I wrote this on February 20, 2010 (hence the date on the title). At that moment I felt like God was impersonal and that I was using Him as some sort of tool to make me look better. Anyways, I figured out that God isn't to be made into some tool but rather we're supposed to have a relationship with Him and that's what I've been working on in my life lately.
An Impersonal God
Right now I'm laying in a sleeping bag getting ready to sleep on the ground of an infant playroom in some church.
I'm at a prep retreat for my mission trip to New Orleans during spring break. It's a little sleepover thing where we learn about what were doing and bonding with the team so it's not super awkward when we go down there.
All night long we've been sharing our stories of our lives. We made a time line of our walk with Jesus where we wrote down five significant events that impacted our lives.
I wrote down accepting Jesus in my life when I was seven, my youth group leaders in grade school, NLA, Baylor, and Bethel. I then had to deal with telling everyone in my group about it. I wasn't worried about it really but after I was done giving my little spiel of words I was disappointed in my speech. I was cliche and bland, made generalizations, and it was just disappointing to say the least.
Before I started writing this I was in the sleeping bag playing a card game on my iPod. I have won this game fifty times since the end of January which basically means to me I have a very boring uninviting life.
That's what I should have said in my little speech. That my life right now is a complete and utter boring mess and I signed up for this trip to jump start me living a better story. Or at least it was when I signed up for it.
Right now, months after signing up for this I feel very distant from God. Well, distant isn't the word. I feel lost, out of sync, stranded, and alone. I feel I have made my relationship God into a political self-help book God. That I'm just using Him as some big tool for me to write about and argue about. Jesus seems to have become impersonal to me or better yet I have become impersonal to God.
I've been reading about lifeboats lately. How we all seem to be trying to persuade everyone that we are worth keeping on the lifeboat and that they should throw someone else off when it starts to sink. We find our worth from those people and try to make ourselves look better through it.
I'm reading about how Jesus came in and said,"Who needs a lifeboat?" It's about finding our worth and love from God only and how that should be enough.
I never want to be considered some thoughtful person or philosophical writer or some creative artist. I don't want that to happen to me. But people tell me I am these things and I find worth in that so I try to personify that type of personality. Always seeming to ask the tough questions with the easiest of whim. Always contemplating life challenges and it's meaning. All I need next is a smoking pipe and one of those big leather arm chairs where I can sit next to a roaring fire and feel important as people come up to me and ask what life is truly about. Yes, I don't want that.
I would rather find worth from my personal God, my dance partner going through life together. I think that is about it. I mean, I like writing my thoughts online but I don't want to be considered some amazing thinker. Just a guy, living out his life, striving to be that beautiful reflection of an intimate Jesus who together are living a better story.
I have now just finished a chapter in a book about this. It is "Searching For God Knows What" by Donald Miller and it goes through his journey also.
Funny how things work like that.
March 01, 2010
Frisbee Kingdom
I got thinking about summer because spring is just around the corner and that means school is almost over and that means summer is coming.
Last summer I got into this schedule of playing ultimate frisbee with some people from high school. It was fun. We would run around in our bare feet throwing a frisbee in the air. We would applaud our good throws, of which I had few, and we would encourage people to keep trying when the bad throws occurred.
It was a nice little fun time of playing frisbee. It was never highly competitive or stressful, we just played it cool and didn't care about rules as much as having fun. We had a little frisbee community you could say.
This one time though of my friends yelled down to some complete strangers, asking them to come join us for some, "disc" as we called it.
To my surprise three guys came up right after their hockey practice to come play with us. I guess they were just waiting for their ride home and that ride was late. There were nice guys and I have forgotten their names but they played everything cool. They were better than me at "disc" too which made me feel terribly nonathletic.
Those guys came back two or three times to play with us because before they left we told them what days and times we play and they said they would be back. I really enjoyed that, how our little disc community was so inviting of everyone, we didn't care how good or bad we were, just as long as you had a good time and got to play around with some friends. It is what I imagine as true community, looking out for each other, always inviting for more people to join.
Sometimes after we were done playing some disc we would go to SuperAmerica and get those big 44 ounce slushies because Minnesota does get hot, and humid, and we get tired, and sweat. One time though, we had a huge Vitamin Water van pull up blasting the latest popular song and two people got out and gave us free Vitamin Water. I've never been a big fan of Vitamin Water but when something is free you don't mind anything.
There were two people practicing soccer at the field across from us so we grabbed two more free Vitamin Water's and gave them those because communities share their gifts too. One of the Vitamin Water guys starting throwing the disc around with us too but he didn't stay for long because he had a job to do.
And that is our little frisbee community. A community where our faults are forgiven and the main goal is to always have fun. We look out for each other, scour the car for loose change so someone can get a slushie, give them a ride home, and we share our gifts with strangers around. We invite strangers to come play some "disc" and invite them to come back whenever they want.
It's a frisbee kingdom, bringing a little bit of heaven on earth.
Last summer I got into this schedule of playing ultimate frisbee with some people from high school. It was fun. We would run around in our bare feet throwing a frisbee in the air. We would applaud our good throws, of which I had few, and we would encourage people to keep trying when the bad throws occurred.
It was a nice little fun time of playing frisbee. It was never highly competitive or stressful, we just played it cool and didn't care about rules as much as having fun. We had a little frisbee community you could say.
This one time though of my friends yelled down to some complete strangers, asking them to come join us for some, "disc" as we called it.
To my surprise three guys came up right after their hockey practice to come play with us. I guess they were just waiting for their ride home and that ride was late. There were nice guys and I have forgotten their names but they played everything cool. They were better than me at "disc" too which made me feel terribly nonathletic.
Those guys came back two or three times to play with us because before they left we told them what days and times we play and they said they would be back. I really enjoyed that, how our little disc community was so inviting of everyone, we didn't care how good or bad we were, just as long as you had a good time and got to play around with some friends. It is what I imagine as true community, looking out for each other, always inviting for more people to join.
Sometimes after we were done playing some disc we would go to SuperAmerica and get those big 44 ounce slushies because Minnesota does get hot, and humid, and we get tired, and sweat. One time though, we had a huge Vitamin Water van pull up blasting the latest popular song and two people got out and gave us free Vitamin Water. I've never been a big fan of Vitamin Water but when something is free you don't mind anything.
There were two people practicing soccer at the field across from us so we grabbed two more free Vitamin Water's and gave them those because communities share their gifts too. One of the Vitamin Water guys starting throwing the disc around with us too but he didn't stay for long because he had a job to do.
And that is our little frisbee community. A community where our faults are forgiven and the main goal is to always have fun. We look out for each other, scour the car for loose change so someone can get a slushie, give them a ride home, and we share our gifts with strangers around. We invite strangers to come play some "disc" and invite them to come back whenever they want.
It's a frisbee kingdom, bringing a little bit of heaven on earth.
Biker Chic
This one goes out to Josh who told me to blog every hour during my day off even though that probably won't happen.
This one also goes out to my professor who is gone today and cancelled class.
I was in my basic communication class a couple of weeks ago and we were participating in a class activity. We had been given articles from the Star Tribune newspaper. I don't like the Star Tribune. I don't know why but I have been a Pioneer Press guy every since I was a kid so the Star Tribune is weird to me.
Anyways, my group got an article titled, "Biker Chic," which I pronounced "Biker Chick" until someone pointed out that it was "Chic," pronounced like "Sheek" which was slightly embarrassing for me but understandable. I mean, who ever uses the word chic in a normal sentence?
The article was about a new line of motorcycle clothes for woman which is as weird as it sounds. Pink leather jackets, etc. etc.. I didn't relate to it all and was slightly creeped out by it. I explained the article to my professor and the rest of the class telling them how the article was about woman's motorcycle clothing and how their was some convention coming up where you could find these clothes. My professor asked who the intended audience was and I said woman who drive motorcycles or people who know woman that drive motorcycles.
Eventually we got to how this article defines someone. How it defines woman that drives motorcycles and everyone else. I didn't think that this article had anything to do with my life and that it didn't define anything about me but then my professor said something interesting.
He said how we are defined by what we're not.
This struck me. Defined by what we're not. We define ourselves by choosing not to be something, by not relating to something. Biker Chic helped define who I am by telling me who I am not. I am not a motorcycle enthusiasts or a woman clothing enthusiast. That is who I am. So I got to thinking about other people, famous people, and started defining them by what they are not.
For example, Martin Luther King Jr. was defined by not acting out in violence, same as Gandhi.
So I guess defining yourself goes both ways. We seem to be defined by what we are and what we are not. We sit there and make labels for ourselves usually by what we like and are passionate about but we can also labels ourselves by what we are not. I just had never thought of it that way before.
I still don't like the Star Tribune, but Biker Chic made me not like it less.
This one also goes out to my professor who is gone today and cancelled class.
I was in my basic communication class a couple of weeks ago and we were participating in a class activity. We had been given articles from the Star Tribune newspaper. I don't like the Star Tribune. I don't know why but I have been a Pioneer Press guy every since I was a kid so the Star Tribune is weird to me.
Anyways, my group got an article titled, "Biker Chic," which I pronounced "Biker Chick" until someone pointed out that it was "Chic," pronounced like "Sheek" which was slightly embarrassing for me but understandable. I mean, who ever uses the word chic in a normal sentence?
The article was about a new line of motorcycle clothes for woman which is as weird as it sounds. Pink leather jackets, etc. etc.. I didn't relate to it all and was slightly creeped out by it. I explained the article to my professor and the rest of the class telling them how the article was about woman's motorcycle clothing and how their was some convention coming up where you could find these clothes. My professor asked who the intended audience was and I said woman who drive motorcycles or people who know woman that drive motorcycles.
Eventually we got to how this article defines someone. How it defines woman that drives motorcycles and everyone else. I didn't think that this article had anything to do with my life and that it didn't define anything about me but then my professor said something interesting.
He said how we are defined by what we're not.
This struck me. Defined by what we're not. We define ourselves by choosing not to be something, by not relating to something. Biker Chic helped define who I am by telling me who I am not. I am not a motorcycle enthusiasts or a woman clothing enthusiast. That is who I am. So I got to thinking about other people, famous people, and started defining them by what they are not.
For example, Martin Luther King Jr. was defined by not acting out in violence, same as Gandhi.
So I guess defining yourself goes both ways. We seem to be defined by what we are and what we are not. We sit there and make labels for ourselves usually by what we like and are passionate about but we can also labels ourselves by what we are not. I just had never thought of it that way before.
I still don't like the Star Tribune, but Biker Chic made me not like it less.
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