kindness of friends, love of God

Terribly sorry to anyone who has missed me either on here or in comments. My life got much more interesting this last week in the form of Santa Barbara, President's Ball and a mischievous puppy. Said puppy is Tyler's dog, who chewed through my power cable, leaving me semi-computer less until the one I purchased from eBay finds it's way through the circuits of the postal service and into my arms. This also means that I cannot finish my grad school apps b/c my essays are on my dead computer and I can't plan my trip to the East Coast until I apply and set up an interview with Boston U, which means I can't request work off yet. The only thing I can do is write my fundraising letter for my Ireland trip.

I confess, I do like the break from worrying about grad school things. Once you accept that you are completely powerless to change something, it's almost freeing. Maybe God was giving me a gift of freeing me from worry for a few days. Why can I not do this with everything else in my life?

I ruined my back while in Santa Barbara. I went for a run on the beach and ran too much. Now my sciatic nerve is causing hell and my butt muscles rarely stop their spasmatic rhythms. Stretching, ice packs, heating pads, pain killers, they help. But then when you wake up in the morning, you have to start all over again because sleeping makes it worse.

Sunday I had had lunch with Elizabeth, one of my favorite people in the whole world! We talked about my play, what works well, what doesn't work well. We talked about life and grad school and our first theatre roles, the awful children who taunted us in elementary school. We talked about other things too that gave me things to think about and a spark of that unrelenting power of hope. However, this particular spark is not worth dwelling on, for it is another thing I cannot control.

Back to the dog - when I told Tyler's parents that their cute little dog chewed my power cable, they immediately offered to buy it for me and when I told them that the nearest Apple store was in Thousand Oaks, they gave me moeny and wouldn't take no for an answer. I was so blown away my their kindness. They have always been so generous and hospitable to me. I'm not used to it. I'm used to being the one to give that to other people. I think God is teaching me how to accept kindness. I think he's trying to show me that I don't have to be bitter and cynical against the whole human race as a selfish and ungrateful people and by showing me that, he wants me to see that his Love is a gazillion times bigger than that.

Another thing relating to this was going to President's Ball. I asked Tyler to ride along with him to campus. He commented at some point that night before we picked up the girls, that he thought it was funny because now he was taking three girls to the dance when he initially asked one. I pointed out that he was in fact not taking me, he was just giving me a ride. He then went on a rant about how people make the whole date to a dance thing too big of a deal, when it's just about having fun and enjoying the company of others. I agreed with him, but I did not say so. Because I didn't know what to say. After some reflection I understood it to be relating to this same problem of letting other people love me. To me, saying that he was taking me to the dance, that meant something...something in the way that I was more important than a shadow following him into a dance, more than a graduated resemblance of a person who once sang, danced, prayed, cried in that Gym, more than just along for the ride. I mattered as a person and his friend. I didn't say anything at the time because the emotion was too strong to understand. I want to be able to let grace, mercy, and kindness in from others, but I'm so afraid. I'm so used to taking my battle stance and fighting my demons on my own.

So there's a nice long post for you.