I never noticed how beautiful the view from the Northwest side of the library is - I'm on the second floor. Three sets of big windows. In the foreground of the left, the yellow branches of a willow, with green scattered throughout; farther back and in the further right-hand part of the window, a dull orange tree in a rounded triangle. Along the bottom frame of the windows, dark pines and orange hardwoods rise a few inches up into bluish dusty pine-covered hills, halfway up the window comprising, as usual, the horizon. The next window-set starts with a bright, glossy scarlet tree throwing a few branches out towards the center. It's not the blood-red of a sugar maple, but the pinkish-deep red of a Japanese maple. There's another of the tall dull orange trees, and a yellow-orange willow fading into a more vivid orange tree of some kind or other, all in the background - the Psychology building, unfortunately, is the background for that one, all harsh concrete and sharp vertical windows, rather than gentle desert-pine hills. The last set of windows is a cacophony of color, just trees jumbled together against the background of wires rising over the stadium, which manages to be pretty and symmetrical, rather than harsh and discordant.
Last night, I attended the student Methodist group. It was interesting. Er. I don't know if I can fully express how incredibly uncomfortable "contemporary Christian music" makes me. There's just something that seems so hollow about them, the 'modern' hymns, and so your brain is free to fill in its own background meaning, and I suppose it will come as no big surprise that most of my past associations with Christian youth groups are overwhelmingly* negative. A circle of kids about my own age in a room with modern contemporary lyrics on a slideshow accompanied by an electric keyboard feels almost as unsafe as, comparatively, a stone floor and a group of people standing to sing the Doxology, does safe. It's fellowship, but it doesn't fit. It feels - not wrong, but shallow. I didn't bolt and run. But a not-insignificant part of me wanted to. I'm torn between thinking it's important to challenge that part of me - to accept that everyone has a different path and there's nothing wrong with youth groups and contemporary hymns have meaning for a lot of people and that's not a bad thing... but at the same time, I think it is okay to accept that that's a legitimate path for some people, but I am not going to force myself to feel the same way.
Relatedly, the Methodist p... priest? pastor? preacher? Oh God I don't know any terminology - anyway, she gave us some background on prayer beads and some interesting thoughts on them and the evening's activity was making a small set. I didn't know Anglicans had a prayer bead tradition. Er, a recent one, I guess. 'S interesting.
And unrelatedly, I have a somewhat massive and looming article to get in this weekend, if I can get the information together, and it's just news-big enough that I really, really don't want to put it off for another week. I've sorta been praying for guidance on this, which is... new. Normally "prayers for guidance" are a lot more general, and tend to consist of things like "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong. HELP PLZ." Specifically asking for help and understanding and strength in the face of an individual task seems weird. Like I'm going back to the way we were Supposed to pray when I was a kid. Think I'm okay with that, though.
*I don't just mean individually, though I've got plenty of bad experiences of my own. I cannot think of a single anecdote in my entire lexicon that involves youth groups and portrays them in a positive light. Not one. Probably sample bias, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment