At some point, you gotta slow down...
America is ridiculous about working, I think. It has been said of Americans that we are lazy and fat...I'll give the nay-sayers the latter, but I certainly don't think Americans are lazy. In fact, I think we are way too focused on our jobs. I think we spend too much time at our occupations, and too little time doing whatever it is that makes us feel truly alive. True, you have to pay the bills...and your job should expect you to work hard while you're there...but if your central life occupation is that thing you do for money, you're missing it. I'm missing it, I think. Quite a lot.
I've been working on the house quite a bit. It's envigorating for me...it's energizing (save for the fourteen trips a day to Home Depot). Do you know what I like most about it? It feels like I'm doing something that really matters, you know? That's permanent...or at least semi-permanent. The trouble with work at work is that there's always more...there's a continuous stream of it; as soon as you're finished with one piece, you're on to the next. I don't feel that way when I'm working on the house. I feel like, "That screw that I just screwed into the wall will be there for years...it will be there until I choose to change it." The paint, the sanding, the hinges, the doors, the closet racks...they will all be there for quite some time. I like that. It feels like I'm really getting something done.
...but at some point, you gotta slow down and enjoy it. I've gotta stop for little chunks of time and enjoy it. How many 40-year-old professionals have died of a two-artery coronary before they've stopped to enjoy what they've worked for all that time? I don't want to end up there. I want to enjoy life now, and stop putting off celebrating all the crap we already have.
I think tonight I may go home and sit on the couch and stare at my unfinished floor, my uncovered walls, and the china hutch I've yet to put back in the right place...and I will drink a beer and I will choose to enjoy it.
Peace,
Justin
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Friday, June 25, 2004
If I had it to do over again, I would laugh with Stacy more.
I’ve been married for nigh two years now, and as I look back on these quick eight seasons, I wish I would have laughed more with Stacy. It’s not a morbid regret thing or a guilt thing…I’m just trying to beat myself to the whole regret process. I heard Allan Fuller give a talk yesterday entitled, “10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 16” to a captive audience of teenagers. It was surreal to hear a man who is double the age of his audience try to forewarn them of what they may someday regret. I know people did it to me when I was 16, too…and I didn’t listen to them, for the most part. So, now, I figure, I’ll beat myself to it by about 14 years, and hopefully begin to correct whatever it is I would have regretted at age 38.
All that to this…I wish I would have laughed more with Stacy during these last two years. She is a very funny person…very clever, I think. I may just think that because we have similar senses of humor…but, regardless, I think she’s hilarious. We’ve had a few “big winners” as we call them…some funny moment that makes you laugh until you cry until you hurt until you have to force yourself to inhale. Then, ten minutes after you started, your still enjoying those uncontrollable stalling giggles that troll around your diaphragm like an old boat engine. Those big winners are unforgettable, and I wish I had more of them. I wish I had spent more time being silly. I’m not sure how to accomplish that, exactly…the world’s a busy place and irreverent silliness with your spouse doesn’t fit well into your average salaried position…but I wish I would have found a way. I suppose it’s sort of like saying, “I wish I would have made twice as much money for the same job,” I mean, it would have been great, but I’m not sure how to make that happen. How do I let go of tension? How to I choose to be jovial? Is it a matter of ignoring all the things that sit, immovable, in your shoulders and lower back like Scottish fare sits in your stomach? Is it a matter of seeing a masseuse, an acupuncturist, a prayer practitioner, drinking more tea, drinking less coffee, scenting my pillow like lilacs and buying softer towels? Do I learn meditation, practice my breathing, and create a mantra? I want to laugh more with Stacy…she’s very funny and it’s one of the things we do best…but I’m not sure how to let go enough to do it.
Here’s a joke that make me laugh out loud…maybe it will do the same for you:
…what did the zero say to the eight?
…nice belt.
…….hehehehe….
…she likes that one.
Peace,
Justin
I’ve been married for nigh two years now, and as I look back on these quick eight seasons, I wish I would have laughed more with Stacy. It’s not a morbid regret thing or a guilt thing…I’m just trying to beat myself to the whole regret process. I heard Allan Fuller give a talk yesterday entitled, “10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 16” to a captive audience of teenagers. It was surreal to hear a man who is double the age of his audience try to forewarn them of what they may someday regret. I know people did it to me when I was 16, too…and I didn’t listen to them, for the most part. So, now, I figure, I’ll beat myself to it by about 14 years, and hopefully begin to correct whatever it is I would have regretted at age 38.
All that to this…I wish I would have laughed more with Stacy during these last two years. She is a very funny person…very clever, I think. I may just think that because we have similar senses of humor…but, regardless, I think she’s hilarious. We’ve had a few “big winners” as we call them…some funny moment that makes you laugh until you cry until you hurt until you have to force yourself to inhale. Then, ten minutes after you started, your still enjoying those uncontrollable stalling giggles that troll around your diaphragm like an old boat engine. Those big winners are unforgettable, and I wish I had more of them. I wish I had spent more time being silly. I’m not sure how to accomplish that, exactly…the world’s a busy place and irreverent silliness with your spouse doesn’t fit well into your average salaried position…but I wish I would have found a way. I suppose it’s sort of like saying, “I wish I would have made twice as much money for the same job,” I mean, it would have been great, but I’m not sure how to make that happen. How do I let go of tension? How to I choose to be jovial? Is it a matter of ignoring all the things that sit, immovable, in your shoulders and lower back like Scottish fare sits in your stomach? Is it a matter of seeing a masseuse, an acupuncturist, a prayer practitioner, drinking more tea, drinking less coffee, scenting my pillow like lilacs and buying softer towels? Do I learn meditation, practice my breathing, and create a mantra? I want to laugh more with Stacy…she’s very funny and it’s one of the things we do best…but I’m not sure how to let go enough to do it.
Here’s a joke that make me laugh out loud…maybe it will do the same for you:
…what did the zero say to the eight?
…nice belt.
…….hehehehe….
…she likes that one.
Peace,
Justin
Thursday, June 24, 2004
As Stacy and I prepare for our big move three miles away from our current home, re-locating to the beautiful suburb of Norwood, we find ourselves opening up boxes that we haven't opened since we packed them to move in to our apartment two years ago. Do you have boxes like that in your home? I hope so...I'd hate to think we're the only people on the planet who would go two whole years without ever unpacking a few boxes. As I unpacked the stack of boxes in my basement, I found the huge box that I have been lugging from dorm room to dorm room, apartment to apartment ever since I graduated from high school. It is filled with all of my various high school memorabilia...pictures, newspaper clippings, awards...and hundreds of notes. Notes from my friends, notes from the girl I had an ignorantly sweet crush on for four years, notes from my parents, teachers and classmates...and a few dozen notes from the two girls I dated before I met Stacy. It was these notes that got to me the most.
You know what struck me the most about these notes from these high-school flames? How incredibly passionate about each of these two [then] girls when I was in high school, and how not passionate I am now. I welled up with tears on several occasions as I read...not mourning the way my relationships with these girls worked out...God knows I got the best of all things...but simply sentimentally reminiscing. I relived four years of powerful living in the course of about an hour...that'll git ya every time. I realized how far away that time seemed. So much has changed for me in the last seven years...so many good things have happened (Stacy being the top of the list there), and I've been hurt and humbled enough to begin to realize how much more I need to be hurt and humbled before I really begin to know much of anything.
Reading these old notes was like sitting for an hour with a young man I've known for a long, long time, but can barely identify with. Even though he is only seven years my junior, I feel quite removed from this guy...I love him; I find him charming, well-spoken, and a lot more handsome than I am, (though I will concede that I mostly like him because we think and talk the same way), but I don't know that I could be great friends with him. He is insecure, he is overzealous, and he is quite needy. He fancies himself very smart, I think, and unfortunately, I get a sense that he doesn't realize that there is an entire world full of people much smarter and more charasmatic than he is, each running around with bigger ideas and better words to express them. He is idealistic to a fault, and seems to have his entire world built on the premise that, in the end, everything fits some kind of order that he will eventually find or be given. I love his enthusiasm, though, and I am enamored with his belief that, for whatever reason, he was built to do something amazing. I want to believe him...I still do believe him a bit, I think...there's something about the young guy that I see in these letters that makes me believe he may be the Owen Meany for his community...that he may be the guy who does something truly powerful. But I'm afraid for him, because he doesn't seem to get that as long he keeps trying to be that guy, he will fail. I want to grab him and shake him and say, "don't ever lose your belief that you will be amazing...but you HAVE to know that you cannot MAKE yourself amazing; you must choose to be thoroughly good, and you will be used for something amazing." Most of all, I want to remind him that he has everything left to learn...that he always will.
