Deviation from the norm...

All three of you who read my blog know that it has morphed into a protracted political diatribe.  I'm going to take a little break from that tonight.  First of all, you will notice from the time stamp on this post that it is about 2:30 in the morning.  I've got this weird ear infection/vertigo thing that is extremely painful and gives me the bedspins (See end of post for a definition of "the bedspins").  So, for the past three or four nights, I have been unable to sleep.  What have I been doing with this blessed nocturnal time you ask?  I have discovered Facebook.  I initially went to the site just to poke around and see what it was all about, having heard many of my blogger friends mention their "Facebook Pages" with an air of cyber-superiority.  What a wonderful resource it has turned out to be!  I feel like a kid in a candy store.  I have been able to track down long lost high school and mission friends that I thought I'd never hear from again.  It's fun to see all the receding hairlines and paunches that have developed, as well as the beautiful faces of little ones that have come to people that I befriended years ago.  

It is interesting to me to see how the lives of the people I knew in high school have evolved.  You can find Facebook groups that pertain to your school for a specific class- in most cases, my former high school classmates are doing well.  Some have gone on to do tremendous things (surprisingly so for some- I knew these people when they were teenagers).  

I have also reconnected with some old missionary companions, and this has been especially precious to me.  I find it amazing that while my missionary experience was only a short two year period, I am connected to them in a way that is indescribable.  There are bonds created through service that can be as deep as blood and as profound as scripture.  I can imagine that it is similar to the bond between war buddies.  The mission experience is really a microcosm of life.  You are "born" as a new missionary- thrust into a new world to which you are inevitably ill-prepared.  You learn and grow, forgetting yourself and relying on a higher power and your companion to serve those over whom you are called to labor.  As time goes (flies) by, you train other missionaries and watch them progress and mature as they serve.  Pretty soon, you're at the end of your two years and your missionary life-cycle ends.  All you take home are the friendships you cultivated when you were there.  It's a shared event that can't be duplicated anywhere else.  One of my favorite movies is Stand By Me, based upon a Stephen King novella.  At the end of the movie, the writer says, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve."  Well, that guy never served a mission.

Sorry to wax nostalgic like that.  It's gotta be the insomnia talking.  I'm going to try and get some sleep now since the girls are going to be up in a few hours.  Before I go, I promised you a definition of "the bedspins".  For the uninitiated, bedspins occur when you lie face-up in bed and you feel that the room is rotating around your stationary bed.  It is an unpleasant sensation that leads to a feeling of nausea.  For most, this phenomenon is brought upon them through the over-indulgence of certain beverages.  Not so in my case.