mewithoutYou

I'm copying this from my mySpace blog.

mewithoutYou. It's a band. I've been hearing about them for awhile. Emily saw them at Cornerstone, Ricky Turner talked about them, lots of people talkin', and then I finally heard them and saw some live videos. Holy crap. Check these guys out, now, because they shot straight to the top of bands I'm interested in. They are a Christian band but they're not like anyone else. I'm so pumped right now. Plus I'm having an awesome time at the Camerer's house half-way between Utica and home in Michigan. Oh, Dragonforce is pretty amazing too. (Don't knock it till you try it.) (Great approach to life isn't it?)

Hey Elizabeth, check out my new girlfriend

Hahaha. I'm referring to my new guitar. Beautiful isn't she? Goodbye life, hello guitar. It is a Stratocaster with 3 single-coil pickups. And I like it. The amp is nice too - it is a vacuum tube powered amp. You probably want to know how much it costs...

yeah... I'll bet you do....


XYZ

Big News

Hey there friends and family. I have big news. (Thus the clever title.) I am going to go home to Michigan as planned, and then return to New York. Crazy isn't it? Why the change? Maybe it's the landscape. Maybe it's the incredible friends. Maybe it's Joel pointing a shotgun at my head and telling me he would shoot me if I didn't promise to stay. (Just kidding.) Honestly, between Iowa and New York, it was a tough choice. I agonized over the decision for awhile, first leaning one way and then the other. They are both wonderful. New York is not permanent; I still really want to hang out with my sister in Iowa when the time is right.

I'm not staying because life in New York is all daisies and daffodils. Honestly, it's tough. For a long time, everything has been simple enough. Fulfill the responsibilities, complete educational requirements, work. Things aren't so black and white anymore. Especially when my role in this world hasn't been clearly established yet; apparently I have some kind of ministry, but I don't know if it has a name. (Maybe, Christ-Follower?)

You'll notice that I wrote News, PLURAL. Otherwise, the title would have been, "Big New." But I'm not going to tell you the other announcement. I don't have the photo that will explain it. This is the one you thought you'd be reading tonight Emily. Don't worry I'll get it tomorrow.

Since I have zero coherency tonight, I might as well say that my time with the youth group tonight was great. Me and five kids praying for awhile. Talking, joking, not much else. Speaking of prayer, I have no idea where I will be staying or what I will be eating or what I will buy food with when I return to New York. Minor details, but if you're the praying sort, it's something to keep in mind. Shalom

I'm embarassed.

That little blurb about Cheetah Girls and all that... Let's just keep it a secret shall we? I mean, so what if I like to sing, "Amigas, Cheetahs, Friends for Life!"... Er...

Cheetah Girls 2

I usually am rather critical of my dad's enjoyment of really cheesy movies. I admit, I am a movie snob. But today I'm going to have to shut up. Today only I have watched Hannah Montana, Cheetah Girls 2, and am currently indulging in one of the funniest Family Guy episodes I have ever seen. I know what you are all thinking, "My how decadent." Gee willickers. Ahhh.... Ewww... Stewie is beating up the dog. But I mean the dog had it coming. He wouldn't give Stewie his money. Hmmm.....

A Long Obedience In The Same Direction

Yesterday and today, I sorta have had this recurring thought concerning life: "Geez this is hard." And hey maybe I'm being dramatic, but whenever I deal with tough questions, it sort of feels like I'm being worked in a crucible. My questions always relate to the gospel.

But we keep moving. Following Christ isn't about emotional whims. I don't mean that sometimes I feel as if it God isn't real. I just mean that sometimes I feel tired, or bummed, or lonely, or upset by all the troubles around me. Last night I was talking to my Mom, and she asked me if I was upset, and I got defensive saying, "Of course I'm upset! The whole world is upset, and I'm not in a bubble, so the fact that I'm surrounded by hurting troubled people [and am in fact one of them] definitely upsets me!"

I guess what I was saying is that, faith isn't like a bubble that shields you from pain. It is more like taking someone's hand and letting him lead you places you would never have gone on your own, away from stability and comfort and down into the rocky, treacherous valley. I am touched by the hurt around me. I don't buy this "higher ground" stuff. "I want to live above the world, Though Satan’s darts at me are hurled." ??? That is a line from the hymn by Johnson Oatman. You may have heard it in church. But Jesus didn't tell us to come up to him; he came down to us. And it seems to me we're all about following in his footsteps. While we live, we live in the world; we can live "above the world" when we're good and dead, how is that for a compromise Mr. Oatman?

Right now, believing and following Christ means learning what it means to be in it for the long-haul. I have begun reading Eugene Peterson's "A Long Obedience In The Same Direction: Discipleship In An Instant Society" with Joel Upham, and thought I might quote from the first chapter. I'll probably be putting a lot of quotes from this book up here as it is really excellent.

