Ice

After dinner tonight my brother and I started our usual job of clearing the table, rinsing the dishes, and emptying the dishwasher. Tonight it was a little more exciting then usual, though. Tonight there was leftover ice.

I couldn't tell you where this excitement came from, this fascination with melting ice between our fingers under a hot stream of tap water, but ever since dish-washing became our job rather than Mom's we've liked it. You turn the faucet as far to the right as it will go and make sure it's on a continuous stream instead of a spray. You can't allow the stream to get too heavy, though, or the fun will be over before it starts. Keep it just above a trickle. Hold the ice between your thumb and your forefinger. Watch the dent turn into a hole, into a crevice, into a wide open space. Listen hard for a hint of a crackle, a dying breath. Watch it disappear. Feel the nothingness between your fingers. Swear something was there a split second ago.

That's the weirdest part, really. I can never pin-point the exact moment the ice becomes water. One second there's something between my fingers, and the next there's not.

My brother looks different tonight. He's been complaining of poor vision for months, and his glasses finally came today. He came home with a haircut as well. He looks much older than he is, but then again, he's getting pretty old. As of last month he's taller than me by a good inch. And he's five years younger.

Harding University sent me an application packet today. It's not my first choice, but I figure I better apply anyway in case my first choice falls through. It said "Apply early!" No kidding. Way too early.

I don't know if I mentioned that this was my second to last year as a Kamper. I went to the banquet with a little boy named Ethan. I kinda fell in love with his excessive knowledge of Spiderman. :)
Anyway, in conversation I asked him what grade he was going into, and I figured it had to be fourth or fifth, because he was so stinkin' cute and little. But I was wrong. He's going into SEVENTH.

I remember when seventh grade seemed old. When Lizzie McGuire was in seventh grade. MIDDLE SCHOOL. The land of lockers and multiple teachers. Remember that feeling? Remember thinking algebra had something to do with the order of the letters in the alphabet? Remember not knowing about the existence of bottom lockers? Remember innocence?

I stopped thinking middle school was old in about sixth grade. At that point it was high school. High school's where you really started figuring everything out. That theory disappeared in about ninth grade. At that point senior year felt old.

Guess what guys? I finally feel old.

"Graduate" doesn't sound that old. It just sounds kinda... kinda terrifying. Because in about a year, real life starts.

And I'm sitting here wondering where my childhood went. Realizing how much of it I have absolutely no recollection of. I have a few very vivid memories. Leaving the theater at the beginning of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" because Cindy Lou Who was surely being violently cut to bits by the wrapping machine. Fighting valiantly for my belief in Santa Claus out in the parking lot at my elementary school. Getting a rug burn playing in the foyer after church.

I can picture the sights, smell the smells, tell you exactly what the lighting in the room was like. I remember. That was yesterday. But it was really forever ago. My life's disappearing before my eyes.

But maybe it's not disappearing. Maybe it's melting.

Someday I'll be all gone. The faucet of time will continue to rush down on my life and in a blink, in an indeterminate second, I'll be washed down the garbage disposal into eternity. But you know what? I get a few seconds to let the water run between my fingers and feel the inexplicable joy that is living.

I'm excited to melt my ice.

Let Me Live

"I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." -John 10:10

"I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life, to put to rout all that which was not life, and not when I had come to die discover that I had not lived." -Henry David Thoreau

Is it cliche to say that I have a whole new lease on life?

To recap and explain everything that has happened in the last month would be quite the undertaking, so I'm not going to try. By all rights, for reasons I won't take the time to explain here, it really should have been a rough month, and at times it has been. But overall I'm filled with this overwhelming happiness and excitement. It would make a lot of sense for me to be broken up... but I'm not. I'm probably the most content I've ever been in my life.

I want to go to Heaven. I want to go to Heaven so bad. That's the most important thing. I've got to learn to cling to the things and people that are going to get me to Heaven and run far away from the things that are pulling me the other direction.

I also have to learn that I can live on the way there. In John 10:10 Jesus wasn't talking about eternal life. He was talking about this life. Christians have the ability to have the most abundant lives possible.

So you know what? I want to live.

I want to fill my days up with people and things that make me love God even more than I did previously. I want to use my talents to His glory in the greatest way I possibly can. I want to dig into God's Word so much my head spins from how amazing it all is. I want praying to come as naturally as breathing to me. I want to be so close to God that His will is my will, no matter where that will takes me.

I want to write. Oh man, I want to write. I want to write articles. I want to write books. I want to write blog posts. I want to write poetry just to get things out of my system. I want to start the second Renaissance with Jenna. I want to read good books and understand what they're saying.

I want to sing. I stinkin' love to sing, you know that? I want to dance around my room when no one is watching just because it feels good. I want to listen to the music that makes my heart soar. I want to go walking around in the rain and feel the water dance across my skin. I want to hear thunder rolling and see lightning crash and marvel at how incredible this world is and how awesome my God is.

I want to reach for the sky, not for the ceiling. I don't want limits unless they're the limits God has placed in my life through His word and my desire to get to Heaven. I want to lay aside every encumbrance that entangles me and GET THERE.

More than anything I want to NOT WANT WHAT I WANT! I want to want what He wants, because what more could I want?

So... I want to live this summer. And I'm going to.

<3

Legacy

When the atomic bomb went off in Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II, it literally burned shadows into the surfaces that weren't themselves flammable. This picture to the right was taken in the 1960s, nearly twenty years after the dropping of the bomb. The heat was so intense that the shadows created a cool spot, so the impression left stood out from the rest of the carnage in terms of how much it was burned. The people and things who cast the shadows were effectually vaporized, but their shadows remained behind.

This man, without even trying to, shielded the space under him from the heat, and it created a lasting impression on that space, even though he has been gone for over sixty years now. How much more can we do when we intentionally try to leave people with the impact of the gospel?

Leave a legacy.

A Deep Breath

Take a deep breath.

The prisoners were divided into three groups. The fit became slaves. The excessively unfortunate were kept for "medical experimentation." Most were sent to the gas chambers.

They had come packed like cattle in trains. No place to use the restroom. No place to be sick. No place to move the corpses of the people who had fallen over dead on the way. After days of wallowing in their own filth, they entered the camp.

Children were ripped from their mothers' arms. Families were separated. Best friends were separated. Husbands and wives were separated.

They were told they were going to be de-loused. They were going to get a shower.

They piled into the large concrete boxes. The doors slammed shut behind them. Zyklon B pesticide rushed through the vents.

They cried. They screamed. They clamored. The weakest died first. They became the first steps in the staircase of people.

The slaves were sent in to detangle the bodies. They always found them in a neat pyramid.

If you visit Auschwitz today, you can see fingerprints, engraved forever on the solid concrete ceiling.

They literally tried to claw their way out for that one last gasp of air. They climbed on top of each other to stay above the gas, to get that one last gasp of air.

I have bad days. I have really lousy days. I have days when I don't know how I'm going to deal with what's coming. But you know what else I have?

Air.

Take a deep breath.

The Cost of Living

At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles' War Guilt Clause held Germany wholly and solely responsible for the war. (I personally think that alone was wrong. But that's not my point today.) As a result, Germany racked up an incomprehensible amount of debt. In fact, they just finished paying it off last October. The negotiators of the treaty (a group which, of course, did not involve Germany) painstakingly determined the value Germany owed for the damage done, going so far as to demand retribution for each individual fatality.

They put a price point on a human life.

These values were determined by the amount of revenue each represented country brought to the world economy. Therefore, an American life cost Germany more than any other nationality.

When we heard that in history class over a week ago, it really rattled me. I've been trying to figure out how to word this post since then, and I still don't think I'm doing it right. There just kind of aren't words for me. I tried to look the values up on Google and I couldn't find them. I'm not sure I want to know. How much is a life worth? A thousand dollars? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand?

By demanding this retribution the negotiators managed to cheapen a human life. Because the whole idea of debt is that once it's paid off, it's okay. The deal's done. Almost like they thought you could buy another person for the price of the old one. But it's even worse than that. They weren't concerned with the person. They were concerned with his work, his money. And a job can easily be refilled. A revenue spot in society can be replaced.

Did they really have the audacity to say that an American life was worth more than an Italian life? Than a British life?

