Noise

If anyone ever gets a chance to read a children's book called Duck on a Bike, got for it. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. High quality literature.



Worship has been on my mind lately. I guess that usually means music. Worship music is something that I see as a constant in my life. Weather I like it or not. Every time Christians get together, there's always some dude in the back of the room with an acoustic guitar, strummin' his heart out for Jesus. Or trying to impress girls with his spirituality. You wanna know how you know which one it is? If he ever says that his next song "is a song that I wrote for my future wife," then you know. Every dumb Christian kid with an acoustic guitar wrote a song for his future wife. (as a side note, I don't even know why that is supposed to be romantic, considering the fact that it's based on a relationship with some fantasy woman who is likely nothing like the woman this guy's actually going to marry)

Wow.

That was a tangent.

I think that there are two main reasons I find it difficult to decide if I want to be surrounded by worship music all the time.

First of all, most worship music is such a narrowly defined genre. You can go into any book/music store and find the worship section to see what I mean. You'll find a bunch of white guys (sometimes white girls) clutching their acoustic guitars in some sort of forresty or beach type background with this misty eyed, whimsical look on their face like they just finished watching a Full House marathon and they want to hug somebody. And they always sing the same songs, with the same super-dramatic voice, and the same four guitar chords. I have a book with charts for over 900 chords in it. I should loan that book to one of those people. How did we start thinking that worship music was this and nothing else? The Bible instructs us to sing unto the Lord a new song. It says that we should make joyful noises throughout the earth. Noise is worship to God. Really? Just noise? I love that. That the very noise from our mouths is pleasant to God's ears. Especially since that probably best describes my singing style anyway. But it's not just singing. In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes the daily sacrifice, and offering up of our bodies as a spiritual form of worship. Those are our everyday actions and our posture towards God. That also is worship. Sometimes even singing worship songs isn't really worship. Jesus says that all disciples will one day worship in spirit and in truth. There's something about our posture towards God that makes what we are doing worship or not. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy worship music. I sing it to myself all the time. I'm going to sing some tonight with my IV peeps. I even play the guitar, so what am I complaining about? This is the real problem. It's too narrow of a focus. We haven't even begun to figure out how to worship God, and we're already resorting to formulas? Why? Are we scared to go on, or did we just think we had found something so good that nothing could top it?

I'm reminded of my sister, Deborah, when she was a toddler. My mom had made her a doll for Christmas. She was insecure about it because she had never made anything like that from scratch, so she showed the doll to Deborah before it was finished, just to see if she would like it. Deborah took one look at the doll, and with a big smile on her face, grabbed it and hugged it tight with a squeal of delight. Mom was satisfied, so she tried to go back to work on the doll. She had to first wrestle it out of Deborah's hands. Deborah loved her new doll and thought it was just time for her to play with it forever. She didn't get that this wasn't the end. She wanted her doll, and my mom wanted to give her something more. I can see my mom pleading with little Deborah (we used to call her "Boo") to let her fix the doll, telling her that she would get it back, that it would be even more beautiful in time, and that my mother loved her and wanted to give her something good, if she would only trust.

I think that describes worship for me pretty much. What we now have is not everything, a part, but not the whole of the picture. A gift half completed. If we would only trust. Worship is an extent ion of our bodies, a reflection of our posture towards God. A joyful noise, and so much more.





I just realized I said there were two things about worship that make me uneasy. I'll talk about the other one later.

Jars of Clay-Hymn

This song describes my life more accurately than anything. I will worship God in the midst of uncertainty.

HYMN

Oh refuge of my hardened heart
Oh fast pursuing lover come
As angels dance 'round Your throne
My life by captured fare You own

Not silhouette of trodden faith
Nor death shall not my steps be guide
I'll pirouette upon mine grave
For in Your path I'll run and hide

Chorus:
Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in Your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto Thee

When beauty breaks the spell of pain
The bludgeoned heart shall burst in vain
But not when love be pointed king
And truth shall Thee forever reign

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in Your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto Thee

Sweet Jesus carry me away
From cold of night, and dust of day
In ragged hour or salt worn eye
Be my desire, my well sprung lye

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride
That I may in Your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry
Spring worship unto Thee

Spring worship unto Thee
Spring worship unto Thee

Lots of different colors, but they're all the same

Sooo...I did something stupid today. Actually, I did it on Sunday, but I didn't realize I had done it until today, after a good nights sleep. I lost my wallet. That stupid, ugly thing that I've had FOREVER with the embroidered flames on the front (I thought they were cool when I was 12) is gone, and it took with me all my forms of identification, plus my debit card. Funny how the instant you realize you have no access to money, you need a lot of it. Anyway, I got paranoid (as I often do) and called my bank and cancelled my card. Good move, says I, before someone finds my card and a good place for a shopping spree (like the Internet). Moving on, the next step is to get a new driver's licence. I went to the DMV today, hoping I could prove that I am myself by the only form of identification I have left: my passport. Ironic, isn't it? Most days, I'm not even sure I WANT to be me, but today, I am fighting for the legitimacy of my existence, armed with the only weapon/document at my disposal.

