The Truth

To be at your best, I think you also have to be at your worst. So, I'm at my worst. I'm scared out of my mind for the first time in my life. Honestly, the first time. It just hit me tonight that I'm not living where I used to live. When I say tonight I mean in the last ten minutes. I think that to love something, it has to move you, and things that move you scare you, and they scare you out of your mind. I could cry right now, and I would if I hadn't surpressed that part of me so much, or rather exhausted that part of myself. That's more true than surpressed. I wish I could see my parents right now, and I wish I could see Mark and Ginger and Sean and Katie and Jonathan and Sharon and Peter and Michael and Aaron and Jonathan Hewitt and Patrick and Keith and Joanna and Mike and Jen and Kyle and Grandin and Shanee and Jesse and Krew and Adam. I write sometimes to grab peoples' attention, you ought to know that. Mostly, I write to grab my own attention. I'm not in college any more. There aren't any nets to catch me. If you want to see Tyler at his worst, in the midst of real, unadulterated fear, you'll have to catch me now. I won't admit to it in the morning. It hit me that I might not make it. When you love someone, the real fear that lurks in your mind is that it might not happen. I've said that I don't know what love is, and that is true, but I've loved someone before. It was a very long time ago. Now that I think about it, it wasn't love, it was a glimpse of something I couldn't process, and still can't. That's more what I mean. I've glimpsed something I couldn't process before, a long time ago, and it's just happened again. Behind the bravado and the joy of risk, there's just me, and a terrified me at that. I'm good at dealing with fear, but for tonight I'm not. You can take it or leave it, but all I need to write tonight is this: love what moves you, do what moves you, chase what moves you, need what moves you. I might end up empty handed, that's in God's hands. But the truth is, the only things that are real are the things that move you. I won't lie to myself, and neither should you.

Real Life

There are three people in my family, and I am one of them. There were things about being an only child that I liked, and things that I didn't like. I think that's about all that can be said about any situation. I've been thinking today about how that environment shaped me. It helped me grow in some ways, and kept me young in other ways, but one thing that I've wrestled with for most of my life is the sensation that the world revolves around, and depends on, me. You can laugh, its ok, I did too when I typed that. Sensation is a funny word, and the idea I wrote it next to is even funnier. But, as with so many other ideas, I've spent some time believing that that was true. It's a pretty warm idea, that turns into a heavy idea when you wear it too long, kind of like a wool sweater that you get caught in the rain in. That's something that has happened to me. I can't say exactly how I first came by it. While I agree that the beginning of a thing is more than half, I wish that someone would have piped up when that was first said and added that it's also the vaguest part of the thing, whatever it is. People say that they remember exactly when they started liking, or loving, someone and that could be true, but I think your mind sorts back through some of the pages when you aren't looking and writes in some more descriptive language for you. Your mind can be cool like that. Anyway, somehow or another, I thought that the world depended on me.
           I've always been fascinated with storms. Actually, I think the right thing to say would be that I have always been attracted to storms. Fascinated seems like something that should reserved for things the Hubble Telescope finds. The thing about storms for me is that they are one of the few places that I realize who I really am. People always tell me, when I go out in storms, because storms are the type of thing that ought to be gone out into, to be careful and not get electrocuted. I've secretly wished that lightning would come and get me some of those times. I guess that's not a secret anymore. Anyway, I've wished that sometimes because I was tired of living, and other times because I think that experience must be one of the most real things that happens, like when Tyler Durden says, just after he purposefully wrecked his car, that they've just had a near life experience. That's from the movie Fight Club. You should see it, it will change your life. I love those kinds of experiences. One reason I love them is that they re-center your thinking about yourself and your place in the world. It's easy to think that the world revolves around you when your world consists of your room and your favorite cds and some friends that also like those cds. But that's not the real world. The real world can roll up on you in a thunderhead and fry your ass. In that world, I'm just another person. Put your guns away, optimists. I know you think I'm not just another person, and let me guess, no one is. You go on thinking that, if it brings you comfort. My point is, I am just another person. The things I wrestle with are the same things that everyone else wrestles with. The girls I like are the girls that most everyone likes, or at least ought to. The music I like is the music that most people like. The food I like is the same food that everyone would like if they were honest, but some people, like my friend Chelsea, convince themselves that they don't like shrimp and grits just because they ate grits one time when they were working at a jail somewhere in the South and they didn't like them then. Southern cuisine isn't that homogenous, dear. Anyway, I think that one important realization to have before you're 25 or 26 is that you aren't as important to the world as you wish you were. The audience that you think is constantly watching and assessing your every move is really just distracted by their own problems, just like you are. And, you're going to die with well over 98% percent of the world's population either not knowing or not caring that you existed. That's important to know. It's important because I don't think you can be effective as a human until you know that. Maybe what I should say is, I haven't been able to be effective as a human without knowing that. I can't be loved by, or love, everyone. But, I can love and be loved by a few people. I can't answer every question that's ever been asked, but I can help answer a few questions. Some community pressure is real. Most of it is imagined. A woman whose name I can't remember once asked Winston Churchill, "What do you think of me?" He responded, "I don't". You could read this and think about driving your car off a bridge shaking your fist at the sky, and if you think that, stop being so dramatic. The fact is, for every William Wilberforce, there have been many thousands of people sitting alone in a dark room crying and drinking malt liquor because they weren't as famous as they had hoped to be. But Wilberforce didn't set out to be famous and recognized and to have statues of himself built and have a movie made about his life with someone playing him whom he would never meet. He set out to fix a problem. The world is full of lots of little problems that connect with each other to become big problems. Stop acting like everything everywhere depends on you, if you act that way, and start trying to fix some small problems that are within reach. Stop trying to love everyone and just love a few people. It's ok to not like people, just don't be bitter towards them.
         There is something to be said for being ambitious. Whatever it is that ought to be said about that, it ought to be said after something is said about the realities of the world we live in. The pressure and anxiety and turbulence that you feel when you think about your place in the world probably stem from a misunderstanding of your place in that world. That's how it was for me. Relax. Love some people, help fix the problems that you can be of help with, find some work, some tobacco, some wine, and some good food and make a run of it. Real life awaits you.

