Friday, July 30, 2010

On singing.

Most people who know anything about me know that I sing. Not only do I like to, I actually think I have some measure of skill. And from what I have gathered, others agree, because they haven't told me to shut my mouth yet and even go beyond that to keep asking me to open it back up. Thank you.

But there are some people and some performances out there that make me feel like what I do is nothing but child's play.

Enter Marc Martel. He's one of the lead singers of the band downhere. About a year ago, the band posted a video of him talking about singing, where he answered a few questions that he frequently gets out on the road about how he learned how to sing, influences, things of that nature. Basically, his story and mine are similar. I've done everything he's said: mimicking people my whole life, experimenting until the sound that was coming out of my mouth very nearly matched what I was hearing. But still, I don't see how he does it. Raw talent, I guess. Divine favor, maybe. I don't know.

This guy makes a living in rock and roll, and he does it well, but unlike a lot of rockers out there, he's also a pretty good opera singer. That's what really blows my mind. To be able to move between such vastly different genres - and do it well - commands skill.

So watch and enjoy. Yeah, it's a year old, but it never gets old. I happened to come across it again today and it felt appropriate to post it here. I hope to be able to do at least half of what he does one day.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Embracing non-perforated toilet paper.

Much of my life has been a work in forcibly ridding me of compulsions, attempts to order my life, and needs that were never really needs to begin with, but which I felt were essential to my existence.

I've talked before about what a strange child I was. Here's another reason to add to the list. Not too terribly long ago, there was a long list of things that I thought I had to do just so, or.....I don't know what. The world would fall apart, maybe? But time after time of it not falling apart, I've begun to relax. Let me give you a few examples.

For a long time, every time I used the bathroom I HAD to use 8 sheets of toilet paper. Two-ply paper, that is. If it was one-ply, I would use 16, because mathematically it works out to be the same. The symmetry was perfect. Fold 8 in half and you get 4. Fold 4 in half and you get 2. Fold two in half and you get 1. Thus I would hold in my hand a perfect square, and for a brief moment all felt right in the world. It was also nice that this seemed to be just the right thickness for most occasions. But, gross as it might sound, its square perfection more than made up in my mind for the times when it wasn't quite enough. Thank the Lord for soap and water. Oh, and what did I do in public restrooms that just had a continuous roll with no perforations in the paper? I felt lost, that's what I did. How could I know if I was using just the right amount?

With my music, I had a system I would follow in listening to it. When I finally reached the age that I started building up a collection of my own CDs, I alphabetized them, like any good obsessive-compulsive, organized person would do. I used the artist as my alphabetical determinant, and went by first name rather than last. There are few people out there that I think about by last name. I identify people by first name, and their last name is almost always secondary, so it made no sense in my brain to organize them by their last name. So with individuals, I went with first name. Bands only have one name, so that's obvious. Then for CDs with an amalgamation of artists, I went by the first word in the CD title. After considering all of this criteria and getting them in order, then I started from the beginning and listened to them all in that order. I wouldn't skip out of line. Ever. Even when I got my first computer and started listening to everything on there, I still stuck to that order. There would be times in which I would feel like I was in the mood for something specific, but I if it wasn't next in line, oh well. It would have to wait. For another time and another situation. In which I wasn't in the mood for it anymore.

I instituted something similar for all of my books. I wanted to read all of them. But I needed some guidelines for doing so, otherwise I felt too crippled to even begin. Thus I put them all in a certain order, then wrote all of their titles on a separate index card. I then placed the index cards in the same order that I had determined for the books. The index cards were a back-up that I wanted to have in place just to make sure that I had the books in order and was keeping them that way. Since I didn't have them in strict alphabetical order, the constant pulling out of the shelf risked me mixing them up and not putting them back correctly. Thus I would read them in the order in which I had my index cards, and when I got to the end, I would start over again. Always reading, I was.

