Channeling My Inner Bon-Iver: Stealing a Pie Pan

I've started to refer to this time as “Jordan Time”...a time when I concentrate on well...me. Tonight I got to have some good me time...good “Speez” time...as the kids say. I went outside...got to sit down, smoke my pipe... play this nylon string guitar I borrowed from a friend of mine. I even wore my super skinny jeans and my beanie bought at a thrift store in Wisconsin. It went along well with my discount slip-ons and thrift store hoodie. I was channeling my inner Bon Iver singing in overly high falseto and being all woodsie. I thought I should throw on a flannel and after making a gold albumn crack open a barrel of fermented backwoods maple syrup as a chaser. I have provided a picture that some of you have been asking for for your viewing enjoyment....I didn't take it...I am smoking a pipe...(Thanks to Meg for catching me being picturesque.).. O enough of that! I got to think about this thing that happened today. I think it was good but...well, let me explain.

Today I stole stuff, well, I didn't mean to steal stuff, I guess I didn't really steal stuff...I almost did. I didn't really tell myself I was stealing stuff....it was more a glorified treasure hunt. It was just sort of an instinct that kicked in.

So every year we have to go around and close down the halls on campus. We go through all the rooms, every single one. Anything that is left in the hall ways of the residence halls we move to recycling and we turn over as donations and that's all good, but then as it happens. On one day you and a small group of people go through each and every single room in a single living area, and in there people leave drawers full of stuff, money and clothes and fun little trinkets. And all this stuff that your supposed to leave. We “bag and tag” it. This basically means we load people's stuff into large black backs and label it and put it in cold storage for them to come back and get. Once we are done with that it it can stay there for up to an entire year and then most of it will be given to charity...or something.

For some rooms though, when there wasn't a certain dollar amount of merchandise, if it wasn't worth it for people to pay our storage charges...we just left it..I wasn't really sure what happened to all the stuff we left.

And this type of thought followed me around a little bit...the little voice that says... “that's cool...I wonder where those head phones are going...don't you wonder Jordan?” And I say “Why yes,...Yes Voice I do.”

The other day, I broke my head phones. I felt like God gave me one of his little “Jordan prompts.” I do not have a better phrase for that so...don't judge me....for those of you who don't know me and/or aren't Christians...well...just let me have this for the sake of this piece ok? God's little voice inside my head was like “Hey Jordan, wear your Big Head Phones.” And I was all “But God, my big head phones are inconvenient for this task” And he was all “Wear them.” When I said “Emmm....” He was all “Ok ok, just wear the little ones it's cool. I got you.” And I was like “I still don't feel awesome about that but...ok cause that's what I want to do anyway.” About a minute later I walked out of my bedroom and promptly did that thing where your ear phone cord catches on something solid...say, your bed post and then gets ripped out of your ears. It may even stretch or even rip the wires in the thin rubber protection, this rendering the headphones “broke.” Ya...so...that happened and I was all like “Ahh...that could have been why you said bring the big head phones so they wouldn't break on the bed” And he was all “...told you....but I still got you.” And I was like... “I know I suppose if you were gonna take those you can provide something else...” and he was like, “just trust me” and I was like “aright.”

So today as we were going through the rooms there was one that was just trashed, but this room has some high-price tag merchandise. Just chillin on this dresser next to matches, gum, a nail clippers, and half used Noxzema there was a pair of probably 200 dollar inner ear head phones. I'm not gonna lie, my first reaction was just to leave them on the dresser. I thought perhaps if they just stayed on the dresser long enough...maybe...by some chance...I would end up with them. I knew if they went in the bag they were dead to me. So I knew it wasn't probably likely...but I wanted them out of the bag...the dresser meant life for my little inner ear head phone dreams. I wanted God to say “Here they are...your new inner ear head phones!” but I wasn't sure and had virtually no grounds to make that a remote possibility.

I didn't take them...I showed the group with me and placed them...with much sadness...in the bag.

Much of the day went like this...nothing else big, but these little things that we had to leave were catching my eyes.

I was told by another employee that he thought everything go thrown away by janitorial staff later...me being a good Samaritan thought I would free our landfills of unnecessary waste product and would do my duty as an American citizen by filching left overs to my office.

