...On the Wild Side

Chapter Twenty-One…Consonants and Vowels

As I walk through the segmented remains of a former empire, I can see the fragments of society as they once were and now remain. The land that is ruled by different peoples at different times often sees the cruel abuse of passing theme and fickle identity as they begin to infect the subjected land. There are old churches, adorned with rotten frescos and melting mosaics. There are mosques, one per every three square miles in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. There are churches built for nation and for God, and regimes at times have not forced any distinction between the two. Empire after empire, Europe has risen and fallen and fought to come to some sort of balance. Even now, the solidarity and peace that has categorized the EU is still apprehensive about the prospect of an “Islamic” influence in “Christian” Europe.

But time after time the ruling powers have demanded a theme for their architecture and artistic culture. And where are we now? We study history, but who is defining the history of today? Are we in a time that will be no more than two sentences in the history books? Or are we the start of something new? Maybe something fresh? The transition from modern to ancient lies in the passing of two or three thousand years, and in light of all human history this amount of time is relatively small. Two hundred years from now, the people of the World will be looking back at our time making connections and distinctions about their cultural contexts through the lens of our current context. But the question is, what will they say about themselves?

Will the next thousand years bring more warfare than the world has ever seen? Will that time bring an end to civilization? Is that even possible? What can be done about our futures now? Is it possible to prevent the repetition of tragedies and horror that our world has already seen? Will we meet aliens? Will they be friendly or hostile? Will they know God? Will our future generations understand God in a different way than we do? What sort of social revolutions will they see? Will our questions be answered? Will we be remembered? Will our efforts count for anything?

All of these questions are important in the story of time, and in any moment life may be completely different than it was in the moment before. We should hold these things in perspective as we consider our own lives. But perspective and reflection are the extent to which such questions can be taken. It is healthy to hold the big picture in view when making decisions, but decisions are made in the instant. We make decisions in the moments that we are in. I cannot directly make a decision today of how I am going to act twenty years from now. So thinking too hard about the future becomes futile and problematic. We need to hold all things in consideration to gain perspective and allow the mind to process outside the context of the moment. But decisions are meant to be made in the moment, and what was true for me yesterday may not be true for me tomorrow. We are meant to live here and now. We are meant to live with who we are with, exactly where we are, so we can learn, and grow, and understand life more fully. In the story of time we are truly but a consonant in a word in the middle of a run on sentence, but each vowel and consonant are necessary to form the sentence, and each sentence to the chapter, and each chapter to the volume, and each volume to the story. How many volumes there will be only God knows. Lucky for us, consonants and vowels, all we need to do is sound it out. The E makes the I say its name. LIFE.

- Justin Glenn Davis

Chapter Twenty… From Rome with Love

There are an endless amount of previously empty spaces in my mind that are now occupied by important bits of data. I just finished up my second visit to Rome, and this time around my experience was far more enlightening. Although this time I did not have the awe factor that comes with a first time experience, Europe Semester enabled me to understand Rome more fully. This time I was aware of shifts in power, of dynasties and empires past and present, and the city was alive for the first time in my mind.

Ancient Rome was the cradle of western civilization for over eight centuries before the capital was moved to Turkey (Our next destination). And through my studies and group projects I can now talk to the people in my group about the life and death of Julius Caesar, the decline of the Roman Republic and the rise of the roman Empire. I can understand the politics of the day, and only imagine what the eternal city would look like covered in marble in all of its original grandeur. I love Rome, and I can’t wait to travel there again.

In my dreams I’m already home. I’ve been having dream after dream where I’m home with the ones I love and already thinking back on this trip. It’s a blessed feeling to wake up missing my travels and pondering the significance of them only to realize that I’ve still got two weeks left. It’s a great way to be in transition, and I trust my brain and my dreams to make my transition home very smooth. I have been able to be excited about returning to what I know best while still being involved fully in my daily activities and studies here. It has actually allowed me to enjoy these last few weeks more, knowing that I’ll be home soon. Knowing that all the hanging questions that have lingered in the back of my head all semester long will soon be answered and lived out.

