Good Afternoon Blog Goers, (scroll down if you want to skip me talking about the NBA)
Do these things have a time stamp of when they are posted? If they do, I fear that I will be exposed for how long these things take me to write. Maybe I will have to edit that greeting to say “Evening” instead. I guess I will leave it for now. In my last blog I didn’t continue the volume number because I honestly had no idea which edition it was since I was SLACKING. Therefore, I just guessed on this one. Volume 58 sounds pretty good and is also the current super bowl number that we are all looking forward to watching this year. That reminds me that I didn’t even watch the super bowl this year because I was on a flight home from the great city of Boston. Well that’s not entirely true. I got to watch the Chefs do what they do best (win football games) and all of the commercials on the plane ride home but with no volume. It was actually horrible. Reading lips is hard. This was especially true for the queen Rihanna’s halftime show. That reminds me that I still need to re-watch but with audio playing this time.
Alright, alright I will stop talking about a sporting event that finished almost 3 months ago. Although, a sporting event that hasn’t finished yet is the NBA playoffs. The NBA is funny to me because during the regular season, I literally could not care less about any of the games that transpire. However, as soon as the playoffs start, I am all in. In fact, I am watching the heat play the Knicks right now as we speak. The heat, who are the 8 seed, just beat the bucks, who were the 1 seed, and the last two games of the series might have been some of the most entertaining basketball I have ever watched. Jimmy Butler, who plays for the heat, is that guy. He’s awesome. My prediction is that the heat upset again in this series. The Knicks have Jalen Brunson, who is also that guy and also awesome but Julius Randle is just a bum. Its actually so amazing the “playoff effect” has on some players and how they can just elevate to an unstoppable force who literally makes any shot they take. Something about sports… they are truly incredible and people invest such an incredible amount of time into them. You didn’t ask but this is my playoff prediction. The Heat will advance to play Boston (which I want because jimmy butler is so amazing, but also I want the knicks to win because their fanbase is just so dang entertaining whenever their team is doing well (they are literally insane)), and Denver will advance to play the Lakers. The Lakers will play the Kings as they win game 7 tonight and LIGHT THE BEAM. I really don’t like the Lakers but unfortunately they just have been able to do some amazing things with Lebron and Davis. No matter how old they get, they still just dominate. Also Austin Reaves (shock the nation) and Rui Hachimura have been going nuts. From these teams, Boston and Denver will advance to be in the finals, and once that happens I really have no idea. the Denver nuggets have a crazy lineup. They literally have a guy (Nikola Jokic) that’s plus/minus is so incredibly positive that you wonder how they ever lose a game and another guy who just awakes in the playoffs (Jamal Murray), along with a great supporting cast including a Kansas Jayhawk known as Christian Braun, who actually gets minutes. Love him. But all that being said, something always happens to them. They are quite literally a team that you sit there and wonder why they haven't won a championship yet in the current decade. Also the Boston Celtics, are just the Celtics. They are just super consistently good. They have a ton of experience in the playoffs and a lot of hungry players for a championship. They also are like the current leaders for total championships won by a NBA team. That partly is because they were so dominant when the NBA started and literally won like 5 in a row or something ridiculous before the Lakers decided they were gonna be the showtime team. All that being said, I think this is Denver’s year. I would be ecstatic for Christian Braun to get a ring. Imagine that: You win the NCAA tournament and then in your first year in the NBA, you get a ring for winning the NBA finals. That would be crazy, and I hope that Christian gets that to happen for him. He is such a dog and I love him. He also dunked on Giannas, which is so crazy, like soooooooo freaking crazy.
READ HERE: I got carried away with talking about sports above so if you think you wouldn’t care about that, you can just start reading here.
Enough about basketball. No like literally, I wrote so much about basketball just now and I didn’t think I had it in me. I have a feeling a lot of people don’t really want to read about everything I said but I am gonna leave it there anyways. Lets talk about April. Do you guys enjoy the question “So what’s new?”. I have been learning that I enjoy this question less and less. I think when you get older, this question just starts to be more and more mundane. I think this is because, as you get older things just kind of get less and less new. This is true in a way of you have just lived such a collection of experiences, that finding “new” is genuinely very hard but this is also true in a way of you just stepping into a stage of life where most of your days/weeks/years are pretty similar. That thought might scare some people. It kind of scares me. I don’t really want to “be boring and old”. I very much want to be “new and interesting”. As being someone who craves a rhythm though, this also kind of brings me some peace in knowing that rhythm will exist. What do I know though? Obviously everything because I am a 23-year old. Back to the matter of that one question I previously brought up though. I have found myself just asking it and being asked it a lot to garner a response whether by me or others of “nothing much really. Just kinda doing the same ol, same ol”.
Now, I don’t bring this up to condemn or shame that. I think one of the biggest problems (not that I don’t struggle with it. In fact, I probably struggle with it more than the average person), is that we aren’t okay with boredom. One thing I have learned this year, is that a lot can come from boredom. The state of boredom allows us to peruse our thoughts. It allows us to notice things that we don’t normally notice in our super busy lives. It also is an active way to stop idolizing excitement. That last part is a thing that I have been especially dealing with this year. I don’t really like to be bored. Does anyone? I often am looking for the next thing to do at all parts of the day. Sometimes I can even be in the middle of an event and then be wondering what’s next, in a way phasing my presence out of what is currently happening. All of this being a result of never wanting the fun of life to end. Here’s a question: do you ever find boredom in your relationship with the Lord? I swear I do all the time. I actively schedule time being outside, playing a game or a sport, and entertaining myself but I rarely schedule time with the Lord. Or if I do schedule time with the Lord I allow it to have exceptions where all of a sudden I am throwing it to the back burner. All of this to point out the idea of idolizing excitement. Rather than relying on the one who tells me that and who I believe that life is found in, I often rely on entertainment to give me life. Praise the Lord for the space that Fellows has given me to realize this.
I honestly lost where the train was going with this thought and I am feeling a little reluctant to reread everything so hopefully these next few sentences somehow tie-in to what I was talking about. Having idols in things are so much more than just black and white. Someone hit me this past week with the thought that they knew people who were “idolizing marriage”. You might hear that and say “well duh” but I had never really thought of that before. I think of idols often in things that are fairly negative rather than things that are fairly ordinary or good or God-honoring things. In it all, it’s the core theme of pushing Him out, so that the idol can take the center stage. For me this happens a lot with allowing the chase of excitement to take the center stage amongst many other things. Boredom gives us the chance to not have something on the center stage. It gives us a chance to re-find God in the show. Rather than run away from it, I want to try and embrace it regularly with this chance to re-find Him. If you find me complaining about boredom in the future, I just ask that you would please remind me of this statement that I have made.
Well guys, that’s it. Thanks for reading my last blog ever (holy smokes). As someone who doesn’t journal ever, this has actually been a surprisingly great activity. It has allowed me a space to reflect like I often don’t want to and a space to truly analyze what is at the forefront of my mind. Thank you fellows for giving me this experience amongst the countless others. To say it one last time via this square space box:
May He Bless your month,
Alec