Weird Things Continued

I also write fake headlines like in a newspaper about people who cross me. I have toyed with the idea of actually making the newspaper and posting it, but that is one of those things that Jesus frowns on I think. Laura and I laugh for hours about the headlines that could be made. I would give examples, but that would be an idiot move by me. I am trying to practice the turn the other cheek thing. I am doing OK in the out loud stuff, but unfortunately, God sees the inside too.

Let's Play Pretend

I think I missed the milestone you reach when you stop pretending and making up fake scenarios in your head about things. I live as if there were someone watching, I know God is, but I mean I live shallowy (if that is a word) like as if someone is watching. I make sure I am always dressed at home and in the car, I imagine being watched. I think there is a fine line between imagination and schizophrenia here. I will make up scenarios and they are usually scenarios involving the worst things, like if I died or my whole family died. It is weird, and sometimes I fake crying in the mirror to see what I would look like if I lost it. I play video game football and in the dynasty mode, I actually have a commentary on the games running in my head and it last well into the night after have put down the controller and go to bed, I call this time the post game, where I field questions and take criticisms from the fake media. I have fake arguments with those that oppose me, and get to say all of the things Jesus would disprove of, which is a lot. What kinds of things do you pretend?

The Wifey Throws Down

Finally Laura has a blog of her own. I just want to let you all know now that it is over the torment she has put me through. She hovers over my shoulder as I write, correcting grammatical mistakes and clearing up things I may say that are inappropriate and forcing me to give credit for my stories and my writing to her just because she told me that I should blog about it. However, now this poses a different and maybe even bigger conflict: If something funny happens, who will blog about it first, and who was better? I have 1 advantage in that I have been writing longer and for now have more of an audience. She has a distinct advantage because she is smarter than me. So here goes the blog wars at home. So to get a jump start on her dirt, I want you to know that when we met she was on probation. Also, she got suspended her senior year for fighting two girls at once (She punched their noses).

http://investilatoryjournalism.blogspot.com

A Nap

I wish I had a horse so I could ride it on the freeway in the fast lane holding up everyone from getting to where they want to go. It would be funny to hear a car horn honk at a horse. Or the horse takes a crap on someones windshield. Travel is kinda creepy though right? Imagine the coronary our forefathers would have if they were dug up and revived and rode in a car or on the subway. Not to even mention a plane, because I have a coronary ow on those. It isn't that I am afraid of crashing so much as I am afraid of crashing and surviving in the ocean and having to tread knowing there are sharks underneath scoping out the dead bodies. Nothing worse than being eaten by a shark. Nothing at all. So I avoid planes altogether. I think that if God had intended me to fly, I would do so without a man made contraption that breaks down. I know the odds, so don't come at me with that. The problem with the odds argument is that you can get into a car crash and probably you live. Maybe even just a little bumper bender or something. If you hit anything at all in the sky, we all die. They have the ejector seats in jets, why not in planes too? Seriously, where is everyone going all the time? We travel and travel and get nowhere. Sit down already. Take a breather. Take a nap. How good does a nap sound right now? Do it. Take one. At your desk, in your car, next to heater on the floor. Anywhere. Just lay down and take a nap and let the world deal without you for a while. I give you my permission.

An Old Woman's Tire

I once went on this date with this girl I worked with just before I met Laura. She had asked me to go with her to a wedding, which I feel uncomfortable going to. I have never considered weddings to be good first dates because you have to do the two things that you look most awkward doing: eating and dancing. I am good at the former, but the latter I must admit I have not mastered. Well I needed a suit, so I went to JCPenney. I didn't get the memo I know. I got the suit and hid the tags so I could return it later. On the way to the wedding, I got a flat tire on my car, which is the worst thing if you are dressed up. I changed the tire silently cursing to myself the entire time and went to her house pretty late. I was embarrassed for some weird reason to tell her I got a flat, so I lied and said that I had helped an old lady change a flat. Because how can she be mad at me for being late for changing an old woman's tire. Only thing was, I parked in front of her house with the stupid looking doughnut on my front tire in plain sight. I know she saw it. We later went to the wedding and was seated at the table with her whole family. Her father, I am pretty sure was John Engler, the former Governor of Michigan, sat across from me in this elitist tuxedo and asked me question and question about investments and mutual funds; none of which I knew anything about; all of which I lied about. He knew it, so did she. I sat between her and her mentally handicapped brother, whom I found to be quite charming and fun. Accept, he had this thing for kissing on the lips and continually kept trying to suck face with me. It was time for the dancing and I got up and flopped around like an idiot while her friends all watch and chuckled. We drove back to her house later and didn't speak much, I left and we didn't speak again. I didn't care though, she liked Ricky Martin. She didn't laugh at my jokes. She wasn't very interesting.

