This week was a rough week in a lot of ways. Some of it was good, but by today I was completely worn out. Just being over-worked and not being able to get a solid night's sleep on top of that was pretty hard, but on top of that, Matt got in an accident last night that put him in the hospital. He's doing okay now and he got out last night, but he got pinned by a truck into the hotel where he works, where I used to work. Nothing is broken, but he's so badly bruised that he can't walk. We've all been there at Catherine's place where he is staying for most of the day just keeping them company. I feel bad for the guy, but I know he'll be up and about soon.
I slept for a good while today. I slept in and then I took a nap a few hours later. When I woke up from that I had a hard time functioning, keeping my balance, thinking and speaking clearly for a couple of hours. I don't know what was wrong with me. I bought some melatonin today to help me get on a better sleep schedule, so we'll see if that helps. I just want an honest to God vacation right now. I just need to be able to relax and get stuff off of my mind. Moving, taxes, being fulfilled by my current job. I am an ambitious person, and the fact that I'm not living that right now is really starting to grind on my nerves.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Evil Alarm Clock
The alarm clock is owning my soul right now. I just can't wake up by it anymore. I put it across the room and nothing happens, and if I set it to be loud enough it will wake up my roommates before it wakes me up. I don't know what to do about it right now. I think I'm going to set my phone for a little while and then set my alarm clock to go off right at the very last minute that I can afford to wake up at so that I don't hit snooze over and over again. That can be a big problem. My body just won't wake up if I train it to go right back to sleep when my alarm goes off. Crap!
I've been working out a lot, but today I took a break. I'm already starting to see physical differences, but I'm mostly going for strength and endurance. I just want to feel better, long story short.
Work has been difficult too. We've been in a crunch all week because some folks can't get their act together. I'll probably say something I would regret if I were to publicly vent for too long. Let's just say that we've been working long hours and they might have us come in on Saturday. I hat that. I haven't slept in for so long. I just want one day to sleep in till noon and I'll be great!
I also have a date tomorrow night. I know you might be thinking it's a bit early, but honestly I really don't feel any baggage anymore. She's a great girl that I met at church, and I'm really excited to get to know her. I was kinda surprised that I asked her out when I did. I didn't expect myself to, but it just hit me all of a sudden.
Too tired to write very much.
I've been working out a lot, but today I took a break. I'm already starting to see physical differences, but I'm mostly going for strength and endurance. I just want to feel better, long story short.
Work has been difficult too. We've been in a crunch all week because some folks can't get their act together. I'll probably say something I would regret if I were to publicly vent for too long. Let's just say that we've been working long hours and they might have us come in on Saturday. I hat that. I haven't slept in for so long. I just want one day to sleep in till noon and I'll be great!
I also have a date tomorrow night. I know you might be thinking it's a bit early, but honestly I really don't feel any baggage anymore. She's a great girl that I met at church, and I'm really excited to get to know her. I was kinda surprised that I asked her out when I did. I didn't expect myself to, but it just hit me all of a sudden.
Too tired to write very much.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Cynical but Hopeful
Church was good this morning. I got to sing in the choir, and even though I'm a first tenner and I was singing bass, I still had a good time. I like singing more than I like most things, especially with other people who sing well.
The sermon was good. I have heard the resurrection story so many times, but I still get something new from it each time. I do have hope for the church. I know last night I seemed a little cynical, and I might be just a bit, but I still maintain a level of hope, not invested in men, but in God's continued supervision and promise to keep the Church in His hands.
I know that there are many strong Christians out there who know exactly who they are in Christ and what living after the Father means. And every church will have it's problems. It's pretty difficult for men to grasp every aspect of the Truth. We tend to just pick parts and pieces and be satisfied with what we can contain.
My parents are here today, and it has been a much needed visit. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving, so we have a lot of catching up to do.
Oh yeah. I just received my first official music business check! I'm pretty pumped about that! I'm putting it in the bank tomorrow, and even though Uncle Sam will draw it from me like thick blood, I still enjoyed making it. Hope to make more.
Everything is good right now. I feel a strong sense of peace and patience. I know that doesn't always last forever, but I hope to hold on to it as best I can.
The sermon was good. I have heard the resurrection story so many times, but I still get something new from it each time. I do have hope for the church. I know last night I seemed a little cynical, and I might be just a bit, but I still maintain a level of hope, not invested in men, but in God's continued supervision and promise to keep the Church in His hands.