Of course, I would have learned nothing if I didn't sit in front of all those notes, looking back at that guy...and wondered what 32-year-old Justin would want to shake me and tell me right now.
Sigh.
Peace,
Justin
You know what struck me the most about these notes from these high-school flames? How incredibly passionate about each of these two [then] girls when I was in high school, and how not passionate I am now. I welled up with tears on several occasions as I read...not mourning the way my relationships with these girls worked out...God knows I got the best of all things...but simply sentimentally reminiscing. I relived four years of powerful living in the course of about an hour...that'll git ya every time. I realized how far away that time seemed. So much has changed for me in the last seven years...so many good things have happened (Stacy being the top of the list there), and I've been hurt and humbled enough to begin to realize how much more I need to be hurt and humbled before I really begin to know much of anything.
Reading these old notes was like sitting for an hour with a young man I've known for a long, long time, but can barely identify with. Even though he is only seven years my junior, I feel quite removed from this guy...I love him; I find him charming, well-spoken, and a lot more handsome than I am, (though I will concede that I mostly like him because we think and talk the same way), but I don't know that I could be great friends with him. He is insecure, he is overzealous, and he is quite needy. He fancies himself very smart, I think, and unfortunately, I get a sense that he doesn't realize that there is an entire world full of people much smarter and more charasmatic than he is, each running around with bigger ideas and better words to express them. He is idealistic to a fault, and seems to have his entire world built on the premise that, in the end, everything fits some kind of order that he will eventually find or be given. I love his enthusiasm, though, and I am enamored with his belief that, for whatever reason, he was built to do something amazing. I want to believe him...I still do believe him a bit, I think...there's something about the young guy that I see in these letters that makes me believe he may be the Owen Meany for his community...that he may be the guy who does something truly powerful. But I'm afraid for him, because he doesn't seem to get that as long he keeps trying to be that guy, he will fail. I want to grab him and shake him and say, "don't ever lose your belief that you will be amazing...but you HAVE to know that you cannot MAKE yourself amazing; you must choose to be thoroughly good, and you will be used for something amazing." Most of all, I want to remind him that he has everything left to learn...that he always will.
Of course, I would have learned nothing if I didn't sit in front of all those notes, looking back at that guy...and wondered what 32-year-old Justin would want to shake me and tell me right now.
Sigh.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Long time, no blog...sometimes it seems like life gets in the way of what I love and feel most alive doing.
For two years now, I've been working in a giant building with the layout of a high school and the color of weak chocolate milk...every day when I walk through the South entrance I see, etched into the wall of the building in lower-case Zurich, "small things done with great love will change the world." And I think I have always believed that...I think I believed it in the same way that I believe that God lives inside of us and that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. I've never seen God in me...I've seen his dark counterpart, I think, but I have a hard time remembering when anything I've done has reflected the presence of The Author in me...I've never noticed the oxygen in my water sneaking out from behind its hydrogen curtain...but for some reason I think I believe both of these things. Likewise, it always made sense to me that, if we do enough small acts of kindness and TRULY do it out of love for humanity, we will eventually change the world. But I don't know that, since I've been here, I've experienced and internalized it well enough to REALLY know what it means.
...until this week...
This week, an entire small group from the Norwood area (and more than a few other Norwoodians I'm acquainted with) showed up at our new house, paintbrushes and rollers in hand, and spent the entire evening painting our little piece of the 'wood. We offered no money, our pizza selection was weak, and I'm not that good at expressing gratitude...but it didn't matter. They showed up because they wanted to love on us. We had two guys there who had never met us in their entire lives, but simply wanted to welcome a newcomer to Norwood. They worked their butts off...Mark painted the entire living room with a faux finish all by himself; Brooke, Angela and Sean got down on all fours and pulled at old rusty nails and staples in our floor until every one was gone (Brooke even sustained a puncture wound in the process), Matt and Angela sat in our hot upstairs and painted that same weak chocolate milk color on our hallway plaster, Aaron and Brooke cashmered the entire foyer, Dana taught us to paint, Donna and Leslie put a strong coat of Spanish Tile (Porter term for red) on our walls, Sean slaved on every nook in the kitchen...I'm sure I'm leaving more out...I'm overwhelmed as I think about it. This was no small thing...this was six hours spent in the hot confines of an old Norwood row house with oil paint and splintery dusty floors...but it was done with great love. No complaints...no bailing out...just hard work, done without boasting or apology. These people were SERVING selflessly, loving me and Stacy in a way that I'm not sure I understand, but I know I feel. It felt like God for a second...like Love incarnate, working itself out in front of me.
I didn't sleep well that night. It was an insomnia of gratitude and, more than that, total bewilderment. What do you do when you receive that kind of service, and you have done absolutely nothing to earn it? How do you process that? Our world is one based on the basic premise of cause and effect...even things we can't explain are chalked up to some sort of causual relationship that we simply haven't figured out yet...hence, the theory of evolution, the theory of the big bang, the theory of relativity. So, how do you accept it when you receive a gift that you can be certain you have done absolutely nothing to earn? It doesn't fit what I know, it doesn't fit what the world seems to operate on: it doesn't fit causality.
I don't understand it, but this week I've been trying to learn what a difference true selfless kindness makes. Small things done with great love really will change the world...I think I truly see that for the first time. The amazing thing about this whole concept of serving other people to introduce them to the Lavish Almighty is that the connection between experiencing the bewilderment of being served in a small way without earning it and being served in an eternal way without earning it is natural...almost innate. The story of Jesus makes more sense to me today than it did a week ago...the story of God's insanely persistent love for us makes more sense to me...because of paint, rollers, and the incredibly selfless six hours given me by a small group from Norwood.
This is a sleeplessness I will gladly endure.
Peace,
Justin
For two years now, I've been working in a giant building with the layout of a high school and the color of weak chocolate milk...every day when I walk through the South entrance I see, etched into the wall of the building in lower-case Zurich, "small things done with great love will change the world." And I think I have always believed that...I think I believed it in the same way that I believe that God lives inside of us and that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. I've never seen God in me...I've seen his dark counterpart, I think, but I have a hard time remembering when anything I've done has reflected the presence of The Author in me...I've never noticed the oxygen in my water sneaking out from behind its hydrogen curtain...but for some reason I think I believe both of these things. Likewise, it always made sense to me that, if we do enough small acts of kindness and TRULY do it out of love for humanity, we will eventually change the world. But I don't know that, since I've been here, I've experienced and internalized it well enough to REALLY know what it means.
...until this week...
This week, an entire small group from the Norwood area (and more than a few other Norwoodians I'm acquainted with) showed up at our new house, paintbrushes and rollers in hand, and spent the entire evening painting our little piece of the 'wood. We offered no money, our pizza selection was weak, and I'm not that good at expressing gratitude...but it didn't matter. They showed up because they wanted to love on us. We had two guys there who had never met us in their entire lives, but simply wanted to welcome a newcomer to Norwood. They worked their butts off...Mark painted the entire living room with a faux finish all by himself; Brooke, Angela and Sean got down on all fours and pulled at old rusty nails and staples in our floor until every one was gone (Brooke even sustained a puncture wound in the process), Matt and Angela sat in our hot upstairs and painted that same weak chocolate milk color on our hallway plaster, Aaron and Brooke cashmered the entire foyer, Dana taught us to paint, Donna and Leslie put a strong coat of Spanish Tile (Porter term for red) on our walls, Sean slaved on every nook in the kitchen...I'm sure I'm leaving more out...I'm overwhelmed as I think about it. This was no small thing...this was six hours spent in the hot confines of an old Norwood row house with oil paint and splintery dusty floors...but it was done with great love. No complaints...no bailing out...just hard work, done without boasting or apology. These people were SERVING selflessly, loving me and Stacy in a way that I'm not sure I understand, but I know I feel. It felt like God for a second...like Love incarnate, working itself out in front of me.
I didn't sleep well that night. It was an insomnia of gratitude and, more than that, total bewilderment. What do you do when you receive that kind of service, and you have done absolutely nothing to earn it? How do you process that? Our world is one based on the basic premise of cause and effect...even things we can't explain are chalked up to some sort of causual relationship that we simply haven't figured out yet...hence, the theory of evolution, the theory of the big bang, the theory of relativity. So, how do you accept it when you receive a gift that you can be certain you have done absolutely nothing to earn? It doesn't fit what I know, it doesn't fit what the world seems to operate on: it doesn't fit causality.
