Getting to Houston

One of the things that Jo and I have wanted to do before having kids is be able to travel a bit. We really haven’t since our honeymoon though. It’s one of the pitfalls of having a family beach house. You feel guilty if you do anything other than that. But, this past week we finally got a chance to do something different and went to Houston for her dad’s family reunion.

I’ve only ever been to Texas when laying over in Dallas/Ft. Worth on my way to Northern California, so this was going to be something totally new for me.

To save money we drove up to RDU Thursday afternoon and flew out that evening. I was tweaked and had borrowed a handful of Valium to help me get through the whole process of flying. I had never struggled with flying until Jo and I went out to California and had a horrible descent on our layover in Denver. From that point on I turned into a little girl at just the thought of flying. I had 4 pills and 4 flights since we were laying over in Atlanta both ways. Nervous and not thinking straight, I took two leaving Raleigh. Honestly though, I wanted to be unconcious, like B.A. Baracus!

Obviously, I made it through the first flight fine with a double Crown & Coke along with my two Valium. Other than getting “the spins” and seeing a couple of pink elephants, I was good to go! But, the pills only lasted a couple of hours and by the time we were to take off from Atlanta they had already worn off. I really wanted to take the other two, but better heads prevailed and I didn’t take any. Jo convinced me to just wait for the drink cart and get something stiff there to get me through the remainder of the flight. The only problem there is that I struggle the most with taking off and landing.

So, I tried to just brave it! We took off through some clouds, made some dips and swerves and I consequently almost ripped the headrest off of the seat in front of me. Jo held my arm until we got above 30K and I got a good dose of Jack coursing through my veins.

From that point on I was able to relax a little and enjoy the lights of the various unknown cities we passed over. As we passed over east Texas it was dark with only the occasional sprinkling of lights from tiny towns when suddenly on the horizon rose up a line of lights that stretched completely across the width of my window. We were obviously there.

Putting both Charlotte and Atlanta to shame and being landwise bigger than any other city I had been in, Houston was gargantuan and covered everything for as far as I could see as we began to land. Even for someone like myself that has an awesome sense of direction no matter where I am, Houston left me turned around all weekend.

Coldplay

I just started a run-through of the entire Coldplay anthology this afternoon. I’m in the process of prepping myself for tomorrow night. Jo, Steph, Braun, Morgan & myself are all going to see them in concert. It’s my first time seeing them and has been 4 years in the making.

I’m not going to try and act like I followed them from the beginning or anything! The summer Jo and I moved back to Wilmington we went one night to see Wedding Crashers with my friend Miccah from UNCW. On the way home she asked if I listened to Coldplay much. I told her I only knew “Yellow” and “Clocks”. They were ok, but didn’t really trip my trigger. She put in their album that had just come out and told me to listen to this one song that she was playing over and over at the time. It was “Fix You” and I really dug it. Wasn’t blown away, but it was good. I asked if I could rip it off her. She said she had all of their albums plus a couple of others I might enjoy. So, I ripped all of them and let them sit for a couple of weeks without thinking much about them.

I was working at Porter’s Neck at the time and spent a lot of hours on a 72″ mower in the woods surrounding the course. I eventually started carrying an old CD player with me and once I started tiring of old worship music and Toad I finally decided to take all of the Coldplay albums with me one day.

Even though she had played a few songs for us off of X&Y I decided to start from the beginning. When I heard the first song, “Don’t Panic”, I was done. I wasn’t sure if they could do anything to top it. Of course, that first album has other tracks that are just as phenomenal.

I listened to all 3 albums in consecutive order. Then I started over and listened again. And again….

I was in a great place in life! I had left trucking, gone back to finish school, was living in Wilmington again but married this time, was back at Port City, in a good small group and even though it didn’t pay well I was working at an incredible golf course where I played for free. Things were just good. And there became an unbreakable connection between that whole situation and the new music I had found.

I love all of the music that they put out, but when I listen to those first three albums I see myself riding that mower singing at the top of my lungs because no one could hear me over the mower, just as happy as I could possibly be. I see myself between #9 green and Porters Neck Road anytime “In My Place” comes on. I see myself up in the woods near the par 5 #15 tee box when “The Hardest Part” comes across or sitting behind the green of #12 in the shade near this massive handmade metal windchime in a tree of someone’s backyard when “Don’t Panic” plays.

I could go on and on, but know that while I’m at the concert tomorrow night, a big part of me will be in some tall pines elsewhere.

