I'm tired. And when I think about everything I have to do, I'm exhausted. I've been realizing that I have two mental to-do lists going. One personal: blog, read, write, sleep, run, PINE COVE (this weekend), people, a whole heck-of-a-lot of "why" questions, etc. Then there's the school list: Western Civilization paper, Discipleship and Evangelism paper, read, read some more, etc. I haven't exactly worked out the system that allows me to do both yet. But...
Tonight the two lists worked together for one beautiful hour. I have to read Subversive Spirituality by Eugene Peterson for a class and I'm loving every minute of it. Tonight he put into words everything I learned/felt about writing this summer at Pine Cove, "...but it is during this summer that his desire solidifies into conviction." That's exactly it. I used to want to write but didn't because of fear and whatever else. But this summer I didn't have the luxury of just not writing. I had to. I was convicted. Then he quotes Reynolds Price's beautiful description of what I'd like to do (his "conviction" from the above quote), "...I made a vow to spend my whole life, if fate agreed, in using the one real block of capital I knew I'd been given. And that, of course, was my old need to watch those parts of the world that caught me, then to copy them out for others less patient or with eyes less lucky."
It probably makes more sense in context, but it is beautiful in the deepest most profound sense of the word. It was one of those passages that jumps off the page and, for a split second, clarifies everything. Kind of a mental Red Sea moment. The waters part, dry land, clear view.
Then the murky waters crash back in...
I need a nap.