Textbook Poetry

I balk against the idea that Spotify can predict what type of mood I'll be in depending on the season and music I've listened to in the past.  However, as the snow blows in a twenty mile an hour wind, I concede to the weird technological genius that says I should be depressed because it's February and I usually listen to Cloud Cult when I'm depressed in February.

I have had a migraine most of the day which gives me crazy weird dreams when I try to sleep it off, and I decided I needed to let my mind wander in a short (hopefully) blog post to get over the post-migraine "hangover."

I have been having trouble focusing in my Biology class recently.  This being my last semester of college (ASDLGHIASLDFGKJHA), I am realizing more and more that your undergraduate degree is merely four years and thousands of dollars spent so that you can check off a little box that says "I have completed my undergraduate degree."  As I think back over the things I have learned in college, I can point to just a very few things that I actually learned in the classroom.  Everything else that I truly learned - which is a lot for just four years' time - came from heartbreak, heartmend, and good relationships.  As a senior if I were asked by a freshman for one piece of advice to truly get the most out of their college experience, do you know what I would tell them?

As are overrated.  Find people who you can invest in, and who will invest in you, and Love them.  That is what makes your college experience worthwhile.  Because as soon as you graduate, no one will care that you made an A in Biology or International Relations.

Why must it be this way?  Why have years of education that used to be extremely meaningful turned into a merely list of requirements the State has us fulfil?

TRAdiSHUN!

Ironically enough, cultural experiences and cultural definitions have forced us into thinking that things need to be done a certain way for everyone, and if you don't do those things that particular way, it's wrong and you'll be unsuccessful.  Even in "Christian" institutions we have cultural definitions that absolutely CANNOT be broken.  Forget Christ and salvation.  If you do or say XYZ, or don't do and say XYZ, you'll get excommunicated, fired, forced to retire, whatever.  And we call this Christianity!

I have no particular structure to this rant, and I make no plans to explain myself.  I've recently dabbled in a form of poetry called "blackout poetry," and it keeps me occupied in Biology.  My Scarlequain has stayed uninspired recently, since, sadly enough, Dr. Wilhoit was one of its chief inspirations.  But since he has fallen prey to cultural definitions, the inspiration has left me.

Hated at first,

Now hurts the worst,

Lectures inspire,

Turned poetry's ire:

Lost Inspiration.

At any rate, here is a sample of this new "textbook poetry."  Somehow, this is tied in to all my jumbled thoughts for today.

Some questions for you to consider that I've been mulling over:

1) Have we cheapened the word Love?

2) Are the things we do really Christian? or are they just culturally accepted?

3) Where do you stand in Eternity?

I'm praying for you, friend.  Whoever you are.  I hope that the centuries bring your ideas alive in ways that transcend cultural conditions.