This Is No Longer Me

Newer Life

2011-05-13T00:16:00.005-04:00

Today, I made beer with a good friend. A good friend who is on the "newer" side of my life.

Tomorrow, I will drive home and work on fixing my car with my dad. When I was growing up, I wouldn't be caught dead fixing my car with my dad. Somehow I thought I was too good for it, or it was too tedious, or it just wasn't pleasing. Right now, the idea of fixing my own car with the tutelage of my dad sounds like the best way to have a car be fixed. I'm looking forward to it. It will be fulfilling.
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A lot of things are on the "newer" side of my life. A lot of people that I spend the most time with now are not the friends I spent the most time with while in college.

A lot of the things I do in my spare time are not the things I did in my spare time in college.

I appreciate and consider my family and their place in my life now more than I ever have before.

The people I've known the longest are the people I seem to know the least anymore.
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I developed a strong attachment to nostalgia when I was in my senior year of high school. The sense of impending (and drastic) change created this self-awareness that the life that was most important then would not be important soon after. I knew, somewhere inside, that everything I was experiencing was soon not only going to be a memory, but it was going to FEEL like a memory. It wasn't going to be my life anymore.

And that's what happened.
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I moved away. I lost connections. I lost intimacy with nearly everyone I used to be close to. New things became important and old things became immature.

And I knew that was coming. I knew that the progressive characteristic of life was stronger than my nostalgia, so it was best served before the moment changed; in the moment where I could still appreciate what I was experiencing. People, places, conversations, passions, ambitions, jokes, events.
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Things seem to always be moving toward the next "newer." That isn't a bad thing, and most of you are saying, "duh!", but it is strange to wander into one of those moods where the pace that life seems to move at is so unstoppable and inevitable. I am obviously in one of those moods right now.

It is strange how life progresses, or has been progressing for me. Actually, it is only strange when I think back to some of my previous ambitions for how my life would be progressing. Where I thought I would be going/wanted to go isn't necessarily where I'm going/can go.

And that just makes me wonder. And remember.
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I remember when writing in this blog was one of the most important things to me. It still is. But it also isn't the same. It's meaning and place in my life has changed, in some ways out of necessity and others out of choice. But I remember how I used to think. I remember what this blog meant to me and where it meant I was going and what I was doing; this blog was the door frame that traced my height each week as I got taller, and taller, and taller. It was a marker, a measuring stick, an Ebenezer, that marked where I've been and where I'm going.

It was my little space that was proof that I existed and had something to offer the world in any way.

I remember that so clearly. And I miss it. It was fulfilling, it worked, and it was simple.
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When I look at this blog now, I feel a mixture of pride, guilt, sadness, and joy.

Pride that I was able to say things I believed and that meant something to me, and that a few people have found meaning in some of my words too.

Guilt that I haven't maintained it as what it used to be.

Sadness that the change in this blog suggests there is a change in me. Regardless of good or bad, this is a change I wish was different.

And joy that it is still here, even if less recent and full. It exists and can go with me as long as I'll have it.
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All this progress towards "newer" leaves so much behind. Not by choice, but by principle. "Newer" means that something current needs to become "older." People need to shift categories. Places, ideas, hopes, dreams, habits, books, movies, and almost everything else starts to shift categories just because one day ends and another comes.

And we can't take it all with us. We shouldn't. More importantly, we shouldn't want to. But isn't there a part of you that can appreciate the nostalgia you feel right now for the things that haven't even left yet? Because you know there are things you've left that you hardly miss, and that doesn't seem fair. You can't imagine that some of the things you have right now, the ones you know you won't have much longer, may one day not even be missed.

That is why nostalgia is most potent, for me, before something even changes.
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People are adaptive. I'm adaptive, you're adaptive, and the next person you think about is adaptive too. We progress into "newer" because it's the way the world is. It was made that way. And that is okay.

Good things come. Many of the best things in our lives are still far ahead of most of you that read this. Those of you who think that none of the best is still ahead of you, I bet you have a few surprises coming your way. And the same is true for me.
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I suppose the strongest nostalgic emotion I feel comes when I wonder which of my current motivating hopes or dreams will be the next I classify as "immature" or let go of. What is the next thing that plays such a crucial role in my life that will be replaced by something newer?
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I made beer tonight with a "newer" friend who is a great man. I live with a "newer" friend who is one of the most patient and calm people I've ever met. I'm dating a girl I barely knew till after my junior year, and she is wonderful.

I used to never want to work with my dad on my cars. The "newer" me finds that experience invaluable.

I wonder what's next.
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Peace.

Rest & Progress

2011-03-31T22:45:00.002-04:00

As I lay in my bed staring at my alarm clock radio that is playing classical music fron NPR, the digital numbers change from 10:19pm to 10:20pm, and I think to myself "another minute of this life I can never get back." Then my glance shoots over to my movie poster of Donnie Darko and I daydream about the film I am working on with some friends and think about all the work that needs to be done and how unfulfilled my days seem right now and have seemed over the past 3 or so months. I think about how much more I want to do with my life and all the things I wish I was doing and making and creating. I think about the legacy I am not building.

10:21pm. And I lay in bed.
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First of all, I have to confess that my bed isn't really a bed-bed. It's a futon with a thick mattress that I never fold into a futon. I just thought it wouldn't be fair for you to be daydreaming about my current environment and have that detail be all wrong.

Secondly, I find myself constantly reverting back to a desire for progress.

I want progress in my life. I need to feel like I am going somewhere, like I am doing something larger with my life rather than just sitting and going about my routine while missing all the bigger things I could be a part of.
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I think some of this comes out of a recent narrative theology that I really like to think about. I only call it recent because it is something I came across about 4 years ago, although its been around for decades longer. Basically this theology says that we are all part of the story of this world and that the main plot is about God creating this world and everything in it (like us) and how the world didn't obey God so it got all mucked up. Then God sends his Son to the world to fix it once and for all through a sacrificial, not disciplinary way, and now the world is slowly being fixed through its own efforts, but those are only possible because of what God's son did. And the end of the story is that someday God's son will come back again and really fix everything once and for all and all the progress we will have made will be peanuts compared to what he will do.

Peanuts. All our progress will be peanuts.
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I am caught in between these 2 ideas. This idea that we all play an, all things considered, very small role in the story of this world but it is our role and we must play it. And that is a role where we move in ways that reveal who God's son is and show people what he has done.

But that isn't the only story we think about.

As a matter of fact, it is probably not even the story we think about most often. The story we think about most often is the one where we are the main character. We live that story every moment of our lives, so it is no surprise that it is a big deal to us.

Now, isn't it interesting to think that there are basically 2 billion people all over the world all thinking the exact same thing as us? We have 2 billion people all thinking that the most important story is the one about them. 2 billion more-important-than-everyone-else's stories.
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This blog isn't to talk about how our stories aren't the focus of our lives. I think that is true, but the question that inevitably comes is, "well then how do I live my story in meaningful ways that contribute to the larger story of God and this world while also feeling like my story is worthwhile and fulfilling?" The reason I won't talk about that is because it is going to be very different for every person and there are other people who have written better answers to that question than I could ever dream up.

No, this blog is about rest and progress. Yes, we have work to be done and yes we may always feel like we are not doing all that we should (especially if we are unhappy and antsy in our current stage of life). At the same time, I have found it helpful to think about the way God created us.

Don't worry, this isn't the part of the blog where I start quoting Lady GaGa (although she is awesome).

Just think about all the options and choices God had when he made us. God chose to make us beings that get tired. He chose to make us beings that need sleep every single day. He chose to make us people who needed rest and who couldn't just work and work and work and build and build and build. We get to points where we must stop and our bodies demand rest.

If progress was all that mattered to God, then he could have made us differently.
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There is something to that, I think. There is something that is important to understand that sometimes the clock might just tick and tick and tick and that is okay. Just because we can see the clock ticking doesn't mean we have done something wrong or aren't doing something right. Sometimes it just means that it's bed time. Or it's nap time. Or it's the weekend. Or Ghost Whisperer is on and there are another 14 minutes until Without A Trace comes on. You get it.
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This is not a blog to encourage sloth. Laziness is a captivating and evil little guy that only grows worse and worse until we somehow pull ourselves out of it and feel the sunlight and recognize the err of our ways. All I want to say is that there are seasons in life just like there are seasons in the year and their are different times of day. Some of those seasons may be slow, but just take that to mean that other parts of your story are right around the corner. And I bet you that coming season will be a little more exciting than where you've just been.
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Remember, God rested on the 7th day.

10:44pm. Sweet dreams.
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Peace.

The Christian's Goal

2011-03-08T11:22:00.007-05:00

I have often misunderstood what my goals are supposed to be since I have been a Christian. At one time or another, all of the following have been my goals as a Christian: tell others when they were doing something wrong, get others to follow Jesus, be as pious as possible, be nice to others, get to heaven when I die, and help change the world.

I’m sure there are a host of others I was hell-bent on, and to be fair all of these goals are still goals I have in my faith in some respect. They are a lot more complicated to me than the simple list you just read, but they still exist in my faith in and are priorities. I think a problem arises when these smaller tangible goals become paramount and the primary matters in our faith.

We start detaching these little goals from what I believe the real goal of being a Christian is: to present Christ to the world through your life.
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To be fair, in some situations that will mean telling people when they are doing something wrong, or very directly telling a person about who Jesus Christ is, or simply being kind and graceful to a person who needs to be treated that way. All of those goals I listed are actually just little practices that are part the larger goal of showing the world who Jesus is.
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My biggest stumbling block hasn’t actually been being stuck on one of those smaller goals I listed above. My hang-up has been that I have become short-sighted with my own change as a person. I started to believe that the goal of being a Christian was becoming more of who I am supposed to be and less who I am.

Although the process my sanctification and redemption is very important, it shouldn‘t be what my faith is all about.
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We don’t love the process for the process’ sake (although we do start to really enjoy its challenges and rhythms). Instead, we change who we are because we want to point to Christ. Think about what you would feel when someone, anyone, Christian or not, gets a clearer vision or experience of Christ because of something you were a part of.

You will feel joy.

This is the realization that I think fuels the writers of the New Testament; the same people that urge us to endure, to hold on, and to rejoice in our sufferings. It is not only because of a reward we will receive for ourselves later, but also because we truly believe we are doing a service to Christ and others. We are helping restore the most important relationship that could exist; we are restoring people to see Christ.
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I’ve always marveled at the people whose faith has seemed so strong and consistent that they carry this sense of peace and joy with them no matter what. And I wonder if those things come out of a very clear sense of what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they feel about what they are doing.

And don’t misunderstand me to be using the word “doing” to mean any kind of specific task or project. I mean the way people live their lives holistically. I’m sure there are some very specific things they are involved in or practices they faithfully keep, but I am talking about the way these believers do everything.
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I, for one, have become guilty of being really enamored with the beauty of what I consider the personal process of being a Christian. The subtle, slow, graceful, sometimes painful, sometimes reliving process of being restored and renewed and reclaimed as something I was meant to be. It brings me to tears to think about the memories I have of specific moments where I suddenly became conscious that it was happening in that very moment. It is a beautiful process that I have fallen in love with.

Even still, that process can become so romanticized and euphoric that it is almost like a drug. And when the process is more painful and than relieving, we are stranded on this isle of dissatisfaction looking at the coast wondering where all the joy went.
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That is a malformed lens to see our faith in because we have made it about us (making our faith about us is something we are incredibly good at). To have the source of our joy be our mission to point to Jesus makes it less about us, more about Jesus, and more about others. If we can have confidence that that is why we are here and what we are always working towards, then perhaps our joy won’t be so fleeting. Perhaps, as well, we will be more able to see ourselves as part of something larger than our own salvation; we can choose to be part of the redemption of everything in this world.

Now that is a joyful thought.
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Peace.

New Sel(ves)

2010-12-02T17:51:00.002-05:00

Transitioning out of college has not been the smoothest thing for me. By no means has it been awful, but it has been a substantial adjustment. It has been a challenge to find the best ways to invest myself and find a healthy rythm that is feels more life-giving than life-restraining.

Part of this grew out of some serious faith questions I was trying to reconcile in my mind and my life after being more aware of the way scripture came to be the authority in a faith that existed 300 years without it. And now it has become such a trump card in some conversations that I just couldn't shake my discomfort with that kind of dynamic for a long time.

Combine that with being put into (in my opinion) a hyper-Christianese and Christian subculture environment where theological and moral conservatism was the well established norm for the first 2 months after graduation, and a jaded apathetic 22-year-old is what you are bound to get. And that is what I was and am slowly moving out of.
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I am now slowly trying to reinstitute habits and disciplines that I have been frustrated and antagonistic with for the past year or so. Principally, this includes reading sections of the bible and trying to let the teachings on morals and conducting life offer me advice that I will take seriously and not simply turn a cold shoulder too.

I'm trying to let the love that motivates me to live again in the place I first discovered it.

That can be a tall order when you have moved beyond that for a substantial period of time.
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I have been pleasantly surprised with how seamlessly I seem to have been able to step back into feeling motivated and convicted by scripture. I am in no way depressed about that or anything of the sort. Actually, I am just very glad that my response hasn’t been cynicism. I have been in times where I really enjoy and like being cynical because cynicism is deceptively satisfying but even more so it is secretly corrosive.

I started reading Colossians because it seemed like a small commitment incase my ability to ingest Scripture hadn’t returned yet and I wasn’t going to be running into any ridiculous culturally relative ideas that were going to tire me out and give me an excuse to side-step any kind of ideas of relevance in the text.

As I read, everything felt familiar just like the years old pen marks of underlining and bracketing certain sections and phrases that were once newly profound and freshly perspective-changing. It felt familiar but challenging because of how much I had forgotten.

I had forgotten the sterness and the urgency with which Paul (or a compadre) would write. I had forgotten about the earnestness and the sense I got that he wanted things to be better for me and anyone else who read his words. I had forgotten the ways his sentences would remind me of the unhealthy and deplorable ways I was thinking and acting throughout the days. I had forgotten what it was like to want to become the way those words described a person who loved God with their life.
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In Colossians 3, the terminology of new self and old self comes up. The idea is that we are new when we believe and have faith in Jesus and the old self is a process of removing. Piece by piece old attributes of our personalities and desires flake away as new values and actions are molded and welded to us like an armor that cannot be removed.

I thought about how I sometimes go through stages and seasons where I feel renewed and different and like there is a new motivation in life thrusting me forward. In some ways, that seems really flippant when I think about what Paul is talking about here.

Ultimately, I should be new in permanent ways since I was about 15 or 16-years-old (when I became a Christian) that are unlike my “old self.” And I think that has happened. I think there are a ton of worldviews, mindsets, practices, demeanors, and overall character items that have been stripped away from me and that I have little engagement with anymore.

At the same time, I recognize my ability to become overwhelmed in different periods of time with the situation at hand and really do become a different form of myself. I become altered in my behaviors and thoughts and priorities because I haven’t set up a foundation that doesn’t shift with the changing times. And that is my mistake.

I recognize that putting on the new self is a life-long process and I am beyond thankful for that. Still, I think there is something to be said for striving for a solid consistency in practice and personality that transcends who we are because of what we believe. And that bedrock is what I am looking to create and foster now. Better late than never.

We are part of a never-ending growth process while always being the same new self. What a challenge.
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Peace.

Faith By Faith

2010-09-02T17:40:00.006-04:00

Sometimes I really struggle to define what it is within me that makes me a Christian; what it is inside of anyone that makes them a Christian.

I say "inside" or "within" because I certainly feel as though I have moved beyond the idea that anything can externally make someone a Christian. You are not a Christian because you have a cross tattooed on your arm. You are not a Christian because you sit in a pew on Sundays. You are not a Christian because you buy organic foods, or because you vote Republican, or even because you listen to Christian music, read Christian books, or have Christian friends.

Being a Christian is an individual stamp that lies on the hearts of those who have it; it isn't something you get simply by being in the right places at the right times with the right peoples. It is something that is specifically true or not true of YOU.

Now, I want to just be clear that people don't mistake what I'm saying here. I do not want to suggest that community is unimportant to Christianity or Christians. Actually, I passionately believe the exact opposite. But my point is that although community and others can introduce you to the Church, its members, its practices, its beliefs, and even its savior, it is not up to them whether or not you become a Christian.

Others cannot do what it takes for you to become a person of faith; it is something you must choose, accept, take part in, enter into, etc. You must be the one who owns the faith you claim, or who must be honest about faith being absent.

Already I am wary of some of my terminology that seems incredibly influenced by this culture and Western Christianity by saying things like "lies on the heart" and so on. I think my dislike of that phrase and the fact that I still use it highlights something interesting:

Defining what is happening or has happened to make or maintain a person a Christian is difficult to articulate. After all, it is a spiritual occurrence, so maybe sprawling out to define it is pointless. But I always seem to come back to this idea of the amount of faith a person has.

There are a few things that complicate this to me. First off, it certainly seems that some people have more faith than others, even when both are Christians and both know and have experienced similar things. Secondly, I know many people in my life, including myself, struggle to feel as though our faith secures us or is something that often feels like a strong support we can lean on. Perhaps the simple answer is that we are all skeptics, but the constant questions about how this can really be true and why do these things make sense seems to be an ever present reality for many people who are part of the Christian faith. Thirdly, people do not seem to know how to increase their faith, or if that is even possible. And there is the kicker.

If some people have more faith than others, but those who have less are incapable of getting themselves to have more faith, then some within the faith are stuck in places for a long time that are full of questions and doubts that range from interesting to debilitating. And to me, this has been very confusing.

So we have faith and we believe, but that is something that we sort of just have and cannot seem to manifest on our own or increase. Then there seems to be only one possible conclusion we can come to:

God is the one who supplies our faith.

Although in some ways that idea is really romantic and seems to reference back to the sovereignty of God, it doesn't come without raising more questions.

If God is the one who supplies our faith, then why isn't everyone a Christian? If God supplies our faith, why has he given some of us more faith than others? If God supplies our faith, why do some people seem to lose faith or why would God seem to take back faith He gave in the first place?

These questions don't have easy answers and I'm not sure the people who are asking these questions want answers as much as they want everyone else to be bothered by them too. But here is the one idea that I have been trying to wrestle and live with: if God supplies our faith than we should pursue God in hopes that we are rewarded with faith. And we need to ask God for faith.

After all, all things come from God. That idea is peppered throughout scripture time and time again. But, think about all the things that we see people having but don't really think about that coming from God as much as being the reward for that person's efforts and discipline.

For example, pick a person who is incredibly advanced in any academic discipline. Physics, history, medical science, mathematics, it doesn't really matter the discipline. If all things come from God then the knowledge that person attains or possesses has to have come from God. But we never talk about it that way. We rarely say, "Oh man, Steve has really been given a lot of physics knowledge by God." No. We never say anything like that. We attribute the knowledge Steve has through his own efforts, and we need to do that. We cannot forsake the effort we put into things and the rewards we then receive for those things.

However, there needs to be a both/and in this situation. What I mean by that is simply that when it comes to our faith, yes it is something that comes from and is supplied by God. But, we need to recognize that our faith is something we receive as the fruits of our own efforts, similar to the way individuals who do a substantial amount of studying will often attain more knowledge as the fruits of those efforts.

Our faith is something God supplies, but he supplies us based on our effort and desire for that faith.

So maybe we need to reassess how we think about our faith. Perhaps we need to reassess our efforts and practices before we go pointing the finger at God for not supplying us with a more substantial faith when the majority of our actions spit in the face or are indifferent to the existence of our faith.

Maybe we need to ask God for help and for more faith. And that very prayer, that very prayer, can be something we will reap the fruit of in our own faith.

Peace.

I Never Saved Anyone

2010-04-17T23:57:00.001-04:00

I think sometimes when we talk about our faith and about the way we are trying to reach people who aren’t Christians, we aren’t talking about things in a very adequate way. I have heard many people say things like, “we want to save the lost.” There are a couple problems with phrasing things about faith and people in this way.
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First off, it calls people “lost.” Now, I am in no way suggesting that people who aren’t Christians are, in some sense, lost, but I am suggesting that labeling them as “the lost” is probably a little unhelpful. I would suggest that we would be better off talking about people who aren’t Christians the way we would talk about them if they were right there with us. I don’t think I would ever refer to someone as being one of “the lost” or being “lost” in general to their face because they weren’t a Christian.

The main reason I wouldn’t do that is because I don’t think it is helpful to label someone in that way because people aren’t receptive to labels a lot of times (although I may just be taking my own distaste for being labeled and projecting that on others). It just doesn’t seem likely that anyone, at least people here in this college setting, would be very welcoming of being told that they are “lost.” We might be better off calling people who are “the lost” as simply people who don’t think Jesus is the Son of God; we can just say they aren’t Christians and that can be sufficient.
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Secondly, did you notice that the phrase suggests that we are the one doing the saving? “We want to save the lost.” That implies that “we” have the power to save someone. I don’t have the power to save anyone. Christ is the one who saves, not me and not you. Even when my friend first told me about Jesus and Christianity when I was in high school, that person wasn’t not the one who saved me, Jesus was the one who saved me. You see, we cannot fall into a mindset that neglects to recognize that the fate of people lies outside our grasp and is actually in the hands of Christ. I don’t save people and neither does anyone else.

The way that I think about it is that although my friend Tim was one of the primary people who shared what he knew of Christianity, he was not the one who saved me nor was he even the primary player in me coming to Christ. Everything from cheesy bumper stickers to films to music lyrics to my parents to friends to radio talk show hosts had a hand in forming what my opinion of God was and got me to a place where when Tim spoke to me I would be receptive.

In that sense, my fate was barely in Tim’s hands at all; my fate was in the hands of hundreds of people before I even met Tim!
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Now, I am in no way attempting to discount the act of evangelism or say that we aren’t to share our faith. Please don’t think that is what I’m trying to say. What I am suggesting is that the pressure we put on people to tell others about Jesus in very explicit and direct ways can sometimes be encouraging those people to think that the fate of “the lost” is in their hands. I just do not think that is true.

The fate of those people is in Christ’s hands alone and the moment we let ourselves think (or pressure others to think) that we are responsible for the souls of people is the moment we are completely disrespecting the work of the cross.
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People do accept Jesus as being what the Bible claims He is and people do become Christians after hearing the stories from the Gospel books. That is a truly wonderful thing and I am certain it brings God much joy. However, I think we need to recognize that if we are the individuals who are telling people the stories from the Gospel or we are telling people who Jesus is, then we need to recognize that it has taken that person their entire life to get to that point where they have become open to accepting those truths.

We cannot think that we are responsible for that person’s soul. We are simply the last straw on a pile full of hundreds of thousands previous straws that finally broke the back.
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I never saved anyone nor will I ever. I pray that I am just one straw in the lives of many many people who are all getting closer to the breaking point of following Jesus.
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Peace.

Failing

2010-02-23T01:05:00.011-05:00

I live in an environment where the idea of failing is brutally scary. Failing, specifically in an educational setting, carries both an individual and communal aspect to it.

In one sense, failing or not failing carries some dehumanizing effect of how you, as an individual, either are or are not "satisfactory" in the things you do. On the other hand, failing is what separates you as unfit to remain a part of a community; failing means you don't belong. This two-seamed meaning of what it is to fail in my current setting makes having "failed" be just about the last thing you want to be true of yourself.
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There are, of course, other ideas and applications of the term failing. In general, to fail at something means that not only did you not do something particularly well but whatever you did was so poor that it wasn't even acceptable.

However, interestingly enough, knowing the origin these standards of acceptability or otherwise is really important. This is because it is important to differentiate between the standards we set for ourselves and the ones which are mandated to us by others. Both have obvious weaknesses and, in effect, will claim something of us in an oversimplified way that is very problematic. Even still, we are constantly being graded either by ourselves or by others. Sometimes we pass, sometimes we fail.

Such is life.
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What I think is most important is how we handle the situations we find ourselves in whenever we are on the brink of failing.

It is clear to me that I often have standards set for myself which are very unforgiving and offer little grace even in their existence. I suspect others have a habit of setting up for themselves equally unfair standards and being substantially bothered when they "fail." Sometimes it seems to point to a lack of self-dicipline and the inability to follow through with what we start. But I don't think that is the whole story.