I don't understand it, but this week I've been trying to learn what a difference true selfless kindness makes. Small things done with great love really will change the world...I think I truly see that for the first time. The amazing thing about this whole concept of serving other people to introduce them to the Lavish Almighty is that the connection between experiencing the bewilderment of being served in a small way without earning it and being served in an eternal way without earning it is natural...almost innate. The story of Jesus makes more sense to me today than it did a week ago...the story of God's insanely persistent love for us makes more sense to me...because of paint, rollers, and the incredibly selfless six hours given me by a small group from Norwood.
This is a sleeplessness I will gladly endure.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
At the risk of getting all spiritual...
...I was proud of my church this weekend. The Cincy Vineyard took an entire celebration to invite people to be healed from any destruction in their lives relating to sex. That is to say, sexual abuse, sexual infidelity, lack of marital sex, fear of sex, abortion, homosexuality and pain related to the persecution of homosexuals, sexual addiction, pornographic addiction, etc. If you'd like to see it, check out vccproductions.com, and click on this weekend's date.
Sexuality is a tricky thing. Forgive the strange request...but try this: take your hand and put it flat on the computer desk in front of you. It's OK, lift the mousepad out of the way and put your dominant hand in the dustless rounded rectangle it leaves behind. Now, lift only your index finger. Put it back down. Now, while your mom's not looking, lift only your middle finger. Put it down, and try your thumb...then your pinky. Now...with all fingers down flat against the desk, lift your ring finger as high as you can. Weird, huh? It's not going to move much...I don't know why, in all of His infinite silliness, God chose to link that one to your hand more securely than the others...I don't know why He decided these metacarpals should be the ones most firmly connected to the carpals, but, man, they are. For whatever reason, and I'm not sure that I know what that reason is, it seems like God inexorably linked our sexuality to our souls in a similar way. Sex moves your soul, for better or for worse, in a way that your dreams do not...that your music, no matter how powerful it may be, does not...in a way that all of your possessions and your favorite wishes do not. Sex can elate you, it can drive you, it can ruin you. Sexual feelings prompt frenzy, murder, love, creativity, spite, shame, physical energy, superhuman endurance, art of all kinds; all the things that make being human so freaking human. At times, I wonder if it is our primary motivator...above religion, politics and money. All I know is that I've seen evidence of incredible sexual content in the greatest religious art I studied in college, and that even the most transcendental of Eastern religions we studied was ripe with human sexuality. It shows up in architecture, in academic scholarship, in the shape of our shampoo bottles, in the greatest books ever written, and in the papers every morning. Sex moves us, and I think it moves us because it's built to move us. Our souls are designed to be heavily shaped by sex, I think, and to shape sex in return.
That's where the problem comes. We tell each other that, with certain exceptions of age and mental capacity, it is our basic right to have sexual interaction whenever and however, as long as it is between consenting humans and does not adversely impact non-consentors nearby. (And, as far as government intervention is concerned, I agree). But, when you come down to it, your soul comes into play. I'm not talking about eternal damnation or the "condition of your soul" as Brother Jed at the corner of Patterson and Spring in Oxford might concern himself with...but rather, the health and well being of your very essence. If, indeed, there is a Sculptor who carved each of us out with a certain design, and if, indeed He designed our sexuality to be an intensely powerful means of uniting souls, then it behooves us to put one simple parameter on our sexuality: are we doing with it what the Sculptor designed it to do?
I can't answer that for others very well...I don't think I understand it well enough yet. But I know it well enough for myself. I know when I'm approaching my own sexuality wrong...it hurts, and it grinds menacingly at my soul like a clutch dropped on over-reved engine. Even better, I know when I'm doing it right...I know because nothing makes me feel more connected to Stacy. Nothing feels more right and nothing feels more powerful. That uniting of souls feels like everything I've ever loved in one perfect moment..sounds idyllic and silly, I guess...but I think there's something to the concept that enlightenment is acheived fleetingly at the moment of sexual climax...at least, when it's achieved by the design of the Sculptor.
I hope some folks were able to get some healing at VCC this weekend. I really hope so, in fact. I've been thinking about it for four days now...praying that those souls that still ache profoundly from some sexual wound would begin to feel relief. This stuff matters too much. It's too good; too powerful to be wrong for a lifetime.
Peace,
Justin
...I was proud of my church this weekend. The Cincy Vineyard took an entire celebration to invite people to be healed from any destruction in their lives relating to sex. That is to say, sexual abuse, sexual infidelity, lack of marital sex, fear of sex, abortion, homosexuality and pain related to the persecution of homosexuals, sexual addiction, pornographic addiction, etc. If you'd like to see it, check out vccproductions.com, and click on this weekend's date.
Sexuality is a tricky thing. Forgive the strange request...but try this: take your hand and put it flat on the computer desk in front of you. It's OK, lift the mousepad out of the way and put your dominant hand in the dustless rounded rectangle it leaves behind. Now, lift only your index finger. Put it back down. Now, while your mom's not looking, lift only your middle finger. Put it down, and try your thumb...then your pinky. Now...with all fingers down flat against the desk, lift your ring finger as high as you can. Weird, huh? It's not going to move much...I don't know why, in all of His infinite silliness, God chose to link that one to your hand more securely than the others...I don't know why He decided these metacarpals should be the ones most firmly connected to the carpals, but, man, they are. For whatever reason, and I'm not sure that I know what that reason is, it seems like God inexorably linked our sexuality to our souls in a similar way. Sex moves your soul, for better or for worse, in a way that your dreams do not...that your music, no matter how powerful it may be, does not...in a way that all of your possessions and your favorite wishes do not. Sex can elate you, it can drive you, it can ruin you. Sexual feelings prompt frenzy, murder, love, creativity, spite, shame, physical energy, superhuman endurance, art of all kinds; all the things that make being human so freaking human. At times, I wonder if it is our primary motivator...above religion, politics and money. All I know is that I've seen evidence of incredible sexual content in the greatest religious art I studied in college, and that even the most transcendental of Eastern religions we studied was ripe with human sexuality. It shows up in architecture, in academic scholarship, in the shape of our shampoo bottles, in the greatest books ever written, and in the papers every morning. Sex moves us, and I think it moves us because it's built to move us. Our souls are designed to be heavily shaped by sex, I think, and to shape sex in return.
That's where the problem comes. We tell each other that, with certain exceptions of age and mental capacity, it is our basic right to have sexual interaction whenever and however, as long as it is between consenting humans and does not adversely impact non-consentors nearby. (And, as far as government intervention is concerned, I agree). But, when you come down to it, your soul comes into play. I'm not talking about eternal damnation or the "condition of your soul" as Brother Jed at the corner of Patterson and Spring in Oxford might concern himself with...but rather, the health and well being of your very essence. If, indeed, there is a Sculptor who carved each of us out with a certain design, and if, indeed He designed our sexuality to be an intensely powerful means of uniting souls, then it behooves us to put one simple parameter on our sexuality: are we doing with it what the Sculptor designed it to do?
I can't answer that for others very well...I don't think I understand it well enough yet. But I know it well enough for myself. I know when I'm approaching my own sexuality wrong...it hurts, and it grinds menacingly at my soul like a clutch dropped on over-reved engine. Even better, I know when I'm doing it right...I know because nothing makes me feel more connected to Stacy. Nothing feels more right and nothing feels more powerful. That uniting of souls feels like everything I've ever loved in one perfect moment..sounds idyllic and silly, I guess...but I think there's something to the concept that enlightenment is acheived fleetingly at the moment of sexual climax...at least, when it's achieved by the design of the Sculptor.
I hope some folks were able to get some healing at VCC this weekend. I really hope so, in fact. I've been thinking about it for four days now...praying that those souls that still ache profoundly from some sexual wound would begin to feel relief. This stuff matters too much. It's too good; too powerful to be wrong for a lifetime.
Peace,
Justin
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
I had an idea this morning...
We should have an all car-accidents public television station. I know, it sounds morbid and exploitative, and it probably is, but we could have some rules about it. No blood. No serious injuries. No death. Just heavy-duty fender-benders. I know people would watch...in fact, advertising could be sold at a premium, and the money used to pay production costs. Non-profit here...it's all in the public interest. The benefits to society are many, but my top three are as follows:
1. It would put an end to "rubbernecking." This morning, on I-71, there was an accident on the Northbound side. Northbound traffic stopped for the most part, and for a good reason: there was a pile of car sitting in the center lane, later moved to the berm. The problem was that traffic also slowed, almost to a halt, on the Southbound side. Why? Because people wanted to see what a car accident looks like. Well, heck, man, let's show 'em! Once you've seen a few hundred on TV, you won't bother to slow down for the one on the road; it's probably not nearly as interesting as that five-car that aired last night!
