A new hobby

I'm sitting at home, watching Crash, and uploading photos I took at the Nature Park with my new digital camera, which was a Christmas present. Cool story, bro.

So far in Crash, I'm figuring out that apparently everybody in this movie is racist. What a compelling drama!

Over the next few days, I'm gonna be listening to my top 5 (or so) albums of the year (in no particular order) and today I listened to Fleet Foxes' Helplessness Blues while walking around the nature park taking pictures. Great album. Anyway, I'm testing all the uploading stuff so here's a couple of pictures.


(The Division of) Man

 Hope

 One of these things is not like the other

 "There might be a light, Somewhere in your mind When you think of you and I..."

 Marriage

 I'll hold you back from the ledge

 "Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone"

"She'd be hanging on my words, Like I almost meant a thing"

I'm in the mood to blog right now but I can't remember any of the ideas I had of what to blog on other than ones that are too heavy/lengthy to be blogged about this late.

I could blog about my thoughts on a friend's wedding and how it's the second wedding I've been to this year while I've been to three funerals, but not tonight.

I could blog about how completely frustrating it is to see people in relationships with people who are completely wrong or to see people rejecting relationships that have so much potential, but not tonight.

I could blog about what I've been thinking about when it comes to God's gift and man's misuse of sex, but not tonight.

I could blog about all the things I want to do yet probably will not do over break, but not tonight.

I could blog about the trippy Star Wars Holiday Special of which I watched about 20 minutes earlier, but other than saying it was insanely trippy, I don't really have anything else to say, at least not tonight.

I could blog about how everyone keeps telling me to get a tumblr and how I'm considering doing it and leaving this blog in the dust and with it leaving all the past entries of Girl A and Girl C and return to just working through relationship problems in my journal instead of on the internet where anyone can see it, but not tonight.

I could blog about I feel like I'm standing on a razor wire of relationships and any which way I go will be a mistake and won't lead me to a hopeful future and how I don't know where God is leading me in relationships, school, and life in general, but not tonight.


No, tonight I'll just blog about pretty much nothing. Same as always, I guess.

I feel like

I can't really blog much about Girl C anymore. I don't know if it's fear that she'd someday see it, weariness from mulling it over my head every day, or if I'm just tired of typing down painful truths. Regardless of all this hypothesizing, I'm just gonna do what I've always done with this blog and work through my thoughts.

I don't have much (well, really any) faith in this whole Girl C situation ever happening. I think faith of any kind has to have some sort of basis. A leap of faith means that there is a division between where you are and where you want to be and you take a jump over that division with hopes of landing on the other side. But what if there's no ground where you are? What if there's nothing from which to kick your leap? What if you felt a connection, took a chance, got rejected, and now feel like there's hardly any sort of care there? (unintentional rhyme). I mean, there's concern and "I'll pray for you" relationships where you have 30 second conversations on Wednesdays and Sundays and never gain any new ground, but I honestly don't want that, at least not in this situation. Growing up in church I've had far more than my share of the Wednesday/Sunday "friendships." In my life I've had about 6 good friends over the years. The only one of those that was with a girl was with a girl who was my very first friend and I managed to royally mess that friendship up. Ever since, I've waded through a sea of feigned interest and few cares. Now, I just feel like nothing's ever gonna change.

I've wanted to blog about this for a few weeks and while I don't really have a good transition, I'm just gonna say "Screw it" and I'm gonna do it. (intentional rhyme). I don't get why "Hey, how are you?" has become a standard greeting. Most of the time people don't even really ask, they just speak the words and go on about their business. In the rare times that people do actually ask, the conversation usually goes something like "'Hey, how are you?' 'Good, how about you?' 'I'm good.'"
Honestly, it seems like a very foolish way to greet someone because if you don't know them then odds are you don't actually care how they're doing so if they say anything other than good/great, you're caught off guard because you're not invested enough to find out why they're "fine," "okay," or just "eh." So, why are we foolish to risk our own selfishness by asking such a loaded question as "How are you?"

All that said, it makes the people who actually do care when they ask "how are you?" all the more special. Somehow, I've returned to the whole Girl C situation because even though she's not perfect and she doesn't always care when she asks, she cares a lot more than most. But I digress, lest I further frustrate myself with wallowing hopeless situations.

I should go to bed / "I'll lay down and begin to grow"

but I think I'll blog instead. Who says white boys can't rap? I'm gonna blog before my nightly nap. I haven't really blogged much lately but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing lots of thinking.

For the past 2 weeks or so, I've been really digging a band called O'Brother. They came out with an album called Garden Window a couple weeks ago and on the Tuesday it came out, I was on campus writing a paper and I decided to give it a listen. Needless to say, it's a MAJOR grower of an album and it's coming very near to Brand New "The Devil & God..." and As Cities Burn "Come Now Sleep" territory. Both of those albums have had huge impacts on my growth, musically, spiritually, and intellectually. This one might be one of those.

Once I finish my Paradise Regained paper, I plan on listening to the album a few times with the lyrics in front of me and figuring out what's being said. It's not that the lyrics are hard to hear (I can hear 90% of them fine), it's just that it's hard to figure out what character is speaking at which point. I'm pretty sure it's an album all about the fall of man. I think there are lyrics from current man's character, from Adam's character, and from God's character. It's just the kind of lyrical album I will greatly enjoy working through.

All that to say, there have been two sets of lyrics that have stuck out to me the most. First is the lyrics that got me interested when I heard them play the song "Lay Down" a couple weeks back at the Thrice show. It's a brilliant song, both musically and lyrically. I think it's from the point of view of Adam but I'm not sure. Regardless, the chorus goes "So, Abba Father, are you sleeping, as we toil through your gardens keeping? So I'll lay down and begin to grow, right beneath your garden window."
Throughout the album, there's lots of lines about the idea of laying down and while I haven't been able to specifically nail the meaning beyond a shadow of doubt, I'm pretty sure it's about the death that every Christian has to make. One line in another song is "Lay me in the dirt and I will grow" and I think it's this sort of spiritual death that we all have to choose for ourselves in order to become alive in Christ. This idea of laying down in order to grow has been on my mind a lot lately because I feel like God's been challenging me through it to lay down my hopes, my desires, my preferences, and my sin in order to grow in love and holiness. I'm ever so slowly trying to see what laying down looks like in my relationships with people.

The other set of lyrics that's really stuck out to me a lot amidst the flood of awesome lyrics in the album is found in the song "Cleanse Me." It's got a lot of weighty, thought-provoking stuff in it but in the middle of the song, the singer sings "Well, I could wash my hands to pretend they're clean, or I could purge my lips of spineless speech, but the consequence of knowledge is an eager tongue." He sings this multiple times as the music builds and it's just amazing. Lyrically, the "knowledge" talked about seems, at least to me, to be the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve received upon their disobedient choice to the eat of the fruit of the tree. I think the singer is lamenting that because we are given the choice between good and evil, we'll often choose evil that will come down on our own heads.

I could probably blog all about this album and once I have more time and less things on my mind, I plan on going through the album with a fine tooth comb and maybe I'll even blog about it.
Until then, au revoir.

Burnt out / He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven

I'm in a bad mood. I've been in one much of the evening. I didn't get to hang out with my two friends who were in town like I'd been looking forward to all week and since I only hung out with one of them for a couple hours before he left, I decided to go to work even though i had asked (and been given) the day off because I knew they were short staffed. Basically, the night progressively got worse after the nice reception of surprise and joy that i was there to help. As the night got worse, I got more douche-y and my comments got more sarcastic and more critical. Thankfully, I didn't go too far with anything even though I really wanted to snap at most everybody.
I'm tired of working so much. I'm tired of having tons of reading and other school work just hanging over my head. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of girls I like expressing care as friends but never looking at me as anything more than a nice guy friend. I'm tired of not having anybody to call to tell about my day, to call to find out about her day, or to just spend time with. I'm tired of being a sinful screw up full of pride, anger, bitterness, resentment, jealousy, lust, and a host of other imperfections. I'm just tired. I'm really feeling Jars of Clay's lyric "I don't have a line of prospects that can give some kind of peace."
I know why all this is going on. It's because of me, at least in so much as things that depend on me. I'm sinful. I rest my hopes on girls to fix my loneliness and then when nobody returns my feelings, I get hurt and frustrated. I make people into counterfeit gods. "Lay me in the dirt and I will grow."


Ever since I saw the movie Equilibrium, the poem that Sean Bean reads in the beginning has stuck with me and lately, I've been thinking about the lines, so I googled it and found this poem by William Butler Yeats:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I really like the last three lines. As a whole, I like how Yeats uses the same words to end his rhymes. I think that the most important part of poetry is not in the end lines but in the words before and after. I don't really have much else to say 'cause my words pale in comparison to Yeats'.