Look Both Ways

There was a time, when the sky was darker than it is now, that it was hard for me to say hello to someone and mean it. I don't even know what hello means, so how could I possibly mean it even when I meant it? I've never thought of that before. Something I have thought of is that hello, when you give each syllable an equal stress, sounds like someone was interrupted during a conversation about hell and was startled. "hell, oh". It's a resigned kind of surprise, like when you've been waiting to hang out with a friend or a girl or a girl friend or a girlfriend all day and they call and say that something came up and they have to watch a movie with their family. That kind of oh. It's funny to me how the spacing difference between girl friend and girlfriend means a lot. That's like when people say that they would be really interested in someone if their spacing weren't so far apart. I've said that, and I was dumb. This isn't a lead-in to talking about girls. I just thought that was interesting. Sometimes, when people use words, they don't mean what the words mean. People love to say that they don't believe in such and such a thing, but when they say that I think they mean they don't like the idea of such and such a thing. Like when someone says that they don't believe in deforestation or eating at fast-food restaurants. What they really mean is that they don't like the idea of those things, and I wish they would just say that and leave belief alone. It has enough to think about already. If you think about the words you use, I'll bet you'll find that there are more of them than there need to be. That's how it always is for me. At the end of each day, there's a whole pile of words that I have to step over to get into bed. I've spent most of my life full of verbal clutter and linguistic angst, as if my happiness depended on getting one more story or joke or saying or reference to a book that I may or may not have read out before the light went out. Like I said, I'm dumb, except that the last time I said that I said "was", which probably made you think that it had ended, but you shouldn't think that because I was using the imperfect tense, which means that it hasn't necessarily ended, and not the preterite, which means it has ended. Don't feel bad about yourself, you couldn't have known. This isn't a post about the benefits of silence. My dad would like it to be, and if he were writing this it would be about that, but I'm still on the fence about how I feel about all of the lonely silence business. I like the idea of it, but I get lonely too quickly and so I read a book or listen to music written by other people who are writing about being lonely. This post is just about saying what you mean. The reason that there are more than 100 words in the English language is because there is a never ending demand for linguistic specificity. You could be vague, or you could say exactly what you mean. You could say that you don't believe in driving a car, or you could say that you don't like the idea of driving a car because the noise scares you and that there was that one time when you were on a road trip with The Black Keys blaring in your car and you had to go to the bathroom really badly but couldn't find a place so you just peed in your car. I would understand your aversion to driving if you told me that. I don't know many things, but I know when people are hiding something. To be more specific, I know when people are trying to avoid talking about something. I don't know when people are hiding a body in their trunk or when they are hiding ice cream from me. Well, I usually know when people are hiding ice cream from me, but the part about the body is true. I don't think that I have a right to know everything that someone else knows or has done. I just mean that if you want to tell me something, say it. Don't take 3 hours of beating around the bush at a house meeting to talk about why its wrong to have alcohol in the Young Life house. There was only one Young Life leader living there anyways, and he had a bottle of Bourbon in his closet and I know that because I drank some of it and he was the one getting upset about the alcohol being in the house. People are funny. One reason that I love my mom and my dad is that they say things that they mean. I don't always agree, but who cares. I think that people live most of their lives in front of an imaginary audience whom they don't want to offend, so they don't look at the cute girl sitting across the room and they certainly don't go talk to her, and they look both ways before they get upset or excited or interested. Their loss. Say what you mean, and don't look both ways before you do.

Sometimes

Listen to this while you're reading this post. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDj44n5bjWU. Start it over if it ends before you're done.