I was also a compulsive matcher. The only pains I ever took with my clothes were to make sure that my outfits matched. If my shirt was green, my shoes had to be green too. As well as any accessories I wore. I actually started accessorizing just so I could accentuate whatever color I was wearing. I soon realized that jewelry drove me crazy, but I continued to wear it for a time because I "had" to. On my bottom half, I mostly wore denim, because that was the one thing that would match with anything. Obviously, it's typical blueness didn't count as a color. Colored pants, I didn't know what to do with. Throw me a red pair of shorts and I would have been inclined to wear red on top. But if I couldn't find the right shade of red, it would have looked strange, meaning I would put have put the shorts away and never would have worn them. My wardrobe choices were severely limited under these guidelines.

Here's one thing that still gets me looking back on it now. A lot of the rituals I went through and orders I had set in place didn't necessarily take up a lot of extra time, so they were easy to maintain and didn't intrude on my everyday functioning like so many of my favorite fictional detective Adrian Monk. But this one did. Starting when I was about 12, I spelled things in my head and would divide the letters into all possible equally sized groups. For example, if there were 10 letters, I would separate them into groups of two letters each, then into groups of five letters each. The more factors a number had, the longer it took for me to make my way through all of the mental separating. If it was a prime number, then I would divide it in half as closely as I could, and move on feeling unsatisified. I never did like prime numbers. As you might imagine, this soon became burdensome. Try having a conversation while your brain is juggling letters and numbers because everything you say must be spelled out and separated. Focusing was a major challenge. It was after this that I started to realize that something had to change. But hey, at least I was a shoe-in for spelling bees and had mastered basic math.

But I couldn't change anything. So everything stayed the same for a while.

Examining myself now, I was likely trying to compensate for all of the chaos around me. For about as long as I can remember, my life has been pretty crazy. My physical surroundings were pretty stable until I was six years old, but there were other aspects of my life that were chaotic before then. Then when my family made our first major move, even my physical surroundings felt like they had collapsed, never to be completely put back together. And I longed for order. For definition. I wanted everything to be certain. I wanted to be able to look at everything and say, "This is the way its supposed to be done. These are the confines in which this is supposed to operate. This must go over here. This must be separate from that. These lines must be just so." Basically, this is what this means and this is the way it's gonna be! So little in my life was definite. So I took the small realm of things I had influence over and I laid down the law. That's probably also a motivation behind my being so self-controlled my whole life.

But like so many other things, once I finally came to know Christ for who he really is and was able to relax, my need for order started to diminish. I realized that I wouldn't make my life any happier or more fulfilling. I had been trying to create order for the better part of two decades and it was stifling. Nothing was ever quite good enough. Even my perfect toilet paper square.

So now I'm a lot messier than I used to be, and it doesn't send me into a tailspin of anxiety. I use however much toilet paper I happen to pull off the roll. (Although, I have to admit that I get a small thrill when it turns out to be 8 sheets and a feeling of rightness overtakes me.) And if it's not perforated, that's fine too. I no longer feel like a child wandering alone in a dark forest. I listen to and read whatever I want whenever I want without fear of messing up a system. So if I'm in the mood to listen to my Centricity playlist and then read Harry Potter, I can do that without feeling guilty. I'm slowly overcoming the matching monster. I dare to wear colors now that coordinate and aren't all just varying shades of the same thing. (However, when I see something that's all the same color, whether it be anything from a person's outfit to a painted canvas, a peaceful feeling comes over me and I want to stare at it a little longer.) And I no longer spell and count everything in my head. I'll probably never quit doing it completely (especially the spelling - that's just second nature), but at least I can move on with my life if I read a sign and don't stop to divide the twelve letters into twos, threes, fours and sixes.

I am a much happier and more relaxed person now that I'm not bound to obsessing about things like not stepping on the cracks in sidewalks (which is something else I once did). Life is more beautiful without so much rigidity and all of the disarray now looks more like adventure than like catastrophe.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Choosing evil.

I've been contemplating sin.

Surely, there are more joyful things I could be thinking about, but such is my mind.

Sin became a part of human existence when Adam and Eve gained the knowledge of good and evil.

Before Adam and Eve were even created, good existed. The first mention of good is in Genesis 1:4, when God created light. Presumably, evil existed as well.

I always kind of assumed without realizing it's what I assumed that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit forbidden from them that all of a sudden all things bad, nefarious, and wrong sprang into existence. As if that act created them. But that doesn't make sense. Wrong obviously already existed. God told Adam and Eve not to do something, because it was wrong. Besides that, the tree was one of the knowledge of good and evil. Not of good and evil themselves. Also, in Genesis 3:5, the serpent says to Eve "'you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'" Apparently God already knew of its existence, so it obviously must have existed.

