Aaaaaa!

I have way too many great things running around in my head right now...I just got back from the Jesus For President tour in Raleigh, and as I fully expected, it was awesome! There were about 600-700 people there, and the amazing thing to me was that all of them were somewhat like-minded with me, a conclusion reached simply because they were all there at such a strange event. (At least, I think most might call it strange...or at least, very different.) Anyway, tragedy above tragedies, I don't know any of those people! And it's not like you just go up to people and say, "I need a connection with a like-minded person...would you be friends with me?" ...Just doesn't work that way. But I did meet a man involved with the Triangle Emergent cohort who is going to help me find out if there are people who want to start one in Greenville. And I found out about a magazine called Conspire that the Simple Way is creating.

I hate the feeling of being alone in a crowd.

I've concluded that when I am more of a fully-formed person, have further solidified my beliefs and views, I'm going to be incredibly odd. I'm already becoming rather odd...and a lot just over the summer. Look out ECU, I'm coming back different! (Wait, maybe that should be "Rejoice ECU! Rebecca's coming back different!"...there are things about who I was last year I am hoping will be improved now.)

I think I want to go to a Mennonite church...they really have it straight on reconciliation not just with God but with the world, and on peace and social justice, and being against war and the death penalty. (Get this - it's from a poster I got tonight - : Jesus was once asked for his support of the death penalty. His reply: let one who is without sin cast the first stone.)

And I want to copy the Free Hugs campaign at busy-lunch-time in Wright Plaza. Anyone wanna help? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

I think I might be really weird...

And I think I might be really wound up, and really tired at the same time.

And, and I think I like writing blog posts like this! :D

I think I should go to bed now...

I like reading blogs better than writing one...

yeah, that's what I've figured out. I've recently been spending more time on my laptop because I've been reading blogs, but I definitely haven't been doing a good job posting on mine. :-l In particular, I've been reading the leader of my church, Derek's (www.desertfather.com), and Brian McLaren's (www.brainmclaren.net), in addition to checking up on the Jesus For President tour (www.jesusforpresident.org/blog) and Sojourners (www.sojo.net).

I'm not quite sure what to publish in a post on my blog right now because I have a lot running around in my head. I could chronicle my daily life this summer and all my babysitting experiences, but that would be boring to read for most people...or I could write about my rather difficult, but somewhat enjoyable weekend up in Pennsylvania for my great-grandfather's funeral...or I could try to summarize all that I've been learning and how I've been growing and changing this summer, but that would take forever, plus, I would never be satisfied with what I could write about it. I can never distill those kinds of things to writing...there's too much mystery...things I'm still wondering about. And I know that I should be able to articulate my basic, foundational beliefs (and I can), but I'm not sure that it's a good thing to be able to write down or express with words everything you hold dear and are passionate about, because most of that passion just can't be expressed with mere words, and it gets cheapened when you try, or at least when I do. So I'll probably just finish this post with one of my current favorite quotes...it's from G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, but I read it in Brian McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy when he quotes it in the chapter "Why I am Mystical/Poetic":

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do...

Poetry is sane because it floats easily on an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion...

The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits...

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who had lost everything except his reason...

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have the mystery, you have health; when you destroy the mystery you create morbidity.

And by Gregory of Nyssa:
Only wonder understands,
Concepts create idols.