Swift

This week has gone by so fast it borders on the wondrous and the absurd. This group has been at camp all week and they have been great. However, due to the logistics of their group, my services are not needed, as they send all their college aged kids up to high camp at Ponderosa. As such, I have had to bide my time a bit this week, being as constructive as I can in the mornings (working on a seminar that I will present each Friday for the rest of the summer). The afternoons have been spent watching the Game Room and then the Rec Shack, affording me two hours of reading inside, followed by two more hours of reading while simultaneously working on my gnarly tan outside. Yup, 4 hours of reading every day this week (more or less).

So what have I been reading? Let's take a look together, shall we?

For one thing, I have finally started God's Politics by Jim Wallis. If you haven't heard of this, you should have. If you haven't read it, you should make it a priority. I'm only about a third of the way into it and while I can't say I've been totally floored by everything in it, I have been impressed by Jim's (I like to think we're on a first name basis) articulation and general point of view. In fact, I don't think I agree with everything in there so far, but I have come to a point where I deeply respect just about everything stated. I guess it also helps that I do agree with a lot of what is laid out. I plan to get into some more details after I get done with the whole thing.

I'm about to finish up A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. If you live near "nature" or even if you don't, I think it's really important to sample some writing(s) that touch on nature/ecology/environment on a fairly regular basis. Perhaps it is even more important to do so if you DON'T live near nature (a city or something). This book has reminded me of how I should be looking at nature and the processes continually in motion within nature. Leopold's writing speaks of his love, reverence, and personal investment in the natural world. I have something of a personal attachment to this book because he deals with his land in Wisconsin in the first third of the book. I wish I had had the fortune to have read this book while I was still living there. I would have made more attempts to get out and enjoy the area more, and perhaps even seek to explore areas near where Leopold was writing about.

The other night I walked into Gator's room and Jav was reading what looked to be a typical PDF assigned booklet from good old Princeton Theological. After recovering from that shock, I found out that he was reading a commencement speech. I borrowed it and read it while on the way back from climbing and rappelling and really enjoyed it.

That commencement speech has also given voice to a small axe that I have to grind. I think I can safely say, without offending all the friends that I love dearly from school, that I get a little annoyed when people talk smack about being at PTS, or living in Jersey, or anything along those lines. I realize that New Jersey is not everyone's cup of tea. I realize that PTS is hard. I realize that Princeton itself is up there on the list of places that probably give you a jaded (read: protected) view of the world if you don't make an effort to get away from it (even driving the 15 miles into Trenton should shake anyone from the idyllic land [borough? township? etc.?] that is Princeton).

So I'm going to get up on a freaking soap box for a bit here. But I do it humbly, if that can be done from a soap box. I've lived in (at?) several places in my lifetime. Do I like some better than others? Yes. Have I liked all the places I have lived? Yes. Could I still find things to complain about in each of them? Yes. Do I lament them all the time? No.

Just about anyone who knows me knows I love the West. I love the land. I love the people. I love the atmosphere. I love the rugged mountains. I love flip flops and hilly roads. I like the occasional fleece vest. One could say that if one were to dress like me and in fact wear my 'actual' clothes, you would wear an ugly feece vest.

See?

I have no doubt that at some point in my life I will live somewhere out W/west. I have VERY little doubt that I will retire there. Now, have I ever 'actually' lived out West? No. If you count this summer, then yes I have. But at this point I've been here three weeks so I'm not ready to commit to saying I have lived here in the fuller sense.

That said, I want to say that I don't love New Jersey in the same way. I live there. I'm satisfied with living there. I will even go so far as to say that I LIKE living there. There are good people there. And most importantly, I value my time there. I value what I am learning there, not just while in seminary, but what I am learning while living in that particular geographic location that I could not learn anywhere else.

When I first moved to Appleton, Wisconsin for undergrad I didn't like it. In fact, I'm going to say I hated it. I wondered what the hell I was thinking when I decided to move to Wisconsin. If you can't guess from the comments about Sand County Almanac from above, that attitude has changed. I like Wiscinsin quite a bit. I think despite it being known for fat folk who watch the Packers while eating cheese and drinking beer, it is in fact a state that values its wilderness. It is a state that values what lies within it's borders, both human residents and otherwise. They could do better, sure, but all of us could do better.

So that commencement speech linked above really drove home to me that life is sometimes these dull things. And beyond the mundane and obvious times like standing in line, or waiting in traffic, there are possibly times that stretch longer than we might think. Perhaps you are standing in line in New Jersey for three years getting your M.Div. degree. But while I'm standing in line, I don't want to get back into that default setting that ends with me complaining about where I am and about how I'd rather be someplace else. This line is necessary. And while I'm in line I can choose what I'm going to think about. How often does God work on a time scale that we just don't see? Years later we look back and it is all clear. But how often did I complain to God in my ignorance? A lot. Probably more than a lot.

I am fully willing to acknowledge that New Jersey is not for everyone. In fact, New Jersey is not for me. But for the time being, I live there. I will live there two more years. And when I leave, I will miss it....

...For the time being, I am the young arrogant fish. I am the one standing in line, wondering what all these people are doing in my way. I am self-centered. But, I live with the hope that my mind can leave the place I live. I can choose. And in the end, I live with the knowledge that every place has value just as every person has value. There is vlaue to be had even while standing in line.

OK, I'm done. Sorry.

As a side note I'm also trying to whisk my way through H.G. Wells's original 1898 version of War of the Worlds. I'm not usually a huge fan of anything from this time period (although I have admittedly read what is likely to be a very small percentage of the writing produced during this time). But I have to say I'm enjoying it so far and am already bracing myself for what is undoubtedly going to be a let down when I see the movie. I'm just trying to accept that any movie likely cannot do justice to the amount of detail and character insight that any book can provide. It's the way it works. I'm pretty sure that when a movie begins to approach the detail and caliber of the book from whch it is based, that's when we ogle at how good the movie was. It's a difference in medium. So if you want to annoy me a little more, see any movie based on a book and complain about how it wasn't as good as the book. My answer: "I know. I agree. It's the way it works. But what did the movie bring to the table that the book didn't, or perhaps couldn't?"

Oh yeah, the rappelling from yesterday? Had a great time. Thanks to John, looking very dangeresque here, for inviting me:


Good times.