things I think about while not grading papers

Back from Colorado, with a mountain of papers to grade, and no motivation to grade them. I really like this job in a lot of ways, but I go through these stretches where I just don't have any motivation. Then I feel guilty because I don't feel like a good teacher, which normally leads to less motivation, not more. Oh well - one of these days I'll learn how to make myself be consistently disciplined and do the things I don't necessarily want to do so that I don't have them hanging over my head and throwing shadows over what could otherwise be pretty relaxed days.

Colorado was awesome. It was overcast quite a bit of the time, but it cleared up enough for me to have some nice views of the mountains. There was snow on the ground up there - first time I've been in that area with snow. I didn't have a lot of free time, but enjoyed what time I did have. I took a walk that was supposed to be a half-hour walk and turned into an hour walk (I knew where I was, really, I just got a little confused), and in the process ran into a herd of elk. The first afternoon I was there, before our meetings actually started, I just relaxed and spent some time (gasp!) just trying to be in God's presence. I ended up writing at least part of a song that we might use for the conference. Anyway, even though we worked hard, it was a relaxing few days, and reminded me how badly I need to make time to relax - haven't really done it since I've been back, but that would be asking a little much, wouldn't it?

It was also an amazing trip just because of the people I'm working with. A very diverse group - Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans... all with different ways of living out and expressing their faith, and that makes for a very rich experience. A standout experience - praying with all 28 of the people who were there and hearing 28 different ways of communicating with God... some in Spanish, some with passionate overtures, some with bold declarations, some in gentle, reverent tones, some with articulate and elegant supplication. One other highlight was reconnecting with Elias, a Bostonian of Puerto Rican descent, who was my roommate at the last conference. He had to leave early three years ago because his dad was dying. For him to be able to come back now and play drums in the band with me is a redemptive experience for him, and for me a second chance to learn about and connect with an amazing guy who, last time, showed me faith in hard times in a more real way than I'd ever seen.

On tap for this week - trying to catch up at work, probably spending whatever time I can with Sarah, hopefully letting God cultivate the desire for Him that He reawakened in Colorado.

Ok, the first part of this post convinced me to go work on my grading...

mountains and such

I don't know if it's worth saying this, because I've been pretty sporadic about posting for a while anyway, but I just thought I'd mention that I'll be away from computers for the rest of the week and won't be writing until I get back.

I'm flying to Colorado tomorrow to take part in a planning meeting for the 2004 National American Baptist Youth Gathering that will take place in Estes Park this summer. I'm the "band leader." It's a really neat opportunity - I'll get to rehearse a band with members of both sexes and varying ethnicities, and help lead worship for a very large group of teenagers. And I get to help plan the large group worship sessions. So it's a very cool thing, and a way to stay connected to my American Baptist roots, even though I'm not at an American Baptist church right now.

I have to say, though, that for the last couple days I've been thinking more about all of the work I'm having to do to get ready to go (especially since it's midterms week at school), and all the work I'll have waiting for me when I get back. My students are going to have to take their midterms without me here, and I don't feel good about that.

I'm sure, though, that once I get out to CO and see the mountains, and get to spend a few days just enjoying the view and getting to focus 100% on ministry stuff, I'll feel very good about it. I love mountains, and Estes Park itself has some good memories for me - the last national youth gathering was there and was an amazing experience, and the YMCA camp there was also where my family took refuge after an ill-fated hike in the Rockies in which we were fairly high up a mountain when a thunderstorm moved in, and I nearly was struck by lightning (ok, it probably wasn't that close, but my hair did stand up!), and our campsite was flooded out. The YMCA camp didn't have any small rooms available for us, but it just happened that one of their fully-furnished CABINS, that people normally reserve at least a year in advance, came free that day, and we got to stay there that night.

Ok, I got off on a tangent, but I'm going to Colorado - be back Saturday!

OK, I admit it

I've been eating lunch at McDonald's every day just to play the stupid Monopoly game.



It feels good to get that off my chest.

Umm... Ouch

I had a wonderful weekend, most of it with Sarah... Friday involved a walk through a state park, then a double date with our friends Jason and Jen to a great Italian place and a comedy club. Saturday involved some laying around and reading, then watching the Marlins win the Series. Sunday's church service was good, then after a Sunday afternoon nap (which should be required by law, btw), Sarah and I met up with my friends Aaron and Lindsay to watch the Chiefs' game. I could expound on all of those things a lot more, because it was really a great weekend, but...

There was one thing that made it not such a great weekend. At some point while my car was in Sarah's driveway, someone got into it. At first, the only thing I noticed that was missing was my Discman, which wouldn't have been so bad. But then I realized that my cds were gone. Pretty much all of them. A few of my newer ones were not yet in the big cd wallet, but there were definitely at least 100 or so in there. And they're all gone.

Now, I've been trying to be philosophical about this. "It's just stuff," I told myself. Well, it's true, it's just stuff, but it's stuff that I've spent most of my life compiling. I was pretty proud of my cd collection - I felt like I had quite a good variety of music in there, and I felt like I could find music for any mood I was in. That cd wallet also served as my main resource for planning the music for church services, etc. Anyway, I've found myself thinking about my dad's record collection, albums he collected in high school, college, and afterwards... the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Clapton, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Zeppelin, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Dylan... all sorts of good stuff that I grew up listening to and that helped form my musical tastes and gave me a glimpse into my dad's life before he was my dad. And I'm realizing that over the past several years, as I've built up my collection of music, it's really served as a soundtrack to some very formative years in my life, and if my kids (when I have some) could listen to those albums, they'd get a good picture of the thoughts and melodies that accompanied my life so far.

I don't want to overdramatize this, but for someone to whom music is such a central part of life, this was a tough thing to lose. I shouldn't have kept them in my car... but who knew? I'm sure I'll start buying some back slowly, but some of them I know I won't be able to replace. Anyway, I'm not looking forward to the next several weeks when I'll be driving and think "Hey, I want to listen to... Oh, wait."

God is good, and music, at its best, has always only pointed me towards God. But this one kinda stings.

Some happenings that are... happening

So, last week I worked up this really long post catching up on the last few weeks, and then the imperfect world of technology failed me and lost my post, so now I'm finally trying again.

It's been a crazy few weeks, and I'm hoping I'll be back to posting more regularly soon, but for now, here's what's up...

I'm enjoying my schedule this quarter at the business college, and the little bit of extra free time it affords (even though that obviously hasn't translated into extra time to blog). I'm still enjoying the challenge of working with nontraditional students and trying to excite them about things like writing.

Last weekend was the first in a month that I didn't go down to St. Louis to work on the album. I've enjoyed the process SO much, and I'll be kinda sad when it's done. On the other hand, I can't wait to get it finished! In my obviously unbiased opinion, it sounds really good, and after we do the last bit of recording next weekend and after our engineer, David (who plays for this really good band you should check out) finishes the mixing, it'll hopefully sound even better! Not sure yet what we're going to do with it, but we've felt very led in the process the whole way, so it'll become apparent.

The biggest thing that's happened in the last few weeks is that my friend Sarah, who I think I've mentioned several times here, has become more than "my friend Sarah." We've started dating, and it's a beautiful and exciting thing that I won't say much about now, but you'll probably hear more about it in the future.

My grandparents are stopping through town tonight, and I think we'll be going out with Sarah, so that will be a nice chance for them to get acquainted.

One more important trend in the past several weeks... the Kansas City Chiefs are 7-0. And the Bill Self era in Kansas basketball has officially begun (click here for a good article), as practice commenced this week. Things are good in my sporting world.

Things I'm looking forward to:
1) Meeting up with my good friend Aaron Banman (and hopefully Sarah and Aaron's wife Lindsay, too) to watch the Chiefs game Sunday night, somewhere between here and Chicago.
2) A large gathering of family at home in Topeka for Thanksgiving.
3) Jayhawk basketball
4) My church growing in being a community of faith that models God's love and grace and compassion and heart for the lost.
5) Maturing into a more faithful and selfless son, brother, friend, teacher, worship leader, and (eventually) spouse.

Albums I've acquired recently that you should too:
1) Lori Chaffer - 1Beginning
2) eastmountainsouth
3) Patty Griffin - Living With Ghosts
4) Allison Krauss and Union Station - Live
5) Chris Thile - Not All Who Wander Are Lost
6) David Crowder Band - Illuminate

Catching up...

Yah, long time no post. Here's the brief synopsis of the last few weeks.

1) We're working really hard on finishing the cd. I've been to St. Louis three times in the last two weeks, and I'm going again tomorrow, and I'm going again next weekend. We are SO CLOSE! Everything already sounds really good, so we just need to add finishing touches (a few background vocals, some last electric guitar parts, a bit of mandolin, hand percussion, etc.)

2) The summer quarter at the business college ended a week and a half ago, and I had last week off. In between trips to St. Louis I spent some much needed time at home in Kansas with my parents. Highlights were spending a little too much money at the hometown Barnes and Noble, spending some time with the Bob and Jill Roesler (pastor of the church I grew up in and his wife), playing golf with my parents, following in the footsteps of great thinkers like Luther and Calvin by discussing theology over a few beers with my friend Adam Reck, and having Adam, the Roeslers, and our friends the Conrads over for dinner the last night.