I know that there are many strong Christians out there who know exactly who they are in Christ and what living after the Father means. And every church will have it's problems. It's pretty difficult for men to grasp every aspect of the Truth. We tend to just pick parts and pieces and be satisfied with what we can contain.
My parents are here today, and it has been a much needed visit. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving, so we have a lot of catching up to do.
Oh yeah. I just received my first official music business check! I'm pretty pumped about that! I'm putting it in the bank tomorrow, and even though Uncle Sam will draw it from me like thick blood, I still enjoyed making it. Hope to make more.
Everything is good right now. I feel a strong sense of peace and patience. I know that doesn't always last forever, but I hope to hold on to it as best I can.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Easter and Good Television
I've decided that, at least in what I have seen through life, God does not make good television. I'm not trying to say that the work God does isn't interesting, but it doesn't make good television in the sense of what we are used to and what we expect in our culture, in our daily lives.
We are a deprived people, starving for intense emotion, something that pulls for more of us than our jobs, our daily routines. We tend to find that in television. It takes us away from reality and puts us in situations of intensity and sensation that we probably wouldn't encounter without writers and producers of our own.
So we expect sensationalism and intensity from God because we are immersed in it from every other angle in life, so why not from God? But in my experience, it just doesn't happen the way Hollywood would design. Sometimes the heroes in our lives die unexpectedly, sometimes we keep the jobs we don't really want, and there really isn't a musical score to everything we do. There tends to be less blood, thoughts and words seem a little scattered and there's a lot to dig through, it doesn't always sit on the surface.
But what we do as Christians today is we feel like God maybe left that part out. So here we go trying to fill in all of the "boring Gospel" with pumped up intensity. Mars Hill Church in Seattle evidently crucified one of their church members for thirty minutes. I don't know if they actually physically nailed him to a cross, but I know that there was a violence warning in attending the service. I've installed million dollar audio visual systems in some churches and I've seen similar set ups in many others. I've been to churches that use laser lights and fog machines during their worship services. All of that on top of the quirky bumper stickers that slay evolutionist self-esteem and warn people of the hazards of driving during the rapture, combined with our own books, music, schools, and cloths (food maybe?). We have turned the power and majesty of God into another item we can wear on our belts like an iPod or a cell phone.
I understand why this movement started. Relevance. People wanted to feel relevant in our world for following Christ. I can understand that desire. We started off as the underdog with "Jesus Saves" and the music that was aimed at praising God in a more modern form. Christians wanted it to be cool to be Christian by definition from society. But that developed into something destructive which is still taking its toll today. It gave birth to a cause that is completely scripturally unsound. Protect the culture, save Christ from the darkness of the world.
I am reminded of Peter in the garden when Jesus was taken. We remember that during this time of year. Peter was outraged, grabbed a sword, and struck off the ear of one of the guards that held Jesus. But Jesus didn't run away or give Peter a trendy high-five. Jesus looked at Peter, had him put down his sword, and then healed the Roman soldier.
We are now like Peter. We're a little slow, overly confident in our own importance in the execution of God's design. We set targets on those who would lay siege to Christ and we lift up our swords in the name of protecting Him and our children. Gays, liberals, Disney, Islam, Immigrants. We fight them on a daily basis because they wish to corrupt us, destroy us, separate us.
"What the democrats don't understand is that the Bible supports war." I heard a co-worker say with a confident smile on his face. War, after all, is intense and brave and sensational.
But what a sad thing to hear. A Christian proclaiming a message that completely disregards the Gospel. The Bible did support war. The Old Testament is full of the destruction of those who opposed Christ. But then the defining moment for us, especially the Gentiles, occurred. It was the death and resurrection of God's only Son. Before that, we too would have been considered in opposition to God. We were not His chosen people. This is the New Testament, God's wrath laid to rest through the death of His Son Jesus Christ. Because of that, we were given the gift of selfless love that would have us lay down our lives in the faces of our enemies. It would have us love our Children and teach them to do likewise. We cannot hate in the name of them. That is not Christ. Protection by love and by faith, rejoicing in persecution because in our weakness, God's strength is made complete. That is the Gospel.
If Jesus were here among us in the flesh, do you think He would be attacking the Gays, leading the Republican party, stomping out sinners left and right in the name of protecting our Children? I read the New Testament and I just can't find that image of Christ anywhere. What I do find, however, is frightening. It is Christ's contempt towards the religious leaders who should have known everything about who He would be, but got so lost in ideas, images, and laws that they not only didn't recognize him when He came, but they had the Romans kill him.
