The Gospel According to John the Anarchist

For unto us this day, in the city of David, is born a savior, which is Christ, the Lord.

I wrote this in my old blog a while back. Not very Christmasy, but it’s a great memory. It’s lengthy, but I love the moments I shared with the homeless that night.

Grace and peace. I hope everyone had a very merry and wonderful Christmas.

Tim

Nashville is a wonderful city. It’s the musical city, which is right up my ally. I’m a multi-instrumentalist, and every chance I get to listen to music or play, I take it. It’s warm, welcoming weather and pleasant systems of streets and corners reminds me of PA in the summer, but the north just doesn’t have the southern flare. Pennsylvania doesn’t offer people shredding their guitar necks so much it looks like they’re going to crack the fretboard right off the whole instrument in every bar or club you walk by. And every time I hear those strings sing, I melt. I absolutely melt. It’s a great city, clean, but has it’s hidden wounds.

Nashville is great. Lots of churches. Lots of people.

And lots of poverty.

I’m a man of faith. By that I don’t mean I just believe in some God. I believe that Jesus Christ died to save my soul, and also to totally unite creation under a banner and declaration of love and peace. I’m part of a missionary organization called Youth With a Mission and I’m looking to do God’s will. And bring the kingdom out of each one of us, even though the general consensus is that the Kingdom is somewhere distant and unable to be seen.

I recently spent a late afternoon under an overpass. It was windy, with a storm coming through and the ceiling of concrete vacuuming the dirt into everyone’s eyes. I’m here for a soup kitchen ministry called “Under the Bridge” Ministries. It’s a ministry which provides an incredible amount of food for a good size group of people. The count could have easily touched around 200. It also holds a church service or the homeless who come, and most of the congregation participates, but there’s still a high number that aren’t sober, so they stand off to the side and swap salvaged cigarettes.

I’m not directly in the ministry or even involved, but I’m there to converse with the homeless. Keep in mind, they’re not an invisible species. Shocking, I know, but I’m fairly certain they can do the whole chameleon jam in front of rainforests and lakes, just not brick. So, they’re pretty clear to spot. I like conversing with them. It keeps me humble and thankful, though I’m still income-less and botched out of an insurance plan. Plus, they have the greatest stories. Always.

I begin to walk and pray. It’s interesting to see who comes. It’s mostly individuals, but I see little clusters of families in line, waiting for their pasta and chicken and bread. A fitting meal for a lukewarm day. I circle around the whole crowd and kick a rock around back to my group. The head staff member with us comes with me to talk to some people who have sat on the sidewalk. I look at each one: Nope; nope; nope; …yes. That one.

A man with a beard so large that he talks with a mustache (you know, like a Santa Claus character in a cartoon movie? No lips. just the upper ’stache.) sits eating. I ask to sit.

“Of course! It’s all God’s creation! I’m just borrowing it for a bit.” I chuckle at his statement as I find it beautiful and profound. I rest my butt on the patch of grass near him and the girl eases down. We begin to talk small talk: What’s your name? You come here often? So you believe? etc. etc. And then we get to the dirty talk: How’s about this situation we have on our hands?

We begin to converse about the world and it’s state and we share–actually, more like he vents. I mean, he does nothing but think all day, every day. He’s got a lot to get off of his chest, so I cut him some slack. he raves about the war in Iraq and says war doesn’t give anything good to anyone. It’s just something else to get capital, as he gives the example of our economic climb out of the depression a result of our crippling most of the world with the Allies’ effort against tyranny. Which, I could agree with that statement. I hate the fact the world is torn by war, and that America is very much an empire in many ways, but I always wrestle with justifications and boundaries of killing. My mind swims in very muddy waters of whether or not we can justify murder, and whether Jesus says we should or not.

John, this guy I’m talking to, seems like a total anarchist. Which is a bit of an exaggeration. I tend to exaggerate due to the fact that it’s natural to do so in Lancaster, PA. Case and point, I’m outcasted as the local liberal (which really means I’m alright with welfare and I think Barack Obama ain’t that bad of a dude. I’m nowhere near a democrat, for the record. You can write it down. But this guy has his opinions about authority and they’re pretty liberal. But he’s also smart when he talks about labor unions and companies and local economy. This guy isn’t dumb. He thinks.

