Funny People

Ah Herro Preeze,

I've been enjoying making people laugh a lot lately, seems like I've been on a roll for a while. Maybe that's some sort of coping mechanism for the departure of my ladyfriend. Whatever it is, I know I feel better at very few times than when I'm making people laugh and smile. I even cracked my mom up by saying bitch the other day. Now that's awesome. Sometimes I worry that I try too hard, that it all seems contrived, because I know I can spot that in other people from a mile away. I think, though, that I've built up some equity with the people around me where they'll give me the benefit of the doubt and not assume I'm an ass. That'll be an adjustment at school, where I haven't really earned that.

Good night

Good night, moon.

Good night, sweet girl.

Good night, worries and protests.

Good night, hunger and a starving world.

Good night, lingering memory of a too-short kiss.

Good night, to all I've ever wanted to be, and all I never will.

Good night, I'm off to dream of a love I've found, a hand I've held.

Good night, until the morning and a new perspective.

Good night, it's time to breathe more slowly.

Good night, your eyes are still before me.

Good night, hopes and dreams.

Good night, my love.

Good night, moon.

Today

Today started with the holding of hands, in the wee small hours of the morning.

Today started with the speaking of words, when the big and little hand just started leaning right.

Today continued with the beating of hearts, held close beneath slow-spinning stars.

Today held promise, and kept it.

Today let me sleep for none too long, because it had too much in store.

Today let me laugh and love with depth.

Today told me who I need to be.

Today brought a girl and a smile.

Today made me doubt my doubts.

Today I told the world I'm smitten, and didn't mind explaining.

Today I pinched myself repeatedly.

Today I learned that life can be good, and better when it's not braved alone.

Today I got to say "we."

Today a girl called me her man, and held my hand in a crowded room.

"thank you God for most this amazing day" - E.E. Cummings

No sleep for Shane.

Couldn't sleep tonight, too much going on in the ol' head. What's with that, anyway? Why can't I just stop for ten seconds and fall in to a deep and restful sleep? This seems a terrible design flaw.

But then I remember God made day, and it was good. He made night, and it was good. He made Man, and it was good.

We need the nights, sometimes He needs to hit us when we're most vulnerable, most tired, most emotional, and at our weakest.

So maybe tonight I didn't sleep.

My Life is Average.

I'm starting to understand something.

It's been an odd year for me, a year that's told me in many ways that I'm part of the rule, not the exception, a year that's taught me the inevitability of being average, of my statistical propensity to be a statistic. I probably won't get rich writing an even marginally readable novel, nor will I in all likelihood become the most treasured professor at a prestigious school. I'll most likely live a life that looks like many others in many ways, and many other angsty teens the world over are thinking these same thoughts in defeat this very night.

Now, though, emerging from this defeat, this concession to the middle ground, I've found that while those things may be true as a matter of course and are not in and of themselves even something that should be disdained, I don't have to alter my course of life to fit the actuality of my fate. I don't need to resign myself to never writing a book, just to the idea that my life is not a failure if I don't. I don't need to stop pursuing college professorship because I know it may be impractical, but I do need to apprise myself fully of the situation so that I may be a lucid wanderer into the shrouded keep of time. Really it's a question of identity, in God, in family, in friends, in character. If I realize that who I am and the ultimate quality of my life is not contingent upon what I do as a vocation or where I live or what I produce, I'm freed of both the incessant quest to gain those things at all cost and the hopeless scramble to avoid the fact that they very well may not happen. I cannot, I will not resign myself to being average, to not being productive, to not living a radical life of faith. I will, I must resign myself, release myself really, to the peaceful truth that my success or failure in meeting these goals in no way affects who I'll be, who I've been, what I am, or whose I am.

So then it's ok to fail! It's acceptable to succeed! I'm not stuck in the tunnel vision of my own ambition because I realize it's inherently fallible and broken. What's never broken, what's immutable, what's set in stone is that I serve a God who asks just this: Love Me. Love those I love.

That's simple, right?