After we got done I went back around and took some stuff that was left that I thought was going to be thrown away...I took matches and Chicken Noodle Soup ….just little things, things that don't really matter. But there started to be this weight of conviction that was like a heavy blanket settling upon my shoulders.

When I had put those lovely headphones in the bag earlier, I had felt good like. I knew I didn't really “need” them and if God needed me to have these headphones he would provide them another way. It was somewhere I could sacrifice to his provision.

And then I found myself, after I had given the big thing away, and felt that goodness, just feeling like I'd done what was right so my guard came down.

I went back to my office and saw the cake plan full of goodies I'd collected. It was a ten year olds treasure chest; matches, gum, pennies, soap...ok maybe not a ten year olds treasure chest with soap, but it was mine and it was a fools chest...with fools gold.

I had a couple of errands to run down at the main office and I knew my supervisors would still be there. The first was on the phone so I just went past his office...I asked another co-worker and she didn't know but what I really wanted was somebody to tell me “just take it, it's no big deal” and give me a knowing smile just to relieve my conscious.

There was one more stop I should make. I really wanted to ask like I wanted to put those headphones in the bag. Even though I didn't know it was wrong technically, I knew there was a part of me that thought it might be, and because of that I didn't want to ask. I was afraid I might be told no.

When I did ask I was met with an emphatic “No!” After some explaining I was told I didn't need to go return it all, it was miscellaneous stuff, nothing of value, but that tomorrow I should just start over....Nothing could leave a student's room.

As I returned to my office I started slowly, then with quickening speed. I returned the goods each to a different room and went back to my office. I didn't have to, but I needed to, for me.

I had gone over hours but wasn't about to count that time against my paycheck. “What a fool!” I thought. Is this really what I am willing to be?

For what was I searching, just to have more treasures for me and mine. I suppose it is easy to understand a selfish desire for a big thing, we can all forgive those because we know them. We all experience them....It was harder to understand a selfish desire for small things...a pie plate of nothings. And yet, I almost didn't catch that it was a problem. I could have almost busied my mind with another task and forgotten it until the angst left. It was so small it was almost excusable...but it was the meal worm in the apple. The little bug of a thing in me that just wanted to be forgotten and burrow deeper...It liked it's home down there in the selfish darkness of my soul. I know it was just one...there are others in there I'm sure...we all have them. But I suppose some part of me was happy to offer back to God a pie plate of nothings, to catch a little bug at his work. It is only then that I can trust Him to give me better, and not better trinkets, but better desires, better hopes, better dreams.

Jesus lived a life, one tired from exhaustion half the time, single, celibate, homeless, etc, and yet he went...he lived and even died and I don't think just as a broken fleshy being hoping for something more than life as a carpenters son, but he died as the most fulfilled man on this planet. His cause was the love of God, the Spirit of God, and in so knowing that, he found a treasure worth the cost of Himself.

A sacrifice of head phones that were never mine hardly makes me a martyr...but it is good to remember his sovereignty is better than my plans, his blessings maybe poverty or wealth, but both are only valuable in the hands of He that provided them. Giving of our wealth or even our lack of resources back to God is an act of trust that He can and will provide that which we need.

Thanks for Reading,

J-Speezy

The woman from Idaho: What I think I am learning about friendship

So...team...this one is...a little unfinished. Forgive me for being unfinished, I just feel like it' s a lesson I'm in process on and just don't have the right answers...if I ever will. Enjoy some vague glimpses into some of my thoughts and concerns. Good luck.

So I feel like I need to learn friendship better...with everyone but especially with women. Being all old...ish and single sucks. It makes you all antsy and paranoid at the same time....like any attractive woman who walks into your life may carry both the burden of complete stranger and potential “mother of my children.”

However, as you may assume, this isn't really fair.

It certainly isn't fair to me...It's stupid. It's setting myself up...What kind of mindless fool walks around unable to picture a member of the opposite sex as anything more than a potential mate...besides roughly 50 percent of men between the ages of 13 and 80.

When I do this I totally cheat myself out of relationship...out of anything deeper than eye candy and external beauty....chocolate cake on display in store window... I'm the fat kid sticking his face up against the glass thinking that proximity is consumption.

Secondly...It's even more unfair to her....I used the word consumption just there....and that is what it is...a means to an end...my own ends. Of course...I, like most people, would never say it like that.

