Escapism???

Escapism: "the avoidance of reality by absorption of the mind in entertainment or in an imaginative situation, activity, etc. "

Sometimes I wonder if I am a bit escapist. I watch anime fairly regularly not in the last month or so though). I own quite a few movies. I own a Wii. My comfort zone is my own mind (I have talked to a few of you about that concept, I don't know if I have mentioned it here).

And I can't wait to turn off my PC and cell phone for 2 weeks. To be in another country, completely inaccessible.

But even with that I have had some awesome conversations in the last few days with people I care for dearly. And I do not want to be apart from them.

I don't want to leave those I love, that is part of why graduating scares me, and why a few of us are looking to move to the same city and serve together...

And at the same time a friends desire to leave and move on is finally starting to make a little sense, although I still morn the fact that people must leave.

And yet there are others, some I love and others honestly I don't have much closeness with that I am happy to see leave, either because I can see what lies before them and I want that for them, or my life gets easier with them gone.

Sometimes life is hard and I want to run to a game, a movie, anime, away. Other times life gets hard and I want to step up and overcome the situation.

I have said and desired for many years someone to love, care for, grow with, and be challenged by. And yet I also want to be alone.

What do you do with feelings like that? Do you ignore them? That feels like you are denying yourself. Do you embrace them? Many are diametrically opposed.

Do you say screw it and run away to another town, state, country? Do you stay?

Do you retreat into your mind, where one minuet you can have a close friend or friends to share experiences with and the next no one, whatever you want at the moment? But can you cast your mind aside and still think, reason, and plan?

Do you throw you mind completely away and live out life as you want in the moment, without regard to the pain you could cause others?

Caution vs. Excitement
Risk vs. Reward
Life vs. Death
Honor vs. Humiliation
Hope vs. Failure (rejection)
Wanting vs. Having
Safety vs Danger
Existing vs. Living

Love God, Love Self, Love Others, Love Creation

Love neighbor AS self

How do you reconcile all this into a life style that worth living?

I don't want to get to the end of my life and say "Well that was a safe life, I took no risks, and had a predictable life, where I wasn't super happy, but I was never sad, and I never hurt anyone."

But I don't wanna say "WOOO I had a blast, and I don't care how many people were hurt, it was worth it for the ride!!!"

But sometimes the little step from safety to living life feels like the leap from safety and courtosy to selfishness and thrill seaking.

Rather than try to wade through all this... isn't it easier just to run to another country for a few weeks? Get lost in the newest game or movies?

Heck in your mind you can live life however you want... and "noone" gets hurt.

Is standing up for the weak worth the danger?
Is asking that girl (guy for you ladies) out, or telling her(him) how much you admire them worth the risk of hurting them, or being rejected?
Or is it worth the time and effort to figure out how to love your sisters/brothers when you have no interest in them (that one might be harder)?
Is being there for your friend as they struggle worth the time and emotional energy from you?
Is it worth it to take a job (career path) you might love for less pay than the one that will pay you the most?
Is it worth it to stand up for what is best for you community even if you are the only one that thinks so?

I'd like to think yes to all those, but how many times do my actions, or your actions, indicate otherwise?

Surrounded by Death... and Life

So the last year it has been hard in many way. On is that I have felt like death is waiting at every turn. I mean wouldn't you:

- April 07 - 4/16
- Summer 07 - Beating or whatever in Greensboro (see first blog post)
- Fall 07 - Guy jumps out of Pritchard to his death
- November 07 - Uncle Dies
- Feb 08 - NIU Shooting
- Spring 08 - Car hits 5 people I know that are good friends of a few of my friends, one dies

It got to the point where I could not go to the prayer meetings for these events. I wanted to pray with my community about these events and support those struggling with them. But after the prayer night for the guy in Pritchard I avoided the other ones. I did go to a morning one for NIU but anything at night I skipped. Being a room with my friends greiving and praying for another death, I just couldn't do it.

But recently I have been blessed seeing life all around me and within the last year:

- 2 Babies born to people involved with IV @ VT
- 1 Baby born to a friend from back home
- Wes and Lindsey's Wedding
- Graduations
- Several friends got engadged
- Chris and Kathryn's Wedding
- My grandparent's 50th wedding aniversary

So yeah, I think death has been more prevelent or visible in the last year, but God is protecting his people in many ways and even in our world filled with death and pain, there are signs of his grace, love and plan.

Sometimes you just have to stop looking at the crap and look for the good things.

What is in a Name????

So I have been thinking...

How presumptuous is it to say "God you are _____."???

Put whatever you want there.

