Every morning, I wake up to my radio playing NPR. This is all well and good, and a less-harsh way to rouse a night owl out of bed.
But here is where it gets interesting...I've been having "NPR dreams." I'm bad about snoozing for quite a while, so I usually go back to sleep as the radio is blaring and dream about whatever news I'm hearing. Then, when I'm finally awake, it's hard to distinguish reality from my dreams.
For example, the other day, as I was driving to work, it dawned on me that Jane Seymour is not, in fact, running against Hillary Clinton for president. This morning, I dreamed I was President Bush's press secretary, and we were having a conversation inside his limo.
So don't ask me to tell you about current events, because I'll give you false reports.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
speech! speech!
Since I've been remiss in blogging lately, and since I need to go to bed early due to an early-morning airport pick-up (Tara's coming!!!), I decided to sort of blog-cheat. I'm going to post the little speech I gave at our baccalaureate lunch at graduation in December.
I hereby dedicate this to all recent graduates:
I try hard not to say, "I can't wait." A few years ago I realized how precious life is and how quickly it passes and so I decided to stop using the words, "can't wait." I used to say, "I can't wait for Christmas" or "I can't wait for summer break." But the truth is, I CAN wait for anything. Instead, I now say, "I'm looking forward to.....being gainfully employed."
There is an old French story called The Magic Thread about a little boy, Peter, who was very impatient. Peter had trouble enjoying the present, because he longed for the future. One day, an old woman approached Peter in the woods and offered him a strange gift, a silver ball from which a golden thread dangled. She explained that if he gave the thread a little tug, an hour would pass like a second. Peter gladly accepted the gift.
The next day, when he was bored in school, he pulled the thread a tiny bit, and found to his delight, that the teacher was dismissing class for the day. So every day, he pulled the thread to speed up all the slow parts of the day. Eventually, he decided to skip schooling altogether and hurry on to his career. I am sure you guessed what happened next.
He rushed through his engagement so he could be married to his childhood sweetheart. He rushed through his children's illnesses and all other unpleasant events in his life. Before he knew it, his mother had died and his children had grown up and moved away.
One day when he was an old man, he went on a walk in the same woods he used to walk in when he was a boy. He saw the same old woman who had given him the magic thread. She asked if he had lived a good life. "I'm not sure," he replied. "Your magic ball is a wonderful thing. I've never had to suffer or wait for anything. And yet it has all passed so quickly. I haven't had time to take in what's happened to me, neither the good things nor the bad. Now, there's so little time left."
The old woman gave Peter one final wish. With that wish he chose to live his life over without the magic thread, to take life as it came. He woke to find his young mother waking him to go to school.
William Bennett said, "Too often people want what they want right now. (Or what they think they want, which is usually happiness.) The irony of their impatience is that only by learning to wait, and by a willingness to accept the bad with the good, do we usually attain those things that are truly worthwhile."
I can relate to Peter. As much as I want to be patient, there were many times when I was writing a research paper at 4 a.m. and wishing I had a Magic Thread of my own that would fast forward me to Spring Break. I am still not over my aversion to IHOP after spending an entire night there drinking from the "bottomless coffee pot" while writing a paper for Dr. McBride.
But, you know, other times I am the one who already sounds like an old woman sitting on her front porch musing about how quickly time passes. When I visited the freshmen dorms in August, I felt as though I were the one who should be moving in, not all of those kids!
My point is this--we need a balance in our lives. We need to cherish the present while looking forward to the future.
As I approached high school graduation, the advice I heard the most was, "This is the best time of your life; enjoy it while it lasts." I loved high school, but I remember thinking, "I hope this isn't the peak of my existence!" And sure enough, college was even better.
I believe if we continue seeking God's will for our lives, the best is still to come. Each stage of our life will be wonderful, and we can even learn to appreciate those times when we are refined by fire.
As with Peter's story, if we don't take the bad times with the good, we won't enjoy our lives to the fullest. If I had chosen not to go to OC just because I hate research papers, I would have missed out on an amazing 4 1/2 year adventure. The same will be true for my future. If I don't take risks with my career, I will miss out on great opportunities.