I think I will get married some day...despite all evidence to the contrary. I have gone through a lot of crap and even though I've seen some healing I'm still unfinished, I still have questions. This is normal I suppose but I think before I can ever consider marriage I have to believe better things about myself and others.

I wrote a letter to my wife the other night...the one I don't have. I don't usually do this but a middle ages man told me to in a sermon so I did it. I wrote it to this nameless entity...that existed somewhere outside of space and time...or maybe Idaho...maybe she was in Idaho...I don't know...anyway.... I stood talking to myself....I don't do this to often but sometimes I just have lines that pop into my head and out my mouth and I find myself reciting them into the nothing like Hamlet .

I said something like “I could wed you and bed you...” I know it sounds archaic but I think it was fun because it rhymed... I was speaking to the ideal, the person beyond reach of voice who would be there if she came back from Idaho, and for a moment it was pure.

I didn't know it when I spoke but as the line hit the air and ricocheted of the bed, floor and walls and came back to me I heard the lines unsaid behind them...

...The other lines whispered past my ears, they whisked past like smoke trails off a jet. The next line said “There was beauty in the want...”And I knew was true. I wanted it for all the good things.

...It would be for the search of love, for intimacy, for the goodness and joy I read about in all the stories, for the butterflies and sweaty palms of middle school. It was to know that the search could find it's hope and redemption, the alleviation of suffering. I wanted the mesh of emotions we find in our tears at the end of movies. I wanted ALL the good things.

But then...something else...something I didn't expect.

The lines came quicker and thinner now, like a rope fraying out to a weak end, like the guitar chord rung out with one sour note in it. If emotions had poor grammar I knew I misspelled something. What was it?...Then in one foul moment the thought became as potent as opening a grave. The line, although pure and true on top...still reeked of spoil underneath. At it's root, the base, the bottom most thought and motive and heart was still “me.”

The statement wore the cloak of beauty over the rotting corps of selfishness and self-preservation. This person, this fictional being in my bed, had become a symbol of happiness, a finding of joy,...they become the gateway to those things all the kids dream of and the pop stars sing about. The Daisy among thorns.

This is the greatest paradox in existence in my experience. What I mean is “Love” is the greatest desire of men's hearts and yet the only thing that cannot be fully experienced without the loss of self. It can only be experienced by coming a little out of one's self and experiencing the other fully as themselves, faults and cellulite included.

So...what I'm trying to say, I don't know anyone in Idaho, but even if I did is friendship is not simple and it is not a means to an end. I ought not learn it because if I do I will then be worthy of another's company. I still somehow need to learn friendship is not an exchange and it is not a prize. It is a decision. It is, in all forms, a decision for long suffering, because when most people think about friendship they think about the benefits. Most do not stop to consider the costs, the reality that you take on not only your own burdens but that of the other each day you choose them...It is not about the person you usually think most about,...you.

I don't have it figured out, but I need to care about people better, particularly women. It's not that I don't care...I do...that's why I'm even bringing it up, I guess I'm just realizing I fail. I need to believe better things about others in my heart of hearts, most notably that their lives are not about my pleasure...I guess this is why Jesus seems so persistent in this lesson.

Thanks for Reading,

-JS

Sunday School and the Flannel Board Jesus

When I was a kid I liked Sunday school. Sunday school was about big red cardboard bricks I could build a fort out of and train sets with wooden train tracks I could snap together...and sometimes a flannel board Jesus. I liked Sunday school cause it was mostly about me...it was easy. Life in the Church as an adult is often not like that. There are no building blocks and although Jesus stops being a flannel image people still try to make Him do what they want.

I was talking with my friend Neil today. We met at Couple Cups and I started venting. I've been a little bit sick, and tired, and working weird hours for a few weeks so that maybe had something to do with it, but we started talking about Church. He asked me how I was doing in finding one. I started telling Him about some of the good things, small groups, friends, food, jumping into some tough stuff that I need to talk about...It's been frustrating too though. I'm not always understood and sometimes it's hard to jump in past a clicky groups exterior circle. But then something else came up. I think it had been ruminating for a few days.

Some of the frustration has come from the Christians online culture..the great impersonal venting fields of Facebook and blogging hubs. It seems like it's so easy to hate on the Church.