3) The new quarter at IBC started this week, and my schedule is so much better than last quarter. I now have night classes only two nights a week, and I don't have any classes that start until 12:40. Thank you, Lord. I'm enjoying meeting the new students and I'm excited that I'm teaching a writing class this quarter... I just hope I don't annoy them with how much I love writing.

4) We're coming out of a time at church in which we've really been challenging each other to consider our commitments to God and His church. It's been really encouraging to see how people have responded to that. I'm excited about moving forward with that energy.

Those are the basics... oh, tonight I'm going to see Over the Rhine here in Indy - that should be a blast. Life is (knock on wood) really pretty good at the moment!

3-year old's birthday party...

I went to a three year-old's birthday party today. When my friends Dave and Julie (Dave is one of our pastors at Northeast) asked their son Nathanael who he wanted at his birthday party, I apparently made the short list of invitees - I consider that a high honor.

As a young single guy, I don't have all that many opportunities to interact with kids, so it was great to hold babies and bat balloons back and forth. (Of course, I'm sure it is easier to enjoy that kind of thing when I have the luxury of leaving and not having to deal with the day in and day out care and stress of having kids - there's a reason I'm not a parent yet! Well, several reasons... not married yet, for one... anyway, I digress). I love that part of church - there are times when it does provide, in pretty real ways, a sense of family for those of us who are away from our families and haven't started one of our own yet. It makes me wonder in what ways we can grow and nourish that sense of community. We're at an interesting juncture at Northeast, really challenging ourselves to move out of any complacency and sin we've let hang around, and I really pray that our people respond well to that. First, though, I have to examine myself and admit that I've not generally been moving forward in measurable ways (although I know God is always working) and that I've been comfortable to let certain sins and apathies exist in a buried tension with my redeemed nature. I need community to help me deal with those things - I think for the last year (as of today I have been in Indy a full year) I've been having to grieve the loss of a wonderful community at college and realize that I can and do and will have a wonderul community here, too, and be ok with the fact that it will be different. But as my time frees up a little bit next quarter, I need to make it a priority to be more intentional about building community.

I'm off-topic - this was supposed to be about 3 year olds' birthday parties. So, Nathanael Pappas, happy 3rd birthday, and thanks for letting me come over and play.

Blue Like Jazz, #1

I posted an excerpt from Chesterton's Orthodoxy the other day - here's an excerpt from another book I'm reading. It's called Blue Like Jazz, written by a guy named Donald Miller, and he tells stories from his own life that somehow meander around to draw a colorful sketch of living an authentic life of faith in today's world. I'm getting really tired of talking about what postmodernism is and what it means for the faith and the church, and it's refreshing to read a guy like this who seems to just live within it and focuses on following Jesus in his time and place, with his friends.

Anyway, this is in a chapter on belief and how society today is so lacking in anyone who believes something strongly that we'll immediately follow anyone who does believe. He says, "Eminem believes he is a better rapper than other rappers. Profound. Let's all follow Eminem." And he talks about how Satan wants people to believe in meaningless little nothings rather than believing in anything substantial - that's where the church has to be different.

"A friend of mine, a young pastor who recently started a church, talks to me from time to time about the new face of church in America--about the postmodern church. He says the new church will be different from the old one, that we will be relevant to culture and the human struggle. I don't think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and teh power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing."

On Fooling Yourself...

Earlier today (well, yesterday, since it's Saturday now) I was at work. Having taught my last class for the week, I was ready to leave and start my weekend, but I started thinking about all the things I needed to do before the quarter ends next week and I go down to St. Louis to record and then go home to Kansas to visit my parents. This list of things to do was pretty substantial, and the good angel (or the bad angel, depending on your POV) on my shoulder was telling me I needed to probably stay a little bit longer into the afternoon and get some of that work done.

Now, understand, I really didn't want to stay one second longer. I wanted to come home and read, get my hair cut, clean out my car, go grocery shopping, maybe even squeeze in a nap - I wanted to do any and all of those things, but I just didn't want to stay at work any more. So somewhere deep in the reaches of my mind, probably next to the spot where I store useless information about the 1985 Kansas City Royals, I started cooking up a plan.

The plan went like this (and this is exactly what I did) - I grabbed my little satchel thing that I purchased just for occasions like this, and I packed it full of the work I need to do - papers to grade, next quarter's syllabi to plan, that kind of thing. Now I told myself that I would work on it sometime this weekend. Ok, let's stop for a second - this is where it gets funny to me. I'm not sure how I can be so good at fooling myself, but I can outwit me every time. Because I knew, back there next to the the Baseball Information Department (BID) of my brain, I knew that there was no chance in the world, not even a glimmer, that I would even open that bag this weekend. I knew that come Monday morning I would pick it up and take it back to work, with no less work to be done than when I took it home. I knew that I have pretty much the whole weekend booked already, and didn't figure in paper-grading time.

But I am so good at fooling myself that these facts had very little bearing on how I felt about my plan. All I knew was that I was leaving work NOW, and I was taking some work home with me, and just the mere possibility of getting some work done at home was enough to make me feel like it was a perfectly reasonable solution to my dilemna. Three cheers for self-deception!

Johnny Cash

On my drive to work every morning, I leave my suburban (well, it's actually in Indy, but it feels like a suburb) neighborhood, and drive through farmland and little small Indiana towns to get to Anderson. There's something really nice about driving through the corn, past the farms, through the one-stoplight towns, past the church that for the last few weeks has been advertising a concert with "Geraldine and Rickey and the Royalaires" (I was disappointed when I realized I'd missed that one). And this morning on my radio I heard that Johnny Cash died. The radio station was playing several of Johnny's songs over the course of the morning, but the one I heard was his recent cover of the Nine Inch Nails' song "Hurt." It came on just as I was driving by Geraldine and Rickey's church.

I'm not a big Nine Inch Nails fan, but there was something that grabbed me about his cover of that song. "Hurt" seemed to wrap up his huge contribution to American music very succinctly. The Man in Black spent his whole life singing about pain and the people who feel it, but it had what I've heard called the "redemptive spirit" about it. Somehow when he took on the struggles of oppressed and hurting people, it seemed, without providing any answers, to open those subjects up to grace and healing. He had a voice that was distinctly Johnny Cash, but it was also Everyman, and his persona and the subject matter he explored influenced the music that the teenage sons and daughters of my suburbanite neighbors love, and it also captured the hearts of those who love Geraldine and Rickey. He brought the Folsom Prison Blues to a country that would rather not hear about prisons, and made us see the beauty and sadness in it.

G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy

I'm in the middle of a couple good books right now... I don't have time to read much at the moment, as I'm about a week away from the end of summer quarter at the business college and am keeping busy as a result. But Orthodoxy is a book I've meant to read for a while - it had a profound effect on many prominent Christian thinkers, including C.S. Lewis. I'm only a couple chapters in, but thought I would post an excerpt I particularly enjoyed:

"Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand."

Some people go to Amazon.com or some such internet shopping supersite and create these wish lists... basically they click on everything they see that they would like to have, and then hope people buy the stuff for them. And I think, "How self-centered and consumeristic can you be?"

So here's mine...

Right now it's mostly books and music.. as I get more and more narcissistic, I'm sure I'll be adding to it. At least this way people can't say "I never know what to get him!"

I've been thinking about cynicism. If you describe someone as being cynical, it carries kind of a negative connotation. No one likes someone who's too cynical, right? I'm not so sure.

It seems like we as a culture exalt cynicism. Often the most cynical people come across as the most intelligent and, in many cases, the funniest people. If part of cynicism is acting like nothing is holy, then everything is fair game for picking apart with the wittiest criticisms you can devise. Somewhere in high school, I think, I started to learn that the cool people were the ones that didn't take anything too seriously and could instantly come up with a clever way to skewer anything or anyone that did take itself seriously. So I learned to be good at that. Sarcasm, cynicism - those aren't negative words; they're tools for survival in a postmodern culture in which nothing is certain, truth is relative, and anyone who believes in anything too strongly probably just hasn't considered the other side.

In some ways I'm ok with this... there are some institutions and people that take themselves way too seriously and need to be fed healthy doses of Jonathan Swiftian satire to break them out of their isolated and narrow world. Some sectors of the Church are among the foremost offenders.

But I'm also realizing that as I've allowed myself to become more cynical, I've lost a lot. A sense of the goodness of the world and, ultimately, of the goodness of God. Awe in mystery. I've seen in my life and the lives of friends how cynicism and sarcasm have tried to change our view of the concept of sin - from grieving a horribly sad reality that drives us farther away from the life-giving holiness of God to apathetically accepting less than is offered to us ("Yeah, that wasn't right, but oh well, I'm human.") And when we screw up there's even a bit of hidden joy at the fact that now we're a little less innocent, a little more worldly and wise - a little more cynical. I find myself sometimes unwilling or unable to take a strong stand about something because all I can do is hear how someone (or even I) would pick my position apart. I can see both sides of an issue so clearly that I can't accept either one.

