It was another Saturday night in Lincoln, Nebraska. My friends and I are usually successful at finding fun in a place where fun can't find you. Rope jumping was on the agenda. The idea is simple: you hike about a mile into the local nature park in the middle of night and stop at the old bridge that crosses Wilderness Creek, a long swatch of mud with several inches of water flowing on top. At the bridge, you tie one end of a climbing rope to yourself and the other end to the bridge. Then you jump thirty feet into the blackness until the rope suddenly decides you are done falling.
We had done this once before, and it was a blast. The rush, the experience, the laughing, the puking-because-of-the-laughing. They are what memories are made of. This Saturday night was a little different. We had different company, of a more annoying sort, and I had a lot on my mind. Girls have this undeniable propensity to put you in a melancholy mood, and melancholy moods are not very well suited to hype you up for a rope jump.
So there I was, watching my friends take alternating leaps, rechecking the rope after each jump, protecting the rope in abrasive areas, trying to figure out how I would ever untie a figure-8 after that big of a load. And, I was listening, because that's what happens when you're in melancholy moods. I listened to a lot of words said by a lot of people, and I realized something: we are full of bullshit. We are so full of bullshit.
I lost it there. I had to walk away to think about it. I thought about my priorities and what my priorities should be. I thought about the purpose of life, and whether or not I was living that purpose. And here's what I decided.
Only one thing really matters in life, and that is a life directed towards God. It is so above and beyond anything else we do. Then I thought about how to live a life directed towards God when you are surrounded by so much bullshit. Yes, I have grown closer to God. And I've grown farther apart. And closer again. It's such an endless cycle that I came to the conclusion several days ago that trying to cut sin out of your life is like getting off a drug--except the withdrawal symptoms never go away. That's how hard it is.
So, I wondered, what does a life directed towards God look like in my current situation? I was frightened when I realized that I didn't even know. I've seen true relationships with God in older people, and I accept that. They don't live in the same environment that I do. And I've seen it in other countries, for the same reasons. And I've seen a lot of people who claim to have strong relationships with God and then don't act like they do. But the truth is, I don't know what a student at Union College, while still remaining in mainstream society, would look like with a true relationship with God.
I don't know where that leaves me. I want to get away. Don't get me wrong--I've never felt so alive as I do in this place. But I'm still not where I want to be with God, and I don't know what it takes to get to that place.
