shot of the week...year...my life?

paulo:

paulo coelho, author of the alchemist, along with many other fantastic books, has been rocking my face off again. i can't even begin to convey the insights into life/love/humanity/god that he provides in his writing, but i can say, "go and get one of his books...any of them...and your life will more than likely get flipped upside down".


random quote from the current read:
"she said, 'the most important thing in all human relationships is conversation, but people don't talk anymore, they don't sit down to talk and listen. they go to the theatre, the cinema, watch television, listen to the radio, read books, but they almost never talk. if we want to change the world, we have to go back to a time when warriors would gather around a fire and tell stories.' "

rob bell was talking about this in a sermon i just listened to...saying that jesus calls his followers to confront one another about sins, faults, injuries (intended or otherwise), all the random misunderstanding that will cause tension, etc....but we live in a world where we are so unaccustomed to conversation, much less confrontation, that we are scared to do this.

why?
we are scared by the thought that we will offend...which will more than likely happen from time to time. in a world where general conversation rarely makes it beyond the weather, last nights playoff game, or the last episode of the office, how can we expect people to be mature enough to handle even constructive criticism well.

but i've jumped the gun...we're still scared of real conversation and i've moved on to confrontation. why are we scared of real conversation? we are freaked out by the idea that someone will get to know us through it. there's the obvious fear that they won't like the "real us" but lets skip that obvious one and go on to the fact that we can't handle commitment. if we share ourselves with people then we begin to grow a relationship in which we are obliged to take on responsibility of maintaining that relationship...we have to be there for them....and what if being there for them cuts into our own freedom to do whatever we want to do....how dare they impose on our time...and so on and so forth. that is our fear.

be in community. open up. share. your life was never meant to be your own. commit to friends. live.

"we're either passengers or fools behind the wheel"
-jon foreman

the time my roomate was robbed at gunpoint in our house and we didnt have computers anymore and i had to move across town:

that happened.

feb. music was:

brooke waggoner, the damnwells, paper route, wild sweet orange

my 26.2...

sunday i got to check "run a marathon" off of the short list of things i want to do before i die. given that the times i get to check things off that list are few and far between, it was an exciting day.  i'll spare you the play by play and give you just a couple of the highlights:


have you heard about the guy who does triathlons and other events with his quadriplegic son...well he was there. his son was strapped into some sort of cart that he pushes along as he runs. it's one of the more amazing stories if you haven't heard of them. he actually pushed/carried his son for an entire iron man triathlon a while back. here's a video from it that would make a grown onion cry. (if you watch it with the idea of the dad pushing his helpless son being like god carrying us along...you'll cry...a lot...just so you know)


speaking of crying, my personal highlight was a little past mile 25: so, i've always heard that marathon's are very emotional things toward the end. i never really gave it much thought until yesterday, but at this point in the race the thought came into play. now we all know that i do not cry (due to my self diagnosed "under-active tear ducts") but i got as close to it as you can get without tears actually leaving your eyeballs. why, you ask? well, part of the story involves a high school band. the other part is some bible imagery. there's that whole image of running a race correlating to the christian life. running the race and having the encouragement of those who have gone before us to push us on. this imagery pops into my head as i round one of the final curves in the road and hear people cheering us on, and see us running, limping, jogging, walking, toward the end with whatever we have left in us. given the weariness of my body i may have had some sort of emotional response at this point anyway but the little band i mentioned earlier now comes into play because what are they playing/singing: "when the saints come marching in". having that song as the background to my thoughts added so much to the weight of the imagery that the tear ducts almost couldn't handle it. that moment alone was definitely worth not being able to walk for the past two days.


...oh and 4hrs.

jan. music was:

greg laswell, rosie thomas, jeremy casella, obadiah parker


also...brooke waggoner (over on the feb. music list) has a free ep on her website....highly recommend....and paper route has a side project, oceans above, which sounds like postal service doing worship music with someone distantly related to sufjan doing vocals....or something like that.

graphing without your TI82...or 83

your new favorite site...and not just because it's my new favorite site:








new music from me!

a couple of new songs on the myspace page...which is, by the by, now much easier on the eyes.

dec. music was:

the national, joshua james, the weepies, ben lee

why do i love hip-hop gone folksy? this.

1st grade...or 2nd grade

so we were sitting around at dinner last night and this was the conversation that occured:

















dad: did you know that when you were in first or second grade the class had to say who their heroes were...and you wrote down pele and george burns.

me: awesome

mom: the other guys put things like "my dad". i think he felt left out.

me: i'm sticking by my choices...i think they were fantastic...did the teacher know who george burns was?
dad: that's what i'm still wondering

august rush....august smush

i found this a rather enjoyable read. though i haven't even seen the movie beyond the trailer, i think we can all enjoy the witty banter in this paste review of the movie entitled:



Nov. music was:

paolo nutini, missy higgins, the avett brothers, the robbie seay band

read this one:

if you like good music...and you like things that are a good time...then go to the paste magazine website and get yourself a year subscription....and pay whatever you feel like paying...mmhmm....you get to name your price. all year for $1 or $1000....whatever you feel like. and if you dont know about paste...its amazing. along with the obviously great music stuff in the magazine itself you get a sampler cd of seriously awesome music each month. do it...if for no other reason than me begging you to. do it.

