Have you ever heard the saying “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans”?

I’m not usually a big fan of such cliches, but recently I have found this one to be particularly fitting to my life.  This is a hard one to explain, so bear with me if I start getting vague and abstract.

If you asked me at any given moment in my past if I would lay out the next few years of my life, I would probably have a detailed plan in mind.  However, if you asked me again a few years down the road if my plans actually came to fruition, the answer would almost always be an unequivocal “no.”

I always wanted to go to a school like Stanford or Northwestern, but somehow I found myself at Wheaton College (I know, the “Evangelical Harvard”).  For a while I thought I wanted to be a Spanish teacher, but now I feel myself being drawn toward law.  I never thought I would study in Chile and Paraguay.  I never saw myself working as a camp counselor or as a receptionist at a mental health clinic.  I never really planned any of these things, but they just happened and for the most part they have been the most formative experiences of my 20 years of life.

Ever since I decided to major in Political Science and do the concentration in Pre-law, I have been thinking about the internship requirement I must complete before I graduate.  My plan was to do a legal internship with the government, like with the FBI or a State’s Attorney’s office.  But none of those options really ended up working out.  Then this week an internship with a very prestigious law firm just sort of fell into my lap, and it seems to be a better opportunity than anything I could have planned.

Here’s the point of all this: no matter how hard I try to control and micro-manage my life, I find myself being irresistibly pulled in an unexpected yet exhilerating direction.  There is this feeling that there is something way bigger than me at work.  This is strangely comforting, because I am a mere human being and my life would probably be a total mess if I was the one actually calling the shots.

Maybe I don’t know yet the direction or purpose God has in mind for me, but I do know this: it will be awesome.  And that makes life one big, exciting adventure.

I turned on the TV this morning (I’m on Spring Break so lots of sleeping, reading, and TV for me this week) and Walker, Texas Ranger happened to be on. Walker was roundhouse kicking some guy, and his deputy was asking some other guy if he wanted a “Hawaiian punch” while dunking his head into, you guessed it: a bowl of punch.

The bad guys depicted on Walker, Texas Ranger and in television and movies in general are so one-dimensional. They’re always the same. They wear dark clothes and they always have scowls on their faces. You never find out if they have kids or what their childhood was like. That pile-drive to the gut isn’t as fun if you know Junior’s waiting for daddy to come tuck him in when this is all over.

There is a big philosophical debate over whether people are inherently good or inherently bad. Personally, I am intrigued by the Christian concept of the “fallen nature” of human beings. We were created good, but somewhere along the way we get corrupted. It just seems to be the best explanation for what I see going on in this world. Despite what Walker would have us believe, I don’t think there are really “bad guys” in this world. These one-dimensional, almost cartoonish caricatures that are only ever focused on doing evil just don’t really exist.

Maybe some people come pretty close. You could probably make a good case for Hitler or Saddam Hussein being pure evil. At the very least they were sociopaths. But those guys were children once too, you know? There was a time when they were five years old and their days consisted of playing soccer and bickering with their siblings. Then somewhere along the way, they fell into a bad business. Maybe it was a calculated plan, or maybe they just got sucked into something and got in over their heads.

Someday I would like to do an informal investigation on suicide bombers. As much as I dislike George Clooney, I was intrigued by the plot line in Syriana that depicted the recruitment, training, and final mission of suicide bombers in the Middle East. I thought that by going into the psyche of a suicide bomber, it provided an excellent contrast to the classic “bad guys” as they are portrayed in the media. These bombers weren’t just evil men. They were barely even adults at all. They were young men who got sucked into an ideology. They were targeted because of their rough backgrounds. They were given food and resources they never had access to before. Their religious training provided a smoke screen for extremist ideologies. And they were promised comfort and provision for their families after they completed their suicide missions. The process is complicated and psychological, but definitely not black and white.

I just don’t believe people are evil anymore. I know it is very easy to believe this. I know. But you start to peel back the layers, and things get a whole lot more complex.

The gray is starting to close in.

