things that are real

For me things are becoming quite interesting. I get hit with a lot of people, perspectives, places, tastes, smells, you name it.  

Often times things move so fast they don't feel like they've actually happened.  Its often a surreal and hard to describe experience.

But i press on.  I am beginning a monologue about things that are truly real in my current phase. 

These things are real...
Truth
Truth is often and mostly spoken in different languages.  Herein lies the problem, we don't speak every language.  Maybe more important, is that we don't want to. I have encountered only a few souls that are actually intent on finding the truth underneath the language, underneath the culture, and in spite of my own worldview.  But its there.  Its peeked it's face out at me from time to time.  In moments that are mostly not intended.  Its often much bigger than a book, a story, a passion, or a perspective.  Its always an "Aha!" and a "i am not really sure what we are talking about" all at once.  At about every turn when i have processed truth and it has become truly real, it has been over a meal, a bottle of wine, a smoke, a walk, a hospital visit, or a truly terrible moment.

I once had a brilliant conversation with a friend in Tokyo.  We talk a couple times a year but it is always meaningful.  We got through the pleasantries of life; work, music, food, etc. and then finally to talking about my son.  Whose name is Greyson.  I was asked why did Katie and I name him this? (I am often asked this)  There were a few reasons, but most notably for this conversation it was about truth.  And truth to me is quite grey.  It represents the intangible that is still there and for all of us a different shade of the same thing.  We spent time discussing the nature of this, culturally, socially, truthfully.  It was quite a revelation that came about in a living manner in this conversation.  Katie, my wife, was the first to point this out.  For her and I, its not about the definition of what is black and white, maybe its more about creating the grey.  Making the grey okay.  I am often asking myself if God is this way.  IF it was set up like this on purpose.  If this world is so confusing because we keep trying to define it, or to make it a black and white argument.  I am resolved at this point in my life to attempting to find the grey between the lines.  To live there and cherish it.  I hope that more do this.  I hope that in this we see the beauty in things, because they are all different shades of quite the same thing.  (as a shout out to all my Christian friends, i believe that this is the great work of healing that we must embark on in this world.  I believe that the Church has often been pretty terrible at doing this.  We must attempt to live in the manner of Jesus spoken through story, illustrated in as many different ways as possible.  We must stop the black and white system of control.   To quote a favorite band of mine "grey is not a compromise it is a bridge between two sides.  i would even argue that it is the color that most represents God's eyes.)

Death
For me the mystery of death and pain is most definitely real.  I have come to respect this mystery as it is seemingly unprovoked, and unpredictable.  It is however an elixir that demonstrates perspective.  I hate this potion, however, like i said, i have come to respect the reality that exists in hospital beds with the people who matter most.  I have experienced the hospital too much these last few months.  But that experience has changed me.    

My son
My son is real.  I am still grasping at how to describe being a father.  I find this a worthy adventure.  I have not met anyone who has been able to describe the fatherhood thing to me.  I always hear,"you can only know if you have a Child.". I don't like this perspective.  More people need to attempt to express this in words.  Here is my start:  Greyson is a wonderful and pressing, tangible representation for my species to me.  He makes me understand more what i am made of, and where i came from.  He is cute, needy, fun, gross, and wonderful in a moments notice.  He is so unshaped.  Its so weird to have this as a normal part of my routine.  Its great, its a challenge, its going to be a great new adventure.  
This world has spent millennia attempting to explain love.  Because there are times where love invades.  Greyson invaded our life and with him more love.  The mystery of this Love becomes manifest in a person.  A person.  My son looks like me (so I've heard).    He already acts like me.  He also looks and acts like my wife, the person to whom i am most devoted.  That alone elicits a very powerful love.  Like this, i really like cheddar, and if you give me a cheddar with some different characteristics, I will most likely like that too.  Much for some of the same reasons, but for different ones as well.  I think having a kid is like that.  I want to believe that most days i like the person i am.  I also want to believe that i love my wife wholly and without question.  I see those two people in my son, the two people i know best in this world.  I I'll say that there is something incredible in making someone smile.  This alone is a worthy life's objective.  My son reminds me of this fact.  He also has played a strangely important part in the life of my family already.  A few months before he was born, my wife's grandfather passed away.  The birth of Greyson softened the loss and reminded us all that life endures.  This truth alone has changed me.

