give thanks always

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It is shaping up to be a frenetic semester. But in the midst of e-mail overload, article after article on religious communication, deadlines, meetings, dirty dishes, forms, and a looming and unknown future, I have continually been returning to 1 Thessalonians 5:16.

Be joyful always;
pray continually;
give thanks in all circumstances,
for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Though I am not certain where God is leading me after graduation, though our kitchen floor needs a cleaning, though I don't know how exactly to direct my senior project, I can know what God wills of me this moment, this day. To be joyful. To pray. To give thanks.

These things are tangible. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, whoever I'm talking to, these words can recenter and refocus me. They provide direction for the moment, which is what I so desperately seem to need right now.

So I want to share with you all some of the little -- and big -- ways God has been blessing me -- the things for which I am thankful...

:: deer springing through the air besides the wooded path Jo and I run on

:: the grace to pull myself out of bed to exercise

:: a friend who remembers me daily from the far reaches of New York and speaks words of wisdom and truth into my life

:: supervisors who share their insight with me and guide and encourage me in how I should act

:: people who ask me how I am and truly mean it

:: the smile of a friend across the room

:: quiet moments in the apartment with my journal and Bible

:: the window directly in front of my desk that splays light across my books and lets in a cool breeze

:: hearing the familiar voices of loved ones over the phone

:: the pale purple flowers tucked into a cream mug on our kitchen table

:: Saint-Saen's third organ symphony

:: the conviction of the Holy Spirit

:: the sound of pencil against page

:: lunches outside under the sun and conversations with my roommate

:: anticipation of what life will bring

:: the inspiring faith of two friends who are going through trials and difficulties

:: ice cold water with a splash of lime

:: psalm 131

:: warmth: sweatshirts, my fleece blanket, and steaming mugs of tea

:: the truth that Christ is all, and is in all (Colossians 3:11)

May God continue to reveal to me the multitude of ways He is working in my life and the lives of those around me.
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an encouraging inadequacy

While reading this afternoon, I found a passage in L'Engle's Walking on Water that expresses one of the main lessons I learned during my time in Oxford:

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own. (p. 62)

My time in Oxford taught me one thing: I am not qualified. As I am, I am not adequate. I frequently experience this feeling, but in Oxford it was intensified. I felt it in almost every conversation. In eavesdropping on the people walking the streets with me. In reading my papers aloud to Dr. P. In comparison to others in the program who evidently hold a deeper passion for the Lord than I do.

But this intense experience of inadequacy was good for me. It served as a reminder that any success I may find, any knowledge I can claim, any skill or talent I might possess, is not my own. It comes from someone greater than me; I am only enabled to do, or know, or achieve.

As I stood outside the door to our tutorial room, waiting to go in to my second tutorial with Dr. P., I felt discouraged. After my last tutorial I had felt like crying. This second essay I wrote seemed even worse than the first. I leaned against the wall and envisioned my GPA sinking ever lower. But then a question drifted through my mind: Why am I here, in Oxford? What do I want to get out of this experience? Is my time here only about sustaining my GPA or is there something more? No, I thought, I want more from this. I want to grow in understanding, I want to learn -- about myself, about others, about God. Right before I went in, I handed the upcoming hour to the Lord and asked him to teach me what he would, to make it not a time where I could impress Dr. P (because there was no way I could!), but a time where I would learn and reach a higher level of understanding.

Would you believe we had a fantastic tutorial? We most certainly did. I felt I learned so much about myself and about God in that hour, through our conversation, and even -- or perhaps, especially -- through my inadequacies and my questions.

And it moved my heart to praise. As I walked back along St. Giles and Banbury, the only words flowing in my spirit were thank you. The paradox of realizing one's unqualified nature, as L'Engle points out so adeptly, is that it points us to the one who is qualified. As we realize our limitations, our failures, our inadequacy, we need not be discouraged; we can be encouraged in the glory and wonder of seeing God display his adequacy, his involvement in all aspects of life, his boundless ability.

Thanks be to God.

(photo: stained glass in Holy Trinity Church, Coventry)
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through my eyes (#4)

1 // A view of the Taylorian Library, where I worked on my last two essays. The desk I worked at was located right in front of the crescent window farthest on the right, which looks out on the Ashmolean Museum and the many tourist groups roving about.



















2 // The entrance to the Botanical Gardens (which I unfortunately did not go in). However, Becky and I perched on the little curb and ate crepes we had purchased at the Covered Market. So delicious!














3 // My roommates and I, all dressed up for our final tea, standing in front of the Radcliffe Camera.























4 // Just a portion of the breathtaking "stained glass" mosaic at Coventry Cathedral.



