I learned something tonight. I learned that when someone asks you for a cigarette, you should always give them one for the road as well. My dad told me one time that the reason that people chase wealth is that they hope to be able to reproduce the moments of happiness they've experienced as often as they want. Or something like that. I thought he was right, and I still think that. I watched a storm come in tonight from my seat at Starbucks. The whole sky was filled up with a storm head, and it was pulsing with lightning. Pulsing is a strange word. I don't like it, but I couldn't think of any other word. It sounds like the title of a book of terrible love poems. Almost as bad as the book of love poems that John Piper released entitled "Velvet Steel". Come on, dude. I've written lots of terrible love poems, and thats because I don't know what it is, but I've already said that before. I've also read terrible love poems, and I think they were terrible because the person writing them also didn't know what love was. Or, the kind of love they experienced was the kind they would sell on a clothing rack next to clothes that already have tears and holes in them. Nobody wants to wait for anything anymore. Neither do I. Anyway, the storm kept coming closer, flashing on and off more often, but it wouldn't rain. There are times, when you long for something, that you wish to God that it would rain, but it doesn't. It didn't rain tonight either. At least not yet. Lately, I've been overwhelmed by longing. I don't know why. It's not for a certain thing, its just for. It's the kind that makes you fidgety and unsettled, like when you go to your grandparent's house alone for the weekend and you realize that there are 3 days of slow time ahead of you. I love my grandparents, but when I was young it was always too quiet. Also, they always told me stories about people I wouldn't ever know, even if I met them. Another thing I learned tonight is that God does what He wants. Recently, it seems like He doesn't want to do much of anything, like when you eat too much bread in the heat or find out that the girl you thought you loved is getting married to someone else. I don't look down streets like I used to. It's not because I don't like streets, its just that I don't think theres much waiting for me down there. Turns around corners are just turns right now, they aren't chances. I wondered tonight if Jesus would give someone two cigarettes instead of one, like I did. My mom wouldn't think so. She would tell me that Jesus wouldn't give anyone any cigarettes, and that He certainly wouldn"t smoke them. I'm not so sure about that, but what do I know.
         I've spent a lot of my life hoping that something would happen. I used to ask why questions all the time, like "why does Grandma always put butter on my peanut butter and jelly sandwich?", "why did the horse bite my hand after he ate the apple?", and "why can't I have what I want?" The fact is, God does what He wants to do. It's nice, I guess, that He at least tells us He's doing good things. I used to worry about that too, mainly because I knew plenty of people that said that they were doing good things that ended up not being so good, like whoever it is out there that makes fruit cake. Now, I know I won't be able to figure out what it is He's up to. In the mean time, He sends along moments of things I like. Not all the time, and not whenever I want them, just sometimes. I can demand until I'm blue in the face, but it won't change anything. I've never been blue in the face. I think I tried once, because my mom or my grandmother or some woman said that to me one time, and I wanted to test if it were true. I missed oxygen though, and I missed it before its absence made any change to my face. I've started thinking that temporal hope is really the understanding that God has sent moments that we've liked before, and that He will do it again. That's why I gave the delivery guy two cigarettes instead of one. I wanted him to enjoy that one, and know that there was another one waiting. I think that's why the horse bit my hand after he ate the apple I gave him, too. He didn't want the apple to end. I don't think I'll see the end of longing until I get to heaven. I used to hope that nothing happened when I died, because heaven sounded boring. I didn't want to listen to worship music for ten thousand times ten thousand years, I could hardly take it for 45 minutes. That hasn't changed, but I am looking forward to heaven now. I think that's because C.S. Lewis said it will be exactly as it ought to be. It's the same with my life. I want, and want to avoid, all sorts of things. When it's over, though, I think God will have made it exactly as it ought to have been.

