So…awkward silence is my thing.

And the title has nothing to do with this blog other than I have been silent on here, awkwardly, for a while.  I and my friend, Jake, recently took a trip to Orlando.  (Hello, Orlando Folk!)  And I was overjoyed to see old friends, new friends, and new places.   It was a welcome respite from East Albanian Radio Shack customers let me tell you.  I have a distinct pull towards that city.  And I am really dubious about following it.   I want to go though.  Soooo Bad…

I am still sore from flag football.  (why?!?)  And I miss Daisy.  Not Josh so much.   Just Daisy.    I’m kidding.  Josh is a brother to me.    I definitely enjoyed Warped tour.  And I found a few new bands that I like.

But all in all.   I just want to say that c3 church was definitely God inspired….

I feel Him in everything.   And it is so funny and weird that a church in a movie theater could be so awesome.

Flying high.

I took a trip to visit/pick up my brother in Chesapeake, VA this past weekend for his AIT graduation.  But he can tell you about that.  I want to tell you about our trip back and the stops we made.  First, a little back story.

My father always wanted to fly.

He eventually signed up for the army aviation program right before the draft was reinstated for the Vietnam Conflict.

He flew evacuation and assault helicopter missions for the army for 11 years.

He loved to fly.

So telling you that brings me to this.

We stopped in Kitty Hawk, NC at the Wright brothers museum in Kill Devil Hills.

My dad read about the brothers as a kid.  About how they were the first men to create and fly a powered flying machine.

And that they were just bicycle repairmen.

He had always wanted to see the spot where history was made.

So we made the stop.

I was not so excited about it honestly.

I was tired of driving.

I wanted to get home.

But these men were pretty interesting I soon found out. They single-handedly made the first operational powered flying machine.  And they didnt go to school for that.  They had never even seen an airplane before.  But out of their imaginations came the birth of human flight as we know it.

They were crazily ambitious.  And a lot of people thought they were just crazy.

My dad wanted to see the place.  But, to me, the quotes on the brochures were more interesting.

“I got more thrill out of flying before I had ever been in the air at all – while lying in bed thinking how exciting it would be to fly.” – Orville Wright

Man,  I want to be that excited again.  I mean.  If you celebrated christmas as a kid you know that kind of anticipation.

I remember being so excited about the presents that I didnt really care what they were.  I was just ready to freakin open them!

I wonder if that’s the same anticipation Orville felt.  He didnt really care about the end result.  He just wanted to fly!

I want that kind of anticipation for my future.   That kind of excitement.  I want to not care about the end result so much and just do what I am here to do.

Jesus himself told us not to worry about what the future holds.  Just love.

It all seems to come back to Love for me lately.   I thinks that’s how it should be.

“…it is not really necessary to look too far into the future; we see enough already to be certain it will be magnificent.  Only let us hurry and open the roads.”

- Wilbur Wright

In a Market Dimly Lit

I am a little nervous about posting song lyrics. I think if anyone who reads this is annoyed by it I shouldn’t perhaps. But I like this band. And this song. It is so curiously written. And it makes me smile.

“the bird that plucked the Olive Leaf
has been circling like a record never-ending in my mind
where the needle’s worn the grooves too deep,
and scratched the wax that’s blistered from the heat besides
so from any movement in the room-
if my cat walked by the arm skipped!
but to my surprise, my interrupting cat improved
a sound already so severely compromised

the needle’s worn the grooves too deep

I’m a donkey’s jaw on a desert dune!
beside the bush that Moses saw
that burned and yet was not consumed!
she’s the silver coin I lost,
I’m the sheep who slipped away
we pray the fingers crossed
but you listen patiently anyway

I wrote a little song for you
with a melody I’d borrowed put to words that didn’t rhyme
to repeat what you already knew
as the stones thrown at your window tapped a syncopated time
you kept a distance out of fear you’d break
but what good’s a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?
the music our collisions would make
is a sound that turns the road-that-leads-us-back-home
into Home.

the music our collisions make!

I had a rusty spade but I’m not the fighting sort!
if I was Samson I’d have found that harlot’s blade
and cut my own hair short!
then in a market dimly lit I come casually to pay
you see my coins are counterfeit
but accept them anyway

so spare me your goodbyes,
your waving-handkerchief-good-byes
given my tendency to err so on the sentimental side
I’ll spare you my goodbyes,
the truth belongs to God,
the mistakes were mine”

- mewithoutYou

Oh curse those mistakes! I am such a hindrance to myself and this song reminds me on the last line that even I cannot make the truth anything but God’s

Number One Stunner

So lately I have had a few conversations with friends about how we were brought up in our predominantly southern baptist churches to believe that our one greatest mission on this planet, as people who believe in God and Christ, is to convert other people.

I am beginning to hate this.

I mean, it is pretty awesome when you talk to people about the God you love and who loves you and they start seeing that your love is true. And they start wanting it.

That is beautiful.

But this should not be our first desire…

We are called first to love.
Not to convert.
Not to Enlist.
Just love

Yes. In loving someone, you may help them gain a relationship with God.

But our purpose is just to love.

We have heard and hear people saying we have to “further the kingdom of God”

But if you look at how Jesus talked of the kingdom of God. He said it was already here. Already at hand. We don’t need to build it.

