Pumpkins at 2am

A few weeks ago I had fall break.  The first night that I was back in my hometown, I didn't sleep in my own bed.  Instead, I stayed at my friend's house.  There were a few of us there and we had spent the evening at a corn maze.  Then, after getting back the friend's house, we decided that we needed to do something else with the rest of our night.

We decided to go buy pumpkins.  As it was fall and Halloween had not yet passed we decided that jack-o-lanterns would be the most logical thing to make from our newly-purchased pumpkins.  Of course after we bought them and carved them we needed some place to put them.  We could have put them on my friend's porch, but my friend was headed back to her college the next day, so she wouldn't even be able to enjoy them.  As such, we decided that the best thing to do with our pumpkins was to let someone else enjoy them.  And so, after we had pulled out all of the gook from the inside of the pumpkins and carved a variety of things into our pumpkins, we walked across town with them and left them on the porch of our high school guidance counselor's house.

Something to note is that my hometown is very small.  After it is dark no one really is really around town, so 3 teenage women walking across town carrying carved pumpkins is relatively conspicuous and inconspicuous at the same time.  This is sort of the same concept as a tree falling in the woods making noise if no one is around to hear it.  Basically, if 3 girls are walking around town with carved pumpkins, are they conspicuous? Yes.  But what if no one is there to observe their conspicuousness?  Are they still conspicuous?  I think they are and here is why:

When my guidance counselor looked at her porch the next time, it was going to be very obvious what we had done.  Her small porch was going to be a billboard of the "mischief" that my friends and I had taken part in that night.

But I think that is how we should live our lives.  And no, I don't mean that you should leave pumpkins everywhere you go.  I mean leave a trace of yourself everywhere you've been.  Or more accurately, leave a trace of the light of Jesus everywhere you go.  If you only serve God when people are watching, they'll recognize you as a nice person.  But if you continue serving even when other people aren't around, the world will want to know who is performing these acts of servant hood, and if we're honest with ourselves the answer isn't a person.  It's God.  God will use your talents as a tool to serve others.  And that, is pretty amazing.

Also, here our pumpkins: pumpkin pie, odd face, and a kitty :)

On a separate note, the likelihood of a blog being posted for the next week is slim.  I have 3 exams split between Monday and Tuesday.  As for the week after that, a blog might happen on Tuesday, but I will not make any promises, as I have an exam on Monday.

My Window

I'm not the greatest at poetry, but I spontaneously wrote a poem while avoiding homework and decided to share this unrevised work with you as it is close to the time of week when I blog, and it has some nice parallels.

My Window

During the day, my window is broken.
During the day, my window is cracked.
It is ugly.
Grotesque and hideous, it hides the outdoors from my eyes.
I cannot see the trees through my window.
What good is a window through which one cannot see?
It has no purpose.
You cannot see the beauty beyond.
Twilight comes.
The sun begins to set.
Daylight flares through the cracked pane.
Sunshine streaks the window, illuminating every flaw.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, there is beauty in every blemish.
A spider web of light is refracted throughout the expanse of plasic.
The luminescent design spills into the room.
This beauty is not new.
The beauty always was.
'Twas invisible.
'Twas disguised as something ugly.
But really, the sun has shown me something that always was.
The sun has shown me perfect and unquestionable artistry.
The rays burst through the plastic.
The tree's leaves now glow outside.
I see the beauty outside.
I see the beauty of my window.
The plastic's formerly horrid pattern is cast upon the floor in an alluring splash of daylight.
The beauty shines about the room.
I stand in awe.
My window.
Fractured and Phenomenally Beautiful.



I have one window in my room.  The bottom pane is cracked and flawed.  While studying around dusk today, I turned and looked at my window (not through the window, as I was level with the bottom pane and it's not the clearest thing to look through because of its cracks).  The bottom pane has been cracked since I moved in.  I never really took the time to notice my window, because I just tried to not look through the bottom pane.  However, today, I had my curtains open and was amazed at the power of the sun/son.  He took the gross-looking window pane/pain and turned it into something that was not only beautiful, but could cast an entirely new and more elegant pattern of light throughout the room.  Because that window pane is cracked, it is weaker than the other window panes.  But it can do something that the other two sections of my window can't .  It shows the Son's power and light in ways that I never would have expected.

Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,

Jo