I mailed in a resume and application for a summer internship today. I went to CPO to buy a stamp, and the guy handed over a stamp with a portrait of Jimmy Stewart on it. Since I had gone to a lot of trouble to make the envelope look good by getting a nice envelope from Career Services and printing out the addresses, I was a little hesitant to put Jimmy Stewart’s face on it. I asked the guy if they anything a little more official. It’s not too much to ask, right? I bet a lot of students and staff frequently send out official documents.

The guy responded by saying the other choices were Yoda or X-Men. Here’s to hoping someone at the State’s Attorney’s Office is a Jimmy Stewart fan.

I was walking from my apartment to the dining hall this morning for breakfast before my 9:15am Philosophy class.  A young boy on his way to school turned the corner ahead of me, so I was walking several paces behind him.  We started to pass a church with a parking lot that backs right up to the sidewalk.  There is a curb that divides the parking spaces from the walkway.  Seeing this, the boy jumped up to the curb and began to walk on it as if it were a balance beam.  I tried not to let him see me grinning at this.

I used to do that when I was a kid.  We all did, didn’t we?  When you’re a child, it’s not enough to just walk somewhere.  You look for every possible opportunity to challenge yourself, to test your prowess.  Whether it’s balancing on the curb or trying not to step on the cracks, there was a constant search for stimulation even in a simple walk to school.  That search fades as we grow older.  Now we just look for every opportunity to make life easier.  Sometimes we drive to campus if we don’t feel like walking the whole way.  Sometimes we just stick with the job we know is a safe bet, rather than going after the one that will challenge us even if it means possible failure.

I know people who play it safe in life.  I also know people who constantly seek out challenges that involve risk.  Guess which ones are happier?

Do you ever just catch random snippets of other people’s conversations?  It’s one of my favorite things.  Here’s an example of one I overheard in my Philosophy class this morning:

Kid #1: “I detect some cynicism in your attitude.”

Kid #2: “Yeah, well, I’m a Junior.”

I recently met the brother of a friend of mine.  I think my friend is a really great person, so by association her brother already had points with me before I even met him.  However, after we were introduced he said something to his sister that was not personally offensive to me, but was so immature and thoughtless that it immediately solidified a negative impression in my mind about his personality.  To this day I try to avoid interacting with him so I don’t have to pretend to like him in front of my friend, his sister.

Who knows, maybe the guy is actually really nice and just had a moment of idiocy.  Don’t we all?  But that one comment made such a strong impression on me that I really think it damaged my opinion of him beyond repair.  I’m sure he has no idea of what I think of him, and probably wouldn’t even care.  But it just goes to show how quickly we size each other up.  Always be aware of the impact that what you say and do has on other people who are listening and watching.

Last night in church my pastor read a C.S. Lewis quote during her sermon on the Israeli wilderness grumblings and wanderings. As with everything C.S. Lewis has to say, it really resonated with me. Sometimes I think we are the same person, only he is much better able to express what I am thinking and feeling with respect to God and religion. Anyway, here’s the quote from The Screwtape Letters (fantastic book, BTW):

“Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off…The only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy… Murder is no better than cards if cards do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

I won’t expand on this too much- I think Lewis pretty much covers it. Suffice it to say this is probably one of my biggest struggles in my faith. I’ve been trying to be more proactive lately, but boy can it be hard sometimes.

Sometimes, when I’m at home and I’m really bored, I like to go through the drawers in my room. You see, like my parents and their parents before them, I have a hard time throwing/giving all my old crap away. I come from a long line of pack rats! Therefore, my drawers are filled with Hanson CDs, my old basketball card collection, Paraguayan currency, and broken watches. Not everything is junk, though. There are exactly three small drawers in my room filled with things I will never throw away. They are these drawers that I rummage through when I need a little encouragement.