I'm not the most cynical person in the world, so thank God (literally) that I still have some innocence, some awe, some ability to proclaim Truth as Truth, some grief for sin and joy in grace. But I find myself wanting to recover even more of those things, and praying that the world wouldn't exalt cynicism as "cool" quite so much. I find myself thinking of the end of the movie Dogma (ironically a perfect example of a cynical, sarcastic, irreverent movie that is absolutely hilarious) when Alanis Morisette (uh, cynical?) makes her appearance of God, and is asked "what's the meaning of life?" or something to that effect. She looks into the woman's eyes, smiling, then says "Meep!" and honks the woman's nose, and goes skipping away. Yeah, gimme some of that.

"Fiscal irresponsibility" or "Buying cool stuff"

I am up at 1:30 in the morning even though I have to work fairly early tomorrow because...

I bought a mandolin. It's really pretty. I've even learned how to play it some. I might take it to bed with me tonight. I've been spending quality time with it for the past couple hours, and I think we'll have a really wonderful relationship. I never thought I'd end up with a mandolin, but sometimes the magic happens and you just go with it. It will probably make several guest appearances on the album...

Should I be spending that kind of money? Probably not... Am I glad I did?

Yup.

I have returned. Aaron and Lindsay are married, and it was a beautiful thing. It really is such an honor to stand up at the front of a church with a good friend and support him in such an amazing time in his life. You get to watch their faces and once in a while catch their glances and give a quick wink. So cool.

And of course seeing so many of my close college friends is a rare experience that had me feeling all warm inside for the last few days. I have amazing friends, and I forgot how healing and filling it can be to sit around and laugh with people who know your good and bad. The reception last night - eating, drinking wine, dancing with whoever, talking, laughing... I could have done that all week.

I feel so much more full and whole than I did before the weekend. And I'm a little sad, too. I know it's cliche for a single person to get a little sad at a wedding, but on the drive home I found myself praying for a female to share life with. I know this is a perfectly normal and valid and even healthy prayer, but for some reason I always feel a bit selfish or needy or I think it means I don't love God enough if I'm really desiring that very much. And beyond being sad about that, I'm just reminded that I chose a path that is not the easiest in terms of my social/relational life. I moved away from my family and I moved away from all of my college friends. My friend Angel reminded me tonight that it's ok to let myself be sad about the loss I feel because of that. I know I'm in the right place, and I have wonderful people around me here, but I do miss out on some things that are worth mourning. I don't let myself feel that all the time... I start to feel it and don't want to deal with it, so I let myself get numb and busy and settle for cheaper subsitutes for those deep relationships and the ultimate relationship that those earthly relationships reflect for me - my relationship with the One who created me and saves and guides and loves me.

I'm off tomorrow to WI for the aforementioned wedding. Very seldom do I get to think, "I'm not going to do anything for the next 3 days but enjoy being around friends." Good times. Won't be writing till I get back. See ya...

Purple robes and wedding bells

My senior year of college I sang in the St. Olaf Choir. This choir was a large part of my decision to attend St. Olaf - its conductor, Anton Armstrong, had conducted an all-state choir I was in during high school, and I liked him, and the choir had a national reputation... it has a very storied niche in the history of choral singing in the US, and the St. Olaf Christmas Festival (which includes several of St. Olaf's choirs, plus the orchestra) airs on PBS every December (they tape it every 4 years, so the performance from my senior year will still be on for the next 2). Anyway, when I started at St. Olaf, I had plans to pursue a degree in Music Education and eventually direct a choir and do church ministry, too. I figured that I'd audition for the St. Olaf Choir at the end of my freshman year - the first time I'd be eligible.

But when the end of that first year came around, my plans were changing. I realized that I didn't really want to teach music, and church ministry would probably be the avenue I pursued. And music ministry for me would have more to do with guitars than choirs, so I decided to do just a General Music major and add English to the mix to develop my love of reading and writing. I also decided not to audition for the Choir that year... I wanted to possibly pursue an off-campus program at some point, and that wasn't compatible with being in the choir. So I sang in another (wonderful) choir my sophomore year, but didn't get to go off-campus, so I decided to do that my junior year, which meant that I wouldn't actually audition for the choir that helped draw me to the college until the end of my junior year - and I knew that there would be only two baritone spots open.

I was facing the prospect that I may never sing in that choir, and I was ok with that - my priorities were different, and wearing one of those purple robes my senior year would be nice, but it wouldn't be life-shattering if I didn't. I auditioned, was called back, and went in for the callback, with all of the returning members of the bass/baritone section and all of us who had been called back. I was suddenly pretty nervous. The main part of the callback involves being inserted into the line of returning members and singing the line "I sigh to sing" over and over while Dr. Armstrong listened for how your voice blended with the others. There were a few anxious moments as I tried to sing out but blend in and be noticed but not be noticed, and then there was a moment when I felt my voice click with the two surrounding me. I started to feel more confident and it became apparent that he was going to leave me in the line. When his back was turned, my good friend Aaron, a returning bass, started going nuts and making faces at me and pointing at me - and I about welled up with tears. To be a part of something so beautiful, and to do it with people like Aaron and my friend Nathan (he of Mike and Nathan's forthcoming worship cd!) was going to be a gift.

That year in the choir was amazing. Every day rehearsal was hard work, but also had moments of true worship - Dr. A wouldn't settle for us just singing - he preached to us until we responded with a musical Amen. I learned the joy of "leading worship" as a small but important cog in a great wheel. I learned about worshipping with text and music from different time periods, different languages, different ethnicities. I learned that God can use a group of people with varying levels of faith and morality to speak powerfully and beautifully truthful messages. I experienced the thrill of coming home from a long tour and singing for a packed church at a school that cheers more for its choir than its sports teams. I learned what it feels like to bathe in a sea of sound that comes solely from inside of human beings.

A year and a half later, I'm still pursuing music ministry that has more to do with guitars and amplified sound than it does with choirs. To be honest, I go for weeks at a time without thinking about the fact that this is the first year that I can remember that I haven't sung in a choir at all. It's not like I miss it a huge amount.

But next weekend Aaron's getting married, and along with being a groomsman, I'm also singing in a choir that's being thrown together with several ex-Ole Choir members and a few other people. One of the pieces we're singing is a Mendelssohn piece, the English version of which is For God Commanded Angels to Watch Over You - it's one that we sang my senior year. So this morning I pulled out the cd of our home concert after our tour, and listened to it/sang along with it on the drive up to Anderson. I had the best worship time that I've had in a long time - singing timeless truths about God expressed in breathtakingly beautiful artistry. This is certainly possible in modern worship music with guitars and drums and all that - in fact, I feel like that's a huge part of my mission... to create music for worship that is deep and rich and beautiful and true. But I think more often than I realize I need to be reminded of the depth and tradition that I come from. People have been creating beautiful music as an offering to God for centuries, and I'm lucky enough to have experienced a wide range of it. To forget that would be a huge loss.

Ah, good times. Last night was one of those nights that make you feel like you are a fully alive and participating member of the human race and you're happy about it. One of my best friends in the world, Adam, was here from Kansas, along with his girlfriend, Alyssa, who I hadn't met before and is a lot of fun. The three of us and one of my best friends here, Sarah, went to see a concert with two amazing performers. One was Counting Crows, who have been top on my list of "Bands I Need to See," and the other was John Mayer, who I've seen before and is a sickeningly talented writer/player/performer. There was a huge crowd at the outdoor ampitheater, probably the biggest I've ever been a part of for a concert. There's something cool about being part of such a big crowd and all experiencing the same event. (I can't imagine being one of the focal points of an event like that and playing music, but that's another story.) It just feels like you're small but you get to participate in something big, and you somehow bond with the thousands of other people there without ever meeting them. And in the midst of that huge crowd, hearing music that I've loved for a long time and new music that I'll probably love soon, I got to be with close friends, one of whom I hadn't seen since Christmas. I just don't get that opportunity often enough. Even though Adam and Alyssa were only here for a very short visit, Adam and I got to talk deeply a couple times, and both are really appreciative for our friendship.

And tonight I get to see another great group, Over the Rhine, with some friends from church. After everything that's been going on the last couple months for me, a weekend like this to slow down and enjoy life and people is so huge. When Counting Crows played "A Long December" as their encore (they must hate playing that song by now), I let myself be a little cheesy for a second and really grabbed ahold of the line "I can't remember all the times I've tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass."

New template... better? worse? whaddya think?

I'm seeing light at the end of the busyness tunnel. I got my schedule for next quarter at the business college (which starts late Sept.), and it looks a whole lot better than this quarter. I'm teaching mostly the same classes as this quarter, but with fewer keyboarding classes and adding a writing class, which will be nice. I'll only have night classes until 10 on Monday and Wednesday, and Tuesday and Thursday I'll be done by 5:30 or so. Friday we'll just have faculty meetings and prep time and stuff (no classes), so I'll be there from 8 to 2 or so. And what's even cooler - Monday through Thursday I won't start until noon or so. So I can have the mornings to do stuff at church or run errands or (!!!) sleep in. Much better.

Hopefully I'll be a little bit more balanced person then - not that I'm on the verge of collapse now. On the contrary, I'm feeling good, and this weekend I'm going to actually just do some fun things... my friend Adam and his girlfriend are coming up tonight, and tomorrow we're going to the Counting Crows/John Mayer concert. And Saturday I'm going with some church friends to see one of my new favorite groups, Over the Rhine. But anyway, it'll be nice to have some evenings at home and not have to drive back and forth between Indy and Anderson twice a day most days. Save some gas money, too.

