Took the test. It felt much better. But who knows. Life seems more balanced. Still unsure in some areas, but confident in most.

11 Days

I have ten more study days, eleven days total, until I retake the step 1 exam. Am I confident? Logically, no. But I think that it is time to turn on confidence, along with stress hormones.

Every time I converse with family or friends, I have noticed that I do a lot of talking, and that I speak very quickly. The former has often been the case, and it decreases once I feel that people are caught up on my life or thought process. It comes from feeling like you have a worldview and train of thought that merely sharing a few brief words can hardly manage to convey, so you try to establish context. For me, there is a significant need to recognize when there is need for such context, and perhaps more importantly, when there is not such a need. As for the habit of speaking quickly, I noticed today that it may be due to the lectures I watch every day. I speed these lectures up to 2.2x speed, and I keep this up most days. So when I talk to other people, it confuses me that I can continue talking at these speeds and no one else seems geared toward such a pace. So that is something to keep an eye on.

Anyway, back to studying. Hope I escape this academic purgatory.

Changing And Signs

Hung out with those friends again. I just... I was so selective of my friend groups in high school. And in college. But after those times, friend groups have mostly been based on where I find myself. On the island, I tried to be friends with everyone, but eventually, the white people were drawn to me enough, and the other colors of humans were not necessarily so, that they became my main group.

We all change after middle school, high school, college, other academics, traveling, moving, and relationships. If you are not changed by such, then that is a problem. In the midst of fluctuations in life's situations, the only thing that has remained constant in all of this is God. A significant portion of that is due to the fact that He set me on this course so early on, and this path will continue to dominate my life so much, that I cannot help but intimately connect Him to it, and myself to Him in the process. Especially since, had He not continued over the years to push me towards this pursuit of medicine, I would otherwise have likely dropped it. I mean, it is simply not my area of gifting.

Every friend group seems a sampling of some aspect of myself. Yet the more I revisit with each, the more I realize that the mission field really is the only place that I make sense. That is the personality for which 5-year-old me made his clever design. Stand out, grab attention, do practical good work, introduce Jesus in the midst of it and then again following, and then, after getting lost in the pleasurable exhaustion of that ultimate fulfillment, ready yourself to do it again in a new place the next day, all the while having an ear open to the Holy Spirit leading you. But God, in His infinite wisdom that shatters the logic of the universe, has seen fit to keep me in this educational purgatory rather than out there. I hope and pray that I am learning whatever I am supposed to be learning through this.

I came across this passage the other day. Spoiler alert: Isaiah seems pretty boring thus far. Lots of prophesying about war and stuff that was super critical to the Israelites for those hundreds of years, but preeeeeetttttyyyyy boring from a few thousands of years later. Still though, this passage hit me. It was not the contents of the prophesy, but rather the delivery.

Isaiah 7:10-14.

"Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 'Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.'
But Ahaz said, 'I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.'
Then Isaiah said, 'Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.'"

There was stuff preceding it and following it that was probably important, but what got me was Ahaz refusing to obey God when God told him to ask for a sign. Ahaz had enough honor and respect for God that he was not willing to just ask for something. But God is weird in that He actually wants us to ask, because, as this passage tells us, He already had something ready and waiting. In fact, Ahaz's reasonable response was trying God's patience.

Maybe I should be asking Him for a sign sometime.

Where Are They Now

I hung out with some old friends last night. In the midst of reevaluating myself, I have continued to be hit with the question of whether this version of me at a given time is the real me. A portion of that is the introvert thing, the sudden realization that you are around people whose company seemed pleasant enough, but at that moment much of what is in you just wants to leave right then and write out some expression is going on inside you.

I remember being surprised by these friends over the years. Rather than leave to pursue a conventional university education, most of them went to a school for ministry. It was there that they experienced some disillusionment regarding the ins and outs of ministry, and seemed to come out if it the worse for wear. They picked up smoking (normal enough, I know, but we all know better), casual dating, and an overall loose sense of morality. I am likable enough that my more strict rules on myself never really came up as an issue, but perhaps unfortunately, it contributed to my suppression of the voice of the Holy Spirit. These friends had once spoken of God's close interaction and direction in our lives in a fairly casual way, because it really was regular practice, but those topics seem to have fallen by the wayside over these years. Perhaps it is because I only visit so often, and the visits have decreased, so I only get snapshots. But we all used to be more purposeful, even through our doubts, and I miss that.

I certainly drifted. My time on the island pushed me further than I could wish, as has the past year, but I do not think I veered nearly as far as my peers. And those that have not veered off seem to have missed out on learning valuable lessons in empathy and appreciating alternative views that are necessarily involved in the process of living life outside of a ministry capacity.

The science department at my Christian university heavily emphasized that we do not know things for sure; we instead take the evidence available and form the best possible conclusion for it, all the while wrestling with the effects that this would have on our own personal beliefs. I had professors who, despite believing otherwise, would still argue in favor of the possibility of a flat earth in order to underscore the importance of realizing that our current answer is not categorically the "right" answer.

While backpacking in Europe, I couchsurfed with a university student who was only able to attend the university because it was sponsored by her government. There were times when I was tempted to overstay my time in Europe as an illegal immigrant. I have a friend whose dad's stay on this planet was extended for several more years after a leukemia diagnosis because of Obamacare. Another friend in college would later get his masters in theology and is now a somewhat prominent speaker for young LGBTQ Christians.

One thing that still shocks me most is dating. Even my friends who stuck closely with Jesus over the years had approaches that strike me as being very odd. On the guy's end, how could you date someone without asking for and receiving specific approval from God? Even aside from the fear of divorce, which is admittedly a very real dread within me, you risk so much every time. Your friend groups, and, depending on a variety of factors, your families too are joined based on that relationship. If it is an unpleasant breakup, you and that girlfriend become exes whose friend groups and many life experiences, along with time invested, become severed. I have friends now that I likely would not have retained had I dated them. Overlying all of this, of course, is that as Christians, we gave our lives to Jesus. Why do we only look for red flags, when green lights are what should guide us? Getting coffee or drinks with someone and getting to know them is normal enough, but if you throw a romantic commitment label on that... I mean, if God no longer spoke to us, then sure, whatever, but Jesus gave us a direct line to learn His will straight from the source. Then again, I am such a specific human, and my calling (as I perceive it), is similarly so specific, that I cannot imagine choosing to do life with someone unless I am absolutely positive. Long distance travel, bad weather, loss of sleep, and an ability to function well as we listen to the voice of God are all important. An ability to look past oneself in order to recognize and fulfill need...

Anyway, I do ramble on. It is currently my day off, with a little less than three weeks until I retake the Step 1 exam. Tonight, I get to attend a Christmas party. Tomorrow, I will hopefully be refreshed enough to hit it hard with studying. And maybe, just maybe, I will soon be able to live life in such a way as to stay out of my own head overmuch.

Those Who Hurt Themselves

This week, well, weekdays, has/have flown by. Such is life when you spend so much time studying. There really is something to that exhausted satisfaction of knowing that you cannot, despite caffeine or adderall, make yourself study anymore.

I went for coffee with my old youth pastor (now he is some other variety of pastor) yesterday. I told him about my lil' month-long identity crisis, along with my year of frustration with the church, and he advised me to maybe realize where I am in this transition period and note that there is a simplified version of the gospel to which I probably need to return. And it certainly brought to mind how many times throughout this whole age of Trump that I have repeatedly said that I do not want to care about these issues.

Fortunately, enough time has passed, and I have spent so much mental energy on processing, that I feel much more at peace with the idea of leveling out again. The salvation of Jesus is as simple or as complex as you make it, and my studying the complexities has been far more for the sake of evangelism than it has been for my own spiritual life.

Another idea came up during our time having coffee. One was that I should always order a "kids cup" if I want to survive my latte, and another, perhaps more in-depth concept, was concerning the church and the Trump supporters as we find them now.

When my parents got divorced, I spent the following semester evaluating myself for what poor qualities I had inherited from each of them. I also blamed one or both of them for the proceedings at a given time. After all, divorce is not a clear and easy thing; people have to use money and action to make it happen. Following that semester, I visited home and, perhaps for the first time, viewed my parents as people. Hurt people who had a made a stupid decision that would wreck a family. But they were people nonetheless. These were people who needed the love of Jesus as much as any African orphan. And perhaps that is how we should view Trump supporters now. Like my parents, they made a bad call. And also like my parents, they may still think that they made the right call. But they are hurting as a consequence of their actions.

It has been over a year. Maybe it is about time that I (and others) can set aside the blatantly evil actions and recognize a hurting people who need Jesus. If I can drop a little ego regarding my own carefully crafted perspective, it would be a lot easier than just being upset all the time.

Back To The Duck

My head cleared up a lot after that last post.

