Closer Than the Shore: The Art of Drowning

Life Goal #0743902: Completed

2005-12-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

Everyone needs to sled down a hill on the back of an big inflatable yellow seal. No exceptions.

I Heart Whiskey

2005-12-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

I have watched two movies in the last twenty-four hours. Both of them are over a year old, but I just now got around to watching them. Million Dollar Baby is amazing. If you want a character driven movie that is not boring, then you should see it. Ray flat out stinks. I have no idea why so many people raved that movie. Sure Jamie Foxx gives a decent performance, but the directing is flat and the screenplay is boring. Oh well, now I'm a more culturally well rounded person. That what I'll tell myself. I'm really enjoying my pre-break break. I have one more final, Music History, on Tuesday before I'm really done. I shoveled our driveway today and it was beautifully biting-cold work. I think that's one of my favorite outside jobs. The only thing that would have been better is if it had been dark yet clear so you could see the stars and a full moon. We had whiskey fennel sausage for dinner. I love whiskey fennel sausage!!! I think it may just be because whiskey is in the name. Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey!!!

Happy to be Here

2005-12-03T20:25:00.000-08:00

Tonight I have reaffirmed two universal truths.

#1: I like looking at snow. As I sat in One World, eating their raspberry cheesecake and watching the snow come down, I got a very happy feeling.

#2: I do not like driving in snow. I almost killed a pair of drunk Chi-O's who ran across the street in front of my car, as it slid on the snow, trying to avoid a taxi that pulled out in front of me. No that I have any great affection for Chi-Os, but I don't want to kill them.

It would ruin the happy feeling in my stomach.

By the way, the Bradley Women's Choir sounded as good as they have ever sounded tonight. I was very impressed, even if they did illegally use lo-Jost-ics. I think I will forgive them though.

Yay for the end of the semester!

Bohemia?

2005-11-26T21:27:00.000-08:00

I just saw Rent. Well, yesterday I saw Rent. I never have to see it again.

I always thought it would be a joyous experience: to watch a group of non-traditional, information age bohemians romp around NYC and generally stomp on the system. I was wrong. I have fancied that I am becoming a more open-minded, liberal Christian, but this movie brought me to my limit. To see a "live for the moment and the devil may care" lifestyle exalted as the most pure form of existence saddened me to the point of nausea. I love the music and alot of the songs out of context, but the context was maddening.

As Christians, how do we love in a way that will rip the heart out of the masses, tear it up, and reform it into one that is open to the gospel? I know that only Christ can do it but how do we turn ourselves into conduits for that kind of love?

Rent does get one thing right. Love is the only way to measure a life.

Maybe Bohemia has that one over the church.

Maybe we can be a new Bohemia.

Thank You

2005-11-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Today is Thanksgiving. I haven't posted on here in forever. I've been really busy. Today I get to be thankful. There is so much to be thankful for. I don't know where to begin.

God has given me so much. He's given me a house, food, an amazing school filled with awesome people, an amazing dad, mom, brother and sister, an incredible girlfriend, a car that runs, a guitar amp, a bed, a backyard full of dirt, a tree with no leaves on it so you can see the stars, a history, a present, a future, a nose, ears that can hear, fingers, skin, an imagination, music theory class, fullvolume, friends, vibrations, particles, waves, colors, mountains, lakes, lakes in the mountains, rivers, grace, mercy, hope, love, love, love.

Thank You. I don't tell You enough. I never will be able to, but in this moment, be praised by one who doesn't deserve You.

Gloria In Excelsis Deo

Guest Blogger #2: e. e. cummings

2005-11-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

I'm tired, so it's time for another...Guest Blogger!!!

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

These Are Real Words Now

2005-10-31T06:27:00.000-08:00

Let me instruct you in some of my obscure vocabulary from yesterday.

Mmphphphmnnnangng. This is what you say when you wake up and you realize that at some bizarre moment in your sleep you have bitten your tongue and can no longer speak, yawn, chew or swallow without extreme pain shooting into your ear from your mouth.

Mmllammungmmmmumm. This is the sound you make when you realize your chili dog is soft enough to chew without causing significant dicomfort.

Aauugghghghrruuungnahh. This is the sound you make when you find out that your car has been boxed in the parking lot and there is no way you will be able to get to work on time under your own power.

Whaauuhhhummuaahhuuuh. This is the sound you make when someone turns on Christmas music before the end of October.

That will end the lesson for today. Happy Halloween! I'm dressing as Dr. Heinemann.

Blowing Up Bridges

2005-10-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

I've always considered myself a republican. When I was was little I equated democrats with the powers of darkness, or at least the St. Louis Cardinals. Now that I'm older, I still consider myself a republican, but the feeling of superiority has left me. Republicans are just as stupid as democrats.

Case in point: I have been told that our republican government has made it illegal to photograph any bridge, anywhere, anytime. They have done it in the name of homeland security, protecting us from terrorists. Can you say violation of Freedom of the Press? You know, I admire President Bush, but sometimes he really can be dumb. Where does this line of reasoning stop? Will soon not be able to take pictures of skyscrapers? They might blow those up too. What about any structure? Couldn't they come and destroy nearly anything?

If this is true, I am disproportionately upset about it. There is a fine line between protection and being a bully. I am not convinced that our leaders have not crossed that line.

There Is Too Much Beauty to Quit

2005-10-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

I am inadequate. Enough said.