"[One aspect of the world's effects that is] harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once. We assume that if something can be done at all, it can be done quickly and efficiently. Our attention spans have been conditioned by thirty-second commercials. Our sense of reality has been flattened by thirty-page abridgements.
"It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest... There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness."

It's hard, I know that, but I guess going the distance means patience and probably toil. Monotony even. But even though the nature of this world means I will experience all that, I kind of have this feeling that there are going to be some adventures, some moments of wonder and joy right in this middle of this crazy life. (Now I should say something cool.) Bring it on.

A Wii Bit of Anticipation

I'm looking forward to a couple games for the Nintendo Wii. I think they are both launch titles. The first is the new Zelda. A couple entries ago I mentioned that I used to dream about Zelda: The Ocarina of Time before falling asleep. I was obsessed. Well, that was three Zelda games ago (not including a bunch for the gameboy). They're making a sequel to Ocarina of Time (at least stylistically), and it's starting to look like it has potential. I can't wait to bite my teeth into it. (Hopefully I won't have to buy a wii - I'll just have to find friends who will buy it.)

As for the new Rayman game, "Rayman: Raving Rabbits", what can I say? It has rabid, raving rabbits with space saucers and dance offs and shooting each other with plunger-guns. Who could possibly resist?

For those of you buried under a rock (or simply too caught up in the world of adult responsibilities), the Nintendo Wii uses a different way to control games. Instead of a normal controller, imagine that your TV Remote was a 3D wand that could detect all your movements, and that you had to use it to control games. Sounds fun. Maybe it will be (if it isn't too hard or for that matter too easy.)










xyz.

Something great about me:

I can hold my breath for three minutes and thirty seconds. Cool, huh.

Drift-Off

Drift-off dreams can be really annoying. I can't call them strange, because most dreams are strange. But drift-off dreams are strangest because they are closest to reality.

Yesterday I went canoing for several hours. After that, I watched (and occassionally played) Resident Evil 4 for several hours. I was too tired to do anything productive. I went to bed early (10), and started falling asleep. Then the drift-dreams began. It happens like this: you lie there with your eyes mostly closed. Sometimes they are open and look around a little, but half the time you don't even know they are open. Your thoughts become incoherent and end up in odd combinations. Suddenly my thoughts about tomorrows lessons disappear, and I'm canoing down a river. Suddenly a car revs its engine outside the window, and my mind returns to reality. I just thought I was canoing. How weird is that? One second I'm lying in bed, the next my mind tells me I'm in a canoe.

It gets better. You know what's coming. Zombie hunting on a canoe. That's right, canoeing down the Moose River, paddle in one hand, shotgun in the other, blowing the heads off of less-than-courteous zombie fiends. (They had it coming.) And occassionally an idea from a book will insert itself onto the drift-dream. Die, die, evil zombie hey I should talk about heaven in Sunday School tomorrow!

Other interesting drift-dreams: skateboarding, feeding frozen burger patties into the burger king broiler, grinding brick walls, playing soccer, playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time. If something really intense (or monotonous) happened during the day, chances are that I will see it again as I drift to sleep.

Lessons from Dave

I'm still reading through Eugene Peterson's "Working The Angles," a book about prayer, study, and spiritual direction. I'm on the third angle of spiritual direction, and was thinking back to Dave Frick's influence on my life. What does it take to have a significant spiritual role in someone's life?

Looking at Dave, I think I have an answer. Dave was not a highly educated guy. But that did not prevent him from ministering to me (among many). Neither did he have great resources. He was just a trucker. But here is the thing about Dave: he was spiritually minded.

Okay that sounds really obvious. "Wow, what a brilliant bloke this guy is." But there is something about Dave's approach to life that seemed to make up for a lot of flaws (although I personally couldn't think of any). Something about his mindset allowed him to really dwell on his hope, and God's rewards, and the reality of spiritual warfare. Christ's sacrifice was not just a password to get into the church club; it was the central truth of his life. That's why it transformed him from an insignificant trucker to someone whom God used to spiritually direct other Christians.

It may be that everyone has a different set of obstacles to developing a spiritual mindset. I would like to think that people like me have some more difficulty than most in developing this mindset - I can't say that for sure. But it is easy enough to say I need to be spiritually minded, or Spirit-minded, and not actually take the steps of talking to God, asking for his help, dwelling on universe-shaking truths, rejoicing, hunting for the meat of scripture. It is much easier to just think about things. Stepping into the spiritual walk is hard, physically demanding even.

I think Dave did every one of those things. Aside from those things, what is my Bible college education worth next to his lifetime of Spirit-filled walking? I believe I'm right to admire Dave's example. Maybe the fact is, Dave just believed all that stuff was true, and decided it was worth working at it. It really isn't complicated, it's just work.

Blast. I hate work. See, I'm already at a major disadvantage!