Earlier last week, I had seen a documentary on NetFlix called "Jim and Andy". In it, Jim Carrey tells about the change that took place in him when performing stand-up. He referred to it as "Mr. Hyde coming out". This is the version of himself that would do physically unusual comedy. He viewed it as a good Mr. Hyde, but still a Mr. Hyde nonetheless. There were times at which he would worry that he let Mr. Hyde take over too much, that he lost control. I have felt that I have that Mr. Hyde in me, suppressed by an academic lifestyle. Unlike Jim Carrey, I have always imagined the Mr. Hyde to be perhaps the truest form of myself.

Thanksgiving was pleasant. Instead of the feared topic of politics, my dating life (and extreme lack thereof) was the focal point of conversation thanks to the spearheading efforts of my drunk and loud aunt. My mother, through what I believe to be a subconscious effort to make the siblings choose between her and my dad in this post-divorce world, essentially made my sisters skip Thanksgiving dinner to go to San Antonio a day earlier than any of us had previously been told (the dinner's timing was announced well in advance so as to avoid such issues).

As I began my drive to Arkansas the following day, I found a sort of release happening. Between the urgent compulsion to process my transition through writing, and the acceptance that my crush was likely not the one for me, but was at least, for the moment, a stimulus for positive change that I could appreciate, I could just sit and drive. Taking a day off from studying was also certainly a help as well.

So I arrived in Arkansas. I had an hour before friends would arrive, so I visited a pub. I ordered a pint and the gentleman a few seats down advised me to avoid closing my tab so early, as I would be charged less for subsequent drinks because I was using my cards. I appreciated the advice and introduced myself; we conversed for the next half-hour. We did not speak of God, but with appropriate intentionality on my part, I am sure that such a task would have been easy. Instead, we spoke of women (I said that looks were important, but he informed me that cooking was the most critical thing). In any case, this encounter convinced me once again that this was a ministry opportunity that many churches are avoiding for little reason aside from legalism.

Once my time there was complete, I met up with a dear friend who had also been on moving journeys over the last few to several years. This was the friend who knew his theology but also drinks like me (quite a bit without a significant impairment in judgement). He is also my friend whose music will absolutely be a success if he can get discovered. I went bar hopping with him and his family, and on a rooftop bar on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, I looked up and out. I wondered if I could accept this as me, given the version of me that I had attempted to dip back into in weeks previous.

The following day, I drove to Tulsa, where the first friend I made in college, who has embraced a life filled with even more travel than my own, had a sister who was getting married. I was naturally quite late, having thought that the event was not to start for several hours. There are few friends I know who have pushed me to question my faith so deeply while still believing, and unlike me, he does not have the benefit of growing up with a surrounding of a manifestation of supernatural happenings in his presence.

The reception was heavier on the beer, which is a poor way to intoxicate this Irish liver, so it was all sober dancing to songs that seemed selected for energetic car rides rather than for a dance floor. We improvised and tried to remember dance moves from years past. Following this, I (after others were foolishly hesitant to do so) smuggled a nearly full bottle of wine for our private consumption at another friend's (who I had met mere days after my other friend) house. We drank and played board games to which I was just then learning the rules.

At various points throughout this, I wondered whether this was where my personality should settle. My crush had mentioned that she did not care for board games; the longevity of many of them was more than her patience was looking to bear. I certainly did not feel a particular affinity for the games, but the company and conversation were so pleasant that the game was hardly the point. That night, I slept with the added benefit of our hosts' cat who was kind enough to fall asleep upon me at various points. I had missed cats, and this one exhibited a personality that was markedly different from most cats that I had known, living the contrast of avoiding affection but being quite drawn to any form of play.

When I awoke, it was Sunday (which was fortunately the day that I was expecting it to be). I drove from Tulsa back to Arkansas, killed time in the best liquor store I have yet known (Macadoodles in Springdale), and then proceeded to a photo shoot.

Aside from a clown-themed photo shoot this summer, I had not modeled in quite some time, and certainly not without the theme and setting being from my own inspiration. The reflexes appeared to remain, and she complimented how I posed. She told me that she did not have enough males to photograph, and I replied that I would let her know when I visit, because I most certainly wish to do this more frequently. I also thought about how this was a version of me that I had truly missed.

This occupied weekend with some of my favorite people and places reminded me of what my goal had been throughout college. I wished to be well-rounded. I once had a dream in high school that I was a duck. The dream stuck with me to such a degree that I considered it to be "a God dream", one that was meant to teach me something. Ducks are awkward creatures, technically meant for the sky perhaps, but spending much of their time on land, or on water, or wherever. They do not have a real fit, yet they manage so many terrains.

Searching for which version of myself to become is a good journey, but in the end, I am beginning to think that I am meant to be all of these versions of myself. The biggest mistake I could make in any of this, in my opinion, would be to try to be rid of any version of me that I have become. Poor habits may be dropped, of course, but even those have led me to a point at which I am more able to relate to others.

I have always felt divided within myself. Such seems to be a trying consequence of remaining outside of formal ministry for so long. That being said, it may be the closest I can manage to genuinely becoming all things to all men, to the extent that a given human like myself is able. And when it comes down to it, I suppose that the internal conflict of identity found within these reachings of consciousness are worth it for the sake of saving as many of those humans with the gospel as possible.

Recognizing Transition

(Upon reading portions of this, it appears that it was written to someone apart from this blog to whom I felt that I may have given a false impression of myself. Those are the "you" portions. Do not make it weird though; even I do not write this much if it is not mostly to work through things in my own self.)

I’m in a period of transition. Life has been unsettled for years, but since I knew that that would remain an unchanged aspect due to moving and travel, I focused on changing myself to adapt rather than taking experiences as a method of refining whatever I already was. In any case, the weight of years of a myriad of transitions is finally finding its focal point now. And for a number of reasons, I finally find myself able to somewhat adequately recognize the transition and sort through how it should settle into defining me as a human and as a Christian.

Here’s the thing. I’m not a regular human. Granted, neither are you (credit where it is due).

Here’s a history lesson on my world to hopefully give an understanding of precisely where I am currently at. I grew up in a sort of standard conservative Christian environment. Never miss church unless you are sick enough for It to be justified, etc. And why would I want anything else? I loved the church. I volunteered in Children’s Church and adored it. I would even show up when I was sick, ‘cause I felt the need. I asked for prayer to be saved around the age of five (I think it was documented in some Bible, but five is my estimate). I knew a few things about Christians at that age: Christians are what everyone needed to become, and Christians stand out. Christians are different. People need to become Christians because being a Christian is far more preferable to being anything else. This, combined with a recently discovered love for making people laugh (among my first memories is the first time I made someone laugh), convinced me to become an odd human. I shaped my personality around my conception of what a Christian was meant to be. I was a bit of a goofball. Since I was a child actor from the age of 5 to 10 (and a little around that), tis persona was not difficult to maintain. Jim Carrey was a role model, and I kept trying to be weird.

Then Hollywood ended and I returned home around the age of 10, along with the rest of my family. Unlike many of them, I was not ready to be finished with acting. I enjoyed it, to the extent that I understood it. So I acted in local plays when I could. The small private Christian school with which our family became involved put on productions, and we, the family with acting experience, did much to influence the drama department. At the same time, I was becoming more involved in church. I became curious about this God, the same one to whom I had dedicated my life many years thence. So I began to ask Him to speak to me. At the age of 12, when I became more involved in the junior high groups at church, I began to pray for God to speak to me. Youth leaders who prayed with me wisely conveyed the tall order of the Lord God Almighty and said “wait”. If only I had known the theme that such a word would play on my life. Months later, when I became impatient once again to hear from the omnipotent creator of the universe, my mother mentioned to me an event at which the prophet Kim Clement (who reportedly predicted the twin towers incident) would be speaking. I knew at that point that God would speak to me at this occasion, so I agreed to go. Kim sang and played keys and prophesied, and then he pointed me out, in a repurposed movie theater, and told me that I was to be a medical doctor, that I would come up with something that, like penicillin, would be a scientific breakthrough.

I took this home and took it to heart. At the time, I was assuming that I would become a pastor. After all, that is what you do when you love God. But no, I instead aspired to do better in all of my classes. From what I understand, I did improve drastically during this time. For anyone wondering, having high aspirations does tend to help one improve themselves.

Years would go by as I learned to hear and understand what God was speaking (and I would be lying if I said that it is now an easy ordeal).

And then youth group began. I would become a leader in youth group, a leader in my school, leading in most every area within which someone at my time and place would likely become a hero. I was interested in all aspects of spiritual life. God told me, through a prophetic word at youth camp, that I was to be a missionary to Africa (among other places), and this was to be fulfilled within the year. I was exposed to demonic possessions, spiritual warfare, and, in general, an awareness that things were different beyond the level of mere eyesight.

As much as I adored this, and teaching upon spiritual gifts with junior high students, the time came for me to go to college. As with anything else thus far, it was a decision made in the Lord. John Brown University will forever remain a treasured thing in my mind. There is no place on earth that excites, challenges, and leaves you appropriately dumbfounded as that university does. During orientation weekend, I attended a small talk on study abroad courses, which would of course begin my love affair with Ireland, along with all of the other countries that I so adore.

