this american life.
the pursuit of joy...because happiness is overrated.
May 16th, 2009 @ 3:06 pm
an apology.
So It has occurred to me that I still love music far beyond what words can express. I am often cranky about this. I realize that I am not someone who can keep my opinions to myself, and the reality is that while I may know a few things on how to make it, I don’t know enough to pretend that I do. To those who i have offended, I am sorry, and to those who I have taken my anger out on I am sorry. I am cursed with the emotion of an artist with the ideals of a business man. I am a cut throat. and to many of you, I have cut your throats. I watched you bleed and buried you in a fireworks display raining down….This is an open apology and resolution.
I will be happier
I will be nicer
I will have a direction
I will not play God
I will not let this be about me
I will strive to be the best I can be so I can offer the best to the one who gave me the ability to offer anything at all.
I will relax
I will smile
I will be able to sing again
I will write again
I will dance again
I will cry again
I will run with purpose to a place that I have never been
I will love you
I will believe in you
I will let you be yourself
I will be myself
I will not find my esteem in what anyone thinks of me.
I will listen and will not speak
I will think before I speak after I LISTEN.
I will wait for peace and this will be waiting for whatever is in store.
To my dear friends, I love you and I will be a new person. The one you have never met behind closed doors. I am tired of wearing someone else’s shoes and I want mine back.
cheers
rh
May 7th, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
if the sun…
if the sun decided not to rise tomorrow would time stand still?
i’m wanting this to happen. I need more time. I need more time to figure out where I am.
i need to be able to sit and wait and let the answer come right down and sit on the front of my glass of wine.
to be or not to be.
to play or not to play.
to write or not to write.
to teach. to sing. to dream…
i wish that i could buy 10 minutes with no fear or consequence. i would pay for it with monopoly money i don’t even have. i want a sign!
8 months and still no sign. It was so peaceful to leave and now I am feeling so deprived.
if the sun would only stop but only for a moment that would be a sign and i think i would be fine.
Apr 16th, 2009 @ 10:51 pm
…
i have not forgot. i will return soon. words cannot say what has been going through my mind.
Mar 26th, 2009 @ 8:56 am
lost.
where did you go? i can’t see anything. white noise.
Mar 21st, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
2 weeks.
I have been on the run for two weeks. I went to N.C. for a few days and then to Austin, TX for the ten out of tenn show and the release or launch of briterevolution. I have been feeling more and more in tune with the so called wrestling match. I finished reading a wonderful book. It isn’t very well written or philosophic or even something that I thought I would like, however, I loved it and it has been a huge part of the wrestling match. The book is called Red Moon Rising. It’s by a guy named Pete Grieg. The whole story is about a renewal of the Morovian prayer movement and the founding of 24/7.
I grew up in a box. I was in the church and all about the church. I left for college feeling unsure about anything. I saw what emotional and experiential faith was like and I didn’t want to be apart of that anymore. Thus a great journey began and I will spare you the details only to say that I read and went on an incredible philosophical, logical and reason based journey to find myself at the end of my wits, seeing and believing faith was the next step in true belief. Logic and reason led me to the supernatural doorstep of lunacy and beauty. I stepped. I walked and now I am retracing steps wondering where and how I had wandered off to.
I was sitting pool side at the la quinta inn in Austin after a long day of listening to great music and running around and I had just finished the book mentioned earlier. I had a few hours to kill so I went downstairs and brought my next read with me, Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. (I am surprised that I finished college without ever reading this book. I need to ask why, the next time I speak with one of my former professors). As I sat down to enjoy the 80 degree weather and the birds I was looking Julie in the eye as she put her chair back at the table. She introduced herself and noticed the book. She asked about it and I had to make up a back cover review off the top of my head on what I thought it was about because I had yet to read it. She was reading a Grisham book and said she spent some time working at bookstore and she makes a habit out of asking about what people were reading.
Julie was from Detroit. I never asked how old she was but I am guessing she was mid to late 40’s. She said she was on a trip to get away from the bad economy up there because she worked in the auto industry as an admin and wanted to check out Austin to see about moving there. Her dad had passed away recently and that was really affecting her. She felt that all things were connected and that she had been the problem child and had been in and out of rehab for years. She has been clean for two years, but her father passing really messed her up and overwhelmed her.
As we talked I felt that our conversation would lead to why I believed in God. We talked about history and and about the bible and how historical it is and the reason Israel and Palestine are in conflict all the way to Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. We talked Ishmael and Isaac. She had a very universalist approach and believed all religions were right. I explained that through extensive research and debate that all of the other religions in the world came after the original Jewish faith in God, or modern day Christianity. (without the evangelical, moral majority tags etc. etc.) I explained how most other religions were descendants of original Christianity and somehow they had been altered or changed over time. (This is open to debate but it is pretty curious don’t you think?) We talked about Jesus and the role of Jesus in sanctification for our souls to be reunited with God but I think that kind of confused her so I stuck with the idea that she felt one with nature. She was curious. I began to speak about my rifts with the church and even with myself and the conclusion was that imperfect people are an imperfect church. There was a discussion about how uncomfortable church was and I explained that a lot of churches want you to get the dark out before they will allow you to come into the light. It seems to me that the church should open the blinds so light would come in and you could see all of the baggage that sits in our heart and then help us move it out and make room for a savior and new art and imagination and freedom. She was very interested in this line of thought and she explained that she loves nature.