I think it's kind of trendy to be jaded...to name all the faults while feeling righteous enough to point the finger. They are victims of the nameless other...the large steepled, white suited, shadowy other that supports big business in Washington and doesn't care about the poor.

Somewhere along the line I feel cynicism has became a way of life for many Americans...many in the church as well. I am tired of reading blogs that say “15 reasons I left the Church” or “Why I love Jesus and not Evangelicals.” Everyone seems to have a reason why “Evangelical” and “Fundamentalism” are curse words.

No one ever stops to examine what a liberal fundamentalist would look like.

…or maybe that's to in vogue to do so.

Don't get me wrong. I think the church has issues. They have large and long lasting issues sewn into the fabric of it's buildings and patrons. But it seems people's responses has become more to cut ones self off from the issues... to exude oneself from the church like a hand from a wound. It seems more reasonable to blame, point the finger, and exit in dramatic fashion all the while blogging about how self-righteous the church is, not able to see their own hypocrisy. What the hand does not realize...is if the wound bleeds, the hand will still experience the bodies death.

It is stylish to be other, to be the different view point, to be able to see “it all” from that one un-examined angle. That I suppose could even be said about this writing...but...I am not blaming the cynic Christian, the who once had hurts and fears that were exacerbated by the church, who was made afraid to ask questions or to talk about struggles of theirs for fear of feeling like the “other”...No, for many of them they waited so long it boiled right out of them and all that was stewing internally poured on their features, wrinkling up their noses and lining their eyes in piercing accusation. The last time they darkened a sanctuary door, was when it all broke loose...or maybe worse...it was when their indifference or fear or you name it, died... a quiet walk from the building was all they had left, each step the sound of the nail entering hopes coffin and the slow rot of bitterness starting it's pungent aroma.

People seem to have found their solution in blaming the church and ultimately, far to often, changing Jesus. They say the church is messed up, a bunch of hypocrites,...and they would be right....but that is sort of the point. We are all those things....the solution, however isn't to change Jesus...Jesus is the one right thing in all of Christianity. He is the point.

People assume that if the church messed up in presenting the gospel, the problem must lie with Jesus. It becomes their personal responsibility to reinterpret Him. To take the Bible and cut and splice until there is something more palatable, something more tame and nice that we can all agree on....

My friend sent me a message the other day in regard to some thoughts he was having. He said:

The recent "Jesus said to love EVERYONE. Period." statements going around facebook regarding homosexuality have been particularly frustrating...These statements are against people who oppose homosexuality assuming that those who oppose homosexuality DON'T LOVE homosexuals. Jesus certainly said to love everyone (and I will NEVER oppose that) but I believe part of his reasoning was to turn people from their sinful temptations by showing them the love of God holds something better for them.

Unfortunately, everyone who is posting these "Jesus said to love EVERYONE" statements couldn't care less about the Bible or Jesus...they simply want to tell Christians that they are being spiteful hypocrites.

Now that is just one issue...and it is not always being posted by Christians by any means...but it's an issue because of what it does to the person of Jesus.

I suppose the point is though, to just say "Jesus Loves" in a way that disregards sin is not to strengthen Jesus' Love, it is to make it not love at all. It is to make it a senile jovial approval that disregards health, need, or purpose. It is to degrade the word love to "approval of whatever the crowd feels acceptable."

To say "Jesus Loves Period" is to assume that those who do not approve of a practice do not or cannot love. It is really a subtle way of backhanding those who disagree and actually furthering non-love in it's action.

I think there are good answers to most of the questions people have, hearty, awesome answers that are more than one liners fed to the masses, deep intellectual and formidable answers...but we don't teach them well. The church is a mile wide and an inch deep – as the saying goes. It is getting better but it takes a long time to right decades of wrong teaching and practice...and even in our righting it all...I'm sure we will turn it's course in another direction it ought not go...thus is the nature of humanity when determining it's own will.

But since we do not find out those answers...and there doesn't seem someone close willing to answer our questions most of us make up answers for ourselves. We say things like... “Well, to me Jesus seems....” or “I think Jesus would do this in this situation”....then this morphs into “Well, I don't think Jesus would do that because...” and finally “I think Jesus is really something more like ...” what we are really saying is, I want to pick and choose what I believe true of Jesus. If I say this, I am really saying nothing more than "I believe in deity...and if I were Him....this is the way he would be."