Although I would love to go in-depth on my freshman year of college, which conceived much of what we now know as LondonSmith.com, there is something more pressing to address. The summer after my freshman year, while I was in Ireland, I learned that my parents were getting a divorce. They are both funny. They both managed things, at least somewhat, for 20-something years. But for whatever reason, the most evil of sins that I know of, a sin that Jesus took time to denounce in His rare listing of worst things, was committed by my parents; they began divorce proceedings. The next day, when I wanted to share this tragedy with the class during our prayers, two other students had friends who had died. My tragedy seemed significantly weakened in the face of that, so I held back rather than sharing.

But the divorce was the beginning of a reshaping of my world. I had a clear cut picture of right and wrong before then, but how do you reconcile such events when your parents, the ones who did so much to define your understanding of the world, do something so completely antagonistic to the beliefs that they had professed and instilled? In a way, it was fortunate that divorce was such an ugly thing. After all, what if it had all been peachy? I might have questioned why Jesus said what He did. But divorce was very much the awful thing that Jesus described; it is a foul thing, a lengthy legal process of sin that wrecks the couple getting divorced as well as the children and relationships that stemmed from it. What I learned then was that my genuine love for God and obeying Him was something different from that of others, who were amenable to the idea of God, but reluctant to change themselves in order to embrace His purpose. Well, I learned a lot of other things then too. I met some of my closest friends in the year that followed, and I found that rather than judging my parents for the blatant sin they had committed, it was better to recognize the people who had been broken by their own actions. For whatever reason, God gave me the ability to remain committed to Him in difficult times. For others, alternative actions seem appropriate in a moment, and they seem unable to comprehend the gravity of such decisions. So my parents were divorced. They justified it poorly, but those methods of reasoning would later become the methods I would use to relate to those outside of the faith.

During college, I focused on making myself well-rounded, both through traveling through study abroad programs and missions work, and through taking odd classes here and there that had no relation to my major. I took singing lessons, audio tech, creative writing, French, radio, and more that escape my memory for the moment. Everything was aimed at making myself into the perfect missionary, able to take on whatever role may be necessary in a given situation. I acted in student films, modeled for student photographers, and continued to make video blogs for a long while. I was also involved in prayer ministries. One ministry was a thing that I started when God told me to do so. Every week (on a Tuesday, I think), I would show up to the university’s “prayer room” and intercede for a long list of people. I invited others to it, but I was the only one who ever showed up. I kept this up for a full semester, I think. There was also a 24-hour prayer vigil that incorporated “prophecy rooms” in which a group of people would prophecy at you. It was hit or miss, but one time in particular was notable. They told me that change was coming academically. There would be a shift. I did not believe them, but I did document it in my blog, and it later came to fruition.

The talent show. This represented a change on so many levels. I performed what I describe as a “popper contortionist” dance routine. It was two and a half minutes of reportedly entertaining dance moves with my hypermobile joints. It was strange because unlike every other talent show in which I had performed, this was just me. No words, just dancing. Just. Me. At one point in the dance, I lean back very far, like in The Matrix, and then I come back up. I noted that my abs were shaking, so I decided to begin working out. And that, dear friends, is what started a change. It has been five years since this occasion, and I have not gotten to be a big and bulky guy, but I will say that regular working out like that thoroughly changed the way I functioned. I stopped having such wide variations in mood. My need to blog and be moody was reduced to occasional moments that were usually associated with drinking (am I doing that right now?) because my emotional state had so stabilized.

It helped me academically. I was able to focus better. I am still not gifted in this pursuit. I think I may maintain that until the end. God chose this path for me. No amount of science or logic would ever push me to undertake this. I attended a well-funded school with high academic standards, so I even had a committee assigned to myself to advise me every year regarding my professional choices, and every year, they strongly advised that I change my pursuit. I had other giftings. Science and medicine are not those giftings. I would then tell God that they made good points (I generally give God the chance to change His mind), and He would reaffirm to me that, despite everything, I was to continue to pursue this medical doctor thing. So I did.

Then I graduated. I studied for the MCAT and made about as low a score as one might expect from someone who is trash at science, and applied to Texas medical schools. I also applied to Caribbean schools. I went to South America with a doctor from my church on a medical mission trip and saw an incredible example of how the medical missionary life could work. Then I began working for a neurologist, which was fulfilling but draining due to the commute, and then told them that I would be leaving them to backpack through Europe. The year was 2014 and there was a mission trip to Belarus, so I joined my church for that and paid for travel expenses with my $11/hour earnings over the course of those eight months. For three months I traveled Europe. The point of the trip was to make me into a better human. The reasoning in my mind was that increased exposure led to a bettering of oneself, and I still believe it to be the most useful tool in that regard.

My worldviews as a Christian went through drastic transitions during that time. I was somewhere in southern Austria and was attempting to reach the eastern coast of Italy, from which I would take a ferry to Greece. I had been without much sleep (aside from what one acquires upon benches at train stations in Vienna) for two nights. The train, for which I had reserved a seat in advance, did not show. They were apparently on strike that day. I caught a train to a town on the northern border of Italy and found that the only way to reach the area of Italy to which I was heading would be to take this late train to Rome. I did not have reserved seating. I entered the train and took a seat. Someone showed me their ticket, revealing that they had reserved it. This happened several times, until I was forced into the hallway between seating areas. The hallway did have fold-out seats, but considering that this was an overnight train, such a prospect did not sit well. So I prayed. I asked God to make a way for me, to reveal one of these reservation seats to have a vacancy. None did. I tried laying down upon two fold-out seats and found that this was not a feasible way to sleep. The night wore on. Finally, I asked God to teach me whatever He was trying to teach me, since I was obviously not going to acquire sleep that evening. This was the moment at which I changed my worldview. No longer would I always consider God to be intimately involved in every situation, in every minuscule aspect of the lives of myself and everyone around me. In order to make it through that night, I needed to imagine God in a less involved role. This taught me that those theological debates surrounding such views of God were kind of foolish; similarly to the issue of denominations, each situation and personality requires a different perspective toward God, and it is okay if these perspectives change according to a situation. God never changes, but the way we perceive Him may. And that is okay.

A few months later, I would begin my journey through medical school in the Caribbean. For tonight, I am unsure of whether I can stand to elaborate upon it. It changed me so deeply. I have tried to put a nice spin on it, but if I am honest, I feel that it robbed me of so much of myself, of my morals, of my beliefs, of my love for life, that I would have been better off doing anything else. But God sent me there, so it is undoubtedly a critical aspect of my world that impacted me in such a way as to make me that well-rounded person that He desires for me to be. I have so many awful things to say about that place, so I will skip over much, because it does not contribute to the point of what I am writing. I was exposed to the culture of Muslims. They were kind and religious. They prayed at the specific times of day, which would interrupt class or dinner, and then they would be people. I learned what I could about them and their faith. It was the first time that I had met someone who knew absolutely nothing of Christianity. For two years, I lived in this geographical and social isolation. Sure, I made friends with a fellow Christian Texan, but he was far superior to me academically, so I saw him a lot less after I had to withdraw from a class. The point remains that I experienced this form of isolation. I was without white privilege for those two years. Ferguson happened during my first semester. The election campaigns began during my second year. I began to view my own religion with suspicion. Christ was still Christ, but Christians? They appeared as racist and hateful as the worst of humanity. And when I returned to the States, these fears were affirmed. Trump was spoken of in glowing terms.

This brings us to the last year, the year that would wreck me.. I had spent two years away from church because I did not have a car on the island. And, let’s face it, I was busy studying. I watched sermons every week, but that is hardly the same. When I returned home though, I was ready to reconnect with my old church and find my footing… but it was not to be. The election was in full swing. I was at my suddenly very noticeably white church and though no pastor mentioned Trump, I certainly heard Trump keywords in what they said. How could any church leader speak without first clarifying that they strongly disagree with the words and actions committed by the racist bigot who would later take office? Since I saw no attempts to address this, I left that church. Perhaps it was cruel, but my convictions felt strong, and I felt as if the Holy Spirit was telling me to leave that church. Well, more accurately, it felt wrong to stay. That was perhaps the worst part. My favorite place in the world was the church. But at this point, the church distinctly felt like a place that would tolerate actions and words that Jesus absolutely would not. For that reason, I left.

I continued to read my Bible every day and stream sermons on Sunday, but I was no longer trusting of the church. For much of my life, I have felt like too many people and pursuits put into one person, but this was the first time that the representation of the only constant and pure thing in my life appeared to have let me down. As one pastor, who still maintained that his vote was still in the right for his convictions, said that the church had traded away its witness in this election.  And as someone who needed a Christian community more than I had ever needed it in times past, my love for Jesus led me to distance myself from the church. When I participated in a study program, I was well-liked because I primarily criticized my own race, gender, and members of my faith. Unlike many fellow Christians, my academic peers were the only community that I had found who could easily recognize that the president’s words and actions were both blatantly antagonistic toward the teachings and actions of Jesus.

