Walking the Perimeter

Tonight I just keep thinking of all sorts of questions ... questions I fully know the answers to and even am beginning to understand a few of the reasons behind them, yet still I am so hesitant to act on these truths.

Have you ever wrestled with God? Will he let you win? I don't want him to let me win - I want him to pin me to the mat ... hold down my hands so that I can no longer rely on my own strength. Everything's so crazy right now, yet I'm finding joy and hope in little things like a painted horizon, dinner with Whitney, brisk early morning runs, etc. Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing Him - it's how the song goes, it's what scripture sings.

Who is this man Jesus? Why me - how do I do that, what do I do next? Can I trust Him? Can I trust him?

I want to.

40 miles

So ... I ran 6.5 miles (roundtrip - I forget whether that's one word or two) over to the most beautiful neighborhood in Fayetteville - it's called Charleston Place, appropriately, because all the houses are those long, beautiful southern aboads with entry-level porches rounding the welcoming sides and 2nd story porches above the etnryway with a black fan that spins above the rocking chairs of two very old friends.

It's quite a lovely place, especially at night when the warm yellow lights are on through the venetian blinds. You drive by these people's houses, are inspired their patriotism displayed by the perfectly draped American flags, and just kind of wish you could live in one of these houses, too. Honestly, I would love to have a house like that, in a cute little neighborhood that has tons of little houses just like those: each one just unique enough so that you can love your own home and think the neighbors have great taste, too, and still be really glad that the one you own is actually yours. Charleston Place is one of those neighborhoods that makes an ideal life, ideal in the "American Dream" sense, come to the forefront of the imagine, it becomes just about tangible - so much so that you long for it, that even being in the vicinity of Charleston Place makes it seem as if you've almost arrived.

Hmm ...

God' s kind of been challenging me today concerning my outlook on what the "big plan" really is. Somehow, I come around to thinking so egocentrically and wonder how God and ministry, etc., are going to fit into my "big plan" and how I am actively trying to fit them into my "big plan" while totally overlooking the most obvious error here: my little plan fits into God's big plan, not vice versa. I love that! There is so much freedom and relief of worry when you consider that you really don't have to make the plans at all - He is faithful - but I'm still learning to trust Him.

Today on my run, I came across Root Elementary's marquis (markee, marquee, marqui, uh) which was advertising the upcoming "3rd Grade Muscial" ... yes, muscial not musical. I noticed this pretty quick and thought that the most civil thing to do would be to simply switch the c and the i (of course I did have to go through a quick debate as to whether they really meant muscial, but I have a decent vocabulary and that's not an entry in my dictionary, so I thought that in context, it had to have been just a slip of the pen when someone was puting the sign up). The sign's locked ... it's locked, well I guess that makes sense, I've seen a lot of vandalism done to signs like that, but when someone really wants to help and can't, it can be a little frustrating. Thus, if I am to live in Fayetteville someday and am blessed with an amazing husband and adorable children, I've made a note not to send them to Root (shaky foundation, perhaps). - It's pretty amusing, really.

*dictionary.com says there is no such thing as muscial - they may be doing revolutionary things overthere at Root and the public just has no idea what they're up to ... but that's just the optimist in me!

Good night.

Oh yeah ... 40 miles - I want to run a total of 40 miles this week - I'm at 12.5 and 2 days of 7 have passed. Four tomorrow morning with Laurie will leave only 23.5 for W, R, F, & S. Doable, doable.

Heart, Mind, Soul ... & Sunglasses

We've been studying James in our community group over this semester and tonight we got to chapter 3 versus 13-18 which deals with the disparity between heavenly and earthly wisdom.

Having a philosopher as discussion leader, inevitably, we wandered into territory addressing the classic debate "what is the heart?" Mike had a great point concerning how imperitive it is that we as Christians know how we define the heart, mind, and soul since the greatest command is loving God with your heart, loving Him with your mind, and loving Him with your soul.

So here we go ...

Going backwards ... the soul (which I keep typing as "sould" for some reason) is the piece that keeps the heart, mind, and spirit in harmony and is the essence of the person. Each soul (I did it again) has a body that eventually dies and releases the soul (which is eternal) - it is our personality, our reasoning capabilities, that which allows us to love ... which gets around to the three components.

