moon-bathing

candlelight

2012-02-02T00:42:00.000-08:00

i remember who i am sometimes, and feeling like blogging but being unable to say anything confidently is certainly an excellent reminder.

war

2011-12-16T17:25:00.001-08:00

i'm in so much pain, and so much damage is being done. i remember asking for this, out of complete naivety... perhaps it will be turned to good. perhaps it will all be redeemed.

Lord of all, Giver of life, please make it so. i cannot.

amen.

ZAGG black Friday madness

2011-11-13T02:08:00.000-08:00

you're invited.

who: anyone who signs up on the ZAGG website.
what: a free iPad 2, every hour, for 24 hours.
where: http://www.zagg.com/community/contest.php
when: midnight (MST), on Black Friday (11/25/11)
why: best marketing tactic ever
how: submit your e-mail address

ZAGG products that i own which are awesome:

the ZAGGsparq 2.0, which ZAGG sent me for free after i bought the 1.0, and which shipped with a free pair of earbuds (which also rocked)
ZAGGskin, which has protected my iPod Touch from approximately 3,877 mishaps

worship leadership team questionnaire

2011-10-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

1. Define the responsibilities of “Worship Leadership” in the Church today?
judging only by my own experiences, it seems that local expressions of the body of Christ need a particular kind of sensory experience (somewhat unique to each local church) in order to genuinely worship God musically. so the lowest common denominator among free church evangelicals in my immediate cultural vicinity seems to be this: that the responsibility of worship leadership is to provide that sensory experience.

2. How should the worship experience change for someone, as they transition from the “Congregation” to the “Worship Leadership Team”?
if the answer to question #1 above is true, then someone's worship experience as they transition from congregation to leadership should change in at least two ways. first, they should be willing and able to genuinely worship through music apart from their preferred sensory experience. second, they should be providing initiative and direction for the congregation.

3. What will be your greatest areas of “Spiritual Struggle” if you begin (or continue) to serve on the worship team (Answer honestly… This will be an opportunity for the pastoral team to help you grow and will not be shared with the full team)?
most immediately, i anticipate continuing to struggle with the truth of the words i use (and encourage others to use) during musical worship. to a lesser degree, i also struggle with the question the sincerity of others.

further toward the horizon, i anticipate a very difficult yet intentional struggle with the question of whether the purpose to which we put worship leadership is actually facilitating biblical worship. it is not a question of whether people are worshipping, but rather a question of whether i am helping or hindering when i, as a congregant or as a leader, choose to participate in the particular format of rituals chosen by my local church.

4. Why do you feel that you should be/ or continue to be a part of the “Worship Leadership Team”?
apparently my vocal ability, combined with what others perceive as a genuine attitude of worship, has helped others to genuinely worship. i have been told this by many different people from many different churches on many different occasions throughout my life since junior high, and i believe that even if i did not enjoy worship music so intensely, i would still be willing and able to serve in this area.

that is the benefit for others. the benefit for me is that i am continually faced with questions that challenge me to refine not only my beliefs (the mental assent i give to ideas) but also my discipleship (faithful action that gives my beliefs expression and, i hope, integrity). this challenge comes not only from the unique perspective of worship leadership (as opposed to followership), but also from exposure to other leaders, whose differing perspectives force me to grow. (i am blessed to be surrounded by perspectives which force me to grow toward Christlikeness, which is not the case for every growing person, nor for every situation that forces growth.) conversely, i am told by others that i provide them that same challenge.

5. Have you prayerfully considered joining the Worship Leadership Ministry, and have you discussed this with your spouse, family and/or other significant people in your life?
i have in the past both prayerfully considered and also discussed with others my participation in worship team leadership. neither of these actions has ever discouraged me from worship leadership itself. i have not recently revisited this topic with the intention of critical re-examination.

6. Is there anything in your life that would hinder you from serving with right motives or with whole-hearted commitment?
i can think of nothing in my life right now, nor do i have reason to expect anything in particular, that would hinder my motives or my commitment, except perhaps a radical paradigm shift resulting from the second struggle mentioned in my answer to question #3 above, which is unlikely to take place anytime soon.

7. Do you spend time in the Word and in Prayer? Please specify how often and how consistently. Please also describe your goals and methods.
i spend time and effort in the Word multiple times a week, mostly through conversation (whether one-sided or interactive) with others, as well as through that which i can remember 'unaided' (verbatim and otherwise). my inundation with Scripture throughout my entire life has been both blessing and curse-- the former because i have become familiar with Scripture as some are familiar with a favorite movie, and the latter because it's possible i am now somewhat inured to it.

my goal in passing on Scripture to others is usually to inform, correct, encourage, or explain. my goal in discussing it with others is similar, except that those verbs apply to myself just as much as to them. generally my methods include defining words, supporting one passage with others, finding overarching themes throughout the Bible, comparing and contrasting its' narratives with our own lives, transporting the intent of a passage from its original context to ours today (with painstaking caution to preserve its meaning), and praying Scripture in order to be apprehended by it internally rather than simply vocalizing it.

i pray with the intent of praying perhaps once or twice a week. more often i am simply aware that God is aware of my thoughts. most days i will automatically submit many of my thoughts to God as i think them, ready to hear back but depending mostly on Scripture and Christian fellowship to receive from Him a response to my prayers. the exception is when i request something of Him, in which case i will often direct my attention more outward than inward, in order to better notice His work.

my belief is that prayer, insofar as it is intended to change things, is as much (if not more) intended to change the pray-er as it is to change outside circumstances. in keeping with this, the content of many of my more intentional, ritualized prayers (i.e. ending with "amen" or beginning with an address to God) will have to do with my heart, my behavior, my character, etc.

8. How are YOU being discipled as a part of our church (Examples: Men’s or Women’s Groups, Young Married’s, Life Groups, Navigator Series Classes, Youth Ministry)?
the pastors at my church serve as both purposeful mentors and walking examples to me. my discipleship under them often comes in the form of either encouragement or tasks entrusted to me, both of which have significantly changed my life for the better. in addition, their words and actions are more than simply un-sinful: in light of my beliefs, they make me want to imitate them as they live out Christ. Jerad Mendel, Heather Mendel, Cameron Unruh, and Beth Unruh disciple me in these ways.

additionally, i find that the more i disciple and serve others, the more i am shaped apart from the conscious intentions of fellow Christians to shape me. i am constantly impressed with 'bodily activity' (that is, activity as part of the body of Christ) as an irreplaceable Christ-influence.

9. Have you completed any of the following studies? (Circle All that Apply)
a. Growing Strong
b. Bachelor of Arts in Religion at Vanguard University of Southern California

waking from the American dream

2011-06-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

if we boil it down past the point of cultural content, then the American dream is really just "i want my life to gradually improve until i reach a point of contentment." in other words, "i want to become happy at some point."

the problem with this, is that happiness is always temporary. so if i let happiness be a goal, i will be setting myself up for failure.

i'm okay with being happy. i'm not okay with expecting happiness, or expecting happiness to last, or working toward happiness as its own goal. it is long past time for me to stop pursuing happiness.

my life could be better

2011-06-16T17:56:00.001-07:00

and i could be the one to make it better. so i will try. but i need your help.

"what kind of help?"

glad you asked! step 1: read this note (which is a large task in and of itself), without calling me emo (which is almost as tough). step 2: decide whether the note is worthy of a response or not. step 3: decide whether you want to help or not. if you don't, i may cry a tiny tad, but it will pass.

there was a time in my life when i was just the weird homeschooler/bando, and mostly hung out with others of the same calling. and that was okay, because those people were mostly cool. not totally satisfactory, but still cool.

next there came this time in my life when i decided i wanted to be really intentional about my friendships and the purpose of them. i realized i needed to give of myself to others. and that was great; very biblical, very fulfilling. alot of those friends were at church. it was awesome... but still not complete.

then after that, i went to college, and during the first half of that, i was pretty much forced to make new friends, who turned out to be some of the most awesome so far. or maybe the relationships were the most awesome so far. yea, that second one is true. i resisted them at first, but they grew on me and in me. at this point, i had some nerd/homeschooler/bando friendships, some give-of-myself-to-you friendships, and-- during the second half of college-- some receive-from-you friendships. i benefited from all of these, and loved them all, and figured that this was the best social situation i could hope for... aside from having two halves of a life (one at home in Fresyes, one in SoCal).

THEN... there was this chapter where i actually did adult-y things like get a full-time job, get married, etc. at this point, things slowed down a little, socially speaking. it was a very tough time for me personally, in all areas (not just socially). i left most of my mentors and receive-from-you friendships behind by returning to Fresyes permanently. most lamented were the give-and-take mutual-investment deeply-connected relationships i had to leave behind.

FINALLY: we come to present day, wherein i have tons of friendships of all sorts. mentors, brethren & sistren in Christ, people i give to, people from whom i receive, nerds, musicians, atheists & Christians, board-game-lovers and family-friends and friends-of-friends and people who are always welcome in my home. i even have passing acquaintances with the offspring-of-close-friends!

...but one category is sorely lacking. or perhaps it is a critical element that's lacking in my life. i don't know what to call it, but i can describe it this way: i hang out with awesome people all the time, but hardly ever connect with them on a personal level. my wife & Caleb Werner are the exceptions to this. the only exceptions. why is that?

it is very likely that you, reader, are one such non-exception: someone with whom i often interact, but hardly ever connect with. why is that? what happened to the old isaiah, who would often greet people not with a high-five or fist-bump, but with "how are you feeling?" or "can i ask you a personal question?" or "life sucks, lemme tell you all about it." ???

i've lost the intentions that once infused my relationships with an awareness of the most meaningful things in life. sure, i discuss theology and how it affects us and the world. i even confess mistakes i've made and flaws that trouble me. but it isn't quite deep enough, and i don't like that. so i've decided to go back to what i used to have, because i feel as though i'm coasting through my social life.

i shouldn't be comfortable with coasting.

so now you get to decide whether to help me be a driver or a coaster. can i ask you the question, "can i ask you a personal question?" and receive an open, genuine answer? can i disturb the surface of the 'middle Christians' pond by throwing pebbles (and occasionally doing cannonballs)?

no pressure, friend. no obligation. just let me know: help me coast, or help me drive? i won't like you less either way, nor will i hold anything against you. but i need to know who is up for deep-sea diving, and who is not. i need to know who will shy away from DTR, and who will not. i need more freedom to really be myself, out in the open and deep in the heart.

as someone who naturally pushes people out to arm's length, i need to put myself closer to people. that includes those who are already close, like my wife and my Caleb. it may also include you, if you are 'down,' or 'up for it,' or whatever the phrase is.

if you are not up for it, please say that as well, so that i don't turn to you during our Settlers of Catan game and ask, "so, can i have two sheep for one ore? also, your friend who's abusing your generosity: what do you intend to do about that?" ...or whatever.

this invitation is global and ongoing. be forewarned that i am a devoting Christian (devoting: becoming gradually more devoted), and that if you are 'in' on this, our relationship will not stay as it is, and even though i will do my utmost to respect all takers of all beliefs and personalities, i will also not pull any punches. i will be who i am loudly and sometimes uncomfortably.

i think that's enough for now. time to go do something else and pretend i'm not eagerly awaiting your response.

waste

2011-01-29T20:35:00.000-08:00

i feel like expressing self-pity or at least some semblance of a victimization attitude, but neither of those matches my thoughts or beliefs, so i guess i'll just waste a blog post instead. i hope i can learn how to function adequately in this new life.

yes. do you enjoy studying geography?

2011-01-05T22:15:00.001-08:00

i gave it (and still give it) as little attention as possible, partly because i have no interest in it, but also because i hardly ever need it

ask me anything

has someone forgotten that north america is not the name of a country?

2011-01-05T22:07:00.001-08:00

has someone decided to flaunt their geographical aptitude?

ask me anything

have mexico and/or hawaii been unannexed from north america? =P

2011-01-05T22:03:00.001-08:00

has someone forgotten to use the word 'continent'? =P

ask me anything

Have you traveled out of north america?

2011-01-05T21:58:00.001-08:00

oh... i also went to the Pacific Northwest, on another band competition.

ask me anything

Have you traveled out of north america?

2011-01-05T21:57:00.001-08:00

Mexico and Hawaii. i was with CCC through APU the 2 or 3 times i went to Mexico, and on a marching band competition when i went to Hawaii.

ask me anything

if you had to get a tattoo of something larger than 1 inch what would it be?

2011-01-05T21:49:00.001-08:00

sometimes i need to block the spirit of Caleb. uh let's see... i'd probly choose the tetragrammaton, in its original Hebrew script, with "property of" in English above that

ask me anything

you've NEVER shot a basketball?

2011-01-05T21:37:00.001-08:00

okay maybe once when i was 8.

ask me anything

When's the last time you shot a basketball?

2011-01-05T21:34:00.001-08:00

never

ask me anything

if you had to rename yourself what name would you choose?

2011-01-05T21:30:00.001-08:00

James

ask me anything

what emotion can you connect with most at this very second (the second you read this, not the second i type it)?

2011-01-05T21:21:00.001-08:00

relief

ask me anything

have you ever thought about writing novels?

2011-01-05T21:17:00.001-08:00

lots of times. but i'm too lazy to do the work required to be a good novelist.

ask me anything

if you could learn any instrument by just picking it up and being amazing at it what would it be?

2011-01-05T20:59:00.001-08:00

the lyre, so i can be cool by Bible-time standards. jk jk... i would pick the voice, because for me it lets me express the most (and it's super-convenient).

ask me anything

if you had to choose one, what TV personality do you identify most with?

2011-01-05T20:54:00.001-08:00

oh man. Dexter, so easily.

p.s. i even have his kill shirt. ¬_¬

ask me anything

questions why (surprise)

2010-12-14T19:20:00.000-08:00

i often disagree with the comments people leave, but i welcome them just the same. i don't expect answers... i always appreciate readers.

why is it that others either can't or won't endure the pain that comes with processing and navigating and resolving conflict, while i seem to be unbreakable when it comes to that aspect of life?
why do unpleasant feelings motivate others to give up, while unpleasant feelings motivate me to keep trying? and why do people assume that that's a bad trait?
why do people assume that my ability and tendency to persist, my choice to not give up, is motivated by something evil or fallen?
why do people, when given the option of seeing good in me or seeing bad in me, usually choose bad?
why do people choose to live within their limitations, rather than challenging them?
why do i feel alone in my life as i challenge the limitations?

why do people hate that i am this way?

sophia

2010-11-19T21:37:00.000-08:00

Father, forgive these wretched sons

they know not what they do

they think themselves undone by You

the trodden down, the suff'ring ones

they think that We, the passing priest

have yet to seek and save the least

Father, forgive these wretched sons

their souls, while raised to Thee

are moored by strings they do not see

by how they will and what they've done

their knowledge keeps the truth from them

though finally saved, they act condemned

Father, forgive these wretched ten

their newborn steps are weak

while all have mastered baby-speak

the basics must be learned again

their knowledge keeps the truth obscured

their speech cuts off the world's First Word

~ ~ ~

this foolishness is not hard-earned

its teachings, hardly spurned

yet wisdom gotten easily

is but a parody

to my fellow amateur theologian[s]

2010-10-26T18:00:00.001-07:00

i know that you don't necessarily intend to dictate terms or set forth a precise multi-volume theological reference. as you notice me pointing out specific words or thoughts or themes within your writing, i hope you'll forgive the sharpness of my fine-tooth comb. it's just that i don't believe we can share our ideas about God with others, without somehow affecting their ideas about God (whether they agree or disagree, they react to us somehow.) and since we are affecting the theologies of others, i think we have a responsibility not to mislead them. "Brothers and sisters, not many of you should become lengthy bloggers..." (or something like that)

furthermore, i don't think we can always know exactly how our readers will read us. if we limit our blogging to anything less than a multi-volume theological reference, we simply won't have the necessary space or time to define all of the significant terms. that's practicality.

unfortunately (i think so, anyway), when we sacrifice super-precision for practicality, we leave things open to interpretation. that's fine, as long as people don't end up interpreting us incorrectly.

"isaiah, who the heck cares oif someone doesn't get exactly what you're saying about God? like anyone ever could anyway, especially with how confusing you can be."

well, reader, i wouldn't care at all... if the person not getting it always knew that they weren't getting it. have you ever communicated something to someone, and only much later (often TOO much later) that they completely misunderstood you, but were unaware that they had done so? and did that produce a pleasant situation?

"this is getting pretty boggy, man. get to the point."

here's my point. if i say, "nothing good can be accomplished without Christ," and all the Christians clap and say 'amen' because i'm a good speaker (which i'm not, except hypothetically), will they then boycott any charitable organization that isn't led by Christians? as if i had advised them to do so?? do i really want to shut down all non-Christian charities??? or here's a more common example: if i write a Facebook note about all the Bible verses that talk about God opposing the proud but giving grace to the humble, will all the impressionable readers (not you; those other readers that i tend not to address directly in order to avoid offending them directly) then think that God has actively set Himself against them every time they fail to be humble? what does that even mean, that God is set against them?! no wonder their printer stopped working this morning, and their boss threatened to fire them, and they found an eviction notice on their front door!

the ideas people have, the ideas i have, about God, are extremely powerful. they can set me on a steady course or throw me into complete chaos. they can point me towards a path of redemption, or towards a path of ruin. God Himself redeems; our ideas about Him determine whether we pursue this redemption.

"isaiah, redemption isn't pursued. it's freely given. the fact that you believe redemption can be pursued is proof that your faith and salvation are both works-based."

when i said 'redemption,' what i meant was the process by which our character is transformed so that we have, gradually, less sinful habits and more righteous habits.

"oh. well i guess i can give your FB note the 'canonical' stamp, then. for now."

ah, grace.

deservedness and design

2010-10-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

there are many people in the world who do not deserve kindness. perhaps, if we are very honest and very literal in our exegesis (specifically our soteriology), we will admit that no one deserves anything but judgment,.

on the other hand, if we use this kind of reasoning to justify being mean to those people, we have missed an important point. whether or not a person deserves kindness, -we do not deserve to be mean to them. whether or not someone deserves to be treated fairly, we do not deserve to treat them unfairly. if we did, then "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" would still be the law (among Christians).

the actual 'law' can be (has been, is, will always be) summed up like this: be patient, be kind, be not envious, be not boastful, be not arrogant, be not rude; do not insist on your own way; do not be irritable or resentful; do not rejoice in wrongdoing; rejoice in the truth. bear all things, believe all things, hope all thing, endure all things.

this applies to how we treat others, and it applies to how others treat us. i think, to some degree, we can apply this to ourselves as well. -we do not deserve to pass judgment on ourselves.- it is no more our job to punish ourselves than it is our job to punish others. it is not your job to make sure you get what you deserve. it is not your job to make sure you don't get what you don't deserve.

the truth of these statements i'm making, i believe in with perfect certainty (and, very occasionally, perfect clarity). as many of you know, i am not one to wait to be asked, "isaiah, what do you think about this?" often i will even go so far as to answer the question "what do you think about my life and values?" without ever being asked. this has sometimes resulted in indignation or worse.

perhaps there are some opinions i hold about the lives of others which i should not broadcast to them unless asked. perhaps there are some situations where the speaking out of my values (read: the values i believe should be others' as well) is not well-timed.

this is not one of those times, nor is it something i would be willing to keep to myself, even if told to do so. if you would love and be loved as described above, you must be free to do so. and in order to be free to do so, you must believe you are free to do so. at some point, to some degree, you will feel free to do so... if you wish it.

i have this vibrant urge to facilitate this kind of freedom in the lives of people who have chosen to be vulnerable to me (by having genuine friendship with me). this urge is, in large part, what drives me to write and publish this note. i want you to consider the possibility that life is not about deservedness, but rather about design.