The Crimson Pirate / Why I am the way I am

I just finished watching a movie called The Crimson Pirate. It's a swashbuckling adventure movie (with a hint of comedy) from 1952 that I use to watch a lot when I was a kid. It stars Burt Lancaster as a pirate captain he gets involved with rebels, the king's forces, a rebel leader and his beautiful daughter, and a couple other things. It's one of my all time favorite movies from my childhood because it's an incredibly fun action-adventure (Lancaster and friends are acrobats throughout), it's funny and silly at times (bad guys getting knocked on head and falling off ship, etc), and it's just a really enjoyable film all around. The hero fights for the people and in the end, he defeats the bad guys and gets the girl.

This leads me to part two of the blog post. I think one of the main reasons I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic is because I've grown up with swashbuckling and cowboy movies where the good guy is strong and brave and in the end he gets the girl. Good triumphs over evil, all is made right with the people, and in the end, the guy I'm supposed to identify with, the hero, gets the girl.
However, life is not like the movies. Today in chapel, the speaker preached through two chapters in Jeremiah where Jeremiah is honest about being angry at God, saying to God that God tricked him and hadn't blessed him for his faithfulness and such and such. The speaker said other stuff too but that was what stuck with me. A lot of the time I have this arrogant and self-righteous thought in my head that goes something like "Oh, I do all this good things and I honor God and blah blah blah therefore he should've blessed me with a girl by now because that's the blessing I hope for most in my life." And with that thought, I begin to get bitter towards God because of this sinful entitlement I feel, as if God owes me a companion because I do what I'm supposed to. It's like I'm mad at my boss for not giving me a bonus above and beyond what I'm already paid. Not a perfect analogy but I think my point is made there.
The speaker challenged me to remain faithful and to seek God even if I don't have the blessings I think I should have because life's not about me and God owes me nothing and any good thing I receive I don't deserve and should count as grace. Hard faith was what he said. Even when "the rewards aren't half what I'd hoped for" to borrow from a Brand New song, I need to press on in my walk with Christ and give him glory daily.

Anyway, back to my original train of thought (the one after the movie). I think movies have a lot of these norms like the hero getting the girl and good triumphing over evil because these are almost inherent in us as humans. Even though we are evil by nature, we can see that light is better than dark. We can see that Luke is someone to cheer for and the Emperor is someone to cheer against, to use my dorky Star Wars references. And with the hero getting the girl, I had a thought earlier that I want to write out and I don't know how to connect that with the hero getting the girl so I'll just ignore a transition and be a bad writer.
I think it's inherent for us to need one another. In Genesis, God says that it's not good for man to be alone. In I think the Proverbs it says "As iron sharpens iron, so one should sharpen another." There's a sort of beneficial friction in the connection between humans. We have an inherent need for community and on a more specific scale, a man needs a woman and a woman needs a man. We're equal but with different roles, but we have the same needs emotional, physical, and spiritual needs that are met through another person.
My communications textbook once talked about how we gain a sense of our own identity based on how others view us. I don't fully agree with that but I think it's mostly true in its own way. It's in this that we need each other because if we don't see how we differ or relate to others, we don't really know much about ourselves because we have no comparison.
At this point I don't think I'm really articulating the once-good idea I had earlier, so I think I'll just end here and focus on my church history outline.

Reaction

My cousin Allison died this morning. It was not sudden nor was it unexpected because she's been battling lung cancer for the past two or so years, but it's still sudden in its own way. To be self-centered for a minute, I don't know how I'm supposed to react. I don't think my cousin was a Christian, so there's little to no hope that I'll see her again. Since I'm the baby of the whole family and all my cousins are at least 8 years older than me, I've never been close with any of them. I've had more conversations with some of them than others but it still remains that we were more acquaintances than family.
So how do I react to this? Obviously, I grieve with my relatives as they grieve when we go up for the funeral, but how am I supposed to feel now? Empathy is something I struggle with on a massive scale. I can feel happy or sorry for someone who I know well and care about but if I hardly know someone and only see them once or twice a year at holidays, how do I feel empathy for them?
Maybe the only thing I can hope for myself is that Christ will completely rework my heart this week leading up to the funeral and when we get there, I'll see all my relatives as Christ sees them and pour out love on them.

The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. This quote has become pretty popular recently and it was even a part of the youth's weekend I helped out with this past weekend. I think I'm guilty of being indifferent to my relatives spiritual lostness. I've used the age, location, and lifestyle differences as an excuse not to pray for them, not to pursue relationships with them, and not to love them every chance I get. I could spend tons of time wondering about what if I had been bold with my relatives could my cousin have been shown Christ's love for her but what if's are just new forms of regret.

God, please give me a new heart to love my relatives. Please use this opportunity this weekend to be glorifying to You. Help me to love Aunt Susan, Uncle Bob, Aunt Barbara, Stephen, Greg, Donna, Jamie, Carla, Mike, and all my other relatives in this time of grief and loss. Give me empathy for them. Give me a loving heart for them. Go with me and my family this weekend. Go before us and prepare hearts and minds. Go with us and give us words to speak.

Did the truth make a killer out of a friend?

Here's a song I've really been loving lately. It's called Curse the Love Songs and it's by a group called the Hawk in Paris, which is made up of the lead singer of Jars of Clay and a couple people I don't know.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxdcLtTJ320

Have you ever stood out in the rain
Watched love grow cold and roll away
And in your heart feel the weight that things will never change
You're not alone

So curse the love song playing on the radio station
Curse the love song playing on the radio station

Have you thought you'd never breathe again
Did the truth make a killer out of friend
And in your heart feel the weight that things will never change
You're not alone

So curse the love songs playing on the radio station
Curse the love song playing on the radio station

Does the night, the night go on and on
It doesn't matter if you're awake 'cause you're going to sleep away the day
And in your heart theirs a weight and it doesn't go away
You're not alone

So curse the love songs playing on the radio station
Curse the love songs playing on the radio station
So curse the love songs playing on the radio station
Curse the love songs playing on the radio station

Have you ever stood out in the rain

Drained.

I am spent. Physically, emotionally, mentally. Work was stressful and draining, life is busy and to be honest unfulfilling, and I just feel scattered.

Most of this will be alleviated after a good night sleep but the shadow never seems to fade.

A change in the weather, a change in the blog

Woohoo for new blog background templates! Actually, that's not woohoo-worthy but whatever. It's Fall and the leaves are changing, the leaves are blowing off the trees, and I'm still a broken man with broken hands.

Not much going on in the Girl C situation. Lunch was really good last week but there hasn't been anything between us since. For the present I'm at the point of just saying that if she has any interest in at least spending time with me as a friend then she'll contact me 'cause I left the going-out-for-coffee ball in her court. I've been the guy who pushes for a relationship that isn't there many times before and I'm not doing that this time 'cause it's foolish, immature, and a waste of time.

Come to think of it, not much else is going on in my life right now. I work a decent bit, school is heating up, and that's pretty much it.

I think as I get older I'm realizing the value of relationships with people. The things rust and fade, the money gets spent or taken, and the memories remain in the past. It's the people that matter. I've found that I've made plans to eat lunch with lots of different people at different times in the past few weeks. It's almost as if my go to is "We should get lunch sometime." I guess that's not a bad thing.

I've gotta read two books of Paradise Lost tonight, so that'll be fun.

Good night, and good luck.

A moment of imperfect clarity

And not the Spoken album, though I am listening to it on Spotify solely for the sake of posting this blog.

So after lots and lots of time spent thinking through the whole Girl C situation and also talking to a leader in my life earlier today, I think I know what I'm going to do.

For years I've held a lot of fantasies, hopes, and ideals about what "love" is and should be based on tv sitcoms, movies, and music. Up until now, I understand the idea of love being something you have to fight for that doesn't come easy but I always had these ideas of the what-ifs of love. I'm having trouble explaining this. For example, I bought two tickets on Groupon to a corn maze that's about 30 minutes from here with the hope that whenever I asked Girl C out she'd say yes and things would be all candyland and sunshine and I'd take her there 'cause we could hold hands and talk and have a great night. Now, I'm not saying any of that is bad in and of itself and I still hold to the hope of some day having that sort of time with my future spouse (if I do get married that is) but all that is merely hearsay.

To better illustrate how I'm feeling, I'm just gonna copy/paste the text I sent to the guy who has been helping me with all this (warning: one "cuss" word used):
"I'm on the mountain" (this big hill by the local trash dump that I call the mountain for the epicness of it) "for the sunset and I've been thinking and I have realized that I have to sacrifice all the foolish hopes and fantasies of what a relationship is and could be/bring that I've gotten from growing up watching sitcoms and movies and I need to sacrifice all the bullshit and lies I've told myself for a chance at something real and genuine. so yeah. gonna try and get to know her slowly even tho in my head i had lots of hopes and plans already. God is God and I am not."

