שָׁלוֹם

THIS IS AN INVITATION

i've been known to display, with a certain amount of clarity, my emotions at all times. try as i may, nothing can keep my face from showing exactly what is in my mind or heart. they say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and whoever they are knew what they were talking about when it comes to me. and the windows are always open.

so let's switch scenes to the Sabbath. to today. today started with Steve peeking his head in through my car window to wake me up. "Everyone's up. Mostly. We're starting breakfast." in my sleepy stupor i stumbled out of the back of my car which had been temporarily transformed into a bed, and made my way down the hill, over the creek and up the hill to our campsite. all of us were extremely groggy and not speaking. and i for one, didn't feel i had much to say. all that i could think about were the dreams i had the previous night. i won't go into a lot of detail but one in particular really threw me. i was giving my brothers eulogy. i have no idea where that came from, but apparently my subconscious wanted my conscious self to experience immense sadness for a while. my sadness was easily disguised this morning by my sleep filled eyes, but as the day progressed i could feel the sadness peeking through. i went home and went right to bed hoping to redeem my previous sleep experience, but i don't remember what my nap dreams were. and i woke up still feeling like i actually gave my brothers eulogy.

enter mosaic.

i could have stayed asleep for at least 4 more hours this afternoon, but i got up to go play drums at my church mosaic. i play every week and its always a great source of encouragement and fulfillment, so i was willing to forgo the hopes of more sleep. and it was just that. on top of the dream's affect on me, i was allowing actual situations in my life to become reasons for why i felt like i did. this relationship, that decision, those thoughts... so many things that had nothing to do with what i was feeling.

but then the sermon.

Don, my amazing pastor and great friend, spoke on bringing Shalom to our city. he read from the easter story, when Jesus appeared in the upper room post resurrection to the disciples who basically had it on lock down for fear of the Judeans. they were afraid. and then Jesus appears and says "Peace be with you!" and said it again "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you." then breathed on them. so much was to be had from these simple words, but as i heard them tonight, i was reminded of what is important. suddenly all my self pitying and self involvement was easily shadowed by the truth that Jesus has breathed life onto me and given me peace. Shalom is a big word. its not so easily translated into english, but when Jesus said it to his disciples, and thus to me, it just made sense. if you can receive Shalom, you're further along than you think you are.

this is an invitation to myself: live the peace that has been given to you, so that you can then give it away. because God knows that whatever it is that's inside of you, is going to be evident on your face, like it or not. it might as well be Shalom.

South by Southwest means SXSW

how to start?

perhaps with a confession:

i am, on my own, completely unworthy

i am, on my own, severed from hope of life

i am, on my own, ridiculously repugnant

so let me not be alone, Lord

let me be with You

last week was the infamous SXSW festival in Austin. in years past i've immersed myself in the waters of new bands, new films, celebrities and "VIP" parties. this year i only dipped my feet in. i had a great time, mind you, but was also very glad to have scaled it down. i didn't take off work this year with half a mind to have a less intense experience of the fest. and it worked. but even in the SXSW Lite version, i found myself pushing harder than my body really wanted to go. nights that didn't end until their neighboring morning, miles of walking, denying myself water for no reason at all, etc... and in my push towards God-knows-what, i found myself reflecting a lot more than i have in years past. about celebrity. about the party life. about music. and without claiming any generalities as gospel, i'll tell you a few of my thoughts.

what about being on a "list" makes us feel so good? one of the best parts of SXSW is how free it is. monetarily. but in order to avoid spending money, you have to know where to look for the RSVP's. follow the right Twitter accounts. join the right Facebook group. know the right people. which used to feel like an adventure to me. i would get excited about being "in the know" and that somehow i was special enough to figure out how to get on "the list". this is a great marketing ploy, no doubt, and maybe i'm just getting old, but i'm kind of over it. it just seems very elitist. to align myself with any group that looks down on anyone else out of arrogance is sure to make my heart into a stone. that mindset is like a drug. when you feel that you have the upper hand on anyone else, most would dare not give it up easily. but rest easy, that pride will not hold anyone up. nor will it push them into places they would like to go. i'm convinced that pride is a barb in the hearts of men: quick to go in, but painful and damaging when removed. and it will be removed.

so i'll just try and avoid it.

[ok, now imagine i didn't just say any of that]

i had a conversation with a really nice guy at one such "VIP" party. he was in town promoting his new movie MacGruber. let me back track and say in full disclosure that the only way i got into this party was a slight of hand wristband pass from a friend already inside. i then broke the wristband, tied it on and went in the back door. so. i got in and saw my friend and joined his conversation with a stranger. turns out the stranger was a movie star/comedian/writer, who i recognized.