A Long Walk

I used to be afraid of love. I think it was because I was worried that peoples' hearts ran out. I didn't think that they meant for them to run out, they just did, like in the old days when people drank from wells until they dried up and then they moved on. That was back when I thought that people getting divorced was one of the more natural things that happened. When I was young, I sat on the stairs outside my parents room and listened to them shout things. I thought they were getting divorced, but now I know they were just being people. I don't even know what they were upset about, honestly, but it doesn't really matter anyways. If I could go back, I would sit outside their door and listen and then sneak away with some more assurance of how much they loved each other. I think you have to feel deeply about someone or something to shout about it. Or just be really annoyed. Maybe what I mean by that is that there isn't a set of behaviours that let you know that you love someone. I think you just love them. Like when someone asks you why you love eating macaroni and cheese or being naked in water. All you can say is that you do. Or at least that's how it seems to me. I think that when people say that they love each other, they mean that they want to be people together. That's why its dumb to marry someone so you can have sex. You could have sex with anyone, but you can't be people with anyone. You can't want to know everything there is to know about anyone. In fact, I think that loving someone might mean not wanting to stop knowing them. Knowing is a verb, and I think its dumb that people assume that knowing implies finality. That's like saying that the verb walking implies getting somewhere and stopping. In the "Paradiso", a book I haven't read but have heard about, Dante makes the highest level of heaven a place where people are looking further and further into God, and knowing more and more about Him, without end. People aren't God, but I think that wanting to love someone is wanting to be people with them which is wanting to know them. Not know about them, but know them. There is a long walk between me and being in love with someone. That's how its always been. I've said that I loved people that I haven't loved, and if I could go back I would say what I meant, which was that I thought that I wanted to try to love them, but sometimes it's hard to say what I mean, just like its hard to swim in a straight line or hear that you won't see your grandfather again. One time, I carried the biggest rock I could find up a mountain in New York. It doesn't matter how big it was. What matters is that I used to think that love was like that, that it was something you carried around with you and you knew where it was going and that you could take it there. I don't think that anymore.
        When I'm old, I want to own a cabin. I won't spend much on the cabin, just enough to make it somewhere that I want to be. Instead, I'll buy as much land as I can. I'll walk around and through and over it. I'll watch it change shape and grow and suffer and bloom. I'll love that land.

We Were Kings

I'm not afraid of getting old. I don't even know what old means. When I was younger, I thought all old people were Christians. I think I thought that because all the old people I knew were Christians, and also because when you're young you want to protect everyone. When you're young, you protect people with your thoughts, which are like pockets, which are like home. You want to keep things close, because when something is close, you can touch it and turn it over in your hands, which are like your mind. I turn things over in my mind, and sometimes, when I do, there's something waiting for me underneath. One time, I was in a noodle shop in London with some friends. I wish you could have been there, it was the best. They brought out your food in huge bowls that were filled almost to the top with broth and spices and, just beneath the surface, noodles. You probably guessed that, because I said it was a noodle shop. Life was close then. My friends and I had a race to see who could drink their bottle of wine first. I won, and that makes me think of the time when I was even younger and I hit my first home run while my mom and dad were standing behind me, behind the backstop. Whatever else happens, my mom and my dad and I will always have that moment. And, whatever else happens, my friends and I will always have that time in the noodle shop in London. We were kings, then. A different time, when I was in London, my friends and I sat in a pub on New Years Eve and ran up a 200 pound bar tab. Then, later, after we ran up some more tabs at other pubs, we went to Trafalgar square and sang our school song while the ball dropped on the big screen in front of us, in front of thousands of people. We were kings then, too. My parents and I used to go to a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, you should go there, you'll find what you hoped to find there. We used to hike up to the top of a place near there, and I remember that I used to be on the verge of crying sometimes when we got to the top because my mom's back always hurt, and she always came with us anyway. If I could, I would take that hurt from her and hurt for her instead, but I can't. The world isn't that kind of place. When I was young, my mom used to play wiffle ball with me. I don't know why, but I think it was because she loves me. I don't know why she loves me, but maybe that's because being loved is a hard thing to understand. I said before that I wasn't afraid of being old.That's true, but sometimes it isn't true, in the way that sometimes, when you love someone, you lose sight of it. The reason is that when you're old, I think you're fuller of things, you're easier to spill. There are times, when I think about hitting a wiffle ball into my mom's leg or watching her climb a mountain or racing my friends to drink a bottle of wine, that my heart, and sometimes all of me, weeps. There are times that you weep because there's nothing you can do, and other times its because you don't know what else to do. Right now, I don't know what else to do. When you're old, I think it's because you don't know what else to do, either. Jonathan Foer wrote in his book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that "In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that". Things will change, and people will pass, and the only thing that I'll know for certain is that we were young once, and we were kings.

Distance

There's not much to write tonight. I just started an internship/job this week and I'm loving it. I'm also scared out of my mind. There's a moment, when work is piliing up and responsibilities are increasing, where you have a moment of "Oh, shit". I had that moment today. I'll have more moments like that, I'm sure. Some people call it "growing up". I don't really know what that means, but I think that if I were to be charitable to the people that use that phrase, they mean "becoming more aware of reality" when they use it. I used to think that "growing up" meant that I got hair on my face and drove a car with a girl in it. Later on, I thought that "growing up" meant selling out to "The Man" by getting a job you hated and marrying someone you didn't like, much less love. These days, I think growing up means learning to live in reality. Reality has some nasty step-children that follow it around that have names like "Bills", "Stress", and "Fear". There are more, but those are the ones that I saw today. It's a funny thing, looking into the abyss and realizing that the only thing between yourself and fairly abject failure is a lot of work. It presents you with a simple equation for self-preservation, for sure, but I can't pretend to say that I always find that equation attractive. I don't think that risk is much more than a word, and some words are just sounds. Maybe the word risk is just a sound someone made that got misinterpreted, like when you are in the next room and you hear someone crying and you begin to empathize with them only to learn that they are laughing. Under the conventional meaning of risk, what isn't risky? Love is, business is, having a family is, driving to a restaraunt to eat with friends is, leaving home without voicing your feelings is, writing music is, drinking malt liquor is(I've never had it before, too risky). Try and think of something that doesn't entail risk. You can't. Maybe that's because the word risk is creating a false dichotomy. Maybe it identifies something that isn't there, like the word unicorn or ghost. I wasn't risking anything when I moved to Raleigh, incurred debt right away, and started a job wherein I wasn't getting paid. I was trying to take some steps to reduce the distance between myself and a lifestyle that is more in tune with reality. I don't know of anything that's safe. I used to think that love was safe, but I had seen too many movies. I actually don't even know what love is, but sometimes I get glimpses of it. Yesterday, while I was smoking a cigarette on my uncle's porch, I got a glimpse of what it would be like to love someone. Just in my mind. You should have been there, it was amazing. I think that what we call risk is really an attempt to cross that distance between ourselves and reality. Some people decide its not worth the effort and, instead, live in an illusion called "safety". I'm on my way to shorten that distance between myself and reality. You should come.

