fake your death

On Writing and Age Wrinkles

2010-05-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

I love writing and I hate writing. The two feelings are constantly throwing house parties in some emotional apartment my logic is never invited to. Like opposing pistons charging wildly into the same cylinder or two bulls in the same pen. They collide with force and drama and certainty. With writing specifically, as much as God teaches me through it, it's never good enough to show anyone - and so it stays unpublished, entombed and unfinished. It is for me, catharsis and chaos in equal measure.

But maybe writing is more like life, people can forgive an imperfect word or a bad paragraph as long as there's a beauty to the whole. All of our words are like lines and wrinkles drawn into an aging face - they make us, us. Different, weak, broken, strong, but recognized and loved, not in spite of them, but because of them. It's different, how God works, how he stands with stretched arms signaling the beginning of a better story; offering strength and peace in the middle of weakness and chaos.

So our worst days become a kind of necessary punctuation. They link the elements in our stories; pauses in our prose.

And our best days are the secret and soaring poems we only tell to our favorite people.

Our stories are made beautiful because they're written with the stuff of the bad days and the dignity of the good days. And like that, maybe we're supposed to accept the imperfect words because we know that better words are coming, and sometimes, in the best times, they come quicker than we'd hoped. Or sometimes we have to dig and bleed to find them. But we always find them. And always when we need them.

Maybe we are all writers who have already been written into a story full of labored sentences and the right amount of poetry. We just need someone to read it and tell us to keep writing.

So, write it, whatever it is. Write the bad words until the good ones come. Change your life. Start your life. End your old life. Get a better job. Get a better boyfriend. Hit "publish." If we trust that the whole of the story is beautiful a one, we can't really fail. Let the worst of you become a kind of period that doesn't just end a bad sentence, it signals the beginning of a new one, a better one.

Maybe it's time to trust that the words will come. Maybe it's time to let Him write and know that they will.

Forgetting Facebook

2010-05-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

In an effort to remain transparent, I will, in full disclosure say that I have checked Facebook this week.

It was Tuesday or so, and I'd forgotten to log out from my phone - I got some alert and followed it in to the Facebook interface in order to read a message and log out.

There. Truth. I feel so much better.

That said, I'm learning quite a bit about myself as I've given up Facebook for a month.

1) The days are long enough. They just are. It's easy for me to get overwhelmed with work and irritated with God for giving us "only" 24 hours a day. The truth is, we have 24 full hours in every-single-day - and that's long enough to do just about anything we want.

There is enough time in the day. In fact, there's plenty.

Think about it. Say you work (or go to school) for 8 hours a day. If the average person gets about 8 hours of sleep (that's being optimistic) that leaves another 8 hours left to do anything you want. There's enough time to work another full time job with the time we have left over. Of course, that's a bad idea, but the point is, there IS enough time.

While it's not directly related to Facebook, this week has brought to me some of the most difficult conversations I've ever had. But the best part was, was that I was there to have them. I'm not saying that my time spent away from Facebook has necessarily opened the door to deeper friendships, but these conversations were literally of the once in a lifetime kind, and I thank God that I was fully there to engage in them.

2) I've done more.

I've read more, written more, ran more, started swimming, started my own megalomaniacal website - I've just simply done more and have done better work. To be sure, there's times where my left hand wants to instinctively type "F-A-C-E' in the address bar and let autofill do the rest but usually, I'm too busy doing something that matters.

3) I feel slightly disconnected.

I think part of the lure of social media is the "connectedness" it offers. It's like you're privy to hundreds of different conversations and you get to piece together certain elements of people's lives through their pictures, updates, links etc. There's a small part in all of us that is sated when we feel 'included' - but a birds-eye-view shows me that really, it's just nourishing insecurity. I want to be included, more than I just want to feel included - and sadly (or maybe, hopefully) that really only happens outside of the internet.

So, overall - it's a positive project I've launched into. Right now, I'm giving myself only a 50% chance of ever returning to Facebook. Maybe though, the problem isn't the site itself, but my self-control, or lack thereof.

How has it been giving up meat this week? Or Facebook? Or anything? I'm excited to live deeper.

I'm really excited.

Goodbye Facebook (for now)

2010-05-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

I could tell you that I'm giving up Facebook for a month because it's simply next on my monthly list of "discipline projects" or I could be superholy and say that I'm "Surrendering" Facebook, maybe even call it a "fast" - I suppose those things are true, but only half-true.

I check Facebook a lot.

At work, at home, on my phone - straight up - I check it all the time. And, after some pausing and introspection, I really can't figure out why. Maybe it's the same reason we all check it constantly, checking in on "our world" - or worse, some kind of post-modern indulgence - counting comments and nods like flair or checkmarks of affirmation.

Whatever it is, it's become unhealthy for me and it's going away for a month - at least.

So, besides not knowing what 430 people are doing everyday, or who (still) hates Mondays - or which of my old students are working their way towards drinking problems, I'm excited for this month's abstinence. But abstaining for the sake of abstaining isn't enough, is it? Whatever's been given up, needs an interim (de)vice to fill it's void, to align the wayward compass or the whole meaning of sacrifice is lost.

So, I will turn to writing, or reading, or simply being silent and wonderfully disengaged.

I've already turned my attention to next month's discipline project, and I've decided I don't want to do it alone. Anyone want to give something up for a month, or better - DO something consistently, everyday for a full 30 days? Let's brainstorm, let's change our lives, lets live better, fuller, deeper stories.

Live in love and let the world know why.

2010-04-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

I met a woman while shopping tonight. Well, by "met" I mean she checked me out and bagged my items. And by "shopping" I mean... Ok I was at Wal-Mart.

Debra was her name, I wanted to ask if she shortened it from "Deborah" - to rid herself of the baggage that comes with unnecessary consonants. "That's very phonetic of you" I wanted to say. But I didn't.

On her vest, next to "Debra" was a much more prominent pin that spelled "JESUS" in jewels. Probably Bedazzled, if I had to guess. I wondered if management ever confronted her regarding the amount of real estate it claimed on her vest. I wondered what Debra would tell them if they had. But I suppose no one would mistakenly call her Jesus instead of Debra.

I was fourth or so in line and as I studied Debra I'd hear her salutation as she finished with each customer's process. "Blessings" she'd say to one. Or "have a blessed night" to another. As my turn approached I speculated about what she'd tell me, like a man entering a doctor's office or fortune teller's....tent.

"Maybe Debra knows." - was everything I could think. "She knows I lied at work today." or "Look at this white boy, down in the ghetto looking for deals on whey protein and power steering fluid." I'd not yet spoken a word to Debra, but I was desperate for her endorsement.

The register beeped a cold digital rhythm as she processed my goods. Some car stuff, some wine I'd bought for $7.24 just to make a statement (I'd seen the same bottle sell for $30.00 a day earlier.) the aforementioned whey protein and some various necessities. They scanned through and I broke the silence.

"How's your night going?" I asked, a hint of sheepishness cracked my lips.

"It's great." She said, all teeth and smile. "I'd never complain. Did you just come from the gym?" - I had indeed, and I was ecstatic that she had sent my conversational serve back over the net.

"It's a beautiful night" she continued. "That'll be $36.42."

I'd walked in 20 minutes earlier lamenting the fact that I was entering a Wal-Mart; even more disappointed in the fact that I even live near the low-price leader. If I'm honest, I felt superior to the situation; that my lot in life was certainly higher than congregating around pregnant teens and poor families and discount groceries.

But Debra, who pinned the name of Jesus to her breast as an announcement of identity; used every opportunity to speak Love into each pregnant teen and poor family that came through her line. I don't have to visit again to know that everybody who chooses her lane will receive the same benediction. In the best way possible (through love) it confronted me with the opportunities (or opportunities I miss) each day to speak love into someone's life. Not only love, but Love - in the name of Jesus. Straight up.

That's the goal of our lives isn't it? The great commission and all of that. To live in love, and let the world know why. There's some kind of perfection in every single minute and I want to live truly and lean into these minutes like favorite poems or tall, swaying trees.

I swiped my card and entered my PIN number. Debra handed me the receipt.

"Be blessed" she told my eyes.

And I was.

"I was chasin' something, but I wasn't sure just what"

2010-02-27T15:23:00.000-08:00

I saw this a month or two ago, it was one of those transcendent moments that don't happen as often as I'd like.

For me, this song might rate up there with Cannonball as one of the best ever written.

A Hangover from Memory Lane.

2010-02-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

I used to be in a band. A few actually. And they were good, actually.

It's strange and surreal and somewhat painful to look back into those memories. I've kind of locked them away and given the keys to 4 other guys. And only on rare occasions, inebriated by nostalgia, do we open the locked cabinets and drink from them.

By the time I'd graduated high-school we had 3 recordings out under three different band names. We'd changed members only once, for the most part, the core of us remained forged. By my first year of college, we had been in talks with a few record labels, and I had all but dropped out of my second semester - missing so many classes to record our first (what would be our only) full-length record. That summer, we set out on tour.

MTV feeds our fantasies with visions of two-story busses that pick band members up from their Gatsby-esque mansions, our reality picked us up from our parents' houses in a 1986 conversion van clocking around 218,000 miles on the odometer. One troubled tour began with us breaking down 1/2 mile from setting off from my house. Literally, five minutes after hugging my parents and loosely promising to send postcards, I was calling them to come to the rescue of our sorry situation. I'd never once doubted that we'd be fine. And so, we were.

I have a lot of memories of these summers, the best probably coming from the first stop on our first tour ever. We'd been booked in Yuma, Arizona. Aside from one (still) deeply depressing turnaround trip to Fresno, the band had never been on any adventure with more than one destination. We'd reached Yuma in a few hours. The van was smoking a little from inappropriate (see: not engine) places, and seemed to handle her maiden voyage with the effort of a moderately healthy octogenarian. The city is dusty, or at least I remember it being dusty. Plenty of wind and Mexicans; we were absolutely alive. As we stopped and began to unload the only guitars we had, and the equipment we'd be sharing with another band for the next two months, a kid about my age approached me.

He was wearing one of our shirts.

The thing is, we didn't have shirts. We had arranged some last-minute screen printing and were due to pick them up in a city or two down the schedule. He had made his own Falling Cycle shirt. In Arizona. Hundreds of miles from the suburban bedroom where I'd sit for hours in my underwear creating parts to his "favorite songs." To this day, the reality of this does not make any sense to me.

He thanked us for coming to Arizona, and I thanked him too, for coming. We played that night to probably 30 people; it is still one of the proudest moments of my life.

This is a (horrible) video from our last show ever, almost exactly 6 years ago. Another one of the proudest moments of my life.

EDIT: Someone at about 3:22 yells "What the hell is going on?" - a great question my anonymous friend. After 6 years, I still don't know, either.

2010-01-24T22:08:00.000-08:00

I have to do something. I do not want to do it. I need strength and grace. Maybe peace will come.

Enter: Beauty

2010-01-14T23:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a hard few months.

It’s not that I’m bad with the truth, it just comes slower for me. The abrasion of transparency is too easily avoidable, and while I’m sure it’s been apparent to my closest friends, I haven’t been on the up-and-up as of late.

Personally, and probably too honestly, the last few months have been dark for me. For a few weeks, I was sure that God had grown dim in my heart. For a few days, I knew I had wandered too far outside of his grace. And for a few terrifying hours, I wondered if there was a God at all. "Maybe" I thought, "my western paradigm needs a convenient creation tale to sate the ugly questions and my fragile consciousness needs a story to believe that explains why, for some reason, we all feel orphaned in some way." Truly, it felt dark and wholly unnatural, like breathing underwater. If I'm honest, my lungs are still sore.

The doubt came in the desert. A dry and dusty few months with as little spiritual life as the terrain suggests. I’d been working constantly and was overwhelmed with obligations. I wasn’t sure what hours He kept, but my schedule never seemed to sync with God’s. Our shoulders would brush, and surely he was ready to talk, but honestly, I didn’t have the time.

Enter: Beauty.

