97 days until the wedding, and less than that until I leave Chicago forever. For some reason, when I picture myself making my final exit from the city, I picture myself galloping south on Lake Shore Drive on horseback, waving my hat in the air and whooping and hollering with glee. But that's just because I'm weird. In reality, of course, I'll be in a plain old moving truck with the two cats in their carriers meowing loudly and plaintively next to me. They've been moved around quite a lot in their short lives. My college roommate and I adopted them our senior year, and they had to be moved around quite a bit during that year to keep from getting caught by the authorities. When I moved back to Nebraska they flew back with me, and we moved in with a friend for the summer. Between us we had three cats, one dog, two newts, a bird, and several tanks of fish. My cats didn't care much for the competition. We moved two more times while in Lincoln, then moved to my first apartment in Chicago, and then to the current place. They like moving less and less every time. I think they'll be happy with their new place, since it'll be bigger and they'll have an extra human to annoy, but they won't like the moving part.
The ten-hour drive from Lincoln to Chicago was the worst from my point of view, since I had to listen to Teti meowing the entire time. I had a John Denver tape in the car and I found that singing along loudly with that quieted her to some extent, but that was really the only thing that helped.
It looks like the Assyrian gallery of the Oriental Institute Museum is getting ready to open again--I can see the bull-man smiling at me through the glass doors when I come into the building. They say those things were supposed to intimidate people as they came through the gates, but he sure looks friendly to me. They've been working on the museum at least since I moved here in 1998. Hey, that was a long time ago--how old am I anyway?
They say ("they" being, for example, my mother) that one is responsible for one's own happiness. I found this difficult to believe for a couple of decades, but now realize that this is right, it’s just that being responsible for one’s own happiness is much more difficult that this simple declarative sentence makes it sound. Most people in this country live a lifestyle which is beyond the wildest dreams of the richest members of most societies in history. We have endless sources of amusement: movies, music, computers, games of all descriptions, travel, almost everything imaginable is within the grasp of most of us. Furthermore, we have thousands of years of intellectual and spiritual history in which to immerse ourselves, and the leisure time to do it. Also, despite those who argue that we are becoming more and more alienated from each other as the traditional family structure and neighborhood breaks down; in fact, we have not only been enabled to break free from unhealthy family and social settings, but have at the same time lots of new ways to stay in touch with loved ones who are far away (telephone, internet, old-fashioned mail, and so forth) and a myriad of ways to connect with new people (churches, political groups, work, volunteer settings, etc.). In addition, if it’s a meaningful role in the world we want, there are thousands of opportunities readily available to help other people, the environment, etc. not only in our own communities, but around the world. From a materialist point of view, if you have all this (as the vast majority of people in this country do) and still aren’t happy, then the problem must either be a cruel joke on the part of God or the universe to keep humans incapable of experiencing happiness; or the problem is you. Since there are plenty of examples of people throughout history who have been happy with much less than what we have, that leaves you. So, what exactly is our problem?
For some people, the problem is depression and mental illnesses for which they need to seek treatment, but that's not what I'm talking about here. The first thing I need to point out is that it’s pointless to tell people how they “should” feel. Emotions don’t work according to shoulds. So how is it possible to have all this and still not be happy? Since Valentine’s Day is a recent occurrence, let’s take the example of romantic relationships. So many people seem to think they will be happy once they have them; whereas it is a fact that most people who have them or have had them (meaning marriages) wish they didn’t. The thing about romantic relationships is that even though they are a very good thing, they are not the only thing; and furthermore, as they will sooner or later get around to telling you in church, they are not even the best thing. Before I got to know Andy, I was pretty cynical about romance, and held no particular hopes that a romantic relationship would solve my problems and make me happy. However, I did used to look for happiness in the wrong places, thinking that if things were only different, if I were prettier or wiser or better, that then I could be happy. If I hadn’t found a source of confidence in joy and contentment, and learned to be happy with myself and by myself, I could never have had the kind of relationship that we have. If I was depending on Andy for that constant flow of happy feelings that I thought I needed, not only would I not get that from him, because it is simply not possible for one human being to provide that for another (since we can’t live inside each other’s brains and have constant knowledge of passing emotional states and the ability to change them); but I would also be an emotional leech, demanding everything and offering nothing.
When you think that you are not happy because you don’t have this or that, you are right. You are right because nothing is ever enough—if you had the whole universe, it still wouldn’t be enough. My aforementioned lack of happiness had to do with the fact that everything that other people seemed so enthusiastic about seemed so pointless. What good does working hard and achieving things do? So I’d end up with more money and have a slightly bigger house and tv than some other people—so what? Why should I pour time and effort into relationships with other people, when they seem to cause more irritation and anger than anything else? Why should I exercise and try to be healthy—when so many people in the world are suffering, how do I justify spending all this time on myself and my meager little body? Yet how much good could I, just one person with such limited resources, do for anybody? And no matter what I do, in a few short years I’ll be dead, and what does any of it matter?
