A Moderately Serious Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

(Note: The following was written on Saturday, April 26, when I lacked internet access sufficient enough to just post it here.)

I want to thank everyone who came to see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It is impossible for me to explain how much it means to me. But of course that will not stop me from trying.

I do not perform for my own benefit. I don’t do it for recognition or congratulation. I am on stage for the audience, I’m there to entertain. I believe that God gave me a gift for entertaining people – I like doing it more than anything else, and other people seem to like me best when I am doing it (though perhaps I should wonder why people like me more when I am pretending to be other people…).

I love being able to make people laugh, make people cry, make people think. I love being able to take people away from their own lives for just a few hours and let them experience a different environment and atmosphere. I love offering that kind of escape because when I do, there is a degree to which I feel that I am fulfilling God’s purpose for me. When my friends come to see my performances, it gives me tremendous joy. It is the people I care most about telling me that how I am spending my time and energy is worthwhile, that it isn’t all pointless, which it sometimes feels like it is, frankly. So again, thank you all so very much, I love you all lots and lots.

Now, this show was a fantastic way to end my freshman year here at UNC, but the year isn’t quite over. We’ve finished classes, but we still have exams to get through, but then I (and plenty of others) will go to Rockbridge, Intervarsity’s leadership training camp, and I know that is going to awesome.

I have more to say about the closing of the year, various musings, ponderings, and thanks to make, but that is for a different entry because I haven’t quite figured out what I want to say yet. Until then, rock on with your bad self.

Recognition

I finished reading the second chapter of Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel today (thanks Dack). The chapter is called "Magnificent Monotony" - it's about God's unceasing, monotonous love of us, regardless of our behaviors or sins. It's a simple idea, but one of the most difficult to grasp; at least it seems to be, judging by the attitudes of so many modern Christians. We spend so much time trying to get God to love us, forgetting that he always has and always will.

That said, I wonder about one of Manning's word choices near the end of the chapter - after I finished reading, I jotted down some notes that I'm gonna elaborate on a bit here. Basically, he says it is important to establish a self-acceptance, accepting that you are the way you are, the way God made you, and once you accept that, you can truly begin to grow as a Christian. I agree with the concept - it is only when we face our sins that we can confront them; we cannot fight battles with our backs turned to the enemy. However, I do not believe that "accepting" the way we are is the best term to use. Think back to all those standardized tests we took in high school - our job is to find the best answer from the given options. I would say that it is important to recognize our sinfulness, or perhaps acknowledge the way God made us (or Satan has molded us, whichever the case may be). Declaring the need for self-acceptance, at least to me, implies a stoppage of growth. So even though the action may be essentially the same, and the outcome basically equivalent, I felt that a different word might be better. We must never accept our sin because that makes it sound like we've given up the fight. But recognition of sin is recognition of the battle, and can being about the will necessary to fight it.

All of this thinking made me want to think some more, so that's what I did. And what I came up with was this. Ultimately, we must choose to change. God will not force us to change, nor should he. If he forced us to adapt to his ways, what would be the point of his love for us, or ours for him? It would me a meaningless show void of true emotion or sacrifice. We are made in a raw form, like clay, and we are molded into something more, like a jar, for instance (I'm going back a few entries, here). God teaches us how to make a jar, but he doesn't make it for us - then we wouldn't learn anything. We just be stuck here with a jar and nothing to do with it (so we'd probably just end up breaking it because it lacked use or practicality). We are shaped like clay only after we recognize the rawness of our lives, like the rawness of a clump of clay.

Are you following? Because if so, you're doing slight better than me...

Anyway, we recognize our rawness, and God teaches us how to turn that lump of muddy, dirty goop into something arty and/or crafty. He shapes us, but only by acting through us, or someone else. At least, most of the time. I'm talking about internal changes, not, you know, bigger stuff, like, you know, earthquakes, and like, you know, stuff like that. Which is why I say we have to choose change - God gives us sculpting lessons, but we have to do the sculpting, and we have to see the glory of the final masterpiece that God wants us to be. Right? Maybe not, but it seems like it at the moment?

It's like this Bible study I did with some people on a service project in D.C. - the woman leading the study that day was talking about all the worries we have, and how we should give them up to God and not worry so much. Fair enough. But then she has us write down those things we worry too much about, and said "If you're ready to give those things to God and not let them get to you anymore, throw that piece of paper in the trash." That was frustrating. First off, I didn't get how some meaningless physical representation of a decision to change would actually help me change. I also didn't get the idea of giving something completely to God, or not the way she was putting it. Because at the end of the day, even if God is the one in control of our material worries and issues, we are still the ones who have to deal with them. So God can guide us, but we still have to take that guidance, and in that sense, it is never entirely God's to deal with.

