I think I'm beginning to drop the ball.
It's been a little over a week since I've last posted, and I can say that I've become somewhat of a different person (or at least in a different position) since that time. My status has changed in a lot of ways. The only problem is, I'm not relieved like I thought I would be. I'm done with the immediate difficult things, but I am still empty. I can answer this question very easily myself. I haven't been seeking the Lord; it's almost as though my brain thinks that I left Him in Waco with my other friends. Like He can only be in certain places, or like He's not everywhere. Or like there's a boring, non-fun, hard-to-reach version of Him here. And I can conclude from that mentality that I have no idea what being full of the Lord is. I know about the euphoria and feeling of well-being that arises from familiarity and a nurturing environment, and I forget the bleak reality and feeling of knowing that in a practical sense, I no longer had a reason to be there. That cannot possibly account for the fact that my soul has become unapproachable and otherwise putrid. Look at what I think, how I feel, and what I do because of it. And now the circumstances have changed in more than one way, yet it remains that I do not feel whole. Of course, I would much rather feel empty than think I am not.

Yesterday as I was driving back from Waco, I found myself eating dark chocolate peanut M&Ms (you never know what you'll find in the floorboard). I've eaten dark chocolate for so long, it's really hard for me to like milk chocolate in as many things as I used to. As I was eating them, I contemplated writing a post on here about trendy foods. ("Trendy". That word just bounces, doesn't it?) Yes...what comes to your head when I say "trendy foods"? Dark chocolate. Avocados for something other than a Mexican dish. Pomegranates. It's been in style for the past several years to buy anything organic as part of a health kick. But some of that stuff is no more healthy than an exquisite mixture of lard and salt. Companies have actually had to inform consumers reeling from the "fat is bad" mentality that some fats are actually good for you. More than that, some fats you actually need for vitamin absorption.
I could go on and on about trend after trend (my longest rant would probably be about the Atkins diet), but then it hit me in mid M&M bite: I'm buying into these things just as much as the next person. How many of us stand back and watch people all over the nation participate in something that may be of no consequence to us (e.g. a food we don't like, a diet we wouldn't need) and criticize the consumer "sheep"? I am guilty of gloating about how this or that marketing tactic doesn't work on me as I'm eating my [insert brand name here] and wearing my [insert brand name here]. This may not be the exact definition, but most marketing and advertising are successful on the basis that they implicitly promise something a consumer wants or needs (maybe grandiose things like being surrounded by gorgeous women) if they would only buy [Product]. I said "sheep" above, because I've heard the term being used to describe the masses and their response to advertising. But I know that it's true. It's how we were made. This is probably the weirdest analogy I have ever made, but we were created to follow a "shepherd" like that. Not the corporate "shepherds", but you could think of advertising as exploiting that fact. But we were built to have total dependence on someone who has our good in mind. I wish people listened to Jesus as much as they did advertisements. I wish I did.

I do want it to be put to rest that I did not really eat M&Ms off the floor of my car.