Run, Katie, Run!

It has been a crazy week. It's amazing that I've only been back at UNI since Sunday night. The whole experience of going home and coming back seems so surreal. So much more happens when I'm here; It feels like each day stretches into years. In a good way.

my fourth update on the marvel that is Celebration Iowa Rehearsal Camp.

The Luther Campus is so beautiful. I love it here.
It's Sunday, so we were allowed to sleep in, if we choose. I went to Church. It was a Lutheran Church, but not at all like my church at home. I'm glad that it was different. I enjoy contrast.

I discovered the track here and have gone running a little bit. I always forget how much I love it until I have a lot of bottled up emotions that all get released when I run. Running on a track is different from running around my neighborhood, but I like it because you don't have anything to distract you and it's harder to keep track of how far you've run. It's better that way. All the same, I'm getting sick of making left turns.

We've gone through all three of the vocal sets. Right now we're working on the Broadway set, which has a lot of problems in the band arrangements. The British set had some problems too, but I think we fixed them more quickly. The British set is still my favorite, but Broadway has its moments.

Guess what we worked on in improve class yesterday.
Impressions.
yeah. I'm serious.
anyone from 7th hour jazz class would know what I'm talking about.

It's still weird for me to play the 3rd trumpet part. They're always telling us to listen up to the lead, which I'm perfectly fine doing, but I'm just not used to it. I feel like I really stick out of the sound sometimes. This is probably the tightest band I've ever been in, so whenever I screw up it's really noticeable. On the other hand, when no one screws up, we end up sounding really good.

I wonder how often the average band member makes a stnank.

The one true religion/life-philosophy...probably not so much a religion.

climax-a thrilling event that changes the course of your life. the high point of action in a novel. or something like that.

We believe in an eternity.
We believe that everything that is happening has happened before.
We believe that exterior forces will not cause you to change your life.
We believe that you cannot change yourself from within.

Life is a series of quests. When you complete one you move on to the next--a smooth transition.

Ever since the beginning of time all the forces in the universe have been building up to a certain event, but due to the heat death of the universe, that event will never happen.
The universe will never suffer its heat death
At least not wile we're around

So what happens to us when we die? We go to heaven, of course! And gosh knows nothing new will happen once we're there.

So if you don't experience climax in this life, you sure as hell won't get it in the next one.

So, what's so great about climax anyway?
The universe is always changing, always building up, so we have both everything and nothing to look forward to.

My life is anticlimatic.
Is yours?

up next: climaticism---the gospel!!!

Last night I was awake past midnight. At around one o'clock I remembered that somebody told me once that if you stayed awake until 1:11, you could make a wish. I decided that that's exactly what I would do.
At 1:10, I began to panic. If you're going to make a wish, you have to have a wish in mind. But I was drawing a blank. I was almost there, but then the clock turned, and it was 1:11.
A million things went through my mind. I made wishes for myself. I made wishes for my friends. I made wishes for material things. I made wishes for abstract things. I wished to fix the world, for the world not to be broken anymore.

The very last thing that went through my mind before the clock turned to 1:12 was, "I wish for God to be on my side."

What does that even mean?

God doesn't move. He won't move. He's everywhere all the time, he's unchanging, unchangable...and he's got his plan.
If anything, I should be wishing to for myself to be on God's side.
What does that take?
Is it something that you need to wish for?

And why am I so reluctant?

So we're Christians, right? We believe in Christ, and now we know our next job: to spread the word. Spread the word of Christ to all the nonbelievers.
And that's hard.
But it also doesn't work.

I only say this because it is the title of my blog entry. But let me explain how I came to this opinion.

Today after school I was talking to a very good friend of mine who happened to be carrying around a book about Wicca. A christian guy at my school that I know asked her if she was Wiccan. She said no. He asked her if she believed in Heaven and Hell. She said that she believed in Heaven, not so much Hell. He asked her that if she died tomorrow, where would she go, heaven or hell. She said she didn't know.

And here's the thing. She was appalled by his behaviour! I think she saw it as a personal attack on her. I have another good friend that was trying to tell her that she had to pray a special prayer to get into heaven. I think she misunderstood this as well. She thought that we were trying to force weird beliefs on her.

I didn't know what to say. I could've used this as an opportunity to try to witness to her, or see where she stands with the whole religion thing, but after hearing her tell about those two experiences with christians that I know, I had no idea how to approach it.