"what do you mean by that, isaiah?"

stop thinking about what you deserve. stop thinking about what others deserve. start thinking about what you were designed to do and be. start thinking about what others were designed to do and be. make a commitment to God, to yourself, to your faith, to others... ...to do and be what you were designed to do and be, no matter what you think others deserve, no matter what you think you deserve.

this is the kind of freedom we need. it frees us to confidently make tough moral decisions. it frees us from self-pity, self-loathing, self-devaluation. it frees us to give selflessly. it frees us to consider ourselves valuable without devaluing others. it ends the arguments about whether you should or shouldn't apologize to someone, if the question is based on something they have done. (likewise, it answers any question of whether or not someone should apologize to you based on what you have or haven't done.) it frees us to call out the mistreatment of someone else, or of our own selves, without condemning the people committing the mistreatment.

it frees us to pursue healthy relationships, even with people who don't seem to be willing to pursue that with us in return. if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, don't forget what you read just now.

compliments: lawyer-style

2010-07-23T00:50:00.000-07:00

every once in awhile i learn something about myself that inspires me to reflect and record.

i perceive (correct me if i'm wrong) that most people who know me would say, "it's difficult to impress isaiah." well, that's generally true. but i want to clarify something.

impressive things shouldn't be common. they shouldn't be easily acquired. they should be closer to unique than normal. if they were ordinary, why would they be impressive? now, i'll say it in a different way: the things that i choose to impress me, should not be common, or easily acquired. i do believe that, to a large degree, i decide what impresses me, and why.

having said that, i'll now list a few of the things that really impress me (in others):

courage
the description of this trait that comes to mind at this point in my life is, doing something you know is right/good even though you know there will be significant personal consequences. for example:

choosing to be emotionally vulnerable
i don't mean inviting violent people to mistreat you. i mean inviting trusted people to care for you, even though you know they might mess you up, whether accidentally or on purpose.

desire for / willingness to pursue personal change
does anyone know a good one- or two-word term for this? self-reflection both motivated by and leading to a desire for change in oneself is, from my perspective, an intrinsic part of humility.
metacognition
anyone who thinks about the way they think about things, deserves to be enlightened by that process. it's like taking off your glasses to examine whether they need cleaning, how they are different from the glasses (paradigms, schema, filters, worldview) of others... this is difficult to do, and extremely helpful in many areas of life, not just for the person doing it but for the people around that person. it requires

self-awareness, which also impresses me. it's intertwined with the ability to determine one's own true motives, even when those motives may be hidden, or worse: when those motives might be attempting to hinder one's own metacognitive / self-critical processes (i.e. when the things you really want are lying to you about the things you think you want, or about the reasons you're doing what you're doing).

selflessness
when choosing between right (or good) for self and right (or good) for others, the tendency to consider others as being of an importance equal to or greater than one's own. i include 'equal to' because even that can be extremely difficult.

after writing these out, i think to myself, "hey... those are alot of the things i wish i had. those are alot of the things i try or have tried to have." that makes sense, of course... how could i be impressed by them yet not want them for myself?

i hope i have them, or will have them soon. and i hope i don't meet many people who are like this, because i'll really want to befriend them, but mostly for my benefit, which is awkward and a tiny bit shameful... and i usually have trouble being friends with people who impress me too much.

2010-07-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

"A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones." - παρακλητος

that crackling sound is my brittle bones breaking

cruciform, and shaking
calling out for vinegar
but slaking not my thirst for something better

that crumbling sound is my ferric blood flaking

wounds of my own making

knitting through the restlessness

but healing not my heart: a rotting abcess

the answer i've found in the past isn't working

Treachery is lurking

begging to be accepted

but heeding not my pleas to strike me dead

attenuation

2010-06-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

if my life were a graph, y-axis indicating amount of momentum (either upward or downward) at a moment in time (time represented along the x-axis), and if i were then to assign short descriptive words or phrases to each 3-month period along the graph... and if i were then to list those adjectives in order from 2004 to present day, that list would include the following (these are only selections from that list; while not necessarily consecutive, they are still in chronological order):

waiting
exploding, ground-breaking
building, growing, seeking, fulfillment
learning the hard way
more learning the hard way
correction
struggle
joy
struggle
slogging, trudging
struggle
joy
gloaming
plodding, struggle, pain, struggle
plateau

if my life right now is a landscape, i stand on a low plateau above a barren, sun-seared field-- deep valleys and high mountains behind me, a deep, ancient forest of oaks crouching before me. if my life right now is an orchestra, the high strings frame a dark, simple duet for cello & bassoon, and i direct with lazy, subtle motions from behind the band. if my life right now is weather: a steady drizzle by day and fog by night. if my life right now is a room: an abandoned shed, with dusty rafters splintered, dark corners obscured by cobwebs (still inhabited, though hardly ever trembling with visitors), windows rusted shut, toys and clothes and tools long outgrown or worn out, which should have become antiques or heirlooms-- instead, time slowly but inevitably steals their value, even sentimental value, until they are worth less than the torn cardboard boxes that hold them.

i can feel my mind decaying , my heart slowing and growing feeble from lack of use, while (in unwelcome contrast) my body strengthens and some of the outward-most circumstances of my live improve. my blog reflects all three of these processes, mostly by remaining un-updated.

as a realist i have to admit that the things which matter most to me, will both improve and worsen multiple times (respectively) before my life is over. oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, the pessimist (who inhabits my heart and not my mind) in me says the worst thing that could happen is stasis, rather than decline.

i find myself wondering whether i should add 'stasis' to my very short list of fears. perhaps, for me, failure and stasis are nearly synonymous.

we will see. regardless, it'll be helpful to look back at this post later on in life. i hope i someday reach the place where, upon looking back, i smile and shake my head and say, "wow. could you have been any more needlessly emo?"

if my life right now is a food, i am cotton candy, being stretched and melted and dehydrated, then twisted and pulled, and finally, dissolving ever so slowly in time's hungry mouth. i am attenuating.

excellent questions... so juicy.

2010-02-23T17:32:00.000-08:00

"What do you believe about security of salvation? Can you lose something you never earned? Is God one to give a gift and then take it back on condition? What does it mean to work out our salvation with fear and trembling? If we are faithful our whole lives and then find ourselves decieved in a moment of torture and we "fall away" is that the point of no return? Are we doomed?" -- bonnie-rabbit

about the security of salvation...
Scripture seems to indicate to me that a person can indeed be cut off and cast into the fire if they do not bear fruit. i do not see this as abandonment, or as something separating us from the love of God. i see it as a choice not to be saved, or the absence of the choice to be saved. my general opinion is that salvation (now that Jesus has already done His part) hinges exclusively on our part. that part is choice, and the choice is to be in relationship with Christ. because i believe so fervently in the power and universality of free will, i cannot see how anyone would ever be kept from choosing to no longer acknowledge that relationship/redemption, nor do i see how anyone who rejected one's own redemption could expect to live as one redeemed.

about losing something never earned...
i don't think it's impossible to lose anything that one has, except one's very self, and who knows what exactly will happen even to that (for some), in an afterlifetime of eternal condemnation?

about God giving gifts and then taking them back, for any reason...
i don't see salvation as something that can be possessed without first being received. it makes sense to me that God could give me something, and i could then get rid of it without giving it back to Him.

about working out our salvation with fear and trembling...
i have absolutely no idea what to make of that mysterious verse. to be fair (to myself, and to Scripture, and to the human author), i haven't yet studied it properly.

about being doomed by 'falling away' after an otherwise faithful life...
i have always, always disliked the metaphors of falling, stumbling, et cetera, because they imply that we did so by accident. sin is never an accident. being deceived, while terribly tragic, is nevertheless a choice we make. no one forces us to be deceived; we choose what we believe. on the subject of torture... what i have learned of myself in 23 years makes me confident (deservedly so? perhaps, or perhaps not) that torture and attempts to deceive would only strengthen my beliefs and choices. however: even if that were not the case, i would never expect the "but the serpent said...!" excuse to carry any weight with you-know-Who. ;)

formspring.me

2010-02-12T17:47:00.001-08:00

If you were a Jason Mraz song, what would you be?

Unfold

ask me anything

formspring.me

2010-02-06T08:52:00.001-08:00

Do you think that you have changed much in the past 3 years? If so, how?

not nearly as much as i changed in the 3 years preceding these last three.

i think the biggest changes in me 07-10 have been just been enhancements of the changes in me from 04 to 07.

ask me anything

formspring.me

2010-02-05T17:58:00.001-08:00

Ofly ek twru hraa uilkwxexg hwu xwy olxyexg qiwqai yw sxwo twru ceuyfjlt?

0) e jw xwy ciaeivi e lz owuyf biaiculyexg.

9) e jekaesi ey ofix qiwqai jw yfexgk drky ciblrki ey'k yuljeyewx.

8) e laawo qiwqai ofw lui hlzeaelu oeyf zt kexhraxikk yw biaiculyi zt ceuyfjlt ciblrki yfit flvi xw eaarkewxk lcwry zt owuyfexikk yw ci biaiculyij. yfwki qiwqai biaiculyi yfi jlt e olk cwux, ivix sxwoexg yfi ivea yfly owraj flvi ciix quivixyij flj e xwy ciix cwux.

ask me anything

alien sex

2010-01-16T02:48:00.001-08:00

there's one more response i'd thought of, to your post... but it didn't fit with the topic. so here it is, in its own special post.

i have had the same problem you described. people have on occasion mistaken my caring for romantic interest. of course this is not our intention; we simply care for people, sometimes intensely, and we feel (or see) a need to express it. in highschool, i hated the game most people played... the game that caused everyone to automatically, constantly, subconsciously be on the lookout for romance. what in the world? how can you live that way, with all the turmoil and silly drama and actual relational danger it causes???

back on track: you and i have the same combination of two particular traits: the ability to care genuinely & deeply for people without any romance involved at all (often for people of the opposite gender? correct me if i'm wrong), and also the ability to express it confidently (i mean, we are confident that what we are saying is true, because we've thought about it carefully). the problem is, most of the world doesn't recognize that for what it actually is. the brutal truth is, people simply aren't accustomed to people 1) genuinely caring for non-selfish, non-romantic reasons, or to people 2) saying exactly what they mean. we happen to do both of those, sometimes simultaneously.

it's easy to see how that could cause problems.

therefore, in order to mitigate against both the occurrence of as well as the severity of those problems, i suggest we come up with a new phrase, one that will very clearly define (i.e. limit) our motives and our intentions, while still expressing the fullness of our emotions. feel free to give a thumbs-up to one or more of these, or to come up with some yourself. at some point, though, we need to settle on one and use it.

okay, ready for these? of course you aren't. here we go anyway:

"i care for you as much as a human could care for an intelligent, sentient, but non-human being. (it might as well be physiologically impossible for me to be romantically interested in you, but still, i would totally give my life to save your planet from annihilation if the opportunity arose.)"

"you are important, even priceless, to me... as is our friendship. i would never want to hurt you. if you ever make a pass at me, i'll punch you in the gonads." (please note that that one works for both genders. 'in the face' didn't seem intense enough, and really, the gonads are the most apropos place to punch someone who makes an unwelcome pass at you.)

"i long to spend time with you, get to know you better, form a closer friendship with you... as long as it gets no 'closer' than, say, two feet or so. (i will occasionally allow a side-hug.)"

"i love you like earth's asexual plant-life loves itself." (this is not to be confused with hermaphroditic life-forms, which contain both male and female gametes. asexual creatures are genderless and therefore do not desire either romance or sex.)

i know what you're thinking: 'isaiah, ALL of these are so good, i simply can't choose between them!' well fear not, brave reader, for i have saved the best for last:

"i love you-- not like a fat kid loves cake, but more like the chef (who makes the cake) loves the fat kid."

R.I.P.

2010-01-16T02:02:00.000-08:00

this post is about worshiping through or with music. it is something i probably would have 'penned' no matter what, but as it turns out, it is being written in light of or in response to someone else's blog post. you know who you are.

i have been told (and i do believe) that sometimes, when we do what we know we should even though we don't feel like doing it, we are rewarded with the feeling of wanting to do it after we have done it. i very often feel like doing something other than what i know i should do, but because i have been disciplined by God, my parents, and myself (that's probably in descending order of degree), i very often do it anyway. i find that i very rarely regret it.

this is one of those rare cases where i partially regret it.

i can count on one hand (well, maybe two if you give me enough time) the times i have 'felt like' worshiping God. the number goes up dramatically if you see fit to put supplication and pleas for help into the 'worship' category... but i don't know that i can do that. there have been a few times where i worshiped and pled for help, but i don't consider every "help me God!" to be an act of worship. not even from Christians. anyway, enough of that tangent. what i mean to say is, most of the time i don't feel like worshiping God. the question i've had to wrestle with is, can one worship God if he doesn't feel like it?

and the answer i've found is, certainly! (and thank God.) obedience is more pleasing to Him than sacrifice. if i love Him, i will obey His commandments (even when, or especially when, i don't feel like it). the problem, though, is that music is different than obedience. does God love an offering given grudgingly just as much as He loves a cheerful offering?

i do not believe it is morally wrong for a Christian not to sing worship songs. if i did, i'd be condemning every mute Christian in the world. (there's your comic relief in this otherwise dour post; it's all you get, so enjoy it. lol!) but seriously. if a Christian finds that he can very cheerfully obey God but resents feeling obligated to sing on Sunday mornings (or whenever), should that Christian sing anyway?

i have never resented feeling obligated to sing. in fact, i have very rarely felt obligated at all. but that's because i enjoy singing, not worshiping through singing. it wasn't difficult for those other guys to give big handfuls of coin, because they had lots more there that came from. the widow's offering got some spotlight from Jesus because it was a big sacrifice for her. it really isn't impressive at all if someone who is head-over-heels in love with music decides to invest alot of his time and energy in a worship team, as one of its members. it's easy; it's almost selfish!

i keep getting off track. here's the bottom line: emotionally speaking, volitionally speaking, viscerally speaking, i have never been as 'in love with' worshiping God through music as i have been in love with music itself. not even close. people can tell i am enjoying something when i'm up there, but no one really knows what it is unless i tell them. they could easily mistake love for music with love for God. well, now i'm telling you, so there's no more mistaking it: i love singing. i don't love singing to God.

not that i dislike it; i simply don't have much feeling for it at all.

i was recently informed (and i partly agreed) that i am not a very good Christian, at least by fruit-of-the-Spirit standards. i may obey God in many things, but i'm sort of like a Pharisee: i don't necessarily exhibit gentleness, peace, patience, kindness, et cetera, in the midst of my obedience to God. that's actually somewhat of a paradox, isn't it? are we commanded, per se, to bear fruit? whatever; the answer to that question isn't relevant to this post. bottom line again: if it is possible to become a 'better' Christian (in terms of Spiritfruitfulness), then i am a bad one. i wouldn't call myself the fig tree that Jesus cursed, but i'm no land-of-Canaan-grapevine either.

the other piece of information that's come my way recently is this: a Christian as unfruitful as myself should not be ministering in any way. and the corollary: a Christian bearing particularly bad fruit is just as unqualified. or perhaps even 'disqualified' would not be too strong a word.

i have considered this information and concluded that i disagree with it as a unilateral statement. i believe there are certain qualities (or lacks thereof) which do disqualify a Christian from certain ministries (as the one doing the ministering, not the one being ministered to).

unfortunately, the part i agree with applies directly to my involvement with worship music ministry. i was taught, as a child, to say 'thank you' even when i didn't feel like it, so that later on, i would understand and feel like it and actually do it. i find that i cannot be 'trained' to feel worshipful toward God in the same way that i was trained to feel grateful toward people. in fact, i find that most of the time, i feel like singing much more than i feel like worshiping by singing. the fact that those two activities coincide for someone who's serving on a worship team is just that: a coincidence.

furthermore, if a person singing "Shout to the Lord" is simply enjoying the music rather than singing to God, isn't that person some kind of hypocrite? maybe he needs to just hum, or 'oo' and 'aa' the notes without the words. yes? no?

i am not completely resolved about that yet. for now, though, i must be brutally honest with myself about it, and that means no singing worship songs, especially when other people are around to mistake my singing for worship, or to hear me hypocrisying. (that's pronounced sort of like 'prophesying'.)

what i am resolved about is this: as long as i remain a generally unfruitful Christian who doesn't enjoy singing to God, i should keep myself out of worship ministry, and try to avoid singing worship songs. unfortunately for those of you who like to look on the bright side, or at least look forward to an eventual brighter side, i'm a very critical realist (though some would call me a pessimist). part of me (a majority) suspects that this is a permanent decision.

i don't think i'm gonna go to L.A. anymore

comment response

2010-01-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

I pretty much agree enthusiasticly with everything in this post with the exception of one tiny blurp. I do make a cup of tea "for Jesus" and i do ask Him what whether what i wear is pleasing to Him each day. "Whatever you do, whether eating or drinking, do all to the glory of God." I used to be obsessed with pleasing Jesus. I truly thought that if I disobeyed Him, even unintentionally, He would open a floodgate of consequences to make me miserable until I did His will. I don't believe it like that anymore. When I ask Him what I should wear I'm not being legalsitic about it or even over spirtualizing. I am enjoying the benefits of my relationshp with Him that gives me the freedom to ask the One who knows me better than I know myself what will make me feel most comfortable and confident as I present myself to the world. It feels like something I may say to my husband, "How does this look, honey? Does this make you proud to be seen with me?" If Jesus isn't proud of the image I give off, than I'm not going to feel comfortable either. As for the cup of tea...my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. What I consume may be for my body and not directly for Jesus, but if what I consume affects my chemistry in a way that affects my mood and therefore my behaviour, then I may be in danger of being disobedient because of what I consumed. If tea has a healthy affect on my body than I am drinking (herbal)tea to glorify Jesus in a round about way. You said yourself that we cannot separate our body, soul and spirit. One affects the others. I have a feeling I may have misinterpreted your meaning and we are actually agreeing, not disagreeing.

- Bonnie Rabbit

your comment is an excellent one, because i should clarify what i meant by that.

some people ask Jesus which socks to wear because they think that if Jesus doesn't verify something real-time, it must be bad or wrong. i am of the opinion that Jesus DOES care whether i dress modestly or not, and DOES care about how my clothing may affect my relationships (with friends, enemies, strangers)...

