Today the cool fall wind blows.  The first fallen leaves rustle.  The light is filtered through grey clouds.  I feel like I’m being pushed into something that that I’m not sure about.  There is mystery and risk and I’m taking it here.  I’m tired but I push on with my sights held high, trying to focus my telescope on the goal.  I must preach the gospel to myself over and over.  Its my ‘rock.’  When I feel like I’m over my head, my rock keeps my feet steady and sure.  When I feel like I can’t get any lower, I wake up to be lying on this same rock.

Yesterday in Charlottesville I was picking through a used book store and met this guy in the philosophy section.  He was young and had dreads, and we started talking about philosophy.  He said he had been a philosophy major and read this book that made him decide to drop out of college and ask where he was going in life.  He said that no one can give meaning to your life for you, you have to find it within yourself.  I told him I was interested in philosophy and asked him what would be a good place to start.  He scanned the hog-podge of a book shelf and pulled out this book and put it in my hands.  Thanks a lot man.  I’ve been reflecting on his words, which where eloquently put, much better than I’ve stated here.  I think there is truth in what he said, that there is an inner spiritual part of us that can’t be judged by woman or man, the qualities of which can not be diminished or added to by an academic institution.  I told him that I left college too, that I’m planning to go back, but feel like the time away from college was worth it.  He told me that he’ll go back to school too.  He seemed incredibly smart.

I am searching myself for my ambition.  I had been so focused on music, and I started to doubt it was my calling and started to be afraid because it started to feel like a dead end  instead of freedom that it had once been.  I may never measure up, no matter how dedicated I was.  …however I’m beginning to turn back.  There is hardly anything that makes me ‘perk’ up the way this dream does.  I had begun to discard my ‘whimsy’ thoughts as naiveté, but I’m starting to wander if there is something in the ‘whimsy’ that is great and carries great meaning.  It is not altogether reasonable to chase after something like this in the serious times we live in.  But there is more than reason to life.  I can give reasonable reasons to people who ask me what the heck I’m doing with my life.  I think at this point I’m priming my engine and making plans to build on foundations.  What college will I go to?  What will I study?  Will I go to seminary or other graduate program or neither?  Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid to take a risk.