I took my test on October 30th and I have a couple weeks left until the results come out (not expecting to pass). I thought I would have all this free time after the exam but I’m finding myself busy, mostly in the good hanging-out-with-people type of way. There are still a couple things I was hoping to get done with by the end of the year, one of which was writing a recommendation for my friend for seminary. I must have started that thing at least a half a dozen times (I get the impression that he’s having the same difficulty writing on his end), and there are all these things I like about my friend but it all ends up sounding generic (I guess all Christians love Jesus) or random. Like the fact that he buys kids’ clothes to wear or that he’s really good at avoiding small talk. Can you really put those things in a scholastic recommendation? He buys kids’ clothes to save money and I think I like it because, well, I guess he’s sort of an unconventional guy and I like that. He used to deliberately take the bus to identify with people who don’t have cars. He became a legal parental guardian to exchange students. He works as a nanny. I guess I always thought that doing what Jesus did and laying down your life for other people was a bit unconventional, and he’s more unconventional in that regard than most. He’s also very good at avoiding small talk, mostly because he doesn’t like it. I don’t either, but it’s just easy to talk about the weather or what you ate for dinner yesterday or this and that after service, and it almost seems that small talk is part of church life. I’ve noticed that he’s more in-your-face about asking personal questions and getting in their space (I think people like it but he says is a turn off for about half the people he talks to) and maybe that’s not really anything to recommend about a person but I think he is curious about people and what makes them tick. He’s good at remembering tiny details about a person and I think he just likes people and wants to be involved in other people’s and other families’ lives. Anyway, it’s 5 am and I should try to sleep more. This is the second time I’ve started this post. Maybe I just need to get the hang of writing again and write more.
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