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Sunday, Sept. 12, 2004 - 10:37 p.m. FIELD OF DREAMS Any reader of this diary ought to play close attention to what I title my entries. I do not just come up with titles out of thin air. Usually there is some type of reason why I name my entries what I name them. Last entry, entitled “Glass House,” is a perfect example. In that entry I refer to myself as “one of the most beautiful people ever to walk this earth,” comparing myself to a newly built luxury home. Later on I received a note from a reader basically scorning me for being so arrogant. I certainly can understand such a reaction depending upon how one reads the entry. However, I would also like to point out two things.
First of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with liking yourself for who you are, even though no one is perfect, including myself. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and as I see it, when it comes to self-esteem, this statement is especially true. Indeed, I could easily write the opposite statement about myself, like “I am the one of the most horrible people to walk this earth,” and there would be an element of truth to that statement as well. However, given how I was feeling at the time of the last entry, I saw no merit in making such a statement. Secondly, again note the title. It was no coincidence that I titled the entry, “Glass House.” I am, in fact, a luxury home built of glass, a frail human being one step away from being completely shattered by any difficulty tossed in my direction. I readily admit this vulnerability, but I insist that this same vulnerability makes me all the more beautiful. Anyway, I suppose I should get to the reason why I entitled this entry “Field of Dreams.” As I was running tonight around the LSU lakes, it occurred to me that my current state of life reminds me of how I felt as I viewed that particular movie. I currently see myself much like Kevin Costner standing in a desolate cornfield with this crazy idea in his mind to build a baseball field. “Build it, and they will come,” so the voice echoes in his head, as well as it does in mine. I believe I have hit on a theme based on the women I seem to attract, or rather, the women I want to attract. On paper, I am this young professional male in his late twenties who appears to be living the Christian lifestyle to a tee. Any religious single woman in her late twenties with any common sense who is searching for a husband devoted to raising a family with Christian values ought to view me as the ideal partner. So far, this theory of mine has turned out to be true, especially in the case of the nunlike woman in Lafayette, and even the preschool teacher, for that matter. In this light, on comes the new field I have begun constructing that at the onset seemed as pointless as building a baseball diamond in the middle of an Ohio cornfield. My church group for young adults, post-undergraduate age, is currently in the process of getting organized. Once I introduced my concept to the church, I was contacted by other young adults who were interested in starting the same ministry. I now have two assistants committed to making this thing work. They have, ipso facto, dubbed me the leader of the group. Now I am charged with leading and organizing, as opposed to being a mere observer as I have always been in anything I have involved myself with, and I will be forced to interact with every single member of the group. So the field is being built, and if the echoing voice is true to form, the young Christian women will come, and they will meet me. Whether or not they end up liking me is another matter entirely. Frankly, at this point in the game, I no longer care whether they do or not, mainly because in all likelihood they will end up liking me anyway because they have no reason not to. However, despite the impression this entry may leave, my mission is actually a noble one, with the purpose of nurturing the faith in young adults’ lives, not meeting women. Otherwise, this project would be sure to fail, and I would be incapable of leading it. |