In an effort to find community of some kind, I moved back to Arkansas over the summer. I studied and, during days or hours off, I would befriend people. It was easy and I had missed it.

And then there was a pretty lady who, by a careful survey of social media, no longer appeared to be dating the hunk that she had been with. Summer was waning, she had begun nursing school, and I was studying hard for the exam that will continue to define much of my life. But instead of normal small talk via text, we prayed for one another. Something within me that I had suppressed for so long was stirring. The irony is that what I had suppressed is precisely what guided me into all of these foreign environments that inspired such suppression in the first place. The stirring continued, still suppressed in the name of studying, but I recognized its presence. After my test, and after a road trip that served to distract until I would receive my failing scores, I met up with her for the first time since New Years. Another beloved activity that had been suppressed was dancing. It largely because of me that ballroom dance had been offered as an elective at my high school; I loved to do it. But similarly to what had happened to my previously ingrained habits of following the whispers and stirrings of the Holy Spirit, I had fallen out of practice. The things I had most enjoyed had been pushed aside for the sake of becoming what God intended for me to be. As I went to a few other events with her, I continued to be hit with realizations regarding how much I needed to be honest with myself and recognize that this is a transition period for me.

After one of those events, I asked God whether I should date her. I had only asked Him this twice before. I was unsure of whether I liked her. It is like when I go to Europe and try on clothes, and I suddenly want to buy everything because everything fits my narrow frame; I rarely made a purchase on my first day visiting the store, and if I did, it would be after spending far too much time calibrating my mind to these wonders. In a similar fashion, I was not sure (and still am not) of whether I was overreacting because I finally found an attractive female who loves God and does not smoke. She just happens to fulfill a lot of other hopeful standards as well. In any case, I asked God and, here is the kicker: he responded. Fortunately, He did not have any response regarding the lady of interest. Rather, He spewed a deluge of ministry ideas revolving around bars and reaching fellow young people. The channel had been reopened and God had a lot to say, and I had her influence to thank for it, though I am unsure of how much I should actually thank her for in person.

As I reach an age at which my personality is solidifying, I recognize the need to reconnect to my spiritually aware roots. It unfortunately requires a hefty amount of thinking, processing, and writing, but avoiding it would have been as stupid as avoiding all of the travel and isolation that has shaped me into this well-rounded creature that I have become. Along with the spiritual roots, I am going to try to engage in my other lost loves again, with acting and modeling and such. After I retake this test, I will finally have the freedom to do so.

I have not proofread this, and I must admit that I was not sober for the entirety of it…or much of it. And I did not read as I wrote, just lowered the laptop screen and let the words bubble out. I wanted an honest take, a free flow of expression that was not put through my usual layers of filters. Hopefully it was so (though the last few paragraphs were absolutely not as free a flow).

Some Free Flow Prayer Blog

Okay, okay, calm down everyone. I do not yet know which me I need to become. I do, however, recognize that whichever version of me I need to become will require a sacrifice of a portion of whatever I have acquired over the last few years. This is okay. As weird as it is to note, there are portions of my humor that I have sacrificed in an attempt to be a better human and Christian (the racism in particular). Some issues are too real to retain, despite how much I would prefer to make light of a given topic.

So now the debate arises. What am I to give up, and for what reasons? It appears that something must give way. It is difficult to express via a written medium, but there are relational aspects as well with which I am unsure how to proceed.  Different versions of me approach things differently. Do I revert to the emotionally and relationally distant and uncomfortable Christian of my youth, who was intimate with the Lord and did not know how to interact with, well, regular people? Or do I latch onto the latest version, which is well-liked by most but is significantly lacking in a gospel message (though in his defense, he was searching more for an understanding than he was looking to change the hearts of humans).

This is primarily written in a free form, without actually looking at the screen, so please forgive inconsistencies in flows or thought processes.

God, thank you for putting her in my life, even if she belongs to another. It is easier to keep my mind pure if I bear someone like that in mind, so I hope that she remains as a potential partner. But I understand if you have someone better for her. This journey has primarily relied upon you as the consistency. Please continue to be that. Everything I do is for you, though I am often dumb enough to lose sight of that. Please help me to be at a level where I could be whatever one should be for someone such as her. Until then, I remain your servant. Let's study for this 8-hour exam together. If I fail again, whatever. Screw it. I'll take it until they will not allow me to take it again if that is your will. You call the shots here. If your whole purpose for me is to have me try and fail and then give up, then by golly, I will try and fail and then give up (though I would contest that I have like three, possibly four talents that could be useful outside of the realm of giving up.

Supposed Strides

Went to a night of worship thing last night where crush was singing and reconnected a lil' with some people from the ol' high school days.

I am still unsure in myself. I do not know which aspects of me need to be thrown out and which should remain. There are parts that are overtly emphatically Christian, which would be a perfect fit if I were only doing overseas missions work. On the other hand, there is the version of me that can get along exceptionally well with most any person of any faith, and part of his charm is that Christianity is more of an identifier, like a gender, than a mission. Granted, trying to witness for the past few years has largely been stopped short due to the need to clarify a dissociation from the Trump brand of Christianity; it is hard to get to the impact of the cross if you are busy elucidating the fact that Jesus was not a fan of hate.

One enormous takeaway from last night, aside from the crushometer rising a lil', was that all of this education, all of this field research, may be viewed like Abraham sacrificing his son. Being willing to sacrifice whatever supposed strides I have made on the whims of Christ still ultimately belong to Him; I should not be trying to hold back any of it that He has found to be unworthy of His purpose.

Had Coffee

I am mostly getting polite friend vibes from the crush.

As for my feelings toward her, I am unsure. Once again, she seems to be everything that 12-year-old me would be after. But past me had not traveled, had not been exposed to so many people and cultures, and had not thrown quite so many hard questions at the faith that carried him.

She is like a fictional something that somehow survived years of change. Rather than grappling with difficult things to improve herself, did she only stick with the largely familiar?

I honestly have not spoken so much Christianese in a long time; it was both refreshing and frustrating.

Her moving away and me trying to get back into ministry stuff will probably be good things.

All Things Without Saving

I'm at this odd point now. Crush is singing at a benefit thing this weekend, and I will likely attend too because of its focus on local missions. I also told another friend (previously known as "too young crush") that I may attend their young adult small group that they recently started. Being involved, even insofar as attending ministry-oriented events, is a weird thing. It feels like muscle memory, like of course I know God and want to know Him more and all of that. Yet at the same time, I have been away from this environment for years; it feels corny. And almost as if it no longer fits.

This, I suppose, is the downside to my "field research", my more concentrated efforts at being all things to all men, with only a small emphasis on the "so that by all means I might save some". My efforts at seeing things from a worldly standpoint had me assuming that my previous view had been left behind with the passage of time and the changing of culture.

I suppose that this is due in large part to the white evangelical church's wide embrace of our current president. The distrust is very easy to place in the church (since they tipped the scales), and the ones who fought for good, for what Jesus taught, were the unsaved. So it was to the unsaved that I found some solace and an ability to relate.

Now that politics have somewhat died down, it feels as if it is time to return. Our witness as evangelical Christians was traded for a supreme court justice, and in the process, hopes were projected onto the human product which impressively manages to manifest many of the things that Jesus spoke most strongly against.

Forgivable Turn Offs

There are a few small comments over the past, well, months or year that have made me change my "turn offs" from ladies. Given that my standards seem borderline impossible in the modern world (despite being kind of normal to me), being able to discard a few things is kind of a relief.

I always thought that I would have to end up with someone who was very quick-witted. Aside from it being a mark of intelligence, I consider it to be like an accent; I do not really know how to talk without it, at least not for long. But I mentioned that I liked someone who is not necessarily known for being funny, and a friend was confused as to why that was a requirement. And for whatever reason, that was when I reconsidered. For one thing, humor is perhaps the only realm where I can get competitive, even to the point of being childish. So being around very witty friends, while usually a pleasure, could become difficult from a relational point of view. Bearing this in mind, and the fact that less witty friends have become more witty by hearing me express my humor around them, has convinced me that humor perhaps does not necessarily need to be a particularly notable quality in a future spouse.

Another one came about when I mentioned to my mother that I liked a girl, but she kept posting pictures of herself hunting or some such related activity. This was a turn off for me, partially because it is a more traditionally masculine activity than any in which I have gravitated towards, and also partly because I struggle with the idea of killing a bug, much less a deer or other more noble creature. My mom explained that these hunting habits indicated that the lady in question spent time with her father. This to me translated to mean that she would be bereft of many of the daddy issues that tend to plague the attractive ladies in whom I am likely to invest interest.

So the narrow spectrum of perfect human specimens has widened ever so slightly. Maybe I will figure it out before I die.