So what I'm going to do is have lunch with her tomorrow as planned and just tell her that I want to get to know her.

"I know it's not you my dear, I know it's not you. I know it's not you my dear, it's the nothing that kills."

I took a chance tonight. The turnout was bittersweet. Now, I just don't know in what way to move forward.


Basically, I asked Girl C out, she said yes but later told me that she doesn't have romantic interest in me, just friendship.

This might be the first time I ever blog and journal simultaneously.

I just don't know what to do. I realize that anything worth having is worth fighting for and so if I want to win her heart I have to make an effort, but at the same time I feel like I might be going on false hope as always. I didn't have an expectation that she likes me back but I had this hope that there was interest because she seems to joke with me more than other guys and we went to the Fleet Foxes show together and all these other little things that made me think there was a connection.

The really tough thing is that Girl C was the very first girl I actually believed could like me in return. Every other girl I've ever liked always treated either like dirt or like I was only a guy with no romantic potential but I felt like Girl C and I connected and she's different than any other girl I've met and yet I'm nothing more than a friend to her.

I guess I'm just struggling with what to do now. I care about her and want to get to know her. We set up a lunch meeting (I'm not gonna call it a date because as the Jon Foreman lyric goes, "It takes two to go to war but only one to fall in love" (not that I'm in love with her or anything that major)) for Friday and I don't know if I should cancel or go. On the one hand, I want to go because just spending time with her would be amazing and I'm not trying to push some big romance on her so the simplicity would work. Plus I want to hope that maybe we'll get to hang out and the whole Ben Gibbard "I Will Possess Your Heart" will happen and romantic love will blossom from friendship. That's sort of what I wanted in the first place but I was hoping that there'd be at least a foundational interest.  However, on the other hand I feel like going would postpone the inevitable of me having to move on from yet another girl who had no interest in me.

I just don't know. Do I move on, settle for being friends and nothing more, or hang on a thread of hope for something more?

"God is God and I am not, I can only see a part of the picture he's painting. God is God and I am man, so I'll never understand it all, for only God is God. "

"The fear, the fear is what keeps us here."

Fear is something I've wrestled with my entire life. When I was a kid, it was fear of other kids I didn't know who were different than I was. This came in the form of kids on my soccer team who were raised differently than I was and were of a less kind behavioral mold. When I was a teenager, it was two things mainly. First and foremost, it was a fear of being in the spotlight. It was a fear of public speaking or having to lead in some way or to stand up for something on my own. Second, it was a fear of girls. I don't mean "Ah! XX genes, run away, run away!" No, for me it was more of a fear of how to talk to them, treat them, and interact with them. For a number of years, I would have an internal freak out every single time a girl in the youth group would hug me. Thoughts of "Where should I put my hands? If I put them there will she get mad or be creeped out?" and others were a plague upon me in middle and high school.
Now in college, I deal with bits and pieces of all the prior fears but a larger fear looms over me. I'm a very insecure person and in trying to get to know Girl C (I've been texting and tweeting her off&on the past two days), I am absolutely terrified of talking to much and pushing her away. I would love to talk with her for hours and hours to get to know her. Last night we were texting sporadically and I would've loved to have kept talking to her all night long even though I was tired and had to be up at 6:15 this morning. However, I texted her after I got out of my monday night class and she didn't reply, so that was the end of that. I say all that because I'm afraid that if I text her again or tweet her today (I tweeted her something a little while ago and then deleted it out of fear) that she might get annoyed or think I'm being pushy or overly friendly.

I think my biggest fear in regards to people is becoming obsolete. I'm afraid of everyone just saying "We don't need or want you anymore" and me being stranded in this world so far from home by myself. Now, it's a pretty unrealistic fear because God has promised to never leave or forsake me and I think that he loves and blesses us with people in our lives that we don't deserve. However, the fear still remains and it has come on full force lately in regards to Girl C. I guess my worst fear would be to ask her out and she respond with, "No, I don't have any interest in you and you have nothing of worth." I think one of my problems is that I have trouble finding my worth in Christ and instead look to others for it. I am a fool.

I feel like this isn't something I can talk about with a lot of people because most people would say something like, "Oh, God works for the good of those who love him, so don't worry." While that's true, that does not mean that God will necessarily bless his people with the specific blessings they desire. God's working for my good. I get that. That doesn't mean I stand a chance with Girl C. God remains good but it's the unknown that gives fear a foothold.

The scariest thing

I think the scariest thing to have to live with in my life is knowing that I can't earn a single good thing. I can help friends, love people I don't know, be a good student, work hard, and build a tower of good deeds, and yet I can't earn salvation. I can't earn my way to Heaven. I can't earn people's love and friendship. I can't win Girl C's heart. No matter what I do, the things worth attaining in this life are all gifts. We are beggars all.

Pertaining to trying to win/earn Girl C's heart, I wrote a little line a week or two ago.
" I don’t deserve you

And I cannot earn you

Fourteen years is just not enough"

Next time!

Short and sweet post here. Regarding this whole situation, I'm gonna fight my impulse to overthink and worry and just take the situation one step at a time and hope for the best and trust God. I'm also going to pray for Girl C, something I've never really committed to when liking a girl before. So, yeah.

Talking Through Glass / I want to believe

Last night I went to the Thrice show and it was awesome. I moshed to Silhouette, sang/screamed 90% of the lyrics sung, and had a blast. Then after, the lead singer Dustin, one of my personal heroes, played a short acoustic set and then had a meet&greet and I said hi, got his autograph, and talked to him for a minute about C.S. Lewis, one of both of our favorite writers. It was sweet.
Anyway, I'll use that to segue into what's on my mind at the moment. Tonight, my care group went to the college group leader's house for dinner and it was a really great time. However, Girl C didn't get there until way late and I hardly got to talk to her and while we all joked around about stuff, I didn't get any sort of real time with her. The segue I'm making is that I've been feeling what is described in the lyrics of Talking Through Glass by Thrice. It starts out with "It never turns out right for me and you, no matter how I try to see it through." Then the song continues onto a disconnect in a relationship that ends in the need to break up and move on. I don't really relate to that part but for the past couple weeks I've really been looking for opportunities to get to know Girl C and nothing seems to turn out right. If I'm off work on a Wednesday for care group or Sunday for Lift Groups, she doesn't come or leaves early or comes late or something. I work every other Sunday/Wednesday so my chances are slim as is and now it's like I'm "trying to catch the wind."

I want to believe that she's worth feeling like there's no chance but still trying. Back in the song there's a line that goes, "Though I've no hope I'll ever find someone like you" and I don't fully feel like that because I hardly know this girl but I feel a different, more real sort of feeling towards her and it's the first time I've felt this particular way before and it's scary and confusing. Sometimes I just feel like all the major things I desire in life are just implausible. I dunno. I've lost my train of thought by having multiple conversations and listening to the new Ryan Adams album, so until next time...

"I want a girl who'll laugh for no one else"

It's been an odd day. I woke up, did some reading and stuff, went to work at 3 for two hours and then clocked out and went to Southeastern's cookout to help there. That took about two and a half hours and it was bittersweet. Sweet 'cause I got to help out and had a good time but bitter because I didn't get to talk to Girl C at all. I saw her once or twice helping out in different places but I never got the chance (had the courage) to just go up and talk to her. After helping clean up and then having a relay race with the rest of the staff and volunteers (except Girl C who left early) on the inflatables (which my team won), I started to get the feeling of lonely sorrow, the kind that makes me want to listen to Brand New and sulk about how "I'll never get anything right" and "I'm on my own." I listened to them on my drive home and got home and decided I'd watch Crazy Heart 'cause I've been saving it for a night when I need a pick me up. Well, I got on Twitter and saw that Girl C had tweeted me a teasing comment about something I had said, so that brightened by day immensely. Then I saw a trailer on the Crazy Heart disc for this movie called Adam, which is about a guy with asperger's syndrome who meets a girl and has trouble relating and connecting with her but it looked happy and all and since I relate to the whole not-connecting thing, I decided to go rent that. Long story short, I drove to Blockbuster listening to Weezer (hence the lyrics for blog title), found the movie and also bought Toy Story 3 for $8, so that's awesome. I'm a much better mood now as I start the movie. I guess sometimes the momentary sorrow just has to be outlasted.

So for three start gatherings (or events?) I've hoped to try and see / talk to Girl C and for the third straight time she's either not been there or has been busy and left early. I've got one more shot to talk to her this week and that's Wednesday night. A midterm lies between then and now, but thankfully so does tomorrow night's Thrice show :)

I guess there's not much else to say, so I think i'll focus on this movie and end here. Or maybe here. Here? Ok fine, hear.