A Stand of Trees

I've been thinking tonight about some of the things that have posed problems to me over the course of my lifetime. I've found that my perception of them was often completely incongruent with their actual stature. Here's what I mean. Invariably, when dealing with any problem, I have under-appreciated the actual nature of the problem. I have often thought of myself as one stumbling through the deep forests of the human condition, struggling to keep my head above water during "the storms of life". I don't know if that's a real saying, but I figured I would put it into quotes just in case. College made me paranoid of plagiarism. In reflecting on some of these situations, however, I've discovered that I was walking in circles in a stand of trees. I have wrestled with some real problems. I've also created real problems out of almost nothing. I, at moments, was increasing both the scope and the depth of my various turmoils in a way not unlike Jesus when he fed the five thousand. I think the temptation in the face of hardship is to narrow the filter through which we see reality. This is a slow process. It begins by denying certain things as blessings, by becoming more enamored with the darker things around us, and refusing to look for perspective. It ends with us being nearly unable to recognize a blessing or some facet of joy that has been preserved in our lives. My friends and I have spent many late nights discussing the intricacies of our existential despair, and there have been times that this has been helpful. On occasion, as I wrote before, I have been in some dark places and I needed some very legitimate help, as have my friends. I can't help but shake the impression, however, that for the most part I have fanned the flames of some more marginal issues by willfully ignoring the vast amount of blessings that the Lord has placed around me. Despair can be comfortable. Confusion can feel safe. The question I ask you, reader, as well as myself is this "Is the struggle that you find yourself in right now rooted in real sorrow, real struggle, or a real quest for understanding?" You need to be honest here. I didn't ask whether it seems that you are in the midst of one of those things, I asked if you were. I think that if you are willing to pause and reflect on some of the things afflicting you right now, you'll find that there is a simple, clear root of truth that Christ is waiting to give to you that will resolve the issue. Here's an example. Did that relationship that you were in fail to work out in the way that you had hoped it would? That's sad, legitimately. I'm not marginalizing that pain, I've been there once or twice and my experience of it makes me think that that's a real struggle. However, isn't it true that Christ has promised to work all things for your good? Hasn't He promised to guide your steps? Isn't it possible that it really is a good thing for both people involved that that situation didn't work out, regardless of your perception of the situation right now? I could list more examples that don't relate to relationships, but I want to move on with my point. There are deep waters that most of us have to pass through on numerous occasions during our lives. Given that that's true, why spend more time there than you need to? God has called us to drink certain cups during our lives. He has also called us to find rest and peace in Him and His provision. It is just as ungodly to retreat into sorrow and grief and darkness for comfort as it is to avoid those things. As Ecclesiastes said, there is a time for everything. Struggle, but do so constructively. You don't have to hold on to despair to feel deeply. Just the opposite, in fact. By doing that, you are refusing to feel the joy deeply that God has ordained for you and are excluding an entire section of reality that also confronts you every time you awaken. This isn't an encouragement for a certain set of behaviors or vocabulary. It's just this: wherever you are, there you are. That's a title of a book my dad bought. I haven't read it. Grieve when that is the season you are in. Struggle when that is the season you are in. Open your eyes to the peace and rest that God has provided for you in the midst of those seasons. Rejoice when that is the season God has you in. I'm not advocating the dismissal of real sorrow or pain. I'm advocating the dismissal of fake sorrow and pain. If you are a Christian, joy is just as real as sorrow, if not more so.  Be real with Jesus, no matter what season He has you in at the moment. Wrestle with the angel. Walk through the dark forests of doubt and pain and grief. Fight for joy. Stop walking in circles in a grove trees.

Change

happens.

