Category: Uncategorized

I have sat down to write a million times. I have three drafts stored away. But there comes a time when people like me just have to sit down and power through it. I have nothing to write about.

First things first: if you don’t already, listen to Rufus Wainwright. You won’t get it at first. But try listening to “Pretty Things” from the album Want One when it’s cold outside and you are inside sitting on a couch reading Eggers while sipping hot chocolate. And the Christmas decorations are out, if not necessarily hung up yet.
On a somewhat related note, if you ever have the chance to watch Ellen Degeneres do stand up, take that chance.

I’m thinking about moving to Chicago. I like it up there. It’s cold, and there’s nothing like the cold to let you know you’re alive. There’s nothing worse than room temperature. Extremes – that’s what I need. And I met a group of people who inspire me up there. Missouri, I’ll be frank with you: I’m no good for you, and you’re no good for me. I love you, Missouri. I do. But just as I must power through to write this, so I must power through to a new place. And Missouri, you need some work. You’ve grown tired, lost sight. I’m leaving so that we can grow in our separate ways. I’ll be back to visit, but only now and then. Not often. Because it’s just ruined.

I’d like to go back to school. I really love school, in theory. I also really love people, in theory. When it comes down to it, though, to that place where everyone is gross but some people hide it better – when it comes down to that, it’s very hard for me to love people. I get hung up on theory a lot.

I wonder if we talk about the sin of sloth enough. I don’t treat it as seriously as I should.

Alright I think that’s plenty of random thoughts for the night. Feel free to comment. I like bouncing around ideas.

My brother and his wife are visiting from San Francisco presently. They do inner-city missions there. It is very comforting to have them around.

On to tonight’s topic: Darkness. The word itself is loaded with associations. For me, at least. I was sitting on the front porch smoking as the sun was setting tonight and I was watching the trees. When light fades, everything loses definition. The leaves of the trees lost their depth. The trunks and the land below them began to bleed into one solid.

It is here, figuratively, that I sometimes wish to be. To have no distinction. To simply become

Darkness is stillness. Stillness is serene. To be hidden, to be anonymous, to give and take nothing.

There is always hope; and this word, this idea I scream over and over again because this – this is how I stay here. This is the straw I cling to amidst the raging rivers of insanity. Those who gave in to the river, who stopped clutching the straw and sank, they stand on the shore opposite me and they beckon.

I spent some time in jail this past semester. I don’t want to go back, really.

Remember that unpaid ticket I wrote about? I never paid it. A warrant was issued and then I got pulled over because one of my breaklights was shining white. (It was broken. Still is, but red duct tape does wonders.) So I’m sitting there in the car and the cop walks up to my window and says, “License and registration, please.”
“Why was I pulled over,” I asked. He told me. “Well, man, I’m gonna be honest: Even if I had my license and registration on me, it wouldn’t do a lot of good.”
And he said, “License suspended or something?”
“Something like that.”
Then he finds out via radio that there’s a warrant out, so he cautiously steps back and asks me to get out of the car. I comply and he cuffs me and searches the car.
Long story short, I spent that night in jail. My sister bailed me out the following morning.

It was an intense experience. No one was roughing me up or any weird shit like that – they were all asleep by the time I got in – but you never know how wonderful the freedom of simply going into another room is until that’s taken away and you’re in a cell with six other guys and nothing to do. About thirty minutes in, I was ready for it to be over. Very surreal. I mean, it was a pretty trivial situation, and anyone who’s done any amount of time would laugh at this, but it sucked really bad. If you can avoid jail, do so.

I hate having nothing to do. Well, I suppose there are always things to do, but I hate having nothing to do that makes me feel productive. I only spent one night in jail physically, but my mind has been keeping me captive for years.

Bleh. Words are folly.

I spend a good portion of my day thinking about what I’m going to tell my son and how. Yesterday, as I was driving to dinner, I thought of something else.

I want to tell him to go through life slowly.

Why? Because I admire those people, the people who take their time as they walk through life.
And when I tell him, I’m going to show the severity of my conviction on my face and my son will turn his head up toward me and listen in tranquil silence. And he will respect and listen to me because I’m going to – I must – be the man I want to be when I have him.

And this is how I spend my days.

As my dad and I were shoveling mulch around the trees a couple of days ago, my imagination started running away. At the base of the maple trees, there are little baby trees that you must cut away before they start stealing a lot of energy from the one you care about. In reality, these saplings die anyway – but what if they didn’t? What if maple trees had a constant war with these offspring and what if these offspring kept coming back bigger and stronger and they started growing faster than their parents and it became a king of a mountain struggle into the highest of heights, by which time there are at least thirty trees growing in one spot?

And what kind of scene would that be? Imagine a tree fifty yards in diameter at its base, which is twisted and gnarled. Had a community of strange creatures evolved up there?

What sustains God from eon to eon? He is completely shrouded in mystery to me.

Yes, this is how I spend my days.

You know, I tend to start blog pages with the premise “This is going to be an attempt to (insert what the attempt is),” or something to that effect. I’ve started journals this way, too. Thing is, it don’t work. I never end up doing said thing. So, just as an introductory note to this blog, I’m not going to set standards for myself any more. With anything.
Just kidding.

Dana had a good point when she commented on my blog. It’s been a hell of a long time, folks, and a hell of a long semester.

