What Sarah Said… October 31, 2008

I never really knew how to understand what real love was. I’ve heard a lot about God being love. That all we need is love. Love is a many splendorded thing. None of these things really gave me a clue to what love was. I knew I’d felt love but I couldn’t grasp it. It wasn’t tangible. Until my mom got sick. I had the privilege of watching my Dad care for her day in and day out. Leaving his job and spending all his time with her. He stayed up night after night as she got worse; attending to everyone of her needs without hesitation. And as we sat with her while she took her last breath I looked in his eyes and saw love. That’s when I found out what true love is. 

But I’m thinking of what Sarah said that “Love is watching someone die”

So who’s going to watch you die?..

 

Letter to my Mom on her Birthday October 31, 2008

This is a letter to my Mom I write every year on her birthday. She is gone now but every year this is a way I connect to her. It is deeply personal and I have never shared this before. I guess I just wanted people to know what I had and who she was to me and everyone she met. I am not posting this for attention, sometimes if words are never seen then they never existed, I want these words to exist.

Dear Mom, I live in a world now that you may now recognize and am a person now that you may not recognize. I am trying my hardest to live into that person that you always taught me to be. A person who believes in hope, truth, and love. I fight daily to fulfill that promise I made you. In small ways I see it becoming a reality. This world is so broken and so am I but I fight, I fight for you, for the hope and love that you embodied everyday. I fight for this world. I live in a great place with wonderful people, I am learning constantly even how to cook. Your words and even more your life of grace has taught so much and I will always hold on to it. I am becoming that man that you always hoped I would be and when I face the tough parts of life I face them in the firm understanding of where I came from and who raised me. I miss you so much sometimes. I’ll scroll through my cell phone looking for someone who could understand and sometimes I catch myself looking for your number to call. I want so deeply to call you but I know where you are and would never ask you to turn away and answer my call. You loved me so much while you where here that I am continually filled. I could never have asked for a better mother. I can only ask that I become more and more like you each day. I miss you everyday but you will never be gone. I know we would have had an amazing party for your 50th birthday but the party that you are in now surpasses my wildest imagination. And thank you for never stifling that imagination or my heart and always believing in me. I am myself because of you. You showed me Christ so much through your life and now I will do my best to do the same. I will love and miss you forever.

love

zachie poo

Trinity of thought October 29, 2008

For a disclaimer I am in no way scientifically minded not by choice I’m just dumb but I was captured by something I heard. In looking at the brain and through multiple investigations and ideas on how it works. But on a very basic level we have come to the understanding that we think certain ways with certain parts of our brain. It’s been broken down into three major parts the right brain, the left brain and then the imgidula. Right brain is creative side, the left brain analyzes its how we realize truth and then the imigdula is the emotional part of the brain. We took that imigdula and put it in the middle of the chest disguised as our heart. But that’s not reality the only real time you feel your heart is if your having a heart attack. But how God created our minds was for all the parts those three as a whole to work together, fire synapses and communicate. We make holistic decisions whether we ever realize it or not. How’s that for the Trinity. Always in relationship always working together understanding truth and beauty.

 

 

…. now why the Hell can’t some people figure this out and use their brains?

Learning how to die- Jon Foreman.. not me October 29, 2008

I’m gonna miss you
I’m gonna miss you 
When you’re gone
She says, I love you
I’m gonna miss you 
And your songs

And I said, please
Don’t talk about the end
Don’t talk about how 
Every living thing goes away
She said, friend

All along I thought 
I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really 
I’ve been learning how to die
I’ve been learning how to die

Hey everyone
I’ve got nowhere to go
The grave is lazing me
He takes our body slow

And I said, please
Don’t talk about the end
Don’t talk about how 
Every living thing goes away
I said, friend,
All along I thought 
I was learning how to take

How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really 
I’ve been learning how to die
I’ve been learning how to die
Die, die
I’ve been learning how to die
I’ve been learning how to die

A moment of your time… please October 29, 2008

I have been noticing that all everything seems to come down to is just moments. Singular moments in time that add up and make a day, a week, or a year. All that is remembered often is just those fleeting moments, not much else. The human brain just doesn’t cognitively process everything we’ve seen or experienced. My childhood is just a series of moments I can remember. People from my past have become a series of moments not actual human beings. We do coffee dates, send emails, call on a phone, write a letter, drink a beer; all just moments adding up to a relationship. I used be so anxious about missing out on those moments, so much so that I missed them. I’ve also been so focused on the big idea of it all that the little moments were not given any credit. So if it all just adds up to these short interactions and even shorter memories what do we do with that? How do I spend my time?  Maybe I should take more pictures… they last longer.

Life in slow motion October 29, 2008

I have got to be one of the slowest people I know. I live in a perpetual state of catching up. I am always the slowest eater at the table; everyone thinks I just don’t like my food, no I’m just slow. It takes me ten minutes to role out of bed. I mean literally role then there’s the getting off the floor. I am continually finishing projects, papers, regular homework and studying at the very last moments possible. I am 23 and I still haven’t graduated from college; five years! I take really long showers. I sit through all the credits at the end of a movie, and I sip on beers. Slow, slow, slow! I’m also the last to know about who is with who. I am so slow in relationships that the girl could be engaged by the time I get courage enough to even talk to her. You laugh but it’s happened. Oh where is my Tortes companion? Oh this crazy world with it’s T9 calculators, Nascar, and Britney Spears; just give me the invention of the wheel and we can move nice and slow from there.