Transparency

Depression. It is hard on me, but in some ways even harder for those who love me. It is impossible to communicate a reason or purpose for it and I think the not knowing makes those who love us more confused and self conscious about themselves. So I will try and explain the way I see things when I am battling. I see things dull. The lights are dim, the colors faded. I see the sad in every face I see. I see only the bad, and dwell on it. Which brings me shame because there are so many with real problems, and that are going through things much worse who are able to keep their heads high. I kick rocks all day and lie awake all night. October is the worst month of the year for me for both good and bad reasons. I had a friend in middle school who hung himself in October. I tried to get hit by a train in October. However I also got saved in October, but that brings me sadness too because I miss being that passionate about something. I miss feeling the reality of my salvation and the love God has for me. I told my wife I loved her for the first time in October, followed by our first kiss, ro maybe the kiss was first. The way I feel right now is the way I felt when I laid down on those tracks, things haven't changed with my sadness. What has changed is the hope that God has brought me. I would never lay down on the tracks again because I know it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I know that one of these days in a while, I will wake up to the sun and it will be over. But for now, things are sad. Worse than last year, worse than most years.

My son hit his head at the park and hurt himself a couple months ago and on the way to the hospital, he asked me with the most pitiful voice if he was going to be alright. I have found myself asking God the same question with the same uncertainty lately. The upside of the sadness is that it makes me work harder to see God. Things get blurry and I lose my sight of God's hand, which is terrifying to me. So I search harder for Him and searching for God is never a bad thing, however sometimes I wish He would open my eyes for me. I feel like I am calling for him in the dark and He isn't coming for me, He isn't speaking so I can follow his voice. I am one who has seen proof of God, so I do not doubt His existence, but I do doubt His hand often.


I have been talking to my youth kids about being transparent lately. Letting others see the entire you, even the bad, and especially the things that bring you sadness. Because these things glorify God more than our strengths do. Weaknesses are hard things to drag into the light for everyone to see because most of us are ashamed of them. I guess that is why I talk about my depression a lot. I feel shame for feeling the way I do and for not being able to at least give a reason for it, so I drag it into the light for others to see. That being said, I have another problem that I have never spoken with anyone but my wife and a therapist about. It makes me sad, and it hurts me emotionally and physically. I have always been horrored with the thought of talking about it, but I've got nothing to lose right now. I want nothing to hold me back. I have Tourettes Syndrome. I don't shout things out or say bad words or anything like that, but on the inside my nerves are wrecked. They send impulses to places in my body to move, thus a twitch. The issue is not as much the symptoms on the outside as they are the issues on the inside, although the external issues are sometimes bad. I will discuss this later. On the inside, I want to crawl out of my skin. I have done this my whole life and not once has any of my friends asked me about it. Which I appreciate, however I was taught that you are weird if you have it. People laugh at you, and always think the worst when they know someone who has it. I agree, at times it is funny. But the person who has it isn't laughing I promise you. So I don't talk about it and I think that the kindness of my friends has helped me keep it in and feel even worse. So I am dragging it into the light kicking and screaming. Because I do not want anything to get in the way of others seeing nothing but Christ in me.