...however, i also believe there are some things i've finished learning. i've heard it said by many people whom i admire and respect a great deal: "no one ever 'arrives,' at least until the Afterlife being prepared for us." in a general sense, i agree; but really, if i woke up tomorrow and didn't know which socks to wear, to the point where i needed to pray about it first before being able to make a good decision, i would seek counseling, because weren't we supposed to learn that in childhood/adolescence??? i would at LEAST blame my parents.

just because Jesus knows me better than i do, doesn't mean i don't know me well enough to make the right decision. no offense to anyone who couldn't say this about themselves, but i really think i know what to wear and what not to wear. if Jesus wants to give me some pointers, i am totally ready to hear what He has to say... but at some point, learning has to become confidence.

when i ask my wife (or anyone) what they think about something i'm wearing (my grizzled little chin-beard, for example), i'm asking because i want to know whether people like it or not, so that i can make a well-rounded decision about whether to keep it or not. but honestly, there are some clothing options i've chosen that didn't require my asking advice of anyone. i'm thankful for a family that taught me not to expose my midriff. Jesus approves of what they taught, but again, i doubt they prayed about it before teaching it to me.

and even more honestly: if everyone says they prefer me without the beard, i may wear it anyway, even if it offends someone! it isn't always true that anything that offends anyone is bad or wrong. thank God, right? Christians would be universally abhorred and outlawed, without exception!

another example: wearing all black. i wear it already knowing that i will feel comfortable and confident in it, therefore i don't pray about it beforehand. and Lipton iced tea? if it had a bad effect on my body, i might stop drinking it, but i don't drink it because Jesus wants me to take care of my body. i drink it because a) i like it, and 2) i want to take care of my body. the fact that Jesus wants me to take care of my body is pure coincidence, until i make a decision of which He does not approve. at that point i need to make different choices, and then i am agreeing with Him after the fact.

but it just so happens that alot of the 'smaller' decisions (interpret that how you will) are really just that: smaller. easier.

"hey Jesus, should i say 'thank you' to my grandma for that Christmas gift i really liked?"

"um, yes! didn't your mom already teach you to do that kind of stuff??"

"i guess so."

"then why are you asking Me? i'm enjoying the conversation, and you're welcome to ask Me anything you wish, and i love it when you show Me that you want Me to approve of your decisions... but, really? do we need to go over everything you ever learned from every person in your whole life to make sure I approve of all those things?"

"well... maybe? i don't know."

"yes you do. we had this same exact conversation yesterday... and the day before that."

"oh. right. i just thought i should double-double-check with you... again..."

"tell you what. I realize the Bible doesn't say whether 'No Nonsense' socks are Jesus-approved, but what if I just let you know if you do something that's not quite right, plus you can rely on your Christian community and Christian family and so on to do the same, and you just keep on making good decisions about modesty and what-not? I trust you to make good decisions about which clothes to wear. k?"

"okay, sounds good."

"k, ttyl."

"ttYl."

i think that sometimes, some things can be done to the glory of God, without setting aside a conscious thought to purposefully do those things for His glory. in other words, i can be in the habit of doing things that are glorifying to Him, without praying beforehand, without intentionally dedicating those things to Him beforehand... you get my meaning.

i suppose i could make a cup of tea 'for Him,' but i sort of wonder how it would benefit Him, versus just making a cup of tea. i can easily imagine several scenarios where it would definitely be to His glory, but all of those scenarios involve things like... serving tea to people who need it... making tea right after the devil told me not to... brewin' up a cup to make my apartment smell nice and to give it a little ambiance so that the people coming over to worship are able to worship a little more easily... stuff like that.

the brewing itself, by itself, i guess could be a testament to His creativity and wisdom and aesthetic talent and what-not, but i have to ask myself: am i really emotionally capable of appreciating that, from the heart, every time i brew up a cup??? the answer, for me personally, immediately comes back: "nope!" some would say i'm callous to the beauty of the world that He designed... and my reply to that comment should probably be saved for another post. ;)

i find it difficult

2009-12-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

i find it difficult to separate and identify my motives. this is perhaps a first for me, ever. it becomes even stranger to think about when i realize that, whatever the motives might be, i know they are all good ones.

i find it difficult to listen to a God when His reply may be scrambled by my own. i wonder if He hesitates to reply telepathically, for that very reason.

i find it difficult to use the Bible for what it was originally intended. i think perhaps the Word finds it difficult to use me.

i find it difficult to obey when it costs me something i truly value, without feeling entitled to a subsequent blessing. i am willing to obey regardless, but in certain cases, having been brutally disabused of that feeling, i discover that i obey grudgingly.

i find it difficult to deal with this particular reality of life, though i often preach it to others: that while God does care about a person's happiness (e.g. mine), He cares far more about that person's holiness. furthermore, as if i did not have enough difficulty in life already, He asks that i care about my holiness more than i care about my happiness.

i find God difficult.

vacuum musica, vita erratum

2009-11-27T02:32:00.000-08:00

thanks Nietzsche.

it's probably a good idea to remember that, while struggling to become the me i think i ought to be, i ought to partly be the me i already be.

enough

2009-11-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

i have spent so much time and energy critiquing my thoughts, beliefs, values... i really feel and think that i deserve to be very confident about them. a person can be confident without being arrogant. a person can hold strong opinions without being unreasonably stubborn. a person can be strong without being a bully.

i am ready to give up on my relationships because despite how hard i've worked to understand and better them, despite how much pain i've purposefully endured and despite my loyalty to the values that are necessary for having good relationships, i've somehow failed.

i don't care that anyone judges me. i do care whether my friends misjudge me.
i care whether friends misjudge me not because that misjudgment causes me to doubt myself, but because their misjudgment tears down and hinders the relationship i'm seeking and working to build up and help.

i know who and what and how and why i am, regardless of what anyone else says to tear that down. i don't fear being damaged by an attack; i fear the damage done to my friendships with people when i am attacked.

i care what people think about me, not because it changes how i think or feel about myself, but because the way people think about me negatively affects the friendship i have with them.

when the person closest to you is the person who tears you down the most; when the person closest to you is the person who misunderstands you the most; when the person closest to you is the person whose relationship with you is the relationship for which you work the hardest, yet that person is also the person who tears down their relationship with you the most; what do you do?

i don't see the point of trying to build up relationships with people who distrust me, misunderstand me, tear me down. i would gladly let them do so if it helped our relationship, and maybe even if it somehow helped them... but it doesn't help anything at all. vanity of vanities. best laid plans.

i will never be intimidated into giving up on things i value. but i could be persuaded if the argument were sound. right now, it may not be sound, but for some reason it's still so persuasive. and why shouldn't i? would it really matter?

and it all seems so helpless, and i have no plans
i'm a plane in the sunset, with nowhere to land
and i feel stuck watching history repeating
yeah, who am i? just a kid who knows he's blogging

let me know that You're near me
let me feel Your touch
let me know that You love me
let that be...

blue moon

2009-11-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

i am losing control of my rational decision-making ability.

yoga

2009-09-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

after much practice/experience/trial-and-error, i have become capable of knowing what type of food or drink my body needs at any given time. i know when it needs water and not juice, when it needs protein rather than starch, and when dessert is a bad idea.

i have also come to know the difference between the need to blog and the need to sit and just think; the difference between needing to listen to music and to make it; the difference between needing sleep and needing to just close my eyes and rest. subconsciously, intuitively, or sometimes even viscerally, i know what i need in those situations.

the needs that continue to elude me have mostly to do with my social life. sometimes i need to be around family, but i don't know that unless i end up spending time with them. sometimes i need to compete against a worthy opponent... but i don't know that, either, unless it happens to me somehow. sometimes, very very rarely, i need to cry. but of course i don't realize that until afterward.

the problem with knowing what my social needs are, is that i can't keep my friends in the pantry. so even if i did know, what good would that do? i need to not only learn the signs that tell me i'm lonely. i need to live in an environment where, if i do realize i need company, i can quickly seek and find it. i need to be able to discern what kind of company i need, but i also need that company to be available.

it's strange that i'm writing these things, because i'm the most solitary person i know. i need to be with myself more than anyone else i know needs to be with lenself. so what in the world is happening to me?

the reason i can't figure myself out is that i've based my studies on the assumption that i am gradually becoming less and less malleable. but perhaps i ought to assume instead that i do not know how much change to expect any more than i know what kind to expect or when.

this

2009-09-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

in war, both sides lose. in friendship, both win. in wars between friends, the attempt to win, though cruel, is too absurd to not be funny. the difference between this and suicide is that a suicidal person is in agreement with himself. the difference between this and something people laugh at is that we find it much easier to laugh at cruelties we've never experienced. the difference between this and competing against oneself is that the latter grows us whereas the former destroys us. the difference between this and a conflict between countries is that countries can be destroyed completely, thereby ending the conflict.

the difference between me and a combatant who surrenders, is that the combatant can declare the matter concluded, while my surrender simply ensures that there will be more combat in the future.

reposte: in my head

2009-09-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

if only you had two eyes,
how gladly i would blind them,
and send you stumbling far from here.
-
and suppose you had two hands--
how tightly i would bind them,
in honor of your cruel career.

let's pretend you're made of flesh!
how gleefully i'd gore you
for all the work you've done today.
-
make believe you have a heart,
and i could tear it from you...
i'd giggle like a child at play.

what if you were my own blood?
i'd slash my veins to drain you,
your gurgling screams: my peaceful song.
-
and if I were God Himself?
how wrathfully I'd send you
down to the Pit where you belong.

~ ~ ~

what if i flee by dreaming?
how patiently you're waiting
for me to wake. your eyes: deep red.
-
you torture me with anger.
how strange that i would help you,
yet long to conquer you instead.

dear pair-of-eyes-a-closing-one,

2009-08-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

i'm pleased to report that i am not dying... neither have i been left behind, nor am i losing myself. i am simply suppressed.

i'm told my first word (perhaps after "mama" and/or "dada") was "no!" and i've learned that this is truly significant because it represents one of my most prominent and enduring personality traits: sheer force of will. i think if i could manifest it as a physical weapon, i would be tempted towards terrorism and world domination.

my own confession reminds me that my will can indeed manifest as a weapon, indirectly. in fact, though i have control over it, it sometimes circumvents me, especially in moments of strong emotion. but all of that has to do with its negative side. it can be problematic, but it can also be opportunistic.

what makes me a night owl is not just the fact that i do function better at night. it's also the fact that i would rather function at night. and that preference is not just a result of my capability; it's part of my personality as much as my capability is. so when 9 o'clock rolls around and my body begs for rest, my mind seeks out tasks and considers which hobbies it might engage itself in. so now is a great time for both a 9-hour nap as well as a game of chess or a self-centered blog entry.

i am simultaneously a night person and a day-laborer, so i simultaneously want to pour myself into a project and throw myself into bed. and i will always be this way. i may come to accept the nausea and depression that accompany an early alarm, but i will never be rid of either. i may get in the habit of falling asleep before 10p, but i'll never be content in that habit.

and these things may be a great source of stress and frustration and a desperate longing to be free of these constraints, but that consistent longing should also remind me that though i cannot conquer what now seem to be problems, they will never conquer me either. some of the stories that interest me most (both fictional and historical) do so because they describe how a person or group or even a value, struggle long and hard against some great antagonist which hinders life as it was meant to be lived; but ends in a glorious revolution or rescue or combination of the two.

i am too nearsighted. from now on i will spend more energy than i have before, looking forward to the future i want to believe in... ...partly because i know that wanting to believe in something proves an extant belief in something, and because belief in my life tends to affect my most important decisions, which usually alter my life drastically, even if those alterations are slow and gradual.

so if i don't meet you this Friday morning at 9:03a, i'm sure you'll be around again four weeks later, and again four weeks after that. don't give up on me. one of these bright rendezvous will be less melancholy and more celebratory.

sincerely,
s02e06_the_schizoid_man

p.s. that might be the first time i've ever used the word 'rendezvous' in its plural form, which is funny because it looks the same.

hamartia

2009-08-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

i am undone and remade over and over. i think this is my constant fate.

brb

2009-06-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

...just as soon as i find a way out of this. it's actually almost poetically ironic, the fact that my work has so much to do with sunlight. i'm perpetually evanescing. i've been a waning crescent ever since i started here. isn't 17 months a little long to be waiting for the next full moon?

okay so maybe i occasionally shine brightly enough to cast a shadow or two. that's still not the way things are supposed to be. i realize a million things aren't the way they're supposed to be, but honestly, i don't worry much (if at all) about the ones that can't be changed.

i am usually less than half myself. it doesn't make sense to live this way. but the way out will require more of me, and... sorry to be a wuss, but it's an intimidating road.

something must be done, and i must be the one to do it. the amount of hope one has in the 'it' ever being done is inversely proportional to how well one knows me... which leaves me very discouraged. i'm about as hopeful of my own return as you would be if someone left you with a 'brb' on your screen for 17 months. maybe the more i talk about it, the more driven i'll be to act about it.

oh who am i fooling.

life and love and WHY?

2009-03-14T00:14:00.000-07:00

it seems to me that the most dangerous thing a woman can do is let her so-called luck decide the quality of her love life. (luck: a clever synonym for either "i guess hopeful ignorance is the best we have until we all evolve into clairvoyants" or else "if i only knew how much the past i didn't choose dictates the future i don't realize i'm choosing.")

becoming the love of a woman's life gradually (or, sadly, sometimes suddenly) gives a guy access to the rest of the woman's life in every other area, and even to the woman herself! the rewards of good luck can never compare to the rewards for hard work & careful, responsible choices, but the consequences of bad luck can ruin everything, in a heartbeat... sometimes everything including the heartbeat, which is a horrible but true thought.

and how can we spend so much time and effort choosing which new shirt or CD to buy, but still call blind dates fun? shouldn't we be calling them Russian roulette? i realize one can be responsible and careful when going on blind dates, but really... the people who do so are basically playing Russian roulette with a cap gun. i still don't get the point of it. wouldn't you rather play a game with less chance and higher stakes? less danger, more reward? less risk to your heart, and more potential for a life of fulfillment and dreams come true?

i'm sure most of the people who read this are not the people who most need to hear it, but perhaps one or two of you can be reminded of what you are now realizing you already know. and maybe the rest of you will have an opportunity to pass it on.

sorry to sound like a dad, but it must be said: be cerebral when it comes to romance. enjoy your friendships, but let your values inform and even critique your affections. learn from your past so that you can choose the future that's best for you. wait for the right(eous) person. be patient. seek the advice of someone wiser and calmer than you. don't let your destiny choose you, because i'm telling you, there are many more undesirable destinies out there than there are desirable ones.

let's see, what other tired old platitudes can i employ here to overemphasize and complicate my relatively simply message...? oh, hey, how about this: life is like a box of chocolates. you have to really hunt around for the yummy ones. no, no... that 'y' word gives the opposite of the impression i'm aiming for. i need something on the borderline between sobering and scary. how about this instead:

the dating game is like a white elephant gift exchange, except you play it with a bunch of strangers who don't even know themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange

reposte: rebuilding my faith (#1)

2009-01-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

the truth is, friends, i've arrived at this point: i know that i believe what i want to believe, because if i didn't believe it, i wouldn't want to.

=)

once more, rephrased: if i don't really think God Loves me, then why am i trying to find out that He does?

notice how this gets past the whole debate of whether He actually does Love me or not. that question can be asked, but there will never be an answer until these two things happen: 1) i faith that He does, and 2) He returns. i await the Second Coming just like the faithful Jews once awaited their Messiah. two things here: first, when i use faith as a verb, that's not my exhaustion showing. that's my [attempt at] careful, creative thinking and helpful rhetoric. the word will be redefined later on.

the purpose of this blog is to provide a practical way of life that nurtures and develops your faith as a Christian. and my faith as well; you should know that i'm just now beginning to walk this path that i'm here proposing for you as well. consider this an informal [yet still official] invitation to walk life with me.

the idea of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, as developed by a professor of mine here at VU, is this: you can tell what a church believes, just by singing their worship songs with them, and praying their prayers with them. it's that simple! obviously these will only give you glimpses of their beliefs, and it's true that even within a small, local congregation, there's a diversity of beliefs (personal theologies, if you will). but yeah: if they sing about the Trinity, they believe in the Trinity. if they pray, "Spirit, breathe life into this imperfect body..." then that's a good indication they depend on the Holy Spirit for their ministry, and not just Christ.

let's take it a step further, and reiterate something you've probably heard as long as you've been a Christian: you can tell what a person believes, just by seeing how they live their lives. because, as one blogger recently noted, isn't worship all about your whole life?? aren't we supposed to present ourselves as living sacrifices?

oh, that reminds me. you need to know that you do not have a body.

you heard me. sorry if you've heard it all before, but it has to be set down as a foundation for the rest of this blog. you don't even have a soul! the truth is, a couple thousand years ago, a bunch of Greek philosophers decided that the human person is divided into parts. they say (and millions still believe) that you've got a soul, and you've got a body, and you've got a mind... and so on. furthermore, they believed that spirit is good and matter is bad. we'll get into that some more, later on.

anyway, the point i want to make: you are a soul, and you are a body. you are a mind, and heart. you don't possess them; you are them. this is vital for our so-called 'spiritual life.' the truth is that everything you do in your body is also everything you do in your soul. this doesn't mean that just because you're raising your hands, you're worshipping God; that's quite a different problem, and it involves intent. what it does mean is that if you don't have a bodily life, you don't have a spiritual life.

one more, rephrased: if you are not worshipping God in/with your body, then you aren't worshipping Him at all. (and i do mean worship in the holistic sense.)

~ ~ ~

"get to the point, man."

alright, alright... here it is.

stop believing in God...
...unless you intend to believe in Him with your whole life.

do you believe in Him only as a mind? if so, then you don't believe in Him. and if you're having trouble even with just that, then this blog is for you.

that means your morning routine, your activities at church, the way you go about your relationships, the thoughts you have as you fall asleep, the way you handle your feelings, the attitude you have at work, the money you spend... these are all your life, yes? then you need to faith with them.

it makes no more sense to believe in God only as a mind (and not as a soul/body/heart) then it does to be married to your wife only as a mind. it's just ludicrous. it can't be done. this is problem #1 with my spiritual life: i call it my spiritual life, instead of [more simply] my life.

one qualification: this doesn't mean that you do everything for Jesus. you don't have to pour yourself a cup of iced tea for Jesus; you don't have to tie your shoelaces for Jesus. generally, it won't be necessary to ask God which pair of jeans you should wear tomorrow. what i am saying is that you need to work at your spiritual life just as you would work at some athletic training. you need to devote energy and resources to the development of your faith, just as you would devote resources to getting your Bachelor's degree or building a house with your own two hands!

if you do not live your life in this way, with work and your whole self in mind, your faith will falter and die.

but if you do live your life with hard work and your whole self in mind, your faith will grow. i promise.

"isaiah... i just don't know. how in the world can you promise this."

i'll tell you later. lol spiritual life lesson #1: patience. and how are we going to learn it? by waiting, of course! =)

i'll post again soon.

[Originally posted: Thursday, December 14, 2006]

reposte: why i won't vote on prop 8 at all

2008-12-12T23:31:00.001-08:00

my boss and i were discussing laws and ethics one day. i told him i was not a voter, and had no plans to be one. the following quotations are not his; i made them up to summarize the point of our conversation.

"why? don't you care about what happens to the society you live in?"

yup. i wish people would be responsible enough to make good decisions about marriage.

"then shouldn't you be voting on issues related to marriage?"

nope. i don't care whether it's illegal in the U.S. for someone to make bad decisions about marriage.

"but if it were illegal to, say, get divorced, maybe less people would jump into marriage without really thinking it through first. then there would be less divorce."

there might be less divorce, but nobody's character would improve as a result. those people who live by greed, anger, and fear, would still live by greed, anger, and fear. it just wouldn't come out in their married life because they probably would avoid marriage. of course, they might still have romantic, intimate relationships with people, and those would be just as effed up as before any law was made, so... what was the point?

"don't you want less broken families in the world?"

yes, but broken families are a symptom. i want to deal with the causes.

~ ~ ~

we can pass a million laws against a million "bad things" a million times a day, and no one will ever become more loving, more peaceful, more passionate about worthwhile things. if we were to make education about gay marriage illegal, how would that improve anyone's morals?? the media has more influence on the average kid today than that kid's teachers, or even that kid's own parents-- if that kid even has two parents. and even if that kid has two loving and nurturing parents, the media may still have more influence in that kids' life! not to mention the kid's friends.

