Lights go out

I turned the lights out in my kitchen to signal the end of the day in this house. I like shutting the lights off and then blindly searching my way to my room, one last thrill before i call it a day i guess.

i went to see my friend Simon play at a coffee shop tonight. and his music made me feel alive. it reminded me of how wonderful playing and performing music can be, it reminded me of what an awesome feeling it is to express something in song, to move people with your voice. it reminded me that playing music could be fun and meaningful, and over the past four or five years I had forgotten that. music had become this awful thing filled with stress and inadequacy. and as i watched him play i thought, "i could never be as good at guitar as he is, i could never say something as eloquently as he did just there." and then after a while i thought....maybe it doesn't matter. maybe the only thing that matters is that i just play, that i just express all the things inside of me for no other reason than to just play.

it was strange to think that it didn't matter if someone was better than me or not. i think for the last four years I have been in the mindset that if i can't do it really well or better or at least the same as someone else, then there is no point in playing. but maybe...just maybe it doesn't matter. at one point in my life i just wanted to play, i enjoyed the rush of performing and the feeling of really nailing a piece of music.

i'm not done in this thought process and it didn't make all these things i have associated with music go away. but his music made me feel alive, reminded me of joy in the past and maybe me think that maybe i could enjoy playing music again. tonight was significant for me and so i thought it worthy of a blog post.

thanks simon. and thanks to God for bringing up these pleasant memories of days gone past.

You know you live in Techonological age when....

Today in the computer lab some students were bugging each other and the culminating ultimate "burn" (as the whole class said) was,
"Yeah, well your internet at home is probably dial-up."

Rain

We watched a Nooma video entitled Rain last night at Focus. I really love those videos, I mean partly because Rob Bell is in them but also because they tell great stories.

The Rain story was about a dad and his baby boy that get caught in the rain while on a hike. The dad pulls his hood up on himself and the baby but the baby pulls his hood off. And as the rain gets stronger and the winds blow harder the baby begins to scream and scream. Until his dad takes his out of the baby back-pack and hold the baby tight to his chest and starts saying over and over and over again, "I love you buddy. We're gonna make it. Daddy knows the way home."

And he just tells the kid over and over and over again, holding him as tight as he can and running as fast as he can out of the storm. You need to see the video because I definitely don't do it justice here but that picture of God holding us tight and repeatedly saying to us, "I love you. We're going to make it. Daddy knows the way home." it was so much of what I needed to hear. An image i needed burned into my brain. Remembering that God does indeed hear the cry of his people and if holding us close bringing us through this time. And he delights in being able to carry us through that.

It was what i needed to hear last night. I'm thankful I went. I'm thankful that those Focus people that put on the service. i'm thankful that we serve a God worthy of our praise and big enough to sort things out. I woke up this morning feeling very thankful, thankful for the sunrise and thankful for coke that I will consume shortly to keep me awake today.

There's gotta be something more

That line from Switchfoot has been running through my brain this morning and many times recently. Do you ever ask yourself that? And I don't mean out of a disatisfaction with all the things God has given us, but rather....am I really living this abundant life that God has called us too. Now maybe I have too much stuff and I would be happier if I didn't. Maybe it is a ploy by the devil to keep us from serving God in our every day lives...i haven't finished Screwtape Letters yet, maybe it talks about that.

I just think sometimes that God has called me to more than I am living, you know "farther up and further in". In some sort of deeper life, something more intimate with him. And yet it can seem so nebulous at times. I'm not sure how to get there. There is always something that I can be doing more of, more prayer, more bible reading, more usefulness with my time. I recognize I am not perfect in those areas and such.

However, I just don't know quite how to get to that point. How do I run after God in this spiritual sense, it feels sometimes as if i cannot get my brain and feet to match and begin the walk.

I am encouraged when I hear of people experiencing God in a new way, that are excited about loving people. It excites me to hear it.

This life we live in God is not straight forward and often clouded in mystery but it is a beautiful thing that he calls us to. A death of ourselves and a movement ahead in the reality that we are new creations.

I guess I fall into the category of wanting to feel it, and perhaps feeling it is not an option right now.

You'll have to allow me a moment of cheezyness here but... I see my walk with God as something like riding a horse, that ultimate freedom and speed. The wind rushing by and the elation that follows. Or even like those scenes in Rescuers Down Under where they ride on the back of the great Golden Eagle. That giving up to someone else and just allowing them to carry you through endless skies. Sometimes I feel pretty heavy. And I'm not sure why.

I think that's why I love those different scenes in the Narnia Chronicles where they ride Aslan and he runs so quick over forrest, or when they ride the Unicorns or horses with such great speed and exhiliration. Those passages always stirred something inside me. I have found myself wanting to do that. And that is where you find me on a november morning.

There is something mysterious about pictures and taking them. pictures are so full of life, color and motion except absolutely still. an enigmatic quality about them and i love them. my father is a wonderful photographer and owns an old manual camera and every once and a while when I want to feel like I'm alive, when I want to feel like the world is alive, when I want to do something solitary and beautiful i pull it out and take some pictures.
taking pictures is an observers sport. you watch and wait to catch the exact moment when someone's walls or facades have dropped and they're truly laughing or not focused on themselves anymore. I want to catch those moments. I enjoy watching people, sitting in the back of a cafe and observing the people about me. sounds sort of creepy i guess. but anyway. i haven't taken film pictures in probably two years.

i think it's time i did again.

Frivolity

I know I wrote that I might end my blog but I think I am starting to find a good balance of sharing important things with people face to face. Or hopefully i am. Anyway on to the blog.



I bought lovely socks from MEC today. What a wonderful thing. It's amazing how much excitement and joy they bring me. There are millions of things in the world that one could buy but warm socks is one of the most lovely. I've recently got into knitting socks and slippers because I enjoy the idea of giving someone else warm feet. and they're super fun for sliding around on floor with.

If I was rich and had one thing to be frivolous with I think i would buy a new pair of perfect fitting socks every day. I'm sure there are other things but I enjoy wearing new socks so much. They are so tight and warm and thick. A friend of mine said he would buy doves and then have them fly out from behind him when he walked into a room. That was a pretty good one i thought.

so....what would you do if you had one frivolous thing to do with your bundles of cash?