But I’m a bit anxious about Christmas. For me, Christmas kind of changes as the approach to Christmas changes. I’m sad that I will not be with my family for Thanksgiving, and I am sad that I have not been able to feel the temperature change and feel the days grow dark. I long for a warm winter breeze and California’s worst weather. I long to see the mountains of the Inland Empire capped with fresh snow and begin to dream of snowboards and hot chocolate. I want to set up my family’s small porcelain Christmas town that lights our entryway year after year. I want to help my pops pick a tree and get my hands all sappy bringing it inside. I want to spend a day outside hanging up Christmas lights and listening to the same four CDs we’ve had since I was five. Even Alvin and the Chipmunks (Although we’d have to procure a cassette player for that one…old school). I feel that these are vital steps to shaping the ideal Christmas season, but this time around I’ll adjust. This time I’ll make an exception and do my best to jump onto the already moving X-mas train. But I know that I need to be home, so I’ll be there. Soon…On the Wild Side.

- Justin Glenn Davis

Chapter Nineteen…A Map of the Heart

This Semester I have been traveling across the vast landscape of the Western world. I have visited sites of significance to all modern societies and have heard languages I’ve never heard, and learned many things I never knew. I have been both near and far from the familiar to the unfamiliar both terrifying and exhilarating and I have discovered a little bit of what is represented on a map of the world. However, recently I have realized that I have not only been discovering what is represented by a map of the world, but also what it takes to map out the human heart.

I don’t mean the organ, no I have not been secretly studying anatomy and medicine into the wee hours of the night. What I mean by a map of the human heart is the role that everything and everyone around the individual plays in forming that individual. I have come to realize that distance can clarify and call into order the standings of the human heart. Distance can add valuable perspective to all sorts of lives and relationships. I have begun to map out my own heart and have found where it is that my heart calls home. I have discovered that I find myself in these certain areas that seem to act as “anchors” to my identity and reality. In the map of my heart, I can find myself in four places:

The people I know. This is by far the most obvious of places where you can find yourself in your heart. People act as an anchor and a home in so many different ways. Your family is your constant, your family are those who know you better than anyone else in the world, and in my case, love you more than anyone else in the world. I rarely every feel segmented or confused around my family because when I’m with them I can strip myself to the core and know that I am known and accepted by these people no matter what. I am also anchored in my friends. As opposed to my family, friends have seen my social development in a shared context. My family knows the person that I am better than anyone else, but my friends understand and know the person that I have become through our shared experience with growing up and going to college together. There is also of course the big deal, the main social anchor if you will, the “significant other” or “better half.” The second or third question that anyone asks as an update in the context of a semester abroad is how are you and (Girlfriend/Boyfirend) doing? In the course of this semester I have found myself dealing with all sorts of questions mapping out my own heart in this area, but without a doubt I have been able to be settled and feel secure from any amount words from her. In my most trying times over the last three months all I have needed from her is the simplest “I miss you” to become centered once again. The map of the heart is perhaps most vulnerable here, in the context of prolonged separation from someone that you care very deeply about. Honestly, there are limitless amounts of wisdom to be gleaned from such a separation, and I hope that I have not missed out on any of those benefits. But seriously, it’s time for me to come home and hold her once again.

