Confession: I need to feel special.

I really like the idea of community. I like the idea of sharing life. I like the idea of sharing laughter and good beer. I like the idea of talking about what matters. I like the idea of sitting silently with those I love. But I tend to suck at actually pulling it off, especially as of late. I’m not really sure what’s going on in my head, but I can say for sure that it’s something. And I think it’s something that is leading me somewhere. Somewhere good. But in the meantime, I’ve been sort of a recluse. In the meantime, I’ve thought and thought and thought about community while isolating myself to think and to become more cognizant (to quote a friend) of things going on in me. I think these kinds of moments are necessary to be able to contribute to a community. We all have shit to deal with from time to time, and some of those times, we have to walk that path alone. I’m okay with that.

What I’m a little scared of is becoming to comfortable as a recluse. I’m afraid of becoming this:

“I love mankind,” he said, “but I marvel at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love human beings in particular, separately, that is, as individual persons. In my dreams,” he said, “I would often arrive at fervent plans of devotion to mankind and might very possibly have gone to the Cross for human beings, had that been suddenly required of me, and yet I am unable to spend two days in the same room with someone else, and this I know from experience. No sooner is that someone else close to me than his personality crushes my self-esteem and hampers my freedom. In the space of a day and a night I am capable of coming to hate even the best of human beings: one because he takes too long over dinner, another because he has a cold and is perpetually blowing his nose. I become the enemy of others,” he said, “very nearly as soon as they come into contact with me. To compensate for this, however, it has always happened that the more I have hated human beings in particular, the more ardent has become my love for mankind in general.”

Instead, I pursue this:

By the experience of active love. Try to love your fellow human beings actively and untiringly. In the degree to which you succeed in that love, you will also be convinced of God’s existence, and of your soul’s immortality. And if you attain complete self-renunciation in your love for your fellow creatures, then you will unfailingly come to believe, and no form of doubt will ever be able to visit your soul. That has been tested, that is precisely true.

I’m not sure how to get from the former to the latter, but I hope to God that the Elder is right.

It is sufficient that you grieve over it. Do what you are able, and it will be taken into consideration.

The weakness in me is a need to feel special. I want to be unique. I’m not willing to be a part of something unless I have some sort of control over it or uniqueness in it. I want to be silent for a bit (he blogs publicly). I want to be a face in the crowd. I want to be a quiet supporter of the people I encounter.

Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks to me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.

Why I’m afraid to believe in the resurrection

Recently, I shared an interesting conversation with some dear friends on the road back from Bolivar. I find that driving makes thinking and conversing easier. A conversation is motion from one place or thought to another. The constant hum of an engine, the whirring of rubber on the road, and the flashes of scenery flying by the windows inspire me to move my thoughts forward, though I’m fairly sure that I’m usually headed in the wrong direction.

It was a conversation about death and resurrection, and particularly the death and resurrection of God in Jesus. It was about the things we’d always heard, the parts of what we’d heard that we still thought were important, and the possibility of new ways of thinking. And it reminded me of another conversation a couple months ago. This time, I was at the Coffee Ethic with my friends on a Friday afternoon. And instead of motion, we were exploring rootedness and regularity. Sitting in a comfortable place, sipping on coffee and having no intention to move for several hours, we stumbled into a conversation about resurrection. It was nearly Easter time, so the topic was heavy on my own mind. A friend challenged the concept of the resurrection, questioning that validity of the historical event in favor of a perpetual corporate resurrection in the Church. At the time, I jumped to the defense of the resurrection, insisting that it had extreme historical importance. As I sat in that familiar place with the smell of my favorite coffee surrounding me and keeping me safe, I passionately defended an idea that I inherited. As we talked, I realized that I was being defensive because there was something inside of me that was unwilling to even question the resurrection. My tradition had trained me to never question such things for fear of losing any goodness in my soul.

But more recently, as we sped down the road, I began to question. I let the hypnotic white dashes down the middle of the road lead me into different thoughts. I think I started running from my past at 70 miles an hour. I didn’t want to let myself believe anything that I had accepted from my past. I moved. And when the conversation lulled, we turned up the music and let our movement speak for us.

I think that the answer to my questions about resurrection is somewhere between the two. I need to believe in it but not in the ways I always have. I hope to find that tension in community and in conversation.

This is why I need road trips and coffee shops. This is why I need home.

She asks, “Are you cursed?”
He says, “I think that I’m cured.”

Speechlessness and LOST-ness

Everybody and their brother has had something to say about LOST since it ended. I, on the other hand, haven’t really talked about it since the final credits rolled. I’m not sure that I want to now, either. In fact, I haven’t had much to say about anything. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about in my silence:

I like to work more than I like to contemplate. I like contemplation because it feels like a productive way to spend my time, and it contributes to what I believe is my worth and reputation. Through some very eye-opening experiences, I’m beginning to see the value of contemplation so that I can be more Christ-like and truly human to those I encounter in the world. In other words, I want to desire profundity less and to crave healthy spirituality and community.