"hi, i'm james."

"hey i'm norma."

"NORMA?"

"NO, JORMA"

(the party was very loud)

while talking to him a number of people approached him telling him how much they loved the movie and how funny he was. i asked if he ever got tired of it. of strangers bugging him. he said "no way man. we're all the F-ing same. i just got a break." so in a relatively quiet celebrity town that was momentarily over run with celebrity, i got to hear a small voice of hope that not all of them are arrogant *fillintheblankexplative* which was very encouraging.

so now that i've name droped, claimed to hate being on the VIP side of life (which is so the new skinny jeans), and established myself as someone who "knows what they're talking about", i just would like to refer you back to my confession.

i am nothing without Him. i only hope that i can live and love like He did and does.

motion and pauses

give way to what you know to be unknowable. there are so many times in our lives that bring us pause. we're shattered by a broken relationship. we're crushed by a death. we're left speechless by an opportunity far beyond what we deserve. whether a great blessing or relentless storm, we are given chances to see how out of control we are.

so what do we do?

i don't really know, but i can't help but picture a child who is in a situation that overwhelms him and he cries to his mother for help. even if his mother has the answer, its likely that the child doesn't understand why that is the answer. still somehow he is comforted by her intercession.

so cry out. pray. see your inability to do anything and take comfort in your Father's presence.

so many things have happened in my life recently that have stopped my movement. they have hurt. they have ignited me with elation. and in the absence of motion, all i could do was talk to God. thank Him. curse at Him. it was all i knew to do. and i'm ok with that being the only thing i did. and i think He was too.

all that to say: i'm thankful for the movement of my life, and for the pauses.

just a quick thought on the end.

earthquakes, tsunamis, and airplanes into buildings make me think that we're nearer to the end than we once thought.

but what if the end of the world is a slow burn?

We've read that armageddon will be horrific, and that when the end of all things comes no one will be able to even describe the destruction, much less endure it. But what if it's not a sudden explosion of terror? What if it's a slow encounter that we can't recognize until we're all gone? If it will be so, I believe we're in a mess far beyond what we first thought.

"what would you do if you knew the world was ending tomorrow?"

we separate the end from the approach to such so definitively, but why? The world is not "going" to end, it's "ending". And I think we should live accordingly. Which probably looks a little different from that which implies that it will all end tomorrow. The time frame changed, but so did the perspective. If we realize that we're on the downward slope of the end, I think our hearts change. We don't live as though we have endless time with which we can do what we please; but neither will we so drastically adjust as though the sands are almost all in the bottom half of the glass. The drastic adjustment lends itself to fear. And why would we do anything out of fear? It's the opposite of love, which we're told to emulate every day. so I say: don't live out of fear, but also don't be lazy and useless. We're ending, lets make the best of what we've got left.

(help)

"Man is a knot into which relationships are tied." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942

start with a quote, james. if you start with a quote you'll establish rapport with your readers. they will perceive you as learned or at the least, well read. then from there you can take to your own writing prowess and convey what you're trying to say.

which is this:

i need you. if i know you, i need you. whoever you are, you have your own qualities and traits that make for part of the solution to the problem of me. there is something about all of us that doesn't equal up. we're all incomplete and can't hope to make any sense on our own. nor can we solve us. as parts of the problem get worked out through our daily lives, we start to see patterns emerge. patterns that speak to what is exactly wrong with us. so over time i think we can be more instrumental in helping to complete the equation. but ultimately, we still need our Professor's help to teach us how to finish it. to finish us. so thus far, i've noticed a pattern of failure when i stand alone. therefore, i won't. if i spent a month with no one but my thoughts, my God and my pen, the end of the journal would start to resemble the scratchings of desperate, somewhat insane, man. i'm convinced of this. so. i need you. and you need me.

someone once asked me when i play shows, if i preferred playing with a band or playing solo. my response was something like: "i like being able to mess up when i'm playing alone, because it's a little easier to make it seem like i didn't, and convince the crowd that's what i meant to do. but i do like the feeling of power that can only emanate from a stage full of musicians playing different parts of the same song." so in my indecisive answer i found a truth thats applicable here. on my own, i can mess up and make it seem like i'm not messing up. and i've gotten pretty good at convincing you that i don't mess up. but i still know that i did. it's easier than trying to make an ensemble of people make a beautiful song. that takes more practice and compromise and synchronized passion. it's not easy living with others. you have to expose what you love to hide. there's a song that's written and when you're practicing with your closest friends and family, and you mess up, you have to stop and find some way of not doing it again. you don't just get to change the song on the fly and convince everyone that that was how it always was.

our song is written. but our problem still exists. i don't want to find ways of changing what is already a perfect song to deny my inability to play it well. that problem must be solved. and it must be solved with you.

and you.

and you...

a song's beginnings...

dear mama, here is where i can watch the sun line move
as slow as today is is as slow as i am breathing
gripped by the future as it becomes the now
i'm on my seat's edge waiting for a free feeling

come and capture my tilted head
make me believe every word you ever said
while i wonder what all your sounds mean
i'll stick around 'cause i can't escape your being

my dear, can i stare in your eyes for another minute?
its amazing what you can't feel when you're numbed
so as the Surgeon uses his tools to fix whats wrong
i'll just sit here with you, my Anesthesia, succumbed

come and capture my tilted head
make me believe every word you ever said
while i wonder what all your sounds mean
i'll stick around 'cause i can't escape your being

my son, run towards the light on the horizon
for fast goes the day you are alive and breathing
just let the wheat lay where it fell on the ground
and leave our home to chase a girl that loves you being

come and capture my tilted head
make me believe every word you ever said
while i wonder what all your sounds mean
i'll stick around 'cause i can't escape your being

two days by any standard

a weekend gone awry gives one pause to question what it is they're doing with themselves. with their life. a week gone wrong is quickly quelled by the hope of a weekend. how in the hell do we put so much emphasis on our weekends? why are two days so important to us? i have some ideas...

let's assume that hope's existence is an anesthetic. we're in pain. things around us are hard. so we cling to a thing that numbs it, even if only for a moment. we hold onto to hope so that wherever we are presently doesn't feel so tumultuous. hope implies a forward motion thought process. we imagine how it will be good... one day. how things will soon get better. i'm convinced this is one of the biggest reasons humanity has made it this far. but now the question is what are we hoping for? or towards?

some hope for restoration.

some hope for peace.

some for calm and some for success.

some hope for accomplishment.

and some hope for redemption.

we all hope for something. without hope we have no reason to believe that the "now" is worth anything. if there's nothing that all of this is leading to, then who cares? about anything? whatever the case may be, whether you're hoping for a break on your taxes this year so you can get a little further out of the debt drowning pool, or you're hoping for your life to leave a legacy, whether its a longterm or a short term, chances are, you're hoping for something.

now, lets think about how that can be tangibled. (yes. i made up a word, because terms like "fleshed out" and "given skin" weird me out... thanks e.c.h.) my generation is full of people who only think about today. we don't like to make plans because if we make a plan, there's a chance something can fail and thus, we'll feel like failures. so we live here and now. which sounds very romantic. almost... hip... none of us want to even entertain the possibility of failure. so if we don't make any plans, they can't fail, and we can't fail. we will succeed at everything we do because we're always just doing what we decided to do two minutes ago. this kind of thinking, i'm finding, is pretty dangerous. even as a christian it sounds good to not make plans, because "God has it under control and will do what he wills." which isn't untrue, and i'm not about to get into a debate about Calvinism, but that is one of the shittiest cop outs i've ever heard. whether or not you're a christian, if you're saying that you won't make plans due to your lack of influence in their outcome, you're basically just saying, i'm scared. which is no way to live. so with that being the frame in which a lot of our mind's pictures are hanging, it stands to reason that short term is "good term" for us. "if i can just make it to the end of the month...", "if I can just get through this week...", "i can't wait for this day to be over..."

enter the weekend.

we live so short term that our biggest hopes lie in the closest "end" in sight. how did we ever get so weak? how did we ever become so wrapped up in the thought that we have no ability to make it through an entire year, much less a week? we're still averaging about 80 years of life on this earth, and somehow we don't allow ourselves to think past Sunday.

i remember when i was in middle school, lying in my bed on a Sunday night feeling sick to my stomach and terrified that i had to go back to school the next morning. no other night was as scary as Sunday night. now that i'm 27, the coin has just turned over: no other night is as exciting as Friday night. walking away from my office to my car on a Friday night is one of the best feelings i get in a normal week.

again... i'm 27.

i'm no longer in middle school.

