Fact & Fiction

I miss writing for fun. I used to derive great enjoyment from stringing words together in sentences, creating stories and poems. But lately, I have to write so many essays for my program that I have no creative juice left for doing it just for fun.
My English prof is making us watch Big Fish for our Literary Theory and Criticism class. Big Fish is a movie about tall tales. The father in the movie tells his son of all the extraordinary events that allegedly compose his life story. As the son gets older, he becomes jaded and cynical, and he realizes that the stories his father tells him are just "lies." At the end of his father's life, he becomes obsessed with finding out the real story. However, the son eventually discovers that the truth in his father' s life lies in the stories that the father told the son. Whether the tales were true or not, there was hidden in them the life lessons that the father wanted the son to hear.
I think that one of the lessons in that movie is about the power of fiction. Stories have the ability to move us in the way that perhaps a sermon or a purely biographical tale may not be able to do. Stories have a healing power. Although it may be fictional, far-fetched, or removed from reality, a good story has a nugget of truth hidden in it. It is up to the discerning reader to search it out. As Rudyard Kipling said, "Fiction is Truth's eldest sister."
Maybe I'll go write a story!

Honesty...

Sometimes I feel like my heart has been scattered in a thousand tiny pieces to the four winds, and I can't find it again to put it back together. Imagine a fragile icicle, just a tiny drip off of someone's roof in the wintertime. The temperature dips well below freezing, and the icicle becomes hard and brittle. Now imagine a north wind, so strong that it knocks the little icicle off, shattering it and dispersing the tiny shards wherever the wind goes. That's the way my heart feels like right now.
That's incredibly depressing, I know, and I hate to be depressing in public! Still, no one reads this except for my brother, and blunt honesty has become one of my bad habits. Besides, writing is such a healing activity.
I wonder how many people feel like this. I'm sure that everyone must at some time. Someone I knew once told me that he never really has a bad day. I have to wonder at people like that. Are they really being honest?
I wonder - when we all pretend to be moved by the worship in chapel, but in reality only one person actually saw a tiny glimpse of God's presence - I wonder what would happen if we were honest with God and each other. I wish I could find out! However, society is based on acceptable norms, and honesty just doesn't seem to fit with what we perceive as appropriate.
Back to my shattered heart... I know someday I will find it again. The first step is being honest with myself. My ego tells my id some pretty slick lies, and it becomes difficult to distinguish the truth. I want to spend every day creeping a little bit closer to reality, to the truth that's waiting for me somewhere - maybe in the same location that my lost heart is.

Bridal School

I guess it's not really surprising that this subject would come up eventually. After all, I am at Bible School, and the subject of rings and wedding dresses permeates normal, everyday conversation. Sophomores from my freshman year suddenly start sporting bling on their left hand, and they light up like a Christmas tree when someone asks them about it. "This? Yeah... well... he proposed this Saturday. It was so sweet! Yes, I'm excited. It was about time! We're getting married this summer... Oh, thank you, I think it's beautiful too. He picked it out himself, you know..." And the people who just started dating last year are already looking forward to the day when they'll have something shiny and new to show off. One of my closest friends recently told me, "I'd say yes anytime he decided to ask me." That sent a tingle down my spine and a jolt of panic to my heart. Here are my peers, planning their weddings, and I don't even have a boyfriend yet! I wonder sometimes if I'll be so far behind that by the time I'm in a committed relationship, my friends will all be producing children. It's not the most pleasant thought, yet rather unavoidable here in this environment of serious relationships.
I'm just ranting about this now because I spent my supper meal in the company of five other single people, all of whom had differing opinions on the subject of Bridal School. One of the guys, a freshman, was quite adamant that this school was created for the sole purpose of "hooking up." The other guy, in his 3rd year and single (not for lack of trying), was only too happy too agree. The two other girls were on the opposite side of the argument. They felt that most people were here because of the education.
I don't know where I stand! On the one hand, I'm not here to meet a guy, and I never have been. I know that a lot of my peers don't have that goal in mind either. However, we all dream a little... we all wonder, hey, what if... and what better place to find "the one" than in an environment full of people your own age who all espouse the same values you do? And having a boyfriend wouldn't be at all unpleasant.
That's why I want to trust God with this year. I'm not on the prowl, I'm no cougar, and the freshmen don't hold (very much) attraction for me. However, I have an extremely hot dress for the Christmas banquet, and I wouldn't mind a hot date. We'll see if that's in God's plans for me this year, and if it's not - well then, I won't be disappointed.
The year is a fresh slate, and no one knows what will happen yet! It hasn't even been two weeks yet! The very thought is both depressing and exciting.
~For every matter has its time and way, although the troubles of mortals lie heavy on them. Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be? ~ Ecclesiastes 8:6-7

Am I a racist?

Last night I watched a movie called Crash. It was so intense! I think the point of the whole movie was that everyone has some racist tendencies, whether we're aware of them or not. And we all can be subjected to racism. Needless to say, it was a little disturbing. And today, during every class, even during my job interview this afternoon, I was so sensitive to every nuance that could possibly be construed to racism. Everything I said suddenly became subject to the closest scrutiny, imposed by myself, of course. But it's a subject that I think that Canadians don't really think about a lot. And we need to!
I don't mean this to be a tirade against every injustice imposed upon humankind. I'm not political like that at all. I'd much rather listen to Adventures in Odyssey than the news. But there's something about a discussion of social injustices - a discussion not just about the concepts, but about the actual reality of how those injustices affect everyday people - there's something about such a discussion that makes you feel as if your mind has been expanded, just a little, an extra fringe of awareness on the edges of your schemas. And that's a good feeling.

Cloudy Evening

The bare white walls tend to close in on you. I like my room but I don't like the way that everything is so bare and sterile. It's too neat to look lived in, but too messy too make me feel completely at peace. And the pale evening light filtering through the cloudy sky echoes my odd, restless mood.
I hate living here sometimes.
.... "Why can't you see / Freedom is sometimes just simply another perspective away".... - Kutless
Freedom is such an elusive concept... and it seems so far away tonight. How do I know what it really feels like to be free? Abstract thinking is difficult for me, which is probably why I'm planning on failing my Literary Theory and Criticism class. But I think that here on earth, within the constraints of the frailty of our bodies, humans will never really feel freedom. If we were completely free, would we even be able to handle it?
I'm looking forward to Heaven. I hope that it won't just be blank white walls.