Well hey there. I must admit I've always been a bit wary of the idea of starting a blog. Probably because I've never thought my life was particularly blog-worthy. Or especially blogable (if that's a word). Ha, it's as simple as that. Don't get me wrong--truly, it's a wonderful life--but I currently see most of my acquaintances and friends regularly, and if they desire to hear about my life, I am available to share it with them in person. But all that is about to change.
My family is moving at the end of this month, June 2010, to Wheaton, IL ( a suburb of Chicago, for those who don't know--I didn't), where my dad will begin an exciting new position as chair of the history department at Wheaton College. I have spent the past two years of my life (aka first two years of college) at the University of Washington, where my dad has taught American History for the past 23 years. It has been a wonderful experience on the whole, one for which I am very thankful.
As a Christian, and a student who was homeschooled--yeah, baby--all the way through high school (Mom, I fall at your feet in shock and awe at your endurance!), I entered the college world with some measure of fear and trepidation that I would encounter difficulties on multiple levels. Thankfully, God was extremely kind and gentle to me in my time at the UW, and I transitioned surprisingly easily from my class of 1 to being a number in 40,000--from valedictorian to a mere drop in the bucket. In addition, I got plugged into a Christian group on campus on my very first day of freshman year--Reformed University Fellowship (RUF)--which was a life-saver and, I believe, helped "keep me grounded"...a mid-week "refresher" of sorts that offered much-needed Christian community and tangible Truth.
It has always saddened me that the UW's motto is "Lux Sit"--Let There Be Light--and yet, the university as a whole claims no foundation for that light. What even is this light? What "light" are we talking about here? And where does it come from? Are we creating it? Or what? Huh?
The college environment at UW is one that says truth is relative and each individual creates his (or her!) own meaning. The quest for "truth" or "enlightenment" is admirable and applauded, but let someone dare to say that he (or she!) has found Truth--that there is One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life--and all the calls for "diversity" ring hollow and all the exhortations to "tolerance" are exposed in their hypocrisy. It's an environment that constantly screams out against very real "wrong" and "injustice" but doesn't allow Someone other than ourselves to define what those terms even mean. An environment in which the broad spectrum of majors, minors, and fields of study are not pieces of a puzzle, slivers of the great globe of knowledge that interlock and relate and overlap in ways we can't even imagine, only "knowable" to us because we are made in the image of Him who knows all things...rather it is merely a vast buffet, where each picks and chooses as he (or she!) so desires. An environment in which morality is subjective or conventional (or perhaps to be rejected altogether), and colleges certainly no longer try to instill "virtue" or "character" or "purpose of life" in the students who walk through their halls. Separated from Christ, all such attempts to influence students' opinions and values in whatever direction, are not propagation of some True Morality but become mere propaganda (as C.S. Lewis explained, I believe).
Well, I digress. :) I should warn you right now, I have a tendency to become far too wordy. (My teachers have to warn me about quality vs. quantity, and how there is not necessarily a positive correlation between the two.)
Despite the fact that I see these issues at UW and it grieves me, I am very glad that I was given the opportunity to go to school there for two years, and I have absolutely no regrets. As Christians, we are called to interact with and engage the world, being in it though not of it, and though much about UW (and just our world in general, because it is fallen) is bleak and discouraging at times, the people making up that campus and this world are not past hope. Our God is a great God, a big God, and He is mighty to save. It humbles (and scares!) me a bit to think that He has perhaps used me in some small way to show His light and love on campus during my time at UW, and I believe that He is far from finished there and He is even now using many amazing people there, some of whom I am privileged to know, as ambassadors for Him, and will continue to do so. Also, so much about UW was just plain awesome. I was blessed to learn under some amazing professors, I got to study one of my favorite subjects in the world--Classics--(I'm sorry, but Latin is NOT a "dead" language), at one of the top universities in the world, I met a lot of truly terrific people, and I got to do it all in one of the most breathtakingly-gorgeous and culturally vibrant cities on the face of the planet--Seattle (which also, by the way, really knows how to do coffee right). It was a great two years.
But for me, it's now time to move on to something very different.
I honestly don't know much about Wheaton College yet, since I have yet to move or start school there, but from what I do know, I'm very positively impressed. I'm also thinking that saying it is "different" is an understatement. For one thing, the entire student body there is approximately twice the size of the entire Chem 142 class that I was part of my first quarter at UW. Wow, sort of blows my mind. :)
But the main difference of course, is that Wheaton's motto is "For Christ and His Kingdom." That truly excites me. I know that, as with all good things in life, there are potential pitfalls and dangers to be avoided, and Christian colleges come with their own set of potential problems for sure. Drifting so far away from their Christian roots that they become only nominally "Christian" is one...another is becoming a self-righteous, arrogant, pride-infested, isolated Christian bubble that doesn't really intersect with the culture in a positive way at all. But I have high hopes for Wheaton. I believe that God is truly at work there, and I am excited beyond words at the idea of studying with students and under faculty who claim Him as Lord of their lives.
I don't know what God has in store for me there in the next few years, but He has already written every day in His book, and that's good enough for me. He is good. And He is in control. The combination of those two things means I can fully trust Him with everything in my life--all of it.
Because He is my God, my past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.
As many of my friends know, I am something of a C.S. Lewis fanatic. (I even went through a really scary phase last year where I was suddenly realized I was reading more of his books per day than of my Bible. :)
Anyway, I came across this quote several months ago and it has stuck with me ever since:
We--or at least I--shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have "tasted and seen." Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures and "patches of godlight" in the woods of experience.
(From Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer)
The last few months, I have started to realize just how much I want to truly know God...having grown up in a Christian household (a gift for which I am immensely grateful), I have "known" all about God my whole life, and thought that I "knew" Him as well. I'm starting to realize just how many lightyears I am away from truly knowing Him. I don't want to know just about Him, I want to know and love Him. I want to know His love in a way that surpasses mere intellectual knowledge...I want to truly "taste and see." I believe that God has begun to allow me to truly "taste and see" His goodness (well, it was always there, I was merely blind), and that is a very exciting thing. It will be a lifelong journey, but I hunger to have that more and more, to love Him for who He is, because He is beautiful, because He is infinitely worth it. A wise Christian missionary once told me that you haven't truly lived until you've lived for Christ, and I believe it. I want that for my life.
This quote by Lewis particularly struck me because I'd been thinking about what it meant to "taste and see" God's goodness, and to look for His glory in the seemingly "small" things in life.
In my journey at Wheaton, and for the rest of my life, I want to be a woman who finds pure and spontaneous pleasures in the "lowest" occasions...who sees God's goodness and glory in the nooks and crannies of life.
And so that's what this blog is really about.
Sure, it will probably mostly be a lot of pictures and "dear diary" type entries about my adventures in Wheaton and the Windy City, (more or less boring depending on how well you know me and whether or not you care ;) but I always want this quote to be the Big Picture, the Backdrop, behind it all.
For Christ and His Kingdom.
Callie