2. It would dissuade drivers from driving recklessly. On a channel dedicated to car accidents, you're going to have plenty of time for commentary. Perhaps even play-by-play. "There she is, talking on her cell phone...she looks distracted...she's putting on some lipstick...and OH! OH MY GOODNESS! WOW, THE AIRBAGS WERE ALL OUT ON THAT ONE!" People will begin to see patterns. They'll notice the statistical correlative between eating lunch while driving and eating airbag. And, with time, people will begin to understand that you can't necessarily do your taxes and get your '98 Sunfire to work at the same time.
3. In the ever-growing quest to gather more and better video footage, cameras would be installed in busy intersections. These cameras would not be the type to catch speeders (let's face it, I'm no masochist), which require lightning-fast shutters and a dramatic zoom-in on the cars, but rather would be HD cameras, mounted, let's say, two per intersection, which track movement and follow cars, just waiting for their chance to capture that evening's prime-time moment. Why would this be a bonus to society? These cameras would provide very clear evidence in post-accident court proceedings, which would dramatically reduce the time and personell necessary to conduct these proceedings, saving tremendous amounts of resources for our already over-burdened court system. As a side-bonus, these cameras could also be used to track stolen cars, fleeing vehicles, and even spot panhandlers and grifters before they can hit their marks.
We're talking about cheap production, high-interest public television programming. Once you install the cameras and the monitoring system, hire a few monitors and an editor or two, you're almost finished. Car companies, brake companies, collision repair services would fall over each other to get time on this network. Each car would vie to be the "safest car on the road," with their accidents clearly showing their side-impact crumple zones, all-passenger airbags, and anti-lock anti-skid brakes. The ratings would be huge, the advertising lucrative, and the system would pay for itself.
This is the future of television.
Peace,
Justin
We should have an all car-accidents public television station. I know, it sounds morbid and exploitative, and it probably is, but we could have some rules about it. No blood. No serious injuries. No death. Just heavy-duty fender-benders. I know people would watch...in fact, advertising could be sold at a premium, and the money used to pay production costs. Non-profit here...it's all in the public interest. The benefits to society are many, but my top three are as follows:
1. It would put an end to "rubbernecking." This morning, on I-71, there was an accident on the Northbound side. Northbound traffic stopped for the most part, and for a good reason: there was a pile of car sitting in the center lane, later moved to the berm. The problem was that traffic also slowed, almost to a halt, on the Southbound side. Why? Because people wanted to see what a car accident looks like. Well, heck, man, let's show 'em! Once you've seen a few hundred on TV, you won't bother to slow down for the one on the road; it's probably not nearly as interesting as that five-car that aired last night!
2. It would dissuade drivers from driving recklessly. On a channel dedicated to car accidents, you're going to have plenty of time for commentary. Perhaps even play-by-play. "There she is, talking on her cell phone...she looks distracted...she's putting on some lipstick...and OH! OH MY GOODNESS! WOW, THE AIRBAGS WERE ALL OUT ON THAT ONE!" People will begin to see patterns. They'll notice the statistical correlative between eating lunch while driving and eating airbag. And, with time, people will begin to understand that you can't necessarily do your taxes and get your '98 Sunfire to work at the same time.
3. In the ever-growing quest to gather more and better video footage, cameras would be installed in busy intersections. These cameras would not be the type to catch speeders (let's face it, I'm no masochist), which require lightning-fast shutters and a dramatic zoom-in on the cars, but rather would be HD cameras, mounted, let's say, two per intersection, which track movement and follow cars, just waiting for their chance to capture that evening's prime-time moment. Why would this be a bonus to society? These cameras would provide very clear evidence in post-accident court proceedings, which would dramatically reduce the time and personell necessary to conduct these proceedings, saving tremendous amounts of resources for our already over-burdened court system. As a side-bonus, these cameras could also be used to track stolen cars, fleeing vehicles, and even spot panhandlers and grifters before they can hit their marks.
We're talking about cheap production, high-interest public television programming. Once you install the cameras and the monitoring system, hire a few monitors and an editor or two, you're almost finished. Car companies, brake companies, collision repair services would fall over each other to get time on this network. Each car would vie to be the "safest car on the road," with their accidents clearly showing their side-impact crumple zones, all-passenger airbags, and anti-lock anti-skid brakes. The ratings would be huge, the advertising lucrative, and the system would pay for itself.
This is the future of television.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Here's a line from a poem that Edgar Allen Poe wrote...I quoted it in an earlier post, but it got stuck in my head this morning, so I'll quote it again to get it out...
"Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore..."
Say it out loud. Not just whispering it over the edge of your lips, as if just giving voice to the in-your-head reading...actually say it, as if you were telling the story of a bird whose very face turns your morose wonderings into a smile. Say it out loud again, and listen to the rythym of the thing...
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore...
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/ ... it's what the English majors call trochaic octameter (pronounced tro-KAY-ick ock-TAH-meh-ter). It rolls, it kinda chugs along, and almost seems to build up speed in that sentence.
BY the GRAVE and STERN deCORum OF the COUNTenANCE it WORE. It's a marching, driving rythym. It's eight beats, almost like the "four on the floor" (thanks, Robbie, for the term) kick drum driving through two rock-and-roll measures. You could set music to this...heck, you could almost set a clock to it.
Can you imagine if we spoke like this...if we argued like this, philosophised like this, ordered our pizzas like this?
STERNS: Time itself just marches onward, driving us a tad bit closer, leaving us a wee bit colder than ever we had been before.
FOSTER: But time alone defies the present, past is just a reminiscent light from all we wished that isn't ever as we'd wish it were.
COLLEGE GUY: Pizza guy, my cheese is melting, all the sausage looks so tempting, the ripe anchovies that you sent me send the great drift wafting o'er.
PIZZA GUY: Harry, man, I love to hear it but I cannot help but fear that you may in haste have come too near it, for it's inverted in your floor.
OK, so it's not Shakespeare, but it's fun. It makes me wonder about how we're built...how we're pieced together by the Great Author. Is it cultural that we're built ready for a 4/4 rythym or that the end of each line of trochaic octets makes your gut pull forward, expecting the next? Is it conditioning that, for whatever reason, makes the 7/8 meter seem unfinished, or the "near rhyme" largely unsatisfying? Is it years of plugging through Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein that make internal rhyme appealing, but too much internal rhyme feel contrived (no matter how natural the phrasing is, it seems)? I dunno...I feel like we're just built for it. I feel like our words, our music, our buildings, our paintings aren't so much CREATING art as reflecting it, in all of its divine pre-existence. When I write even the silly lines of verse above, there's something inside of me that is deeply gratified by finishing each line, by clearing the rythym out so I can start over, by reading it out loud and, regardless of its meaning (or lack thereof), feeling it out as its organized color leaves my mouth and circles around to my ears.
But, I may just be in one of those artistic moods. Maybe tomorrow I'll be on a mathematical kick...or maybe just hungry for pizza.
Peace,
Justin
"Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore..."
Say it out loud. Not just whispering it over the edge of your lips, as if just giving voice to the in-your-head reading...actually say it, as if you were telling the story of a bird whose very face turns your morose wonderings into a smile. Say it out loud again, and listen to the rythym of the thing...
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore...
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/ ... it's what the English majors call trochaic octameter (pronounced tro-KAY-ick ock-TAH-meh-ter). It rolls, it kinda chugs along, and almost seems to build up speed in that sentence.
BY the GRAVE and STERN deCORum OF the COUNTenANCE it WORE. It's a marching, driving rythym. It's eight beats, almost like the "four on the floor" (thanks, Robbie, for the term) kick drum driving through two rock-and-roll measures. You could set music to this...heck, you could almost set a clock to it.
Can you imagine if we spoke like this...if we argued like this, philosophised like this, ordered our pizzas like this?
STERNS: Time itself just marches onward, driving us a tad bit closer, leaving us a wee bit colder than ever we had been before.
FOSTER: But time alone defies the present, past is just a reminiscent light from all we wished that isn't ever as we'd wish it were.
COLLEGE GUY: Pizza guy, my cheese is melting, all the sausage looks so tempting, the ripe anchovies that you sent me send the great drift wafting o'er.
PIZZA GUY: Harry, man, I love to hear it but I cannot help but fear that you may in haste have come too near it, for it's inverted in your floor.
