matters of importance

I have been gone for a bit sorry about that. but one of the reasons is that i have had the opportunity to be involved in something really important. changing the lives of children orphaned by AIDS. I had the chance to travel and represent an amazing organization, Forgotten Voices. I was at an event that a church in new York threw for their youth.

That event changed the course of 500 children's lives in southern Africa. the whole weekend i was reminded about how big this world is and how much it isn't about me. a really good reminder. so we raised money for pastors in Zimbabwe and Zambia to use to positively impact their communities for good.

it was just so neat and refreshing to be a part of something so good and to know that my service was making a difference for God in this world. i am so thankful to get the chance to serve.

now if i can just get 9 people to come together with me.

so many ideas

lots of things buzzing through my head right now.
a swirling mix of thoughts
my brain trying to escape the chaos
clarity of glasses held aloft.

some random poetry for you.

i have decided recently that people need to be nicer to each other. there is a lot of hate going around. many people hate the president or the government. others can't stand a sports team or player.

some don't like their neighbors and walk through the mall at christmas and one of the last things you see will be love. this saddens me. what saddens me more is that i act out of anger. i direct hate towards others. i don't do it often, yet i do it. we all do.

so lets start loving not hating. and that means me. this change starts with myself. so less anger and hate and more kindness and love.

except, of course, the steelers. :-)

give me some love

we need love, it is built into our humanness to be loved and to love. our heart starves and in some ways shrinks when we are not loved. in the same way, we are energized when we are loved. our hearts come alive and bring our spirits with them.

i feel like the same thing happens when we love others. it energizes us. we are called to love. we are called to serve. it is a great thing to give to others what we need ourselves.

either way, i have been loved and valued this weekend. it has been good for my soul.

slow down, you move too fast

recently i was watching a bird walk across the lan. the first thought in my head was questioning why the bird was choosing to walk when it could fly. then i realized that it was most likely looking for food. it was looking for the little things. if it had just flown right by, it would have missed so many things, but in choosing to slow down and walk, a whole world opened up to it.

i wonder how often we just fly right by in a hurry to get to the next thing. maybe if we purposefully slowed down, a whole different wonder would be right before our eyes waiting to be enjoyed.

so, you got to make this moment last and you might as well feel groovy.

communication

i'm sitting here in a cafe in downtown lancaster. got some pete yorn coming through my headphones and just enjoying myself. i'm thinking about community and communication. right now i would like nothing more to be conversing with someone and developing a deeper relationship. or maybe even starting a new one. but i'm not.

and i have a feeling that i don't look very approachable either. sitting here, typing on my computer, with headphones in my ears. it would take a remarkably gutsy person to walk up to me and start a conversation. now i am not necessarily trading anything, but i am communicating over the internet. not exactly the closest and deepest form of communication. in fact, a very safe venue.

or is it? see the things is, i seem to expect the same thing out of electronic communication that i do out of face to face. if i say something to you, you will respond because it is how it works, but over the internet it doesn't work that way. we can hide behind our computers and not respond to others. i do it all the time. i'll read an email and then 2 weeks later realize that i haven't responded to this person. not good.

or you have facebook where there may or may not be any communication, but we are looking at other's profiles without interacting with them. that seems even more backwards.

well, although this is the mode i am in now, i can tell you that i would love nothing more than to have that face to face conversation. i think that most of us want that. so what's holding us up?

probably people typing on computers, listening to their headphones.

Hope with no end

HOPE - it may just be the thing that holds everything together. without it what do we have? i wonder what it is to feel a complete and utter lack of hope. in anything. we have to hope. as humans i don't think that we can live without hope. no matter how hopeless a situation is, there must be hope. to lose hope is well...to lose everything.

"faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

i think that we tend to concentrate on the second part of that statement. but the first may hold the power of hope. to be sure of what i hope for means that i must hope in something. whatever it is, i must hope in something. the lack of hope becomes the lack of faith. faith in the good, faith in humanity. faith in this life meaning more than just a bunch of cells.

so no matter how hopeless a situation is, i have never lost hope and am very thankful for that.

beauty in tragedy

tonight i was watching a part from 'Band of Brothers' this was the part that focused on the medic and bastogne. in some ways it is a hard part to watch but there are also beautiful moments. first off, it being about war, it is ugly. war is hell and there isn't much that one can say is good about war, if anything. through the bombings and gunfights, there was a quiet serenity at nights with the snow falling.

snow falling against bloodshed. something that wipes the world clean and brings a quiet. the horrible tragedy was still occurring but the beauty never stopped. no matter what, there is beauty. this makes me think about humanity. there are so many things that are ugly about us. things that cause us to go to war. things that cause divorce and bitterness in the relationships with those around us.

but...

there is also a beauty. a beauty in the goodness that drives us to give to others and empathy that causes us to love each other. and the best thing of all.

beauty will overcome the tragedy.

a thought here...a thought there

many thoughts have been going through my head. i don't know how to put them down or what to say, but here goes.

-i have been intrinsically aware of my singleness over the past couple of days. along with this has come a longing for this to no longer be the case. a longing to walk through this journey with someone else. to share my life and experiences. to have someone who values me and loves me in my worst and my best. i am 32 and it is getting harder and harder to stay content in this area.

- i don't feel like my life situation has changed in the last 6 months. people ask what's new. i don't have anything. nothing changed and that is hard because i am not content or happy with where i am. i definitely acknowledge that the last sentence is a problem and leads to thought number three.

- i am starting to wonder if christians massively misunderstand prayer. these things that we view as promises are a big misinterpretation of scripture.i have arrived at this conclusion because of the walks and struggles i have had since i moved back from germany. i feel like i have ended up in one spot. either the bible isn't true or we misunderstand the words on the pages.

i know that last statement was heavy, but that has been a true reaction and pondering.

spring has come.. oh wait maybe summer.

we have been enjoying a beautiful spring with some rain and sun and nice temps. until today and tomorrow. they are in the upper 80s. as one who does not enjoy the summer weather as much, i would prefer to get back to spring.

spring is a time of newness of rebirth. the earth comes out of the cold and snowy winter and bursts into life. sometimes i wonder if there are seasons of our hearts and lives. our lives are journeys and these have different phases. i think that this can be looked at in a micro or macro way. in a week you may see all four seasons. maybe even in a day.

but there are also the bigger movements of our lives. the year that feels like winter. or the wonderful experience that lasts for a while that constantly reminds us of spring. many times during the year, you may here people saying that they wish it were another season. most commonly in winter yearning for spring. i myself don't really like summer so i am usuallly longing for fall. but all of the seasons are important to the earth and the places that we live.

as with the physical seasons, i believe that these seasons of our lives are important. although we may wish for them to be over, it would be loss of hope to not assume that the circumstances were important. i just hope that i can learn to realize that.

Rela-nity

community...relationship. both are centered around the same thing of one broken human interacting with another broken human. different people need it to differing degrees.

for me, i know that i need it to a great degree. in fact, it is the hardest part of my current situation for me. not the lack of a full time job or a place to live. it is not having those to be in relationship with and share our lives.

what is community for you? is it important to you? do you feel like you need it or are you quite satisfied? let me know what you are thinking.

life to the tune of james taylor.

There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me

do you have a song? is your life a song? i think that mine is. if so, i hope that i take it to the highway and the sea. where am i in my song? am i singing it or is someone else writing it for me? i hope that i am writing it.

right now it feels like it is written in the minor key. plodding and dark and mysterious. will it suddenly brighten up like the chorale in beethoven's 9th? i guess my song has multiple movements. there are so many ways to think about this.