In love with the potential

Tonight while walking to and from Southeastern's library after my Personal Finance hybrid ended for the night, I was thinking about U2's City of Blinding Lights and the things I hope for in a future relationship. Specifically I was thinking of the potential that could happen with Girl C, how we could go for frozen yogurt, get chick-fil-a, take walks in the nature park and around campus, and all this other stuff. This got me thinking of a line in Death Cab for Cutie's song "I Will Possess Your Heart" that says "How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me. It's like a book elegantly bound but in a language that you can't read."
I've "fallen" for the potential of a relationship before. With Girl A, I was so hopeful at all the potential we had that it pushed what I thought I was feeling farther than what I was really feeling. I really don't want that with Girl C. I'm thinking of this a lot more seriously than I have ever thought of a relationship before and with that comes the battle over realism and romanticism. At heart I'm a romantic but there's miles of realist track between my heart and my mind. That said, that's a post for another day since I have my hybrid in the early morning.

"It's never quite worth what you give up to get it"

This post is going to be brutally honest, but this is my makeshift confessional.


So I just watch Born On the Fourth of July, a movie about an All-American teen who goes to fight in Vietnam, gets paralyzed, and then goes through all the aftermath. It's part of Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy and I liked it a lot more than Platoon. Platoon seemed to focus on the horror and evil that man is capable of in the face of war, whereas BOtFoJ focused on the loss of Tom Cruise's character's loss of innocence. It's this loss of innocence that really struck a chord with me. At the beginning of the film, there is a scene of Tom Cruise's character as a kid playing a war game with his friends. From there until the end of the film, the main character slowly watches his innocence and idealism deteriorate through battles, death, paralysis, hatred, empty sex, drunkenness, and the culture clash over the Vietnam War. It's a pretty sobering film and while I didn't love it and will probably take it to Ed McKay's, it was worth the watch.


Now, for the brutal honesty part. I'd really like to write a song about the loss of innocence because for years I've felt a similar deterioration by way of my sinful heart and today I felt it even more. There was a part of the film where Tom Cruise's character goes to stay in Mexico with a bunch of other vets. Here, they drunk, gamble, fight, and have sex with prostitutes. Because the main guy is paralyzed from the chest down, he's unable to feel anything, so sex offers nothing for him. However, because he was recently rejected by his family, his loneliness and desire for connection lead him to paying for a prostitute to have sex with him. The scene in question was not overly sexual but there was explicit nudity and while I knew I should fast forward or close my eyes or something, I chose to keep my eyes focused on what was not mine. For a while I've known that if I ever have a son, I'm not going to be all "porn is bad!!!!" but I'm going to explain a variation of that and say that when you see something, you can't unsee it. You can't forget it. After seeing that scene, my mind started to think horrible, sick, awful things about people I know and care about. I hate(d) myself for thinking those thoughts and I cursed myself and those thoughts but they can't be undone or unthought. In my heart, I've sinned against people in awful ways. This is my loss of innocence. I don't know how to put into words the shame and hatred I feel towards this sickness in my mind. I've thought the most vile thoughts about people I claim to care about. I am the villain of the story.

Purify me, God. Purge me of myself. Destroy me.

An interesting quote from a bitter old woman

I'm watching a movie called Ship of Fools that was in a collection of movies I got last week at Big Lots for $5. It's about a bunch of different people and what goes on during their time aboard a ship traveling from Spain to Germany after WWI. Anyway, this quote is from a bitter, cynical woman who has been through the ringer and back and is becoming friends with a young, idealistic girl who is on the ship with her boyfriend.

The girl paints a picture of her boyfriend, shows the woman, and says "You can see I'm in love." This is the woman's response:
"Oh, of course. Everybody on this ship is in love. Love me whether or not I love you. Love me whether I am fit to love. Love me whether I am able to love. Even is there is no such thing as love. Love me."

With all this time on my hands

You'd think I was a watchmaker. Ba-dum-ch!

But yeah, I've been updating this a lot lately, probably because of the events and emotional stuff going on in my life. I just changed the subheader of the blog from "Something dies when you grow older but you do the best you can," a line from one of my favorite Brand New songs, Untitled 1 (Good Man), to "I've got vices like any other man, vices that you're not used to, vices that will make you think less of me" from one of my all-time favorite songs, Vices by Dead Poetic. I did this because I'm trying to be less dark and cynical about the future and while Good Man is a beautiful song that speaks to me a lot, I'm trying to hope that there is more luster in my life in the coming days then there is sorrow and bitterness. That said, I'm not forsaking my realist mind. Vices isn't really any better but it's more honest and describes me as a person more. I'm not really sure how but I'd like to include the final lines of the song that make it beautiful, "Oh but Jesus, I've got vices like any other man. Vices that you're so used to, vices that won't make you think less of me." It's a song about our complete brokenness as humans, as seen in the chorus adorning my front page, being overcome by the beautiful grace of God through Jesus. Even if I don't figure out a way to include that final chorus in the blog heading, I'll be okay with just having We Are Beggars All, a line from a great Thrice song about the grace of God, as the main header.

I guess it's on to the rest of my day. Reading, wasting time, work, Wvu game. This is me doing "best [I] can."

It's the wanting that kills

The wanting is what hurts me. The wanting of what I do not have opens up a void in my heart and mind and when that void is not filled with what I desire (or something better), then despair is ready and willing to fill it instead. It's my desire to have someone that kills me, not the lack of having someone. It's not the hope (or lack thereof) that kills me, it's the discontent with the grace I already have. I am broken.

Goin' good

Things have been going really well for me this week. School hasn't been too overbearing, work has been good, I saw the Lion King last night (it was great) and on Wednesday I had a completely amazing night at the Fleet Foxes show with friends (including Girl C).
I haven't journaled this yet but I guess this post will be a trial run for that. Wednesday night was easily the best night I've had in a long time. My enjoyment of the night as a whole reminded me of when I saw U2 a couple years back. Both nights, I was just on a whole other level of joy, I had a lot of fun, I connected with a friend, and when I got home, my body wanted sleep but my mind was wide awake. On Wednesday, I went over to my friends' (the OD college leader and his wife) house and then went with them and Girl C to get some dinner downtown and then go to the show. We went to a Mediterranean place and then to Starbucks so the two women could get pre-show lattes. So far, really good time. Then we got to the venue and despite the lame security people not letting me take my umbrella into the place, we got there smoothly. Thankfully, I got to sit next to Girl C and we got to talk a lot during the night and even though it began to pour rain and the show got cancelled 1/3 of the way through, it was amazing. We joked, got to know each other a bit, had fun, and just had a great time making a memory. Since the next day was her birthday, I decided to buy her one of the band's cds and I guess she loved it, so that made me feel even more glad (gladder? haha). After the show was cancelled, we went back to the couple's home, put on some dry clothes, and then spent an hour or so talking and having hot tea together. Wow. It was a phenomenal yet simple way to end a fantastic evening. God is so good and so gracious.

Now, I didn't intend to blog about my awesome night but it just kinda turned into that 'cause I haven't really told the whole story to anyone yet. My main reason for coming to blog right now was because I think that when life seems to be goin' good, it's really hard for me to be motivated to get things done, like school. When I'm lonely or having a crappy week, it's somewhat easy for me to get things done because I figure that I'm already in a negative place, so doing school won't dampen it any more. However, when things are going well, I don't want to take a bunch of time to read stuff I don't want to read or do assignments I don't want to do. Instead, I really just want to talk to Girl C. However, my insecurity is rearing its ugly head yet again and I'm afraid to tweet or FB her today since I talked to her a little yesterday for her birthday and I'm afraid of pushing something that isn't there.
Anyway, time for an abrupt ending to this post because the mail is here and my Dexter season 5 disc 1 from Netflix (or should I say Qwikster? Lame.) is here. 

Chasing Amy

So I just watched Kevin Smith's movie Chasing Amy. I'd heard of it for a while but I never got around to watching until I read about it at Ed McKay's a few weeks back and then saw it was on Netflix Instant.

As a whole, I enjoyed it. It had some good dialogue, good acting, some funny stuff, and some really good thinking on love, sex, and life. That said, it also had a LOT of really awful dialogue/content and while I really liked that the characters and thus the audience were thinking deeply about good issues, I strongly disagree with most of the conclusions that Kevin Smith's characters reached.

Basically, the plot revolves around a comic book writer who falls in love with a girl who turns out to be gay. They become close friends and then end up dating and both wrestle with issues of purpose, love, and identity throughout the last hour of the film. I disagree with a lot of the things said in the movie but there was one line I really liked that came at the end in the form of a quote on a comic book page. Contextually, the line comes on the last page of a comic book written by the guy in memory of the broken relationship he had with the girl and as a sort of apology. Anyway, the line:

"You have to put the individual ahead of their actions."

