Plain Vanilla Entry...that's what this is

I decided to practice writing one of those journal entries that has nothing significant to say about life in general, or about my life in particular, and includes some random thoughts. I suppose that means I am working at being trivial. Wow...now I feel bad...I guess I'll have to think of something now...

Today (though today is now yesterday) I defied those many so-called experts who insist that "just because something is good on its own, that doesn't mean you can just throw it into a pancake." I added M&M's, and I thought it turned out just fine.

Yesterday I finished an article (well, started and finished...stop looking at me like that!) for the university magazine about my semester in Oxford. It was a bit short to really say much, and I admit it didn't turn out as well as I wanted, but--
Yes I know that's why we have these things called "drafts." Hey, I was busy.
Just "stuff," that's all. Hey, Chesterton wrote all his stuff at the last minute.
Yes, I know he was a genius. Yes, I know I am a--hey!
Look, do you want to read it or not? (The magazine is free, so I have no qualms about depriving them of customers. Actually, I don't think I have any qualms at all. Maybe I had them removed or something...) Anyway, here it is:

***Begin Untitled Generic 400-500 word "Reflection" Article***
I must admit that attempting to write about my semester abroad in Oxford feels a bit like one of those dreadful “What I did on my summer vacation” essays that grade school teachers are so keen on assigning. Or perhaps it’s more like “Grandpa, what did you do during the war? What was it really like?” Can you explain it to someone who wasn’t there?
There were fifty-five of us--Christian college students from all over the United States, from all walks of life--who called Oxford home, and we have all returned changed. We have seen the dreaming spires, slept in the Bodleian Library, walked the parks, and toasted or cursed the great men that came before. We have cooked, studied, played, walked, slept, lived alongside one another every day for fourteen weeks, brothers and sisters in arms, to the end. How do you truly communicate an experience like that? It's a bit like trying to describe the color "blue."
But there is much that can be told. Of punting down the Thames, or giving some British students their first snowball fight. Evensong services, in university chapels built before our country had even been settled. The sounds of the street musicians, the smell of old bookshops, or buying sandwiches every day from Ricardo and Poppy’s shop. The late night walks and 2 a.m. conversations around the kitchen table. Or traipsing all around Scotland with a friend over Easter break, with no particular destination and no plan, trusting in God’s swift sure hand to lead us safely home. All that and infinitely more, memories etched so deeply that they will never fade.
Perhaps more important than what I did in Oxford was what I learned in Oxford. It is easily one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world, and provided the most challenging and stimulating environment of my short scholastic career. It was simultaneously exhilarating (seeing the myriad opportunities and wanting to learn everything) and frustrating (marveling at how I had seemingly wasted much of my previous twenty-one years of learning).
But many of my most valuable learning experiences didn’t come from lectures, or tutorials, or time spent in the library, but rather from interacting with my fellow students in the program. So many of them were passionate not only about their fields of study, but also about their faith. Among them I saw Doc Carroll’s credo “Study is worship” lived out on a day to day basis, and just as often I found myself humbled by their sincerity, kindness, and unconscious grace.
At Cornerstone we strive to create a true community of Christian scholars. In Oxford I caught glimpses of what that might look like, and why it is worth striving for. It wasn’t perfect, of course, for we are all finite and fallible creatures. But for a brief time it was there all the same, as we gathered together for one purpose: to honor our Lord as best we could with our minds and lives. One day, it will be so for all eternity, world without end.
And I say “Amen.”
***End Untitled Generic 400-500 word "Reflection" Article***

As always, keep those cards and letters coming,
Brian

Been Watching: The Killer (starring Chow Yun Fat)
Been Reading: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Been Listening to: Shinedown