Wednesday, June 29, 2011

People Watching

I'm sitting in the Miami Airport, half checking email and half people watching. People watching might be one of my favorite things to do and it's really next level when you're in an airport. There's something about a cross section of all walks of life crammed into a small space and forced to deal with the stresses of getting somewhere that really makes the whole process interesting. And it's really funny how quickly you see groups start to form. You've got the frazzled parents with the difficult/fussy kids, the executive business men with their tailored suits, the glammed out first classers, the teens/twenty somethings in some form of pajamas, the school and missionary groups, the frat boys/sorority girls who are already partying in the aiport.

What's unsettling/weird about this whole experience is I never see "me" when I'm traveling alone. I never go. Oh, there you are, there's another nomadic/responsibility avoiding/somewhat established but still figuring out his life/wanting just to see the world and keep moving kid. I know these are all things that would be hard to identify when just watching people, but I feel like I never go... oh yeah, that's totally me.

I'm not saying I'm unhappy with the phase of life I'm in. I really dig it, I honestly do, I just feel a little bit like a fish out of water sometimes. Like the place I'm in is just an uncommon place. When I think about this I don't feel sad or melancholy or aloof, I just feel ... distant. Like I'm standing outside of the entire thing looking in. I realize that there's not much about an airport that's all that different from the day to day of regular life, I'm just more aware of it.

All that to say I'm not saying that I want to find an inroad to one of those groups... get the high-paying job/the 2.5 kids/skew even younger than my age. I'm just wondering if I'm really in a place that is as unique as it feels or if people in that place are just hard to identify.

Wondering that's all.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Here we go

I realized something today as we were flying around London at breakneck speed. The team that I took to Uganda basically had 4 hours to spend time in London and instead of staying in one spot, we basically just went all over Central London. It felt really familiar, especially for a place that I really hadn't spent any time in for about 3 years and even then only for a day. I realized something that I've tried to "grow" out of for a very long time.

I'm better if I'm mobile. It's a fact. I've spent most of my life fighting my nomadic instinct, trying to comprehend the complexities of what makes me itch to travel. I process and process and overprocess what makes me what to settle. But there's no escaping it. As much as I want to fight it. I'm better adrift. I'm bold, I'm aware, I'm reckless, I'm more likely to be vulnerable. I'm also usually out of my mind freaked out about what's going on, but that's not a bad thing.

Sitting still usually means complacency for me, which usually means regression, or apathy. Whatever the case, I have this real tendency to end up sitting and doing nothing. I'll call it rest or much needed recovery, but most of the time I'm just loafing. And I fall into this really self focused kind of mood where I'm not really aware of what's going on around me. Unfortunately this is what defines the better part of my life. I work. I rest. I work. I rest. I repeat as necessary. In the meantime, I'm kind of useless.

But give me wheels or wings or tracks and it's a whole different scenario. I deal with junk. Meaningful junk. The kind of junk that helps you get places. I'm aware of what's going on around me. I'm considerably less moody... well, at least lately... still working on that one. I'm far more likely to take risks of faith, life, relationship. I get stuff done. And I get into this weird contented place where I'm on the move. This place where stuff that normally would bother me rolls off of the back a lot faster.

This is a lot of nonsensical rambling, but I'm really just trying to figure out what to do with the fact that I think I'm better nomadic and figuring out where to go with that. What does that look like if I try to apply it as a positive rather than run from it as a negative. Everybody tells you you have to settle down at somepoint. What does like look like if you don't actually think you're supposed to do that?

Friday, June 24, 2011

Reflections on Judges 6

Perspective is a funny thing. It can literally dominate the way that we live our lives if we allow it to and it's often only as accurate as our understanding is. I feel like I don't understand most deeper issues, so that's a little disconcerting. We've started each morning this week on the roof of the school. We watch the sun come up over Mukono, throw on some sunscreen, drink some coffee, and get ready for the day. While we were up there the other day, one of my students said she thought I should read Judges 6. So I did.

That kid read my mail.

Judges 6 is literally a chapter of God trying over and over to reform the identity that Gideon has for himself. God starts the chapter off by calling Gideon a mighty warrior. Gideon spends the rest of the chapter trying to prove him wrong. God tells Gideon to do something. Gideon carries it out at night so that no one sees him doing it. God tells Gideon to do something else and Gideon asks for confirmation, reconfirmation, re-reconfirmation. And still, this is the man that God considers a mighty warrior.