On Day 13 Of My Funk

Is it a mid-life crisis, if you aren't middle aged and it has been going on since you could pee on the potty? My wife fears my eventual mid-life crisis like she fears the ghosts that cause clanging in your furnace. I can't say I blame her, because I have had this crisis (See the previous post for a description) going on for as long as she has known me. What will happen when I really am getting old. When I have to get prostate exams, and stress tests, and take Viagra. I think I have the potential to be a menace. I'll be the old guy with the print shirt that reads, Bubba's Tractor Repair, and through my hair that has been doused with product, you will see spots that are not as lush as they used to be. My wife says I will be one of those guys that don't get ugly with age, but get Shaun Connery like? I'm not so sure though. The thing I fear is that my head will shrink, but leave my ears and my already prominent nose to go through some sort of weird growth spurt. I'll keep going back the places I lived twice a week (Right now I go about once a week, no lie). I am only 30 and I feel like I am 20. I look like I am 25, so they all tell me. But why am I acting like I am 40? Anyways, that is one of the things that bring me pain.

On another note, I have begun my weird fall to winter rituals which includes some weird sleeping preferences that drive my wife crazy. Last night I slept on the couch with all of the windows open, the ipod on some sad, but peaceful music, and then turned on the heater for some warmth. I plan on the same tonight, because there is nothing better than waking up with morning dew in your hair from sleeping next to the window. Anyone know what causes such weirdness? Is it some weird, mother's womb depression or something. I sometimes imagine myself in the middle of the ocean, all alone in the middle of the night in a little dingy floating around. For some reason, this puts me to sleep, but if it really happened, I think I would be pretty scared. I assume that this has something to do with the unconscious comfort of the womb, being that the water is swaying, and I am alone and it is dark. Who knows. I will keep you up to date with my rituals as they develop.

The Lights When Squinting Appear To Be Lasers

So there is this kid who always wanted to go to the fair, but when he got there, he looked at it's beauty and the lights that lit the sky up like Christmas Eve and he started to obsess over leaving. It wasn't that he didn't love the fair; the opposite. The fair was more than anything he had ever hoped for, so beautiful that the thought of it being over and the rides packed away to leave was so devastating. It was so painful the never really sat back and enjoyed the ride, only dreaded the moment it was over. At the end of the night when the lights went out, all he had left of the ride was the memory of being there.

Sleeping In Gardens

It would be nice if I had the money to travel. I would love to go and meet every person I speak to on the internet. I feel like I am missing out of some pretty great lives corresponding over the internet. I am missing family dinners and beaches with seagulls. I am missing the thing that makes relationships with others amazing, proximity. Humanity. You don't get these things from the keyboard or monitor. You get them from eye contact and physical touch and closeness. When we become messages sent in a really fast bottle, we can lose our humanity. You love, but not clearly, we feel but not intensely, and we get angry and sometimes forget that the recipient is a human being who still feels whether or not we speak in person over the web. We text too much, we chat too much, we email too much, and embrace rarely, if ever. I wish I was rich so I could meet all of you. Sit down and watch a movie with my Australian friend, eat dinner with a family of many children rescued by brave and loving parents, Have a coffee with a heart broken friend, feel sand under my feet. I wish I could do these things, but I can't. So I pray for you instead, and smile at the fact that someday we will meet where the sun never falls and there are no more tears or crying. That day will be a good day because as far away as we are to those we care for, we are family. May God open your eyes each day, flooded with joy, and may they close in peace. There is too much hurt in the world. We need love of a different kind. The kind that sees each other clearly, not just through a screen. Truth is I don't much care for myself most of the time, that's why I write. I need to get things out of me. I am angry at the entire world, and love to release it. I am guilty of so much, and I need to relieve the pressure. I don't know what a good father and husband looks like, so I read about the lives of really, really good fathers and husbands. I am broken, especially now, and weak. I get strength through others who suffer too. I think that is what God had in mind when he made us. He chose his disciples and of those, there were three who were very close. He brought them in his anguish to just be physically near him as he bled tears in the garden. They fell asleep. I fall asleep sometimes on my friends too, and I am sorry for every time I closed my eyes to you. Jesus didn't need them there, their presence made him feel better, their physical proximity gave Him comfort. This is the life God had in mind for those who know Him.

When Flowers Die

Today a flower died. I never saw her, never met her, only heard about her and saw her heart in her husband. Darren, your faith teaches me how to be a better man, a better husband, a better father, and most of all a better Christian. My prayers will not cease, but be redirected to your comfort and healing and courage. I will pray daily for Olivia. I know you only for this blog, but we are connected in the family of God and for my wife and I today, we mourn too, with you. May God bless you and keep you safe delivering courage when you are scared, comfort when you are hurting, and carry you through these rough days.