I know that if you take out quotes from this here and there, it's gonna seem like I'm very fragmented in my faith (and thought processes), but I feel like I'm making some sense. Let me try to recapitulate briefly:
We have to recognize our sinfulness, the raw form in which we were created by God and corrupted by Satan, but we must not accept it. Once we recognize it, we can fight our sinfulness, and create something meaningful out of our rawness, but only with guidance and teaching from God.

See, when I say it like that, it doesn't seem quite so strange. Perhaps I should have started with that. It would have been a nice thesis. But unfortunately for you, that's not how I roll. Deal with it. Also, I didn't proof this before I published it, for that, also, is not how I roll. Deal with that, too, while you're busy dealing with that first thing. Yeah.

What is music? (or, Thank you, Duke Ellington)

Last night I went out to dinner with a bunch of people. I ate barbeque, I got involved in bizarre wrestling matches.

It was a good time.

But somewhere on the road back to campus, something very strange happened. I completely and totally mellowed out. I didn't want to do anything, anything whatsoever. I'm not sure what happened, or why, but it hit me hard and didn't go away for the rest of the evening. For some reason, I'm inclined to say it was just strange form of loneliness, but that cannot possibly be the right word (can it?) because I was hanging out with a bunch of other people.

For the last two weeks or so, I have been making every effort I can to make sure that I am around people - I simply haven't wanted to be alone - so perhaps that ended last night? I don't think so. I didn't want to not be with people. And I woke up this morning looking forward to spending time with friends. But something was weird. And I guess that's just how it goes sometimes.

Music tends to make things better for me. There are a few songs I go to just to cheer me up ("Eskimo" by Damien Rice, for instance). There are other songs that get me moving, wake me up, that I can't help tapping my toe to, rocking out to, and make me want to dance to my class (such as Michael Jackson's "Beat It" - you know you love it). Then there are those songs that I just love. Simply love. They make me stop what I'm doing, sit back, and be washed in the chords, the riffs, the words, all of it creating true music. "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits. Something about the thunder rolling intro, that guitar lick that makes you feel like you could do battle with that thunderstorm. The frail voice, singing despite despair. (Of course, I will occasionally also see The West Wing's President Bartlett traveling in his motorcade to a press conference, deciding whether or not he will run for a second term after revealing he has multiple sclerosis and hid it from America - he drives past the National Cathedral where he had cursed God just that morning, where a janitor picks up the cigarette Barlett stomped out right in the middle of the cathedral floor. Amazing sequence, amazing television, amazing display of a man actually dealing with his struggles instead of brushing them aside, fighting over what is right and wrong, what needs to be done in a situation that goes far beyond mundane personal trials.)

Part of me wants to put up the lyrics for you to read, as the lyrics have power in themselves - the title implies a bit of that. But I'm not going to put up the lyrics. It won't be the same. Ask me to hear that song sometime. Maybe it won't affect you the same way, but there is power in it nonetheless. I will, however, leave you with a poem written by Duke Ellington. These words always move me. They say so much, and they explain a lot of my philosophies on life and music and their interconnectedness.


What Is Music? by Duke Ellington

What is music to you?
What would you be without music?

Music is everything.
Nature is music (cicadas in the tropical night).

The sea is music,
The wind is music,
Primitive elements are music, agreeable or discordant.

The rain drumming on the roof,
And the storm raging in the sky are music.

Every country in the world has its own music,
And the music becomes an ambassador;
The rango in Argentina and calypso in Antilles.

Music is the oldest entity.

A baby is born, and music puts him to sleep.
He can't read, he can't understand a picture,
But he will listen to music.

Music is marriage.

Music is death.

The scope of music is immense and infinite.
It is the "esperanto" of the world.

Music arouses courage and leads you to war.
The Romans used to have drums rolling before they attacked.
We have the bugle to sound reveille and pay homage to the brave warrior.

The Marseillaise has led many generations to victories or revolutions;
It is a chant of wild excitement, and delirium, and pride.

Music is eternal,
Music is divine.

You pray to your God with music.

Music can dictate moods,
It can ennerve or subdue,
Subjegate, exhaust, astound the heart.

Music is a cedar,
An evergreen tree of fragrant, durable wood.

Music is like honor and pride,
Free from defect, damage, or decay.

Without music I may feel blind, atrophie, incomplete, inexistent.

Thank you, Philip Roth

Okay, so I recently started reading Philip Roth's American Pastoral. I came across this passage today, and it kind of floored me. I'm not sure entirely what I think about it yet, if I agree with it or not, or what, but there's definitely something special about it, and I wanted to share it with you.