Oh, Beauty. A notion as sincere as the sun and probably just as old. I have been confronted lately with the almost tangible and ubiquitous truth in beauty. I would argue that everyone, at some moment (hopefully many moments) has experienced some level of unmistakable beauty. No matter how often we overlook or avoid it, It is, for must of us, a regularity. But why is anything beautiful? A rocky coast and angry waves have very little evolutionary value, but I’d dare anyone to dismiss them as unremarkable. What good is it to be reminded of our fragility, and why does it stir into us something like wonder, rather than paralyzing fear (and, truly a wonderful mixture of each?) Beauty adjusts our compasses; it drives us northward.

It is laughter and pain (in equal, liberal doses) that forges bonds into brotherhood. It is joy that unites lovers and it is love that confirms them. The heart of God seems so full with desire that to ignore ours is probably the only way to walk in the opposite direction of Him. I'm learning that it's good to feel small, to measure ourselves against the bigness of a God so good He uses beauty, not codes or commandments, to fill our sails, to drive us northward, towards Himself.

It's so easy to live in an existence that feels determined by me, but living this way, is it any wonder I feel helpless, anxious, lifeless? Like a ship sinking from stilled seas, I need wind and I need waves and I need to plunge into the blue every so often, if only to see it’s terrible and beautiful depth.

And to remind ourselves, that the pool of grace is deeper than we can dive.

On Coasting and Climbing.

2010-01-09T16:38:00.001-08:00

A few years ago, I launched a mission to engage myself in the most uncomfortable situations possible. I actively sought the awkward. You had a place I didn't want to be? I'd go with you. You've got a person I didn't want to meet? I'd get their number (This didn't turn out well.) Reluctance became routine. The results were as expected, a full year of goosebumps, pocket-hands and ~~witty~~ banter. But, more importantly I've been blessed with a few new friendships and mentors I now wouldn't trade for anything. I also became an expert at moving furniture. It's very much like tetris.

I'm taking a similar approach this season, this time focusing on finishing things. It doesn't have to be indulging in a passion or driving the final nail into some life-changing project, but I think the challenge itself will change my life. And, it will be difficult.

I've always been excellent at starting things. From reports to relationships, the best part is the beginning. The part where you're swept into inspiration and the conversation flows naturally, and you think "this is how it should be." But I'm realizing that the beginning stages of anything are supposed to feel like beginning stages, and the hard, determined middle-stages have a feeling all their own. And the final stages are even better (so I hear.) My downfall is expecting the latter stages to feel as euphoric as the beginning. But coasting downhill can only take you into valleys. I'm learning that maybe there's a beauty in climbing out of them.

If I'm honest, I'm afraid of finishing. I'm afraid that I'll have to own the results, stand next to them; speak on their behalf. What if they aren't good enough? What if no one cares? But I'm tired of that and I'm tired of justifying my failure to finish.

I guess I'm learning that there is no climax without conflict. Here's to finishing things, starting with this blog.

On Writing

2010-01-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Okay. I’ll do it.

I've given myself permission to write. And it's terrifying.

And here’s my promise. I'll only write from the deep part; the true part.

I remember that old myth before it was ruined by medical shows or friends in nursing school; the old yarn that told us our blood was actually blue while in our body, and only turns red when exposed to oxygen. Writing for me is proving that myth false or else watching my blue blood become red. My skin is cold and dry so I'll have to dig into the deep veins. I'm learning life is not best lived from the deep parts.

It's only lived from the deep parts. We are orphans anywhere else.

I've had some kind of affair with writing for a few years now. Some days, I'm gifted. Some days, I wonder if maybe English was my second language. Most days, though, writing feels like owing money to God. He’s a big benevolent bill collector and upon non-payment His whispers become wails, and his chasing becomes chastising. Honestly, it feels terrible to ignore God. But it's beautiful, because it's nothing like guilt.

It feels something like being shipped off to a foreign country where the language sounds familiar, but it’s not. You get by for awhile with lots of nodding and pointing, but ultimately you’re left hungry and can’t find the bathroom. Writing has felt much this way for me. It's been both catharsis and chaos. But it’s good, and it’s important and I have to believe in it.

I guess this is how I know that God is good; that we are pursued by our desires, we are hunted by passions. To me, this begs the existence of some kind of adventurous, persistent, desiring and beautiful creator who travels unreasonable distances to display something profound, leaving us surrendered and exhausted, arrested and whole.

So this year, I will write. It feels a little like dancing and fighting at the same time, but I really hope you will read it. And while I hope it's more dancing than fighting, I have to go where the blood is.

Stream of consciousness and a conversation with oneself.

2009-11-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we sit there, our hands held, yours warm and smooth and mine, rough from wringing. A little clammy in late in the evening.
The only real lines I've drawn have been crooked and almost always circle back to me. Nothing real or permanent and no canvas to paint. I cannot paint if I do not leave, but still, I have several books to write and no more than several sentences. A world that celebrates potential is a world that stops and starts with the impetus of genius. That sentence is meaningless.

These geneses of genius.

And perhaps we too were fiction, don't go back and add commas. She lived a story written beautifully, perfect grammar and structure. There was no plot or capture, no story or support. She was endlessly edited, and I, all painted self and broad strokes, I'm overdrawn and indebted.

Oh God, with what great oneness you've designed us, that we would compass this globe in all of our errant ways and still, to find bits of you swimming like small magnets in all of our blood. And when, upon encounter with another, we feel drawn - some mad electric swell that tells us that we're made of the same stuff. No more digressions, and close your mouth when writing.

Now, look away from the screen.

Don't tell them anything, says the bad man. But my hands are clams, clodding away at some kind of computer and compulsion towards half-hearted alliteration. Sometimes, I just try to conjugate words and leave it to Mr. Macintosh to tell me what's what. That's how I discovered "didacticism." What a stupid word for a first year college kid. But it worked, didn't it? Getting A's was never hard for me, it's all about focus, but I had none. So, I would memorize big great words and ask important ancillary questions so the teacher would think I was really on to something.

And, indeed I was. I was wondering why the steel on the side of the chair felt so cold in such a warm classroom. And I was hot on the wild trail of speculation. See, the woman next to me was married and I heard her make mention of a few kids at home. But she leaned in real close to the guy next to her when they spoke. Now, there was nothing illicit, I understand that, but maybe things weren't great at home. Or maybe, she misses the attention of men, or maybe they were just in the long boring afternoon of their marriage.

So, to compensate, for thinking about everything in the classroom (everything but the lesson.) I memorized good words. Great words that I'm now embarrassed to know, and all of them I won't mention here. I've always cared more for the question than the answer. Sometimes writing is too honest, too base and too cold. I wish self-actualization had more tact.

That's how I maintained a decent GPA despite learning almost nothing.

Who is Jesus?

2009-10-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

Napoleon asks "Who is Jesus?"

Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him.... I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than man.... I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me.... but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts.... Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is accountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man's creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

Straight from Wild at Heart Notes

2009-10-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

"I want grey hair and a well-worn ring on my left hand. I want a brood of boys living lives unbroken - lives whole and complete and initiated. I want a wife of character and beauty - a deep well of discernment. And I want to rescue her everyday for the rest of my life."

Wild at Heart - 2009

2009-10-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

Why is it so easy to ignore my heart? Life functions normally, mechanically - safely, but in it I find no life at all. I construct a safe workweek filled with obligations and the occasional celebration but each day I ignore my heart.

Truthfully, I don't need wisdom, I need the will to move boldly in the direction of faith.

I'm still processing as my thoughts and experiences are bucking their way into my long-term as I try to corral them. It's tough this time, the fog is thicker.

If the theme to last year's trip was "Name" - knowing my name, understanding my name, believing that God even has one for me beyond the one I've created on my own - this one was "Family." It seemed that each quiet time, God was dragging the lake of my family convictions. Fragments of my own family experiences made their way into almost every quiet time. I saw experiences I had completely forgotten about (repressed?) both good and bad and I'm starting to allow myself to believe that growing up straddling two lives in two different states isn't normal.

What I'm beginning to process is something on the edge of profound. I hope to unpack (maybe publicly) what that means for me and I'm hoping God feels the same way. Who knows, maybe I'll post something straight from my notes. But that might be too personal.

Ruined

2009-09-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

— W. H. Auden

True on so many levels.

Finding Truth in Alien Movies

2009-08-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

For reasons I'm still digesting, 'District 9' might be the most important movie of the year.

I'm an amateur critic at best, but I know what makes a movie. 'District 9' combines all of the right elements to fashion something wholly true out of something wholly alien. Although the movie draws from a deep well of traditional action-movie standards (see: cursing, vaporizing aliens/humans, screaming) it reads like a moving war documentary, one you know is simultaneously indecent and incredibly true.

The actors won't win awards, but not because they weren't great. They were. Mostly because, (with the exception of the chinstrap-sporting badguy) throughout the movie, you really forgot they were actors. There were no dramatic monologues or one-liners agonized over by geniuses in the writing room. They were human (and alien) extensions of our reality. I think this is the central theme to the film.

The movie is terrifying, but not because of the aliens. I'm used to the alien antagonist, the inexplicably blood-drunk extra-terrestrial hellbent on human eradication. Those kinds of evils are safe, distanced. This movie was not. The evils in 'District 9' were found not unlikely futuristic circumstances, but in the truth of ruthlessness, which is far more transcendent.

This was a "drive home in silence" kind of movie. If you saw the movie with a few people, you might note the deflated sighs and general "it's hard to talk with a 50 pound weight on your chest" vibe 'round the auto.

I didn't dare reach for distraction.

I realize this is a vague and spotty review at best. But like I said, I'm still processing the movie; still digesting. It's like I prayed for 2 hours while eating the largest meal of my life. The 50 pound weight is getting a little lighter, but much of it is still there. And for some reason, I'm not ready for it to go away.

High Coup

2009-08-05T23:06:00.000-07:00

Pathetic poems
Tough to do well, works in pinch
Learned in seventh grade

Tonight's War

2009-08-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

Each of these
Small, sweaty soldiers,
bruised and battle-worn
All anxious and subject to deletion.

At the mercy of their boy-general
Drunk on his own idealism.
He pushes them into battle,
Untrained and unarmed.

But If they could peel themselves from the page
They would
gather their own twelve-point uprising 99 soldiers strong
All these letters, with hyphens drawn
And small period grenades.

Would launch themselves upon me
For my misdirection and brazen indiscretion
A mutiny upon me, their battle cry echoes quiet and clear
"What did you think this would take?
Ambition alone does not a poet make!"

The Artificial Heart

2009-08-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

Busy beats the artificial heart
Calculated and perfect
Efficient and profitable

Thank god we've replaced
the One he was born with.
What with all of its inconsistencies

Soaring and racing and sinking
Like mad water birds
The kind you watch for hours.

Busy beats the artificial heart
No longer flesh
Now, strong, even and cool.

The Old Man

2009-08-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

There is an old man singing
Singing to no one and also everyone.
He's as blind as lady justice
And probably just as old.

He might have been strong once,
Before the music
And his incessant talking

But now, he sits stooped over bourbon
Singing and singing and singing
To no one and to everyone and to me

He might have been strong once
But probably never this happy.

Dancing Toward Bethlehem

2009-07-26T22:58:00.000-07:00

"Dancing Towards Bethlehem"

If there is only enough time in the final
minutes of the 20th century for one last dance
I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,
say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.
My palm would press into the small of your back

as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile
of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,
just as the floor of the 19th century gave way
and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.

There will be no time to order another drink
or worry about what was never said,
not with the orchestra sliding into the sea
and all our attention devoted to humming
whatever it was they were playing. "
—Billy Collins

A lover neglected.

2009-07-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

I have twelve followers. Twelve people who have chosen to be notified of whenever I update.

To you, I apologize for my tenuous relationship with writing. Truthfully, it's a lover neglected in lieu of employment, it's the friend who's let too much time creep in between visits. It's the tough phone call I've been meaning to make.

I need prayer, I do. Blogging (and the internet in general) has a propensity of increasing the melodrama, but truthfully, I need prayer. It's so easy to lose our heart in the day-to-day. I don't think it's ever a sudden loss of heart, but the sudden realization of it's loss. Like, one day we wake up to find a mirror full of wrinkles and and resume full of excellent references.

