legal graffiti day...

We painted the Senior Sidewalk yesterday afternoon. There was plenty of space, so I left plenty of quotes and messages and memories. And then I kept a few paint pens, because I'm sure I'll have more to add.
How do you really sum up the four years that have changed your life? I mean, yeah, you learn plenty from 1-18, but 18-22? Infinite.I had a conversation earlier about the need to mourn the passing of this phase. None of us want to stay, but we don't want to leave, either. I think that's what I've been doing all weekend: mourning. It's necessary.

It will be weird to expand this life into something bigger than a ten minute walk across campus. We're all trying to figure out how to not let the goodbyes ruin the final weeks. Plus, it's easier to talk faux-osophically about transition than actually putting in the work on the final paper of my undergrad. In two weeks, I will be standing on nw soil: a college graduate, ready to see if all this actually works.

the night we met

i saw more stars
than i had ever seen before
my ears filled with
bluegrass laughter
and cigarettes
across the empty fields

ode to my favorite shoes...

i wish i knew you
like these well worn shoes,
feeling you like thin rubber
soles connecting feet to pavement,
(after thousands of unconscious steps)
charged with familiarity
illuminating a subtle incline
the smallest pebble
and the firm grip of gravity.

sunday morning love...

I woke up with the sunshine this morning [hello, sun. i've missed you! thanks for visiting michigan] and did a little reading. Sometimes reading is fun and easy, sometimes it's a cleverly disguised nudge, sometimes it's that blatantly obvious slap in the face to help you really understand all the other recent slaps. [oh, wait, so all these pieces do fit together? no way!]

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another [1 john 3:11]

I'm not really sure why I thought this, since twenty-two years of experience has so far proved otherwise, but I've always expected that one day, loving people would be easy for me. I'm not sure whether I figured they would all just become really awesome or I would become really awesome, but I expected that eventually everything would change and I would be so awesome at loving/serving/giving. And man, would I be a cool Christian then! This week has been all about challenging my ridiculous conceptions and replacing them with unamenable truth:

"That's what's so difficult about Jesus' call to love others. On one level, it's easy to love God, because God doesn't smell. God doesn't have bad breath. God doesn't reward kindness with evil. God doesn't make berating comments. Loving God is easy, in this sense. But Jesus really let us have it when he attached our love for God with our love for other people." [gary thomas]

Loving people is always the harder thing to do. It's the right thing, but it never really gets easier. When loving people means roadtripping with the windows down and singing along to your favorite songs, man, I'm great at that. But when loving people looks like forgiveness [a conscious continual choice, not actually a one time thing like i previously thought], grace, and pursuing someone as equally unlovable as myself, I want to quit. Yes, I can practice/cultivate behaviors and routines and habits of the actions of love, but this heart cannot be trained to love on autopilot.

I heard someone talking about how Paul treats the Corinthian church. These kids were pretty messed up, yet he opens his first letter to them with the line: "I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus..." I don't think it was easy for Paul to love them. Obviously, he's writing them a letter over some pretty frustrating behavior. In fact, this sentence could even have been as much of a reminder to himself as to them [maybe that's improper speculation, but i know how often i need remind myself of grace before i have any interaction with people].

Love isn't something that works on autopilot. I will never naturally or unconsciously love people. Love is a constant moving forward, not an apathetic staying put and waiting for the Love Fish to jump up out of nowhere and hit your head [gosh, i'm kind of violent this morning. all this slapping of faces]. The people who needed John's letter had heard about love from the beginning, but still needed to hear about it again. Me too.

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth [1 john 3:18].

plus four...

Kayris and I are still wearing blue.
freshmen

seniors

senior formal...

m & m

four from...

While spring continues to shamelessly flirt without any real commitment, here are some photos representing warmer times.