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.)

Orson Scott Card

The first time I read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game was back in high school. At the time, I enjoyed the book, but as my worldview was still quite intact I had no real need to pick up on the occasional hints at Card's deep understanding of philosophy and human nature. This past spring, though, I heard the last couple chapters again on audiobook. I broke down sobbing. Here, at last, was an author who got it. Someone who knew my struggles for what they were, and validated my craving for inherent meaning in intelligence and human life without necessitating an extrinsic force. This summer, reading Card has been a therapy unlike anything else.

Back at the End

There's no easy way to rebuild your worldview. This year has been rough. Very rough. I find myself just as exhausted tonight as I was at the beginning, and I feel like I've made little to no progress—at finals week, it's striking me how precious little I've given to or received from the classes which once drove me to willing, happy slavery. What happened? Where did I lose my perfect, energetic, inspired self in trying to find myself?

How do I fill the void which was at one time so richly, amply supplied? The words to In the Middle of Me by Todd Agnew once cheered me and now taunt me. So this is the price of truth, of craving with everything in me to just stop…lying…though the world was so many times sweeter when I could rest on that drug.

It seems like an apt time to perhaps share a little of the beginning of my story. Well, glad you asked…