But, the heart is the matter isn't it? It must be found and fought for and protected. I truly believe that it's there where hope is and it follows that it's there where the greatest assault must be. Consequently, it's there, in that assault where I find myself.
I need prayer.

On Teaching.

2009-06-10T09:17:00.001-07:00

Today marks my last day with students in the classroom. I've resisted the impending last-day nostalgia so far, though I suspect in a month or two it will creep in and I'll spend four days in continuous cringing at memories of lame jokes and accidental culturally insensitive remarks. But, there will be far more to be proud of.

Starting a new job on Monday feels like I'm getting divorced on Friday and remarried to an entirely new woman next week. I'll have the weekend to process and grieve. Really though, she's not new. She's who I've known and thought about for the past few years, it's a comfortable fit, though I'm still a little nervous; I wonder if our hands will still fit together the same way.

Teaching, for me, has transcended traditional connotation of "employment." It's been a vacation from the social expectations of "job." I can say without hesitation that there hasn't been a day I've dreaded coming in.

To be sure, I probably haven't been a real teacher, something more of an observer getting paid and treated like a real teacher. I'm much more interested in conversation and inspiration than curriculum and grading. Probably not the stuff of real teachers.

I think I've cheated the system. I know honestly that I've learned more than I've taught. When I think about it, most of the past two years flashes before me like a movie-montage set to bad (Read: Awesome) 80's music. I'm going to work on capturing as many memories as possible before they're stolen by time and coming priorities.

Some of the most profound realizations:

They're smarter than me. Any teacher would be amiss to think that students are the only ones learning. I learn from 150+ people a day. Each student has a story. Some good, some bad but these stories are, for the most part, true. To not learn from that would be an exponential waste of time.

They Remember. I remember halfway through last year, a student repeated a phrase I used on the first day of school. That moment changed me. He never knew the impact, after all, he was just being a good student, but it was defining for me. God used that moment in ways neither I nor that student can fully understand. Our words matter.

Teaching is hard. Teaching is freaking hard. Teaching is seriously hard. But it's big and it's good and it's worth it. I honestly feel that after this, I'll be fine anywhere.

These memories are mine. They're my story now. I've been in excellent company for the past two years, and it's tough to put words to exactly how undeserving I am, so I'll be quiet and thankful.

Durham Range of Emotion

2009-05-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

If this were my group therapy session, what insights would you offer?

One is Not Bold in an Encounter with God.

2009-04-24T11:55:00.001-07:00

One of the most beautiful quotes I've ever read. I ~~teared up~~ cried the first time I found this in 'The Ragamuffin Gospel' by Brennan Manning. Coincidentally, one of the best books I've ever read.

The quote is from Richard Selzer, a doctor who wrote a memoir called 'Mortal Lessons.' Manning uses the quote to metaphor our own palsy in relation to our God, and how he twists his lips to kiss ours.

Wow.

"I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face, postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove he tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands of the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? the young woman speaks

"Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks.

"Yes," I say, "It will. It is because the nerve was cut."

She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles.

"I like it," He says, "it is kind of cute."

All at once i know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with God. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."

Knowledge is useless.

2009-04-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

"The gap between ignorance and knowledge is much less than the gap between knowledge and action"

In my limited experience, this truth has been consecrated through thousands of repeated examples (very rarely my own, of course.) As I adjust to living on the wrong side of my 20's, I'm beginning to understand that knowledge is basically useless. Theories are little more than conversation fodder or mental exercise.

Though it has long decorated the halls of academia, upheld as the highest virtue, fought for and stolen like the breath of a beautiful woman- it's essentially useless.

-When it's naked.

In order for knowledge to bring about the promised fruits of the labors of cultivating and tending to it, it must be married to action. Knowledge cannot be alone. The very nature of action brings experience, and when action is one with knowledge, the resulting experience is always perfect (Note: The outcome or result of said experience is not always pleasurable, but it is always perfect; always usable.) My knowing how to perform CPR means very little to the choking man at the restaurant. My knowing how to subtract only takes on meaning when it is time for me to perform subtraction.

Rock climbing is composed of tons of intellectual and physical partnerships. The beta and the meta. The two are inseparable, (Think: peanut butter and jelly, Lawry's and grilled cheese) you cannot have one without the other. In order to physically assert strength against a rock (meta) you must first know what happens when you clasp your fingers around a hold (beta.) While the two are not exactly mutually exclusive, if you want the experience of reaching the top, a perfect marriage must be made. Standing at the base of a rock trying to know your way up will get you nowhere. Having the strength of Samson without the cognitive understanding of gravity (and your relationship to it) will yield similar results.

Knowledge is lazy. Knowledge wants to hang out on the couch, action wants to move. Knowledge wants to talk, action wants to work. Knowledge wants to read, action wants to write.

I don't mean to say that knowledge or wisdom are not worth pursuing. I'm just wondering - What would happen if we got it drunk, took it to Vegas and married it to action? What would the kids look like?

--- With that, here's a screenshot of a little chart-based motivation I've constructed for myself. The idea was ~~borrowed~~ stolen from Demetri Martin. I'm posting not for accolades (My total for the week was 12, yes twelve) but for accountability. I figure if I post this, you will all know what I suck at. This is this week's way of moving from knowledge to action.

Eldredge and Perspective.

2009-04-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

Great Eldredge quote.

Have you ever had to literally turn a lover over to a mortal enemy to allow her to find out for herself what his intentions toward her really were? Have you ever had to lie in bed knowing she was believing his lies and was having sex with him every night? Have you ever sat helplessly by in a parking lot, while your enemy and his friends took turns raping your lover even as you sat nearby, unable to win her heart enough so she would trust you to rescue her? Have you ever called this one you had loved for so long, even the day after her rape, and asked her if she was ready to come back to you only to have her say her heart was still captured by your enemy? Have you ever watched your lover’s beauty slowly diminish and fade in a haze of alcohol, drugs, occult practices, and infant sacrifice until she is no longer recognizable in body or soul? Have you ever loved one so much that you even send your only son to talk with her about your love for her, knowing that he will be killed by her? (And in spite of knowing all of this, he was willing to do it because he loved her, too, and believed you were meant for each other.)

All this and more God has endured because of his refusal to stop loving us. Indeed, the very depth and faithfulness of his love for us, along with his desire for our freely given love in return, are what give Satan the ammunition to wound God so deeply as he carries out his unceasing campaign to make us into God’s enemy.

The Sacred Romance , 106

So often I minimize my own role in Jesus' life/death. Even as I type this (and it's hard to) I sit justifying myself. Measuring myself against the actions of "far worse sinners." Here I sit, polishing my pride.

In all of my attempts to run from him, every time I've shouted hate into the sky, every time I've wanted to disbelieve, he's purchased me.

God, save me from the times in my weakness that I fall into my enemy. Save me from the times that I am strong, and weaken myself to join my enemy. May your enemies be mine. And give me the eyes to know who they are.

Ceaselessly into the Past

2009-03-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

I think about The Great Gatsby a lot. And by a lot, I mean that I could probably read and reread this book only and have a fine understanding of the entire world. Fitzgerald was one of the great ones; his insecurity and brokenness gave him the insight to write the perfectly imperfect character.

I don't know what it is about the last lines of the book, but since reading it for the first time in 12th grade, I haven't been able to shake them.

I think it captures the spirit of the book in perfect prose. For the few hundred pages before these lines, Gatsby had been crafting and destroying himself, trying to regain his past "Beating against the current." I love the wind-out-of-your-sails brand of hopelessness it evokes.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

What's the best paragraph you've ever read?

On Sunglasses

2009-03-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

I have diagnosed myself with a moderate-to-moderate case of "Photophobia." Which, according to my vast research (Wikipedia) and medical experience (WebMD) means that I'm either part vampire, or I have slight damage to my Oculomotor nerves.

Basically, when it's bright, my eyes hurt. Probably sounds like common sense to most (doesn't everyone's?) But for me, when it's even semi-bright my eyes try to commit ocular-suicide via hari-kari.

Fortunately, God has invented a solution: "Sunglasses."

The problem with sunglasses is that no matter who you are, no matter the style, brand or quality of sunglass, anyone who wears them looks like a jerk. Millions of sensible citizens have been unfairly prejudged in the hundreds of years since the invention of sunglasses.

Maybe it makes sense that the blooddrunk tyrant, Nero, was one of the pioneers of wearing them. After all, burning Christians is difficult in the bright Italian sun. Also, turns out Hitler was a big fan.

Bottom line, please accept my psycho-biological excuse for looking like a jerk.

You are not your job.

2009-03-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

At what point in our youthful idealism have we outgrown the need for knowing someone? When did it become standard to evaluate a person based on their economic occupation? How did I become so lazy as to reduce someone's entire life into four easy, monosyllabic words?

"What do you do?"

Hang out with anyone 25 years old or older and I guarantee it's among the first of three (at most, three) introductory questions. Usually the newcomer's name will be offered, followed by some obvious commentary: "Crazy night, huh?" "How do you know John/the groom/my brother?" etc.

But invariably and inevitably the question comes.

"What do you do?"

For some, the question is met with pride and relief. Finally, you've been given opportunity to announce your station in life. Maybe your job connotes some prestige or respect or earning power and you're now allowed to bask in the validation afforded by your job title.

For others, the question is met with sheepish indifference, usually followed by some kind of qualifier. "I work in a warehouse, but I'm going to school to be a teacher" or "I'm a teacher, but I'm starting a small business." The question we've asked has now placed an uncalled-for burden of anxiety on the person, all in the name of "getting to know someone."

Since when has a person's job title been enough to know them? When has the way someone converts time to money ever been a sufficient peek into their lives?

The truth is, I cannot know someone by knowing their economic occupation. You cannot know their heart or their passions by knowing where or how they spend 8 hours of their day.

There are times when someone is genuinely interested in knowing your job. But, I would submit that most often the interviewer is simply too casual, too lazy to ask the hard questions.

It is always wrong to assume that someone's reply to the question will tell me who they are. At this point, all we're doing is sharpening our stereotyping skills (I call it discernment) by measuring them against our imagination. A losing game, for sure.

"I'm a lawyer"
"I'm a teacher"
"I work in a warehouse"
"I work in a restaurant"

It's the ultimate question in failure, there is never a right answer. Essentially, we're asking a new person to play some sort of mind-reading trivia game against all of our past experiences. Any answer the person gives is immediately measured against your unique and distinct emotional history with that occupation. We've got it so wrong. I have it so wrong.

And every assumption is never fully accurate and always fully unfair.

These four words have irretrievably and indiscriminately reduced someone to the answer of your careless line of questioning.

How disappointing it would be to realize that what you do for 8-10 hours a day has become your identity, your single identifying trait worn proudly/humbly/begrudgingly as a badge of introduction.

I think the offense goes beyond the laziness of the person asking the question. For so long we've supported the idea that our validation comes from our occupation. Our business has become our business card, our mutual link to the understanding of another. I've traded passion for pretense.

What if we chose never to ask the question? What if we decided that the value and estimation of a person is found in his passion or in her heart. There's too many proving this wrong. I know guys in "noble" occupations who aren't noble people, and I know just as many who carry mundane tasks with the heart of an adventurer. You are not your job.

I know teachers who "do it for the money," and lawyers who wish they were teachers.

What if we responded to the inevitable question by answering in passion?

What do you do?

You are not your job.

Longing for the Sea

2009-03-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

I want to go to Nepal
I want to fly to London, alone, for a three-day weekend.
I want to climb any one of the world's major peaks.
I want to be a lawyer.
I want to be a doctor.
I want to be a teacher.
I want what God wants.
I want to hike the long way up Machu Picchu.
I want to write something that inspires someone.
I want to act in a small, sparsely attended community theater.
I want to shepherd a few sheep.
I want to bale hay.
I want to breathe deeply and sleep.
I want to sail a boat.
I want to write a book.
I want to stand tired and worn before a merciful God.
I want to feel the cool spray of redemption.
I want to drive my kids to school.
I want to listen.
I am no longer a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

God does not love the bottom of the ocean.

2009-03-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

I don't like scary things. I most definitely don't like Oceany-scary things.