You can also find yourself anchored in places. I cannot stress enough what it means to have some sort of consistency in physical space in a time of intense personal development. The process of learning new things everyday becomes exponentially more exhausting when there is no place of solitude to retreat to for a time. Having your own place (mine are my room and my car), keeps the mind from drifting into nothingness, or losing a grip on reality. I have learned that I like my seasons how they come in California. I have learned that it’s a bad idea to deprive oneself from multiple anchors at the same time for an extended period of time. But thankfully I have been able to understand my heart more fully. I love Santa Barbara and I love Riverside, and I cannot begin to explain how happy I am every year on November 1^st when the clock falls back, we gain an hour of sleep and lose an hour of sunshine. Dinner in the DC when it’s dark outside stands for friends and the coming holidays and that is the one thing I miss most about my lack of place. Also, never underestimate the power of a long and comfortable bed. On average this trip, it has taken me a minimum of twenty minutes to fall asleep every night. I’m looking forward to my own bed.

You can find yourself anchored in things and events. This can look like routines, or something that is familiar to you, that brings your mind to a place of immediate peace. I have found that that practices I miss most are singing, at the top of my lungs in my car by myself as I drive from one place to the next. It is not only good for my voice to be in practice making sure I can hit the notes, but also good for my soul in using my delicately constructed music library to reflect any given mood at any given time, the expression of which tends to simplify my life greatly. I cannot understate the importance of creative outlets. I have been milking this whole writing thing dry. I have written 22+ pages of blog. Maybe 30+ poems, 20+ pages of short stories, another 20+ pages of papers, and at least 35+ pages of notes. “Gasp! Some air and space would be nice” say my writing muscles to the rest of my creative space. Missing a guitar and a limitless pool of new intellectual conversations has left me in desperate need of my home. But above all and leading into the fourth anchor I have only been able to worship in song in intentional community a maximum of ten times on this trip. The language barrier has placed limits on churchgoing practices, not to mention the fact that you need to do research every two weeks to find a new place. I have come to see how important it is for a believing individual to have a routine space to go and seek out the Lord, and if nothing else give the sacrifice of your time and you heart to the Lord in song. I miss Reality Carpinteria more than I knew was possible.

Finally the last anchor, God. Cliché? Nope. Unique? Yup. God is man’s last hope for sanity in an insane and draining context. God is a traveler in his own right. He simultaneously travels to all places in our physical world to simultaneously meet the needs of his despairing children. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this fact. God is everywhere, and I am far from home. If it were not for God, I would have been completely lost with no anchors floating helplessly out into a sea of uncertainty and internal anguish. I thank the Lord for showing me all of these things, and proving to me even more clearly that His person is unchanging. God is my anchor and my ultimate, He is both comfort and necessity, he is air and apple pie, and he’s the only reason that I will be able to come out of the last three weeks of this semester as a better man. I trust God with my life and my time in these remaining days, I trust that my final leg of my journey on the wild side will be led in holiness and growth and change. I am excited to come back to you all a better man, but know that I need you, and miss you, and love you all…Especially Isabella, my guitar. Deep Breath. Love one another. My heart is tied to home and I’m reeling in the line to end up right back where I left off. Bye for now…On the Wild Side.

- Justin Glenn Davis

Chapter Eighteen…My Friends

Dear Matt, Levi, Curtis, Jordan, Nate, B-Lane, Jordan, Ray and Jake.

Hey guys, what’s up? I’m in Florence, Italy, for another few days then heading to Rome and Turkey for the final leg of my journey. It hit me just now, we’re graduating, we’re growing up you know? I know Alex is already done, and at least Matt, Levi, Curtis and I will be done after this semester. So guess what song just popped in my head? “Give It Up” by our boys the Format. I have the three of you to thank specifically for introducing me/letting me adopt one of your favorite bands as my own.

I can’t even single out one of the many times we posted up in Page or Clark in the halls with Levi on the guitar, jamming out the songs. That’s how I learned the lyrics, not even from the band, but from my best friends at school. I think that there’s something really special to be remembered in the message in this song, and in the memories that it brings me. It was back in freshman year, talks about climbing stairs and fond memories of our different pasts and High School graduations. We looked at our first year in college as something truly different, getting out of our towns, making our own decision, “drinking beer” and what not. We came to the halls of Page and Clark with different stories of what had shaped us up to that point. We were all unique and original and ready to start out on a new adventure. I’m glad we’ve gotten to do it together.

