i feel like a part of me is missing. i sit on my bed, aware of my great emptiness of being alone. candace's bedding is gone, her books, her soap, her clothes, but it's not the lack of possessions that disturbs me. it's the knowledge that we will not be able to recreate the beautiful memories that we've collected this year. we can't have crazy dance parties, cry-sessions, late-night "the office" viewings, conversations where we'll bare our souls. on top of that, a lot of friends have already left for the summer-- some friends who i may never see again. going to east asia and italy keep on reminding me, "this is what you're leaving behind." i'm not going to be at ECHO for a whole semester, i'm not going to have the same small group, i'm not going to have the same studios, i'm not going to live in Kinsolving, i'm not to have the same sense of home that i've cherished in Austin for the past 3 years. Man, Solomon was so right when he said everything is meaningless, so transient, like a chasing after the wind.
I want to hold on so tightly. Everything has been so hard, but beautiful this semester. Home has not been the place I've dwelled, but the people, the relationships that have intertwined into my heart.
Is Austin home? It is. Yet as I return to Austin from Dallas, it just doesn't feel the same. The streets are emptier, the people that I usually call are not available. Yet when I went back to Dallas, I wondered to myself: Did I really grow up here for the past 18 years? It doesn't quite feel like home either.
And East Asia will be a home for awhile.
Then Dallas.
Then Italy.
Then Austin.
After that, who knows where?
Yet, for the past week the resounding call on my life has been:
let go.
Let go of what you cherish and trust Me.
You can trust me.
I am in control, love you, and will be with you wherever you go.
Home is within you, because you have a relationship with Me.
Peace only comes when you stop striving, stop planning.
Peace comes with you just live, be thankful and ask God for it.
PTL for 11th street house, awesome future roommates & answered prayers!
I can throw a frisbee now! (kinda)
A man who cannot see his sin, for the pride of thinking he is "good," has no desire for God -- no need and no urgency to find a cure for the disease of complacency. Like a blind man who claims to see is the man who thinks himself wise and independent.
"But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love-- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice-- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ-- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist-- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist-- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist-- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist-- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice-- or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must not forget that all three were crucified for the same crime-- the crime of extremism. Two were extremist for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremist.
-excerpt from the letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr.
