On October

October is here, and the wind is blowing a little bit colder each day. The leaves are changing colors, even here on High Street, a brilliant red and gold. And it is the heart of football season.

But this is a tough time right now, going through the onslaught that is the second year of law school. I actually had a moment tonight where I looked at my to-do list for tomorrow, and realized that I literally do not have enough hours in the day, or week, to get everything turned in that is due. I will try to do it, but it will be an awful tme crunch, alleviated only when Friday night comes along.

I don't mean to sound melodramatic in saying all this; I have a good life. But every day, I want to see the Savior in what I do, and it's just so difficult to see much of anything beyond a to-do list and the next deadline. I am just tired of being ground into powder-the endless procession of reading, deadlines, acc-checks, all of it. I am laboring for the Lord, but some days the workload can be crushing.

I just got done reading a book called "The Sacred Romance", by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. It is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it as a companion to "Wild at Heart", by Eldredge. It talks about the journey of having communion with God and becoming synchronized with His purpose in our lives-this is the Sacred Romance to which the author refers.

Overall, the message has caused me to have mixed feelings about what I am doing with my life right now. On the one hand, the part of me that feels called to participate in the defense of Christianity and traditional values in the culture is gratified that God has chosen me to at least receive the requisite education. I am proud that I have gotten to attend a first-tier law school, watch the Massachusetts constitutional convention, work to His glory this past summer in Cincinnati, and that I will soon get to have another adventure when I travel to San Antonio. There are countless times when I get lonely in my apartment, or discouraged, or feel like I have let God down somehow, when the Holy Spirit shows up just in time to give me the strength to keep going. I think that this is part of the Sacred Romance, that alluring path which I have managed to stay on these past several years.

Yet I also get this nagging feeling that I could do more. This takes two forms: it is either self-doubt, in which case it comes from my own sinful nature or from the Enemy, and should be discarded, or it is God calling me elsewhere. If it is from God, He either wants me to leave law school behind and pursue another calling, or reorder my priorities at Moritz.

I have come to the conclusion that it is a combination of the former and the latter. I have prayed dozens, scores of times for God's guidance on whether to stay here, and each time, the gut feeling is the same: stay. Don't give up.

And here I stay.

Breaking for Fall

So it is Fall Break now, and I am back at home in Akron. Some thoughts on the week:

- Despite my best efforts, I have actually managed to get some work done. I have outlined for my First Amendment class, completed part of my optional acc-check for the law journal (won't have to do one in the spring now), and will send out some more cover letters and resumes while I am in town this week. I have had a chance to do some relaxing this week, and catch up on sleep too-no noise from High Street to keep me awake here.

- It is now official: I have booked my flight for the CLS conference next month (Nov. 2-5). I will be flying roundtrip out of Port Columbus to San Antonio, with a layover in Memphis. I have a good flight schedule; I will actually be able to go to my first class, Evidence, on the morning of the 2nd before I have to go to the airport. And I will get into Columbus on Sunday night, in time to go to class the next day.

I will have more about it in a later post.

A Weekend in the Country

I spent a good bit of this weekend in Licking County, east of Columbus. On Saturday, I went apple picking with some other people from the Christian Grad Student Fellowship at OSU, to a farm nearby. We were supposed to drive right up to the orchard, but the weather did not cooperate. It had rained earlier in the morning, making the paths muddy, and causing lots of cars to get stuck. So we cut our losses, bought some apples by the basket, and went on home.

On Sunday, I got to meet my friend Megan at her church, and afterward, we went out to breakfast and drove around the countryside to check out the foliage. Today was absolutely gorgeous-a perfect, sunny fall day, with a temperature around 60-65 degrees. I got to see quite a bit of the area-we drove as far north as Johnstown, Alexandria, and Sunbury, and as far south as Fairfield County. Not a huge distance, but for taking back roads, it takes a while. But it was worth it-the scenery was wonderful, and I had a good time.

It's going to be a "grindstone" kind of week-our micro draft, or second draft, of the brief is due for Appellate Advocacy on Thursday, and my goal this week is to get as much outlining done as I can going into Fall Break. I don't plan to do a huge amount of work over the break, except for maybe some acc-checking for the law journal, and a few other things.

On another note, both of my teams won this weekend. The #1 Buckeyes of The Ohio State University rolled over the #13 Iowa Hawkeyes 38-17, and the Browns finally got a win too, beating the Raiders 24-21. I was disappointed that I didn't get to witness the victory, though, since the Bengals were on here in Columbus. I will get to watch them next week, though, when they go to Carolina. That will be a tough one-don't expect them to win, but you never know with the Browns. With Ohio State, though, I am glad I will get to go to a game this year-one of my friends is going to sell me a ticket to the Indiana game, so that will be nice.