I've been realizing over the last few days that I spend a lot of time chasing who I think I am. And this is often defined by what I think I can't do, what I think my limitations are, what I think are my shortcomings. I try to frame myself in. I'm just being realistic right? I'm just trying to pursue what's possible or what's pragmatic. This kind of approach, though, keeps leaving me restless, feeling like there's something missing. I'm beginning to realize that as long I try to be what I think I can be, I'll never fully become what I was actually intended to be. Which would be a shame really, that could be pretty cool.

Reflections on Judges 6

Perspective is a funny thing. It can literally dominate the way that we live our lives if we allow it to and it's often only as accurate as our understanding is. I feel like I don't understand most deeper issues, so that's a little disconcerting. We've started each morning this week on the roof of the school. We watch the sun come up over Mukono, throw on some sunscreen, drink some coffee, and get ready for the day. While we were up there the other day, one of my students said she thought I should read Judges 6. So I did.

That kid read my mail.

Judges 6 is literally a chapter of God trying over and over to reform the identity that Gideon has for himself. God starts the chapter off by calling Gideon a mighty warrior. Gideon spends the rest of the chapter trying to prove him wrong. God tells Gideon to do something. Gideon carries it out at night so that no one sees him doing it. God tells Gideon to do something else and Gideon asks for confirmation, reconfirmation, re-reconfirmation. And still, this is the man that God considers a mighty warrior.

I've been realizing over the last few days that I spend a lot of time chasing who I think I am. And this is often defined by what I think I can't do, what I think my limitations are, what I think are my shortcomings. I try to frame myself in. I'm just being realistic right? I'm just trying to pursue what's possible or what's pragmatic. This kind of approach, though, keeps leaving me restless, feeling like there's something missing. I'm beginning to realize that as long I try to be what I think I can be, I'll never fully become what I was actually intended to be. Which would be a shame really, that could be pretty cool.

Monday, June 20, 2011

The Halfway Point

There's something about morning in Uganda. The air is cool The cooking and rubbish fires haven't started yet. The busy traffic of the day is still for the time and the birds are busy in the early calm. It's incredible. I've been coming here every summer for five years and I always almost miss it. I almost pass over the peace of that early morning in focusing on the busyness of the day. Reading Ezekiel 37 in that early calm I was absolutely hammered by an idea.

I am ridiculously arrogant.

I've got this insanely self-centered idea that my sin is somehow past the point of God's redemption. I convince myself that I've done it, I've messed up too much, cut myself off, and felt that I'm beyond the point of saving. What's ridiculous I'm doing this in the same breath as I'm saying or stating or professing that I believe in a God that restores nations, that raises the dead, that breathes life onto dry bones. To say that I think that I'm done is to say that God's love can't handle my sin, which minimizes that love and is really arrogant... and probably a little blasphemous.

I was looking back at my journal from last year and realized that there's a common theme in every trip I take here. I leave with a desire to live my life unhindered; to run towards God with everything I have, arms flung wide. I'm not saying that I want to go all Mother Theresa or anything (well who knows) but I want to live with an authenticity that seeks to take every step in the identity that I've been given by God and not by myself. I just want to live in a manner that's true to the grace and love I've received and not selectively receptive to it.

I really wish it didn't take a trip to Uganda to remind me of these things. I really wish that I could hold onto it for more than a year. But hey... I'll take what I'm given.

Friday, June 10, 2011

What I Want

I went down to Ocean Beach last night with Ape because I wanted to introduce him to the California Burrito at Ortiz's (if you haven't had it... sweet moses that carne asada is tender). Walking around below the pier in Ocean Beach where a lot of the homeless folks hang out it reminded me of how comfortable I used to be there and how insulated I've become living in North County. I was thinking about this as I get ready to leave on Monday for Uganda. It's easy to ignore a problem, to not be impacted or affected by it, as long as we are able to compartmentalize it.

If I don't see it it's not really there.

That's a horrible thing to admit, but it's ridiculously true. Every time I go to Uganda I'm floored by the level of need, the need for assistance, the opportunities for impact and ministry. Every time I get back I move on within 5-6 weeks. I really wish that wasn't the case, but it's true.

