So I have been reading Romans and I came across this verse:

1: 19-20 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

This verse really stuck out to me because recently I have been thinking about my summer plans (I know it is a bit early but I'm excited) and have been really wanting to go out and see the world. I just get excited about seeing new places and new faces because there is so much beauty in our world. And not to go all American Beauty on you but sometimes my heart just can't take all of the beauty in this world. Like the passage says, in all the things God has created you can see his eternal power and divine nature. And part of this means us. humans. God created us and his glory is within us. I have always struggled with self image not just physically but spiritually as well. Sometimes I struggle to see the beauty in my life and instead only see it in others. So this verse was a good reminder that I am a beautiful creation of God. I need to remind myself everyday that God created me for his glory and that when I get down on myself and even hate myself that I am essentially hating the "eternal power and divine nature" of God.

I remember that I once taught a lesson on the golden rule "love your neighbor as yourself." What escapes people (especially myself) is that there are two sides to that. First, to love people. And second, to love yourself. For me self loathe is something I really struggle with while loving people I find is a whole lot easier. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the main character tries to live a life of "reason, purpose, and self-esteem." I believe that that is how I want to live out my life. The culture we live in is constantly wanting us to hate ourselves so that we want to be like other people, that there is always room for improvement, that we are never good enough, and that we will never be complete. Think about it. Companies have made a fortune off of self-help books, pop-culture psychology, and image. We live in a world where not only 20 million American adults have been estimated to have depression but the fastest growing market for anti-depressants is pre-schooled age children. From the youngest age we are taught to hate ourselves.

I say, enough. It is about time we learn to love ourselves. As Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, "Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting."

a life that moves and flows

I could say that I haven't posted because I was busy but the truth is I wasn't. I have been almost afraid to post since I felt like more people are reading this which makes me feel a little nervous. I guess I was nervous because I felt like I had nothing worthy to say or any profound thoughts. However when I realized why I had not been posting I had to laugh at myself because that kinda defeated the purpose of starting the blog in the first place. If I am going to wait around for an epiphany then I might as well put that on the agenda right along with that novel I was planning to write two years ago.

Anyway... on to my thought of the day.

The other day, I was going to take an Advil for my headache and I was too lazy to get up to go to the bathroom to get water or to go to the water fountain outside my dorm. So instead I decided to use the couple sips of water that was leftover from a couple nights ago in my wine glass. (I know. not the most sanitary thing to do) and after I was done swallowing the pill I ended up having to go to the fountain anyway because the leftover water was so stagnant it tasted like liquid dust in my mouth. I thought nothing of it then but today that nasty water I drank got me thinking about my life.

Recently, I have felt completely unmotivated in all aspects of my life. I felt like I could just sit under a bridge for the rest of my life and let others pass me by. And I realized that I have become like that glass of stagnant forgotten water. Water ceases to be drinkable and fresh if it is not moved, flows, or has fresh water being added to it. Today I feel like I have not been adding anything to my life , that I have stopped being moved, and that I have ceased to have my life being stirred up. It is far to easy for me to feel satisfied by sitting under that bridge but when we become comfortable, bored, and lazy in our lives then our lives become stagnant and useless.

I feel like that was my problem with God for awhile. I became comfortable with where I was at spiritually and eventually comfortable leads to boredom and after that we lose the passion and wonder that first led to that relationship with the Father. So I realized that I need to challenge myself and continually feed that hunger for His word and to take those steps in faith. Like bodies of water that are rained upon and continuously move and flow, I need to continuously challenge myself so that I will produce fresh water.

"Stop trying to control everything and just let go!"

I hope that my readers do not expect me to be punctual about posting because they will be sorely disappointed. That being said, I am sorry for not posting in awhile but I have been so busy.

I have been thinking a lot about Fight Club recently and after I read my one of my brother's post I started to write him a comment that really was turning out to be a post in itself so the light bulb in my head went on and I realized that is what my next entry should be about.

My favorite scene in the movie Fight Club has consistently been when Tyler Durden and "Jack" are in the car and Tyler is telling "Jack" about hitting bottom and being able to finally let go at which "Jack" lets go of the steering wheel because he needs "to stop trying to control everything and just let go." After he lets go of the steering wheel the car swerves off the road and they crash at which Tyler yells "we just had a near-life experience."


This is why Chuck Palahniuk is my favorite author in a mater of a few pages he can sum up the basic human struggle how we try to control things, that we can't seem to "hit bottom," and the reality that until we die we can not live. Now I am not going to pretend that the book Fight Club is the guide to life or a very religious or spiritual book ; however, what Chuck Palahniuks books are about is humanity at its rawest, grittiest form that show through pain through death beauty and humanity can be created is ,perhaps, the only way that it can be.

