Friends

T.S. Eliot pretty much wraps it up (in Portrait of a Lady):

“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
[For indeed I do not love it … you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!]
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you —
Without these friendships — life, what cauchemar(fr. nightmare)!”

So, wow.  I’m 25.  Thanks for all the birthday wishes.  Life would be a nightmare without ya’ll.

I’m… bored.

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Funny thing: I hadn’t realized until I saw this video that bored is just a euphemism for lonely. I watch every Jake and Amir video for such occasional keen insights, but mostly the laughs. If the context is lost, you’ll get the gist by checking out their best of.

Weird Dreams

A little video log.

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more about “Weird Dreams“, posted with vodpod

The Quartermaster of Hats

My friend Josh Ingram is what you would call an expert nicknamer. I particularly enjoy his moniker for me, which is ‘The Quartermaster of Hats’. I like the ring of it and I feel like it fits me, but I wasn’t sure why. At the time that I was given the nickname I only owned one hat.

Now, I’ve had several hats, but I can’t seem to keep up with them very well, which would certainly not be a trait of a quartermaster of hats. However, I was thinking about it the other day, and in a metaphysical sense, I do possess many hats. That is to say I ‘wear many hats’, or have many different abilities/interests/roles.

To some people I’m a computer nerd.  I am interested in computers, but there are many people who specialize in the technology field to whom I would seem fairly unknowledgeable.  To others, I’m a musician.  While I do love to play guitar, I’m really not that naturally talented at it, and I have to work really hard to just be decent.  I love to write, create videos, and visual art of all kinds in addition to reading, playing nerdy board games (with Jamal), cutting up with friends, and studying theology and the bible. I have as many hobbies as most women have pairs of shoes.

Over the years, I’ve a had a few jobs.  In chronological order I’ve been an ice cream preparer, GIS intern, mall kiosk salesperson, pizza delivery driver, window covering installer, bank teller, and until recently the media director for Heritage.  And now I must set down that hat and try on a new one.

It is about as easy leaving Dallas as it was to leave my home of Northwest Arkansas, which is to say, not without resignation, fear, anixiety, and uncertianty.  However, those feelings are only the rippling surface of a river of hope, excitement, faith, and trust in God.  Right now as I register for another year of school, search for new employment, and try to discern where God would have me serve in His church, I can only say: I’m proud of my growing collection of worn in hats and look forward to the next one I will wear.

Note To Book

I got a new notebook.

Things in my life are a little crazy right now, but I’ve come to realize that I can’t let that be an excuse. If I don’t make myself do, make, and create, I won’t.

Well, I read this post by one of my favorite bloggers, Rands, and I decided that I need to always carry around a notebook. I have my composition notebooks, and my moleskine day planner, but they live in my backpack. When I saw this beauty to the left at Nasher Sculpture Center in Northpark Mall, it cried out to be filled up with my inane ramblings.

This morning a line came to me, so I pulled out The Sparrow (I like to call it), and soiled it’s first page. It turned into a little poem, a bit derivative of Aaron Weiss and T.S. Eliot, but not a bad little turn of speech, if I do say so myself. Perhaps it will become a song. Probably not. Okay, I’m gonna go home and make more stuff now.

At the time I could not believe
That what my ears had heard, my eyes had seen
Were capable of such deceit
For repeat, repeat, repeat
Became common knowledge, wisdom even
So much information languishing in cerebral indigestion
Oh the great debate of our coming age
What can we know truly?

A Defining Moment

It seems that I think of a moment as an indefinitely short period of time. You’ll get my example in a moment. However, of the occurrences in my life that I would call defining moments none of them were so simple as to happen in an minute, hour, or even a day. Perhaps the shortest time in which my life has changed is a week, but even then the influences that lead to my decision (for I qualify all of my defining moments by decisions I’ve made) are typically months in the making.

A case in point was (like my English teacher) when I moved to Dallas. I had no plans of moving when the opportunity to work at Heritage Church came along. I was perfectly content with my job, social life, and family. My mom married my step-dad just two years before I was a new older brother. It was amazing to have a real family for the first time.

I had recently preached at Transfer, and I spoke on Proverbs 21:31 “The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance is of the Lord.” I showed a video of Jim Edmonds making spectacular catch after spectacular catch in center field for the Cardinals. I said that sometimes God sends opportunities your way, but you must be in a place where you’re prepared, and you will have to put forth effort to catch what comes your way. Some times the opportunity is easy to take up, but the really remarkable moments are when you must run at full speed and dive to make a catch. Little did I know that one of these rare opportunities was about to come my way.

I was about to go on my mission trip to Bolivia, when my good friend David called me up. He told me that the church that he was a youth pastor at was looking for someone to spruce up their media. Specifically the powerpoint sermon notes and song lyrics, but as long as they were hiring would like someone who’s into graphic design and possibly video. This is literally a description of what I’ve done in my volunteer ministry with Tranfer. The job would pay roughly what I was making full time, to work part time, and it was greatly encourage (and financially supported) that I go to school.

