The Moon is Down.
And then — just between you and me —
I take a swallow of cold tea
and in the manner of the ancient Chinese
pick up my pen
and write down that bird I hear outside,
the one that sings,
pauses,
then sings again.
— In the Room of a Thousand Miles. Billy Collins.
I am reading a poetry book by Billy Collins called, “Picnic, Lightning” and listening to Explosions in the Sky. I just finished a bottle of Root Beer, something that I have been craving since sometime yesterday. I think it was when the topic of hot dogs came up (which happens often in 1D.)
Yesterday, Stephen hung out with Christy and me, and he was telling us the kind of ridiculous questions that people ask him because he is Jewish. One of those questions was: “Can you drink out of the same water bottle as a girl?” His answer: “Not if she has bacon on her lips.”
Last night, Ann and I sat in the middle of a graveyard and talked. It was dark out. And if it had been 4 or 5 years ago, it might have really creeped me out. But not anymore. The angel with the broken wings was still there.
Today in my Contemporary Religious Thought class, Dr. Laughlin asked if what we had been learning had shaken our faith at all. I thought about this for a while, and it hasn’t. A year ago, when I first started taking my string of Religion classes for my minor, I felt so lost and confused. I remember crying after class because I didn’t know what to think. The way I feel now is that there are so many things I will never be able to explain or understand, like the nature of God. There are things I learn in class that I might never be able to reconcile with my faith. But when it comes down to it, I know that my life changed when I became a Christian. I know that there is something living inside of me that gets me through every day and that makes me want to be a better person. I believe what the Bible teaches. I have a new heart. And that is enough for me.
I’m becoming a lot more globally-aware this quarter too. A global citizen. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I learn a little more about the state of the world, and feel a little worse about being so complacent in doing my part in helping others. Tommorow Lauren and I are filming a video for Film Your Issue on the topic of Malaria, a disease that kills 3,000 children a day, a disease that we started eliminating from the United States about a hundred years ago. A simple mosquito bed net, that costs $4, is enough to save a lot of these children, but only 5% of Africans have them.
““If we turn our heads and look away and hope that it will all disappear then they will – all of them, an entire generation of people. And we will have only history left to judge us.”” -George Clooney, spokesman for Film Your Issue.
P.S. I updated my Poetry and Photo sections.