March 2001
March 4, 2001
I just heard that Queen song, "Who wants to live forever?" It made me remember, emotionally, what high school was like. I can remember fairly clearly what it was all about in my head, but sometimes I forget what it really felt like. I know I did a lot of foolish things, but sometimes I can't for the life of me remember why.
I was hopelessly enslaved to any and every romantic desire I had. I hear that song and my heart groans, now with curious nostalgia more than anything, but at the time, I considered those groanings to be of tremendous importance.
I'm not sure why, but I'm glad to be away from it. It was like honey or molasses, thick and sweet, and I was a fly caught in it. When I was finally torn away from it, it was as though a part of my identity was stripped from me. It hurt so that I thought I would die.
And it was all foolishness, selfishness, and an addiction to the transient.
March 14, 2001
The desire I am experiencing has little chance of being satisfied. Even if it were, it would be unsatisfying in a larger sense.
Maybe this is melancholy.
March 16, 2001
We Christians, who are in the flesh (though not of it), ought to be pricked in the heart by truth as often as we are delighted by it. It is reasonable to say so because anyone wandering outside of the Truth as frequently as I ought to be challenged when the Truth does present itself.
*a new thought*
I'm sitting here about to leave home (my home in Pampa) to return home (in Lubbock). My heart is sluggish. I'd like to write about it without revealing too much.
There are things I'd like to say to someone. I'd like to selfishly open my mouth and spill my guts. Selfishly because I can't imagine that anything I'd say would help this person in the least. But it would make me feel better for a few minutes.
I think that what I'd say would make this person smile. But even then, I would probably revel in that positive response - that justification of what I'd said - rather than how it had made the smiler feel. I know this because even if I got a negative response, I would still be able to content myself in having said my piece. So the reaction (and feelings) of my victim haven't even been considered, really. Not beyond how they affect me, that is.
I want to tell myself I'm reading too much into this situation. But a voice that won't be silenced insists that I'm just now reading enough, and that I must not do what I desire because that's all it's really about: what I desire.
March 17, 2001
There are only about 9 minutes of this day remaining. Time left to sin, if I wanted.
Saying something like that isn't entirely fair, I guess. Then again, it's entirely fair. Just not very constructive.
One of the hardest parts of being a Christian sometimes (When I'm having a rare Christian-y moment) is facing the reality that I'm going to sin. I would really like to believe that I'll be perfect from here on out. Before I settle in tonight, I'd like to pray, "I know I hurt you today, Father, but from here on out, I'm going to be perfect!"
The thing that continues to mystify me is my ability to feel pain from the depths of my heart as I confess..Then turn around at a later time, having forgotten all that pain, and commit the same wrongs again.
Well, it's two minutes into the new day.
March 31, 2001
It seems like C.S. Lewis is most famous in Christian circles for his book, "Mere Christianity." It's a good book, to be sure, but, in my estimation, not his best. The two I have enjoyed most are "Till We Have Faces", (a fiction) and "Surprised by Joy," his autobiography. I have read them both twice (at least), and find them more moving each time.
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Contact me: adam.stephens@ttu.edu