I'll know my name.

Since I moved my furniture around, I've been able to see the moon rise every night and the sun rise every morning. My bed is now right under the large window that faces out to the street, and once I'm in bed I pull up the shades so that I can look up at the sky. It's odd how it's brighter outside than in once the lights are out, though I suppose it makes sense. The sky comes with lights included and turned on at any point in time. Isn't that strange? The stars and the moon are always up there shining, we just can't see them most of the time. But now at night, when I'm prone to think my gloomiest thoughts, I get to look out and see the moon hanging a few feet above the mountains out east. Last night it was low and yellow, and at first I thought it was just another streetlamp - but the night before that, it was exactly at the right height to shine into my window with its perfect white light. In contrast with the rest of the sky, it seemed almost as bright as the sun during the day. I had thought, initially, that I would get tired of being woken up by the sun shining in my eyes, but I haven't. In fact I've noticed that I've become a lot more ready to face the day once I've seen the sunrise. I guess it reminds me that there are still good things here.

I remember a few years ago, at a Thanksgiving service at church, we were going around saying one thing that we were thankful for. Everyone was saying things like family, health, God's grace. My Dad said "the moon". He's always been a night-owl and when he's at his office he often doesn't come home till four or five in the morning. He said that the moon was like his night-light, and it gave him something beautiful to look for when he was tired and worn out. I remember being surprised, even then, at the simplicity but also the grandeur of what he said. I don't often think of my father as a poet, and when I was young it was rare that I even thought of him as very insightful. That Thanksgiving was when I learned that I had always been wrong on that score.

I feel frustrated with myself today. I made a list this morning of things that I needed to do or at the very least start today, and I didn't do any of them. Not a single one. Although Dad and I did go to various auto shops to see about getting Peter a paint job. Maaco was more expensive but professional. 1-Day was a bit cheaper, and the fellow looked like Eli Wallach. I bet you can guess which has my vote. I've been reading True Grit all day and am almost finished. It's a fantastic book but I probably should have waited until a weekend to start it... once I start reading a book that I like, I can't do anything else until I finish it. I guess this is a compliment to Charles Portis but it gets me in a bit of a rut. Oh well. I'll drink lots of coffee and start on homework after dinner.

I need to be writing. I've had lots of people asking me lately what I plan on doing with myself, where I plan on going, what I plan on writing. I can't figure out how to do it. Life is getting to look more and more like a map of the world before sailors had figured out that there was land outside of Europe. Uncharted, that is. Only, in their case, the land was there whether they went and found it or not - there was nothing unsure about it. Lately I've been getting the precarious feeling that if I make one wrong decision, my whole future will crumble and I'll never be successful at anything. Now, of course, there's the whole matter of predestination; which would mean that, like the world of European sailors, my life has a course whether I know it or not. One could argue that there is nothing unsure about that. This is a belief I tend to believe in, but am not sure how to understand. I believe that God has set the general course of our lives and mapped out the important things - who will be saved and who won't, for example. The little things, however, I'm not sure about, and in the grand scheme of it all, something like which college I go to may very well count as a "little thing". It doesn't feel like it, but it may be. To some people, this is all incredibly simple. Amelia and I were discussing it, and she said something about how God's purpose for someone might be to not go to college. To me, that sounded a bit silly. You may not end up spending your life doing what you went to school for, true. But you go to school to learn to do things, and from that base you build your life. It somehow turned into a debate and got uncomfortable. She met my questions with, "What is man's purpose?" I said it was to glorify God. She said, "You can't get through life just to get through it. Your goal has to be to glorify God; so really, as long as you're bringing honor and praise to Him, it doesn't matter what else you're doing." I know that's all true, but I also know that you can't sit around waiting for God to literally tell you how you, personally, can best glorify Him. Sometimes, if you're not sure where you're supposed to be, you have to try and do something about it. In that sense, doing something just to do it. And then, I guess, keep at it and hope that God will use it to guide you to what you're supposed to do. That's the way it makes the most sense to me, anyway.

I suppose different people have different ideas of what's important; as much as I complain about it, school is important to me. There are so many things in life that I don't understand and I don't pretend to think that two or three years in a university will package that all up neatly. But I know that I can know more than I do - and that is challenging and exciting. I've got a good amount of things to learn and a good amount of things to say, I think. There are a million things I want to do and a million more places I want to see. I don't want to overlook an important step that might hold me back from getting there. I guess that's why I worry so much over where I should go to school. But then, going by my understanding of predestination... the purpose of my life we'll call a big thing, and a particular like school we'll say (for now) is a little thing. I suppose if God has the big thing figured out, the little thing will work towards it either way. So Biola or Wheaton or some place inbetween... it won't be a waste. That's what I have to believe, anyway. I don't think I could stay here in this dull county at a dull community college if I didn't believe it.

So make your siren's call,
And sing all you want.
I will not hear what you have to say.

Cause I need freedom now,
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be.

And I will hold on hope,
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck.

And I'll find strength in pain,
And I will change my ways:
I'll know my name as it's called again.