Of rocks... and such.

Being at Tauernhof has been so cool so far… but it’s weird at the same time. I almost wish I didn’t know anyone here… because it would be easier to branch out. I feel like I’m a super confident and outgoing person in my head… but then when I’m actually around new people, I scramble for what is familiar. I find myself around Capernwray people every time I turn around and I almost hate myself for it. I’ve spent the last 6 months with them… shouldn’t I be branching out? The last think I want for this school is for there to be a “Capern-clique.”Hanz (the director) is doing a series on Revelation this week and next week. This morning completely blew my mind--- he pointed out all the links in the first 6 verses to the rest of the Bible and I was just like WOW this makes SO MUCH SENSE…
Part of the course is reading the entire New Testament. I must admit… at Capernwray I fell horribly behind on my OT reading and didn’t get nearly as much as I could have out of it. I love the way it’s structured here… they gave us a reading plan, how many chapters we should read each day, and every Friday we must hand in a paper about something that stood out to us or something we learned from the week’s reading. I was reading Matthew 8-12 today and the word faith just jumped off the page at me. The phrase “He saw their faith” especially stood out... and got me thinking. Faith is not just an action, it’s an attitude. How does one have an attitude of faith? That’s what I’m discovering.
It’s so hard for me not to compare Tauernhof with Capernwray. I don’t want to compare it…. They are two completely different experiences… but it has been encouraging at the same time. For instance, I am pretty lonely right now. But I can look back at the beginning of Capernwray and say hey I was lonely then too! Actually, I was pretty miserable for the first solid month and a half. I know how Capernwray ended—it was phenomenal—and I certainly don’t regret coming here, even though I am experiencing the lonely feeling again. Quite the contrary. I am all the more excited that I came. The teaching is so solid, and it’s been really encouraging after being home for three weeks. I must confess, I did not do well keeping up with my devotions or having time with God in any fashion while I was at home. It’s so much easier to do it here.
And that, makes me feel quite hypocritical. I come here, and I am motivated to read my Bible. I enjoy the mini- word studies in Greek, and I live for the “aaa-HA!” moments I get when I’m reading. But there was none of that going on in my life for the 3 weeks I was home. How can I change? I don’t desire to be a lazy, unmotivated Christian… but that seems to be my natural de-fault. Am I glad I went home for three weeks? Absolutely… because I can see this aspect of my behavior and figure out how to correct it. I didn’t really know what people meant about Capernwray being a spiritual “high”… but I do now. If that was a high, my time at home was certainly a spiritual low.
This is quite random, but the other day we went on a hike… as an entire student body. I felt like I was a little kid on a field trip again. Quite humerous. But… that’s not the point of this story. The point is that while we were hiking up this mountain, I kept seeing giant rocks… and there were trees on top of them. And I was just thinking how is that even possible? That is SO cool! And then I thought… well… Jesus is the rock, right? And I guess I’m like the tree. It should be impossible for me to be growing out of Him—and I suppose it would be if He hadn’t died on the tree… tree… hmmm I didn’t think about that one…-- but it IS. How stinking cool is that? You probably don’t think it’s as cool as I do… because you didn’t see the tree growing out of the rock… but use your imagination and work with me.
If Jesus is my foundation, a rock, then how come I was so easily blown over when I went home? I felt like the houses from the story of the Three Little Pigs… I felt like a house made of straw or sticks. Poof went the world and down into the pit of sadness did I go.
Now that you have discovered I am completely full of conflicting emotions, I shall move on to a quote from my all-time favorite book, Frankenstein (it’s so chock full of symbolism and amazingness… oh my word I could basically talk about it forever…).
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin.” –Dr. Frankenstein, chapter 2.
Since I my soul belongs to God, I am obviously bound by ligaments of prosperity, am I not? So when I try to go do my own thing and forget about my attachment to Him (aka Spring break, what?), I guess I’m kind of stretching and tearing those ligaments. Painful? Well… I couldn’t recognize that it was at the moment… but in retrospect, of course I can. I guess what I’m trying to say is that sometimes things seem prosperous at the time… but in retrospect, you realize you were only tearing your ligaments. I hope that makes sense… because it makes sense in my head, and it sure struck home with me… like a home run in a baseball game. I’ve got to stop mixing up metaphors.