Words.

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.

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

a good one. And now I have nothing.

A Fantastic Post

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

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

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)

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

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

I am officially "Ryan the temp."

:(

Manifesto

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

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

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

It's long but very worth it.

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

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

More later.

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

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

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

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

I wish I didn't believe him.

Life is Epic

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

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

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

Think about this quote.

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

and give me your thoughts

Inheritance

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.

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

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

"Nahh, I'm a winner"

Wah

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.

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

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.

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. Eldredge)

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)

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.

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.

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.

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"

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

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

I guess the decision was made for me.

DURHAM '08

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:

1. A fully staffed workforce for "menial" (lower-wage earning) jobs, rotating every year.
   
2. A much higher enrollment in higher education
3. An overall lower amount of student loan debt
1. (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

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.

Waking Up

For me at least, It's easy to think of God in key moments of life, when someone is down, when someone is sick, when I am either sick or down, or when something goes really right or when something goes really wrong. It's easy to go to God when my back is against a wall, but I'm realizing that that's not trust at all.

It's like a fair-weather friend calling you on holidays and birthdays. God is amazing everyday and knowing that should make us want to join him in it.

Being thankful has always been hard for me, but I've been truly humbled lately and It's coming easier. With all the variables in our bodies, between the trillion cells in us that need to synchronize perfectly, it's a miracle to just wake up.

It's 6:25, Thank you Father, for opening my eyes from sleep.

"If the only prayer you ever said was, 'Thank you.' that would be enough."

Meister Eckhart

Resolutions: Everyday

As I sit here waiting for sleep to quell my usual Sunday night anxiety, my eyes wont close and my brain won't slow. My late Sunday nights, caused by staying up late and sleeping in through the weekend usually result in a mind racing with possibilities, doubts, vague hope and prolonged unrest.

It's funny/sad that I took the time a few weeks ago to drive up to the mountains for some personal reflection/worship goal-writing and now I can't even remember where I put the notebook containing all of my profound resolutions.

There's a strange phenomenon at the gym around this time of the year. Each year, the first week in January finds the gym packed and buzzing with sweaty determination. Christmas present memberships are redeemed and bodies are changing. There's a waiting list for the stair-stepper and a line at the front counter.

Just a few weeks into the month however, the gym returns to about normal and stays this way until the first warm days of summer.

What happens between the beginning of a new year and a month into it? We lose focus, we forget about ambition and change and we return to the comfortable myopia that's kept us from achieving much of anything during the past year.

It's just so easy to stay comfortable and afraid. I'm confident that if we found a way to harness the drive and passion of new beginnings, we could change the amount of our lives every single day. What if we change our life, everyday?

I submit that every single day we're alive is an awe-inspiring gift from God. If we changed our life, each one of those days the power would be unstoppable. It's easy to neglect some anonymous, distant "goal" but what if everyday, we tore away small chunks of these goals, consuming them, achieving them, and ready for tomorrow, a new day to change our life. I'm confident that this can be done, every single day.

This poem has spoken to me today in a beautiful and life-changing way.

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me --
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire --
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

Edgar Lee Masters

Not Yet Empty

Almost everyday for the past few weeks, I've turned on the computer, opened this blog, and typed some unintelligible mess of melodrama in attempts to reconcile myself, with... myself. It's like I have this seemingly impenetrable layer around my heart preventing me from feeling almost anything.

I'm fighting the daily battle between who I used to be, who I am now, and the man of God I'm commanded to be; the tug-of-war leaving me anesthetized and vacant.

To feel empty is to at least feel something, and I'm not there yet.

My brother Russ sent this to me today, I think this paradigm could change the world.

"God knows, I could be wrong.

It strikes me as odd that we, each of us, can be mistaken about the weather, about which direction to turn to get to a spot across town, about how we play the stock market, about any number of things, but we can be dead certain about religion and about God.

Perhaps, as most evidence suggests, Jesus was not born on what we now know as Christmas day. Perhaps Jesus wouldn’t make heads or tails out of evangelical healers in two thousand dollar suits while Austrian-crystal chandeliers hang within the camera shot. Maybe God’s love includes gays and lesbians, the Buddhist down the street or the atheist over in the next cubicle. It’s possible what you believe is not as important as how you express that belief, how you buy food for the homeless or comfort a stranger who is flustered at the store because she has just come from the hospital where her father is dying or remember that person who just can’t stand you with love during a prayer.

