May 4, 2012
Feeling the walls for a light switch.

I believe we are in an age where affirmation comes cheap and the tensile strength of our identity has been eroded. We’ve got a hundred media outlets and a hundred ways to synthesize love But, guns don’t kill people and spoons don’t us fat. Our brokenness does. To blame our ever-increased appetite for affirmation on social media is to avoid the responsibility to do something about it.

What really happens is - broken people continue to break broken people, developing into a symbiotic co-dependency fueled by insecurity and quick-fix complements. We constantly need to know how we’re doing, to know that we’re good looking, to know that our lives are interesting, to know that we have friends and are loved. To know that we’ve made the right choices - that we’re going the right way.

Most of us are so deeply affected by our need for affirmation that we have no idea how much agency it has in our lives. Unknowingly, we steer our conversations toward it until satisfying the ache in our ego becomes the primary criteria for making decisions.

We’re alone, in a dark room, “feel[ing] the walls for a light switch” (Billy Collins)

“Am I good?”
“Am I loved?”
“Am I okay?”

12:06am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwKrCkXT
May 2, 2012
Dear, writing.

There’s a cold compelling to writing. To push this bastard cursor across the screen. Anything to keep his awful foot from tapping at you. Judging. Write? Write! Write.


Right?

To writing in general - I love you. Also, I hate you. And I hate that I love you - truly, I do. My career suffers because of you. I’d love to talk about sports, about politics, about… anything but the way that last email could have been made clearer. You have made me a jealous lover. Jealous of those you spend more time with, of those you seem to love more. The way you dance so effortlessly with them; mocking our own labored tete a tetes.

You, writing, can stop with your pretense. With your demands, with your INSISTENT TAPPING. I’m thinking of something… okay? Why don’t you do some of the heavy lifting for once? Some catharsis you are. Some beautiful parasite.

Even now, I cannot draw my eyes from the fact that “beautiful” contains three vowels in a row.

Three out of five and sometimes “Y.” You can’t commit to anything. 

9:56pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwKmycaW
November 26, 2011
Good Will Hunting - Favorite Movie - Favorite Quote

Chuckie: All right, are we gonna have a problem?
Clark: There’s no problem. I was just hoping you could give me some insight into the evolution of the market economy in the southern colonies. My contention is that prior to the Revolutionary War the economic modalities, especially of the southern colonies could most aptly be characterized as agrarian pre-capitalist and…
Will: [interrupting] Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first year grad student. You just got finished some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob’ly, you’re gonna be convinced of that until next month when you get to James Lemon, then you’re gonna be talkin’ about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That’s gonna last until next year, you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin’ about you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.
Clark: [taken aback] Well, as a matter of fact, I won’t, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of—
Will: …”Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth…” You got that from Vickers. “Work in Essex County,” Page 98, right? Yeah I read that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us- you have any thoughts of- of your own on this matter? Or do- is that your thing, you come into a bar, you read some obscure passage and then you pretend- you pawn it off as your own- your own idea just to impress some girls? Embarrass my friend?
[Clark is stunned]
Will: See the sad thing about a guy like you, is in about 50 years you’re gonna start doin’ some thinkin’ on your own and you’re gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don’t do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f*ckin’ education you coulda’ got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.
Clark: Yeah, but I will have a degree, and you’ll be serving my kids fries at a drive-thru on our way to a skiing trip.
Will: [smiles] Yeah, maybe. But at least I won’t be unoriginal.

4:26pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwCSbgdV
November 19, 2011
A Story About a Roadrunner

My men’s group is reading Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldridge. It’s great so far, we’ve only been through the first two chapters.

The book leads off with a chapter about the playfulness of God - about how everything that exists in nature is also there throughout our stories, throughout normal human interactions. If you’ve read Wild at Heart, you know John Eldridge is a man about this stuff.

So, today, I’m driving to Subway, lamenting the end of the $5.00 footlong month and I look ahead to see a small, startlingly-fast vision moving across the street. As I came closer, I realized it was…

A roadrunner.

In the middle of suburbia. And not only was it a roadrunner, he was… Running. Across. The. Road.

A roadrunner!

It was perfect, it was everything I wanted it to be. It was a bird running across the road. And so, with Eldridge’s message still fresh in my mind - I began to analyze what kind of story God could be telling me about the roadrunner.

I was looking for poetry in a bird running across the road.

So, I asked God about it. (By now, you’re starting to think that I’m taking this too seriously, and I accept that. )

“What is he running from? what am I running from? Where’s he going? Where am I going?”

And so, I drove on, my questions unanswered, the poetry unfound.

So, I imagined asking Him directly. - The God of the universe, the creator of the cosmos, I imagined asking Him what the roadrunner was about.

I’d walk up the steps of some regal palace, peering inside, I’d clear my throat…

“What about the roadrunner, God?”

God, reclining in a plaid La-Z-Boy – would turn to me, mouth full of chips as he reached to turn down the volume on the game on TV.

“I don’t know” He’d shrug

“I just thought it’d be funny. Like, a roadrunner, you know? Flightless birds are always funny. And, running across the road? It’s the weekend, why not?”

And, He’d turn back to the game, smirking, satisfied with himself.

A roadrunner.

7:01pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwC8xuy7
November 17, 2011
A Prayer against Striving

God, give me the discernment to know what it is you’re building in me. In the discomfort and in the ease. 

God, give me the strength to sit with the fear or whatever it is, to see it for what it is and to know where it comes from. I’ll need a lot of grace today.  