OK, so it's not Shakespeare, but it's fun. It makes me wonder about how we're built...how we're pieced together by the Great Author. Is it cultural that we're built ready for a 4/4 rythym or that the end of each line of trochaic octets makes your gut pull forward, expecting the next? Is it conditioning that, for whatever reason, makes the 7/8 meter seem unfinished, or the "near rhyme" largely unsatisfying? Is it years of plugging through Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein that make internal rhyme appealing, but too much internal rhyme feel contrived (no matter how natural the phrasing is, it seems)? I dunno...I feel like we're just built for it. I feel like our words, our music, our buildings, our paintings aren't so much CREATING art as reflecting it, in all of its divine pre-existence. When I write even the silly lines of verse above, there's something inside of me that is deeply gratified by finishing each line, by clearing the rythym out so I can start over, by reading it out loud and, regardless of its meaning (or lack thereof), feeling it out as its organized color leaves my mouth and circles around to my ears.
But, I may just be in one of those artistic moods. Maybe tomorrow I'll be on a mathematical kick...or maybe just hungry for pizza.
Peace,
Justin
Friday, May 28, 2004
Here's the beginning of a poem...
She likes it when it's snowing.
It quiets cacophonus streets.
The barking dogs below us still
And watch the busy white intently.
My coffee mug is steaming
And warms the table beneath,
As suicidal flakes dive in
And swim a hastened lap while melting.
There's no place else I'd rather be right now;
A half-step of pristine on a serrated mile.
I don't want to consider forever out here...
Just to relish the cold and your smile.
Man, I love cold mornings on the porch. Do you?
Peace,
Justin
She likes it when it's snowing.
It quiets cacophonus streets.
The barking dogs below us still
And watch the busy white intently.
My coffee mug is steaming
And warms the table beneath,
As suicidal flakes dive in
And swim a hastened lap while melting.
There's no place else I'd rather be right now;
A half-step of pristine on a serrated mile.
I don't want to consider forever out here...
Just to relish the cold and your smile.
Man, I love cold mornings on the porch. Do you?
Peace,
Justin
Friday, May 21, 2004
Long time, no blog...
That's the beauty of having a largely unread blog, I suppose...I can lay off for a little while, and nobody complains!
As much as I would like to fancy myself a logical fellow, it occured to me as I lay in bed trying to sleep last night that a great number...indeed, perhaps the majority...of decisions that I make in a given day are based on some sort of inner cue system. When I get up in the morning and I stare at my drawerfull of underwear, smelling like fresh linen and sitting idly in the dark blue light of way-too-early-morning, there is some inner voice that makes those blue boxers with the orange fish just feel RIGHT in my mind...and the red boxer-briefs with the gray waistband just feel OUT OF PLACE. So I pick up the boxers. I head to the kitchen, and, for whatever reason, sugar-heavy lemonade is the only thing that makes sense to pour over the dry lips and sour mouth of way-too-early-morning...water won't work, it tastes too much like mouth by the time it hits your tastebuds, and milk won't work because I can't help but picture it souring instantly on contact with morning-mouth, and beer won't work because, c'mon man, it's 5:15 in the morning. There's nothing more rational about lemonade...in fact, it's probably a terrible choice, that much sugar that early in the morning...but it just feels RIGHT and the others just feel OUT OF PLACE.
This feeling extends to where I sit in a restaurant, which way I face (toward the door or away from it?) in my dining booth, whether or not I take the cement walkway closest to my front door or the dirt path right next to it as I head to my car, whether or not my cell phone faces up or down while it's sitting in my car's cupholder, which pens end up in my shirt pocket, how the plates are arranged on my dinner table, and where the post-its go on my desktop. I don't think of myself as a neat-freak or compulsive or anything...I just have this feeling of what feels RIGHT to me and what feels OUT OF PLACE. That unexplainable RIGHT is where I park my car in the morning, it's which coffee flavor makes sense to me, and it's why the cups with little polystyrene dimples feel more like good coffee to me than the flat ones. I wonder if advertisers have figured this feeling out; if they have caught on to whatever aesthetic sense it is that tells a person which things are RIGHT and which are OUT OF PLACE. Perhaps that's why the blue dot over the Kix logo is positioned as it is, and it's what went wrong with the Michelin stunt-driver commercial. At any given time, it seems to me that any given decision either feels like it is more correct or more wrong, and for whatever reason, it's this internal sense that drives that distinction most times.
I've always fancied myself a logical guy, but the more I think about it, the more feeling-driven I am. Oh man, my mom would love to hear that.
Don't tell her...it will ruin years of my work.
Peace,
Justin
That's the beauty of having a largely unread blog, I suppose...I can lay off for a little while, and nobody complains!
As much as I would like to fancy myself a logical fellow, it occured to me as I lay in bed trying to sleep last night that a great number...indeed, perhaps the majority...of decisions that I make in a given day are based on some sort of inner cue system. When I get up in the morning and I stare at my drawerfull of underwear, smelling like fresh linen and sitting idly in the dark blue light of way-too-early-morning, there is some inner voice that makes those blue boxers with the orange fish just feel RIGHT in my mind...and the red boxer-briefs with the gray waistband just feel OUT OF PLACE. So I pick up the boxers. I head to the kitchen, and, for whatever reason, sugar-heavy lemonade is the only thing that makes sense to pour over the dry lips and sour mouth of way-too-early-morning...water won't work, it tastes too much like mouth by the time it hits your tastebuds, and milk won't work because I can't help but picture it souring instantly on contact with morning-mouth, and beer won't work because, c'mon man, it's 5:15 in the morning. There's nothing more rational about lemonade...in fact, it's probably a terrible choice, that much sugar that early in the morning...but it just feels RIGHT and the others just feel OUT OF PLACE.
This feeling extends to where I sit in a restaurant, which way I face (toward the door or away from it?) in my dining booth, whether or not I take the cement walkway closest to my front door or the dirt path right next to it as I head to my car, whether or not my cell phone faces up or down while it's sitting in my car's cupholder, which pens end up in my shirt pocket, how the plates are arranged on my dinner table, and where the post-its go on my desktop. I don't think of myself as a neat-freak or compulsive or anything...I just have this feeling of what feels RIGHT to me and what feels OUT OF PLACE. That unexplainable RIGHT is where I park my car in the morning, it's which coffee flavor makes sense to me, and it's why the cups with little polystyrene dimples feel more like good coffee to me than the flat ones. I wonder if advertisers have figured this feeling out; if they have caught on to whatever aesthetic sense it is that tells a person which things are RIGHT and which are OUT OF PLACE. Perhaps that's why the blue dot over the Kix logo is positioned as it is, and it's what went wrong with the Michelin stunt-driver commercial. At any given time, it seems to me that any given decision either feels like it is more correct or more wrong, and for whatever reason, it's this internal sense that drives that distinction most times.
I've always fancied myself a logical guy, but the more I think about it, the more feeling-driven I am. Oh man, my mom would love to hear that.
Don't tell her...it will ruin years of my work.
Peace,
Justin
Thursday, May 13, 2004
In the immortal words of Mr. Ferris Bueller: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."
OK, so it's just a glorified version of "stop and smell the roses" or "carpe diem" or "ramalamadingdong" (I can only assume that's what that means), and usually pithy little aphorisms like this tend to make you say, "huh...that's good," and then move on with things, taking your big cues from what your mom taught you about being polite to people and what that bully and the pavement beneath your cheek taught you about when it's OK to fight back.'' And this one is no different...it isn't until long after I've ceased to stop and look around that I realize I don't recall one valuable, long-lasting thing that I've done in months.
It's not that I'm not doing valuable and long-lasting things...the nature of my job is, at very best, that I am doing very significant things for people who I will never meet or talk with about what that ridiculous 3-minute video did for their lives. But I think that's part of the problem...I don't realize a whole lot of what I'm doing. I just sort of do it, and I continue to do it, and then the pressure comes and I do it twice as hard for half as long, and I get tired and I go to sleep. My stomach hurts, then it clears up, I drink a glass of whiskey or a glass of milk and feel my shoulders relax a bit and then I go to sleep. I go to a movie or I go to a bar or I go to my spot on the couch for a couple of hours and I breathe deeply and I fall asleep. It's like autopilot, but requires a lot more work and doesn't come with the pre-heated airplane Chicken Kiev.