I have been reading through the gospel John with a few people and one of the most reoccuring themes that I would read from what Jesus was teaching was the theme of through death comes true life. A few of the verses that really stuck out to me about this subject were (in NLT):

John 12 : 25 " those who love their life in this world will lose it. those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity."

John 10 :17 "I sacrifice my life so that I may take it back again"

John 5:24 "I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life."

Now it's easy to just say this, to just say" yeah,yeah Stephanie we must be dead to our old selves and to our sins and God gives us life in exchange." But I think too often we just pass over this message and miss just how radically awesome these statements are. When I watch/read fight club I think "man, this stuff is deep and radical." but what I have to remember is that this is the type of faith my Father calls me to have. Now, I don't think he wants us to neccessarily go out and blow up buildings and do "human sacrifices." But maybe the awesome and revolutionary stuff in Fight Club is not to far from what we are being called to do.

I have been reading over Fight Club again and one of components in the book that I don't believe is justly explained in the movie is that of the concept of "hitting bottom." they kind of skim over it in the movie but in the book is more of a focus. The whole story focuses around the characters struggle with himself (internally and quite literaly.) The character is really fighting himself throughout the story. He fights to discover who he is instead of what this world has defined him to be and he needs to fight to take back his identity from the world. He fights to "hit bottom" to cast off the things of this world that keeps him from living.

As Tyler says, "you need to realize that someday you will die until you realize this, you are useless." The character also fight to practice self-destruction because self-improvement is a myth. To try and improve the self more makes you cling to death. We must destroy ourselves so that we can instead cling to what really maters in life and after you "hit bottom" you will soon discover that focusing only on your desires and fulfilling what you think you desire will not give you life. So let's die so that we may truly live because death to the self will finally free us so that we may truly live.

I can do nothing on my own

I think that everyone is truly hollow and empty inside- at first. I guess a better way to describe us is as vacuums. We are an empty but because we are empty, we seek to quickly fill that empty space. I work as a cashier/stocker for a convenience store and the first thing they taught me was to pull all the items to the front and spread them out so it looks like it is fully stocked.

Isn't that what we all try to do? Create the illusion of being full. Or we try to fill our emptiness with whatever is readily available, or what gives us the most satisfaction at the time. Money, self-loathe, relationships, sex, alcohol, the next boyfriend, the next friend, the next party, even things that our culture tries to tell us will fill us like education, marriage, or family. The problem with trying to fill that emptiness with these things is that they will eventually let you down and reveal that emptiness that still consumes us.

( And to those who are skeptical about relationships with friends, family, or significant others not being substantially filling: "you know the saying about always hurting the one you love? well, it goes both ways."- fight club. it's true, think about it.)

I'm finally realizing this. Only I had tried to fill myself with self-loathing and a false image of a God that didn't really care and was impersonal. I am now realizing what David meant when he wrote in Psalms that He delites in every aspect of our lives. I am now learning what Paul actually meant when he wrote "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." To me this doesn't just mean that we can accomplish anything through God but also that without him we are nothing. Without Christ, the doors all seem closed and road seems longer. You feel like if you could just keep your head above water than you could do it. You could become successful on your own. But guess what!? You can't tread water forever, you will eventually drown from tiring yourself in your efforts. Luckily, God raises you up. As Christ says those who listen to his message and believe are raised from the dead. "but they have already passed from death into life.(john 5:24)"

When I was reading tonight I came across this verse (in the new living translation) :

John 5:30 "I can do nothing on my own"

Mind you, this is Jesus Christ talking. If Christ says that he can do nothing on his own than how can we expect to do anything!

An end to a means?

So I tried something new today because I felt like God was leading me to do so. I shared where I was really at spiritually with my small group. Normally, I give vague answers when they asked. I told them about how I struggle with depression and that I don't really know where I'm at spiritually. This was a HUGE step for me because , frankly, I'm ashamed to let people know this about me. And right now, I feel better because I shared this with them (and those who are reading this.) Maybe this means that I am starting (baby steps) to actually let people in more and not "live inside my mind." Frankly, I find this exciting. Not going to lie, I actually danced today in gladness.