...i wonder in what movement my song becomes a duet...

rain

well, this looks like the third post in a week. i better be careful or this might become a pattern.

we got some rain yesterday and we are getting a lot today. sometimes it is coming down hard, other times it is just drizzling. right now it is pouring. as i look out the windows of the cafe, i am thrust into thought. i like the rain. i didn't always. i never minded the rain, but it wasn't until living in germany and encountering day upon day of rain that i developed a fondness for it. i like it because it calms things. it slows things down. it quiets. it washes and cleans. it floods and takes away. it now reminds me of germany.

to have a cup of coffee, a glass of wine and be in front of a fire reading a book and listening to jazz. ah, that is refreshing. soul soothing. sometimes i wish it would rain in my heart and soul. to wash away the dirt and make it calm and quiet. to pull me out of myself and wash me towards love and grace.

PS. as i sit here and write this i wish that you would walk through that door. you, a dear friend that i long to talk to, but you live elsewhere. colorado, wisconsin, texas, germany, minnesota, ireland, and spread many other places. may god bless all of you.

stream

not really sure what to write about which means i probably shouldn't but maybe i will try this stream of consciousness style. so here goes...

have you ever noticed that life keeps going? we wish it would slow down in those amazing and special times. we wish it would skip or speed up in the hard and painful times. time doesn't seem to listen, it just goes. it doesn't try to be hurtful or to rush our lives. it is steady, reliable and always...on-time.

so how do we react. should we relish the pain or suckiness? should we breeze through that amazing little glimpse of beauty? those are the times i would love time to stop and just relax. the beauty. whether it is the walk outside amongst the hills or the cup of coffee with that amazing person across the table.

they say that there is beauty in pain, but i am not sure that we can see that in the middle of the trial. it seems that the beauty shows itself when we look back on the pain and uncover the layers of dirt and tears. the beauty is there, but much harder to find. usually more beautiful that the good times, but still hard.

our lives just keep going. the falls and rises and moves of the painter. i just hope that a bright colour is going to start soon.

the movement of life

though weighed down in breath, is lightened by love.

life can be described by many things. it can be a journey, it can be a symphony. it can be a struggle, or a joy. many of these are just moments in life. or maybe life is just a movement of a symphony that is so much bigger than us.

this movement goes up and down. it grows and settles, it hurries and slows. one thing that slows it is breath. the daily routine of life. it is steady and doesn't alter, we go through the same things every day. It is part of the rhythm of life and it can weigh us down. we can easily get bogged down with the little routines and lose sight of the larger movement.

what can pulls us out of this daily dirge? love. it can lighten our day and make us realize that there are things much bigger than us and our days going on. it guides us toward the big picture and pulls us out of our daily grind and into thinking about how we can add to the beautiful movement that is life.

so what can you do to add to the beautiful movement of life?

cynicism

Conan O'Brien, on the last night of his show, before NBC kicked him out made this quote.

"All I ask of you, especially young people...is one thing. Please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism; it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you, amazing things will happen."

I have been thinking a lot about this. Why? Primarily because in many ways, i am a cynic. I don't like to label myself that way, but it is true. I am. I tend to look through cynical eyes. Not really at the world that I directly interact with, but the larger world out there. So while I am not cynical towards the people that i know, I can be very cynical towards government and media and many of those larger groups.

And on top of that, for the most part, I agree with Conan. I think that he is right. Cynicism does not lead anywhere. It only traps us in a spiral of dis-enjoyment. In the worse case, it just leads to apathy. Now while I am no where near apathetic, I do see that in myself every once in a while.

So how do I change? What steps can I take towards being less cynical? I am not sure, but I am sure that acknowledging it is a good step into the process. So we shall see where it goes.

walking on sunshine

today is one of those days where i am reminded of my relationary status or shall we say, lack of relationary status. it is something that i don't usually dwell on but at the same time don't enjoy. i am in my thirties and have walked through a good portion of my adult life alone.

it is harder than i wish it was, but at the same time i have done things that i am pretty sure i would not have done if i was married. i always thought that i would be married pretty close to after college, but that has not happened.