God Help us all.

-Jordan

The Why: How to How well?

Sorry this one is a little late getting out. I've had a lot going on lately. Enjoy.

My church community group talked about service the other night, how we can serve and love people better. It was healthy, but I've been thinking a lot about the serving thing lately. I want my life to have meaning and to serve others but I want to do it for joy and not for duty. However, when I think about what I love the list is very me focused usually. I love a good brew, fresh pipe tobacco, a healthy work out, and good body image. I like being full and rested and clean. I love speaking about God, encountering God, and I love seeing others do the same. None of these are bad things, but most are things that cost me very little and offer even less to others.

The other day I walked over a bridge that had “Turn off your brain and float down the river” chalked into the sidewalk. I don't generally listen to chalk signs but I just let my mind take in the sun and the sound of birds and the beauty of the trees all at once, nothing in particular stuck out, I just allowed myself to be there without analyzing it. It was amazing what I was missing while consumed with my worries of the day. I forget to do this sometimes...to just exist and enjoy the world and beauty around me. I stopped thinking about myself or a few minutes and I discovered nature. What would happen if I actually started thinking regularly about the rest of the world?

When you think the world is about you it is easy to forget about the rest of the world. Sometimes my life can feel like I've got my head under a blanket. I just keep breathing the same recycled thoughts and activities - routine upon routine. It's like staring at the sky from my back floating aimlessly in a sea without borders, the waves sloshing over my ears momentarily dulling my hearing, the same feeling of the ocean spray of my face, the same blue partially clouded sky always flowing over my eyes...just staying afloat can take all your energy.

In Viktor Frankl's book “Man's Search for Meaning” he quotes Friedrich Nietzsche as saying “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.” And I've been wondering about that How lately. I feel like I have my Why and it is making it possible to bear the How. But the How can seem rather long and tedious; I wonder if this is because we are not “Howing” right very often.

Last week I worked in Phoenix. My hotel was on the 18^th floor of the Hyatt Regency downtown. Fresh linens, all the usual American amenities, 40 inch TV, fresh towels, clean water, electricity. The throw pillows, art on the walls, padded headboard, I-pod dock, and a full wall window overlooking the city center were nice added touches. The room cost $293 dollars per night including tax. I was given a $55 dollar per-deum and ate at restaurants I would usually consider special treats. The food was delicious and the experience was...accommodating....It was all about me...but there was a problem.

During the week I would dress in suits and eat this great food and work out in the gym before taking a dip in the hot tub and all the while be wondering, why can't I just let myself be there, settle in and feel comfortable?

An issue that added to this whole How and Why conflict was a linguistic pessimism gleaned from the work I was there to do. It killed me the way people would use language. I gave interviews throughout the week, each a bit different. Each candidate doing their best to impress the audience.

There were a few people who were impressive, but for most, their language took on the flowery form of rhetoric. It was difficult to hear candidates talking about how a book they read in high school was their favorite book. They threw around phrases like tolerance, acceptance, diversity, and social justice like they were doling out candy to children. Everyone kept telling me about how much they CARE about people and LOVE social Justice. No one seemed to exhume a real passion or seriousness about the issues. No one talked about sacrifice like Martin Luther King Jr. They smiled like they just got off the Social Justice Roller Coaster and wanted to tell me about how fun it was.

They all seemed to represent a holistic world view where no one is wrong and everyone is right, except for those whose beliefs might inhibit on the beliefs of others, then they are wrong....of course if you believe anyone else is wrong in any area...you are wrong in that area because...well...they are right...they are right just like you are right. It was the fluff of bad politics, no one stood for anything even remotely controversial.

Ok, ok I admit that is not completely fair and I have had to do the same thing. You are not quite sure who is interviewing you and you actually do care about good things. Our goal centers on the idea that we have to live together and in a vague sense, community, peace, and justice seems better than chaos and conflict and we should help each other do that.

Sometimes I wonder about our motives though. It seems like, for many people, the language used is just to fit in, it's sweet rhetoric dripped over indifferent faces....I wonder if sometimes our tolerance feeds our indifference. We are so accepting of every practice we forget that some are unhealthy. We are globalized through TV, through the internet, music for every taste and porn for every fetish but not food for every belly.