I don't know. I want to say something floweringly profound, but I don't have anything. All I can say is... I would hope that if I were to get shot, no one would be able to pay my friends or family a sum of money to make it okay.

What's your life worth?

<3

A Hole

She lived. She breathed. She loved. She laughed. She cried. She failed. She succeeded. From what I've heard, she succeeded a lot more than she failed.

She graduated from my high school two years before I started going there. She was an athlete, a "Mathlete", good at science, good at Spanish. Valedictorian. Today several teachers left school early to attend her memorial service.

I didn't know her, so I'm not quite sure why it rattles me so much that over winter break, she chose to take her own life.

There's a facebook group in "loving memory" of her. I've seen the tears. I've heard the testaments to her wonderful personality, her kindness, her intelligence, the light she brought to the lives around her. She was loved.

What disaster, what terrible sense of despair, can come over a person so suffocatingly strong that even love can't shine any kind of hopeful light?

I've never in all my life known or heard of a single person who was loved by no one. Perhaps that's why suicides are so tragic. Life is intentionally snuffed out. A horrible hole is left in the lives of friends, family, teachers. But that person, the person who is now gone forever, didn't recognize that hole, didn't realize the awful hurt, the agonized tears that his or her death would cause. They assumed no one would care.

Those of you who have gotten to know me well would leave a heartwrenching, gaping hole in my world if ever something were to happen to you. Some of you would leave a much bigger hole than you realize. Those of you who don't know me well would still leave an unoccupied space in my day: the face in the hallway, the seat behind me in math class. You would be noticed. You would be missed. You would be cried over.

Don't make that decision. Ever. There is hope. There is love. More than anything there is God.

This is me saying I care.

This is me saying you're not alone.

This is me saying you can make it.

This is me saying I will help.


And if you're okay... take the time to make sure someone else is. You never know whose life you could be saving.

9/11/01...

... Where were you?

I honestly don't remember much about September 11, 2001. I was in second grade. I remember the school sending me home early, and I knew something bad was going on, but I don't think I really understood what was happening. I don't remember watching it on the news, seeing footage, anything. Later, of course, I understood the significance, but it never really hit me until yesterday.

We watched a video at the end of history class yesterday. I don't know what it was called, or I would post a link to it. Somehow, never in the last nine years have I seen actual footage of 9/11... until yesterday. I thought I wasn't going to cry until it came to footage of one of the towers juxtaposed with a man from the inside talking to an official outside.

"Are you alright?" the official says in a stressed voice."

"Yeah, we're on the tenth floor. There's three of us and two broken windows."

And before he can say anything else, you see the building collapsing. And hear him screaming. And that's when I lost it.

It got worse when they showed pictures of the people jumping. What would possess someone to jump from a ONE HUNDRED AND TEN story building? Fear. Knowing that the alternative was burning to death.

And then there was footage of the first plane hitting the towers. The inferno that came behind it as it crashed through the buildings. And you realize there were people on that plane, and people in that building. It's horrifying. There's not a better word for it. 9/11/01 inspired exactly what the attackers hoped to inflict upon the American people: terror.

As we were walking out of class, one of my friends, very quietly, through tears, said, "I knew nine people."

My history teacher had a relative that was a firefighter. His family buried an ax, because that was all they could find of him.

I don't know anyone who was killed that day, but I can feel at least a little bit of the pain. We all value human life, even if that life has no ties to us. We all feel the horror and pain that comes with immense tragedy. We all feel the loss of the over THREE THOUSAND people we lost that day.

This isn't just another day, and I beg you not to think of it as such. Nine years ago today, our country, perhaps even our world, changed forever. My brother was a toddler. He can't remember life before the War on Terror, and I just barely can. I was watching that footage and thinking, that's the worst. That's what men and women are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep from happening to me. And you. And our families. Our friends. They're going through hell on earth to make sure you and I don't have to.

Take the time to thank a soldier today.

At 8:40 a.m., September 11, 2001 was a normal day. By 8:45a.m., it was too late for many to say goodbye.

Take the time to tell the people in your life how much you love them. Take the time to tell somebody about Christ. Take the time to ask forgiveness... or give it. Take the time to get down on your knees and THANK GOD for everything that you have.

Tomorrow's not promised.

Never forget.