Time
Time spent talking makes things real for me.  Relationships are the most vital out of body or mind experience we can have.  So many of us keep our worlds too small.  We have two few relationships, we don't meet and talk to new people.  I believe that we are destroying our potentials with isolation.  Thoreau lived in the woods for a while, wrote a great book about isolation and a perspective on a better life, but he emerged and shared it.  This is the point.  Life, our experiences, our souls must be beared to one another.  Life is multiplied in this world.  We must great this as a mainstay of living.  I think that this must be purposeful as well.  A practice.  I appreciate that I have a few friends that challenge me to do this.  They ask me questions steeped with the intention of knowing more.  knowing me more, knowing life more.  I feel like i get this on a date with my wife, or almost every conversation I have with my friend, Ian.  It happens in foreign countries where we don't really understand each other, but there is an effort that must exist in order to bridge the communication gap.  So often I breeze through life, just existing.  Eating the same thing, answering the same questions in the same way.  This is just part of it for me.  I think this might be the rest part of engagement.  But also, I must engage, write about it, talk about it, and live it out.  

Need
Need is real for me.  It seems at every corner, need is aching to be met.  I think that the world's greatest people devoted their lives to attempting to solve this issue.  The person on the street who needs a meal is obvious, but the subtle needs that exist in the world are the ones that drive our relationships.  We must be cognizant of this as well.  To attempt to flush out the need in the friend who is keeping it just beneath the surface, waiting for YOU to let it out.       

I want to make sure that the people in my life that are making an influence on my world are acknowledged.  My wife pushes me, she is patient with me, she understands me, and she teaches me so much.  

My friend group that so often is at my home, eating with me, drinking my wine, and sharing their lives with me.  

Those of you who have lived in my home.  I have learned more from you than you know.  

Those friends I meet on the road.  At a bar, in a restaurant, at a hotel or whatever.  My uber social nature compels me to talk to you, but thanks for reciprocating.  Gunn, this means you, as well as my friends I have met in Tokyo who have helped it become a second home to me.  
   

"With us"

I was recently reading a letter from a friend that blew me away. Neat guy. Crazy story.

This guy used to live in Lebanon. He was there to engage the Muslim world in peaceful conversations about God and the world. (What?!?!? I sell electronic parts.) He always has amazing stories. He is now a professor at Exeter University in England engaging students in conflict resolution. Yeah, I know, amazing right?

He has spent some time and specifically a few Christmases in Bethleham. He wrote me this in a letter this week:

"Despite having been to Jerusalem and the West Bank three times this year, the Christmas story often feels far removed from my experiences there. This time last year I was buying a wooden nativity scene in Bethleham, perhaps looking for a little inspiration but by frustrated shop owner wanted to tell me of his experience of being roughed up by British soldiers on a visit to Northern Ireland. A quier wanter downt he Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem was disturbed by 'Faith, Wonders, and Miracles - Jesus tours, and a young boy who wants to sell me a genuine piece of the cross. A walk around Jerusalem's Old City walls leads to security checkpoints, closed circuit cameras, and protests by Jewish/Muslim religious groups. Yet perhaps today's tense and divided landscape is not so far removed from the world God entered. A world of frustration and mistrust, of political agitation and exploitation by religious and political entities, a society of 'pious believers', yet, where religion had become corrupted by commercialism, false messiahs and imperial conquerors. Praise God that the Christmas story goes beyond a 'Holy Land' and focuses on a Holy God entering our broken world. The Word became flesh - he became one of us, yet remained fully God. The author of life, entered his own narrative to rescue fallen characters and offer us an alternative ending - the divine rescue plan. It is a story historically grounded yet daily experienced as God still meets people at their point of need. Hallelujah, Emmanuel - God is with us."

Whoa. Amen to that.

I really love the picture of walking down the street in Via Dolorosa being hounded by commercialism in one of the most significant places in history. We are so backwards in how we treat things. But, such is humanity.

Now, I think that it's gotten to the point where saying "we've lost the meaning of Christmas" is cliche. But its true. And yet the meaning is there always. Life abounds. Relationships create wonder, frustration, and meaning. Such is the point. That God entered this world lowly and humble and the opposite of the what everyone would have done if they were God. A baby. Not an emperor. In this he became "with us" and changed the story.

