Gradually Graduating

So tonight I was walking home right around that mysterious moment when days switch, lost in fog. For the past couple weeks, I've been processing that I'm about to graduate, and that I'm getting married, and that I'll be moving and starting a new job and…life. As a result, I've been mulling over my four years here, and who I've been throughout it all. Fog is always super special; my first kiss was in fog, and I think it makes the world magical. Anyway……as I was walking back, I passed a bridge, a bridge I crossed that day, that wretched, beautiful, ending beginning day. And the year between that day and the summer after came flooding back; agony, hopelessness, devastation.

And then I had this moment where I realized I was gazing straight at my younger self of three years ago, standing on that bridge, a hundred yards away. In my memory, my younger self stared back at me, broken, aching, destroyed too thoroughly for words, begging her future for some scrap of hope. And I smiled at her warmly and said, "Take strength, little one, all will be ok; you will find meaning once again. You will discover that you are a human, and when you soon begin asking yourself, 'Why prolong my existence?', you will, after many vast failures, find an answer. You will embrace the purpose that is intrinsic to humankind and know beyond doubt that it's perfectly ok to be that…human…and nothing less and nothing more. Your pain is overwhelming at this moment, but at the end lies great reward, when you get to spend the rest of your life discovering what humanity truly entails."

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I'm at the last few pages of the Olivet book; that point where you know everything has to get wrapped up somehow, and quick, even if the author still has a little trick or two left to spring. Well, here's my trick: somehow in the midst of this weird time loop — something healed. It was as though I became my own redeemer, validating familiar old pain. Is that sacrilege even possible? Can dopamine bathe the miserable neurons of deeply painful memories and soothe them, making them sweeter for the contrast?


Enh, maybe it was just the fog.

On the Prophets

Just past the second anniversary of my passage into the world of agnosticism, I took time over the weekend to reflect on a few of the things I was, and in some ways still am, supposed to be. While some kids were supposed to be lawyers, or politicians, or doctors…

I was supposed to be a missionary.

I was supposed to be ordained.

I wasn't just supposed to have a minister's license—I actually did.

And most of the things which appealed to me then about the ministry are still, two years later, stubbornly rooted deep in my identity. The humble minimalism, the call to peace and reflection, the craving to mediate and enable restoration, the silent burden of the wise—these flames still glow to beckon the capricious moth of my soul.

I Regret My Virginity

I wanted to give this a better title - something subtle and intriguing which would avoid alienating any reader. And then I realized that this is an issue for which subtlety and intrigue have gone way, way too far. So, women of the world, please hear me again, ever so loudly and clearly:

I. Regret. My. Virginity.

This is a critical statement. In any logical, coherent setting, this is utterly earth-shattering evidence. Why, asks the good secular reader who did not grow up in the shadow of the epitome of chastity? Because, I respond, this one statement invalidates the cornerstone of youth groups around the world:

You will never regret waiting.

Now I must be fair; there is plenty I do not regret. I do not regret the absence of pregnancy scares. I do not regret my freedom from STDs. I do not regret my platonic friendships. I do not regret the pain I avoided in stock of breakups. I do not regret my goody-goody label, and still prefer it to slut. I count my lucky stars that I was never among those for whom the choice was not their own. In short, I'm grateful to have completely missed out on emotional, physical, and social turmoil - that which the church relentlessly associates with pre-marital experiences.

Caveats aside, my regrets remain.

Discussing Death with Myself

A near transcript of a conversation with myself this morning. I probably wouldn't have posted on it, but then an older friend voiced some of the same thoughts a few hours later (verbatim) and I began reflecting on them again.

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Call me selfish—I don't want to die.
"Is there a plausible reason why humans should die?"
There's all kinds of reasons I shouldn't want to. So let's consider this conclusion as significant personal progress toward mental health and move on.
"Come on. We can do better than that. Why do humans die?"
Hmm. Rocks are indestructible.
"Why not humans?"
Humans are life. Life takes a lot of energy to sustain it.
"So do stars. Why do humans live a fraction of a star's lifespan?"
Life is fragile. It's delicate. It wears out.
"Why? How is that an evolutionary advantage? Why? Why? Why?"
Thinking.
Thinking.
Thinking…

Because life evolves. Of course. I am the latest, greatest, and freshest. I hold the energy of the world in my fingertips. I am the promise of an unpredictable experiment, but one which is fast drawing to a close. By the end of a decade I will be quite molded in nearly all my ways, useful for maintaining the world I constructed only long enough for another generation or maybe two to take their chance. And then I will create room for them.
"Therefore, what is the meaning of life?"
The meaning of life is to establish more fit, more resilient life.
"Can one fail at life?"
No. To fail at life is simply to allow resources and energy to be made available for more fit, more resilient life.
"And what is the meaning of death?"
The meaning of death is to allow resources and energy to be made available for more fit, more resilient life.
"And a final question. How will I die?"
Humbly, knowing that I became fit and resilient at my chance in order to provide those after me with a new chance to thrive beyond what any of us can dream.

Family Time

I've been on Spring Break this past week, which I chose to spend with my family. Ah, my family…where the boys play football, the girls sparkle and cheer, the food guarantees early diabetes, and the cars are as sacred as those who love the Lord. I've concluded that there are two types of people in my family's mind: those who love the Lord and those who do not. I can at least thank Him that a snow storm cancelled our trip to the Creation Museum.* We're all still praying that their struggling Christian bookstore sells—soon.

And yet…

And yet something happened on this trip. In the midst of the stark, cutting, black-and-white worldview, I was unexpectedly reminded of some insight into the world. (Shocking, I know, that another worldview would give new insight into the world. So I'm slow, cut me some slack.)

Forgetting

It's been a gradual spiral back into nihilism the last couple weeks. Not sure what it is, exactly—probably the semester winding down, and dreary winter coming on. But futility and demotivation have been the name of the game for me the last few weeks. Blech.

Interestingly, the Christian agnostic thing is working out well for my reality-oriented self. So I'd still put myself in that category after all these months—a somewhat successful experiment I suppose. But the problem lies, as it always has, in trying to find the point of it all.

Support

Finding your world view shattered on the ground isn't exactly fun. But for an extrovert, infinitely worse was feeling as though I were a fish out of water on a sweltering desert island in a sea of well-intentioned sharks. Overstatement? Sometimes. But only sometimes.

My parents didn't get it. My mom was devastated, and my relationship with my dad deteriorated into long arguments. They warned me not to talk to my cousins because I was "such a good role model" for them. My counselor, dean, and professors were very supportive of my questioning—up to and until I stopped arriving at the correct answers. (I've found that such answers, of the sort which are also used in Bible studies and devotional books, can be terribly mundane once one has mastered the various formulae.) After many months of supporting me, my boyfriend (understandably) came very close to ending our relationship. One friend informed me that our friendship was over unless I wanted to continue listening to his views on the topic. After that I mostly stopped talking to people about it.

But there were a couple distinctly bright spots.