Now, this was rather bad timing. I was getting on a plane in two days to fly to South America, and they were looking to start interviewing in the next week. I thought and prayed about it while I was in Bolivia and decided that it was an opportunity I had to at least see if I could catch. I flew back to America and drove to Dallas the next morning to interview.

Even when offered the job, it was still a tough decision. Many of my close friends, and even my Pastors advised me against the move. What it came down to was allowing myself to be content working a marginally paying job or taking the chance of making my passion for serving other people through the church into my vocation. It was true that I was helping out in a volunteer position where I was greatly appreciated and established, but I was greatly limiting myself by not pursuing an education.

It has been difficult leaving my great friends and family, beginning school 6 years after high school, and working while in school, but I wouldn’t make a different decision today. The decision to move to Dallas has defined my life and my future like no other event short of my salvation in Jesus. Though this moment in my life has essentially just begun, I am satisfied with my choice and I look forward to the new opportunities that this path will bring me.

note: this is a response to a prompt from my English class.

No Prince Hamlet on Vimeo

I just wrote this song about 30 minutes ago for some English homework. The lyrics are a stanza from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. I feel like the stanza (and the whole poem) captures a bit of how I see myself.

I shot the video in my office with the shutter speed on my camera at 4 (as low as it would go). I wasn’t super happy with this take as far as the singing and guitar playing went, but the monitor I was using as (ghetto) auxiliary lighting cut to a screen-saver at the PERFECT time. I had to use this take, so please pardon the missed notes.

Hope you enjoy.

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Lyrics:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-
Almost, at times, the Fool.

It’s Hard to Find a Friend

I mentioned, as succinctly as possible, in the last post that there was a time in my life that when I became very introspective. I was very depressed, bored with school, and disillusioned with life in general. As a young teenager, I always looked forward to when I turned 16. I thought that having greater social freedoms would make my life better, but I found that everything I did was empty, and did not give me the purpose I sought.

The first catalyst towards a change in my life was music. Up to this point, I listened to such uplifting bands as Nine Inch Nails, Stabbing Westward and Marilyn Manson. The music I listened to reflected my disillusionment, anger and depression.

I worked at a local ice cream shop, and we were not required to listen to the canned 50s muzak that was played outside, and played our own music. My favorite nights soon became when Brent managed the shifts. Brent was an older, soft-spoken guy. He was not exactly what most would call successful, but he seemed happy and content with his life. He played albums I’d never heard before by bands like The Get Up Kids, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring and Pedro the Lion.

I’d been used to listening to music with harsh electronic tones, and angry jaded lyrics. These bands were different. They weren’t sentimental or poppy like the music on the local Top 40 station. The songs were emotive and heartfelt. There was anger, but there was also happiness. There were crescendos and synthy moogs. Most of all, there seemed to be a longing for… something. Something I’d given up hope on finding.

Brent was a Christian. Some of the bands he listened to were Christian. I was pretty hostile toward Christians and Christianity. I’d openly discussed my dislike of church, Jesus, God, and what-have-you with Brent. He was very polite and didn’t ever really broach the subject. He gave me disclaimers that bands were Christian when I asked to borrow CDs. Brent was pretty much the exact opposite of all the conceptions I had of Christians.

When my lifelong best friend started going to church, it got me thinking. I thought about all the ‘conceptions’ I had of Christianity, and couldn’t think of one example of when a Christian had acted smugly around me, or told me I was going to hell. I thought about how I had the conception that smoking pot would make me forget my troubles and how it made me dwell in my depression, anxiety, and the laziness that caused it instead instead. I thought of all of this, and heard songs like “The Longer I Lay Here” with the lyrics:

you’re up with the sunrise
and down when the work’s been done
with excellence industry
diligence naturally
i would like to be you
just for a few habit-forming years
laziness cuts me like fine cutlery
i need a miracle – someone to help me

I realized that laziness was a big part of my problem. It was why I was doing poorly in school, and why I never dealt with my problems. I thought I had all the solutions, but everything I tried only made my life worse. I was tired of all the strategies I came up with to make myself happy. I would have to look outside of myself.

So, I made up my mind; I asked my best friend Jamal if he would take me to church.

And I’ve been in church ever since.  I was privileged with the opportunity to preform the song above for my church last week.  It’s funny how things change.

My Greatest Influence

A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

I have a friend. He is, how do you say, an interesting character. His parents named him Ryan, but he is known to most people as Jamal (that’s a story for another time). Through some serendipitous circumstances, we have known each other for almost 20 years. If you’re investigating the cause my my utter ridiculousness, Jamal might be a person of interest.

I met Ryan in preschool. We went to a private school in Fayetteville called the New School. I don’t have the strongest memory, but I think both he and I were the “social retards” who didn’t make friends on the first day. One thing I do remember, however, is that our teacher pretty much put us together. We were fast friends.

Those were the times! Learning to read; chasing girls around the playground; nearly getting expelled for bring a (1in. long) knife. The highlight of those years must have been the time this kid Andrew climbed up the cargo net on the Big Toy, pulled down his pants, and let loose a golden stream directly onto Ryan’s head. It was disgusting, yes, but he got to go home with one of the (smoking hot) interns who lived close by and take a shower. That was a nice little consolation.

