the recognition of things

This is my last week of classes as an undergraduate. Somehow, I never imagined getting here. When I arrived on campus as a bright-eyed first-year, I never pictured reaching The End. College was supposed to last forever! And now here it is: The End. It seems like a very morbid way to think about it, but I'm excited about what lies ahead. I talked with Danielle about it last night, and we both agreed on this general feeling of readiness. At the same time, I feel unusually possessed of the awareness of time, of the need to be very present this week.

"He thought that in the world it had always been and always was like this: a bearded man lies in a room on a bed. The boy had just entered into the recognition of things. He still did not know how to distinguish their different existences in time." -- Yuri Olesha, "Liompa"

I will miss riding my bike around campus. I hope I can still bike places in Charlottesville.

Annie Dillard wrote in Living By Fiction that language is like shining a light on Venus. She didn't really explain what she meant by that, but I will keep thinking about it.

I started a personal study of Jude for the next few weeks. It's a very dark little letter. But I like his opening greeting, which expresses this hope: "May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you" (Jude 2, ESV). I like this expression of these virtues (spiritual gifts, perhaps) as finite things that may be increased many times over.

Still anxious about jobs and a place to live. But I'm getting married to the best man I've ever met in 32 days, so I don't really have much to worry about.