Who is this man…? October 20, 2008

As I stood in front of the mirror this morning and looked at the bearded, messy haired bloodshot eyed man in front of me and couldn’t help but ask the question who is this man? I have been catching myself doing that lately. I am 23 years old and to me that is old. I just never thought of myself being 23 being here. Sometimes I just don’t recognize that person staring back at me in the mirror. It’s not a particularly negative thought; I just don’t recall that time when I became this guy. It got me to thinking about all of us; we didn’t all start out with beards, cars, scars, hairy backs and cankles. We were all once free running children creating those scars and bleeding with smiles on our faces. And as I look around I can’t help but wonder who these people use to be. Were they the smelly kid in school? Did they eat crayons? Did they always wear little flower dresses or purple sweat pants? When did we leave those kids behind? And what where we all moving so rapidly towards? Don’t get me wrong I like who I am most days but why did I need to become this guy? Could I have stayed that sweatpants wearing, naive, momma loving, tree climber? And how do I reconcile who I am now with that little boy? Would he like me or run away scared of the creepy man with a dirty mustache? And how hard is it for those people in our lives who have to watch us change? I hope I have the exact thoughts as and old senile man wondering just who was this kid at 23 and who am I now. 

I take solace in the fact that this God walks with me through it all bringing me from a booger eater to a booger flicker.

Things I’ve learned about being a good Christian October 16, 2008

A good Christian never does anything distasteful like smoking or drinking. He because a good Christian is always a He because God is a He always votes for the most Godly candidate… which is obviously the Republican choice. He prays for his Country and his family first because that is what matters. He has the 2.5 children and a white picket fence. He plays a guitar but only for worship. His worship is neat and tidy without too much nonsense. He never curses or makes an off color statement. He defends what he has earned at all costs. His church is one of people who think just like him and wouldn’t try and think any differently. He knows that someday he will be raptured and leave this world so don’t put too much stock in this world. The Bible is his text book and all that is worth knowing comes from there. He has saved his money to be able to take care of all his and his families needs. He knows exactly where those who don’t know what he knows are going and sometimes makes and effort to save them as only he can. Nothing can persuade him or deter him from what he knows to be truth. 

So why am I noting like that man why do I just want to be the guy who thinks…. The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace things, but burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes “AWWW!” 

-Jack Kerouac:

Me.. really? October 15, 2008

Ever google yourself and see what you could find? This is an article I found that I had long forgotten from a few years ago. This the full article and a few responses. The last response was written about me and comments I made about being apart of a peace witness for Iraq. I’m putting this on here because it was incredibly flattering. But I must continue to question myself and ask if I am living up to these kind words.

As Dean Sam Lloyd welcomed us to the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq service at the Washington National Cathedral, he began by saying that he had just heard the most amazing story. He told us of four people from Spokane, Washington, who were traveling to the Witness when they had an accident in Pennsylvania as their car hit a patch of ice and skidded into a truck. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and after having the car towed away, they hitchhiked the rest of the way to Washington, D.C.

It turned out that the four travelers mentioned were students from Whitworth College. They joined the service and march, and were then arrested with us, praying in front of the White House. One of the students, Zach Dahmen, told The Whitworthian student newspaper,

By participating in the movement, we wanted to show people that there’s a different face to Christianity. Not all Christians support the war. It’s not God-ordained … I’m pro-life, and so I don’t support the killing that’s going on in Iraq. As Christians, we can’t be hypocritical.

The Presbyterian News Service told more of the story.

Nicola Crawford, a student at Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-related Whitworth College in Spokane, WA, says that when she got an e-mail earlier this year about the March 16 Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, she “decided it’s something I believe in.”

And that’s about all it took to convince her and a couple of other Whitworth
students, Zach Dahmen and Michael Vander Giessen, to commit to driving 2,700
miles to Washington, D.C., the week before mid-term exams. They hooked up with Eric Colby, a 2006 graduate of the college now working as youth director at Spokane’s Knox Presbyterian Church, who offered his 2001 Toyota Camry for the cross-country trip.

 

For their persistence and determination, we thank and applaud the “four from Spokane.”

Letter to that one kid October 14, 2008

A few things that would have been nice to know back then…. Don’t hide after breaking that lamp. Go to the bathroom before wrestling Uncle Tim at Christmas. Never laugh while being punished. Keep wearing sweat pants everyday, not matter what anyone says. Don’t leave that gate open. Keep drawing. Tell Mom you love her more. Joel didn’t do half of what you think he did. Talk to dad more. Show her you really did care. Wear a helmet… for most things. Learn how to throw a ball. Learn how to catch a ball.  Stop being so damn sarcastic. Wearing glasses isn’t that bad. That girl you kissed on Ski bus was not that attractive, don’t do that. Don’t go see the new star wars you’ll be disappointed. Dawson’s Creek isn’t a good show to base your life off. Dances aren’t worth that much money. Eat more fruit. Remember Jr. High is only two years. Don’t get that one hair cut. Its Ok that you puked on that one run… no one remembered. Things with Girls doesn’t get any easier. Don’t read Wild at Heart. You can get better grades. Bush was a bad idea. Make sure you always come to a complete stop especially on 15th. Valentines day is a made up holiday. Don’t smoke that one cigar. Natural Ice is a terrible beer. Cut your hair for senior pictures, you look like the illigidament child of Justin Guarini. Tight pants are Ok. You can make it into a college. Read an actual book. Your destiny is up to you. People do believe in you. And remember that it all passes way to fast.