just another wrinkle in time

i think i'm going to like being 23, for a few reasons.
1. i have this thing about odd numbers. i like them. even numbers are just too perfect, too paired, too exact. (the ironic thing is some of the most significant biblical numbers - 3, 7, ok so only two - are odd).
3. my birthday is on an odd day
5. 21 is too overrated as an age. it's cliche.
7. 25...ok, i've heard that 40 is the new 30, but i'm pretty sure 25 is the new 30. yikes!

so yes, i like being 23. granted, i don't look it. the waitress at Governour's thought i was 17. the girl on the playground said i was 17 too. a little boy in the nursery the other night decided i was 6.

my mom tells me i'll appreciate all that when i'm older...

on reason and passion...

ever since i've graduated college, and especially since i left home in february, my life has felt like it's become a plateau. i no longer have daily intellectual conversations, or listen to professors and lectures. even when i left houghton and moved back to york, i was still surrounded by a community of college-aged students and i could immerse myself in meaningful discussions on topics like poverty, sexuality, different aspects of christianity, and even christian authors. but over the past few weeks i've felt unchallenged and, possibly as a result, my soul has grown stagnant. maybe it's because i'm in a new place and i don't yet feel comfortable challenging ideas...it could just be that most days i work with a 3 year old and the deepest discussions i have revolve around colors and animal sounds. for whatever reason, i'm left feeling lacking...

someone showed me a passage out of a book today that i'd like to finish reading. it's from the prophet by kahlil gibran. from chapter 15, on reason and passion:

And he answered saying:

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes...

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason." And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."

And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

much of what i've been discovering and learning to appreciate about christianity are the paradoxes. things like judgement and mercy, the law and grace, Jesus himself - fully God and fully man...and reason and passion. "your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul."

i think i've lost my passion.