So then my next assumption is that they became aware of wrong and were suddenly empowered to do it, whereas they weren't capable before that knowledge. But that doesn't make sense either. Again, knowledge of what is, not a sudden alteration in ability.

Also, it doesn't just say knowledge of evil. It's knowledge of both good and evil. So if they didn't know evil, couldn't recognize it, then maybe they didn't know, couldn't recognize, good either. They were both there, good obviously because the word was used so many times before Adam and Eve were created, but they couldn't identify them for what they were. Everything just was what it was, there was no such value judgment made on them. But upon eating from this tree, the first man and woman were able to distinguish between good and evil, and see them for what they were. At this point is where the trouble started.

The next logical question is why was knowing good and evil, and being able to distinguish between them, such a bad thing? God knew both good and evil and we don't ever hear of it being a problem for him.

I think it's probably because they now had the ability to consciously choose evil, to choose to go against God and know good and well that they were doing the wrong thing and decide to do it anyway. And God knew that's what Adam and Eve and all the rest of us down through time would do: choose evil. The reason why that knowledge isn't a problem for God is because he doesn't ever choose evil. But he knew that we wouldn't be able to never choose evil.

Thus Adam and Eve were banished from the garden and kept away from the tree of life. They now were able to consciously choose evil and no one who chooses evil is allowed to live forever, thus saith the Lord.

Following this line of thought, it would seem that's what sin is: recognizing both good and evil in front of you and then choosing evil. Something that we people do all the time.

Which falls in line with something else I've considered. When people are conceived, it takes a while for them to develop an awareness of the existence of right and wrong. A baby crawling around on the floor isn't scooting around thinking about whether or not their next action is something that falls in either the category of rightness or wrongness. That next action might be to crawl over to a peer and snatch a toy out of their hand, which we would see to be wrong, but they don't know that. They have to learn. And I think that in their state of ignorance, if that baby lost its life, it would go to be with God for eternity.

Thus it all comes back to our choices. The fact that evil exists is not what has condemned us. Nor is evil something of our own creation. It's there and we choose it. That's why on our own we can't be with God, because we intentionally reach for things that are in direct opposition to him. Thank God for grace in the person of Jesus Christ.


As you can probably tell, I've been reading Genesis. Quite closely. I know it's probably going to take me a while to move through everything, but I'm attempting to read the Bible and think more about it on a daily basis than I have in the past. I've made it all the way through the whole thing a few times, so now that I have a broad view and a pretty good understanding of context (which I think is very important to gain, thus I decided to just focus on reading for the past few years), I thought it was time to move beyond just reading it and dig in a lot deeper than I normally do on a daily basis. And this is what my brain has been mulling over. There's a lot of good, evil, and sin in the first four chapters.

Monday, July 12, 2010

On earth as it is in heaven.

"'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.'" Isaiah 49:15-16

"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deuteronomy 31:8

"For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100:5

"'As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.'" John 15:9

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38

All throughout the Bible, it is made abundantly clear that God loves people.



I'm introverted by nature. Introversion creates an inclination to pull away from people.

But things have been changing over the past few years. When someone honestly and sincerely gives their life over to God, He changes that person. And they start becoming more like Him. It's been rather exciting.

Although there are moments when I still feel like I'm going to have a nervous breakdown if I don't get some alone time, I love people so much more than I ever imagined that I could. I desire their company. I miss them when they're gone, so much that it hurts sometimes. And I care about them, what's going on in their lives.

Living two weeks in a place where you sleep with no fewer than 50 people every night, and come in close contact with at least a hundred all day, every day, people constantly surrounding you, sounds like it would be an introvert's nightmare. But after camp was over this year, and I was facing the reality of coming home, I didn't want to. I wanted to stay with people. Every year, I always have fun, and I'm sad to leave, but I'm usually grateful to get home, to get to the isolation of my bedroom. But not this time. I was almost grieving my return to home.

