Questions

1. What were your favorite childhood games and activities?

Waterfall, a game I played with my cousins that involved a jump rope and falling down stairs. We seriously played this for hours on end. Swinging and pretending to fly like Peter Pan. And jumping out of swings. Going to museums and the zoo for fieldtrips.

2. What qualities of your best friends do you admire most about them?

• Loyalty

• Patience

• Courage

• Honesty

• Creativity

• LOVE

3. What do you believe are your greatest gifts and what qualities do you admire most about yourself?

I’ll be honest – this is hard because I tend not to think about my gifts or qualities or strengths. I think more about my weaknesses and flaws and failures. I would rather my friends and the people who know me best answer this…

When I put my mind to introspection, I think sympathy and empathy toward people around me are gifts I have that are very important in my life. Others might be desire and enjoyment for learning. I don’t think I can say I admire these things about myself, but I appreciate them.

4. What is the meaning of YOUR life? What makes your life meaningful?

It’s as simple and awesome as this: “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.” [God to Abram, Genesis 12:2, the Bible.] I think this is a way to summarize everything that matters and is beautiful. It’s a summary of the Bible and what Christian faith and life is to be. It’s the definition of grace, the ultimate gift.

I do not take or receive and not give back; that’s selfishness. I body of water like a pond or lake that does not have an outlet becomes stagnant and festers. That is being blessed simply to be blessed. There is no greater meaning in it.

In the verse before, 12:1, God tells Abram to leave is country and his people and everything he knows. It’s a call to sacrifice, to lay down rights, to trust there is something better. And being blesses to be a blessing to others means to continually surrender those things we know and love, believing that bettering them will better the world. And it’s faith that God has more and better blessings to give. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Summary: I am blessed, therefore I bless.

5. Related to question #4, what makes your life YOUR life? (In other words, what defines your life, and makes your life distinct from other people's lives?)

I share so much in common with different people wherever I am – at college, I’m a Knox student; or in South Africa/Germany I’m an American, or specifically a Coloradoan; or I’m a YWAMer; or I’m a home school/charter school/P.S.1 student; or I’m a [want-to-be] Greek scholar. And wherever I go I carry all the things I am, all the people I love, and I bring unique qualities and interests and perspectives to every group. In some way the things that make my life my own are the things I have in common with people who are somewhere else.

6. Related to questions 4 and 5, but on a deeper level, list three things that are true of you, but of NO ONE else in the entire world (to your knowledge).

1. The set of amazing friends and family that only I have. Like Erin and Mark and Kevin and Rachel and Sarah and Janet and Gabe and too many to name. I carry you with me everywhere I am.

2. The set of songs I love and have shaped my life.

3. My sense of humor and my personality and quirks.

I’m not sure I went any deeper… Sorry.

7. List three or more thing that are true of you AND everyone else in the entire world (to your knowledge).

1. I have known heartache and break and healing; wounds and healing and scars that remain and remind.

2. I have a longer for something which nothing seems to satisfy.

3. I experience love.

8. What observations do you have about your responses to questions 4 and 5?

I am myself and I am special, yet I am connected to people by similarities between my life and other people’s lives.

9. Are there any books, songs, movies, events, or other things that have changed/influenced your life and/or your perspective on life?

Heck yes there are.

Books: A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, and I Kissed Dating Goodbye – I read these books at a time where things in my life somewhat paralleled the books, and it helped me get through. The Bible, especially Leviticus and Philippians. C.S. Lewis…

Songs: Songs by Brooke Fraser, especially Love Is Waiting, Deciphering Me, and The Thief, and Hosanna; Whatever You’re Doing by Sanctus Real… anything by Jimmy Eat World… there are so many others.

Movies/TV: Stranger Than Fiction; Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Doctor Who; Bleach; I could go on and on…

Events: 1. Being home schooled with my sister for nine years helped make us closer than we would have been had we gone to public schools. My sister is one of the most important people in my life. 2. Going to a non-traditional high school, where I had to give many long presentations, where I learned math inductively, where I spent three weeks in Honduras… set my life on a course of being an empowered, compassionate and contributing individual who is informed and aware, happy and healthy, and gave me a passion for life-long learning. 3. Making the biggest mistake of my life, which God redeemed to become the greatest blessing of my life. I thought I was acting in love but in truth I acted in selfishness, and I lost a friendship that meant the world to me and fought more than a year of heartbreak. But the suffering produced greater endurance, and stronger character, and deeper hope. 4. DTS/3 months in South Africa/working in Germany.

10. What are some of your favorite memories?

Ones of my friends. =]

We had an eight-year-old boy on the South Africa team. Him holding my had while we walked around or carrying him, playing in the ocean, like I had a little brother, was wonderful.

Reading books out loud with friends.

Sharing my heart… listening to friends pour out their hearts… praying together… crying together…

11. List three or more things you want to do before you die.

• Sky dive.

• Be an embodiment of Jesus’ love to everyone I meet.

• Read War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, & Sense and Sensibility. And Ulysses. And Plato’s Republic. In Greek.

• Share love and life with one special woman.

• Write and publish a book.

12. Did you find these questions...

a) enjoyable

b) reason to smack Erin upside the head for sending me so many e-mails and/or making me think so much

c) both of the above

d) All of the above and deeper appreciation and love for Erin. =]

What are your answers to these questions?

Be blessed and be a blessing. Grace and peace [grapes and peas],

Chris