"and this just feels like/spinning plates"

It would probably be best for you to listen to "Like Spinning Plates" by Radiohead while you read this part of the post. I've been sorting through my life recently trying to find what belongs and what doesn't, and here is my list things that don't belong right now:

Romance
Organized Soccer
Eating Out
Pursuing more than 4 or 5 friendships
Writing Music
Speeding Tickets

I'm sure I'll add more things to that list in the coming month or so, but I probably won't post an updated list because I'm lazy like that. It is amazing to me how distracted and discontent I have been for most of my life. While there are certainly a number of more minor things contributing to this, I think the most important cause of my unrest is my habit of continuing to stretch for things that God has kept out of reach. My adventures in the world of romance/relationships/whatever label of this pursuit you may fancy have been dead ends. Had I not been such an idiot, these dead ends would have probably been the kind that have a nice cul-de-sac at the end to turn around in. In reality, I've run off the road and hit a tree more times than not. Why is this? (You should start listening to "House of Cards" by Radiohead now if "Like Spinning Plates" is over) I keep wanting something that God doesn't want me to have right now. After all my thrashing around in the water and long drives and desperate songs and failed attempts, I think it centers on this simple truth: It just isn't time. The same can be said about my friendships. The fact is, I have spent most of my life chasing relationships with people. I remember when I was high school, I used to go to parties not because I actually thought I would enjoy them but because I wanted to be liked by the people there. I didn't want to be there, I wanted to want to be there. I have also stretched myself too thin socially. I think its very difficult to pursue a close relationship with more than maybe 6 or 7, or maybe 8 if you're really good, people(or couples). Admittedly, I may just have less emotional resources than other people, but I've never been able to really invest in more than that number of people at any given time. In my list, I said 4 or 5, and that's because I will soon have an ass load of work and I will have less time to spend with people. A question I used to ask myself was "Why don't I fit into more social groups?". Now, I've started asking myself "Why do you feel like you need to fit into that social group?" instead. Historically, friendships have been another way for me to love myself. Recently, I've been trying to spend time with the people I actually love because of who they are, not because of what being affiliated with them will get me. I won't pretend that I was ever/am at either of those extremes. As is usually the case with all of us, our picture of our past and our present is full of bolder colors, and further extremes, than are or were ever real.

My life has been/is full of things that not only are a distraction from the richness of the world around me, they are pushing me further into the confusion that has afflicted me so chronically. These things are not bad things in and of themselves, but at the wrong time, in the wrong context, and with the wrong people, they are spinning plates, and I can't keep them all going anymore. I'm cutting them out, and I won't go back to them until the time is right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isETL6R7x2w&NR=1

The short story

I'm an older kid who has spent most of his life chasing things. I haven't finished most of the things I've started but that's about to change. I started writing music because I got damien rice's album O for Christmas my sophmore year of college and then it quickly evolved into a means for processing my life/mind/heart. I've spent most of the last 4 years under heavy cloud cover, but I'm starting to think that it might be possible to be happy/joyful in a more permanent way. My mind and heart can be dark places, and I have spent time making them more that way. This is a journey to find the real and the beautiful. In the words of James Joyce, this is me learning to box my corner.

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Check, please

I've been thinking today about the role that assumptions play in our life. We live in a world (and we continue to construct a world) in which ethnic, religious, philosophical, and social groups(to name a few) are spoken of with an alarming combination of vague understanding and precise criticism. In the "old days"(yes, I know, that is a generalization. I was making a stab at irony), the lack of specific information lead to all sorts of misunderstandings, unfair judgments, and persecution. One rather humorous example of this can be found in the perpetuated myth of cannibalistic cultures. The fact is, there is hardly any (I say hardly because I haven't looked under every historical stone) factual evidence that supports the idea that there were any primitive cultures that consistently practiced cannibalism. There is, however, a vast array of travelers tales wherein someone "barely escaped" or "managed to overcome" a group of gruesome savages who made an attempt on their corporeal soundness. Interestingly enough, all of these stories originated from areas that later came under the direct or indirect power of the Imperialistic forces of the time. Perhaps this is a coincidence. Perhaps fear was used to justify the extortion and general mistreatment of unknown people groups.

Today, the easy accesibility of information makes it much easier to gather information about other groups, ideas, worldviews, etc., and yet the same trend of generalizing and, subsequently, attacking other groups continues. Kanye West has a great line about this line in his new radio single where he says "you say the Obama nation is an abomination/that's a great way to start a conversation". Kanye isn't the most erudite in interviews but he does make a great point about how oftentimes we love to be divisive rather than charitable when it comes to ideas that differ from our own. Glenn Beck has a book out in Barnes and Nobles called "How to talk to Idiots". Its about talking to liberals. Need I say more?