Why I Ask

I am slowly remembering why I bother with the whole principle of asking God about a lady I like. The basic reason is that when it comes to any sort of commitment to and with another human, it is something that I do not wish to take lightly. In fact, I do not trust myself to make clear judgment in the area. After all, once the idea pops into your head that you like someone romantically, you are suddenly attempting to evaluate more than just their qualities and preferences against your own. You are trying to evaluate your own feelings, which tend to be thrown into a state of anxiety and fluidity at such a prospect.

In addition, my parents divorced. I do not believe that such an action should be contemplated, and their examples (and the fallout that still continues from the divorce) only affirm what Jesus had to say on the matter.

So thoughts have been creeping in as of late and planting their seeds. She is moving away. Even if she were not moving away, she is so much of what we (the various characters in my mind) have searched for that she is bound to go after some other guy if I refrain from making a move.

At this point, it is time to step back. Why did I ask God for His input on this? If it is because I trust in Him, then does it not stand to reason that He will instruct me as needed if she is the intended partner in this ministry called life? So the reality here is really the usual, that I should be focusing on God and what He is speaking, and if He wants something to happen here, He will make a way. If not, He will not, and there will be someone else. Or there will not, and I will go at this whole ministry thing like Paul, single until I die. So I need to rest in Him and what He has placed before me, because if I do that, I cannot lose. How can you lose if the one in charge of everything is the one telling you what to do?

Finally Went To Church Again

In my attempts to gain clarity to ask God about a certain lady, and in the subsequent overwhelming deluge of revelations (with little bearing on my attempts at a divinely approved romance) regarding a potential bar ministry to reach my own age group, I have ironically been avoiding the sauce. Well, I have at least refrained from purchasing alcoholic beverages for now. Drinking alone at night drowns out not only your own thoughts, but also the prayers that should be such a regular part of life.

In any case, I went to a wedding yesterday and began drinking in the late afternoon, not leaving until night was very much upon us. It was the wedding of a crush I had through junior high and high school, and it was genuinely nice to see them off. There were many delays in proceedings, but the bar was open for all of them, so I had consumed something close to five glasses of wine before the end. However, I was also there for a similar number of hours, so do not panic. The combination of that wine along with dancing on the exceedingly buffed floor resulted in me finally going to sleep at a decent hour and able to wake up for church.

So I attended church today for the first time in a long while. It is a small Methodist church just a few minutes from my mom's house (where I currently reside). It felt as if a quarter of the congregation was a part of the service in some form or another, and I am pretty sure that my voice was the only audible one off stage during worship, but it was still pleasant. People were impressively responsive to the pastor's impressions of characters from Finding Nemo, which he claimed was the best Pixar movie (even after mentioning The Incredibles, but I have hope that he chose the other option exclusively because of its relation to his sermon). At any rate, I was just content with the fact that they did not become political. The crowd seemed very much of the variety that would adore Trump, but as long as I do not know about their political leanings, I can still appreciate the place of worship.

Tricksy Lord

"Hey God, I think I maybe like a girl? What are you thinking?"
"Oh, we're talking again? Cool, 'cause with all of that traveling and living life as a human has given you some insights that could play into a ministry thing that could perhaps play a role in making sure that your generation goes to heaven."
"Oh wow, okay. I mean, yeah, once school stuff is out of the way, maybe I'll try some of that. But this girl seems in tune with how I think when I'm doing things right with you."
"Okay, so you're going to feel compelled to write all of this down."

God lured me back to actually listening to Him by using a pretty girl. Classic tricksy ol' Lord God Almighty.

Social With Studying

The way that I have heard medical school described, it seems as if life is on hold. That has felt true. But people also live a little. They have social lives. This is an aspect that has been notably missing from my journey. It was the same issue that I ran into after graduating from university, namely that I do not know how to meet people and be social outside of church or school. And since church has been unsure territory, and my schooling has been independent for the last year, I have remained without a method of meeting people.

Much of this has been due to the studying. Any time I spend going out feels like it takes away from my time studying. I really do not know how to balance studying with, you know, not. It tends to feel like it is all or nothing. I am back to living at home, and when family offers to go out to dinner, I tend to reply in the affirmative due to hunger, but then do lose hours of study time. But I also know that if I do not go out, that is detrimental to my studying too. I suppose that it is just a game of constantly relearning to balance and discipline oneself. However, I am afraid to jump back into the intense studying again. I was studying for 10-12 hours per day without much difficulty, but the stress hormones that allowed it made me lose weight (and a little eyebrow hair).

I suppose that I must attempt to finish getting some studying done tonight before I debate whether to have a beer or to have a sober mind to listen to God. We will have to see what wisdom lies within.

Young Adult Ministry Idea

New idea for a ministry to reach young adults: meet at a bar and focus on scriptures that challenge your faith, rather than just the ones that affirm it. Discuss how God told the Israelites to commit genocide with the command to kill all the Canaanites and not intermarry. Or mention that the very specific specifications for the temple somehow very much resembled that of polytheistic places of worship in the region, and bring up the idea that maybe Moses took a hint from his surroundings when he was divinely inspired to write about it. Or maybe an answer that we are less comfortable with. On that note, bring up how science and archaeology do not always back up what we read in Scripture, at least on the surface level. A city the size of Jericho did not exist, so how do we interpret that?

In the banter, compare our knowledge of the Jewish and Muslim faiths to our knowledge of our own. Though many of us have had personal experiences that reinforced our previous beliefs, it would be unwise to avoid recognizing that the aspects of other faiths which we are so quick to criticize actually share many similarities with our own. Struggling with that can bring about an intellectual maturity to replace the status quo of fairly blind faith, which by all accounts seems based more in the fear of our worldview being wrong than in a search for truth.

The thing is, if we want to reach the lost in this increasingly educated world, we need to challenge ourselves. When we share our faith with someone of intelligence who has researched enough to know the flaws in the Christian faith, we should at least be at a point where we too have recognized these discrepancies, and, at the least, have attempted to reconcile them.

Time To Return

I'm 27. My personality is starting to solidify. I had rules and boundaries for myself that I have pushed more than I would care to admit, particularly over the last few years while I have been outside of a Christian environment. Church was not a practical thing to keep up with while on the island, and I felt the Spirit telling me not to attend when I got back (this occurred after trying a visit my old church in an effort to reconnect), and I continued with that perspective afterwards. But the election time passed, Russian propaganda had fooled countless Christians into taking the side of the racist sexual assaulting bigot, and our witness as a community of believers was largely discredited. And few leaders seem to have grown a backbone to speak up against it since then either.

But now I think it is time to return. I pushed my own boundaries in order to understand and pursue what the Apostle Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23.

"Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all means I might save some. I do this all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."

To my queer friends, I became white cis straight and tried to address others by their preferred pronouns; I tried being accepting, even arguing in favor of their lifestyle choices within Biblical contexts, because I would rather a gay friend who is going to heaven than one who is going to hell. And before that upsets anyone, it is also because my easy interpretation of those Biblical passages could be wrong, so I will assume so if it will bring someone closer to Christ. To Muslim friends, I tried to find common ground within our holy texts (and even purchased a Quran to read, though studying has made it hard to find the time). To atheist friends, and all friends really, I tried to be a good accepting person with a fun and self-depreciating sense of humor, always willing to criticize my faith (and race) as readily as anyone else's. I say this as if I have really accomplished much. Aside from friends suddenly wanting prayer before a major exam, I was doing far more in the way of making friends than I was sharing my faith. And given that I am still learning my faith and tend to assume that my previous understanding could very well be incorrect, I often played devil's advocate against my own assumptions. In any case, this has been training.

See, my time in the secular (or just "not explicitly Christian") world taught me some important lessons. For one thing, we tend to view Christian culture as a well-known faith, the basic knowledge of which is ubiquitous within all groups. This is not the case any more than the idea that every Christian has an appreciation of Muslim or Buddhist culture. My roommate in med school knew nothing about Christianity. He asked basic questions like why we have church on Sunday, and I had thought of such insignificant things so little that I could not even remember when he first asked. Given the bigoted rhetoric strongly projected by Christians against Muslims from many Christian leaders and friends, I spent much of my time simply correcting that false interpretation rather than actually sharing my faith. Jesus taught us to live everyone, even those whose beliefs differ from our own. Jesus was also against racism, as displayed in His interactions with Samaritans. For these reasons, I have felt the need to advocate for the rights of other peoples and faiths, as a demonstration of the love that Christ truly does have for everyone (even if they do not believe in Him).

Here is another observation. At the end of my three months of journeying through Europe, I was in Ireland. I made friends with a German guy and we went drinking first in Cork (southern), then met up again in Galway (west). He showed me the bar with the cheapest beer, and after attempting to understand the thick accent of the Irishman next to us, we cut our losses there and spoke to one another. It came up in conversation that I am a Christian, and he said "I don't like Christians". I asked him to tell me why, and maybe I could clarify whatever he did not like. Then he asked something so simple that I had no quick answer even though it was debated for centuries by church leaders. "How can God be three people and one person? That doesn't make sense." I gave some dumb answer, but it taught me that even with things that I readily accept about the Christian faith without thinking, sometimes the thinking is not for our sake; it is for the sake of those with whom we are sharing our faith.

