This Is What Happened...

I haven't blogged in awhile...It's been a quiet couple of months...lots and lots has happened but, to be honest I haven't felt it. My heart has been quiet and so I've felt I had to say less...not just that I had less to say. I think there is a reason for that. It has been an interesting last couple of months...lots of ups and downs..but mostly ups and it's been great...I stood in the back of my congregation in Eureka and decided somewhere in my heart about 6 weeks ago that if God had me here for a reason...I should live in that. I should believe that this is what He has for me..and if He is giving it..it is always in my best interest...I needed to trust that... But I'm not good at that, nor am I used to not feeling anxiety, not worrying. I think generally when I look back on the entirety of my life it has been characterized by the downs...or I have characterized it by the downs. It has been easy to say these are the highlights of my life and really mean the ...

If it weren't for that one night when I was 15...one 15 minute period really...my life would look totally different. I suppose we could all see that on the way to that moment and since there is a dizzying array of events that could have changed everything too...but they didn't and this did. There are little bends in life, different footfalls on the same path, but then there are other paths, paths almost completely untraveled covered my moss and lichen. These paths change everything. I often feel isolated because of my path, but I wouldn't be who I am without it. I think what it comes down to for me is that the best moments of my life, when I find myself most complete, most known both by someone else and in understanding myself is when I find myself in the presence of the maker of that path...when I again sit in the moments where everything changed. Even still today 14 years later, when I meet him again all else faded to insignificance and the greatest moment...

Contrary to popular opinion I am coming to believe freedom means being able to choose the right thing, even when it's hard. Anybody can be a slave to their desires, lusts, wants, etc...being able to not let those things control you, not letting your mind be enslaved to your momentary hopes? That is freedom, living beyond the cage you live in. Freedom is not being what you are told you have to be, and choosing to be what you want to be beyond the whims of culture...beyond the whims of emotion or hormones... To often screens with glowing letters and pictures tells us that life with no restraints or boundaries is the ideal. The satisfaction of an invincible body and redos of video games ought to be the norm, ought to be real life...and if it's not easy..it's probably not worth striving for.  ...It's not popular to follow the crowd or tradition. Being different is cool. Sometimes the hardest things in our American culture is to...not be an independent being...

I don't know that anything is really wrong...in a lot of ways it's right...but I'm bored with myself...and, maybe that is normal and I am only now entering a world of normalcy other humans live in most of their lives... I want my life to matter, I want it to be interesting but I don't think life has ever been so daily as it is here. I mean it is uneventful. I rise at 7:30 I read and eat breakfast. I go to work. I eat lunch at noon and dinner when I get off. I usually work out in the evening. I think about writing but just keep coming face to face with the fact that my life is very uneventful...it seems just another figure on somebody's data chart for days worked, hours banked, income earned, tasks completed or in process. I am a measuring tool for an external thing which is not me and it's success...I do not hate it, but I suppose not hating your life is hardly a destination. I am bored with myself and my adventures...or lack there of. A weekend get away...

Hearts are like feet… They start soft, unable to support one’s own emotional weight…which leaves one sobbing in tears or giggling to them at a moment’s notice. At first they must be wrapped and warmed in simple things…others are left to tend for them, but as you grown they change. They become stronger and take a form of their own, they can now bear more and stand alone longer. But when unprotected they can be hurt, gouges can be taken from soul and sole alike And when rubbed against life like sand paper both become calloused and hardened….sure over time that callous may lessen, may start to heal, but it takes far longer than we would like and although a calloused heel is good for walking along a rough road barefoot it is not good for a foot massage….with the coming of one you lose something of the other and to which ever extreme you tread there will be consequences… And yet both fuel journeys, you cannot have adventures without both...the hardness to bea...

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...

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 relatio...

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...

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 beaut...

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 word...

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...

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 ...

I watched a goofy movie tonight. It was called “I am Trotsky.” It's about a high school kid that believes he is the incarnation of Leon Trotsky and lives his life trying to re-create a social revolution comparable to his previous life. He has it all planned out on note cards in his room at home. In the last scene he is walking off with a guy named Vladimir whom he is convinced is the incarnation of Vladimir Lenin. Together, he believes they will change the world. It was kind of inspiring in a comdeic, far-fetched, nerdy sort of way. He left the story with purpose, a plan, passion, relationships (both romantic and platonic), that were centered around a hopeful cause. The cause was counter cultural and different enough to draw life into hearts long bereft of a reason to live outside of themselves. I've been listening to an audiobook again by an author named Donald Miller. He talks a lot about life as story and how life matters, or more pointedly, what we do with life matters....

So I finished watching that movie that was made about Justin Bieber the other night..yes I can admit it..it happened. And, I can admit I have seen worse movies. I wasn't caught by it. I'm not a Belieber and definitely didn't catch Bieber Fever, but I will say this. It made you believe in something. It was weird but when he was on the stage and there were thousands of overcome girls singing along, knowing all the words, and celebrating his music, his life, and somehow the something greater that was in him, it made me want the same thing. No, I don't want to be on stage, and I don't want tens of thousands of people screaming after me because they think I am the answer to the ache in their hearts. I'm becoming quit content in my nights alone and days at the sea side. No, I mean I want to be celebrated like that. I want to think that life is meant for something more than heartache and death. It feels like we should all be destined for such a place, a place where we...

I am learning to watch T.V. A couple years ago I bought a 42 inch LCD 1080p T.V....off brand on sale. I'm not sure whether this makes me sound cool or lame. Techies think I'm lame because my T.V. is a couple years old, environmentalists and monastics think this makes me sounds shallow and materialistic. Well, in my own vain defense...it is the first T.V. I bought as an adult, plus all the Techies probably have better blogs to be on and the monastics are busy at Vespers so I should be good. T.V. is now almost a daily part of my life and it may be a sign of one of the greatest things I've learned in the last couple years. I know I'm getting a little older when watching infomercials has me thinking, “That's kind of cool!..” and somewhere in the back of my head is a small voice telling me to call before I loose the special bonus pack with a Yoshi blade that can cut through a boot. I love cutting boots. My dad has had numerous exercise machines in our house over time...

MLK day...also known as Martin Luther King's birthday. Today I was off of work and so went down to Tin Can books. It's this used book store on the corner of H near the plaza. It was the first time I'd been in there and it felt like a place out of a novel. The books shelves were tall, reaching to the ceiling, piled high with old books with folded and faded covers staring out at you from the shelves, all ancient and stoic. Even the fiction full of bright colors with creased bindings exuded a quiet joy, like they were happy to be there, like they'd found their true resting place...then again, maybe it was my joy they seemed to exude. Maybe I felt at home there a little bit, able to relax where I hadn't been in the last few days. I made my way to the second floor. As I headed up the creaking wooden floorboards I let my hand run over the guide rail. It had been rubbed smooth with use and age. I wouldn't trust it to hold my weight but I let it lead me to the skyli...