Sun Sessions

Just to change things up a bit here is a student video by a junior film major at columbia, it's really REALLY good.


Sun Sessions from Eddie O'Keefe on Vimeo.

Wackadoodle

So here I am at the end of the summer. What a summer it has been. Working at a camp all summer was a great experience, God really showed me some large areas where I need to work on my heart, and at the same time He confirmed my choice to be an education major. Working with kids was the most rewarding experience of my life. Every week a new batch of kids came in, each group more different than the last, but all with great joys and hardships. I loved it and wouldn't have rather done anything else all summer. Yet, here I am on the verge of school. God has continually and blatantly blessed me in the choice to go to Judson. Last year with the beginning of my freshman year He gave me incredible friends and relationships, a year full of growing and enjoyable experiences. He gave me a place where I knew I could feel loved and safe, a place where I could be entirely and honestly me for all my faults. I was then given the position of Wilson Hall Dorm President for this year as well as the position of student mentor for the incoming freshmen.
All this almost came to and end though. As we were pulling out of the drive from Judson my dad informed me that my aunt who had cosigned for my loans could no longer do it. This meant that short of a working of God I would not return to Judson. I could not sign for my own loans as I had tried to only weeks earlier and been denied. I told myself that sure God would not open the doors that he had if I was not going to be able to serve, I told myself to have faith that it would work out. As camp approached I knew I had little time to act so I applied again by myself for the same loan as before and this time, yes this time, I got approved. I got approved on my own credit. God provided. Now walking into the new school year with everything paid for, with a position to serve my school on a large scale, and with my good friends as my roommate and suitemate I am confident beyond anything that Judson is truly where I am meant to be for now.

We Are, We Are All Innocent

So summer is here. It has been two weeks and boy have they flown by. I am biding my time these days until camp starts. I sit and watch endless hours of trashy reality television. I check facebook incessantly. I check my e-mails too. I need routine and a schedule. I need my friends back, or new ones to hold their spots until the fall. And then I look at all of those I statements and how worthless every action that follows is. I realized last week how little of my abundant free time has been spent with a focus on God. During school I made excuses of being to exhausted and now I just put it off. Sometimes I can be an idiot. The most time I've spent with God has been praying over finances that I am already positive God is going to provide. I think I'm just afraid of commiting to anything else in prayer and then failing to do it. This is what home is though. It's a blackhole. I don't know how others find so much joy in this limbo. All I can do is think about how much I want to be anywhere else. I told myself the other day to at least practice serious drawing and so I did...for a couple hours and have yet to return to it. Why is productivity so hard? Why can't we just do things? I have read a couple books in these past 2 weeks, but thats still such a leisurely activity. Man...I need direction. God I pray for these months to fly by and bring me back to school. There at Judson is my home, for home is where the heart is. That is where my friends are, where my dreams are, where my future is. This place, this house, my parents house...this place is a prison.

Gather Up Your Jackets and Move it to the Exits, I Hope You Have Found a Friend

This place is my home and these people are my family. Everything that rests back in Bolingbrook is a memory. When I return we will talk and laugh and reminisce and that'll be all we have. These months apart have changed me and yet I will be viewed with old eyes. I am excited to see old friends again, and I am excited to have fun with them, but it aches inside, this idea of leaving the people here. They have been more integral to who I am now than any other person before aside from maybe Alex. Yet I am forced to deal with the unfairness of college; I am forced to come to school, live, eat, and breathe with these people, cry with these people, laugh with these people, pray with these people for months and then be stripped away from it all. Not only that, the place I return to is not even my home. My parents now live in a home in Minooka, a foreign world to me. I write this sounding bitter but it is only because I love these people. My bitterness is derived from love.
In just a matter of hours my parents will be here and I will load up the truck. We will pull off through the tree-lined drive to State Street and drive off into the distance and Wilson and Judson and my friendships will be on hold. I pray that I can welcome this waiting period called Summer with ease and eagerness. I pray that I can remain strong. God give me grace and give me joy. It's closing time.