I could give more exanples but I'm sure you get the point. Despite the vast amount of information at our finger tips, the majority of Americans on both sides of any aisle you can think of would rather put bumper stickers on their cars and march around with signs than take the time to be a bit more open-minded and willing to engage the other "party" in conversation. There are a lot of liberals that are not idiots, and there are a lot of conservatives that are idiots. There are a lot of Christians who think that Obama is heaven-sent, and a lot that think that he is hell-bent. Wake up people, and then grow up. Don't engage any group or idea in a general way. If you are passionate about the debate between conservatives and liverals, spend some time learning what it is that the liberal movement is actually about (preferably from a liberal) and why they think the way they do. I'm not saying you need to accept everything, but rather just the opposite. A conviction about anything that is based on vague conclusions and dubious assertions is no conviction at all. Christ doesn't call anyone to be ignorant. How can you engage the world if you have no idea why people think differently than you do? This applies just as much to atheists, pantheists and whoever else. My atheist philosophy professor demanded one thing of us, that we present a differing viewpoint in the most charitable way possible, and we all need to incorporate this into the way we think about the world. Ask yourself: "Why would someone who is really smart think that this other idea is true?" Build arguments, make assertions, construct defenses, be passionate about what you believe in, and be open to being wrong. I only ask that before you discuss the ideas, assumptions, beliefs, etc, of a group that thinks differently than you do, check your facts. please.

The Christian Inquisition

I've often wondered what degree of examination is appropriate when it comes to the faith/beliefs/walk(Christianese) of both myself and others. Essentially, how right do you have to be to be saved? This is a complex subject, and I'm not going to get into it right now for two reasons. 1. I don't know very much. 2. see first reason. Here is what I think is true. American Christians (I don't know much about international Christians, either they keep to themselves or I am purposefully oblivious) seem to love to pass judgment on other Christians. Very quickly, the question of "is it wise?" becomes "are they even Christians?". If you don't think that is true of you (I already know it is true of me) than consider this: when was the last time that there was a Christian with whom you fundamentally disagreed of whom you thought "Thank God for the work He is doing through them"?. Here is an example: Joel Osteen. I don't even know if I spelled his name correctly, but that is beside the point. Osteen seems, from my perspective, to be enamored with the prosperity gospel. I think this is a huge aberration from the point of Scripture and, ultimately, the point of the gospel. I think that oftentimes Osteen preaches everything BUT the gospel. However, I am confronted with this reality: Scripture says that anyone who believes in the person and work of Jesus Christ will be saved. If Osteen believes that truth, he is undeniably a Christian. That makes me upset, but that doesn't matter. I might spend the rest of my life thinking he is deluded, that he is leading people astray, etc, but it doesn't change the fact that Osteen is a Christian. I don't know Osteen. I don't know his motives and I don't know his heart. It is true that Paul says that teachers are judged more harshly than others, but it is also true that Scripture is firmly rooted in the reality that whosoever believes in Christ shall be saved. I know, you're thinking "but Scripture says you will know them by their fruit". That's true, and that's the reason that I wrestle with this so much. As Christians, we love making decisions about the state of other so-called believers' souls(There was a time in my church where most people weren't even sure if Donald Milller was a Christian(I was one of them)). I know that we can discern good doctrine from bad doctrine, but can we know the state of another's soul? What is the difference between someone missing the point of the gospel and purposefully misrepresenting it? Is Osteen deluded or malicious? I don't know. What I do know is that I don't accept his teaching, but I also know that the qualifications for salvation are simple and straightforward. C.S. Lewis once said that when we get to heaven, we will see that there are two kinds of Christians: those who were wrong and those who were very wrong. How does the balance of knowing people by their fruit fit into those dichotomy? Are you(am I) in love with passing judgement on other Christians because it makes us feel better, or do we do it out of a love for truth? I think it is both. Christians(myself included) are eternally suspicious of one another. I want to love doctrine, but I also want to love others, especially my brothers amd sisters in Christ. What is the right balance?