Perhaps the greatest takeaway from that conversation, and from many more to follow, was not how to prepare to share the gospel, but rather the setting in which to share it. Bars are magical places. Whether you meet someone for a drink or go alone, you are likely to have conversations with someone you have not met. I have tried to put coffee shops in a similar category, but that is comparing apples to oranges, caffeine to alcohol, a stimulant to a depressant. And it is far less common to start conversations with a stranger in a coffee shop than in a bar. Why did that buddy of mine tell me, after days of knowing me, that he did not like my kind? Because the initial reservations that we all share, that keep us polite and proper enough to hold back, those begin to crumble in the first wave of the effects of alcohol. As a depressant, it inhibits those inhibitors, those things that keep us from being as expressive as we might. Another important aspect is the knowledge that everyone there is under those effects. I do not expect everyone in a bar to be drunk (I myself have rarely been publicly intoxicated), but once a drink is in your hand, you and the other patrons find yourselves on common ground.

As the Christian faith seems to be on its decline among my generation in the States (statistically), I think that it is time to recognize both flaws and opportunities. I have many more examples of sharing my faith over a drink and a joke, but few instances in sober contexts outside of the mission field. In my view, God gave me standards and convictions, but I have no right to place those on others; that is the job of the Holy Spirit. Christians need some better PR work, and maybe I can drudge up enough lessons learned to actually let some community leaders know of a better approach.

Still Some Left

I went to that party filled with humans from homeschool past. Having been so inundated in the past years with social gatherings that always have a focus on alcohol, it is odd to interact with people whose most notable drug effect is likely to be the caffeine from soda. I spent a portion of my time there talking to my crush, but for the most part, I was meeting new people. And I must admit that, like many medical friends of mine, much of me dislikes doing that these days. But I also know that it is good for me, and crush was there, so that was the way of it.

One of the things I most appreciate about an alcohol-infused setting is that other people lose a layer of inhibition of which I tend to remain bereft. So without alcohol, I feel compelled to acquire that missing inhibition. Fortunately, the evening wore on and I defaulted to my usual habits of slurring my speech and walking oddly.

Regarding her, she seemed great. Dancing the whole time, as I once did. It was not maturity that shut me up in the dancing realm; instead, it was my time in medical school. I warned everyone that I would be a different person afterward, and I was right. I think I may be worse, though part of that is simply due to how much I know. In any case, she seems like me except without becoming corrupted.

I talked to God about it last night. I told Him (because I have not been a great listener for a long while) that even if she is just being nice and is not romantically interested, I understand that I need not lower my standards or feel helpless in the search for another. There are still some left out there.

Anyway, my relational maturity level has probably not progressed since I was twelve, so I am still following his lead on this.

One Seeking A Particular One (poem)

The society that I knew had

Without necessarily uttering the words

Convinced me

That for every one
There is another
For whom that one
Is intended.

Higher learning questioned this

And many other thoughts besides.

After all, Holy texts do not describe
One seeking a particular one
Apart from each of mankind to God.

So I instead became convinced

Of the opposite.

I am so particular as a person

With life as much a myriad

Of diverse interactions

And experiences

As an academic life would allow

That to imagine anyone
Fitting my odd corners
And squiggly puzzle shape
No longer makes sense.

Until recently,
When I became aware
Of beauty untethered
By relationship.

And then another.

I am dumbfounded

And bewildered

As the beams that frame my knowledge
Of social norms and romance
May potentially be
Bent,
Groaning asunder
In this glimmer
Of cautious hope.

Caution is still
Heavily advised.

Because there is only
One Hope
Sealed with a promise

Not to disappoint.

Hope Of A Misrepresentation of Reality

In an age when I increasingly feel alone with my learning and beliefs within my chosen field of study, it shocks me when I find anyone who is physically attractive and possesses similar characteristics. It feels like being the last of my race, a fairly open-minded Christian who also believes in science and has a strong desire to do missionary work. Those qualities do not appear often, and they honestly do not sit well together within me. So as the Trump era wipes out most of what remained of my kind, I am nervously fearful when I think that I have found anyone who even remotely seems to match me in many of these regards. Does she like me? Do I like her? How many of our beliefs have to line up for this to work? My parents are divorced and because I do not, in truth, recognize such a thing as preferred under any circumstance, I am even more hesitant with regard to romance than I was before it all began. Bear in mind that I did not date even before their divorce.

So the present fear today that inspires this post? The thought that the female human I like may already have a boyfriend, thus restoring the framework in my mind that all the good ones are already taken or are uninterested. Judging by the frequency of communication and social invitations, I assume interest. So that leaves the likelihood of her being taken. And given that I am somewhat emotionally vulnerable due to the recent failure of a major exam, the glimmer of hope that my aforementioned mental framework regarding romance in my world may be a misrepresentation of reality leads me to be on edge when I think of this interest as simply being friendly rather than flirty.

And yes, I know that I am using the immature defense mechanism of intellectualization in my analysis of my own self.

I miss writing. After this test, maybe I can do what I promised myself I would do after college (but never really did): go to a coffee shop and write poetry. Screw it, maybe I'll write poetry now. That would be a much more mature defense mechanism. Maybe like a form of sublimation?

Did Not Find My Stride

I failed by a single point. My hands were wild and tremulous as I entered my information to log in and discover my grade. In my mind, I had fixed the grade of 175. Even at my worst, I was better than that, so I held onto that so I would feel better regardless of the grade. And it helped. I was staying with my cousin in Chicago, and all of my plans to make additional stops on the way home suddenly seemed like a waste of time. After all, a victory lap after failure does not really make sense.

So that Wednesday, I drove the 13 hours home, slapped a smile on my face, and continued on. My ideas of finally living life again became foolish pursuits of a dream world, and now I once again struggle with making myself study as hard as I should. But I guess that this is my life now. Endless cycles of study and failure until God changes His mind and realizes that I truly was not meant for this particular calling. I have everything necessary to excel except for the academic prowess, which happens to be a critical requirement. I do not truly believe everything that I am writing, but a big part of me consists of those doubts, and the only thing holding me to this track is God. Though, if I am being frank, I have no idea what else I would do...

I met up with a crush of mine at a church event on Friday. Given that she started nursing school this semester, she and I had plenty to talk about via text over the previous month or two. She is very much into swing dancing and that evening confirmed my strong suspicions that I do not remember how to swing dance well. I had the same fear about all styles of dancing after my prolonged stay on the island, but my freestyle game appears to hold strong. We also hung out with a good friend of mine, but since he and I are both attention-grabbing funny people, we more or less dominated the conversation.

Anyway, today is Sunday and I spent half an hour debating whether to go to church. The last time I remember deciding to go last year, I felt the odd sensation of the Holy Spirit telling me that something was off. I am sure that it had something to do with the political undertones of the sermon. So a year later, after the politics have died down slightly, I still feel uncomfortable with church, due to the knowledge that a great many prominent members of its congregation support people whose actions and ideas are remarkably contrary to the teachings of Scripture. In a post-evangelical world, this is unsatisfactory to me as a believer, and I am unsure of how to deal with it.

It's Close

I'm a few days from finding out my scores. To distract myself, I visited a friend I met through Facebook (also named London Smith), then found another old friend in D.C., hopped by Baltimore, took some time to explore NYC, met up with my Polish Canadian friend in Toronto, and then met up with an old friend and a new one in Milwaukee. Tomorrow, I'll meet my nephews in Chicago (I've apparently been an uncle for awhile now), and then leave in a couple of days to go back to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and then finally to Texas. But my scores are supposed to be released on the day that I leave Chicago, so that means 10+ hours in the car with the knowledge of whether I passed or failed that exam.

Though this trip is meant to distract, I really have let myself think of it lately, mostly because the day is fast approaching. I had a stress dream last night. I was enrolled in a medical class (which I specifically remember simply being named "Washington"), the lectures and classwork for which I had not attended or possibly even been aware. Such was the intensity of this overbearing knowledge of the class that I woke up and only realized that it was just a dream because I realized how stupid that name was (for a medical class). In addition, I was also trying to leave the island upon which my medical education took place thus far. It really was a nightmare to navigate in reality, so I suppose that it is not so crazy to experience it again in a stress dream.

The waiting for the scores is the worst part. Well, so were the last couple weeks before the exam. I guess that every part is awful. Fortunately, I think that I did the very best that I could with the time before me (with regard to the time spent after the test).

It's so close. So scary. If I failed, there goes the holiday season. I'll just be studying again.

