Three Stripes on a Puffy Sleave Means You're Better.

I don't mind driving from Wheaton to Jersey. It gives me lots of time to think.

I was listening to some Talib Kweli when in the middle of his song "I Try," Mary J. Blige sings about the upside down Kingdom. For some reason, those words contrasted so sharply with what I feel like Wheaton can be about sometimes. Achievement, success, degrees and graduate schools, well-dressed banquets, smiles, formalities, and hors d'hoeurvs with movers and shakers... they have their place in this world and culture. They have their purposes and necessities, but they have left me feeling grimy. I bit the hook, got snagged on things like admiring the Prof's gowns and wondering how mine will look, and now I feel like I have to scrape a layer of dirt off myself.

An upside down Kingdom, one that consists of the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted. If that indeed is what the Kingdom will look like, why do I feel so far removed from the Kingdom, as if it were only something I could reach through books and biographies? Why do I feel my calling cede ground to comfort, status, and my own interpretation of it?

"Listen my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?" -James 2:5

What does it take for all my misdirected energy, tears, and efforts to be pointed back to my first love and His kingdom?