't a sacrificial Christian ethic require that one give up on his own dreams for the sake of others? And does this not mean that we tell people not to dream at all?
Not quite. If there was no dream to begin with, there would be nothing to sacrifice, to deny, to bury. So one must dream, so that there would be something to sacrifice. The sacrifice is indispensable.
All terrestrial dreams will come to an end. It matters only how one approaches this. Will the dream die voluntarily, with love and courage? Or will it die in selfishness and isolation?
* * * * *
February 22, 2018
Media is dead, and can only be reanimated by personality.
The word that is written dies; when read, it lives again. The scholar lives and works among the dead, reviving the dead symbols and keeping them alive through memory. The scholar is a fool, choosing to bury himself in piles of corpses. But his loving foolishness is rewarded as, miraculously, the writings awaken and become his friends.
The mediator lives in death. Death is separation, and two things that require mediation should be understood to have a relationship—or more accurately, an un-relationship—of death. The mediator, then, stands in the gap, and in the very act of reuniting devotes himself to death. This also is foolish wisdom.
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March 11, 2018
Do I study like I'm pursuing truth? Or do I study like I'm being pursued by Truth? How will the latter attitude change how I study? Would it not be a more grateful, resigned, and stress-free experience?
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April 14, 2018
Lavish grace. The taste of it barely lingers in my memory. Rare are the moments that it comes into sharp focus, full of glory, diminishing everything else in my world. I used to have more of those moments, I believe. Those were moments when I felt like I had no problems because I knew that God was great. Those were moments of true rest, when I realized that nothing truly depended on me.
Is it too much to hope for such moments to become daily experiences? Too often I am alone, fighting to stay afloat, to make things right, and to keep my friends with me. My life is almost pure toil.
No, graceful living is not something I've mastered. It involves a kind of letting go—a surrendering of control, being okay with the loss of affection, bad grades, financial uncertainty, imperfect work, awkwardness—though also, far from a Buddhist emptying of the self into the "void," graceful living calls for immense energy and vitality, a power that can only come after one has pulled away all the boundaries of self-preservation. This kind of letting go, theoretically, pours more effort into work, relationships, etc.
How far from you am I? I would pour myself into you, but where are you? Everywhere and nowhere and in heaven. And in me.
Even as I toil, humble me that I might see your grace.
* * * * *
April 16, 2018
A haiku:
Fingers intertwine,
Ending a twenty-year wait.
Unbelievable.
* * * * *
August 9, 2018
There is a time (kairos) for the performance, and it will come and go, and you must have the courage to make the most of it.
What does it mean to play a character? Does it necessarily mean hypocrisy? Aren't the most convincing performances ones that come from the heart of the performer? In which case, the character is not an empty shell put on a person; the character is the person—drawn out, actualized, maximized, compelled to emerge by the moment, the crisis (krisis in Greek means the moment of decision). It's how people become mothers, teachers, soldiers, presidents—the role draws out the person, and the person becomes a character.
What about different personalities, in the Myers-Briggs sense? I don't know. But I am increasingly convinced that a sense of our personal limitations does not sanction the shirking of our duties.
* * * * *
August 14, 2018
I just can't shake this feeling that whatever being a man truly means, I don't understand it.
I think it has to do with my ineptitude in creating structure. I almost don't resist anything or anyone anymore. Because I include everyone, I don't really include anyone. Because I try to exclude no one, the space I offer seems unintentional and insincere. How can I change this?
In a way, maybe I just need to learn to care less how people feel... at least just to allow my own system of thought to emerge, instead of always endlessly stepping into other people's shoes.
* * * * *
August 21, 2018
It is the glory of God to conceal things.
I've always had a problem with trying to uncover things. It's a God-given impulse that I take to an extreme. I remember bugging some of my friends really hard for them to tell me secrets. I made myself an incredibly annoying person this way.
My ever-searching mind has been helpful in some ways in my walk with God. I have asked important questions and have been given important answers. But I sense a season coming where I have to learn to deny this thing that seems most essential to me, this impulse to watch, to take in information, and to turn ideas around in my head without ever really giving back, without ever dedicating myself to work, to performance.
The time is here. God has developed me as a thinker, but he doesn't want me to rely on that. He wants me to be ready to give it up.
* * * * *
September 28, 2018
All things were made good, and therefore:
Sin is not a "thing."
Lust is no thing.
Greed is no thing.
Pride is no thing.
Loneliness is no thing.
Sadness is no thing.
Hate is no thing.
Anxiety is no thing.
A void lies at the heart of the sinner, a self-imposed punishment.
Substance and order are one.
Substance is order; rocks, water, and air are only substances according to their kind because of internal, molecular order.
Order is substance: once several people are determined as father, mother, child, they are family, a real unit. The same applies to church, government, army, etc.
Love is to give and to arrange.
To be loved by God, bring your no-thing.
* * * * *
October 24, 2018
Two kinds of entitlement:
I'm awesome and the rest of you stink, so I deserve special treatment. Or,
I stink and the rest of you are awesome, so I deserve special treatment.
* * * * *
October 30, 2018
Two approaches to beauty:
One draws near in order to be filled, motivated by emptiness. It will seek to consume, possess.
The other comes with fullness and beauty in his or her soul. Identifying the perceived beauty with the internal beauty in the soul, the perceiver draws near for fellowship.
* * * * *
December 12, 2018
If there is such a thing as higher and lower affections, as Jonathan Edwards believed, is there such a thing as higher and lower reasoning? Is higher reasoning more capable of understanding paradoxes or something?
What is reason? What is the logos?
Similarly, what are affections? And what is the will, and how does it work?
* * * * *
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
(Psalm 139:23-24)