If you haven't noticed, I now have a link to another site that will have info about my recording project with Nathan. I haven't put any real info up yet, but hopefully it will be something that can keep anyone who cares updated on our progress.

Another quick thought on selfishness... for 3 1/2 years I was dating someone seriously, and I had to learn a lot about giving and about trying not to be selfish. Sometimes I was good about it, sometimes I wasn't. But always I had someone in my life who held me accountable about that - if I was being selfish, I knew about it! Now that I've been single for a year and a half, I haven't had anyone that close to me to remind me to get over myself. I think experiences like today are all the more important because of that - I need to learn to sacrifice my life to God just because that's what God asks and that's how I'll ultimately be happiest, not to keep a relationship going.

Sometimes the most basic lessons need to be relearned the most often...

I woke up this morning and, for no apparent reason, realized that my focus has been a little skewed. Nothing horrible - I tend to make little events like this overdramatic, and act like I've been completely lost. But I realized this morning that my first and last thoughts every day, and most in between, have been about me. I wrote a line in one of my old songs (old, so don't judge!) that said, simply, "I get so tired of thinking about myself / I just won't believe there's nothing more to be had." But for the last few weeks (months? I don't know how long) I've started to forget that there's more to be had. I've had so much going on, and so much exciting stuff going on, that things about me and my life have harnessed most of my attention. But I've known the whole time that I wasn't where I wanted to be - as exciting as things have been, I've also been tired, a little empty, a little lonely, struggling with temptation, not feeling as connected to God in intimate ways. I've felt God's hand in my daily life, seen Him work in the world around me, but haven't been "calming and quieting my soul" to hear the life-giving "I love you"s. And I've felt guilty about all that. But most times guilt isn't enough to make me change.

So this morning when I woke up, maybe it wasn't so much that I realized my focus has been off - I knew that already, if only half-consciously. But what happened was more like this - when I woke up, something made me wait for 15 seconds before I jumped in to pursuing my needs (even pressing things like the bathroom!). I turned on some worship music - music that can easily be just music for me - and actually let it in and let my heart sing through it. And then as I got in the shower something made me think about how much of a relief it would be to not chase myself today. I've been thinking for weeks that I should pursue God and other people, but today I realized how nice it would be. To quit trying so hard, at least for today, and let the fact that the Son of God died and rose again because God loves me be enough to fulfill me.

And now I'm watching the students in the last class of my very long day take a test, and thinking about how today I've been exposed to people struggling with sickness, abusive boyfriends, poverty, and spiritual emptiness, and how God made my eyes just a little different today - how He gave me a peace and a strength that let me spend more time and energy helping those people today and less chasing my own happiness. And how at the end of the day I'm tired, but I'm smiling, and when people have asked how I am, I've been saying "Really good, actually." I want to spend some time listening to the voice of the One who created me - to His voice on the pages of the book that tells His story, and to His voice that whispers to me in the very deep of who I am. And I want that not because I know I should, but because it will be life-giving. And I didn't do anything to make this happen.


Song: Andrew Peterson - "The Chasing Song"

I'm pulling up my proverbial bootstraps and trying to attack this week with more zest than I'm feeling this morning... after recording this weekend and seeing the project seem to spring to life, I'm trying to remember that I'm excited about teaching and everything else that I'm doing, too. Writing and playing and singing and breathing music energizes me so much, but I'm glad that I have other things going on in my life, too - my music might suffer in some ways because I can't focus completely on it, but I also think it benefits from me being a more well-rounded person.

Anyway, this entry is me telling myself how much fun it's going to be to grade papers and figure mid-term grades and how fulfilling it is to see students grow and move forward. Ok, giddyup...

A quick little update and apology for those of you who have been checking this every day to see if anything new or exciting has appeared (that might be expecting a little much...). I just got back yesterday from Austin, Texas, where I was planning with some other people for a national American Baptist youth conference that I'm leading music for next summer. Some highlights of the trip:

1) Reconnecting with people from different parts of the country, different ethnicities, and different theological views who will all be working on this conference (I'm leading the music with an African-American rapper/pastor named JP and a Hispanic woman named Aprillis).
2) Trying and failing miserably to eat the full stack of pancakes I foolishly ordered for breakfast one morning (everything's bigger in Texas, you know)
3) Trying and succeeding to eat the 5-meat combo plate at the barbecue joint where we ate the last night.
4) Eating a lot.
5) Seeing Erin and Jennie, sisters who are friends from high school and from my home church, who both live near Austin.
6) Eating
7) Hearing "y'all" more times than ever in my life.
8) Eating and not having to pay for it.
8) The 5:45 AM flight back to Indy... wait, no, that sucked.

Now I'm trying to get several things done before I leave again tomorrow to go down to St. Louis and record for two days, then come back late Sat. night in time for church Sunday morning. One of these days I'll slow down and write something more than an update on here. Until then, well, I guess that's it!

Thanks to Brian for pointing this out to me...

Kansas really is flatter than a pancake

Or maybe no thanks to Brian... let the jokes about my home state commence...

After my evening class finished at 8 last night I went to church and practiced with my friend Sarah and some other musicians to get ready for Sarah's show on Friday night (8:00 at the House in Glendale Mall here in Indy - come if you can!). We went until midnight, which means I'm fighting through the sleepy fog today, but sometimes I forget how much fun playing live music can be. The recording project has been fun, amazing really, but it's a totally different kind of playing than playing live. And I play music every Sunday morning, but playing music for a worship service is a different kind of sensibility than just playing music. Anyway, I had a lot of fun playing with a talented group of musicians, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night.

Today - classes, lunch, maybe a nap if I'm lucky, then more classes!

My commenting tool has been kinda unreliable, so I'm going to try a different one... if I get rid of the other one, though, I'll lose everything you all have written to me, and I don't want that... we'll see.

Had a great time hanging out with my friend Sarah last night - it made me realize how much I've missed spending time with people who really know me well. I'm really thankful for the people in my life that over time have gotten beneath the surface and who really love me, and who've let me get beneath their surface and love them.

I guess I don't have too much to say yet today (it's Monday and I'm tired), but just for no good reason I'll post a poem that I wrote a year and a half ago or so.

Love Songs Everywhere

You seem to hide
Between the swear words and
Singing of praise
Gliding effortlessly
From bar to cathedral
How do you encompass
E x t r e m e s
Without compromise

Love songs everywhere
Screams and moans and ballads and
Regrets – she cries hers
I sigh mine
You harmonize each (how?)
How does consonance reign
Over my discord
Bad grammar turn sonnet, woo me
Win my love before they do
If You’re too slow
See me leave, only to find
I’m chasing You again
Through delivery rooms and tombstones
Back alleys and Kansas fields

Life is good in St. Louis when...

You wake up in the morning, remember you locked your keys in your car the night before, think you're going to have to pay big money to a locksmith, and then a passing neighbor finds a key that opens the door.

Now if only he could do something about that ticket I got on the way here...

Until next time, I am...

Driving slowly through Illinois back to Hoosier country...

Mike

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the State of Illinois, and especially State Trooper Smith, for reminding me that I shouldn't hurry through life (or the State of Illinois), and for reinforcing that lesson by taking $75 from me. And then I'd like to publicly thank myself for locking my keys in my car tonight, for the 2nd time in two weeks, after never having done it my whole life.

Recording was fun, though...

Having said all of that, I'm going to leave here in a few minutes and go record my Christian worship album! I'm not saying scrap the whole system, because there are so many beautiful things about it... but try to put out good art, and material that's focused on the heart of who God is, and take joy in the music that's meant for helping us worship god, but write songs that a non-Christian can understand, too.

(If you can't tell, I'm preaching to myself as much as anyone else...)

I made the mistake this morning of killing a few minutes looking around in a Christian bookstore... now I want to be careful how I say this... I am glad that there is such a thing as a Christian bookstore. Much like the need for the Christian music industry, there is a need for a place where you know you can go to look for books, music, etc., that are designed to help you in your journey of faith.

That being said...

I found myself getting kinda mad... I noticed two major things that have begun to bother me about places like that. 1 - There's so much crap in there! Now I don't want to run down the legitmate work of some of the authors and musicians that have their material in a bookstore like that, but some of the stuff they sell is - no way around it - bad writing. Bad music. Sure, secular bookstores have crap, too, but I guarantee that much of the stuff in that Christian bookstore this morning would never - on the merits of quality alone - get published in the secular realm. But because it's "Christian," it's ok if it's not really that good. Do we as Christians really want mediocre (or worse) stuff feeding us? And a lot of the stuff in there was crap in a very different (and more disturbing) kind of way... so many of the books there (and the ones that are selling well!) seem to be nothing more than self-help books packaged with religious words. Now, we need books from a Christian perspective to help us improve our lives, but from looking at the majority of the books that were being displayed, you'd think that Christianity was all about improving yourself and your life and your family's life, and "unlocking the door to receiving God's blessings." It seems to me that following Jesus is not about self-improvement - the point is that we can't make ourselves good enough, and the grace of God is our only source of hope and salvation. That's what makes Jesus' message different from the world's message - so why are all those books only mirroring the world's message, but with God-language? The whole world just wants to get rich and be successful - is Christianity about seeking those things and calling them "God's blessings?" (Derek Webb: "and should I read between the lines / and look for blessings in disguise / To make me handsome, rich, and wise / Is that really what you want?)