Hillsong

the other day a group of up jumped in a van drove and hour to baton rouge to see hillsong united. (for anyone who doesnt know the awesomeness out of australia that is hillsong united:
they have been probably the most influential band in my life the past half a year or so because of the amazing worship music they put out there and the fact that the churches i have been involved with have all been a fan of using their stuff.) so, hillsong i love and the way that they do worship and it's amazing music, amazing everything in general, etc.



well the van rolled up a mere 15 before they were to hit the stage and the rather large church at which they were playing was already packed and the fire marshall was making them close the doors. well needless to say we were a bit dissapointed as we were pointed in the direction of the outdoor screen from which we could watch the events inside. here is where i decide to do my own thing. as the rest of the group found a place outside i decided that i would go scout a way to the promise land of the sanctuary. so i struck out on my lonesome and wandered back around the church. i found myself at a side door through which some of the staff was going back and forth and in the midst of a few others dedicated to the idea of getting in. we soon realized that there were in fact a few seats left in the glorious promise land and that one of the staff was counting them out by going in and tracking them down and then returning to this side door to let in groups in the amounts which seats were being found. so we formed a....less of a line...more of a ....oh yes....mob and waited. he would come back and forth and grab those he thought had been waiting longest and let people in. well, in one of the groups that got in i found myself whooshed and in i was. so were you excited? you ask...i'll tell you. i was. kind of. as i was swooped inside the doors i caught sight of one girl who had been waiting longer than i had, who had already seen her friends go in and was still waiting and as i looked back through the glass of the doors i felt like crap. so...i tried to go in but couldnt and came back to ask the door security if i could go switch with her because she had been wating longer....to which his answer was dont worry about it just go in....and i was mildly shocked at this response here at a church but listened and went in. one song later (which i had decided was as far as i could go without feeling like the most selfish person ever) i returned to the door to once again loby for the girls entry. the guy at the door this time was willing to let us switch but as i looked out at the few still waiting i saw not the familiar little hat of the girl. she had made it i hoped...and when i said she was not there he said that he had walked across the room for a minute and the door had somehow been opened allowing a group of 15 or so to rush in...to which i replied "good...i mean not good for the fire code marshal thing....but good that she got in....but not good..." to which he replied with a "yes...not good about the fire code." and i returned to watch the rest of the excitement with a much less guilty conscious and it was freaking amazing.



so in conclusion i am glad that i decided to try to get in since hillsong is only in the states a couple weeks of the year and why oh why they were in baton rouge only an hour away i have no idea...but it was fantastic and though i found myself to be waffling on being incredibly selfish i think in the end things turned out ok. so if you get the chance to go see them...show up a little early.

Some new pics from around town over at the flickr...

thanks BBC

i was on the bbc news online today and came across some interesting things:

a. the bbc has changed their look. they now have a british home page and an international one which, i hear, may soon have advertizements.

b. the delhi deputy mayor was killed by a pack of monkeys who attacked him in his home and knocked him off of his balcony. that, while an interesting story, was not what caught my eye. it was, in fact, the part of the article where they adresses some of the proposed solutions to the problem of the monkey infestation the city faces. in particular the option of training larger more ferocious monkeys to chase the smaller less ferocious ones (the ones that did this) out of town. pause. something seems a bit off with that idea. anyone?

c. dumbledore way gay. oh yeah, he was in love with gellert grindelwald. j.k. told me.

it's been a while...

sorry not to have posted in the past month or so but it has been a bit chaotic recently. not that i havent had a chance to post but i have been traveling quite a bit and therefore exploring new places instead of being online. so....when last i blogged i was at camp. running the camp store for a couple of weeks was a great experience but one that happened, to my mind, ages ago. since then i have been to fayetteville for a couple of weddings while spending a week with my parents, to visit lee and kyle in wilmington and get my one day of nc beach in for the summer (way not enough nc beach), through raleigh/chapel hill and to the dash for a few days before traveling to chattanooga to visit deeds on my way to the woodlands, tx, which is 45minutes or so north of houston. i also like run-on sentences. i stayed in the woodlands for a month taking care of a house for a family that moved to kazakhstan and meeting some great folks as well as finding one of the most amazing churches i have ever encountered or could ever even make up. after a month there filled with relaxing, playing my guitar, and hanging out with awesome folks i packed up again and drove east to NOLA, the big easy, good ole' new orleans where i will be for the next year. my new job is being a human grant. for real. i work for americorps and ngo's applied to get us to work for them to aid in the rebuilding process. so that's me. a living grant, applied for and recieved. i get to do what i did earlier this summer over in slidell, ie be an onsite leader of volunteer groups coming down to help rebuild homes in the area, learning and then imediately teaching construction techniques and making sure the teams have tools and whatever they need and that things run smoothly, etc. it's been a bumpy start so far but a good one too. more on that later though. for now that i think is all. i am nervous/excited about the year and ready for all the training and orienting that is going on now to be over so that my group and i can get down to doing what we all came for, helping people for whom, two years out, little has changed.

badgers pt.2...squirrels that is:


i missed this one in my excitement over the previous rumors of man'eating badgers.

watermelon down...


so i've now checked the "try every flavor of cookout milkshake" line off of my list of things to do before i die.