Slowly but surely I am falling back in love with school. Today I walked through campus as a brisk fall breeze rustled through the trees and the bell in the campanile rang out the tones as the football team protracted up for their season opener on Saturday. I drank a Pumpkin Spice Latte while catching up with an old friend. I sat in the Dusty Book Shelf reading cookbooks while rain poured down around me. I read about South Africa for hours on end. I am falling in love. Not in the way that you might imagine though. I am falling in love with a life where I spend countless hours reflecting, where I learn what true eloquence means, where I find out that beauty is everywhere: a cool breeze, and unexpected smile, a warm cup of coffee, the first fall squash. When I left Colorado and GSP I imagined that I would not find God's hand here in Kansas where I am surrounded by man-made spectacles which blare about man's greed and selfishness, not God's wonder and love. But this is the beauty of God isn't it? God shows us love in all the little things. I am falling in love with this experience of Lawrence, but who created this experience? Who brought the rain and the cool breeze? Who put the smile on my face? Who filled me with amusement and satisfaction when I should have been lonely? The second quote that I am sharing with you tonight is from a paper on South African life in the 1950s. Imagine removing the words South Africa from it and it could just as easily apply to Kansas. When I walk through campus I see a desperate cacophony of fear and loneliness and I wonder: "how do you reach out, especially when I hear my own voice joining the others?" For now the answer seems simple: "Let heaven fill your heart." I was reminded this afternoon of an old hymn and I'll close by sharing it with you...
"Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in his wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of his glory and grace."
"There's no such tune as a black tune,
There's no such tune as a white tune,
There's only music, brother,
And it's the music we're going to sing,
Where the rainbow ends."
- - Richard Rive
"It became a matter of the greatest surprise to us to realize that some of these people were leading appallingly empty lives, even in the midst of plenty, and perhaps because of this undeserved plenty, they were desperately impoverished; their lives had reached such a point of incoherence and fatuity that listening to their conversation was like listening to a cacophony of voices echoing other empty voices. We had thought their lives immensely beautiful, imagining them to be enriched by adequately filled libraries, to be enthused by numerous glittering concerts and plays we could not enjoy; what we had not imagined was that the majority of these people had no way of dealing with the variety of cultural events which came their way, because they had neither a tradition nor personal courage which could enable them to come to terms with the best theatre of our times. . . in no time we learned what we had not suspected, that many white South Africans, despite their wealth and privilege, envied us the township for what they supposed to be its vivid colour, its extravagant, if precarious, life. We on the other hand, had envied them the white suburb for what we considered its discipline and control, its sense of orderliness and thrift. This was the supremest irony of South African life."
- - Nkosi
Slowly but surely I am falling back in love with school. Today I walked through campus as a brisk fall breeze rustled through the trees and the bell in the campanile rang out the tones as the football team protracted up for their season opener on Saturday. I drank a Pumpkin Spice Latte while catching up with an old friend. I sat in the Dusty Book Shelf reading cookbooks while rain poured down around me. I read about South Africa for hours on end. I am falling in love. Not in the way that you might imagine though. I am falling in love with a life where I spend countless hours reflecting, where I learn what true eloquence means, where I find out that beauty is everywhere: a cool breeze, and unexpected smile, a warm cup of coffee, the first fall squash. When I left Colorado and GSP I imagined that I would not find God's hand here in Kansas where I am surrounded by man-made spectacles which blare about man's greed and selfishness, not God's wonder and love. But this is the beauty of God isn't it? God shows us love in all the little things. I am falling in love with this experience of Lawrence, but who created this experience? Who brought the rain and the cool breeze? Who put the smile on my face? Who filled me with amusement and satisfaction when I should have been lonely? The second quote that I am sharing with you tonight is from a paper on South African life in the 1950s. Imagine removing the words South Africa from it and it could just as easily apply to Kansas. When I walk through campus I see a desperate cacophony of fear and loneliness and I wonder: "how do you reach out, especially when I hear my own voice joining the others?" For now the answer seems simple: "Let heaven fill your heart." I was reminded this afternoon of an old hymn and I'll close by sharing it with you...