I moved away after Kindergarten, but then moved back to Fayetteville for 2nd grade. On the first day, guess who I saw on the playground rocking the four-square? Our friendship was instantly rekindled as if no time had passed. In gym (just before recess) we developed a system of hand-signals to argue over whether we would play four-square, x-men, or perhaps the odd game of soccer.

It was really tough for me when his parents divorced, and he moved to Tennessee in the 5th grade. For the son of a single mother, it hit me really hard to see most stable relationship in my life torn apart. I felt terrible for my friend, and he had to leave.

As the year progressed, I made new friends, and started playing nerdy games like Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. Imagine my surprise when Ryan visited his father over the summer, with a Magic deck in hand. Even though we hadn’t stayed in contact, our lives continued in directions that brought us closer together in the times we did have.

We had great summers, blowing up plastic army men and playing various role-playing games with Ryan’s older brother, Thomas. After 4 years of summers, Ryan’s mother found a job working for the Fayetteville School District. My best friend was back in time to start Junior High. Junior High turned to Senior High, and we often ran in different circles. I was going through a rebellious phase, and he was in all the AP classes. However much time we spent hanging out with other people, whenever we did get together, our relationship was always natural. We just got along, and we knew it.

When we turned 16, we started “experimenting”. I was not not in a good place in my life, and I looked to intoxication and romantic relationships to fill a void in my life. I can’t give a motivation for Jamal, but he pretty much went off the deep end as well. During the summer of 2000, I was working two jobs, a 40hr./week internship, and a 20hr./week at a local ice cream shop, and going out after work and partying every night.

After a while, Jamal got out of a longterm relationship (he’d been cheated on), and started to settle down a little bit. I was still going full-steam. It seemed that Ryan and I were finally going our separate ways. He started going to church, but I had a strong dislike for all Christians, so that would certainly not be a place I would soon be following.

However, when after a particularly bad week, I became introspective, I realized that my actions were failing to get the desired result. I considered the friendship of a Christian co-worker, and realized that I had no basis for my strong dislike of Christianity. I considered the great influence on my life that Ryan had been, and decided to ask him if he’d take me to church…

To this day, we are still great friends, and I’m honored that in a couple of months I’ll have the opportunity to be a groomsman in his wedding. I’m hoping that, in the way our lives have intersected, I will find such a great lady to spend my life with as Jamal has found in Sara.

note: this is a response to a prompt from my English class.

Content

I really like my car. It’s a 1992 black Honda Accord. It has 160K miles on it, balding tires, and several dents and scratches that are a little hard to miss. It came with one rather large dent in the passenger side-panel, and I’ve accrued a series of white scratches along the back bumper since moving to Dallas (In one month I was rear-ended twice, while sitting at stop-lights for at least 30 seconds!). My rear-view mirror lost all tension , and no longer stayed in place (with a well-placed push, I could spin it around 4 times). I have yet to replace it or the driver’s inside door handle, which I’m sure that no one besides myself could opperate.

None the less, it’s done great by me. It has run faithfully with only a couple of minor break-downs since I received it 4 or 5 years ago. It has made the trip from Dallas to Fayetteville a few times with no problems. The trunk is amazingly spacious, and used to hold even my largest guitar rig (half stack, 2 guitars, and rack gear). It was the first car I ever had that I felt comfortable in.

However, lately I’ve been grumbling about it. Though the trunk space is great, the mechanism that allows me to lower my back seats is broken, and long, awkward objects are, well, awkward. I have been super-busy lately, and have neglected to wash it for, say, the last 6 months. Since it’s black, it looks deplorable. The stereo has become crackly, so I’ve taken to listening to my iPod on the ear buds while driving. I’m not sure whether that’s illegal or not, but I figure it’s like a bluetooth headset…

I digress. It’s great to be in college after a 5 year hiatus, it really is. However, the money issues are rather unfortunate. I know that I’m not going to be able to afford anything better for another 4 years (maybe 8 if I go to seminary). However, I was reminded lately of just how blessed I am. Sure, it would be nice to have that Acura TL I’ve been lusting over. Maybe it would be nice to have a car that is less years in age than my “dating creepyness range“. But I really must learn to be satisfied with what I have.

What I do have is a purpose in life, a wonderful family, amazing friendships, a rather stellar job, food, shelter, clothing, and my health. I’m growing in my talents, abilities, knowledge, wisdom, physical fitness, and good looks [:)] all the time. I don’t have to ride the bus! I shouldn’t care what kind of car I have.

Really, though, I do. I’m as vain as the next guy or gal, but I can be pretty happy with what I got. I’m working on not desiring things that I ought not.

I was thinking about it the other day, and came to the decision that if I truly and honestly didn’t care what kind of car I had, I know exactly what kind of car I should get. It’s the perfect car to say “I really could care less, and am completely indifferent at to what kind of car I drive.”

Chevrolet Cavalier.