Sheepishly Gazing into the Future

Lately I haven't been able to put a foot right with some people. I can't help pissing them off, even though I desperately want to avoid doing so. As a result, I found myself in the Abbey church yesterday, praying for a way forward after college. If humans fail you, ask God. Perhaps one symptom of my flaws is that I don't ask Him for guidance before I talk to my mentors.

Anyway, I was sitting there, feeling like a particularly woolly-headed sheep, when it finally came to me: there is a path ahead for me, beyond this four-year degree, but I may not get to see where it is going until much later. Of course, my ultimate goal, as with any philosopher with a Christian bent, is to reach the highest good -- to be one with God. That doesn't mean that I should go out and try to get run over by a bus, but it does mean that I know what the goal is. I just don't know what the plan is in the meantime.

For now at least, I have to give up on the idea of seeing much further than the next few steps along the path: get the four papers due this week and next completed, finish the papers for the upcoming academic conference, try to make my senior thesis make some kind of sense, and graduate next May 7.

By then, the path ahead will be a little clearer, I really hope. What usually happens is that someone says something that sets off a little chime in my heart, and I know that that idea is leading toward what I ought to do next. As I finish my last two semesters, I'll have to keep listening for that chime.

It makes me sad to think of leaving SMU, where I'm content, and where I have the privilege of learning new things on a daily basis. Oddly enough, it makes me so happy to complete each step toward graduation and, I guess, departure, because each step is a marker of another thing learned.

Speaking of which, I need to finish another short paper and a four-pager before I go to campus for compline this evening. Talk to you soon!