Beautiful

It took me a drive to Jacksonville at 1:30 AM to understand beauty. I drove to what once was a high school, my high school, where I really grew up. It was ugly then, by all accounts. Wires protruded from walls, the stucco was salmon, and the radiators sounded as though a thousand little men with hammers were stuck inside and trying to get the students' attention. It was bought, a few years back, by some company that wanted to turn it into a quaint office building. So out moved the children and teachers, out flew the cheesy decorations and lockers and desks, out out out flew that salmon stucco. They repainted, they stripped away the practicalities that shouted high school--worn metal bars in the middle of the stairs, grated windows, oft-repaired drywall, the old boiler--and now it would seem to be a beautiful place. The old brick exposed and complemented by well-placed lights and a more reasonable paint color, it looked very much like someone else's childhood memories, perhaps a place they visited on a sunny day when they were seven and picked up leaves with their mother and they were truly happy. It was funny, though, as I looked at this new antique building, with all its refinement and delicacy, that I was stricken with a deep and abiding sadness. It was as though my childhood dog had died and been replaced with a newer, faster, more practical dog. I realized, then, that this was the ugliest place I had ever seen; because while it may have improved in every way measurable, it lost its story, it lost the ghosts that happily followed the souls within it. That's not the wall I sat on at lunch anymore, it's the divider where a worker tied his shoes before the first day of work. All this crammed into my head as I crawled by, ogling the impeccable cleanliness and remarkable restoration, and I realized that beauty isn't in the eye of any beholder, it's in the sweetness of a memory and the nuances of an oft-spun tale. Beauty is a word that we should only give to something, someone, whose story we can tell and smile, or who stands above their sordid past as a rugged survivor of a private war. That's why I hate model houses and Playboy Magazine. People drive by model houses the way they flip through Playboy, driving by and looking at what is for someone but will never be for them, those pornographic houses standing bare on well-groomed tufts of greenest grass, plying their wares for each staring John. These houses, these women, these cars and diamonds are pretty, sure, but there's infinitely more beauty in an old childhood home, the Astro van that barely runs, your grandpa's watch, the woman who stood by your dusty side when the roads got a little too rough. That's why one's mom is probably the most beautiful woman they know, or at least should be regarded as such. Maybe no one else would put them in Maxim, but to those of us who no them as the women who wiped our noses and dried our tears, they are the picture of feminine perfection, the most beautiful of God's creatures. Beauty isn't in the eyes that catch ours, or in the skin that grazes ours, or even in the lips that press against our own, but in the sights our eyes have seen together, in the wind that's blown against both our skins, and in the softly spoken words that have escaped our trembling lips. That's beauty.

God the Dentist

It's taken me a while to convince myself

That I can indeed be happy with what is

Not just joyful, which has its worth

Not just resilient, although I want that

Nut just strong, although I hope I am

But really and truly happy

Achieving

Doing

Being

Loving

Finding!

Christians may pride themselves in spurning emotion

And may well say that to float on its breezes is to invite pain

But it's a fact that God has among the fullness of his blessings

A measure of happiness, pure and completely circumstantial

A flighty and perhaps fleeting simple emotion

But one that He gives because God is a God who enjoys a good smile

He likes virtues, He loves worship and praise and perseverance

But He also loves to bless us in practical and basic ways

A job

A relationship

Safety in slippery streets

Perfectly cooked meatloaf

He's not so busy up there that He hasn't noticed we like these things

And He's not so cruel that He would disdain our joy

So allow God to bless, expect that He wants you to smile.

Breath of the day, no. 19756.

How do I describe today with regular words? I feel like it should be simpler, just to list these things coolly. I woke up and had coffee with my mom. I came back and watched sports, then lounged in the grass and played catch before going to chipotle, after which I watched more sports, watched a movie, and went on a late-night slurpee run. Simple enough; but it was too much more to leave at that.

I woke up earlier than normal, and it took too long for my eyes to adjust to this "sight" and so I sat still, waiting. I arose, prepared myself in some menial way, and ambled down the steps to greet my mother in the waiting, running car. We spoke softly about this and that but what really mattered was the sound of the words and how they mingled, shaking hands in the air above us before hurrying off to who-knows-where. We ate and drank a small breakfast and talked about computers and basketball shorts, and then she was gone, back to home, back to my past and the ever-creeping future.

My day was just starting, though, and I returned to watch grown men play games at high stakes on my TV screen. The sun, the sun called to me from beyond my screened-in hovel and I was entranced to follow, pillow and laptop clutched firmly in hand. A crowd had gathered to worship that pied piper that sat aloft above us, and all lay prostrate before it's all-seeing gaze. I tuned the radio to subtle, gliding melodies that sank me deeper, deeper into the emerald carpet until I could touch the bones of my father's father's father, and it was cool. Shaken by a sudden stirring in the outside world, up above, I rose up rushing through the waves and found that I was alive here, beneath this tree and this sun and this clock-tower. 

