sighs

Dear Readers,

My life has had quite a few annoyances lately. They haven't been too major. But they have effected me. I'm praying about them and God is listening. Sometimes I wander how much, but I believe he wants for me what is better whether or not that means listening to me.

I'd rather not get into all of the events this past week because some of them greatly piss me off. I thought this place would be a nice place to vent. Hopefully it doesn't encourage a complaining attitude.

On the way back from Greene Day last Saturday my car was behaving oddly. The engine was (I believe it's called) missing. When I stopped at a stop sign it would die. Eventually I got it back to school. But whenever I put it in gear it would die immediately. I had it towed on Monday to good old John's Repair Service where it's been ever since.

First day I called - no time to look at it.

Second day - looked at it but can't figure it out.

Third day - waiting on a different tester from an unknown source to test an unknown part of the car (this is unknown by me not him, fortunately)

Fourth day - Jeremy ransacks John's Repair Service and retrieves van

He said depending on what the test turns up it may be ready today. This has of course inconvenienced me as I need to get to work and back. It also looks like my lake wedington plans have died. Both due to the lack of transportation and lack of no risk of getting struck by lightning.

You know, I was going to tell you all about my troubles with my ram for my computer but I really don't feel like getting into all of it. Basically, I fried the bloody ram slot on my motherboard when installing the first piece of ram and I am now stuck with an annoyingly slow computer. Which of course has been dramatically reduced in resale value.

So there's this girl named Leah. I am extremely tired of thinking about my relationship with her. Not because of anything that she's done. I'm mad at myself for allowing so much time to be spent with her. This summer will be good. I'll be able to flee the constant struggle which takes place within me.

There is a complicated three way battle as I see it. On one side is my selfish desire to own someone - anyone - and be loved in return. On the second side is my selfish desire to own someone who is nothing less then the best on this planet from an external perspective. And on the third side is God's plan which is often times extremely obscure and therefore neglected. I suppose the reason I am so frustrated is not only because I am giving more thought to the selfish motivations (side one and two) as opposed to God's plan, but also because these two selfish motivations (both very powerful) are competing with each other.

...

...

...it's raining outside. I like the rain.

Greene Day

This weekend was good. I went to Greene Day on Saturday. Greene Day is an annual gathering at the Green's house (Leah's family) for volleyball and food and such. It was great fun. Volleyball is such a fun group activity. I'm always surprised at how competitive the Greene family is. They take it pretty seriously. At least as seriously as I take it. You know how some people (particularly girls) can be whimpy about sports and shy from the ball? Well not the Greenes. Especially Natalie. I'm always really impressed by her volleyball skills. She's probably about 13 but she plays really well, with the overhand serve and everything. She used to be on a team. If you have access to Facebook, there are a few pictures in one of Christi Vondrak's albums.

On Sunday I went to church and then went out to eat with Christi, Kameron and Becky. It was really fun. Mostly because I was the only guy. I wanted Snorri to come but he was invited to eat with some other church folk. It was his birthday yesterday and I didn't even realize it until later in the day. I feel kind of bad.

Psalm 85:9 "Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, That glory may dwell in our land." I like this verse because I see something beneath the surface. It occurred to me that if His salvation is near to
those who fear Him than that implies that we are constantly in danger of something and need to be saved. It's almost like His salvation is some sort of thing. It gives me the image of a physical object or force around those who fear Him.

Secondly, Psalm 85:10 "Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Isn't that truly amazing imagery? I love it. One of the most intimate of expressions - kissing. Our God is tightly wound with righteousness, peace and purity.

Erosion of the Soul

I'm planning an outing with a bunch of my friends to Lake Wedington a week from Saturday. This is the place where I went camping with Snorri last weekend (see pictures on facebook). You can rent canoes and kayaks and go swimming and such. Looks to be a swell time.

So I got up my nerve and decided to invite Rachelle Wilson. She's not exactly in my close circle of friends but I've always thought she's a pretty cool person. I really hope she can come and that this invitation doesn't seem weird. She's the one who got stuck in Salina in a snow storm on the way to her home in Colorado and stayed at my house. I kind of told her we should hang out some more but really all we ever do is
wave every time we see each other. So hopefully she wants to hang and wasn't just saying that.

I watched "The Glass House" last night with Jeremiah. It was the type of movie that really isn't worth watching but is interesting enough that you want to find out how it ends. I wouldn't recommend it. I realized afterwards that it was yet another secular mental input that slowly changes my worldview. There wasn't anything terribly bad in it but it was just such a non-Christian movie. Not ant-Christian but non-Christian. Perhaps there isn't a difference now that I think about it.

Twin Connection

I was reading the Etude and it inspired me to post. Man, I don't know who that author is but she certainly leads an interesting life!