I’m thinking about meeting Levi’s kids from Nuevo, those crazy cool cats that love to mock hardcore and throw barbecues at the beach. Or Jordan’s little bro Miles, and Nate’s little big bro, and their story of their long standing friendship. I loved kicking it with Ray and Matt in the summer, sustaining those valuable friendships knowing that we had people back home who knew who we really were. I’m thinking of Curtis and the legend of Chooch and how I have yet to meet this guy, but I’m sure I wont be disappointed when that day comes. We all remember Blair Jacobson, not to be confused with Jake Blair who thankfully is still a part of our lives. Blair, the BQOC as deemed by Levi, was the man, three years older than some of us, he was too cool to last, but I still love that guy. I remember smoking my last three Swisher Sweets left over from my 18^th birthday with Blair and Jordan Evans one night in the tunnel. They had been aging gracefully in my desk drawer, and when the occasion finally called for the smoking of a few Swishers they were happily called on to fulfill their destiny. That night I remember I discovered my testimony, or at least the first part of what was to become my testimony, which has only been fortified with time and mistakes. But those times, these time, have made me, and dare I say us the people that we are. And I for one tend to forget that.

Guys, remember “the deck?” Longboarding the last week of school? Experiencing the Nintendo wii and our first taste of Xbox360 in Jake’s room? Remember Shipley? Fruiting the halls? Rob Blews? Breaking the glass with ___? (Insert object here i.e. football, soccer ball, baseball, sweatshirt, fruit, body part) Ray punching through the wall trying to Impress Lindsay Bates? B-Lane’s “never fail” brew-buying policy? Remember Second semester, when we got to feel for the first time what it was like to be home, and then what it was like to drive back to Westmont with memories and so much fun and life to look forward to?

I have to admit that during those days I never thought these days would come. I could have sworn that I would have been dead or otherwise shipwrecked by now in one way or another. I guess it was always lingering, “What is it like for those seniors?” “They’re almost done with college?!” “How does that happen?” “Well I don’t think that’s gonna happen to me.” So guys, man! I miss you guys, a lot, all of you, there are even more I haven’t mentioned who we’ve shared good times with, but I just want to know something. Starting January, when we’re all done or finishing up, can we make these the BEST TIMES OF OUR LIVES TO DATE?

Because we know we’re brothers and what we have will never die, even after we’re long graduated and moved on from college into wives, lives, and careers. I want it to matter in the most intense way possible. So let’s do it! Okaaaaay?! Yeah Baaabyyyyy! So here we go:

“Joe oh I’ve seen him around and there’s Adam he’s afraid to go out, I don’t blame him, I just wanted to go out to eat. Then there’s mark goddamn I wish him the best we were kids back than as if we could progress and sometimes I, I just cant sleep thinking of everything we could have been. So give it up throw your hats in the air and change us as they land saying we’ll get out of here but something tells me that you’re too scared to go.” – The Format

- Justin Glenn Davis

Chapter Seventeen…I’m a liar-Sorry.

What to do? As a writer, you need to figure some things out as you go along. Things like, how to write well, and how to form appropriately ordered sentences with a vocabulary that best reflects your level of high education, and most importantly, how the heck to follow an important piece of writing that analyses a specific and influential part of our world with another piece of writing of any kind knowing that it is not going to be anything close to as impactful as the previous piece of writing. Also how to write semi-comical run on sentences. The answer, thank the great folks at Nike for this one, Justin do it. Wait, is that it? Whatever.