That’s exactly what I liked about LOST. Life matters. It’s difficult, and we all make mistakes, but in the end, we will all be together. There is hope for redemption, and there is a chance to remember the people and events that have made us into who we are.

All of this has resulted in a rather silent blog, for which I apologize. But I know that my most faithful readers will bear with me until I feel confident enough in my own skin to blog regularly again. Or, they won’t. It’s whatevz.

Gone West.

An open road.
“Go West, young man.”
A banjo led me out of town.
The early morning sun lit my path,
the deadly drive towards the grapes of wrath,
to find work, to lose a life.
Dysentery, snake bites, and broken fords,
an Oregon Trail of my own design.
I’ve killed them off, I’ve let them live.
I’ve been cheap,
I’ve been selfish,
I’ve been asleep,
and I’ve been helpless.

A day spent West, and all alone.
I saw the sunset,
and I felt compelled to ride off into it.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I’m no hero.
I remember when she said, “Come home soon.”
But we have no home.
We wait for rain.
And we meander.

My first year of grad school is over.

Once I knew a girl in the hard, hard times.
She made me a shirt out of fives and dimes.
Now she’s gone, but when I wear it, she crosses my mind.
And if the best is for the best then the best is unkind.

Last week, I finished up everything for my first year of grad school. It was sort of bittersweet. It was insanely busy, and I learned a lot. I accomplished a lot. I read a lot. I wrote a lot. I presented papers a lot. I did all sorts of grad school-y things a lot. It became my life. And now that I have a break, I can’t feel anything except tired. I feel dread for the future. Should I take this summer class? Should I rest? Is it okay to rest?

I realized that Illinois was more than I could stand.
They say working’s best cause poverty is hell on a man.
Now I ride a lazy river through the Mississippi fan,
And if the best is for the best then the best can be damned.

I still think too much, and I spend a lot of time thinking about not wanting to think so much. I crave something inexpressible. I remember something in the book of Acts about times of refreshing. I never understood what that meant, but it sure sounds nice. Unless it has to look like something so damn demanding. It always seems to happen like that.

I spent a few years on the Queen of Spain.
She was a leaky little boat that went up in flames.
When the boiler blew some people started naming names.
But if the best is for the best I guess the best is to blame.

I’m not so sure I know what it means for me to be me these days. I’m not sure if I should let myself be what I do, or if what I do needs to change in some way. I do know that I won’t have time to do it all in the future. Lately, I’ve chosen the things I wouldn’t normally choose, and I feel guilty for doing so. Then I feel even worse for letting myself feel any guilt. I just don’t know which instinct to trust.

Now I listen to my sweetheart and I listen to my thirst.
I don’t spend time listening to other people’s words.
Sometimes they’re right, most the time the reverse.
They say the best is for the best when the best’s for the worst.

Isn’t it okay to be selfish sometimes? Isn’t it inevitable? I can’t seem to escape it. So, don’t go. Stay.

Once I knew a girl in the hard, hard times.
She made me a shirt out of fives and dimes.
Now she’s gone, but when I wear it, she crosses my mind.
And if the best is for the best then the best is unkind.

Simplicity and art.

Then anger rose up in the old man’s face, and he said, “I have heard my teacher say that whoever uses machines does all his work like a machine. He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses his simplicity. He who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul. Uncertainty in the strivings of his soul is something which does not agree with honest sense. It is not that I do not know of such things; I am ashamed to use them.”

Quoted in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Men by Marshall McLuhan

A word of thanks.

(Con)Trite was tonight. And it ruled. It was super fun. I owe a huge amount to a few people:

• First and foremost, to my lovely wife Hilary, who not only tolerates my insane ideas but actually encourages them. And she makes some mean lemon bars.
• To Josh Clutter, who drove all over town and did everything I asked (not-so graciously at times) without hesitating.
• To Ian Paterson and Andrew Reeves for inspiring me to consider narrative as a means of communicating more truly than discourse.
• To Phil Snider and Brentwood Christian Church for loaning me a bunch of stuff.
• To Nate Bledsoe for loaning me even more stuff and then hauling it all over town to satisfy my slightest whims.
• To Gary Black for letting me use his projector (even if it did hate me).
• To Tom Billionis and the Coffee Ethic for donating delicious coffee.
• To Lindsey Arnold for making yummy cupcakes. (Also to Grey, whose last name I don’t know; he brought brownies.)
• To Bo Hagerman for letting me use his awesome studio.
• To everyone who came out and to those who told stories.
• To Ian, Peter Rollins, and Nate Doyle for writing the stories that I shared.

It may seem trite to say so, but I really had an amazing time tonight, and I’m really glad that everyone could come out.