Late night thoughts from the slouch on the couch...

I have been realizing lately a lot of things about myself. Some things are little, others insignificant, others painful, all the product of having tons of time to think about myself. Two days before Christmas now, and I think I have just enough brain power left in me tonight to post some fragments that have been floating around in my brain.

Fragments like this:

*I love to use "....."s They are fun. And a good way to drift off into nothingness. Now, when I am talking to you in person, text, email, twitter, and you notice a pause, there is an unwritten ellipsis there. Whoops, you know my secret now. Oh well...
*I have a natural tendency to be gloomy, depressed, depressing, discouraging, etc. And I am in a dangerous place, because something in me likes to be in that state. Maybe it's because of the attention I get from acting that way, maybe it's because gloominess has a lot of music that goes great with it, but I have been "down" a lot this year. It's definitely because I am a sinful person.
*The times when I am not down are the times when I get my eyes off of myself and on God, and through that on others. The times when I am not focused on myself are the times when I am happiest. And I am happiest when I am making others happy. Even in my "Scrooge" or Eeyore mindsets, making people like my nephews laugh makes me happy.
*I love music. This is not a new revelation. I especially love great music: music that blends artistic instrumentation with well-written words that I can identify with. I will give an example of music like this at the end of this post.
*I get annoyed with people too easily. Way too easily. I think sometimes that I have my emotions and feelings under control and don't realize how wrong I am. When somebody talking too loud gets on my nerves, something is wrong.
*I have an amazing family, no matter how many things are going wrong. I will never fully realize how blessed I am, just like I can never really understand what God has done and is doing for me.
*I am not a very thankful person. It's easy for me to see ungratefulness in others, but I am just as guilty myself.
*I am a sucker for interesting words. Like introspection. Reverberate. Etcetera. Magnetic. That's what words are to me...and perhaps this is why
*I could spend my life in bookstores around the world. I am haunted by the allure of books, music, movies...and this is why I am a shameless Half Price Books addict. I think I have been in a Half Price Books store at least three, maybe 6 times in the last week. And spent a lot of money there, too. I am not just a browser. I am a consumer.
*I care what people think about me. A lot. I will hopefully address this more in another post, but this is the reason that I am deeply saddened when people don't like music I love, when people make fun of me, when I don't fit in or am no longer part of a group or a friendship I have known my whole life.
*I need God. This is what I need the most and forget the most.
*I hate exercise without purpose, or exercise simply for the purpose of exercising. I need a game or sport to occupy my attention and brain.
*I am not going to show you the contents of my thoughts any more tonight.


Here's a song like I was talking about. It's from a beautiful movie called Once (rated R for lots of language) which has an amazing story and incredible music. Highly recommended. However, I am claiming ownership of having found this band in my family: The Swell Season. They are my most listened music currently. There is not a lot of hope in their music, but their most well-known song is probably one that a lot of whoever is reading this blog can identify with: Falling Slowly. Enjoy. And merry Christmas. Maybe I will write a post about Jesus' sacrifice another time.











I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along

Switching things up...

I thought I'd vary the patterns around here and post some pretty sweet quotes from a wide spectrum of people and ideas. And then you can post favorite quotes in the comment section, and it will be fun. Perhaps I'll do some elaborating on some of these quotes, too, but I think I'll just see what keys my fingers hit and go from there.

We'll start off with quotes from a series of movies...try and name them:

"No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, the ones I love will always be the ones who pay…"

"If promises were crackers, my daughter would be fat."

"Whatever comes our way... whatever battle is raging inside us, we always have a choice. My friend ___ taught me that. He chose to be the best of himself. It’s the choices that make us what we are... and we can always choose to do what's right."

What movie series is that from? I inserted quotes from all of the movies in the series. :)

Here are a good few from Ben Franklin:

“If you would not be forgotton as soon as you are dead and rotten, Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

“You may delay, but time will not.”

“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

“Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices”

“What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people, is that they don't want to discourage it completely.”

“Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.”

And then one from J.R.R. Tolkien:

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

A quote post would not be complete without C.S. Lewis:

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Even Robert Louis Stevenson has good things to say:

“The cruelest lies are often told in silence.”

I could go on for a long time with quotes, because God has granted men to think and say some beautiful things. But it's late, and I still have things to do. I think it would be fun if we had a comment sextion on this one and talked about our favorite quotes, so feel free to leave favorite quotes in comments, comment on quotes I put out, and name the movies the first quotes are from. But let's end with this quote:

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control. -Ogden Nash

A Thought Went Up My Mind To-Day

I don't think I've posted Emily here before. And I don't think I've really posted poetry on here for a while either. There is another post inside my head, too...has to do with another thing we have been created for. But it's not ready yet, and I need to appease my avid readership. :) So I give you Emily.She is pretty amazing and there isn't any other poet that writes with the same style of verve. So I hope you like this poem by her. Supposedly, this posthumously famous poet captures the unhealthy adulation of millions of guys who read poetry...I can somewhat see why, but she hasn't gotten me yet. :) So, without further ado, I present:

A Thought Went Up My Mind To-Day
Emily Dickinson

A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish,--some way back,
I could not fix the year,

Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.

But somewhere in my soul, I know
I've met the thing before;
It just reminded me--'t was all--
And came my way no more.

Created For Worship

C.S. Lewis, in his amazing and incomparable The Screwtape Letters, states something that I believe to be very true. In case you aren't familiar with that work, it is (fiction) a series of letters from a senior demon to a lesser demon instructing him how to tempt a new Christian. With that introduction, here is the quotation:

"Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy's ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made all the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable."