I'm well aware of the beautiful correlation between both the earth and our bodies being composed of 2/3rds water. I'm pretty sure it's one of God's profound metaphors for deep, worldwide connection.
I love that all of us are connected to the earth and each other, bound and branded by beautiful and purposeful design.

But.

God does not love this creature.

Maybe He does, but I hate everything about this shark. I hope he's swimming on the opposite side of heaven and we happen to "just miss each other" for all of eternity.

I hate the Goblin Shark.

Also, almost every other water-breathing, bottom feeder.

Freshwater Streams

2009-02-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

Where do we draw the line between sanctity and sacrifice? Between commitment and compromise? How much compromise is healthy? How far do I run with idealism before it starts weighing me down? On what wings will I fly? Whose promises will I believe?

Sometimes it seems I'm working for Greenpeace while dumping oil in secret freshwater streams.

Lately, it seems marriage is for everyone else. That it's something true and good for them but not for me. Not because I wasn't designed for it, but because of my oil-dumping, you see.

A good friend told me that "a woman's heart must be so taken by God that I have to go to Him to get it."

What a beautiful metaphor. ~~for everyone else.~~

America and the American.

2009-02-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

America is changing. Collectively, independently, completely. With it, the American is changing.

For me, the most heartbreaking change has not been the economy itself, but what we're finding in the wake of such a massive splash.

The American landscape has suffered a Pangea-sized economic earthquake and will be changed forever. The outlook, whether eventually positive or negative, is inarguably and radically alien.

The American ideal, once fortressed by pages of historical success stories is being crashed against; wave, after wave of desperation. Now, the country built on hyper-idealism is having it's head dunked in it's own ice-cold water.

But still, I think the most heartbreaking blow has been to the average American spirit. Each of us, for all of our lives have been told that we can be "anything we want." Selfish-ambition praised as virtue. Self-sacrifice praised as necessary. Owning your own company has long been termed the "American ideal." We're a nation built on small-business owners. And most of it, whether deserved or not, has evaporated.

Maybe our egos have too-long been as inflated as our credit limits. Our security has been in home equity and our anxiety tempered by the ease of withdrawing from it.

Everyday I wake up to a different news piece chronicling a different national collapse and the subsequent lament of the average American tax payer. Honestly, it's scary; I think for the first time we're all tasting the bitter taste of our own blood.

I think the one cloudbreak throughout this storm is that, for better or worse, we're seeing the widespread and very public failure of so much greed. We're all lined up watching the American balloon lose air.

We wanted to be the guy in the Mercedes until we realized he's been falsifying our investments and draining our retirements.

We wanted to be the guy neglecting family and friends to grow his construction business.

We wanted to be the guy in the movies, until we realized he wanted to be us.

I'm predicting (and praying for) a return to values. Where we save money competitively. Where our lives are defined by friendship rather than ownership. Where our popularity comes from our simplicity. Where meals out with two people become meals in with 10 people. Where passion replaces ambition, and its intensity raised exponentially.

The shallows are drying, leaving us exposed. We have to dive in, and we have to dive deep because the next wave is coming.

More to come. Thoughts?

Our Real Selves

2009-01-21T22:34:00.000-08:00

"Well, it's rather like that with Christ. When you've completely given up yourself to His personality you will then, for the first time in your life, be developing into a real person. he made the whole world. He invented it as an author invents characters in a book, all different men that you and I were intended to be.

Our real selves are, so to speak, all waiting for us in Him. What I call my "real self" now is hardly a peson at all. It's mainly a meeting place for various natural forces, desires and fears, etcetera, some of which come from my ancestors, and some from my education, some perhaps from devils. The self you were really intended to be is something that lives not from nature but from God."
-- C.S. Lewis

A Coffeeshop Conversation

2009-01-04T17:43:00.000-08:00

I thought they were having an affair, but it's much worse than that.

Affairs always end one way, but this is much worse.

She's beautiful, her hair, while once en vogue, is styled, but no longer stylish. An oval face with nearly perfect skin, probably late-thirties, early-forties.
I've never seen such an intense look; she hasn't broken his gaze once. He's handsome but not too much so, someone out of an older soap opera; dated clothes and matching hair.

"After this, you're going to be a better mother." He says.

She plays with her hair, and apparently thinks Radiohead "sounds a lot like Neal Young."

"The place is real nice, the judge is real nice." She says.

They've each removed their reading glasses and placed them on the table on top of loose papers. He has a accordion file-folder, she has water purchased elsewhere and a tall coffee.

"I would never mess up a 'seven and seven'" she says. "There's a very real way to make those, and I'm the best."

She gazes, he returns. His face doesn't match his voice, sounds like he's missing teeth, but I looked at him, he wasn't missing teeth. She plays with hair, studies her water bottle, spins her reading glasses and returns his gaze. God, I wish they were just having an affair.

"Step three is giving it to a higher power. God, Jesus, Buddha, Dionysus, you can make one up if you want to, but you've got to give it to a higher power."

He starts telling a story; animated and convincing. She smiles a weak smile and buries her head.

He stops the story.

"Do you think I'll get my daughter back?" She asks, her voice surprisingly composed.

"I don't know. You have to stop drinking" The man says.

"I really hope so."

"I hope so too."

I wish it were just an affair.

Listen

2008-12-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

These two bands have been changing me lately. Please listen to anything by either of them.

Recommendations:

Sigur Ros - "Glósóli"

Explosions In The Sky - "Your Hand in Mine"

These aren't some best-kept-secret kind of thing and I'm not touting any band credentials. Both of these are kind of ubiquitous, and I'm certainly not gaining any kind of indie-credibility by mentioning them. They are just that good.

I need to write more. I'm suffocating.

On Marriage.

2008-12-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

This is still no substitute for a real essay, though one is in the works, I promise.

Has anyone else noticed (maybe/hopefully it's just me) that Marriage is under attack lately? Have you heard more stories recently of stumbling marriages, failing marriages?

Last week I had a parent/teacher conference with the father of one of my students. He was doting and proud, but concerned. He gave his family's allegiance to their daughter and her education.

This week, the student is pulled from school because he and her mother are divorcing.

The neighbors I used to wakeboard with are walking through the details of an exposed affair.

A friend of a friend found out that the guy she'd just rekindled a 5 year relationship with is actually now married.

If I'm honest, it's really hard for me to hear. It's hard for me to hear because it's something I want so badly, but I'm afraid of being that father of my student, the neighbor, the friend of a friend.

Maybe Marriage is so warred against because it's a direct invasion into enemy territory. It's the human manifestation of God's perfect metaphor. He in us and we in Him. It's marriage right?

I've been wooed and courted, loved and married. And I cheat and lie and demand divorce.

More to come. I truly do hope you haven't felt the same way recently.

Blogging from the Teacher Convention

2008-11-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

I've been lacking in inspiration lately, I feel dry;dusty even.

But we have to fight for inspiration because it doesn't always fight for us.

I think so often we leave joy to chance, hoping it finds us. But while we're out experimenting, it's a bound captive waiting (needing) our ransoming.

So we fight for joy and we fight for passion because we have to.

How do we change the world? How do we come alive?

Update

2008-11-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

Conjuring up a new essay, but wanted to post this picture (I stole it from another blog.)

I just think it's perfect.

The Politics of Distraction

2008-11-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

I’m going to make a bold statement.

I believe there is an enemy among us who loves this election; who loves our backbiting and our bitterness and our division. He loves this election because it’s got us distracted. Whether we’re screaming at the opposing protesters across the street, or quietly speculating about the salvation of prominent Christian authors, there is an enemy between us and he’s smiling.

We’re fighting so hard to deify this election (albeit not as bad as 2000 or 2004) and we’re using our Christian spirituality to fund and further our political agenda. With swords drawn and theology ready, we’re calling for the might of God to push forward our personal, political agenda.

I think this excites an enemy who hates us; we can see his work in taking us down, firing bullets of disillusionment, resentment and resignation by way of self-superiority.

It’s not just the religious-right either. Each side of the coin finds itself abused by religion-isms.

We make for ourselves our own partisan Jesus, wearing a red or blue robe, bleeding glory and promise for the Religious-Right or the Liberal-Left. But I think when we assign Jesus to our own political party we steal him from God, we strip him of the same power we’re seeking.

And our enemy is excited because the tinder is finally sparking.

When a Christian institution tells me, in no uncertain terms, that we need to pray for the passing of a certain proposition, what they’re asking me to do is join them in calling God to rescue our agenda, to sponsor our Manifest Destiny paradigm through legislative might. How far is Caesar going to take us this time? How far is too far?

We’re fighting boldly, but we’re fighting the wrong war. We’re taking the wrong tools into the battle, and the collateral damage isn’t worth it. I think that while we’re fighting from within the political realm, we’re failing to use our greatest means of social change.

Love.

It’s all about Love isn’t it? But isn’t Love the enemy of power?

I will no longer pour my passions into the red-herring of political arguments and infighting (thus satisfying our enemy’s agenda of trusting in our own might) because I believe that real change is only possible if we walk down the capitol’s steps into the capitol’s streets. If we truly believe that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness…” (Eph. 6:12) then we must question WHY we are spending so much energy in that arena.

Jesus’ work was done socially; he lived and worked in community, he opposed the methods of religious rulers. His healing was never for political gain, most of the time it broke the law.

We’re so vehement about Proposition 8 because the gay community hasn’t seen Jesus in us. We’re condemning those who have abortions because we haven’t loved them enough.

I believe we’re intent on pushing our political agenda because fighting is so much easier than loving.

And we have an enemy who would love for us to keep fighting.

This is It.

2008-11-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

She'll sing me to sleep tonight. I know she will.

She has for years.

Dreams crash against me like waves frustrated by steadfast rocks, stubborn in their pride.

And like them, I do not move.

Our pulses screaming through our chests tell us, "this is it"

This is it. But we lay heavy and we do not move.

Making time for time.

2008-10-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

I did it again.

I looked at my watch (phone) and it read 3:50.

I've developed such a fatalistic mindset, I know I have to be somewhere at 6:00 so now, when I look at the clock I perform lightning-speed subtraction to know that I have only a little over 2 hours beforehand. An hour and a half really; what with traffic and all.

Why am I always squinting and straining to see over the horizon? Why do I doom most coming events and let slip the hours and minutes in between?

If you've ever been slacklining or tightrope walking (yes, I do this) you know that the only way to keep real balance is to focus on a distant, but not-too-distant figure, something still, something planted. Perhaps a tree or a person tied to a tree. You focus on the object to give you a still point of reference, this keeps your head straight, which, in turn keeps your body and legs straight.

You stay on the line, but you miss everything below you. As soon as you look down at the swaying rope you lose it, you lose all foundation and get thrown.

I think I'm doing this with life, and I think I hate it. Something inside me says "Don't finish that project."
"Don't commit to anything."
"Don't pour yourself into something because likely, it will fail and look how good you have it here, here you're still walking, still moving somewhat."

Lies. Each of them.

The rope in all its turbulence needs looking after. Situations need remedying. Life needs living.

Life is waiting for us to have time for it.

What are we missing by focusing on the next job, the next friend, the next show or the next degree? What aren't we tending to while we're busy speculating?

So now, I look down at my watch (rope.) I have two hours before I have to be somewhere.

Two whole hours.

God is not Pro-Life

2008-10-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Saw a bumper sticker today that read: "God is Pro-life."

At first, it struck me as an obvious statement. Yes, of course God is "pro-life." Fire is hot, water is wet, God is pro-life. So why would anyone need a bumper sticker declaring that God doesn't want babies to die? Why was it red white and blue? And while we're at it, why am I growing so uncomfortable?

It hit me and it hurt. The sedan in front of me probably meant well, but the truth is that God is not pro-life.

If we strip away the assumptive reasoning we find a very divisive political agenda being placed like a filter on top of God. The terms pro-life and pro-choice are highly-caffeinated and politicized terms used to define someone's position on abortion. They are snappy political clothes used to summarize, in one hyphenated phrase, a person's political affiliation. But God doesn't have a political position on anything. Our invention of modern politics (or any politics for that matter) are mere tools for definition, used to explain or to embolden a group's collective opinion. A mode of translation used to classify our feelings about creation.

They serve wholly to divide. Politics are about the business of power.