I've been listening to these Discovery Channel radio broadcasts lately. They're usually pretty interesting. I listened to one called, "Miracle Chasers" in which they investigated what were thought to be miracles and tried to explain them scientifically. They investigated the connection between twins. Apparently there is this bizzare phenomenon in which twins will feel the same thing even though they arephysically separated. For instance, one twin will sprain her ankle and the other will feel pain in her foot. They tested this on two twins by putting one twins hand in cold water or popping a balloon in the presents of one twin. In each case the second twin who was located in another room would have a heart rate increase as these things took place.

Can any twins out there vouch for these strange happenings?

I need to go eat. Hopefully I'll continue to post every now and then, though it be short and pointless.

Three "I love yous"

After the high of the previous two weeks I am certainly experiencing a boring streak. It seems like every one of my classes has a very low level of demand. It seems all I do anymore is eat, sleep and feel guilty about my lack of productivity. So today I was trying to reverse that by working on the St. Olaf Swing Dance Club website. However I quickly became frustrated and felt the need to be inspired. This is a hard game to play. It's a battle between productivity and creativity. So what do you do when creativity never comes and you have a deadline? Do you just hastily throw something down and call it good? Unfortunately that is what I have done many times in my school assignments which require creativity. Creativity doesn't seem to come as easily for me as it does others, i.e. Sean. If I don't start getting better soon I fear for my success in this industry. However I certainly don't plan on giving up soon. I think that practice will improve my creative abilities. I'm hoping this summer will be just what I need as I'll be working at Focus on the Family and possibly for a graphic
design company remotely.

Now on to a subject perhaps more interesting to some of you ladies. Get this, I had two girls tell me, "I love you" today. I took Courtney Moore to City Coffee today. It was pretty fun. It started raining and storming while we were there. I love days like today that are kind of dreary all day. Anyway, I think it was when we were talking about being content while being single (by the way we weren't speaking in specific terms, just general) that Courtney said how happy she was to have good friends. Whether or not you believe me she was speaking in general
terms. I realize it doesn't sound like that. Anyway, she said that she loves me (as a friend). She's a very selfless person who doesn't require much reinforcement to give of herself.

The second girl was Megan Mulder at work. We were just joking around. I'm not sure what about. And she said, "I love you Jeremy." It was in a very light-hearted manner of course. If you had been there for either of these situations you would better understand that neither of them meant a romantic love. Now that I go back and read this it sounds quite terrible. It really wasn't a big deal. But still, two girls (outside my family) told me they loved me in the same day at different times. Not a bad day I guess.

I want to end with a God story. As with most of what I say on this blog I won't be able to fully portray the depth of my feelings through this crude form of communication. But I will try.

It happened quite recently actually. I was getting out of my car after having arrived back at school from work. I looked up and saw the moon. It wasn't very clear out but I could see the moon. As I was staring, along came a small group of clouds all traveling together across the
sky. It was a small group. I noticed that it was about to cross between myself and the moon. I waited and I got more and more excited as I realized how wonderful this moment was going to be. Then it happened, just as I had hoped. Because of where the clouds were it was suddenly revealed to me how much farther away the moon was from me. The clouds were already way up there, but the moon was so much farther! I used the clouds as a reference for measuring the distance of the moon from me.

For a moment I was in complete awe of the greatness of the universe. God was in that moment. I could feel Him.

Who Not What

I don't believe I've blogged at all in the past two weeks. I feel bad for depriving you, my audience, for such a painful amount of time. However while you have been experiencing withdrawal, I have been going through a time which has been nothing less than marvelous.

Two weeks ago I started a choir tour. We went to Chicago area, Indianapolis, St. Louis and places in-between. I had high expectations for the tour and they were certainly met. As Sean and I have discovered, life isn't about what you do but who you do it with. I was with fantastic people and got to know other fantastic people. The long bus rides were the greatest. Sure there were times when things were boring but not for long because of the company. I enjoyed the company of my already close friends; Leah, Brad, Jeremiah, Katie and Christi, as well as getting to know others more, like; Jake, Catherine, Danielle, Alex, Cade, Jessica. Two of the many highlights of the trip were walking downtown Chicago and chatting with Leah in a coffee shop and visiting the Schamps church in St. Louis. Good conversation about nothing in particular and a beautiful, real, relevant church.

This past week Sean visited me here at JBU. It was fantastic. I'm so very thankful he was able look into my world for a week. My friends of course mean a great to me and the fact that Sean was able to meet them makes me exceedingly happy! It's hard to explain. I believe I became closer to Sean and to my friends as a result. It gave Sean and I something more in common as we know most of the same people now. It also told my friends more about me as Sean has many similar ideas but expressed slightly differently.

Without getting into details I must end. We lose an hour tomorrow and I work again tomorrow afternoon after church. Good night.