If Christ was here today and he allowed a gay man to wash his feet with his tears, if he went to bars to love the broken, if he stopped off in a half-way house for dinner, would we recognize him? I really believe that we would have a hard time because the Gospel I read does not show the kind of Jesus that we proclaim to the world through our actions as the American Church. So perhaps if He hypothetically did come again subtly, maybe we wouldn't see him so clearly. Perhaps we would put him off and wait for what we idealize in our minds as the "real thing". Is that so outrageous to believe that we are any less sinful, any less human than the people who cried out for the Son of God's blood over 2000 years ago?
Scary thing to think about here on this Easter morning.
We are a deprived people, starving for intense emotion, something that pulls for more of us than our jobs, our daily routines. We tend to find that in television. It takes us away from reality and puts us in situations of intensity and sensation that we probably wouldn't encounter without writers and producers of our own.
So we expect sensationalism and intensity from God because we are immersed in it from every other angle in life, so why not from God? But in my experience, it just doesn't happen the way Hollywood would design. Sometimes the heroes in our lives die unexpectedly, sometimes we keep the jobs we don't really want, and there really isn't a musical score to everything we do. There tends to be less blood, thoughts and words seem a little scattered and there's a lot to dig through, it doesn't always sit on the surface.
But what we do as Christians today is we feel like God maybe left that part out. So here we go trying to fill in all of the "boring Gospel" with pumped up intensity. Mars Hill Church in Seattle evidently crucified one of their church members for thirty minutes. I don't know if they actually physically nailed him to a cross, but I know that there was a violence warning in attending the service. I've installed million dollar audio visual systems in some churches and I've seen similar set ups in many others. I've been to churches that use laser lights and fog machines during their worship services. All of that on top of the quirky bumper stickers that slay evolutionist self-esteem and warn people of the hazards of driving during the rapture, combined with our own books, music, schools, and cloths (food maybe?). We have turned the power and majesty of God into another item we can wear on our belts like an iPod or a cell phone.
I understand why this movement started. Relevance. People wanted to feel relevant in our world for following Christ. I can understand that desire. We started off as the underdog with "Jesus Saves" and the music that was aimed at praising God in a more modern form. Christians wanted it to be cool to be Christian by definition from society. But that developed into something destructive which is still taking its toll today. It gave birth to a cause that is completely scripturally unsound. Protect the culture, save Christ from the darkness of the world.
I am reminded of Peter in the garden when Jesus was taken. We remember that during this time of year. Peter was outraged, grabbed a sword, and struck off the ear of one of the guards that held Jesus. But Jesus didn't run away or give Peter a trendy high-five. Jesus looked at Peter, had him put down his sword, and then healed the Roman soldier.
We are now like Peter. We're a little slow, overly confident in our own importance in the execution of God's design. We set targets on those who would lay siege to Christ and we lift up our swords in the name of protecting Him and our children. Gays, liberals, Disney, Islam, Immigrants. We fight them on a daily basis because they wish to corrupt us, destroy us, separate us.
"What the democrats don't understand is that the Bible supports war." I heard a co-worker say with a confident smile on his face. War, after all, is intense and brave and sensational.
But what a sad thing to hear. A Christian proclaiming a message that completely disregards the Gospel. The Bible did support war. The Old Testament is full of the destruction of those who opposed Christ. But then the defining moment for us, especially the Gentiles, occurred. It was the death and resurrection of God's only Son. Before that, we too would have been considered in opposition to God. We were not His chosen people. This is the New Testament, God's wrath laid to rest through the death of His Son Jesus Christ. Because of that, we were given the gift of selfless love that would have us lay down our lives in the faces of our enemies. It would have us love our Children and teach them to do likewise. We cannot hate in the name of them. That is not Christ. Protection by love and by faith, rejoicing in persecution because in our weakness, God's strength is made complete. That is the Gospel.
If Jesus were here among us in the flesh, do you think He would be attacking the Gays, leading the Republican party, stomping out sinners left and right in the name of protecting our Children? I read the New Testament and I just can't find that image of Christ anywhere. What I do find, however, is frightening. It is Christ's contempt towards the religious leaders who should have known everything about who He would be, but got so lost in ideas, images, and laws that they not only didn't recognize him when He came, but they had the Romans kill him.
If Christ was here today and he allowed a gay man to wash his feet with his tears, if he went to bars to love the broken, if he stopped off in a half-way house for dinner, would we recognize him? I really believe that we would have a hard time because the Gospel I read does not show the kind of Jesus that we proclaim to the world through our actions as the American Church. So perhaps if He hypothetically did come again subtly, maybe we wouldn't see him so clearly. Perhaps we would put him off and wait for what we idealize in our minds as the "real thing". Is that so outrageous to believe that we are any less sinful, any less human than the people who cried out for the Son of God's blood over 2000 years ago?
Scary thing to think about here on this Easter morning.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Road
Back on the road again. I love this. I was pretty excited all day about it. The only sad part is... this is the last show. From here I don't know where I'll go next. I'd love to work with them again. I feel like we're family now.
We're headed to Jacksonville Florida right now and I'm in my bunk... Wow... Paul just got in the bunk above me and it started to bow a little bit. That must be normal. I just didn't have anyone sleeping above me last time. But anyways, I'm excited to get there and do the show.
I went back to work out again today even though I was already really soar. You really just have to push through all that to get to the satisfaction of it. I'm still really swollen right now from all the blood in my muscles. It'll be gone by morning, otherwise I might be fooled into thinking that I had physical alteration after two days of working out. If my muscles look like this in a few months, though, I'll be in good shape.
Peace and love
We're headed to Jacksonville Florida right now and I'm in my bunk... Wow... Paul just got in the bunk above me and it started to bow a little bit. That must be normal. I just didn't have anyone sleeping above me last time. But anyways, I'm excited to get there and do the show.
I went back to work out again today even though I was already really soar. You really just have to push through all that to get to the satisfaction of it. I'm still really swollen right now from all the blood in my muscles. It'll be gone by morning, otherwise I might be fooled into thinking that I had physical alteration after two days of working out. If my muscles look like this in a few months, though, I'll be in good shape.
Peace and love
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
I just got home from a pretty action-packed day. I got a small injury at work today. Cut my thumb open while operating the drill press. It's deep, but it will heal.
I met up with Paul today to work out again. I'm in the hurt right now, but I've always said it is a good pain, probably the only kind of pain I could say that I enjoy. After that we went to a Japanese restaurant and talked about life for a while. I'm learning to let go of my failures and guilt. I'm really just trying to learn to love myself. I think that in my last relationship it really showed up in a strong way that I was incapable of receiving love because I couldn't love myself. I've always struggled with that and I don't know why.
So I'm entering into a new season where I focus on how I can love myself without becoming arrogant and/or too wild and crazy. I am also working hard at denying myself the desire to enter into another relationship until I've made some headway.
I'm tired. Bed
I met up with Paul today to work out again. I'm in the hurt right now, but I've always said it is a good pain, probably the only kind of pain I could say that I enjoy. After that we went to a Japanese restaurant and talked about life for a while. I'm learning to let go of my failures and guilt. I'm really just trying to learn to love myself. I think that in my last relationship it really showed up in a strong way that I was incapable of receiving love because I couldn't love myself. I've always struggled with that and I don't know why.
So I'm entering into a new season where I focus on how I can love myself without becoming arrogant and/or too wild and crazy. I am also working hard at denying myself the desire to enter into another relationship until I've made some headway.
I'm tired. Bed
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Oversleeping
I went back to the gym today. I felt like I needed to do something besides sit at home on my ass after work. I know I do physical labor, but maybe this way I'll double my gain. I just remember looking in the mirror and thinking to myself, "Wow, I have really let myself go." That's the first time I've ever really felt like that, but it's true. I've been lazy and haven't done much to keep in shape.
I think the first thing you have to do before you go to the gym is not necessarily be happy with what you look like, but be happy with who you are. Being unhappy with what you look like in context with who you are and your individual physical potential is what working out resolves.
I've been exhausted at work, mentally. I'm getting really frustrated, but I'm hanging in there. I overslept my alarm clock for the second time in a row today though. I've got to figure something out before I get fired.
I think the first thing you have to do before you go to the gym is not necessarily be happy with what you look like, but be happy with who you are. Being unhappy with what you look like in context with who you are and your individual physical potential is what working out resolves.
I've been exhausted at work, mentally. I'm getting really frustrated, but I'm hanging in there. I overslept my alarm clock for the second time in a row today though. I've got to figure something out before I get fired.
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