God is not pro-life. God IS life. Our terms are too small.

Frankly what the bumper sticker is telling us is that God would not only VOTE pro life, but, vote for a candidate who is pro-life. Now, here's the long stretch the bumper sticker wants you to make: CANDIDATE VOTING PRO-LIFE = GOD.

That's really what that bumper sticker is saying, and truly, what that bumper sticker is saying, I want nothing to do with.

God is not pro life because he is not ever small enough to fit into yours or my political frame. I simply don't believe God can be bothered with it.

I would argue that one of the greatest and most dangerous heresies in Church is that we are a Christian nation. We think a strong and brazen gladiator-Jesus enters into our political Colosseum fighting the lions of liberalism and ransoming lost and wayward ex-patriots. The truth is, we are not a Christian nation. Too often we objectify the scriptures to enforce our position: we enslave them, we molest them. We are a people using scripture as a sword and God as a shield when it suits our purposes but we have forgotten that God is the whole of the battle.

Jesus asked us to "give to Caesar what is Caesar's" and indeed, we must. But what we're doing is giving God to Caesar.

His Three Words

2008-10-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

I’ve been meaning to chase down and capture the best words for my weekend in Colorado, but it’s been difficult. I’ve been practicing lines and words all week hoping to paint the perfect picture.

The best I can do will probably be a series of narratives or thoughts that come to me as I pore over my experiences as I try to continue to feel the weight of that weekend.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was angry. If I’m honest, I was angry with God.

There were 400 men here, telling what seemed to be intimate experiences with God, but to me they were nothing more than folklore or family legend.

Where was my story? Where was my definitive moment when God became bigger than theories or theology or a fanciful message? I know God exists but for as long as I can remember, I’ve known and loved a silent God. I read stories about him, about his son, about his love. And it’s perfect. I know it’s perfect.

There were 400 men here and when it was silent you could hear each one of them weeping. Each of them revisiting stories of hurt; stories of beauty and inspiration. Each of them streaming tears of breakthrough and recovery and renewal.

Powerful isn’t the right word. It was just power.

It was beautiful and it was God and I was still angry.

At the end of one of Eldredge’s lectures, he asked us, like he had done a few times before, to leave the building in a “covenant of silence.” Our posture of solemnity and introspection and prayer was to be kept in silence; he asked us to pray, to talk to God, to cry if necessary, and ask him to speak to us.

So we left in silence, each one of us red-eyed and expectant. We left no room for machismo.

I climbed the side of a hill looking for a vista. If I’m honest, I hoped that soaking in God’s beauty at the paramount of one of the Colorado Rockies would bring me closer to him. I took a “Tower of Babel” approach (Worked for them right?)

After a few minutes I found a rock suitable for asking God the tough questions. It was big and smooth and very sit-able, facing away from the wind with a view of the lowering sun and flamboyant yellow Aspens.

So I dove in. I was the interrogator; God was sitting handcuffed and speechless across from me. If there was a swinging light above us, I would have shone it in his face and yelled at him.

“Where have you been the past 25 years?” I’d shout.

“I’ve been waiting.” I’d continue. “You know I’ve been waiting and I’ve been listening and now, I’ve been lying. Each year deepens our crevasse, and each year you get harder to fake. Now, where are you?”

Nothing. I heard nothing. The wind rushed through the trees behind me, and I halfway wanted it to be the voice of God himself. “But God was not in the wind” crept in the familiar 1 Kings passage. God was indeed not in the wind. And if I’m honest, I wondered if he was in my heart either.

My demanding turned into pleading, I was begging God for affirmation now.

“God, I don’t need to hear your voice, I’ve gotten this far without it,” I said “if you won’t tell me about yourself, then tell me about me. Tell me about me. Give me my new name God, and I’ll be that new name. I’ve done it alone for so long, if you so desperately want to be with us, why don’t you speak to us? Seems to be the worst way to do things.”

Like a man possessed, lines of long-memorized scripture filled my head. They overlapped each other, competed for prominence, competed for my attention.

“Draw near to me, and I’ll draw near to you”
“A still-small-voice”
“Our God, who is mighty to save”

They swirled between my ears, drowning my own inner-voice as I dismissed them as a reflex of self-medication learned through years of Christian institutionalization.

My doubt overcame me, and instantly I turned on God. My thoughts turned to betrayal, of negligence.

Of abandonment.

Why haven’t I felt validated? Why have I never felt strong enough to rescue a woman? What is it that keeps me questioning my own strength and purpose?

“God,” I asked,” what do you want from me?”

“What is my name?”

I want so badly to feel the strength that felled Goliath, the same strength that empowered Samson, the same spirit that carried Paul through years of imprisonment.

I heard the bell announcing the evening’s lecture and left hearing nothing at the mountaintop.

My shoulders had never felt lower, my face, like my spirit, was worn and tired and resigned. I walked back to the conference center and saw one of my bunkmates, a 45 year- old winery-owner with whom I’ve shared a car-ride, a few topical conversations but little else. He motions to me and I walk over to him.

“I spent the entire time praying for you.” He said. “I don’t know why, and I don’t understand it, but I’ve never heard God’s voice that clearly before. These three words came to me, throw them away or take them in, but understand that I’ve never had an experience with God like that before; I prayed for you the entire time.”

I took his folded post-it note and put it in my pocket, saving myself the awkwardness of having to let him know God doesn’t speak to guys like me, that I was too weak for God to use.”

Mick walked away.

His note read:

Mighty.
Valor.
Friend.

Journey

2008-10-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

Having a "Rocktoberfest" at the Rock Bottom brewery. The place is awesome, big and trendy but with a very old-world feel.

Being alone is kind of awesome. The next part of my journey begins in a few minutes as I begin my journey into the deep heart of the Rockies, and probably, into my own.

wild at heart

2008-10-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

Posting from the plane.

Anticipation isn't the right word.

I'm expecting God to meet me in Colorado.

Will post in detail when I return. I love you for reading this.

Economic Eschatology

2008-09-29T14:15:00.001-07:00

It's the end of a long(ish) school day, I'm sitting drinking my popcorn-flavored coffee (I swear Orville Redenbacher brews this stuff from the grave) reading economy speculations from a variety of news sources.

At my school (a VERY conservative institution) the opinions on the country's situation range from the consequences of consumer gluttony and corrupt and greedy banks all the way to End Times theology and impending Armageddon.

I have no idea where the answer lies, and I would sooner advocate U.S. secession from North America than turn and point fingers at our fine country, but truly, to quote a Jack Nicholson classic, "something's gotta give."

Who's to blame? Greedy banks passing out dubious loans like business cards at a networking convention, or the wide-eyed borrowers who know they cannot afford them?

Who's to blame? The banks that facilitate such transactions? Or the government that facilitates those banks. The chicken or the egg? Where does personal responsibility come in?

Why is it OK for John Q. Homeowner to lose his house, ruin his credit and likely his family, while banks are given a just-in-time last minute parachute.

The greater good I suppose. I just hope the good is great enough.

Daily

2008-09-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember, my life's compass has been set by assessing my projected future. I've smoothed-over present situations by focusing on my "inevitable" success in the future. I don't think it's harmful to have goals, I think they're necessary. But, I know that much of my pride and my self-assessment and comfort came from understanding that the future will be better.

C.S. Lewis in typical form, delivers me punishing blow in his essay "Learning in War Time." In the essay (actually a lecture) he's speaking to a group of military graduates; scholars who are battle-ready and understandably apprehensive. He encourages them to find security in the present, rather than in the potential.

"Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment 'as to the Lord.' It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received."

Don't we celebrate those who have embraced the day they're in? Don't we admire those who seem to exist inside every present moment, those who are changing their lives today, not tomorrow?

As usual, I think he's right. I need grace today, because truly, "tomorrow has enough worries of it's own."

I am a liar.

2008-09-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

I am a liar.

I lie everyday, and more as I get older.

I tell people it's because I'm too young, or that I don't have time.

I tell people that I don't want to, or that I don't even think about it.

Sometimes I condescend them. Sometimes they believe me; often they do. Sometimes, I'm especially convincing and they're even jealous.

What I don't tell them is that I'm scared. At my core, I'm terrified of commitment. I'm scared of not being enough. I'm scared of her not being enough. I'm scared of settling and I'm too prideful to be that open. I'm scared that my novelty will wear off, or that I've made too many mistakes.

The problem with lies though is not that others believe them, it's that over time with enough consistency you start to believe your own.

On Love

2008-09-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

A thought sparked by last night's discussion.

Can you love someone who doesn't love you back?

Not in a parental kind of love, not in a general "love for well-being's sake" love, but a true and romantic love. Can someone be "in love" with someone who doesn't love them back?

I don't think it's possible, here's why.

Love at it's core is a reciprocal event. It requires the willful emotional trust of two participating parties. It means that you've given complete emotional power to someone else and you trust them with it. You trust that they will not only not be irresponsible with it, but that they will keep it, cultivate it, grow it.

Return it.

I don't believe that you can offer this level of love to someone without understanding that they are doing the same thing. There's no small beauty in the mutual offering of that trust. And it can't be gone alone.

Unrequited love does not exist. It assumes the appearance of love, yet suffers the inability to assume it's definition. In our limited human capabilities, true love has no jurisdiction where it is not returned. God alone suffers the heartache of this exception.

Now, can someone love someone and fall out of love with someone? Say a couple grows apart over time; does there exist an exception for my theory? Not necessarily, while to remain "in love" with someone while he/she no longer returns the sentiment is acceptable, it does, however require that there was once a true and mutual offering of love.

Simply, I believe that romantic love of this kind exists in human form as necessarily a two-way street.

If someone tells you they love you, and you do not love them, gently let them know that they do not love you, but an idea of you. The love they are expressing will never be fully and officially endorsed until you can love them wholly in return.

Feel free to disagree

Mo' Money Mo' Problems

2008-09-09T07:17:00.001-07:00

Interesting statistics:

Washington D.C. leads the states in teachers' salaries with California close behind.

Washington D.C.'s public education is abyssmal; with 88% of 8th graders failing to read and 92% far below proficiency in math, they are at the bottom of the list for student performance.

What's the correlation? Throwing money at inadequate teachers obviously isn't the solution, so lets throw money at students.

This link shows the new D.C. "Chancellor of Education" working in a new plan to pay students for academic performance.

I mean, it obviously works so well for teachers, it makes perfect sense that they would try their luck exploiting and patronizing underperforming adolescents.

Moving.

2008-09-03T15:14:00.000-07:00

There's something about eating fish. It feels so right, so... biblical. Sure it's probably processed and canned by small-limbed indentured immigrants from Albania working 16 hour days in the humid Florida heat, but seriously, think of all the protein I'm getting. Great!

Back to teaching this year. It's been good so far, two days in, two days down. Classes and students seem to be a bit more manageable. I find myself sleeping at night, which is a step forward.

Speaking of steps forward. I've made it a mandate upon my life to each day move forward, or at least to move. Following college, it's becoming increasingly easy to find comfort in routine. It's easy to fulfill my own expectations if my expectations are limited to what I know.

It's cyclical, we do what we expect and we expect to do what we do. It's as redundant as it is asexually incestuous (I am nuts.) But if we adventure to live a life outside of what we know, we find security in understanding that God wants excellence from us. It's taken me awhile to understand that God wants us to be the best at what we do.

It's not a pride issue, it's not a strike against our humility, but why shouldn't we work harder than most? Why shouldn't we rise up as leaders in every field?

I keep repeating the maxim "Wrong action is better than inaction," and it's every bit as powerful and sobering and confronting as it was the first time I heard it.

Move.

Who I am.

2008-08-29T00:11:00.001-07:00

Who you are now, is who you are.

I am not my potential, nor am I what I've done. What I am now might be the accumulation of answered questions a or series of made decisions. Who I am going to be is an extension of God's purpose.

But what and who we are right now, is who we are. That's really all we have.

Who are you right now?

On Responsibility.

2008-08-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

Responsibility.

The word itself might as well be four-letter word for many of us. We avoid it's dooming claws, finding clever ways to dodge it like an oncoming football player.

