Moving on out

There is much change afoot that I can safely say I've not been doing a great job preparing for.
Today is the day that just about everything changes.
By the way, I've finished my nearly three year tenure of duty with Tundra Specialties. I'm thankful for all that I've learned while working there; everything from organizational skills (how to file invoices) to whatever else I learned about pulling orders and interacting with the ladies in the administrative offices.
My last day there was last Friday, and it already feels strange not to be on a bus going either here or there for six or eight hours a week.
But today is the day that just about everything changes.
The life I've not only grown used to, but also fond of, for the last three years comes to a screeching halt today. I'm moving to Denver.
I'm moving in, and I barely have anything packed. I'm going to be a good five or ten minutes away from my school's campus by bus. I'll continue to work for my beloved brewpub (The Pumphouse) on the weekends and will live happily without any working obligations during the week with my life long friend sir Wesley Bengt Wicklund.

And today the saga begins. Lederhosen.

The Un-Sermon

(Prescript:I love public speaking. I had a sunday school teacher named Jan Alford who was a sunday school teacher to both of my brothers. She always told me that she could see me at the pulpit on a sunday morning. I've never been quite sure how to take that idea lately, because of how I feel in general about church. I realized that if I were a pastor, I would just get up there and just try to be funny. I decided to put my keyboard where my mouth is. Here is the first part of what came out ~Imagine sitting down after a worship set, to begin with~)

Okay. So the music is over. Please settle yourself in your seat; keep your hands and feet out of the aisle, your cell phones in their upright and silenced position.

…and for that matter, shut up. You came here for the sake of hearing me talk at you for the next several minutes. By the end of my spiritually saturated monologue, you will realize that you once were lost but now are found; you were blind, but now you see. I’ll have some people pass trays around while soothing music is playing. Out of the thankfulness of your heart, you will proceed to pay my bills (thanks in advance for that, by the way).

Your life will change, and tomorrow you’ll wake up fulfilled and overflowing with the Holy Spirit. God will take the mountain range of straw that is your life and spin it into gold overnight. That is, at the cost of everything important to you, regardless of whether or not it is deemed “sinful.”

By the way, church will go much better on Sunday mornings if you would just choose not to sin during the week. Stop doing whatever it is your doing that is so sinful. Start doing, you know, more holier stuff.

* * *

I hate stereotypical sermons. I do not care how many masters of divinity or theological doctorates one might have. Nobody has the right to stand up here bunkered securely behind a flimsy pulpit and tell you how to live your life. What happens in your day to day is something that is primarily between you and God. In the same way your extended family needs to be respectful of your marriage, people need to be respectful of your relationship with Christ; your bridegroom.

That said, I wish not to preach a sermon. I hate sermons. They tend to be far too long and they delay the union that I share with Sunday afternoon NFL football. I don’t want to tell you how to live your life. I’m not trying to inject into your psyche some kind of truth that I (because I’m behind this here pulpit) have and you must obviously lack.

I am merely trying to be myself; to do what I love to do in the presence of Him who created me to do just that. I would appreciate it if you would be respectful of my relationship with Christ as I will do everything in my power to be respectful of yours.

Many of us know Jesus Christ. If Jesus had a facebook profile, he’d be the mutual friend to an uncountable multitude of people. Would he not? Would you poke Jesus? Would you message him? Would you comment on His wall? Would you invite him to join Dope Warz and start dealing unheard of amounts of cyber drugs in many different cities? Would you send him a bumper sticker? Would you dedicate a song to Him? Which song?

I hold somewhat of a double standard. I’m not sure how exactly to correct it, but it haunts my conscious somewhat. See, I don’t want to stand here and tell you how to live your life. Yet I am a dreamer, and a dreamer will waste no time in letting everyone know about the way things should be. I’m not even asking you to adopt my view on the way things should be. I’m just expressing what I think, and there’s a very good chance I could be mistaken. I hope that before I start speaking, that many of you would consider being a good friend of mine. Friendship, however, is something that isn’t as easy as correct or incorrect; right or wrong; black or white; paper or plastic.

My hope in sharing my heart today is that we would all realize we have more in common to share besides our mutual friend Jesus Christ. Wait, I’d like to change that.

