The Stars & Greater Purposes

You can't see the stars here. I've always told myself I could never settle anywhere I couldn't see the full night sky. Something about gazing up and imagining just how far that pulsating light must be traveling, and then immediately sensing the infinite insignificance of your own existence, is such a relief; it's especially refreshing when you've once again managed to get stuck in the tangle of your own anxieties and preoccupations. You imagine what it really means for the universe to go on and on and on infinitely, and you begin to grasp -- and yet, as these things go, not quite grasp at all -- that everything in that universe must be, mathematically speaking, infinitely small. Picture a Google map, for instance, and that little doohickey that allows you to zoom in and out on a given point (a Starbucks around the corner, say). Well, now just imagine that that doohickey allowed you to zoom out forever, never stopping. Try to find the Starbucks after zooming just a few minutes. And that would be you, and that would be me, that little coffee house lost in endless, unrelenting expanse.

But there's a paradox (or, really, a half-truth) here, of course. Just as I stand there feeling infinitely insignificant, knowing that if I were just a spot on an infinitely zooming Google map that I'd soon disappear, I know it just can't be true. You see, if you think about it, there's only one being who could ever possibly be controlling that zoom doohickey. It's a being who would have to be sufficiently infinite (that is, infinite) to be outside the map. Ah, here we have a being to whom we owe our purpose. If that being didn't exist, and there was no one to zoom in on us, well, we all really would be infinitely insignificant, and only that. Happily, 'tis not the case.

What does all of this bad metaphor have to do with being in Oxford, you ask. Hm. Well, these past two weeks I've had to keep these things in mind more than usual. The first week of academic work here, for instance, went pretty terribly. I had to hear some very harsh words from my academic (not to mention intellectual) superior, had to endure the scorn and frustration of many who aren't big fans of the States United, and realized in the frigid cold just how lonely studying abroad seemed to be. Draining is a good word to describe that week.

Last week, my second week (it's actually called Week 2, which is handy), went much more smoothly. I still had to take walks every once in a while to clear my head, and I had to buy myself some Cadbury chocolate more than a few times to motivate myself to stay in this country rather than plead for someone to deport me. Just kidding. (Well, not about the chocolate.)

The difference last week, besides a little bit more comfort and familiarity with the city and its rhythms, was that I tried with a lot more gusto to keep that old celestial perspective on life. Coming to a new country alone to study at what may just be about the most intimidating institution of higher learning in the world can easily convince you that you've made a mistake somewhere along the line. "You made a wrong turn, and look where you ended up! Oxford, for heaven's sake! And now you're stuck here and you have to get through it, and it's incredibly hard and no one respects you because you're American and that tutor said such-and-such and my life is coming to an end, isn't it?" That was the general direction of the internal monologue for a while.

But when I prayed and thought -- long and hard -- I started to see my life here in Oxford as something more, or maybe something much less, than a difficult/rewarding/once-in-a-lifetime experience. First, there should be no doubt that I made no wrong turns. That was a hard pill to swallow, but the tap water's not too bad here and it got swallowed eventually. When I really think about it, and as I thought about it last week, I can't say I believe for one second that my being here is possibly incorrect. Any dope who observed this entire business of my getting here would conclude that it was neither by chance nor by unsure steps. But my second realization is perhaps the more important: What we see and what we do and what we say is not the entirety of the story. The maxim is true, after all, that no man is an island. To spend any amount of time mourning your own supposed misfortunes (though that being who controls the infinite Google zooming doohickey might not agree that they're misfortunes at all -- aha!) is to ignore that your life is about more than your own emotions or thoughts or even actions. It's easy to slip safely into a cocoon of self and blind yourself to the world outside your dark hibernation. Hence the refreshment of a stargaze every once in a while.

The fact is, I have not come here, I have not traveled here. There is little of me in this, and less and less by the day. I was brought here. And I have to trust, by my own idiotic metaphor but more importantly by the assurances I have in an everlasting, ever-faithful, living God, that being here, finding myself in rough spots, in moments of isolation and silence and (if it's not too strong to say) persecution, and discovering that I am not at all an independent young man but a frail, highly dependent soul, is to find myself exactly where I'm supposed to be.

After all, God works many things in the desert. And the night sky's not bad either.