We shift gears to talk about materialism. He goes on about how it’s really very silly that we feel the need for all these houses and things we can’t afford. And I agree, painfully, but I swallow my pride, as I come from a middle-class background, and I have no place to judge people.

But mansions do piss me off something fierce.

I confess to him I fall short to the glory and that I’m not perfect and-

He stops me dead in my tracks, without hesitation, declaring, “Of course you are. So am I, man.”

What do you mean?

What do you think the cross did? I screwed up in my life. I’ve made many mistakes. The shit has hit the fan for me, and I know it. I’ve had the best fifty years I could ever ask for, but that doesn’t mean I got it right. And he redeems and sustains me every day. How can you look at the cross and at what Jesus did and not call yourself perfect? He died on that cross to make you perfect and for you to believe that you’re complete. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. You are completely perfect and made whole. That’s what Christ did. He completes you and me every day. We get it wrong, but he still calls us into his courts. We’re perfected, son. Perfected.

I sit silent.

And so does the girl.

He looks at me and smiles through a squint, because I really can’t see his lips at all. I just know smiles by how his cheeks lift and lower. And then he shrugs his shoulders while smiling to show his satisfaction with what he knows to be true. It was as if he let Jesus talk for a sec and looks at us to ask, “Wasn’t that brilliant?” He believes this stuff. And he talks about his kids like they’re the greatest thing to happen to him. He adds on that when he held his little girl for the first time, it was like he knew what God felt for us. And he loved that children were in the world, because they make us realize how much bigger everything is.

Because God, as I have found, if more than we say.

He.

Is.

I keep listening to his love story of his daughter and he’s very sincere. We all have fun chatting and discussing everything from hating the crave you get after not smoking for a few days to some shipping docks he’s worked on. You can spot a liar, usually, and this guy has legit written all over him. Plus, I can’t keep my eyes off this dude’s beard. It’s well kept and combed very neatly.

We finish off the conversation with our reassuring each other that his plan is perfect, and we grumble a little about America. We talk about the creation and community and local economy being things that aren’t unrealistic goals. And for a while I have hope. I have hope from a homeless man other than my savior. Usually when I talk to people about more welfare and federal programs, they say it’s very socialist and scary and destroys liberty. (And we should all model after freedom fighters like Glen Beck. It’s safe to say I vomit to that statement.) And when I speak of everyone having the capability in them to help each other out and provide for one another, I get the response of idealistic utopias which can’t exist because people aren’t perfect and it just won’t happen. It’s unrealistic and intangible.

But what if, and go with me here, I can really help people because the cross enables me to be perfect like John the Anarchist says? Or like how Philippians 4:13 tells me I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me?

Something to ponder.

May we all bring the Kingdom closer to the earth through His love and grace.

Advent: Hope

Happy Advent.

For those outside the realm of the Christian Calendar, last Sunday marked the first week of Advent, which is the holiday spread over the four weeks before Christmas that symbolize the coming of Jesus. Each Sunday, church services around the world light the candle that symbolized the hope that Christ brought to this world; the Messiah, healer, redeemer and friend. I meant to write this on Sunday afternoon, but I was busy. I don’t expect you to be charitable or sympathetic for my excuses and procrastination, but I hope this story brings us a bit closer to the story that God writes for us, with us and through us.

In our family, it’s a must-have that every Christmas we watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Charlie, in all his efforts and trials, is again in the path of depravity–the tree, the play, the anxiety–all the things that he’s doing wrong just keep piling up. Then Linus, the guy who carries a blanket and sucks his thumb at age six or something, puts his hand on Charlie’s shoulder, and says all the lousy crap that Chuck’s spitting out of his depressed mouth isn’t the point of Christmas, and he goes into the center of a stage. A spotlight turns on, and he starts reciting verses from the Gospel of St. Luke (KJV). It’s beautiful and spills out like water or poetry. I’d like to put just the start of Luke in this because it’s all about hope. This coming of Jesus, this coming of God, is the coming of hope. And it is to be recognized. Angels don’t shout for tiny things, and this Jesus sure isn’t a “nothing”. He’s quite a something.

I want to talk about The Gospel of St. Luke.