(for those of who are already forming comments in your mind-- that is, for those of you who are about to defend homosexuality in some fashion, and especially for those of you who are non-Christian, and extra-especially for those of you who are Christian and in favor of gay marriage / education about gay marriage-- i want to save you some time & effort by saying that yes, Jesus does love gay people. please do not assume that Jesus' love automatically disqualifies a person from being critiqued on any level, whether that be a moral level or a worth level.)

i speak to everyone in this blog, but i want Christians especially to take note of this: we are not arguing over the broad path or the narrow. we (as a voting society) are not deciding whether to pursue right or to pursue wrong. we are not going to improve the true root of suffering (the pitiful human condition, which is a disease and not a symptom) by local, state, or federal legislation.

we are not choosing our destination. we are simply choosing which route to take.

if and when you vote, remember this: there is no 'salvation'* from anything evil apart from the work of Christ in the hearts and minds of those to whom He calls. as you work to end the suffering of others, remember that the driving force behind suffering is not something you or i can conquer. your vote may change a law, but it will not change a person.

* by 'salvation' i mean the transformation, the renewing (Rom12), the gradual & dramatic saving of someone's life here and now from the corruption of sinfulness.

reposte: briefly

2008-12-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

i must make this quick; sleepy-time is nigh.

disclaimer
this post, many of you will not understand, either because you've subscribed to society's 'Think Like We Do and Stay Inside the Box' magazine, or because you've already made up your own individual ideas about how these things are supposed to work.

Caleb and Evan, and of course Katie and Lisa and a few others, are most likely to understand what i'm about to say. Stephanie U., Fred, Brandon, you'll get it too, i think.

the rest of you... good luck. it's hit-and-miss with me sometimes. we'll see how it goes. i think perhaps there are only a few people who need/want to hear this. the rest of you, disregard.

'but ij, how do i know if i should disregard?'

well, one of the best ways to figure that out is this: how much of what i'm saying do you automatically criticize? or, by the time you finished reading, was your initial reaction closer to 'i'm not buying it' or to 'very interesting' ?? that should help clue you in.

=) onward.

about romance
if a girl asks you out, and you don't want to go out with her, but you want to develop your friendship with her, but you don't want her to be disappointed, but you feel confident in being a tiny bit annoying, here is what you do.

girl: will you go out with me?
guy: nope. but i think there's something else you want anyways, and as you know, anything i have to give is yours to request. *bow*

(if you can flourish, do a flourish, too... but if not, a bow will do, because ladies deserve that kind of honor)

girl: i'm not really sure what you're saying.
guy: what i'm saying is, there's something more that you desire in our relationship. what is that something more? forget societal stereotypes and pre-packaged relationships for a moment. what is it that you desire?

girl: uhm... i dunno... i guess to spend lots of time with you?
guy: granted, and joyfully. =) anything else?
girl: wow. that was easy.
guy: like i said... anything i have to give. but is that it?? just time?
girl: well, okay, a long hug would be nice, too.
guy: granted. *hug*

girl: and a kiss.

this is the part where you kiss her hand. man, the knights of legend were so cool... i know we mostly get the sort of 'hollywood' versions of these stories, but whatevs, they're cool.

guy: anything more than what i just did is probably unhealthy for us at this point.
girl: how come???
guy: 'cause we're not married.

it's really simple that way: you're not married yet. kissing isn't some casual way to have fun. it's an act that involves your whole self. what you do with your body affects YOU. not because you have a body, but because you are a body. (you are also a heart and soul and mind and whatnot; that's exactly the point. you can't separate your parts so easily as some might tell you.)

girl: but we could get married...
guy: that's true! but it'll be a few years before that's something to think about.

okay, at this point the conversation is getting kind of farfetched, but you see the point. let me be even more ridiculous, for the sake of being clear:

girl: well... then can you buy me stuff, like a bf would?
guy: what is it that you need? i love to give friends what they need.
girl: nothing really, i just want you to make me feel special.
guy: granted... but you realize that everyone is special to me.
girl: what?!

yeah, it sucks... sorry, but you're special just like everyone else. a person who wishes to truly love must anchor that love in himself, not in others. someone who loves selectively doesn't have true love. they might have true romance, but not true love.

guy: i love you, as much as i love my other friends, or family.
girl: then that's what i want. i want you to love me more.
guy: wouldn't that mean i would have to love others less?
girl: yup!
guy: can't do that.
girl: why?!
guy: 'cause we're not married.

simpler and simpler and simpler. i'm imagining two teenagers here, by the way, so marriage isn't really the greatest idea. and they both know that.

what's the point of this strange exchange? this weird imagining? the point is, this might be one of those times where you need to go against the flow. romance is WAY over-valued and pretty much rampant in American teenage culture (at LEAST in that context).

guy: don't get me wrong; something in me strongly desires to love and be loved in a special way by one person. the thing is, i can't pursue that desire right now; circumstances just aren't right.
girl: i understand... that makes alot of sense.

that last sentence there is probably the most unbelievable bit of this whole scenario... but once again, the point, the bottom line, but rephrased this time: bf/gf relationships are socially constructed. they are not always insubstantial, and they are often very true and beautiful- but at best, they serve to point to something even more true and beautiful.

at worst, they can ruin things. eventually.

so the next time your heart leaps for someone, know that you don't have to get all makey-outey, as Strongbad would say, in order to satisfy that desire. know that there are ways to love people honorably and truly, of either gender, that secular, popular society would never come up with.

relationships are gifts to be treasured and nourished. treat them with the utmost care and devotion, and understand what each one is, and can be, and should be.

i need a guitar.

2008-11-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

not being able to proficiently play an instrument while singing = musically-creative constipation.

an addendum to an embarrassing post... how embarrassing!

2008-11-04T23:17:00.000-08:00

given my condition in this chapter of my life, i feel like i should just give up on trying to spend enjoyable time with friends.

it's the same as if i'd just had my wisdom teeth pulled, except that friends spending time with me won't comfort me. i can't do anything except hold gauze to my bleeding, slobbering mouth, and watch movies. people can't enjoy me when i can't enjoy life.

alright, i admit it; i'm looking for justification to give up, so that i can avoid the pain. well that admission changes nothing since i've found the justification i need. i'm actually a better person this way. i would know. i've been this way before. that change that took place, the me who left me behind, the me whole stole me from me, the me who left his cave behind.

whether it was primarily my environment that changed me, or else God, or my natural development (vs. nurture), or something else entirely, i am only a step or two away from making a very sudden, very dangerous, second 180°. i can already feel myself looking forward to it. as John Eric's Lost, Found, Lost (how apropos!) plays in the background, near midnight, i remember who i was, and wonder if that's who i am. and i feel ashamed for becoming someone else.

i just realized, nobody asks the someone else i am about him anymore; i hardly listen to those songs which once comforted me, and i spend very little time with myself.

the problem is that going backwards means leaving some of my new travel-companions behind. or perhaps it means them leaving me behind.

~ ~ ~

and once again, i'm up too late blogging. how long has it been? (i'll spare you the appropriate cliche at this point.)

i hope one of me knows what he's doing.

high maintenance

2008-11-04T20:42:00.000-08:00

disclaimer: i'll feel better about whining if i don't address anyone in particular.
realization: i am attracted to high maintenance people partly because i am one of them.
confession: i have deep psychological issues.

all the things i want most in life-- to be aware of God's presence in general and in my life, to have strong & fulfilling friendships that i can enjoy on a regular basis, to fulfill my potential musically, to share my joys with people around me, to discover & decide on a career that fits my skills and personality, to not be so tired all the time, to be a good or perhaps even a great husband, to be as generous with others as others have been to me, to become someone whose character resembles Christ's --are the things which elude me most. i feel hopeless. i see no way of ever reaching these goals. the obstacles hindering me, i don't even understand. i'm not sure i can even begin to conquer them. the people closest to me don't understand me. in fact, i'm not sure they can. they don't know why i'm depressed, stressed, apathetic, non-energetic... and neither do i. there's no one who can help me (no one i can afford), and even if they could, i don't have enough time or energy to go through that process. i feel alone. i don't have time or energy because i have to work this early-morning 10-hr/day construction job, and i have to work this early morning 10-hr/day construction job because i chose to major in an academic field without considering what career options that major would offer me. i wish that i could regret my choice, but i can't, because i made it for the right reasons, and the choice itself paid off the way it was supposed to.

my deep psychological issues offer evidence of themselves through symptoms such as: the inability to turn off the music/thinking in my head; my habit of changing my mind about something several times in the space of a split-second; my obsession with mentally correcting every grammatical mistake i make when speaking out loud, and beating myself up about it; my inexplicable feelings of depression, experienced on a daily basis; my inability to enjoy those things in life which i love most; and finally, my lack of patience with and affection for my wife.

i don't blog often enough.

dear repo-man

2008-08-30T00:19:00.000-07:00

if you would just give me one more chance, i swear you'd never have to knock on my door again.

oh who am i fooling.

my blog is in love with me

2008-07-31T19:14:00.000-07:00

have you ever woken up and wondered, "when did i decide to take a nap??" and then answered yourself, "i didn't consciously decide to. i must have been so tired that i automatically stopped what i was doing, got up, searched for and found a comfy spot, curled up, and conked out in a matter of seconds..." ?

have you ever accidentally fallen into a good habit?

have you ever finished explaining & expressing something very important to you, only to realize that you just spent a great many breaths rambling on and on, to someone who never asked you about any of that stuff?

~ ~ ~

much of my recent blogging material has been hijacked.

my train of thought left Limbic City at 2:10 a.m., destined for the outer blogosphere, but it took a wrong turn somewhere in OC, and completely missed its last-chance stop at the ACCX terminal. it ended up leaving my body completely, via the Parapraxis highway.

then, it did it again... and again... and again.

today's post has only made it through by some miracle. or fluke. or both, depending on your perspective and your values. (yes, you... the reader.)

the good news is that i am still myself. especially when i am alone, as i am now. i have not, nor will i ever, abandon my self completely. we'll always be friends.

epiphanies are overrated

2008-07-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

now i know why i have disdained the whole "make new friends" deal, and why other people do it without questioning it.

now i know why my monthly blog count dropped to zero or so.

now i know how i lost my confidence, my ability to live life alone, my power over life, my iron heart, my inner strength, my solid sense of self.

...and all of that knowledge helps me not at all, because it's too late to change any of it.

fixing me

2008-06-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

sometimes i feel like i'm not even worth my own effort, let alone anyone else's.

i need you...

2008-06-27T00:05:00.000-07:00

to maybe just read this?

i felt like calling you tonight. the grace you've extended to me, the genuine, passionate friendship, the wisdom you've developed over the years... i look up to you for these and many other reasons. for most of my life i've been the one people leaned on, but these past few years i've become so weak, it seems. it feels wrong to "boohoo" all over you, but i don't know who else to go to. you're the first person i thought of to lean on. and now that i think of it, you're not just my first choice... you're my only choice. i have other good, close friends, maybe even one or two i look up to, but none of them love me the way you do. they do love me, but they don't quite know the best way to love me. it might be a spiritual gift you have.

i feel like i am being paid back for all the emotional damage i've done to others all my life. it hurts a little bit less when i think of it as punishment, because i can convince myself that i deserve it, and it can't be wrong to get what i deserve, and if what's happening to me is right, then it doesn't hurt as much. but at the same time, i think about the world the way it was supposed to be. i think about relationships the way they're supposed to be, and even while i'm confessing my undeservedness and my own evil and the ruin i've caused, at the same time i'm begging God to redeem not only my own character, but the character of those close to me, so that i don't have to be hurt anymore. is that selfish?

nothing hurts me worse than people who are supposed to be kind to me, choosing instead to be hostile. i guess that means i am self-centered after all. maybe the lesson in all of this is to stop caring so much about my own pain.

i don't know. i wish you were here to hug me.

i love you. thank you for listening.

an old friend

2008-04-05T21:25:00.000-07:00

i remember you now, as i sit alone in my house, burning incense, listening to Ryan Adams' haunting rendition of Wonderwall, and deciding who to invite to my wedding. i haven't been alone with you like this in many weeks. it feels good to be fully with me. i buried you when Valerie & i became close. i'm glad you survived.

it was good to be with you again.

one more fortune

2008-02-15T05:10:00.001-08:00

last chapter, and perhaps even the chapter before that, i realized that one of my primary lacunas is discipline-- as a character trait. i think i've discovered one of the many reasons i failed to improve in that area.

i have this theory that character traits (personality non-specific) have complementary traits. for example, one can be either cautious or bold-- or, ideally, one can be both. i think that, in order to learn discipline, one must first learn how, when, and why to rest.

hard work, when it yields anything of value or quality, comes out of rest. i am always telling people to shut down their computers at least once a day, so that the pagefile can be refreshed, caches can be emptied, heat can dissipate... etc. yet i've completely missed the life-lesson metaphor thingy.

i couldn't properly learn how to work hard because i had no idea how to take care of myself! from night one of my college education, i slept little, sacrificed often, and had little regard for my own well-being. King Andrew once expressed his astonishment that my old, old, old laptop was still running so well. he said his newer PC was crappy compared to my machine, and confessed that he was to blame. "i don't know how to take care of it," he said.

well, no wonder i run crappy.

i've known for a long time that i don't take care of myself, and i've known that i'm lazy... but i've never made such a clear connection between the two as i do now. i need to learn- in mind and in habit- how and when and why to rest.

i need to learn rest & discipline because my mistakes in life do not always affect only me. i thank God for the intense, all-surpassing pain of hurting other people, because it pushes the limits of my good character.

~ ~ ~

...because being responsible for a family will gradually make me a drastically better person. just as Christians are God's method for accomplishing His will in this age, so will my family be His method for accomplishing His will in me.

desecration & atonement

2007-12-24T11:22:00.000-08:00

i can't stop thinking about how casually the entry mentions it. i mean, it seems to fit right in with doing the dishes and taking out the trash. it repulses me. (the football one too. the only reason that one sounds significant is because it was a surprise, or exciting, or something.)

it repulses me how disrespectful the person was. it repulses me how you let the person be that disrespectful. it repulses me, the way you thought of pi at the time. it angers me. and i'm frustrated that i seem to be carrying the weight of it, even though it's so far in the past and you're different now. we're different now.

but even when i was that age, experiencing some of those things, i always assigned it great significance. i never knew what that significance was, but i knew something important was happening. and i was committed-- naively, imperfectly, temporarily, genuinely, wholly committed. and i'm angry that i seem to have this stupid holier-than-thou perspective, as if i'm somehow better because of these things. i'm not!!

i'm angry, and disappointed, because it is so rare for me to think, "that is very unattractive." i don't know how to handle it.

relationships... i've thought of them as (and pursued / engaged in them as!) sacred, ever since the beginning of my relationship with God. i haven't been consistent or perfect-- in fact, i have my own sordid history of sacrilege-- but i began well and am ending well. and i helped others, many others, to do the same. am helping! and i know this doesn't make me a better person than anyone else, but then i have to wonder, "why am i not as repulsed by my own self as i am by these stories you tell me?"

i should be. i have been! ...but that doesn't solve the problem for me. i don't know why.

~ ~ ~

i even dreamt of it. i remember asking you questions about it, and waiting for you to ask me how i felt about it all. i remember starting to have a conversation about it with you, but then we arrived at your family's house for Christmas festivities. i said hi to your grandma (the one i like more) and then the dream ended. when i woke up, i was angry and disturbed and everything else i've described above. i so desperately wish the entry had ended with, "i wish i hadn't done any of it at all... i feel so cheap" instead of "it's a good thing i didn't take that last step... totally not worth it." i wish i could feel the same conviction you felt (at some point?) about all the cheap-ness. all the desecration.

maybe inaction isn't enough to feel the full weight of redemption. maybe we're being too mainstream evangelical, and not Catholic enough. maybe cleaning house isn't enough; maybe replacing all the old stuff with new stuff is what we need. maybe replacing the bad with good instead of empty is what i'm looking for. maybe penance is about ritual and somatic aesthetics, rather than soteriology.

i don't know. i'm just guessing at this point. i wish i had spent as much time and energy learning from Dogterom as i did from Rybarczyk.

things will change when we have our own home, our own life (and all that that implies). that ritual will be life-changing. heart-changing. metanoia. kairos. i pray it comes soon.

uniquity

2007-12-23T03:05:00.000-08:00

yes... building your power-vocab...

today was unique because, for the first time in several months (if not longer), i was neither tired nor sleepy all day long. i don't understand how this is possible. i don't remember the last time i had a day like this. i guess 13 hours of sleep the previous night/day helped, but that doesn't fully explain it, because sometimes that much sleep ruins me.

today was very unique, and in a good way. how strange for me.

and how much does that fit, that you and i switched places? aren't we always doing that? so strange.

thank you for more fortunes. they comfort and soothe me. my mind & heart gravitate to negatives, and de-emphasize positives. i need your positive-ness in my life. i need you in order to be healthier. please don't ever stop?

un-depress me

2007-12-21T23:17:00.000-08:00

...in 3 complex steps.

i don't want sympathy, or empathy... neither is helpful. i have nothing to be depressed about! and i can't be comforted without a reason, even though i'm depressed for unknown reasons. ask me questions that will yield long, thoughtful answers. example: why are you depressed? lol this one is so funny, because i never really know, but i'm always trying to figure it out, so it's almost a fool-proof question. i'll never be able to give you a quick answer, because a simple "i don't know" would be apathetic, which i'm not; but it's also true that even if the explanation is simple and thorough, i can't give that answer, because i never have it. so you'll inevitably get me to think carefully, which is probably what i need when i'm feeling recklessly.
play me something acoustic. it's got to dance between major and minor. that limbo, or twilight, or sway?, is my ear's favorite place to hang. a few jazz chords usually help, too. poetic lyrics, but not too poetic... you know the kind, where you think you know what the song is about overall, but there are a few lines that completely throw you off.
leave me alone. i mean this in a geographical sense, mostly. if you can think of a way to interact with me without demanding any energy from me for you, then you're probly good. i think perhaps this is due to my overdeveloped sense of responsibility, enhanced by my agape paradigm (1Cor13). i think being with people takes so much out of me, not only because of my introversion, but because i am subconsciously (very much so) assuming that i am giving to the other and not receiving anything in return. i have a hard time receiving anything from people, both by will and by nature.

my God-given addiction

2007-12-21T22:52:00.000-08:00

i've always made a case for God as the source of beauty, by pointing out that even if beautiful things came about 'on their own,' it still took some doing for people (and only people) to first recognize and then appreciate that beauty. or if the ability to recognize and appreciate came first, then how and when and why did beauty evolve? and if the desire for beauty is man-made, then how come people from every culture have some appreciation for beauty (whatever its form)? and if beauty itself is man-made, then how are we able to create it on purpose, unless we were made with that desire? and why is it that no one is wholly set against beauty itself? that's a good question for you people who believe that evil and fallen-ness have a significant part to play in humanity's story.

anyway. tonight i'm wondering how my life would have been different if i'd been given no potential for musical expression at all. i've never met or heard of anyone who doesn't like music, any music... which is why this paragraph is the second of this post, and not the first. back on track though: when i'm depressed, music is the only thing that can fully soothe me.

but what if i were an unsophisticated, tone-deaf simpleton? then where would my peace come from? sleep and music are my escape from excess of emotion, and sleep does not come on demand. where would i be without this drug?

i think Music is the only person who consistently meets me where i'm at.

goodbye

2007-12-20T22:45:00.000-08:00

From: Isaiah Micu
Date: Dec 20, 2007 10:36 PM
Subject: Re:
To: anymouse

[name removed]~

whatever you've done, or haven't done, is forgiven. don't be sad for too long; friends come and go. i've been learning this the hard way. you know it already though... anyways, i'll always be your friend, even when our friendship is only memories.

you aren't missing too much with me gone... i know you'll keep growing, especially as you chase after & figure out & work for what's Good and Right. i know God will bless you & Eddie through all that..

if you see any mutual friends of ours, you can tell them to give you a hug for me. =)

write me anytime.

