i should have written this for the essay portion of my comps.

"We habitually and instinctively look to other things besides God and his grace as our justification, hope, significance, and security. We believe the gospel at one level, but deeper levels we do not. Human approval, professional success, power and influence, family and clan identity- all of these things serve as our heart's "functional trust" rather than what Christ has done, and as a result we continue to be driven to a great degree by fear, anger, and a lack of self-control. You cannot change such things through mere willpower, through learning Biblical principles and trying to carry them out. We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow." - tim keller

feels like rome to me...

probably the most fun/surprising/weirdly comforting thing about moving down to the city is how familiar it feels. the only other time i've lived in a city like this was on stint. now every time i walk to my apartment or almost get run over by a bus or hear traffic out my bedroom window i have this strange feeling that i'm back in italy. i'll be utilizing the public transportation for the first time tomorrow, so i'm anticipating an even stronger feeling of deja vu. :)

so, yes, as you've gathered from this first paragraph, i made the big move down to chicago last week. i just updated my current city on facebook, so it's official. even without all the rome feelings there's just something i love about the city. in my short experience here my neighbors have been friendly and helpful, the weather has been beautiful and the traffic has been absolutely infuriating. i like most of that. the transition has been much less stressful than i anticipated, due not in small part to the army of helpful friends that have been around for me.

yesterday was also my first day at internship (!), which was both low-key and comforting. i won't start seeing clients for another couple weeks, but i'm more excited than nervous about that.

current mood: grateful :)

"hope is the thing with feathers,
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune without the words,
and never stops at all"
-- emily dickinson

is the theme of my life transition?

the other day i was in line in back of a guy whose shirt read "the only constant in life is change". my two immediate reactions were:

1. that's not true. the only constant in life is God. bam!
2. that feels so true in my life.

last night i was driving back to my parents' house from my home church (which i will leave when i move to the city) and felt a familiar emptiness in the pit of my stomach. i'm saying goodbye again. later this week i'll be saying goodbye to an incredible sister in Christ, former roommate, and best friend as she moves to east asia for (at least?) a year.

in times like these my mind flashes back to the drive home from traverse city summer project. the walk to my plane on the way back from rome. my high school friends sitting in a circle crying the night before college. holding hands with my roommates and singing "friends are friends forever" on the way to our last Cru meeting. i remember that i haven't lived in the same place for two years in a row since 2002. saying goodbye causes a pretty deep sorrow in my heart, a sorrow i've felt often these past few years.

all the while on this car ride home i was anticipating my move in a couple weeks. that means even more transition. a new city, new church, new internship, new apartment, lots of "new"ness. my train of thought was interrupted by a cd i just bought from my church's bookstore.

Majesty, You fashioned the heavens
Your decrees can never be changed
Over all the plans of the nations
Your judgments reign

these lyrics struck me deeply and brought tears to my eyes. GOD is eternal and He is constant. i have moved a lot. i have felt rootless and homeless for a long time. in view of eternity these are light and momentary troubles.

Majesty, we’ll sing with creation
When You come again in the clouds
Every knee will bow down and worship
The one true God

whenever i feel the sting of transition i LONG for permanence, for home. i even start to believe that once i get "settled" somewhere things won't be so hard. in His mercy and wisdom God hasn't let me get settled, He's challenged me to find my home in Him, to long for my home in heaven. tonight i'm thanking God for transition. it's making me long for eternity. lets hope that thankfulness is still there when i'm moving boxes up to my second story apartment. :)

[ht:jb]

i just love this j.j. heller song right now.

(also, ht:bw for sharing how to embed a youtube video without the video. i just edited html, world!)

[wo]man vs. wild

me and the raccoons have had a good thing going on. and by "a good thing" i mean that i've been generally unaware of their existence. this was true until a few weeks ago, when they suddenly and egregiously violated their half of the deal. in FULL daylight nonetheless.



i left the apartment around 8pm to see that face staring up at me. it was all i could do to keep my composure and run back to grab my camera. when i came back somehow it had multiplied.



cripes. at this point i was half excited (after all, how often do i see so much nature so up close?) and half freaked-out. i mean, it is BROAD(ish) daylight! the only time i've seen a raccoon in the broad daylight was the time a rabid one was wandering around our neighborhood when i was in third grade. my mom told us to stay inside while animal control came and "took him away". (i'm assuming to a nice farm with a kind raccoon-loving family, right mom?) anyway, as i'm forumlating my plan of escape if, in fact, i'm dealing with some kind of raccoon army, they start climbing back UP THE STAIRS!



after taking that picture i RAN back into my apartment and slammed the door. now i had a real predicament on my hands. these raccoons were blocking my one and only exit. (those of you who know me well might know about how i occasionally try to plan my escape from unlikely life-threatening situations. NONE of my planning ever involved a possibly rabid family of raccoons holding me hostage in a one room apartment.) after a couple minutes i summoned up my courage, cracked the door open, and started crazily stomping and yelling my way to the stairs.



(note how they're running away in obvious defeat. holly-1, rodents-0)

needless to say, i was pretty darn terrified when i returned to my apartment later that night. i'm pretty sure i heard some scratching and growling from the tree they had escaped into.

this is unrelated to the overall story, but in the raccoons' hurried scurrying the smallest one wasn't able to get over the concrete wall they climbed.



aw, look at that little buddy.

consider yourselves warned, trinity dwellers. the campus raccoons mean business.

i'm reading a eugene peterson book

there. i said it.

even though wikipedia tells me he founded a PCUSA church and even though bringing up "the message" as a translation of the bible elicits an irreverent snort from most of those reformed folks i seem to hang around with.

the real reason i picked up "eat this book" was a need to read something that would challenge my heart and mind. i've really anchored myself to the notion that right thought results in right action. if my thinking about the Lord is in line then the responses of my heart should follow.

my life recently, though, has shown me that my version of this has come up short. peterson points out three ways that we "depersonalize" the text, the first of which is intellectualizing the Bible. (the second two, fyi, are coming to the Bible for practical wisdom and inspiration.) he goes on to say this:

"I don't want to be too hard on any one of these groups of Bible-readers, especially since I've spent considerable time in each group myself, but I do want to call attention to the conspicuous fact that in whatever group you find yourself, you will be using the Bible for your purposes, and these purposes will not necessarily require anything of you relationally."

i'm only on chapter two, so i can't endorse this book yet. so far, though, it's made me want to approach Scripture without an agenda and stirred in me a desire to open my heart up to the possibility that God (working through the Bible) is bigger than I think he is. that seems like a good thing.

(side note: i'm far from recanting the whole "right thought leads to right feeling" idea. i'm mostly pointing out my own tendency to bypass my heart and only engage my head.)

indecisive

i really don't like to use that word to describe myself, but it's usually pretty accurate.

i like to think, though, that it's not because i'm apathetic, but because i'm idealistic. it's hard to choose because i so build things up in my mind that deciding on something concrete feels like defeat. ok, it's only going to be this good. no fireworks, amazing soundtrack, or super-clever-i-can't-believe-i-didn't-think-of-that-first title.

that (really!) is what has kept me from starting this blog for so long. the title. so i made myself choose. take THAT idealism!

(i hope i stick with this for more than a week!)