I talked with one of my professors today and she asked me what did I want to do with my political science degree. And I told her about how I was torn between political science and the culinary arts. And to my surprised she exclaimed "Me too!" She told me that she was happy to see me at Ohio State studying politics and that I should never lose my love for cooking because its good to have wide interests and that I that they can feed off of each other. I think this was the answer I was looking for and she had no idea how much she helped me out. So now I want to continue politics. I'm thinking about going into teaching and research. Because there is so much more potential for me there. I was even thinking about "what if I taught abroad or even in Korea or Japan?" I can see more opportunity and even happiness for me there. (and ,of course, I would love to be the second person in our family to earn a phd )

Jon Shah (our preacher) said something that really stuck with me. He said that feeling compassion is not enough. Merely feeling is easy and it so easy to just be a bystander. That we need to act. Too often do I feel compassion but not act on it because I feel like I have my own problems to deal with and that it's simply inconvenient. At small group tonight, Meghan challenged us to show radical love to someone in our life that we feel God has placed in our lives for us to do so. At first, I thought of someone but when I got home I realized God has placed someone in my life that I feel needs me right now. It was the last person I expected but it soon came clear that this is the person. Jon Shah also said something Sunday that has got me thinking. He quoted this guy from campus crusade : "Evey time I find my self alone with someone, I beleive it to be a God ordained encounter." So it got me thinking, am I missing things? I think I am. I God wants everyday for me to be radical and revolutionary but I am missing the point of life almost everyday. Like I said the other day when I quoted Emmanuel Kant, "we must treat everyone as an end instead of a means." There are no means to an end; there are only life changing decisions being made everyday. Let's try not to overlook them.

lost

The problem with being an American is you have nothing but opportunity laid out before you. Am I the only one who finds this intimidating. I wish I never had taken post secondary classes because I'm technically a sophomore and am well on my way to pursue an education, career, and life choice in political science. I love political science and am discovering I have a passion for political theory in international relations. But I am also discovering more and more that I love food, I love cooking, I love going to restaurants. I am torn between two passions and time is clearly running out for me to decide. I want someone to tell me do this. It's the better choice. But I am responsible for that choice and it scares the shit out of me. What should I do? I have no idea.

10 inches. more like 10 miles!

So I'm sorry for not writing in awhile. I don't even know if people really follow this blog but if you do- I'm sorry for not writing.

Anyway- I went to a retreat last weekend which was great and refreshing to get away from the university and dorm for a little bit. I went to this retreat with really only one goal. and that was to meet people and develop relationships. But God showed me that my plans are not my own but are his plans. Don't get me wrong, I got to know the girls in my small group during the drive up but I still couldn't shake my awkwardness. The speaker was really good and his first lesson was taken out Ephesians 1:3-8 (NLT version) and he talked about the ten truths God has for us. And the ones that spoke to me the most was that he chose us to be holy and without fault in his eyes, and that he finds pleasure in us. Most of my life (even now sometimes) I felt that I was always a disappointment to God. For instance, I wouldn't pray some days because I felt ashamed. Like in order to talk to God you had to have things together or you were just wasting his time and that he would be disappointed. But that is not true. He wants to hear fro you and loves you faults and all.
Also, the idea that God takes pleasure in my life is a strange concept. One of the gils in the group mentioned a passage from Psalms that basically says God delites in every aspect in our lives. I guess I thought of God in the way that I thought of my parents. You know, at dinner time, when they ask you how was your day. And I would only tell my parents if it was something seemingly important. even if there were many small things that made my day or broke it there was no point in telling them because they seemed stupid to care about and so I don't think they would care. But God is not like that. So it is still a strange concept to wrap my mind around.

The second lesson the speaker taught was the one that hit me the hardest. He taught on the characteristics of a revolutionary. He challanged us to answer two questions: what radical change would you like to see in your life? and what radical change would you like to see in the world? For the first question, the answer came easy to me but it wasn't the answer I expected. I wanted to no longer live inside my head. There are two parts to that answer. One is like the Death Cab song where he sings "you say that I live like a hermit in my own head." I feel like I do that. I'm so afraid to let anyone in and I don't know why. Instead of having conversations with people about things I already go over all their possible answers and then deem it not worth going through the trouble because they wouldn't understand or it just wasn't that important. I just want to finally let go and be real with people. I don't know if I'm just weird or if there are others who do this but I hope I'm not alone on this. I'm only giving a slight example of how I live in my own head but hopefully you understand what I mean by it. I'm not schitzophrenic, at least I hope not anyway.

The second thing I mean by no longer living in my head was to finally close the 10 inch gap between my head and my heart. In my head I beleive God loves me, that God cares for me, that I beleive God is real and moves in our lives. But in my heart, I have trouble accepting that and I don't know why. Maybe because I have always had trouble accepting love because I feel like I will never do enough to deserve it. That love is for other people. more deserving people. That , I'm strong enough to go on without it. Give it to someone who needs it. I know this probably sounds rediculous, but it's still what I think. To quote bathroom graphetti: Anything less than love is nothing. and nothing is not enough" I'm slowly learning that. Life is hollow without love so I need to start accepting it because I actually do deserve it just like everyone else in this world and I am not strong but am actually weak and foolish to try and get along without love.