I am trying hard not to use clichés. I am not going to throw out all those "dance like no one is watching" quotations at you. But I do want to encourage all of us to get excited about all that life has to offer in the next eighty years or so. When life is going exceptionally well for you, pause and soak it all in. Tuck those good memories away and pull them out when the trials come so that you know the hard times won't last forever.
And above all else, trust that God has incredible plans for that will surprise us and make us wonder why we ever thought college was going to be the best time of our lives.
Congratulations everyone!
I hereby dedicate this to all recent graduates:
I try hard not to say, "I can't wait." A few years ago I realized how precious life is and how quickly it passes and so I decided to stop using the words, "can't wait." I used to say, "I can't wait for Christmas" or "I can't wait for summer break." But the truth is, I CAN wait for anything. Instead, I now say, "I'm looking forward to.....being gainfully employed."
There is an old French story called The Magic Thread about a little boy, Peter, who was very impatient. Peter had trouble enjoying the present, because he longed for the future. One day, an old woman approached Peter in the woods and offered him a strange gift, a silver ball from which a golden thread dangled. She explained that if he gave the thread a little tug, an hour would pass like a second. Peter gladly accepted the gift.
The next day, when he was bored in school, he pulled the thread a tiny bit, and found to his delight, that the teacher was dismissing class for the day. So every day, he pulled the thread to speed up all the slow parts of the day. Eventually, he decided to skip schooling altogether and hurry on to his career. I am sure you guessed what happened next.
He rushed through his engagement so he could be married to his childhood sweetheart. He rushed through his children's illnesses and all other unpleasant events in his life. Before he knew it, his mother had died and his children had grown up and moved away.
One day when he was an old man, he went on a walk in the same woods he used to walk in when he was a boy. He saw the same old woman who had given him the magic thread. She asked if he had lived a good life. "I'm not sure," he replied. "Your magic ball is a wonderful thing. I've never had to suffer or wait for anything. And yet it has all passed so quickly. I haven't had time to take in what's happened to me, neither the good things nor the bad. Now, there's so little time left."
The old woman gave Peter one final wish. With that wish he chose to live his life over without the magic thread, to take life as it came. He woke to find his young mother waking him to go to school.
William Bennett said, "Too often people want what they want right now. (Or what they think they want, which is usually happiness.) The irony of their impatience is that only by learning to wait, and by a willingness to accept the bad with the good, do we usually attain those things that are truly worthwhile."
I can relate to Peter. As much as I want to be patient, there were many times when I was writing a research paper at 4 a.m. and wishing I had a Magic Thread of my own that would fast forward me to Spring Break. I am still not over my aversion to IHOP after spending an entire night there drinking from the "bottomless coffee pot" while writing a paper for Dr. McBride.
But, you know, other times I am the one who already sounds like an old woman sitting on her front porch musing about how quickly time passes. When I visited the freshmen dorms in August, I felt as though I were the one who should be moving in, not all of those kids!
My point is this--we need a balance in our lives. We need to cherish the present while looking forward to the future.
As I approached high school graduation, the advice I heard the most was, "This is the best time of your life; enjoy it while it lasts." I loved high school, but I remember thinking, "I hope this isn't the peak of my existence!" And sure enough, college was even better.
I believe if we continue seeking God's will for our lives, the best is still to come. Each stage of our life will be wonderful, and we can even learn to appreciate those times when we are refined by fire.
As with Peter's story, if we don't take the bad times with the good, we won't enjoy our lives to the fullest. If I had chosen not to go to OC just because I hate research papers, I would have missed out on an amazing 4 1/2 year adventure. The same will be true for my future. If I don't take risks with my career, I will miss out on great opportunities.
I am trying hard not to use clichés. I am not going to throw out all those "dance like no one is watching" quotations at you. But I do want to encourage all of us to get excited about all that life has to offer in the next eighty years or so. When life is going exceptionally well for you, pause and soak it all in. Tuck those good memories away and pull them out when the trials come so that you know the hard times won't last forever.
And above all else, trust that God has incredible plans for that will surprise us and make us wonder why we ever thought college was going to be the best time of our lives.
Congratulations everyone!
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