Old Things New

I spent a good bit of the night cleaning and restoring some old NES video games. It was very nostalgic, enough so that I got sucked into an hour or so of Super Mario, Mega Man, and Galaga. There was also real satisfaction in watching the blinking screen of death turn into a crisp 8-bit masterpiece. But it was the deeply spiritual aspect of it that really caught my attention.

All it took was a little love and attention and this decades old toy looked and played just like new. The old became new. It occurred to me that I may not be so different from that Pac-Man cartridge next to me. I am covered with dirt and grime again and again, day after day, but with God's love and attention I am washed clean and made new. And let us not forget He crafted us out of dirt in the first place. All around us we can see the hand of our Creator being the Sustainer and Restorer of all things. So we join the band Gungor in a prayer of praise and adoration:

"You make beautiful things out of the dust."

Amen.

A Little Reframing

Conversations are not always the best places for self-discovery. We have all uttered a few sentences that made us stop and think, "wow, do I really feel that way?" or "I had no idea that's what I wanted." It can be rather embarrassing at times. While the feelings and thoughts may have been there all along, it was not until your larynx vibrated the words out past your lips into the air that you could really understand. But when your conversation partner is a good friend, it can be a refreshing and liberating experience. I had such an experience this week.

Most of you know that graduate school is the general direction in which I've been heading. Granted "headed" there is a vague term reminiscent of Island Time, but heading there nonetheless. A lot of progress has been made on the what, where, and why, so it feels more like just a matter of when. In talking with a dear friend, it occurred to me that there were two ways to frame the timeline in my mind. The first, which is how I viewed it up until recently, is that everything I am doing right now is merely the in between until graduate school arrives. It takes a lot of time, money, and energy to do graduate work, and so it is natural to have a few years of preparation. By having this perspective, I felt the need to qualify my current life situation by saying, "...that's what I'm doing now before I start graduate school." Then the conversation would shift to all the great things I was going to do and study.

Now I see things a bit differently, which leads us to perspective #2. I realized that everything I am involved in - for work or play - is comprised of the very things I am passionate about and are within my skill set. What I should be focused on is engaging the things I find right in front of me, entering into the work and community in which I've been planted. These things are real things, not just meantime things. Graduate school will come when it comes, if it ever does. I'm okay with that sentence now. God has brought me here from where He has led me, and He will lead me forward into the next step. And I would do well to pay attention to the tasks as hand for they are the very things that will shape me into what I'm becoming.

A lot of people are at a crossroads right now, and I hope there is some encouragement in this for where you are. Look up from the map you've drawn for your life and see the place where God has brought you. You might be surprised how beautiful it is.