It's short and simple, but still deep and thought-provoking. In the film, the guy has a lot of problems with the girl's scattered history (which is pretty graphic) and the relationship ends because he can't get past her past. Now, the film seems to end by saying "Hey, you've gotta accept how perverted this person is no matter what" and with that I disagree. I can accept that a person is broken and a sinner without being okay with the sin in their heart. However, I fully agree with the line quoted above. People are more than the sum of their actions. Their actions can end up determining who they become or who they are in light of a situation (like sin determining man's guilt before God) but I am not a sinner because I sin; I sin because I am a sinner. I dunno, that sounds kinda fortune cookie-ish but I'm gonna try and think through all this tonight.

Regardless, interesting movie that I won't recommend to many people due to its content but for the few who can look past hard-R rated dialogue and look for deeper, more important things in a film, I'd recommend this if only for the thoughts it might kick up.

I really ought to go to sleep

but I am not going just yet.

Not a whole lot going on in life as of this moment. I just typed up a little song/poem/musicless-ditty I'm calling Be My Muse and then I tried to play a tune to it on the guitar but since I don't know jack about guitar playing, that quickly ended and I went back to writing words (something I know a little better).

I get asked all the time what I want to do with my life or where I'm gonna go or what my interests/hobbies are. I think most people ask that last question because they fancy themselves as unofficial career counselors, so if I would just tell them how I like to build model airplanes or I really like business math they could tell me what to do with my life. For the record, I don't build model airplanes and I'm not a major proponent for business math. Honestly, I don't really have any hobbies. I mean, I kind of consider myself a movie buff (I would say cinephile but thanks to pedophiles, any words with the suffix -phile seems to draw negative connotations) and I also really enjoy almost all types of music, but that's pretty much it. I don't play any instruments, which is annoying because when I tell people that I like music, they always ask "Oh, what instruments do you play?" and I have to respond with something like "Oh, I don't really play anything, I just like listening to and finding new bands and styles of music to enjoy." I also don't really know anything about making movies. I think it'd be really cool to write a screenplay or something and while a couple ideas have bounced in my head from time to time, I don't foresee anything like that happening.

Lately, I've been thinking I might stay at Southeastern to get an English degree. I don't really have a desire to be a teacher but I'm a big fan of words and some forms of literature, so it seems to be the most enjoyable degree I could get from Southeastern. Fiscally speaking, staying at Southeastern would certainly be the wisest choice. I can go the next couple years with free tuition and if I were to become an RA, I would get free room & board so I could move out and live right on campus. I think that part would probably be good because since I live off campus, I've never really taken much time to connect with people who don't go to Open Door. I saw one girl who I've only recently began to get to know the other day and we were talking and she was asking if this was my first semester and I told her that I'd actually been taking classes here a couple years. I guess my lack of trying to develop friendships at Southeastern has begun to come to light.

I'm laying in bed and I really ought to brush my teeth and go to bed, but I'm listening to some of the new Thrice album and I want to get through the rest of the tracks before I shut down for the night. I'm meeting a friend for breakfast before church tomorrow, so I'll probably regret not going to bed sooner. Oh well.

Update on the girl sitch (Yes that's right, it's a naked mole rat!). Haven't really had any contact with Girl C lately. I saw her at a distance earlier this week but she was talking to people and I wimped out. Later I FB chatted her to ask why she wasn't there (feigning ignorance of her presence) with the hope that it would start up a conversation but she didn't respond and got off chat a bit later and never responded. This is why I hate Facebook. It makes it incredibly hard to decipher whether someone is ignoring you or just is ignorant. All the while the demons in my head keep telling me how she's not at all interested or else she would've at least acknowledged me. I just don't know. I'll probably see her tomorrow at church and though I doubt we'll talk since I'm a coward and she has no reason to talk to me, maybe something will happen. As far as I know she's still going to the Fleet Foxes show with me and two friends of ours and if that is confirmed tomorrow, I will probably spend Monday and Tuesday playing out scenarios in my head of where we'll all sit, if she'll like the concert, if we'll do anything before or after, what I'll say to her, and a multitude of other insignificant things that keep me up at night.

I would end this post with lyrics from the new Thrice record but it's hard to pick out specific lyrics because they're all just so tight and well-written, plus half the beauty is in the music and the singing.

A cool quote from Milton's Comus: A Mask

"He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i'th' center, and enjoy bright day,
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon."

Wrestling

When I'm wrestling with something, what better way to think it out then coming to the blog? Ha. Ha. But seriously, that's exactly what I'm going do. My soundtrack is a couple of the new Thrice tracks (which are great) and then some songs off Matt Papa's This Changes Everything. This is going to be more stream-of-consciousness than usual...

So, what am I wrestling with? Well, it's definitely something I've never wrestled with before. I'm wrestling with the decision of whether or not to ask Girl C out. I really feel like that James 1 double-minded man right now. I've gone from being 100% sure that I should ask her out to being 100% sure I shouldn't and pretty much everything in between. I've penned my pros and cons and I've weighed peoples opinions and still I'm not on solid ground.
From the perspective of what I want, I want to ask her out. She's kind, funny, smart, cute, and (from what I've seen) has a loving servants heart. To be honest, this is the first girl I've ever been interested in who I can actually imagining myself wanting to marry and marrying. Before, all my affections were based on either lust or on how the girl treated me or some other foolish excuse of shifting sand. This time though, I feel like there's some real here.
All that said, I'm only 19 and she's a few weeks from 19. In the grand scheme, we're still kids. I don't know what I want to do with my life, I don't know whether or not I want to stay at Southeastern or transfer, I don't know what I want to do after college, I really don't know anything.
So if I ask her and she says no, well nothing really changes. It'll hurt and make the rest of my day pretty awful but her response would only be a vocalization of what I've gotten from plenty of girls before. If she says no, my lonely life goes on without missing much of a beat.
If she says yes, then I start to get to know her. I'm a horrible overthinker so I can't help but think about marriage down the road and take that into consideration even though I'm only thinking of asking her out to get to know her to see if I want to court her for marriage. We should both be finished college by 21 or 22, then what?
I just read a comment her dad made on a prank status a couple guys made on her FB profile about marrying her and he basically said that he thinks marriage should wait till years after school and that a guy needs to have a job and a foundation in life before he were to try and marry her and that got me thinking. All this is hypothetical but is love enough of a basis for a relationship even if I didn't have a career or a life goal? I dunno.
I feel like pursuing someone when my entire future is blurry at best would be unwise, yet I desire someone still. And then comes yet another addition to my strained thoughts. Girl C went on a couple dates with a guy recently and even though nothing came out of it, I feel like this girl is special and if I don't take a chance soon, someone else will and I could miss out on someone amazing. Sure I could just go with the safe route that my dad suggested and try and hang out with her in a group sort of way but there's not guarantee she doesn't start dating someone while I spend my time trying to casually get to know her.
I've always been a wait and see kind of guy. I'm not one for taking risks or chances, so there's this part of me that's saying "It's time to take a chance on this girl!" while another part is telling me that I'm young and immature.
All these people around me are getting engaged and married or are dating people and I keep trying to look at others' relationships with hopes that maybe I'll gain some insight into what to do in my own, but when it all comes down, I'm the one who has to make the choice, not anyone else. What I want is to get to know her and find out if she's someone I want to marry, but my head is telling me that I need to grow up before I consider starting a path towards being a husband. I know I'm overthinking it because marriage is off in the distance but it is so hard for me to just look at the present when the future keeps popping up.

Something just came to my mind. I'm thinking maybe instead of being all "Hey you seem really awesome and I'd like to get to know you more, wanna go out sometime?" I could just talk to her and be like "You seem really awesome and I'd really like to get to know you more, but I'm not sure I'm at the maturity level to try and pursue you romantically but I'd still like spend time with you and get to know you." Maybe I'll just pull her aside one day and say whatever comes out.

It's late and I'm planning on getting up around 10 to go run at the nature park, so I'll end here.

"It's a fight between my heart and mind
No one really wins this time
No one really wins this time"
[finished at 1:12AM]
[picked back up at 1:32AM]
Laying in bed, I think I've come to a conclusion. I think the wisest course of action would be for me not to ask her, at least not yet. If I truly believe that God is in control and whatever happens will be for his glory and for my good in the end(which I do), then it would be foolish for me to ask Girl C out just because I'm afraid someone else might "beat me to the punch." It would be foolish of me to pursue something which requires the maturity that I'm not sure I have yet. If pursuing and marrying Girl C is in God's plan for my life, awesome. If not, God remains good. I'm not going to rush God's perfect timing just because I'm 19 and impatient.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55:8-9

Hopefully the final verse

I've finally moved on from Girl A. It's been coming for a while but only in the past few days have I seen her name or her face and not felt any sort of care for her. I'm not really bitter either. There was never a real future for us anyway, so her not returning my affections turns out to be a blessing. Plus, I may be on the brink of a something very good. Regardless, I've added another verse to my little song/poem/collectionofletters, Continuation. Each verse is about a girl I liked but ended up moving on from and it turned out to be good for me each time. Here it is:

You were a flower in a bouquet of thorns

A soothing whisper ‘mongst all the world’s scorns.