Maybe God is not found in certainty, which serves to limit God to our own comfortable conceptions, but, rather, in uncertainty and a healthy agnosticism in places, letting God be God instead of a judge and jury schooled in our own prejudices and preoccupations and self-centeredness. Perhaps “God knows, I could be wrong” is an admission of faith, not of defeat. We may be mistaken — the arrival of God will not come in the form espoused by novels about the end times or in the image of a holy city being lowered down from the clouds on pulleys like it was some kind of cheap scenery change. The arrival of God or the second coming of Jesus may very well have taken place already and, in fact, continues to take place over and over again in the people and in opportunities around us, if only we had the eyes to see and the openness of the heart to feel.

God knows, I could be wrong, and in that, I think, I am necessarily right."

Definition

Rob Bell had probably the perfect answer to the question of how he faces critics.

"There's over a billion people in this world without clean drinking water, and 46 million americans don't have health care. That means if they get sick, they don't have anywhere to go. Half of the world, 3 billion people, live on less than 2 dollars a day, so the world is an emergency. When followers of jesus can think of nothing better to do with their time than pick apart and shred to peices the work of other followers of Jesus who are trying to do something about the world, that's tragic and I don't owe those people anything."

I love this answer. To me, the Church has become largely concerned with definition. We seem to want to define ourselves as one thing or another, Progressive or Fundamentalist, Liberal-Christian or Conservative, Evangelical-Free or Non-denominational. We're always looking to define ourselves by labels.

The problem with this preoccupation though, is that definition exists to separate one thing from another. We define a word, give it a meaning so that it means one thing and only one thing. We define things so that other things cannot assume their identity. This is necessary, for say, underwear at summer camp, but not for Christianity.

Even "Christianity," in all its ubiquity has lately become taboo. Apparently "follower of Christ" has replaced the antiquated "Christianity" as the label of choice for the progressively serious disciple. I will agree that the term has been diluted so much that it probably resembles G.W. more than it resembles a loving and amazing Jesus.

But this is not a call to walk away. Rather, it's a call to take back the name that once meant "Christ-like" and extinguish our rampant feelings of entitlement.

We are called to humility and peace. I agree with Rob Bell, I feel like too much time is spent pondering the great intricacies of eschatology, when our brothers and sisters are dying from preventable diseases, in preventable situations.

I want to live a life of redemption. Let's fix the world and then argue. I have a feeling the lines of our differences will begin to blur.

"Once" was an amazing movie. I bought the soundtrack already, good call Jesse.

I'm moving to Canada

Now, I know that it was a horrible tragedy. Over 1,400 people lost their lives, buildings/families/businesses/homes were destroyed, but honestly, what the hell kind of hurricane inflicts over THREE QUADRILLION DOLLARS IN DAMAGE?

According to this article, one of New Orleans proud residents is suing the US government for over $3,000,000,000,000,000. This fantastic piece of work feels entitled to reimbursement of about 220x the entire US 2007 GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT. This person wants over 220 times the value of ALL of the goods and services produced in the US during an entire year.

How does one settle on this amount?

"well my house is flooded... lost about $20,000 there... can't work much anymore... lost about $20,000 a year there... things sucked for awhile, this year was pretty much shot, a few friends died... 3 quadrillion ought to do it."

Times like this I really hate the American way. I probably seem insensitive, and I'm sure FEMA /Dubya dropped the ball, but oh my God, really? 3 quadrillion dollars?

What's ALMOST as worse, apparently over 250 people filed claims for over a billion dollars. This means over 250 people thought that what they lost was worth over $1,000,000,000 dollars. Now, I'm don't mean to demean any of the New Orleans residents, nor do I want to put a monetary value on their lives (isn't that exactly what they are doing?) but I'd like to see some financial statements reflecting 250 different people with over a billion dollar net worth. According to my limited research, there is only about 320 billionaires in the entire US. And I highly doubt they were all visiting their summer homes in the low-rent district of New Orleans during the hurricane.

This is the ultimate welfare system and the ultimate in human opportunism. Seeking some irrational comeuppance by exploiting a very real tragedy.

Last Night's Bullet

For a month or two now, a few friends and I have been meeting together over beer and discussion. We read through a book and discuss the chapters after having read them each week. The books have been great so far (the one and a quarter that we've been through) each of them inspiring, refreshing and poetic in their own ways. We call it the BBC, beer book club for lack of a better name. I would say it's been a charging force in my spiritual renaissance.

