Dear 20 Somethings... Shut Up

Please.

In the scope of the 10 million opportunities that our specific age group could seize at any given moment if we wanted to, if your unbelievably specific constellation of decision and circumstances are that bad, then adapt to the situation of, adjust the vision, and move on.

To be fair, i've experienced my fair share of frustrations with the quarter life obstacles, (education, jobs, relationships, money, recognition.) but i can't have another conversation with a friend who's just certain that the great black thumb of misfortune is pressed down hard on his specific and woeful life. Listen, we're as young, attractive, able and carefree as we're ever gonna be.

Prioritize. Whats most important? Relationships? Then quit working 80 hours a week to make money so as to afford more debt, get a job that pays bills, and build relationships. Maybe money is most important? (i may not agree, but no matter) Then quit complaining about not having time, and make your money.

We're the envy of old age and those not yet standing at the edge of full potential. Let's not waste time wanting more, less or something different. Work towards what you value and enjoy your time doing it.

Pot, Punches, & Bradley...

I spent a the longest week of my life, recently, in a cabin at Camp Eagle that smelled like poop, B.O., and middle school boys who haven't showered all week.

Now i've been to plenty of youth camps before, mind you - tons of them. But i'm use to camps that pamper their campers with games, good food, and 6 hours of free time a day. So when the neighborhood boys from the rough part of town who've been apprehensive to come to church asked about it, I told them it was gonna be a blast. "we'll have water games, mud wars, archery, swimming... and maybe one hike.....one."

Well that's not how Camp Eagle swings. Yes it was fun, and yes, they do a great job... with kids who come from a churched culture. But these inner city kids we brought just weren't having it. I myself was struggling to keep up with the fact that we had to hike for 45 minutes to get ANYWHERE.

Needless to say... a rebellion began. I broke up fights, chased kids a mile and half down the roads that led to nowhere, policed some language that would make Quentin Tarantino blush, and confiscated drugs (don't worry, he assured me they weren't his. Someone must have put them in his bag.)

I spent time with these kids and helped them through the moments when it seemed like the whole camp, chalk full of white kids from the suburbs, was watching them in disapproval. When they we're exhausted and cussing me out, I sat and waited. When they were sitting a room by themselves, waiting to be sent home - waiting for the hammer to drop - waiting to be kicked out like they had been before, we talked. About nothing - about everything - about music - about the Gospel.

And on the very last night I got to stand in the back of the pavilion, overlooking the river, exhausted, dirty, hot, at a loss... but joyful. Because, the very hardest one of them all, the kid who was quickest to throw a punch and slowest to smile, met Jesus. He was sure. He was positive and he wanted to tell everyone that night and be baptized by us. As I stood at the back with my head in my arms, singing, praying and crying, i felt a nerdy little hand on my back. It was Bradley. 4 feet tall, knock knees and size 12 shoes, bradley is easily the nerdiest kid in this great state of Texas. But Bradley's heart is big, his smile is genuine, and his spirit is sweet.

"Tell me what's going on buddy." He said looking up at me with his glasses hanging on for dear life at the tip of his nose. "nothing buddy, i'm good." "Ok, well dont be sad if you are." "ok bradley, i won't be."

And I wasn't.

That week beat the life out of me. But that night we baptized, who I thought was, the least likely to inherit the kingdom that week. I was reminded why I love youth ministry. Those inner-city kids reminded me, Bradley reminded me, being used and seeing results reminded me.

And now i'm leaving... and it sucks. I'm excited for the next chapter, but i'll miss playing apart in the rest of this one.

