Shout of a Generation

I suddenly find myself in a nice comfortable period of time in which to actually detail what I've been up to! I'm currently sitting in the Vine Centre, listening to the worship team practice for tomorrow night's big worship session, Thirst. The door to the Tabernacle is open just a tad, allowing their wall of sound to fill the lounges of this comfortable sanctuary.

The Vine Centre opened just a few months ago--a nice function room to hold church in, a free coffee bar and pseudo-internet cafe for people to spend their time in, and a dance studio that doubles as a playroom on Sundays. Three simple spaces, occupying a floor in an office building in Central, a few minutes away from the hub of the city. It's a great change from what we used to have...a church meeting in a hotel's ballroom, a youth group meeting in another church's basement, and a young adult group meeting in a bar. Now everything revolves around this one space that the church wagered its livelihood on, and it's doubled in size already.

They're singing "Beautiful One" in there. It reminds me of so many other songs that we sung as a church in days past, and makes me think about how glorious it will be to sing it tomorrow night alongside faces old and new as we welcome in the new year.

I love this church, this family. I love the way its members raise their voices in song, how I can return for a mere three weeks and yet meet another handful of people who will be in my life for years to come. I love how it has put itself out on a limb, relentlessly pursuing its vision of being a church where lives are changed, and instilled that vision in the hearts of those who come into it.


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Now, a bit more about what I've been up to...

With my acceptance into the coterm program, I'm officially a graduate student now, which means I am sheltered from the working world for another year. I'll be taking all of the entrepreneurship and marketing courses that I've had my eye on ever since coming here to Stanford. That has me both enthused and wrought with anxiety at the same time. On one hand, I'll get to dive into academic content that I truly love, and if the grades I've gotten thus far in it are any result, I'll do pretty well in it. Yet within me is a lingering fear that I'll fall flat on my face...that all the confidence I have in my ability to succeed will fade away once I'm actually thrown into the real thing, and the challenges start to mount.

I taught two dance classes this holiday break. The first one was a crash course in rotary waltz. I'd planned on giving it a good month in advance, and actually had a nice turnout. I managed to wade through my meticulously-designed lesson plan, and by the end of class, people seemed to be dancing a pretty good waltz. Per their request, I taught a swing class the next week.

Seems like a rather successful session, no? Well, perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't. Regardless of how I actually do, I find that I have a nigh-insatiable desire for affirmation that I've indeed done well. It drives me crazy...I long to know with certainty that I have done a job well, and yet the only certainty that I'm willing to accept is unsolicited praise. Even worse--I often dismiss even those rare compliments that do come, convincing myself that they are offered out of tradition, out of courtesy. It is a frustrating syndrome, one that causes me to continually cast doubt on the things that I do. I'm always waiting for some exceptional individual to come up to me and say "that was a good job." Anything less and I somehow convince myself that I have fallen short of what I set out to accomplish.

I wonder if this is normal. I'm inclined to believe that I'm a bit hypersensitive...that if you were to take another person and put them in my shoes, they would be able to teach a dance class, or lead a worship set, or do a bible study, and not worry half as much as I do after it's finished--

They're playing "Then Sings My Soul" now. It sounds wonderful. I'd love to be up there with them right now. But perhaps another year, another place...another role. A replication, a re-creation of what has been built here.

--tell me, reader...are these thoughts normal? Or do most people just not panic over them the way that I do? I find myself constantly asking people how I did, incessantly trying to read some semblance of content in the things they say. It makes me believe that the best way to drive me insane would be to have me perform something, and then simply be silent. Let me drown in my own doubts, which sting far worse than criticism.

Or maybe this is simply the perversion of a desire to be a world-changer...a longing to truly turn everything I touch on its head, and bring about no less than what is amazing. Lofty words, but very close to what I believe I'm supposed to be doing. Either that, or a grand and yet accursed idea that has been instilled in my head for me to carry out. An infancy stage, perhaps, to soon outgrow. Pray that I might get over it soon. It's driving me crazy! I long for the day when I may indeed do something so revolutionary that even I myself cannot dismiss it. In the meantime, I wonder if these questionable accomplishments of mine are designed to foster in me the sort of drive and passion that will allow me to surmount that grand when it finally comes.

My high school and a good college friend of mine both call me an eternal optimist. What do you think? I think I just force my rational side to beat my insecurities senseless...to counter every self-criticism with the concession that it is a product of ambiguity rather than confirmed fact.

But that ambiguity is in itself mighty uncomfortable...

Vine Centre now closing. Ciao.