In a weird way, I'm grateful for these feelings. They're proof that my affections are following after those of Jesus. As much as it can hurt, and as lonely as I can feel even when I know I'm not alone, I know that God is faithful. And He's bigger than my feelings. And with Him, I won't be destroyed.

I doubt I'll ever be able to say that I'm not introverted. But I'm grateful that I've been changed enough that I've come to a place where people are such a vital part of my life.

Monday, July 5, 2010

More than a feeling.

Any of you who grew up going to a summer camp with God at its center can probably relate to this in some way.

You arrive there on the first day excited to be there again, looking forward to the time you're going to spend there. Perhaps you're thinking of all the fun you'll have. Hanging out with friends, doing stupid things that only make sense in the current context. Perhaps you've been struggling, and you're eager to meet up with God in a way that you haven't in a while, if ever. Whatever the case may be, you're expecting a lot.

And, as usual, your time there exceeds your expectations. Did you have fun? Yes. Did you do something off the wall that you might not want to tell your friends back home, because they just won't understand? Yes. Did you come to feel closer to God than you ever have before? Yes. And you feel like a new person. Like you've changed for good. All the stupid stuff you were doing the week before is now a thing of the past. The depression you've been in has flown away, and you feel as if it can't touch you anymore.

The last day arrives, and you're sad to leave, but you're ready to take on the world. God is on your side and you feel it. Then you leave. Maybe you make it down the road a ways before anything changes, maybe you even make a few days, a few weeks if you're lucky. Or maybe you don't even make it ten feet past the gate. However long it takes (or doesn't take), these whispers start to creep in. You're not really any different. You're still this person that can't do anything but fail, and God's not going to help you. Life starts to hit you. Your home is far from enchanting. Your friends, who are still stuck in their confusion and destructive habits, are doing their best to pull you back in so they have a companion in their suffering. And as strongly as you vowed at camp that you weren't going back to what you knew before, you start to lose your willpower. God seems distant again. And those feelings you had at camp disappear.

I'll let you in on a secret; counselors can fall into this trap too.

The two weeks of camp this June were two of the best weeks I've ever experienced in my 20-some-odd years of camp going. Our staff, both weeks, worked so well together. As much as I'd like to say that's how it always is, it's not. Some years have been riddled with conflict, making the experience almost more depressing than encouraging. But I felt so close to everyone this year. Our tight-knit group and concentrated focus, I think, allowed God to move in mighty ways.

Also, I did a lot of things those two weeks that I had either never done before, or had not done in the manner that I did them this year. I had more people looking to me this year as an authority of some sort then I ever have in the past. I was a teacher, completely responsible for my own classes, with no "adult" watching over my shoulder to make sure I was doing my job and that kids weren't misbehaving. I put kids to bed at night, while women several years older than I-some twice my age-were in the room, completely following my lead, allowing me to be the "mom." I led Bible studies, small group discussions, imparted words of wisdom that have been given to me in my short twenty-two years of life. I was called upon to sing, to lead people in worship, more than has ever happened in the past. People wanted my opinion, sometimes on things that I knew a fair amount about, and other times on things of which I was completely unfamiliar, but tried my best to help with, nonetheless.

As all of this was happening, I couldn't help but stand back many times over and examine what was going on. Why did this not seem like a big deal? I've never been responsible for so many things in my life. Why didn't this seem monumental? Why wasn't I getting overwhelmed? Why was it so easy, happening almost effortlessly?

It was because of God. My weak, insecure, self was out of the way, and his strength was giving me the ability to tackle everything that came at me.

I left there feeling like a changed person. And when I made it back to my home, sitting in my bedroom, the space that is connected to me more than any other, even though it was already a week since I had left the grounds of Camp Formosa, I still felt like the person who had left my bedroom was not the same one who returned. The ties that connected me to my room were not as strong as they had once been, indicating a change.

I'm a camp veteran. Even though I was probably the least repentant of all of my camp mates growing up, that situation I described in the beginning is not unfamiliar. All too often, what feels like a change, is mostly just a "camp high." A lot of emotion, founded on good intent, but not deeply rooted. Yes, God did speak at camp, but His truth didn't really come in and replace the lies. It was just something that we latched onto for a moment, making us briefly feel good, but which we let go of as soon as things got hard.