Still Awake

It's 2:24 am, and I can't sleep, but that's not what the title, nor this post, is about. I've messed a lot of things up in my life. I would list them, but it wouldn't be helpful for anyone, and I probably don't even know all of them. The sinking feeling that that reality carries with it can be overpowering sometimes, and it is difficult to shake, especially in the face of hope. That's an odd thing to say, I know, but bear with me. When I say hope, I don't mean optimism or expectation. I mean a real, almost tangible reality that is yet unrealized. When hope is discussed in the Bible, there's no hint of uncertainty. No one is on the edge of their seat, wondering whether Jesus is going to accomplish the things that He says He will or whether He actually has defeated death and is coming back for those who believe in Him. The object of our hope, as believers, is put in no uncertain terms. Where I struggle is in first comprehending, and then finding comfort in, that reality. In simple terms, I don't know how to hope. The trouble is essentially this. I find myself needing to ignore the future in order to stay engaged in the present. I'm not comforted by the future, I don't expect God to do good things for me, I just divert my attention away from the issue altogether lest I get sucked back into my nearly-habitual despondency. I've often wondered what it would be like to live engaged in the present while resting in the assurance that God is going to work good for me in the future. I haven't made much headway there. There's an interesting story in Greek mythology about Theseus and the Minotaur, you've probably heard of it. I was reminded of that story a few days ago when I started listening to Radiohead's album "Amnesiac" because the cover art for that album is an interpretation of the Minotaur. The Minotaur is crying in frustration at his inability to escape the labyrinth(see above picture). While that doesn't totally relate to the original mythological story, it describes how I have been feeling about this whole issue. I can't seem to solve any of my problems and I can't find a way out of this labyrinthine problem of trying to hope. I've dated/been somewhat involved with a number of girls all of whom are great and, more importantly for this post, are not the girl that I want and need. I know, right, this found its way back to the girl discussion. Not in the usual way though. When I tell my friends that I hope that things work out with the right girl for me, I feel like I'm telling my friends that when I roll the dice, I hope I roll a 6(I picked 6 because its the highest number and it always thrilled me when I was a kid when I rolled them in yahtzee). Is that really the kind of hope God is calling me to have? If so, why do subjects like this (to be honest, its mostly this subject) keep me awake all the time and cause me so much unrest? How do I hope to find an amazing girl and be content? It seems to be a constant cycle of "That would be awesome! but not yet! but that would be awesome! but not yet!" etc etc... and it wears me out. The bookends of the day find me bedraggled from the constant upheaval. Before you call me and tell me where I'm going wrong, I know that finding the right girl isn't going to fix all of my problems. I know she isn't going to be Jesus for me. I know that I think about this stuff too much, but sometimes I feel like I can't help it. How is it that I can hope for this without it distracting me and keeping me awake at night? How do I put it in a jar and put it up on the shelf?

Good Grief

I've spent most of my life waiting for the next thing. It has been difficult for me to engage the season that the Lord has put me in in large part because of my chronic habit of keeping one eye on the horizon. In general terms, I think I find the weight of the present unbearable at times. Here is an example. I've been really wrestling with grief for the last few days. My grandfather died a few months ago but the realization that he is actually dead and no longer around on earth didn't seep(spelling?) all the in until Monday or Tuesday of this week. I have been at a complete loss as to what to do with it. There seems to be no amount of laughing or silence or drives or music and talks that make it go away. I don't mean the loud, vibrant grief that life brings along. No, this is a quiet, subtle, and almost gentle grief that slips into the strangest parts of my days. My friend Mike asked me today if I wanted to talk about it, and I told him I didn't think that there was really anything to talk about it. I miss my grandfather. I love him and he's gone. What else can I say? Talking about it doesn't bring him back. Writing music about him doesn't bring him back. Reading books by other people who have lost loved ones doesn't bring him back. Slipping into depression doesn't bring him back. Nothing does. Coincidentally, I wrote a song about him tonight, it's called something, I'm just not sure what yet, probably "Cover". Normally, this would be a season I would be looking to get out of as quickly as possible. It's uncomfortable, sometimes agonizing. But tonight, when I was leaving a party, I think I had a bit of a breakthrough surrounding my understanding of grief and perhaps any season that I do/will find myself in. God seems completely content to let it continue. He is in no rush to let the reality of my grandfather's faith and place in heaven seep in like it needs to. You know how there are these moments in life when something you have known for a long time suddenly makes sense and begins to affect the way you think about the world and your life? Yeah, well, that hasn't happened for me yet with the whole issue of death and suffering and grief. I know what I need to know in order for that to happen. I know that the Lord is control of all things, that He works things for our good, and that my grandfather placed his faith in him long before he died. An imperfect, but nonetheless mostly complete, string of truths that provides the backbone for any remedy for grief. But I'm not looking for a remedy right now, and God doesn't seem to be providing one. God seems to be saying "grieve". This is just another in a long line of cups I will have to drink. Jesus wasn't able to look past the cup of his suffering that night in the garden, He had to look into it. There's no getting around some things, I suppose.

Enough, For Now

Its funny how joy creeps in in stages. Actually, to be more accurate, I think I should say that full, undeniable moments of joy are few and far between, but they do happen. I've been trying to get my mind around longing recently, and I can't say that it has been a very successful enterprise. Something that I have learned, however, is that longing for something, anything really, can weigh on me pretty heavily. I could keep talking in vague language about longing, but to be honest, the only thing I'm talking about is finding companionship and love with a woman. I know, the way I phrased that made it sound a bit sappy, but the subject matter isn't sappy at all. I don't think about it all the time, I don't obsess about it like I used to, and I don't freak out anymore. I am totally happy to be single right now. However, there are still moments when I feel it, when I feel, in a very human, earthly way, that I'm missing something, or rather someone. In the midst of that, I get flashes of what it might be like, of what the joy of finding someone to walk through life together with will feel like. For a moment, the curtain is pulled back, and thats enough, for now.