Thing that bothered me #2 - Christianity as an insulated subculture. There is a sense in which we do need to be able to retreat to a safe, Christ-centered place to refocus and not have to worry about dealing with the rest of the world. But so many people live the vast majority of their lives in that safe, insulated place, where the language is clean and all of the rules are followed and you can put a good spin on anything by saying "Praise the Lord!" And so much of what we sell in a Christian bookstore reflects that subculture. Again, if that safety zone is a place you visit sometimes to refuel, great, but if it becomes an ingrown, self-serving entity, then I question whether it can accurately be called Christ-centered. Jesus spent most of his time mingling with the people who didn't follow the rules, whose language probably wasn't clean, and to whom the religious language has very little meaning. When the Christian subculture loses sight of that and spends most of its time producing mediocre music, art, and literature and asking God to make them rich, I think that the people who immerse themselves completely in it are not only missing chances to impact the world, but they're chasing after the wrong Christianity.

So, if you're a Christian, go to the Christian bookstore, but go to Borders, too... go to the Jars of Clay concert, but go see Linkin Park, too. Go to the Christian coffeeshop, but go to Starbucks (or even a [gasp!] bar!) too.

I had a nice experience last night... I've been worried all week because I needed to write a story to use in church this Sunday, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to settle in to "creative mode" any time this week, especially after a block of time on Tuesday afternoon that could have been story-writing time ended up being lay-on-the-couch-and-watch-tv-half-asleep time. But last night I finished class at 8 and - after stopping by to visit my boys at Guitar Center and getting some strings for Friday's recording session - I decided maybe Starbucks would be a good place to try to be creative. The first bit of good news was that my new Starbucks employee friend (see Wed. June 11) was there, and my drink was cheaper than normal (read: free). Then I settled in and started writing and everything that's been percolating around in my head for this story for the past couple weeks actually came out, and after going home and breaking for a couple phone calls, I finished it up...

The point of this is mostly just that it was nice to know I could find enough time and energy in the midst of a pretty crazy week to do one of the things that energizes me most. I like this week better than last week so far... and it only gets better, since I get to go record music tomorrow... sweet.

So today I did what's going to be my normal Monday thing... taught classes in the morning, drove down to church and did church stuff in the afternoon, drove back to Anderson for my 5:30-7:40 class. Then I had several things to do tonight (still do, actually, and posting this is not one of them!), so I was trying to prioritize and schedule the rest of my night... the first thing, on my way home, was to drop off a cd and charts to a guy who's going to start playing for our worship team at church. I often just drop stuff off in someone's mailbox, but I had told him and his wife that I'd be coming by, so I was planning on going in for a second, giving him the stuff, and getting on with the rest of my to-do list.

Instead, I was immediately invited to sit down and given a glass of water (I barely fought off dinner). We sat and talked for twenty minutes or so, and my whole mood changed. How novel... not just checking off the items on my list but connecting with people along the way and taking time to, um, talk! I love to talk about living that way, but I guess I don't actually practice that often enough.

Well... (nervous laugh)... there's a temptation a few hours after posting something like that last one to go back and change it or get rid of it all together, but for the sake of honesty, I'll keep it the way I meant it. We'll call that the PG-13 section of my blog. I'll try to keep it from R-rated territory...

After an intense afternoon like that, tonight was just what I needed... some other faculty members and I (ok, I admit, I probably kinda like the sound of "faculty member") went to an Indianapolis Indians baseball game. It was a good time getting to know them a little better (I'm especially excited that one of the guys, about my age, is going to play on my team for our church's 3-on-3 basketball tournament we're doing as a way to reach out to guys who don't go to church - the third member of our team is a student at the college, a 6'4" African-American guy named Prince who apparently was a star player in high school - yeah, we might be good) and it was also really great just to watch baseball and get soaked on the way in because it was raining. There were fireworks afterward and I enjoyed sitting there and watching explosions and fire and pretty lights... takes very little thought to appreciate that. Anyway, sorry if that last post freaked anybody out... I'm ok!

Caution: if you read this post, you may get a glimpse into the really ugly parts of my mind along with the divine.

I realized today what a shitty week this has been (I don't use that word lightly). Like I wrote about on Monday, I started out the week with good intentions, but didn't feel like I acted like a good person. I don't know if I even knew in the midst of it, but it snowballed from there. With very few little oases over the last few days, I let my frustration over my lack of free time translate into a WHOLE lot of selfishness. And I knew what was happening - I wanted to be pouring out love and truth to the people who I've been given to teach, I wanted to be that channel that just filters the love of God through me to those around me, I wanted to be a thankful, joyful follower of Christ... but I just felt empty and lonely and incapable of grasping what it means that God forgives me. I felt powerless to change the course of my thoughts and actions, and I hate that feeling.

Finally, I got done with my last class today, which thankfully ends at 1:00. On the way home I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked one, knowing it wouldn't make me feel better but hoping somehow it would (it is somewhat relaxing! But the negatives just really outweigh any benefit, in my opinion). I got home and thought about napping, then fought a battle that I often fight when I feel lonely or empty, lust. But somehow in the middle of that something started to shift... like I mentioned in the last post, I've been involved in an online discussion that really boils down to church and worship and how those ought to be lived. I started to realize that I totally believe everything I was arguing, but the substance behind it seemed really distant to me. Jesus. Grace. Thank God I finally had a bit of free time - I started to read some things that in the past have brought me back to the heart of why we worship, and why the church exists, and why I struggle to follow a man who lived 2,000 years ago, and why I believe that man was God.

It was nothing that I hadn't known all week, but after all of the struggling I'd done all week to make my way back to God, for some reason He chose that moment to lift the fog around my head and heart and let the peace that He promised and the grace that He died for envelope me. Suddenly I started thinking about our upcoming worship service at Northeast, and studying the words of the songs we'll be worshipping with this week (especially the old hymn Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing), and I was thinking about the other elements that we'll ask people to experience and participate in, and I was just overflowing with energy and passion and longing for our church to give God heartfelt praise and receive His love and grace, and for believers and non-believers alike to realize their need for Christ and give themselves up as "living sacrifices." The ugliest parts of me that have been surfacing this week came face to face with the divine calling that God has placed on my life, and I realized that He was, in that moment, taking my ugly, broken week and redeeming it.

I don't normally do this kind of thing, but I'm involved in a fairly interesting discussion on a message board about one of my current favorite books, A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren. I know that a lot of quarters of Christianity have problems with the "postmodern Christian movement," but this is my first time dealing with that.

We've had thunderstorm after thunderstorm here recently. In college, thunderstorms used to make me really homesick - I mean, in Kansas, we had THUNDERSTORMS! I remember one night at school I was up way too late working on a paper (of course) and got absolutely captivated when a storm blew up about 3 in the morning... I sat with the lights off and watched the lightning and felt the thunder gently shake the building.

I haven't been noticing thunderstorms as much recently, which kinda disappoints me. But tonight I was driving home and the sky decided to put on a light show that blew away any human-made special effect I've ever seen. This wasn't just lightning, this was a web of crisscrossed power angling through the black. I had to remind myself to keep my eyes on the road. It was definitely enough to get me to the place of awe I'd like to live from. Thanks God...

For anyone who cares, I changed the webcounter I was using... the old one was fine, but this one will be cooler. Ok, I'm probably the only one who cares about that...

This morning I actually got up early enough to 1) eat breakfast, and 2) spend some time praying, reading, etc... if you know my sleeping habits, you know that's not always the case! I left the house thinking that I was more prepared than normal to face the day, to be a good teacher, to care about people, to be a spiritual giant. And of course I spent the day feeling more self-centered, less energized, more insufficient than I have in the last week or so when I haven't started out the day the "right way." Anyone else ever notice that the days you do it right are the days you need to be most careful?

"Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song / The joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue / Thy free grace alone from the first to the last / Hath won my affection and bound my soul fast" - John Stocker

This is the town in which I teach... beautiful!!!

Man adds another arrest to his list of nearly 400

As of today, this shows the Kansas City Royals in first place. WHAT!? The same Kansas City Royals that I followed on my Smurf radio in 1985 (I was 5) when they won the World Series? And the same Royals who have been near or at the bottom of the AL Central since then? It could all change quickly, but for now - WHAT!?

ESPN.com - MLB - Standings

Very cool... a guy who's written a book on theology and also writes for ESPN.com's Page2 (one of my favorite reads)... definitely worth the time...

ESPN.com - Page2 - Divine intervention

Not going to whine about being busy, not going to whine about being busy...

Just did, didn't I?

I told myself when I took this full-time teaching job at the business college along with my part-time music director fun at my church and being in the middle of a recording project that I was going to be busy, and I'm choosing that for now, so I can't complain about it. I haven't stuck to that too well yet, so if anyone asks me how I am and I say "Busy, but good" or something like that - well, slap me. Everyone's busy - I can deal.

Ok, self-reprimanding over.