I think that if we are honest with ourselves we can say that a lot of us push ourselves too hard. We bite off more than we can chew. We accept responsibility for things to the extent that our responsibilities outweigh our abilities. That isn't to say our abilities are poor or that we don't have anything to offer. I would say that it has more to do with the fact that we are believing in an illusion that we must be these productive efficiency machines which need no rest and seem to run better with the more there is to do.

I don't think that is an accurate depiction of what people essentially are, and we become painfully aware of that when we look in the mirror or when we "fail." Yet, that doesn't mean we compromise our expectations or standards, rather we just loathe the image in that mirror and whatever it represents: us.
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Consider as well the standards that differentiate "failing" or not that are often instituted to us. These standards divide us into two groups: satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Such a separation suggests that whatever the task at hand, it has something to say about your worth to the community at hand. Now, no doubt there are communities and environments where only those with a specific skill set are needed or useful, but those communities are fewer and further between than the majority of situations in which I think we find ourselves. Instead of simply understanding that this moment of failing is more to do with overall circumstances and our ability to complete some very specific task, we take this assessment to extend to our worth as an overall individual. And to be labeled as a failure, a blanket statement over all that we are, is more painful than we can necessarily comprehend outside of the experience.

It is beyond sad.
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It is sad because it isn't true. It is sad because the idea of failing has penetrated our understanding of who we are as people.

Failing is damaging because we allow whatever task at hand, whether assigned to us or a challenge of our choosing, to define us. Our identity becomes wrapped up in what we can or cannot do; and specifically what others have to say about our abilities.

Allowing our identity to become wrapped up in what other people have to say of us is very risky. Whatever affirmation we do receive from people is fleeting in much of its essence (which is why affirmation is consistently needed again and again).

And so it becomes necessary to define ourselves differently than we do or what people have to say about what we do. We must have identity in something else.
...

This is a very difficult and very uncomfortable transition to go through. But I do think it is a good transition. It's a transition into a kind of identity that has longevity. It's a transition into believing things about ourselves that dont have to adjust at the whims of others opinions.

And that is good because peoples opinions are fickle.

...

You can "fail" and it's okay. People will still value you for the most part and the ones that don't aren't so important. But the really big things that matter the most wont change. Things that are bigger than you, things that define who you are because of the fact God created you and He only creates things that are good, won't shift or rattle. They'll be consisent. Even if you fail.

You can't fail out of God's love.
...

Peace.

Bad Reflections

2010-02-07T17:45:00.004-05:00

"Love your neighbor as yourself"

Mark 12:31
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I, probably like most of you, will have that phrase stuck in my head for (hopefully) the rest of my life. And that isn't such a bad thing. This statement has a lot to say about God and who He is and what He wants.

And there are two sides to that story.
...

Side one speaks to many people who fail to recognize the far reaching implications of the word "neighbor." Neighbors, in this context, are not just your community, not just your friends, not just your family, and not just your country.

We are all neighbors.
...

The far-reaching potential of the implementation of this phrase is litterally life changing, then. This kind of thing changes the world. And although so many of us know this phrase and grasp this aspect of the story, the phrase goes unnoticed. It is just as unappreciated as the man who originally spoke the words. Unfortunately.

However, the implementation of this phrase doesn't end the debates of how love looks and what kind of actions can be considered appropriate in the difficult contexts. Can't love look like many different things on the surface? Yes, probably. Can't love be unrealistic? Yes, probably. Won't we find ourselves in situations where loving one person means not loving another? Yes, probably. Isn't it difficult to decipher whether justice and love are one in the same or one is being neglected over the other? Yes, probably.

That doesn't change the fact that after loving God, this is our primary command as people.

Period.
...

So stew on that, I suppose. The questions above have been around and will be around for a long time, I imagine, because it's hard to answer them in an adequate way; a way that doesn't seem to compromise some other value deep within us that is a part of the way we were created. Whether those are desires for justice or fairness or equality, they embody something true about the world, but they are subordinate to love. Or at least should be.
...

And so we find ourselves on the other side of the conversation about this original statement. The "as yourself" part.

Now what I see as inherently a part of this statement is the assumption that you, yourself, are valuable and deserving of love. You are, after all, everyone else's neighbor just as they are all yours, aren't you?

If you aren't worth loving and it is acceptable to hate yourself, then this statement is basically asking you to do no more than to hate all your neighbors, and that doesn't seem to do much good. Some people might argue that does some good and reflects how the world is, but I don't think those people are right.
...

I think I have seen people get to a place where what they see in the mirror isn't what they want to see. And so they hate what it is a reflection of.

Them-self.
...

What becomes problematic about this is that this statement seems to carry some weight to these individuals, however, and so they desire to still treat others well. They want to love their neighbors. And that is good. They should.

But what they fail to realize is that this statement also comments on the inherent value of people. The inherent value of not only your neighbors, but of yourself.

They fail to see that no matter how bad that reflection gets and no matter how much our neighbors fail to love us the way they love themselves, God loves us. God loves you. He loves me. And He loves our neighbors. Which are again, you and me (among others, of course.).
...

God is love. And to think that he is anything else first and foremost is a misunderstanding of the person of God which leads to numerous misunderstandings of who we are and who our neighbors are. What a grave mistake that could be.

What damage that could do to the world.
...

There may be things to be mad about. I won't doubt that. There may be things to be sorry about. I'm sure there are plenty. There may be things to regret. I'm positive that's also true.

But none of those facts affect whatsoever that you are loved and it is right and appropriate to accept that love for yourself.

Love yourself and know that is okay, because God loves you too. And He only loves what is good.

You are good.
...

Peace.

Moving Pictures

2010-01-18T14:48:00.003-05:00

I am taking 2 cinema classes this semester which each are requiring to watch or 'read' a combined total of at least 31 movies. And I think I'm actually really going to love that.
...

I really love movies.

I actually tend to call them 'films,' but not because I think it is more appropriate or actually means anything inherently different than 'movie' (although it very well may indicate something very different), but basically because I think it makes me sound more informed or cultured.

...

The reason I love 'films' are because of their ability to help me feel less lost in my own life. They remind me that I'm not crazy for the things I think and feel.

Films can display stories and characters that embody emotions and thoughts and feelings that are very real and that I have experienced in my own life. A lot of times, when I experience these emtions or think these thoughts I tend to not really trust myself and feel as though I'm not reacting appropraitely or basically that I'm crazy.

...

But in films, I see stories that are real and people react in appropriate and believable ways, and the reason that is so comforting is because those characters (often but not always) react the same way I do.

And if they handle life and respond the same as me, then I guess I'm not crazy.

Or we all are. In either case I can live with it.

...

Peace.

Christmas

2009-12-25T13:06:00.001-05:00

It is Christmas, and I'd be lying if i didn't feel conflicted about today, and the season, and the way we typically celebrate it.

Now just for clarification, this will not be a rant where I condemn the American understanding and celebration of Christmas. This post is just some thoughts I've been having the last couple weeks, and they will probably all be things you already have thought of yourself.
...

My status on facebook today is, "Merry Christmas friends! Jesus was born to show us what life with God looks like, what our lives should be, and to take our sins that we could not bear. Remember his love for you and others. You are loved and in need of such love! Thanks be to God!"

I mean those words, and I really wish that the way that I celebrated the Christmas season reflected that those words are what this holiday is about. But, honestly, I feel off because I don't see those words in my celebration of this season. And that makes me feel sad and kind of disappointed.
...

There is no one to blame but myself, but I very much let this season transition into being about 2 different things: excess and rest.

Rest I'm okay with. I think that rest is an appropriate way for me to experience these few weeks considering what just ended in my college semester and what is upcoming in the next. And truth be told, I've been resting but I've also been productive. It seems like, more than anything else, I've been resting from social interaction and have kind of retreated back to a place where responsibility is low and I'm pretty free to do what I'd like when I'd like. Truly, I am thankful for this aspect of my Christmas season. It is rewarding and gives me the freedom to be productive in ways I really value.

Excess, I think, is where a lot of my discomfort is coming from. I'd bet that many people in similar settings to myself would say that during the holiday seasons at home with family, there just seems to be "more" of just about everything. This doesn't have to be a bad thing whatsoever; after all, I do think that celebrating and joy is such an important thing in Christianity. Even still, I think that my experience with excess isn't always based purely out of celebrating joy because of Christ, but out of my own selfish desire for "more." That is prompts me to keep spending more and eating more and taking more and more and more and more. The thing that makes it difficult is that I've become somewhat aware of it, and that is what springs this difficulty; no one likes experiencing discontinuity in him/herself.
...

A lot of my friends have been using the phrase "wait and hope." That is an accurate way to think about this season, wait for in what you have hope. Either way, I think I'm aware I wasn't waiting for anything this Christmastime. As a matter of fact, there was no preparation on my part, no waiting, no anxiousness, no desiring for what is to come... none of that was present in my spirit.
...

I really feel impoverished by the lack of those things in my attitude towards Christmas this year, and those things are the focus of the Advent season. It may be safe to say that my mishandling of Christmas was prompted by my lack of involvement with the Advent season. Needless to say, I wish I had handled that better.

It is understandable, though, to be caught up in a fast-paced time and miss what is important; happens all the time. All that to say, no one is to blame and although I know what Christmas is about and should be about I wish I had given the season the demeanor and attention it deserved.
...

This time is about Jesus. It's not about me.

It's remembering and waiting and celebrating and thankfulness and joy.

Jesus did come. He was born do the best things that could be done for us. He came to do things we could not do for ourselves. He came to save us, because we are loved.

Show others that love, know you are loved, and know you are in need of that love.

I truly wish all of you a very very Merry Christmas time, full of love that brings joy and thankfulness.
...

Peace.

By Faith

2009-11-15T10:10:00.004-05:00

The Pharisees had one big, monumental flaw; they thought they were the source of their own righteousness. They were convinced and comfortable with the understanding that their lives and their adherence to the law is what made them righteous.

Well. If Jesus and Paul don't have something to say about that...
...

Paul makes a very influential and well-known distinction about righteousness in Romans. He goes back and talks about Abraham, the man who was willing to sacrifice his own son at the request of God. Paul explains that it was Abraham's faith that imparted righteousness to him.

Now, before we go any further let's really make sure we've wrapped our minds around that.

"Faith = Righteousness."

He does not say that "The Law = Righteousness." Nor does he say "Action = Righteousness"

"Abraham believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness." - Romans 4:3/Genesis 15:6
...

And this is where the Pharisees had it all wrong. They didn't grasp the understanding that faith is what justifies a person. They didn't grasp that the law wasn't the tool which made a person righteous. In fact, the law does the exact opposite! If you read on in Romans you will see Paul explain what it is that the law actually does in terms of righteousness and being justified.

"The law was added so that the trespass might increase." - Romans 5:20
...

Did you get that? How is it that The Law can be blamed for trespass? Well, it does this because it creates the potential for people to break the law, right? If there are no rules, then no punishment can come as a result of actions that have no consequences tied to them. But, if we have The Law and these lists of procedures of do's and don'ts then we have all these opportunities to do what The Law tells us not to or to not do what The Law says we should do.

The Law breeds trespass. It sets clear boundaries so that sin becomes categorically identifiable.
...

So do you see why this left the Pharisees out in the cold? No person lacks the capability to live a sinless life. Only Christ did that. And here is a news flash for you: Christ didn't even always adhere to The Law! Check out Matthew 12:1-14 and you will see Jesus break The Law two times in one day and the Pharisees become so aggravated that they start plotting to kill Jesus.

That should send up all your red flags to make it clear that the Pharisees were completely invested in the wrong idea of righteousness! Following The Law, even to the tee, does not reconcile you with God. It doesn't impart righteousness to you the way you need it.
...

And this is where all the, "well I'm a good person so I'm sure God and I are okay" is completely debunked. Doing or not doing certain things is far less important to God than the relationship you develop with God when you have faith.

That relationship through Jesus is the only way that true reconciliation is achieved. It is because of all our unrighteousness is taken from us and put on Jesus, who took it to hell for us. And that moment, not only have we handed over all these ugly and painful trespasses, sins, and transgressions against people and against God, but in that same moment that we gave it up, Jesus gave us His righteousness.

So in that moment, our faith is what has allowed Christ's righteousness to be imparted to us in exchange for our unrighteousness.
...

Do you see the monumental difference between achieving righteousness like that and achieving it the way the Pharisees were trying to? The Pharisees were actually so caught up in this whole debacle that they believed and taught that if everyone would just simply keep to The Law and it's guidelines for one single day, the Messiah would come to earth and save everyone.

But these are night and day differences to how we become righteous. In one instance, it is all about what has been done for us. In the other, it is all about what we do ourselves. And as I'm sure we have all learned, doing things by ourselves is often hard and unsuccessful.
...

I make this whole argument for one reason; I think today we may be walking a fine line of becoming Pharisees of a different kind. A kind that focuses on social justice instead of The Law.

I say that because sometimes amidst all of the Christian activism today, Jesus gets lost. I know I haven't been on the scene forever, but I've noticed that Jesus doesn't always gets the props He deserves in those settings.

I've seen it, instead, become more about people doing whatever they are doing because it is about them. It is about them doing these works to receive or maintain righteousness in their life. But that just isn't how it works.
...

We really need to embrace and grasp the understanding that the good things which flow out of our lives and the good works we do are a product of our faith and the righteousness imparted to us by that faith.

We need to always remember that we are dead to ourselves, and it is Jesus living through us in those things we do and social justice issues we are addressing.

And we need to remember that "we walk by faith, not by sight." - 2 Corinthians 5:7
...

I do nothing. I am weak. Jesus is strong. And it is in my weakness that He shows up and does things that wouldn't happen if it was just me and not Him. That is how I know that Jesus is the one working through me and doing things. It is because of Jesus that good works come out of me, because they are a product of my soul changing more and more into what He wants it to be and look like.

"The Lord said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." - 2 Corinthians 12:9
...

The Law had us in chains, and it created trespasses because we are weak. But remember we are now free from The Law in that way.

"The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." - Romans 5:20-21
...

Peace.

Anticipating Change

2009-11-05T19:45:00.003-05:00

**A reformatted and reedited article I wrote**
...

Transitions are always difficult; primarily because most of the time they are mandatory. In addition to the lack of choice we have when dealing with a transitional time, there is also a large amount of uncertainty. More so than usual.

Transitions always bring with them questions about what life will be like on the other side of this change. And whether or not we can even make it after that change.

And perhaps the questions we face that we are most invested in are these: Will I be happy in this new place or this next season of life? Will I be content? Will I be fulfilled? Will the things I’m doing be life-giving?
...

Some might be in the midst of one such life transition, but one large population (of which I am apart) has one coming right around the corner; right around the month of May.

Graduation.
...

We will be leaving our institutions, and most will probably be leaving their current locations altogether. So much of what has become familiar and comfortable over the past four or so years will be completely gone.

A season of life that most people in the world never experience, and that those who do almost never experience more than once, is over.
...

Even short breaks probably give some students, regardless of class standing, a taste of how odd transitions can be. They leave college and go home or they go visit someone/someplace we wouldn’t otherwise see and noticeably feel the difference of a life rhythm that exists in the college academic machine versus just about everywhere else. Obligations and priorities are vastly different during normal school times and during breaks, and sometimes I imagine if that break were permanent (which is essentially how it will be after graduation) what I would do with all that free time and freedom.

And that is a kind of exhilarating and exciting question! Until, that is, you factor in all the new responsibilities that come with that transition. The school loans, the rent, the groceries, and all the additional expenses that I'll be supplying for myself.

Then the question isn’t exhilarating. It’s just stressful.
...

And that may be where some of the apprehension of moving on really comes in. All transitions have us leaving something we know and have a good handle on into something less predictable. We know what it looks like to get food, have a place to live, drive a car, and handle finances (at least to an extent) while being in college. We've been doing it for almost four years.

But not only will we have to figure out how to juggle taking care of those things after the institution no longer does most of it for us, but we'll have to do it in a completely different social setting. I won’t live on a floor with some of my closest friends with the rest of the people I care about most only a couple hundred yards away in a different building. I will live somewhere very different from that, even if it is still in Canton.

A lot of the people I am around now will be in a lot of different places. And most of those places will probably be far away form me and each other.
...

As sad as it may be to leave or as uncomfortable as it might be to go, I can’t help but suggest that perhaps the most appropriate response to the whole experience is thankfulness. Thankful for the things we have been able to experience. Thankful for the time of our lives where we became (with or without our institutions) more of who we will be for the rest of our lives. Thankful for the relationships, thankful for the memories, thankful for the knowledge, and thankful for the ability to learn so much. Whether it is by seeing things done well or seeing them done poorly.
...

There is an aspect of trust that I think is appropriate for entering transitions, even with them being so riddled with uncertainty.

We can trust that we valuable and worth being taken care of. That those needs we have will be met.
...

One of the more interesting things to me in the Lord's prayer is that Jesus encourages us only to ask for our daily bread when it comes meeting our provisions. The rest of our desires and preferences are peripheral compared to having this world resemble how God would have it. His will before ours, right?
...

And if that is the case, regardless of all the anxieties, sadness, or uncertainty that follows us as some of us move into a different season of life, we can trust that if we pursue that with our lives, we will be taken care of. Not that it won’t be hard or maybe even uncomfortable, but we will know that we are doing what we were made to do.

And that is what will be most fulfilling.
...

Peace.

Rejoice In Hope

2009-10-01T19:01:00.003-04:00

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

- Romans 5:1-5
...

Everyone experiences suffering. We all have. Some of us to much harsher and more difficult degrees than others, but we have still all felt the sting of suffering in some way. And some of us even feel it right now.

And that suffering can make joy really hard.
...

Sometimes suffering creates these really hard situations where feeling joy would almost seem artificial. It would make us feel like we were fake. It makes us think that the present context shouldn't allow joy; it should only be creating sorrow.
...

But even still, joy is sort of talked abut as this attitude or demeanor we carry which blankets our life and the way we see the world. No matter what.

And I do agree with that assessment of joy. But the question that remains is how do we maintain or preserve that joy in suffering when joy appears to be the last response appropriate for the situation?
...

I think the answer to that question is in the wording of this passage.

"Rejoice in hope."

Hope.
...

Hope is the key to joy which we are supposed to have embedded deep in our souls. We are able to maintain joy because we have hope. Hope in the future. Hope in what is to come. Hope in that this suffering is not the end.

We have joy simply because we have hope.
...

So I am here to suggest that perhaps the source to a problem with joy is actually a problem with hope.

We all know what people who lack hope look like. They are the pessimists. And I can say that because that has been (and sometimes still is) me. It's the people who can't give anything in the world the benefit of the doubt. It's the people who scoff at idealist-type ideas because they lack confidence in humanity and its ability to at all now resemble what it was meant to be. It is because they have no hope.

And that is because to them it is foolish to hope in something so broken and something so shattered.
...

On the contrary, we also know what people who have hope look like. They show sincere love and gentleness in the awful times. They shine in all that they do. And in the bad situations they shine all the more because they see potential where everyone else sees waste. To them, the foolish thing is to write off something that was created good in an effort to appear realistic.

They shine with hope because they have allowed the Holy Spirit to pour God's love into their hearts.

God's love. Not theirs.
...

One thing we have to understand is that we don't have the capability to love well. God gives us the capability to love people we wouldn't otherwise love and in ways we wouldn't otherwise know through his Spirit. It is that simple.

It isn't me who loves people that I don't know just because they need help. It isn't me who has compassion for the homeless or the brokenhearted or the child from the broken home.

It's Jesus.

But Jesus is in me. "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me," Galatians 2:20. And the Holy Spirit "has been given to us" (verse 5).

And so it is truly Jesus loving through me that gives me the ability to love in ways otherwise impossible.
...

So it is hope that gives us the ability to have joy that we wouldn't otherwise be able to have. And we know how it is we come to have hope. It is through the process Paul outlines right here.

"Suffering produces endurance"

"Endurance produces character"

"Character produces hope"

"And hope does not put us to shame"
...

There is no shame in having hope. There is no shame in seeing the potential that no one else sees in broken and hurting places and situations. There is nothing foolish about that. There is everything Christlike about that.
...

Now in this process we can all think of people who have stopped at all kinds of different places along the path to hope.

Some people suffer and stay stuck in the role of a victim. They get blindsided and become paralyzed to even maneuver or handle the situation which is at hand. They don't develop endurance; they don't develop character. They simply feel as though everything is unfair and can't see past the fact that they have been wronged.

Some people suffer and become calloused. They endure. They endure and endure and endure and endure but nothing comes from it other than they become numb. No matter what happens, and no matter what suffering exists, they feel nothing because their life is about enduring. And that is all.

Some people endure and become individuals with strong character. And they get a good handle on things. They understand the world better than they ever have. But they are negative. They become frozen in the perspective that the world is what it is; the world is disappointing. The potential for more is unlikely, and the opportunity for change is low.

They see the world through the world's eyes.

They refuse to let hope and love that they wouldn't otherwise manifest itself in them really take root.

Because hope seems foolish.
...

But it isn't. There is no shame and no foolishness in seeing the potential in the world. There is only rejoicing and joy.

It just makes sense that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, doesn't it?
...

Let our sufferings build in us endurance that gives us a character of hope.
...

Peace.

What I Want Is Not What I Want

2009-09-12T10:41:00.008-04:00

It's a really ordinary occurrence for people to want something more or less than they want something else. It's also ordinary for those two priorities to be the reverse of what they should be.

It's called being human.
...

To stay with God, or be like God (Gen 3:4-6).
To please God, or be better than others (Gen 4:8-9)
To have a God that is real, or to have a God you can touch (Ex 32:7-8)
To let Jesus be who He is, or to make Jesus who you want Him to be (Mt 16:21-23)
And so on, and so on, and so forth.
...

It is a rather normal story. People want something, but they want it to be a particular way. So, they take what they want that actually exists and they distort it. They go about it the wrong way.

They maim something that is essentially good by trying to make it more of what they want and less of what it is.

It's a perpetual sin of humanity.
...

And I'm no less guilty of it than anyone else. Over and over again, whether in relationships or friendships or jobs or opportunities or responsibilities or social events, I have tried to make something in my life into more of what I wanted it to be when it wasn't possible.

And I have done the same thing with God over and over again.
...

There have been many many times in my life where I have sought rearranging my life to look more the way Jesus would want it to look. I've wanted to care more about other people and less about myself. I've wanted to have more discipline and spend time doing productive healthy things and less time being lethargic and lazy. I've wanted...

The list goes on. And some of those things I have succeeded at being better at, even if only mildly better. But progress has been made in some respects. And it other respects I have only succeeded in failing miserably more times than I thought possible.

Because it is hard to want what Jesus wants for us because it looks so freaking awful compared to what we want for us.
...

That's what it comes down to isn't it? We look at these two pictures painted for us of what our lives are supposed to look like. We look at our painting of our lives. And it isn't like Jesus isn't involved or influential in that painting. He is in that painting because we are (at least a little) committed to Him.

But in that painting of our lives we are the artist.

We are the one making creative decisions and we are the one painting the settings and overall tone of the piece while Jesus stands beside us in front of the canvas making the occasional suggestion of color shade or hue. We are in control, and boy oh boy do we love how that painting turns out every time.
...

But that isn't how it works! The fact is that what our soul's long for is to have the life that resembles the painting Christ paints of our lives. We were created to live in that life, and so everything else, no matter how great we think it looks, will make us feel like we aren't where we are supposed to be.

We will have no peace.
...

Christ is the artist of life, and He is the one who paints our story on the canvas as we stand next to Him making the occasional suggestion. His painting will be a life that reflects His story because no one knows His story better than He does.

And His story transcends ours.
...

We are where we are because Christ has brought us or allowed us to get this far. But so much of what we experience will be unsatisfying and frustrating and painful if we should try to change our lives from what they are meant to be into what we would rather have them be.

Because at the end of the day we aren't aware of what it is that we really want.
...

"To praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

- St. Augustine
...

Peace.

Sparks

2009-09-04T08:51:00.006-04:00

I am in a good place now. But I think good times are actually the best times to look back on the not-so-good times an see things we didn't have the capability to see in those moments because pain was too great or apathy too powerful.

This blog is about one of those musings.
...

When things are bad and I feel very stale and I experience a complicated mix of emotions.

