remembering

i've been remembering lately. i guess because i've been thinking about the future, which makes me consider the past.

(by the way, i just got a part-time job!)

anyway, i've been thinking about how i want dreadlocks, but now more than ever i can't get them because i have to be a professional in school. but in the future, in my dream, in czech, i'll be able to do whatever i want with my hair.

i do honestly believe that my future lies in czech. i'm yearning to be there. but i know that my future there won't be for a time, and i don't know how long that time will be.

so in considering this, in considering moving there sooner rather than later - and i've decided to give it time, i'm still young - i realize how much i'd matured each consecutive time i've been there. even since i was there in october, especially since the internship in 2008, and most definitely since my first time in 2004.

i have a specific memory, and i've really been thinking about this one lately. i think because i've been re-reading "blue like jazz" and it really hits on this stuff.

at the point of this memory i was 19. i was leading a class and discussion group. i had known most of the students for at least a year, but the main character of this memory i had known for two years; he had attended my first english camp, though i don't remember if that had been his first. he was very much against christianity - not christians, because he had christian friends, and he kept coming back to english camp which was very obviously christian. but he wanted nothing to do with christianity. in my group he started naming off all the horrible actions that had been done and said in the name of Christ, like the Crusades, and anti-homosexuality. and i could do nothing but shake my head partly because a) i didn't know how to answer him, and b) i was that christian.

i understand very well how i would talk to that student now. i would defend the name of Christ, because ultimately as humans, us Christians mess up who Christ really is. He didn't want thousands of people to be murdered by people claiming to be doing his work, He wasn't anti-gay - he ate with the worst sinners!

but more important than how i would defend Christ, i am moving away from being that person. if i claim to be a christian, i need to be loving people no matter what. i sin...ugh...i can't tell you how much i sin and how i make Christ appear to be unloving. i hurt people, and then i say i'm a christian. no wonder we have a bad rap...it's because of people like me. and it's such a struggle to love people and not to judge them. but in judging i am disobeying Christ. i'm sorry, Lord.

harry potter

to anyone who knows me, it's no strange fact that i like my fantasy. i just love the imperfect metaphors relating to the real world about love and life. i've read all the harry potter books each summer for the last couple years. i just finished re-reading them again, and now i'm attempting to watch all the movies through as well. i just watched the second movie (hp and the chamber of secrets) with my friend becky, and throughout the movie we attempted to figure out what we would be like if we lived in this fantasy world. for example, we wondered what our polyjuice potions would taste like (an enemy of harry potter's tasted like bogie), and we wondered what our patronuses would be (an animal that is formed to ward away creatures that suck the happiness out of you).

the most important question, however, was which house we would be placed in. the hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry where harry attends is split into four houses. here are how they are described by the sorting hat:

You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart;
You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a steady mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were
Prized far beyond the rest;
For Ravenclaw, the cleverest
Would always be the best;
For Hufflepuff, hard workers were
Most worthy of admission;
And power-hungry Slytherin
Loved those of great ambition.

For instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning, just like him,
And only those of sharpest mind
Were taught by Ravenclaw
While the bravest and the boldest
Went to daring Gryffindor,
Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest,
And taught them all she knew

harry belongs in gryffindor, and obviously all harry potter fans also wish that they would belong in gryffindor as well.

the truth is that i know i would belong in hufflepuff: "she took the rest." hufflepuffs unfortunately get a bad rap because they're really not good at anything.

so i was trying to make a case for myself as to why i should be in gryffindor, but i couldn't come up with anything. the biggest reason being that i'm not bold and brave for what i believe/the core of who i am. i hate discord. i want people to like me. but that is not taking a bold stand for Christ.

in november i was put in a position where i could easily have shared my faith, but instead i listened passively to my God being mocked. it ended with me going up to my room and crying. not quite worthy of a gryffindor.

the good thing is that people can change. the headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore, told a member of his staff, Snape, that he believed they sorted too soon. Snape had been in slytherin when he had attended hogwarts, but as an adult he performed wonderful feats of courage out of love for another.

i pray now that when another chance comes to share my faith (and it already has), that i will be bold and brave, and i will tell about the love of the one who created me.