We won’t go right into Jesus’ birth, we’ll get to that Linus’ shpeel later. To set up the story a bit: St. Luke, a doctor and apostle, is writing a letter to one of his friends about the ministry of Jesus, basically, because he ought to write about it due to the fact he was an eye-witness and eye-witnesses do this sort of thing. He talks about not directly about Jesus first, but he sets up everyone else. He talks about the hope that was around in anticipation before he was even conceived. Luke starts with Jesus’ extended family: his cousin’s family, actually, and then he goes to Mary’s encounter with Gabriel. Then he talks about Joseph’s anxiety about the whole thing because he hasn’t knocked Mary before they’ve been married like a good Jewish guy. Then Luke talks about how Elizabeth, Jesus’ aunt, is pregnant as well with John. The whole first chapter is about John’s family. John, in the story of salvation, is the anticipation, the hope-bringer. Later in life, John will be the man that will fulfill the prophecy of someone “preparing the way of the Lord.”

So, let’s look at this a bit, shall we? Luke doesn’t start with the guy who is, sincerely, Superman. What Luke does start with is the Messiah’s family: the people who aren’t the salvation that is awaited by so many for so long. Luke is telling us something. There are people before Jesus gets on the scene, and they’re part of the coming of Jesus. It’s not like God just pop’s Jesus into the womb to microwave on high for nine months and then out comes the baby, God does it little by little. Jesus could have descended from cloud and beat us over the head with the redemption stick, but instead God chose to have Jesus dependent on others to bring him into the world and into the time of his ministry. The anticipation is the hope that WE are a part of: reconciliation with God, restoration of Creation and redemption of our broken selves. I don’t just mean sin, I mean the fact that we lose ourselves. We lose the balance in our minds and lusts. We are angels doubting their wings.

What Luke tells us in chapter one is that there’s HOPE coming and the common get to be a part of the royalty. What a lovely thing to think that jesters like ourselves can drink wine with the most High. God needs us, we need Him. And it’s a great feeling.

For those of you who have kids or families or a bible, read the story of Christ’s birth together. Remember the innocence that came to die for the guilty and oblivious. Also, here’s the first chapter of Luke for you kids and your internet.

Grace and peace.

To Dance.

There are too many times when I put God into a very political or ideological spectrum. He’s Left, Right, Libertarian, or Socialist; he’s either State Government or Federal Government; He’s either this way or that, fasting or feasting. Too often I place God into my hands, as if he fits in them, and poke him to stand in a way that makes sense to me or–even worse–that makes me feel the most comfortable. I doubt it’s my intention. Rather, I believe it to be my instinct. I have this nature about me that tends to forget. It’s not flaws, but rather characteristics. My head forgets, but the rest of my being remembers. I talk my whole being into believing that something doesn’t click, and that things that are blatantly necessary aren’t necessary. I tend to believe I can’t hack it.

And what a shame, because I think I have great potential. It’s the times that I talk myself out of things that I care about which make me wary of my strength. I come back to something that makes me remember that I can certainly believe in God, love and potential again, though.

There was this time a few years back that a few of my close friends and I headed to Lewisberry, Pennsylvania for a Christian Arts Festival over a weekend and my favorite band was the closing act on the main stage that Friday night: mewithoutYou. It was my second time seeing them. The year before I had seen them play, but not very well. It doesn’t help that most of the kids attending these sort of things are nearing six foot in height. I’m an average 5′ 10″, so I couldn’t really get the full charisma of the band to click in my head. This time, however, I was terribly close to the stage. All of us were considerably near to the towers of amplifiers blasting the rhythms of the band and the kick drum. As soon as they started to pound it out, people started to clap. The vocalist, Aaron Weiss, started belting out these poems and confessions of depravity and everyone joined in. The whole set was like this. There wasn’t a stand-still and there wasn’t a lyric that wasn’t chanted back to Aaron. What made my heart warm to no end was this:

EVERYONE around me danced.

There’s this song they wrote called, “In a Sweater Poorly Knit,” giving a compare and contrast to God and Aaron. Aaron, in each stanza, tries to grasp these ideas of God and sets up things to make him understand or put God inside this brain-sized box, but in the end, God ends up foiling it all and Aaron confesses to the Almighty, “The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead.”

Everyone sang.

