It's mid-night and I am laying upside down in my bed eating cold, leftover pizza; every once and a while I sit up and take a long drag on the straw of my long-since-emptied cherry limeade. Thirty-some books surround my bed and yet I'm staring at my computer screen, eyeing the Facebook tab with narcissistic desire. Above me my fan alternately whirs and clicks coaxing me hypnotically into tiredness but I will rally, never fear. As the greasy pizza rumbles uneasily in my stomach another hunger flares up to take its place in the forefront of my mind. This hunger, insatiable, has been with me for quite some time. It's been in the background for as long as I can remember: sometimes it's a consuming fire filling me with frenetic energy and angst, sometimes it's a dull ache that leaves me listless and apathetic, but most times it's an annoying twinge, frustrating me with feelings of inadequacy. This hunger, a heart-hunger of sorts, consists of the desire for a life not wasted, for gifts and dreams not squandered, for a story remembered. And if my life is a story and my timeline the plot then I'm living the exposition, nearing dangerously close to the rising action.
I find myself boring, partly because I do not know all of me yet and partly because what I do know of me is, at best, commonplace and, at worst, offensive. I am nineteen with a few loose plans, a few grand dreams and even fewer resources. I've grown up in a small city, in a state that I have often, in the past, bitterly dubbed as boring, in a family I've lovingly and flippantly called "a blessing." I've grown up quietly, in other words, with a few blotches of color in the soft gray of my life. My past is a small part of the whole, in a way, a microcosm of me: soft gray with a few bright spots of color.
One of those spots of color, a slight glimmer of the Redeemer grafted miraculously into me, is that I can dream. At face value I may lead an average, boring life but in my dreams I can conquer the world. I can go to South Africa and be a journalist, saving lives through my pen. I can adopt unwanted babies saving tiny hearts through the beauty of motherhood, I can be a gourmet chef, reflecting the Creator and savoring life with enjoyment, I can do a fundraiser for cancer victims, breaking my heart and sharing life... I simply can.
So far, this has been merely a sprawling, possibly useless exposition of me but my hope is that by looking at my life, seeing it's shape and angularity, its ordinariness and simplicity, I can - through Jesus, by Jesus, and for Jesus - change the course of my life, I can write the pages of my story, intentionally fitting them into the one Divine Narrative I long to be a part of - I can redeem my life, my story.
And to accomplish this I want to start a used bookstore in my small, boring little city. Laid out like that, so plain and stark, it seems like an anti-climax. But, you see, what gives me joy, what excites me, is all the embellishments I can add to that small dream - it is merely a skeleton, the framing, the naked plot line. I want to create a place, a bookstore, where culture is bred, where creative thought is fed, where community is formed. I want to create a place where a small bit of the Kingdom of God touches earth, a place where the best art is appreciated to its full because we know the great Artist of it all, a place where the best music in all its varied forms is delighted in because we know the God who created sound itself, a place where the greatest thought and literature is pondered because we know the Spirit who formed language and plumbs the depths of God's own mind.
I want to start a bookstore that is filled floor-to-ceiling with fragrant old books, with corners and nooks full of overstuffed chairs and pillows, where people chat over a casual cup of coffee or flip through books silently lost in a timeless world. I want a kids section that is covered in visuals that awakens the imagination and evokes youthful beauty. I want there to be a local author spotlight, public readings, discussion groups, book clubs, and writing forums. I want it to be a place where creative thought is nurtured, people interact, and the intellect is fed. I want to take something mundane and ordinary, like my life, and make it useful and beautiful - to redeem it.
Can a small little bookstore accomplish all that? Call me a dreamer, but I believe it can. Yet as in all good stories there is conflict and the greatest antagonist in my story is me. Yes I dream but I do not act. In a lot of ways I let life just happen to me, to see it as it comes, to go-with-the-flow, call it what you like but at the root of it all, it's really just an avoidance tactic. If I ignore certain choices for long enough they'll go away, no longer be an option, no longer be a hard decision I must make. Inaction is my greatest obstacle within my own heart. Outside of it, though, there lies a whole host of other obstacles mostly rooted in money, I being a nineteen-year-old nothing, nobody. To begin this whole process I would like to finish getting my degree in English with a minor in Business, which takes money. I would like to buy a pre-existing book store, which takes money. I would then like to refurbish that pre-existing bookstore, which takes money. I would like to buy more books for that pre-existing, refurbished bookstore, which takes money. Then I would like to staff that pre-existing, refurbished, restocked bookstore which (low and behold) takes money. There are so many things that take money but I refuse to be tied down, even amidst an economic downturn, and I choose to believe that God is still God in the midst of it all.
But despite all the seeming impossibility of money matters, it is, like I said, myself that I feel is my greatest liability and that is where I feel this conference (www.donmilleris.com/conference) comes in. Quite simply, what I hope to draw from the conference is mainly just raw encouragement, motivation, and inspiration. If I am to live out my story in a way that is remembered then I will not be doing it alone and I would like to begin my story with a group of people to be sharpened and spurred on by. I want to be encouraged to take steps of faith, to turn those steps into a walk because in the end, no matter what exactly I end up doing I want to not just say that I believe my life is a story filled with purpose and meaning but to act on that belief; to choose my paths in life with reckless abandon - going with every whim of God, exploring areas where I feel God's pleasure in joy-filled contentment- to live quietly or wildly, but to live freely and joyfully, in God's best and to its fullest. This is what I desire my story to look like. And when I reach that part of my story where I can look back, when I reach that Divine Dénouement, that is what I want to see.
p.s. I was supposed to post a video but my thinking capacity has been inhibited by too much artery/brain-clogging pizza and I couldn't manage to do it.
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