Specificity

We're always at a crossroads. I'm coming up on 25 now and I keep hearing about the "quarter life crisis" (I won't lie it feels like one), but i'm not sure age has anything to do with it. There are always decisions to be made, our environment changes and circumstances force us to deal with it.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Mainly because as a husband of six months and i want to build a family in a way that will provide a life that impacts others, but i've also been watching. Watching old friends, strangers, new friends and family. I have a friends that are incredibly driven, some by status, some by relationships, some by money, some who just cant bear the idea of not doing better. I also have friends that aren't. Period. Friends who have no problem with where they are now, who they're with, what they make or anything else. Both, i'd say, can be motivated or unmotivated to fault. So now i'm trying to find a balance between the two. Which category would my friends throw me in if they wrote a narcissistic blog like mine? hmmmmm...

So instead of making a list of should's and should'ves, wins and regrets, I got to talking to brother of mine about goals. Mine have changed a lot over the past years, or at least i thought they had. When i was 18 i was a dating a girl i thought i'd marry and working at a church i honestly thought i'd work at... forever.

Even typing either of those things is embarrassing.

I'll spare you the 20 other scenarios i've been wrong about, but suffice it to say there have been plenty, each more frustrating that the last. So obviously there's more to it than that. There has to be right? Why set goals and expectation about things we have such little control over it? There's no way in grand scheme and poetice genius of our creator that this is how we're suppose to go about it.

But goals are good right? I mean I mentioned, in negative light, the result of no goals earlier. Complacency. So maybe our (my) problem thus far has been specificity. I'm not saying i want to sell all my things, cast the net wide and make my goals to be things like "sunshine" and "smiles", but i think a number is far too fickle a thing for us to put our rest in. Be that number an area code or dollar sign. How many kids we have, how much money we make, what city we live in, where we vacation. Those numbers own so many many of us and for what?

I learned a lesson in identity early on and it really stuck with me. We aren't our jobs, our families, our names or even our own. As believers, we're servants of the Living God. Nothing more (though what more is there) and nothing less. So i've set goals. I want to love my wife the way i'm called to, I want raise children who impact lives, I want to build meaningful relationships with the people who come in to my life and find common ground and a way to love the people with whom it's difficult to do so. That being said, i can make 30 or 300 a year and it won't matter as long as my family is being provided for, and i'm living like i'm called to.

Work hard , no exceptions, and enjoy life, no holds barred. But before your feet hit the ground every morning, remember who you are. Find your identity as a servant of your Creator. May we set our goals in accordance with that. May we make our decisions in that light. May we spend our time pouring into things that will carry on into the age to come when this world is restored.

I Can't Believe I Forgot...

Wedding, Work, Music, Speaking, Recording... Life has gotten ridiculously busy. I don't get to post on here half as much as i'd like to anymore. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that i need community and close, personal relationships to fuel any creativity. Oddly enough, they provide the fuel, but once it's time to actually produce something... i need silence and someplace solitary. It's a hard mixture to balance, but even more so a hard realization to come to. I miss my creativity. I miss my passion to communicate through 7 mediums at once.

This blog will be a short one.

In the past 20 hours i've had two very good conversations with 2 very close friends. One new and one old. One in a familiar setting and one at the edge of something new. Both reminded me that one of the implications of my being created in the image of our God, is that i'm to continue the creative process....

I can't believe i ever forgot that. so here we go.

Incompletion: Our Strangest Answer

I have a secret... doubt. Maybe, question, is better word for it. Very recently I have been actively questioning my faith. Not doubtfully disputing, but questioning. Here's a better way of putting it; i opened myself up to a set of questions that i knew would aggressively challenge my whole belief system. The words of a familiar artist echoing in my spirit.

"Wait just a minute You expect me to believe that all this misbehaving grew from one enchanted tree. And helpless to fight it we should all be satisfied with the magical explanation for why the living die."

At the heart of it, there's no denying that we are a people of fantastical beliefs. Wars have been fought in their name, men have been martyred in their wake, and every civilization for 10,000 years has lived in the tension of their miracles. Our logic is full of mysticism, and our reason is full of reckless passion. And these things don't sit well with us, do they? Not with me they don't. My brain has been divided into two hemispheres (so they tell me), and it's quite a bother some times. It's either a fantastic joke my Poetic Creator has played on me or a marvelous mistake that science never evolved to the point that both of these halves would work more peacefully together... have your pick. Regardless, I'm left to hash it out somehow, and so these questions burn.