The problem isn't in the nature of the word. By definition, it's an amazing word; respectable and worth embracing. The problem isn't in it's own definition; the problem is in ours.

We've demonized the term by associating it with negative experiences. The loss of free time due to working is "responsibility." The prudent managing of money due to loans and living is "responsibility."

These experiences are essential in life, much deserving of the term "responsibility."

Responsibility, however, has been vilified by those who fear it the most. When someone we know dodges not the "responsibilities" of life but the typical and expected career or personal path, we're quick to label him "irresponsible." We're quick to quarrel and concern ourselves with all of the ways he/she is being irresponsible, when really, what we're doing is absolving ourselves from our own failure to take the road less traveled.

When a high school friend chooses to attend a quirky out-of-state school rather than their parents' alma mater, how do we feel? When someone quits their promising desk-job to join the police academy, what do we do? When a co-worker quits to travel the world and start a non-profit organization in Beijing what do we say?

We call them irresponsible.

But we're jealous.

Pointing the finger is much easier to do from the security of an air-conditioned office.

We've been given the blessing of one earthly life in which we are charged with living boldly in the barracks of insecurity.

We're given passions and we're given skills and ideas and strokes of genius and we ignore them, trading them for the blessing of comfort and security.

To ignore these passions, I would argue, is being irresponsible.

Life is Epic. Come Alive.

2008-08-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

I love you.

No you don't. You're besotted.

What's besotted mean?

It doesn't mean love.

Is it a step on the way to love?

No. It's terminal.

Vantage Points

2008-08-11T18:46:00.001-07:00

I'm at Starbucks. this is what my computer sees. No idea who the lady is in the background, though she might sue me for unauthorized photography.

This is what I see. Note the myriad unfinished songs and stories. It's just how I roll. Bonus points for noticing what I'm listening to.

God is good.

2008-08-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Too often I'm guilty of punctuating a positive statement with "God is good" or some variation of it. The problem though, is that when I say "I got a new job, God is good" or "awesome time up at the cabin, God is awesome" what I'm implying is that because something favorable happened, God is good.

The truth is, God is good when times are terrible too. God is good when someone dies. God is good when you lose your job. God is good when we aren't good.

If we tether God's goodness to a "good" time or a favorable event, we end up reducing his glory and creating for ourselves a genie-like God who exists only when good things happen. A spoiling and coddling God who is inexplicably absent during the hard times. I'm guilty of this completely.

It's just much easier to reflect on God's goodness during calm waters and perfect weather. When it starts raining, we turn to an "unjust" God who "must have forgotten about us."

C.S. Lewis, in his typical confrontational and largely irrefutable fashion says "We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven." We want a God that will bounce us on his knee asking about only our best aspects. What we avoid is the Father who sees our hearts for what they are and loves us anyways.

No one wants to feel that naked.

"God is good" is not apart of an if/then statement. It is not a piece to an algorithm. It is not reason enough to only account for blessings. God is good because God is love.

And, as I'm sure I'll find myself pontificating on in the future. Love hurts sometimes.

God is always good. Please join me in trying to remember that when when it doesn't feel like it.

What you think you understand

2008-08-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

"God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand, you have failed." -- St. Augustine

Betrayal

2008-08-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

I used to feel bad for the flavor Grape because, while he had been my flavor of choice for all of my (then) 8 years of life, I secretly started coveting his archenemy, the dastardly and wildly popular "Strawberry."

Strawberry was the guy everyone liked. He was handsome and polite, your parents would love him (they probably already did.) Grape, not so much. Grape was a little looser 'round the midsection and while he had a crushing wit, he probably had more than a few problems with ladies. I liked Grape though, and he liked me. We had a strange connection, because while the Strawberries were out pushing each other into water fountains and collecting grass-stained knees and cheek-kisses, me and Grape were reading short stories or wondering what the pretty girls saw in guys who punched each other.

I liked Grape, and he liked me.

One day, a sweaty-palmed peer unsheathed a dagger of Now-and-Later's. He pulled from it his favorite and passed it to me.

I was faced with a choice.

Instinctively, I peeled back the wrapper to unveil my good old purple standby. But this time was different. I hovered over my friend Grape for what seemed like an hour, and, I confess, in a moment of temptation and weakness I walked up to Grape, I took his hand in mine, and I kissed his cheek.

I chose Strawberry. Despite the quizzically disappointed looks of my comrades, I chose Strawberry.

I liked it at first; Indeed I bought into it. I started doing trendy things like saying "dude" and "sweet" and I think my trembling hand even hi-fived someone.

By the end though, I became less enamored with Strawberry. He was, if anything, too sweet. He turned my mouth a brighter red than I was comfortable with; so I reached for Grape and wore it's bruise-color on my lips like a hard-won badge of loyalty.

Since then, it's "give me Grape or give me death."

Thank you for reading, it's taken me 17 years of sleepless conviction to type this out. Grape, I'm so sorry for my betrayal.

Update

2008-08-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

Well....

I'm coming back. Durham 09.

God is amazing.

Words.

2008-07-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

I've always had a fascination with words. I love their complexity and the subtle nuance each word owns. I love the way that each word stands alone, and I don't believe there are any real synonyms.

Words alone mean absolutely nothing, they stand as fragmented representatives of ourselves. Our meanings and understandings of them give them life and flesh.

Outside of the nonverbal, our communication is necessarily driven by words. They are the catalyst and the conduit.

They are in a sense, all we have.

Over time, we accumulate a vast army of words. We stack them neatly, squared away in our mental storehouses, some of them practiced and polished, some hiding in our recesses, dusty and untried.

Though we own a multitude, I would argue that we hear and interpret more words than we actually use. I think that most of the time we use the same construction crew of familiar words. The reliable ones, the ones we know will get to the job in the morning without wondering if they've stayed out too late drinking.

But our words are so much more important than day-laboring workhorses.

I believe our words are wildly important. Each exists as a tiny microcosm, literally, a brief sonic combination of utterances packaged together carefully and according to rules set forth by culture groups hundreds or thousands of years ago.

The words we speak are old and they are perfect, with the weak ones sorted out over time. Our words have started wars, shaped treaties, compelled assassinations, healed wounds, expressed love, and saved souls. Each word is bursting with opportunity, alive in its potential.

Our words could not be more important.

If we speak the same words as our fathers, and theirs before them, why then, in considering the weightiness with which we're charged, are we so audacious that we give our words a free-range leash, allowing them to represent themselves, removing from them our full endorsement.

When should my words ever mean anything less than exactly what I want? Why do I let my words choose me, rather than me choosing them?

Because, we speak from habit rather than from heart. We reduce our power and undermine our God-given authority to command them like readied soldiers to confront chaos.

I move to mean every word I ever say. That if there might be some cosmic stenographer recording my life, I may stand responsible and accounted for each syllable, calling them my own.

Let us find comfort not in fleeting compliments or arrogance in multisyllabic masterpieces, but in knowing that in each day we've meant every word we said.

Choose well.

Decisions. Life is Epic.

2008-07-22T00:23:00.001-07:00

I'm a hypocrite in many ways. We all are. But lately, I feel like God's calling into question my convictions. Holding them to the light, if you will.

I'm the first one to beg people to live for something more, to never settle and to live wildly the calling of God. I try to be encouraging and I believe in every word I tell someone else. I truly do. Now, when faced with what I feel is a monumental decision, my own advice seems like a foreign language, meant to be interpreted for sport rather than practice and use.

It's hard to trust God when you can't hear Him, when you can clearly see choices laid in front of you and it feels like God's attention is elsewhere.

God seems so quiet right now.

Maybe I just need to be quieter than He is.

If you pray, please pray for me this week. There's some important decisions to be made.

If you had me as a teacher, now would be the time to tell me that I:
- A. Sucked horribly and couldn't teach a fish how to swim.
or
- B. Should keep my shenanigans going.

Thanks.

I had

2008-07-10T00:00:00.001-07:00

a good one. And now I have nothing.

A Fantastic Post

2008-07-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Wish I had written this. The dude's right on the money.

"If Only"
Christie Brinkley was the Heidi Klum of the 1980s. She was one of the world's first supermodels, appearing on dozens of magazine covers and marrying musician Billy Joel at one point. Even two decades later she is a stunningly beautiful woman. But, she is unfortunately also a perfect example of the lie, "if only."
If only is something we Christians like to say when faced with a temptation. For me it usually looks like this:
"If only I could get a book deal, then I would be happy.""If only more people read my website, then I wouldn't be so insecure about my writing.""If only I had more money, then I would not worry so much."
If only is a phrase I use to medicate myself. Instead of turning to God in a time of need, I pretend the only thing that stands between me and perfect happiness is one "if only." But Christie Brinkley kind of ruined that for me. Or rather her husband did.
Her husband has recently been accused of having an affair with an 18-year old girl. He has been accused of having a $3,000 per month porn habit. He has been accused of spending $300,000 to cover up his tracks. What does that have to do with if only? Everything.
You see, in one single stroke, Brinkley's husband, Peter Cook, has effectively killed a bunch of "if only" statements:
1. "If only I could marry someone really attractive, then I wouldn't lust anymore."Cook married one of the top ten supermodels of all time. She was and is gorgeous. And yet he was addicted to Internet porn. Brinkley's beauty was not enough to fill the hole inside of Cook.
2. "If only I was rich, then I would be happy."Peter Cook is richer than I will ever be. He allegedly spent more on porn every year than some people earn in salaries. And yet, he wasn't happy. Happy people don't do things that require $300,000 in hush money.
3. "If only I was good looking, then people would love me."Peter Cook is good looking. He is tall and handsome and looks like the kind of guy that knows his ways around Beverly Hills. But he didn't feel loved. People that are content in the love they have don't desperately try to find it from 18 year olds. They don't trawl the Internet for attention.
I might be the only one with an "if only" in my life. Maybe you have never thought, "If only I could get married, then I would be happy," or "If only I had a different job, then I would be worry free." But if you have, if you are at all like me, I want to propose something. I think we need to retire the phrase "if only." Let's send it to an early grave. Let's strike it from our vocabularies and pull it from our hearts, because it's one of those lies that holds us back from seeing what is truly beautiful about our own lives. It takes our eyes of the good that already exists. It makes us blind.
What do you think? Want to retire, "if only?"

drawing circles

2008-07-06T23:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't read this book, and I don't know if I will (not that I'm protesting it, I just don't think I'll ever actually pick it up) but it's books like these that I think are distracting us from the community and growth intended by God.

Focusing on what we're not is reverse-engineering a problem with no solution.

I never want to be defined by something I don't do.

Christians forever have been obsessed with definition, drawing neat and solid circles around our favorite theology, making sure whatever our particular denomination upholds does not bleed into another. Our boundaries create a crowded false feeling of community, but in reality, we're distancing ourselves from brothers and sisters, while alienating a confused culture left outside the margins.

We remain smugly in the center of our circles rejoicing in our superiority.

My Macbook dictionary defines definition (See also: Department of Redundancy Dept.) as " an exact statement or description of the nature, scope, or meaning of something."

It is illogical to define something by all of it's non-attributes.

An image of a person is not clearly defined by understanding that he is NOT the same as any of the other 6.5 billion people in the world. An image of an apple is not realized by understanding that it is not a paper plate.

Our definition is fluid and dynamic. It is something powerful, and it needs to be captured. But I don't think that it can be done by drawing more circles.

So then what are we? How are we defined?

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:35

Monday - Friday God

2008-07-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I believe in a Monday-Friday God.

Like me and God fist-pound on the way out of the office and say things like "Sweet, man. See you Monday."

It's like I think God takes weekends off too, like we're just co-workers. Just two guys at work who help each other's weeks move faster.

Sure, I visit on Sundays and say a few words here and there on Saturdays but really, the weekends, when I actually have available free time, I pretend like I don't know God.

I have time to read and pray and thank God for another beautiful week of life. Another week in which my family was healthy and safe. But it's the hardest for me.

I come home on Friday and take Him off and store Him with my dress shoes, waiting for Monday when I need them again.

I think that rather than "see you Monday," God's saying "There's nothing I'd rather do. I've got nothing better to do than be with you, so give me a call this weekend."

"if you aren't too busy."