Self-pity. Loathing. Worthlessness. Frustration. Bitterness. Cynicism. Sadness.

And these all mix together because of my general inability to remove myself from the stale place in which I sit. Something about my life is very discomforting in these times. Could be an estranged relationship that is hurting my soul, or a serious lack of productiveness, or a lack of meaningful friendships, or a surplus of events where my heart is indulging itself in not-so-healthy ways.
...

And it doesn't really matter what the cataylst to my stale state is. Truth be told, the only relevant information is that I exist there, and that pulling myself out of it feels impossible.

Not only do I feel apathetic and indifferent to fixing and adjusting my life, but I often feel completely inadequate or literally incapable of doing so.

Now a helpful realization in those moments would be to remember that I do nothing alone. I am consistently doing things in a community of people which I am close to and ultimately God is incredibly invested in my life and every thing that is taking place. Big or small. Good or bad.

He is there working. He is there speaking. He is there teaching.
...

And that becomes part of my problem as well. Not that God is working in such powerful and influential ways, but that my mind refuses to accept that and embrace the joy that should bring. Instead, I have a monumental amount of guilt for not "having it all together."

[SIDENOTE - Guilt sucks.]

Anyways, in the moments where I feel shame and guilt for the amount, and often the specific kind, of brokenness in my life, presenting myself before God is the last thing my guilt-ridden body wants.
...

However, furthering the estrangement from God in my life by distancing myself from Him is the LAST thing my soul wants. Even if I have driven the stake between us deeper by my own sin and actions, my soul and my spirit deeply long for God and His love even if my body doesn't. That is why everything hurts as deeply as it does.

My soul is estranged from God. And I have furthered that estrangement with my actions or circumstances. It's actually a rather common story. But that is how the bad times begin to feel worse, without a whole lot happening.
...

What is interesting to me, is that when I am removed from those rougher times, I muse back about how I did engage God when I had the courage to pursue Him.

Typically, I remember myself crying out for Him. Screaming at the top of my lungs, asking Him to please come and save me from this circumstance. To burst in and shine a blinding light on me as I sit in a shadowy corner.

I ask for God to explode around me so that I can know He is there. So I can see His light in my life.

But rarely is that how things actually go.
...

Seeing God's light in your life is essentially seeing things happen that are good and seeing the kinds of things that give us hope and remind us that God is good and doing good things all the time in our lives even when we are moving in directions we probably shouldn't be.

But we don't need explosions to happen around us so we can see that light! It may feel that way in the bad times, but that is just because in those moments we don't have the eyes to see anything less that a monumental explosion.

We don't see the sparks.
...

But that is exactly how I think the majority of God's light in our life actually shows up.

Sparks.
...

I can think back to seasons in my life where I was stale. And I mean seriously seriously stale. And I can see, in retrospect, God's light sparking all over the place in my life. Consistently. But I didn't see it in the moment. And if I did, I didn't appreciate it.

Because what I wanted was for everything to change. And that would have taken an explosion.
...

But my lack of satisfaction with the way God was working doesn't mean that He wasn't. He was.

The fact is, that is how God works. In lots and lots of powerful little ways.

Because when something is dead and dry, all it takes is a spark to catch it. A spark will cause the whole thing to burn.

And normally, in the rough times, we are dead and dry. And we feel it.
...

Take hope. Because God's Kingdom spreads like a mustard seed and His light shows up in sparks.

And His love is bigger and everything you see.

And you are in it.
...

Peace.

Journaling

2009-08-07T02:15:00.016-04:00

Fact: I am awful at journaling.

I write too much in each entry. I want to do the day and my thoughts and the events and people that I am writing about justice, so I write all of my thoughts. Which turns out is rather exhausting and far too time consuming.

So I quickly burn out when attempting to journal about my days.

And that sucks. Because I journaled everyday for the first 3-ish months of this year and it was a pretty cool thing to do. But it did burn me out.

...

Either way, I'm looking into a new style of journaling: recording my thoughts and musings on God in simple concise thoughts.

Most of these entries will be short and unorganized. More of little thoughts than substantial entries. But I need to start somewhere.

And this is where.

...

Here are some pictures from my first attempt to begin journaling again:

---

Peace.

Musicals Are Biblical

2009-07-24T00:26:00.002-04:00

Sooooo, tonight I was at a bible study with some guys and we stumbled upon Ephesians 5:15-20:

"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

...

I just want to go on record as saying that it is obvious that musicals are entirely biblical. The idea that people spontaneously burst into song, converse in song, and burst with their emotions in song, is all referenced in scripture.

We should pursue life being more like musicals. The next time I am singing "Seasons of Love" and someone tells me to shut up I will call down fire from Heaven on them.

Just imagine... a person will be smited by God in the name of RENT. Amen.

...

Also, a friend was talking about how he once told someone wearing a jersey to a team he didn't like that he would kick the *%&# out of them if they didn't take that shirt off.

So the kid actually took off his shirt and turned it inside out!

...

I have decided what I would respond if ever put in that situation.

"I'm about to make you a liar. It doesn't matter how much you kick me... I will not poop."

Suck that. I would even tuck my shirt in. That would show him.

...

Peace.

Sacrifice

2009-07-13T00:48:00.003-04:00

Sacrifice is such an ambiguous word.
...

In one sense, it is so obvious. It can be very plain to see a person painfully sacrifice something they love for something that is better but less selfgratifying.

On the other hand, sacrifice can be quiet and faceless. It can be subtle and unnoticed. It can focus around personal discipline and self control that everyone is completely oblivious to, except you. And it is because of that, that sacrifice can be faked.
...

I've notice that some points in my life were riddled with the lack of sacrifice. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. It didn't matter if it wasn't wise or if it was even detrimental because they weren't the kinds of decisions that people were aware of. They didn't come up in casual conversation and they weren't noticeable. But they were essential to the health of my spiritual life.

They had the ability to stabilize or warp my understanding of God and His desires. They contained the power to reinforce or discourage selfishness. And they had a firm grasp on my emotional state and personal attitudes towards everything.

And when I made poor decisions, it showed. It put me in bad places and perpetuated my location there. It made me stale and cynical and selfish. Faking sacrifice made me fake.
...

But no one knew that. Sure people may have noticed some subtle differences in attitude and personality, but nothing that caused alarm. And the changes were certainly far to vague for anyone to discern what the cause was.

But I knew. Good Lord, did I know. And no matter how much I would lie to myself I would always know that these sacrifices or lack-thereof were what kept me in the stale and stagnant places.
...

Think of a time where you had the chance to show someone kindness and you missed it. Maybe a homeless person approached you on the street or you had the chance to encourage someone you didn't like or you had the opportunity to anonymously provide someone with something they really needed.

A lot of times, sacrifices present themselves for only a moment, and then they are gone. They are always uncomfortable and they are always characterized by 2 voices in your head: one encouraging you to take the high road and be kind and the other telling you to be selfish and look out for your own interests.

And if you are not in a good place spiritually, if you are not healthy and focused on a consistent basis, then you will rarely handle those situations well. You may justify your failure and claim that you actually did the correct thing, but most of your justifications won't bring peace more than they will guilt.
...

No matter how bad at it we are, sacrifice is always a choice. It is a choice between what is selfless and what is selfish. And it is a choice that can only be made in that specific moment. Sacrifice can present itself in a circumstance where no one is watching, and those are probably the most important ones. The sacrifices that come at a time when no one is looking or no one will know whether you follow through or don't are the ones that speak the most about your character.

And the only one who will know what kind of character you truly have is you.
...

In those moments there is something to be recognized. We are presented with two paths: one which looks at the big picture, and one with a narrow view that can only see from your own eyes no further than an arms length.

The narrow view wants you to take a path that is short and leads to immediate gratification and preservation of what you want. The big picture path recognizes that you aren't the only one involved in this situation and that the path that makes you happy right now is not the path that ultimately takes you where you want to go. Because joy and happiness are different; very different.

And deep down, what really matters, is getting to where you ultimately want to go. Because where you want to go is somewhere good. Where you want to go is full of joy.
...

Take the high road and be aware that choosing where one voice tells you to go is going to take you further from where you want to go. The road to a character like Christ's is blanketed with sacrifice and selflessness more than we could ever imagine. It is going to be uncomfortable and sometimes unpleasant.

But it is more than worth it. Because it is good.
...

"We endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ."
1 Corinthians 9:12
...

Peace.

Mediocrity Or More

2009-06-17T16:10:00.007-04:00

Sometimes I think there is a choice.

An overarching choice of what kind of life I am going to live that is comprised of all the little choices I am making everyday.

It is the choice between mediocrity and something more. Something so much more that I don't even know where it takes me or what it entails. But it is more.
...

This makes every choice in front of me today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and so on... matter.

It makes everything matter because you can't make this choice of the tone of your life in one decision. It's not designed that way. It takes consistency and dedication to reach the more I am talking about. It takes commitment to not look at things simply in the now but to see the implications of life in a broader context.

The broader context is that what I want now oftentimes isn't going to take me where I want to be in the future. And so I have a choice, and I think it is a fairly common choice among people;

Do I sacrifice what I know I want now to be what I know I want to be and go where I know I want to go, or do I say to hell with it and do what I want in the moment?
...

The question is probably more elementary than we even realize. If I think back on it, a lot of my regrets in life come down to the fact that I satisfied something I wanted in the moment, even while knowing the possible repercussions or negative effects, simply because "I wanted it." Textbook temptation.

I normally see a point where I was contemplating whatever that choice or situation was, and I knew what the high road was and I knew that there was a wiser decision that I probably should make, but I chose the other one. I chose that because I thought I could get away with it, or it would be funny, or what would come of it wasn't actually that bad. Sometimes my justifications were right, and sometimes they were very very wrong. Enter Regret.
...

I have come to believe that those decisions, however little they were or weren't, have a profound impact on my character over time, if not the larger scope of my life in general. And they are what guide me toward mediocrity or more.

It's a battle of sorts. It makes the mundane significant and it begs you to get outside your own head and realize there are bigger things. Bigger things than the decisions right in front of you. More important things than just what you want in this moment. Things that make sacrifice worth it.
...

I believe I was made for more than mediocrity. But here, mediocrity can be a dirty word. It can seem like I am plastering some people as insignificant or doing things in the wrong way. I'm not. I'm just speaking from my conviction.

I think we were all made for more than mediocrity, and that looks different for me and for you. But I think you can feel what I'm talking about. This drive that we are supposed to be going somewhere good and we can feel it in our bones and in our spirits if we are going there. We can feel it if we are lost too. It's a sad, heavy feeling that seems like it robs our lives of carrying peace because we know there is more.
...

I think you know what I'm talking about. I don't think I'm crazy. And I want more. I don't want mediocrity. I want to be out of my head and I want you out of your head too. I want to do things well because I know that it matters more than I always think it does. I want to travel the road to more without the awful detours I know I could take. And I don't want a damn thing to do with the road to mediocrity.
...

We were made for more. And the choice is ours. We need to remember that it is our choice. And we need to know you don't just make it once. You make it over and over and over again. You make it until you die, because even if you have arrived, you can still leave.

I will not settle for less than more. With God's help, this is what we were made to do.
...

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."
...

Peace.

Be Still, My Soul

2009-06-03T23:31:00.004-04:00

I need to be more thankful. I really need to find joy in things.

I won't say that I suck at those things because that would just be self-pity, and that is lame. So I'll just admit that some characteristics about my personality tend keep me focused on things I should improve upon in an effort to always keep me striving forward. Sometimes that goes too far and I wind up beating myself up and such when I shouldn't.

If this all sounds familiar it is because you either know me well enough to have seen this happen of you read my blog called Price Check that I wrote quite some time ago that echoed some similar thoughts.

You'll have to forgive the redundancy, these are just some (still) current issues in my life.
...

When I take a step back, one that was hopefully preceded by a deep breath, then my mind is blown over and over again by the incredibleness that is my life.

The realizations are nearly heavenly.

So much so, that all I want to do is pull a magic lever that makes the entire world stop and see what I see and soak it all up and just stop. Stop. Appreciate.

But that lever is fake. There is nothing even close to doing that. I at least want to grab the nearest people to me and shake them til they see what I see. Til the moment of awe overtakes them like it just did me.

But that doesn't work either. I imagine most of the times I would do that, the person I'm attempted to assist would think i was having a moment of insanity more than a moment of clarity.
...

The worst part is that I get so discouraged when that moment doesn't stay as long as I'd like or seems to get interupted by one of the other, very real, and slightly less peaceful aspects of the world.

But that is just such the wrong reaction. It makes me shake my head. How can I go from a moment of incredible awe and thankfulness to discouragement and frustration? Makes me think I'm losing my mind and need to be diagnosed with something less than flattering to discuss at the lunch table.
...

In any case, I think that this is a very spiritual issue. Truth be told, I like to dance around spiritual issues in my writing. I don't like to be overbearing and force my own beliefs. I enjoy painting a picture with my stories and experiences and use them to find a connection from scripture or what I believe about God. Being blunt and using very Christian or Churchy language irks me. It makes me feel categorized when I read it and cliche when I write it. It doesn't mean I don't think those things are true, I think it just means that I don't like writing things that would have made me think the person who wrote it was out of their mind if I read it when I was 15.

15 year old Nick didn't have much appreciation for terribly Churchy and Christian langauge. The words were foreign and felt more like a cop-out than a perspective anyone really owned. It was almost like I didn't believe the people who wrote what I was reading really bought into what they were saying.

That's why it was cliche. It was just what everyone else always said. Why didn't anyone own what they said?
...

That was off topic, but I say that to say this: I think the devil is very real.

I think that he messes with us a lot. I think we can't say what that looks like and we can't consistently attribute different happenings to the devil. I think that he wants us to think we have him all figured out and pinned down.

I think that he gets us focused on little things. He distracts us. I think he helps us focus on the things we want and focus on the unsatisfactory parts of things. I think that he tugs us to pay attention to things that rob God of the glory and thanks He deserves. I think he temps us and encourages us to do things we know are unwise by helping us tell ourselves that it will be fine. I think he knows what he is doing, and he is the best at it. I think he causes us a lot of harm.
...

One of the Devil's best strategies for me is to distract me. My personality longs to be better and get my act together and be strong etc... I think that the devil uses that against me in all of the best ways he can, and that he is good at it.

I think he doesn't want me to be thankful and satisfied and selfless. I think think he wants me depressed and to pity myself. And I do not want to let him do that.
...

There are people, places, materials, things, assets, experiences, emotions, thoughts, smiles, hugs, tastes, feelings, sights, sounds, silence, and lives that bring me to tears when I try to comprehend how blessed I am because of them.

They are the same things that the devil attempts to keep my attention off of so that I can never appreciate what life is. So I can never give glory and be thankful.

If I made a list of those things then there wouldn't be enough time or interest for you to read the list, but I can almost gurantee I would cry thankful tears while I was thinking of all the things.
...

A lot of that list consists of people. People who show me love and whom I try to show the same in return.

To those people, I love you. You mean more than you know, and if you ever think you don't mean that much to me then just ask me to remind you. You are worth more than you know and if you think this message isn't about you then you are completely wrong.
...

This is not one of the best things I've ever written, but I leave you with this:

You are loved by the greatest of all. He has given you much. See what you have been given. Take a deep breath and slow everything down for just a moment. Just stop. Don't do anything. Be still and see. Imagine if all you can do was taken or you never got to do so much that you have. And just recognize that it warrants a "thank you."
...

You are loved. Maybe by me. And for sure by someone way better than that.
...

Peace.

Be Full

2009-05-27T00:59:00.002-04:00

If I live a life that is so full and I am thankful for it all, then even the quiet alone times will be good.

They won't hurt. They won't sting. They won't be empty. And I won't want more.

I will know that I am loved by God, and by some here.

I will be safe.
...

Peace.

Lost In Transition

2009-05-17T10:34:00.004-04:00

Transitions are interesting. They are mark something fresh and new and they remind us that change exists. But those same characteristics can be what make a transition difficult and unenjoyable.

Yet that is never how we want it to be.

I can't imagine someone wanting a transition they will go through to be difficult, painful, awkward, or sad. We want transitions to be smooth and easy. And we want what is on the other side of the transition to make it all worth it.
...

A lot of my friends and I are at a point of transition right around now. And a lot of us will be at an even bigger one next year at this time. Some people's will be more complex and involve more decision making than others. Some people's transitions will be as smooth as can be. Some people will be making a transition alone, others will be making it with someone they love.

But when it is time to transition, when it is time to change and move on, you can't always delay it.
...

I love to write. I really do. It is so life-giving for me. And I try to write consistently and often because I want to be discipline about it. I think that would be healthy for me.

But I have been having a really hard time writing lately. I haven't felt focused. I haven't been able to focus well on pretty much anything. I haven't been able to focus enough to read anything I can't finish in one sitting. (That's why movies have been so good to me lately)

I think that it is because I am in transition.
...

Transitions, even the not so rough ones, have the ability to knock us off balance. They make us unsteady because things seem to lack predictability. They lack the rhythm we are used to.

We have to dance to a different beat when we start to transition.
...

Some transitions are temporary; a simple shift away from what we are used to for a short time before we go back. Some transitions are permanent; whatever we were doing before is long gone and all we have left is memories of the times behind and the hope of whatever is ahead.

Those ones are scary. Because hope isn't always readily available, so it seems. We don't like the new rhythm, we liked the old one. We don't want just the memories of previous times, we want to continue making new memories of that time.

And we just don't really know if we believe that what is ahead is really going to be worth it.

We really don't know if the new dance will be better than the old one.
...

Transitions are inevitable because change is inevitable. It varies in degree and vastness, but we see change nearly everyday. Our best response would probably be to learn to transition well. Learn to find the hope in new things, even if they aren't our first choice or our choice at all.

Learn to see that God's plan for you will not be foiled and that His intentions for your life are good beyond your comprehension.

And trust that Jesus will dance with you through every transition and on every stage of life you stand on.
...

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
- Jeremiah 29:11
...

Peace.

Death

2009-04-24T20:52:00.004-04:00

I write this blog for an incredibly dear dear friend of mine. I believe these are words they need to hear whenever they are ready. I will not presume to know when that time will be, but these words, although not mine, will be waiting for them.
...

"How they do live on, those giants of our childhood, and how well they manage to take even death in their stride because although death can put an end to them right enough, it can never put an end to our relationship with them. Wherever or however else they may have come to life since, it is beyond a doubt that they live still in us. Memory is more than a looking back to a time that is no longer; it is a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and change with the life that is in it still. The people we loved. The people who loved us. The people who, for good or ill, taught us things. Dead and gone though they may be, as we come to understand them in new ways, it is as though they come to understand us - and through them we come to understand ourselves - in new ways too. Who knows what 'the communion of saints' means, but surely it means more than just that we are all of us haunted by ghosts because they are not ghosts, these people we once knew, not just echoes of voices that have years since ceased to speak, but saints in the sense that through them something of the power and richness of life itself not only touches us once long ago, but continues to touch us. They have their own business to get on with now, I assume - 'increasing in knowledge and love of Thee,' says the Book of Common Prayer, and moving 'from strength to strength,' which sounds like business enough for anybody - and one imagines all of us on this shore fading for them as they journey ahead toward whatever new shore may await them; but it is as if they carry something of us on their way as we assuredly carry something of them on ours. That is perhaps why to think of them is a matter not only of remembering them as they used to be but of seeing and hearing them as in some sense they are now. If they had things to say to us then, they have things to say to us now too, not are they by any means always things we expect or the same things."

Frederick Buechner - The Sacred Journey
...

The dearest people we will ever love will die, whether we are there to mourn or we have already been previously mourned for ourselves. In either instance, although death robs us of people we love in perhaps the way we grasp on to the hardest, those people leave us with pieces of them that we continue to carry.

These pieces remain as real as the people we love ever were.

These pieces remind us of the incredible blessing our loves have been and continue to be to us.
...

I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

Let Go

2009-04-14T19:25:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine wrote a facebook note that scares me to death.

The note reminds me that seasons change. Stages in life come and go. Things shift and move in ways that we have no control over.

The scariest thing to me is this: when things change we become okay with it in time.
...

I care about a lot of things, and a lot of people. I have wonderful things in my life right now, and I see wonderful potential in other things that I am constantly pursuing. And just the thought that this is all simply a season of life that will change or fade away and I will be okay with not pursuing these things or not having them in my life anymore is paralyzing.

Literally paralyzing. It makes me want to cry.
...

That is why it makes me sad. It makes me think that eventually I might not care about the things that I care about more than anything in the world right now. It makes me think that everything I've created or worked for will become meaningless.

It makes me think that there may come a day where these things don't have a hold on me anymore.
...

I am afraid to allow life and God to take me wherever it is that I am going because I don't trust them to know what is best for me.

I fight a daily battle to cling to what matters to me instead of holding those things with an open hand. I am terrified the second I loosen my grip they will be taken from me.

And that absolutely breaks my heart. And it only tightens my grip.
...

I talked to my friend about these fears, and she echoed the same thoughts. She is a wonderful thing in my life.

It's nice to know that I'm not alone.
...

Peace.

Gifts

2009-04-05T10:42:00.004-04:00

I write things on my skin. I write things on my skin that I know have substance. I write things on my skin that deserve to be written somewhere and displayed to me and others because writing those things anywhere else wouldn't do the words justice.

I suppose that's why people get tattoos.
...

I wrote "See God's Gifts" on my hand recently. I don't really know why. I think I did it because I'm not thankful. I'm thankful for people and what they do for me a lot of times, but not thankful for things that are consistent or constant.

My downfall, and the downfall of a lot of people I think, is that when we look around us we will too often just accept that everything just "is what it is." This is just how things work and there is no merit in spending effort trying to think about where these things came from or what they are or why we have them.
...

When you start to think about that, it is exhausting; I'll admit to that. But it is also rewarding. It is rewarding because we become thankful when we can start to see how different (often times in not so preferable ways) our lives would be.

We become aware of what an impact these constant and consistent things have in our lives. And so we become thankful for them.
...

I have come to accept that everything I experience shapes me. Every story I tell or don't tell about myself has had an impact on me in a way that is probably more profound than I can realize. It impacts what I find worthwhile, humorous, detestable, valuable, lovable, enjoyable, and so on.

My struggle becomes recognizing that in the middle of a story I am currently a part of that I am being impacted in ways that will affect me long after this story has come to a close. Whether this is a story with a fairytale ending or a heartbreaking ending, this story will impact me beyond its conclusion.
...

When the story I am living right now sucks, as happens from time to time, then I'm normally not a very thankful person. I am not able to see the benefits of the bad times until they are long since over.

Retrospect is what allows me to see the good things that have come out of my life because of the bad times. But there has almost always been a good thing that came out of those bad times. No matter how bad.
...

So here is my conclusion:

Seeing God's Gifts is more than just about seeing the little things. It's more than just about seeing the big things. It's about seeing the things that God uses to change us. It's about looking around you, right in the midst of where you are, and becoming aware that God is doing things at this point in your life, right now, that are going to be influential.

It's about knowing that God is working to bring His will to pass in your life, and in this world. It is about being thankful that we are a part of that process.

It is a gift for us to be a part of that process.
...

Peace.

I Can Handle It

2009-03-21T20:30:00.005-04:00

The way that I tend to think about my life is... odd. At least I think so when I compare it to other peoples.

I feel like I am forever on this path of self-discovery that is sometimes fulfilling and sometimes heartbreaking.
...

If you read this blog then you have seen me realize so many of my shortcomings and the things I am poor at and rarely mention things I feel good at or comfortable doing. And, honestly, I think that is the consistent pattern of my mind;

I realize and try to come to terms with many many things that I am poor at and I rarely allow myself to enjoy the things that I am good at or do well.
...

Mainly, I'm terrified of my pride. I know I am ambitious, and I know that I can easily think too much of myself. So I keep myself down by trying to always dig up things I struggle with or have a hard time with and beat myself up over them mainly in the name of humility.

But even that backfires. I do things all the time that put me in compromising positions and are situations i would never encourage another person to do. But I put myself in those situations because, "I can handle it." "I can take it."

Do you know how stupid that is of me?!?!

That whole attitude of, "I can handle tension and the pain and everything else more than anyone else" is thinking too much of myself at its finest.
...