Everyone’s toes gripped the ground and pushed off into the air to reach heaven together. The last line of the song repeats an almost mantra-like phrase, “I do not exist. I do not exist. I do not exist. I do not exist, only you exist. I do not exist.” With eyes closed and twirling bodies, the crowd moved like a sea. Other friends of mewithoutYou (other entire bands, really) joined with tambourines and hand drums and dancing on the stage. It was magnificent. It may have been the fact that the song has an epic feel to it, narratively, and the music is brilliant, but it almost might be something else entirely that made everyone that joyful. It’s something really simple:

EVERYONE started to believe Aaron and his words.

A blog or so back, I said that I take myself too seriously and that not taking myself seriously was the cure to most of my low self-esteem and anxiety. The “mantra” Aaron sings at the end has such striking truth to help remedy my worried head. If we take the words seriously, we shouldn’t exist. If we take ourselves too seriously and put the responsibility of our lives and moments on our shoulders, God won’t be the God He’s supposed to be. God should exist in our lives, but sometimes, with the best intentions, we don’t let him. Only GOD should be GOD in our lives. We try to make ourselves GOD and we fail. It makes us such fools. I’m not saying the fools that everyone envies or gets wigged out by for the person’s direct flight towards their love that makes them look like a moron; I’m talking about the fools we become when we do something idiotic. When we remember those choices, it causes us to cringe at the humiliation.

There are too many times when we make ourselves God. Maybe all we need to do is forget that we even exist and realize God exists. Maybe all we need to do is dance. Maybe–just maybe–our salvation and our Christianity and our whole beings depend on being like everyone at that mewithoutYou set: we dance because we love the song we get to sing and we dance because we believe.

To dance is to know. And to know is to love. And to love is divine.

Grace and peace.

5 Awful Moments

I was thinking recently of my not-so-shining-moments of my life. These are times I think back on and cringe, because I was such a whimp/idiot/fool. Hope they give you a few belly-friendly laughs.

1. When My Fear of Dogs Started and Continued.

If you’ve seen the Sandlot, then you know what kind of urban myth I had across the fence while growing up. There was a German Shepherd next door named, “Mork,” and this thing had it out for little children, especially one lacking the necessary whiffle ball skills to surpass their brother’s infamous, “this-one-will-take-your-head-off” curve ball. This kid was me. That thing would bark with spit flying out of it’s hate-mongering mouth and send me running; crying to my mother. If I said this was one moment, I’d be lying. This happened every weekend in the summer. I was at my friend’s house up the street one summer, and his puppy was excited to see me. As the happiest puppy in the world came to lick me to kingdom come, I screamed and hid in someone’s yard that I didn’t even know and ran all the way down Ridge Avenue to Main Street to my house. Man, I was a whimp.

2. My First Awful Moment With a Girlfriend

I had a couple of girlfriends my sophomore year of high school, and they were real flops. Very ridiculous. (Is anything really that successful at 15 going on 16?) Her whole family was very Italian, but not in a “Hey, we look like the Mario Bros. and always eat spaghetti with wine” sort of Italian. It was a, “my-personality-is-that-of-a-nuclear-bomb” personality. One time I happened to be over and the girlfriend and her mom were in a bit of a tiff. My brother and I had come over to hang out a bit on our way home from somewhere and a screaming match started in the basement. It was them trading insults and, “you’re such a bad (mother/daughter)” idioms while my brother and I literally stood in the basement watching the whole thing, hoping they wouldn’t remember we were there. I had never been that close to that angry of people in my life. My family got into fights, but none that made me fear my safety. This made me question my security in the basement-arena.

3. First Grade

I had a friend named Brittany and she was trying to hang up her coat one day. I didn’t notice she was failing until everyone started to laugh. We all stared as we watched not one, not two, but three attempts to put the coat up. Each time they fell down. I liked being in on jokes, so I laughed obnoxiously every time with everyone else. I think I even saw the teacher smirk a bit. When the fourth time came around and it fell again, I burst into hysterical, fake laughter while everyone else was dead silent. I looked around as everyone was staring at me in disbelief. My eyes turned to the teacher for comfort, but only found shame when she frowned at me and wrote my name on the board, which made me a trouble-maker. I didn’t talk for the rest of the day. I was the dunce. And I knew it.