And, God - give me the joy to feel the full weight of each minute, and faith to know that you’re at work in me and in the world. Thank you for being exactly who you say you are.

I’m prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. So, God, give me the presence to stay here.

11:36am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwC2assj
November 17, 2011
Striver

I am a striver.

I’m sure there’s a truer, more poetic word for it, but right now they escape me. What I mean is that I’m constantly thinking about the next “thing.” The next job, the next car, the job after that, and the family after that. And, what I don’t mean is that I’m some nobly ambitious achiever. By “striving” I mean that I spend too mich time consumed by my plans, with myself.

At any given point throughout the day, I’m pretty much thinking five steps ahead of that moment. It’s a thin, flimsy way of escaping the pressures of the present. And it’s deeply exhausting.

Because, for me – when I’m planning things, when I’m designing some kind of life-schematic, all I’m really trying to do is massage away the discomfort of life. I’m building a defense against the normal, predictable (and sometimes beautiful) discomfort that’s simply just a part of the human condition - so long as we’re confined to space and time. Really, I’m trying to avoid pain.

Because, I think that at the root of striving is fear -fear that now is not enough. Fear that today is not as good as tomorrow could be.

And so, there’s these moments that happen throughout the ebb and flow of regular, everyday life where maybe there’s a chance to carve some definition into my character. Where, maybe there’s something I’m supposed to find there in the valley, but instead of learning and growing, I make action steps and follow-up plans and start building my home in those castles in the air.

It feels like I’m laying foundations to a dream, but if I’m honest, it’s mostly a retreat to momentary escapism.

2:02am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwC1ynSK
November 16, 2011
On Scars and Passports

My legs are mangled.

They work fine, thank God. But they’re chewed up. Also gone is my leg-modeling career. My back, too, I hear. Anatomy won’t let me see it, so i trust in mirrors and friend’s evaluations.

So I look at my legs - scribbles on my skin, they remind me a little about my stupidity, and a lot about grace.

They tell me a story about the rocks I hit. About the rocks that weren’t where my head was, that weren’t where my spine was. They talk about the quad that rolled over me, 400 pounds of snorting steel and temperature .

Honestly, I don’t remember much of the story, I remember going too fast and the brakes struggling against the speed. But, it looks like my legs do, so maybe that’s what they’re good for. To tell our stories to us when we forget.

Because, these scars, they don’t happen in the accident, or in the fight - they come in healing - after we feel the full breath of the assignment. Scars tell a story sealed by way of promise - that this one is over.

And, though I know there will be more - before this body is through with me, I’ll collect them like stamps in a well-travelled passport.

Because there will be a last stop. And, I’ll jump down from the train, worn from travel.

“Show me your papers” someone will say. And I will.

2:16am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwB-N5YR
November 12, 2011
Grocery Stores and Growing Up

You know those times when you walk into the grocery store, and you walk by the available carts and baskets because you’re only going to “grab a few things.”

And before you have time to think about it, you’ve got a roll of aluminum foil, ‘three-for-$5.00’ freezer-food entrees, a toothpaste tube wedged between your knees and a bunch of bananas balanced on your elbow….

That’s kind of what growing up feels like.

9:57pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwBs7JPQ
(Notes: 1)
  
November 9, 2011
Too Much Talking

I used to talk a lot. I still do, but I used to, too. If you know where that stolen-modified joke comes from, we should probably get a beer soon.

I’ve been making an intentional effort to talk less - not talk with people less, and not talking to less peole, but to reduce the amount of time I spend in the game.

Without pandering to false humility, I’m just realizing that the more time I spend serving the ball, the more I miss my target. It’s a numbers game - the more I speak, the higher probability there is of my saying something loose or careless or hurtful. And, it’s better for me anyway to share conversations with a quiet mind.

And some of my favorite moments in the small shelf of eternity I’ve occupied have. been when I was able to dive deep into the stories of someone I love.

But, I’ve been a balloon lately and I can’t dive as a balloon - especially when my own hot air prevents it.

10:33pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwBkAbKP
November 8, 2011
A practical list of things I want.

I wrote today - I promise. It was a good post and I’m proud of it. Rather than posting it or canonizing it into the NBF herald, I decided to take a risk and submit to one of my favorite bloggers as a guest post. I suppose it’s no risk at all, he could hate it and I’ll just end up posting it next week. 

So, in the vein of many of the NovemberBlogfest peeps who’ve written in list-form, I submit to you a no-order, un-hierarchical list of some five year goals.

Work remotely 
Live within walking/bike-riding distance from work (if previous goal doesn’t pan out)
Get married
Finish some kind of grad school
Become debt-free
Complete 50 consecutive pull-ups
Speak somewhere (publicly, formally) about Jesus
Publish a something
Visit another country alone
Giveaway 50% of a year’s income
Meet regularly with a mentor
Spend a week’s vacation on my Dad
Write a letter to every friend I have
Live somewhere greener, near water
Complete a marathon
Failing a marathon, complete a Tough Mudder event

It feels daunting, reading those goals. They sound lovely, if not almost impossible. Then, I think about five years - a whole half decade. Enough time, right? And then, I think about five years ago - me, twenty three years old. So much has come and gone since then and I’ve accomplished remarkably less than the above list. 

This life thing, it comes at us fast and leaves us even faster. May each of us feel the full grace of each of the moments in between. 

Now, I’ve gotta go - looks like I’ve got things to do. 

10:33pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZoO6dwBhfGRZ
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