So We’re no longer in Poland, or even Berlin or Prague, we’re now in Florence, Italy! And we’ll be here for about the next two weeks, at which point after leaving we will have one more paper to turn in, and one more quiz to take. Also at which point I will be writing the last paper, and taking the last quiz of my Westmont undergrad career.* Am I scared, sorry mom and dad, hell yes I am. I’m frightened, but not of school or my lack there of. No, actually comparatively these last four years have been the best and brightest and most challenging of my life, and to say that I’m looking forward to a break would be an understatement. But it’s not all lilies and daffodils. It might be all butterflies, but it is certainly not all lilies and daffodils…

Okay, so seriously. I’m sorry. I could honestly go on and on right now about how horribly hard life will be after graduation. I could speak to you about all of my troubling thoughts about what I’m going to do, work or grad school? Am I going to keep in touch with my friends this time around? Will I get paid for what I do? Will I get paid enough to live in Santa Barbara? Will I be able to come to chapel at all? Will I be able to visit Westmont without being labeled as a creeper? Am I a creeper? Am I? No! Does having a girlfriend automatically disqualify me from creeper status? What if they don’t know my girlfriend? What if they think I’m making it up, and call me a liar and a creeper? NOOO! Wait? Where will I live? Covered that. What will I do? Covered that. How long do I have to wait to visit Westmont as an Alumnus and not a creeper? Got that. Umm what else? There are some others, but—Okay so… All this goes to say that if I’ve learned one thing in my four years of college it is—Drumroll—Not to worry about what I’m going to do after four years of college. Winner? I think so.

So peace, I got my first taste of true peace during finals week of my freshman year at Westmont. Back in the day I used to worry, and my main worry was whether or not I was going to have to drop out of Westmont, due to my decrease in scholarship money due to my decrease in application of brain power due to my increase of social skills and great relationships—Sidenote: Shout out to my first semester in college for screwing my GPA from those wretched months until eternity, no seriously, thank you. End sidenote—So long story short I was out to sea with no real hope of sailing home with all my money, unless I pulled out a miracle of pulling my grades up by a margin only attainable by Jane Highstreet (Who unfortunately for me, was not in my life at the time… shucks)! I lost it, but it got me to pray and give more of my stuff to God, and he helped me to figure out how not to worry about the little things—Like dodging undeserved plagiarism bullets on the last day of finals, but that’s another story.

Which brings us to finals first semester of my sophomore year in college. This is where I have to thank God for teaching me a lesson about prayer and peace through none other than Big Poppa himself, the Notorious B.I.G. I was going crazy, overwhelmed by stress and tests and assignments and fears about getting my GPA above a 3.0 to prove myself a semi-intelligent unrealized underground genius, as is my status today. But yeah I prayed for peace in the face of the largest amount of stress my pseudo-easy life has ever seen. And God gave me Hypnotize. I plugged in my phones and peace came in waves that made me feel fearless and overwhelmingly joyful at the same time. I knew that no matter what was going to happen, that I was in the Lord’s hands and that his will was what was going to happen, and I could not make a stitch of a difference. All I had to do was keep on studying, so I did. And I studied with more joy and purpose than I ever had before, I remember my mom praying for me, and knowing that for the rest of my college career that everything was going to be okay.

So here I am. By the pure grace of God I know peace, fully and personally, and when I need it, he gives it and reminds me that I’m in his hands and have nothing to worry about. So yes, I lied, I’m not scared of the future. I’m STOKED for the future. I’m stoked to be coming home to my loving family, I’m stoked to be coming home to my wonderful girlfriend, I’m stoked to be coming home to my house full of friends, and I’m stoked to be coming home, staring down skyrocketing unemployment rates, economic despair with nothing but a few files full of poetry, papers, stories, and music in one hand, and an almost validated four-year college degree in the other. Yes, I’m stoked. Feel free to say a prayer, feel free to offer me a job, feel free to encourage my in my writing and social skills, feel free to listen to my music in local coffee shops and feel free to give me TONS and TONS of money at my graduation party this summer. But if not, I’m at peace, and I know that I’ll be fine. One more month…On the Wild Side.

- Justin Glenn Davis

*Pending the approval of the office of the registrar at Westmont College.