Well, it is all pointless, all the great things I mentioned above, unless its meaning comes from something beyond it and beyond us. Any great thing we can imagine can only make us happy for a while, until we get bored with it. When I became a Christian, I was rather apprehensive about the life before me; it sounded like a lot of stern duty and sacrifice, yet I knew it would be better than my life without Christ. In fact, I’ve discovered that not only do I now have an unfailing source of happiness (by which I don’t mean that I’m constantly happy, but that I have an underlying sense of joy, contentment, and confidence that this source won’t disappear) that can come only from God’s love and grace; but suddenly things that before seemed tedious are now meaningful, and things that before seemed interesting seem significant and important in all sorts of new ways. Peter’s injunction that whatever we find to do, we should do with all our hearts as to the glory of the Lord reminds me that no matter how tedious and insignificant the task I find myself doing might seem, if I do it for God, it’s meaningful, because God can use what I’m doing in ways I might not see or even be able to imagine. Furthermore, all that stuff that used to seem so pointless, like working hard, exercising, and so forth, now has meaning: I do it because it gives God new ways to use me as a stronger and more knowledgeable person. In turn, I’m rewarded by finding that indeed there is joy, more than I could have imagined and for much different reasons, in learning and understanding the world better, and in becoming a healthier person and a better worker.
I will wind this up by addressing the obvious question of how I know that all this God stuff is real, and that I haven’t made it up to make myself feel better. No scientific proof is possible for such things, but I will note that first of all, delusions have a way of not making their suffers better, happier, kinder, stronger people, at least not in the long run. Secondly, since God works through faith, ultimately it is not possible to prove that He exists or how He works. However, He has never yet overtaxed my faith in Him; rather, He has been much more faithful in responding to my prayers than I have in praying. When I started praying, I didn’t know to what God I was praying too and with no real concept of what life with God might be like, and as I’ve discovered, it is both much better and much different than I ever could have imagined.
This weekend I visited Andy up in Michigan for Valentine’s Day, and we had a really great time. I’ve been somewhat ambivalent about Valentine’s Day in the past, since I’ve either ignored or been disgruntled by most of the ones I’ve lived through. But of course, I didn’t know Andy then, and they’ve gotten a lot better of late years. Now, I think I’m officially a big fan of the holiday. Andy took me to an Italian restaurant which was really good, and we wandered around the mall for a while, and talked about all sorts of random topics. Only 103 days until our wedding...
Other than that, not much new has been happening with me. A couple of weeks ago somebody I hadn’t seen for quite a while asked me “what’s new” and I had to answer “absolutely nothing.” That’s fine with me though, the stuff that’s currently going on is pretty good. Since I don’t have any other actual events to talk about, and because I liked the above title, I thought I’d talk about coffee for a while. I like coffee, it’s a pleasant color and it smells good and it’s warm and comforting on cold mornings when it is my stern duty to wrap up in several layers of clothing and face Hyde Park in its coldest and grayest aspect. I like those paper cups with the lids and sleeves that coffee comes in too, and my mug that I got at the local bagel and coffee place, with its little slidey top thing. Making coffee in the coffee maker is fun too. I put the coffee in the thing and swing it into place and pour in the water and flip the switch, and it starts making all sorts of busy little gurgly noises. I like the way different people like to put different stuff in their coffee, I like milk, preferably 2%, and no sweetener in mine. These are the things I occupy my mind with, when I'm supposed to be concentrating on ancient Egypt.
Very little to report here. I'm now halfway through my last quarter of classes. It's this time of the quarter when I start to get worried about the amount of work I have to do in the next six weeks.
They are working on the roof (?) of the first story of the school building that's being built across the alley from my apartment window, which means the construction guys are walking around on a level with my window. It's a little unnerving to look up and see people walking around at eye level from your second-story apartment. I used to have this fear that I would someday look out an upper-story window at night and see an apparition floating outside, looking in at me. My fear came true a couple of months ago when they were putting some kind of metal covering over the electric wires that go down the alley outside my window--I kept hearing some kind of noise out there, and I looked out and there was somebody floating out there, looking back. Eeek! It was after dark and he was in one of those cherry picker things working on the electric wires. Actually, it wasn't very scary...another fear faced and conquered I guess.
We've created a website with all sorts of info on our wedding and wedding-related topics. Check it out, and if anyone ever creates a trivia game about us, you'll have the winning edge.
Things are quiet here. I'm reading about the pyramids this evening for an exam. My cat, Teti, was named by my college roommate (and currently my bridesmaid) after a character in an Agatha Christie book, but it turns out Teti was also the first king of the sixth dynasty and had a pyramid at Saqqara. I knew there was a reason why she acts so superior all the time.