What Lewis says there is that Satan has no power to create sin. The only thing that he can do is pervert the things that God made for us, to dazzle us, to show His love to us, into things that change what God meant for good into things that we seek instead of God. Think about that.

Humans were created for worship; this is why we are always looking for something to make us happy, to follow, to get attention, to capture our interest. We were created to be awestruck by the incredible beauty of a God who made a star billions of times bigger than the earth, and we stare at and are instead transfixed by pictures of naked fellow humans, shots of an addicting drug, nicotine, sex, blood, power, money...Can you see the horribleness of what we all engage in daily?

What God created to show us how much He loves us we have transformed (with Satan's help and guidance) into many things that can instead replace God in our lives. We become addicted to drugs that cannot last. The pleasure will never, ever, last long enough for us. I think we're all addicted to something, whether we realize it or not. We just view some addictions more seriously than others, and rightly so. But we can also be addicted to attention of others, addicted to the feelings we get when others say good things about us, addicted to food, sex, money, power. If we look closely, I think we should all be able to see at least one thing in our lives that we are addicted to and worship, sometimes subconsciously. The horrible thing is that we can tell God we love Him and want to honor Him and serve ourselves and our wants at the same time, being double-minded. This is the result of a sinful nature, but blaming our sin on that isn't the route to freedom. I have to accept the consequences for choices I make, and nobody else makes those choices for me.

The only way to conquer addiction is to be addicted something better. There is only one addiction better than all of the things we worship instead of that one, and you all know what that is. We need to be addicted to God, and the love and life He alone can give. It's not an easy thing, and I am in no way far along that path. I need to learn to love God and hate sin as much as anybody in the world. These are just the musings of an addicted human being who will only break free with supernatural intervention. It's a good thing that God promises to intervene, and has.

Jesus is here! Love has come!

We were created for worship. It is in our nature and being to worship something. What are you worshiping? Who are you worshiping? Jesus is the Author, Perfecter, and Star of the show. He deserves so much more than I can give, and yet I don't even give Him everything I have to give. This post is a challenge more to me than many of you.

Left and Leaving

I'm breaking my long silence again, obviously. I thought I would let my subscribers/readers know what is going on in my life, albeit not completely. :)
From late August to the first week of November, I worked for Novo Ministries, a non-profit, non-denominational group in Oklahoma City that does amazing work for the inner city kids of that city through Bible Clubs during the school year and two weeks of camp in the summer. I graduated from high school in July, and headed down there less than two months later, leaving behind friends, family, school (yes!), and everything I had known. Without knowing it or thinking about it, I was taking the advice of Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors. In one of his books, Through Painted Deserts, he talks about the trip he took across the country, away from everything and everybody he had known. In the preface, this is what he says:

"It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."

This summer, I found God, in a way I had never experienced before. And God wanted me to go to Oklahoma. I went, and saw God some more, and got to know some really amazing people and really needy kids, and made some mistakes, too. Because of those mistakes, I am back here. And it's true, what Donald Miller says, that I am changed, and everything else has stayed mostly the same. Everything is still here. I am different. Nobody really understands what was my life for months, and I can't and shouldn't expect them to, because they weren't there.

I'm thankful for the time I had there, really thankful. I think and hope I left everything with everybody down there on the best terms I could. I'd like to go back, but right now, I am back in Kansas City, and I know that God has plans for me here now too. I think a lot of His plan right now is for me to grow in serving and trusting. I don't have a job, and I'm not in school, so obviously I have a lot of down time. I am necessarily having to stick around my house and my family a lot, and there's not much for me to do other than serve them, so this is good for me.

I left, and ended up leaving what I went when I left.

Here's an amazing song by the Weakerthans of the same name.



Lyrics:

My city's still breathing (but barely it's true)
through buildings gone missing like teeth.
The sidewalks are watching me think about you,
sparkled with broken glass.
I'm back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know
Will never take me anywhere but here.
The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand,
the strangers whose faces I know.
We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say " I wanted it this way"
Wait for the year to drown.
Spring forward, fall back down.
I'm trying not to wonder where you are.
All this time lingers, undefined.
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving.
Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:
a blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest,
the best parts of Lonely, duct-tape and soldered wires,
new words for old desires,
and every birthday card I threw away.
I wait in 4/4 time.
Count yellow highway lines that your relying on will lead you home.

Text messages, volleyball, halloween.

I drove to the gym on a beautiful day, the 31st of October, All Hallow's Eve. I got there early, sitting in my red monster outside waiting for the side door of the YMCA to be propped open so the illegal activity could begin. I messed around on my phone waiting until the time to start came, and then it came. As the sun set, the games began, on the last day of the month, on the last day of the old time.
Setting foot inside of the gym, I noticed it was unusually bare of the regular players. And I had thought Halloween was for little kids. The games began and ended. At the end of what made a game, the players walked underneath the net, following protocol. I watch as we all walk like zombies for our cell phones to check our addicting texting habits and whatever else comes our way. I had never thought I would be one of the mindless mob who move through life staring at a 3 inch screen. I have become one, an undead walking among my fellow undead. The lights of those who aren't infected by the disease are growing dimmer and fewer. What has become of us, the sad people who stumble through life following whatever trend is new, whatever style is next, whatever drug is pleasurable? Why can't we see how enslaved we are? Could we make it through a week without a text? Are you aware of what you have become? The facts are sobering when seen for what they are.

Into the Valley of Death...

This is one of the poems I grew up on...the rhythm and repetitiveness are effective and part of what makes it a great classic poem. Think about it...


Charge of the Light Brigade-Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Sometimes the best thing to do is do something and not think about how stupid it seems. There is Somebody who knows what He is doing in charge, even when it seems like a mistake.