I think the trick to Carpe Diem is applying it in measured doses. If I truly lived to "seize the day" every day, I would probably never refresh my Excel spreadsheets with recent log entries, or take out the garbage, or file my tax return. In fact, bathroom visits would seem like a tremendous waste of time. But to be able to seize, let's say, every other day, or every third day, or even just the one day a week...to make it your own, to choose its product and process, and to go to sleep from exhaustion instead of nervous boredom...those are the things that seem to stick. It wasn't until I started lifting weights again that I began to relish the Monday and Thursday mornings that I don't have to go to the weightroom. It wasn't until I started working long hours at the church that I really began to value the four hours at the end of each work day that I am at home, with Stacy on the couch next to me, reading and watching TV and talking and yawning contentedly a lot. I think I'll probably love the day that all the cicada corpses have been washed away by a strong summer's rain, but only because I had spent the last six weeks batting cicadas and scraping them off my windshield. I'm working late tonight...and I think the drive home with the window down and whatever the jocks on 89.7 choose to play will feel good...as long as I choose to feel it.
...Yeah, I think you do have to stop and look around every once in a while. Life seems to present itself most powerfully to me in the little pleasures...and, with the exception of microbiology, most of my college disciplines taught me that, when you take the time to REALLY examine creation of any kind, you'll see the beauty and feel the pleasure it its art.
Coffee feels like that to me.
Peace,
Justin
OK, so it's just a glorified version of "stop and smell the roses" or "carpe diem" or "ramalamadingdong" (I can only assume that's what that means), and usually pithy little aphorisms like this tend to make you say, "huh...that's good," and then move on with things, taking your big cues from what your mom taught you about being polite to people and what that bully and the pavement beneath your cheek taught you about when it's OK to fight back.'' And this one is no different...it isn't until long after I've ceased to stop and look around that I realize I don't recall one valuable, long-lasting thing that I've done in months.
It's not that I'm not doing valuable and long-lasting things...the nature of my job is, at very best, that I am doing very significant things for people who I will never meet or talk with about what that ridiculous 3-minute video did for their lives. But I think that's part of the problem...I don't realize a whole lot of what I'm doing. I just sort of do it, and I continue to do it, and then the pressure comes and I do it twice as hard for half as long, and I get tired and I go to sleep. My stomach hurts, then it clears up, I drink a glass of whiskey or a glass of milk and feel my shoulders relax a bit and then I go to sleep. I go to a movie or I go to a bar or I go to my spot on the couch for a couple of hours and I breathe deeply and I fall asleep. It's like autopilot, but requires a lot more work and doesn't come with the pre-heated airplane Chicken Kiev.
I think the trick to Carpe Diem is applying it in measured doses. If I truly lived to "seize the day" every day, I would probably never refresh my Excel spreadsheets with recent log entries, or take out the garbage, or file my tax return. In fact, bathroom visits would seem like a tremendous waste of time. But to be able to seize, let's say, every other day, or every third day, or even just the one day a week...to make it your own, to choose its product and process, and to go to sleep from exhaustion instead of nervous boredom...those are the things that seem to stick. It wasn't until I started lifting weights again that I began to relish the Monday and Thursday mornings that I don't have to go to the weightroom. It wasn't until I started working long hours at the church that I really began to value the four hours at the end of each work day that I am at home, with Stacy on the couch next to me, reading and watching TV and talking and yawning contentedly a lot. I think I'll probably love the day that all the cicada corpses have been washed away by a strong summer's rain, but only because I had spent the last six weeks batting cicadas and scraping them off my windshield. I'm working late tonight...and I think the drive home with the window down and whatever the jocks on 89.7 choose to play will feel good...as long as I choose to feel it.
...Yeah, I think you do have to stop and look around every once in a while. Life seems to present itself most powerfully to me in the little pleasures...and, with the exception of microbiology, most of my college disciplines taught me that, when you take the time to REALLY examine creation of any kind, you'll see the beauty and feel the pleasure it its art.
Coffee feels like that to me.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
I always presumed that I would be a good writer...I don't know why, but my whole life I have presupposed that, when given the proper outlet, I would be able to write successfully, and with style.
In college, that "proper outlet" usually meant term papers and essays, but because they came with a given fit-to-mold five-paragraph structure (and don't forget your page numbers, kids), I was able to tell myself, "aaah, you can't be expected to write brilliantly with these kind of constraints. You just wait until you have the time and the medium to REALLY express yourself." Then I got to my job at the church, and I thought, "aaaaah, you can't be expected to write brilliantly with these kind of constraints. You've got to censor your stuff for a church audience, and besides, you don't want to write too flowery for a 3-minute video. You just wait until you have the time and the medium to REALLY express yourself." Then I got this blog last week, and I started coming in really early to work so I could write in it. Now I have the time and the medium. ...hmmm...
As it turns out, I am not intrinsically a brilliant writer. In fact, I am a mediocre writer...about as good as a 24-year-old is probably going to be. I've got this wonderful blank canvas facing me at 7:30 in the morning, with nothing saying I CAN'T pen the finest words ever written in the language...but, apparently, I am not equipped to do so. Hehehe...I suppose I should have learned by now that what I seem to THINK I can do and what I can really do are often two different things, and that ANYTHING worth doing well takes a lot of practice. I'm assuming that even the greatest writers required some practice...that's why they have all those books out on how to write. If it was all an issue of natural talent, those books wouldn't sell very well.
Anyway, all this to say, I look forward to improving. I'm not entirely unhappy with the way that I write...I think it is, at best, a rudimentary jotting of reasonably well-formed thoughts at a time when my coffee and my eyelids are fighting for dominance of my brain. I look forward to looking back on this blog, or on a journal, or on the post-its, or on whatever it is I write over the next five years, and see some sort of improvement.
On a related note, I ran a 10:00 mile this morning. Actually, it was a 9:56 mile, which is barely moving for most runners, but for me is a tremendous accomplishment. As a recovering fat guy with a penchant for wheezing and a tendency to get too hot too fast when I excercise, I am more than proud of my 9:56 mile. It is this kind of growth (a half mile almost killed me a couple of months ago) that suggests to me that, someday a long time from now, I may write something that really is very good.
In the meantime, read Randy Bohlender's blog at rbohlender.blogspot.com. That guy can write...
Peace,
Justin
In college, that "proper outlet" usually meant term papers and essays, but because they came with a given fit-to-mold five-paragraph structure (and don't forget your page numbers, kids), I was able to tell myself, "aaah, you can't be expected to write brilliantly with these kind of constraints. You just wait until you have the time and the medium to REALLY express yourself." Then I got to my job at the church, and I thought, "aaaaah, you can't be expected to write brilliantly with these kind of constraints. You've got to censor your stuff for a church audience, and besides, you don't want to write too flowery for a 3-minute video. You just wait until you have the time and the medium to REALLY express yourself." Then I got this blog last week, and I started coming in really early to work so I could write in it. Now I have the time and the medium. ...hmmm...
As it turns out, I am not intrinsically a brilliant writer. In fact, I am a mediocre writer...about as good as a 24-year-old is probably going to be. I've got this wonderful blank canvas facing me at 7:30 in the morning, with nothing saying I CAN'T pen the finest words ever written in the language...but, apparently, I am not equipped to do so. Hehehe...I suppose I should have learned by now that what I seem to THINK I can do and what I can really do are often two different things, and that ANYTHING worth doing well takes a lot of practice. I'm assuming that even the greatest writers required some practice...that's why they have all those books out on how to write. If it was all an issue of natural talent, those books wouldn't sell very well.
Anyway, all this to say, I look forward to improving. I'm not entirely unhappy with the way that I write...I think it is, at best, a rudimentary jotting of reasonably well-formed thoughts at a time when my coffee and my eyelids are fighting for dominance of my brain. I look forward to looking back on this blog, or on a journal, or on the post-its, or on whatever it is I write over the next five years, and see some sort of improvement.
On a related note, I ran a 10:00 mile this morning. Actually, it was a 9:56 mile, which is barely moving for most runners, but for me is a tremendous accomplishment. As a recovering fat guy with a penchant for wheezing and a tendency to get too hot too fast when I excercise, I am more than proud of my 9:56 mile. It is this kind of growth (a half mile almost killed me a couple of months ago) that suggests to me that, someday a long time from now, I may write something that really is very good.
In the meantime, read Randy Bohlender's blog at rbohlender.blogspot.com. That guy can write...
Peace,
Justin
Friday, May 07, 2004
There was a debate this week at the church...
I don't mean that a bunch of us stood around the water cooler and argued about something...I mean an ACTUAL debate was staged between two distinguished church leaders about one of the most divisive topics in the Church: women as senior leaders in ministry. The topic was debated by Rich Nathan, the senior pastor of the Columbus Vineyard (and, from what I hear, a former lawyer) and Paul Bradford, the senior pastor of the Lakeshore Vineyard in Holland, Michigan. Mr. Nathan argued that the Bible does not expressly prohibit women from attaining senior leadership positions in ministry, and that verses frequently cited by those who argue otherwise (such as 1Tim 2:11-15 and 1Cor 11) are actually being misinterpreted and mistranslated and, when put in the proper context of their ancient authorship, leave plenty of room for women to take senior leadership positions in ministry. Mr. Bradford argued that these verses, in addition to the story of Creation as told in Genesis, very strongly prohibits women from taking senior leadership positions in ministry, and that women were created by God to serve inherently different, though no less valuable, difficult or important, functions than men. The debate ran for over an hour-and-a-half, and was only stopped by its moderator when time ran out.
