Goodbye Facebook (for now)

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.

A Hangover from Memory Lane.

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.

Enter: Beauty

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.

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

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.

Wild at Heart - 2009

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.

On Teaching.

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.

Knowledge is useless.

"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.

You are not your job.

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.

God does not love the bottom of the ocean.

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.