i'm pretty ready to grow up. i look at my dad and see his focus on things that i can't even imagine being able to pick up in a telescope, much less see with my bare eyes and then focus on. he for his entire adult life has looked at a point in the future that is full of hope. i imagine in the first few years of looking towards it he couldn't make out its shape. he may have not even been able to see it distinguished from any other object on the horizon. just another part of a huge blurry line across the sky. but he looked at it. and moved towards it. he hoped that what he was seeing was an end that was worthy of laying down and resting in. now in his 50's i assume the point on the horizon is a little clearer, and his hope is strengthened by all the years behind him that were full of faith. faith that allowed his eyes to adjust because it pushed him closer to that point on the horizon.

we're low on faith my friends. we know there's something on the horizon we should be looking at, but we're scared its the wrong thing. or not even a thing at all. so to cope with the fear or to maybe forget it, we shift our focus to Saturday and Sunday. we can see those clearly. they don't frighten us, but rather give us a "hope" that we can feel Monday to Friday.

its a sick drug.

i write this to say that i'm tired of looking to two days to fulfill my need for a hope answered. to be clear, i believe we're given seasons of rest on the long journey of our lives. Sabbaths. but the Sabbath isn't the end. it's a reminder that the end is coming and has more rest for us than we could imagine. our hope, whatever it may be in, shouldn't be so short lived that we're back to feeling sick to our stomachs on Sunday nights. rather, our hope should push us through every single Sunday night, and Tuesday afternoon, and every year and decade until we get to that point on the horizon. it may be blurry right now, but let faith push you, because if we don't, we're never going to get closer. we'll just keep living for the... well, you can insert your favorite 80's hit by Loverboy here.

Death Becomes Her

In an attempt to address all the adversity around us, I compose.

"Merry Christmas" doesn't ring with silver bells all the time. The year turning new isn't always happy. Seasons of joy seem to be peppered with suffering.

This is where we live.

This is how we are.

This is how it is.

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
-CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Why would we ever want to cease to be roused? If we are indeed deaf and sitting in a wallow of our own filth, but can see outside of it a world of clean splendor, then why would we ever choose to stay and not be drawn out of it? It doesn't make any sense.

Until we figure out what brings us out:

pain.

Who wants to be hurt? Who wants to not feel comfort or happiness? Thus, the paradox of our faith.

Jesus separated himself from his heavenly throne, from his Father, and from his Glory to take on the greatest pain, so we have no footing to stand on that will allow us to shake a fist at God for the hurt we feel. Still we do and still he allows it, but once the dust of anger settles we see where we are and where He is and we put our fists down.

If you are in the community of believers, hold the ones around you. Notice them. Ask them about things. We don't have any other source by which to maintain our sanity. We are the church. The most coveted bride. She has scars and beauty marks all the same, and is becoming in a gown of bandages. She is us and we are her.

Friends, if you're content with life, get ready for a storm to come soon. If you're not content, take heart that God is rousing you. If you are apathetic or unaware, I pray that God screams at you and you hear. I pray this for myself.

musicful lyrics

when ever i listen to Bright Eyes my resolve to write a musically simple song grows exponentially. this is the outcome of a ride home blasting the "Lifted" album. thanks Conor. (recorded version soon to be posted somewhere on the World Wide Web)

there's a lighthouse by the shore

beckoning to keep us yore

the flashing light could tell a tale

of the one's that came before

that came before

there's a house that stands alone

on the road where we were shown

there's a hobo by the door

beckoning to keep us yore

to keep us yore

every little word that comes from

every little thought

all wrapped up into a perfect

needle through my heart

fairer skin has never tasted

as sour to my tongue

but how do i want this

and what do i do with you?

things are helping keep me numb

but my brains a little dumb

chemicals that quell the thoughts

of returning to your arms

to your arms

but all that wins is dreams of us just

layin' head to head

whispering "i love you darlin'"

bundled in my bed

escaping all the world's sorrows

for moments just like this

but then i wake up

and what do i do with you?

with you?..

there's a car that's parked outside

beggin' us to take a ride

there's the keys right by the door

of the place where we grew up

we grew up

musicless lyrics

Here’s fourteen days to look

You’ve got your time so keep it

But remember your papa shook

The world into its place

Just where it was supposed to be

And I see a million faces

Running to a hundred places

How’s it ever gonna fit

If it’ll never make any sense?

My day is a year

And My year is a day

Goodness fleets soon as it’s near

Clearly someone’s gotta pay

Just like it’s supposed to be

And I see a million faces

Running to a hundred places

How’s it ever gonna fit

If it’ll never make any sense?

Help isn’t coming soon

It’s already here

Stop looking to the moon

I’ve already been made clear

Just like I’m supposed to be

And we are a million faces

Running to a hundred places

It’s just gonna have to fit

Faith might never make any sense…

But that’s how it’s supposed to be.