fully

so, here I am. Back at another year of university. The second last one of my undergraduate degree.

It is an interesting subculture to be a part of. It's like before this summer, I was so used to talking to pretty well-educated and (generally) thoughtful university students. And now, I am getting used to it all over again.

Transitions are weird.

I see the wide-eyed first year students and remember myself at that place two years ago.

I have been having thinking pretty hard lately about what the point of my life is. Why it is that I am actually alive right now, in this world. (huge questions!)

In Vancouver, where I was meeting new people all the time and seeing new things and having experiences, it was so easy to at least be distracted enough to not ask these things.

I think about how my eyes have been opened to only a tiny portion of the injustice that exists in this world. And as a university student, I ask myself, what am I doing about this right now?

It's like my idea of loving others exists only in one realm, in one form. For some reason it's really challenging right now to see the needs of those around me, because we're all pretty well-off students in a developed nation. As if loving others mainly means helping people out of the depths of poverty or addiction.

I'm finding it hard to not feel bitter, to not feel just so spoiled and pretty sick of living in abundance when others are not.

I guess I know the answer is both simple yet complex.

That we live in a time where the kingdom of God is here, but it is also not fully here. So we have full experiences of God's goodness; his beauty in nature, in people, in literature, in music. But that we also have pretty full experiences of the opposite of that; of fear, of apathy, of lethargy, of selfishness.

And everything in between, of course.

But I must believe that there are things to be done here, being myself, right now, in this time, in this place. And more than that, that merely existing and relishing in the beauty of God's world would be enough.

Yesterday, Janessa read from a book of Henri Nouwen (pal of Jean Vanier). He wrote that the way we celebrate birthdays is the way we should celebrate people all the time. Someone's mere existence in this world is enough to celebrate!

What good news. That our mere existence is enough to celebrate. Which allows us to fully love those who cross our paths. Which allows me to realize that living fully can exist in endless forms, at any given time.