I Sing the Body Electric, I Celebrate the Me Yet to Come

In thinking about my last post I realized there were a great number of people I did not mention and that is because it is impossible to name every person who has influenced me greatly this year, but I want anyone and everyone who reads this to know that I love them. Even if I don't know you I love you.
Tonight was a farewell party for a guy at my school named Gerald. He works in student development and was my mission project leader. This man is an incredible person. He has one of the largest hearts and greatest gifts for leadership I have seen in a person. In many ways he is connected in reality and in my head to Rob, my former youth pastor. Gerald was the youth pastor at the church Rob now teaches at, and Gerald has met him in various occasions, as well as Gerald now works at the school Rob graduated from. In a lot of ways they are similar in personality. Gerald, however, is unique in his ability to love and care for everyone he meets. He is intuitive to hurt and oepn to action. He is hilarious and makes any situation 99% less awkward, and still knows when to draw the line at being serious and submissive. He has taught me and cared for me ina lot of ways in a short time, and it was very hard to say good-bye. This made me think of all the people I am meeting now, especially in upper classes, that as the years go by I will say a pretty substantial good-bye to. This is what I call the curse of college: we build relationships like none we've had before and every year we are forced to let at least one of them go with the insecurity that we may never see them again. This made me very sad. It also made me realize that I am more responsible now than ever for building strong foundations, developing great abilities at long distance correspondence, and putting selfishness aside and spurring others on to their goals. After all I love these people and will do what it takes to stay in touch.
On a side note from Gerald's party I suppose some of you are unaware of my current conflict on changing my major. It has been a long process of thought and prayer and talking. It will continue to be so. However, all BS aside, I am considering changing my major to Visual Art Education to teach art at the middle school level. You see, I could explain in an hour some of my thoughts on this and it still wouldnt be a complete thought process, however I will try to explain as much as possible here. When coming to Judson I was already considering an education major over film production. Since beinghere I have often and frequently rethought where my passion lies as to whether I wanna make movies or just like watching them. It has been tough but I think I just enjoy the storytelling. I love watching and critiquing movies, but I don't know that I would want to make one. I also continue to think about how much joy I got from working with jr. highers in the youth group at trinity, and how much I love my younger cousins and other kids. I think about my gift of leadership and how that factors in, and here comes the most substantial part of my conflicting decision. During the mission project we did a time of encouragement where we all sat and encouraged each other focusing on one another, and it was there that a couple people I deeply respect told me I have the gift of encouragement. One of them told me it was truly unique in me. I was shocked. since then others have continued to mention it. I began to realized I was more a fan of pushing my friends on in their endeavors than embarking on my own, and then in a conversation with Ben I was told that as a teacher he could see me changing kids lives. Wow. That is a lot to take for me. I have never had people tell me that. So i figured the best way to put this into action is to be a teacher. I bring this up with Gerald's party because while I was there I was talking with this girl Ashley and she had mentioned how even though sometime she is frustrated with her current major sociology she came in as an accounting major. She explained that it was the people and community and openness of Judson that helped challenge and mold her and teach her that her original plans were not for her. I began thinking of how I almost went to Columbia where I would have stuck with film production only to wind up miserable, but being here at Judson and by going on the mission project I have been able to nurture and discover my gifts and passions. The last factor will be working at camp this summer. If I cannot stand working with kids by the end then no ed. major for me, but if i can't get enough then I will be sure where God's plan for me lies. Either way I am excited to see where I am at down the road, like my title says I celebrate the me yet to come. God is working all over and I hope I can be a testament to that in my simple, finite life.

More end of year thoughts to come...if you're reading comments would be nice.

What Can You Do With a Sentimental Heart?

I am sitting here on a couch in second floor lounge in Wilson Hall as my friend Robb sits here and talks to Josh. I am currently listening to Sentimental Heart by She and Him. The thought in my head: This is it. This is my home. This is the end...of the year. I would have never guessed months ago that I would have found such joy in this place and in these people. Yes I did guess I would find joy, but not in the way it has been given to me.
I still remember the first friday being here. I remember moving in and the giant flood outside of Wilson and Volkman Halls. I remember meeting my roommate and realizing that I was going to share all my space with him. I remember playing ultimate frisbee shirtless and thinking "thank God, I am home." Most importantly though I remember meeting Kyle. That night as I walked down the stairs of Wilson to head out to the field I met Kyle. We talked the whole way to the field, and I thought "I could really like this kid." Later that night I found out he is my suitemate. Soon I would find out he is my friend. Kyle is so different than me, he is quiet, super competitive, and patient, but that didn't stop us. He has pushed me to be more competitive, he has coached me and helped me appreciate sports. I have helped him understand art and creativity. Kyle is my friend.
Tonight I gave Kyle a huge hug and realized I wouldn't see him for 3 months. I also won't see my friend Mike for three months or my roomie of next year Richard. It hurts to say good-bye to people who you just want to continue knowing and learning about. It hurts to know that we will all have 3 months of changing between now and then. It hurts. However, I love these three guys, they're my guys. I wouldn't change what I have with any of them for anything.
The hardest good-bye will come when I have to say it to Ben. Ben started the year as an RA on my floor. He soon became my small-group leader. Then he became my friend. Soon after he became my accountability partner, and in the months to come he would become my lifeline. I have hardly known a friendship like Ben's in any way. I have never felt as honest and as unconditionally loved by anyone outside of my family as I have with Ben, in fact Ben knows more about me than anyone save for God. We started off our accountability with the typical stuff and as the year went by we hit some of the hardest bumps in my memory and in times of great darkness and selfishness he continued to reach back for me. When I could only find reasons to hurt him he took the blows, and in times when I needed it he made me feel like crap, but in a good way. He has allowed me to enter into his life as much as I have let him in mine. In the months following winter break I found myself in a slump of enormous depression. I sought out counseling and was diagnosed with clinical depression, and there were times even up until two weeks ago where I didn't know if I could hold on to this life, but Ben he covered me with love. Ben is my RA, my accountability partner, my friend, my lifeline, and more than anything else, he is my brother. I will miss him greatly over the summer.

This is all for now. I will continue to reflect over the rest of the week.

I Did Not Choose Him, He Did Not Choose Me

22 hours away from 19 years of life...how sad that they've been 19 useless, selfish, frustrating years.