The Night Before

Here I am. It's the night before the USMLE Step 1 exam. I'm a five-minute drive away from the testing center at an odd mix of nice and, umm, danky hotel near a highway in Tulsa. The sounds of cars on the highway overlay the hum of the mini fridge. I studied until 4 PM today, which is a no-no, but I could not resist. Fortunately, my mind shut down. So did my body, really. So I ended up getting a ten minute chair massage at the mall, which I had assumed would never be worth it, but it did more for me at this point than any hour-long massage I have had on a beach. Then I watched the Kingsman sequel (I did not care for it, perhaps 'cause I was not drinking?). So that was my fairly successful attempt at relaxation. I had not taken that much time out from studying since last Tuesday (tonight is Wednesday).

Then I did what I always do before a medical exam that will change my life: I read Romans 4 and the beginning of Romans 5. It really is poorly divided at that portion. Hope against hope is the usual section that I focus upon, but the suffering particularly caught my eye this time. Perhaps because of three years of fear, anxiety, and learning with decreasing thoughts of the things and people that I once cared greatly for, not to mention an increasing distrust of the Church in America as it stands (which is what I had hoped to reconnect to until I felt as if the Holy Spirit was warning me against it during the election)... in any case, I felt a suffering during this time that has changed me, beaten me down, deprived me of whatever it is that I feel is the best of me. But that passage does not just say to rejoice in suffering; it gives a reason. Suffering produces perseverance. Because of course, making it out the other side of suffering is what defines perseverance. And the passage does not stop there. Perseverance produces character. Just as a favorite book is made to suffer through creases and dog ears and wrinkles, thus gaining character, so our character is revealed by the sufferings through which we persevere.

And that character is what produces hope. It does so for the same reason that you originally agreed to go through this suffering in the first place: the love of God, which has been freely poured into our hearts. That sounds like a dumb answer to a lengthy riddle made up of suffering, but the guarantee is given at the end that this hope, due to its safeguard with the love of God, does not disappoint. We have an assurance that the suffering, perseverance, character, and hope are all sustained through a love that prevents disappointment at the end of the journey. It becomes worthwhile.

So in the midst of my exhaustion and insecurities, I have this love of God onto which I can hold. The God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. The God who does not merely bend possibility, but rather creates it anew.

Though I may foolishly lose sight of it, the God I continue to believe in really does have the power to weave reality as He sees fit. So I pray that I may place my hope in this speaker of worlds, this literal life maker, rather than what I have or have not managed to do to prepare.

Less Than A Week

I have been meaning to write again, but I have so much to do in so little time that it felt crazy to write a blog (especially since I have a habit of making these things too long when I am appropriately expressive). The Step 1 exam, the one that decides the course of a great many things in my life, is coming this Thursday. Today is Saturday.

Rather than think of test day, which I can hardly imagine, I instead motivate myself by thinking of the month after test day, when I am awaiting test scores. At around 6 AM on a Wednesday, I will apparently receive an email to let me know that my scores are available. Then I, with heart leaping from my body, will hurriedly scramble to figure out my login info and check the website for the score. Those brief anxious moments are what I focus on right now (and the days leading up to them).

My dad called to remind me of a lesson that he noted just before taking his CPA exam. This, like every matter of importance in our lives, is The Lord's battle. It is not my own. I attempt to do everything on my part to make sure that we do well on test day, but He is the one upon whom I will have to lean in the deciding moments. When I have narrowed a question down to two answers, it has very little to do with my knowledge and much to do with The Lord's presence in every moment.

Just as in the past, before I failed a class, I am trying not to think of the possibility of failure, of how crushing that would be. An extra month or two of studying will likely do the trick, but it is the social withdraw that I fear (and of course my standing as a student as I attempt to find rotations and residencies). There is a girl that I like, and from my very limited understanding of dating, I think that I will have to invest time in her already busy world in order to discover who she is and offer her the same opportunity for me. When I am studying, the outside world stays outside. I obtain bacne because I lean back in a chair all day. I just want a little respite from all this.

God, please be with me. Help me to study you and your world and the science you cultivated, and give me the knowledge and discernment to choose correct answers in the midst of baffling questions.

Also God, should I try to date her? Even though I will soon have to move for clinical rotations if all goes well? Right, right, focus.

Two Weeks

Two weeks from today, I take an exam that will do much to determine the course of both my short- and long-term career. I am hitting the books hard and struggling to avoid burnout. I am alternating heavy days and light, with heavy days being powered first by coffee and then by adderall during the late afternoon slump, and both days ending with drinking.

The choice to live in this particular place and point in time are turning out to be as critical as I assumed. When I need a study break, it is a quick walk to find people with whom to converse at the nearby bar patio. I will also be on a podcast this weekend and have a showing of my movie at a friend's house.

It is amazing how this study mode can kick in merely on the basis of willpower. I have lacked in it until this test day grew so close, but after a friend called me to tell me about his testing experience last week, the ability to ignore my twitter feed arose within me. Failing this test would be very bad. In the face of that, I must study hard. And smart.

In the midst of this, I am also planning that trip to NYC. Westerly destinations have been phased out for various reasons. Nashville, DC, NYC, Niagara Falls/Toronto, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Oklahoma City are the ones on the list now. And, impressively, I have places to stay in all of those cities for most of the dates (though NYC is proving to be a little difficult in that regard).

Four Weeks

The STEP 1 exam has been scheduled. Four weeks from tomorrow (Thursday, September 28 in Tulsa, Oklahoma), I take the longest and most difficult exam (8 hours of fun) of my life. And I'm not too excited.

I thought I was doing okay, but I took a simulation test and scored merely a 190. Passing is 192, and to be even remotely competitive, you want to have a score over 205. So I have four weeks to smash more knowledge in my brain. Granted, the test was UWorld, and therefore more difficult than what I may expect on the real thing, and the questions given seemed harder than usual for UWorld, but I am still (rightfully) in a bit of a panic. So I will be attempting to study for (at least) ten hours every day until the exam, with one official day off per week. (Though workout days do admittedly take some time out).

In the midst of this, I am also trying to spiritually awaken. Because I of course reach out to my God in heaven in such times of desperation, since this was all His idea anyway. I am also still planning my trip to NYC. Between couch surfing and friends in the area, it looks like I will not be homeless.

Anyway, back to it.

Less Than Six Weeks

I'm less than six weeks from the date upon which I hope to schedule my USMLE STEP 1 exam. The equation that people have posted online which seems to correlate most with peoples' actual score is one's practice test score average x 2.4 + 84. Given that my average included scores from during the anxiety-laden election season last year, I tend to think that my average is higher than what that showed (56), but even if it is precisely what I have had, I am still safely above passing. My current average (after having completed all of UWorld, which means that I am repeating the 2500-ish questions) is 63, a little above listed average within the question bank.

So I study with some hope, which is a weird thing with which to study. It also helps that I am planning a road trip to NYC, then to Portland (after stopping in Chicago and Milwaukee), down through San Francisco and Napa Valley, hopping through LA, then stopping over to Denver before I go home for a wedding in November. If things go nicely, I will start this trip a day or two after my exam.

Hoping to see a few crushes on this trip, and planning some photo shoots as well. One crush has responded in the affirmative, while the other remains unresponsive (given how aggressively I instinctively tried to give a terrible first impression, this is not the most shocking development).

All that is left to do is keep trying to study and also (importantly) to remember to include days off. Both of these things are essential.

If I am being honest, a lot of whatever self-esteem I have acquired in the dating world has been in relation to the fact that I plan on being a doctor. So I need to do well enough to actually move on with those plans, because a guy who dropped out of med school is considerably less attractive than a doctor. Anyway, that's probably a blog post for a night when I feel less secure in myself.

All For A Story

Lately, I have wondered whether I should treat dating as a real, possible, feasible thing. If I am honest, a lot of my life and interactions feel oriented toward becoming an anecdote, blog, poem, or whatever else sometime in the future. It is similar to going out hiking or to see some marvel, and although you do technically experience it, you are really just living life through the lens of your camera. Your own eyes hardly touch the moment as you fill yourself with preoccupations about the quality of the interaction for later visual feasting by yourself and others on social media.

There is, perhaps, a level of intimacy lost when your interactions with another human are focused in this way. Suddenly, past mistakes and vulnerabilities are discussed not for more intimate knowledge of a person, but rather for shock value, or to expose another side of you specifically for the sake of the other party being exposed to such, rather than removing a layer of your own social facade.

I do not know that my perspective on this apparent loss of intimacy is necessarily a real issue. In my head, I hear echoes of think pieces describing what is wrong with such and such young people dating in America.

I suppose that I should remain with the method I know best, since it furthers my own inconsequential brand and makes me feel more comfortable. It is just that when I interact with someone who has no call to be interested in someone like myself, I do tend to ask whether this is all a part of the poisonous lack of intimacy that would lead to my own parents' divorce. Perhaps it is normal for my brand of humor, and I am simply being overly analytical. Is this why people go to therapy?

Lookin' Up

Things seem to be moving in nice directions. After years of going without, I finally had the chance to do another creative photo shoot yesterday. I was dressed as a clown, but on hiking trails by a lake. That evening, I went to my friend's parents' house to surprise my friend's mom as the same clown character, and had to improvise a back story for like ten minutes as I made balloon animals. They were generous enough to invite me to share in finer wines and scotch than I have yet had the privilege of tasting.