4. Staircase

While growing up, we had a few families that we were extremely close with within the parish we attended. With one particular family, I always felt kind of left out. Each sibling had another sibling in the other family that was their age. The one that was close to my age was Johnny. He was a year and half younger, and always made fun of me. I think he tolerated me more than liked me. We were all playing at the top of the steps when, without my knowing, Johnny was behind me. We were playing and Johnny purposefully pushed me down the stairs. I cried. I told him his family didn’t love him. As dramatic as I could be, so everyone would know I was the victim, with my sister and his sister pampering me with ice packs and tissues, I confessed my love to his sister Lindsay and pretended to die. Then I opened my eyes and said it was a miracle! I was surely close to death! She gave me a weird look and walked away. So really, this was two instances: one, I was pushed down the stairs; two, I made myself look like an idiot.

5. Youth With A Mission-Mission Adventures ‘09

One thing everyone should know about me is that I was part of a Christian Missionary Organization off and on, and I’ve got some type of case of IBS. I haven’t been diagnosed, so I don’t know if this is really why I have so many stomach events, but it’s pretty close to what always happens to me. This past summer I was leading some kids on a Missions Trip in Nashville, near where I was living at the time, and I was having terrible gas. I mean, it was just left and right. I felt like a chemical weapon from WWI. After a ridiculous amount of flatulence seeping out from my rear, I decided to go to the bathroom to check out the situation. After proceeding to sit down to do my business, I found out what had actually happened. I was twenty. I was leading kids on a missions trip. And I pooped my pants.

Feel free to post your more golden moments here. Don’t worry, they’ll be held in confidence by myself, and everyone else who reads them on the world wide web.

Hope this gave a few laughs.

Grace and peace!

Messy, messy, messy.

Does anyone know of really lousy comebacks?

Like that episode of Seinfeld where George is at his meeting and someone said something insulting and everyone laughed at him? And then he went to Jerry’s and explained the story ending with, “Oh yeah? Well, I called the jerk store and their running out of you!”
Jerry replies with an exclamation and a, “Wow, did you really say that?” while George regresses a bit and says he thought of it on the elevator. Later, George confronts the man.

Antagonist: “Hey George, the ocean called! It wants its shrimp back!”
George: “Oh yeah? Well, I called the jerk store, and they’re runnin’ outta you!”
Antagonist: “You would know, you’re their biggest customer!”
George: “Yeah, well I had sex with your wife!”

Wilhem: (pulls George aside) “His wife’s in a coma…”

Brilliant moment.

I was out with some of my guy friends at a restaurant, who can be exceptionally loud and rambunctious, and a table of high schoolers nearby at the place decided to yell and hoot and holler at the TV’s football game. My friends hooted back. Some of the comebacks were clever, others were things like, “Chest bump! YEAH! Chest bump.” And then it came to one of us yelling at the other table, “You wanna go asshole?!”

These are really crappy comebacks.

I’d like to say that I’m one of those guys that jumps on the opportunity when it strikes to kill someone’s confidence in themselves so they shut their trap, but I’m not. But some of my friends are, they just throw ‘em out there. Sometimes they’re really lame, like I said before, but others can be really effective. Like, I reevaluate my masculinity after good ones. The ones that get me like hot oil on your confidence.

The best are the ones that leave the other party speechless. Think about it: when you know someone’s innermost turmoil and you bring it up in public, it’s gold. Nay. It’s uranium.

Here’s an example of what would happen if I actually could muster up the stones to get someone with a personal comment:

Antagonist: “You’re such a dweeb.”
Tim: “Oh yeah, nice one.”
A: “Yeah, it was. And it’s better than you could ever do, ya little (profanity)!”
Tim: (Understanding the value and worth of personal problems) “Oh yeah? Like every time you cry over something sad and your Dad calls you a whoos and even your Mother laughs at your sensitivity? You’re mother, the one who’s supposed to support you when your father just doesn’t understand how to ‘just love the boy!’? Like when your father then cripples you with his verbal abuse and your mom says, ‘Nice one, dear!’ Like that one?”
Antagonist: “Hey, man…That’s really personal.”
Tim: (putting on leather jacket, climbing on the motorcycle that the audience has not noticed until then) “Shoulda thought of that before you messed with me, you ‘kid that always screams for attention and therefore everyone thinks is a closet homosexual’.”