In A Bubble

The thing is: When you give up so many things in your life for something, and you work so hard trying to do the best job that can be done, not just the best job you can do. When you find out there are those you are serving and working so hard for that do not value it, it is devastating. People are abusive criminals sometimes. They want to worship God with their mouths, then turn on them in the dark and stab them. Right now it sucks to be me for a lot of reasons, but God is good, I have to believe that. I know that. Even if I am dragged through hell so see God's hand.

Don't confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them.


Jackson Browne

If I Could Talk I'd Tell You

You can lead a horse to water, you can even make him drink, but you can't change his point of view.



From Caedmon's Call- Standing Up For Nothing

A Moment Of Clarity

I had a moment of perspective today. I have been struggling through some pretty stressful things and on top of those things I did just OK on a test that I studied my face off for the last week today. I have been pretty stressed lately to go along with this seasonal depression I am going through, so I went to the river. That's where I go when I need some air, it is the Detroit River, so it isn't very good air, but it is different air. You need different air to get different ideas sometimes. So I go all moping around and praying, trying to figure out what is to be learned from this and I got an answer immediately. A sea gull flew from the handrail I was leaning on and snagged a fish right with precision accuracy right before my eyes. It was beautiful. It made me thing that there may be tests, there may be people who oppose you, there may not be enough time to do all you need to do, but that bird will still be plucking things out of that water. It is instinct, and it is a tool given to them by God to survive. I have tools too, things God has given me and still plans to give me. It was just a test, they are just people too like me, and that bird will keep snagging fish from that water whether or not I see it happen, because that is what it does. Well survive is what I do. I survived a heart attack, a suicide attempt, and many other things because of God. I will continue to survive for as long as God wants me to survive.

I Believe In You

I was at church yesterday having a particularly hard time paying attention because of an exam I have been studying for for DAYS. Anyway, I got consciousness back for long enough to really get what the pastor was saying. He was telling us that we have no right to give up on people, or to entertain the notion that we know what God is going to or not going to do. That hit home with me, because I have realized that there are people in my life that I had kinda of given up on making a decision for Christ and choosing to live constructively. I had allowed my lack of success in reaching some people to make me give up, when I reality, it was never me, we are relying on God to change people. Which gives me no right to give up on anyone, so I will not. One of these people is my best friend who I have spent years trying to model Jesus to. I realize I have failed horribly so many times, and I continue to pray for him. But I have noticed that I do not carry the same faith in the actions of God that I used to. I used to believe that God had me in this person's life for a purpose and somewhere along the line I forgot that and need to remember it again. Nothing is an accident, if anyone should know that it is me. So I will believe again. I will look at those who I have doubted and believe in them and believe that God has something for them and is using me to help them reach that destination.

My Endorsement Goes To...

Sarah Palin for president!

If you haven't seen Sarah Palin's speech from the RNC, you should watch it. It was pretty inspiring. It gave me a reason to vote this year in an election that has brought me no excitement at all. She may not have been in politics for long, but look at what she has done while in politics. She sold the government jet on ebay. She got rid of the personal chef, and she did away with the limo. Alaska may not have the population off New York, but it runs with the same government that she has somehow reformed in Alsaka. I like her. One of my friends are going to vote for her just because she is easy on the eyes, so maybe there is hope for the Republicans after all.

The Time Machine

I have seasonal music. Not just Christmas music, I have that too, but music that I typically only listen to during that particular season. It is music that puts me in a different state of mind, like when you walk into an elementary school and smell the pencil shavings and crayons, it puts you back into 1st grade eating paste and picking your nose. Or I walk into an old church and smell the carpet and pews and I am instantly back in a crusty old lady made teddy bear costume performing an annual Christmas play expected to make mistakes so everyone can laugh and say how cute I was. And I was cute. I like that feeling. It makes the sad days better, like now. The
following are just a couple of my Fall seasonal listenings and watchings. Post yours in the comment section.