I whisked myself away, then, full of thought and significance, to a fast-food burrito restaurant, and I ceased thinking of why and what and how and simply thought of lime chips and the way corn feels when you squeeze it between your molars. Full, content, smiling and determined, I sat once more beneath the men who waged war with an orange sphere and well-placed elbows, and I realized that I'm an American, and that's not a bad thing, not at all. 

It all blurred together then. For a while it seemed like the day had reached a mirror and was reflecting upon itself, studying and magnifying its flaws and successes, and I was caught up in the ticking of clocks and the motion of fan-blades across dead quiet space. Then, mercifully, I sat before a movie and thought about prison, and how much I want to learn harmonica, and what it means to be free in a world of unseen chains. Then a cool drink to freeze this day in place, static for all time to look back on fondly, and smile.

Week. Ended.

I went home this weekend, and it was a needed trip. Yes, I went home for my mom because it was mothers' day, but what I found once there that I had so much more to see. 

I drove with my brother and a close friend, we talked about life and saw things I had missed for a while. The slow curve of a road in no hurry. The silence of a forgotten intersection. Unimpeded sound beneath soft tires. 

That night I got bored, it was midnight and I was the only one awake. So I got into the car and went to a sketch pool hall, and that was just fantastic. $2 for an hour of peaceful goodness? Yes, please. 

I came home, slept, and woke up to my mom's voice. That's a good way to start the day, much better than the shrill condemnation of an alarm clock. Went to my brother's game, which he beasted because he is a stud.

That night, we had a barbeque at the house, everyone came, everyone laughed, and all was right with the world. I won at poker. Life is good. 

Hung out with Rachel McCord. Awesome time. 

Church. Thumbs up!

Fites. Thumbs up!

Benny boy and new girlfriend, two thumbs way up!

This was an awesome weekend. Let's do it again, eh universe?

Positivity

I was a worrier, once, when I was thirteen. I would lie in bed and dread the next day, and that page of English would pulse in my mind as though wedged between my right and left brain, leaving both hands paralyzed because surely this was what would stunt my academic growth. A funny thing happened, though, when things of actual consequence began to happen: I gained perspective. A page of work that may or may not get done became simply that, and a friend that may or may not get their heart broken became so much more. And then I had the benefit of looking back upon how I was, how I thought, how I would dread, and I could see with full clarity that that was no longer me. I could see that I was somehow other from that, somehow changed, and that I need keep changing. With perspective came optimism, because I began to see that, in the harsh light of eternity's glow-in-the-dark and ever-ticking watch, everything else was very dim and very prone to running down the batteries. When you see how small things are, how little it ultimately helps to think the worst and how small the fallout from each tiny cataclysm, you can't help but choose to see what's best, to search for it even. That the good is better than the bad is worse is a big realization. When you find that, you're compelled to seek out the good, and even to ignore the bad that doesn't do you any good. You start to assume that things will work out, that you'll be able, that God will provide, that what someone has done was an anomaly, or better yet a falsity. Some may call this naive, and perhaps they're right, but while they pride themselves with finding your flaw and feed the furnace that is their cynicism, you can hope they find a way to change, that they can find some peace, and you can smile. Smile.

...doesn't understand.

I hope that at some college, a professor is doing a study about Facebook statuses. Have you ever gone through and read them? I'm amazed each new day by what I read, by the pain that seeps into that brief little passage each day, and I wonder how much there can be. You see, I don't deny what goes on, and I don't deny that people like to be heard and to cry out, but when I read things saying that someone "doesn't understand why it has to be this way," or "How can someone say I love you and then take it back?" I have no reaction but first to be saddened and then to question, why. If I ask these people what's wrong, or what happened, or are you ok, I inevitably get back some response saying they don't want to talk about it. I don't get it. People just want uninformed pity I guess, but that makes little sense to me.

Dynamism.

