(xaris and shalom)

Yesterday was the first day of Advent. I love Advent, maybe more than I love Christmas. I love looking forward to Him. I love the double-edged nature of Advent now, looking back to when He came, looking forward to His coming again. Tonight I turned on the Music of Silence and now I'm basking in it, the glory of voices echoing out solemn and beautiful. There's still a lot to be done before the end of the semester. But some of that is laughing and sharing memories and drinking in the beautiful and my heart crying out, Come quickly... But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” (Hebrews 1:8-9 ESV)

Midnight showing of Harry Potter with a bunch of my best friends... Days spin by in a dizzying drift Calender pages floating to the floor Slipping from my over-full hands. “SHUT UP! I’M TELLING A STORY! I’M NOT EVEN GOING TO TELL YOU THE STORY!” So I follow Your footsteps And the sound of Your voice To the place where light meets the evening.. .

Two years ago seems like a long time. But as I realize that the semester is thundering towards its end in a blizzard of papers due and presentations to give, more knowledge in my head and hopefully more wisdom in my life, I'm thinking about what it was like two years ago. The college years, it seems, are full and fast and it's hard to remember last week, let alone my first year here. But I stretch out my fingers to that time, trying to recall who I was then and what I wish I had known, trying to see who I need to be, what needs to change in me in the time coming. I pull up pictures on my screen from that first semester. Dag, sunshine, Frontier Club, people who I barely knew then and now count as friends. Fall leaves, a friend's soccer game on her birthday, eating meals in the dining hall, in peoples' homes. A small concert in the gym, first snow, a retreat one cold and icy weekend. Winter Wonderland, with my hall transformed from bare white walls by paper and mar

We were discussing postmodernism today in Humanities. I know that I have blogged about it before, but here were some thoughts and questions from today's discussion. Should "postmodernism" be understood as what those who first began using the term -- Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard -- meant it as (which are not always the same thing) or as it is commonly used today, by people on the street? By students in the classroom? Does a word mean only one thing? What does it indicate when the majority of the students in the classroom -- and we're a pretty traditional bunch of students, in the 18-22 year old range or so -- are extremely frustrated by cultural artifacts such as the postmodern poetry of Hannah Weiner? So... maybe it's clever. But we want to know what it means , and we're sure that it does have a meaning, that no one puts meaningless words on a page and no one publishes (totally) meaningless things. And we want to know what this meaning is. I've been to

It's good being a junior. Tonight I'm sitting in a lounge of a building I used to live in, with two freshmen. We've been goofing off. I went to find one of them to watch a movie, but he was coming over here to do homework. I don't think either of them have made much progress on the homework, and I can't say that I've accomplished a ton either. But in non-homework terms, there's been plenty accomplished (even though that hasn't included watching the movie that we wanted to watch...) We've laughed. A lot. Talked about how we all hate 2010: A Space Odyssey . Distracted each other and swapped stories of epic events and epic fails and totally unepic every day stuff. Mostly we've laughed. We've shared little snips of who we are -- middle names, siblings, churches. Argued over the difference (or lack thereof) between the words "normal" and "average". And I find myself thinking, this is how the threads are woven togethe