This space for rent.

Last winter break I stayed briefly an old high school friend at Northampton University, England. It was a haphazard decision, following certain changes in lodging plans when I had already booked my flight to London intending to visit there. He, easygoing and welcoming, offered opened up his place to me for as long as I needed. I happily accepted his offer.’But what are you going to do la? There’s nothing around here. There’s the Stonehenge in the next town if you want, but besides that got nothing for you to do.’ He said, and I paraphrase. To make matters worse, he had several exams lined up for him in the coming weeks following my visit.

It turned out to be one of the most pleasant visits, to my memory. For all of the bus rides to and fro I leaned my head against the window, taking in the dreary, winter-worn English countryside while my mind mused merrily. For the next two days I spent cooking and eating with his housemates, walking with him through campus to the computer lab, hacking away at the VHP site design while he worked at his circuits and electronics. All so wonderfully mundane.

This winter break, working on campus and living, for the most part, with one of my more social schoolmates has taught me how rare it can be that someone would be happy to coexist with you. Two summers ago God gave me one such friend. If I were to sit here, and if you were to lie there; if I were to read, and if you were to knit; if the air weighed heavy with silence’s gold, perchance laced with gabble’s silver — it would be alright. Yea, delight.

I heard it mentioned recently, that men desire to make a name for themselves, so that they will not die. This called to mind a Shakespearean sonnet learned in high school, which ends with the line ’so long lives this and this gives life to thee.’ Recall also that the preacher, or Koheleth tells us that man’s maker has put eternity into his heart.

Strange, this desire for immortality. A quick moment’s reflection reveals a deep-seated pride that lines the walls and ways of my own soul. This is an evil more peculiar to males, they say, but what then if so? All of a sudden the pattern emerges, seeing the forest from the trees at last: every lofty desire and vain ambition, I find, has been watered by pride’s poison. It matters not, my wicked heart whispers, what it is that I do, so long as I make a name for myself, that I will have left something for the world to remember me by before I sleep. The regard of one, the esteem of some, the attention of the all. I want it all, like I crave meat for a monster that eats me inside out, the one in the mirror. As says Pogo’s clever turn of phrase, ‘We have found the enemy, and he is us.’

Anthropology is applied biology, biology applied chemistry, chemistry applied physics, physics applied mathematics, mathematics applied philosophy, philosophy applied theology? Just playing fun.

Walking away from a meeting with a professor about a final project, I was made to wonder: could it be that we, as students are graded in school so that when we have graduated we know what consists of good, honest scholarship when there no longer is someone there to measure us with A’s and F’s, and on our own we know what it takes to be the good lifelong student?

And in my weakness last night I felt afraid. Afraid for what is to come, anxious for what I must be, fearful for all that is at stake, worried for how I shall fare, uneasy for what I cannot control, troubled by what I can, and yet finally, comforted by him who is faithful, he who is risen, and he who helps. Surely my fear, the night it will not last.