I could then light a cigarette and drive off with my tail-pipe howling, but I don’t really smoke much.

And I don’t ride a bike.

And I don’t have the stones to hurt someone’s feelings like that. I’m mostly a harmless fellow.

And I’m usually on the receiving end of the verbal beat-down.

But you get the point, right?

But if I were that kind of person, I wouldn’t mind having some in my arsenal to throw at ‘em. How about you? Know any good comebacks I could use if I could actually go through with it? Post them at your whim. Also, if you know any really terrible ones, like ones that are like throwing Saran wrap at a brick wall, feel free to embarrass the culprit here as well.

Grace and peace! Have a great day!

Habit

I have the healthy and draining habit of seeing both sides of arguments. I pride myself in that I can have peace with a healthy choice made by weighing the options. It works well, and I feel very secure in how I work in my head. The only defect is that it bleeds into life decisions. When I come to a place where opportunities come up, Istand still because there’s no “right” or “wrong” answer, it just plain is (kind of like politics, but I know too many people to bang their fist and yell at that statement, so we can scratch that comparison, yeah?). I get into the addiction of self-reliance. And I exclude God and all his wisdom because I feel I’ve been imparted with enough by him to me.

I have a friend named Elf. She’s simple, smart, and beautiful with an equally qualified husband-to-be named Nate. She, along with a choice other few, have been continual inspirations and sources of sanity over my last year of instability with faith in myself, God, and the church. She is a familiar spirit, one that I’ve known since I was about 12, an awkward 6th grader on a bus as pale yellow as my geekness. Our paths are very different, but we always seem to find our feet marching in beat together.

I was discussing with her about the book I just finished, titled

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

by Don Miller. It was a great book of the meaning of story and our lives reflecting the makings of a great story, being able to remember with God at the wedding and us both smiling about the good and bad times. The book excited me and inspired me to do something. Something else. Something huge. I got into that rut again, though, of yanking on my parking break.

While talking and explaining to her about it all she sat still for a bit. And then, as if she knew nothing but how to be gentle, said, “Can I say something that isn’t meant to reign on your parade at all?” Sure. “How much of that is self-reliance?”

I didn’t really follow.

“We get into those places where we say, ‘What am I going to do?’ You end up like a teenager trying to decide if they should date someone based on the grounds of they’re cute and they’re Christians and ‘we just want to change the world’. But where do we eliminate self-reliance? It’s not really a biblical principle. The first chapters of Ephesians all talk about the fact is it’s not us. It’s all God. Everything is God.“

She burst my bubble in more ways than one, but she’s right. We come from a mindset of self-reliance and God will bless anything I do for his kingdom. This may be true for some of our lives, but not the whole. After our conversation, I sat at home and thought. I wanted to know what I was missing, but I couldn’t really find it.

Then, I talked to my friend Marc about the same thing. I told him about my confusion and my heartache that I couldn’t find the right path with my feet, all the while my feet feeling very pigeon-toed. All Marc said was, “I’ll pray for you, and I’ll say that whenever we do things, whatever comes our way, we need face-up palms. We say, ‘God, I’ll do it if you say yes, and I’ll keep listening if you say no, regardless of whether or not I want to.“

This seems to be a difficult art to learn to face my palms up. They like being down, but they like it even more when they want to shake other hands for approval. We all must learn to control our hands, and learn that our self-reliance is rather silly. Where can we let go?

And more importantly, where do we feel we can’t let go? Because we all need to.

A Broader Perspective

I had the privilege of meeting Don Miller on Friday night.

He is very normal, which is good. And he has little quirks to him like normal human beings do as well. There’s something about looking up to someone or using them as a jumping point of inspiration that makes them seem infallible. But as Don walked onto the stage to talk, he was normal. He was personable. He was, surprisingly, Don.

Who woulda thunk it?

I got to hang out with him in his tour bus with my friend Bryan Allain and his wife, Erica, and it was incredible. I might as well just won a hundred bucks. I hope to be that welcoming and warm when I meet people. I think that’s a good goal: to make people feel welcome.