We hear things that are wrong like bad, uncaring, and such all the time. But even if we say things that are true like love, just, our father, 'with us' or anything else that is true. These statements can only reduce or degrade God from who he is into that name. Even giving him the gendered pronoun "He" belittles him. He is not a he, he has no y chromosome, he has no need of that kind of description, in fact for many it harms their ability to understand and meet him. It is an insult to who he is to name him.

So at this point you should be mad or confused... or both. And I am okay with that, in fact I am hoping for that. Please bear with me til I finish this.

Take any name:
Jesus
"I Am"
Prince of Peace
King of Kings
Emmanuel
Jehovah
El Shaddai
Father
The Trinity
Christ
Redeemer
Creator

There are so many more. I submit that all of these abase our Lord. You call me Allen, a man, whatever name that is true of me (I don't want to discuss false names right now) you have given me a good name. You have captured me, described me. Webster's defines "name" as "a word or phrase that constitutes the distinctive designation of a person or thing." So when we name God we are trying to designate him, define him. Any name we as limited beings can give him is grossly inferior to describe who he is.

Let me show this a little better. A line in math goes from infinity to infinity. It is still a hugely inadequate metaphor, but it will work. So when we give God a name we are throwing a box over part of that line.



As you can see we have many names some over lap, some cover more ground that others, but none can fully describe the line. A box is inadequate to describe a line because it has to be finite, to be a box is to be finite, so we define lines with equations in math, even then when you use an equation it is always using that equation in a finite area. We can conceive infinity only in theory we cannot wrap our minds completely around it. It is something we run into with enough frequency we just decide it exists and try to work around it and use it. When we name God we are trying to use a square to define a line.

So why do we name God when we cannot even come close?

He does. He names himself for us and rejoices in us using and saying his names.

"Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"

God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "Exodus 3:13-14

God humiliates himself by giving himself names so we can interact with him. Think about it. He desires a relationship with us, we by nature name and interact with people and things with names. If God was rightfully against defaming himself like any of us are (how much do you hate when someone makes light of your accomplishments, position, abilities, character?). He wants that relationship so much that he is willing to reduce himself so we can interact with him. The names we have and use are not wrong (again assuming the ones based in Truth) just not ALL of God. God has chosen to rejoice in our interacting with him in this way.

We get to interact with God on a personal level. He has reduced himself so we can have a personal relationship with him. If you think about it God did it again when he came here in the person of Jesus to teach and to reconcile us to himself. God constantly makes himself lesser than he is, lesser than he deserves for His love of us.

So rejoice in how humble and loving our Father is that he loves us and wants to interact with us so much more than he desires his own rights or how much he deserves respect and possition.

But I do want to make one caution in this. Any name we have for God is by definition finite. We must be sure that we love Him, not any name we have for Him.

How many times have you heard "If God is (Love, Just, Good, etc.) he would dd (or not do) X." or "God would be under a bridge not in the suburb." or any other sweeping statement like that. Those all come from taking one aspect of an infinite God that is true and either misunderstanding or applying it to the exclusion of the other parts of who he is. We need to be sure that this gift of personal interaction with God remains what is was intended for. To interact with God personally, not to alienate his childeren from one another or to missunderstand God and his goals and purposes. To use his names to interact and love him as best we can, not to make our own god out of parts of The One True God.

So this was especially long, but it has been on my mind a while. And yes I found a thesaurus.

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God... Thank you for your many names, and for loving us so much more than we can comprehend to reduce yourself in so many ways just to be in relationship with us and to restore us to right relationship with you.

A few more thoughts

So I have been compiling a list of posts I want to write, but they always seem rougher when I write them than in my mind, I'll try to work on that a bit, anyway...

The first guy to disciple me intentionally that I knew about besides my parents and I were talking once and he gave me his health test. I don't remember exactly what he called it, but even now I still use it in the back of my mind. I am not sure if he came up with it or heard it somewhere, but here it is:

Are you:
- Eating?
- Sleeping?
- Exercising?

Ok, now Spiritually, Are you:
- Eating?
- Sleeping?
- Exercising?

Simple, but very telling. If you ask yourself what does it mean to sleep spiritually, think of it more like "rest" rather than sleep. If you are still not sure, I'd look into that, same goes for the rest. So for me...

Am I:
- Eating? Yes, trying to eat better portions and variety, making some progress.
- Sleeping? Yes, 6-8 hours a night, but I am still usually tired.
- Exercising? Nope, I was doing a lot of outdoor work at work for a while that was exercise, lifting and moving drums and such, but the last week or so I have spent most of my time asleep, or at a PC (8 hours a day at work!!)