And the frustrating thing isn't even so much the questions themselves as much as why we ask them. The questions are the same we all have had. What are we looking for though, evidence? Evidence is relative. I can prove to a man that sun revolves around the earth and not the other way around, and all he has to do is sit with me in my front yard for 12 hours to watch it pass. Instead, i take a more capable man's word for it. One who tells me he's been around the world and seen it himself, another who's machines answer the mystery for us... and I'm satisfied with those answers. So why am i not satisfied with the same man's answers to the bigger questions? Questions of life. Questions of what really happened. I decided tonight it's because we're not speaking the same language.

When asking poetic questions, math is obsolete.

Tonight i took a walk around 2 am. It was quiet and no one bothered me. I walked and listened to my music, and then i heard it. I felt it. The earth moved. Cried. A cry of frustration, of agony, of incompletion. And i realized why I'm so unsatisfied with the answers of man. They use equations that are incomplete, nearly there but they always leave something to be desired. They've been missing something from the moment we plucked it from the tree and the earth has groaned ever since. Tsunami's roll, the earths shell cracks and shakes, and beneath it all is this cry to made whole again because all creation knows this isn't how things were meant to be. It knows without asking and it knows because it doesn't ask. It knows and and doesn't waste time trying to explain it without all the pieces.

I feel the same incompletion, but in a different way. I feel it not because my Creator left any desire unquenched but because, until he comes back in fullness and restores things, i won't truly operate the way he meant for me to. That answer brings me peace... because i know that the same Creator orchestrated this entire night just so i could understand.

At Peace in Chaos

I'm either a complete moron, or addicted to fantastically impossible poetic explanations for everyday questions... both are likely and at at least one is the reason i haven't blogged in a while. (By the way, i've appreciated the inquiries as to why i've been gone and the emails. I am flattered.)

The truth is, every time i sit down to write on here... i get a little schizophrenic. My fingers hit the keys fast and hard and just when a coherent decisive thought begins to form, I immediately begin to disagree with my self. Sound crazy? Ya... i know. Feel free to judge me.

Here's my issue... Logically, nothing that i feel like i've been created to do makes any sense. It's like i have this crazy voice in my head whispering dangerous advice as i try and just go about my day.

It starts small...

"Give that guy $20."

"Go back and tell him why you did."

"Start a conversation with the man who looks like he doesn't want to be bothered"

... And it gets bigger

"Reach out to that person... even if people will talk."

"Love that person... even if you'll be judged for it."

"Turn down that job offer for more money."

It got Huge

"... start a revival."

"Refuse those resources if it means it will compromise vision."

"Turn down the easy path for the one that makes your blood boil with purpose... even if you have to cut the path yourself."

You know i'm beginning to realize? I've been hearing this voice for a long time. But before when I heard it, it was easier to listen to. It was telling me things that calmed me and comforted me... so i called it the voice of God. Now that it tells me to do things for which i'll be ostracized -things that will require me to rely 100% on the assumption that God will He Himself have to step in and make things happen - things that are just plain crazy - well now i call the voice impulse and absurdity.

So i'm tired. I'm tired of ignoring the vision god gave me because people around me seem hesitant. God will will speak a word to them on their own time... and i'm going to move forward. Forward to what you ask? I. Have. No. Idea. But 5 minutes at time, i'll listen to the voice and, like a crazy person, i'll do whatever it tells me to. Because i'm more at peace in the midst of the chaos that ensues when i do than i am in the regret when i don't.

5 Songs Installment #2: "5 to Break Your Heart"

(The Bittersweet) Snow Patrol - Run

(The Hopeful) The Frames - Falling Slowly

(The Last Chance) Damien Rice - Cold Water

(The Vision) U2 - Moment of Surrender

(The Question) Nickel Creek - Why Should the Fire Die? (Last song on page)