I thought not to have you would be a great sin,

But now I’m free from you, oh once darling Lynn.

Though the wasted hours pile high as a mountain,

I have found continuation.

You wore a golden smile with brushed golden hair

You seemed a chain breaker of my weary cares.

But oh once beloved Rebecca, you don’t know

How our parting left me ‘neath the undertow.

Though the wasted hours pile high as a mountain,

I have found continuation.

Oh, the plans I made for us, my dearest Anne

Have gone so awry for this mouse of a man.

Now we are no more, so what shall I do?

I must learn to walk on living life without you.

Though the wasted hours pile high as a mountain,

I have found continuation.

You knew how to hit and you knew how to miss

You knew how to imprint, oh once winsome Lyss.

But enough is enough; no more will I try

To have what is lacking: a 'love' that’s a lie.

Though the wasted hours pile high as a mountain,

I have found continuation.

Just okay / "Not lovers, but feigners"

People respond to extremes. People respond when you're really happy, like when you post a Facebook status all about how something awesome happened and you're so excited and you use exclamation points and a smiley face. People respond when you're really struggling or in a dark mood and you're not afraid to show it by posting sad song lyrics or something as your status. However, I feel like I get lost in the in-between of being "just okay." People don't really pay much attention to mediocre, to the people caught in the middle. People take notice if you're either jumping up and down on land or you're drowning in the water, but very little attention is given to the ones who are simply treading water. That's how I feel a lot. I'm really blessed in most areas of my life, which keeps me afloat when i am plagued by sin, insecurity, pride, lust, hatred, and fear. I don't have everything together like some people nor do I live in the remnants of shambles either. I am lost in the in-between.

Part 2 of this will be quick 'cause I have to be up in 6 or so hours. Zoinks. Anyway, it's a weird feeling to be replaced, especially when you've let it happen willingly. As I've tried to move on and distance myself from Girl A, she's started to become friends with this guy from another church who, like me, is cynical, negative, and somewhat funny. From what I've gathered, they've been texting and fb-ing a bit lately, much like her and I used to do. In one sense, I'm okay with being replaced. By her having a new friend to make her laugh and feel better about herself, she won't need me even when I come crawling back because I'm lonely and want some sort of connection. In another sense though, it kinda sucks. I used to be the one who kept her optimism grounded and also made her laugh. As times change, so do feelings and relationships alike. The quoted line in the title is part of a good line from an As Cities Burn song. The full line, which I just put as my FB status, goes like this:
"Automated exchanges make us not lovers,
But feigners, we are only strangers."

Entitlement

I'm tired of living with a selfish entitlement problem in my heart and mind. A lot of the time when I do something that I know is right to love someone else or to honor God, I feel after like "I do all this but why don't I have what I want?" For much of the time, the "what I want" part is more like "I do this but I don't have any romantic other" as if my good works entitle me to having a girlfriend or something. Part of the problem (other than my evil heart) is the whole idea of being a "good guy." Girls always talk about how they want a good guy, not some loser like the ones they always date, so naturally all the single guys like me puff ourselves up thinking we're somehow good and therefore get bitter because we don't get the girls we want. I'm about to go to work so i'll finish this blog later.

This is later. Work was a'ight. I hung out with Girl A after because honestly, I just wanted to genuinely enjoy something tonight and even though our relationship is mostly a one-way street, I just enjoy hanging out with her from time to time.

Earlier on my way to work I was listening to some old Steven Curtis Chapman and I listened to the songs "More To This Life" and "For The Sake of the Call." Both hit me more than I expected. The former shook my thinking about life a little bit because it's very easy for me to just put my head down and go through the daily routine of work and school and all that and only hope for something beautiful and worthwhile to happen in my life but that song got me remembering how the world is broken but God pours out grace (undeserved favor) on us all the time and because he first loved us and first gave us what we didn't deserve, it's our, heck it's my job to love others and give them favor even if they in no way deserve it. The latter got me in a more present way. I was asked to drive about 30-40 minutes tomorrow morning to help shuttle some students from Louisburg College to Open Door for the service tomorrow and since the time I was asked the other day, I've been entirely against it. Getting up way earlier than normal to drive an hour up and back to pick up some people I don't know and probably have nothing in common with and then sit in the car for a 30 minute car ride of awkward turtle-ness? Sure, what's not to envy. But in that song, the line "We will abandon it all for the sake of the call" got me thinking that if I truly believe that Jesus is the son of God, that he came to earth, lived a sinless life, died a sinners death, rose again three days later, and atoned for the sins of a corrupt world, then I have to be willing to abandon everything, even something so miniscule as my comfort, my sleep, and my time/money/effort. Do I want to do this tomorrow morning? No. But I will because that's what Christ has called me to. Doing this tomorrow will be me trying to give grace to some people, just as Jesus gave it to me. And honestly, there won't be any roses for me. Girl A isn't gonna find out and be like "Oh Dan, you are such a good guy! I now have deep, honest feelings of affection for you and I want to get to know you on a deeper, more real level!" nor is this cute girl, who I guess I'll call Girl C (I have a reason for skipping from B to C), who I've been trying to get to know lately because she's cute and she's highly spoken of and seems to have a godly heart, (nor will she) suddenly realize I'm a good guy (which if I'm honest, I'm not) and develop an interest in me. God never promised that by honoring him through our lives that he would give us significant others or (for some people) nice cars or houses or whatever the American dream promises. God promised that he would be faithful, he would be merciful, he would love us even in the midst of our filth and treachery, and that he would never leave us. Sometimes it's hard to hold on to that promise when I so greatly desire companionship, but I have to preach to myself daily that God is in control, that he loves me as no other could or would, and that I am where he wants me to be and who he wants me to be. No more, no less. I've gotta be up at like 7:50 tomorrow, which isn't so bad but I'm a total wuss so it's early for me, so I'll end here.

"Some boys don't know how to love"

I don't do well in crowds. It's not that I'm claustrophobic or that I'm uncomfortable around large groups of people, it's just that I don't feel like I fit in with most people. I'm not entirely anti-social but since I struggle with caring about other people, I don't usually make much of an effort to step out of my comfort zone to talk to people I don't know. Tonight, I went to a "church fair" at Southeastern where all the local churches set up booths to meet new students and all I did the whole time I was there was stand near the Open Door booth and do nothing. I didn't really talk to anyone new, I didn't talk to any of the other Open Door people since I don't know many of them very well, and I just left without saying goodbye to anyone because I hadn't really said hello to anyone.

This is the reason that two of my closest friends leaving really sucks. It takes me a while to warm up to people and even longer to be open and close with them. I'd known both of them for 7 years and only in the past couple had I really gotten close to the one who I'm good friends with. And romantically, it took a number of months and her seeming to care and be interested for me to be open and honest with Girl A. I'm just not good with people

"I might never catch a mouse and present it in my mouth to make you feel you're with someone who deserves to be with you"

Insecurity is something I've struggled with for a long time and will likely struggle with for a while longer. I don't feel insecure about the base level things in life like food, shelter, clothing, etc. I guess that's 'cause I still live with my parents and haven't really had to make it out on my own. However, it's also because I do believe what Jesus said in Matthew 6 about not worrying about food or clothes because God will take care of his children. No, I'm more insecure about the non-necessity things of life, such as friendship, status, and biggest of all, romantic love. C.S. Lewis once wrote, "Friends are not necessary to live. They do, however, make life worth living." I most certainly agree with this, which is why I'm hitting a big hump of insecurity, fear, doubt, and loneliness right about now. Two of my best friends who I've known the past 7 years are both going off to different colleges, one to a college about an hour or so away and another to a college about 5+ hours away. Now one of these friends is probably the highest quality friend I've ever had. He's one of the more selfless and accepting people I know and he's always been a true friend to me as long as I've known him. And my other friend is more like a brother in how we bicker and argue over lots of things but in the end, we usually can fall back on plenty of shared interests or ideals. 
Now, I have other friends, so it's not like I'm completely abandoned, but I don't have many close friends and with those two leaving, there are even fewer people who actually know me well. With this, plus the added doubt of becoming interested in someone new and not at all knowing what to do or how to handle things, my insecurities are off the leash again. To be honest, I just don't really see much worth in myself other than the worth given to me by Jesus, so how can I expect others to see worth in me?


Anyway, I've got work in a bit so I should get ready. The title of this post is lyrics from a song I love by Frightened Rabbit called Poke.

A profane, yet thought-provoking quote

from one Tony Montana, aka Scarface.
Warning: This quote has a couple cuss words, so don't read any further if cuss words offend you. I explained my stance on cuss words in a blog post awhile back, so if you wanna know why I'm okay with posting this, then look here



As Tony Montana's life begins to crumble and he gets drunk in a restaurant, he says all this in an outburst,

"What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!"