The results of the debate are not what concern me. Frankly, even if these guys argued long into the night and finally landed on the one and only possible answer, and that answer was underscored by a thundering approval from the voice of God himself, almost all of those who believe women should not be senior leaders will continue to believe that, and those who think they should be senior leaders will continue to believe that. And besides, how much should two middle-aged white guys be allowed to decide about the career restrictions of the female 51% of the world's population?
What stuck with me was how the debate was conducted. These two men were long-time church leaders; people who have spent the last couple of decades expounding decisively and with an authoritative tone to thousands of people about the biggest, most intangible, most wholly unknowable subjects that humankind has wrestled with. They spend their weekdays writing down their opinions on the nature of God, the nature of Man, and the nature of the latter as he struggles and fails to know the former. To come to a regional conference populated by other church leaders, pastors, and other churchy folk and debate a topic so steeped in politics and emotion would have, I think, caused a tremendous defensive swell of pride in their chests (not the good kind of pride...the kind that makes you keep talking long after you needed to stop) and the rosy hue of Christian self-righteousness in their cheeks.
...But it didn't happen.
These two pastors were tough, aggressive, and at times emotional...but every step of the way each man was supported by his research, by his stunning command of the English language (and, in Mr. Bradford's case, the Greek language as well), and by a thorough knowledge of the Bible. Each man was respectful to his opponent, and each man conducted the discussion in what appeared to me to be a fair and healthy way. Despite the incredible dogmatic weight of the topic and the social pressure of being surrounded by a room full of 200+ men and women of the Church, each man argued in a way that would have made my college Debate Team coach proud. By the end of the debate, the tight crevice of my skeptic's pursed lips had worked its way into a cheek-to-cheek smile that persisted for the rest of the afternoon. It was one of the most enjoyable and even thrilling experiences that I've had here at the Vineyard.
...the loose connection of the faithful, the pastoral, the dogmatic, the intellectual and the commercial that comprise the Church has, in my opinion, produced many shallow, shoddy, tawdry and ill-conceived methods of communication to those outside of itself...it was incredibly refreshing and encouraging to see something so thoroughly well-done and honest that I would be proud to show it to any of my friends who do not believe what I do. I would love to have a similar debate staged in our weekend celebration venue...perhaps on the topic of homosexuality, or abortion rights, or even the divine inspiration / fallibility of the Christian Bible.
I would watch from the back, and I think I would enjoy it very much.
Peace,
Justin
I don't mean that a bunch of us stood around the water cooler and argued about something...I mean an ACTUAL debate was staged between two distinguished church leaders about one of the most divisive topics in the Church: women as senior leaders in ministry. The topic was debated by Rich Nathan, the senior pastor of the Columbus Vineyard (and, from what I hear, a former lawyer) and Paul Bradford, the senior pastor of the Lakeshore Vineyard in Holland, Michigan. Mr. Nathan argued that the Bible does not expressly prohibit women from attaining senior leadership positions in ministry, and that verses frequently cited by those who argue otherwise (such as 1Tim 2:11-15 and 1Cor 11) are actually being misinterpreted and mistranslated and, when put in the proper context of their ancient authorship, leave plenty of room for women to take senior leadership positions in ministry. Mr. Bradford argued that these verses, in addition to the story of Creation as told in Genesis, very strongly prohibits women from taking senior leadership positions in ministry, and that women were created by God to serve inherently different, though no less valuable, difficult or important, functions than men. The debate ran for over an hour-and-a-half, and was only stopped by its moderator when time ran out.
The results of the debate are not what concern me. Frankly, even if these guys argued long into the night and finally landed on the one and only possible answer, and that answer was underscored by a thundering approval from the voice of God himself, almost all of those who believe women should not be senior leaders will continue to believe that, and those who think they should be senior leaders will continue to believe that. And besides, how much should two middle-aged white guys be allowed to decide about the career restrictions of the female 51% of the world's population?
What stuck with me was how the debate was conducted. These two men were long-time church leaders; people who have spent the last couple of decades expounding decisively and with an authoritative tone to thousands of people about the biggest, most intangible, most wholly unknowable subjects that humankind has wrestled with. They spend their weekdays writing down their opinions on the nature of God, the nature of Man, and the nature of the latter as he struggles and fails to know the former. To come to a regional conference populated by other church leaders, pastors, and other churchy folk and debate a topic so steeped in politics and emotion would have, I think, caused a tremendous defensive swell of pride in their chests (not the good kind of pride...the kind that makes you keep talking long after you needed to stop) and the rosy hue of Christian self-righteousness in their cheeks.
...But it didn't happen.
These two pastors were tough, aggressive, and at times emotional...but every step of the way each man was supported by his research, by his stunning command of the English language (and, in Mr. Bradford's case, the Greek language as well), and by a thorough knowledge of the Bible. Each man was respectful to his opponent, and each man conducted the discussion in what appeared to me to be a fair and healthy way. Despite the incredible dogmatic weight of the topic and the social pressure of being surrounded by a room full of 200+ men and women of the Church, each man argued in a way that would have made my college Debate Team coach proud. By the end of the debate, the tight crevice of my skeptic's pursed lips had worked its way into a cheek-to-cheek smile that persisted for the rest of the afternoon. It was one of the most enjoyable and even thrilling experiences that I've had here at the Vineyard.
...the loose connection of the faithful, the pastoral, the dogmatic, the intellectual and the commercial that comprise the Church has, in my opinion, produced many shallow, shoddy, tawdry and ill-conceived methods of communication to those outside of itself...it was incredibly refreshing and encouraging to see something so thoroughly well-done and honest that I would be proud to show it to any of my friends who do not believe what I do. I would love to have a similar debate staged in our weekend celebration venue...perhaps on the topic of homosexuality, or abortion rights, or even the divine inspiration / fallibility of the Christian Bible.
I would watch from the back, and I think I would enjoy it very much.
Peace,
Justin
Thursday, May 06, 2004
There's something about family that seems to transcend every other set of decisions or moral imperatives you've made for yourself. Family has this amazing way of being the one thing in your life that, no matter how grown up you are, no matter how married you are, no matter how employed in a job that involves memos and secretaries you are, can make you act like a five-year-old. I think your family ends up creating more of the you that you know as you than any of those decisions, any of those religious leanings, any set of New Year's Eve resolutions or wedding-day vows. In large part, both genetically and developmentally, you are what your parents decided you would be (whether they meant to or not).
The trouble is, when you get married, you and all of the Uncle Harry's Temper and Mom's Monday Night Meatloaf that you have living inside of you has to combine with all of the Dad's Incessant Smoking and Grandma's Penchant for Buying Purses that your spouse has living inside her. Or, if you're less like poor writing and more like real life, you have Uncle Harry's Lasting Bad Touch on the inside of your thigh and Mom's Sociopathic Co-dependence living inside of you, and your spouse has Dad's Lack of Affection and Grandma's Repressed Sexuality living inside her. Either way, when you stand up there and say the most insanely short-sighted (and, by some miracle, the most wonderful) thing any two people can say to each other: "From this day forward," you promise to combine your internal families for the rest of your lives. All of the pathology, all of the neurosis, all of the praise and all of the neglect, all of the years of practice of being Daddy's girl or Mom's Worst Nightmare or the Angry Kid Who Wears Black to Piss His Parents Off come together in a bizarre marriage which will be spent working on defying the nature of your ubringings, indeed a large part of your very beings, in order to make the partnership work.
And you may succeed. I know I will. I will, at least, refuse to stop trying to succeed. We may find out we have more in common than we do in contrast between our families. And if we don't, we may find that our kids can overcome all of the Us that we didn't mean to give them, and hold tightly onto all the Us that we did.
...after all, they'll have to carry us around, too.