I would now like to stop what I was talking about and discuss something completely different. I feel like this is fair since I gave you all an advance warning.

The world is a scary place. One word I would use to describe it is conflict. Constant conflict (if I were allowed two). It seems like every time someone bothers to venture an opinion or take a stand on an issue (and we're doing that less and less these days) there's some person, or group of people who are offended, or feel attacked, or simply refuse to see the merits of another person's opinion. Fights ensue, people get hurt, and in the end, we usually go our separate ways. Conflict is so common. Resolved conflict is so rare. I don't vote anymore. I used to vote. I used to go to protests, and shout my opinion at the top of my lungs. I don't do any of that anymore. Sometimes I think that everything beautiful and moving has already been said. So how does one move a mass of people whose hearts are so heavy with apathy, and unresolved conflict when we have nothing new or moving or beautiful to say? Nothing that could make all these people who can't agree about anything look at the world like it's a place of possibility. Like the reasons we all hate each other could be just misunderstandings. It's something I want so badly, but it just got too hard. The world was so heavy that I had to put it down. I don't think I was ever meant to lift it on my own, but I didn't see anyone else around to do the job, and now that I've set it down, I can only see it sinking, and I can't stop myself from thinking that there's nothing I can do to stop it. I think that's why I don't think about it much. Too depressing, the state of the world. There are some beautiful things going on with individual people that I'd rather focus on. But I realized something today.

Passports.

My roommate has a passport, and so do I. My roommate is from Korea. I am American. My passport is blue, with an emblem of an eagle in Gold. My roommate's passport is red, with a similar emblem (I think it's a statue or something?) also in gold. Same size, same color paper on the inside, same purpose. I remember a scene in the 1959 film Charade, where Walter Mathau Is showing Audrey Hepburn the passport of her deceased husband. "Is this your husband?," he asks. "Yes that's him," she replies. "And this?" He shows her another passport, similar looking, but from a different country. He shows her about eight different passports, all from different countries, but basically all the same general design. Gold (sometimes silver) lettering, an emblem on the front. Same size, same paper on the inside, same purpose. Maybe we're all a lot like passports. Some of us come from different places, and the marks on the inside show that we've been a lot of different places. Maybe we're decorated a bit differently on the outside, but really, when you get down to it, don't we all have the same purpose? Maybe I'm stretching this a little bit, but I find it oddly encouraging that somehow all the nations of the world came to a consensus that passports should be small books with an emblem in gold lettering on the front. Same size, same paper, same purpose. We agree about something. Maybe, just maybe, we could agree about something else, something more important someday. Hope comes in the form of little booklets with gold letters. We all have the same purpose.

Further Seems Forever - Hide Nothing

I listened to this song in High School. Never really thought about the words. Surprisingly, five years later, it's more relevant than it was then. I especially like the part about change being impersonal, like it's just something that happens, even though sometimes it makes me feel like a victim. I hope it helps someone out there as much as it has me...

HIDE NOTHING

We live and we learn
and crash and we burn
and we're gone

We take what we know
and we learn as we go
and we run

Run until that day
We can see who we are
Have the final say
We can be who we are

As love lights the way
to the last day
And no one can take it away

Run and hide
Don't hide at all
Change is coming,
no it's nothing personal

Live our lives
Not hide it all
Change is coming,
no its nothing personal

We live and we learn
and crash and we burn
and were gone

We take what we know
and we learn as we go
and we run

We live and we learn
and crash and we burn
and were gone

We reap what we sow
and we come and we go
when were young

Just What Kind of State of Mind is Doc, Anyway?