I had an epiphany. She talked about how peaceful the birds and trees were and how the grass felt on her feet. She felt one with the universe. My epiphany came with the idea that God created all of these things to show himself off and to give him glory. the birds sing songs and the trees sway in the wind and whisper sweet songs to their maker. In the sweetness of this moment I felt that I needed to say that God’s yoke is easy and his burden is light. He wants to sit with you for you to tell him your burdens and rest in him. I told her to read the bible as a historical book and to see what happened in history and see how it aligns with what she always thought, and to sit and rest with God. I believe that if she wants to really meet and find him and she sits with him, he will open his arms to her and reveal himself, but she has to make the choice.
I had another epiphany. I haven’t talked openly about my faith or about philosophy or where I am with “things” outside of my family or friends since a college trip where I sang I can only imagine at a karaoke bar in Galveston TX. Had I learned all of these things for my own good only to hold them in and not say anything? I realized that I was able to talk with a universalist, intelligently, for two hours and share my belief in God and why I believe. I shared my faith with someone I didn’t even know. I felt God taking the lead and guiding the conversation where he wanted it to go.
I believe that God moves when we pursue him, asking simply isn’t enough. If I had asked my wife on a date that doesn’t mean we went. I have to ask and pursue. I have to follow though with my asking and make sure the asking involves action and movement. Asking doesn’t make it so. God wants us to ask but he waits until we pursue and mean it before he throws us on our back into sweet submission and change.
I believe that the waiting has been very pleasurable and he threw me on my back and asked me if i was ready…
I hope for Julie’s sake…I was.
Mar 9th, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
round 1.
I wish I could figure out how to wrestle. Right now I am just watching and waiting. I am growing impatient. My heart is burning and I feel a desire growing within me to get back to the basics. I want to be disciplined, and I want to develop my relationship with God. I am so full of academic revelations of God and the history and the philosophy. The hard part is when you know the answer, how does it change me when I don’t move forward and react? Sometimes i wish that I had no recollection of God and my past history. I wish I could be brand new and wonder at the mystery every day. The reality is that I can do that, but as my imagination wanders and I grow restless, i get bored. I hate feeling bored. I should be one of those strong theologian types with my education and my history growing up in church. However, I feel like a growing number of people do , that I have just become cynical and jaded at what church should be and what it isn’t. I went to a church yesterday and was blown away at the kool-aide people were drinking. It was a situation where people who wanted to branch out from an already contemporary church left and started a parachute. The problem is that the non-fit ins of that church create another sect of even more non-fit ins. The pastor is the worship leader and the youth pastor. It was like a one man show where whatever he says goes. I was very turned off by the image of a cool guy pastor who was more excited about making people laugh than preaching solid truth. He was preaching a sermon based on a book some guy had written about our narrow mindedness with God and how to avoid becoming a pharisee. The problem was that the verses he was using didn’t fit contextually with the rest of the passage they came from. It was making the bible say what you want it to rather than what it is supposed to say. It was really bad theology and it was really bad watching the people in this church drink it in.
I lament only because i am a young man who knows the difference. I spent 4 and a half years of my life in a very fine and academically challenging Christian school getting a degree in matters of religious studies. I am mad at myself for not making a difference. I need to be more involved at a church where I can put my knowledge to use and help mold my generation not on feeling based theolgy and “fitting in” based theology, but true “sola scriptura” theolgy. We aren’t called to be comfortable. we aren’t called to be complacent and cynical. we are called to make disciples, and that starts with making sure we are teaching the truth to begin with.
My wrestling match continues…..
@ 10:13 am
trip.
I just came back from a trip. it was a nice one. I love seeing family, but in small doses. It seems better that way. Arkansas is still one of my favorite places in the world. I sat on my grandparent’s porch in the sun and watched the beauty of simplicity roll by.
Lately I feel as if I am very uneasy. I feel a rumble beneath me. a movement of sorts. I am tired of being complacent and bored. What I saw from the back porch was something I wish I was close to. peace. serenity. solitude and rest. a glimpse will have to do for now…
Mar 3rd, 2009 @ 9:42 am
match…
Another morning arrived with good intentions. I woke up feeling wonderful but as yesterday wore on i was so down and miserable by it’s end that I was broken. I want out. I want out. I want out of the grumbling, bumbling misery of mundane everyday life. Banks, grocery, gasoline, debt, meetings, work, etc. all suck life out of my bones. It is time to wait. Wait for change. The match begins. I wait. He waits. He knows that if He gives in too quickly I won’t change. I have to prove to him that I am waiting on him and actually calling him nearer to me for the sake of not only rescue but for intimacy. I can call the heavens when I am in trouble but my intentions and grief are out of misery rather than joy. i want joy. EVEN when there is sorrow. EVEN when there is pain. EVEN when I don’t feel my feel touching the ground. Right now, I wait, because when I am found worthy, we will wrestle and he will throw me around and i will laugh with glee like a boy wrestling his father. loving the rough love and intimacy that only rolling on the ground and being controlled will bring.
Mar 2nd, 2009 @ 8:00 am
awake oh sleeper.
@ 7:53 am
I do believe…
I do believe that there are battles constantly being forged within the human soul. I wake up one day with the mind to do good, to be good, and to act just and moral. Then there are days when I wake up and i already feel defeated. I went to bed with an appetite for Godliness and woke up this morning feeling as if life had been ripped from my very bones. The struggle is worse than being a runner. To be in spiritual shape takes discipline that I have not felt in a very long time. I have no one to blame but myself. Dare I say it, I have become cynical at best. I do believe that I don’t have the power to overcome. I do believe that all I can do is come prostrate before the throne. I do believe I will be transformed. I have been waiting too long, filling my mind with the things of God but rarely asking God himself to come down and awaken these dry bones. What good is logic and reason to choose God only to get so close to the answer? I do believe that I am the question and that there is only one answer….