Love,
isaiah

old friends

2007-12-17T01:07:00.000-08:00

preface: according to isjamic blog-mythology, the term 'anymouse' came about when sister Hannah Micu (now Hannah Scott, as of Dec. 15 '07) made a simple typo while commenting on one of isaiah's posts. what should have been 'anonymous' got mangled and subsequently immortalized. the only permutation known to have been used at the time of this writing is the plural form, 'anymice.'

moving on.

it was interesting to see so many old friends at the reception yesterday. an ex-girlfriend, that ex-girlfriend's now-husband who was once my best friend, my once-best-friend's once-best-friend who became my once-best-friend's best friend right about the time my then-girlfriend became my ex-girlfriend (to be my once-best-friend's girlfriend instead)...

craziness. it really was good to see [most of] them, though. and i said so. they did, too. i hope i see them again. i'd like to make up the movie i missed with them. the movie's not a big deal; but missing out on that particular circle of friends gathering together again for the first time in many, many months, really hurts.

fortunately i've learned over the years how to accept the coming and going of friends (and adversaries). sure, the Eschaton will be pretty suite, and i verimuch look forward to seeing all those people (including some family and good friends i've never met). but i'm okay with the wait. and i'm okay with absence, almost in the same way i'm okay with silence and darkness.

it's actually far more disconcerting to see someone i never expected to see again, than it is to say goodbye to someone i would never wish to leave.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Isjami
Date: Jun 19, 2007 5:41 PM
Subject: it's a strange feeling
To: Michelle Diaz, Stephanie Uribe, Kejalo, Laura Stuckemeyer, Valerie A. Elwell

it's a strange feeling when someone just... leaves. relief that i don't have to wrestle with that person anymore... doubts about whether i made good decisions... i dunno.

[18:21] anymouse: i dont feel that this friendship can go any further or that we can learn anything more
[18:21] anymouse: i feel that it is time for goodbye
[18:21] Isjami19: that's your decision at this point
[18:21] anymouse: well i wasnt the only person that agrees with this
[18:21] Isjami19: i don't need to hear about that
[18:22] Isjami19: i don't need you to explain yourself, or validate your decision, or anything
[18:22] Isjami19: i decided beforehand that i would simply accept it
[18:22] anymouse: i didnt feel i needed to validate myself i wasnt going to
[18:22] Isjami19: then why did you tell me you weren't the only one who agreed
[18:22] anymouse: because i felt it needed to be said
[18:22] Isjami19: why
[18:23] anymouse: because thats how i feel
[18:23] Isjami19: why do you feel that way about that
[18:23] Isjami19: ?
[18:23] Isjami19: i don't know is a perfectly acceptable answer
[18:23] Isjami19: that's my answer alot of times
[18:24] anymouse: i felt that you should know that im being supported in my decision and [name removed] isnt one of them
[18:24] Isjami19: i'm wondering, why do you feel that way
[18:25] anymouse: because it makes me feel better knowing thaty ou know
[18:25] Isjami19: do you know why it makes you feel better knowing that you didn't decide on your own?
[18:25] anymouse: i did decide on my own
[18:25] anymouse: but i have other people who agree with my thinking
[18:26] Isjami19: do you know why it makes you feel better knowing that you have other people agreeing with you?
[18:26] Isjami19: knowing that i know that*
[18:26] anymouse: thats not why i feel better
[18:26] Isjami19: because it makes me feel better knowing thaty ou know
[18:26] Isjami19: is what you said
[18:26] Isjami19: why does it make you feel better
[18:26] anymouse: i would have made this decision whether people agreed with me or not
[18:26] Isjami19: ok
[18:26] Isjami19: why does it make you feel better knowing that i know
[18:26] Isjami19: that others agreed
[18:27] anymouse: because it means that there was something wrong with the relqtionship and the fact that i was right to end it and you were wrong makes me feel better
[18:27] anymouse: period of sentence
[18:27] anymouse: i need to go
[18:27] Isjami19: lol nice
[18:27] Isjami19: alright then
[18:27] Isjami19: goodbye
[18:27] Isjami19: thanks for being honest

that was [name removed]. the background is, she has ruined things to the point where we can't ever talk without fighting. she takes everything i say as a challenge or insult, no matter what it is or how i say it. she takes every opportunity to accuse me of doing or thinking or saying something wrong; she never takes any responsibility for any of her actions; she blames all of our conflicts on my supposed flaws; and she refuses to change her mind about anything.

finally i realized how terrible things were, and that nothing i could say or do on my own would make a difference.

then i thought, "i have to do something about this, or else the best that can happen is it will stay this bad." so i decided, "obviously we need help. the only road i see available to us is counseling-- someone to mediate and help us communicate, because right now, it's impossible." the truth is, she was making it impossible.

so i e-mailed the pastor of my church-away-from-church, near Vanguard. he knows [her] and they have trust between them. i said, "can you please help us with counseling, if [she] agrees to it?" i asked him that without telling [her] in advance, and i FWD'd the letter to her as well.

of course she just blew up at me for doing so, but i responded with, "we can talk about it and work it all out... if you agree to counseling. because obviously there's nothing else we can do for this friendship." she just accused me over and over again until finally i got her to answer the question. she said she would think about it.

well, she thought about it for a week, and apparently got "advice" from someone-- that is, she told them a warped version of the story to make them see her side of things, and then used their agreement to validate her feelings.

and then we had that conversation.

i always tell them (my girls): "the only way i will ever stop Loving you, is if you tell me to. nothing else, barring death or something extreme like that, life circumstances that force us apart, nothing can stop me. only you can. i can't Love anyone who doesn't allow me to do so; that would be forcing it, and that just doesn't make any sense."

that's why i'm letting her go. no amount of frustration would ever lead me to abandon anyone; commitment is commitment. yes, it was a relief to let her go, because all of my best efforts were just going to waste; she was taking what i gave and spitting it back in my face. she was ruining every attempt of mine to do something right, something good.

that was the end of it, and i am so relieved... i don't know if you know what a struggle it is for me. i am prepared to put myself through anything if it will serve the person i care about, and even if i am hating it, i will still do it because i Love them. but this time it was not serving her, and she asked me to stop. and that's that.

~ ~ ~

From: anymouse
Date: Dec 16, 2007 1:20 AM
Subject:
To: isjami@gmail.com

hey...

i miss you...

my mind is very unsettled right now but i know that when it does settle it will be on you. as i sit here in front of my new laptop (i got it for my birthday this year) i find that words are difficult to make up for lost time. i have realized with great difficulty and pain that our relationship failed because of me. i was a closed thinker and my inability to critically think was affected by, not only my lack of knowledge and experience, but also by my lack of proper medication. everything that you wanted me to be, everything that you pushed me to be, because you knew i could better is what i have become. but i still find myself lacking something since you have been absent from my life. i know that it is said that everyone leaves footsteps on your heart and memories on your mind, but i think you actually dug a hold and put a plaque with your name on it in the hole to make sure i remembered. i will never forget. i have as well become nocturnal with school and everything going on, i have doubts about my relationship and i wish for nothing more right now but to just be in your presence. you have taught me so much and i want to learn more. i miss you so much i cried myself to sleep last night. please......

i dont even know what to ask you for......forgiveness or friendship? both? i miss my best friend, isaiah.

PS. i passed all my classes and will be transferring to CSUF next fall for my bachelors in psychology/communication.

perhaps

2007-12-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rachel Micu
Date: Dec 10, 2007 6:47 AM
Subject: Re: youth ministry
To: Isaiah Micu

Hey Isaiah,

Thanks for forwarding that blogspot to me. What an awesome opportunity that was and what a great guy P. Frank must be. I was really impressed with the reply you gave him. It demonstrated an attitude of humility, gratitude, and putting others first instead of making it all about you.

What you may find interesting is that the very comments the kids gave about you that they saw as 'negative', are the very things I think make you a good leader for youth or adults. Your 'style', if you will, is much like Tom Cotter's Y.P. style. - Quiet, get the kids involved in leading each other so they can grow, and no hype, or what some people refer to as enthusiasm. I've seen many very impressive speakers who have such dynamic presentation. These guys get the Youth minister jobs as well as other pastoring positions. Everyone wants to be around them because they love the energy. But it is most often not truly representative of who they are all the time or what God's spirit is doing in their life. They also most often lack practical leadership and organizational skills. People who really get to know them and hang out with them find out that they are just regular guys who talk up a storm and are witty and fun, but are missing the deep sense of self-confidence that makes someone not need to impress anybody.

I loved most of the comments that I read and they made me proud. You went over there and just showed them You. You didn't try to WOW them with your rapier wit, or go out or your way to shmooze each and every youth in the group. You just showed them who you are and how you like to lead. That's awesome! And I don't know where God will lead you, but someday He will lead you to a place of employment that hires you based on those very same characteristics that kept you from landing the job with P. Frank's church.

I love you, Hon. See you this Thursday!
Mom

~ ~ ~

Posted by Choix Du Jour on Sunday, December 09, 2007 at 9:37 PM

Reading the comments about your intern interview left me smiling and, at the same time, frustrated at what is valued in leaders. 15 years ago in a youth ministry class my professor, Gary Zustiak, remarked that churches who have it in their head that the best youth ministers are the up-front & charismatic people are missing out. I was never the up front guy and this one remark got me thinking that maybe God could use me in youth ministry.

The up-front charismatic leader is part of a model which worked well in attractional churches for a while but is on the way out as culture continues to shift. I can see how God has gifted you for the kind of ministry you want to be involved in.

A listener.
A vocal artist.
Someone who quite often thinks before they speak.
Compassion for the hurting.
Someone not afraid of the silence.
Generous with orthodoxy. :)

Ok, I'm stopping there. Clay poked my left eye and I think I'm blind now.
Tomas

dancing

2007-12-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

i really believe i'm not a pubescent penguin. i'm much more like a man who's never seen his own face before.

through the Farmer's Insurance interview yesterday morning, and through this youth internship interview process, i'm extremely thankful (to God and to others) for the opportunity to learn who i am.

i still don't understand why everyone thought i would be good at it. i have always known that few people really know me well enough to say whether i'll be good or bad at something, but this time, for some reason, i had this tiny bit of hope that maybe they were at least partially right about me.

but who knows both me and youth ministry well enough to divine something like that? no one, i suppose.

you could all be proud of me for not entitling this post "i told you so" ...except for the paragraph you're currently reading. =\

~ ~ ~

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pastor Frank
Date: Dec 8, 2007 5:53 PM
Subject: Fwd: Youth survey info
To: Isaiah Micu

Isaiah,

I am very grateful for your bringing this past Wednesday's meeting to our youth department. I hope it was a good experience for you.

As promised, I am forwarding a summary of the evening's survey questionaire.

There were a number of positive comments. The students did see some real stengths in you. For those we are truly thankful.

As you read, there were also a few growing edges for you to work on, which I hope prove helpful.

For you, one great encouragement I would give you is to have more confidence in your gifting and that the Lord will go before you to speak or lead any audience. On Wednesday you had kids truly ready to engage with you. Yet, many left feeling that they didn't get to know or really see or engage you.

Depending on how you look at that...it can be an encouragement to know that this was something kids wanted from you.

At this point in time, the search team has further narrowed its search to another candidate.

In all things Isaiah, thank you for seeking the Lord in this an testing the waters of call.

I am so glad that you are my brother.

Frank

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rachel L. Bracken
To: Pastor Frank, Edmund Rybarczyk, Clark & Dawn Sutherland
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:40:05 -0800
Subject: Youth survey info

The schedule of the night was as follows:
Game (student-led) - 15 min.
Isaiah spoke about the importance of Bible stories - 5 minutes
Small groups - 30 min
Worship - 20 min

There were 51 surveys total (including 6 leaders).

The following are the questions and the average score out of ten (with ten being the highest rating):

7.24 - The candidate ran a well-organized meeting.
6.04 - The candidate was able to hold student's attention.
5.88 - The candidate helped me grow deeper in my knowledge of God.
6.36 - The candidate brought the Bible to life tonight.
6.59 - The candidate brought teaching that was practical and relevant.
6.45 - The candidate would get along well with our group.
6.32 - The candidate would make a good youth minister.

The comments provided are below:

It's hard to tell what I think of a man I barely saw. He had someone else do the game and sent us to small groups almost as soon as he started talking. The time he did spend speaking I got the feeling there was so much more to his words that he wasn't sharing. I think he has a lot of knowledge to share and tonight he just didn't. He spoke in a way that was rather dull and uninteresting. I'm not sure Isaiah would be a good candidate. That fact that I know him only made this harder.

-Didn't seem to interact with students
-Didn't take control of the room
-Small group questions were not quality
-Didn't open the Bible
-Would not work well with group

I only rated so low because he spoke for hardly any time and left us with our leaders. My leader did a fantastic job, but if Isaiah had shared his story and explained what it meant to him tonight would've meant more to me. I liked the singing portion, however, my rating aren't what I really think, it's just that I have incomplete ideas about him.

Kinda boring needs more personality and interaction with students. Seemed to keep to himself.

Great job but needs to do more talking.

I liked how he sang worship instead of someone else we didn't know :)

He knows his stuff and knows God. But I think that enthusiasm would be better. I also think that his lesson was good, but I think more explanation would've been better.

I feel like I didn't get a sense of who he was, he wasn't loud and outgoing and he seemed like part of the high school group.

He is cool. I thought he was in high school and was a student. Lol!!

I like toast.

He didn't talk that much.

I think we need something between Isaiah and Jeremy.

I thought he was alright. He didn't hold my attention much…Boring….

Was too quiet.

Too quiet.

Kept to himself seemed almost too shy to belong in our group.

More Energy!

He's too quiet for our group.

He had a straight forward plan.

He's too quiet.

He is very knowledgeable.

He didn't really bring it o life, but he told us about parts of the bible greatly.

He didn't really teach but he told us the relevance of the stories.

Too quiet.

He is smart, but I don't think he is right for the Y.G.

Too Quiet.

He didn't do anything except a little teaching and singing. Didn't hear another word, no talking to students.

Needs to do something with us.

Interact.

He has been in church for how long and still never did anything with the Youth and now he wants to be a youth minister? Think about it.

He didn't teach anything he just has the students talk about the Bible. He didn't try to talk with the students in free time, he just stayed in the back. He wasn't as prepared as he could have been. He would be an okay leader but not a pastor.

He did not do very well as an actual minister, but he is a nice guy.

I love Isaiah.

Well he would make an amazing pastor but he (Isaiah) needs to learn how to be more energetic and outgoing talk and know the group. But yet the mood he brings is amazing.

QUIET

I think he could get along with us if he (k)new the group more. He did though teach me many things. After tonight I have a different feeling!

He needs to sing louder and tell us a Bible story not what he thinks about it.

I know that Isaiah is very knowledgeable, but a concern I have is how he would make it understandable to our group. Another concern I have is how he would relate to us, and his ability to handle a group of our energy.

I know he is very good at one on one council advice, but it is harder and much more challenging when it concerns a large group of people in different stages of life and with different experiences.

Too quiet; amazing singer.

~ ~ ~

i knew all these things about myself already... just not as experientially and certainly as i do now. youthful features: check. quiet: check. i enjoy singing: check. not a good youth-pastor: check. nobody else knew already, i guess, or they would've told me. right? you would've told me, right?

no... i shouldn't hold anyone responsible for teaching me who i am. not through a simple, "so who do you think i am?" so i won't. i could never do that (not at this age). this is life, messy and gradual and complicated and challenging and rewarding (sometimes in unexpected ways).

actually, i think this might be more about what i am than who.

~ ~ ~

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Isaiah Micu
Date: Dec 8, 2007 7:25 PM
Subject: youth ministry
To: Pastor Frank

Pastor Frank,

thank you so much for the opportunity you gave me. i benefited from it in many ways; i'm still processing all of them, still figuring out what they mean to me.

i'm impressed by the wisdom of the group. they know what their values (as evangelical youth ministry students) should be.

i'm grateful for a better understanding of who and what i am. my goal is to be employed, but my higher goal is to have a thorough and accurate knowledge of my purpose in life. i want to know what God wants to do with me, and this process was extremely helpful for that.

i'm disappointed that the students weren't able to take more from the night, but i understand why. i'm continuing to pray for the group and their future youth pastor, and for the search committee, and for you, and for your congregation here in SoCal.

thanks again, for everything: breakfast, conversation, opportunity, care. a pastor's ability to love so many people, corporately and individually (whether members of their congregation of not!) will always amaze me.

see you tomorrow morning!

-isaiah

2007-12-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

do you enjoy keeping secrets from me?

i only enjoy keeping those secrets which i know will be revealed to you in full later on, and which are pleasant to think about. examples: birthday and Christmas gifts; good news about my job search; something fun that i don't have time to tell you about until later; anything fun that would be better shared in person.

i'm beginning to realize that there's more fueling my anger than what i've discovered (and shared) so far. i'm certainly not looking forward to the days when you'll have to keep secrets from me constantly.

God help me

myself

2007-12-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

I want you to know I'm praying for the Lord's anointing, purpose, and blessing for you tomorrow night. Go and be yourself!

I'm proud of you.

Ed

~ ~ ~

you'd think a guy with a PhD who had me in 7 classes would know me better.

i've been trying to justify his lack of understanding, and i think i've finally done it. the truth is, he and i have the same problem, except on opposite ends of the spectrum. he thinks too highly of me, to the point where he thinks can do well by 'being myself.'

and i think so lowly of myself that if i simpy be myself, i'm certain to fail.

then again... maybe that's why he mentioned the anointing.

the book of isjami

2007-12-04T12:32:00.000-08:00

i've got it.

after years of wishing and pouting and occasional muddled thinking, i know how to organize my 'book.' it won't really be a book... i guess it'll be an e-book? anyway, i always sort of wanted to, but i never knew how. i'm not a book-writer! i'm a blog-poster. we're two different animals. i thought i would simply give each post a theme, and have maybe 12 themes total, and people could click a theme and read random posts from each theme that way. but that's too messy and not very interesting or fun.

rather than organize the posts by their own themes, i'll organize my posts by the themes of my chapters in life.

"uh... isn't that the same thing??"

no!! doing the former means that the book would be organized by its own content. the latter means the book will be organized by the content of my life.

"aaaand that makes a difference because...???"

because rather than clicking on [my faith] and reading a post about church, you'll find yourself reading a post about my girlfriend.

