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…

I got out of bed yesterday at 5:45 AM, like I do most mornings, when the substitute coordinator for the school district where I sub calls and lets me choose where I'll teach that day. I've ended up subbing in middle schools a lot - not what I would have expected when I decided to start subbing a few months ago. I hated middle school when I was that age - seems like that's when kids lose their elementary school innocence and sweetness, and it's before they start to gain the maturity that helps them become contributing members of society in late high school going into college. But there aren't high school sub opportunities often, and even though the middle schools start at 7:30, an hour earlier than elementary schools, they also get out an hour early, so I kinda like having that much more time left in the day when I'm done. Some days I decide to take an elementary school class because I don't feel like dealing with middle school attitudes, and I'm ready for some time pouring energy into hugging second graders and reading picture books to them. But even though middle school is such a tough age (or maybe because it is), it's eye-opening - you can quickly tell a lot about a student's background and home life just from interacting with them a bit and seeing their attitude towards school and their peers. Plus some days you actually go through the day and have all of your classes behave pretty well, and you can just sit there while they do their work and relax.

I was hoping for one of those days yesterday when I decided I'd be a seventh grade science teacher for the day. Yesterday was Friday. Good Friday, to be exact - the day when Christians remember the death of a man on a cross 2,000 some years ago. And to be honest, the only reason I was thinking much about that is that I'm the music director for a church, and we had a service coming up in the evening. As I got ready for school (who knew that after I graduated from college I'd still be "getting ready for school?"), I was frustrated that I didn't feel more personally connected to the significance of Good Friday. Even more, I'd pretty much let the whole season of Lent - a time when I've often really focused on personal reflection and prayer, and trying to "get myself ready" for Easter (whatever that means) - pass by without giving it much more thought than was required for helping plan and lead worship services at church. I guess I've been disappointed with the state of my commitment to my spiritual life in general. I've not followed through on things - even things I've been excited about, like really praying hard and consistently for people I love who are struggling with things, or like finally committing to volunteer a couple hours a week at a homeless shelter or food kitchen or something.

So anyway, I was hoping that my day at school yesterday would be fairly quiet, so I could start reflecting on Good Friday and on how the human who was God was beaten and killed, and on what that means for me and for the world. That way I could go to church in the evening and feel like I was really ready to lead worship. The kids had different plans for me…

I like to think I'm a pretty decent substitute teacher, and have learned how to handle these middle school kids. Most days I can get them to work without having to yell at them as a whole - you figure out at the beginning of each period which kids are going to try to test you, then you don't give them a chance to disrupt the class. But yesterday the moon must have been aligned with the stars in some unfortunate way, because those kids were just off the wall! I've had assorted bad days subbing, but I'm not sure I've ever had so many kids act up - not just failing to do their work and talking too much, but blatantly ignoring my instructions and arguing with me and when I told them to get to work, and just generally showing no respect. My voice, by the end of the day, was TIRED… I don't like having to yell, but sometimes it's the only way to be heard when twenty-five voices (at, oh, at least mezzo forte) are all talking at once. And I definitely don't like yelling in anger at kids, even when they deserve it - it doesn't make you feel great about yourself.

By the end of the day, I felt, if anything, less prepared for the evening's service. My voice was tired, and I felt even less "spiritual" than I did before. I took a short nap and then went to church to set some things up. I had some extra time, so I made a little half-hearted attempt at spirituality - I lit a candle and opened up a Bible, and tried to focus on abstract concepts like "grace" and "love," and an instrument of death I've never seen, a "cross." My mind was more on making sure I knew what guitar chords to play and what words to sing, so I soon shrugged my shoulders and finished my prayer with something to the effect of "God, I'm done… You'll just have to do Your thing."

I was feeling a little better… we lit some candles in the sanctuary (well, it's more like a warehouse, but it's our sanctuary!) and dimmed the lights, and started the service. We started singing, and the beauty of music and the focus of the words (not on me, but on One who's bigger and better than me) helped me start to let the frustration of my day drain away. We sang more words, older words, newer words - words that, along with the music and the candles and the presence of the other people in the room, began to make more real those abstract concepts that I struggled with earlier. Then Fred, our senior pastor, began to talk through what Jesus, as a human being, must have felt throughout the story. As he told his friends that one of them would betray him that night, and all of them said "It's not me, is it?" and as he told them that all of them would fall away, my own recent inability to stay committed to him struck me. As he admitted his human weakness, saying that he was troubled and asking his friends to pray for him, and then found them asleep, I started crying as I thought about my friends that I've failed to pray for or walk with consistently.

Finally, as he let out his last breath and said, "It is finished," I realized what I most needed to know: if I were the super-spiritual person that I'd like to be, I wouldn't need Good Friday. If I were able to single-handedly help all of the kids who were hassling me today or the friends who are struggling, then the pain and sadness and death 2,000 years ago wouldn't have any meaning today. But I was once again able to come to grips with the brokenness of the world and my own life and know that the sadness is necessary to experience the joy that's coming later…

Well, let's see how this goes... I'll write here about about anything that I run across, and it seems to me that most anything that we stumble upon raises questions - so, probably most of these posts will have questions, and maybe some stabs at answers, and I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts, as well. I should say up front that I think there is One who holds all the questions and answers...

So, first question... why do people publish their thoughts, feelings - sometimes very private thoughts, feelings - on such a public forum? In a time when many are worried about losing their privacy, some are voluntarily giving parts of it away.

I'm 23, probably right in the heart of the first generation of people to do the blogging thing... only in the past year or so have I started to realize how many people are doing this, and the kind of community it's creating. I've slowly, over the past several months, begun to read other people's postings. Some are people I don't know, but who say things I like - whether I agree or disagree with them, they make me think. An example - www.jordoncooper.com. He's a Canadian (which is not like me), and I think at least a few years older than me, works for a church (like me), but wants to see church transform itself into something that's relevant for a new era and for different people (also like me). So, he's different than me, but similar to me, and I don't know him, but he says some things that help me grow. And maybe more importantly, he connects me to other people's thoughts (and I don't know any of them, either), and I grow from that. I've also begun reading a few blogs of people I DO know... I just graduated from college in May of '02, and then moved to Indianapolis, IN away from literally all of my friends from college. A few of them have blogs, and I've enjoyed that window into their experiences. For instance, my friend Adam Bad Wound - he's in New York City at Columbia University, and his life experience is completely different than mine - and I get to hear about it. So here's a shout-out to Adam for letting me in on the sketch, and for helping make me wonder whether I should start creating some of my own...

So I guess my point is that reading other people's blogs and realizing how they've expanded my world has prompted me to consider writing my own. It almost seems selfish to be gleaning all this great stuff from others and not try to give something back. Not that I think I've got great mounds of wisdom to impart... but then again, I everyone has something to say because everyone has a unique life. The "something" that people have to say is inevitably a mix of good stuff and crap, in varying ratios, but it's something. And no one has to read it - you'll only read my blog, or Jordon Cooper's, or Adam Bad Wound's, if you want to. So if I can write something that moves you forward somehow, great. If I can get something off of my mind or heart and someone connects to that, great. Let the adventure begin...