Now I have questions for you, reader. And by that I mean Patrick. I'm not trying to make a point or looking for a specific answer. I just don't know.

-What's more important about witnessing: that you are preaching the word of God to them whether they accept it or not, or that you are listening to them and trying to make sense out of their beliefs, even if it means not saying everything that you want to drive your own point home?

-Did you think that that was a really long confusing question?

-How would you, readers, talk to my friend in this situation (assuming that all my readers are chistian)?

-Is there a point when you decide to stop driving your point and just decide to let it go?


In my opinion, witnessing is the hardest part of Christianity. The hardest part is when you're so emotionally attached to one of you're friends and they can't understand the very most important part of your life.

1 Corinthians 13

I must be patient and kind. I must not envy, I must not boast. I must not be proud. I am not rude, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered. I will keep no record of wrongs. I do not delight in evil, but I rejoice with the truth. I must always protect, always trust, and always hope. God will help me to ALWAYS persevere. I must do all these things because I am a servant, a follower, a child, a friend of God, and God is Love. Even if I become the ultimate super-Christian, but have not Love, than I become nothing. If I desire God and let him teach me to love, than I can become the woman that god made me to be.

All my relationships should spur me on towards God. They must bring out the Love in me that is patient and kind. My relationships should not cause me to envy or boast. They will steer me away from pride and from selfish thoughts. My relationships will not be about me. They will help me to be a classy young lady. In my relationships, I will keep no record of wrongs. I won’t delight in evil, and no one will cause me to delight in evil. I will NOT let my friends make evil seem attractive to me. When I am with my friends, we will rejoice in the Truth. We will protect each other, we will trust each other, and never be cynical with each other. We will spur each other towards God and help each other in our faith walks. I will never leave a friend out of hatred. All my relationships must be full of Grace and full of Love, or else they will get me nowhere. I must do all I can to demonstrate love to everyone I meet, or else why meet them? A relationship that brings out the bad qualities in me is not worth my time. I want to become the woman that God created me to be.

I love God because God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. God is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered. He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the Truth! God IS protection. God always protects, and he WILL protect. He is a trusting God, and he will help me learn to trust him, because there has never been anyone in the world who is more deserving of my trust. God is my only hope, and without him I have nothing. God was in the beginning. And God is in the end. God goes past the beginning and the end, and he never changes (James 1:17). I can try to do everything a Christian does, I can do a million good deeds, I could hug a puppy, I could try to be the ultimate good person, but without God I will fail, and none of it would be right. God is Love.

I need Love. I need God.

I love him, but he loved me first. I love him because he loved me first. I love him for who he is, and I love him for what he’s done for me. I love him because he is there for me to love. I love him because he is the only one who can help me become the woman I was created to be.

That is what I want. I want God.

Um Ya Ya is the title of the Saint Olaf fight song. I've always wanted to hear my oldest brother sing this.
I went on a wacky confirmation trip with my church one time to Saint Olaf. This inevitably led to my brother singing the Um Ya Ya song. Unfortunately i wasn't paying attention at the time. Later i wanted him to sing it again, but he wouldn't.
Here's the point: I lot of times in life we're looking for something, something specific. That something specific is often times God. That thing is around us constantly, and even reaching out to us...but we're just not paying attention.
And then we ask the age-old question: "Where were you when i needed you? Where ARE you, God?"
Fortunately, God is much more patient than my brother. He will always sing the Um Ya Ya song. Just make sure that this time, you pay attention.

So I've been making a lot of paper cranes lately (I've got to reach one thousand somehow), and as i sat on my crane-littered floor Saturday, making them time after time again, i realized that there were so many paper cranes, all of them were different, and not one of them was perfect. I thought it was a metaphor for life.
My thoughts: "Maybe this is how God feels."
But then, while contemplating whether or not that last statement was blasphemy, I realized that People are not like paper cranes.
The beauty of a crane comes from the details and the crazy perfect perfection of it.
In people, it's the crazy little quirks that make us awesome. Every buddy is different! Every buddy is perfect (not taking into account the whole thing with human imperfection. ugh...that's a whole other story. and with this little bit in parentheses i have contradicted my whole blog and only succeeded in confusing you).
Learn from this.