"You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? That fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you."

So there's that. I think I'm still processing it, so I may be back within the next few days with more commentary on it, or perhaps as I read more of the book.

Biology and Man Hugs

I hate biology.

1 Corinthians 16:13 - "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong."

I keep turning to that verse tonight. Be strong. And I'm trying to be strong, but being strong sucks. Being weak is so much easier.

I just want to take a moment to thank every guy I've talked with and spent time with during the past couple days. You know who you are, and you're probably not reading this. That verse doesn't say to be a man of courage, it says men. God requires brotherhood from us: "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2)

See, when I'm struggling with something, there are usually only a few people I will talk to about it. Or rather, I will usually only talk to a few people about it - there are more than a few people I go to with my problems, just not all at the same time and not with the same sorts of problems. But lately, I've been telling a bunch of people, people who deal with the same problems, and who can help me out.

Proverbs 17:17 - "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."

God gave us our friends, our brothers, so that they can be there for us when we're down, and help us through difficult times. It is their purpose, the function of the relationship. We are a support system when necessary. I have a support system. And not only did God design that system, he actually demands that we use it. It's the law. The Body of Christ is not an idea; it is a requirement.

In some roundabout way of reasoning, this brings me to the subject of man hugs.

I feel like men deal with a lot of stuff that needs to to be discussed and worked through, but rarely ever is due to pride or modesty ("modesty" in this case being simply a euphemism for the fear of potential embarrassment). It is important to deal with man stuff, because we need to be reassured of our masculinity. If we're not, we become overly hostile and begin making bizarre efforts to prove ourselves worthy in the eyes of. . .well, anyone who's willing to pay attention. This is not a good thing for the masculine soul or, really, society in general. It's how wars get started.

Which is why I believe that men need, in the words of Entourage's Ari Gold, to "hug it out" a lot more. And I don't mean with those "man hugs." Somehow America has developed some social stigma about male contact. John Eldredge has written about our culture's current attempts to emasculate men, be it through the treatment and punishment of boys who play a little too rough at recess, or through the constant encouragement of metro- and homo-sexuality in the media. Every now and then I really do feel I'm hearing the message that I'm wrong because I'm not gay. (Note that I do not use encouragement synonymously with condoning or acceptance, which would have vastly different implications.)

But whatever it is, there is definitely something rotten in the state of male relationships. What happened to brotherhood? Where is that brutal honesty we so desperately need to hear in order to improve ourselves and actually become the men we want so much to be? Why can't we be aggressive without being disgustingly competitive? It is possible to be real men without being jerks? It is possible to really hug real men without being gay? Why can't there be some sort of middle ground? Because we're men, and we grow up in a world telling us that if we don't take an extreme position, we're not strong enough to survive in it.

But the Biblia tells us something different. It tells us to stand on that middle ground. We're supposed to be there for each other. That is strength. 1 Corinthians 16:13 says to be men of courage, to be strong. Do you know what 1 Corinthians 16:14 says? "Do everything in love." And those two sentences are the whole paragraph. That is the entire thought, and ultimately the point I'm trying to make. By loving each other, we are strong. By loving each other, we are men. And we can hug each other more than we do.

So thanks to all my brothers for being men, and keeping me strong right now.

Much love, and a big strong bear hug.

Thank you, Allah

Yesterday was a good day.

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Well...

Here we are...

I finished reading John Eldredge's Wild at Heart this morning. I liked it a lot. It is a good book. I recommend that you read this book because it was very good.

I didn't really get on here with a topic to write on, or with any actual plan. Mostly I'm just wasting time. I've been considering lately writing about man-hugs. But for some reason, I just don't really feel like writing about them right now.

So...

This is weird. I have nothing of any significance to say right now. I mean, there are lots of things that I could say, but none of them bring about any particularly passionate response in me. At least not right now. I don't know why. I'm just kind of lost in my head. This is what happens when I have nothing to do.

And now I'm gonna stop taking up space with empty words.

About Me

By the time this is up, it will probably be a new day.

For some reason, after only 3 days, I could no longer stand my xanga account. It just wasn't working for me, so now I'm here, and it was a fairly uneventful transition.

But now I am trying to really establish myself here after the move, so I attempt to edit my "about me" section. But I ran into the same dilemma I always run into. I ran into it on facebook. Again on xanga. Here is my dilemma:

What in the world is that supposed to mean? I can talk about myself, sure, but how do I condense that into some sort of crazy all-inclusive bubble of a paragraph. So I get scared. What if there's really nothing to say? I do believe, quite often, actually, that I may very well be just boring enough not to merit even a blurb of biography, even on my own site. Of course, I hope this is not the case. I hope that this is merely some existential quandary, the likes of which are seen by at least dozens of people every day. Surely I can overcome that.

