Leaves fall just like snowflakes.

"There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious."
- C.S. Lewis

Do you understand that? i mean, is that something that exists in your life? Because you need it. Humans, by virtue of being created in the very image of His Majesty the King, need it. It is a need imprinted on our souls in a way that DNA could never hope to describe, and it must come to fulfillment only in the joy that exists when we realize that abundant life is found only in Jesus' unfair murder. Do you see it there? It is a happiness and wonder to be loved by God, but how can we not be serious when that Love knew no bounds, found no quenching, and keeps pouring down like the thunderstorm outside right now? It is silly to speak of Jesus' Love in only lighthearted, warm ways when it was that same Love that went to Golgotha, and it was that same Love that is jealous and passionate in such awe-inspiring ways that our only response is as Isaiah: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King."

Do you know what it is to be loved by a person to such an extent that you are almost scared of it? You find yourself hurting that person and failing miserably at loving them back, and yet they still pursue you with what seems like relentless intensity. It is a sobering and humbling place in which to find yourself, but it is also life-changing. But Jesus. Don't you see that He is so immeasurably more relentless and passionate and jealous for you? Don't you see that He can never fail you? Don't you see that even your husband or your wife or your mother or your father or your best friend could never in eternity hope to Love you without ceasing, and without dimming the quality and the perplexity of that Love?

"This mystery is profound..."

"You can get all A's and still flunk life."

i am in a class--which is covering topics in financial accounting--and the other day my professor made a very thought provoking comment, which, it lacking any nerdy technical value, i thought i would share.

He had been speaking specifically about the financial crisis that we are either still wallowing in or at most finding a small thorny vine with which to start pulling ourselves out, and in commenting on the suspect lending policies at many fine banking institutions, he said the following:

"Any con game that is successful is not successful because of the greed of the con man, for that is a given. In reality, the successful con game is just so because of the greed of the victim."

Yes, you can find truth, even in ACC 4550.

"No one thinks of how much blood it costs."

Today, i saw people attempting a game of Quidditch on the mall. But without a Snitch, i can't imagine it's quite the same. Not to mention the lack of flying broomsticks. Nonetheless, it brought joy to my heart. That part of the heart that smiles when your stomach has a (Diet) Coke and some Peanut M&M's.

Today, i was with about fifteen other college-aged men and women (if such could be said of us), and an adult began talking about how our generation just doesn't really think enough of the future to plan or do hard things in the present. And she said, "not like it's a bad thing necessarily." But isn't it a bad thing, necessarily? Dostoevsky had the following to say of humanity: "If he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped." And since we aren't even thankful for the present, then what is to prevent us from also taking the future for granted?

Today, i learned that old friends can become new friends again. And what a gift friendship is.

Today, i thought to myself, "it is interesting that we must make somewhat arbitrary rules about accounting when the business world of which accounting is the language is hardly arbitrary."

Today, God was good. And He has been good all the Todays that ever were. And He will be good for all the Todays that ever will be. And even when time wasn't ticking, He was always good, and even when time goes away again, He will always be good. His goodness doesn't depend on our idea of His goodness, because we are not good people.

But we are redeemed people. And we are holy and blameless in His sight.

Goodness, it seems, begins to take on an altogether different meaning when we think of that, no?