Faith, Life, and Lessons

At the beach the other morning, Viv read me a passage from one of her books about the formation of sand. It sounds boring, unless you’re an aspiring paleontologist/archaeologist/geologist like Viv, but it was actually a beautiful metaphor. While I always thought sand formed from rocks in a given area, the book noted that sand is actually formed from the grinding of rocks all across the globe, especially in glaciers that freeze and bust. Over millions of years, the shards are churned into spherical balls that eventually make their way to the beaches and lakes, where they’re mixed and eventually make the homogenous mixture I get to lay on as I fry my body. It seems that as I lurch toward graduation and The Great Unknown of my future, everything has turned into a metaphor. This passage about sand, too, has fallen victim to my figurative mind. As my friends and I are broken apart by the wind and rain called Time (more accurately called “jobs” and “plans”), it can be scary to wonder wha...

A few weeks ago, I finished exams early and flew to Jacksonville, where I met my parents to go to the Crawfish Festival in Woodbine, GA (it’s as remote as it sounds) and mainly see my grandparents, MamMa and Pop, in their home before they move. They’ve lived in that house as long as I’ve been alive, and I became quite reflective as I sat in their lazy boy and talked about the farmer down the road one last time. Life is a weird thing. People always say it’s cyclical; fashion trends come and go, people get old and die and babies are born to take their place on the earth, and it all goes round and round. But this weekend I really felt that cycle, felt myself rushing forward with my hands spread wide to catch everything as it slips through my fingers, felt myself lay in the sun watching it all pass. A passive resistance. A comforting stability juxtaposed by the knowledge that nothing is stagnant. Life is dynamic, and that’s beautiful in its own right. At Mamma and Pop’s house, I took ...

So there I was: patiently standing in a quasi-line (read: mob), waiting to get to the exact spot where it’s believed that Jesus was crucified. The spot itself is nothing more than a hole in a rock, but the entire area is heavily adorned with precious metals, beautiful paintings of the Messiah, intricate faces of angels all over the ceiling, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary nearby. The “room” itself is part of a larger structure: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which also houses the tomb where it’s believed Jesus was buried. This massive church was built by Constantine the Great in 325 AD to commemorate the place of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus (before that, the area was actually a temple to the goddess Venus that the Roman emperor Hadrian had spitefully erected in 135 AD to cover the holy sites of Jesus). I’ve attached a diagram to show how the Church works; basically it was placed on top of the original hillside, so now you can just go up and down stairs inside the ch...

TL;DR: . The acknowledgement of gray doesn’t negate the existence of black and white; it enhances it. First off: hello! I realized it’s been quite awhile since I last blogged. Here’s to hoping that this post is the catalyst to establishing a rhythm of more regularly updating this page. Anyways, as many of you already know, I recently had the privilege of visiting Israel for 10 days this winter break, and it’s got me contemplating ~all sorts~ of things. While I’m certain that visiting the country in any capacity would be meaningful and interesting, this trip was particularly enlightening because it was run through the Jewish National Fund, meaning we had an incredible itinerary full of meetings with high-ranking politicians, journalists, and business men and women, as well as visits to important religious, historical, and political sites. Many times I thought to myself, “there’s no way I could have arranged this myself.” For a brief context, JNF hosts multiple trips to Israel, inc...