unfortunate side effects of education

I value education more than I can put into words. I deeply believe in this idea of human capital that we have talked about in my social work class. It is essentially the quality of people in the form of knowledge, experience, skills, and personal character (courage, determination, etc).  I can see a huge difference in the way I think and the way I see people since I've been in college. I think a lot of that has to do with the events of the last 3 years and the people I have been around since moving to Muncie, but I think the biggest part is the classes I've taken and this journey I've been on to find what I am passionate about.
This semester in particular, I've been finding that I am passionate about social justice and equality. I've also discovered that this terrifies me. Because of the amount of intolerance we Americans have of people who aren't like us. This intolerance, ignorance of other groups of people, and avoidance of issues we don't understand is so destructive.  The more I read about Trayvon Martin, the debate about women's reproductive rights, and the way the GLBT community is treated the more angry I get.  Especially as I watched the movie "For the Bible Tells Me So" earlier today.  It's a documentary about conservative Christian parents and how they dealt with having a gay or lesbian child.  I went to a super conservative church during high school, and it took me a couple of years after high school to realize that there is so much of what I was taught there that I don't agree with at all. And now I feel like I can only see church as an institution whose traditional beliefs and dedication to the teachings of the Bible manipulates and oppresses people. Not to say that there is no value in church or in Christians, because there was a reason why I spent so many years in the church and why all of my closest friends are Christians. I have just come to this place in my education and life experience of profound bitterness to tradition and rules and being told what to believe.

 I am starting to understand that the downside of becoming more educated is that you see other perspectives than the uneducated world does.  Then your burden becomes educating others, even though a lot of people are not interested in a different perspective. So I guess for now, I will continue to get angry about injustice and intolerance and hopefully learn to have courage and advocate for equality.

dreams

New semesters always mean that you have to talk about your future (career) goals.  I tend to avoid thinking about the future because it's scary.  However, tonight I have let myself wonder what I would enjoy doing for a while. 
Lately I have been throwing around the idea of working at a soup kitchen. And I realized after writing some things about myself for a teacher, that I really enjoy food.  And then I wondered how great it would be to teach people about nutrition and be able to provide them with healthy food and the knowledge of its importance and how to prepare it. 
But then I stop my thinking and wonder what kind of schooling that would require, if I would actually enjoy it, and if I could even find/start a program to do that. 
And then I want to just forget about it and settle with doing something like working in a food bank, which I probably wouldn't enjoy at all.
Why is it so hard to let myself dream? To believe that I have power and influence and can make the world better for the people around me?

It's a scary thing, to dream.  What if you fail?

is it break yet?

So... I haven't been a good student lately.  I've lost all incentive to get homework in on time... or at all.  And that's pretty unlike me.  I've always been pretty apathetic about schoolwork, but I've always gotten it done on time.  But lately I've just lost energy and sense of consequences about doing homework.

I'm pretty sure I just need a break. Some time to just sit and exist.  Time to journal and figure life out.  Time to do refreshing things like spend time with friends and my family and laughing. 

I think my heart has been aching for this for a while, which is why I've been filling my free time with people and then being overwhelmed by school because I didn't make time for homework.  It's hard to take care of yourself and balance life's requirements.

I need to go play in the leaves.

"O God, our Father, we know that by ourselves we can do nothing. If we try to face our work by ourselves, we collapse beneath our burdens and our responsibilities. Our bodies become exhausted; our minds grow weary; our nerves are tensed beneath the strain.

If we try to face our temptations by ourselves, the fascination of the wrong things is too strong. Our resistance is defeated, and we do the things we know we should never do, because we cannot help it.

If we try to face our sorrows by ourselves, there is nothing to heal the wound upon our hearts, nothing to dry the fountain of our tears, nothing to comfort the loneliness which is more than we can bear.

If we try to face our problems by ourselves, we cannot see the right way; and, even when we see it, we cannot take it; and even when we take it, we cannot follow it to the end.

If we try to rid ourselves of faults by ourselves, we are forever defeated; the same sins conquer us; and we are never any farther on."


There is more to this prayer written by H. Norman Wright, but I just really like this part. I feel like it fits where my heart is and has been lately, and it's nice to be supplied the words that I couldn't find on my own. 

learning from the past.

I spent some of this evening reading through my journal from my freshman year of college.  I do this periodically to gain perspective on my life and how I've changed over the years.  I hardly even remember the person who wrote what I was reading today. 
The first conclusion I drew was that she was so self righteous.  She had big dreams of changing the world, and she was confident in her beliefs and her God.  She was excited about serving God with her whole life and loved to talk about him.  She gave up an important friendship because she felt like she was condoning his selfish, sinful behavior.  She spent all summer studying the end times and Revelation and reading the Left Behind series, and was so intrigued.  She lived in a world of black and white.
Now, I am surprised by how skeptical and cynical I have become.
I think, since then, I have experienced reality, and reality is hard.  And now I have the choice of either living in the bitterness of reality or finding a joy that makes living in reality worth it.

A white blank page and a swelling rage...

Today, I'm sad for the world.

I'm sad for the parents that must grieve their child's untimely death, for the wars in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and all over the world that are the only reality that some kids know, for the bubble that we as college students and Americans live in, the separation of us from God.
It's easy for me to just get upset and shut down and numb myself to life.  In fact, I'm still learning how to experience life...
But I just feel that there's something about this world and it's broken, selfish people that is worth investing my heart in.  I guess we can't know joy without the understanding of sorrow.

Joy

So there's this blog that I read constantly. http://thepolishedpickle.blogspot.com/.  It is written by a Mormon wife and mother of three (soon to be four).  She photographs the most trivial things of life, but I love seeing pictures of their family camping, sleeping, or doing a puzzle together.  And I feel like every time she blogs, she is so filled with joy to be where she is, doing what she is.  Her words are bursting with love for her husband and boys.  It does my heart so much good to read her blog, to see her joy for life, her family, and her friends.
And I want my life to exude that much love, care, and joy. But I've let my heart be overrun by bitterness and frustration for a while now.  But I crave the life that she lives.  It's how we should all live: content with where we are and filled with God's love. 
Guess I need to work on both of those things...