It's interesting, really, to look back on myself, like I've been laying this track behind me. When I think of things that I said, things that I did, just 6 months, a year, a week ago, it's hard to believe that I'm still looking at me. Who was I, then, when I stepped on to this campus? Different thoughts in my head, different motives, different hair. I'm different now, in the small and big ways, because I'm in a different place. It's like I'm looking at the Statue of Liberty, and this whole time I've been walking around it, and now I'm looking at the same thing but in a very different way, and in so doing I've changed a little myself. I came in here looking to continue being the smartest ass around. I came here looking for a girl to hold my hand and validate me, or help me validate myself, who knows. I came here looking for the same things I left high school wanting. It gets tiring, though, to keep chasing after dreams that aren't there anymore, because once you've caught the dream you still have to remind yourself why you wanted it in the first place. But regardless of the correct analogy or what I was, it's a strange experience to see that I not only am, but I'm very much becoming. I'm ok with that for the first time. For the longest while I took pride in the way I was unmoving in my mannerisms, in my dress, in my speech, in my view of those who do what I might not. And the point isn't what those views actually are, the point is that the world doesn't end if you become a dynamic character in the movie of your own life. Keep the first things first, God, Family, the search for Truth. If scripture says it, do it. Never get into your head that you are defined by your idiosyncrasies, or at least don't be afraid to become who you'll be, knowing that those things that you hang on to might have to be left behind. Challenge yourself today. Don't challenge society if that's what you always do anyways, don't question authority if that's your M.O. Limit yourself, squeeze the edges of your bottle, and chances are what comes out was extra anyways.

"Resistible Revolution"

I've been told by some people that I just have to read certain books. My life will be utterly changed. I got a text about a book that said, "read it, it will change your life and everything you believe in." Guess what? I'm not going to read that book. "You haven't watched 'The Passion'? How can you not watch 'The Passion'!!!" Guess what? I won't watch that movie. Stop hassling me, people, I'll read and watch what I want to read and watch. Also, I don't want to have some random book change my life and everything I believe in. If one book that is not the Bible can shatter all your beliefs, then you have some very weak beliefs. If some book that some guy wrote about why you should live more like he does is enough to make your world turn upside down, then your thoughts have no depth and your beliefs are like a house in the sand. Yes, books can shape and add and chip away at what we think and believe--and rightly so--but we should accept as doctrine no text but scripture, even one man's use of scripture. If I'm to believe Irresistible Revolution is powerful because it uses scripture and personal experience, then I submit to you Health and Wealth, a book about how God wants you to have a lot of money and things. That we should sell our possessions and live as spiritual transients is a very "college" idea. We're people with no responsibilities, who haven't lived, who are willing and eager to emulate those with glamourous lives, even if that glamor is in the spirituality of one's poverty and celibacy. There's a reason that for centuries many of the world's most effective ministers have lived in homes with families and with at least modest personal wealth, and that reason is not greed. God is a God os sacrificial love, and He's a God that understands the way things are and need to be. The Lord asks that we be willing to forsake all to follow Him wherever He may call, but His calling does not always necessitate the liquidation of our assets. We should not presume that some man who wrote a book can interpret the call of God in our lives, and we cannot be fooled into thinking that God's call is the same for all His children. His call is to serve, His call is to love, His call is to sacrifice, His call is to give. Sometimes this may lead to a call to poverty, but it may also result in a call to hospitality within His blessing of a home. 

Don't let those who do not know you tell you the explicit call of Christ in your life. Be convicted by the Holy Spirit alone, not words that seem good when propped up by hard-cover books. Filter teaching through scripture. Love.

Been writin' some.

I've been doing a lot of writing, here and on my Facebook account. Especially when it's not poetry, I go into each piece to explore some idea that's still foggy in my mind. I go back and read the things and see that each one begins with an idea, then asks the big and sweeping questions, often cynically. A funny thing happens then, when the questions have been asked. They start to get answered. I mostly feel like I write the first half and let the Lord take care of the second, filling in the blanks in my rhetoric, but I know this underestimates the fallibility of my mouth and ears. I don't know why I have to go through this process to figure these things out, or at least flatten them out like leaves pulled from the soles of my feet. I know they're there, I feel them, I know what they are, but they are pretty messy. 

