Maybe I should have done this earlier...

Some say that the older you get the less you have to say. I am kinda feeling lately that this theory might be true. But also, the older I get I feel like I might be losing wisdom. Growing more ignorant. But perhaps I am merely finding the wisdom to not understand what I do not know and to not speak on it.

I have been a bad blogger. Not writing like I should. But in my defense, I feel like I have very little worth saying. But here is an excerpt of something I wrote on FB about a year or so ago... I really liked it...

And here we are today, still battling this feeling of unworthiness. But something has changed again. Where at one time we were bound by this knowledge and the only way to God was to overcome Evil by following the laws of good, we are now in a position where this knowledge has no power over us. While the knowledge will never be erased from our primordial memories we are no longer bound to its power. We are no longer forced to clothe ourselves and run from our nudity because God has taken that shame from us and replaced it with hope. We no longer are forced to tie a rope around us to enter into His presence but rather we are asked to enter into it carrying every burden and sin that we have so that it may be taken away and cleansed. We no longer find ourselves following this ancient law out of duty but rather out of love. Our lives are no longer controlled by a knowledge of good and evil but rather by a knowledge of Grace.

Forgive my cliche, but everything changed again with another tree. A tree that was cut down and destroyed and turned into a weapon of torture. Completely opposite of that beautiful and mystic tree in a garden, this tree was ugly and dirty and covered in blood and dirt. But this was The Tree of The Knowledge of Grace. So, why are we still controlled by our fear? Why do we still live tied to our knowledge of good and evil? Why can't we fully live out of the knowledge of Grace?

I think it is funny how the tree that was most likely very beautiful and pretty and vibrant with color brought so much bad. And the tree that was dull and ugly and beaten and bruised brought us so much hope. Makes me wonder how my Creator defines beauty.

The melting of a soul...

First off, I can't take it anymore. I am going out of my mind. I just don't feel like myself anymore.  I feel as though I am merely walking through life and waiting to be born again in a sense. To wake up. To finally be myself again. And what you ask, is causing this amount of insanity. The daggum heat. It is so effing hot all of the time. I live for the fall. It is my favorite season of the year by far and although they tell me that yesterday was the first day of fall you would not be able to tell by the temperature that is searing my skin as I walk into the sun. This is ridiculous. I think I might just go camping and the game plan is to stop when I feel that the temperature is cool enough for an enjoyable experience and will make me need a jacket in the dark.

On the other side why I am totally annoyed with this prolonged summer is that I have been putting some music in my back pocket that I have felt will fit perfectly into this fall season. I have held off on falling in love with it so that I can do it all in the perfect context. I know, it is ridiculous. But context is everything. Well, maybe not everything but it will turn average into good and good into unfreakingbelievable. And I am more than ready to get serious about listening to some of this stuff. Last year it was primarily Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver. If I haven't said it yet then I really really need to. Make sure you listen to Bon Iver. It is a total game changer. But this year some of the stuff I am really looking forward to is some new Band of Horses and some new Ray LaMontagne. But of course there will be some new artist to listen to, I am sure of it. So you must stay tuned and I will let you know as soon as I know in the heralded form of lyrics.

In better news, next week the forcast is in the 70's. About damn time my friends.

I bid you all adieu.

And the sweetness will not be concerned with me...

Some nights I am feeling intellectual and smart and, well lets be honest, a little conceited. But some nights are built more in humility. An actual understanding of how insignificant you actually are in a really big world. It is probably a mix of both of these kind of nights in which we find balance. Part of my paradox is that I would consider myself neither really a jubilant person nor a depressed one. But often I find myself being either both at one time or an extreme of one or the other. A lot of nights Ican have a wonderful time with friends and never laugh so hard I have water come out of my nose but on my way home I find myself listening to something like this and feeling every word of it. The whole dichotomy of the entire night throws even me off. It are these times that I remind myself no matter what the Stall Wall Weekly said at Berry I am not, in fact, schizophrenic. Which, is always a relief.

But on nights like tonight is often when music plays the biggest part of me. It is always in music where I can find community when the world is filled with double rainbows. But now when we are feeling a little emo there are always options in the life of a 26 year old. (There, I said it. I am 26 and still get a little emo every now and again.) We can either revert back to the classics that I loved (and still love, btw) or it is amazing how the true emo kids in high school never actually get "not emo" they just mature a little bit. And the music matures with them. So, I suppose I can be a grown adult and listen to adult emo music but that can always get a little "too real".  But sometimes, I think it is a little bit of both and it says exactly what you need it to say. And yes, I know I used the same artist multiple times, but I really really like this guy.

Well, my goal was a post littered with links like a hipster bar is littered with flannel... success... (and I am not saying anything bad about flannel, I personally love it.)

We're just a million little gods making rainstorms...