The change that I wanted to see in the world is what Kant's ethical principle was. that people would no longer treat each other as a means but instead as an end. Chew on that. maybe I will talk more about that later because I wrote so much already.

Sitting in a corner with nothing but a grudge

You know that weird dirty kid in your first grade class. Every class has one. That awkward kid that can't seem to do anything right and at recess he raises an earthworm farm that he says he will train for the circus. And it seems like neither his classmates nor his teacher are particularly fond of him or "get him."

I feel like that kid.

Sometimes I feel completely estranged from other people. Sometimes I wonder If I am the only one who finds it extremely hard to find people who, well, like/accept me.
H2O derives their Thursday night group (2/42) from this verse and it has had me thinking. Part of the verse:

"ACTS 2:44 All the believers were together and had everything in common."

Am I missing something? they had everything in common! I can't even imagine an Amish family that has everything in common let alone me with a church group (or any group). Yesterday as I was sitting during Sunday service alone, I was thinking about how it seems like no matter where I go I seem to go alone and I was worried that I may never be able to find real friends in life. And as I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself, the thought finally struck me. Do I even make an effort to reach out to people? Can I even trust myself to find authentic relationships by myself?Like a rhino in a china store, I feel awkward and out of place.

Then the preacher was talking about how we need to be people like Jesus and reach out to the forgotten. Do you ever feel forgotten? I do. After all my sulking, I rose to hurry out of church to go home and continue feeling sorry for myself but as soon as I got up I was immediately swarmed by church people ( and by swarmed, I mean 4 or 5 people.) And I thought "great. more rushed small talk and having them pretend they are interested in my major." But the truth is it made me feel less "forgotten" and they were actually quite conversational.

Anyway, My point is that even though I might have not found the real relationships I am looking for, yet, maybe its good to feel awkward and uncomfotable. I am not looking for comfort or habit. So I am trying a new thing. its called honesty. no hiding of my personality. no concealing of all my emotions. I am throwing my heart out and hopeing that eventually the right people will catch it. This is new for me. For too long, I have only looked for companionship instead of friendship and frankly I'm tired of that. So I'm trying this "honesty" thing and hoping it works out because I am tired of being "that weird kid" This maybe uncomfortable but I think if we get too comfortable in life, we're not doing something right. Don't get me wrong, I'm not just sitting in a corner with my arms crossed scowling and waiting for someone to come up and say "Hi. Let's be freinds." I am just trying to find where I belong. At whatever cost, I will find where it is I belong.

Information ( or lack there of)

I decided to stop journaling and and start putting my thoughts on the internet for all (people with internet and time on their hands) to read. I am not going to pretend I have answers or even blog for sympathy. I'm just a confused and pathetic human being and am tired of thinking that I am the only one.

The name of my blog, Life: abridged, means simply what it says: that my life at this moment is incomplete, condensed,deprived, and cut offed. As my favorite author, Chuck Palahniuk, wrote in Fight Club :" You have to realize that someday you will die. Until you know that, you are useless." I am not writing these things to evoke your sympathy, as a cry for help, or even because I am a pessimist. I'm writing this because I realize that my life is too short to not try and wrestle with life's questions, to accept mediocrity, and determine my destiny as just a career choice or relational choice. I just wanted to clear these misconceptions and tell you that my only purpose for this blog (if there is one) is to document my struggle to find passion and purpose in a world that constantly tries to define who I am.


Currently, I am rejecting what I thought my life was about up until now. It has almost been a month since I started at Ohio State and I am learning so much. Something I am not used to being is a student. I mean , technically, I have been a student for most of my life -and yes- I have learned things in school don't get me wrong. However, what I have learned in life has mostly been accidental, forced, or out of obligation. What I have learned in college is almost an Orwellian "unlearning." For instance, the other day when I was trying to explain to Meghan why I have gotten "off track" in my faith for reasons ,up until then, I thought were clever,understandable, sensible, and even irrefutable. ( In the back of my mind, I must admit, I was thinking "well, take that. Bet the bible can't solve that.") But as I was explaining this to her, I realized myself that I sound like a selfish and foolish child.

I grew up always feeling that to be in the "student role" was to be in the inferior role and that in order to "get it" you couldn't be still learning or questioning because to still be learning was to show your vulnerability. But now, I feel like it is ok to be learning, to be questioning, to not be completely comfortable with things. In fact, I am happy to be doing so because I feel like the Pressure is off and I don't need to know all the answers and that is ok with me.