Jesus said the basis for our faith, the commandment everything hinges on, is “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.”

And joined with that, a supporting clause, is “Love your neighbor as yourself”

We are to Love as God loves us.

But first and foremost, we are to Love God.

Goodness Gracious

I would like to start with a statement.

Grace is something I have never understood.

There I said it. It has never been “amazing” to me. Until recently. Welll. In the past year. I did not understand the concept of grace. I never considered myself graceful. Haha. But. You see.

We are living by and through grace.

Every breath is given freely. By the amazing-ness of grace.

The due payment of our disobedience is death.

We all have disobeyed.

Yet. Without a request and in the face of refusal , God has given us life.

Through his grace.

Mine!

So…again…still reading “Velvet Elvis”. Off and on. And this time. I have been thinking a lot about claiming truth. I mean claiming the things you inherently, in your soul, know to be true as God-given truth. I mean God created everything and is creating everything. So there may be truth around us. We are to be crafty as christians. Jesus was constantly using subtle sentences to completely shake up the leaders of his time.

And he always connected his point with scripture or with the daily events. The writers of scripture were so technical in how they worded things it is eerie. Like how John uses the word love to connect Jesus to Isaac. Its crazy. Early christians claimed the political propaganda and phrases of allegiance like “Caesar is Lord”. “There is no other name on or not of the earth that can save a man but the name of Caesar”

By replacing “caesar” with “Christ” or “Jesus” they were committing treason and also they were being very crafty in how they portrayed their beliefs. They knew they were risking death by doing and saying these things but they were so gutsy about it. It’s unnerving how gutsy they were compared to us today. Well at least compared to me.

They went out of their way to be so politically incorrect. I love it.

They claimed those slogans…and changed them to be truth.

I wish I needed a cane

I read “Velvet Elvis” by Rob Bell…Off and On. Haha. I get in places where it seems to speak to me. It is a very good book. But I get tired of it sometimes. Today though, it was definitely what I needed to hear. Rob Bell has a way of putting things that can hit you hard sometimes. And the following resonated with me.

He talks about wrestling with scripture. Seeing it in the context of who it was written to. And how that applies to our present situation. Really contemplating on what that scripture could mean.

“The rabbis have a metaphor for this wrestling with the text: the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis 32. He struggles, and it is exhausting and tiring, and in the end his hip is injured. It hurts. And he walks away limping. Because when you wrestle with the text, you walk away limping.

And some people have no limp. Because they haven’t wrestled. But the ones limping have had an experience with the living God.”

-”Velvet Elvis” by Rob Bell

Sun and Moon

Daniel broke the king’s decree,
Peter stepped from the ship to the sea
there was hope for Job like a cut down tree,
I hope that there’s such hope for me
dust be on my mind’s conceptions
and anything I thought I knew
each word of my lips’ description,
and on all that I compare to You
[the preference of the sun was
to the south side of the farm
I planted to the north in a terra-cotta pot
blind as I'd become, I used to wonder where you are-
these days I can't find where you're not!]

mine’s been a yard carefully surface level tended
foxes burrowed underground
my gardening so highly self-recommended,
what could I have done but let you down?

the sun and the moon,
I want to see both worlds as One!

mine’s been a vivid story, dimly remembered
and by the hundredth time it’s told, halfway true
of bad behavior well engendered
what good is each good thing we think we do?

[find a friend and stay close and with a melting heart
tell them whatever you're most ashamed of-
our parents have made so many mistakes,
but may we forgive them and forgive ourselves]

the sun and the moon are my Father’s eyes

-mewithoutYou

More than 3 days time

So it’s been a bit since I’ve thought to write. What with the holidays and all. Seeing family and dealing with all those Christmas shoppers at the Rshack…I am looking forward to a nice downhill turn from that stress. I hear it snowed in Atlanta last night…man…I wish I had been there. I haven’t seen snow since I was like 8 or 9…dang. I am doing great for those of you that may want to ask, haha. I am going through the book of Romans right now. It is a new and wonderful experience honestly. I don’t think I have ever read all of the book and reading all of those “pivotal” verses in context is awesome. (pivotal being in quotes because every verse should be pivotal). I’ve heard of the Roman Road to Salvation all of my life, but now I am seeing there’s not really a definite “road” outlined in this book. And some of the verses I have heard attributed to that road are taken a little out of context. But one verse hit me hard. I’ve heard it before, but after reading it with the verses around it. It just seems so powerful and downright scary. God is truly awe-inspiring and worthy of all i can give but nothing I can give is truly worthy of Him.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.”
-Romans 11:36

Precocious and full of Wonderment

I recently went to see a couple of my favorite bands perform at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, GA and it was very good. I have always liked mewithoutYou and Brand New. But seeing them live gives me an altogether new respect for their music.

mewithoutYou’s performance was honestly very worshipful to me. I mean. During their set it was very easy for me to see their love for God and the new life he has given them. They exude Joy. And seeing them made me joyful by association.

Seeing Brand New gave me a sense of desire. A desire to show love to someone. A desire to know. A desire for passion. Brand New’s music is entirely passionate. And the lyrics are so personal to the band. You feel as if they just gave you a glimpse of something rare and highly treasured. Or just let you in on an inside joke.

If you haven’t seen either of these bands…or if you just have never heard of or heard them. I urge you to give them a chance. They were very good.