I really do not know how to end this blog. I guess, here is what I've come to accept:

I do have pride issues. Always have. As my best friend put it once, I have a very real potentially dark side of my personality concerning pride.

In an effort to control those issues, I dwell on things that I'm not good at and I am on an never-ending quest to always be aware of the things I struggle with so I can try and make myself better.

I also have a habit to putting myself in situations and circumstances I would not advise other people to be in because "I can handle it," and that is not wise of me. It is me thinking too much of myself.

I do not feel balanced or healthy with my faith, and thus, the rest of my life right now. I feel stretched, inadequate, and shallow. I feel like I have walls up, and I hate having walls up.

And I don't think much is going to change in these things in my life unless I start to balance out my life with God being part of my life in a way He hasn't been lately.
...

"For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing."

2 Timothy 4:7-8
...

I'm running, man. I'm really trying. I promise.
...

Peace.

Experience

2009-03-14T18:36:00.004-04:00

Here, I will state my main theological understanding that one day may be my claim to fame.

(Although, I do highly doubt that it is new. It is probably just more unarticulated.)
...

For the record, I hate the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

Or rather, I have hated most every single discussion I have ever had in a theology class where people have had to use it or apply it to their own faith.

But, that is probably because no one ever agrees with me. Ha.
...

This may be incredibly boring, but if you want to hear my frustration, follow me on this.

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral has 4 things:

Scripture
Experience
Tradition
Reason

Now, the purpose of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is to help understand what matters in your faith. What is paramount over everything else.
...

Some people make the claim that they cannot split apart any of the 4 because they all play on each other.

And I agree, BUT I also have always been very convicted that experience, my life experience, is what determines whether or not I remain a Christian or I do not.
...

Here is my conclusion:

Christian scripture and the faith's tradition interpret my experience. When tradition fails to interpret my experience, as it often has, I have found that tradition to still be valuable, but far from essential. The day that scripture no longer is able to speak to my experience, is the day I leave the Christian faith as I know it. However, to this day, scripture has been better able to interpret my experience in intelligible and rational ways more than anything else I’ve ever encountered in my life.

Thus, I have finally articulated my perspective on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.
...

Here's where it gets interesting.

I think that what I just said above is true of all Christ followers. They will not, apart from divine intervention (which is not on the quadrilateral I mind you), continue to follow this faith if all of a sudden the faith was not able to resonate with their experience and who they were or where they came from.

That's why so many Liberation theologies have been written. People have looked for a church to teach the gospel to them in a way that respects their story and their stuggle and where they are coming from. The problem is that because churches failed to reach out to those communities, they decided to create an entirely new branch of Christianity when all that really needed to be had were some honest and open discussions.

If those discussions had been had, I am convinced that we could have avoided having the pendulum swing too far away in reaction. Unfortunately, overcompensation is a repetitive sin in the church.
...

Luckily, I also believe that the Bible (and maybe some traditions) do speak to people in their experience, no matter where their life is. I think God is able to resonate with all people in all places and all that they deal with in their lives.
...

God resonates with the CEO in Hollywood and resonates with the homeless man in Ohio.

God resonates with the Middle Eastern dictator and the Asian expereincing oppression.

God resonates with the middle class family in New York and the gambling addict in Las Vegas.
...

God is a God who created this world, created all of us, and lived this life. He knows what it is to be in our shoes. He is above all of our experiences and transcends the lives we live.

And most importantly, He loves us.

He loves you.
...

For God so loved the world...
....

Peace.

Lovely Things

2009-03-14T13:32:00.006-04:00

I was in California this past week. Furthest I've ever been from home.

Pasadena was beautiful. I loved it.

I'd love to live out there someday. Maybe in a few years.
...

Pasadena was lovely. It was busy and urban but it felt fresh. A lot of urban places I've been all have a very distinct feeling of being on the downside. Their glory days have come and gone. They have a slight feeling of rundown-ness.

Maybe it was because I was on the west coast, but things just felt fresh. The weather, the people, the houses, the buildings, the trees. It was all fresh.

And it was refreshing.
...

I saw the ocean for the first time ever. I loved it.

Which is odd. I am normally terrified of the ocean, but I still loved seeing it, and hearing it, and smelling it, and touching it for the first time. It was really a cool experience. We got there at sunset, which made it even more lovely.

The ocean is a really big thing, and that's why I don't like it. You can't trust it. Especially when you can't see land. Then you are in big trouble.
...

I don't know what else to say really. The ocean was lovely. And I love lovely things.

There are lots of lovely things in my life right now. Some more lovely than others. And some I see more than others.

But I am thankful for them all. Those things and the moments I get to see them or talk to them or touch them are the moments that make life worth living.

It's experiencing something I don't deserve at all. And that only happens by grace.
...

When you experience something lovely, and you know you are only able to do that because of grace, it makes everything so much clearer.

It makes me thankful for that lovely thing.

And it makes me thankful for grace.
...

Peace.

Prophetic

2009-02-27T15:08:00.005-05:00

...

This is the current background on my computer.

I've realized that whenever I change the wallpaper on my computer, I feel like it somehow symbolically represents my life.

Sometimes I think it reflects what my life currently feels like.

Sometimes when that isn't the case, I've caught myself looking back at my life since I changed the background, and the picture had actually become appropriate for what my life had started to feel like.
...

Today I came across this photo again. And for the first time I looked at it's name.

It's called "Tracks to Nowhere."
...

Peace.

Actions Scream Louder Than Words

2009-02-27T11:18:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I feel God calling me to do particular things. Calling me to pursue something specific. To do something that is clear-cut.

And I kick and scream.
...

I do this for two related reasons.

The first reason is: As long as I do it, I don't think it really matters if I am willing or not.

If God is calling me to do something and I do it, then He will make it happen if it has to for his kingdom. At least I truly believe that. Whether I do it kicking and screaming or I do it with a big smile doesn't change the fact that God will make it happen if it has to for His purposes (most of the time, that is - there are some exceptions but what I'm referring to isn't one of those exceptions).

The second reason is: If I convince myself that fulfilling this calling isn't really important or preferable, I won't be as disappointed if I fail.

Think about it. If God says, "Nick, I want you to do this," and then I say, "Ugh... I don't really want to. That's not what I want to do!" Then if it doesn't work out or something falls apart or I fail, then I'm not as disappointed. "I didn't want to do that anyways. Must have not been something God had for me."

I safeguard myself against feeling like a failure.
...

A friend of mine recently read my post Price Check and sent me a message. It was great to hear from him. We met this summer for a week and haven't really spoken since.

One thing he reminded me of smacked me in the face so hard.

"Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." - Matthew 6:33
...

I suck at that so much. It's all about me. I'm what matters. Me. Me. ME!

How distorted is that? How awful is that? I mean, the verse has implications that carry over to more than just food and drink and clothing. Those things are what Jesus is specifically referring to, but the bigger idea is that God will take care of me and make me secure.
...

I can be secure in Jesus.
...

If you look at my life lately, you can see that no matter how much I say that, my actions don't affirm that it's what I actually believe.

I'm secure in having the things I want. That's what my actions say. And they don't even say it.

They scream it. At the top of their lungs.
...

But my actions speak the truth. They tell the world that my kingdom, with my things, and my desires, and my wants, and my aspirations matter far more than God's.

At the end of the day I just don't trust God. I don't trust God enough to add those things to me.

If I pursue His will and His kingdom and His desire for my life and this world, then He will take care of me and I will be secure.

But my actions claim that I don't actually believe that. Or, even worse, if I do believe it then I've decided that my wants are just utterly more important than God's.

And that. Is. Awful. And it makes me awful.
...

I'm sorry. I don't necessarily owe you an apology, but I very well might. I sure feel like I owe everyone an apology.

So I'm sorry.
...

My Jesus,

I'll follow you as long as I can see

I'll stand by you as they criticize

And then among all the critics, I'll hear my own words...

Forgive my inconsistency

Amen
...

Peace.

Jerkface

2009-02-23T23:52:00.005-05:00

Do you know the feeling you have after you just treated someone poorly? The feeling you have when you were just mean to someone and you feel really crappy because of it. You don't want to apologize because it wasn't that big of a deal, but you still feel like a jerk.
...

Do you know the feeling you have when your life is just imbalanced or off center? Things just don't feel right and it's so draining. It's almost like nothing feels right, but it isn't awful either. Life's just a little bit off and it's so draining.
...

I have been feeling both those feelings constantly for weeks.

Constantly.
...

The conclusion my mind has come to is that: I am a jerk. I am a prick. I am an ass.

I am a very ungraceful person.

I have concluded the reason I feel off center is because I am a jerk, and I am jerk because I feel like one constantly. As you can see, these two feelings create a cycle that is no fun.
...

If you read my blog Price Check then you might wonder if this feeling is related to what I wrote about in that blog.

The answer is a resounding yes. Although, I really don't know how.

If I'm honest, so many things have come to my attention over the past month because of the things I wrote about in Price Check. And every single one of those realizations has sucked.

Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Sucked.

But, I'm grateful I've come to the realizations. Truly.
...

I would always rather have the truth than ignorance. Always.
...

The worst part of where my mind is going is that I do not know what to do about any of this.

None of it.

I do not know how to fix whatever is wrong. I don't know what practical things I need to change or concentrate on or work on to make this better. I truly do not know what to do.

I'm stuck.
...

So I pray. And I tell some select friends. I ask them to pray. And I talk to God. And I try to think I'm valuable.

But that is a tough pill to swallow.

Either way, I don't know what else to do. I really don't.

So I'm praying.
...

I'm sorry if I was a jerk to you. And I mean that. Regardless of the moment, you deserve better than that.

And I'm trying to accept that I deserve better too.

I'm getting there.
...

Peace.

Sean

2009-02-18T18:47:00.005-05:00

In high school I had a friend named Sean. Sean was amazing. Sean had more passion in his little finger than I have in my entire body. Sean had more potential than anyone I'd ever met.

And Sean threw it all away.
...

Sean loved God.

Sean wanted to love people.

Sean wanted to bring Jesus everywhere he went.
...

Sean was made to do those things. It was obvious. You could see it. Everyone could.

Sean oozed potential that put me to shame.

And Sean threw it away.
...

One of the most insightful things Sean ever said was this:

"Most of the time, when people who say they want to give all of their life to God and have Him completely transform their lives, they don't really mean what they just said. What they really mean is 'take everything in my life, except my desire to date someone,' or 'take everything, but my ability to smoke weed,' or 'take all of me except my occasional getting drunk at parties,' or, 'take all of me, except the sex with my girlfriend.' When that is our attitude then we aren't being upfront with God. When we tell God, 'take everything but just this little piece' God responds, 'Then keep everything. That's it. It's all or nothing.'"
...

When you read that you can sense the passion. He was a person who had done it all the wrong way. He was a person that knew Jesus was more real then everything else he had ever put his life into.

That quote was so genuine from Sean because he had been the same person who said, "Take it all except this. Take it all except that."

"Take everything I am... except the things that are hardest to let go of."
...

Eventually, Sean lost something. Or he gained something. I don't which. But it wasn't good.

It wasn't good.
...

Sean began saying the same things he used to. The same things he knew were going to kill him.

Somewhere along the line, Sean began to believe that he could get by because he thought he could be an exception. And that attitude destroyed him.

He lost his passion.

He lost his love.

He got hit with so much hardship and he had nothing in himself that could save him. At the end of the day, Sean never wanted to give it all to Jesus.

He was addicted to his life, no matter how destructive it was.
...

One of the most painful things I've ever watched was Sean's life go the way it has. To see a person who has so much potential and passion not be strong enough to sustain it...

It's more than awful.
...

I write this because I see people who are like Sean.

They have his potential.

They have his passion.

And they are on the verge. They are at the crossroads Sean walked to. And I don't want to see them go the way Sean went.

Because watching that is more than heartbreaking.
...

And the scariest thing. The absolute most terrifying thing. Is that sometimes...

I am Sean.
...

Sometimes I see myself doing things things and making decisions that I know aren't from Jesus.

They are from me.
...

I love Sean. I miss Sean.

But I don't ever want to be Sean.
...

God, save us.
...

Peace.

Africa. Not Virginia.

2009-02-14T15:52:00.005-05:00

I need to go to Africa.

I'm called. Not permanently (I don't think). But I need to go and experience it. I need to go to the slums. I need to put faces with names and stories on the things that are just numbers and statistics to me. I need to put faces on those kids and hear the stories of those families.

I don't know when I have to go, but I have to go. Soon. In the next few years.
...

I almost want to go alone. I don't want it to be safe. I don't want it to be planned. I want to have only God to trust in.

He'll take care of me.

I want to go and have God show me what God wants to show me. I'll just show up, because He is already there.
...

I want it to destroy me.
...

I want to take my family there when I have one. I want them to know what life is like for some people. So they never think we need a big house or nice things. I want them to always know that a world outside theirs exists.

Because when I was growing up I never knew that, and I so wish I had.
...

If I see Africa, I know it will never let wanting what I want rule me. It will help always want what God wants.

I won't let me just have a nice house in the suburbs and pretend like suffering doesn't exist.

Jesus would hate that.
...

I'm called to engage the suffering for the rest of my life, and Africa won't let me forget that.
...

If I was in the suburbs and lived like I did when I grew up, then I would have false security. I would feel secure because of myself, not because of God.

I would have material comfort. I don't want that, because I would know it was fake.
...

Nice things aren't fulfilling. Jesus is fulfilling. Doing His work is fulfilling.

Engaging this world is fulfilling.

Because then I know it's Jesus that is taking care of me. I trust Him more than myself, even if I'll never admit it.
...

Someone used to tell me that after they graduated they wanted to move to Virginia and live in the mountains and have a nice house and live that kind of life.

I can't live that life. I'm called to something more.
...

I'm called to Africa. I'm not called to Virginia. Maybe you are. That's okay. Go there. Love people. Jesus is in Virginia. But I'm not.

Africa. Not Virginia.
...

Peace.

Price Check

2009-01-31T17:14:00.003-05:00

One of the most providential things about my life is timing. I am positively convinced that the timing of things on my mind over the past week or so has been completely providential.
...

I reread Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell over Xmas break, and this past week I typed up all the quotes from the book that I valued and saved them on my computer. I love quotes.

One of the quotes was, "I heard a teacher say that if people were taught more about who they are, they wouldn’t have to be told what to do. It would come naturally."

When I typed that up I realized how true that had to be because it was how I lived. I treated people as if that was what I believed about them. I tell people that they are valuable and loved and precious because I believe that is what will change them. That is what they need to hear. And that is what is true.
...

I started living that way probably close to a year and a half ago. I read Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller in the summer of 2007. In that book, Donald talks about how we treat love like a commodity. He would give it to people who he thought had earned it by doing good things or gave it to people in hopes of getting something else he wanted from them in return.

That is how I lived. Love is not a commodity, though. And so I stopped. I started to recognize value and worth in people no matter what, and so I started to love people recklessly. I gave love away lavishly. I started to love people until they broke me.

I believe I am blessed to be able to love people the way I can. And that became my favorite thing about myself. My ability to love.
...

I was talking to a great friend of mine last night and got smacked right in the face with the fact that I don't love myself well. I value other people, but I've been putting myself down and keeping myself down for a long long time.

I don't ever remember liking myself.

What I really came to grips with is how bad this is ruining me. I realized I can't do anything well because of it. I can't love people well, I can't be secure, and I sure as hell can't be in a romantic relationship with someone if I don't love myself. I am constantly relying on other people to make me feel lovable and have any kind of worth.
...

The worth I saw in everyone else, I didn't see in myself at all.

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller says that he got to a point where he would never talk to someone the way he talked to himself, and somehow he had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but okay to do it to himself.

That is how I've felt.
...

And I kept it that way on purpose. I've been keeping it that way on purpose because I've been afraid I couldn't love myself and love people. I couldn't do both.

I thought if I loved myself I would feel secure and content and I would lose the incentive to love people the way I do. I thought I would stop loving them because I wouldn't need it in return. That wasn't the only reason I loved people, but I've been afraid that if I loved myself and didn't rely on anyone else's love then I wouldn't be as reckless with how I loved people. And I don't want to not be reckless.

I like that I'm reckless with my love for people.
...

But. I have to love myself. It says love your neighbor as yourself, so it has to be possible. Has to be.

I love people but if push came to shove I would collapse and kill myself and whoever I was trying to love. Because I don't see anything valuable in me. I've never felt anything other than dissatisfaction with myself.

Ever.
...

I've been feeling like I was dying inside for so long because I was letting Jesus love me, but only through other people. I could never sustain anything on my own.

But that has to change. So I'm going to work on it.

This is me working on it.
...

I know I am loved. I am valuable. God loves me. Always.

"Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins."
1 Peter 4:8
...

Peace.

Details

2009-01-29T17:53:00.004-05:00

I was praying yesterday and I started to pray that I can just sit back in my life and watch things play out.

Watch things play out without becoming so invested and emotionally hooked over things that are happening in my life.
...

I want more trust in God. More trust that if I'm not incredibly proactive about every single thing that the big picture of my life will still be good; even if the details don't always go the way I think I want them to.

I have a terrible habit of getting really involved and invested in things that are just details. Details that i could/should probably just leave to God.
...

I asked God to help me relax and sit back. To not become so attached to a particular detail that it hurts me when it doesn't go my way.

If there is any short-coming in how I interact with God and live my life, that's it: I don't trust Him with the details.
...

I trust Him with the big picture, but not the details.
...

Peace.

Bond. James Bond.

2009-01-17T10:18:00.004-05:00

I went and saw Quantum of Solace again last night. I love it far more than Casino Royale, and I am well aware that puts me in the minority of people. I LOVE Quantum of Solace. I love Daniel Craig in that movie. I love Bond in that movie. I love all the shots. I love everything Marc Forster did. I love the script. I love everything about it.

I want to be that Bond. I want to be that attractive, that confident, and that carefree. I want it.
...

I'm incredibly jealous of James Bond in that movie because he loves no one. He loved someone, and they were taken from him. Sure he is hurting, and probably dying inside, but for some reason, in my current position in life, I see him as free. He is actually engulfed in anguish and revenge, but he truly has nothing to lose and nothing to maintain. I feel so jealous of that.
...

I feel like I'm working to maintain so much love in my life. It's all conditional. I'm a slave to it. Bond isn't. He doesn't want it.

He is free from the need I am a slave to.
...

I doubt he's permanently free. No one is. But even for a moment, I'd love to feel that freedom. He has so much confidence in who he is because he's free. He is just who he is; he isn't trying to impress anyone. He doesn't need anyone's love or affection. He doesn't long for it.

I do.

I want to be free from the debilitating, restricting desire and need to be accepted and feel loved. To feel free of the obligation of working for people's love.
...

I want to be James Bond. He's free.
...

Peace.

Pseudo Good Morning

2009-01-09T10:01:00.003-05:00

I had a really weird experience. Kinda like Deja Vu. Maybe exactly like Deja Vu, but I'm no Deja Vu expert.

I woke up early this morning because I slept like crap last night and waking up far before I wanted to was just the perfect way to end it.
...

I really did not like high school most of the time I was in it. That seems to be the consensus for most people once you are a few years removed from it. I especially hated the morning before I would drive to school, or get on the bus when I was even younger.

I would wake up and stumble around the house to the bathroom and then my room and then the kitchen and then back to my room and do all the things necessary to get ready to leave. When I was too young to drive to school, I remember being ready a few minutes before the bus would come and just sitting in my living room far too early in the morning watching SportsCenter on ESPN. This really sucked because I never got to see a full episode and always managed to see the bus coming down the street right as the highlights I really wanted to see were coming on.

It was very frustrating. Especially since I was already frustrated to be awake and miserable I was going to school for the next 8 hours.

The other thing that really sucked about those mornings sitting and watching SportsCenter was that, depending what time of year it was, there wasn't even anything I was interested in being talked about. When I was younger, all I cared about was football. I never liked baseball or hockey or basketball highlights because I didn't care much about the sports.
...

I hated baseball season. Basketball and hockey seasons were no better, but baseball season just seemed sooooo long. And there are games everyday. Its not like I knew that Monday mornings was the day SportsCenter was going to be covering all the baseball highlights because baseball was played on Sunday. No no no. Everyday, for months, baseball ruled the highlights and the news and the commentary on SportsCenter.

I hated those months.

I hated being awake in the mornings.

I hated high school.

At that point in my life, I was a very unhappy young kid.
...

This morning I woke up way too early and rolled over in bed fully aware I was not going to get back to sleep. I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV and flipped over to SportsCenter. They were showing highlights of a basketball game. A Knicks game I cared nothing about.

In that moment, the feelings of being miserable for being awake too early and the dissappointment/disatisfaction/indifference of watching highlights I was completely uninterested in fused together in a fashion very similar to that of what I used to feel daily in 9th grade.

My stomach dropped, and I hated life for a moment.
...

How weird that feeling was captivates me. I was so discouraged. I hate being miserable, but in that moment I was fully aware that I was miserable because of circumstances that no longer exist and I just had a flashback of emotions from 6 years ago. It was fascinating and it sucked real bad at the same time.

Crazy.

Luckily I changed the channel and watched music videos on Vh1. That might have been no better, except they no longer videos and songs from 2003. I'm grateful for that.
...

Peace.

It Runs In The Family

2009-01-08T09:49:00.003-05:00

I talked to my mom about theology and God last night. We talk about that stuff sometimes. It's normally her just asking me lots and lots of questions. It's always tough. All she wants is to understand and hear God so she can follow Him well. It's kinda like, "who doesn't, right?!" But it's not that simple.

Because I don't a lot of the time.

I mean, I do, but I'm really afraid because I feel like it's going to be hard or scary or not what I want.

I think a lot of the time I still do what I know/think is right more than what I want, but not always. Definitely not always.

I'm real real selfish.
...

I admire my mom's childlike faith, and I feel bad she doesn't understand that she knows God enough to follow Him. She always thinks He's judging her, but in an irritated parental fashion. Very ungraceful. It's tough to get her to think otherwise. She isn't very comfortable with the idea of unconditional love, but who is?

I think she knows God enough to follow Him well. I know she does. Maybe she just lacks a confidence in her own spiritual maturity and understanding. Maybe I just have way too much in mine.
...

I want to always have a deep conviction and passion to follow Him in everything I do, even the small things, like she does. To follow because He loves me and died for me.

A lot of the time I do, but definitely not always.
...

Peace.

Be Specific

2009-01-02T00:53:00.006-05:00

I bought a journal last week. I've been told it looks "very me." I'm pumped about that, because I like how it looks. I must like my style.

I want to journal in 2009. I hope I'll be consistent with it. I'm pretty sure I won't do it everyday, but I want to try.

Just the idea that this book exists scares the hell out of me. Literally scares me to death. The idea that someone could read it and see things I thought that I'm not ready for them (or anybody?) to hear... It just scares me to have something tangible that other people can engage simply by having it that will expose me for me. I have a deep fear that if people know me, then they won't like me anymore. I think most people have that fear. This book just intensifies the possibility of people figuring out who I am.

In any event, I've decided to post here, my first journal entry that I just wrote. Well, at least the first 30% or so of it. I hope it is enlightening. It was for me just to write it.
...

"So here I start, journaling... It's a pretty scary proposition to me. I feel terrified that a book could even record thoughts that I don't want anyone else to see. Not that I necessarily don't want people to know some of the things I write, but I don't think that everything I write is going to be material that I'm okay with people reading.

I'd rather this not be like my blog, ya know?

In the blog, I censor myself. I have to. The material I post in there needs to be material that I'm okay with other people reading and knowing and just understanding that I think about X, Y, and Z a lot even though I know I shouldn't. I know I shouldnt think about or dwell on girls and love and relationships and money or whatever else I freak about. I think a lot about things that don't really deserve or warrant the attention I give them. A whole lot. A way way lot. A lot more than I should. A lot.

I don't talk about those things in the blog. They make me seem real weak and crazy and broken. They make me seem like I have baggage and I hate the idea of people thinking I have baggage. HATE IT. So I don't show it. I don't blog about the things that are painful and heartbreaking and hurtful and consuming. They're just too much.

Instead, I only blog about processed things. It's not like I think people don't know that I'm weak and crazy and broken, but to show anyone, in a blog, specifically why and who and how I am broken and hurting and weak: that is just terrifying, and I don't think it's appropriate. So I won't do it.

