Field Trip

Yesterday my classmates and I were let out of the straight jackets to visit a college library...It was rather interesting. It involved my going from the second floor to the basement and vise virsa three times on those steep steps (that you can look down through and see people on the lower floors) before I saw the elevator. The moving bookshelves in "The Lower Level" (sounds ominous to me, but that's what the map said) were very...purple. As the rest of the place was gray green and varying shades of white, some of my classmates just stared and blinked at the sudden color exposition. Yes I made the shelves move, and no I didn't shut someone in there. I thought about doing it to a classmate (who should have been named Loki) but after one of the younger girls tried to do it to our teacher, I didn't get a chance. I helped some girls find their books (after I figured out how the shelving worked...).

During lunch on campus, one of the girls my age gasped and kept telling me to look behind me. It was a college boy. Tall, pale, with black messy hair and the slight attempts of having a beard. "Oh, Ivy" She looked at me and back at the poor kid. "Isn't he perfect? Oh...he's beautiful. Ivy, he's god-like." Her eyes were glued to the boy who was trying hard to study his book. "Oh, college boys are so much better than the ones at school. He's god-like. Ivy, can you imagine what our kids would look like?"...I have never been so embarrassed in my life.

After lunch I checked out the writing center, but mostly I sat at a desk and tried to scribble down a few ideas. When I came back to my group's study room on the second floor, most of my classmates were back. One came in with her eyes bugged out, eyebrows up as high as they could go and she was bouncing, ever so slightly, as she stood there. Every once in a while her head, arm or shoulder would twitch. She had drank two cappuccinos and was almost finished with her large Mountain Dew. I was afraid we would need to tie her up on the bus ride home.

Ten minutes later, I checked out the books I needed from the massive library and climbed onto the bus. Ten minutes from school we had to stop at a small feed mill because cappuccino girl had to use the bathroom... Once back at school we were sent to join the kids who had not gone on the trip and were in the last class of the day. I walked in there, saw teens talking, sitting and laughing. Cappuccino girl and one of the boys from the trip came in, later than I was. The boy shuffled his feet, dragged an extra chair next to the one in front of me and placed his bag on the table. He looked at me, "I'm so tired. I slept all the way back." This said, he collapsed on the chairs, curled up and went back to sleep. Cappuccino girl started talking at a hundred miles per hour and tried to wake the sleeping boy. He groaned, and she sat on him. I got up and went to the professor in charge of the class. "Can I go to the library?"

Wednesday Quotes

"Fear kills everything...Your mind, your heart, your imagination." -Inkheart

The Real Narnia

Today my sister and I watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Once again we were swept into the world of Narnia that our mother first took us to when I was six or seven. My sister rode on Aslan's back to the White Witch's castle. I watched as Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy made their way to the Beavers' dam. The world of Narnia is one that has held the hearts of children for generations. They cry and laugh with the characters that mean so much to them. More than anything, we all wish to see Narnia with our own eyes. Now most of those who read the books know fully well who Aslan is and what he means when he tells the children he has a different name in our world. Yet the reader who knows that Aslan died for Narnia as Jesus died for us and that Aslan's name here is God still longs to be in Narnia. We still want to dance with the fawns, talk with the dryads, and learn to fight with the knights of Narnia. Christianity seems to be so much simpler there. The truth is that it is just as hard there as here. People fall, make mistakes, turn away from the truth, suffer for doing right, loose all they have and die in Narnia as much as in the real world. It just sounds better and less dark in those books because we are not really there. We are observers and cannot easily get inside the minds of the people in books. You cannot understand why Susan forgot Narnia completly unless you have forgotten Christianity. Everything is more obvious in books than in real life. Most of us distrust the White Witch as soon as she turns up in the book. C.S. Lewis made the line between good and evil plainly. In real life it is blurred and covered in a fog. Yet the signs and warnings are the same there as they are here. You just have to keep an eye open for them, or you will miss them. Nothing is spelled out for you as it is in books. The same evil is in Narnia and in this world. The same God as well. There may not be magic and fairies, but there is still a real deep magic, although it is not so much magic as it is power. You can have your adventures and battles with the White Witch and other villains. However they have different names here. The story is still the same though. The world of Aslan is real, you just have to find it inside yourself. Walking into your closet will do no good, the forest with the street lamp is all around you. You were born into it, but today it is called by a different name. I believe in Narnia, do you?

Wednesday Quotes

"That's right, cause ducks don't leave tracks."-Dad while driving during the early morning without sleep since the night before.

Summer Blues

Tomorrow I will stand outside and wave as the car pulls out of the driveway. My mother has to go to a college campus that is rather far way. She will be back in a little over a week, but already we miss her. Dad has been rather clingy and my sister and I keep trying to follow Mom around the house. We will miss her very much, so will the cats. Schuster (our 12 or 13 orange and white male) normally sleeps with Mom at night in the basement bedroom. If she is not there he yowls and calls for her all night till his little throat is sore. Mom said I could sleep down there and try to keep him from missing "his woman" so much. I don't know if it will work, but it is worth a shot.

