st ignatius

Something to keep me busy for life...

All the things in this world are gifts of God,
presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.

old churches and pianos

when it comes to sanctuaries and semi-tuned pianos, i say the louder and echo-y-er the better.



old sanctuary.

earthquake emergency plans

Post CA earthquake, this was my conversation with my dad:

slow...

when i travel i usually slack on blogging.

brief rundown: on Thursday we were still in Grand Rapids. Its Saturday and we're already in Atlanta and stopped in Indy and Cinci on the way.

tonight i'm at Carlos Whittaker's house, which is nice to have a real person to match to the online persona that I've known for a bit. We're all just hanging out and doing as little as possible this evening. Proof.

My battery is about ready to die...so this will have to suffice for the moment.

xo.
j

last day-ish in michigan

So I worked my booty off for a couple weeks and finally had some time to reorient myself in the last couple days. Daley flew in yesterday morning to officially start the trek back to CA. I'm so ready to get back there....I miss it. It's taken me a month longer than originally planned to get back, so I'm pretty anxious at this point.
I'm supposed to be getting some work done right now, so in a pseudo-lazy attempt to save time, here's his blog of today's activities thus far. I'm trying to represent well for Michigan and show him the good Michigan things...so far that consists of Lake Michigan and Oberon (obviously).

I'm sorry that I wasn't able to get together with a large majority of you while I was here. Some days I barely had enough time to eat...it just got super crazy. Some folks will be congregating this evening around the downtown area--join if you can or holler for whereabouts.

this is what my last 2 weeks has been like:

i'm a bit disoriented.

oh my soul

Dude...sometimes I get so happy when I read the blog of the church I go to sometimes when I'm in VA. Check out this piece from Todd's recent blog recapping what went on last Sunday:

Sunday's topic was "The Main Themes of Jesus' Teaching."

Here are some of the questions we discussed and some of the answers we came up with:

1. What are the main issues or topics that the church seems to be concerned with?

* abortion
* gay marriage
* role of women
* individual salvation
* authority
* conformity
* correct doctrine
* sin


2. What are the big problems our world is facing?

* hunger
* poverty
* war
* disease
* homelessness
* environmental issues
* persecution
* prejudice
* oppressive or corrupt governments


The point of these first two questions is to examine the relevance of the church.

It's not every day that you find a place that so honestly and humbly confronts themselves. How freeing to be able to identify that we're doing it wrong so we can try to do it right.

...

slow it down.

Last week while in Cincinnati, my brother Matt and I started writing a song. He wrote most of the music part, and I worked on some words. I'm always surprised at what I write about when I write lyrics, because it never ends up being about what I feel like I'm "inspired" to write about. It's like my subconscious comes out and says, "No actually, this is what's really on your mind." (LOLCAT translation: Ur doin it wrong.)

The song ended up being about how love is slow.

Most of the circles I've ever run in have been ones where there is tremendous pressure to find love. And marry it. Asap.

Case in point:

At Cornerstone University, and likely many other educational institutions, there is a phenomenon that occurs every year: The Senior Scramble.

Here's how it happens. A student who is a senior in college goes to bed one night in a relatively mentally stable condition, and then wakes up the next day in total panic. This weird radar gets switched on and they go on the hunt for.........SPOUSE. And they will not stop until they find one.

Because if you haven't found someone to marry by the time you're 21 then you might as well fall off the face of the planet because surely your life is over.

Yes. OVER.

You. Have. Failed.

In all seriousness, this actually does occur.

And to be honest, I hardly know anyone who got married young and didn't severely regret it. This last year I've heard confessions of massive mistakes. When you open your brokenness to people, it grants them permission to do the same. I've heard admission of grand error. When you allow people see the death in your own life, they trust you with theirs.

We're all the same. No one wants to be alone. We're better together.

We are better together. But not when we push it.

I'm tired of being told to feel anxious about it. I'm tired of feeling pressure and I'm tired of people having to make decisions that will cause them pain.

One thing I learned from reading Eat, Pray, Love was this: let your intention be freedom from useless suffering.

It seems so obvious, but it's not all that often that I actually do that. I've learned as of late that this is indeed possible. You really can choose whether or not you'll sit and torture yourself with the same old recurring thoughts. You really can choose how to respond to things.

Like I constantly say...the good news about judgment is that you can choose to live under it, or you can choose to live outside of it.

So let's do humanity a favor and stop putting pressure on each other to be a certain way or to do certain things. Let's slow it down.

Because how beautiful is a love that is slow...and unforced...and unhurried...

i dont care if i'm being repetitive...

...It's just that there's so much about life that I don't understand. I read this months ago, and it's on my mind all the time:

"It seems inconceivable to most of us that relief can be found in facing our failure. In seeing what is in our heart, we might be further compelled to flee from our presumption of self-sufficiency and embrace the hope of relationships built on God's initiative and not on our performance. However, this kind of dependence requires a broken heart that has given up the demands of pride. Many are simply not ready for such a loss of face." (Dan Allender, Bold Love)


Failure brings relief.



Many are simply not ready for such a loss of face.




I'm going on one year of trying to read this book. I'm on page 70. I might finish it by the time I'm 30.

half kiss

Cade loves to kiss his Pooh Bear. But when he tries to pucker up, he only uses his top lip. Every time.

older brother 1 of 2

We went into Mt. Adams yesterday. Perhaps Cincinnati's equivalent of The Village.

I'm a fan.

fun for all ages

Hung out with Cade tonight....fascination with photobooth.

michele my belle

Happy Birthday to one of my bonus sisters, Michele.



Love you, see you next week.

MUAH.

xo
j