Celebrations

2005-10-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I have reached an important milestone in my life. I am now officially certified to work bakery and register at Panera, the avacados could not get me down. Hooray for me. We'll ignore the fact that they gave me the answers to the test. Anyway, I feel pretty much the same. my passing of the test did nothing for me, kind of like my last birthday.

Ben Sparks turns nineteen tomorrow, so Jake and I ran to Walmart, bought a cake, covered the living room with streamers, autumn colors, and blew up twenty-nine balloons, one popped in my face. Despite our best efforts, tomorrow will pass, the balloons will shrink and pop, the streamers will be torn down and the cake will go where all cake eventually goes. This momentous occasion will fade into history and nothing will really change. Ben will be who he was today.

I will also remain the same person, even though I now can boast of my recent professional achievements. Nothing inside of me has changed. So why do I live my life as if every event will some how transform me into a faster, stronger, better me? It is because I forget. I forget that I have done this a thousand times before. I have come to a million milestones and each one just leaves me feeling a little more tired from the journey, except for one. I'll let you guess what that one looked like.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Ben!

Comments?

2005-10-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so i just found out that I had comments turned off on the page. So, if you anyone read this and wanted to post something, I am no longer standing in your way. :)

Elizabethtown

2005-10-16T12:28:00.000-07:00

So I saw it last night at midnight. Crazy? Probably. It was a very enjoyable. 7.5 out of 10. Great screenplay. Good acting, even from Orlando Bloom. Ok, so Susan Sarandon's stand-up act went on forever, but the giant flaming bird made up for it. Yeah, really cool movie.

There Is No Place Safe

2005-10-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Drowning is not safe and if drowning can be made an analogy to life, then living is not safe either. One of the worst things about drowning is the feeling of isolation, that there is nothing anyone can do to save you, that you are completely entirely alone. You know what? In life, we are alone except for Jesus. No one can save us. We can not save anyone else. However, it is true that no man is an island. Every man is an iceberg.

We have the capability to crash into others, to reshape others in terrible, beautiful ways, but ultimately everyone else will leave you. They will drift away on the current and leave you to eventually melt into the sea from whence you came. Occasionally, their jagged surface may even stab you in the back and the resulting hole may weaken you to the point of splitting into pieces.

This does not mean that we avoid others or become cynical. The meltdown is a fundamental part of being an iceberg, painful though it is. it is the emptying of ourselves into the ocean that is Jesus and from here He can send our molecules spinning in any direction he wants.

I think this has been confusing. I am reacting and I feel very cluttered right now. I am not a martyr. I promise that at some point I will cause pain, maybe to you. I apologize. I am an iceberg too.

Guest Blogger #1: Rich Mullins

2005-10-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

I think other people are mostly better writers than I am. I think guest bloggers are good. I think Rich may be here often.

Land of My Sojourn

And the coal trucks come a-runnin'
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin'
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin'
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
And I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you'll come to love it
And how you'll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I'll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks
Were belching back this city's best answer
And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of
These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn
In the land of my sojourn

And I will sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

Of Apples and Avocados

2005-10-11T22:36:00.000-07:00

At this moment, I hate work. Hate is a strong word. I hate work. This evening they stuck me on register and I had no idea what I was doing. I spent three solid minutes trying to figure out how to tell the salad makers to hold the avocados from a salad. Who puts avocados on a salad in the first place? Your'e supposed to use them for making guacamole. Stupid avocados.

Ok, so i really don't hate work. i don't even hate avocados. I hate not knowing what I am doing. I hate looking stupid. I hate having to ask how to remove the avocados from the fandango salad at Panera. No one like to admit they have no idea what they are doing. Gosh, half the time people just pretend they do. It must be a part of being human...and probably not a good part. It's the naked man in the garden wanting to take a bite of the apple just to prove that he can be in control of his own destiny. We have been doing the same thing ever since. It's called Original Sin. It's wanting to be in control of our lives. It's wanting to nail the past and the present and future to the floor. It's wanting to be like God. No one like to admit they don't have any control. I certainly don't, but I need to learn to accept it.

So would like a salad with that? I dare you to hold the avocados.

The Art of Drowning

2005-10-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

What is the art of drowning?

That is a good question. A remarkable question. A question asked by millions down through the centuries. What? You've never heard it? Well, it's quite simple really. It simply asks: what is the best way to lose my life, the best way to submerge myself in something wider, deeper, more mysterious than myself? Have you heard it? I think you have. It is the question that those of us who follow Jesus must ask ourselves every morning when we open our eyes.

It is not a pleasant experience: drowning. It is a terrifying realization when you find you can not keep your head above water on your own, when you imagine the depths beneath you and how easy it would be to slip under the surface and lose yourself forever in the flow. And so, we struggle. We fight to keep air in our lungs and fear out of our minds. Exhaustion and nausea set in, but still we fight, because we believe that if we can just make it to the shore we will be safe.

What if we are wrong? What if the shoreline, which looks so much like home, was really an illusion and the place we really belonged was underwater? Wouldn't it make more sense to let ourselves go?

And herein lies the real issue: can I give myself over to the unknown swirling beneath my feet? This blog is the story of our journey. It is not easy or safe. It may take detours, but I have a feeling that when we discover the art of drowning, we will discover the art of living and if we can empty ourselves of the air we grasp for, we will find we can breathe underwater.

Introductory Notes

2005-10-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well I've had a Xanga for sometime, but I decided to start a new blog. I don't know why. It just seems like the thing to do. Plus, I like the blogspot format better. More later.