so when will i 'walk on sunshine'? will it ever happen? i don't know, maybe it will, maybe it won't. i do know that i have a great desire for it to happen. but that doesn't really count or matter in the games of love. it seems that this is one area of life that you can't make things happen. you can help yourself, but many other factors are there too.

i will continue to walk. hopefully in a direction and in a somewhat forward direction. and soon i hope to walk with another through this life.

there's no other place

that i'd rather be, than safe in the arms, the arms of my saviour.

so what do you think about that? in the good times we would all say yes. in the bad times? is that really where we think it is best or is that just our sunday school heads talking? i know that i am not sure that is where i want to be right now. there seems to be a lot of frustration there. now i know that he can take it, but i am not sure that i want to be there or can take that dialog. that doesn't feel like a very relxaing place to be right now.

but...

am i there anyway? did i make a decision a while ago to always be there? maybe he doesn't want me to be anywhere else. so whether or not i at any moment feel like i want to be there, he is so glad that i am there. there just seem to be two points of view to look at this from. either way, i know that it makes my head spin.

so it is time for a new look

i have never changed the look of this thing. i figured that it was time for a new title and look. also, i believe a new direction. i am not positive on this, but i think that i may move towards the topcis of the journey that we are all on. the highs, the lows, the struggles, the victories.

a bit more reflective, but also maybe still a bit random. i haven't thought this out completely so it may not work, but we shall see what happens.

i do know that the title reflects the ideas that i am trying to show. so stop by every once in a while and maybe something will touch you and bring ideas to you as to ways to walk through the journey together.

A New Year

sort of forgot about this thing over the holidays, but now that is over and the new year is here, i thought that i would reflect a bit. at the last new year's i knew that 2009 would be a challenge. i was in germany and knew that in june i would be leaving a place that i had lived for three years. i would be stepping back into the world of a beat up economy and joblessness. i didn't know if something would come quick or if it would be a long painful process. i didn't know how transition would be moving back from a foreign country to the one of my birth. well how has it been? in two words...

it sucks.

germany ended up grandly with me enjoying it more than i had. then i came back to the states. it seemed that everything has crashed and burned since. it is january now and all i have managed is to scrape together a 15 hour a week part time job. i have been on many interviews and application processes and it has led to a big naught.

the transition back has been what i expected it to be, but without a very important part. community. i expected that i would have after 7 months developed a starting group of friends but there is a big nothing through. transition really sucks without walking through it with others.

i feel like i have been utterly abandoned. for all the times of my life this seems like it has been the worst. there are very few bright spots and life is hard and vastly unrewarding. i can't believe that i have been asked to do this alone. that is not the way it was meant to be.

i know that most of my 1.5 readership does not want to read this, but i am sick of being fake to people who expect me to give the fake answers. sometimes i just need to be real in my answers. so move on and know that this will not be a continuing aspect of this site.

i do need to be grateful for some things. i do have a roof over my head, my family still loves and cares for me. i still have my health. but that doesn't change my situation and the abandonment that i feel.

Eclecticism

Recently I was sure what kind of musical mood I was in, so I went through my iPod and picked out songs that I felt like listening to. Out came an interesting list. Here it is...

Mika - Relax, Take it Easy
Moby - Natural Blues
Muse - Map of the Problematique
Radiohead - All I Need
Regina Spektor - My Dear Acquaintance
Robert Randolph & the Family Band - I Need More Love
The Script - Before the Worst
Tears for Fears - Shout
Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde
Weezer - Hash Pipe
Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer
Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Every Time it Rains
Jordan Sparks & Chris Brown - No Air
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Interpol - Untitled
Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
Fugees - Killing Me Softly with His Song
Dave Matthews Band - Grey Street
David Crowder Band - Church Music-Dance!
The Cure - Friday I'm in Love
The Cranberries - Ode to My Family
Beck - Go It Alone
The Beatles - Come Together
Andy Hunter - Lifelight
Anberlin - Paperthin Hymn
Aqualung - Brighter than Sunshine
Bob Marley - Is this Love?
Counting Crows - Raining in Baltimore