Peace

It's in vain you rise up early
It's in vain you sit up late
to eat the bread of sorrows
when He gives his Beloved Sleep.

Happy is the man with a quiver full of children
when he meets his enemies, when he meets his enemies
they should have been forewarned
it is by her faith that their aim in assured

It's in vain you rise up early
It's in vain you drive your car
to smoke that last cigarette
to take your place among the stars
when He gives His beloved Peace.

You're everywhere but where you need to be
but He gives his beloved Peace.

Failure

There are seasons in life. This is a season of failure for me. It all started sometime last year. I realized that I had lost every game. Every match. Every competition I was involved in. Pickup games of basketball, UNO, rock-paper-scissors.
lose. loss. lose again.
A few weekends ago I stayed in a cabin near a lake. I played bags against my brother-in-law. Chalk up another loss.

I started grad school this fall. The adviser insisted that I start with the most difficult class first because, "you teach AP English and the majority of this class is writing". I've bombed every section of the paper assignment for the class thus far.

I don't know that I completely understand why seasons are necessary. But I do know this---You can't fail if you don't try.

I had to enroll in grad school to fail this class, and
I had to challenge Marty in bags to ever lose against him.

I'd rather make a failed attempt at greatness than never know whether I had "the stuff".

At this point I think it's safe to say: I don't have "the stuff".

decorate death

Did you ever notice how we "decorate death"? Most Americans only have this sterile, detached version of mortality in their minds. We do everything we can to create a clinical and cosmetic barrier between reality and our perception.

I had this thought during church today.

They say that acceptance is the first step to moving on. The American church needs to awaken to the reality of death. Inactivity, sedentary lifestyles= death.
A twitter generation is not going to be satisfied with passive christianity. (yes, with a lower-case "c") Technologies are mobilizing emotions. Humanity is acquiring a vocabulary to articulate our inner thoughts...and the bravery through software to share them. This global dialogue is going to eradicate this 20th century version of church--complete with "one-man shows" and "monologues".

Acknowledge the death that has already taken place and stop trying to dress it up! Underneath our positions, programs, facades, and buildings(most of which are just obstructions and monstrosities) what is stinking dead? It's time to move into a new day...where the mall is a mission field. Where your hometown is your owntown. Where you take ground...instead of being buried in it.

The Best

So lately I've had this thought about being "the best". I'm watching American Idol thinking about how I'm absolutely obsessed with making music, but can't even come close to singing on that level.

I also discovered a new standard by which to measure my greatness: Blackberry brickbreaker


The idea is to break as many bricks as possible and then compare your score against the global community of addicted users. I currently rank 803,354th place....I'm assuming that this is a real number and that my blackberry didn't simply run out of pixels.

It's hard to feel like you're special when even your biggest accomplishment is "mediocre at best"(as Simon put it tonight).

I don't know that I'll have my defining moment. All I know is that I've been putting a lot of effort into things that have been minimally rewarding.

So what if I ranked 1 in brickbreaker? Then what?

I guess either you deal with the weight of defeat or unfulfillable success.

Vivacious in Valpo,

Mike (see, even an average name)

make the grade.

I beginning to think that I've been lied to.

I mean, I'm the bootstrapper...

I'm the guy who fought through fatherlessness and dropping out of the 10th grade. I'm the guy who works side-jobs.

Wait.

I'm not going to ever be that rich?hahaha

I recently had a conversation about poverty with one guy who's never been. I said something worth writing down: I don't want my definition of poverty to determine my direction.

Think about ALL of the things that we feel some insatiable desire to chase. Why do I need to be rich? (yesterday, after a long day in the dirt, I actually thought, "why do I need to be clean all the time?")
Does anyone else notice how bunk this system is? I mean, we're all doing things. Things that we would NEVER choose. hahaha

Things that shame us.

We're tired before we get home. We can't be better to our spouse than we are to the boss because he took ALL of our best energy.

I get the feeling that everyone actually thinks that we're going to solve this by working more.

I feel like I'm in a nightmare version of Animal Farm. Everyone is struggling against reality to prove a myth. We abandon families, beliefs, passions, and pleasures for more money.

This is why I'll never apologize for my 180 work days, or my summers off. I'd rather be a poor dad than an absent one.

Cheers to every idiot that serves their master and forgets their mother. Hats off to every corporate whore who never loves their brother. You've managed to kill the thing that beat me long ago- my humanity.

The quality of being humane; the kind feelings, dispositions, and sympathies of man; especially, a disposition to relieve persons or animals in distress, and to treat all creatures with kindness and tenderness. "The common offices of humanity and friendship." --Locke.

Our worlds

I was thinking today about how we (humanity) was created in God's image and likeness. I thought about how we all create our own worlds. I've spent the last decade-and-a-half creating music. This afternoon as I sat in my office chair humming the beginnings of yet another chorus...it dawned on me-- this is my "Godness" coming out.

I'm the proof that my father exists.

Every time a child puts pudgy fingers to paper to produce a crayola creation-- they validate the nature of God in them.

On a side note:
I started a conversation with a stranger today in a waiting room. He was an older, Southern gentleman. He had some amazingly legit sideburns. His sideburns were the result of thousands of attempts to carve an era into stubble. Anyways, we got on the topic of having children; more specifically, men wanting firstborn sons...and not getting em'.

He confirmed an emotion I felt a little over two years ago. Once you see that baby girl for the first time, all feelings about a boy disappear. The only lingering image is a 40-something Italian dad thrashing future boyfriends.

Transcending

"I saw a lion at McDonald's yesterday." -Bella Joy
Age 2

Today was a very interesting day. I decided to make two doctor appointments: One for the dentist (I'm thinking about adult braces, it's the new thang in the metal scene)...and the other appointment is for this decade old foot fungus. It actually sounds worse than it really is; or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

It's important to take care of yourself-especially if your job is to take care of everyone else.

Also, people actually say things just to hurt you. Sometimes they don't even intend to make it better, they actually just want to damage you as much as they can verbally. hahaha
I abhor such idiocy.
I'm trying to transcend such idiocy.



pss- valpolife.com is a great resource for any NW Indiana yuppie looking for something to replace their youth with.