Dave once told me that when the Millenial Kingdom rolled on in, he wanted to have a chance to be a preacher and teach the Bible at a large church (or whatever the heck it will be called). I've got this feeling that when the time comes to assign tasks during the Millenium, a lot of men who were more qualified in this life will be passed over and guys like Dave will get first picks. Of course by now, Dave is far more qualified than any man on earth. For more on that, check Matthew 25:14-20.

Flying Dreams

Do you ever have flying dreams?

I love flying dreams. It doesn't happen very often. Those were always my favorite dreams. Sometimes you were just flying for no reason. I mean, it's my dream, I'll do whatever the heck I like! When I was little, I can recall having a nightmare where I seemed to be stuck. It would happen all the time. The nightmare creature is coming, but you can't move, because your legs are heavy like lead. But every once in awhile, I would start running, and suddenly take off, just like a bird. The nightmare would turn into a dream.

Those are dreams. Even airplanes hold some of that magic. Steering those heavy machines may not be the same as being a bird, but it ain't too bad. Heck, give me a Corsair and a tank of fuel, and I'll be happy. But we all know we haven't really conquered flight yet. The birds still whoop our butts. For the past century, that's been okay. Man can't fly like birds; hang gliders are as close as we'll ever come.

Two years ago I was lying in bed listening to the final song on Eric Whitacre's choral album. I had not read the song title, and was not paying close attention to the lyrics. All I knew was that the music seemed to lift my imagination and bring back those childish dreams of flying. I began wondering what it would take to really fly like a bird. Sure, at one time it seemed impossible to mimic the complexities of nature and flight, but then at one time they said man would never fly at all. And what would it take to make artificial wings? We all know man isn't strong enough to "flap" or control anything that flew anything like a bird. But then technology is discovering extremely complex programming methods through LISP, artificial muscles, new materials incomparably light and strong - who is to say man can't make a pair of wings that can hold his body and fly just like a bird? It isn't like the bird-man could just hold a joystick. That isn't how a bird flies. The wings would have to read the man's body, to know exactly whether he was just craning his neck, or leaning forward to dive, or catching a thermal to soar up. It would require two miracles: the physical, artificial structure of wings that could hold a man and maintain stable flight, and an impossibly complex computer brain to control all the millions of computations and adjustments required to mimic bird-flight. Sure, it would be hard, taking years of research and millions of dollars (billions?), but who is to say it is impossible?

So, while lying in bed listening to "Leonardo dreams of his flying machine" [I had not read the song title], I dreamed of my own flying machine. Which means two things: Eric Whitacre is brilliant, and Icarus never learned his lesson. I considered leaving Bible college and studying physics, aerodynamics, ornithology, and artificial intelligence, but nothing really came of it. It was just a flying dream.

Part 2: Smoke

Smoke.

Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That's what the Quester says.]
There's nothing to anything-it's all smoke.
What's there to show for a lifetime of work,
a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone? (A)

Everything's boring, utterly boring-
no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
what happened will happen again.
There's nothing new on this earth.
Year after year it's the same old thing. (B)

Then I observed all the work and ambition motivated by envy. What a waste! Smoke. And spitting into the wind. (C)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash-along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant-dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ. (D)

What does all this stuff tell me? It tells me I have nothing to boast about. Not a thing. How could I boast in something I possess? What manner of possession which will soon be possessed by someone else? I cannot even possess my body! In a little while, I'll lose that too. Nothing to boast in, except this:

For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. (E). I have no interest in giving you a chatty account of my adventures, only the wondrously powerful and transformingly present words and deeds of Christ in me that triggered a believing response among the outsiders. (F).

And everything else is a waste of breath: smoke.

a. Ecclesiastes 1:2-3
b. Ecclesiastes 1:8-9
c. Ecclesiastes 4:4
d. Philippians 3:7-8
e. Galatians 6:14
f. R0mans 15:18
All scripture passages taken from The Message.

Ozymandias - by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Part 1: Me

This is strictly a news update. There will be no spiritual insights, clever profundities, or words of wisdom. At the end, you will know where I am, what I am doing, and not much else. Chances are, if you read this, you already know all that, but what the hey.

I am in Upper New York serving as a youth-pastoral intern at Immanuel Baptist Church. I am here until the end of August. I am not sure exactly what my last day is, but I will most certainly be back in Michigan by September 2nd. Because that is my sister's open house. And of course since my birthday is September 1st I expect everyone to bring presents for me as well. (And if I get a buck, I can be a Buckaneer!)

I spend a lot of time studying, a lot of time with kids from the youth group, and a lot of time with the church in general. I still sleep too much, eat too little (by midwest standards), and spend way too little time on my guitar. I am on the final tape of the Iliad, CD 1 of Alexander Hamilton's life, and tape 4 of John Adam's life. While driving and napping I have also listened to several Shakespearean plays. He's cool. (He lacks my talent for description, however.)

Next fall, I will be going either to Iowa or Michigan. You probably want to know exactly what I will be doing. Never fear, I'm just as eager to find out. It seems impossible to do everything I need to do, so brothers and sisters keep me in prayer.