A Twist in the Plot Line

I love spontaneity. I remember one time when I was in elementary school, I was playing with one of my friends at church, and we decided it would be fun if she came home with me to spend the night so we could keep playing. We asked my mom, and she was fine with it. We asked my friend's mom, and she got a condescending sneer on her face and said something to the effect of, "Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but we just don't do spontaneous things." 

Even at that young age, hardly knowing what the word spontaneous meant, I remember thinking "What a ridiculously boring way to live!" Sure there's something to be said for having a plan, to keep things from getting all hectic and confused, but when everything is kept inside such rigid lines and you know exactly where everything is going, how do you find any excitment to keep yourself going?

One of my friends, whom I hadn't spent time with in a very long time (close to two years), randomly asked me to a movie. There was a bit of nervous tension, but it was a lot of fun.

A couple of my other friends decided today that they want to come visit me this weekend, just to hang out and maybe do some shopping. They apologized for the idea being so last minute, but I hadn't even considered being put off by it. I was just excited that they were coming to visit. 

It's like getting surprises all the time, and it puts interesting twists and turns in the plot. How can we really live when we try and set up our entire futures, leaving no wiggle room? How can that even be desirable? "We'll live tonight, tomorrow never knows where we'll be..."

Who Needs Air?

I've been working out more lately. I've never been particularly happy with the way I look, but I've always had various excuses for why I couldn't change. I knew that running is immensly good for you, but it always hurt. Honestly, one of the happiest days of my adolescence was when I got a mole removed on my ankle and the dermatologist said I ought not to run the mile in the upcoming fitness test. 

I've realized that in elementary school, they didn't have us stretch properly, and that was why my legs would hurt when I ran. After I learned to stretch, I just hated running because I'm rather fond of being able to breathe, and as much as I thought I was, I apparently was unable to do both at the same time. 

I actually managed to go to the gym each day this week, Monday through Friday, and I realized today (Friday), that sometime during this week of spending 30 minutes on the eliptical each day, I've learned how to breathe. Maybe I just wasn't breathing deeply enough before. Maybe I was just too distracted to remember to breathe. But as I plowed through my first mile, I realized, "Hey! I'm a little tired, but I'm not breathless! This is amazing!"

I still wouldn't say I actively like running, but I'm amazed that I finally am not 110% averse to the idea. I'm also astonished that it's taken me 20 years to learn to do something as simple and basic as breathing. I guess I'm not such a quick learner after all. But at least I made it.

Isn't It Nice to Know

Sometimes you have to search for awesome stuff to blow your mind. Sometimes it punches you in the face with how awesome it is, and it would be almost impossible not to see it.

Several years ago, I went to this concert with a couple of my friends, and after the show we were waiting behind the venue to meet the band. The wind kept blowing some trash around which kept psyching me out, thinking that someone was there. I decided it would be more productive if I spent my time waiting by picking up some trash. Besides, being the star-struck teenybopper I was, I could get closer to the bus by picking up trash without looking as much like a creeper. I spent a good 10 minutes picking up trash while my friends laughed at me and the one security guard rolled her eyes. And then I realized I had two handsful of trash and nowhere to put it. The security guard said I couldn't go inside to throw it away, but that I could put it in that dumpster in the far corner of the parking lot. As I started to walk over to the dumpster, the drummer walked out. I was so excited that I, embarrassingly, threw the trash in the air and ran up to him. He talked to my friends and me for quite a while and afterwards I did regather the trash and throw it away. 

I'm taking Biblical Hebrew this semester, which is both really cool and and rather insane. We've gotten to the point where we can translate bits and pieces, and yesterday we were trying to translate the creation story from Genesis 1:1 as it appears in the Torah. I've known the Genesis 1 creation story basically as long as I can remember. We have a video of my first birthday where I'm sitting on my grandma's lap and she's reading me a children's version of it. But for some reason, translating it from the Hebrew makes it so much more powerful of a story. Maybe because you have to think about the words more than just letting them hit your eyes and moving on. It really made me think how incomprehensibly old God is and how unbelievably powerful and how insanely big and complicated the entirety of the world is.

I went to another concert last Thursday, with the same band as I mentioned in that second paragraph. It was the 10th (wow, I just had to write it down and add it up, 10...) time I've seen them. My friends and I now have a tradition of waiting to meet the bands after whatever concerts we go to, and some of the band members recognize us (well after 10 shows, it's no surprise). Anyway, this was the absolute best set I've seen them do. They pulled out some old songs that I hadn't heard them play in a while, and they played the best of the new ones. The highlight was the end though, when they played a very somber song and built it up at the end to the point where it felt more like you were breathing music than air, and every heartbeat was a prayer thanking God that I was alive. I know it sounds corny and cliché, but that’s just how it was. I felt more spiritually awake than I’ve been in a very long time, if not ever. 

After the concert, we met up with the opening band and talked to them for a while (the opening band is actually my favorite; here’s a shameless plug: Go check out House of Heroes), and then moved around to the back of the venue to try to meet up with some of the headlining band before we had to drive back home. We were hoping to see one member of the band particularly, the bass player John. The last time we had seen them in concert, we talked to John for an hour after the show, and he’s remembered me at the last four shows. After waiting for about five minutes, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wrapper from the CD I had bought. I spotted a dumpster and jokingly said to my friends, “Hey! I’m gonna go throw this in the dumpster for good luck!” I went to ask the security guards if I could put it in the dumpster behind them and they said I could. 

I went back to my friends and Erin said, “I wish John would come out---” and then her jaw dropped, and I turned around to see John walking up to the small crowd that was waiting, and I looked at Erin and said “It worked!” (to which John looked confused and said, “What?”)

There’s no logical reason why that timing should have worked, and I know that my throwing away a bit of cellophane had no affect whatsoever on the situation. Instead, it kind of feels like an inside joke. My friends were already in on it. We would joke about throwing away garbage for good luck. But this time it was kind of like God extended the inside joke to remind me that He was a part of it, too, because He was there when it happened the first time, and when it happened again. 

And after translating the creation story and being reminded of how unfathomable God is, I’m totally in awe that He wanted to be a part of my stupid little joke, but I’m really glad He does.