With us. How amazing.



I recently had the privelege of being present for an engagement of two very close friends. We schemed with the groom-to-be for months. Totally surprised the bride-to-be. The room was perfect, the tears were flowing. It was great. Lots of love. I even drank champagne. She woke up the next morning and checked her finger to see if the ring was still there. It was and she beamed. Good stuff.

And I have been thinking about this a bunch. What is so exciting about that scene? Why do we all get excited about this stuff? We glamorize it in movies, we long for it as youth and search for it so much.

With us.

To me it's the hope that my friend Krystle will have someone to always be with her. And the same for Kris. They are on this life journey together now. With us. With me. With you. What a reflection of the Christmas story. Its like God sort of said, okay, I am in it with you till the end, here I am. I'll do things like you do them, with you. Then we will do this together, okay?

Okay by me.

I think this is what I have been leaning on these days. That God is here with me. Christ went through similar crap as I did. He skipped a few nights sleep with stress. He got angry. He had some great times with his best friends. He made it His life's point to meet the needs of those around him. He gets me. He is with me. What meaning.

As I look to the ensuing Christmas season with all the events and such, this is what I see.

I get to spend time with my sister who doesn't live near me anymore. I get to share dinner with some of my favorite friends on Christmas eve. I get to learn about a roommate from South Africa who is so different than I. I get to go to a game with my dad on Christmas. I get to be present, to spend the real good stuff in life, time, with those I really love.

I think the night before God entered the world, he got really excited. I'd like to think he was like a kid before Christmas. All anxious, laying awake in bed, dreaming of the days ahead with the new adventures like a kid dreams about the new toy with which he or she can think of a million things to spend time.

I'd like to think that the Christmas day event was as meaningful for God as it was for us. Just as the giver is always as satisfied as the one recieving the gift.

Thanks for the gift God.

As my friend Craig said, "Hallelujah, Emmanuel - God with us."

Blatant Theology

Last night I sat with one of my great friends, Koji, in Tokyo. We had a great dinner of fried food (the best cure for a long plane ride) and had great conversation to go with it.

We eventually got on the subject of God, religion, and spirituality. For me, something amazing occured in this conversation. My friend was talking about Christianity and Buddhism and the Japanese perspective on it. He looked me in the eye and said that he liked the Christianity perspective better. So I asked him, "Why?" His response was so simple and incredible it will resonate with me for a long time.

He said, "The difference is Love." Unbelievable. Totally true.

I think that I complicate the gospel with words. I think that sometimes the need to translate and not finding the words makes things perfect.

I think this is a problem with the Church. It often looses this. It makes it a set of rules or dogma. Its a set of "you musts" or "you can'ts".

I looked at my Japanese brother and said, "you are a true theologian."

More on beauty

Last weekend I found myself sitting in Tulovana, OR watching the tide come in. A group of pelicans flew across the water at sunset. Some things just cause you to stop in your tracks if you are open to notice them.

That same day I watched my niece throw a frisbee for the first time. She was terrible, but the laughter was perfect.

I watched her parents and her grandparents light up at Madison's giggling. I saw them look at her with such pride over so little a thing. But if you saw little Maddy in the hospital over the first two years of her life, this small game of frisbee was nothing short of winning the superbowl ala Rothlisberger/Santana Moss last minute TD on the tiptoes...amazing.

Since my past post, I have been engaged in quite a few conversations about this subject. About beauty. About processing it. About not seeing it. About being humbled by it, about not understand what I am talking about. About wishing they got it.  I have been all of those things.  

To be honest I am in a living process of discovery on this subject.  And the process or probably more accurate, the awareness of Beauty, is a wonderful thing.  

All those things I wrote at the start of this post are wonderful, and the more you stop to realize it, your heart just bursts with it.  

I spent this morning walking alone through the streets of Tokyo with what I like to think is the perfect soundtrack, "Life in Technicolor" by Coldplay playing in my ears.  Things seemed rich to me, like a good wine.  Depth, pleasing, crave-inducing, unreal.  Beautiful.  What a process.  

What I am listening to right now...

So I am going to post my newest mix list, and notes from here on out. Enjoy!