Mars Hill

Mars Hill Church today, I love that place. Every time I'm there I wonder why so many people at SPU love to hate it. Yeah I get that the lights can be bright and the music can be loud, and maybe I don't leave every time feeling like God's gonna send me a Cadillac tomorrow if I read my Bible. What I think, though, is that modern American Christian culture takes ultimate pride in being contrary, in being counter, in seeking out what is least popular. What's our real motivation, though? I don't really care if people like Mars Hill, just like I might not be a huge fan of other churches for this reason or that, but what makes me cringe every time is the way silly young philosophers feel qualified to curse the successful work of God in a congregation because it seems too "commercial." What happened to being all things to all people? What happened to seeking and saving the lost? Why must we spend all our energy avoiding things that have become successful for a reason? It seems to me that the reasons people reject certain churches (size, music, A/V effects, etc.) are all too often hypocritical. "Oh I just think those things distract from the message." Whose fault is that? Are you not, in saying that, ignoring the very message you wish so much to highlight? If the pastor of a church leads and speaks effectively, if he preaches boldly the word of God and shows the character of a Godly leader, then why do you hate the place so much? 

About Mars, I once heard someone say, "Oh I don't like it there because he hates women." I almost puked all over her shoes. We've bought so much into an androgynous culture and a hermaphrodite Jesus that we are unwilling to recognize that scripture has something to say about gender roles within the family. This is not a matter of subjugating or hating women, but honoring God's model of the family. We've grown too content seeking churches that will gloss over scripture in favor of more palatable modern ideology. Christ did not come so that we could ignore God's word but to free us from legalism, and the modern church has been festering with progressive legalism for far too long. Again, I don't care if people like my church, although I'd prefer them to. What I care about is that we as a generation return to scriptures as our ultimate authority for life and Godliness, not some hybrid of modern intellect, disdain for tradition, and the softest pillows of scriptural coddling. We have this certain set of sins that is sexy to claim and hate; pornography, alcoholism, sexual sin, eating disorders, pride, etc. What we don't want is for someone to barge in and say we've focused on all the wrong things in all the wrong ways, we don't want someone to muscle in on our sob-story support groups yelling that this isn't what we were made for. We are to separate sinner from sin, we are to encourage others in the truth, we are not under any circumstances to deny the truth in favor of avoiding society's exposed toes. Let's tear down this progressive idol and serve the God of our fathers.

Life's Big Lessons

I keep thinking there should be some unifying theme of my interactions here in life, like my existence is the subject of some moral-of-the-story movie where the way things turn out never really matters. An awkward encounter with a friend seems like it should find a common theme with something I read in a book that day, a sudden realization that jars my head onto the track I've been missing. In some ways it's like that. The themes don't come neatly packaged though, no commercials half way so you can refill your cup, but nevertheless I'm compelled to believe that there is some justice to the experiences of the day. Justice, in that there is something to be learned by just living; it's not all seeking cathartic moments. And maybe that's the theme of every day, that we waste too many as unconscious doers, as though each passing day were a formality on the way to some vacation. Maybe that's why we're so stressed out. We all grew up asking why, some of us get to be the big thinkers who get paid to keep on asking. But why did we ever stop? We seem to think that the answer to "why" will always be unsatisfying by its very nature, like our whole life is some rhetorical question to which the idiot in the back of the room keeps shouting "Because." Lost in the noise of our discontent is the legitimacy of "Because," that answer that keeps us paying attention because it's worth it. When life's big lessons aren't vacuum-sealed and made to order, we feel cheated - this was supposed to make sense so I could grow. The point is that life's lessons are much more like a box of needles that fell into the shag carpet, and the finger-pricks along the way remind us that we're alive, and that it is not easy.

Basketball

I've been playing basketball lately, with whoever will lace 'em up, and I realize how much I miss those better parts of high school. Yeah, it's tough to be in that spot when you can't see out, but once you're up out of that pit you can look back in, and you see what you want. Me, I see the people I could have said more to, I see the people to whom I could have meant more, I see things like basketball that I wish would have fallen my way. But here I am, and so I think it's time to go shoot some hoops with my cascade shoes on, and think about what is.

I'm deaf and blind

I am a blind deaf man
My eyes and ears describing sentries
Buffered brokers bearing codes.

I see nothing, no sights beset me
For my eyes do catch them first
And tell me what they see.

I see not that mountain there
But my guards did catch it, 
Shouting to me about soaring heights and sweeping foothills. 

Glistening peaks that tower tall,
Slopes that grope at heaven,
Mist that lingers like the better friend.

I didn't hear that song just now,
But my flanking guards did, hard at work,
Whispered to me of a haunting tune that did beset them.

Clanging tunes of string that shook,
Quivering voices warning and pleading,
Words that hinted, still, of silence.

I sit serene and sentries search
For sights and sounds to seek and sing
They whisper softly to me, and all I catch is code.