That being said, I don’t feel like writing.
But somethin’s a’welling up.

I can feel it.

“I went to the woods to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” -Thoreau

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” -London

I am in California presently, visiting friends, laughing loudly, relaxing, smoking, talking about wonderful things with wonderful people. I come here for the people, for the conversation. Take John, for instance. He is smarter than I am, and I am content to simply follow him around his labyrinthine mind. I find myself more alive here, more real, more free – which is entirely my fault, I know. If I was “better” at life, I would feel just as alive in Missouri. But I’m not very good at life. I need these people here, and I know that now more than ever.

Ah! the sun!
The bright, brilliant sun!
And the faces –
brighter still.

I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but a part of me has recently turned in its resignation and gotten the hell out of Dodge. I think it’s good but I can’t be sure.

Blessings.

I found this when I was looking for a friend’s blog.

Somethin’ to think about…

Free Hugs
http://youtube.com/v/vr3x_RRJdd4

A (doctored) word from the producers of the video:

“Sometimes, a hug is just what we need. Free Hugs is a true, controversial story of Juan Mann, a man whose sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten their lives.

The Free Hugs campaign became a phenomenon. After all, we are social beings living in an age of disconnectivity and lack of human contact.

As this symbol of hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign banned. What we then witnessed is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.”

Also, it is vitally important that anyone reading this who hasn’t already go here and download Webb’s newest album. Free.
Yes.
Free.
He’s fantastic, and so is the album.

Blessings.

Around my sophomore year in high school, I was starting to get tired of being a good kid. I cannot say for sure, but I think that a partial reason for this was that all of the speakers who came to Church or spoke at various gatherings had this amazing story about how they came from rock bottom to the top of the world. And now they’re traveling around and speaking and everyone likes them. And I wanted a story. So – you’re gonna love this – I prayed for God to give me a story. Such are the reasoning powers of a fifteen year-old, acne-ridden boy.

God granted my request. I started retreating into the dark. I spent an increasing amount of time alone with the girl I was seeing at the time, staying at her house ‘til all hours of the night, going, as the Big & Rich song goes, just about as far as she’d let me go. I started drinking my junior year. There are several stories that I could tell between that time and now, but there is one that is especially important, one that I continue to write about because I feel like I really haven’t captured the idea behind it. Or maybe I just haven’t mined it all yet.

A Saturday evening. There was an away football game the evening before, and on the drive home, I started a no-strings-attached relationship with a beautiful girl. We were both tired of the opposite sex always needing things and always expecting a call the next day, etc. What better way to fill all of these desires? (Such are the reasoning powers of a seventeen year-old boy.) And so, on the evening of Saturday, October 4th, 2003, I was well on my way to being out-of-my-mind drunk when I called her and asked her what she was doing. “Nothing,” said she. “Then you should come over,” said I. She did. By the time she got there, I was off my proverbial rocker. One thing led to another and we were in my friend’s guest bedroom fooling around.

I woke up the next morning and went to Church to lead worship for the high school Sunday school class. (This is the part of the blog where, depending on who you are, you either laugh, shake your head, or perform some variation on those two themes.) I was in a dark place. A very hard place. Sundays were a matter of staying conscious enough to appear awake.

The next weekend, I went to a conference whose plenary speaker was John Piper. I didn’t want to go. I considered telling my dad to forget it. But I wanted to see my brother, who was meeting us at the conference, so I went anyway. Long story short, it changed me. The hard shell around my heart was broken and I tasted the sweet beauty of the presence of God. He took me back, just like that. Grace, greater than all my sin. I had my story.

Since then, I’ve drank, I’ve picked up smoking, I’ve lost my virginity – you know, pretty much all the taboos of modern Christianity. Added more to the story, if you will. I’ve sinned a lot, and very publicly. And here I am, telling you that you should NOT seek a story. To seek a story, as I did, is to count Christ’s life as insufficient. I think we can agree that Christ lived the most incredible story in history. Even people who do not believe he was God’s Son hardly argue this point. To seek a story, as I did, is to discount God’s ability to teach you things through your pure devotion to him, through abiding in him, which is a MUCH harder path than the one I took. My path was the easy path, the one any one of you reading this can walk down if you want to. But if you want a challenge, if you want the kind of story Jesus had, walk the path that few walk. As my friend GK Chesterton told me one time, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

Don’t give up.

I’ve had a MySpace account for about a year now. Some of you will know what this is, and some of you won’t. MySpace, in summary, is a very creepy way to keep in contact with friends. You are never too far away from the random person who will write you a message concerning the availability and quality of their webcam. It can also be – and most of the time is – a colossal waste of time. The only reason I had been holding on to the account was for the express purpose of writing, which I now intend to do at this site.

I intend for this blog to be something resembling a job. I enjoy writing. I am also aware that the more I do of it, the better my writing will be. So, it is my intention to sit down at a certain time each day and get some words down. I cannot promise that all of these blogs will be worth your time. But I hope some of them will. Some of them will be in story form and some of them will be mere musings. I have to switch it up in order to maintain interest.

And one last thing. I have trouble coming up with ideas of what to write about, so I’d like to take this time to welcome you to suggest certain topics. It would help me out a lot.

That will suffice as an introduction. I hope you like what you see and that you’ll come back.