#30 - renewal

on a more serious note...

this past weekend was easter, a very cool four days of church. no really, mass of the Lord's supper on thursday, the passion of the Lord on friday, easter vigil on saturday, and easter sunday of course on sunday. before grad school i wasn't all that excited about going to church, but it seems like once it was my choice completely to go, it became so much more meaningful. anyway, i didn't get to go to all of the masses this year, so i'm kinda bummed about that, but it's not so much about attending services as it is about the new spiritual year. six weeks before this was the lenten season, another aspect i didn't appreciate until grad school (seems like a lot of this happened around that time because 1) grad school was crap and it was a tough time so that led me back, and 2) around the ages of 21-23 is when your prefrontal lobe becomes firmly established, up until then it was still growing and changing, therefore, the person that you are and the personality that you have at the age of 23 is most likely who you will be for the rest of your life, unless you have a tbi (traumatic brain injury) or some other neurologically altering condition, haha).

traditionally lent is about sacrifice and almsgiving and all that, but growing up all i knew it meant was: gotta give up something i like. usually it was french fries, or candy or something (in fact, one year during or right before high school i gave up candy, and after that, and to this day, i hardly eat any candy anymore, unless it's a situation where it'd be rude to refuse or something like that... except for small chocolate mints... like andes chocolate mints. one year i gave up alcohol... but even though that was a tough sacrifice (and i gave all the money that i would have spent on alcohol to donations), it really didn't do much spiritually for me. so this year instead of giving something up, i decided to make myself a promise, be nicer to the family and engage in conversation with them.

boy that was tough... if you don't quite understand my situation, since moving back home during grad school i've been keeping myself independent and since we don't all have very much in common (and they irritate me constantly!) i've been keeping a short relationship with my family. so i think that was a good thing to do, and as it turns out, during lent i found out that i would be moving out at the end of the year, so it was really good timing to try and mend some of those relationships before i really separate myself from them.

anyway, flash forward to the day after easter and i really thank the Lord for the strength He gave me to keep my lenten promise, because now i don't have to think about when to make conversation with the family, it happens more naturally and i don't have the short temper with them that i used to. so... easter, new religious calendar year, a time for renewal. renewal's looking good this year. but why is it that it takes things like this to instigate renewal? why is it so difficult for me to keep constant and vigilant in my faith and how my faith guides my life? well, that's the human in me, but i'll keep praying for the strength to overcome that.

hey, here's a nice renewal song from relient k's new album that i listen to constantly, if you haven't heard of them yet, man, the lyrics hit me, y'know when you find those songs that you think, "man, that song could've been written just for me." it's like that with all their songs, which doesn't mean that they're in tune with my life and thoughts and i can channel it through them, nope, it just means that everyone goes through these things, and everyone has these thoughts at one time or another, so look around you and we're all so much alike, and we can all help each other because we know how each other can feel. start off with a positive thought tomorrow and see how much nicer the rest of the day becomes.

"up and up"

yesterday was not quite what it could have been. as were most of all the days before. but i swear today with every breath i'm breathing in. i'll be trying to make it so much more // cause it seems i get so hung up on. the history of what's gone wrong. that the hope of a new day is sometimes hard to see. but i'm finally catching on to it. yeah the past is just a conduit. and the light there at the end is where i'll be.