Wednesday, 03 October 2007

CIS made my day better... because I didn't go

It was the Critical Issues Symposium. For a lot of freshmen and some sophomores, that means a day of madness running around between speakers and panel discussions on campus that may or may not be interesting to them. The topic this year: immigration. I as a senior could go to as many or as few as I like. I went to none because the schedule looked uninteresting.

Instead, I shared a delicious lunch, courtesy of my wonderful mother sending food back with me to Holland, with Ross and Zach. Somehow when I was getting drinks, I managed to cut my toe with an ice cube. No joke. Ross watched it happen. It fell on my toe, I jumped, and then it started to bleed. We put the ice cube down the drain. Lunch yielded a conversation about forgiveness and the church that I think was just as good as any talk from the Critical Issues Symposium, and I enjoyed it in the comfort of my home at Hope with one of my roommates and one of my close friends over good food.

Ross and I then hung out for awhile, talked about some good stuff, and then one of my favorites: prayer. It was so much better than a panel discussion.

I decided that I felt like reading, so Dietrich Bonhoeffer was my company and I read some of Life Together in a cozy spot outside Nykerk in the sun. I bet what he wrote was better than a keynote speaker.

I was sick of my books being inaccessible and I was sick of that heavy box taking up space in my room, so I grabbed the toolbox Zach keeps under the couch in the living room (still not sure why it's kept there there, but oh well) and constructed the bookcase while letting Jeremy Camp sing from my computer. It was great-I could hear him grinding the guitar and singing over the loud bang of that hammer while I was attaching the backing. And even better, I now have a bookcase proudly standing in my room, and I can ACTUALLY GET AT MY BOOKS! That was a little more practical than some talking head telling me what he thinks.

And I got a long e-mail from Ben. Plain and simple, I love reading stuff from friends.