It's a two edged sword. So much good on one half, backed by an equally dramatic blade that lets us be reminded that if we don't call out anyone on their stuff...no one can call us out on our own. It gives us enough comfort to let us sleep at night but not enough to cause us to wake up to the reality around us.

I know I am as guilty as most. One more meal out to eat, one more DVD. Even every act of charity can be tainted by this, a few dollars to soothe our conscience without ever feeling any financial burden. I suppose what I am asking is, if we never risk for another are we actually giving, or is this just one more self-serving action? Are we just purchasing piece of mind? I am asking how should my How reflect my Why?

I don't really want to be successful at something that doesn't matter...and that is what most of what we do feels like...putting together a “what” and “how” and covering it with syrupy “why” language to make it seem meaningful. I love Jesus. He's pretty much the man but I also know I use language and actions sometimes that forgoes sacrifice and action and satisfies the self firstly. I don't need to think “turn off my brain” all the time, but I wonder if living a little more out of conviction and less out of myself wouldn't do me good. I do want to know that my life has risk and that I am risking for something more than my own comfort. I want to know that my “Why” is more than a conduit for self-service.

Thanks for Reading.

-JS

An Apology:

Today I opened a book and was slapped across the face. I know this doesn't happen often as books do not have palms, however, on this day it did.

I attended Arcata First Baptist Church Sunday morning. It was the first time I had gone there and it is within walking distance of campus. I arrived a few minutes before the service and sat around half way back in a pew mostly to myself.

Standard Church, white haired guy in the pulpit, guy with a snap shirt and faded jeans playing the guitar occasionally whispering breathy things into the microphone like John Mayer. Maybe not so standard outside of Pentecostal services but fun none the less, two token white haired old woman waving pink, blue, and green, banners along side colorful stained glass windows showing ancient trees reaching up towards the stars.

After the music ended and the hands went down, a man in his middle forties stood up in the pulpit. He introduced the communion supper to the congregation. I don't remember his words but a phrase stuck out to me, “child like.” He said something like “who of you out there are living with a “me first” attitude. A child like selfishness where you are the focus of everything you do? God is just an inconvenience? And how many of you are, believing in child like faith that Jesus will provide all things. That He gives us what is needed and even more? How many of us are satisfied in Jesus and know that He is enough today?”

He said it much better than that. It wasn't near as guilt trippy as I made it sound. He was really just trying to help us examine our hearts before communion, to be reminded that the act was significant...it was more than bread and juice, Jesus snack.

I sat in my pew - the words from the pulpit roused me out of my monotony and disinterest. I had wanted to take communion but he made a good point. What was I doing? Was I actually taking communion in the belief and confession that He IS providing all I need and I AM trusting Him today? Or am I doing an act of the religious fabric in habitual or mechanic indifference?

I am being honest now. I've been struggling a bit lately. It's just happened slowly...and it was the “little things.” It's the things that don't really matter because it doesn’t seem to really change the way my day went...I mean I've still been reading my Bible a bit and spending time reading and writing...a little bit at least...and praying...still doing that a bit too. I wasn't being too legalistic, I was living in the freedom Christ has allowed...right? Not many overt sins of omission nor comission. But I suppose I've let my mind wander. I've been waiting for God to provide me things and even though my voice prayed to God my heart prayed to hope in something else.

I opened my journal and penned “I feel my life has had a lot of the me first attitude lately...I confess and repent. I have an over zealous fascination with my own life. I mean who writes a book about themselves? My desires, hope in my being published, potential relationships, they all were hopes I could crawl inside...really anything that will give me significance.”

I ate the bread and drank the juice but there was still a question in my heart.

The afternoon passed and eventually I found myself in a sitting window in a coffee shop in down town Eureka. I pulled out a book I tried to read months ago and couldn't get into. I had picked it up again on Friday or Saturday and had read only a few pages but I was ready to read it now.

As I opened up to this page...the hand reached out and slapped me...gently..and beautifully in a way. Through the pages of No Man Is and Island Thomas Merton said:

“To consider persons and event and situations only in the light of their direct effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep to Hell....I cannot even make my own body obey me. When I give it pleasure, it deceives my expectation and makes me suffer pain...I deceive myself and find that I am the prisoner of my own blindness and selfishness and insufficiency.”