The next scene he kills his big wig drug connection's personal hit man because the guy wanted to assassinate a guy who was with his wife and kids, which thus leads to Scarface's demise. Pretty great movie

I need a title so this is it

I'm sitting on my couch watching Scarface and now writing this blog. Tony Montana (aka Scarface) just said an awesome quote. "All I have in this world are my balls and my word and I don't break 'em for no one." Haha it's both funny and epic.

Anyway....the past few days I've been looking over old journal entries from about three years ago when I started journaling. It's pretty crazy to be able to look back at my 15/16 year old self. Back then I was pretty messed up over liking a girl based almost solely on physical attraction and it took me a very long time to move past her. She actually played a part in my road to salvation because some was a part of the many things that drove me into anger, pain, and loneliness, where God then raised me up and showed me love and hope in a world that greatly lacks both. This is also where my cynicism began but also where my hope in Christ began. I think what I'm going to do is read an entry each night as the semester progresses just so I can remember where I've been and be able to contrast it with where I am at now. This is looking like it could be a really useful thing.

"My dad always said there's only one time a man should be in a hurry: When the cops are coming up the stairs"

I'm laying on my couch watching Guys & Dolls (quote from Marlon Brando's character, Sky Masterson) and doing some thinkin'. It's a classic musical and I haven't seen it in a while, so I'm certainly enjoying myself.

Tonight I've been doing some thinking about relationships and I'm thinking that maybe God is showing me that I'm not supposed to have a simple relationship. What I mean is this. I'm getting over Girl A but for a while I've thought us having a relationship would be so great because it fit so simply. We live within miles of each other, work in the shopping center area, and go to the same church. A lot of things seem like they would easily fall into place if we were to date or whatever. Another example would be that I work with a girl who I find to be very attractive and despite some characters flaws, she seems to have a pretty good personality. This too seems like it would be simple for me. We work together, she's homeschooled as I was, she goes to a local church, and from what I can tell she likes music more than an average teenage girl. Both these situations would work out simply for me if there was anything between us (but there's not since they both have their own things going on). I've been thinking about this all a lot lately and now I'm thinking that maybe because relationships are hard work, I'll have to work to find someone and maybe it won't be a relationship that works like a piece of a puzzle easily falling into place.

Oh well, that's about all I've got to say for the moment.

Dang

It's been over a month since I last posted here. Maybe all my deep thoughts/ponderings only come about during the school semester. Or maybe I've just been busy and tired and not really had a lot of time to do deep thinking. It's probably a mix of both.

Not much is going on in my life right now. I'm mulling over possible directions to take in my life, thought earlier I was thinking about how everybody seems to expect everyone else to have a direction in life. People always ask me what I want to do or what I want to major in or where I want to go and for a while it's been "I don't know." I guess most people are just making conversation because they want to fill the empty void we aptly call silence but I still wonder why everyone always just expects progress and direction. My favorite band, Thrice, has a lyric in one of their songs that goes, "true progress means matching the world to the vision in our heads." Is it so crazy and abnormal that I don't really have some special vision in my head? I don't really have a whole lot of goals or aspirations in my life. I'd like to get married some day to a beautiful women with whom I am in love, I'd like to be where God wants me to be and will use me and the things he has blessed me with, and I want to learn to be content. Honestly, past all that, I don't really have a lot in my head. Is a lack of ambition a generational thing or am I just the exception to the rule?

, but...

Sleep feels like retreat right now, but I'm tired and sleepy. Moving on from Girl A because she' doesn't care about me feels like exactly what I need to do, but I'm lonely and live a boring life. I really dislike people in general, but I feel like I need them greatly. Relationships have always let me down, but I have a burning desire for one. I'd really like to blame my cynicism and bitterness solely on people, but I'm just as corrupt and evil as the ones who run me through are.

Sleep, I think I'll come hang out with you for the rest of the night.

Irony

Language warning: The following post contains "cuss words," so read at your own risk. I explained my position on language in an earlier post so if you want to know more, go look at that.

So in the past two weeks there have been two major instances of irony, both revolving around me and Girl A. First, at camp two weeks ago, she told me she was considering telling the guy she liked that she liked him so she could just be done with it all, which is pretty much what I was considering doing with her. I even began to laugh at the irony when she told me. All I could think of was "This is fucking hilarious."
THe second instance was tonight when she posted a Facebook status with these lyrics from Mumford & Sons' song White Blank Page,"you desired my attention but not my affection. Tell me now where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart."
Ignoring the fact that she messed up the lyrics ("attention but denied my affection"), this too is fucking hilarious. Not only are these the lyrics of my favorite Mumford & Sons song, but these are lyrics I've put up on my Twitter before (and maybe FB but I don't recall) with her specifically in mind. Shows how much she pays attention to whatever the hell I say.

Gosh, all this irony is annoying. It's not really funny like it was two weeks ago, now it's just irritating.

I'll be 19 in a month

Language warning: The following post contains "cuss words," so read at your own risk. I explained my position on language in an earlier post so if you want to know more, go look at that.

and I'm realizing that I am too fucking old to be dealing with high school dramatic shit. I've been slowly trying to wean myself off of Girl A in the past week or two but this nagging desire to talk to her and try to connect with her keeps coming up. It's really come about the past two nights since I've been tired from work and really desiring to have some fun and spend time with someone who isn't just one of the guys I hang out with all the time. Last night I texted her to ask if she was busy and might want to hang out when I get off work and she was skyping her friend and then tonight she's having a sleepover with that same friend and apparently some guy who knows a guy at our church friended her on fb and asked for her number, which she gave to him for whatever fucking reason, and he then called her babe which made her feel awkward. Gosh, I am so fucking tired of all this teenage immature bullshit. I told one of my friends about the situation last week and he pointed out how I'm an adult now and I shouldn't have to get involved in little kid drama about boys and girls and who likes who and all that shit. He was right.
Last night I read a chapter in a book we got from camp last week called Counterfeit Gods. In the chapter, the author talked about the idolatry of love and how we as people always search and hope for one thing and end up with something less. He used the Biblical story of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah and pointed out how Jacob was idolizing Rachel's physical beauty and worked 7 years for her but was then given Leah on his wedding night instead. The author said, "no matter what we put our hopes in, in the morning, it is always Leah [the unattractive, unwanted one], never Rachel [the beautiful, desired one]." I think I'm really learning all about that. Girl A has become Rachel in my mind and in my hopes, desires, and what-could-be's but every time we talk now, it's like she's only Leah to me. There's always another guy. There's always something else going on for her. I've had enough of all this trying to get something (well, someone) that isn't mine and never will be. I'm burnt out on relationships. Today I watched Up In The Air, a really good movie that explores the emptiness of a life without relationships. In it, the main guy, who is this closed off guy who travels around the country firing people for a living, has to talk to his sister's fiance who is having cold feet about getting married. In his little speech, he asks the fiance about the best moments in his life and if he was with people or alone. He then argues for the necessity of relationships, despite the cost and the baggage, and says "Life is better with company." I believe it. However, I've yet to find the right company for my life.

Selfishness

Language warning: The following post contains "cuss words," so read at your own risk. I explained my position on language in an earlier post so if you want to know more, go look at that.

This past week I was at my church's youth camp, which is called Creed Camp, and it was a draining week. I was a co-leader of a group of three 14-15 year old guys who were either new to the church, spiritually immature, unbelievers, or just spiritually murky. The small group times went fine overall and all three claimed to have gotten a lot out of the week. However, now is the time when we see whether what they believe does in fact equal how they live (something talked about the last night of camp).