I have to work today. I spent a good amount of the morning in the hot (very hot) glass shop, making a cup, and putting a bowl into the annealing oven. I'm sleepy. I went to go get coffee to keep myself awake. On the way to MJ's, I decided instead to use the machine in the TSU because I had no desire to interact with another human being at that moment. I'm grumpy. I called my sister before I started work, just to see how she was doing. I talked to her for about 20 minutes, but realized that I had only about 5 minutes worth of things to talk toher about. I'm dopey. I keep having to excuse myself to go to the bathroom, so I can blow my nose. I'm sneezy. My emotions are personified by the seven dwarfs. My emotions are cartoon characters. Sounds good to me. I've been thinking a lot lately about the way things make me feel, or the patterns of my emotions. I've been trying to make and emotional "map". A view from the top. Something I can use to navigate with. After all the thinking and stressing I do, I've managed to make an important discovery: it's really not that complicated of a map. I succeed, and I feel good. Someone hurts my feelings, and I am angry. Someone corrects me, and I question myself. I'm told I can't have something, I want it more. I'm told I can't be something, I try harder. I get a criticism, and I feel worthless. I get a compliment, and I feel invaluable. It's a map of simple math. A+B=C. And it's temporary every time. I like that the negative feelings are temporary, but I wish the nice ones stuck around a little longer. I like liking myself. I should base how I feel on something besides what just happened to me. That seems like a good idea. That's the problem with having emotions like cartoon dwarfs. There's only seven of them (and I still have no idea what "Doc" is supposed to mean). I want a wider palette, and a more stable base. I want to feel something...different. I want to draw my own pictures and color them in. Then I want them to move for me. I want them to move me. I want to be neither grumpy, nor sleepy, nor bashful. I want to be happy.


I don't mind being dopey either.

Let Someone Else Talk For A While

"God doesn't require us to suceed; he only requires that you try"

-Mother Teresa


I guess I can't really argue with Mother Theresa...I think I'll be allright.

The Future, Conan?

Okay, so I normally post things after having thought about them a long time, and giving them much prayer, and working them out a lot. I see my blog as a way to explain God to people, or at least my understanding of God. There's that key word again: Understanding. Today, I don't have understanding. I just have words. Probably not even key words. Just words. I feel something that I don't understand. So, this time, rather than trying to figure it out and then telling everyone about it, I am going to try and just figure it out right now. I'm going to write through it. Sounds good? I don't know what I'm doing.

First of all, I am proud to announce that "He Woke Me Up Again" by Sufjan Stevens is now at a modest #10 on my top 10 songs listened to playlist. This song has been my constant prayer in this difficult transitionary period I'm going through, and I hope that it moves even further up the list. It's a beautiful song.

Allright, here's what's getting to me: I have nothing to write about, because I have done nothing all day. Actually, all week (I know it's only Teusday, but bear with me). I don't know if anyone else worries about waking up one day to find out that you've become completely uninteresting, but that really scares me. Does anyone else hear the "wasted potential" speech a lot? You know, some older person comes up to you and wants to know what you are going to do with your life, because "this is the time when you make those decisions that effect the outcome of the rest of your life, and if there's one thing I can't stand to see, it's wasted potential"... I am exhausted of those. And even though I've heard that speech a hundred thousand times, I still have no answer for that "what are you going to do with the rest of your life" speech. I'm still too busy mourning over my lost college years.

Where did they go? Seriously. I just got here and it's already time to leave? When I think of all the time I wasted on insecurities and obsessions, and all those worries about the future, I really start to wonder weather or not I wasted college. There was so much fun. So much good. Why did I waste so much time on my own selfish concerns? I certainly hope that this semester has a few more late night boba runs and random hangout times and impromptu dance parties left in it, because I'm really REALLY going to miss those. I hope people need to "study" at bobaloca some more before the semester is through. Oh, I am going to miss college a lot. There's no replacement for any one phase of your life. There's always two paths you can chose at any point in life, or at least your attitude about it. I'm afraid I chose the wrong one for most of the time. It was here, in college, that I learned to try a different path. That one called gratitude. Imagine the difference if I could have learned that a little sooner. Imagine how many people I could have helped out of that rut of bitterness. Yet, even as I am speaking about gratitude, I can feel bitterness sneaking up on me from behind, crawling all over my skin, and forcing my facial features to harden. I can't let it win this time. I want joy. After all is said and done, I found out that it was a choice. God promised me something last year. And he told me to keep my head up and wait for it. my patience is wearing thin. My bitterness is thickening. I'm not ready to grow up. What will I do if I'm alone out there? What if I'm too afraid to rely on anyone? What if the relationships I had in college just...fade away? My parents don't talk to anyone they knew in college. They have each other. What do I have? I need God's promise to me to be true, and I need to not be alone. I need my freinds beside me. I need to choose joy. I'm not bitter about the future. I'm scared to death about it.