While there, my friend informed me that I would likely not have difficulty in scheduling the STEP 1 exam, despite the many delays (one of which I will attempt to fix tomorrow) in registering for it.

My practice test scores have been going up (though this week has admittedly hardly been productive), enough that I think I should be ready by the time mid to late September rolls around. The trick was to stop just trying to get through it, and start treating them like real tests.

Anyway, the reason to start caring about getting this test completed (aside from the obvious necessity of moving on in life) is that it looks like one of my closest friends will be free to travel at the time and place that I would like to travel. Assuming that testing and moving out and such go smoothly, I will be departing to NYC a day or two after my exam, and then road tripping westward toward Portland with my friend. Following this, there is also potential for travel through California. I have friends living in most major cities and areas, some of whom have already offered a place to stay. I even know someone in Napa, so I have some hopes there.

In any case, it is time to buckle down and study (with a slight hiccup when I drive to Dallas this coming weekend to see Tim and Eric live because #duh) so that these idealized plans in my mind may come to fruition.

In The Eye

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” she wrote

After I spun the tale of Belarusian flirting,
Which is done through excessive asserting
Of one's eye upon another's,
She and I stared

Each at the other
At alternating points.

Either looked away
When gazes crossed.

She journeys to the coast
In two days.

Here I study.
I remain

But with her beauty in mind's eye.

Just Wanna Quit

Let's throw down some honesty here.

I want to quit medical school pretty badly. Scores aren't improving, friends keep getting married while I'm unable to leave my studies, and I am still years away from the opportunity to do something very worthwhile with myself.

I want very much to just drop it and go to help with the Syrian refugees, one of the most incredible opportunities to do some of the greatest good as conveyed in the Bible.

I am just fed up with being selfish, and with having to force myself to be disciplined. Send me away. Please. I have two years of med school under my belt, so surely I would serve a purpose. I can be fun and entertaining.

Here am I. Send me. But have I already been sent, and I'm already here, and now it's just a matter of pushing through the difficult time? Part of me wishes that this whole exam process would fall through so that I would be forced to find something else. I could work on a cruise ship or something for six months to raise money for a trip. I could work for Disney. I could do so many things.

Yet here I remain.

The Shortcut

A buddy of mine killed himself the other night. I only really knew him during our awkward early teen years, but we hung out a lot during that time. He was the other little skinny white kid named after a place in the UK, which is a demographic that most other kids do not fit into.

He was the first guy that I ever really shared the gospel with, and he was very curious about it. I bestowed upon him much of my Sunday School knowledge and led him in the prayer for salvation. We were both in speech and debate as well, always performing comedy monologues. He was very good at it, which was not a common characteristic. For awhile, our school had a group that would go to Dallas to make a low budget television show for fun. He and I acted in addition to working cameras. It was called Nerd-O-Rama, and I remember being jealous of the fact that he had real headgear for his braces. I requested them from my dentist, but was told that they do not make headgear for the type of braces that I wore.

I had hardly thought of him for years, but then I had rarely thought of that time in my life for years. It was our shared awkward phase, and I naturally do not try to remember such phases. But to think that one of the few other smart, well-spoken, and funny guys that I knew growing up would take his own life seems crazy. But then again, I have dipped into depression and recognize how real those thoughts can get.

In fact, this news had me reeling back into that mode of thinking to some extent. I see life passing me by every day, and it seems as if I will never escape from this medical school purgatory. I cannot afford (financially, logistically, and in other ways) to attend a good friend's wedding in California in a few weeks. It would be a wonderful reunion with fun and dancing on the beach. Instead, I study alone and learn tragic news with only a Bible and a bottle to comfort in the midst of it. For whatever reason, I have an extra helping of serotonin sloshing around in my brain, so even in the midst of depressed mood, I only seem capable of being beaten down so much.

I do not often feel things, except in pivotal points of action movies, but my eyes grew misty a number of times after learning the news of my friend's passing. The very fortunate thing here is that there is no one of whose eternal salvation I am more confident. I am glad you found rest, Briton. The rest of us are going to try to take the longer route home.

Millenials (Idiots Like Me) Might Have A Point

Why are so many millenials leaving the Church? The election, basic science that the Church projects a disagreement towards, an apparent dislike for defending the types of minorities for whom Jesus and His apostles encouraged fighting...

Off the top of my head, these are some basic things that have discouraged me from going to church. Bear in mind that I have committed my life to the pursuit of Jesus and His purposes for me, but that does not stop me from recognizing and feeling the very distrust that is pushing away my generation.

I grew up being and experiencing the real thing with God. I prayed and He answered. First through others, then to me personally. I gobbled up sermons, took to heart the sermons at youth camps and elsewhere, and was given a calling that I neither expected nor was naturally gifted to undertake. With many difficulties and delays, I am still working toward that aspiration. But even as I was jealous of my peers who seemed so much more spiritual and gifted as I was growing up, I now see many of those same people giving up most of that in the name of being a regular person. This is not a bad thing in itself, as I see it. I could hardly relate to people before I dabbled in the realm of being a less than perfect Christian. But there comes a point at which one is living for the sake of living rather than for the sake of God, and in a world such as this, the line between those two can blur. The line has an even greater propensity toward becoming hazy when one is not involved in ministry to some degree.

As far as Christianity in the States, the message seems to have a strong message of anti-immigrant, anti- other religions, anti-science, anti-environment, and anti-alternative lifestyles. This, of course, is contrary to the message of Jesus Christ. I do not mean to say that Jesus endorsed other religions, lifestyle choices, etc., but rather, his message was salvation to all who believe. His message is a positive one, meant for all people, but people (including yours truly) have the habit of complicating it to the point that we form judgments. Since we are specifically not called to judge, but rather to bring salvation to all people, the formation of judgments seems odd, or, you know, stupid.

But maybe there is some part of Christianity that I never grasped when I read the Bible. Maybe the millions of child refugees in Syria are not worth the risk of helping. Perhaps I have a fool's understanding of healthcare and the need to help as many people as possible. I am an idiot on a number of levels, but it does not seem that difficult to grasp how easy it should be to apply verses from the book of James (which is one of the more critical books when it comes to emphasizing the need for changing one's lifestyle following salvation) to our own time in the world "Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." (James 1:27)

Aged

It occurred to me that I never made a post as a reflection of the time since my last birthday. It is usually my habit to write reflections at least once a year, and since I doubt whether I did one at New Years, here we go.

Since my last birthday... Well, I lived on an island in the Caribbean during that time. I celebrated by drinking alone and watching a movie. This, you may note, bears a strong resemblance to the way I have learned to celebrate many things. Some might call it "unhealthy", whereas I would call it "all I had". It was near this time that Trump was chosen to be the Republican candidate, which would force upon many young people like myself the burden of caring about politics. I still maintain that I do not want to do so.

My emotional and geographical isolation on the island made moving back to the States into the only real goal. Passing classes, rather than learning enough to actually move on afterward, was the objective. And then I felt that incredible relief that comes from getting to move back to America. Unfortunately, my love for people, which included the primarily Muslim student population at my school, created issues at home. I traded my depression for anxiety. I lived in a house that supported Trump and ignored basic science; this does not meld well with someone studying evidence-based medicine (science) like myself. So I became more anxious as my family bought into the racism, bigotry, and propaganda. Trump won and those feelings began to overwhelm as I tried to study. I failed the exam once again that December and signed up for a study program in January, knowing that I probably needed it.

The study program turned out to be a very refreshing thing indeed. For one thing, I was around fellow medical scientists. For another, I was able to spend time with those whose skin colors did not match mine, which was a relief after the pro-Trump white town that my home had become. For the first time since college, I was around other people every day, and I was generally well-liked. Oh, my dad also got remarried during this time, so that was nice. Though it is funny to hear him and step-mom be so critical of the sinfulness of the LGBT crowd when, you know, the Bible also does not approve of divorce (nor remarrying). I, on the other hand, realize that my thoughts have strayed sexually before, so I have no room to judge (particularly since we are supposed to avoid judging anyway).

After that study program, I studied alone at our family's lake house, which was very good for studying, but pretty bad for social life. It was like the island, but only two hours away from a social life rather than an $800 12-hour journey. I failed that exam in April, but my score had improved quite a bit from previous attempts, enough for me to transfer to another school on the neighbor island. And once I had transferred, I made the move to the one place in the world where I thought that I might have the best chance of a healthy lifestyle while studying. Thus do I now find myself in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. I'm a short walk from a coffee shop, a bar, and karaoke once a month. Easy to make new friends and to catch up with old ones. It is a little colder than Texas, but I must admit that those two years in the Caribbean made me want to avoid summer for as long as possible.

And so it is that I am now 27. My dating app minimum and maximum ages have been moved up by one year, so you know it is real.