The spirit is actually the simplest (to put into definition terms - however, since this is literally God living in us, then it is also the most complex - crazy how He tends to do this) of the three: either it's dead or alive, and can only be awakened by its creator through the power of His Spirit - it is the Spirit of God living inside man.

I view the mind as really the entryway to our whole being - it is the tool that processes everything we hear, see, and experience. The mind has valuable reasoning capability and is the house of creativity allowing for the contribution of logical thought to those matters which demand clarity of expression or further development/articulation of reality.

The heart (this is really rough here ... but worth writing out I think) is that foundation of truths that you really believe at your core: those you've gathered over a whole lifetime of joy, of grief, love - those truths which govern your illicited primary response to actions/opportunities and wind up evoking an emotion which can yield a good/bad response depending on the state of your heart.

I'm just blown away at how Christ's death on the cross really makes us whole - gives us the ability to be like Christ in our inner persons through the gift of the Spirit that lives inside us as some sort of regulatory mechanism guiding our mind through complex reasoning and somewhat deciphering mysteries of the heart (which I am so far from understanding).

James is so encouraging, yet overwhelmingly challenging because he tells us that we really can be like Christ - what a message - the realization as we get closer and closer to just how far we are from Him brings us closer ... yeah.

Amazing grace.

* Sunglasses: Well ... on to something completely non-deep, I was running around Lake Fayetteville (it was so gorgeous!) today and saw a tree with some sunglasses on about 6' up - it was a great joy to see that smiling tree around mile 5! Magical.

Beautifully Symmetric

Earlier today, I got the pleasure to go from my Physical Chemistry class to the Chemistry & Biochemistry department building (which involves a good distance of walking, quite enjoyable on a day as beautiful as this one) with my professor, Xiaogang Peng (it's "Sho-gun," that's quite glorious in itself really - just that all those Roman letters have been transcribed to mean some significant phrase in Chinese ... life is full of metaphors and symbols - I hope to recognize them all).

We've been learning about molecular symmetry and how some electrons will not transfer between certain orbitals but others share electrons flippantly, so much so that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (that it is impossible to determine the exact location and the exact momentum of a particle simultaneously - it just cannot be calculated with human mathematical skills) comes into play. This is quantum mechanics at its finest. Quantum has been a developing sector int he chemical and physical sciences over the past century and has provided multiple breakthroughs in novel and previously established (though not fully understood) theory.

Back to the discussion on route to CHBC ... we were discussing how nature has this inherent symmetry that has been one of the two major discoveries, the other being the existence of numerous constants (good for congruent calculations and observation of general equations) that enable linear (when you simpify several more complicated mathematical procedures, i.e. Taylor expansions, series, etc.) which has furthered science over the past century.

Nature's faithful execution of this magnificent order enables us to quantitize, qualify and then employ the analyses we run to better the human existance and knowledge base concerning the laws of the universe.

So many scientists are studying the character of God without even recognizing it - it's really a cool field to be in because the anaologies come so easily.

It just blows me away that the creator of mathematical organization is the same creator of the incomprehensible beauty of forests and mountains, Him who has shaped the complexity man and the mystery of love - to Him be the glory, forever and ever.

This is worship.

East Indians have this really cool religious festival known as "Holi" that is celebrated annually by Hindus all over the world. I had the awesome invitation to attend a Holi party at the U of A in Spring with my research advisor Aarti. What a joyful celebration from an empty religion ... hmm. Everyone has a bag of powder-paint of different vibrant colors and the point of the game is to get your color of paint on someone before they can get it on you, while all the time wishing everyone "Happy Holi." The celebration is in honor of the new colors and warmth of Spring that is coming to renew the earth again.

When playing, it was just awesome to be laughing and running with Indians, usually quite a reserved people, who seemed fully alive. I think it could be possible to do this everyday, given without the paint ... in fact we're called to: to really wish holiness upon those we come in contact with and to do it with such an infectious joy!

I am wholly His and he is holy.
(Check out David Crowder Band's Wholly Yours on his new Collision CD, if you haven't had the chance yet.)

Happy holy.