What I want more than anything is to consistently and intentionally be aware of those in need. In need emotionally, financially, spiritually. I want to press into those uncomfortable places where people are real and raw and I can't isolate myself by living in a bubble. I'm well aware that I can't do everything, but I don't want to live large parts of my life ignoring the things around me that I can impact. Whether I ignore them out of fear, or discouragement, or being uncomfortable, I don't want to just move on from moment to moment, or experience to experience. Because the longer the time gets between these moments, the harder it is to engage with people who really need help and encouragement and God. I don't want to become incompetent at being there for people because it happens so little often. I don't want to become so desensitized that need seems like a freak occurrence that I just need to press through.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Does it matter if it isn't real?

So, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about facebook (which I have a low grade addiction to, but I digress) and we were talking about how hard it is, in the age of social networks, to avoid creating multiple identities for ourselves. Facebook, like so many other forms of digital culture, can help us to create our perfect personality, our perfect identity. We can craft and craft and craft until we lose the flaws that help to so define who we are.

I was thinking about this the other night when I was playing LPs for Ape, trying to explain why I loved vinyl. I played him some Otis Redding, Beatles, Black Keys, and Death Cab. I try to get him to appreciate the crackle, the pop, the way that reverb makes a sound feel like it's actually echoing from a smoky hall or club somewhere.

I'm realizing that my love of the LP has nothing to do with the sound.

There's something about physical media that is so much more genuine than anything that we've created in the digital age. It's the fact that it's so much harder to hide the different parts of your personality with physical music, books, pictures than it is with digital ones. With music alone I can download thousands of tracks in minutes and delete anything that I don't like or I don't think reflects well on who I am. Physical media is harder.

I remember going to the music store down the road from my apartment in Rhode Island and searching through the racks for the album I wanted. This was a commitment, one that would linger, one that would add to my musical identity. People who looked through my CDs would see it and gain a glimpse into my tastes and interests. And I had some albums that I would rather not admit I had. DC Talk's Free at Last (badly executed Christian rap... oh baby!), The Greatest Hits of Huey Lewis and the News, The Beach Boys Christmas album. But you don't just throw out a CD. If you hate it enough, you'd trade it, give it away, try to find a used music store where you could sell it back. And if you kept it, it said something about you. No matter how much you claimed the opposite, no matter how much you tried to deny it, you just might enjoy Poison, you just might get down to Boys II Men. And so a music collection became a very real thing, because it represented strengths, flaws, incredible finds, and massive failures. Now it's so easy when someone finds an embarrassing group in your music collection to say "I downloaded it off of my sister's iPod" or "I just downloaded a bunch of stuff from this one site" and you've completely separated yourself from any connection to your music.

That's why I love vinyl. I love the smell and the weight of a record. I love the process (and I do mean process) of putting it on the turntable. I love the atmosphere it creates. I also love that my collection is completely random and spastic, kind of like me. I may have Vampire Weekend, Death Cab, the Beatles, and Sam Cooke... but I also have the Star Wars soundtrack (thanks Casey!), Neil Diamond, Art Garfunkel. And I'm ok with that tension because it's incredibly genuine. And I'd rather have that than a completely "perfect" digital collection that hides the more embarrassing aspects of my musical tastes.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Ants

There's about a week before I leave for Uganda... and I don't really handle spaces like this well. There's something about dead space that gives me restless leg syndrome like nobody's business. I want to move, want to travel, want to create something, want to discover stuff. I don't enter into rest particularly well. It's always been this way. Give me a break longer than a couple days and I'm itching to go, to do something. My mind runs wild, I start planning out adventures, I'll sporadically play my guitar, try to teach myself a new instrument.

I have a really hard time just chilling.

There's been the restless, nomadic undercurrent that I've been living out for most of my life. Probably because we moved so much as a kid. When you change schools 8 times as a kid, it kind of drills that into you. So I have a tendency to pursue the next a lot. It's not so much that I'm bailing on things. More that I'm just focused on the next adventure. This can be problematic because there have been times when I've bailed on communities or groups that really are good for me/really care about me. Thankfully there are a handful of folks that haven't bailed no matter how hard I've tried (Emmet, the Whitsetts, the Lyons, Bear, the Salladins, etc.)... but it's something that I'm trying really hard to productively work against... because I'm running myself ragged.

Rest can be intimidating, because it requires a certain amount of vulnerability that we never really acknowledge. We have to trust that things left alone for a day, or week, or month will be okay without us. We have to be okay with others really investing, really learning about who we are because we sit still long enough to have the deeper conversations. We have to be okay with realizing that we can't do everything and that true rest, real meaningful rest means getting rid of the things in our life that we can't balance without obscenely loaded schedules. These can be overwhelming things, especially in a culture that defines so much by success, by what we accomplish.