One of these drawers, the smallest, is in my bedside table. It’s about the size of a cigar box, and it’s filled with uplifting letters I have received. These notes, that probably took someone 5 minutes to write, are priceless gifts that keep encouraging even after years have passed. Some of them are the end-of-session letters I got from my counselors at HoneyRock. I remember how much I looked up to them, and how my heart soared when, a few weeks after camp ended, I (or rather my parents) would get a letter with their assessment of my talents and contributions to our cabin group. I remembered how much those letters meant to me when I was the one writing them to my own campers at the end of the summer two years ago. In that drawer is also a stack of notes that my senior year Spanish class wrote. We spent an entire class period at the end of the year just jotting brief notes of encouragement to each other. I had gone through 12 years of school with some of these kids, and even if we weren’t close friends it was great to read some of the things they liked or admired about me. The rest of the letters in that drawer are random, miscellaneous correspondences I have received from friends, and it always does my heart good to look through that drawer. Everyone should write encouraging notes to each other. And everyone should have a drawer like this.

I have two other desk drawers that are filled with academic and athletic accolades from high school. Certificates, medals, pins, and letter jacket patches. I was a pretty good student, you see, so besides my diploma in that drawer there are awards from the AP Board, the Principal, the school board, and the National Merit Corporation. I was also a pretty good athlete. Badminton, to be exact (yes, it is a real sport). So because of that I have a lot of medals and IHSA state qualifier pins and letter jacket patches. These are also great drawers to look through every once in while. It’s pretty gratifying to hold concrete representations of my past successes in my hands. I’m no longer an athlete, but I’m still a pretty good student, and you just don’t receive physical accolades like you used to in high school. Why is that? I miss it.

The additions to these drawers have slowed down somewhat significantly since I graduated high school. I don’t play sports so I don’t get any medals. Wheaton College doesn’t give out academic achievement awards, at least until I graduate. And I don’t get letters as much as I get emails, the nature of which is increasingly business. I guess the older you get, the less you need to be told that you’re awesome in the form of paper or medals. You just have to figure it out yourself. I’m sorry, but I don’t really agree with that. Everyone should be periodically told, outright, how great they are. I don’t do that often enough for other people, and I think I should start.

Last week I wrote about a show I went to called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind in Chicago. Well, Wheaton College has started publishing a monthly paper of activities and fun things to do in the area. I noticed that they listed a show called That’s Weird, Grandma which caught my eye because it plays at the same theater as Too Much Light. I checked out their web page and learned that the show is produced by an organization called “Barrel of Monkeys,” where performers team up with schools to teach creative writing to children and encourage the expression of their voices and imaginations.

Really, you guys, hearing about an organization like Barrel of Monkeys makes my heart so happy. This is a group of really talented people. They could just be performing in plays and improv troupes around Chicago in order to pay the rent and pursue their own dreams of success. However, these guys are sacrificing their time and efforts to bring their skills and inspiration to inner-city school children. They’re taking something they’re good at, something they’re passionate about, and they’re using it to help other people.

I guess my impending graduation and lack of direction has got me thinking a lot recently about the concepts of purpose and talent. Bill Hybels once gave a great talk on this subject. The basic gist was that when people with gifts and passions find their purpose in life, watch out world, because something awesome is gonna happen. I don’t know what the story behind Barrel of Monkeys is, but I like to think some performer or writer saw an unfulfilled need in the city’s public school system, but instead of sitting around yelling at politicians through the TV, they relentlessly pursued the fulfillment of that need through their own talents. If that’s the case, then that’s awesome. Everyone in this world needs to do something like that. I see people like that, and my heart is just filled to the brim with hope for this world.

On the other hand, sometimes I see people who have such enormous talent. Such huge potential. And they’re doing nothing. They dropped out of college and are free-loading off their parents. They work at WalMart, but only so they can have extra cash to buy video games and weed. And I just want to scream at these people. What are you doing? You had so much going for you, and you’re throwing it all away. You could have done something huge. It’s one of the most upsetting things in world to me.

I want to do something huge. I just don’t know what yet. I’m not an artist, and my talents are a little harder to pinpoint. And I still have no idea what my purpose might be. But just you wait. Meanwhile, I’m open to suggestions