1.) “All Things Considered”: Bryan Free, Each Other
My long time friend Bryan, otherwise know as the BF, worked really hard on this. Totally respect that. I think this song has a lot to do with the duality we all have going on, with work and home life. Marrying the two is such a challenge…BF has pushed me on this and I have spent a lot of time processing this…hence the song making the mix. (plus the song is pretty good too J)
2.) “Supermassive Black Hole”: Muse, Black Holes and Revelations
Love this freakin band. Just dug them up because my wife got hooked on Twilight. Good workout song.
3.) “Bent”: Matchbox Twenty, Mad Season
I really love this band. Kinda have a crush on Rob Thomas (I know, I know, shut up). I have been watching this live show they do, wow they are really tight. So professional. Good solid tunes. Nothing life changing, just solid.
4.) “Here We Go”: Mat Kearney, City of Black and White
This is probably my most listened to album right now. I think he sounds a lot like Chris Martin without the pitch problems. Writes music like a poppy Counting Crows (nice observation RickyD!) Great songs to listen to, everyone likes it. And I quote Dave Matthews, “If you don’t like this, you don’t like music.” (p.s. Dave said that about his new album; I guess I don’t like music then)
5.) Dig: Incubus, Light Grenades
Love the groove of this song. This is kind of a frat dick band, but this is a good tune. Plus we listened a lot to this at my church demo-ing a new sound system. Shout out to Jason!
6.) Absolute: The Fray, self titled
Not really a Fray fan, but this song is well put together. I am a sucker for background vocals, oohs and ahhs and such. This is good in a road trip mix.
7.) Colors in Array: Future of Forestry, Traveler – EP
This is a top 30 band for me for a lot of reasons. This EP is sweet. They did all the recording and mixing themselves. They did a great job. They are making a move to a U2ish Sigur Ros. Good combo. Awesome guitar tones on this. Love the EPIC ending! In the right frame of mind, it’ll give you chills like crazy.
8.) Where They Sleep: Jeremy Larson
This for me is a “get lost in it” album. It’s luscious, laced with drum programs. I love it. He does all the instruments. I really like this guy.
9.) Gravity: John Mayer, Continuum
Love John Mayer, the guitar solo in this just cries, he has great touch. I have been digging blues lately, but just on the edge. This is the sorority chick official lead singer, but I like it anyway.
10.) Wake Up: Kristian Stanfill, Attention
This guy is intense. Great tune. Again, I am a sucker for background vocals.
11.) Life Goes On: 2Pac, All Eyez on Me
So I recently watched a Black Eyed Peas performance of “Boom, Boom, Pow”, and thought to myself, “Man, rap sucks now.” So I went back to arguably the greatest rapper who has ever been and listened back to one of his banner records. Great stuff, so lyrical, rhythmic, and musical. What a difference. This song is a great one, totally for the generations.
12.) Broken Drum: Beck, Guero
Beck is amazing. I go through waves of complete addiction to his albums. I still think that Sea Change was his best, but Guero comes close for me. This song is a recording masterpiece. It is very articulate in its recording. I love his sleep nature in his pronunciation and color. Ahh, Beck.
13.) The Other Side: David Gray, A New Day at Midnight
I watched a live performance of this song in Abbey Road Studio. (youtube it, unreal). I wanted to find that version and put it on here, but couldn’t find a good recording of it. I had forgotten about DG. He is great. Interesting song from an atheist. Love it!
14.) Stop: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Cardinology
I lost it the first time I heard this song. Its such raw emotion, truth and all that stuff jammed into Ryan Adams goodness. I recommend listening to this while you are struggling through something. It helped me.
15.) Come Awake: David Crowder Band, A Collision
I was on a train, sort of numb to life and happened on this song. I cried. I got chills from my scalp to my toes. So often we go through life all numb. I love the message here. Its what God desires for us. Death to life, bright, warm.

Finding the good in stuff

I have been around a lot of stuff lately. A lot of different people, communities, opinions, political positions, etc. I think there is one big thread that runs through it all, critique.



Now, know this: I am torn or on the fence about what I am going to write in this next paragraph.