And that's why I've started this. So I can consistently be specific somewhere outside the the 23 inch circumference of my head. Here I can name names and record vivid memories and emotions and experiences that might be too open for a blog. On the blog, that would just make me seem pissy or crazy. But here... here it just makes me, me."
...

After that I went on to name names and tell stories. I'd say more but it wouldn't be appropriate.
...

Peace.

Semester Hindsight

2008-12-21T20:20:00.006-05:00

So here I am, a week and a half into Christmas break, and I'm just now writing a blog. My intellectual production is apparently less than stellar.

Maybe that isn't the case. Maybe the things that are on my mind are just things that aren't blog material (for a number of reasons). Actually, I'm completely positive that is the case.

I'll try to start thinking thoughts that are fitting to be disclosed in blog format.
...

Regardless, I might as well talk about what I have been up to.

-sleep
-additional sleep
-working out (I joined a gym)
-reading (not as much as I hoped)
-writing (nowhere near as much as I hoped)
-thinking (a whole lot about things that don't deserve the attention I give them)

I've decided that since this is a break, that is exactly what I'm going to make it. This month off will be a break that allows me to recover from the strain of my 5th semester at Malone.
...

This past semester sucked. Well, I shouldn't be so fast to say that. My schedule sucked. I felt very stretched when it came to time. Far too many days I thought I needed there to be more than 24 hours in that day so I could take some time and slow down. That is a ridiculous feeling to have when you are 20 years old, at least I think it is.

I literally remember thinking that and then saying to myself, "Whatever is wrong here is in the way I'm doing things. There is no way in hell I can actually be feeling like this."

My classes weren't bad, but they weren't amazing. There is a good chance that the schedule I was working with made it harder for me to enjoy my classes. That is a very strong possibility, so I won't put any blame on them.
...

There were things about this semester that were awesome.

Move groups were awesome. Hearing the positive feedback and the passion of some students involved. The impact we made through the days with Multi-Development Services and everything else... that was amazing. It was all God, and it was awesome to watch it happen.

Being a CA was awesome. To invest in people, to try and be a resource to people however you can, that was cool. I don't think I was a very good CA, if I'm honest. There is a right way and a wrong way to go about being a CA and I feel like I learned so much about how to do things well by not doing them so well right off the bat. I loved my class, I loved my students, and I loved my professor. There is no way if I do it again that I could have as positive of an experience as I did this time. Maybe I'm wrong... but I really don't know.
...

Well, it is what it is. Break is break and God is God. Sometimes when I say things like that people give me a weird look. I think I just mean that God is still God and He is still in control just like always, and break is here and it is a break from all the things I knew it would be a break from. It's predictable.

Maybe it also carries the tone that break isn't as fulfilling as I hoped or thought it could be, so I remember that God is God and that means He is fulfilling. Even though that is a good way to think, I always say is as if I'm dissappointed. I probably am. I probably should get over it. My bad.
...

This blog isn't riveting. I'm aware. I have other thoughts. But they aren't refined enough or appropriate topics to be processed in this place. I'm sorry. I feel guilty for that. I probably shouldn't. I probably should get over it.

My bad.
...

Peace

Reminiscence

2008-11-28T01:35:00.003-05:00

It's been a month. I've been busy, and I'm sorry. Excuses are lame, I know; so I'll stop.
...

One of my friends told me I was reminiscent lately. I actually wish that were more true.
...

In my life, it is so easy to forget God when things are going well. I have a terrible memory. It is absolutely awful. I don't necessarily forget names or details or information; I forget things that are more important.

I forget God.
...

I always have. When things are going well in my life, I feel like I'm in control. I'll think that I'm the reason things are going well. I've started to make the right decisions and finally I have this little part of life figured out. Finally, I understand how to make this happen the right way.

The truth is quite different, however. In reality, the reason I forget God is because when things are bad I have to cry out for Him. When things are bad, I can't get through without God. So I cry out and beg for Him to walk with Him and put all my focus on Him.

I need Him because I am weak.
...

The change comes when I experience success. Success socially, or romantically, or academically, or emotionally. That success gives me this ridiculous feeling of self-sufficiency. It makes me think that I don't need Him anymore, because I can take it from here.

The sad part is that once I get to that point, I then have the greatest chance to completely mess up everything.
...

I need to stop forgetting God. I forget that God got me to where I am. I forget that God gave me these people in my life. I forget that God gave me the opportunity to be where I am.

I forget things that I absolutely KNOW.
...

It is frustrating to have this kind of a memory. I can only imagine how much it hurts to be where God is, on the other side. I'd hate to care about a person who constantly forgets or rejects my desire to love them and do life with them.

It's like I tell God that He can sit this one out; I got it.

When the truth is all I've got is the recipe to fail. All I have is the experience of screwing up great things. Unfortunately, I forget that I don't have any other experience.
...

I really don't want to forget God. I don't want to forget the things I know. I don't want to forget that my life runs through Him.

Those are terrible things to forget. Trust me.
...

Peace.

Fortune Teller

2008-10-27T22:49:00.004-04:00

Jesus isn't safe.
Jesus really effs with your life.
Jesus makes things hard.
Jesus puts what I care about in danger.

But that is only because I care about the wrong things.
...

Sometimes I really believe I am going to go somewhere that isn't safe. Not that I can't or don't do things worth doing here and now, but this feeling just seems to tell me I'm going somewhere very different.

Somewhere where I don't have any cares that could hold me back. (People or things)
Somewhere where I do what Jesus did. (Show people who God is)
Somewhere where I love like Jesus loves. (Unconditionally)
Somewhere where I do things most don't want to do. (Let my heart be broken; over and over)
Somewhere where I am really called to be. (Somewhere different)
Somewhere where I don't even know who will be there with me. (This sucks)
Somewhere where I don't have anything but my character and my actions. (Only He defines me)
Somewhere where nothing matters but Jesus. (Like it should be now, but it isn't)

Good God, that's scary...

Things Exist

2008-10-18T11:22:00.004-04:00

Recently I've been telling myself "things exist" over and over.

I write it on my whiteboard. I write it on my wrist. I write it on my arm.

I need to be reminded that "things exist."
...

I need to remember because I have strong desires for specific things deep down in my soul. I want these things so badly now, or in the future, that sometimes it consumes me and everything I do is somehow motivated by trying to get the things I want in my life.

I build these specific things I desire up in my mind to the point that I begin to think that nothing better exists. My head tells me I could never have anything better.

I begin to believe they are the best things that could ever happen in my life.
...

As far back as I can remember, I remember always getting to a point when I really wanted something I began to believe that it was the best thing that I could ever have.

I would really be missing out if I didn't have whatever that was in my life. (And I really didn't want to miss out)
...

But as far back as I can remember, I was always wrong too. There always came new things or people or opportunities that were so much better than anything I had ever seen before in my life. I just had to go through some life to get to them.

Better things existed. Better things had always existed. Even though I was positive they didn't.
...

Things come and things go. Desires change with time. It's tough to think ahead and expect something better when you feel like you have something golden right in front of you, just out of your reach.

I just need to remember that things exist. And they always have.
...

Peace.

Hair Ties And Life Stories

2008-10-05T23:50:00.003-04:00

Last year around this time I found a black hair tie in a friend of mine's bookbag. I put it on my wrist.

Not because it meant anything. That was kind of the point. I actually just did it because I thought it looked kinda cool. Another part of me liked the idea of wearing a wristband that didn't mean anything since everyone always seems to wear wristbands that stand for something. I guess I just wanted to go against the grain a little bit.
...

I had that wristband on my right wrist 24/7. People would ask what it stood for, or what it meant, or why I was wearing it. They always seems so surprised/confused when I would say it didn't mean anything; I just thought it looked kinda cool.

I guess people really don't wear wristbands just for the hell of it. Except me, that is.
...

I tell this story because about 3 weeks ago I lost my black wristband.

And all of a sudden, my meaningless black wristband had a ton of meaning to me. Not intentionally, of course, but I started to catch myself noticing it wasn't on my wrist and then I would begin to remember everything I went through or experienced over the past year of my life.

It was like a chapter of my life could be defined as the chapter I wore this black hair tie on my wrist.
...

To be honest I miss it; I don't want that chapter of my life to end.
...

A couple great friendships grew and formed in this chapter.
-
A couple relationships got off the ground but never went anywhere in this chapter.
-
A lot of great times were shared with my core group of friends in this chapter.
-
I lived in Upper Barclay for the first time in this chapter.
-
I took a hiatus from theater in this chapter.
-
I struggled with pacifism and government in this chapter.
-
I broke a bone for the first time in my life in this chapter.
-
I broke a bone for the second time in my life in this chapter.
-
A lot of great books were read in this chapter.
-
I spent my first summer in Canton in this chapter.
-
I took the longest road trip of my life in this chapter.
-
I hurt a lot of people in this chapter.
-
A lot of people hurt me in this chapter.
-
I loved a lot of people in this chapter.
-
A lot of people loved me in this chapter.
-
I had the internship of a lifetime in this chapter.
-
The vision for Move groups came in this chapter.
-
I pursued and ran from Jesus in this chapter.
-
Jesus pursued me in this chapter.
-
You were in this chapter.
Thank you.
...

I'm going to miss that chapter.

Peace.

Notice The Difference

2008-09-21T08:29:00.006-04:00

I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, "He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy." And they were glorifying God because of me.

Galatians 1:22-24
...

In this passage, Paul is recapping much of what he has done since the time he became a follow of Christ. He talks about how he had left many of his Jewish contemporaries in the dust and was also a wicked persecutor of the faith.

And then he talks about he was making his first visit to the churches in Judea.
...

The reason this gets to interesting to me, is that Paul talks about how the churches Judea were completely unfamiliar to him by sight; they had only ever heard about how he was attempting to destroy the faith.

So let's recap for a second. We have Paul, a former Pharisee of Pharisees that was advancing far beyond many of his peers and also was rigorously pursuing Christians to put them to death. And now, he will go and visit Judea.
...

What is so amazing to me about this passage is the reaction from the Judean church when they hear that Paul is coming to visit.

They begin to glorify God, not because they have seen Paul, but simply because they are aware of what his old ways were and what his current ways are. And it is night and day, ladies and gentlemen. Night and day.
...

These believers had never even seen Paul, but they were rejoicing for the change of his heart and love given to him by the Spirit.

What is the chance that something like that happens to us on any kind of consistent basis?

I think that it happens a lot when we first come to follow Christ, right? At that point, the only thing on our mind is how do we follow Christ in a genuine way? What do we have to do to show the world that we have his Spirit?
...

Maybe for you, you have never really not been a Christian. In that case, maybe the question you need to reflect on is when was the last time someone told you that you were a blessing to them? Maybe it was yesterday, and maybe you don't remember when the last time that was.
...

If there was a time in your life when you did not follow Christ, then here is a question you can ask yourself: What can I do that will let me shine the brightest I can possibly shine in this world; that will make me look different?

The answer to that question may not be what you are looking for, and I'm not suggesting you need to go and leave everyone that God has put in your life behind. What I would say I am suggesting, is that if you look at where God has brought you at this point in your life, then take a look around and see where is that Christ's light needs to show up.
...

Paul tells us about how the change in his life made people give glory to God simply because they heard about the change in his life. That's sweet.

One way I feel like that could apply to us, is to see if there is a way that we can do the kinds of things that Paul did and live with that kind of vigor so that we can help people see that light that Christ has put in us. And that question applies to anyone, whether you have just become a Christian or you have been going to church since you can remember.

What is it about you and the way you conduct yourself that is going to make people praise God that you chose to follow him?
...

Peace.

Hell's Invitation

2008-09-13T10:24:00.009-04:00

In his book, Sex God, Rob Bell talks about how big the implications of our actions actually are. We hardly ever realize it and we allow ourselves to think as if we are unimportant and we are unable to actually make an impact.

Rob has this to say regarding that:

"With every decision, conversation, gesture, comment, action, and attitude, we’re inviting heaven or hell to earth."
...

Obviously Rob believes that our actions actually carry HUGE implications in the spiritual realm of our world. And I think he is completely right.

It is funny because we will so often act as if the things we do, even when we know they are wrong, don't matter because we can't make a difference. But by the same token, if we are trying to do something good or honorable, we want the praise and we want to be noticed for the fact we are attempting to make a difference and positive impact in our world. I guess we just can't make up our mind whether we are instrumental or we don't matter at all.

I'm pretty sure we are instrumental.
...

In any case, I think that something we really need to recognize is just how influential we are in the world and what our responsibility as Christ follows will always be: Bring the Kingdom to earth.

If that is true, then everything we do (gestures, decisions, thoughts, comments, attitudes) will bring either more of Heaven or more of Hell to our world.

We are so much more influential than we ever want to accept.
...

I want to add something to what Rob said in his book (which by the way, if you have not read Sex God, you must. It is literally amazing. One of the best books I've ever read).

Not only do we create a world which more resembles either God's eternal presence or His eternal absence, but we have the ability to create and sustain an atmosphere around us that affects everyone we come in contact with. We create something that is painful and frustrating and sorrowful; and it follows us wherever we go.

Not only do we create that kind of an environment for the people we interact with; we create it for ourselves, too.

We have the ability to make our lives a living hell, and everyone who is reading this right now knows exactly what I am talking about. We make decisions and do or say things that not only make it Hell for people to interact with us, but we make it Hell to be us. We invite Hell, not only into this world, but we invite it into our hearts and our persons.

And trust me, as fallen beings, we are fantastic at harboring Hell deep within ourselves.
...

So this is what I suggest. Pursue the Kingdom. Spend time with Christ and ask Him to fill you. We cannot do this alone, and we do not have to. Not anymore.

When Christ is thriving within us, then pursuing the Kingdom is our truest desire, and He will speak how it is we should do that to us. We just need to listen.

But take heart. We don't have to make those decisions alone. We have a wonderful loving savior who is willing to walk right next to us, every single step of the way.
...

"My old self has been crucified with Christ. For is it no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."

Galatians 2:20
...

Peace.

Another Fall

2008-09-10T10:32:00.004-04:00

I haven't posted in about a month, and for that I apologize.

I have been really busy, I promise.
...

It is a new fall semester, and this one is pretty busy. I have 2 music lessons, 4 classes, CA stuff going on, small group stuff going on, a nearly-daily workout routine, and a pseudo social life. I'm also on the market to be involved with some sort of theater on campus, which is something I really do want to get back into. It's a balance that I'm learning is pretty tough to maintain.

Balance is so hard, but it is also the key.
...

I've come to see something weird in my perspective toward a lot of things nowadays. I feel like I have been here at Malone for 2 years, and I have gone through a lot of phases where I cared a lot about this or that or this or that... I have tried to keep my hand on top of everything and stressed myself out about a lot of different things. I think that at this point I have come to understand myself well enough that I know what it is I need to stay on top of and what it is I don't need to care about or get worked up about anymore.

Does that make sense at all?

It's just like, I've been here for 2 years now, and I have stressed about not going to chapel, or not doing every single reading for every single class, or not working ahead, or anything else I could worry about. But I think that now I have gotten to a point where I have a good handle on what is worth stressing about and what isn't.

And here is my conclusion: Most things aren't worth stressing about... At all.
...

I think that is a good thing a bad thing. Becoming apathetic normally isn't a good thing, but I just look at it as really understanding my priorities. I do feel bad that some things are getting the shaft, but really it just is what it is. I just can't handle anything more at the moment.

At the end of the day, I'm not even a month into the semester, so there is still a lot to figure out, but I'm just going on down the road. If I see you along the way, make sure you say hi.
...

Peace.

Looking Through A Different Lens

2008-08-12T08:37:00.003-04:00

I feel like I am starting to struggle to see people through the same lens as God. Not all the time, but I am noticing my struggle.

...

It is easier to not see people in that lens because they don't matter to you as much. You don't feel this wicked amount of compassion being ripped from you all the time. You don't want to be or feel as invested in everyone.

And, as a consequence of caring or not caring for someone, they don't have the ability to hurt you as much.

...

But I would rather hurt and be You, Lord, than heal and be me. Always.

...

"We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."

-C.S. Lewis

"Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins."

-1 Peter 4:8

...

Peace.

Just Friends

2008-08-06T13:38:00.004-04:00

Most of us have been in a place or gone through the experience where imagining being "just friends" with someone we deeply care about fills us with disappointment, sadness, frustration, anger, depression, hurt, and tons of other painful emotions that drag us down.

Those experiences suck. They suck bad.

...

In those relationships, the other person does not want to commit to you in a way that makes your relationship more serious because their feelings and attachment to you doesn't reflect yours. Well why does that make a difference? It makes a huge difference, as we all know, because in relationships there is an aspect of mutuality and responsibility both parties share. You are responsible to him/her and she/he is responsible to you; and you both want it that way.

That is one of the things that makes relationships so beautiful; mutuality. You both want what it is you have with each other. At least, you want it enough to stay in it and work through things and hopefully have something that is really rewarding and amazing. (Granted, that is not always how it looks, but for the sake of my point I'll stick to the more positive side of things.)

...

So, when you get into a relationship with a person, you have the responsibility to not hurt that person. That person has handed you their heart and now they trust you to keep it and not kill it. Sometimes, rejecting their heart because you are not up for that responsibility doesn't make things not hurt, its just a different stage of the process that brought about the pain; it came sooner than later.

Rob Bell, in his book Sex God, wrote that when we love another person and want to pursue something romantic with them, we are handing our heart to them. When they turn us down, the reason it aches and hurts so bad deep inside is because we offered a piece of ourselves to them and they rejected it. That hurts. That hurts bad.

...

How often do you think that we tell God we want to stay "just friends" with Him?

I gotta tell you, I think that God loves us so much that He chases after us and pursues us constantly. I think a lot of times God asks us to have a very intimate and deep relationship with him, but we freeze. We will stop dead in our tracks, because we don't want that responsibility. Some of us think that we can't handle the responsibility, and some of us just don't want to be that tied down. Being good friends is much safer.

The more casual our relationship with God the more insulated we feel from our responsibility to Him.

...

Unfortunately, or maybe not so unfortunately, we can't really side step what our relation to God is. When it comes down to it, we can put it off and stall and make as many excuses as we want, but we were made to be in an intimate relationship with God. It is simply in our design as creatures.

...

It is a crushing blow to love someone and have them reject your heart and hand it back to you. Love is just a dangerous game. C.S. Lewis wrote that the only place we will ever escape all the dangers of love outside of Heaven will be Hell. Since we aren't in Heaven and we are hopefully not on the way to Hell, love is always going to be here and it is always going to be dangerous and tough. That is just the way our world works. But even still, loving is the most rewarding thing and, ultimately, the most Christ-like thing many of us will ever do in this world.

...

I'm not sure if you remember what it feels like to be told that someone didn't want to have a relationship that was anything more than friends with you, when you clearly had feelings that were much stronger than friendship. If you don't know from experience, let me tell you that it is crushing. It can cripple you.

So now take a look at your relationship with God. We all know where He stands and what His feelings toward us are. We all know how much He loves us; so much that He died for us. But what are you saying back to Him? That is what really matters. We can't change God and how He pursues us or the fact that He loves us. All we can do is change our response to His love.

...

"If you have ever given yourself to someone and had your heart broken, you know how God feels. If you have ever given yourself to someone and found yourself waiting for their response, exposed and vulnerable, left hanging in the balance, you know how God feels." - Rob Bell

Peace.

The Day Does Not Belong To Me

2008-07-29T10:39:00.009-04:00

One evening last week I heard a man talking about how every morning he wakes up and asks, "God, what are you going to do today?"

He asks because he knows that our lives are not about us; they are about the people God can use us to reach. And then one day down the line it, for those people it won't be about them anymore either; it will be about the people God can now use them them to reach.

...

How far away from that mindset do we find ourselves the majority of the time?

I'll tell you what I do. Every day I wake up and have this selfish desire deep inside for God to catch my attention today. What I want is for God to set up spotlights around the things I will come across that day so I know who or what I am supposed to engage and who or what I can ignore with a clear conscious.

Do you see the difference?

...

Anything less than coming to God everyday and saying, "Here I am, what I can I do for you and your Son?" is not acceptable.

...

Now, maybe you are in the process of getting to that point. You don't feel like you are a person God can use because you don't know enough or you aren't mature enough or you haven't experienced enough. Whether or not that is true isn't important. What is important is to recognize that if you never get to the point where you are asking yourself, consistently, "God, what are you going to do with me? Because I'm ready," then you are never reaching your potential as a follower of Christ.

Plain and simple.

...

The realization is nothing spectacular. To be honest, I think it is just something we are lazy about. I mean, really, who in their right mind wants to give up the right to use today "how I want" to use today? No one but Jesus. (But the good news is: He lives in you, craziness and all.)

No one ever sacrificed everything they ever wanted and desired as perfectly as we should, except Jesus. No one ever gave up their entire life and all that came with it for what the Father desires, except Jesus. No one was ever perfect, except Jesus. But hey, no one ever said following Christ was easy.

But it's worth it.

...

Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward everyone according to what they have done."

Matthew 16:24-27

...

Peace.

Movies Movies Movies

2008-07-26T11:06:00.002-04:00

I love movies. This summer I have watched a lot of movies. There is no way I can remember all the movies I have seen so far this summer. Even still, I will try to give a few quick reviews of the movies I remember I've seen this summer.

...

THE HAPPENING - I don't dislike Mark Walberg at all, and I was really routing for a good performance. Nope. I was denied. The acting by Walberg was terrible. It sounded like every line he said he was reading for the first time. The script didn't help him any.

3 out of 10

...

THE INCREDIBLE HULK - As my roommate Sam said, "If you watched it on mute it would be a kick-ass movie." A lot of the dialogue was just really poor. Espicially William Hurt. Ugh, it made me cringe at times. Liv Tyler and Edward Norton were pretty solid, to be honest. But aside from the fact that a solid portion of the movie was decent, some things that happen in that movie are just ridiculous. Maybe I'm just spoiled from the next movie I'm about to review.

5 out of 10

...

THE DARK KNIGHT - Amazing. Incredible. Astonishing. Phenomenal. The Nolan brothers writing was amazing. The direction was flawless. The performances from Bale, Oldman, Gyllenhaal, Freeman, and Caine were all awesome. Just awesome. Eckhart was an fantastic Harvey Dent. Heath... oh, Heath. Ledger's performance has actually made me want to act again. It was such an experience to see him put a face on a character so sinister and dark that he didn't seem real. Albeit, I know that it was only possible for Heath to do what he did because of the amazing script the Nolan brothers gave him. The whole movie has made me want to write and act again. It was just that amazing.

On the trivial side, I will say that the incredible detail the sonar was able to give batman was a little too much for me. I love how realistic Chris Nolan is trying to do everything, but that sonar just seemed to be such a step away from that. I didn't like it. Also, the CGI Two-Face was a little much for me. I'm not saying I have an alternative, just that looking at it was a little distracting, in a bad way. The last thing I will say is that Harvey Dent turned a little easier than I thought he would. He was so strong the entire movie, then after one event he just gave up. I think there is a case to be made for the way it went.

All those critiques are more than trivial, and the movie is still my favorite movie EVER. Seriously, if you have not seen this, or have seen it only once, go see it. RIGHT NOW!

10 out of 10

...

THE STRANGERS - I wanted this to be good. I really really did. It was freaky, yes. It wasn't scary for the hour and twenty I was in the theater though. I love the fact that the motive was random. I loved that a lot. But I suppose when there is no motive, there is no plot. That may have been why only freaky cinematography was all the movie has to offer. Also, the ending... I was not happy. Either way, I just wish the movie has more to offer than people popping out and some creepy scenes. Just too predictable.

4 out of 10

...

THE MISSION - This movie is not recent, but I saw it for the first time recently. It was really solid. Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro were both really good and just the whole story was unique and something I really appreciated. The spiritual aspect was also something I enjoyed. The conflict of interest between De Niro and Irons is very valuable. Everyone with any kind of interest in the Christian faith should see this.

8.5 out of 10

...

TALLADEGA NIGHTS - This movie was just too random for me. It is quotable, just like any other Will Ferrell movie. It was funny, but the plot and some of the scenes just seemed to random and dragged on. I guess I'm glad I can say I've seen it, but it wasn't what I was hoping for.

