houston, we have a problem: i'm comfortable in a blazer.

uh-oh. i was prepped out to the max tonight, and it actually felt ok, like my clothes didn't burn my skin or anything.

anyway, what happened was that someone somehow in charge of something (his name is bob) threw us a big kick-off dinner with all the hotshots connected to the academy, among them (like i knew who the crap these people were) were al sikes, former fcc head dude, and ed meese, reagan's attorney general. so we ate dinner, schmoozed with folks, and introduced ourselves to the people who are kind of paying for us to be here.

and it was awesome. my parents made it up here for it, and we had a great time this weekend. the dinner was an extremely encouraging and humbling experience that showed that we have a lot, a LOT of godly people who support us in a thousand big ways, not the least of which is in a vitally committed prayer life. seeing the vision of tfa from this perspective really made me understand more of what i'm here for and what God may do with me here. anyway, i'm pumped. and everyone should come hang out up here, it's beautiful.

and if you want, here's my last journal entry for class. it's about you (maybe less directly than you might think. but you deserve a thousand pages; i couldn't even begin...):

Now that we’re here and friendships are becoming established, my initial fears are almost completely dissolved. No one seems to hate me, Dawn hasn’t bitten my head off, and I am actually capable of making a bed (even if it isn’t mine). But there is one fear whose ugly head seems to rise above the others as they are dispelled. Getting significantly close to anyone means that, sooner or later, you’re going to have to encounter and deal with each other’s sin. Still, it’s not really rejection over my own mess that makes me worry; I’m scared of being trusted with someone else’s mess, let alone 13 or so.

            The kind of trust, vulnerability, and openness that seem to be called for here and that I’ve heard last year’s class talk about are a sort of stepping out on a limb, a limb that they’re expecting everyone else, as the Church, to hold up. But I get distracted; my grip fails, my eyes wander. In being trusted by anyone, I carry immense potential to do violence to people I want to love.

            I don’t know if everyone’s picked up the chip I have on my shoulder towards Christian music, but in the depths of my cynicism I have severe difficulty not gritting my teeth to the point of breaking them every time I hear a pleasantly sung heresy or see a leather-clad saint raking in the praise of gullible fans. Even so, I still have my guilty pleasures, and Bebo Norman really sums up what I’m fearing; “Every single heart that I have held / in my hands, my clumsy hands / I’ve fumbled them around until they fell / it’s much safer ground just keeping to myself.”

            So that’s what terrifies me. I’m scared of retreating into isolation for fear of the damage I could cause. I feel inept to care for anything entrusted to me – money, a body, a voice (like representative, not singing or anything), a gift – but what trumps them all is being entrusted with a brother, with a sister. In fact, I’m willing to bet everything on my failure. But one thing even more certain than my coming up short is the completion promised in the gift of the Holy Spirit who offers healing for hurt hearts, reconciliation for broken friendships, and a golf cart to the finish line when we would fall and fail utterly were it not for the intercession of Christ on our behalf.

            So “Fear denies life,” Hannah said. Yeah, because life happens together, not in the anxiety of self-sentenced exile.