I am not sure that this critique thing is good. You sit with a republican and mention the O word, and a storm erupts, or mention taxes, whoa! Granted there is a ton of logic and inherent good in all the things you would hear in those conversations. But here is what I don't like and I think I am going to resolve myself to try and not do. The conversations (name them religion, that guy with the purple shirt, the war in Iraq, real estate, whatever) inevitably take on an attacker stance. The other side of the opinion is wrong and not only wrong, but HORRIBLE and HOW COULD ANY ONE OTHER THAN AN IDIOT THINK THIS WAY!!!!!

I was watching the movie "American Beauty" the other day with my wife. There is a scene where the neighbor boy is showing a home movie to the daughter of the main characters. He calls this 15 minutes of movie the most beautiful thing he has ever filmed. It's 15 minutes of a plastic grocery store bag caught in the wind. The bag just dances. (please watch this movie again, its horrible and incredible)

Now what I love about this really depressing movie is exactly my point. There is all this negative awful stuff that happens in the movie and then this. This speech about beauty in the world. This boy lives in an abusive home, sells weed for a living. And he looks for beauty in every situation, and his hearts aches with fullness.

I started writing this post out of frustration with people being so apt to find bad things and then this movie weaseled its way back into my life changing/adding to this strain.

How much better would this place be if we all looked for the good in things? How much more rich, thoughtful would things be? I want a rich world. I want a world with rich food and rich relationships. I want a world ripe with giving and laughing. I want a world with lowered walls in order that deeper love happens. I want to be infectious.

I am slowly becoming resolved to be this person in my world. To point out the good instead of try to magnify the bad in those around me. To bring out and be thankful for all the things that are good in my world. In the worlds of my coworkers, my family, my neighbors, my best friends. I hope you do to. You Christians out there should most definitely do this as well. We all should be agents for beauty in this place.

Love Manifest

I have been reading a lot lately.  I have been reading some poetic authors, a lot of love talk and such.  Now, normally I wax all poetic about love when I write, but sometimes I have trouble feeling all Romeo and Juliet or all William Wallace in real time.  BUT there still exists this time when I read this stuff that makes my bones shutter, that makes my soul dance, that makes me weep, makes me miss home, that makes me want to meet need in the world, that becomes a REAL tangible emotional part of life for me.  

You know, we can't escape this love thing.  We just can't.  It breathes through us, in us, makes us hurt when it leaves us.  It is a current in the universe, a golden river.  This is Truth.  

But it is fickle, subtle, and powerful all at once.  It needs to be drawn out, reinvented, sown, given.  Cultivated.  

WE need to be purposeful about cultivating the Presence of Love; to make Love a manifestation in the dark places of this world and our souls.  We need to be agents of love manifest.   

A pretty important being in the history of things, Jesus, said it was an action, he gave instruction on how to do it.  It went something like this, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  These are the greatest commandments."  (paraphrase from Matt: Loving God and loving others is really all there is.  So go out and do it!  It will change your life and the lives of those around you!)  The real rub of this, coming from Jesus, was that he lived it, and it did create a world shift.  A world shift.  He exuded Love... and we still see its ripples.    

Jesus attracted people.  I want to believe that he was like a narcotic.  People just couldn't get enough.  Those closest to him became zealots... and all died doing what Jesus did, changing the world with Love.  One of his friends wrote some famous words once.  I think I might like them the most in the entirety of the crazy collection of diaries and letters and folklore and God's love letter, the Bible.  He (John) said, "If you don't know love, you don't know God, God is Love."  He basically said, if you know Love, you know God.  Wow. What?!?!  This is big.  Timeout.  

This is such a gutsy sentence.  He put the two biggest things that mankind has ever tried to process together.  God (out there, ambiguous, existential, but we all move towards it or try to understand it, or avoid it) and Love (we all need it, want it, give it, take it, abuse it, grow it, and have a really hard time pinpointing it, putting it in a box, bottling it, saving it, remembering it)  John then made a bold leap.  He connected the two.  He married them.  Forever connected them.  One is the other.  He said (in a crude way), "They are the same thing!"  God's essence is Love.  Love is God expressed/translated/given.  

