- Taking a nap
- Going for a run
- Heading to the library
- Walking somewhere to be productive
The last option won, as it normally does on days like today. Finished with class before eleven in the morning, with quite a few projects to be started and/or completed, I needed to be somewhere off campus. The sun seems to sink into hiding every so often during late winter in Seattle, and today is one of those days. Impenetrable dark grey clouds coat the sky.
I got back to my room, checked my email, went to ask Ali how Spanish class was, then grabbed my backpack from below my bed, where it resides in a sea of dust. As I was shoving five novels inside, I glanced out the window (of course), and saw that tiny kid with red hair walking outside to go somewhere. I smiled, grabbed my ipod, and walked out the door.
The hill up to Queen Anne was deserted. It’s too early for students to be traversing the incline, and too late for joggers or dog walkers. It was perfectly grey and green; the cemetery on the right as serene as ever. I have yet to venture inside to sit and write, as I think about doing every single time I pass the sweeping field.
As I reached the intersection of 3rd and McGraw, the first raindrop hit my face, right at the outside corner of my eye. I smiled. What could be better? Walking in the fresh, clean air, listening to Ben Folds, the slightest rain falling comfortingly. Basically, it was brilliant.
I love Seattle. I love the weather, the views, the parks, the theatres, the music, and most of all the people. I would be content to live here for the rest of my life. As one of the least churched cities in America, I feel to reside here and share the love of Jesus is so important. While community is so important for healthy spiritual growth and support, being surrounded by Christians on all sides is probably not so healthy. We need to be challenged, and to have
people around us who with we can share the Good News.
Maybe Christians in isolation from the world have a tendency to get legalistic, or to get lazy. Without the world to keep them accountable (an interesting idea in and of itself), they might forget, you know, the ultimate need to be living in such a way that people can tell we are different, and question from where that light and love within us comes.Being at Christian schools for my entire life, I’m not sure. I seem to lose perspective of this idea a lot: I have the tendency to just start living, forgetting that this light of love has to shine. I have to be a sponge so full of Jesus that any time I’m bumped, what seeps out is His love.
Sitting in Starbucks apparently makes me think thoughts like these. I have about a quadrillion word documents saved with titles such as “Musings in Starbucks” or “Going to Starbucks for Understanding.” Either here, on Queen Anne Ave, or at what I like to call my home, on 220th and Aurora, I can just write, with people surrounding on all sides, talking, working, relaxing. It is an atmosphere conducive to getting out these thoughts in ways that (sometimes) make sense.
I make no promises to ever be concise or coherent. Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that when I have some idea in my head, the getting-it-out-into-words process is long and sometimes painful. But it gets out eventually. And sitting here, drowning out the bustle I usually enjoy with headphones blasting the Republic, I’m just trying to get out these thoughts. Everything’s always running through my head, distracting from what I ‘should’ be doing. Oh well…"Only be very careful to observe the commandment of the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."
-Joshua 22:5
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