Potent(ial)

2008-06-26T00:06:00.001-07:00

I should sleep but can't.

Spending 10 hours of my everyday lulled by the humming of air conditioning and tick-tacking of computer keys is taking its toll on me.

I should sleep but can't.

I hate that the best parts of our days, the times in which we are most awake and alive are spent attempting to organize and contain ourselves, processing paperwork and propelling some distant mechanism that generates paychecks. I realize that work is work, I do. And I'm not complaining.
In the midst of such economic uncertainty I'm thankful that I have a decent job,

I want to dive into Life is Epic, I truly believe it's worth it. I think God's asking me to take a risk.

To move from "potential" to "potent."

Here's to hoping I trust Him.

Easily Pleased

2008-06-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

I feel uninspired and uncreative, so I'll let a much better man do the updating.

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. we are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. "
--- C.S. Lewis The Weight of Glory

Update from the office

2008-06-19T11:37:00.001-07:00

I am officially "Ryan the temp."

:(

Manifesto

2008-06-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks we've been trying to carve out a short mission statement/manifesto to be printed on the inside of each shirt. It lets the wearer know who we are, and who they're supporting. Hopefully a little encouragement as well.

Please comment and let me know what you think.

We are not political. We are not businessmen. We are not black. We
are not white. We are no nationality. We simply want to breathe deeply the
breath of life. We understand that there is none more important than our
neighbor, and as long as our neighbor is suffering, we are suffering.

Life Is Epic was formed by a group of artists with a common cause: to
create apparel that means more than the fabric it's made of. We support the
relief effort for the increasingly serious Malaria epidemic by donating one
insecticide-treated net for every one shirt purchased.

We believe that a T-shirt can be more than clothing. We believe that living
can be mean more than being alive.

We are passionate.

And we believe that passionate people can change the world.

Life is Epic was born out of these convictions and we hope that it can
excite and inspire people to come alive and to follow their passions. To live
for something bigger than ourselves.

We believe that a world full of passion is a world full of love - full of
change - full of Life.

Come Alive. Life is Epic

The Road Less Traveled has Weeds and Thorns

2008-06-09T00:51:00.000-07:00

Each day I wake up, face the day and begin.

Each day, I satisfy the pain whispering in my stomach and I walk out into a world filled with hard surfaces, with sharp objects and angry people. Each day I avoid these things.

It's like best hours of my everyday is spent giving my best effort to avoid pain. That's it really. You try to have times that feel good, but for the most part we're drowsily pacing through the day with the sole mission of avoiding pain.

At work, you make sacrifices given the nature of your job, but pretty much, all we're doing is biding our time, avoiding pain.

It's understandable, of course. Pain hurts for a reason; generally-speaking it's our biological way of saying something is wrong, a situation needs remedying, but I think we're missing out sometimes by sterilizing every situation. I think we're missing out on living.

I'm not pointing the finger, arguably I'm the best/worst case study in awkward-situation avoidance. Most of the time I'd prefer to pretend a high-school peer doesn't exist than talk to him/her doing the old "what's new with you" song and dance. But I'm realizing that in most situations, I'm missing out on so much because I'm choosing the road-most traveled.

So now, as a sort of personal experiment, I'm going to agree to almost every reasonable invitation I usually defer. I'm going to talk to people I normally wouldn't, I'm going to make plans and keep them, I'm going to honor people by telling them exactly what I'm thinking rather than stepping around an issue. I'm going to engage in conflicts, I'm going to confront people and allow myself to be confronted.

I'm going to apologize.

I'm going to get hurt.

Because I believe that our stories are better told with a straight face. I believe the our rising action needs conflict, and the greater the conflict the greater the resolution.

I believe the best songs are ones that combine minor chords and major chords.

I believe in a better story, and I believe God wants us to breathe deeply.

Fantastic Article

2008-06-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

If you ignore the language and the questionable terminology THIS is an amazing article.

It's long but very worth it.

2008-06-04T08:09:00.000-07:00

Obama's running mate?

Hillary? Webb?

I have to admit, when I was thinking about this earlier, I suspected that whoever he chose would need to be white. After all, a double-minority ticket might be a bit aggressive and alienate some of Obama's white voters.

So you have to choose a white guy (or girl) because you need the white voters.

I moved on to thinking about Obama getting the hispanic vote, and how he would need a hispanic candidate in order to dillute the longstanding black vs. hispanic turbulence.

But then, I started thinking about how truly racist that thought pattern is. In making that leap, I'm assuming that blacks will vote for someone because the candidate is black. A latino for a latino.

Even if, statistically speaking, cultural groups are more likely to elect a member of their cultural group, it's a racist mentality.

I'm basically saying that these groups are just simple-minded enough to simply vote for the guy who looks most like them. True, the candidate might be sensitive to issues facing the certain cultural group, but it's the assumption that's racist.

To me, assuming or predicting the motives and actions of someone (or worse, an entire group of someones) strips them of their humanity and perpetuates a racist formula. It reduces people to mechanics and predicts a certain outcome (voting their race) based on a given stimulus (their race.)

I pray that America votes by principle rather than a fixed cultural common-denominator.

For better or for worse, I think it would be unpredictable. And I think that would be perfect.

Change

2008-06-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

With the school year winding down, the light at the end of the tunnel is bright and blinding.

More later.

2008-06-01T22:47:00.000-07:00

At church tonight we talked about Cain and Abel and how the descendants of Cain, because of Cain's murdering and lying to God would be cursed.

Cain pleaded with God, telling him that those who knew of him would surely kill him, but God marked Cain ensuring that those who saw him and wanted to kill him would not, now understanding that they would "suffer a vengeance seven times over" for their murdering.

Today, I feel like a descendant of Cain.

Ryan vs. Kelly

2008-05-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

Kelly: If I’d have created a website with as many problems, I’d kill myself.

Ryan: Do you have a question Kelly?

Kelly: Yeah I have a lot of questions. Number one, how dare you?

If you know me well

2008-05-29T17:57:00.001-07:00

you know that I'm scared (like, completely terrified) of Klaus Nomi, but I think I have found a trumping hand.

Watch this only if you are deeply secure in your Christian spirituality (a little dramatic, but seriously.)

Scary

I won't even post the video code, it's got to be a link.

Vaya Con Dios

Choose More

2008-05-28T13:52:00.001-07:00

I was talking with a teacher friend earlier, and he brought up a truth I've been thinking about all day.

We were discussing politics and he remarked, "We always choose between the lesser of two evils, and that always results in evil."

I think this is a process widespread.

So, when and why did searching become choosing? I think there's a time and place for each, but they are not synonymous. They are not interchangeable.

How many times have we, when considering a career, or a school, or a relationship chosen the road oft-traveled because, while we didn't know where it would lead, we knew others were with us. We eumphemize "commiseration" by calling it"security."

We point our compasses towards the safe with our necks craned towards the unknown.
What about choosing passion over practical? What about choosing to come alive instead of simply not dying. There's a reason we obsess about mistakes, there's a reason we revisit missed opportunities, or spend lifetimes trying to replicate experiences. We're designed for more, we're bigger than boxes and I believe God hates it when we settle.

The easy way is seldom the right way. The lesser of two evils is always still evil.

Come alive, choose more.

One Soldier's Confession

2008-05-28T01:19:00.000-07:00

I wish I didn't believe him.

Life is Epic

2008-05-20T23:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't discussed this via blog. But it's a project myself, Mike, and recently, Travis have started to work on. I'll explain more later, but if you've got room in your prayer time, throw one up for a huge project that I think could change a lot of things.

I know it's changed me.

My Roundabout

2008-05-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

I feel like lately, I'm at a constant crossroads.

Stopped. Waiting, thinking, deciding.

I think a roundabout more accurately describes it. I'm circling a roundabout searching for the proper exit, fearing that the choosing the wrong exit will send me into a desert wasteland filled with failed opportunity.

We pacify ourselves through comforts and conveniences. After all, God wants us to be happy and peaceful right?

Peaceful, but not sedated. And certainly not stagnant. I believe that truly, though we're circling this roundabout, we're essentially moving backwards. We're losing time, we're losing opportunity and it's as productive as moving backwards. Since moving backwards in time is impossible, being stagnant is just as grievous.

We've been resting our laurels on cold cliches like "When god closes a door, he opens a window" and my favorite "pray until something happens." I think though, that our faith has become passive in that we're expecting some form of divine street sign signaling us into utopia.

I think though, that God wants us to risk, and if we're risking it means that we're acting proactively into the will of God. We know God's general direction, and for some of us, that may be all the assurance we get before we make a move.

We can be certain that when there are opportunities for change, and for peace and for love and growth and helping, there too God is. We need to make moves toward these things. Because circling a roundabout takes us nowhere.

Take an exit, make a mistake, but move.

"More is lost by inaction than by wrong action"

It's

2008-05-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

been a hard week. I'll be writing more tonight.

Think about this quote.

2008-05-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

"The deeper you inhale the stronger you can exhale" - Erwin McManus - Chasing Daylight

and give me your thoughts

Inheritance

2008-05-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

I was walking through the mall yesterday when I noticed a huge annoying advertisement telling me that I need to "Get my Inheritance!" by supporting/going to the church ran by the picture of the pastor and his lovely wife.

Now, doesn't the word choice here seem a bit suspect? (other than the ambiguous use of the word "get") Doesn't "Inheritance" imply money? Why would this advertisement be in a mall, a place literally fueled by the spending of money? I don't think I'm stretching here to think that the advertisement was playing to our inherent association of the word "inheritance" with money, or resources or tangible goods.

I don't think it was an accident.

This problem is huge to me. Lately it's become close to my heart. We're propagating the idea that when one has faith in God, they begin to accumulate resources. That when you become a Christian, you become the smiling, wealthy, picture of contentment I found on the mall advertisement.

Is that what a Christian looks like?

What about the guy from the broken home who becomes a Christian?

What about the wife trapped in the abusive relationship? Will her becoming a Christian stop her husband from hitting her tomorrow?

What about the poor and uneducated? What about the fishermen?

Will they become prosperous by becoming a Christian? Will God transform their work ethic and opportunity, that they might be successful and prosperous?

Maybe, but maybe not.

I was reading today (after an awesome message on John 15) and the words from John 14:27 jumped off of the page "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

He said it.

The world wants us consumed with money and wealth. Isn't there is a very obvious correlation between the MALL and the word choice of INHERITANCE. We're constantly (and I'm so guilty of this) equating faith in God with success.

But I believe that Jesus would have told his disciples "Success I leave with you." But he didn't, he said "peace." He even made the distinction that he would give differently than the world, probably because he knew that later on, we'd start looking for Jesus to give us the same comforts as we expect from the world, when really, we're calibrated the complete opposite way.

I think really, Jesus is cutting to the chase, eliminating the middle-man of wealth and prosperity. Because think about it, when we buy a car, or buy new clothes or seek new jobs or relationships, what are we doing?

We're seeking peace, seeking contentment. Seeking to fill some hole placed within us.

Jesus is telling us that we'll find peace, which, I believe is what we're all looking for in the first place.

To give credit where credit is due, my students showed me this first. I thank God for that and them. John Piper says everything I just did, but way, way better.

I own the world.

2008-05-03T13:58:00.001-07:00

I was getting gas today (62$) and I noticed a well-dressed man walking through the pumps on his way into the store. As I was watching him, I noticed that he looked down and saw a snickers wrapper.

He looked at it, kind of kicked it towards the door, and finally he picked it up and put it in the trashcan. My first thought was, "this guy has to be the owner, why else would he pick up trash if it wasn't his property?"

But then I started to think, aren't we the "owners" of the entire world? God created everything, and it's all His, but did not God give us, humans, dominion over the earth and everything in it? Why don't we pick up "trash" with the same mindset of a business owner?

We've been given power and responsibility, and we should take pride in our ownership.

Our pervasive "in case of rapture, this car will be unmanned" mindset has left us consumed with getting the hell out of here while we're forgetting to get the hell out of here. The world is God's but He's given it to us, leased it to us in a way, and I believe we're charged with the responsibility to take care of it, to grow it and to watch it thrive.

