online diary for the masses

It was in the Summer of 2005 that I read Shadow of the Almighty, which tells the true story of missionary-martyr Jim Elliot and his time in South America from the perspective of his widow Elizabeth and large excerpts of his own journal. This account of Jim’s life and death encouraged me not only in the severity with which I follow The Way, but also in the discipline with which I document the Journey. It was at that point that I started writing in the Goat Journal — so-called because of the goat vector image on the journal’s cover — which had been given me by my iGosian friends. As it turns out, it was also around that time that odfm came into being.

In the final days of my twenty-third year, my friend Nattown gave me a leather-bound notebook as a gift for my upcoming birthday. It was the first Moleskine I’d ever owned, and as the first page of content in that journal (dated 11.05.07) will tell you, it was the first journal I’d ever started as a result of having filled up another one, the aforementioned Goat J.

Now, nearly two years to the day after that debut entry in my first Moleskine, I’ve only four empty pages in the back, which I fully plan on filling up by my twenty-sixth birthday. When all is said and done, that book will contain 240 pages of my poor handwriting, documenting happenings big and small from an entire two-year stretch of time. It’s been with me through the everyday life in College Station, Philadelphia, and Dallas. It also took brief vacations to New York, DC, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Germany, and Jordan, not to mention countless small Texas towns.

It’s pages contain the joys of 8 of the 10 Roommates going from single to engaged to married, and the woes of my unsuccessful attempts at even getting a date. They boast of the Father’s faithfulness to sovereignly answer prayers, and cry out in desperation for grace to hear the Shepherd’s voice (over, and over, and over, and over again). There are driving directions to friends’ houses, concert venues, and wedding chapels; scoresheets to heated games of Nerts; failed attempts at poetry, songwriting, and drawing; lists and lists of everything from potential running shoe purchases to pros and cons to short and long-term life goals. It’s back pocket contains the sumo wrestler postcard Nattown gave me with the J, a receipt from a Claude, TX gas station, and notes from 2009’s Good Friday service. In short, it’s a slice of legible Life.

In a few days I’ll finish Moleskine Number One and move on to unwrapping and filling the pages of Number Two with my unsightly penmanship. I’ve been anticipating this moment for weeks now, since taking advantage of Barnes’ 20% Moleskine products last month. What, when finished, will the pages of Number Two contain? Will it take two years to fill? Will it tell of Roommates’ babies? Of D.O. getting a date? Of moving out of Dallas to somewhere with four seasons? And the back pocket… a Polaroid? a map? a note from a dear friend? a winning lottery ticket?

The possibilities are literally endless, and I haven’t the slightest idea what will come to pass. I do, however, greatly look forward to documenting my own Story as it unfolds, and I’m grateful for the Gift that allows me insight enough to find things in life worth documenting.