The thing is all of these things are great - I'm about done with my first week at the business college full-time, and I'm really enjoying the chance to meet all of these people and try to impact their lives in some positive way. It's a different feeling needing to be "on" all the time and being the one to whom people come for answers and guidance, but I think I can be that for people in this situation. It's humbling in a way, though - I realize how young I am and how much I have to learn and what a gift it is to be able to be a channel for God working in people's lives.

And church remains exciting - we have some new people coming and we're really challenging ourselves to reach out to the people around us. Evangelism - one of the big things I've learned in the last couple years is that I don't like thinking about evangelism in terms of "winning" someone to Christ. I almost want to apologize to anyone who's ever been burned because a Christian they know made them feel bad by acting like they were a war to win - something to be conquered. I think most people also don't want to have Jesus sold to them... all of our rational arguments and emotional exhortations about why someone should choose to become a Christian - they might work once in a while, but I think many people just get turned off. So if it's not a conquest, it's not a sales job, what is it? The best metaphor I've heard recently has it as a dance. I hear the music, maybe you don't, but we'll dance and you'll start to feel the rhythm and eventually (please God) you'll start to hear it yourself. So it's a relationship... Jesus didn't just preach to the masses, but he ate meals with individuals.

Ok, didn't mean to go off on that, but church is exciting because we're pursuing that vision, and we're putting a lot of energy and creativity into our services and praying that people would experience God's presence through us and learn to dance.

And then there's the whole recording thing... this past weekend was so exciting. We're getting a great deal on the studio time, and our engineer, David Karns, has an amazing ear. He's getting great sounds. We did mostly drums and bass this weekend, getting the rhythm tracks really solid. We also added some electronic this-and-that, and it sounds very cool. With such quality rhythm tracks down, I feel like the bar has been set pretty high - Nathan and I need to lay down quality guitar and keyboard and vocals to match it! One thing that will help me lay down good guitar stuff - my new electric! It's a Schecter that the guys at Guitar Center gave me a great deal on, and I love the sound and feel of it. I actually picked it over a lower end Les Paul that was in the same price range. Now, along with my Taylor and my amp, I feel like all of my basic equipment is at least good enough to lay down really good sounding stuff on an album.

Anyway, the album will have quite a variety of songs and styles, from folk rock to beautiful piano-driven songs (those would be Nathan's) to modern rock. The common thread is worship... even the one song that's not a "worship song" in the sense of being a song meant for people to sing collectively in a worship service - even that one ("Finish What You Started") has a chorus that to me is a cry out to God, like in the Psalms, asking him to come and fix what's broken, to "finish what You've started." I have at least a small tinge of negative reaction to doing a "worship album" in an age when seemingly every Christian band is doing a "worship album" and "worship" is a huge industry. But like I read in an interview the other day (I think it was with Derek Webb), if there is a reason for there to be a Christian music industry at all that's separate from the rest of the music industry, it's worship music.

Worship music has been a part of the Christian church since the beginning, and goes back all the way to the Psalms and the rest of the Old Testament. People have always felt compelled to express worship through songs, as music can express things that words alone never could. And if worship is truly arising from people experiencing God's love and beauty and truth in a myriad of different ways in their lives, then along with the old songs we know and love that remind us of who God is and what God will always be, we constantly need new songs to reflect the fresh ways God is drawing us to worship Him. And what's more, my own personal expressions of worship are unique from the ways anyone else would express their worship, but other people might resonate with the cries of my heart.

Alright, enough already... but those are some of the significant things filling my days and hours. There are other things, to be sure, but some things are probably better in a private journal than out in the open...

Running down to St. Louis tomorrow to do some final rehearsing for a recording project that I don't think I've written about on here yet. It goes like this - 1) I work for a church. 2) I write songs to use for worship in that church. 3) My friend Nathan does the same thing in St. Louis. 4) We like to play music together. 5) We both thought it would be cool to record our songs for worship so people in our churches (and anyone else who cares) can have them. 6) We're going to do it. Not sure how the money's going to line up for it, but we've got enough to get started, and it feels like we're supposed to go ahead, so we've been practicing with a bass player and and drummer from his church, and it's coming together really well, so I'm going to run down to practice tomorrow, come back Thursday morning, teach my last Business Communication class, get a lot of stuff ready for church on Sunday, spend next week 1) getting ready to teach my five new classes that start June 30 at the business college and 2) getting more stuff ready for church, and then go back down to St. Louis next Thursday to record the rhythm tracks on Friday and Saturday, so I can come back Saturday night in time for church Sunday morning and then become a full-time teacher the next day. So if I don't write betweeen now and then, at least you can know what I'm doing. Since you care and all.

It's been a while since I have been in a busy season that lasted months instead of days, but I think it's coming... I'm telling myself that busy's not always bad - you just have to make sure you're taking time for the important things that fuel you up to do all the stuff you have to do. But I'm interested: what do you think? How do you view busyness? Inherently evil, or just reality, or what?

I could, and probably should, write about all of the things that have happened since I wrote last time - things like playing music at that wedding, going to an Arts Conference in Chicago that literally helped define for me what it means to be an artist and a follower of Jesus, the ways I connected to people in my church as a result of that conference, the ways church is changing and growing and feels ready to burst with something good, and the ways I've been wrestling with what to do job-wise outside of the church (it looks like I'll be teaching full-time at the business college starting in July). I could write about any of those things in detail, but I haven't wanted to for some reason. I do want to write about tonight.

Let's start with today. I didn't have anything to do today except a phone interview for the business college at 1 in the afternoon. So I woke up about 9:30, put on some shorts and a t-shirt, and went downstairs to eat something. I got sidetracked when I looked out the window and saw springtime, so I went outside and sat and prayed and let appreciation for beauty well up inside me. Came back in and decided to not just have cereal and juice like most mornings, but to try my hand at pancakes and eggs. Ok, they weren't the best, but edible, and the real maple syrup from New York that my parents brought me covered up any real problems. I tried to write a song for church after that, but my stomach was making noise as it tried to figure out how to deal with the pancakes, and it kept distracting me. I gave up and played guitar, then did the phone interview at 1 (I think I did pretty well… how often is it that you do something where all you have to do is talk about yourself?). After that I tried to learn how to play some of Nickel Creek's songs… I'm going to see them again on Friday, and I've been thinking for a while that trying to learn things that seem way out of my league is probably a good way to get better. Ended up doing that all afternoon, had some dinner, and then took stock of the day.

I was having trouble convincing myself that I'd had a productive day. I know that once I start teaching at the business college full-time, teaching and pursuing my part-time but life-consuming (in the good way) calling at church will leave me very little time for this kind of day, and I should enjoy these opportunities. But I wanted something else, so I decided to pack up some books and go to Starbucks to grade some papers and read. I also had the vague thought in the back of my head that I was more (if only slightly more) likely to meet someone new at Starbucks than sitting at home. And I have to say that even nine months after moving to a new city I am still hungry to meet new people.

I walked up to the counter and the girl who served me said, "You're Michael, right?" She's apparently friends with a girl from my church who also works at Starbucks, and has been to the church at least once and seen me there. We bantered a little bit while she got my drink (for free!) and then I sat down, laughing because another small milestone has passed in my putting down roots in a new place: I can go to a Starbucks and have someone there recognize me. Big deal, I know, but anonymity is only nice for a while.

I graded my papers and then pulled out a book. I've been reading a lot recently, and my book of choice tonight was one that someone I barely know gave me out of the blue after church a couple weeks ago. Life After God, by Douglas Coupland - short stories about the first generation of people raised "without God" - without ever being a part of organized religion. People who've been taught to be cynical about everything, who don't believe in love but are perpetually lonely. People who don't know what to believe in but who slowly realize that they have to believe in something for life to be bearable. These are the people I want to relate to, but I'm not sure I can - I mean, I was raised with faith and, thankfully, have never lost it. But I connected to those people on a deep level as I kept reading. They're so lonely, and as I looked up every time someone new walked in the store, and as I felt the pang of jealousy when two old friends ran into each other and excitedly settled down to catch up, and as I glanced every so often at my cell phone lying out on the table in case anyone called…

Every new person that walked into Starbucks became a character in one of Coupland's empty but searching stories, and I wanted to be brave enough to tell them that I don't understand who they are, but I'm woven with some of the same threads they are. I felt full as I closed the last page of the book, just as the coffee shop closed and I said goodbye to my new friend behind the counter. Driving home, I knew that I was finally going to write, after a couple weeks' hiatus. I love that feeling - I've already started writing in my head, but I have to wait a little bit before I actually start… it's like someone floored the gas pedal but hasn't let the clutch out yet.

Now I'm done and it feels like my day is pretty much complete. But I'm still looking for more. I think what I learned at that Arts Conference is that someday my penchant for talking about myself and the floored gas pedal and the awareness of my kinship with the girl with colored hair walking in to buy coffee will continue to coalesce into something that changes me and changes other people and makes us all see God a little more clearly.

(I'm young and naïve and ok with that)

Another Tuesday without a call to go sub - and even though not subbing = not earning money, I'm enjoying the break again. I just spent an hour or so practicing Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring on guitar. I've never taken classical guitar lessons, and until a couple months ago had only played rock, folk, blues, etc. - I've studied and sung classical music, but guitar was for everything else. But a couple months ago I found a book with some intermediate level transcriptions of classical pieces (yes, I know, Bach is Baroque), and started messing around with some of them. I've always loved Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, so I was focusing on that one.

