"Afterwards Aaron came out front and talked and played some Dylan and the Spider songs, and a few others. He has this mustard seed kind of faith. Like he's constantly second guessing himself- such a small faith, so qualified you'd think it would be invalidated...but it was strong...

I wanted to ask him about being afraid of God and why following Christ is so painful. But then again he talked about how pretty much "life is shit and I have joy and its from this big thing people call God and that's about all I understand." I feel like my life is ringing. I don't know what to make of myself. Nothing perhaps. Aaron was talking about colleges and marriages and kids and how that's good, go live what you need to live, try what you need to try, but ask yourself if that's really what you're looking for and talking about how it all fades, we all die. And I've heard that a million times but never by someone who looks like they're living it. And I've never heard someone advocate singleness so explicitly before.

Shadow am I. There was this one moment where this girl just getting shoved past me and kinda looking panicked and...well, I'd say I put my arm around her but it was kinda just how the push of the crowd went at first. But I don't know...this is gonna sound really weird and cliché, but it felt right to be defending/reassuring someone in that crazy mess, and also just to be with someone in it. It wasn't sexual at all...I give up trying to explain it...but it was very different from the moment later when this girl is dancing on my arm and I'm like "is she hitting on me, does she even realize I'm here, and this is making me feel very uncomfortable but I want that touch." Oi.

I don't know...do you guys ever feel that way...like if someone kissed you on the cheek or touched you, you'd just fall apart and start crying...I don't know...I've had way too many moments like that this semester, though most of the time the touch never comes anyway. And sometimes I feel like my self-control is killing me."


James sent us this message about seeing the same show Trevor and I just saw (only in Oklahoma). We (my roommate Bethany and I) read it and cried. We pulled our other roommate in with us to strum guitar and sing a quiet song, to pray sparse, stuttering prayers. We held each other for a few precious minutes.

What else can we do but go on, but try to see His face? There is nothing else, there is nothing else. And I don't know what to do but to keep going, to cling to these moments like surface gasps of air, like water in a parched land, like something to hold as we drown. We follow, even as we carry each other.