Tonight though, BBC was terrible. Brady said something so terrible and true that it kind of hit before I knew what I had heard. It felt like what I would assume a gunshot would feel like. I kind of think (speaking in complete ignorance) that a gunshot probably hurts.

I'm guessing it really hurts. I think when it happens, it aches and stings at the same time, with equal force. I guess it to be a strange dulling feeling that aches like a broken bone, but stings like a burn.

What he said felt this way, what he said was probably the single most convicting thing I've ever been told. Hearing that someone thought you were a certain way, only to realize you were just like every one else is sobering, it's painful, and it's only the beginning.

The problem with gunshots though, is not really how it feels when it happens, or really how it ever feels.

The problem with gunshots is fixing them, repairing the wound, saving your life. You have to essentially reverse the entire process by which you were shot, the bullet needs to come out, things need reattaching, skin needs closing. It's like pausing the scene at the worst possible part and rewinding it slowly, frame by painful frame.

But the beauty is in the repair. I'm learning that.

The hardest parts of Brady's words were that they were true. It hurts like hell but I'm glad it happened. We talked last night about using these tragedies, thanking God for them that we have a new platform from which we can change and inspire.

Today's a new day. Today was harder than yesterday and I suspect it's going to keep hurting.

Taking the hard way

"If you are a really, really good teacher, in your second year you'll be paid the same as any other second-year teacher and less than a really bad teacher with 10 years' experience."

This is so true. I've always been hesitant to join the teachers' money-gripe association, both because I like what I do, and I feel like it's a tired, trite, self-defeatist thing to do.

I'm starting to make adult-sized decisions, both in scope and (hopefully) in wisdom and it feels good. I love so much about teaching, it's a shame that the kids are not really one of them.

OK, I take that back. My Journo class is great. I truly do feel like we're doing something bigger than us, something that really might make a difference. But other than that, It's a struggle. I don't connect with the rich kids, and I don't feel like there's enough of an age difference between myself and the seniors to really earn their respect.

I completely enjoy working in the company of intelligent people. Literally every teacher at the school has been welcoming and supportive.

I love my parents, I love my father, but I can't be him. I'm absolutely terrified of living a life of safety. I want the struggle and I want the growth.

I keep hearing the phrase "the easy way is seldom the right way"

Warm Bed

You're in a warm bed.

If you're like the majority of privileged Americans, you begin each day in a warm bed. Sometimes you are alone in the bed, sometimes not, but you're safe, you're secure and you are warm.

No matter what your bosses or teachers or parents tell you, you have a choice when the alarm clock rings. It's decision time. Most of us make this decision in an instant, either to hit the snooze button and delay the inevitable rousing by a few minutes, or to turn the alarm off, and get out of bed. Most of us make this decision daily, and, depending upon the time we went to bed the night before, we toggle between the two.

What about the third choice? What about not waking up, not leaving your bed at all. Again, no matter what your teachers say, no matter what your bosses say, no matter what your parents say, you can stay in bed. Unplug that alarm, turn your phone off and stay in bed. It's warm after all, and the pressures of the morning are often uncomfortable. Showering, eating, talking to people, just stay in bed.

What happens though, when you stay in bed? What happens when you choose comfort over responsibility?

You start to lose things.

I doubt highly that your teachers will come to your house to physically remove you from bed. There's got to be some kind of employment law prohibiting the physical removal of bed from person. And your parents, well they may try to get you up, but just play heavy and they'll eventually leave you alone.

So now what? Back to losing things. What keeps you getting out of bed everyday? It's probably the thought of what you'd lose for not getting up. School will suffer, your grades may drop. Your job will certainly suffer; I don't know of one boss who promotes random acts of absenteeism. You may even lose your job.

Things will start to fall apart. You have a responsibility, everyday, to get out of bed and fight the day.

I'm learning that life is the same way. The comfort of our lives prompts us to stay comfortable, to never risk the idea of leaving this comfort, certainly not in exchange for uncertainty. But I would argue that our lives suffer the same way we do if we stay in bed. We start to lose things.

Things start to fall apart.

Without getting out of bed each day we wouldn't be living. People can go for weeks, months, years at a time in a kind of vegetative state, laying in a bed, comfortable. But, would anyone call this living? Would anyone accuse them of being alive?

Life is spent most often in the bed. Not the physical bed (though this might be argued) but the intangible bed of comfort, this bed of security. We tell ourselves that it's cold outside, we tell ourselves that standing up isn't nearly as fun or safe as laying down, warm and comfortable. We tell ourselves that it's scary outside.