Then my job as music director for a church that does pretty much all rock music took an unexpected twist when I tried to start planning music for a wedding in the church and realized that wedding processionals and electric guitars aren't a normal combination. So I mustered up my courage (stupidity?) and told the couple "Hey, I'll play Bach on guitar for the processional."

So in the last two weeks I've been using a good chunk of my free time to plunk away... it's coming, and I'm sure I'll be ready to do it, but the subtlety involved in doing a piece like this well takes some concentration. This morning I worked on some trouble spots, then remembered that I have a recording of Phil Keaggy playing this piece with an orchestra in London, so I decided to see how far along I was by playing along. I turned it on, and my first realization was that he was taking a tempo that was, shall we say, a bit faster than I was planning. But I went ahead and tried it, and after fumbling through the first few measures, something cool happened - something about being forced to follow that quicker tempo made my mind turn off in a good way, and my fingers just started to remember where to go, and for a long while I was able to just play - I know I made some mistakes, but the majestic and peacefully rolling rhythm of the piece just seemed to carry me along, and the strings played soaring countermelodies to my (and Phil's) steady dance through the chord progressions. I ended up getting lost somewhere after a page turn, but by then I had already had those crucial several moments of forgetting about jobs, responsiblities, relationships, etc., and just being caught up in a piece of art that's a lot more eternal than my daily worries.

This might be, by necessity, fairly vague and abstract, but I'm thinking tonight about the concept of putting your heart out on the line, and how, too often, I don't. We're good at protecting ourselves, aren't we? If the object of life was to feel pain as infrequently as possible, I think most Americans would be considered pretty successful. Look at all the toys we have to distract us from hurt. Money can't buy happiness, but I suppose it can buy Prozac. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with anti-depressants at all, but if more people were well-equipped to handle their issues and find joy in life, we might find a much smaller number of people who actually need them.

Anyway, I point the finger at myself here, because I find it so easy to run anywhere that seems somehow safe rather than to risk pain. This is a basic truth I've known for a long time, but I'm realizing recently that maybe I'm at a point where I need to put myself on the line a little more, risk a little more hurt, be a little more naked - and just possibly put myself in a place to experience more joy. Andrew Osenga has a song called "When Will I Run to the Arms of God" - I think even the times I try to run to the arms of God, I don't expect enough from those Arms... I expect them to be safe, and at times (when I need them to be) they are. But I need to run to those arms when they're not safe - when they gently redirect me towards a path that looks dark and ripe with pain and uncertainty. Because sometimes safe isn't good. And God is good, so good that S/he can't always be safe. God loves us too much to keep us comfortable.

I went to bed last night exhausted - I was at church yesterday from 8:45 in the morning to 8:45 at night. It was all good stuff - planning worship, discussing postmodernism and the church, brainstorming ways to go outside of the church walls and relate to people. Then a couple from the church who are getting married at the end of the month came and we planned music for their wedding, which will be really neat. So it was all fulfilling, and I felt like I was really doing the things that I was made to do. But I got home and was spent - I needed to grade some papers for my class tonight, but I just couldn't do it. I went to bed and, if it's possible, I felt almost too tired to fall asleep! I finally did, all the while trying to figure out when I was going to have time today to finish grading and take care of a few details from church...

My alarm went off this morning, and I turned it off. My second alarm went off this morning (yeah, I need two!), and I turned it off, figuring that I'd wake up when the substitute coordinator called to tell me where I would work today. Maybe an hour later, I half emerged from behind the curtain of sleep and realized my phone hadn't rung. Duly noted, I fell back asleep. It wasn't the most restful sleep, because it seemed like everything that's been on my mind in the last couple weeks (church, teaching, summer work?, relationships, family) was making a lot of noise inside my sleeping head, but when I finally woke up for good at 9:30 and realized that, for the first time in a few weeks, the lady hadn't called with a job for me... well, I felt pretty awesome.

Now, this could be considered a bad thing - money-wise, I should be working every possible day. But... I needed a day off, and I immediately went outside with my new devotional book that draws on the tradition of Celtic prayer. The sun was out, and the sky was clear, and the Celtic Christian tradition focuses a lot on seeing God's goodness in the beauty of creation, so I spent some time soaking in the sun and the love of the One who created me. And now I have the opportunity to get some things done today and to rest, maybe go for a run, and be ready to really focus on building into the students in my class tonight... we live in a twisted world in some ways, and like Derek Webb says, "everyone is crooked deep down," so I may very well not use the day for all the great things I'm envisioning, but this little reminder of a God who gives grace in little ways along with the big ones has got me feeling a little bit lighter on my feet today.

In the past, when I've journaled, I've always had the dilemna of what to do when I don't write for a while... spend time catching up, or just write what's on my mind? Well, tonight it's too late and I'm too tired to catch up, but I did want to write. I will say that the last week has found me continuing to think hard about various and sundry things, almost to the point where I'm tired of thinking. I've been thinking about most of them so hard that I haven't been able to write about them. But here's something I can write about.

I subbed today in an English class, which always makes me look around at books and get interested in one or several of them. Today I skimmed a book called Socrates Café, in which the author describes his pursuit of bringing philosophy back to the people. He tries to follow Socrates' example and methods of philosophical thought. In Socratic thought, the question is the all-important element. The point isn't as much to find the right answer as it is to learn from the process of questioning. So this author travels around to different places facilitating what he calls Socrates Café, in which people simply discuss basic questions about the meaning of life and how to live a good life, and they follow Socrates' model of exploring all lines of questioning that surround the basic question. Anyone is welcome, and all viewpoints are treated with respect.

Skimming this book did a couple things for me. One, it made me go after school to get a library card (I must really live here now - I have a library card!) and check out the book Sophie's World, which I hear does an amazing job of outlining the history of philosophy in the form of a novel. (Oh, and I also checked out Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days, because it reminds me of growing up listening to A Prairie Home Companion with my family.) Secondly, it made me think about how groups that function like these Socrates Cafés seem to be successful because they allow for dialogue and tolerance of other ideas and acceptance of anyone's viewpoints. And how many people would see churches as the opposite of this kind of place. At church, it seems to some, you don't dialogue - people tell you what to think. If you don't think like the rest of the church, you better leave.

So let's move church to the smoking section of a coffeeshop or bar and let whoever sits in on the conversation contribute to the sermon, right? Christians could go a long way towards reconciliation with people we've harmed by our legalism and judgement by showing that kind of respect for others' opinions. And it would seem to better demonstrate that grace is about Christ loving people while they are "yet sinners" and not about following a prescription list of rules.

But there is a difference between a Socrates Café and a church. A church - while I think it needs to be much more comfortable dwelling in questions than shelling out "certainties" which often have more basis in culture and tradition than in the Bible - a church must also be able to point people to a Truth that doesn't change, no matter how much you question it. I haven't figured out yet how that balance works, but I think it has something to do with concentrating less on man-made arguments as truth, but more on the one who said "I am the Truth." Does this make any sense? I don't know, I'll have to think about it tomorrow when I'm more awake.

Ever have a couple days where there's just a lot on your mind? Stupid question... everyone has those days, but it always amuses me how some stretches of time seem to just pass without much note, and watching Sportscenter seems like an important part of the day, and then little things happen that make me feel like I need to take a day off just to sit and smoke my pipe by a lake somewhere and try to make sense out of the world.

Without going into too much detail, I'm pondering...

- work... I've known that eventually I'm going to go to seminary, probably do ministry in a church full-time, if I'm not touring the country playing music. I've also known that I didn't want to do that right away, so since my graduation I've been a bank teller, a guitar salesman, a substitute teacher, an instructor at a business college, a studio musician, a guitar teacher, and of course, music director for a church. My substitute teaching gig will necessarily end come summer, so I'm pondering my next move. Patching together jobs to support myself, rather than having one full-time, more permanent job, has contributed to my feeling of life here being somewhat temporary, and that's how I perceived it when I moved here. But at this point I have no reason to leave anytime in the near future, unless I decide to go to seminary soon somewhere else. I love my church and wouldn't want to leave that anytime soon. So I'm pondering the possibility of teaching at the business college full-time... I need to figure out if I'm being called to really invest in trying to teach/love/minster to the very unique people there. If I were to decide to do that, I think I would want to commit to that for a while. But would that be somehow too limiting, or not the right focus for my energies? These are the things I think about... ok, I went into detail...

- relationships - the ones I've left behind, the ones I've begun to form, the ones that are being healed and renewed, the ones that build me up, the ones that make me hurt... in particular I'm feeling deeply for friends who are making decisions that they know aren't best, but who don't care at this point. I can't judge that - I've been there far too often, and will be again. But some decisions have harder consequences than others. It hurts to see it happen and not be able to do anything about it. But over the last few years I've been learning that letting God channel His love through me will not necessarily mean most times that I'll be able to influence people's behavior, but will more often mean that I get to walk with someone and show love and grace to them. That's a lot harder than telling them what to do, and I'm not always great at it, but I'm hoping that someday I'll see the fruit of it...