I think this is true, and so I confess. I think about myself way to much. I cannot say I know how to end this or how to fix it, except that I want to.

Maybe for the first time in my life, in the last year and a half-ish, I actually want Jesus to change my life. I want Him more than anything else and I also know that I forget that on a daily basis. Even though all things are permissible I do not want to take that which will harden my heart against God. I do not want to be Pharaoh and harden my heart so many times that I forget to be in awe of the signs God has given me. And although not everything is beneficial I want to be able to live in the Freedom to see the goodness in God and trust in His person above all other things of this world.

I am sorry ahead of time for failing at this..but I would ask you to pray that I can stop living in a me centered world and start living where Jesus lives. He would live in me for sure, but I would live with Him everywhere else too. I think when He is my hearts desire and I go to seek Him in the hearts and minds of those around me, my heart will be less captive to those images, those things that give me significance that I pine after. I then will remember that I am free to love the world well, because Christ loved it first. I will know that the seeking of a desired object or image or being or whatever, that is the slavery, the constant pursuit of that which cannot salve the rawness found upon soul. There is only one antidote and that only found outside of me.

Thanks for reading,

-JS

Forming Community and dating...I don't know how to do this.

I don't know how to do this. I always thought forming community was easy, it was just a matter of being proactive; going to enough church potlucks and bringing brownies to your small group. It was about being present and playing sports and getting in there. I suppose that is all sort of true but it's not the easy thing I thought it would be. After having recently moved west to the California coast I've had to test my theories.

When you're 29 there are no organized playground games. There is no four square. You cannot just go out to recess and make friends while playing tether-ball. There are no “welcome to adulthood” orientations where men and women a few years older take you across campus to show you the ropes. There is no seminar on instigating meaningful friendships within a group that already exists without seeming needy or insecure. There is especially no senior center where on Friday nights all the people your age go to play bingo and drink prune juice. It's a swamp of a life. The muck sucks up around your ankles even though to step on the moss. You're trying to move quickly and make the progress you feel you ought but you're afraid you'll lose your shoe if you step to quick.

We move to the job, the girl, the guy, the cause, the resource. We go because we can. Some of us let our bellies and beards catch up with our early male pattern baldness making the process of adulthood seem more complete. Our child's perspective of adulthood becoming more realized each day in the mirror. Like a painter switching to a roller after growing tired of painting a mural life seems to get slapped up quick, all things the color of the need of the day. People this age can have kids, wrinkles, careers, a second job to accompany their second chin. They can also be broke living at home playing black-ops and Call of Duty on their mom's floral pattern couch in the basement. Or still again, trying to play the player. Still hitting the gym as many times as possible - more in love with their own muscles then with the playful coeds at their night class they plan on impressing.

I think I thought moving to a new community would be easy...like God would throw the pieces on the board like Chess and he would move me and my community around until we found each other....He did kind of.

I mean, I find myself still looking though as if he's brought me half way, as if he placed the pieces on the board and did a few moves but is now asking me where I want to move. I'm sitting there looking at him wanting for him to stop playing around and move again so I can be like “Ya, ya! Nice one! Love it, keep it up!” But now he's just staring at me like he's just given me a command I should understand. He's got that kind of half-amused smile you give a dog when you're trying to train him to do something and the dog looks back at you with that look, you know the one. It's the one where the head is slightly turned to the side waiting in obedience but also looking a bit puzzled as if to say back.. “You know I don't speak English...why do you do that? You talk to me like I should understand...Well I'm just going to try staring back at you...or try barking...Ya, maybe barking!”

I barked at God, but he didn't move. I liked it when he moved the pieces. The game is more fun when I think he's in charge and I'm winning on his merit. Can't I just sit this one out?

And as for the other pieces, the ones I want him to move now, can't he do those too? Can't he take control there?

...Like dating.

That's one especially I want to slap down some pieces. I'm like “God lets do this!” and I pick up a bishop. I want to make it happen and he's like “No...no, no, no!” and grabs my hand still holding the piece still in mid-air. I'm about to smack the piece down on a dating site and he say's “No, you don't want to move there!” And he looks at me and I look back...and I know he's right, but I'm agitated. I'm annoyed and I'm tired, I just want it to be simple. I don't want to play anymore. God should definitely just align the pieces and fix my problems...right? He has no good reason that I know of and so therefore..he might as well do it.