Peace,
Justin
The trouble is, when you get married, you and all of the Uncle Harry's Temper and Mom's Monday Night Meatloaf that you have living inside of you has to combine with all of the Dad's Incessant Smoking and Grandma's Penchant for Buying Purses that your spouse has living inside her. Or, if you're less like poor writing and more like real life, you have Uncle Harry's Lasting Bad Touch on the inside of your thigh and Mom's Sociopathic Co-dependence living inside of you, and your spouse has Dad's Lack of Affection and Grandma's Repressed Sexuality living inside her. Either way, when you stand up there and say the most insanely short-sighted (and, by some miracle, the most wonderful) thing any two people can say to each other: "From this day forward," you promise to combine your internal families for the rest of your lives. All of the pathology, all of the neurosis, all of the praise and all of the neglect, all of the years of practice of being Daddy's girl or Mom's Worst Nightmare or the Angry Kid Who Wears Black to Piss His Parents Off come together in a bizarre marriage which will be spent working on defying the nature of your ubringings, indeed a large part of your very beings, in order to make the partnership work.
And you may succeed. I know I will. I will, at least, refuse to stop trying to succeed. We may find out we have more in common than we do in contrast between our families. And if we don't, we may find that our kids can overcome all of the Us that we didn't mean to give them, and hold tightly onto all the Us that we did.
...after all, they'll have to carry us around, too.
Peace,
Justin
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
In about fifteen minutes, I get to head down to the stage for practice for the morning's worship set.
...man, I love playing the bass. I missed it. In the last year, I've probably spent a total of about five hours with the instrument strapped around my shoulder, fingers on the fat and ribbed strings, feet dancing around the cable while the almost sub-audible pulse thumps out from behind me. It's a wonder how I get away from it. It's a matter of priorities, I suppose, but when you find something so thoroughly fulfilling; so cathartic; so tempestuous and relaxing all at the same time...it's a wonder that you ever wander off long enough to prioritize something else.
I don't claim to be a great musician...or even a good one...but I love music. I love playing, I love listening, I love talking about it. I think there is a link between God and music that, even with all of our modern worship music and old-time Gospel and classical choral hymns, I don't think we've found even 1% of yet. When I put on those headphones in the morning and turn on Ben Harper, Lyle Lovett, Eminem, Sarah McLachlan, Extreme, Alanis Morissette, Over The Rhine, the Flecktones, Evanescence, David Lee Roth...I feel God then. I hear him sometimes, my eyes water and my heart pounds when he shows up in the music... I feel like he sneaks right behind that staggered backbeat and delights in the contortions of my face and the twisting in my gut as the guitar lags a sluggish half-beat behind the kick drum and that indescribable feeling of "funk" permeates my torso. I feel like he experiences joy as that solitary matching pair of tears rolls down my cheeks, squeezed out by Sarah's low, ambient regret that she "Forgot to tell you I love you." I feel like he loves to feel me feel the growing, pulsing energy of the distorted guitar and tight snare with a reggae backbeat as 311's "Music" takes me from whatever painted-wall and air-conditioned office mindset I was in to a place that feels a little bit like a dust-dirty version of the Eastern concept of enlightenment. How could that not be of him?
I love music. I've got to run, I'm supposed to be playing it in three minutes.
Peace,
Justin
...man, I love playing the bass. I missed it. In the last year, I've probably spent a total of about five hours with the instrument strapped around my shoulder, fingers on the fat and ribbed strings, feet dancing around the cable while the almost sub-audible pulse thumps out from behind me. It's a wonder how I get away from it. It's a matter of priorities, I suppose, but when you find something so thoroughly fulfilling; so cathartic; so tempestuous and relaxing all at the same time...it's a wonder that you ever wander off long enough to prioritize something else.
I don't claim to be a great musician...or even a good one...but I love music. I love playing, I love listening, I love talking about it. I think there is a link between God and music that, even with all of our modern worship music and old-time Gospel and classical choral hymns, I don't think we've found even 1% of yet. When I put on those headphones in the morning and turn on Ben Harper, Lyle Lovett, Eminem, Sarah McLachlan, Extreme, Alanis Morissette, Over The Rhine, the Flecktones, Evanescence, David Lee Roth...I feel God then. I hear him sometimes, my eyes water and my heart pounds when he shows up in the music... I feel like he sneaks right behind that staggered backbeat and delights in the contortions of my face and the twisting in my gut as the guitar lags a sluggish half-beat behind the kick drum and that indescribable feeling of "funk" permeates my torso. I feel like he experiences joy as that solitary matching pair of tears rolls down my cheeks, squeezed out by Sarah's low, ambient regret that she "Forgot to tell you I love you." I feel like he loves to feel me feel the growing, pulsing energy of the distorted guitar and tight snare with a reggae backbeat as 311's "Music" takes me from whatever painted-wall and air-conditioned office mindset I was in to a place that feels a little bit like a dust-dirty version of the Eastern concept of enlightenment. How could that not be of him?
I love music. I've got to run, I'm supposed to be playing it in three minutes.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
My wife told me that it might help my stress level to write. I dunno...it might. So far, I'm two sentences in, and I don't feel that much better, to be honest with you. But that second sentence wasn't much of one...in fact, technically, I think it's a sentence fragment.
I've got Eminem blasting in my ears..."8 Mile" soundtrack. It's an unlikely pairing, I guess, Eminem and I. After four years of high school AP English, a college degree in English Literature, and a couple of years of working in an evangelical Christian church, and I've got rap's whitest bad-boy swearing in my stereo phones about how he can't seem to get away from his trailer-park background. It seems unlikely...but there's something about the way the guy writes, the way he rhymes, the way he pens like someone like with an amazing command of the language and pushes it out of his gut like a poor kid with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. I've got almost nothing in common with the guy, but I can't deny that I get the same thrill from Eminem's lines such as "like a cereal killer hiding murder material in a cereal box on top of your stereo" that I do from lines like Poe's "Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling / by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore," and Browning's "She guessed not how / Her darling one wish would be heard. / And thus we sit together now, / And all night long we have not stirred, / And yet God has not said a word," and Dickinson's "If recollecting were forgetting, / Then I remember not; / And if forgetting, recollecting, / How near I had forgot!" I don't connect in any real way with Eminem's subject matter...(I have never, as far as I recall, locked my girlfriend in my trunk and driven off of the nearest bridge)...but good writing is good writing, and it's the emotion behind it that drives me, not the action itself. Why is this such a difficult concept for today's critics and English professors? Do we really feel like the story of the usurped king, marooned on a desert island with his daughter, who befriends a a tree-sprite and co-habitates with a witch really mirrors the experience of your average reader of Shakespeare? Of course not...most of Shakespeare's stuff was, at some level subversive and, at times, very silly. The line from Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" quoted above finalizes the short verse about a man who invites the love of his life into his apartment from the cold, and then strangles her with her own hair, pries her eyes open and lies there with her throughout the night, without the first tinge of guilt. Can most of us identify with this scenario? Of course not...nor can we identify with the man whose dead wife seems to haunt his every midnight thought and whose lonliness manifests itself in the form of a talking raven whose incessant single-worded mantra drives the man insane. But it's the emotion of the thing...it's the drive behind the story. Eminem has some of the most passionate, angry and insecure lyrics in popular music, written with a maturity and command that seems to extend far beyond his education. I hope that thirty years from now, someone is teaching this stuff to their English classes.
Maybe I will.
Peace,
Justin
I've got Eminem blasting in my ears..."8 Mile" soundtrack. It's an unlikely pairing, I guess, Eminem and I. After four years of high school AP English, a college degree in English Literature, and a couple of years of working in an evangelical Christian church, and I've got rap's whitest bad-boy swearing in my stereo phones about how he can't seem to get away from his trailer-park background. It seems unlikely...but there's something about the way the guy writes, the way he rhymes, the way he pens like someone like with an amazing command of the language and pushes it out of his gut like a poor kid with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. I've got almost nothing in common with the guy, but I can't deny that I get the same thrill from Eminem's lines such as "like a cereal killer hiding murder material in a cereal box on top of your stereo" that I do from lines like Poe's "Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling / by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore," and Browning's "She guessed not how / Her darling one wish would be heard. / And thus we sit together now, / And all night long we have not stirred, / And yet God has not said a word," and Dickinson's "If recollecting were forgetting, / Then I remember not; / And if forgetting, recollecting, / How near I had forgot!" I don't connect in any real way with Eminem's subject matter...(I have never, as far as I recall, locked my girlfriend in my trunk and driven off of the nearest bridge)...but good writing is good writing, and it's the emotion behind it that drives me, not the action itself. Why is this such a difficult concept for today's critics and English professors? Do we really feel like the story of the usurped king, marooned on a desert island with his daughter, who befriends a a tree-sprite and co-habitates with a witch really mirrors the experience of your average reader of Shakespeare? Of course not...most of Shakespeare's stuff was, at some level
Maybe I will.
Peace,
Justin
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