And I'm back... I had a great weekend with my brother and my parents, and enjoyed being in a college atmosphere again. I really appreciate my family - I'm not sure how many families could be happy sitting in a coffee shop for two hours and just talking. We also have the kind of closely knit family that is close enough that we can all go our separate ways - my parents still live in Kansas, I went to college in Minnesota, my brother goes to school in Pennsylvania, now I live in Indiana... but we've always been able to get back together whenever possible and let our varied experiences enrich our family life.

On the drive back home, after it got dark, I stopped talking on my cell phone (yeah, I'm one of those people), turned off the cd that was playing and let myself quiet down. I was wide awake, so I didn't need noise to keep me alert, and I started to notice my internal sensors reporting that I've been going full-steam for a while and haven't let myself quiet down and listen. It's not that I've needed to be overly busy - but for whatever reason I sometimes get scared of slowing down and listening. I don't really notice this until later... but something makes me watch tv, play computer solitaire, even listen to music or talk to friends, when what I really need is to just stop - none of those things are bad on their own, but if Someone's trying to tell me something, than I'm missing out. And I've been missing out for a few weeks now. So the ride home was a good start, but once you've been building a dam, it takes a while to tear it down.

In the couple days I've been home again, just like most of the last few weeks, I've been letting the things I have to do fill up my days. As long as I get done what needs to get done, I can go to bed and get up again the next morning. And I get just enough relaxation/fun/good feelings from various little sources - some of which are more blatantly wrong than others, but all of which are wrong because they're not based in attention to my real Source. This doesn't have to happen - if I was really craving time to slow down and live, I'd get the essentials done and claim the rest of my time for real life.

Ok, that got somewhat depressing, but if I can realize that I'm living in a pattern like that, than maybe I can ask God to help me change it. Life is good, but it's not so good when I step outside of the lens of the One who redeems it.

Ooh, it's been a busy week. Subbing on Tuesday, teaching my Business Communication class at Indiana Business College Tuesday night, subbing Wednesday, playing with a friend's band for an outdoor music festival on Anderson University's campus at 10:45(!) at night, getting home at 1, falling asleep by 2, waking up at 6, subbing today for a high school AP Literature class (scary how much I enjoyed that - I'm not supposed to actually be an English teacher, am I? That's another post, I suppose...), teaching my class again tonight, now getting ready to leave bright and early tomorrow morning to drive to Pennsylvania, where I'm meeting my parents at my brother Adam's college (Grove City College). That was one big long sentence to describe one big long week. I'm excited to hear my brother's choir's home concert, and fill-in as a bass player for the worship service he plays for...

Anyway, busy week, few posts, and leaving for the weekend, so probably fewer posts! But I've been meaning to post a list of things I've read recently or am in the process or reading, just for fun and in case anyone's interested...

Books about God or church or things like that...
Unlearning Church by Michael Slaughter - great look at what's good and what needs to change in church ministry
Postmodern Pilgrims by Leonard Sweet - similarly, talks about the direction of the church in a new era
***A New Kind of Christian*** by Brian McLaren - I LOVED this book. Please read it. It put words to a lot of things I've been trying to pin down about how I want to live my life.
Surprised By Joy by C.S. Lewis - how one of the foremost Christian writers of the 20th century came to know the joy of following Jesus
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis - I've been meaning to read this for a long time, and I'm so glad I finally did - thought-provoking picture of life after death
The Jesus I Never Knew by Phillip Yancey - re-reading this one... brings Jesus to life in an amazingly fresh way

Books that I've read while subbing for English classes because I'm a dork
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The first two acts of Shakespeare's Henry VIII
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams - that was today... really liked it
"How to Tell a True War Story" - a short story by Tim O'Brien that I read in high school and re-read today - has a lot to say about the nature of war and people's reaction to it

Other miscellaneous books
Side Effects by Woody Allen - hilarious
A collection of excerpts from several different poets' notebooks... never failed to make me want to write about random things

I think I'm forgetting some, but I'll revise this when I remember what they are. Any suggestions for what I should read next?

I've had a great couple days…

Sunday, of course, was Easter - I could (and probably should) write for quite a while about how beautiful Easter is, but I'll leave it at this (a paraphrase of our sermon at Northeast Sunday morning): the Easter story seems unbelievable (Someone rises from the dead? That someone was God as a human?) but it is a credible story (if you're interested, I can point you toward resources that talk about this). And isn't life somehow more fun and meaningful when you believe in things that seem unbelievable? But this story isn't merely true, and it's not just a religious concept, but it's transformational - there's a passage in the Bible (Romans 8:11) that says basically that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is at work in anyone who accepts it. I mention this because it hit me that if I have that Spirit within me, and it has that much power, I don't often take advantage of that… I don't expect God to do anything near that dramatic in my life. Is any of this confusing, offensive, cool, silly, too amazing for you? Tell me about it…

Sunday afternoon one of my pastors had me over for dinner with his family. This included his parents - of Greek origin. His mom cooked this amazing Greek meal - lamb, pilafi, spinach pie, bread, wine, Greek salad… a bachelor living in a house with another bachelor doesn't often eat like that! Wow. And to be able to sit and talk and eat with a loving and interesting family, when you're away from your own family - well, that kind of thing keeps you going.

Now let me skip to last night… I went to one of the best concerts of my life! If you haven't heard of Nickel Creek - well, I think they're one of the most amazing groups around. A brother and sister and a friend of theirs, all of them in their early to mid-twenties. Sarah plays fiddle, Sean plays guitar, and Chris plays mandolin, and they all have beautiful, clear voices that harmonize perfectly with each other. All of them, especially Chris, the mandolin player, are incredibly skilled musicians - just to watch their fingers move that fast would have been worth the $20. Anyway, it's just the three of them, plus a guy backing them up on upright bass.

I'll try to describe their music… start with bluegrass (the instrumentation is a fairly standard bluegrass setup, and they could fiddle and flatpick their way around almost anyone I've ever heard), then add modern folk singer-songwriter sensibilities, throw in harmonies and chord structures and progressions that sometimes seem borrowed from jazz, add a healthy dose of blues to a lot of the solos, give it the energy of rock (but without drums!), and finally give the kind of care and attention to detail in the composition and arrangement that you'd expect from a "serious" art music composer. Their lyrics are really thoughtful and well-constructed, and the songwriting, while seldom what you'd expect, is catchy and brilliant. Have I mentioned I like them? Their music has this purity and authenticity to it - I think it comes from staying true to a very traditional style of music, but making it their own in every way. None of it is what you'd really call radio-friendly, yet they packed this good-sized bar in Bloomington, IN, and had people transfixed.

By the time they did their second encore, for which they unplugged and stood on the front of the stage, this crowd of mostly college kids was crowded around and virtually silent, and most knew the words enough to sing along with one of the last songs, complete with harmony. Then they ended with a simple, beautiful arrangement of my favorite hymn, Be Thou My Vision. Not as many people knew the words to that one, but we all stood silent, people just holding their beer and soaking it in…

Ok, first the disclaimers… I've been single for a little over a year now, and it's been a very good thing. Being single is a very, very valuable experience, and I'm not ready to be done with it for a while yet. So I'm really not out there looking. And beyond that, I really hope that when I do get involved in a relationship again, it'll be with someone with whom I've first had a friendship, and that my interest in her and hers in me will develop from the basis of that friendship.

But ok… today my curiosity got the best of me. I signed on to Yahoo to check my e-mail, and there was a big section of the screen inviting me to browse the Yahoo personals. Right, the personal ads. I'm picturing lots of abbreviations (SWM looking for SWF for possible LTR, N/S, etc.) and silly "I like long walks on the beach" stuff. But I was bored, and it raised my question of the day - is a service like that really a legitimate way to try to meet someone?

I clicked into it, and was surprised by how detailed you can be. Beyond age, height, marital status, and other normal categories like those, you could search for people who were of a specific religion, career, income-level… and within some of those categories you could get into even more of the gray areas. How often do they attend religious services? Not just smoker or non-smoker, or drinker or non-drinker, but how often do they smoke or drink? Have they had kids? Do they want kids? Interests? Political views? Expectations for a relationship? And are your preferences in these areas "must-haves" or just "it'd be nice if…"

But it gets crazier - once you've searched for your ideal mate, you can enter information about yourself and it will match you up with not only the women of your dreams, but the women who are looking for someone exactly like you, too! And it will show you just exactly how closely they fit your rigid qualifications and how perfect of a fit you are for them. Wow.

So according to Yahoo, there are at least a few women who live in my general area who are pretty close to what I'm looking for and who would be pretty pumped to meet me. Now, again, I'm not looking, but I got to thinking… if it was between something like this and meeting some girl at a bar and thinking "Hey, she's attractive…" - well, it seems to me this method's at least a little more scientific. I don't know if I could handle the "How'd you meet?" "On the internet." conversation, but as I've learned since moving to a city where I only knew a few people, it's not as easy to meet different people as it was in college. I can see why some people would want to bypass the preliminaries and find someone that they knew at least had similar qualities.

I would have had to pay $19.95 to sign up to be able to actually e-mail the woman of my dreams… thank goodness I'm not looking right now… that’s almost as expensive as actually paying for a date…