5 // Becky and I during intermission at a production of Romeo and Juliet, put on in the ampitheatre you can see behind us. It was a welcome break from researching and essay writing.

reflections

The past two weeks have been entirely consumed with researching, writing, and tutorials -- hence the lack of recent posts. But essays have been written, tutorials gotten through, and consequently I am free from work during my last week here in Oxford. Though I am happy to be able to sleep again and not feel the nervous pressure twisting in my stomach, I am also sad to be so close to the end. There is no longer any reason for me to go study in the Taylorian or the Lower Camera. I likely will never have another tutorial in my life. My mind is not overwhelmed with Jane Austen's portrayal of duty and family, Lewis's ideas on getting to heaven and hell, the problem of suffering, or the feminist nature of Jane Eyre. And, likely, I won't have the opportunity to study in such a way, and in such a place, ever again.

But, for the little taste of Oxford that I have been granted I am infinitely thankful. So many times throughout my stay here I felt entirely undeserving of being labeled a student in this city. Next to nearly everyone here I seem to know nothing. My hard work and mediocre brains are no longer sufficient for getting a "well done!" at the bottom of my paper. In casual conversations, words and ideas I am unfamiliar with get thrown around. Intimidating, yes. But not discouraging. Rather, I find it to be an invigorating and inspiring atmosphere. It makes me want to learn more. People are so passionate about what they are learning and studying and that excitement is contagious. And there is a sense here that everyone is, in some form or another, a student. It is truly a community of learning; some are just much farther down the path than others (such as myself).

Being here has also forced me to question what sort of person I am and whether I am doing what it takes to become the sort of person I want to be. If I want to consider myself an avid reader, am I truly reading enough? If I want to consider myself somewhat intellectual, am I immersing myself in the things necessary to become one?

Perhaps I am not. And perhaps this is because I am still not entirely certain what sort of person I want to become. It seems I should know by now but somehow I don't. Switching to HDFS was the right choice; I felt God's affirmation in that decision. But whether or not I want to continue down the path of human services and therapy, I'm not sure. Do I want to go that path or do I want to find my way into the world of the humanities again? Literature is truly what I love. Oxford has certainly reminded me of that. But I also love the idea of being there for people and talking through their problems with them. Where do I go from here? I'm not sure... and I am trying to trust that God will guide me to where he would have me go.

(photo: Trinity Church, C.S. Lewis's home congregation and place of burial)
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the kilns

On Saturday afternoon, a group of us made our way to the home of C.S. Lewis, the Kilns. We happened to time our visit during the one week the house is empty, and thus we had the great privilege of wandering inside the house. After a tour of the house by Nicole, we spread out on the lawn for a picnic dinner, and then ended our evening by walking down to the church where Lewis worshiped regularly and is now buried.

The beauty of the home and grounds surprised me -- it was an aching sort of beautiful, the kind that evokes a melancholy sort of delight. Perhaps this was partly due to a knowledge of the joy that occurred amongst those walls and gardens, but also of the pain, the struggles, the mental wrestling, the deaths that also took place in that home. It seemed to be a rather sacred place; God's presence seemed near, evidencing itself in the carefully cared for home, the heavenly pink flowers on the lawn, the notes left on the fridge speaking of the communal atmosphere that has inhabited the home for many years.

To commemorate my visit (and the fact that I have been spending significant amounts of time with his writings the past few weeks), here are some of my favorite Lewis quotes.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through the was longing. These things -- the beauty, the memory of our own past -- are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the things itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.
-- from "The Weight of Glory"

Ah, the Saved... what happens to them is best described as the opposite of a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery turns out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water.
-- from The Great Divorce

Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.
-- from A Grief Observed
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homely musings

Should I ever have a house, I would love for it to have...

1. a small pathway leading up to the front door

2. lavender bushes surrounding the pathway

3. a gate, slightly open, beckoning people to come in

4. a front door with the door knob in the center

5. windows surrounded by ivy that bounces and springs about in the breeze

6. ancient trees forming a covering over the house

7. a blue door with an arched top

8. window boxes with flowers of every color and light, vivid green leaves popping out

9. a small, spacious back lawn with benches tucked into corners, behind hedges

10. white, lacy curtains fluttering about behind open windows

(photo: a home on the Vicars Close, the oldest preserved street in England, located in Wells)
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more than simply seeing

Ah, but we want so much more -- something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words -- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.
-- C.S. Lewis, from "The Weight of Glory"

This passage puts into words the feelings I experience when I look at trees like this, or fields of bobbing grass, or magnificent scissor arches, or ivy drooping to cover open windows. Lewis puts it so perfectly and succinctly that I shall leave it at that.

(photo: a grouping of trees at Glastonbury)