Ok, I know that's crap...I am assuming I have it more figured out than Him...but still it sucks.

...But I suppose this is what they call faith. Letting God do as He does and only letting yourself do that which He wills. I suppose it's believing He controls the pieces but when he says move, it is his best for you, and in fact His best for all. May we pray the chess pieces align, as much as can be so before eternity.      

Radcliffe: The Voices that Beckon

I went to a movie yesterday. It was the one starting Daniel Radcliff placed in the 1800s. In the film Radcliff is a lawyer told to go to huge old manner house covered in ivy and a layer of dust. I don't really watch horror movies but one thing I've learned is that if you are going to watch one it is always a good idea to be looking where you are not supposed to be looking. Always watch the casual small areas of the screen the dark out of focus places in the backgrounds. These are always the places the demons live, always the places the whispers seem to slither from. They touch you like feathers on your neck, like whispered breath licking your skin. They suggest lightly that there are terrible things out there, things that you do not understand and more, things that know you. Everything you have ever known is less than there actually is. This mystery speaks to us all...we hate it and at the same time love it. It is why millions of Americans pay to have scary creatures and the unknown make them change their change their shorts several times a year.

...It is the kind of fear that makes you rethink what you know and even more, fear what you do not. I understand this fear and at the same time the fascination with the unknown.

Lately I've been feeling the weight of my own failures. There are too many God's to worship. One foot in Heaven and one in Hell and I cannot tell which is which at times. I sometimes feel I am the prodigal who has forgotten his home.

Being forced to live out one's principles I suppose is where life becomes real. When no one else around you cares how you live, the questions that have long sat in silence start to rhythmically ring out against the quiet of your mind. They whisper to you, wondering out loud what you are doing, bringing with them a familiar silence and loneliness that can be addictive. You sit in them and stew in them, then those voices tell you that it doesn't matter, that there are other ways that you ought to try, ways that can “bring life,” said in that reverential way that is both thoughtful and ambiguous. They say you ought to do what you think will make the voices go away, what will fill the dark corners where the whispers echo from. And you want to listen. It is hard to not do so. The darkness is appealing, it offers mystery, that although you may not feel the same curiosity or awe, I do sometimes. I am drawn to it in the right situation. Without a clear voice or face, the unknown murmuring about itself seems a compelling companion.

I do not believe I have believed wrong. But I am saying that taking Jesus at his word is harder when you are not living as an image for others to see. When no one else cares, when the only person watching is you, you find out what you believe. You find out who Jesus is to you.

I feel I am turning into something new here. Brown and earthy, like seed planted in fertile soil. I am not always sure what I am becoming, but I am becoming something, I can feel the scratching of something like wings plastered to my back, the stirring of a soul in cocoon... I am still clay on the potters wheel.

It is a weird place to exist, to know one is changing, but not knowing what was in changing into, it's like infancy all over again. I am learning to speak to myself and God in a language which is honest and yet incomplete, helpless and at the same time wishful.

I know there are dreams, and I know there is goodness. I know I want them both but I often carry them them like water in the palm. It is to easy to see them slip, to look away or one wrong step and they seem to disappear. I carry hope with fear at times, like I'm holding a snow flake that I'm afraid might come to close to hot breath. It is easy to forget the solace in my heart, the hope I have in Jesus, was not placed there by human hands. My control of hope often falls on it's face, to easily distracted by my body and mind's ventures.

I am a beggar in a land at harvest, the continual blessings of God laid out before me and yet I feel like a child at table being told to keep his hands in his lap, it is not yet time. I am told to not listen to the voices that whisper my name, that clamor for my attention, and I believe I should not listen to them. I have listened to them before. They are never what they offer. Yet they beckoning me closer, their desire for me is more relentless than the sea, and my eyes often drift over them like one searching for a horizon.

I believe I am rich beyond knowledge but I know a man with a great credit score is still poor if he cannot access his banks and the stock laid out for him by his Father. An inheritance still in waiting.

Thanks for reading,

-JS