But alas, (earwax), I cannot. And so, for at least a short while longer, I must remain without about.

Ev'ry time we say goodbye, I die a little...

On the inside cover of my pocket-sized moleskine notebook/journal, I've written one of my favorite Biblia passages. It is fairly common, not least of all because of the band Jars of Clay, whose name is taken from it, but it took me until very recently to find the actual passage, and when I did, I fell in love with it.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12)

That last sentence took me a while to grasp. "Death is at work in us." I couldn't figure out what that meant. I mean, I see death at work around us. But in us? And then I realized just how much death already is a part of us. Each and every time we sin, we die a little bit. Whenever we stray from the life Jesus desires for us, we die a little bit. We are "born-again" Christians, which has the implication that we died once, and only once, in sin, and were reborn in Christ. But I feel like we are actually reborn continuously, as part of some sick cycle of sin and forgiveness that will never stop tormenting us.

Wait, wait. Tormenting us? That sounds mighty depressing. I don't feel tortured all the time? In fact, most of the time I feel fine. Of course, that could be part of the problem. A friend of mine recently sprained his ankle, and he was walking around on it, riding his bike, acting like nothing happened. He said, "It's actually starting to feel better, and the swelling is going down." Isn't that the time when danger is at its highest? When we are mostly like to break ourselves even more? When we feel fine seems to be the time when we must be most alert. Fortunately, we should have the energy to maintain that alertness. But maybe not. Another friend of mine puts off work a lot, though given, this is not unlike many college students. He ends up staying up for hours at night, into the morning, completing tasks assigned long ago, so that he may be prepared for class at 8 or 9 AM (again, not entirely uncommon for many people). He keeps his body in tiredness and weakness, though he may not realize it. How prepared can we possibly be to protect ourselves spiritually if we cannot protect ourselves physically? The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, right?

Go back to those jars of clay. Spiritual jars, never breaking, holding the treasure that is Jesus. But I believe they are physical jars, too. It is not exactly beyond the Bible (and especially Paul) to be duplicitous. Jesus was wholly man and wholly god, so perhaps our jars of clay are wholly physical and wholly spiritual. Connectedness of body and spirit. Makes sense to me, anyway.

Now, I had no intention of saying, well, most of that. I was going to write about something else entirely. But I can link the two together, I think. Our jars never break...right? Well, no, they break all the time, and then we have to rebuild them. (We die with sin and are reborn with repentance.) But we never have to rebuild them alone. Through it all, God is with us. He never turns his back. We throw our jars against brick walls until all that is left of them are tiny ceramic shards of our life, and he gives us super glue. And none of that weak elementary school Elmer's junk that one weird kid at the next table use to eat, either. I mean, don't-get-it-on-your-finger-unless-you-wanna-be-stuck-to-the-next-thing-you-touch-for-the-rest-of-your-life super glue. And then how to we thank God for his magnificent arts and crafts skills? We throw that jar of ours against a wall again. Yet he refuses to judge us. He's standing right there, ready to fix that broken jar again. Amazing.

So, how should we thank him? We can be there for others. We can share the glue. We can become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). We can love each other.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Luke 6:37-38)

It looks like I have written a sort of miniature sermon. That was not my intention. I'm not trying to teach anyone anything. I don't think I could if I tried. So even though it sounds like I may be directing this outwards, it is just some of the stuff I've been working through lately. I've been in Isaiah lately, reading examples of people turning away from God. But early on, God gives us his promise.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

That's no fleeting guarantee. It is always there, and as I break my jar, and see others breaking theirs, I see God keeping that promise, so that someday, we may be pressed down upon without being crushed.

Starting Anew

(Note: I wrote the following on March 31, 2008, on a short-lived Xanga site, which I abandoned for this Blogspot site, Blogspot apparently being the Blog...spot of choice to many people around me.)

Even as I type this, I am unaware of why I am typing it. I am unsure of why I decided to create this. I have attempted to maintain blogs before, and failed miserably. I never kept up with them, and now I feel certain that my past 2 or 3 sites have been inactivated as a result of my inactivity, and appropriately so.

But here am I. I spent far longer than should have been necessary trying to establish my user name. That user name, which must encapsulate all there is about me and my presence here on earth. I took my best shot, though, and although that name could never encompass all there is to "me," as I am only partly sure what that is anyway, I do feel that it says something about my mission here. Though I am hesitant to place here some sort of mission statement beyond that of my user name, as I do not know exactly what my mission here is. .

Regardless of my meanderant (Yes, that is a word now, and I own it.) ways, perhaps someone may find some use in all this, my rambling.