Hey Y’all!
I finally made it to Connecticut; alive no less. It was good to finally get here and start unpacking. Seeing as the school year hasn’t yet started, I haven’t gotten a chance to start working with students. I have, however, been busy. Over the next year, I will be helping with music for the Tuesday night large group meetings for RUF (Reformed University Fellowship). Also, I am in helping to advertise RUF’s back to school concert. This year, we will be hosting My Brightest Diamond; some of you may be familiar with her from working with Sufjan Stevens. Opening for her is Jonny Rodgers, from the local (New Haven, CT) band, Ten Shekel Shirt. We hope that this will attract Believers and Non-Believers, alike. I am very excited about getting the school year started, and I look forward to keeping y’all posted with all the highlights (and even lowlights; i.e. prayer requests) of my ministry to the world of UConn.
Check your address books, cell phones, rolodexes, etc.:
I may have some new, different contact information.
cell – (225)772-5882
email – pmajor@ruf.org or p.a.major@gmail.com (both go to the same place)
physical address – 252 Willington Hill Rd., Apt. D, Willington, CT 06279
***these are not merely for posterity’s sake, please feel free to call and/or write. I not only appreciate it, I encourage it!
Thanks, and remember to send in that support!,
Paul Major – RUF Intern, University of Connecticut
P.S. – At this point, I assume most people have stopped reading, so I’m willing to attempt to explain my title for this blog. As some of you may know, Locomotive Breath is a song by Jethro Tull, and a great one at that. But for the longest time, I had the wrong song under the title for Locomotive Breath. In actuality, I had a song called “Wind Up,” which is an equally powerful song as the actual “Locomotive Breath.” And for whatever reason, the substance and the lyrics of “Wind Up” always seemed to appeal to me in the same manner as the actual title of “Locomotive Breath.” In “Wind Up,” the lyrics of the first chorus:
“So I asked this God a question
and by way of firm reply,
He said — I’m not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.”
The remaining choruses are similar, repeating the theme of not having to “wind up” God on Sundays. And though no one can be too sure of the true meaning intended by Ian Anderson (mastermind behind Jethro Tull), I feel something in his argument rings true. There are two images that stand out to me. The first one is that someone, somewhere thinks that God needs to be wound up (turned on, activated) in order to BE (as in God IS, as in “I AM”). This seems to be Anderson’s anger at those he feels “acknowledge God with their lips, but deny Him with their hearts.” Thus, I come to my second point. That God is the kind we wind up on Sundays, means we have a tendency to leave God at the church doors as we run out on Sunday, or maybe we leave Him on our bedside table as the Monday morning alarm stirs us from our dream of a weekend.
This is the very thing I want to avoid; both in my personal life, and with my interactions with lost, confused, typical college students. I don’t want God to become something that is itemized on a cell phone calendar, as a two hour block, once a week. God has invested too much into us (ALL of creation) for us to consider him a mere inconvenience we must take care of before we can watch football on Sundays. I don’t know how effective I’ll be. Please pray for me, that I’ll remember that God is not my “wind up toy” for Sunday morning activity, until I get bored with one toy and move on to another.
P.P.S. Let me clarify: I have nothing against Sunday afternoon football. In fact, if anyone in the Connecticut area is reading this, and you need a football watching buddy, I may be your man. Be forewarned, I may over-spiritualize Jethro Tull songs.