Ok, now Spiritually, am I:
- Eating? A little, not as much as I need. want to. As evidence, I am writing this before bed rather than having the quiet time that is on my to-do list for the day.
- Sleeping? Yeah, taking time to rest, God has blessed me in seeing him in just about everything (more on that later)
- Exercising? A Little, but I have been so busy doing other stuff I have not been as much as I want/ need to.

So there I am. I hope this blesses you as it has me.

Year in Review

To start of way more people read this than I thought. Two people are subscribed to it on Google Reader, at least 4 people have links to my blog in theirs, and recently at least 2 friends that I did not know blog or read blogs commented on my posts, and a person from the intertubes that doesn't seem to just be trying to get me to buy something or join their new blog hosting site. So thank you everyone for reading and please comment if you have thoughts I like the chance to be pushed to grow and refine and be encouraged. Also please feel free to email or call me if you have that contact already if you have concerns about a post, especially with this being about my life some people come up, I try to remove identifiers but it doesn't always work.

So I a tradition that at the end or each academic year I debrief my year (for this post defined as the time from the start of GUPY to Rockbridge), try to pick out from my old journal entries the major events, struggles, and blessings of the year and try to analyze them a bit removed. Usually I have 5+ items and work my way through the list. I had a list this year too, but as I looked at it I saw a similarity that was overwhelming. The were not several big lessons (millions of small ones) but there was one big lesson in all of them. I need to look at life from the Big Picture, God's Point of View (as much as a mortal mind can handle of course). The events I saw were:

- Emotional Breakdown in Greensboro
- Emotional breakdown in Mexico
- Struggling not being in GUPY
- Struggling to find a desire to do something... anything (about 6 months after the 16th)
- Struggling with my singleness
- Struggling with the fact that I give relationship and other advice all the time and it seems to work out well for others but not for me
- Struggling with enjoying and wanting to serve on Vision Team (I am glad I am still on but I had a period where I lost all joy in it)
- Feeling like Death was all around me
- About having a break down from stress with Leadership Applications
- Feeling alone
- Stress from Classes
- Stress from a long To-Do list for the summer

So this is only the bad things, but all are me worrying about the short term. I am single now, but got has something better for me (freedom in singleness or an awesome relationship). I had a week where I felt like the VT chapter was going to collapse while I was on Vision Team and I should have gotten out when I had the chance. Classes, important but not worth all that. And death was all around me (16th, Pritchard jumper, Uncle dieing, NIU, friends hit by a car and one dieing), but so was God. Some is pure jealousy and feeling like God owes me for what I give up for him and the chapter, how selfish is that? How arrogant?

I feel like each of these and more instances all stem from wants and needs in cases that are valid, but the worry and pain came from looking shortsightedly. Not seeing that God is in control, he is working out his plan and will in the world. I want/ need X, I don't have it, WHAT THE CRAP GOD????

I feel like the whole time God is loving and caring for me, but also saying "My child, I have it under control and things are going to blow your socks off if you just wait and trust me."

Like a kid who wants to run and play across the street at the play ground a place that is good, but the parents say no cause a car is coming or they are not quite old enough to play on that piece of equipment. When we grow up we think we know it all, we can finally make those calls for ourselves, but how much more are we still like the kids that just want what looks cool, what is good, and sometimes just what we rationalize to be good, but God knows better.

Isn't that part of where our freedom in Christ comes from? We know that God will give us what we need. Not always what we want, but if we truly needed a sandwich to continue to believe he would give it. If we needed a rain, a nap, whatever he give is willingly and joyfully to us when we need it. But he also withholds to grow our faith, grow us as men and women of God, and/ or because he has something better that we need to wait to receive. And in the mean time we are free to serve and seek him!

I grew a lot from this year, and being me I don't regret anything, but rejoice in the growth I see from it (at least that is what I say over and over until I feel it).

Thank you God that your point of view is greater than ours, that in small ways you let us get glimpses of your point of view. And that we can trust in you having that view and love of us to care for us better than we can.

I agree...

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home
~Rich Mullins "If I Stand"

So every few months I end up going back to my 90s Christian Contemporary that I listened to in Middle and High School. Every time I find songs that encourage or touch me where I am. It is weird to think stuff that I heard a while back can still affect me.

Thanks God!

A Short Post

So I can't seem to write a short Blog post... so here it goes.

Kathryn's Wedding

Last weekend was crazy. I spent over 14 hours in a car that weekend. But it was a great choice. I got to talk with Jeremy for a while on the way to and from VA. While in our pit stop in Greensboro; Jeremy, Dan and myself had a great conversation as discussed by Jeremy in his post on this topic.