What we don't tell ourselves is that when coma patients wake up, they often have to rehabilitate, they lose muscle, they lose life. Every second spent in bed weakens us, we lose muscle, we breathe, but we aren't alive. The same consequences apply to our Life. The longer we spend in the comfort of certainty, the less we are alive.

Life isn't about sleeping, and living isn't about comfort. Living is about experience, and growth and fighting and losing, and winning and loving and feeling.

Living is about getting out of bed.

A Lighthouse

Wanting will never, ever be doing. I can hope for hopes and want forever, but if thoughts never become action, if words never become speech, it has all been lost. Truly, the hopes and the ambitions of men are stifled daily. We feel deep within our psychology that we're wired for something more. That we have some kind of answer. It feels a little like words without speech.
And these dreams stay as silent as unconfessed sins. The self-loathing increases, parallels our apathy. Pushing us further from shore, drifting to sea, towards the big waves.

But, when we think about God, our Lighthouse, built into the sturdy frame of the mainland, we can see the beaming light, dancing in the horizon with the stars. A pale yellow flicker against the backdrop. Beckoning the ships home with each revolution, there always, shining through the fog.

I'm still a long ways off. I know I am, but I can't help but feeling the pull of God's current throughout my days.

Parallel truths.

It's so easy to forget that Christians have a parallel reality running along side us at all times, It's like God is running next to us throughout the business of our day offering a different solution to our inevitable encounters with life.

It's like those chase scenes in movies where the good guy has to jump from the bus into the truck window next to him as they run parallel at 70 mph. Sometimes it feels easier to take the road we're on, the road stretched out in certainty ahead of us.

The road we've been traveling on for years.

The problem with taking the road we're on though, is that theres always a reason the good guy is trying to jump ship. Sometimes its to save the beautiful co-star, sometimes its to save the lives of other people. Sometimes though, its because there's a bomb on the bus somewhere, and the hero has absolutely no other choice but to jump from the explosive present reality, into the safety of the moving vehicle next to him.

I feel God's reality in this way. I find myself falling into the "safety" of the world's advice, while forgetting that truth is running parallel to me offering a clear picture of my future, and the steps required to attain it. It's easy to stare straight ahead at the sometimes clear road before me listening to the world's advice, advice that tells me to buy more clothes so I feel better about myself, that tells me to buy a faster car or a better watch.

Advice that tells me that looking = feeling.

Seeming = being.

The problem is that the bus is going to explode. The bus is going to explode and I don't want to be on it. I have to take the jump.

Green-tinted glasses

Sometimes I wonder why my father didn't work harder. Why his father, a wartorn veteran, collected pension checks instead of starting a company with our namesake splashed on freeway advertisements. It should have been that easy, to collect the money made by my father and his father before him.

My thick and calloused heart, green with working-class desperation. A place usually reserved for paupers and coulda-beens, near misses.

But me, I'm lazy, you see. I'll probably never make a million dollars, not because I can't but because I wont. The greatest gift given to an American is the gift of opportunity. Orphans and Immigrants make millions daily. Thieves and the immoral make millions daily.

I'm left with mediocre clay and the tools to design a mediocre life. My hands are ill-equipped to paint something beautiful. I have a million wordless thoughts swirling through me in want of homes, needing rest upon a blank page or fertile ears.

I want to change lives, but have yet to change my own. A hypocrite living a liars life.

Rich

Your heroes are out to make a dollar. An extra few dollars if possible. Every company exists to pad the palms of a select few individuals. Car companies design safer cars because they want you to feel safe, and feel safe giving them your money. Healthy foods exist to take the dollar from the health-conscious.

Self-help books are written to make money.

If the "help" part happens it's accidental, but know that it's the secondary (if that) purpose for writing the book. We're all out to make an extra dollar at the expense of everyone else.

And I'm sick of it.

Some kind of encouragement, I hope

What does it mean when we are told that "God will give us the desires of our heart" for such a long time, I figured this to be stock Christian rhetoric told to someone who's constantly worrying/wondering about their life.

A blow-off.

I'm ashamed to admit that I JUST realized that it's a verse, it's a Psalm.

Psalm 37:4 in fact.

Now that it's a documented truth, I'm faced with the difficult part of acceptance. Questions swirl and plague me:

"Does God want to give me what I want?"
"How do I get these things?"

and for me, the worst,

"What are the desires of my heart?"

I truly don't know what they are. The tough part throughout my entire life has been discerning what God wants, and what I want. A battle as old as the world. I'm imagining Adam or Eve, their cheeks red with shame.

The struggle I've had lately is dealing with the concept and reality of sin nature. If I am a born sinner, given the predetermined oxen-load of "free will," how then will God, in whom there is no darkness (1 John 1 somewhere I think) give me the desires of my naturally born evil heart?

It's a long sentence, hopefully it's coherent.

Is God going to give me the desires of my evil heart? These questions are revealing small crumbs of truth to me as I type. It is because of this same free will that God gives us these desires.

I believe that in many cases, God does give us the desires of our evil heart.

Wow.

Think about it though, If I want to steal badly enough, has God not given me the bendable conscience to take something that isn't mine?
If I want to cheat on a girlfriend or a wife, has God not given me every resource necessary to make this happen?

and so there's the "Rub" Hamlet talks about.

The desires of an evil heart lead to depression. Lead to anger. Lead to distrust and infatuating doubt. The desires of an evil heart leave us empty. I believe that God's free will is demonstrated in this feeling. While I still believe that in God there is no darkness, no evil and no ill-will, his love is demonstrated purely in our choice.

We have a choice. God loves us so much that He gave us a choice.

Now, for the "blow-off" that helps.

I can't really recall the number of times I've recited the verse to myself, or how many times someone has given me the first part, as thought it was the bandage that was sure to stop my bleeding.

I believe Philippians 4:6 is a tremendous verse, useful for soothing scrapes and covering cuts, but it is when Philippians 4:6-7 are read together that the healing of big, bleeding wounds takes place.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

If verse 6 is a blow off, verse 7 is the pay off.

While the promise is not as clear cut as "giving us the desires of our hearts," it is ambiguously amazing. I believe that when we are looking for our sexual desires, when we want to steal, when we want so desperately to buy the faster car, the bigger TV, the bigger house or the better jeans, what we are truly looking for is contentment.

I believe that what we are looking for is so much bigger than the car, and bigger than the TV. At least in my case, obtaining these things are treating the symptom and not the disease. We were created for peace, we were created to be content.

God wants to give us the desires of our hearts, and He also promises peace.

In the media-fueled turbulence of this country, in the thing driven mentality of our culture,

Peace approaches us like cool air in dusty lungs. I want peace to be the desire of my heart.

Aloneness

We've all felt down, we've all felt alone.

If taken literally, we're rarely ever alone. We may seem to be alone during our daily commute, or even waking up inside our house, but really, for most of us, there's a thousand faces just outside your windshield, and there's a neighboring family within a few feet of your house.

If we are rarely truly alone, why then does that feeling bleed into our soul like water spilt on paper? Why is it possible to feel helplessly alone in the midst of friends, in the company of family?

Modern society finds us still alone, still wandering, still wondering. We've conquered every available land resource, we've populated the earth beyond it's limited capacity and yet...

we're still alone.

Seems ironic. Think about the phrase: "we are alone"

To be alone means to "have no one else present" or to "have no companions in a particular course of action." Paradoxically, the word "we" refers to the speaker of the word and someone else.

Though it "feels "like it, and sometimes God "feels" distant
I would argue that our aloneness results from a deep-seeded spiritual vacuum. In this vacuum exists a bloodless battle between our worldly affectations and the truth. While I hold to the belief that we're all born into sin, and given to a sin nature, I believe that when we make the choice to reassess our worldview, somewhere, somewhere in each of us, God plants a seed of truth.

We are never forgotten. We are known. We are not alone.


This truth is attacked daily by our environment. This truth is God's truth indeed, but it starts as a small seed. As it works to reshape our lives, and readjust our spiritual vision, it is under massive attack. God's truth exists contrary to the world's truth.

...more to come.

.

I truly have everything a person could ask for. I have a healthy body with limbs and fingers that respond to my calling, I have vision and hearing and a sense of touch. I have talents and feelings, intelligence and ideas, I have a voice.

I have a job and some money, a healthy family that loves me, I have friends and loved ones.

I am Blessed.

I hate myself.

Teaching and the Art of Sideways Mobility

I'm totally a teacher. I don't know how God did it, but there I am, saying "Hi" to students, busting them for gum, telling kids to sit down and grading papers. It's so much to take in, but it's been amazing. I'm quite sure I'm a fairly subpar teacher, but it's been fun and I'm truly looking forward to the rest of the year. Other than school, I'm beginning to make my return plans back to the parents' house. It's funny how backwards I've done things. I moved out when I had no money and went to college, now that I'm finished and have a decent job, I'm moving back in to SAVE money. Weird? But anyways, it's happening, and I'm thankful to have a place to return. It's very temporary, as the final Oregon-exodus plans begin to take shape and have substance. I'm going to apply for both the Masters program at OSU, and a TA position to pay for it. Barring any life altering changes between now and June, I should be on my way by mid-summer.

I don't know if teaching is IT for me. In a way, I hope not. As old as I feel (almost 25!), I know I have a lot of working years ahead of me, and I loathe the thought of being in the same position for all of them. I'm not saying I'm focused on upward mobility, I just want to experience a few different careers to know that the one I choose last is most fitting.

If you haven't listened to any of the Mars Hill podcasts or read any of Rob Bell's books (Velvet Elvis, Sex God) you really should.

Self-advice

With the advent of the internet comes the proliferation of opinions about EVERY topic under the sun. It seems like everyone with fingers and a distemper is writing an article, blog, or newsletter condemning his or her chosen path. Are THAT many people unhappy with their lives? Are THAT many people regretting the time spent in preparation for their jobs?

Assuming that the qualities of human nature still hold, I'm aware that SOME of these reviews are written in attempt to dissuade potential competition from entering the field, but truly, it seems like on average people are unhappy.

A painfully obvious statement to make, or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. I really don't think that it is just MY two potential career paths are filled with unhappy customers, I think the whole of society promotes dissatisfaction. Think about your friend with the girlfriend, or boyfriend. Chances are, he/she has probably called you crying or upset more often than he/she has called you to tell you how in love they are. It makes sense, it's apart of a "hermit-crab theory:" people do not want to see others succeed.

If you're looking at someone moving up, you begin to realize that you are down. But, really, is this a bad thing? What if we looked at this social movement as if it we were all on an escalator. We're all moving towards the next floor, but some have gotten on before you and therefore are on another step, perhaps a few above you, perhaps next to you. Continuing the escalator analogy, if you are on a certain step, say the third step, or in the middle somewhere, it guarantees that there are others below you. You are in constant movement, you are moving regardless of whether or not someone is ahead of you.

To me, this analogy speaks to the nature of our humanity. We are jealous, critical, spiteful and hateful beings concerned primarily with the body with which we were born. We see everyone as competition and this creates a restless society based on earning things; based on human ability.

My plea to anyone is to please stop comparing yourselves to the person on the next step. He or she has gotten on before you and there is no changing that. You CAN however change YOUR position, YOUR place on the escalator. If you want to move up, do so, but do it because you truly want to see the view from that step, not because you've been tricked into thinking it's any better than where you are.

Move up, and move deeply.

Just move.

The weeks fly through me

The weeks seem to pass by so quickly nowadays. It sort of feels like I take two or three days at a time, they blend together one after another in such rapid succession. It's Monday now but I know that Friday will come before it should, and yet another week will have passed through me, another week older, another week aged.

The problem is not that time moves quickly, the problem is that I do not move so quick. I'm not fast enough to keep up, each day is filled with lackluster responsibilities, focusing on a future that keeps delaying itself, moving itself ahead of my grasp week by week, day by blended day. I'm tired and I'm cold and I'm tired of running alone. For once I wish all 24 hours would pass as slowly as they seem. Each minute be lengthened, or at least my capacity for it be lengthened. I long for a time when each tiny minute is bursting with opportunity, with anticipation, it's sides flexed, pregnant with hope, spilling itself into the next minute.

First the weeks come quickly, then when four of them have passed comes a month which passes with seemingly the same speed as the week. And with each passing one, older, older, older.

Though I will never be able to slow this spinning globe, or slow the sun from appearing overhead, I can quicken myself to catch time. To grasp the minutes before they slip from my fingers and begin and end without me. I can take advantage of every opportunity, rushing and rolling through the setting days, breathing, knowing, praying that I may be as full of opportunity as were the weeks that I've traveled before, and bursting with the hope and opportunity of the minutes, weeks and years that light the way before me.

God, breathe into me the determination, perseverance and discipline that you require. Make me a man crafted in your image. God, let me make you proud.

shutupdate

I'm sick of complaining.

(how ironic is that I'm COMPLAINING about complaining?)

School is pretty much over. Barring the failure of my senior capstone project, I should be on my way to graduate-hood and even more uncertainty.

A college graduate. Wow, I always kind of "knew" it would happen, that one day I'd actually finish the job, but I've never really considered the feeling and implication of it actually happening. The change is purely psychological for me, some people I know are getting new jobs, new opportunities, making more money as a result of their graduating, but me, my life is the same.

Now, I suppose I get the smug satisfaction of being able to SAY I'm a graduate, and now on those little annoying surveys I can check the"college graduate" bubble instead of "some college," but, since I'll still be checking the very top income bubble, I can't help but feeling like my life hasn't changed much.

Other than that, some interesting prospects coming my way in other avenues of life.

Word.

What is a man?

I'm finding myself asking the question: "What makes a man?"

Is it the money or keys in his pocket? The people that can validate his existence? The woman in his bed, the god that he loves, the family that he's started, the house he pays for, the school he attends?

His work? His hobbies, his clothes, his friends, his past, his future?

Man is not any of these things, but all of them at the same time. We are our decisions and we are what we are right now. I heard a seemingly redundant, yet poignant quote recently,

"Who we are now, is who we are" -

Which makes perfect sense and no sense at the same time. We are transient beings, incapable of visiting the seconds that have just ticked by, and at the mercy of those yet to come. We are temporary and we are conditional. The multi-geared machine working within us chugs and churns daily as our lungs expand autonomously keeping the ball afloat, and keeping us moving towards... what?

What are we moving towards and where are we going? Time is not a destination, for most of us it is a guaranteed happening, but if we're waiting for a certain time to elapse, I'm thinking we're going to miss the most important stuff along the way.

Who we are now, is who we are.

I've been lucky enough to share parts of my life (and of theirs) with some amazing people. In the past 10 years (oh my God) I've dated three very different, but all equally amazing girls, and I consider myself extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to share parts of their lives. Though it seems each one of the relationships ended poorly, the only regrets I have are in the way I treated each of them.

I don't know what I've done to have been so blessed with relationships. I just sincerely hope that I'm not a permanent dark spot in each of their memories. I'd rather not be a darker filter through which they view their memories.

Maybe I'll write each of them a letter telling them how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to date them, thank them for their time and wish them the best. Though, that might POSSIBLY be construed as a weird, half-drunken apology for my misconduct, and we can't go around apologizing to people. Seriously though, I'm a lucky man to have experienced love, given and received it back, shared tears and hopes and made transparent plans which ultimately fell through.

There's an excellent song by The Postal Service called "Nothing Better" which surmises my relationship with Sarah perfectly. The irony is that long before I ever identified with the song, while I was still making fun of the band, Sarah would turn it up and sing loudly with the female vocal line (another point of irony: I came to find out the girl singer is Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, a band I've recently come to love) and for months I heard the song over and over and over. Now, I'm not going to assume that I know exactly what Ben Gibbard means through the lyrics, but I can take a likely guess, and give him all of the credit for brilliantly capturing the idiocy of the character in the song. Also, I must thank him for letting me know that I'm not the only idiot on earth.

The song begins with a dramatic plea for a lover's return:

"Will someone please call a surgeon
Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart
That you're deserting for better company?
I can't accept that it's over..."

I'm assuming (hoping) that the dramatic rhetoric is purposeful in that it paints the portrait of a desperate guy who doesn't really mean what he's saying, and doesn't really know what he wants.

" Tell me am i right to think that there could be nothing better
Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together"

Marriage proposals are serious business and I'm guessing the character doesn't really mean what he's saying, he's just trying to desperately to hang on to the girl who has decided to move forward without him.

The voice of reason, coming from the girl character though, is what gets me. When she comes in with:

"I feel must interject here you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself
With these revisions and gaps in history
So let me help you remember.
I've made charts and graphs that should finally make it clear.
I've prepared a lecture on why i have to leave"

She's telling him that he's not seeing the picture in it's entirety. He's creating for himself the history between them, and obviously ignoring the problems that caused them to drift apart.

Again he pleads:

"Tell me am i right to think that there could be nothing better
Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together"

But this time, she answers, almost interrupts him (in the song it's a beautiful overlapping verse) with:

"Don't you feed me lines about some idealistic future
Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures"

Her first line seems angry and bitter, and from personal experience I'm guessing that she's been through this before, likely with him. She knows that he promises her things and for some reason can't deliver.

The second line though, is like a final piece of advice encompassing not only their previous relationship, but a benediction for his future. She's leaving, and there's no changing that, but she offers her last bit of thought perhaps as a reflection on the reason they broke up, or just truly as a forewarning of entering another relationship before he's healed from this.

His last attempt:

"I admit that i have made mistakes and i swear
I'll never wrong you again

Is met with resistance and finality:

"You've got a lure i can't deny,
But you've had your chance so say goodbye
Say goodbye"

I guess that was a pretty cheesy thing; to extrapolate meaning from a contemporary song as though it's in the canon of classics, but for some reason the song resonated with me.

I just know that's how I was with Sarah, I wanted her wholly and purely but could not figure myself out enough to ever deserve her. She realized it, and rightfully moved on.

She always loved that song.

We're verified by the accomplishments of our families and fathers. Always in such shallow transit, continually searching for our own words to validate ourselves. A gentle boasting hurts no one but bodies build up in the empty floors of our deepest wells.

Mostly ourselves. It's too late. It's too late. It's too late.

You've been reinvented. You are the new beginning. A fresh and clean slate from which to build anew. This poorly laid foundation has crumbled and come crashing. Please believe me, why would I ever lie to you? We have such history together, it wouldn't make any kinds of sense for me to lie.

My finite timeline

I just realized that it is almost mid-April, which means it's almost mid-year, which means it's almost halfway through 2007. The paper days seem to be falling off the calendar like one of those cartoon montage sequences used to transition between years. It's scary the way it happens and I'm having mixed feelings about it.

This whole concept of time makes me feel really small. Like I'm just the tiniest cell coursing through the veins of this huge moving body of humanity. I feel insignificantly out of control and because I'm flying so quickly, I feel the definite end approaching. I hate the resounding cliche of "life is short" but it really, truly is.

It's short, and it's fast.

Life, in all it's myriad events is shorter than we'll ever know. I just hope that at the end of it, I can say truthfully that I have few regrets.

List of wants

I want to have a realization. ANY realization about anything. I'll take one brief moment of clarity, just a quick peek at daylight through the heavy-curtained clouds.

I want to know someone, and I want to be known. I suppose I want to know myself.

A dry spell

I'm not sure if it's the dreariness of the weather or my current season of life, but I find myself detrimentally introspective today. Compound this with the total of 3 hours of tooth-sore sleep and understandably, I'm in a weird mood. I'm starting to hate the uncertainty of my age bracket. I feel like I'm seeing everything through a tinted telescope, where the image through the lens is so much sadder and further away than it appears.

I feel like my ship is running aground, crashing into the harbor still sea-bound and water-tight, not yet ready to be docked. An uncomfortable place for any ship.

I hate admitting weakness; I'm noticing that I only admit the faults that I'm either: A. Comfortable with or, B. Pretending to have in vain attempts at humility. I know I come across as a pretentious ass some of the time and for that I'm truly sorry and very embarrassed. Truth is: I'm an empty vessel. The face of uncertainty blanketed in a cold and condescending stare. I don't mean to stare, honest.

Right now I hear the faint Beethoven symphony of the ice cream carrying van orbiting the neighborhood outside my office. The wind blows every few minutes and reminds my warm skin that lethargy has no place in the work place. No place at all. My tooth hurts and my lack of dental insurance provides no small obstacle in the way of rapid repair, so the realization that only time or money (or both) is going to make my tooth feel better is also a little depressing. I am shirking my test-taking responsibilities for blogging, which is probably not on my list of "things that make you feel better". I feel like writing is more of a responsibility than the healing catharsis I wish it were. I fancy myself talented, but the reality is that I'm painfully mediocre.

Seriously I'm over it. I don't know who's right in this situation? I can't help but feel suffocated, and I'm sick of feeling selfish for making decisions contrary to what she wants. I'm so so so sorry. I'm sorry that I took a chance and took control.

I'm taking myself out of the game, it's proven too difficult.

The way God sees the world

I want to see the world the way God sees the world. The way the yearning mountains stretch and extend, pointing back into their creator. The swirling and stirring strength of the oceans that survive all of us. I want to feel the depth of glory, to dive headfirst in to the deep. We are but small unrefined beings tethered by gravity to this beautifully imperfect planet. A beautiful world filled with equal parts evil and good, dancing and dodging like seasoned boxers. I want to see the world the way God sees the world. We see beauty in all of God's whispers, and sometimes, in the tiniest voice, we find beauty in the dirt, we find glory in the barren.

I want to feel the cool spring-water spray of redemption.

The contents of which have been immortalized.

One of my best friends recently gave me what is probably the best present I've ever received. I can't really thank you enough Mike.

I hope that I am half as good of a friend to you as you are to me.