6 out of 10

...

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL - Sure, it was cool to see another Indy movie. Sure, Shia Lebouf was a pleasant surprise. However, George Lucas needs to stop. He just needs to stop. This movie has an ending and a story line that is just so crazy... I don't know what else to say. If you are going to see this movie, it should only be because it is an Indiana Jones movie and Harrison came back to do it. There really isn't any other worthy justification.

4 out of 10

...

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN - I haven't read the book, but this was entertaining. Peter really got on my nerves. I'm just saying, the kid had a chip on his shoulder that really started to piss me off. Its okay thought, last movie Edmund made me want to punch him right in the face. In this one, that responsibility just shifted to Peter. So be it, I enjoyed watching this movie. Aside from the bear who had the most hilarious voice and Lucy's line early in the movie, "Feels like magic!" (what does magic feel like? And how would you know Lucy, eh?) the movie was pretty solid.

7.75 out of 10

...

That is all I can remember as of now that I've seen this summer for the first time. Hope they help.

Peace.

Waste Time In Creative Ways

2008-07-24T10:35:00.002-04:00

I heard about this through another blog, so it is in no way an original idea. But it was too fun not to pass on. (I'm starting to hate how this sounds like I'm justifying an email forward... all of which I HATE!)

...

1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to Random quotations: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to flickr's "explore the last seven days" at http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Put it all together, that's your debut album.

...

My future album is:

Chand Kings - Be At Your Side

...

I thought it was fun.

Peace.

Live, From Vacation

2008-07-22T20:43:00.004-04:00

I can only imagine checking this blog occasionally and seeing every single time the only posts that are being are added are merely quotes from books I've read. I'm sorry, but I guess I'm starting to summer coming to an end, and that is stressing me out because I have a lot to get organized and done before that happens.

...

This past friday we did The Big Event at Rivertree, which was a way to get a large group of people connected and hopefully plugged into Thrive groups in one night. Me and Toby came up with the format and it was one of my biggest projects for the summer. It went well. We had to deal with a lot of last minute changes, but hey, thats ministry.

In all honesty, that is one of the things I have learned over and over again while at Rivertree: that things will change last second in ministry all the time and you just need to be cool with that. God will get out of your efforts what He desires, and thats is ultimately what we always want. So in the end, everything is cool. But seriously, that is a lesson you can only learn and grow comfortable with through experience. At least that's my opinion.

...

So I've obviously been reading a lot this summer. That is cool. Read a lot of good books. The funny thing is... the list of books I want to read just keeps getting longer. I can only imagine that that is how it is going to be for the rest of my life at this point. I don't think I'm going to be able to read books as fast as they come across my radar. How discouraging. Ha.

...

The rest of the summer is a lot of just gearing up to be ready when the switch happens back to school. I have things to get done at the theater, I have books to read, I have to things to do academically for the internship, I have things to continue praying about and organizing for small groups, and I have a lot of debriefing and just casual conversations with people at Rivertree that are still happening. It may not sound very stressful, but it feels very rushed to me. Oh well, that really is life.

...

As of now, I am in Pennsylvania. Back home visiting the family for the first time since Mother's Day. It is nice to come home and see everyone. It's nice to be around people who, because of trial and error (and just the test of time), I feel have a real unconditional love for me. That is so nice to be able to run to or just experience every time I come home. I'm sure that is an obvious and unnecessary statement to make, but to me it was worth saying.

It has taken me being severely detached from my high school friends for over a year for me to actually want to see them again and spend time with them. I was ready to move on, but now I'm ready to see people and say hi. Hopefully I get to do that while I'm home.

...

I am currently rereading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (slowly) and reading The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus (very fast). Hopefully I will get them both done by the time my vacation is over. I just bought The Secret Message Of Jesus by Brian McLaren and want to get done with that by the time school starts. I better pick it up.

...

Not too much else is new. Just kinda trying to stay connected and keep my head on straight. This summer has been an amazing blessing. I hope things continue to be as fruitful as this.

Hope things are well with you all. Blessings.

Peace.

Under The Overpass

2008-07-19T15:05:00.004-04:00

The book all incoming freshman need to read this next semester is called Under The Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America by Mike Yankoski.

Mike his friend Sam travel to and live homeless in 6 cities over a 5 month period. The book recaps much of Sam and Mike's journey and the way they were able to reflect upon their faith through their experiences on the streets and their interactions with numerous "church-goers" throughout those 5 months.

It was a really good book. A lot of story telling and some really honest and valuable reflection from their perspective after going through that experience. As usual, I have quotes to share.

...

"For the life of me, I couldn’t find a connecting thread of radical, living obedience between what I said about my world and how I lived it."

---

"I sat there in church struggling to remember a time when I’d actually needed to lean fully on Christ rather than my own abilities. Not much came to mind."

---

"Lying there, in the same room as 150 drug addicts, felons, alcoholics, and homeless men, with Taylor snoring not three feet away, I suddenly felt entirely weak, unable, and inadequate to bridge the gap between myself and these men. Then I realized I didn’t have to bridge that chasm. That wasn’t my responsibility. My responsibility was simply to be there, and to trust that the Lord would use me, that he would bridge the distance."

---

"The men I was meeting were at the bottom—the worst point of their lives—and weren’t afraid to admit it. But the ruin opened the way for honesty. Pretending didn’t help anymore, and anyway, they didn’t have the strength to keep it up. They just told it as it was, when it was. I found that part of living in ruin refreshing."

---

"Something critical is missing in places that care for the broken and needy if the only people there are also broken and needy. Without the presence of people in the rescue missions whose lives are not defined by addiction, alcoholism, crime, and mental illness, there is little positive influence. Chaplains and pastors can only spread themselves so far."

---

"If we are the body of Christ—and Christ came not for the healthy but the sick—we need to be fully present in the places where people are most broken. And it has to be more than just a financial presence. That helps, of course. But too often money is insulation—it conveniently keeps us from ever having to come face-to-face with a man or woman who life is in tatters."

---

"Our good intentions and sound theology are wasted when the people we minister to don’t feel that we care about their immediate concerns."

---

"All of God’s children are beggars at the foot of the Cross, broken people in need of mending."

---

"A church is just a building if there’s no one in it."

---

"Begging is hard. It’s something you expect hungry dogs to do, but not men and women made in God’s image. The minute you put out your hand, or open your guitar case, it feels like you’re writing 'failure' and 'weakness' all over yourself. You’re telling everyone who comes by, 'I am unable.' The message blares up and down the sidewalk, and across multiple lanes of traffic. And the message doesn’t stop screaming until you pull back your hand, or close up your case."

---

"In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning writes, 'We are all equally privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God’s mercy.' I thought of that as person after person walked past without donating or even making eye contact. I felt frustration rising until I realized how unentitled I really was. No one deserves mercy. And no one walking by owed us a dime. Mercy is, by definition, undeserved, or else it isn’t mercy. Every coin in the case looked different after that."

---

“I want to eat” no longer meant just walking to the refrigerator or ordering off the menu. Every sandwich demanded hours of sitting on hot cement, playing and singing, trying to be heard above the noise of the street. And on this afternoon, exhaustion from walking everywhere, the dehydration of living outside, and the lack of sleep from being constantly moved by the police and security guards had taken its toll. So we just sat, half-aware, watching people ignore us."

---

"When you kneel, hungry and broken at His table, you receive grace from Him you might, at some other time, have completely missed."

---

"I remember many times I had walked past a homeless man or woman sitting on the sidewalk, awkwardly averting my eyes and whistling to cover my discomfort. I wondered if those men and women had been frustrated with me as I now was with the people who were walking down the stairs."

---

"We agreed that our own ideas and expectations tended to make us deaf to hearing God’s will. We needed, at least at times, to lay down and listen. Leave the next move completely up to God."

---

"What is your definition of a Christian? Is it broad enough to encompass the drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, and broken people of the world? Jesus said that he came to heal the sick. Drug dealers are messed up just the same as liars are messed up, just the same as all humans are messed up. We all need Jesus. We all struggle with personal ways in which sin plays itself out their eyes."

---

"What’s worse? To not do dope or to not love your brother? Why do we kick drug users out of the church while quietly ignoring those who aren’t dealing with other, equally destructive sins? Why do we reject the loving, self-sacrificing, giving, encouraging, Jesus-pursing drug addict but recruit the clean, self-interested, gossiping, loveless churchgoer? Which one do you supposed Jesus would rather share a burrito with under a bridge?"

---

"If we as believers choose to forget that everyone—even the shrunken soul lying in the doorway—is made in the image of God, can we say we know our Creator? If we respond to others based on their outward appearance, haven’t we entirely missed the point of the gospel?"

---

"To me, one of the best things about the gospel is that Jesus Christ proclaims and restores human and eternal worth for everyone who believes—regardless of what a person might look like or smell like now, no matter what’s crawling through his hair. And because we follow this Christ, each of us has both the ability and responsibility ('response-ability') to do the same."

---

"The words 'Jesus loves you' take on a whole different meaning when you’re down and out. You hear them differently. You need them more. Just saying them to the next desperate person you meet could change his day. Wrap those words in friendship, a home-cooked meal, bus fare, and you could change his life."

---

"Walking into a church where we hoped to find genuine fellowship only to be met by condescension or suspicion or disingenuous flattery was the worst kind of rejection."

---

"We don’t go to church, we are the church. So many problems that show up on the church steps, or in the pews, or between congregations seem to start with misunderstandings about that. The church isn’t a physical building or doctrinal statement or perfectly produced program. It is us—we are the living expression of Christ’s presence in this world, His body. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we’ll be able to be the healing body of Christ to our sin-sick world."

---

"The bottom line is real love shows itself in action."

---

It's a solid book. I'm going to be discussing it with people for a while once school starts. Hopefully the conversations are fruitful. I'm sure they will be.

Peace.

Sex God

2008-07-10T23:30:00.003-04:00

I finished a book by Rob Bell called Sex God a couple of weeks ago, it has just taken me a long time to type up all the quotes I got from the book and blog them.

The book was amazing. I didn't really feel like it was something spectacular at the time when I was reading it, but when I go back and read the quotes I took away from it... wow. Rob Bell is an amazing communicator and someone I deeply admire.

...

"You can’t talk about sexuality without talking about how we were made. And it will inevitably lead you to who made us. At some point you have to talk about God."

---

"What we often do is reverse the creative process God initiated. We start with different cultural backgrounds and skin colors and nationalities, and it’s only when we look past these things that we are able to get to what we have in common—that we are fellow image-bearers with the shared task of caring for God’s creation. We get it all backward. We see all of the differences, and only later, maybe, do we begin to see the similarities. The new humanity is about seeing people as God sees them."

---

"How you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the creator."

---

"A church exists to be a display of the new humanity. A community of people who honor and respect the poor and rich and educated and uneducated and Jew and Gentile and black and white and old and young and powerful and helpless and fully human, created in the image of God."

---

"With every decision, conversation, gesture, comment, action, and attitude, we’re inviting heaven or hell to earth."

---

"Our sexuality has two dimensions. First, our sexuality is our awareness of how profoundly we’re severed and cut off and disconnected. Second, our sexuality is all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect."

---

"I often meet people who aren’t park of a church and don’t want anything to do with God because 'all those religious hypocrites.' Often they have great pain that they blame on 'the church.' But it’s not possible for and institution, whether it’s a church or a school or a business or even the government, to hurt somebody. Institutions are made up of people. People hurt people."

---

"You can’t be connected with God until you’re at peace with who you are. If you’re still upset that God gave you this body or this life or this family or these circumstances, you will never be able to connect with God in a healthy, thriving, sustainable sort of way. You’ll be at odds with your maker. And if you can’t come to terms with who you are and the life you’ve been given, you’ll never be able to accept others and how they were made and the lives they’ve been given. And until you’re at peace with God and those around you, you will continue to struggle with your role on the planet, your part to play in the ongoing creation of the universe. You will continue to struggle and resist and fail to connect."

---

"When we deny the spiritual dimension to our existence, we end up living like animals. And when we deny the physical, sexual dimension to our existence, we end up living like angels. And both ways are destructive, because God made us human."

---

"Paul insists that everything God created is good, and we come to see this through what he calls 'the word of God and prayer,' which is the hard work of study and reflection and meditation and discussion and debate. The temptation is always to avoid things that are difficult and complex. To go around them rather than through them."

---

"One of the marks of someone who has experienced significant growth in their soul is their ability to live in the midst of tension."

---

"You are not alone. Whatever you struggle with, whatever you have questions about, you are not alone. It doesn’t matter how dark it is or how much shame or weakness or regret it involves, you are not alone."

---

"If I want something to the point that I can’t conceive of being content without it, then it owns me."

---

"Life is not about toning down and repressing your God-given life force. It’s about channeling it and focusing it and turning it loose on something beautiful, something pure and true and good, and something that connects you with God, with others, with the world."

---

"The story the Bible tells is of a living being who loves and who continues to love even when that love is not returned. A God who refuses to override our freedom, who respects our power to decide whether to reciprocate, a God who lets us make the next move."

---

"Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don’t want it. That’s why it’s such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn’t wanted."

---

"Jesus always chooses the path of love, not power."

---

"Our first need is not for people to fix our problems. People who charge in and have all the answers and try to make things right without first joining us in our pain generally annoy us, or worse yet, they push us away. They have nothing to give us. The God that Jesus points us to is not a god who stands at a distance, wringing his hands and saying, 'If only you’d listened to me.' This is the God who holds out his hands and asks, 'Would you like to see the holes where the nails went? Would that help?'"

---

"In matters of love, it’s as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do. God can do anything—that’s what makes God, God. But God can’t do everything. God can’t make us love him—that’s our choice. Love is risky for God too."

---

"At the heart of the worldview of a Christian is the simple truth that people are worth dying for."

---

"Agape doesn’t love somebody because they’re worthy. Agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love. Agape doesn’t love somebody because they’re beautiful. Agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful."

---

"What we do comes out of who we believe we are."

---

"Your worth does not come from your body, your mind, your work, what you produce, what you put out, how much money you make. Your worth does not come from whether or not you have a man. Your worth does not come from whether or not men notice you. You have inestimable worth that comes from your creator. You will continue to be tempted in a thousand different ways not to believe this. The temptation will be to go searching for your worth and validity from places other than your creator. Especially from men."

---

"When our trust has been betrayed and those who were supposed to stand by us don’t, this naturally has consequences for how we think about God. It becomes hard to trust that God is good when our significant relationships aren’t that good."

---

"If you see me for who I really am, the me that no one else has ever seen, the me that I wouldn’t dare to show anybody else on the planet, the parts of me I’m not sure I want anybody to ever see, if I give you that kind of glimpse into the seat of my being, into my soul, will you still love me like you do now? It’s our question for each other, and it’s our question for God."

---

"It is easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit and thoughts and fears and future and hopes and dreams…that is being naked. This is why when people sleep together after they’ve just met, they’re raising the chances significantly that the relationship will not survive. Racing ahead of the progression always costs something. When there is no common mission, no shared task, no sense of bone of bone and flesh of flesh, no bonds that take years to develop, many end up moving from relationship to relationship, having sex but never really being naked. Too much too fast rarely endures."

---

Seriously, if you have not read this book, you need to. Fantastic stuff.

Peace.

Pride = Pressure

2008-07-08T23:37:00.003-04:00

I haven't blogged in a little over a week-ish. Partly because I was at Cornerstone Festival in Illinois most all of last week and didn't have any kind of steady access to a computer. There are other reasons I don't blog sometimes though.

...

I feel a pressure to blog. I know that not more than 5 people even read this blog on any kind of consistent basis, but even still, I feel a pressure to process things that are interesting and be able to express my thoughts at least once every week and a half-ish in a blog. I think it is good for me.

...

I've realized I treat my blogging habits a lot like my poor prayer habits. When I feel like I've got myself all together and I can stand on my own two feet and my pride isn't incredibly damaged and I feel like I can cover up the disgraceful sinner I am a little bit, I have no problem holding dialogue with God.

But...

When I know I'm wrong and I've screwed up and I feel the conviction of those situations, prayer is so hard for me. My pride just makes grace very hard. I don't want to be loved because that's just what God is: love. I want to be loved because I'm good and I've earned it and I am worthy of love. Even though that is never the case, sometimes it is easier to fool yourself about it more than others; at least it is for me.

...

Blogging is the same as prayer for me. When I'm in a rut, and I know my mind is focusing on stupid things that I want to process out in the open but that wouldn't be the best thing... I just shut down.

"I can't come to my blog readers with this crap!"

"I could never blog about this junk!"

"Hell, even thinking about this is a waste of time, how could blogging about it be worth anything?"

...

So I am sorry, but my pride and the pressure I put on myself cripples me. Trust me, I know they are poor traits. I dislike them about myself very much. Changing some things about who you are just takes more time that others, and sometimes I'm not sure we are even the ones who can change ourselves (at least not alone).

Peace.

Soul Cravings - Destiny, Meaning, & Seek

2008-06-28T15:55:00.003-04:00

The first section of Erwin McManus's book Soul Cravings is titled Intimacy. The rest of the book is split up into 3 sections titled Destiny, Meaning, and Seek.

Here are some quotes from Destiny, Meaning, and Seek.

...

"You cannot live the life God created you to live without being ambitious. The reason your heart leaps when you see greatness is that your spirit is drawn to it. The reason we can experience the vicarious exhilaration of a great victory or an amazing accomplishment is that the human spirit resonates with greatness. While many of us have come to believe ambition is unhealthy, the truth is when you lose ambition, you lose your future. When you lose your future, you lose hope. And no one can live well without hope. Without ambition we have no dreams worth living. When we let our dreams die, we start dying with them."

---

"God created us to engage, solve problems, meet needs, do something with our lives. He made us to get involved and expects us to act. That’s why someone like Mother Teresa helps us believe in God. Human compassion reflects God and moves us toward God."

---

"We were created to believe in progress and to pursue it with passion. It is God who designed us this way. He made us creative, and he holds us responsible. Somehow there are many of us who have missed this point. We have allowed human history to be shaped by those who do not reflect God’s value for love, for beauty, and for justice."

---

"Humans are not content to simply survive, we are driven to thrive. It’s not enough for us to merely exist; we are compelled to achieve. This drive would not even exist without a concept of time. We understand that each day is not a reoccurring cycle of static events. The human experience is not only that time moves, but that we do too. We have been created with not only awareness but a need for progress."

---

"Take a few minutes sometime and find your nearest cemetery. Walk through the memorials there representing the lives of a countless number of people who lived before you. You will see different dates of birth and times of death, but they will all have one thing in common—the dash between the two. To everyone who is a stranger, our dash will be just that, a space holder in between the pertinent information. But for those who know us, the dash represents the totality of our lives."

---

"Is it possible that the reason we find God in our deepest despair is that this is when we are most earnestly listening?"

---

"Atheist, agnostic, existentialist, humanist, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Christian—we all need to believe that somehow our lives matter. There is a reason for our existence, a reason to live, and if we can’t find it, we’ll just make it up. And if we lack imagination, then we’ll just medicate ourselves, sedate ourselves, intoxicate ourselves, indulge ourselves, deceive ourselves, or just simply come to the end of ourselves."

---

"To go beyond feeling, to go beyond compassion, you have to believe that it is right to act, that you were created to bring change. If Jesus was nothing else, he was an activist for change. To be a follower of Christ is to believe that everyone’s life can be different. No one is defined by the status of their birth. Our destiny is not limited to our pedigree. Every human being is of equal value to God. No one must remain a prisoner of fate."

---

"Faith is simply the word for trust when used in relation to God."

---

"Over the years, I found that cynicism is a way of escape. You’ve believed, you’ve trusted, you’ve put yourself out there, and you’ve gotten hurt. Someone lied to you, or betrayed you, or maybe it was even God. He just didn’t show when you needed him. So you retreat to the only place you know to go. You go hide inside your own soul and decide that you can trust no one but yourself. In the end, this is at the heart of the path that leads us to trust only in ourselves."

---

"God himself stepped into human history so that we would know that he is not only the source of truth, but that he is utterly and completely trustworthy."

---

"Whatever religion is used to manipulate or control people, I consider it the enemy of humanity and the enemy of God."

---

"Never let anyone tell you that God is offended by your questions. Your questions will lead you to God. Your soul craves meaning even as it longs for God. To search for one is to find the other. Go ahead—question everything. We’re all trying to make sense of this life that we’ve been thrown into. A lot of times the world doesn’t help the process at all. We experience pain, disappointment, tragedy, betrayal. It fills us with doubt and bitterness and leaves us confused. I love that God understands that, that he knows life’s a struggle."

---

"Some people who do not believe in God are consistent and don’t believe in love either. No primary evidence. In fact, my nonscientific research has found a direct correlation between losing faith in love and losing faith in God. But for many people it is at this point where they simply live with the inconsistency. You can’t see God; you can’t prove God in the laboratory. Believing in God is a stretch, but they believe in love. But you can’t see love. You can’t prove love. The only evidence available is secondary. No primary evidence. Yet when you love someone, you are more certain of that than of almost anything else. Love reminds us there is a knowing beyond reason."

---

"For love to exist it doesn’t even require reciprocation."

---

"No matter how hard your life is, if you can imagine a different one, it somehow seems to pull you through. You can stomach who you are, no matter how much you hate yourself, if you can somehow believe that one day you’ll become someone different."

---

"I guess it will never be easy, but Jesus made it possible. You don’t have to be afraid to commit your life to someone who gives his life for you."

---

This book is a great read for a person who is new to Christianity or doesn't really know what they believe.

Even though that is who I think McManus wrote the book for, I still enjoyed it very much. Seriously, check it out.

Peace.

Soul Cravings - Intimacy

2008-06-28T12:25:00.019-04:00

I finished a book called Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus not too long ago. I loved it. I wound up getting 79 quotes from the book (I wasn't kidding when I said I was a big quote guy!).

There is no way I'm putting up 79 quotes in a blog post, so I'm going to split the book into 2 sections.

There is a section in the book called Intimacy and then there are 3 other sections in the book that I didn't get as many quotes from. So here are some of my favorites from the Intimacy section.

...

"If you try to ignore it, if you think that you can live your life without love, you’re in even worse shape than the person who’s desperate to find it."

---

"When love does not come to you, it breaks your heart, but when you do not give love away, it hardens your heart."

---

"Our need to love, though rooted in God, is not limited to him. Love is not a limited commodity. Love expands as we give it away. Love dies when we do not."

---

"Love is not about how many people we have used, but how much we have cherished one person. I’ve come to find over time that players are the ones who are most afraid. They are afraid to love, and so they make it a game. They’re terrified of loving deeply, and so they keep everything superficial. I think deep inside they wonder whether any woman could actually love them if she really knew who he was."

---

"Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are most fully alive."

---

"When it comes to love, often we are our own worst enemies. When we’ve been hurt in the past, when we feel that love has betrayed us, we can easily become the enemies of love. To see if it’s real, we do everything we can to destroy it. We tell ourselves we’re testing it, but actually we’re resisting it."

---

"The truth of the matter is that we’re uncomfortable with God. We’re disoriented by the way he loves. We want God to love us for an endless number of good reasons. At the same time, we find ourselves nervous before him because he sees right through us and knows everything that isn’t lovable. He tells us that he is our place of rest and acceptance and unconditional love, yet we cannot reconcile this love. We know who we are. We know all that is unlovely within us. We wonder how we have become worthy of such love, and that’s what worries us—we know we’re not. So we run. We run from God because he sees us best; we run from God to escape our own sense of unworthiness; we run from God because we are certain that the closer we come to him, the more guilt and shame we will feel."

---

"It is just too hard to believe that if you come near to God, you will find yourself not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion. Jesus called to all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home. We run from God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace us. We run from the One our souls crave."

---

"What in the world would happen if people actually began discovering the actual message of Jesus Christ—that love is unconditional? What would happen if we began to realize that God was not, in fact, waiting for us to earn his love, but that he was passionately pursuing us with his love? What would happen if the word got out that Jesus was offering his love freely and without condition? Would anyone actually choose to be a slave to ritual and legalism when he could have relationship and love? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. The reason religion works is that we believe in conditional love and doubt the existence of unconditional love."

---

"What we have described as love has become something so superficial, something so thin and without substance, that pretty much anything qualifies as love. If we really knew love, if we knew deep, profound, unending love, maybe we wouldn’t love chocolate. While I’m sure God appreciates all these things (after all, he is the Creator of all that is good and perfect), creation is not the object of his affection. When it comes to love, you exist in a unique category. There are a lot of things that are on that list. He can re-create whatever he wants. You, however, are not on that list. You are unique and irreplaceable."

---

"You are the object of God’s love."

---

"This is the story of God: he pursues you with his love and pursues you with his love, and you have perhaps not said yes. And even if you reject his love, he pursues you ever still. It was not enough to send an angel or a prophet, for in issues of love, you must go yourself. And so God has come. This is the story of Jesus, that God has walked among us and he pursues us with his love. He is very familiar with rejection but is undeterred. And he is here even now, still pursuing you with his love."

---

"There is only one reason for God to come himself, because in issues of love, you just can’t have someone else stand in for you."

---

"Religion exists not because God loves us too little, but because we need love so much. In the end all religions misrepresent God. They either dictate requirements for love or simply become a requiem for love. I think many of us have rightly given up on God on this basis alone. We’ve been told that God is a reluctant lover and that his standards must be met before there can be any talk of love. This is lunacy. Love exists because God is love. Our souls will never find satisfaction until our hearts have found this love that we so desperately yearn for."

---

"Jesus, it seems, is certain that the more you love God, the more you will love people."

---

"The truth is, we were designed for relationship, and when our relationships don’t work, they affect how we see God, how we relate to God, and even whether we will believe in him."

---

"Our need for relationship comes from the core of our being. It would be the greatest of tragedies to sacrifice others in the effort to find ourselves. Our souls crave to belong. The experience of love, though it emanates from God, is not limited to him. We are created for each other."

---

"If God is at the core of something, if he exists at the hot, flaming center, what you’re going to find is love. Jesus knew this all too well. He warned us against the trappings of hypocrisy. When those who claim to represent him are unloving, those searching for God might conclude he is as well. The problem, of course, is that we are all hypocrites in transition. I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be."

---

"Honesty is the only context in which intimacy can develop."

---

"Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I’m not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning."

---

"There may be no greater proof of God than the power of community. There may be no greater gift than a place to belong. While it may seem that you’re selling out to admit you need people, the irony is that you’ll never really know yourself until you’re in a healthy community. We only truly come to know ourselves in the context of others. The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity."

---

"The power of community is that is helps us understand ourselves. In a healthy community we come to know ourselves and find strength in that knowledge. In community we learn how to live a life beyond ourselves, we begin to discover our potential and our strengths, and we are best positioned to make out greatest contribution."

---

"God can lead you through even the most painful tragedies if you ask him for his wisdom and allow him to help you make sense of your life."

---

"He gambled everything on the power of love. That love was more powerful than hate. That love was more powerful than death. What was he thinking to die for us, to give himself for you and for me, knowing we might just kiss him on the face and then walk away? Love’s just crazy like that."

---

Part 2 is coming.

Peace.

Sometimes It's Too Much

2008-06-24T23:20:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure, but I would imagine most people can sympathize with me. Sometimes you can just find yourself in such an emotional rut that you can't make sense about how you feel or what you think about a ton of different things.

The only thing you can really make out of these kinds of situations is that everything is very intense.

...

Sometimes its amazing, sometimes its terrible. Sometimes its just confusing.

The only thing I can make out tonight is how much I don't feel like myself. The only thing I know is how lost I feel in some ways and how I don't feel lost at all in other ways. The only thing I know is how intense it is.

...

I guess it all comes down to what it is we are talking about; specifics. This isn't the place to have that conversation though. Sorry.

Peace.

Blissful Moments

2008-06-23T13:45:00.003-04:00

I just finished a book called Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus. I absolutely loved it.

You all know that I will, of course, post a huge blog containing all my favorite quotes from the book (of which there are a TON), but for now I just want to focus on one quote.

...

"Have you ever experienced an entirely blissful moment? A moment when everything was right in the world? Can you remember how you didn't have a care in the world? Or at least so it seemed. I've had many times like this. And ironically it wasn't because everything in life was exactly as I wanted. I have never had that moment--maybe because my expectations are too high. But what I did have was a wonderful sense of optimism. When you lack hope, you feel powerless to change anything and certain that nothing will change. When you have hope, you are able to see the beauty and potential of every circumstance. Life is filled with wonder. Hope empowers us to pursue our dreams."

...

I know EXACTLY what moments he is talking about in that paragraph. I love those moments so much; those are my favorite moments in life. Those are the moments where I really do feel happy.

I miss those moments. I haven't had moments like that consistently in a long long time. This last school year I actually became very aware of the lack of these moments in my life and had a couple conversations with people about that. I'm almost not sure which is more painful, to not experience those moments or to recognize you haven't had those moments and consciously long for them.

...

I'm working on it though. I'm getting hope back in my life; a healthy kind of hope. Not the hope of ambitions and desires I prop up, but a more generic hope of what I feel is coming. Good things are coming. Good things. Blissful things.

...

Peace

God Loves The World

2008-06-21T07:47:00.004-04:00

God so loved the world that he sent his one and only begotten son that whoever should believe in him will never perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

This verse is so popular. It's such a good summarization of the Christian faith.

...

What hit me recently was the phrasing of the first 5 words of this verse: "God so loved the world."

I know that Christians can get really caught up in trying to separate ourselves from the world and completely detach. We try to exist in a place but simultaneously not look or touch anything around us that we don't label "safe."

It isn't nearly as bad in all cases as it is in others. I've caught myself occasionally slipping into a mindset that attempts to discard the world as worthless, but some people carry a condemning perspective that tints the way they see everything in our world.

I can certainly concede that the world is a fallen place and far from what it should be. Even still, I think it is a nasty pitfall to get caught in when you fail to see anything that comes of the world as anything other than useless or, lacking merit or, (in a worst case scenario) evil.

...

I just love how John phrased that verse.

God so loved the world that he sent his son to die for it. Period.

...

I can't imagine anything better than being able to look at things in the world and people in the world and see the intrinsic beauty that God sees as a product of him, the Creator. When God looks at drug-dealers and adulterers, porn-stars and murderers, thieves and liars, all he sees are his children that he loves with all his heart. Albeit, children that are lost and children he is longing to come back to him, but these are people that God is absolutely crazy about.

How soon when we deal with those people do we run out of mercy and grace? How soon do we shower them with our judgement? Way too soon.

I can't imagine anything better than getting to a place where when we see those people we see them through God's eyes and not our own. I can't imagine anything better than looking at the world and the numerous things in it that we are so ready to condemn and ridicule, and instead see the awesome characteristic that God sees in them.

...

I don't think we are supposed to burn records and ban books. I don't think we are supposed to shut ourselves off and turn away from the things the world creates. I think we are supposed to reach our hands out and polish things so they shine like they were meant to. I think we should see things in the same light Jesus would see them. I think we should look at people through the same lens Jesus did. And then love them.

Peace.

Starving Jesus

2008-06-16T16:27:00.003-04:00

I already posted a blog about how I am a big quotes guy.

I just finished a book called Starving Jesus by Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon. These guys are from the XXXChurch.com ministry, but the book isn't about that ministry. Here are some quotes I liked.

(Since the book is written by two guys, if it is a quote from Craig I'll put CG in parenthesizes after the quote and JR for quotes from J.R.)

...

"Satan does a great job ministering to those in the church who love the fame and power associated with helping others heal. You can get drunk on helping people change their lives. Unchecked, the lie becomes “God had little to do with it, and I am solely responsible for this new life.” Believe that lie long enough and you start believing your own press. Satan then devours those seeking themselves by helping them celebrate their own self-centeredness. In the long run, the lie turns into a self-righteous theology that says, “I am the bottom line in the lives of people.” The ministry quickly becomes about a man and what the man has to say or not say." (CG)

---

"Jesus understands the human drive to be important and valued by other people. He is here to set us free from ourselves. The freedom needs to express itself in selflessness and service to others. He’s looking for your reaction to the world to be that of a servant." (CG)

---

"Paul, James, Luke, Mark, and countless others who have followed in their footsteps all dealt with the truth and its ability to set us free from sin. Their evangelizing tactics differed from one another, yet what they said and how they said it was so offensive to the world that most of them wound up dead at the hands of another man or country." (CG)

---

"Be willing to fight the good fight every day. This doesn’t mean we match wits with the world. It means we are to be salt and light, to let the world see our good deeds so they, the world, can praise the Father. We collectively need to offend the senses of the world with the truth. The life of Christ was, is, and always will be offensive to the world." (CG)

“Sometimes I think we have lost our nerve as followers of Christ. I often think if we lived under the threat of death in this country, similar to what the early church faced, we would be on our game. The early church knew what the deal was. They knew it was only a matter of time before they were going to be put in jail and crucified. Paul called himself a prisoner of Christ. The first time I read that, I thought, That ain’t for me. Think about it: Their message was so disturbing, so offensive, that they knew it meant death. When Jesus told his disciples, 'Take up your cross and follow me,' he was not talking about some little mission or job; he was talking about dying for the cause." (CG)

---

"The world has come to identify us by what we hate and what we are offended by, instead of by what we love or why we love." (CG)

---

"Whether it’s a porn-show outreach, feeding the homeless, or painting your neighbor’s house, we must meet people the same way Jesus did—unafraid of what the truth will do for them." (CG)

---

"Perhaps more than anyone in history, Paul understood his role of offending like Jesus. We often like to dismiss Scriptures from Paul, because they make us responsible to all the people around us. Paul says, 'By all possible means I might save some' (1 Cor. 9:22). All possible means. That Scripture is not a loaded gun giving you license to be a complete idiot in the name of Christ, but it is the freedom to go, do, and say what you need to. To say it to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Actually, it is a responsibility." (CG)

---

"You want to know if you’re listening to God? Ask yourself one question: Who am I predominantly concerned with when I am making decisions? Is it you and your plans? Is it God and his already-established will for you, found in his Word? It takes a lot of guts to answer this question. Answering means you will come face-to-face with yourself. If you are answering honestly, you will gain the understanding that you walk with Christ has very little to do with you plans and design. It is solely about serving God and those around you. That question should be in your breast pocket at all times. Use it as a guidepost for making decisions." (CG)

---

"Put down the life you think you need, and open yourself up to the life Christ has designed." (CG)

---

"He gave himself until they killed him. His resurrection means you need to do the same." (CG)

---

"If you’re looking for God to tell you directly what to do, you are not studying the Word, and you’re definitely not understanding that this ain’t about you." (CG)

---

"Giving should equal relationships. We should be striving to build new friendships and new communities every day. We should be looking constantly for ways to inject our newfound freedom into the lives of those lost and looking for Christ. Giving is not about the church, it’s about the faith Christ had in us to give. He sat on a hill two thousand years ago and assumed we would." (CG)

---

"Christ knew we would struggle with prayer. He knew praying to a God we can’t see or touch would be problematic. That’s why he taught us exactly how to pray. That’s why he challenged the disciples to pray. Jesus would go off for hours—sometimes all night—and pray. He did this consistently, so you and I would know the value of prayer, the value of talking with the Father alone about whatever… It was simply asking God to do whatever it is we cannot or sometimes just don’t want to do." (JR)

---

"We understand that works aren’t saving us or anyone else, for that matter, but works designed to inspire people to Christ will help answer the most important question in the world: Who is Jesus?" (CG)

---

"I will walk with him, because he is my life. Maybe that’s a little perfunctory, but that’s all it is and all it has to be." (CG)

---

"Church is sinful because we are sinful. We as a body are prone to wander from God; God doesn’t wander from us." (JR)

---

"When you act out your faith, when you move toward God, it is often the hardest thing to comprehend, especially when it produces fruit you can touch, eat, and share. From nothing stems something. This is how God gets it done. But how can it be true? How can God, whom we have never seen, never heard, interact with us? How can God change our lives after the collection of garbage we manage to amass in a lifetime? Yet somehow when we step forward in a belief that says he can and will, he shows up and we come to understand he is our salvation, our hope, and our freedom from whatever sin takes us down." (JR)

---

I've certainly read better, but it was worth the read. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Peace.

Confessions Of A Pessimist

2008-06-11T22:33:00.007-04:00

I enjoy it when I learn things about myself; the good and the bad. It is one of the most rewarding things to have this incredible epiphany or realization about yourself as a person. The "a-ha" moment. I had one of those moments the other night and I sent my friend a letter that kinda outlines where I'm coming from. This is that letter. Enjoy.

(I have deleted all the names of people in the letter that I was referring to. Just fyi.)

...

Me and [BLANK] always talk about how I’m a pessimist... I hate the fact I’m a pessimist. I just kinda don’t expect good things to happen to me. Maybe that is why I try really hard to be a good guy because maybe I’ll earn my way into God’s good graces and good things will happen to me that will make me fulfilled and happy. I just, for some reason, ever since I wrote that blog, am convinced that I am selfish for trying to be everything I want to be. I want to be humble and selfless but I am so riddled with wants and desires. I feel like I have sunk my claws into what I want so deeply and for so long that I don’t know how to let go. I don’t remember what its like to not have those desires. I think maybe everything I've done has always been for me to try and get those things I’ve wanted and now letting go is the most painful and convicting and crippling thing I’ve ever done.

…

I get on this tirade because I was just talking to [BLANK] and I was trying to have a deep, encouraging, loving, and I'm-here-for-you-because-you-are-my-friend conversation with them and immediately jumped to asking them what in their life they are struggling with and what has been difficult for them and stuff. I think I partly jumped to that because I know [BLANK] is convicted about some things and trying to grow and I'm praying for him/her and I want them to be better and such, and I just want to be there for them. At the same time, I’ve realized that with you and him/her, and everyone else, I just jump right to the bad in conversations so I can try to be there for them. I always go fishing for the hurt in peoples lives. I do it with you and [BLANK] and [BLANK] and [BLANK], and with [BLANK] and [BLANK] I’ve seen them both retract from that a little bit. [BLANK] told me tonight that he/she had been feeling good over the last week and just didn’t want to talk about the things that make him/her feel crappy. He/she didn’t want to bring them back to the surface, regardless of whether that would help him/her move forward or not (and maybe it wouldn’t have helped whatsoever).

I just feel like such a downer. I fish for the hurt so I can help people but sometimes people aren’t experiencing hurt, at least not like I am right now (or do so often). That’s so crappy of me to do. Idk... this is just me thinking out loud and combining my pessimism with communications classes and my inability to celebrate the good things in my life.

…

I have a lot of great things in my life right now. I have fantastic friendships with a handful of people, I have an amazing ministry internship, but all the while I am concentrated on what is hurting me and dragging me down and I ignore the blessings and find it impossible to praise and be thankful when I feel any kind of substantial hurt.

I wish I was a more balanced person. I’m not. I’m pure pessimism.

…

Some people are so good at celebrating God's goodness and his gifts and everything they have. It’s almost like I see all those things and I’m expecting God to take them all away from me at any moment because I don’t deserve them. I know I don’t, no one does; we can’t deserve anything we have. That’s what makes grace so beautiful. Maybe I just need to get over my pride and stop feeling guilty for accepting grace and just celebrate the gift of it. Maybe that isn’t even the case... I don’t know. This is just me thinking. I’m telling you because I'd like to have you understand me when I can seem really inconsistent.

THE END

...

Hopefully you guys might be able to understand me a little better too.

Peace.

Things I Want To Be When Grow Up

2008-06-02T12:25:00.007-04:00

(In alphabetical order)

Authentic

...

Caring

...

Disciple

...

Empathetic

...

Genuine

...

Graceful

...

Honest

...

Loving

...

Reflective

...

Transparent

...

Wise

...

What I did not put up on that list were the words "Happy" or "Selfish." Odd, really. I say that because I want to be all those things listed above because I hope/believe that embodying those characteristics will bring me a life and guide me down a path that makes me "Happy" or is at least "Fulfilling." That seems like an awfully "Selfish" motivation, doesn't it?

Drivin' With The Windows Down

2008-05-31T09:33:00.003-04:00

Ya know what I love? I love summer days when I drive around with the window down and feel the breeze while I have something playing in the stereo that just makes feel like summer is a good time and I should just enjoy this car ride.

...

Driving around in the summer with Goo Goo Dolls playing and the window down... oh man it doesn't get any better.

The Four Loves

2008-05-19T11:29:00.016-04:00

I'm a big quote guy. I love quotes. Whenever I read a book, I try to get a lot of quotes to walk away from it with.

...

I just read a book by C.S. Lewis called The Four Loves. It was good. Here are some quotes from the book.

...

"Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend."

---

"Nothing so enriches an erotic love as the discovery that the Beloved can deeply, truly and spontaneously enter into Friendship with the Friends you already had: to feel that not only are we two united by erotic love but we three or four or five are all travelers on the same quest, have all a common vision."

---

"The little knots of Friends who turn their backs on the 'World' are those who really transform it."

---

"The mark of perfect Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all."

---

"In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funnies in all the others."

---

"For we all wish to be judged by our peers, by the men 'after our own heart.' Only they really know our mind and judge it by standards we fully acknowledge. Theirs is the praise we really covet and the blame we really dread."

---

"The gnat-like cloud of petty anxieties and decisions about the conduct of the next hour have interfered with my prayers more often than any passion or appetite whatever."

---

"For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms."

---

"It is as if Christ said to us through Eros, 'Thus—just like this—with this prodigality—not counting the cost—you are to love me and the least of my brethren'"

---

"The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

---

"Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness."

---

"It is probably impossible to love any human being simply 'too much.' We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes inordinacy…But the question whether we are loving God or the earthly Beloved 'more' is not, so far as concerns our Christian duty, a question about the comparative intensity of two feelings. The real question is, which (when the alternative comes) do you serve, or choose, or put first? To which claim does your will, in the last resort yield?"

---

"We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, loving-kindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love."

---

Ahh, good ol' Clive Staples.

Peace.

Time Numbs

2008-05-11T22:25:00.004-04:00

I've heard people say, "Time heals all wounds." I don't think that is true.

...

I have been through my fair share of painful and tough times. I don't think time has ever helped me heal over the things that have happened, it had just numbed me from feeling the same fresh and familiar pain. Time has made me apathetic.

...

I don't think time heals; I think it just numbs us. I don't feel like I am healing. I am just becoming numb.

Summer, Summer

2008-05-09T09:39:00.005-04:00

So that bittersweet summer I was talking about is here. It certainly does have its ups and downs.

...

I have been pretty busy with my internship at Rivertree and working in the theater at Malone. Sunday was the day I moved in to Gram's here back at Canton. I really enjoy living here at Gram's and it feels good to be back in Canton. Something about western PA just didn't feel like it was as much home as Canton is to me now. It's hard to explain. It is almost like outside of my family and a small handful of friends and people from high school, there isn't anything (or anyone) for me out there. Back here is another family and whole lot of friends. This is becoming home more and more as time passes. Its a somewhat difficult transition but I do like it.

...

Monday I went down to the theater and got my timecard. Jim (my boss at the theater) gave me the summary of everything that needs to be done once the summer is over. The best thing about that gig is that I can go down there whenever it is convenient to me. I have keys to get in and I know what needs to be done... just gotta do it.

...

I started at Rivertree on tuesday. Tuesday and wednesday were consumed by time spent with Toby (the guy I work with at Rivertree) and time spent at the church in general. It was all really awesome. I got the tour of the building and did some brainstorming with Toby about what all I am going to be involved in this summer. I got to meet a ton of people on staff, about 1/6 of whose names I remember. Everyone has been really awesome. Then I had a brainstorming meeting with some others on staff, which was a cool experience. Me and Toby ended the first day by going to the batting cages and just talking some more about my assignments this summer.

...

Wednesday me and Toby went to a seminar in Hartville about small groups and how they should look in churches if they are going to change lives. I was able to take some cool things away from the 7 hours I was there. Later that night I went to a leadership meeting about how to have conversations with people about Jesus and faith if the other person doesn't have any particular religious interest. I hate to talk about evangelism sometimes because there is almost this inherent judgment that comes with the word "evangelism" that I really try to avoid. But I suppose if you have the right kind of established relationship with the person that you are talking to then everything would be okay. That's kinda what the meeting was about. It was good.

...

Yesterday I just went to Malone and worked at the theater for most of the day. Gonna try to do the same today. Yesterday did have an awesomely pleasant surprise. Nikki came to visit Tim and me and her got to just hang out for a couple hours here at Gram's. Really cool. Good times.

...

I am reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. I like it a lot so far. Once I get more into it I might blog more about it. There are a small handful of books I want to read this summer:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis,

Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus,

Mere Christianity (rereading it) by C.S. Lewis,

Sex God by Rob Bell,

Starving Jesus by Craig Gross,

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren

...

Well this is just a boring update. Maybe I'll have something more to say soon. Keep in touch and God Bless

-Nick

Peace

2008-04-30T01:42:00.005-04:00

God grant me peace.

I don't want to want, I just want to be in your will. I know if your will is my will then I may have peace. I dont want to want anymore. I'd just like some peace.

I am terrified when I say "peace" what I really mean is happiness. For some reason it just seems so selfish for me to ask you for happiness. That seems too bias; seems to lack objectivity. I hope that is not what I mean.

I hope I can have a level of happiness in my life knowing that I am doing your will and I am at peace with that. Maybe they are complimentary, or maybe I'm just phrasing things in a clever way to make myself feel better.

I do want to be happy, but if that's not really a good thing to ask for I would settle for some peace. If peace is not a good thing to ask for... then I guess I'll wait till I'm in a position to ask for something better. Maybe objectivity in my own introspection. Who knows, maybe I have too much of that as it is.

Help. Give me whatever you know I need. We both know I can't decide what that is.

Peace, God Bless

The Problem of Prayer

2008-04-25T15:53:00.008-04:00

I was talking to a friend of mine from back home the other day about how I have a very heady and over-sensible faith.

...

I didn't grow up in the church so before I became a Christian when I was around 15 I wasn't bringing any preconceived notions or perceptions of who God was with me. I didn't grow up being spoon fed anything about God or Christianity; God was rarely, if ever, a topic of discussion in my house.

With that being the case, hopefully you can sympathize with the fact that everything about the faith has always had to make sense to me, in one way or another. That doesn't mean that I have to understand why things happen and stuff like that. It just means that whenever I started to take the faith seriously I had a thought process that went something like this: "If this is going to be my religion and this is going to be my faith, then it is going to mean something to me. It doesn't make any sense to even bother with this whole deal unless this is something that I'm going to really let impact me." At that point, it didn't make any sense to me to start believing and investing who I was as a person in something that didn't teach things that resonated with me as true. Luckily, the gospel has turned out to be the most relevant entity I have ever been exposed to.

...

The main thing my friend and I were talking about was how I have trouble with prayer sometimes (maybe a little more than sometimes).

I have a really hard time sometimes because I get to the point where I feel like I "know" this is true or that is true. I "know" God is with me and He loves me and He isn't going to ever give me anything I can't make it through. If that is the case, then it doesn't even matter what this whole sucky thing I am dealing with right now is, because it will pan out and ill be okay, regardless of the result.

You can imagine that if I honestly look at things that way on a consistent basis, sometimes prayer isn't what it should be for me. If I "know" all of that then I always seem to slip into this mindset where I think it can seem so pointless to pray and look for encouragement and such. I wind up telling myself that I just need to suck it up and keep going and I'll be okay. At the end of the day, God will be with me and things will be fine regardless of how bad things hurt. It doesn't even matter the outcome of the situation because I "know" He will take care of me. I just "know."

That kind of approach to prayer can really hurt the relationship with me and God; it almost renders prayer useless, at least when I'm looking for God to give me comfort and just be there for me like He loves me.

...

I "know" God loves me, and that might even be another issue in the situation. It is almost like I have so much confidence in God that I feel that every time I get upset or get down on myself that it is foolish to take it to God because I already know He loves me and asking Him "why?" isn't going to get me anywhere. Maybe I'll never know why, and I'm okay with that. Maybe I won't know why for a long long time, and I'm okay with that too. Maybe the answer to why is simply that we are in a fallen world and God's will is not always done, but even then I "know" that He will work through the worst situations I ever experience.

...

The obvious response in these situations, it looks like, is just to praise God even when I'm hurt and upset and feel like what's happening doesn't make sense. The sad fact is that I am not that strong. I am too bitter and proud to praise God during my struggles.

As hypocritical as ever, I can "know" God will lead me through and take care of me but simultaneously refuse to praise Him until He literally does it.

...

There is just something about that that doesn't seem right to me. It seems like I'm not doing things the right way somewhere along the path. Maybe this just makes me normal, maybe this is an issue many Christians struggle with and work through. Maybe my conviction just gets the better of me when I feel like my prayer life isn't what it should be. I say that because sometimes it really doesn't feel like it should; it lacks the genuineness I want between me and my Father.

Maybe this really is normal, but good God it sure does hurt.

Heaven forbid I pray about it... right?

Just An Update

2008-04-20T14:41:00.005-04:00

Today is my birthday. It doesn't feel very special. That seems sad. I'm 20. Teen years are gone.

...

I want to start writing more. I want to write stories and plays again. I miss them.

...

I want to act more in the future. I miss it. I don't miss the process sometimes, but I miss performing. I miss some of the people.

...

Things aren't fantastic right now. Things are really hard. They suck pretty bad some days.

...

Finals are coming up. I'm not really worried about them.

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School is almost over. It is one of the most bittersweet situations I may have ever experienced it. I think it will be good and so hard at the same time. That's life.

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Summer is almost here. Summer should be good. Once I really get into the swing of things I think it is going to be great. It will be tough in the beginning.

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God is God. Things don't make sense. That is life. God is God and life is life. I wish I had the eyes to really see the blessings in my life whenever all I can seem to focus on are the things that hurt. I know He is here. I know He is here. Sometimes I just don't see it.

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Thanks for being in my life. If you read my blog, chances are you matter a lot to me because I've asked you to read. Blog reading is not as popular a pastime at Malone as a blogger might hope. If you're reading this then you matter to me, most likely. Thanks for being there.

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God Bless

Top 5 Fears

2008-04-05T12:30:00.011-04:00

Does admitting your fears to someone make you vulnerable? Does it mean you are just really good friends with them? Maybe it's both. I mean, I have always thought that the closer you are with a person the more vulnerable you become within that relationship.

In any case, I've decided to blog my top 5 fears. Maybe this means that I'm trying to become closer to you, my faithful blog readers. Maybe I'm trying to take that "next step" in the relationship. Stop me if I'm going too fast; I wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

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Number 5 - Big things. I am talking really really big things. Skyscrapers don't scare me; for some reason I trust them. But I do live near a nuclear power plant back home in PA. There are these gigantic smokestacks that are connected to the plant. Whenever I drive by these awkward shaped smoke stacks I immediately become uncomfortable. It's kinda like I'm riding a roller coaster only instead of going down a big hill I think the stack is going to fall on me and kill me. It's a slightly less gratifying experience.

Number 4- Bugs. I hate bugs. Not the individual fly that is buzzing around the room. But I hate the thought of bugs on me or surrounding me. I knew watching those specials on bees on National Geographic when I was a kid was going to come back to get me... I hate gross, nasty-looking bugs.

Number 3 - The ocean. This is kinda connected to number 5, since the main reason I am TERRIFIED of the ocean is because it is so big. You cannot trust the ocean. I repeat, you CANNOT trust it. You can't even see all the stuff that is in it! There are animals and stuff in the ocean that are so big. Whales scare the crap out of me. They are just so big that they could come out of the water and smash me and wouldn't even notice or care. Stupid whales. If I was on an awesome cruise ship with a ton of other people I might feel better, but thats no guarantee either. Ever hear of the Titanic? Leo DiCaprio is more than willing to educate you if you haven't.

Number 2 - Family dying. This might be a surprise to some of you considering I am not as close to my immediate family as so many people here at Malone are. Even still, the thought of either of my parents or my sister dying is a scary scary thought for me. When I would have wicked bad anxiety attacks as a kid, the big fear that always took me over was that either my sister or one of my parents would die. If I ever have a family of my own, I'm sure this fear will shift so that they are part of the focus as well. I'm not trying to say that pretty much everyone doesn't share this fear, but I guess because for such a long time it was something that crossed my mind so frequently that it is kinda imprinted on my mind.

Number 1 - God will call me to do something that I really don't want to do and it will cost me the people that mean the most to me. This is possibly the most selfish fear that I think anyone could possibly have. Nice job Nick...

I always think about this time in high school that I stood up for the right thing and it made a lot of people who I was pretty close to upset. Really upset. I guess that I have this fear that God's call for my life is not necessarily going to connected to happiness. Do I believe God wants us to be happy? Absolutely. Do I believe that God gives some people a calling and puts them in places to be his hands and feet in ways that are not particularly filled with joy? Absolutely. God's will is ultimately what is best, I know this. I just don't want to move forward before I'm ready; I don't want to leave the people who mean so much to me behind. But if God tells me that I'm ready, then I'm ready. I know I'll be okay in any situation God puts me in, it is just really easy to get so wrapped up in the people and environment we are always around that we can't imagine anything else being as stable or filled with blessings as this. That kind of thinking is not very sound; I mean, who knows how amazing and unpredictable my future is.

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But I guess that is what makes a fear a fear; the whole part that it is not necessarily rational.

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Fears are a funny funny thing. The more and more I talk about them, the less and less threatening they seem. Even if they don't make sense, they are a part of who I am for the time being.

"Hi, I'm Nick."

"Hi Nick." (In unison)

"I'm a 19 year old college kid afraid of big smokestacks, bugs, the ocean, my parents dying, and God's call for me."

(Applause)

Find Joy

2008-03-15T09:00:00.007-04:00

I think it is safe to say that most things in this world are not as they should be. In fact, the only thing that may have ever come into this world and been, in and of itself, the way it should be, was Jesus. But Jesus was an "after the fact" kind of perfect.

Jesus came into a world that was not the way it was supposed to be precisely because it was not what it was supposed to be. Had the world never fallen and everything been perfect, then there would have been no use for a perfect messiah who was willing to sacrifice himself on a cross to bring reconciliation to this anything-but-perfect world.
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I go through all of that to say that I think a lot of us can resonate with the fact that living in a fallen world is not always a good time.

In fact, it sucks pretty bad considering the alternative of living in a perfect world where love abounds and we can take walks with God. In any case, I have found that finding joy, real sustained coherent and untainted joy, is very very difficult.
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In all honesty, it may be impossible to get the kind of joy I just described depending on how you define "untainted." What I mean when I say that is that I find it very difficult to reach situations or circumstances where I feel joy, and no contradictory emotions in the background while experiencing that joy.

Now, that may very well be related to the fact that I am a very heady person and I think about things too much or I worry about things I know are coming too often and refuse to just "live in the moment." And I'm sure there is some truth in each of those critiques.

Even still, I think that joy is just not the default position in this world; and it has not been for a long long time. I think that the world as we know it will never have joy as its default emotion or feeling people experience (at least not without a second coming or two. wink.).
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But who am I to say what anyone else's default position is? I can speak from experience that I think my default position is actually a mesh of a few different emotions: loneliness, indifference, apathy, melancholy, and maybe even frustration.

I don't always experience them simultaneously. Sometimes it can pure loneliness (and boy, do those days suck. It just seems so contradictory to live in a dorm of over 100 same-age guys and feel isolated or lonely. That irony in itself can be frustrating. Whoops, I forgot I was still talking about loneliness, ha). Sometimes it can be a mix of melancholy and indifference or apathy. It really is depressing to think about this is where people have fallen to now.

Humans are these glorious creations of God who have the capacity to love and experience relationships and affection more than anything else, and happiness does not seem to be an emotion we sustain because doing it independently instead of interdependently is just so hard.
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All that having been said, the point is that in this world we have to find joy. We need to search high and low, check the dumpsters, look between the couch cushions, and check under the bed to find joy. Rarely, does joy just come us and present itself as this feeling without a catalyst.

And finding joy can be exhausting.
It can be hard.
It can be depressing.
It can be riddled with failure.
It can be anything but joyous.

Regardless, it is far better than our other choices we have to pick from.
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Although finding joy can be so hard, when you do find it, it feels like the best decision you ever made. Joy is priceless, so go and find it.
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"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy -- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."

-Jude 1:24-25

Content Is Not In The Cards

2008-02-01T22:54:00.000-05:00

I have had quite a few amazing conversations in my life thus far. The best of those conversations have actually come in only the last year and a half. One of the things I am actually looking forward to the most for the rest of my life are some of the amazing conversations I'm going to have with people.
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Lately, I have been having a lot of conversations with mentors, professors, and peers about being content. The whole idea behind being content has been somewhat troubling for me.
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Before we go any further, it is best we look at what I mean when I say the ever controversial word content.

Dictionary.com defines content as "satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else."
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A lot of my friends here at school tell me that one of their biggest struggles they go through is that they are just trying to be content with what God has given them to this point. This battle with contentment is something I really do see often here on this Christian campus. Interestingly enough, the majority of the time the people who talk to me about this the most are girls. I think that may have something to do with the fact it is hard, in our culture nowadays, not to desire having a (romantic) relationship be a part of our self-identity. Whenever we don't have that relationship with someone but really want it, then it can be hard to have that satisfaction in what we have and who we are. It can seem damn near impossible to not desire more than just the status quo of what we have.

On a side note, I know that guys deal with the same things on a regular basis; it just is not something that we discuss in quite the same way, but I think the issue is just as present.
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Regardless of relationships being an issue or not, I know that being content, in general, has always been a bit of an issue for me. Recently, I had a discussion with someone that sort of opened my eyes as to why being content is just not in the cards for me.

I am too reflective, ambitious, restless, and too much of an idealist to ever really achieve being content.
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Having the kind of personality I do, it is almost impossible to have any kind of sustained satisfaction in who I am or what I have. I always want things to be better or want to pursue something more challenging or rewarding. I think about the way things are or have been and think that if the world was not such a fallen sinful place then people could be so much better off; love wold be so much more a part of our world. This idea of looking at my life and saying "Yep, I'm cool with all of this. I like the world and myself just the way they are." is just not something I can do. I cannot sustain this overall satisfaction with the way things are.
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I think this is where things get confusing, because I am so happy I am reflective, ambitious, and an idealist. Those are key aspects of my personality and I think they are some of my best qualities. But when you combine them altogether in one person it can be hard for me to actually maintain contentment as an emotion.
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One thing I do want to clarify is that I believe I am going to have a truly happy life. I believe I will one day have an amazing family and a profession where I do feel like i interact with people and make a difference; I believe my work will truly be life-giving for me. I don't mean to imply that I wont ever have joy in my life, but the idea of an overall satisfaction just doesn't jive with who I am. I care about the details and the big picture at the same time too much to be satisfied. But I do believe that my life is going to be so filled with joy that it makes me smile just to think about it.
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I have always been able to look at things and say, "Yes, this is really good. But... if we did not live in a fallen world, or if things were just a little different, this could all be so much better." I am truly greatful I can do that, I think it is a way to approach things that helps me know what I stand for in a lot of situations. But at the same time, always being convicted about things and desiring things to be better for myself and (more importantly) others can take a toll on you. I know it does on me.

I look around at some of my friends and I wonder, "Why can't I just be a 19 year old kid like the everyone else and just piss around and not care and have a good time? Why do I care like I do?" This drought of satisfaction can be very draining.

It wears me down.
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I'm glad I care about the homeless guys I eat dinner with a couple times a week. I'm glad I am a pacifist and a feminist and that I think daily whether how I treat my friends is how Christ treated his friends. And I'm glad when I fall terribly short that it matters to me. I am glad I am everything but indifferent.
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Sometimes I wonder whether or not contentment is an emotion Chirstians should become accustomed to feeling. I know that being content is essentially contrary to the kind of personality I have, and I know that it takes a serious toll on my emotions. I also know I wouldn't have it any other way.
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Limited contentment is a good thing; it helps prevent people from becoming basketcases like me. I think being able to appreciate where you are on the ladder of life and understanding that God is working on you in this particular stage of life is a great great thing. That kind of understanding is valuable. But, to me, that is somewhat different from what the term content has always implied to me. Contentment is this overall feeling or satisfaction and desiring things to be static for an extended period of time. For me, that just does not work. It is not a part of who I am.
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Being content is not a part of who I can be.

A Life Of Love... Or Lack Thereof

2008-01-19T18:27:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I was reading and came to one of those points where conviction just sort of runs through my whole body and for a split second I realize how apathetic I've become. I'm not sure if these sorts of self-defining revelations are unique to me or they occasionally hit everyone, but I'm always so thankful when they come.
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I have a habit of needing to write things down when I'm experiencing them or when the thought process is fresh in mind. Sometimes I have a really cool train of thought but when I go back and try to remember all I have left are the first and last cars of the train, and I've lost everything in between. I was desperate to write down the source of these feelings, and this is what i was able to jot down:

"It breaks my own heart to realize the lack of love I show others in my life. The priorities I create in my mind coerce me into living in ways that don't reflect the person I want to be. My own ambitions ruin my life."
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Sometimes the irony of my life is just too much to take in. I'm here at a Christian institution, revising myself and my desires on a daily basis to come to terms with who I feel Christ wants me to be. I'm mulling around in my head constantly ideas of love and community and grace.

Then I step back, and look at who I really am; what I am, not in a comparative sense, but in contrast to who I am really supposed to be. I'm practically lost.
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That's not actually true. I know where I am, I know I'm supposed to be where I am, and I know that I'm going through a self-proclaimed "refining fire" at this stage of my life. But there are moments when I see how far I've come and then there are moments when I see how far I have to go. Today I had a moment where I saw both.
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What is so amazing to me is that in my life situation here at school you would think that the practice of genuine Christianity would be substantial. And I honestly think it is. It's incredible here. But at the same time I'm shocked to realize the lack of love that exists within the community sometimes.
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I think that what can happen is that when you have a group of people who are very close to you and whom you see all the time, we naturally begin to take that relationship for granted.

Some family relationships are the perfect example of that.

People who have been dating a long time take liberties with their boy/girlfriend's feelings. Spouses become indifferent to the preference of their partner. Close friends share a biting sense of humor and act nonchalant about their entire friendship.
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I'm not going to lie, when it comes to my friends I value the casual feel that we can have with each other. It helps keep things calm and safe. But there comes a point where the feelings of casualness don't hold on anymore. There is an aspect of community and grace with others that really shows us something about God, and the best ways that I have ever felt those things as genuine, really present between me and God, were when I experienced them through a relationship with another person. (And I'm not referring to a "relationship," it could be that but it definitely doesn't have to be.)
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I feel the love of God for me through other people. I feel the grace of God through other people. We feel the compassion, the forgiveness, the community, the wealth, the desire, the will, the kindness, the gentleness, the warmth, the adoration of God through other people. And when I feel farthest from God is when the relationships I have with people who matter the most are farthest from where they should/could be.
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We are the hands, the feet of Christ. We are the body of Jesus and we need to do on this earth what he did while he was here; hold each other, care for each other, cry with each other, love each other.
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In Shane Claiborne's book Irresistible Revolution, he talks about his experience in Calcutta for a summer working with Mother Teresa and serving the poorest of the poor. He talks about he would set up a small medical station to clean small wounds and bandage people who needed new dressing on their injuries. He said that some of the small children would intentionally fall to scratch themselves or scuff their knees just so they could come to the clinic and see the Christians and feel their love by being touched and held as they were healed.

How often do we do that? How often do people feel our love like those kids were able to? Those kids needed to be embraced and cared about, that was all they wanted. They didn't need a self-help lesson or a place to go and complain about life's difficulties or anything like that. All they wanted was to receive love, love like the love of Jesus.

And it just smacks me in the face when I look at myself and the people around me; we are Christians and I find it hard to see any sort of deep passion about people or conviction about caring for one another. Me and my friends! These kids are my friends, kids who I have theological discussions with and kids who I go to chapel with twice a week and kids who I live with everyday. And I have to squint to see Jesus' love shine through our actions. We walk this path of a "Christian College Student" and it's like I don't even see that mean anything in the way we treat one another, let alone other people.

What has happened to the basic love that we are supposed to show each other, the love Jesus showed every single person he ever came in contact with? It has all been replaced with sarcasm and swearing and apathy and frustration and restlessness and jokes and work and boredom and indifference. We don't want to get our hands dirty anymore, we just want everything to be casual. Just like our friendships.
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I don't know what to say really, I guess it is just that sometimes I look around at people who I know truly love God and are Christians and I struggle to see genuine consistency. I see so much more hypocrisy than genuine Christianity. I'm not turning to legalism or anything like that, it's just like, doesn't personal conviction exist anymore? Doesn't struggling with issues and feeling convicted about what Christ really wants to get out of us as a individuals show we are people pursuing what Jesus wants us? I don't know how many people I can say I honestly feel like that is the case with. All I know is that I am trying.
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God said that the world would know we are Christians by our love. If we don't notice our love in eachother how is the world ever going to notice it in us? I dont want to be indifferent anymore. I want to love people the way Jesus did. I want to love you the way God does. If I do anything less, then how will you see Jesus shine through me? Jesus loves you, and you should be able to feel that love through knowing me, but I doubt you do. We'd rather just keep it casual.
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I have far to go. Very far.

Drawing In Church

2008-01-05T19:34:00.001-05:00

This last week I was in church and I drew a couple nice pictures during the service.
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These aren't the kind of drawings that people who are completely zoning out during the service draw to amuse themselves. I don't do drawings like that very often. Normally, during a sermon, or a chapel speech, or even classes sometimes, I like to take notes on good ideas I hear or quotes that really make me think; things I feel I can build off of. These were those kinds of pictures.
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I think this whole train of thought I had related back to how I felt like soon I need to sort of just go. Just go and serve somewhere. There was a segment of the service where a friend of mine, who is a big fan of mission trips and things of that nature, was talking about the recent trip him and some people from the church were able to make down to Haiti. It was really cool. But this is where it gets interesting.
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I found myself doing something that I have been doing a lot over the last few years and that I think a lot of people do. I started to think about all the things I could lose if I just followed my inclination to go and serve somewhere. I started to think how much that would ruin my plans and how uncomfortable that could be. The problem with these questions is that I, and maybe other people, blow them up to the extent that I fool myself into thinking they actually call into question how good of a decision it is to go serve. I'm not trying to say you can't have concerns or be nervous about taking risks to move towards God. But this is my point: we insist on having all our questions answered (and answered in the right way) before we are willing to take steps towards God and what He may want from us. This is what my first picture showed.

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The issue is that we think having all our questions answered is the only way we can take risks for God and go out on a limb. Well that just isn't true. In fact, we are never going to have all our questions answered but its crazy to see how much we can rationalize our reluctance to take risks.

It's like we are going to cross the road. On one side is us and God is on the other side. He tells us to cross so we can be closer to Him. But we refusing to cross the road until we can't see a single car on the horizon. What I need to realize is that these things on the road aren’t even cars, they are only toys. If these toy cars crash into my feet while I’m walking then I’ll hardly feel it. We look at our situations and all the things we think we could lose and we turn hot wheels into semi trucks. I need to trust God and cross the road; I know he will protect me while I do it. Whatever crashes do occur because I chose to cross the road and get to God on the other side, they aren’t going to be these cataclysmic events that ruin everything my future holds. Instead, they are going to shake the things in my life and test them. Whatever falls apart wasn’t strong enough to last in the first place. As hard as that might be for me to accept and realize, that’s the reality of the situation.

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In the end, I feel like I need answers to questions before I just go and serve because I don't trust God enough. Fundamentally, the reason the questions are so influential in my thought process is because I'm afraid of what is to come; I'm afraid God isn't going to protect me.

But I know that isn't true. I know God will always protect me. I need to learn to ask whatever questions I have as I walk towards God. Just because I have questions doesn't mean I can't move until I have all the answers. I'm never going to have all the answers. That's what my second picture was all about.

Tim Burton Ruins My Life... Constantly

2007-12-30T17:23:00.001-05:00

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT READ THIS BLOG IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN EDWARD SCISSORHANDS AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN IT.

So I recently went to see the new blockbuster Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
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For those of you who don't know, the movie is based off of the hit Broadway musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim's musical was based off of an old legend and its many variations. The gist of the plot is a barber named Benjamin Barker with a gorgeous wife is sent to prison for life on a false charge by a corrupt and lustful judge whose only motivation to ruin the poor barbers life is so he can have his way with the wife once her husband is sent away. After over a decade away from his home in London, Barker is able to escape from his prison and returns to London only to find his newborn daughter has become the ward of the very judge that sent him to prison all those years ago. Barker changes his name to Sweeney Todd and spends all his being on plans of revenge.
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I love the story of Sweeney Todd, I truly do. I really love the musical as well; I pretty much love everything Sondheim does. So obviously, once I heard there was going to be a modern film adaptation I was very excited... that was until I heard Tim Burton was directing with Johnny Depp playing Todd.
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Don't get me wrong, I do like Johnny Depp a lot. I think he is an incredible actor, but he really doesn't look the part of the classic Sweeney Todd. A good friend of mine told me many a year ago when the rumors just started flying about a Burton version of Sweeney Todd that he thought the best possible cast for Todd would have been Alfred Molina. I have to admit... that would have been genius. Buuuuuut, since Burton refuses to work with anyone other than Depp it frustrates me because its like Molina didn't have a shot whatsoever just because of Burton's stubbornness.

STRIKE 1
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My big problem with Burton is this: the man has basically created his own genre, which in itself is very impressive, but he chooses to try and fit stories into his genre that don't really work. In general, I don't like his genre very much whatsoever, but I'm willing to set that off to the side for the time being; we'll come back to it.

A perfect example of Burton trying to make stories fit into his genre that don't belong is the first 2 Batman movies. Tim Burton's kid creepy cartoonish genre just does not work with the Batman movies, hence Christopher Nolan's new Batman movies are going to wipe the floor with Burton's. So that is a part of my problem with Tim Burton, if he is going to do a movie in his basic archetype genre then he should choose to do projects that fit well with his genre (ex. Nightmare Before Christmas).

STRIKE 2
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Now I am ready to vent about why I do not like Tim Burton's genre. I realize this part of my discussion is all a matter of taste, and if you like Tim Burton, then you like him and if you don't, then you don't, period. I'm totally cool with that. But my issue is this: he just never really commits to one approach to a movie. He juggles the kiddy creepy approach and the adult thriller too much in some of his films; this is exactly what he did with Sweeney Todd. I want some consistency in a movie, and in Sweeney Todd I wanted that dark vengeful adult thriller taste the whole way through, maybe something a little farther than Sleepy Hollow (another Burton film). But Burton couldn't do that for me, and I should have known going into the movie that I was not going to fall in love with it, but I went in with hopes far too high.

Another example of this inconsistency took place in Edward Scissorhands. At the end of the movie when they kill Anthony Michael Hall it just seems soooo morbid for the rest of the movie. It's like I'm sitting there going, "What? Okay... so i guess he does kill people after all..."

STRIKE 3 - Sit your ass down Tim Burton
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So all that having been said, I still "enjoyed" watching Sweeney Todd even though I felt like Tim Burton pushed really hard to be an adult thriller at some points and then backed off at other points which made some parts of the movie humorous... the wrong parts. Either way, if you like Tim Burton you'll love the movie and if you don't you should still go see it because its a great story and Helena Bonham Carter is amazing.
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All things considered... 7.85 out of 10.

This May Have Potential

2007-12-30T00:47:00.002-05:00

I'm the kind of guy who thinks about things a lot. I don't feel as though I over think things, I just cannot stop thinking until I come to some sort of conclusion about whatever it is I am thinking about. Once I can articulate whatever my thoughts are, I can move on. I enjoy this process, it has been very rewarding.
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This blog is a place where I can come and ramble, and once I'm done rambling I might be able to really understand what it is I think, and why I think what I do.
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I will give you fair warning and say that I'm positive some blogs will make more sense than others, and some may not make much sense at all. I have a feeling the more I think about something or talk about it before I come to my blog, the more succinct and polished my blog will come out. Either way, I think this will help me regardless of whether the blog is coherent or it isn't.
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All that having been said, I really would enjoy it if you read whatever I write in here occasionally and respond by commenting or talking to me in person, if you feel so inclined.
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I do hope you enjoy reading whatever you read here. (And I use the word "enjoy" loosely)