Now, on to the topic and the reason for my language warning. I am so fucking selfish and self-centered. All this week I practically idolized this girl, who I think I'll begin calling Girl A on this blog, I've liked for months and since the topic of the week was idolatry, I began to see how I was making her an idol and in a much more root way, I was making my desire for that sort of Hollywood "beautiful girl that you love who loves you back will make everything better) bullshit into a really deep idol in my heart. Ironically, she was doing a similar thing by idolizing a guy she broke up with last year but has began to like again in the past couple months. We're close friends and we talked a couple times during the week (though not nearly as much as I desired we would) and we talked through her situation a couple times (painfully for me since she's in the dark about my feelings) and I did my best to help her since I care about her more than I've ever cared about another girl. On the last full day, after some scheduled time alone everyone had to read a section in a book about idolatry (Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller), I really saw how my idolatry was rampant in my heart and began answering questions we had in the book. As soon as I finished the questions, she walked up to where I was, sat down next to me, and began telling me how the guy she liked was an idol she needed to remove in order to seek God and then she asked whether or not she should tell him to try and get the situation out in the light in order to move on. At this, I began to laugh both inside and out because that is exactly what I had been mulling over the past day or so. She asked why I was laughing and I told her I couldn't tell her and that I might tell her why another time and after some stubbornness on both our parts, she continued with her train of thought. Then I suggested she go talk to one of our mutual friends, an older college girl who is pretty spiritually mature and was actually the leader of Girl A's small group this week. She agreed that it was a good idea and went to talk to her. I'm not entirely sure what they talked about since that was the last full conversation I had with Girl A this week but I saw her later talking one-on-one with the guy and I was told later that she told him and Girl A said that telling him was "healing." After this I was in a relatively good mood because I knew she was making good strides and I was happy for that. However, during the talent show we had and the last night of worship, she sat next to him (not even with someone on her other side like other times in the week) the whole night. This really bothered me and further made my desire to tell her in order to move on myself. After worship, we had small group time and then I went walking around the campus listening to Explosions in the Sky and I decided that I would leave it up to God and that if the opportunity to talk to her one-on-one arose that night I would tell her and if not, I would just white-knuckle and grit my teeth and just try and move on by not texting her or hanging out with her. She yelled down to me from her room as I passed on my walk and then we talked in passing later as everyone was just hanging out outside but I left to go to Wendy's with some of the guys and when we got back she'd gone to her dorm, so I didn't tell her. Then, the next morning, yesterday morning, we all headed back home. I was in a really boring van the way up so I went to be in the van where my friend Daniel and Steven were, so I put my stuff there before other people did. Girl A ended up sitting in the van too, which I sort of expected to see. I got in the van and tried to sit in the back with Daniel, but he dissed me and said he wanted the back to himself, and Girl A, who was sitting by herself in front of him, said she wanted her row by herself so she wouldn't be crowded. So, after half-fake-half-real wrestling with Daniel, I went in sat in the row in front of Girl A, where, hilariously (sarcasm) enough, the guy was sitting. Then later this middle-schooler named Daniel sat with the other Daniel in the back and this rising-Sophmore we all know and like sat next to Girl A, who was fine with him sitting next to her.  I was pissed off for an hour or two until we got lunch but after lunch I started to cool off. Her and the guy talked a bit and she even went so far as to ask me to borrow my phone so they could type little messages back and forth for some reason. That pissed me off but later she started to try and take a nap and I tried multiple times to offer her my pillow and she rejected it each time but then decided to sleep on the floor of the van and asked if she could use my pillow as a sort of blanket/covering since she already had Daniel's pillow. I gave it to her but later Daniel took it from her and woke her up, so a few minutes later I quietly asked to borrow another guy's pillow which I then put back on top of her and let her sleep till we got back, all the while trying to get the idiot's in the back from waking her up. Yeah, I'm totally Mr. Fuckin' All-American right there (sarcasm^10). So, why do I say I'm so fucking selfish and self-centered? Because even though this girl I deeply care about is potentially moving on from this idolized guy and turning back to God, I badly want her to care about me and in a fucked up way to idolize me. I don't want her to bow down to me or anything like that, but I want some of her focus to turn to me for once. All this talk about tearing down idols and seeking God and what am I seeking instead? To selfishly take someone I really care about and be the object of their sin.

Also, lately I've been thinking over the idea of how romantic love and love for God and coexist, but that's for another blog post.

Another post

So, today was my grandma's funeral. To be honest, the funeral itself hit me a lot harder than I expected. I didn't really have any clear "happy" memories with my grandma because as far back as I remember, she was sick or was physically handicapped. I remember being woken up from her banging around with her walker in the middle of the night looking for the bathroom. I remember her watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy every night (and I think I probably owe my good spelling to her because of that). I still don't drink out of some glasses we have and use some spoons we have because when I was little I would habitually avoid the ones she used because I thought her eating was kind of gross and I've always been a little germaphobic.

Today after the funeral, I think I finally realized why people drink after the loss of a loved one. Not to excuse it because they're just turning from one crippling vice to another, but if I, who was not close with my grandmother at all, got teary-eyed and choked up inside at her funeral, I can only imagine how much worse it would be to lose a wife or a husband or a child. It makes me wonder if all the ordeal to find a mate is worth it when one of you is going to have to outlive and bury the other one. Death is the outcome we all have to face. That sucks. I'm tired and it's been a long two days, so I'll stop here and maybe ponder another day.

Something that caught me off guard

So this morning around 8am my parents, my brother, and I left for Pennsylvania for my grandmother's funeral. Now, we've been at my aunt's for about 6 hours or so, including the 1-2 hours we were out to eat, and grief hasn't really been a big thing. My aunt Sue who lives somewhere else was here earlier and she was doing a lot of crying while writing something to say about my grandma but other than that, it's not been very emotional yet. However, two things struck me tonight regarding my grandma. First, and this is what caught me off guard, I was looking over a little notebook my grandma had where she had written favorite Bible verses and quotes and there was one verse in particular, Isaiah 30:15, which I saw first thing. This is a verse I've known for over a year after I read it and immediately put it into my phone's note section. It's just really crazy to think about how my grandma and I, two people who had never had much of a connection due to her failing health, both found strength and comfort in the same verse.
The second thing was just me looking at pictures of her and my grandfather, who died when my dad was a kid. I'd seen very few pictures of him and could hardly remember any I'd seen of them together. It was just a really striking thing to look at.
Tomorrow is the funeral and the burial and all that, and I'll see almost all of my extended family, so I guess that'll be good.

Death / And Grace Will Lead Me Home

So tonight, my grandma died. I'm not really heartbroken or even saddened. Now, that sounds awful and completely out of place but it's for two reasons. One, as long as I can remember my grandma has had mental and health problems that have only gotten worse with age and she's been in hospice care for at least a year now, so I've never really been close with her nor have I seen her at her fullest. The other reason I'm not heartbroken is because I've seen her mental and physical deterioration in person and I've seen how much anguish she's been in the past couple years, so now I know she is at peace and my Dad firmly believes she gave her life to Jesus, so I have faith that she's either at peace right now or, even better, in Heaven.

I don't think any one of us has a direct, beyond a shadow of a doubt knowledge of what happens after the heart stops beating and a person dies. Some people would argue that we just get buried and then are food for the maggots and worms. A very happy view that is. Others would argue that your soul gets sorta beamed up, a la Star Trek, to Heaven if you're a good person or if you're a bad person you get shot down to Hell. Personally, I do believe in a Heaven and a Hell both because the Bible makes an argument for it and because punishment for evil seems to be a natural instinct in both man and nature. Now, I'm not here to argue for the topic of the afterlife. I believe that there is a Heaven and a Hell and that those who have truly given their lives to Christ will find "the pearly gates" as the old, probably inaccurate cliche goes.

Thinking about my grandma's death and the funeral arrangements and schedule changes and stuff, I expect I'll be hearing a lot of "I'm sorry"'s and "I'll pray for you"'s in the next week or so. If the funeral is this weekend, I'll probably have to ask off at least one night of work if not more, which will lead to some coworkers' sympathy, a decent number of FB wall posts and text messages, and probably one or two phone calls. I'm not really sure how I'll respond to when people give their sympathies because this is the first time I've had a relatively close death in the family. My mom's mom died when I was just a toddler so I only have hair of memory of her and since then, the only deaths in my family have been far extended relatives. Death has never been very close to my family, so this is a new and somber experience for me.

Since I'm egotistic and self-involved, this is making me think about my own death. I'm not really afraid of death to be honest. I mean, I believe that Jesus is my Savior and has paid the penalty for my horrid sins and is interceding for me to God the Father, and along with this belief I believe that through Jesus' righteous act, I will undeservedly go to Heaven. And if somehow I'm wrong and there's nothing after this life, I don't fear nothingness either. However, just like I hate people pitying or patronizing me, I don't really like people's sympathy. When I die, I don't want people to have some big wake with a bunch of mourners and crying people wearing black. I mean, I don't want people to have a big party and be all "He's finally gone!" either, but I mean, death is death, people can't really control when I die so why be sorry for what you can't control. It doesn't actually matter what people do for me after I die, but I honestly don't really want people mourning over me. I'm not that special that a big hole will be missing from anyone's life. And for those who might miss me, hopefully I'll see them in Heaven. I hate when people make a big deal about me, so when I die, I don't want anything more than a quiet memorial service, hopefully reflecting on a life redeemed by God, and with a message of the hope in Jesus for the broken and lost that might attend. I'd also like Amazing Grace to be played on bagpipes, but that's optional. I mainly would like Amazing Grace to be played because on bagpipes, it's really beautiful and also, while it is very cliche, it's a song most people will recognize and should know the lyrics to and in thinking of me, I want people to know that I was who I was solely by the Grace of God and that that same Grace has taken me home. That's one of my favorite lines in the entire song, "And grace will lead me home."

All that, or just dump me in a cart with some corpses while singing "Bring out your dead!" as monks smack themselves in the heads with boards, a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail.