overproportioNATE

My job on my birthday, should I choose to accept it, is to make it a good day for you. Yes.You.  I'm still at the age where a birthday is a good thing. I still feel like I'm 22, and every year I can gain from 22 is a good thing, as I am certain that no one wants a 22 year old pastor, or counselor (speaking of full-time personal counselors, not camp counselors). But I am getting older, and I like to believe that I am going through more than I ever have, having to be strict and upfront more than I ever have. I find more joy in making others happy than I ever imagined I would when I was younger. I'm sure that is the nice-sounding utterance of many, but for me, at least in my heart, I know its true. I want to thank a few people, and acknowledge a few things today, because it is my birthday, and I get to do what I want. I thank God. Because He is worth following, and is all the adventure and reward I need. He is enough. I thank my wife. I'm so glad just to know her...

And I will die alone and be left there. Well I guess I'll just go home, Oh God knows where. because death is just so full and man so small. Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before. And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see what you find there, With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair. -After the Storm, Mumford & Sons I love when a writer can put something down on paper that has an old tune to it. Human and raw. I appreciate it when a writer doesn't have to know everything about what he writes about. Music, like life, like church, should make us uncomfortable. Whenever we settle in, and are decided, we rest on our haunches, and are not really living any more. There is a time for soothing music, and this song most definitely has a soothing element, it ends well. But most of their songs don't. And I feel that is because mos...

I want to push myself to be more of an encourager. There are only a few people in life that encourage me too much, and I still like those people. I love seeing that change in a person, who has never known encouragement, who has never had someone on their side. Someone who now feels like "one of the guys", and is content. I love it because they become an encourager as well. It is inevitable. Whenever someone is filled up, complete, its like they can't help it. Its a new creature, and something that the church lacks more and more. But I feel like there is an underswell, I feel like there is a generation that most definitely wants to connect, that wants to have a place. We are a generation that will work, we will work hard. I think it will take encouragement, and it will take someone listening. I have never felt like my generation knows more than older generations, and I have never felt like it was my place to say that we have better ideas, or they are all wrong. But w...

"Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done      and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;      nothing was gained under the sun." I have a hard time pinning down what I want in life. And on my best days, I'm not even sure if that question is worth asking. Because on my best days, I guess I slip a little further away from myself. I would love to do so many things in life, travel, stay close to family and friends, always be up on all my technology, and dine at wonderful places. All of those things are good and fine. But, and I don't know if its the martyr in me, I don't know if much of any of it is worth much. But like I talked about yesterday, maybe the important thing is to simply be willing to leave some of those things behind, or all of it. To be able to go and not look back.

Yo todavia espero un milagro, Yo todavia te espero a ti. ( I still hope for a miracle , I hope you're still you.) I am so lonely, they say you were lonely too. Dear God be my savior, I wait for you. -Hurricanes, FIF Just a few lines today about a mournful song from Five Iron. Not common are their mournful songs. I like that even in their mournful writing, they still acknowledge that God knows them. That God still identifies with them. I think that is a very important perspective to keep. I can have a bad day. I can feel alone. I can feel overworked, and tired. I can feel needy. And all of those things are good, even necessary. Just remember, somewhere in that sorrow, that even in my loneliness, I am not ultimately alone. "I still hopeful a miracle, I hope you're still you." That's one way it can translated, there are others, but this one in particular strikes me. We have an awful lot of hopes in life, but maybe one of the more profound ones is...

"All my dreams are slowly dying. I can count my years in scars. The only One that's never left me, has carried me so very far. I've heard it said that He wastes nothing, so beautiful to behold, the Author of my hope is writing, the greatest story ever told." -From The Greatest Story Ever Told, FIF Reese always said that after Every New Day, this was his favorite song to sing. Haven't gotten to hear it live yet. He wastes Nothing. Thats a pretty profound statement, a bold one. That He would waste nothing at all. I think that there are a lot of things that we can point to in our life, cirumstances that happened, or didn't happen, that shaped us into who we are. Beneficial things, even negative, even terrible things, that were in the end, good for us. But that He might use everything, that nothing at all would go to waste... My mediocre days? The forgettable ones. The early forming days in my life that I don't remember. The images from days of war, ...

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.     In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”     They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.     When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”     Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.     Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”   “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus d...

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are giving a rousing speech? I know I have. Last night, I was in the midst of the sermon of a lifetime, belting out heartfelt pleas to my audience, so sure of what i was saying, coming from the gut you know? My punchline (which I'm not so sure of right now), was "Man was not made to be on his knees, he was made to walk with God." And while I believed that so fully in my dream, I cannot embrace it now. There's a lot of reasons why we have denominations, and so much conflict. We prioritize so differently. One group believes that to experience God, you must be in your Bibles and in prayer constantly, leaving very little time for evangelism and outreach. While another group believe that it is all about the work outside of our homes and churches, and have little time for prayer and time spent just with God. The battle of finding God in the quiet, and finding God in the loud and the emotional. Of the new and interest...

Just watched "500 days of Summer" again. Mostly just a sad movie starring an always quirky Zooey Deschanel and a seemingly always sad Jason Gordon-Levitt. I'd says "spoilers", but I just don't really care. Zooey's character, Summer, doesn't ever want to be tied down, her parents were divorced, and she'd like to be free, especially from anything serious and binding like marriage in her life. Jason's character, Tom, has a similar history, parents divorced, but does not long for that seem freedom, and clings to more of the traditional view of love and marriage. Now, at the end of the film, Summer has gotten married after "dating/something" with Tom throughout the movie, and not wanting to commit to him. Tom asks "why?" Summer simply says "because I wanted to." Also saying "It just happened". It struck me this time, at least more than the last time I saw this movie, that I am simply not a person...

One missed step can make you stumble, you set yourself up for a fall. You punish yourself for each failure, dogma beat out alcohol. When all of your principles were fashioned, you thought that your new rules made you new. But maybe those X's on your hands, are what's killing you. -FIF, The Cross of Saint Andrew If you haven't heard the song in its entirety, you should. The meaning can be a little difficult to discern, but Reese took some very purposeful steps in writing it. The X's on hands refers to Saint Andrews Cross. Saint Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross, not believing himself to be worthy of dying the same way as his Savior (similar to Peter).  Reese sings about how important it is for us to see that manner of thinking is not the way to salvation, but rather a product of it. Also, in the second verse, Reese writes about what it really was that changed St. Andrew, that being Christ's mercy. But here too, Reese says specifically "Christ has...

In an effort to change it up, here's this. Witch hunts seem like a mistake. Don't they? We look back on these atrocities with this illusion that they are no more. That there has never since been such an inquisition. Obviously we no longer seek out the wrong and burn them at the stake. We may be better than ever. To look at one case of demonization would be ludicrous and small, because there are many groups that, stated or unstated, are at odds with the church because of their particular sin. We like to believe that we all love sinners, and hate their sin. But there are many people groups, select kinds of sinfulness, that we keep at an arms-length, that have no home in our churches. We have crafted, as taboo, things that repulse us, things we don't understand, and so quickly and easily, the sins that we ourselves do not do, or have not been caught doing. And it is more than a little un-Christian. It is denial. It is the man who was forgiven his great debt, and then...

I find it important to have a kowledge that I (as much as I would like to protest), am wrong about some very important things. Every man would like to believe that the judgements we make as we go through life are, if not spot-on, then rather close to being accurate. But there will be some critical things wrong with my perceptions. I will have looked at people in through incorrect lenses, I will perceive some right things to be wrong, and some wrong things as right. And it may be easy enough to think that, but how deeply should that enter into the way that one actually lives. Should it affect the things I feel certain about? Should it affect the trust in those who I view as faithful and true? Does it enter into mere morality, or should it touch something deeper? And what things are unaffected? What ideas and principles, and beliefs... will my uncertainty leave alone? I should call THOSE things sacred and set-apart, because I should not violate them with doubt.

I always try to make it my practice to write about depressing issues when I am happy, and joy when I am sad. Its a constant balance. I've been thinking about how finite I am, which I will agree, is a fairly silly enterprise. But I think very often about what I want in life, and now matter how big or small a part of this blog I would like that line of thinking to take, I fear it may overwhelm it someday. It is what we wake up for, and strive for, and give and take for. What I want, from my finite reasoning, is more of the same, or slightly better. A joke must always be extreme. The weather is always warmer or colder than the day before, the neighbor's lawn never looks quite the same as mine. We want a slightly better reality. We re-tell stories of that time a friend did something you just couldn't believe, odd little stories of betrayal and ridicule, and joy, because even those stories through the lense of time bring joy. And I, (foolish as I am), do my very best to re...

There is a hunger in the human heart to be proven wrong. We long for someone to come along and tell us that our opinion of ourselves, the way we can't stand what we see in the mirror, what lies on our resume, what we've heard written on the walls, is wrong. And while I say that there is potential for this to be a selfish desire, I believe it only to be selfish when we fish for it. When we grasp it and demand it from others. When it becomes for us, life. It is something that we are called to give, but shouldn't be demanded. It is my job, and your job, to prove each other wrong, in all of the best ways. Because there are things that you believe about yourself that simply are not true. And until those things are broken and burned, (which may take a lifetime), you will not see yourself as God sees you. Not that we should have an unhealthy view of ourselves, but we should have a correct view. Jon Foreman writes expertly about this desire in his song "mostly prove me...

As a young man, I beleive it to quite natural to look at the world, and try to pinpoint the problems. One looks at education, and the amount of money spent on educating the next generation, and he wonders, where is it all going wrong? Or take the whole world (as if that was at all possible), and imagine a world without the violence. Where a man can simply think about another family, not even need to see their faces, or know their story, and wish them well, (as if simply that would be enough). I'm learning more and more that the problems of this life are tied directly to this life. They are tied to individual aspirations for greatness, which at once looks terrific. Everyone would like a parade in their honor. And at the same time terrible. For we have spent too much on streamers and floats, and now everyone would like a parade, and we are willing for forget that image of another family in need. And so many of the things in life which give us grief, that we would so like to ...