The next day I got to have a lot of great conversations and just hang out time with Jeremy, Dan, Catherine, and Jenny; and got to see Drew, Erin, and Kathryn a little though due to other obligations not as much time with those three, Oh and of course Marshall and Diane it was awesome to get to see them too!! I feel like the time we got to spend with the GUPY 07 crew was a needed breath of fresh air for all of us. And I know that for Jeremy, Jenny, and myself it was especially encouraging.

But the ceremony simply blew me away. If you are reading this and I attended your wedding in the past this is nothing against you, this is a testament to where I am and to the substantially different feel this ceremony had. BUT... WOW!!! Usually I enjoy myself but leave feeling sadness that I don't have that deep relationship, or even a relationship that I can invest in that is deepening (I have many close friends, and several are awesome women of God, but at least at this point they are all about as deep as they will ever be, which is still a blessing but not the same... ya know?). I leave looking out the window asking God why it can't be me. Many ceremonies I felt out of place wanting to take a few photos... I was not even close to the only one at this wedding. Sometimes I have felt like I am not close enough to the couple to be there, like I am sneaking in with their "group" of friends but not being one myself. This one is majorly my perception in the past, and I should if I felt that before feel it now... after all I only spent 2 months with the bride one summer... but I felt like I belonged there that day celebrating with the family and friends. And that was what it was! The groomsmen came down the isle to a sweet sounding tune, the brides maids were dancing down the isle, and the bride had a smile on her face as big as I have ever seen (And if you don't know her... this girl can SMILE). There was a gospel choir that sang a few times... once right in the middle of the exchanging of the vows (not exactly but not sure how to explain it) and the bride was clapping her hands and praising God with the rest of the people there.

It was truly a celebration of God and of this couple. Elements of tradition but it screamed of their personality (I don't know him so on that part I am inferring). I feel like the couple got to spend time with everyone... she spent time with the IV Wilmington crew, dragged Jenny on the dance floor, fussed at me for taking more pics than dancing, enjoyed dancing and being with her new husband. It wasn't rigid, it didn't feel like the family (or friends but the family is more famous for it) were pushing their wants on the couple... it felt like what it should be... a celebration of God and his goodness and of their relationship and new commitment and new life together.

On the way back we were talking and mentioned things we were giving up for God and how some people see those things we (that group talking) were giving up freely in love and trust of God as God holding out on them, one of the things mentioned was a "relationship worth investing in." But as it was said, as I agreed (nothing against the women in my life but God just hasn't given me a relationship like that yet), as we discussed that and other topics on our ride back, for me and I think for the other 3 in the car there was an element of joy, excitement, and peace about that... something I have never felt after a wedding before.

The longing is still there, I feel like that is healthy, good, and expected in a single 20-something. But I feel I experienced a taste of God's providence in that wedding. I feel like I was seeing and celebrating God giving that couple the very thing I have desired so long... I mean all my life since girls stopped being gross :). Like God was reminding me "Yes I am good... remember. And yes I do have a plan, a plan that you will experience this one day and not just observe or experience as a friend of those who are, just trust me until then."

Thank you God for reminding me in a way I could see and feel that you are good... and that you have a plan for me more awesome than I can imagine. That you know the desires of my heart and are not ignoring them.

And thank you Kathryn and Chris, for letting your love and your personalities shine through in your wedding, and for having praise and thanks to God being an integral part.

And thank you GUPY 07 (this includes Marshall) for loving me and helping me to better understand each day the love God has for me. For encouraging me, and letting me ramble... often :)

*and yes I got a little link happy*

Too Busy

So I have a 8-5 job now, and on top of that I am trying to get EMT CEUs, clean my room, and a whole page of other tasks. I have been pushing myself really hard to get this all done soon, I am tired and just kinda overwhelmed at times... but today for the first time in a week or so I sat down (well laid down) and had a quiet time.

I read Nahum... kinda weird, not really sure what all is going on there (I'll have to look at a commentary later), but in reading that and praying I just had an awesome peace come over me. It was a reminder that God is in control and loves me regardless of weather or not my list gets done or I keep my EMT (I have not been struggling with this like I have in the past, but I have been so busy trying to make this happen, it is like a challenge now, that I have forgotten to trust him with it, even though it is no longer where I place my identity). Then I just laid there enjoying that feeling, peace amongst so much busyness.

Now it is back to work... but remembering that I am trusting God to work stuff out, I am just going in the direction that I want to go in some ways and feel I should go to honor him and serve others. I am not going to get lazy and not push myself to get my list done, but as I am working I am remembering that I am doing it for the honor and glory of God, and if it doesn't work out like I planned that is ok.

Whelp back to lots of work, and about 6 blog ideas. But I have regained my joy some.

God please keep my goals and tasks in line with your will and help me to remember that my ultimate goal in anything I do is bringing glory to your name.