He gave me stuff to chew, stuff to think about, stuff to inspire me, and stuff to give me hope in. These are all great things, and sometimes I get down because I feel as if I’m bound to a fate that makes me a bit tied down, but it’s a great thing to dream. He gives a broader perspective on the most beautiful book in the world, and I need it. Lord knows I need it.

On the subject of a broader perspective, my pastor’s daughter, Mikayla, my friend Sarah, and I were talking and somehow I said that God would eat worms.

Sarah asked if I thought so, and I said sure, why not? He can eat anything he makes. Everything’s edible to him. Mikayla then decided to go on and suggest that God actually likes frozen peas, steals them from the frozen section of the supermarket, and leaves the change on the counter for them when he leaves.

This, my friends, is what Jesus talks about with a Child like faith. The possibilities are simply endless.

Grace and peace.

Brain Picker

For all of you who’d like to pick my brain, here’s a taste of what’s been running through it lately:

The Daily Show.

Under advice from a friend, Marc, and realizing that lowering my stress factor is actually easier to do than I thought, the Daily Show has become a blunt reminder that all of us are idiots. And it’s okay to laugh at that fact. Also, it shows the best, brightest and dullest of the political world. Gotta love them Punky Brewsters.

Also, my friend Bryan Allain continues to be an inspiration to me every day. The guy is just devoted to spilling all his ramblings on the world wide web. Gotta hand it to him, though, he is honestly profound. Check out his blog at http://bryanallain.com

If you’re interested in picking up some worthwhile music, I suggest anything by a guy named Derek Webb. He’s a Nashville native and very forward. He makes me have hope that I can muster up the stones to write like that someday. The art of storytelling might be something that’s getting a bit lost. Light-hearted whirly-doos and poem-o-matics seem to be filtering their way through everything lately, and it’s all milk. Lots and lots of low-fat milk. You know, the kind that looks like cloudy water? Yeah. That kind.

Folk provides stories, meat to chew on and get stuck between our molars and we have to get floss or toothpicks to unclog it all. Heavy thoughts and pain seem to ooze through it all, and some harsh reality within me seems to like knowing others have it as well.

In all honesty, listen to M. Ward, Bright Eyes, Jon Foreman, Iron and Wine, and mewithoutYou. It’s meat for the soul, and wine for the belly.

Grace and peace.

Irish Accents and Protein Shakes.

Trying to really discipline myself to get blogging to be a priority in my life, I intend to write this all in five minutes before I have to depart for the warehouse job I suffer through. I’m drinking a protein shake instead of cereal or some other sorry excuse for breakfast because I’m running late…and I even woke up early.

But Thank GOD it’s Friday.

I know this guy at my work who’s a war vet, and you can tell. He’s got all sorts of great phrases you know only had to come out of the Army. “If it pleases you, it just tickles the heck outta me,”; “Those guys could f*ck up a one car funeral,”; “Good enough for government work,”; “I told him how it was,” and he says that like the rooster from Looney Toones. You know, the one that always says, “I say, I say! Son, are you outta yo mind?”

That one.

I’m working on a project with him and his suddenly says, “Isn’t anyone in the country American any more?” Oh, boy, I say to myself. I knew it would only be a matter of time until it came out. I wanna say to him something along the lines of how federal health care can only benefit the country and socialism is the way to go but he intimidates me, and I’m small, so I let it go.

He goes on this rant on how we should take back the statue of liberty, that we’re the world’s trash can, and that no one speaks English at all. I can’t remember all that he said, but trust me that it was gold. Pure Gold. I nod and say “uh-huh” a lot, because I don’t wanna start a fight. I hate my job enough, and I really hate arguing with really high-J personalities even more, so it’s not worth it in my mind.

I would ask him why he would be  so obtuse about it, though. I don’t understand why we should hoard the gifts of something our forefathers did for us and force people to conform. What’s wrong with the melting pot structure? Correction: IS there something wrong with it? I wouldn’t think so. It’s difficult, and the stereotypes are endless, but I figure it’s something worthwhile. We’re all immigrants, aren’t we, and we have no real home. We’re just the spoiled orphans.

What started this guy at my work on his rant? He couldn’t understand the “damn thick” accent of the trailer driver we were loading for.

He was Irish.

Yeah, they’re English really blows, huh?

Brilliant.