"so what?"

so: by organizing them this way, i'll accomplish the following:

the reader will be invited not just to read and reflect, but to read, apply, and reflect. it's easy to see how church affected my faith. t isn't so obvious, even to me sometimes, how my girlfriend affected my faith. this will require me to reflect even further on my life and how its various (and sometimes disparate) parts affected each other, and it will require the interested reader (yes, i'm shooting for a single, solitary interested reader) to do the same... with the help of a little extra commentary by me.

some posts will have multiple labels. the train post (most, if not all two or three of you, have read that one) might list these labels: "faith, intimate relationships, songwriting, generosity." and the post just prior to the one you're reading now might list "perplexity, faith, responsibility."

that's another benefit of writing this thing... the most prominent themes of my life will rise to the top, and i'll be able to take off my glasses for a moment and examine them with the naked eye. you understand, right? i'll be able to take a look at the way i take a look at life!

i hope you realize how transcendentally cool that is.

i don't even know

2007-12-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

i always knew, intuitively and now experientially, that embracing romance would wreak havoc on my mind. it's tearing my life apart, too, but that's different because my life needs to be torn down. i need room to build something new, something i can fully own.

dang tangents. as i was saying: romance wreaking havoc. i am verimuch not looking forward to rearranging my values. why should any man have to choose between reason and emotion? where's the potential for integration here? it's a both-and!!

another theme of this transition period, and, i'm sure, of the following chapter as well: "life is messy." and it only gets worse and worse the more you strive. more and more complexity, more and more responsibility; more and more work to do. more kinds of work to do, even. more important work to do.

and this is what i asked Him for, isn't it? "tell me what to do. give me something to do. this is how isaiah can best love You: by being obedient. amen." such an admirable, naive prayer. what have i gotten myself into. i don't even know.

i don't even know.

things you do that infuriate me

2007-12-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

top three

#3. when you give up.

#2. when you don't care, and say so; or, when you do care, but think and say that you don't.

#1. when you decide or act or think or speak, without knowing why you're making that decision, performing that action, thinking that thought, or speaking those words.

identity philosophy

2007-11-28T00:22:00.000-08:00

"to do is to be" - Nietzsche

"to be is to do" - Kant

"do be do be do" - Sinatra

~ ~ ~

during my undergrad career, i was a student, and a Christian. for me, that meant that my primary purposes for living were 1) to grow as a theologian, and 2) to love people, particularly those who were in great need of sacrificial love.

now i feel released from both of those. i cannot simply love whoever needs to be loved, the way i used to. that would be inappropriate for a committed boyfriend (and unfair to Valerie). i would like to grow as a theologian, but because i have no tangible goal or purpose for such growth, i lack the motivation.

i ceased to be a songwriter when Andrew got married. i ceased to be a worship leader this past week when Cameron transferred those responsibilities to Danica and Glenda. i no longer lead Vizion, my laptop was stolen a few days ago, i haven't done any real web-work in months, and i have no job.

i'm just sitting here waiting. every once in awhile, i make a phone call or fill out an application or show up for a test or interview. i no longer know who i am because i was depending on my activities to define me.

well, now it's all up to me. no one's making decisions for me anymore. but it's circular, right? in order to decide who i am, i must make choices based on who i am. a non-person is incapable of making meaningful, right choices. a non-person may as well be a random number generator. but i'm not a non-person... it's just that i don't know what my personality is, or how to uncover it. if i am who i am, apart from whatever my uses or responsibilities or activities, then how can i discover the nature of that person? not by sitting around and enjoying myself. but what should i do instead? how can i know what to do unless i know who i am? but how can i know who i am unless i am doing something?

i feel disconnected from everything. i jump back and forth between homes; i can't put down roots. i'm welcomed wherever i go, which is great... but it sucks because if i belong everywhere, then there's nowhere i don't belong, and i have no boundaries anymore-- no way of defining myself.

i don't even know. i don't even know.

dear ghost-of-royalty

2007-11-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

we're more acquaintances now than close friends. but i still feel i can ask you this question, because you knew who i was when i still did.

not really sure when i started losing me. maybe it was senior year of college, when i realized that 1) i wasn't being called to vocational ministry, and 2) i was coming to the end of a road i hadn't understood when i chose it. i've said it before, and i'll say it again: that i don't regret my choice. but it's so strange, this limbo. i finished the last chapter, and now i know what the next chapter holds (hopefully, anyway). but who am i in the meantime? if you had to wait until the afterlife to find out whether you were 'saved' or not, how would you feel, if you found yourself waiting in purgatory?

i'm not waiting for good or bad. i'm waiting for me. but i can't wait. me is partly who i decide to be. i used to know who i was and what i was here for. now i feel useless.

i don't know why i'm alive right now.

back to normal

2007-11-25T01:14:00.001-08:00

today was unnaturally happy and peaceful. current events / circumstances are mixed, as always, so that can't explain my amazing mood today. maybe it's a result of my emotional outburst last night. i haven't cried that hard in... forever? never.

but now it's back to the same old angsty me. "what is afflicting me, and how can i fix my life, and why can't i just see the future so i can make perfect decisions?" makes sleeping difficult. hence my title tonight.

my next post will hopefully include a long list of all the ways in which my life is strange right now. things have not turned out any of the ways i imagined they might. (confession: i think i am lost. a perpetual new moon... and in the absence of my guide, artificial lights cast lots for my loyalty. in foolish defiance, i follow none of them, and end up nowhere. eff.)

i need Wisdom, and patience. and courage. pray for these for me?

sun-bathing?!

2007-11-05T09:29:00.000-08:00

this is a very odd time of day for me to be blogging.

this is a very time for me to be awake. dang time-changes and... i don't even know. it took me at least an hour to get to sleep last night, but i think i dozed off before 1am! and this morning i lay in bed for an extra hour after i woke up, and when i looked at the clock finally, it was 8:55a!

anxiety attacks, inexplicable urges to be outside, to stay away from my room, fear of the dark... what is that. who is that? last night i didn't even turn on my laptop before going to bed! and i felt better than i had the rest of the week. more at peace. it felt like peace was actually flowing into the room through my open window, maybe to make up for the emotional battles on nights preceding.

i've been feeling the changes in the story for months and months now. what i wasn't expecting was this: that i would become more dependent on people. this is backwards. i'm getting older. i'm supposed to be moving towards independence.

i keep telling myself i need a retreat, but i don't have the resources to take it. i do know that i've been enjoying the changes so far, except for this most recent. i think i'm losing my grip on something essential to my health, something at the core of my personality that's not supposed to change.

this is all wrong. i need to get out.

this is worship

2007-10-24T01:39:00.001-07:00

"because of all these things, friends, by God's mercy i urge you: give up your very bodies to be slain... and then reborn. recognize that you have been given a new, yet very ancient purpose; set yourselves apart and be once again declared good by God Himself. this is worship.

do not be like everyone else around you. instead: make new every habit, every thought pattern, your entire paradigm, and let that renewal change your whole life, completely. your goal in all of this is to know, intimately and with deep faith, what it is that God desires.

and what is it that He desires? know this: that there is nothing better."

- Romans 12:1-2 (IRV)

remember and return

2007-10-15T02:52:00.000-07:00

-- March 23, 2003, 12:10 a.m. --

Love is patient. Love waits for you to act, and doesn't become restless
or annoyed when the waiting gets long and tiring.

Love is kind. It goes out of its way to do something nice for someone, especially when it is inconvenient, or especially helpful.

Love is never jealous or envious. It doesn't birth a negative attitude towards someone who possesses something it desires.

Love is never boastful or proud. It will not describe its abilities or accomplishments in order to raise its own value; it will not refuse to see or acknowledge the truth in order to preserve its ego.

Love is never haughty; it does not act superior to others. Love is not selfish; it does not try to work all things for its own benefit. Love is not rude; it will not insult, put down, or discourage others, and it will not be discourteous to anyone for any reason.

Love does not demand its own way. It will make room for others, and be trampled willingly.

Love is not touchy or irritable. It is not easily angered, frustrated, or upset, and it is not grouchy.

Love does not hold grudges, and will hardly even notice when others do
it wrong. It will forgive trespassers; it will not retaliate or take revenge.

Love is not glad about injustice; it rejoices when the truth wins. It is not glad about unfair suffering; it is made glad when truth is revealed and made active.

Love is loyal no matter the cost. It will not abandon anyone or anything to the wear and tear of time, distance, or other difficult situations.

Love endures all. It is not moved by foul weather; it does not yield to apathy, fear, doubt, despair, or disappointment.

Love believes in, expects the best from, and defends those to whom it is given. It always trusts in the best, hopes in the greater good, and stands unmoving when danger threatens.

There are three things that endure: faith, hope, and love. The greatest, the most precious, the most worthy investment, the highest form of service, and the purest relationship, is love: true love. God's love.

Amen and amen.

Credits: C. S. Lewis

2007-10-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

i'm committed to an extreme for many reasons, some of which are known to me. one of the most obvious and powerful is probably my desire to be like God. i'll try to say and explain this without sounding arrogant, but i'll probably fail. just so you know.

the more i think about types and degrees of love, the more i realize how pathetic i am. we churchians say that God loves us more than (and in a better way than) we could ever love Him, and i agree with that... but why do we say it with smiles on our faces?! it's not a good thing!

what if your mom or dad told you one day, "as your parent, i want you to know that no matter how hard you try or how much you want to, you'll never love me as much as i love you. and it isn't just that you won't... it's that you're incapable. you just can't. ...oh yeah, and also: the kind of love i have for you will always be better than yours for me." or what if it were your spouse? what if you had already been married for ten years? what if it was your best friend? and what if they were right, and you knew it?

it's stupid. i'm so wretched. even as a person re-made to be perfect & complete in heaven, i won't be able to reciprocate God's love, either in quality or in quantity. and still He loves me. of course, i could pull a fast one and say that He wouldn't be God if all of this weren't true. but that doesn't make my life any easier to accept, and i'll tell you why:

i have this sense that any intimate, committed love should be reciprocal and equal. mutual, right? anyone feelin' me? okay. whether right or wrong, i have that sense. well, this may be possible for two humans... but does it bug anyone else that God will always outdo you? and since things are this way, how can the love be mutual? or perhaps i'm just frustrated that it can't be fair.

for God so loved the world, that He created them even though He knew that they could never love Him as much or as well as He would love them.... and that was BEFORE sin and the Fall.

i dunno. it just feels wrong... worshiping Him, seeking Him, obeying Him. compared to Jesus Christ, i am disgustingly selfish. i seek Him because i need Him; i obey Him so that my life can be right and good, and so that He can be pleased. that's not the same thing! i value the inherent Right-ness or Good-ness of something apart from what benefits i might gain from it, and i like to know that God is pleased with my life, but that's not the same as loving God. how can anyone say they love God? how is it possible? how can YOU say that, knowing how insignificant your love becomes when compared to His? i feel guilty saying it. i feel like a liar.

"if you love Me, obey My commandments." but since when did anyone obey Him just because they loved Him?

what's the worst feeling you've ever had in your life? seriously. think of it. anamnesis. REMEMBER what made you feel that way.

got it?

okay, now: if you felt that feeling every time you did something that pleased God, would you still live your life for Him?

what if God came to you right now and said, "listen: i'm going to give you a choice. you can either follow and love me, and live a life of suffering and unfulfilled dreams... or, you can forget about me and have a wonderfully fulfilling life."

He continues: "this is what happens in choice #1: your family grows to hate you, including your spouse and children; your church accuses you of a wrong you never committed and throws you out; you work hard for 19 years trying to achieve your career goals, but fail miserably and repeatedly; you become addicted to alcohol and marijuana, and spend the rest of your life fighting those addictions but never winning; you lose your temper one day and accidentally shoot your 8-year-old daughter in the eye, and she dies in your arms; you tirelessly study the Bible and do your best to bear the fruit of the Spirit and become Christ-like, but you never progress even one millimeter; ...and finally, at the end of your life, Jesus Christ approaches you and says, 'thank you for loving me in your heart, and for trying to love me with your life. you failed, but the love that you did have counts for something. well done.'"

...and then He says... "but this is what happens in choice #2: you raise wonderful, loving children, and your spouse remains faithful to you and passionately in love with you up until her death at 102 years old, which is also the day you die; you start your own church and bring hundreds to belief in and commitment to Christ; you conquer your bad habits and overcome your worst flaws; you understand the meaning of the Bible, and strive to do what it says, and many admire you (secretly) for your good works and virtuous character; every good dream you ever had, is realized in your life; your parents are proud of who you are and what you've done; ...and finally, when you're on your deathbed (next to your wife, just like in 'the Notebook'), you think back and realize, 'i did all of that for love of others, love of truth, love of right, love of good, love of myself even... and none of it out of genuine love for Jesus Christ.'"

think about those choices, and then pick one.

if you choose #1, and you know how you became the kind of person who could honestly, sincerely say that, then please contact me somehow and tell me how i can become that too.

dear illuminating-anchor

2007-10-04T00:40:00.000-07:00

it saddens me to think that if i didn't know what you were (a massive rock in orbit around our planet, reflecting light from the sun), i'd probably hate you.

i'd hate you because i wouldn't understand you. does that seem right to you?

children are curious, but they don't throw tantrums (tantra?) just because they don't know the answers. they just make up their own answers. like, maybe somewhere out there, a little girl thinks you really are a hole in the sky! or maybe i should mention the various people-groups throughout history who thought you were some sort of deity. they seemed to get by alright, despite being dead-wrong.

but i can't handle the idea of being wrong. it's actually a good thing i wasn't born before Galileo and all that lot, because i would've gone insane. but maybe i am anyways, so it doesn't matter.

been awhile since i've written, but you know how it goes. in fact, you've been around for alot of my life-changing moments, so you understand at least a little. that's good to know. that's a big reason why i keep writing you.

hopefully you'll hear from me again soon.

~ just a singer

decoding Christianese

2007-09-24T04:03:00.000-07:00

is tough, because i grew up in the culture. how does a fish explain what water is? chances are it's never not been in water. it probly doesn't even know water exists. awkward.

but thanks to my analytical, over-critical mind, and thanks also to a high-quality theological education at VUSC, and thanks lastly to my fallen anti-Christlike nature, i am now capable of looking at my faith from the outside.

this post's term to decode is spoken a little differently by each person, in each situation, but the core of it could be expressed like this: "rely on God's strength, not your own."

to this admonition the young, naive, devout Christian will probably respond, "ahh yes... what profound spiritual wisdom. i will do my best. Father, please help me to do this." but a more skeptical, questioning, annoying Christian will respond, "what the heck is that supposed to mean?" and if there is some combination of devout and critical, the response will probly be something like "teach me how, and i will."

fortunately (for all types of Christians), this phrase has biblical roots. i'll let you find them yourself, since you need to be studying anyway. try Proverbs, to start. anyway, its lofty origin makes it a trustworthy statement, as long as we decode it in some useful, practical way. here's how i did it:

i am in a constant war against myself. sometimes i win, sometimes i lose. recently i've been losing some critical battles, and it came to the point where my country was about to be completely overrun by barbarian hordes. first i tried just letting them loot, hoping they would leave. they didn't. then i tried fighting for the cause of freedom (for my country's inhabitants). that didn't work either. i tried giving my allegiance to a greater nation, one that could bolster my own forces. failed again. i even tried building huge walls... that one was probably the funniest attempt, since i ended up building gates in them. without locks.

a few days ago i thought to myself, "there has to be some solution. i can't keep living like this, letting the barbarians ravage my land, as well as the land of my neighboring countries. i need to protect myself and my loved ones. but i feel i've tried everything!"

the solution turned out to be a pretty simple one. i thought back to the first time i ever knowingly, willingly gave my allegiance to anyone/anything else. i was a freshman in highhomeschool, sitting alone one night, when i suddenly realized, "i can't do this alone. i need God." that's the first time i prayed to Him and actually knew Who i was addressing. and i said to Him, "i need You, and i will always need You, and right now, i promise to seek and serve You."

my oldest contract, and my strongest. it strengthened and weakened, back and forth over the years... but over time, as i grew more knowledgeable and more independent, i came to rely completely on myself. the old allegiance was completely forgotten, still binding, but out of sight and out of mind.

back to the present: i pulled it out the other day, and read the last line of the contract. it says, "Jesus Christ is LORD."

the oldest confession of the Christian church, spoken at a time when Caesar was considered Lord. and not just king, or ruler, but God Himself. when i think of the title "Lord," i think of the one who owns it all. i think of the one who always gets his way. i think of someone who is to be obeyed unquestioningly.

the first time i related to God, the first way in which i related to God, is wrapped up in that confession. Jesus Christ is LORD. He owns me. even if i completely reject Him, or forget Him, or ignore Him... in the end, He still owns me. in the end, i still bow.

that night as a 9th grader, i knew for certain that i needed to give Him my total allegiance. i knew i would lead a worthless, useless, pointless, foolish life, unless i became subservient to Him. i had never been more sure of anything in my entire life. i look back on it now and see that i was convicted of the truth; i didn't just realize it. it was branded on me, at the core of my being.

over the years i forgot. kind of like Israel. i'm... i don't have a strong enough word. i would tear my clothes and put ashes on my head if that were my culture. i'm distraught, or horrified, or dejected, or ashamed, or intensely sorry... all those things. i feel so bad that it took this much ruin for me to finally choose redemption, to finally return to that initial promise i made, but i'm glad that it happened, and so far i've found that it's the only claim on me that beats everything else. it's the trump card; it's my M.O. i've tried everything else, and failed every time. Jesus' LORDship is the only allegiance i care about, enough to continually deny myself.

so every time the barbarians attack, i say, out loud: "Jesus Christ is LORD."

sometimes the barbarians retreat, and i feel a sense of peace. sometimes i feel nothing. sometimes they continue beating at the walls. sometimes they scream obscenities and hurl corpses over the walls, reminding me of all their victories, blaming me for the deaths of my subjects and my friends. sometimes, instead of fighting, they send forth their diplomats and public speakers to make persuasive arguments; they tell me they've already won, or that they have a right to enter my domain, or that the simple act of acknowledging their presence has already compromised my kingdom's safety. sometimes they tell me that if i just send all my kingdom's treasures out through the gate, they'll depart quietly and never tell anyone of my defeat.

regardless of whatever else happens... every time so far, my spoken allegiance to the only rightful ruler has kept me from failing. please understand this: my love for Valerie has proven insufficient. my stubborn strong will (no one is more stubborn than me) has proven insufficient. my fear of consequences has proven insufficient. my desire for a virtuous character; my friends' support and encouragement; my parents' constant prayers for me; my lofty goals in life... all insufficient.

~ ~ ~

for me, right now, to rely on God's strength is to know without a doubt that He is LORD over me. i have to add those last two words to the ancient Christian confession because if He is simply LORD, then i can still defy/disobey Him and not care. for some reason, that initial promise i made has survived brutal raids and countless defeats. i am His, and no one else's... not even my own. He tells me what to do. if there is anyone to give allegiance to, it's God: the One Who will never force you to give it, the One Who deserves it most, the only One Who can be trusted with it.

again, but put differently: to rely on God's strength is to be obedient to Him, regardless of your feelings, thoughts, situations, or any other convictions or loyalties. when i say it out loud, i realize (even or especially when i don't want to realize!) that no matter who i think i am, or what i think i can do or get away with, He is simply, unquestionably, eternally, independently, uncompromisingly LORD.

hear me clearly: as a Christian, you cannot give your allegiance to your family. you can serve them, but serve Christ first, and then your family. neither can you serve yourself, unless you are foolish enough to think yourself an autokrator. you cannot be His subject on some days, but not others; obviously you can disobey Him, but if you're a Christian, you disobey Him as His subject. there's no trial period, no 2-year-plan option, no free night minutes. if you give yourself to Him, you are His. period. no qualifications, no provisos, no fine print.

how did this become a sermon? crap...

well. just pretend i'm preaching it to myself. because really, that's exactly what i'm doing.

unbelievable

2007-09-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

i know what comes next.

they say there's that rut in the road immediately following graduation, which some people use as a springboard to the rest of their lives, while others get stuck in the mud and spin their wheels for awhile. i'm one of the latter. i probably earned it for myself by way of laziness and other character flaws-- i've spent enough blogtime on those already-- but, strangely, i no longer feel the need to dwell on those. i guess i have more important things to think about.