My hope in sharing my heart today is that we would all realize we have more in common to share in our mutual friend/bridegroom, Jesus Christ. We share a very creative creator, who has given each one of us an unmistakably unique and exquisite personality and mind to think with. Or, perhaps more aptly stated, an unmistakable unique and exquisite personality and mind to dream with. Welcome to my dream world.

In my dream world, there are many wonderful things. Has anyone seen back to the future? I would submit that anyone who has taken the time to see all three episodes of the priceless trilogy stands with me in proclaiming how awesome hover boards are. What would happen to the rappers music videos? Who wants chrome twenty-two’s spinning when you could be on a hover board?

Now imagine with me as we come to realize that in this dream world we’ve found a way keep ski resorts open year round while temperatures at the foot of the Rocky Mountains stay at a smooth sixty to seventy five degrees. Every day is a powder day, and through the miracle of distributive mathematical logic, there aren’t any lift lines.

We’ve found a way to turn gravity off and on. In this room, the gravity has turned off and so everything is floating around. In this room, however, each couch is safely in its place, and everyone can eat without throwing up. How awesome would this dream world be?

What I have realized is that the kind of awesome I’ve just spoken about is fractional at best in comparison with the kind of awesome that God has created in each and every person alive.

The unfortunate part about who I am is that I have somewhat of a dreamy expectation of my relationship with God. I have this sense of how things should be between created and creator. Don’t worry, not all of them are necessarily wrong or unreasonable. The reality is that I don’t feel as though things between me and the big man upstairs are what they should be. In fact, I tell myself pretty regularly that there’s a good chance they aren’t.

There are a lot of expectations I have of the way things with life should be.

There are a lot of expectations I have of the way things with relationships should be.

There are a lot of expectations I have of the way things with the church should be.

I think you and I have more of those expectations in common than we think we should.

And now, I think I should be done.

It's AmeriCAN, not AmeriCAN'T!

Apologies to George Lopez fans.

I've seen several bumper stickers in my day. One of the stickers that sticks out in my mind now is one that says the following:

"A mind is like a parachute: it only functions when open."

Apparently, we're all hurdling toward the ground at terminal velocity, and our only hope of survival is to rip that cord.

I was in a team and group communications earlier in the year (circa march/april) and something was expressed that's more or less been on my mind from time to time and time again (it's business time!). It is the idea that open minded people are close minded toward people with closed minds.

Something to think about.

whoa there, doctor.

It'd be safe to say that when I'm not working, I'm:

• Eating
• Sleeping
• Writing
• Doing music for my church
• Somehow participating in someone's wedding

It surprises me. I've reached a clear season where pretty much everyone around me is getting married. I can safely say that I still have yet to feel the compulsion to drop everything, get myself into a long term relationship, and buy myself some hardware in the diamond department.

Anyone who really knows me would quickly point out the error in that previous statement, sighting several songs or long conversations that would suggest a different disposition.

It's not like I can help myself with being interested in women. I love women, they add so much to my life that wouldn't be there otherwise. What I've realized is that God definitely has women in my life to show me a vital aspect of who God is.

I want to write more, but I can't think of anything. Instead of trying to concoct a postworthy blog, I'll go ahead and just let this one go here. Take care.

Man Of Green Gables Opener

Yeah, go ahead. Point your fingers and laugh in your disbelief. Scoff at how un-manly the new blog title is. To be one hundred percent honest, I could care less.

The honest truth is that I used to watch the videos with my mom. It's been something I've been trying to get off my chest for a while now.

But if you can move yourself past the obvious emasculation issues, there is much that Anne and I have in common. We're both pretty socially awkward. We both are frequently and commonly misunderstood. We also tend to be hopeless romantics. We've both been accused of talking too much; yet we're both deathly afraid to speak candidly of what is on our hearts. We both know relational pain and strife in much the same way.

...and yes, we're both gingers.


This list of similarities could go on forever, but I've learned from my past blogging mistakes: if they're not long or perfect enough, I don't post them. That said, I will make a committed effort to post even incomplete musings of mine more regularly. Much love, people.