I don't want that to be the reality this time. And as convinced as I am that something is different, experience has made me skeptical. I wish I wasn't skeptical. God, help me overcome my skepticism.

The more I think about it, though, I was probably different before the two weeks came around. Things couldn't have happened they way they did without preparation. I think God was preparing me for a long time. And those two weeks were the moment when the effects of that preparation were made known. My ability to lead was likely there beforehand, it just wasn't exposed until the moment when it was needed.

If that's the case, perhaps the change is real, and not simply noble emotion. How reassuring.

Friday, July 2, 2010

"Hidden with Christ in God."

I'm pretty sure I've blogged on this topic before. But it's been a while. And I'm also pretty sure that I didn't say everything that I have to say now. So I'm going to visit it again.

I used to feel pretty crummy about myself, my life. I didn't know why. In the full spectrum of quality of life on earth, I didn't have a terrible life. It was pretty good compared to many others. And as far as I was concerned, I was "perfect" to most people. That wasn't true, of course, but I was arguably more well-behaved and more "moral" than the average person, or child, considering that I've just barely entered into the world of the adults. Delinquent, mean, these words were not ones used to describe me. Regardless, I rarely could consider myself or my life and feel good about either.

I started finding out why when I was 17.

Before then, I didn't know who I was. You can't feel good about something that is non-existent. And although I wasn't non-existent, I was unaware, and in this case, that's almost like being non-existent.

What changed when I was 17 was that God became more real to me than he ever had before. That made all the difference. Here's why:

Colossians 3: 1-4 "1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."

When I became a Christian, I died. Spiritually. Christ became my life. But I wasn't looking to him to define me. Because I didn't get it. I believed in God's existence, and believed on him to be the Savior of my soul, but he was still really distant to me. I didn't realize how closely my life was intertwined with his. Bearing that in mind, as distant as he was, I was just as distant. Without knowing God, I couldn't know myself.

But once God became very close and very real to me, I followed. My life finally had meaning. I finally had definition. And I began to realize how important it was for me to continually stay centered on him, because without him as my focus, everything falls away. Nothing makes sense, everything's messed up, it's a terrible way to live.

My identity is found in Christ. As is that of everyone else who has decided to follow him. In doing so, we gave our lives over. We are now his, and he is the one who gives us meaning. You may think you know who you are, but until you understand this, until your life is "hidden with Christ in God," you don't. You can't.

I really hope this encourages you as much as it does me. It has been so freeing to me. I know where my meaning comes from. I don't have to go looking anywhere else to find it. Anything else I may try to hold up as something to complete me is always disappointing, because it can't define me. Only Jesus can. And as bad as things may seem sometimes, I can truthfully tell you that I have an amazing life. Even when it seems like everything is falling apart, I still have a peace inside of me, because those things can't ruin me. Even if my whole world fell apart, Christ would still be there. And he tells me who I am, not anything or anyone else. For this reason, I am joyful.

I will now finish with the lyrics of my favorite song from Jason Gray, "I Am New."

Now I won't deny
The worst you could say about me
But I'm not defined
By mistakes that I've made
Because God says of me

I am not who I was, I'm being remade
I am new
I'm chosen and holy
And I'm dearly loved
I am new
I am new

Who I thought I was
And who I thought I had to be
I had to give them both up
'Cause neither were willing
To ever believe

I am not who I was, I'm being remade
I am new
I'm chosen and holy
And I'm dearly loved
I am new
I am new

Too long have I lived in the shadows of shame
Believing that there was no way I could change
But the one who is making everything new
Doesn't see me the way that I do
He doesn't see me the way that I do

I am not who I was, I'm being remade
I am new
I'm chosen and holy
And I'm dearly loved
I am new
I am new

I'm not who I was, I'm being remade
I am new
Oh, dead to the old man
I'm coming alive
I am new
I am new

Forgiven, beloved
Hidden in Christ
Made in the image of the Giver of life
Righteous and holy
Reborn and remade
Accepted and worthy
This is our new name

Forgiven, beloved
Hidden in Christ
Made in the image of the Giver of life
Righteous and holy
Reborn and remade
Accepted and worthy
This is our new name

This is who we are now