I was talking to a group of folks last night, relaxing, telling random stories, just chilling. And we started planning out a missions trip, getting excited about what we could accomplish with a small dedicated team, getting focused on what we could do if we really set out minds on it. And in the midst of that I almost lost that it was really good and live giving just to relax, to talk, to set aside plan for even a couple hours. It was really recharging just to be real even for a short time. I almost lost that when the conversation turned towards what we could "do." It really would have been a shame if I had.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Ninja Time

Man I hate group dynamics. Perhaps this is too severe. I really dislike group dynamics. Not strong enough. I loathe group dynamics.

There.

There's something about spending time in any group that swells past 4 or 5 people that just makes me lose my bacon. This is something of an odd thing considering I'm pretty much the poster boy for the ENFP crowd (Myers-Briggs... google it if you're curious). But I really have a hard time in situations like these. I think it's something about the fact that once you get to a group this size one of two things are happening. You're either superficially connecting with everyone in the room or engaging with a few select people and then blowing the rest of the room off.

I don't really know how either of those options are supposed to sound like a good idea. I've spent way too much of my life investing in superficial relationships and I don't know if I have much time for it anymore. Now, some might counter this and say "it's a party dude, lighten up, have a good time." But that's just it... I feel like more and more often we (church friends? non church friends? me? where I work?) try to construct social situations where we don't really have to be vulnerable, or real, or authentic, and everything can be about a mile wide and two inches deep. Which is a super way to go through life without having to really know anybody (apologies Good Will Hunting).

I'm just to the point where I'd rather spend 2 hours really connecting with a handful of friends that hours skimming over the surface of a community. This is why I ninja out. The whole goodbye thing in a group setting that large seems superficial. "Goodbye friend, we didn't really talk all night, but it was great to see you." Really? Seriously? So I just bail. Because when I feel like a goodbye is significant, I'll give one. Of course this policy has led me to some epically bad attempted subtle exits from parties... but such is life.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Danger and Excellence

So I went to see X Men First Class night and it really was excellent. Not just as a big budget summer picture or a superhero flick, but genuinely a good movie. It's pretty incredibly realize and breaks down that struggle for validation, acceptance, purpose in some pretty incredibly meaningful way. There are so many great moments throughout the film (Fassbender in Argentina?!... intensity!) but there was one sort of throw away moment that hit me like a sock full of nickels. One of the character says to another character (paraphrase) "you'll never reach your full potential if you're spending half your energy on hiding who you are." I really wish that statement didn't apply to me as much as it does.

Man I'm a chameleon.

I'm doing way better at this, but the better part of my post high school years has been spent on trying to be the person that will be most accepted by those around me. Truth is it takes a lot of energy and there's a certain fear that's carried that eventually you'll be found out for who you are. But still I find myself trying to play the hipster, the jock, the spiritualist, the responsible adult, the wisecrack. Now these are all parts of who I am, but none of them fully encapsulate who I am.

This past year was the year of saying no for me. I made a decision that I would intentionally say no to anything that I didn't want to do/didn't feel let to do. This was kind of a big step. What was interesting about this process was that what remained after the dust settled really said a lot about who I am. And I really like that person. That awkward, dysfunctional, emotive, overly sensitive, goofy, spastic, creative, weird person. But just being okay with that person isn't enough. The point I'm at is actually learning to enjoy being that person actively. To not wish that parts were different, that I finally settled down, that my career or education were at a different point, that my group of friends would look or act a certain way, that my ministry would have a particular identity. The step now for me is to really own the life I've been given and to really enjoy being myself in it. It's a crazy thing to realize you don't have to change for anyone or prove yourself to anyone. It's a bit crazier to actually live that way.

I was talking to my little brother the other day and we were joking that the theme of the summer was danger and excellence. It was a joke and I was basically just riffing on Year One which was a horrible movie, but had some funny lines. But it's pretty true that I really want to stop caring what people think and using all the gifts I've been given to their utmost potential (excellence) and I want to be bold enough to live in a way that says that the outcome is not as important as being genuine (danger). I think it's going to be pretty epic.

I know this has been something of a recurring theme in my life, but I think I'm finally getting to the point where I'm learning to really enjoy where I'm at and who I am. To really appreciate the relationships, the opportunities, the adventures I've been given. I'm pretty amped for that.