I am still blocked on my writing. The only thing I can write is a paper over the movie Labyrinth (the one with David Bowie). I have been meaning to write it for quite some time, but never got around to it. Still, I wish I could work on my book...

So here I sit at my desk, typing away while my sister sleeps in the bedroom next door. After this I shall do chores, read a book, and do whatever else comes to mind. We shall miss you Mom.

Unexpected Plan

There's a joke that has an important message. How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans.
So far in my life, my plans and God's have matched. I want to be a writer, and as my brother told me recently, I seem to be pretty good at it. I want to go to one college so badly that I pray every day for an acceptance letter almost to the point of tears. Friday, part of God's plan became obvious to me and I was completely thrown by surprise.

I am doing an online Bible Study with a group of kids around my age and young adults. We come from different states and some of us live in Canada. We all met through our favorite band, Manic Drive. The band members are administrators of the study along with a young mother who made friends with the band and started our Bible Study, Prayer Group, and friend group (for us to just chat). After the first few days, I was the only one commenting and saying my thoughts and views on the daily readings our teacher, Jodi, was posting for us to learn from. Jodi contacted me, she told me that this was the first Bible Study that she had taught and that my comments were very encouraging to her and that I was catching stuff that she was missing. I expressed how much I was enjoying our Bible Study. A few hours later I was staring at her reply, unsure if I should cry or scream. " If you'd like you can do one of the chapters studies for the day :) just let me know if you'd want to."

Me teach a lesson? I just got my faith back roughly two years ago! I don't know the books of the Bible and I have no Bible verses memorized. I've never been to church camp and only one concert. How the heck could I teach about a whole chapter of Proverbs to people I've never met? I just looked at the computer screen, part of me really, really wanted to do it. I love our online lessons, tearing apart the verses for any secrets God hid within for me to find. I loved posting my findings for my teacher and friends to read and tear apart for themselves. I even liked it when they proved me wrong on certain issues, but could I really teach a lesson myself?

Unsure of what to do, I reached for my phone and texted my brother at college, Ayden the son of my pastor. "Well, I think God is asking you to do something for him that would also help you as well." He replied within minutes. "I wouldn't pass it up. What are you nervous about?"

I told him my fears and doubts, but even then I knew I would take up Jodi's offer. God wouldn't have put this before me if he didn't think I could do it. I had no cause to be nervous. Still the back of my head tittered back and forth. At least until Ayden texted me again. "I'm going to tell you what my dad told me. It's not you who's speaking or even influencing them. It's God who's doing the talking. The disciples didn't know their scripture either, but God spoke through them." That did it, I typed a reply to Jodi immediately saying I would be interested in taking one of the lessons if she would like me to. Ayden continued to talk to me, saying that I couldn't be that surprised by Jodi's offer. "I'm just saying you've got a way with words." He added, which gave me more strength. If I was actually meeting these people, chances are I would fall over from stage fright, normally I have no problems with talking in front of others, but this will be the first time I've done it over the Bible. All I have to do is type my thoughts over the chapter and post them for the rest of the class to see. As Ayden put it, it was "a good starting point."Although, I did start to panic a bit when I read that text. Starting point? Oh boy.

Jodi messaged me back and we agreed that I would take over the lesson for Proverbs chapter 20 when we reached it (we're going through the whole book, one chapter a day). My pastor had a huge grin on his face when I told him this morning at church. I still can't believe that I'm actually going to teach a lesson. My stomach has been fluttering since last night, though that may be due to the Girl Scout Cookies and peanut butter cups.

While I'm very nervous, I can't wait to reach chapter 20. Teaching a Bible Study lesson was never in my plans, but it was in God's and I'm sure he was laughing when I opened that message from Jodi. I can't help but laugh at my reaction with him. Was I really stupid enough to think that I knew what all was going to happen? This was completely unexpected, but it's still part of God's plan.

Snow Days

School had to close for today and tomorrow. It appears the current weather makes it unable for our medications to be delivered. I have enjoyed peace and quite instead of screams and yells. My cell has been cleaned and I am being allowed to bake a little tonight.

Hopefully, we will have even more snow and I will be able to go sledding with Tristin. Aric has told me his college campus has closed as well and we are both rather excited that we will get to talk to each other more over the glorious internet.

As I watch the snow fall I keep thinking of stories to write, problem is I have so many I don't know where to start. Sometimes I wonder if that is part of the flip side to writing. Either way, I would not stop writing for all the world. Nothing is completely bad or fully good. All things have a little of both.