Last night a friend of mine on twitter retweeted a quote from a pastor that I absolutely loved and often have the same sentiment. @Pastorkes wrote: Wish "Christian music" meant "thoughtful/heartfelt lyrics on God/humanity" and not "weak metaphors about God that feel oddly sexual"

When I was a teenager me and my friends called it interpretive christian music. You never really knew if they were referring to God or the the girl that guy was trying to lay.(Examples: Jars Of Clay, or how bout a song that started on secular radio and years later we decided it was actually about God, and made a skit to go with it) Cause let's be honest in acknowledging he was trying to do both, write a song that sounds like it is about God and trying to get the newest groupie he met on his tour into the hotel room. That kinda burst my CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) bubble when I was younger when I learned that all of these artists that I put on a pedestal next to God weren't too much less of a sinner than I was. I mean, I am pretty screwed up. And when we are screwed up we look for that person or group that says, "Hey, I'm not screwed up. I have all my crap figured out."Just so we can know that it is all going to be ok. But it rarely ever goes like that. We learn that these guys can be just as unhappy as we get sometimes. Looking at an artist in general for personal stability is about the equivalent of looking to Mormons to learn about contraceptives. It's just not a good idea and you are not going to get anything out of it.

I think this is why I quit listening to Christian Music for the most part. Or at least music that is particularly aiming for the Christian market. There is a whole tirade against Christian subculture that I have but I am sure that I will go on and on about that on another day. But I think I just got tired of bullcrap in my music. I got tired of people writing stuff that had no semblance to my relationship with God. Cause while I love God it is very rare to never that I have wanted to sing him a song that sounds like it would fit in best on a front porch of a frat party being played by "that guy".  My relationship is rarely that clean cut and easy. And me, as a person, I am never that clean cut and easy. It often seems to be the purpose of a lot of Christian subculture to make us look like we are all ok and we never doubt this God that we follow. I have never been there. 

The older I get the more I am finding Christian themes in music that is obviously secular and could care less if it ever reaches into the Christian subculture of the bible belt. One of my favorite themes falls into the honesty of the human condition. It is an issue that many of us believe that we are innately good people and God is just there to forgive us of our every now and again mistakes. This is definitely part of the "thoughtful/heartfelt lyrics on God/humanity" Why lie to God? He knows how screwed up we really are. So let us be honest on our condition. That we are a lot of people that pretty much messes everything up. The antithesis of Midas. Everything we touch merely withers away instead of turning to to gold like we had originally thought. 

A band I will probably speak about a lot is Arcade Fire. A song that you have no doubt heard has lyrics that I love that pertains exactly to what we are.  It has these lyrics:

 "If the children don't grow up our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up. We're just a million little god's making rainstorms turning every good thing to rust."

I love the idea that we are all just little god's in our lives. It brings idolatry so much closer to home. You know, we try to do good in controlling everything. We try to make rainstorms. To make stuff grow. To make beauty. But all it does is cause all the good things we have in life to turn into rust. To turn to worthless crap. I feel like that a lot in my life. Like I try to control everything. I try to set my life in a good direction and it all just falls to crap. Even when I thought I was doing good.

One of my favorite shows is a show that I watch on Netflix that comes on BBC America. It is a show called Skins and if you get easily offended then you probably shouldn't even go close to it. Just saying for all my conservative friends out there. But it is these stories of this group of teenagers whose lives are absolutely falling apart at every turn. And typically to no fault but there own. I like the authenticity of it. While I don't think that many people I know are to the degree of these teenagers. We all still have this bit of self destruction in us. Whenever we start playing these little god's. When everything is going well and we look to God and tell him that we are ok without him for a while.

It's ok though. If you are sitting here with me and thinking about how screwed up life is and you are tempted to beat yourself up about this little god mentality you should stop now. It is alright. We have all done it and we will do it again. We try to act as though there is one way all the time and we better walk this straight and narrow or it is all going to go to crap. Well, here is a news flash. It may go to crap. But sometimes it is good to cry a little bit. Sometimes it is good to only want a book and a cup of coffee and a couch. Sometimes it is good to yearn for that one record that will restore you. These are the things which have been given to us.

Don't deny true, authentic art. It is man's reaction to God and himself.

  

The night moon shines down on us as if he knew of all our secrets...

Tonight has been a Bon Iver kind of night. If you haven't listened to them yet then I suggest you begin immediately. Stop whatever you are doing that you think is important and go ahead and change your life. Listen to this or this or you know, this.

If you don't know anything about this band the album was recorded entirely by the lead singer in a cabin in Wisconsin as he was trying to basically escape his former life. His ex band, ex girlfriend, ex town. And in the cabin during a long northern winter he did the only thing he knew to do as he had no where to go and no one to see. He poured his heart into some songs. As he sings you can hear the pain in his voice. How much the words he sings means to him. How much he believes every note that flows from his mouth.

That is what we all are looking for right? For truth? To truly believe what we say, what we feel? It's amazing how emotions that you had never before been able to communicate well and all of a sudden there is a song that says exactly what you needed to say all along. And above all it is beautiful.

Beauty... I like beauty... but beauty is for another day... not on a muggy night like tonight...

And we begin with where all those who were before us have started... with a word...

I heard one time a quote that I have never been able to let go of. I haven't been able to find it since but it goes something like this. "Before any writer writes a one single bit of good writing he must first write a bunch of crap."