Music:
Tori Amos
Cat Power
Counting Crows (I have to admit, I listen to this one year round)
The Cranberries
Radiohead
Johann Johannson
Ryan Adams
Denison Witmer
Elliott Smith

Movies:
Great Expectations (I know the book is better, I just like the movie)
The Electric Grandmother (One of the few that make me cry)
The Halloween That Almost Wasn't
Powder
The Myth Of Fingerprints
Harold & Maude
Vanilla Sky
Big
All 80's Horror Movies

To Be Awakened By Rain, But Finally Awakened

The other day, I stepped outside at about 11 PM to sit on the swing and listen to some music because it was so nice outside. Well, I fell asleep and was awakened at 6 AM by the rain smashing bricks on my face. I had somehow laid down on the swing and was crunched up in some origami looking shapes. My neck still hurts, but I don't regret it. Sometimes it is good to sleep under the stars. I wish I did it more. You wake up scared and disoriented, but it makes you appreciate the warmth of coming back inside where you belong. I think that is what God does with us. I think He lets us make mistakes, some very bad ones even because it is beneficial to step outside of where it is warm to experience the fear of being out in the cold. God doesn't cause our sin, but He does allow it and I think He works in spite of it maybe even using it to reach us. God is good. If I know nothing else, I know that. Sometimes we just have it coming though, and we have to see a little of life behind bars to remember the joy of Christ's love.

August And Everything After

It is now entering my favorite and least favorite time of the year. During Fall, I get excited, and nostalgic. I take walks, I drive around just to be out. I look at old houses I have lived in, and I sit under trees with books. However, the Fall also brings on a pretty major depression every year. Every year, I get broken. I enjoy the ghosts, but hate the demons. You can't have one without the other. I will wake up one morning and have a hard time getting out of bed, then stroll to the bathroom mirror and get pissed at what I see. I'll stop and think about all of the great things and horrible things that have happened this time of the year. Both the great and the horrible cause pain during these times. My wife will ask me 5 times a day if I am OK. I will say yes, because I am. But I will be silent for a while, then wake up one morning and it will be gone.

I was saved in the fall. I tried suicide in the fall. My friend took his own life in the fall. I have walked aimlessly in the fall. I have awoken in strange place in the fall. I have had horrible nightmares in the fall. Yet I was resurrected in the fall, reanimated. So along with this pain comes a sense of excitement in my faith. I remember more vividly the moments I heard Christ speak to me the loudest, and I will remember hearing and listening. I will remember sitting in my apartment alone until most of you are getting up for work reading my Bible pouring cup after rotten cup of brown hot water. I was absolutely amazed with God. I wanted to know everything. I still do, but sometimes forget how I long for God. How I need to hear Him clearly, how I need to feel His presence, how I need His forgiveness. I need to be overwhelmed, to be overcome. I need to be broken and mended. I need the Lord. I need Him to fill my eyes, I need Him to weaken my knees. I need Him to break my will, I need Him to breathe. May our God give you everything you need, not everything you want. May God heal your bodies and those around you, May God bring you to your knees in worship. May God bless you.

Aging Cheese

60's

70's

80's

90's

Present


This is from a fun website called Yearbookyourself.com. I was playing around with it and came up with these funny pictures that reveal what I would have looked like in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. I had fun with it, but it leads me to the question. At what age do people stop changing with the styles? I have a theory that people remain the way they are when they graduate high school. Maybe because there is less pressure to be cool, or because we mature and realize the futility of trying to remain cool. Except us youth pastors who look just like any other student except for with less hair. Not me though I have a beautiful Quoff, but most of my youth pastor friends have that back of the head bald spot going on. I try to remain, but I think that as you get older, you look more and more foolish trying to look younger and at some point we have to decide to go ahead and stop resisting and fall into a fashionable redundancy hoping to take on the sophisticated aged appearance everyone talks about. I was reading in Men's Health that there are sign posts that tell a man when to hang certain things up. At 30, no more print shirts or band t-shirts. At 28, no more holes in the jeans. At 23, no more cartoons. At 19, no more going to the mall to hang out. Well, I want to do all of these things still. Does that make me lame. Anyway, go do the website thing and have fun, send me the pictures, I want to see them.