"Racquet Ball"

okay, so my sister and i have recently taken up racquet ball...we're such amateurs that, I'll admit, just now when typing the name of it, I was unsure if I was spelling it correctly and had to google it...shameful...
I put the title with the quotations like that because we use the term "racquet ball" very very loosely...We actually spend very little time "racquetting" the ball, so to speak. There are a few minor inhibitors to that happening more frequently:

• Our ridiculous fear of the ball hitting us instead of us hitting the ball(she did in fact get hit by the ball today and it was quite humorous and also, unfortunately, quite painful. Needless to say this did little to deter further fear of the ball).
• Our inability to master hand-eye coordination (it's like suddenly I'm the most unathletic person who ever existed...no one watching would ever think I'd competed at anything in the collegiate level).
• Our recurring habit of stopping mid-game to have deep philosophical and theological conversations that drive us to question the purpose of our lives and asking ourselves whether we are fulfilling that purpose and analyzing our sin and failures...of course this somehow often begins while one of us is mid-hit and thus we lose any ability to hear the other person- have you ever tried to talk in a racquetball court? Nearly impossible! And to make it much worse, imagine yourself lunging for the ball while asking, what do you think are the deep hidden intentions of my heart when I'm sitting on the couch with a gallon of Ben & Jerry's and I'm crying because my child was mean to me? Now imagine trying to return a hit while also trying to answer that question!

Anyway, despite these factors, there has been some improvement! Tonight we were able to remove our "two bounces allowed" rule and also agree to remove the rule that the same person can hit the ball as many times in a row as they want to...

More importantly than this, we were able to really think about where we're at in life right now. I think each year we get surprised that another year has passed...that we're that much further out of our high school and college days- that much further from our childhood days and deeper into our "grown up" days...it's a strange transition. For me it's a whole lot weirder than the transfer into the teenage years. Those weren't so tumultuous for me as novelists and sitcom writers would have you believe they are for everyone conscious from age 12-18....I didn't question myself in life, what am I doing? where am I going? During those times it was obvious...But Megs and I were able to realize that we both want to take ownership of our lives- to lay hold of the time God gives us and the abilities He's given us and to use them vigorously, passionately, and unashamedly for Him. We don't want to hold back under the guise of "practicality" or get caught up in the social 'norm.' We don't want the goal of our lives to be paying the bills till we retire, or even to just enjoy the time we have. We want to use this time to discover and practice the meaning of loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and we want to draw others into this great discovery as well...We started thinking more concretely about what our gifts are and how we can really use them in new ways to fulfill the aforementioned purpose...

One other great idea we had came from a somewhat humorous yet painful thought...We somehow started talking about how many people in our world are overweight, yet at the same time there is an alarming number of people who are starving to death...While I'm overeating, someone else is undereating...I jokingly said that next time I walk into the pantry and pull something out that I am not hungry for, instead of eating it I wish I could wrap it up and mail it to some hungry person across the ocean...Well this in reality may not happen, but in essence we could try to make this happen...The idea is that we will look at the budget we have for groceries for a month, take one-fourth of that and set it aside, and then force ourselves to ration our food to last longer than it does, giving that one-fourth towards feeding hungry people...This may sound ridiculous or it may sound sacrificial, I'm not sure yet...I just hope that in the end, it's not something that just sounds one way or another, I hope it's a reality that really is one way or another...

Anyway...yes, all of these thoughts came from our new beloved hobby, "Racquet ball"...I'm still trying to think of something else to call it...right now "racquet ball" is code for standing in a plexi-glass room and talking while wearing ridiculous goggles and holding racquets...I think it'd be so great to have some fun play on words or conglomeration of words that we could rename this time...