"what things?"

oh, you know... plans... for the future...

"what plans? i thought you had no clue."

well, see, that was true for a long time, and i called that long time a 'transition phase'... which is not only strange but comical as well, since a transition phase only comes before some 'next phase,' and since i didn't know what that 'next phase' was, i had no right to assume such a thing even existed. =D

but now that i've discovered / decided my future, i do have that right, and i intend to take full advantage of it.

~ ~ ~

Valerie~

part of the tension i feel about deciding how much time to spend in so-Cal this next trip, comes from the feeling that i owe myself to this phase. i have responsibilities at church, relationships with family members, friendships with people here-- friendships i've waited 3 years (@ VUSC) to return to.

but now i see how i've set myself up. i so looked forward to coming home that i never looked past it. there were other reasons for my short-sightedness as well, of course, but this one is particularly significant now. i had subconsciously resigned myself to the idea of being 'in-between' in life, and my over-developed sense of responsibility (to many people, ideals, etc.) guilt-tripped me for staying put. but i had nowhere else to go! volunteering at church was a mistake, in that regard, because i may have taken that opportunity not just to serve others, but to avoid an uncertain future.

my personality is such that i refuse to move forward until i know where i am going. but, just as in our relationship, i needed to take a few steps forward before discovering my destination. that first one-on-one conversation with your dad was my chance to wake up and realize where my life had gone. i hadn't even realized it until he asked me. i know what my destination is.

of course, i couldn't have known until after you cast your spell on me. enchanté, indeed... i should have defined it more fully for you, on the phone last night.

1 : to influence by or as if by charms and incantation : BEWITCH
2 : to attract and move deeply : rouse to ecstatic admiration <"enchanted her to the point of tears" -- Elinor Wylie>

so now i have been moved, and now i can move forward of my own volition. and i have decided to move towards... well. you know. ;)

but getting back to the point of this blog: the realization that inspired me to write, has very simply to do with the fact that i'm almost done transitioning. the inner struggles, and even the relational struggles, that characterize my life right now make even more sense, when i think of it this way. i shouldn't be surprised; life has always made more sense to me when i've thought of it as a story.

the tension is this: i feel a responsibility to my life here, especially after waiting so long to return to it. but now, with you, and because of you, and for you, i feel other motivations and goals pulling me away again, and that sort of tension gives me pause when i pull up my calendar and weigh all of my options. don't get me wrong, i want to move on! i want... my future. ours. it's just that i have only just finished settling into this rut, and it will take some time and some contemplation on my part before i'm fully ready to leave again, despite the fact that i never wanted to be in a rut in the first place, and despite the fact that i've been suffering a very sullen, pitiful state of discontent with regard to my uncertainty concerning the future. aside from those negative conditions, i sort of like it here, being provided for by my parents, and being with friends and family, and having plenty of time for dark brooding, and being justified in that brooding... or so i mistakenly thought.

but as i said: i'm being pushed & pulled forward. i can't stay here. i don't even want to stay here. not when it comes down to decisions. i want to keep moving.

you came to me at just the right time, too. right when i needed you most. i should probably add that fortune to your magic box. you don't mind having 122, do you?

it's difficult to be my usual depressed self, right now... i guess i now look forward to you in a much fuller, even a much brighter way. but perhaps the best adjective would be 'unhindered.' so when you say, 'i look forward to...', i can respond not by criticizing your optimism, but by sharing in it. unhindered.

talk to you tonight.

Love
isaiah

ten'oio'mellon'amin

2007-09-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

Kejalo~

i hope you're still subscribed... i suppose i could check, couldn't i? i am still deciding whether i would be hurt, if i found that you had decided to stop caring about me and my life. i think i would be more disappointed than anything else, not that i expect you to care about me, but i do very much expect you to care about other people. (of course, when i say i expect it, i say that as someone who knows you, not as a parent or even as a peer.) i suspect that aspect of your personality will never change, but will only be strengthened and sharpened as life goes on.

your recent dream, significantly more pleasant than you would've expected (at least at first glance), has caught me by surprise: firstly because it breaks the pattern we've conversed about before, and secondly because this brightening of the situation didn't encourage you at all. can you find nothing positive about the fact that your heart is healing? or at least that your memory has seemingly realized the danger of poisoning itself repeatedly.

i've been living with a paradox lately (surprise surprise). i seem to be learning how to be depressed, and through that, learning how not to be. it makes sense because i understand that certain things can only be conquered by being embraced and accepted, rather than fought; but at the same time, i have to wonder how it's possible. and now i'm hoping that it's possible for others besides myself.

i may have made the mistake of thinking that i could help you become yourself. if i was mistaken, i wasn't entirely mistaken; all of our life experiences can be our good and wise teachers, if we wisely reflect on them. the mistake may have been trying to teach someone who learns best on lor own. maybe i am more of a rest-stop than a GPS device.

i have a request. it is not advice, although i hope you take it to heart. it is not a correction or a judgment of your character, of your choices, or of your personality; if anything, it's an admission of my own. i don't expect you to grant it, and i'm not the hopeful or optimistic type, but i would lack integrity if i didn't make the request at all.

please don't hold a grudge against me for any of my failures with regard to our friendship, whether they were mistakes or shortcomings on my part. i am not entirely sure what to ask forgiveness for, but every time i think of you, i wonder if you have any hatred left for the 1,000 miles between us.

genuinely,
isjami

dear supernatural night-light

2007-08-29T00:40:00.001-07:00

i've just finished saying goodnight to you, face-to-face, but you peek in through my window... just like a good stalker should. you're my role-model in more ways than one, i suppose. i admire you because you're content solitude and silence. when it isn't your turn to shine, you vanish, unless someone's looking very carefully for you, in which case you don't mind showing just a little of yourself. and, i love how you are too restless to ever be still, yet so at peace that you never deviate from the paths and patterns chosen for you by your maker. i like that you don't show your dark side to people, even though i can't live that way anymore.

speaking of me (this is my journal, after all)... right now i'm reflecting on one of the best advantages of being a child. the cool thing about being a child, is that it's perfectly okay, and even expected, for you to live a self-centered life. i mean, you have to share with peers and obey parents and stuff, but when it comes down to the things you are responsible for, the things you worry about, the things that motivate you to live, to simply be alive-- it's all about yourself!

as long as your needs are met (which is not only your own primary concern, but the concern of those around you as well, which is nice), you are free to simply enjoy the world. the big questions that have to deal with daily are, "what game should i play? who would be the most fun to play with? how do caterpillars turn into butterflies? i wonder if there are any frosted cherry pop-tarts left... when's Mom coming home so we can watch Toy Story together?" i mean, seriously! that's the life! that's probly why kids are so amazingly creative. they don't have to worry about stuff, so their brains are free to wander in between reality and surreality.

but when you grow up, that gets crowded out by the analytical. it gets crowded out by the demands placed upon you by society, family, friends, a boss, a teacher, a lover. maybe your own ideals make demands of you, so that you are your own creativity's own worst enemy.

on the other hand, you still have a need to be set free once in awhile. for the sake of your own health (upon which most other things in your life depend), you still need time to simply enjoy life, enjoy yourself, focus on just yourself. we're designed that way, right? so now it's this tension between genuine, perfectly valid cares concerning the real world around you... between that, and your own imagination / freedom. and it can't be integration, because how can you dream and worry at the same time? no; sorry, Rybarczyk. it has to be balance this time. they are pitted against one another, worries and imagination.

~ ~ ~

imagination was my life once. as a kid, i had the internal freedom i needed to enjoy school, enjoy daydreaming, enjoy whatever. now my concerns rule me, and in their self-righteousness they will not be diminished by some carnal, selfish need, even if it is the need to just dream. my world demands my attention; to ignore it, even for a moment, would be irresponsible. i cannot, even for a few seconds, leave my own castle. and everywhere within it, court officials and needy petitioners follow me like shadows. noisy shadows. suffocating shadows.

i enjoy sleep and singing so much, because they are my only escape. even my greatest joy, my most intense, intimate relationship, is not free of worry; if anything, it is the issue most in need of my attention. it creates new concerns, new worries, new pressures and demands and stressors. concern crowds out joy, limits freedom, stifles imagination, keeps my soul from breathing deeply. except when i'm asleep or singing, i'm running at a grueling pace... or i'm thinking about the fact that i should be, which is just as tiring.

someday i'll relax, perhaps. but only when my world no longer needs me to rule.

i would gladly throw my crown at the feet of some worthier ruler.

ruin

2007-08-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

i've killed more than you know. 'maimed' is a good word; i'm glad you thought of it. but really, it still isn't strong enough. what's in between 'maimed' and 'murdered' on the bodily damage scale?

i am not just making new plans, because of you. i'm giving up plans. i'm changing plans. i'm actually sacrificing a huge chunk of my life, a very profound part of who i am, for you. or maybe i'm just redirecting and focusing it in to a more exclusive area. i'm neither boasting nor asking for recognition or appreciation; i just need to blog this. i need to speak it into existence, so it's more real to me.

i'm giving up potential friendships, and the good that could come of them. in my life these past several years, what have i valued more? what have i invested more in?

the post's name is 'ruin' rather than 'sacrifice' because the sacrifice doesn't bother me nearly as much. the ruin: that's my own, and none of your doing. i alone am the reason certain people will never get to enjoy me or benefit from me as much as they might have.

paradox of values

2007-07-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

in my experience, the word 'dependence' or 'dependent' almost always has negative connotations. we want to be independent. we want to be powerful enough, wise enough, to go it alone. we want to be self-sufficient, and we spend our entire lives working towards that goal. we want to be financially independent, and socially independent (from our parents, at least).

i want to break down that stigma and reveal one of society's lies. independence may be inherently good, in many cases, but dependence is not inherently bad.

children are dependent. so are employees. how about animals? some creatures depend on other creatures which are entirely different from them. most living creatures depend on air, water, food, protection of some kind...

what gets me is that i seem to be emotionally dependent on things/people. if i had three wishes, i'd use one of them to become emotionally independent. then i might even be able to choose what i'm feeling whenever i want! i could still let myself be affected by things, but i'd have final say in those experiences.

children, employees, animals... these are good examples of dependence. but here's the one i first thought of, and it's probably the strongest: spouses. any husband or wife with a healthy marriage relationship is very dependent on lor spouse, and only becomes more so as time carries the relationship onward! the stronger their relationship is, the more they depend on each other.

that baffles me. as messed up as the world is, i don't think anyone would say "marriage is inherently bad/evil." and yet marriage is the epitome of dependence, and the world definitely seems to be advocating independence!

we do it in dating relationships as well. in fact, some people get into those relationships because they are already dependent people! we would all frown upon this (stigma), and yet we acknowledge the fact that healthy romantic intimate committed exclusive relationships constantly foster dependence between the two lovers!

my parents just recently celebrated their 25th anniversary. imagine if my mother died tomorrow. due to their strong, enduring marriage, Dad would have an emotional breakdown.

i know marriage has many inherent risks and dangers, but that's just wild. here's a translation of what people are really saying when they make their vows at the altar:

"i now pledge to you my whole life, such that if you die, so do i."

now, friends, don't get all fussy; i'm only slightly exaggerating. some of you know the deep, excruciatingly painful void of losing a loved one. imagine being married to that someone who dies.

last night i was lamenting my emotional dependence. i experienced a deep depression, not new to me, and finally identified the source (with some help from C. S. Lewis' the Four Loves). this morning i was considering writing it off as a heart palpitation (basically a mild electrical malfunction). but now, i have to admit that, considering my circumstances and recent life-adventures, that depression was very understandable.

on the one hand, that sucks, because it means i have to accept them instead of fight them. (i know i'll have more in the future.) on the other hand, it's great, because it means i don't have to fight them. (i know i'd almost always lose.)

~ ~ ~

the trick, then, is not to find a balance between solitude and socializing, but rather to find a balance between dependence and independence. they're similar, but not exactly the same. oh; forgive me, i should rephrase. i need to find a way to integrate my independent aspects with my dependent aspects, so that i can live life as one whole person, rather than as many different parts of a person.

EDIT: didn't C. S. Lewis say something about becoming invulnerable to pain by refusing to ever love or be loved?

complete selflessness is suicide

2007-07-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

a long while ago, i reflected on the fact that i need to be needed. some friends and commenters agreed with me, saying that one of their greatest needs in life was to be needed by others.

recently i've been developing a more frequent habit of preparing myself for loss. i do this by asking myself this question: "self, are you mentally and emotionally prepared to lose this?" in other words, am i ready to accept the disappointment of losing what i value so much? am i ready to fail? am i ready for defeat? am i ready to be let down?

i've found that being prepared for the worst is a very great en-courage-ment for me. as long as i remain afraid of the future, i will approach it timidly and carefully, or i'll not approach it at all (which is worse, in many cases). but if i imagine myself there at the end of a thing, with nothing to show for my efforts except wasted energy and wasted hopes, then i can embrace that future and move forward confidently.

tonight i realized that i fear something other than failure. for a few years now i've had only that one fear, as far as i knew... but honestly, there's something else that scares me. here it is, in question form: what if, one day, i am no longer needed or wanted, by anything or anyone?

that scares me because i'm selfless. selflessness, it turns out, can be very selfish, because what if you're only being selfless for your own sake? what if you value others over yourself, only for the sense of fulfillment you gain from loving for them?

so now i have to ask myself, "are you prepared to be alone and forgotten?" am i ready to live a life that is never missed?

my initial answer, of course, is absolutely not. i want intimacy. as anti-social and solitary as i can be sometimes, i cannot deny my need for relationship. apparently, i also have a need to be needed. this bothers me alot, because it makes me dependent on others for my social well-being.

'well, duh, ij... how can you be socially well without others?'

i'm not really sure. i've always been a very independent person, and i've always liked that about me. but now i find out how dependent i actually am, and it bothers me. alot. i need other people to want me around, in order for me to be happy.

isn't that sucky? doesn't that mean i'm emotionally unstable, if i depend on other people for my own happiness? put another way, this means that whether i'm depressed or not depends on whether anyone cares that i am. and whether or not they express that to me.

let's make things more complicated: even though i want others to want me around, i tend not to believe anyone when they say they miss me. why should anyone miss me? they have plenty of other friends. they have hobbies. they have lives! by contrast: today i did nothing but eat, sleep, take Benadryl, check my e-mail, and wander aimlessly around the house.

at this point, some might say to me, 'well no wonder you feel depressed!' and then i would have to point out that i've just spent two weeks with close friends and lots to do. one would think i'd appreciate some rest and plenty of nothing to do... but nooo. as soon as i'm alone and without any responsibilities, my mood plummets. WHAT THE HECK.

i don't understand myself anymore. i feel like one of those in-between species, one of those missing links that supposedly died out, due to their unfit-ness for survival. i used to be a contented loner, but then i started evolving into a socialite, but i never quite finished the transformation, so now i'm stuck in transition with the worst of both worlds!!

i say i love to be alone, but i'm miserable without others.
i say i'm miserable without others, but i don't want to be with anyone.
i say i don't want to be with anyone, but i want everyone else to want to be with me.
i say i want everyone else to want to be with me, but i'm annoyed when they interrupt my solitude.
i say i'm annoyed when they interrupt my solitude, but i'm sad when nobody does.

something is very, very wrong with me.

back on topic, though. here's the reason why selflessness is suicide: if you only care about others, then you will end up only caring about yourself when other people do. if you enjoy satisfying others, then really you're just satisfying yourself. if you end up not caring about yourself, you won't want to satisfy yourself, in which case you won't care about others anymore, either.

finally, you'll discover that you are the only one you cared about to begin with, but since there's no satisfaction in that, you'll stop caring about yourself. and then you'll be completely apathetic. apathy leads to stasis, and stasis in this world is beset by entropy.

then you'll die.

EDIT: a year ago, i wrote a blog post about loneliness. here's a quote from it: "during those times when no one needs me, i feel that that's when i need others the most."

orthopathy

2007-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

that's fascinating. it apparently has two very different meanings. lost in translation? or perhaps found. i think i like that better.

i have this theory: if i never reflected on my feelings-- that is, if i never made an effort to be aware of and identify my emotions-- then they would have complete control over me. but because i am aware of them, i have many battles to fight. so i have this choice: to surrender and save myself the effort of a battle i must repeat daily, a battle i must often lose; or to fight it and hopefully learn something of the art of war.

a pretty simple, and actually, a pretty easy choice for me. but it seems i'm not learning very much. someone send me (or write me! you know who you are) a book on understanding the human heart.

i wonder if some cranky people are simply surrendered people. maybe they're cranky because they feel bad for an unknown reason. i know that'd make me cranky... even if i didn't know that i didn't know i was feeling something i didn't understand, i would still be affected by it. emotions are right there next to our consciousness, and sometimes hiding behind it.

so many of the interpersonal conflicts in my life could have been quickly resolved, or even prevented entirely, if both parties involved had started out with a clear understanding of what they were feeling, and why, and how it was affecting them. so many of my own conflicts in general, could be solved or prevented that way. i could live a much healthier life than i am living now.

sleep is important; i know that. music and especially singing are important. moon-bathing, which probably has to do with some kind of need for beauty, or perhaps a need for something transcendent. being with people is important, and being by myself is important. being awake at night is important, for some reason; i haven't quite figured that one out yet, beyond what i've already said about beauty and being alone. love is important, but it complicates everything, so instead of two armies facing off and taking turns firing, they're using guerrilla warfare and high-tech weaponry and all kinds of crazy Sun-Tzu tactics. i've learned prayer is important, even if i don't believe it will change anything externally.

maybe i have learned some things after all.

but it isn't enough. i need to understand it more. i need to, in order to live life better.

the cost of a change of heart

2007-06-26T00:35:00.001-07:00

conflicts make me stronger and wiser. and older... i had thought that leaving VU would mean leaving behind my opportunities for growth. but these new challenges of life are exactly what i need at this stage. i can feel my confidence growing-- not concerning anything in particular, but overall. even though struggles make me exhausted, or hurting, or even afraid (a rare experience in my story), i value them when i've come through to the other side.

it's always been this way. Llaura's the best example. i guess i just wasn't expecting it to continue.

