Week One

Last week, I was standing in a small scarf shop in India talking liturgical colors/seasons with friends, deciding whether the orange or the pink scarf would be better for spring, and knowing that I had to come back to Michigan that night, silently scheming ways to return to India.

Today, I sat in the atrium at Western Theological Seminary watching the snow fall.

It's hard to believe that an entire week of spring semester has passed already.  I think I was asleep through most of it, to be honest, but I'm slowly coming to terms with the reality that this is, in fact, my life.  I've given in to the necessity of things like laundry, dishes, and vacuuming. I'm slowly succumbing to things like Greek vocabulary and New Testament reading.

But as I start a new semester, there's a strange tension lingering between how I want things to be and how they really are--the 'should be' and the existent.  Lately, I find myself daydreaming far more often than I ought to about the world, particularly my world, in better shape than I find it in. It's encouraging to know that such a world might be possible.  But there's a fine balance between hoping for a better world and becoming bitter at the world you see, and I'm really good at falling all over that line.  I'm not lying when I say that every fiber of my being wishes it were in India, but I'm also fighting to be present here.

So as I conquer jet lag, clean up my terribly messy apartment, find some semblance of a routine and hope that it stops snowing someday, I also hope for a world without daydreaming--a reality that I'm excited about and not slightly terrified of. 

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And speaking of slightly terrifying things, standing on this bridge in Kerala was exactly that. This bridge is made entirely out of old pipes and tree limbs, tied together with rope. We fit eight people on it for a photo, and we honestly thought for a while that we would end up in the river.  But we got a fantastic photo out of it, don't you think?