Room to Breathe: The Year in Review

Sometimes, the closer you are to something the more obscured it appears. This is obviously true with objects, such as paintings. Take The Starry Night, which hangs directly above me as I type. If I put my face an inch from the canvas, it’s nothing more than a gelatinous mass of swirling blues and yellows. But as I slowly back away, the curling balls of energy take shape, the quite town below forms, the burning moon spins into itself. The artists plan reveals itself as it’s transmogrified into a moment of cosmological rapture, the heavens left reeling, twisting and cooling. But the beauty is seen only with some space, some perspective, some room to breathe.

The time spent with CRU this year at times seemed chaotic and shapeless. There were times of frustration, doubting, resentment even, each hardship distorting the bigger picture. But those trials all served a specific function. Or to continue the analogy, what seemed like errant brush strokes were in reality intricately placed, their color and beauty to be revealed only with time and of course, space.

So over the last few days, with the ending of the semester I’ve been afforded a bit of time for reflection. With room to breathe, I’ve been able to see a portion of the bigger picture with a perhaps fleeting sense of clarity, but clarity nonetheless.

Somehow, someway, against all odds, I came to Texas State obstinately agnostic in regards to God, a fierce opponent of religion, yet quietly praying to a God it seemed I’d never know for something more. Call it redemption, honesty, love; it means different things to different people. But there was something bigger than me who I’d been fighting for a very long time. Fighting not to deny or destroy, but to know.

The details of the story are another matter altogether, but suffice it to say my state upon coming to San Marcos, my feelings when coming to CRU for the first time, are obvious. And I’m wondering a few things: How is it that I now have so much love in my heart for all my friends out here? How is it that I can’t wait to help lead the music ministry at Three Rivers this summer? How is it I find myself thanking God every single day for the blessings He’s given me? There is but one answer: the Lord works in mysterious ways, evident only in the bigger picture.

Personally, one way God has worked is through the group of students He put together this year at CRU. It started with Matt Luna and a frisbee, led to people showing tireless patience to not only talk but to listen (people like Corrie, Matt and Moriah, Kari Kennedy, Dan Reiter to name but a few), but mostly it was the way everyone treated each other. It was the daily display of kindness, respect, tolerance, and devotion, indeed the physical manifestations of love, that provided the community necessary for me to finally find God. It was the details, the Ultimate Frisbee games, the countless birthday parties, the dinners at Harris, the trips to Austin, even the harder times we all went through, that composed the bigger picture of what we stand for. The remarkable thing is how such a diverse mix of students were able to have such a cohesive community, filled with love and respect.

There once was an idea Jordan and I tossed around regarding CRU students and high-school lunch tables. Somehow, the socially dichotomous eating arrangements of that warped pre-college universe offered the perfect illustration of CRU’s diversity. Ethan with the football team; Nikki with the student council kids; Grace telling stories to a large group of laughing girls; Kat with the artsy crowd; Dawn sitting alone painting her nails black. Though there was disagreement about who would be placed where, the one thing we could all agree upon was this: we certainly wouldn’t be sitting together.

But that of course is the most beautiful thing. It’s the acute sense of singularity, the endearing oddities, that lend such strength and joy to us all. There is nothing better than feeling comfortable in such a vast collection of friends who have the sure distinction that no one else is particularly like them.

Somewhere in the midst of the differences, the particulars, the faults even, love enters the picture. The kind of love that brings people together. The kind of love that offers hope. The kind of love that shows us the beauty of our differences while reminding us of our unshakable similarities. Indeed, the kind of love that is only offered through Jesus Christ.

It’s been good to think about these things over the last few days, and I imagine that with the passage of more time things will become more clear, clean, and meaningful. There were undoubtedly hard times, and it wasn’t always a perfect picture, but even our mistakes and failures provide necessary elements to the bigger picture. And in the end, it’s a picture worth remembering.