God help me become me... amen...

the deep

2007-06-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

this is just ridiculous. i'm tired of trying to figure myself out. every time i think i've made progress, my newfound understanding is over-turned-inside-out and i have to once again admit that i have no clue how my heart works.

emotions are supposed to have causes. i am supposed to be sad only when something sad happens to me! i'm supposed to be happy when life-circumstances are great, satisfied when someone fulfills me, angry when my friends are mistreated. instead i find myself provoked to any of a dozen dozen emotions, seemingly at random each time, as if i'm rolling a 144-sided die. and only ten or so are identifiable.

in many cultures, especially in the ancient past, the ocean has been a symbol of chaos and unpredictability. as a whole, it was literally 'unfathomable;' no one knew what was down there because no one could go there. that's how i feel about me. i can't hold my breath long enough to explore the most interesting, dangerous canyons; there is no light; i can't even swim better than a 4-year-old who's just learned how, let alone map the sea bed a mile or two down.

i can't live very efficiently this way. i really hope life never requires of me the wisdom i thirst for so much.

still learning to breathe

2007-06-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

i would expect me to understand how this process works, but maybe being around computers so long has ruined me. shouldn't i be able to simply call up a memory, and have it displayed before my mind in clear, complete, intelligible format? and shouldn't it be that my mind is ruled by NTFS and GIGO rather than ruined by selfish motives, subconscious schemata, and whatever unique circumstances are applicable to me at the moment of recall?

example: when waking up from an accidental 8p-11p nap, one should not have to suppress feelings of jealousy. hey... come to think of it, that's the second time this past week! what is wrong with me?

my personal self-scan reminds me that evening naps are a bad idea, almost invariably. it also reminds me that i can very quickly become used to a routine... or forget it completely, if it ceases. but the transition is fast, not necessarily painless. and then there are those expectations that i have come to expect, in the sense that i form them without even knowing that i do so.

sometimes my memory serves alright, though, especially if it has this blog to help from time to time.

perhaps it's a healthy thing sometimes, this jealousy. maybe in small doses? theoretically it could be used to sharpen my affection for you. i realize that sounds strange, using one emotion with bad connotations to manipulate another that people generally think of as positive, but it makes sense to me. like some sharp-edged implement of murder being used to dice the onions for a tasty dinner.

i'm learning some things all over again, and other things for the first time; and some things i'm trying desperately to un-learn. one of the hardest parts of all this, is trying to figure out what life has me majoring in, and how to go about choosing courses and doing well in them.

i guess some people would call me naturally romantic, and others might even describe me as Lllloving; but life (my perception of it, at least; and whose else should i be using??) has been describing me as flawed lately. in fact, i'd say that theme has become more prominent in this chapter of my story. amazing! i didn't think it possible.

no, i take that back. it isn't that i'm just now learning how flawed i am. it's that i'm just now beginning to see my flaws with some degree of accuracy. before, i magnified the few that i knew about, and made up several more in my head; now, i'm being overwhelmed by many (they're looking at me, now, instead of the other way 'round), and discarding my ideas about some that don't truly exist. it's a tough job, and no one can do it except...

...well, that's interesting. the answer is me, as usual, but with the additional whomever i form intimate relationships with.

*deep, satisfied breath*

and that realization quite nicely ties together two of this chapter's uniquely prominent themes: my flaws and the restoration of my will to love.

why the moon is dark sometimes

2007-06-13T03:44:00.000-07:00

because reflection becomes very tiring after 28 days.

10x as me

2007-05-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

i'm having one of those evenings where everything is 10x as real, and my critical filters are all failing. like light-bulbs dying. and then you have to break out all the candles, and for some reason they make you feel a certain way, even though they're just little pieces of string burning wax.

i'm vulnerable to beauty, to the bliss of being alone and lonely, to whatever desire or thought that presents itself to me. it's a rare opportunity for me when i can stop thinking, and just feel... when i can stop analyzing what's happened, stop preparing for what's going to happen, and just be present. i almost never choose these moments. they pick me up and toss me wherever, like i'm a little sailboat in a storm that has a purpose behind its chaos.

i'm 10x as me in these moments.

congradulations

2007-04-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

from: Rachel Micu
to: Isaiah Micu

Isaiah,

Thanks for the note. It's nice to know for sure that you made it back safely. I am sorry about your laundry. Is it possible that it could turn up? Maybe you left it at Vanguard instead of in Bakersfield? If not, I'll budget for some new clothes for you. You only have to get through a few more weeks so maybe you can make it on what you have until you some home for the summer? If not let me know. I don't know if that shoe money is quite enough to cover what you need. I mean, do you have undies and stuff?

Your grandma called last night to ask when you were graduating. She was excited about going to your graduation. Dad had a heck of a time explaining that you weren't participating in the ceremony. Grandma loves pomp and circumstance so much that it just wasn't computing for her. I don't mean to be base, but you might consider an informal BBQ over here to celebrate the occasion because I know all the aunts, uncles, and grandparents would show their usual generosity. The truth is, they would love to have that opportunity and I wouldn't mind giving it to them. I hope you can receive that comment in the way it is meant and aren't offended.

Tell your friend Ecclesia that it was our pleasure to have her here and she is welcome any time. I only wish we had a suitable guest room for your friends.

Okay hon. That's all for now. I'm proud of you and pray for you regularly.

Mumsy

from: Isaiah Micu
to: Rachel Micu

Mom,

i've just received a $144 paycheck. some of it is already spent, but i think the shoe money plus the leftovers from this check will be enough for now. i'll let you know. =)

i'm not willing to participate in any event, formal or informal, that celebrates everything i could have accomplished, but didn't. if the hard work of other students merits the applause of the VU community and the congratulations of family/friends, then i have just barely earned my diploma, and nothing more than that. i realize that most of the family doesn't know how hard i haven't worked, and that's just something i'll have to deal with.

academically, socially, and spiritually, i consider these last three years a gift; i have merely received it. if there's anything to celebrate, it's all of the generosity that's made it possible for me to live this blessed life. congratulations to anyone who didn't give up on me; they are to be applauded.

i will make sure to thank each person from whom i have received grace. this will mostly be done in private, so that the focus is on those being thanked, rather than on the person doing the thanking. if anyone would like to congratulate me, they are welcome to do so in private. i will do my best to be courteous.

thanks Mom. =)

Love,
isaiah

oh

2007-04-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

i think i'm having trouble accepting that i'm not the person i expected myself to be.

all this semester, i've been getting used to it, bit by bit. i started getting used to my laziness; my conscience kept poking me, but somehow i shrugged it off, and thought of my situation as 'the way things are.'

and now i realize how far gone i am. it's scary. i don't like it. all the times my conscience called and left a message (i'm mostly away from my phone these days), those messages all burst out of the box i was keeping them in, and piled on top of me, last night & today. i couldn't handle it.

so really i have two choices set before me, now. i have to choose whether or not to accept who i am, and i have to choose whether to change it or not.

nap first.

guest blogger: identity thief

2007-04-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

greetings to all of you who call isjami your friend.

i need to start by saying that i'm very fortunate to be here. in my line of work, i can't be very choosy; circumstances are such that i have to take whatever opportunities present themselves. it just so happens that i've stumbled upon the life of quite a passionate person, and that is always a pleasant surprise for me, as this type is becoming more and more scarce.

please forgive the abruptness of my introduction. i realize none of you expected his identity to be stolen, but surely you can understand my situation? i can't exactly make an appointment. it has to be a subtle, gradual project, especially with these introspective types... always examining themselves to make sure everything's in order. it's such a pain getting in. but it was certainly worth it! you all are so interesting, so trusting, so forgiving, so generous, so fun, so enjoyable... i almost feel sorry for him, losing all of this.

that's how it goes, i suppose. he should've kept a closer eye on himself, should've asked for help earlier on. it's too late now. what is it, four weeks until graduation? =D sorry to brag, but i just have such good timing! you have to wait until it's just about too late to turn back, but still early enough to drag everything out. this is that time: by the end of the semester, i will have established myself firmly enough so as to be irredeemable, and yet four weeks is plenty of time for me to suck the last few drops of life out of him. that's why you sieze your victim while his heart is still beating. it makes things so much easier.

it really is a blessed life. intriguing relationships, all of them, and so much to learn by just observing everything. i hardly have to do any work at all! (that's my whole life-goal, of course, which makes it a necessity, but it's particularly simple in this case. he practically welcomed me with open arms.) i have good food, a comfy bed, some interesting classes, hobbies to enjoy... but most importantly, people who love me unconditionally. that's how parasites thrive, by the way. i feel safe sharing the secret with you, because i know you can't hurt me. after all, i'm your friend now, and you could never betray him. aren't i despicable? =)

life's not without it's difficulties, though, even for me. there's still this last shred of conscience that stubbornly clings to life, as if it has some hope to hold on to. what is it about you humans that makes you so prone to denial? do you have no grasp of reality? perhaps the epistemological faculties with which God has gifted you are inadequate to the task of living to the full. that's fine by me, of course, but i still have to wonder: why do you resist the inevitable? why do you insist on being what you are not, especially when you have only arrived at where you are by your own foolish decisions?

well. life's difficulties, and life's limitations... sleep is calling this body away, and i'm not sure the heart-mind can last much longer under this stress, either. quite understandable. identity theft is no trivial experience, no mild headache that one can ignore. not even isaiah, as iron-clad as he is, with his so-called 'free will.' a truly strong-willed person would have resisted me, instead of inviting me to dinner.

such is the nature of folly, and for all his natural talents and commitments and passions, he is truly a fool.

well. i hope to get to know all of you better in the future. i look forward to taking advantage of the grace which God pours out through people like you, and yes, i know you'll support him no matter what. that's what makes me so happy about my new home! i have security now, knowing he hasn't the power to kick me out. and you certainly can't do anything, except love him-- me, really-- without regard for what he does or who he becomes.

Love is a wonderful thing.

Plato's cave

2007-03-23T02:53:00.000-07:00

tonight i care about others much less than usual. i feel like releasing myself from the responsibilities i took on years ago; if i'm Atlas, i feel like tossing the earth into oblivion. (hopefully it lands in a happy place.)

lately, i've been sacrificing myself for others much less often, and that's one change that truly bothers me, even as i revel in the freedom of it. i think i can get used to the extra energy, the easy laughter, the active social life. ironic, of course, since i'll be leaving these wonderful people in 6 short weeks... but the point is, i can accept these changes going on.

most of them.

as fun as this bright-sunny chapter is, something at my core is begging me to return to the comforting darkness of my cave, where i can be me again, lonely but unhindered in my inward search for understanding.

perhaps i'll find a way to visit there for awhile.

dear hole-in-the-sky

2007-03-09T04:46:00.000-08:00

this isn't how life is supposed to be; thus, this post will have a different timbre than my usual. hmm... maybe a dash of humor thrown in...

i dunno. as cliche or cheesy at it may be, it just feels like i should be doin' a little sum'n sum'n like,

dear journal:

we've known each other for a long time. 9th grade, right? alot's happened since then, especially here at VU. now, i don't want you to take this the wrong way, but i've got to say it: my life is changing, in such a way that you and i just aren't as perfect for each other as we used to be.

i'm sorry. this is hard for me, too, but... don't be surprised if things become dry between us, in this next chapter. you know me: i'm the kind of guy who's most productive when he's miserable. pain and suffering and dark reflections are my creative catalysts. poetry and song and epiphanies emerge from storms and tribulations, whether of my own making or of external origins.

lately, i'm just overwhelmed with happiness.

yes, i'm off-balance; yes, i'm uncomfortable; yes, i'm breaking some of my own rules. but it is more of a hermit-crab thing and less of a rebellious-teen thing. you understand, right?

anyway, i've got to go before anyone catches me writing to you. i'll write again soon, though.

yeah... actually, that works well, because if i feel like i'm distancing from my contemplative self, then i should be writing letters to it, as if it just moved away to a different city. that way, i'm still journaling with integrity, even though 1) i'm a different person and 2) i'm writing to rather than through.

=)

but it shouldn't be 'dear journal,' because every journal is named 'journal.' so it has to be something else. hmm... something that speaks to that 'dark reflections' phrase i used... and, it would be cool if i could use a different name for it every time, to show how familiar i am with it, and yet distant, since i never call it by its real name.

...ahh. that's it.

moon-bathing

2007-03-03T06:04:00.000-08:00

hey! that's the name of this blog!

i'm not settling for an unoriginal title, i swar (as Caleb and i are wont to do from time to time). it's just that tonight, i actually did it, for the first time in quite awhile. i took my Mexico blanket to the baseball field and got a nice moon-tan. loved it.

tonight i realized all over again the importance of rarity.

one of the greatest things about moon-bathing, is that i don't do it very often. that's what makes it special. simple enough concept, right? familiar to all of you, i'm assuming. the less often you enjoy something, the more you enjoy it. this is generally true... i'm sure there are exceptions. but like i said, i want to talk about rarity tonight, because i've realized how important it is to me.

it lengthens the life-spans of things.
it intensifies experiences... like anticipation. are they cousins?
it ensures that any attached meaning, remains attached.
it prevents stomach-aches... "use sparingly"
makes sure certain things don't define us too much.
it keeps particular aspects of life from becoming flat.

for example, a friend asked me once if i like hugs. i said, "yup, i love them. i think two per year would be the perfect amount." in contrast, her preference was about 10 per day. i would probably suffocate.

i answered "2/year" with local friends in mind. when i come home to Fresyes from VU, i get hugs all over the place-- from people i haven't seen in weeks. so the hugs are still rare. my answer wasn't a rule that i have to follow, or else i get tired of hugs. it was an expression of one of my values: rarity. i need rarity in my life. i need it to be that i don't hug any given person every single day. that's what keeps me loving hugs.

rarity heightens experiences. i don't understand how certain peeps around here (i won't name names... Michelly...) can go to Disneyland a few times every month! sometimes weekly! it baffles me. "doesn't it get old??" i ask. sometimes they reply, "well, it becomes more of a place to hang out, than some exciting amazing experience that you look back on."

"interesting," i reply. i wonder what would happen to me, as a healthy soul-body-heart-mind individual, if i took all of my most intense, memorable experiences, and re-lived them three times a month for the rest of my life.

we treasure things that have unique meanings attached. that's why Mandy Shepherd keeps a napkin (and other various mundane items) on her wall. they aren't amazing works of aesthetic excellence... they're sentimental thingies. i don't keep sentimental thingies on my wall, but i definitely keep them in my heart/mind! i don't ever want to forget the one time (as rare as it can get!) when i drank one of those Big Gulps from 7-11, on the 10-hour drive from Mexico back to Clovis... i'm such an idiot! =D or the one time Nathan White and i noticed an upside-down "T" on an EXIT sign, and couldn't figure out how only one letter of the word was upside down. (ask me about it, if you can't figure it out. lol)

as for preventing stomach-aches... this one we should've learned in late childhood, right? but nope! i still pig out on things from time to time. video games, starburst, etc. that's why i go through phases of liking sunflower seeds, and not liking them. i always end up OD'ing on them, so i stop liking them for awhile.

rarity keeps things from remaking us in their image. i've noticed that whatever my favorite classes are, the vocabularies they use tend to dominate my mind. i start to think of all of life the same terms used in class. for example... after taking calculus for two semesters, i had this epiphany that most things in life can be better understood and dealt with if you take their derivative. another example: having taken classes from our campus pastor, Bill Dogterom, i sometimes talk about friendship as "walking life with someone," and my definitions of faith have to do with "standing in the reality of the spiritual kingdom" and "re-arranging the furniture of my life in the new light of the truth of God." spending a few hours with him every week for a semester sort of re-defined me, in certain ways.

that can be a bad thing. example: i don't want to be defined by pleasure-seeking. i definitely want to have pleasant experiences... but if the pursuit of these is at the core of who i am, then i am missing the point. eventually i would become self-destructive, and probably dangerous to others as well. notice, i would never make a conscious commitment to become a hedonist. it's the subtly dangerous nature of pleasure, that it wants to get us in the habit it pursuing it first and foremost. the more we engage in it, the more it asks of us.

i sometimes get into arguments with people about statements like these: "everyone is beautiful. everyone is unique. every day is special. every blessing is a miracle from God. every breath you take is precious." i strongly disagree with all of these. would you look back at your life and say that each day was just as special as the day before it? no!! this flattens the world out into a really weird two-dimensionality. you're simply not designed to !gasp! in wonder and surprise every time God gives you that next breath. you are designed to assign differing degrees of significance to different things. some days are much more special than others: annual holidays, for example. once a year, right? rare. and if everyone is beautiful, then how can anyone be beautiful? are we comparing them all to mucus and orangutans? (seriously... those guys are ugly.)

~ ~ ~

the bottom line, folks: keep rarity as a strong value in your life. treasure those special, meaningful experiences. keep them precious by honoring their unique significances (is that a word??). don't OD on stuff; keep things delicious. don't rush ahead to the best parts; anticipate them. don't flatten life out; keep it complicated and diverse. otherwise you'll find yourself inured, numb to the kairos moments.

this morning, as i hunker down into my ninja-cave for sleepy-time, i'm very grateful that the moon is full only once every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 seconds.

paradox

2007-03-03T05:23:00.000-08:00

the very worst thing that could ever happen to this blog, is happening.

i'm becoming someone i don't know. i always thought becoming myself would involve alot of discipline and struggle to acquire those skills and strengthen those traits that i desired, or wanted to desire. i thought becoming myself entailed intentionality and planning. well, apparently it also involves interruption and surprise and mystery and confusion and dissonance. that is bad for this blog, because if i don't know who i am, or who i am becoming, and especially if i don't know why i'm becoming, or how, then whose blog is this that i'm posting on?

...on the other hand, some of my very best posts have come from surprises... things i wasn't prepared for. in fact, most of the best things in my life have been 'interruptions' of one kind or another. most of my friends, most of my spiritual experiences, my greatest pains and joys and defining chapters or moments... yeah.

the very best thing that could ever happen to this blog, is happening.

getting hurt

2007-02-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

i hear alot of talk about people getting hurt by people, and about people being afraid of getting hurt by people, and about people forming protective habits that will hopefully prevent the harming of themselves by people.

i have a low tolerance for physical pain; if officially tested, i'd probly be categorized as 'wuss.' but i find that 99% of people are 99% incapable of truly harming me. i'm trying to figure out why this is.

#1. i often purposely make myself very vulnerable to people, so it isn't that i'm hidden behind a protective wall of that sort. (for example: the fact that this blog is public shows how much i hide.) in fact, i think perhaps making myself vulnerable is what often keeps me from getting hurt.

#2. for a guy, i'm fairly effeminate, personality-wise; even some of my physical mannerisms show it. furthermore, i'll be moved to tears by an excellent movie or story or song, if i let myself. i can seem sort of apathetic or emotionally dull sometimes, but that's just because i mostly internalize things, so that they don't show. conclusion: i don't have a cold heart, or a heart of stone, or whatever you'd call it.

#3. i grew up home-schooled, and i'm very strong-willed. these two things (and probly other things) helped me become someone who isn't much affected when other people try to affect me. i've found that in many cases, i can 'turn off' my 'affectibility.' for example, roller-coasters (even the hardcore ones) usually thrill me for about 3 seconds. after that, it feels like a drive through the country, for me. i simply shut off my "OMG!!!" switch. i can do it with my natural environment, and my social environment as well.

#4. i tend to not care about myself. somehow i manage to be selfish anyway; don't ask me how (yet). but seriously, if you don't care about yourself, what've you got to fear? only things that threaten what you do care about, of course! and by the way, i am actually in the habit of purposely seeking out uncomfortable-ness. i think that's helped me become un-hurt-able.

#5. when people don't live up to my subconscious, automatic expectations, i hurt for them, not for me. if it somehow results in me getting the short end of the stick, well... i don't deserve any better, and no one owes me anything, and i owe everyone everything (rom13:8), so what's the big deal? it's just another opportunity to give of myself. i like those.

so basically, you can't really hurt me, except by hurting yourself. and you don't want to do that. so i think i'm pretty much set, except that i sometimes hurt myself pretty bad. and then there are the times when i hurt others, and that's just a huge mess. maybe that's one of the reasons i don't reach out to people unless i have a really good reason. i recognize that in a casual / acquaintance situation, i'm likely to be more of an enemy than a friend.