So, next time instead of walking by the wrapper, or practicing your soccer dribbling with the bottle, what if you just grabbed it, and took it to the nearest trashcan?

In that way, we're taking it, and giving it back to God.

In that way, we're getting the hell out of here. While we're still here.

Quote of the day

2008-05-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

"Janitor, you ever looked at yourself and wish that you were different in every single way?"

"Nahh, I'm a winner"

Wah

2008-05-02T19:46:00.000-07:00

Well, at the behest (ridicule) of some of my students, I've realized the folly of my noonewilleverunderstandme-mydaddidn'tplayenoughfootballwithme macbook picture.

Now I have a moustache

Something plain and beautiful.

2008-05-01T00:00:00.001-07:00

I understand people because I am people.

There's a small beauty in everyone. I want to see it, each day I want to see it. It's a kind of assignment.

There was this lady at the grocery store, with a kind of beautiful pain in her face. She squinted when she smiled, and smiled sincerely, the kind that fades slowly so you know she means it.

And she liked me, I saw that too

But how she looked at people, she studied the lines in their faces, like rivers on maps. She understood people because she was people. She wanted more, wanted out of something, you could just tell.

Ask + Right Answer = Faith

2008-04-30T23:18:00.001-07:00

Lately I've noticed that my faith in God is directly proportional to the amount of times that he gives me what I want. It's like the more prayers he answers (by answer I mean answers yes to whatever I'm asking for) the more willing I am to give and to feel secure in my faith.

Honestly, sometimes it frustrates me. To think of God as an unreasonable elitist who requires his followers to give things up, to measure themselves by an impossible standard. God wants us to sacrifice in order that we might gain?

I've heard it once, and it makes sense, that when God tells us not to do things, he's not arbitrarily throwing around rules for some divine amusement, really, what he's saying is "Don't hurt yourself."

Don't cheat on your wife. Don't hurt yourself

Don't steal. Don't hurt yourself

Don't concern yourself too much with possessions, people or feelings. Don't hurt yourself.

Because these things will hurt.

My experiences only confirm this. Any time I've spent following my own plan, earning my own trust, spending time distancing myself from where God wants me, has resulted in insecurity, worrying and pain in myself and others.

I'm always going to struggle with contentment, sometimes I feel like God could give me the perfect job/wife/car/child and I would still wonder if there were something more out there. It's my Achilles and I want nothing more than to overcome it. I'm learning though, that you can't crawl out of a hole by digging deeper (trite analogy.)

Freedom isn't found in having everything, it's found in having nothing and wanting nothing.

Pray for me.

2008-04-23T16:21:00.001-07:00

How many times have you prayed healing for a sick friend? How many times have you asked someone to pray for you?

If God's will is that you are sick, you are sick right? If God's will is that you are suffering, you are suffering.

Is it God's will then, if you make a decision and are forced to suffer the consequences? Something profound has crept into my thoughts (through the help of Mr. E ldredge)

What if we understand that it IS possible to live outside of God's will? That God's will is his perfect path, but we're able (and often do) choose another way.

It is possible to live outside of God's will. To choose another way. If there was no way, why pray? Why evangelize? Why ponder the deepest meanings of scripture or recycle?

Because it's possible that we haven't made God happy. Think about the Lord's Prayer -- A scripture memorized by Catholics and Christians alike.

"Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven."

Why would Jesus tell his disciples to pray this way if it weren't true? Nowhere else in the bible does God have us repeat some mantra, in fact there are myriad verses describing that we're saved by faith, rather than works (Eph. 2:8 for example.)

So why, if God's will was not up for our choosing, would Jesus bother to pray for it? God doesn't seem interested in rote memorization.

But, what if God in his perfection created us to have stories that ended in us, and stories that ended in God and the ability to choose between them?

In one is found the peace of God's action, in the other, no promise of security. But each were written by the same Hand.

It almost seems like parallel events are happening in heaven, God's perfect will being acted out, and Jesus is begging God that what happens here on earth be a reflection of the goings-on upstairs.

Where people are choosing God's will.

So when Jesus prays this, he's asking that the perfect will of heaven would be made to happen here. On earth.

God's will is present in our lives, whether or not we are living it is our fight.

Green is the New Red (Herring)

2008-04-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Al Gore released his report showing that there's been no change in the climate since he released his Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth."

There's an interesting phenomena that surrounds tragedy. It seems that people, regardless of their affiliation, like to surround themselves, at least partially, or perhaps "voyeristically", in tragedy. It's the reason people line up to attend the funerals of their acquaintances. There's a certain commiseration in corporate suffering.

I think the same thing is happening with "Global Warming." Now, I don't know exactly where I stand on the subject, I believe it's an issue the needs attention, but I think it's a bit blown out of proportion.

It's moved beyond a humanitarian concern to become a political and economical necessity. If you want people to vote for you, make sure you include the words "Green, Sustainable, Environment" in any order. If you want to sell cars, make sure you have a green leaf or similarly nature-themed icon located on your car.

I think we've been inoculated by our mass-hysteria. There is a placid sense of security, knowing that our impending doom is solvable, and solvable only through believing in our mighty government.

I'm not prone to conspiracy theories, but think about it. I don't believe our government created global warming, but isn't it possible that they've perpetuated it? Or at the very least supported it?

In hysteria, we become weak. We become needy, we become dependent. Isn't that an old military tactic? Starve the country and take them over? What if our recent obsession with sustainability has left us insecure and defenseless?

Here's the gravest injustice. While we're all paying attention to the waving hand of global warming, we're not paying attention to the suffering, and hunger and disease which is real, and not hypothetical.

People are dying today. The ice caps are melting tomorrow.

2008-04-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Being an A-hole is something that never came naturally to me. It's just the sort of business you fall into. Like answering a mystery ad. in the paper, or taking over your father's business.

I feel like an actor some of the time. Like I'm playing a role designed for someone else, a better actor, someone who wants to be an actor. I've always wanted to know, and to be known.

Pride is an anchor dragging, weighing into me in still moments that require my strength. The anchor that proves me, that qualifies me.

It jumps in front of my character, speaking quickly, before integrity can answer, calling all of the camera's attention. It steals every first impression, and preceeds my physical presence, often my representative speaking on my behalf.

My New Book.

2008-04-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

I want to write a book, I just don't know what about.

I think the crazy stuff I think of would make a fine book, maybe a "Blue Like Jazz" meets "The Great Gatsby." That would be excellent.

I'll call it "Hemingway and Fitzgerald are Raging Inside Me"

Unfinished.

2008-04-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

I have probably 500 unfinished stories and just as many songs in the same condition. I don't know why I can't seem to finish anything, the more I realize myself the more I'm understanding how distractable I really am.

I'm tired of being inside my head so much. This slothful start to a spring break has got me thinking about how much I really like being busy if only so that I don't have time to sit and think. Must turn the editor off.

I'm just sick of thinking about myself so much, not in a (well possibly in a) self-centered way but really, I'm tired of it. I think maybe it's God's agenda, the more we think about ourselves the more empty we realize that paradigm is.

See how distractable I am?

I want to start less sentences with "I."

Maybe the reason I have trouble finishing things is because I'm afraid to. I think that's what alcoholics call "a moment of clarity." I think that if I finish something, I'll be afraid of how good it's not. It's really easy to talk about all the things I "almost" did.

It's really easy because you don't have the responsibility of ownership. When you finish something it's done, and it's over and a new project waits to be approached, but if you leave things unfinished, there's always the possibility of revisiting it, or better yet, there's NO responsibility involved, no real risk.

But, the consequences of living a life filled with "almosts" and half-written pages is an empty one.

I will finish something everyday, starting with this stupid unedited blog.

Changing our "self"

2008-03-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

I've been bummed out for too long, trying to outrun the confines of my "predicted personality."

While I do feel like there is some credibility to that Meyers - Brigg test, I'm understanding that it doesn't take into account the transforming power of God. I believe that throughout those personality quizzes, if you were to replace every instance of "personality" with "tendency," it would yield a more accurate and encouraging result.

You see, because tendencies are changeable. They are "fluid" as my bro Travis says. Tendencies do not give you a road map of your inevitable destination, rather they give you a sort of prognosis as to where you "would" go, providing no changes were made.

Provided that you choose not to change.

So yeah, according to my Meyers-Brigg "tendency" scale, I have the natural inclination towards melancholy, and provided I never changed or perhaps even indulged my God-given tendencies, I would end up happiest working as a teacher, or a counselor or in management.

But God is bigger than any constraint. He's stronger than our self-fulfilling prophesies and with time, effort and God, we can truly become who we want.

And, with God helping, we'll become who He wants, which is the biggest we'll ever be.

God help us.

INFP

2008-03-09T19:29:00.001-07:00

Apparently, this getting to know yourself thing is pretty hard.

Earlier this week I was given the results of my Meyers-Brigg personality test, it's a fairly long, complex psychological analysis tool aimed at reducing all of your quirks, intricacies, and tendencies into a compact, understandable four letter acronym. There's four categories and in each category there can only be one of two available results, with varying degrees.

My "MBTI" Meyers Brigg Test Indicator is: INFP

At first, knowing what it meant to me was great, it meant understanding that I am "Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving" this was great. All good things.

My experience got even better when I started reading the typical descriptions of what the characteristics of an INFP might be. Knowing that only about 1% of the population is made up of INFP's was great consolation. Affirmation that my feelings of being misunderstood and alone were founded on truth, I am misunderstood and semi-alone, just due to the fact that 99% of people aren't wired the same way.

Soon though, as I began to acquire more knowledge about what makes an INFP, I'm beginning to understand that the brooding melancholy note that plagues me, seems to define me. That is, most of what I'm reading tells me that I'm passionate while misunderstood, and deeply devoted though easily hurt.

The descriptions are starting to become discouraging; ranging from a list of occupations that I don't want, to understanding that I'll probably always be lost in my head and unhappy within most social settings. I hate that it's so accurate, as it just leads me to believe that even their prognosis is correct.

What if I am relegated to teaching? What if I am meant to live a life of encouragement, rather than participation? All of these things are starting to wear on me and I almost wish as if I hadn't taken the test, so maybe I would understand that my life is going to be a constant work in progress, that I'm always going to toil against my nature, but in doing so, I would grow and stretch and learn to love my diverse personality.

Should I learn to just accept myself? Or be frustrated that a test just told me that I'm very similar to a million lives I don't want?

Vague and pointless

2008-02-27T07:43:00.000-08:00

I guess the decision was made for me.

DURHAM '08

2008-02-20T20:48:00.000-08:00

I think, rather than lowering the tuition at schools, or spending taxpayer generated income on financial aid for prospective students, we should implement a mandatory two year "workforce" experience for new high school graduates.

Borrowing from (among others) the Swiss and Lebanese system of mandatory military service following high school graduation, a similarly mandatory workforce experience would do wonders to stimulate higher education enrollment as well as encourage students' success once admitted. I believe that by forcing students to find employment after graduation would stimulate the economy ten-fold:

A fully staffed workforce for "menial" (lower-wage earning) jobs, rotating every year.
A much higher enrollment in higher education
An overall lower amount of student loan debt

(This is due to the anticipated savings accrued during one's "workforce experience, perhaps an employer-paid wage-matching system involved)

These are just a handful of reasons supporting the success of the proposition. Mandating that EVERY high school student must spend two years washing dishes, laying tile, scrubbing toilets, painting houses or making fast-food ensures a higher probability of continuing one's education, that they may increase their odds of finding gainful employment.

I would argue that most people do not seek a life of uncertainty, where the job that pays the most at the time of their high school graduation is the job in which they want to plant themselves. I think that many people see college or any other system of higher education as an economic impossibility. The concept of student loans or applying for federal aid seems an insurmountable undertaking when taking into consideration the probable occurrence of typical obligations.

A student who gains a perspective on what the job outlook for newly-minted high school graduates is, is a well-prepared student. He/she would likely understand the pressures and their own squandered opportunity by participating in "grunt-work."

All-in-all my plan seems effective, and while none of this is supported by fact, I feel that it's a fairly accurate assessment of humanity.

Thank you.

Update

2008-02-19T22:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a difficult and strange few weeks. I'm not sure about much anymore.

I know God is good, I'm sure about that.