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...

In the past few months, I’ve had to adjust and readjust my plans to stay abreast the seemingly never-ending waves of change. I’ve been treading water, ever aware of the fragility of my health, my plans, my relationships, and everything in between. I’ve been afraid that if I let something slip, that if I went under a wave, I may never resurface. It’s a hackneyed metaphor, I know, but it’s sadly accurate of how I’ve often felt this past semester: drowning. After my fall semester of intensive antibiotics, yoga, and prayer, I felt prepared enough to re-enter Vanderbilt and hopefully even graduate on time. I planned to continue improving while living at school, take an internship for credit over the summer, and pretend like Lyme was nothing more than a season of rest and learning. I often do this thing where I create a storyline for my life as it’s forming, as if I was the author and could manipulate my life to fall into the lines that I’ve written. You’d think I’d have learned by now. A...

Growing up as the only girl in a military home, I have spent the majority of my life subconsciously believing that strength is the ultimate superlative. It was never an overt declaration, as most internalized beliefs aren’t. The idea was so fundamental that it never even occurred to me to address it or recognize that it wasn’t a universal standard. Between wrestling and racing my brothers, being the only girl in an annual vacation of 10 kids, and even committing to Air Force ROTC, strength just seemed to be ingrained in the way I viewed the world. To that end, many of my proudest moments revolve around exhibiting some sort of mental toughness. Surviving a horrific jaw surgery by pretending I was a prisoner of war, starting a dance team against the odds, and doing well at a the Air Force summer seminar are a few examples. In retrospect, strength had become my weakness . Or rather, the unrealistic expectations I had set for myself around the concept. At first, the idea of pursuing s...

Those who know me well know that poverty and homelessness are issues that are very close to my heart. In fact, the concept of homelessness has plagued me since I can remember; it just doesn’t make sense from a childlike perception of the world. We have all these empty houses, but people are dying on the streets. That’s what I thought when I was 7, and I still hold those values to some extent (albeit hopefully in a more sophisticated and detailed analysis). The past few months especially, I’ve felt a dissonance in my spiritual life because of my lack of action on behalf of the poor. I don’t mean that in a “look how philanthropic I am” way at all because everyone is called to different issues, but in my personal life, I truly felt like a hypocrite to say that I follow Jesus while walking by those He would have ministered to. Obviously, I’m not Jesus, so I can’t possibly carry the weight of injustice and poverty on my shoulders. Still, I felt like I was allowing privilege and apathy to sh...