One of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho wrote about love.  He does a lot.  He is Brazilian, those guys are passionate people.  He put a great spin on it.  He wrote, "If someone is capable of loving his partner without restrictions, unconditionally, then he is manifesting the love of God.  If the love of God becomes manifest, then he will love his neighbor.  If he loves his neighbor, he will love himself.  If he loves himself, then everything returns to its proper place.  History Changes."  Wow.  

This is the message of Christ, the Gospel.  The way of living rightly.  

I think all things profound need something tangible to set it.  Like when you think about the bigness of the universe, but really understand it when you are on the edge of the Grand Canyon.  Or when you are finding love for the first time and then you touch her hand or have a first kiss and your world stops.   I really dig the Coelho passage because it is a something that I can get my mind around.  His words are grounded in experience.  It all starts with exposure and love-focus on another.  One that is (hopefully) reciprocated.  

I have to say this, my wife and I are falling deeply in love lately. Not that we have not been in love already.  I think its just hitting a deep pocket that I never new existed.   It's been incredible.  I told her recently that I feel that for the first time in our lives, we are lovers.  Truly lovers.  (I think this is something that a lot of people, even married, and married well, folks never experience)  It's incredible.  I mean for me its like the movies, like Romeo and Juliet and all that wrapped up and packaged with her and I in it.  

I have been through phases in life where I value different things in relationships or I learn how to value different things in relationships.  I have met a lot of couples.  Each values something different.  There are ones who have wives/husbands who are their best friends, their caretakers, their financial advisors, the cohabitants of their houses, their sex partners, their escape from the fear of being alone, their entire identity (yikes!), you know, a lot of things.  For them, contentment is found in one of these shades of companionship.  Totally okay, awesome for them even (I hope and if its not, I hope they are all brave enough to change life for the better).  

I think at one point or another I have been there with my feelings about my wife or a girlfriend along the way.  I don't often come across friends who truly have a lover.  Maybe this is because those who do keep it in.  I just don't know about it.  I know I do this a lot, hide my relationship with my lady from others.  I have a hard time sharing my relationships.  I hate exposing them for fear of judgement (as this is often the result of sharing).  But, my wife and I were talking about this, and sharing what we have might get one of the few people who read this to think about it, to maybe have the courage to pursue it, to try it on.  It may not fit, but at least he or she had the courage to try.  Here we go...

I am jealous of my lover's time.  I think about her passionately.  She does the same.  She is courageous.  She makes me brave.  I make her stronger.  We can't wait to eat dinner together, share a bottle of wine, laugh, make love, talk, watch the rain or the fire, to go out to eat at 5 o'clock like old people, to be lovers and that is all.  

I wish this for everyone.  I do.  I don't think everyone will have this.  It comes at a cost.  A cost.  This is a naked exercise, an exposed and initially fearful and uncomfortable process.  Finding each other as lovers requires us to sacrifice our time, our thoughts, others' opinions about us, our egos, our deep places, our secrets, our warts, our convenience, our money, a big family.  But for Katherine and I, its just right.  (I know that in all my life I will remember this time we are experiencing.  I will.  It will be one of the last of my thoughts, one of the first on Saturday mornings when she is still asleep next to me.  I will remember it when I am 84 and have cancer in a hospital, and she will be there.)

Cohelo is on to something because this is the closest thing I have to experiencing God, to demonstrating God, to seeing Love manifest.  I am exposed with my wife.  But its okay.  And this exposure is such a part of the True manifestation of God (love).  

The concept of Love as I have painted it in this is contingent on a few things.  It also has a fantastic storybook ending as well, the world is changed.  History is written.  It all hinges on this part where we have to love outside of ourself with recklessness.  Most people I know are not reckless with their love.  For whatever reason, abuse, mistrust, fear, failure, or whatever, we become guarded with our hearts.  But, Love (God) doesn't work this way.  Guarded-ness is only that, a guard or a defense mechanism, a big freakin concrete wall.  

When we let go, give bigger than our selfishness, only then are we releasing God's love in the world and our lives.  

Love is released.  Its a wild, untamed thing.  It takes control and changes my relationships.

And I am strong and exhilarated because of it; I can't help but love people.  My associates become brothers.  My acquaintance becomes a kindred.  My neighbors become family.  When this happens, I am convinced that I am loved.  Full Circle.  Unreal.  

My world changes, is changing, and so is yours.  

MAKE LOVE MANIFEST