Homeless

Where we live everything revolves around I-77. Tons of people make the 30 minute commute into Charlotte every day from Mooresville or even Statesville and Hickory, which are more of an hour commute. Since all of these people head south every morning, 5:30 p.m. around here is nuts and traffic slows at every exit with lines of cars waiting to turn. A recent phenomenon that has grown along with these swells of traffic has been an emergence of homeless people begging for money at the ends of these exits.
I am generally compassionate towards homeless people, but some of these people own vehicles, or so it seems. And I have a hard time with that! Now I would love to be able to secretly bash these people and not like them, but most of them go to our church and volunteer on the parking team!
I think I could delve more deeply, but I think I’ll just leave it there and let you guys stew on it. Where all of these facts meet you is exactly the place I’m at. Not sure what to do with the info. Wanting to judge, feeling guilty and hypocritical…

Thankful

I have some things happening around me and in my own life that a couple of years I either wouldn’t have been able to notice or wouldn’t have cared to notice. I tend to lean towards negativity and cynicism, but for now things are good. One criticism Jo and I always had about our church was that it didn’t seem to promote authentic small groups. We always saw our small group in Wilmington as the most authentic group possible. Well, we asked and we have officially received! It took a bit for it to warm up and a little prodding from the two of us at times, but it’s there. People are sharing their struggles and, for the most part, are allowing others to help them bear the load and walk alongside them.
I’ve also been playing at church which has been awesome for my mental and spiritual health! Making music and worshipping simultaneously is just what the doctor ordered for my well-being. It’s forced me out of my little shell and also forced me to get to know people I would have never given a shot otherwise.
To add along with all of that, I am made more and more aware of how freaking cool my wife is! She doesn’t understand half of my music, but she is so much better than me in so many social situations that it’s ridiculous. I can roll with people I’ve known forever, but she can be thrown into the middle of a crew she doesn’t know and just go with it. I suck at that! I just sit back and analyze everyone and make things awkward. It’s definitely one of the ways that she compliments me most. Of course, she will ask after reading this why I don’t say things like that to her face. What can I say?? I’m a work in progress!

“If ignorance is bliss, won’t you save me from myself?!”

Proverbs

In the past when I’ve gotten a new bible I would take the old one and find all of the verses that had been underlined and then underlined them in the new one to make sure I could find those little jewels for quick reference. That way I could whip the Word out and slay someone without any hesitation.
I bought a new bible about a year ago and promptly took some sandpaper to the outside leather. It’s pretentious, but I didn’t want a bible that looked like it just came out of the little box that they come in. Although I did care so much that I made sure it had silver edges on the pages. Not plain and never gold! Oh, enough rambling about how much of a tool I can be!
Since I didn’t underline any of my old verses, I was forced to go back through and find things that caught my eye to underline. Lately, I’ve been doing that in Proverbs and thought I might share some.
6:27-28 “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?” (referring to lust & sexual permiscuity)
11:22 “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.”
11:25 “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes other will be refreshed.”
13:20 “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.”
15:4 “The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.”
16:9 “In their hearts human beings plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
17:28 “Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.”
27:21 “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives.” (always used this to keep a level head when leading worship, but applicable in every area)

Complaint v. Construct

I played worship at our church this weekend and since I was only playing for the second time at this church I was the newbie and only knew a couple of people other than my sister. We played a set at the beginning of each service and then a final song at the end, so there was a good amount of time to sit around and talk. These were all good guys and I enjoyed talking to them on our down time, but I began noticing that one of the tendencies of even these awesome Christians was to begin talking about other churches. A lot of the people there came from Baptist churches and were obviously knowledgeable about the churches they had come from, so they weren’t just speaking from opinion or hearsay. There was actual fact involved. I noticed though that as a group we kept talking about how those other churches were constantly bashing our way of doing things. I honestly feel like the type of church we go to actually does do a lot of things right, but to say that we’ve figured it out and everyone else should watch and learn while we teach them what Jesus wanted the church to really look like is ridiculous.
Granted, we are almost totally hated in this area and constantly have to defend ourselves against claims that there are “gay people on staff” or that we are the “drinking church” or that we are “obviously not teaching the truth because there are so many people going there”. People naturally become defensive over these things, but we tend to go straight from defensive to offensive far too quickly. We defend ourselves against the idea that we have gay people on staff and then automatically stab them with statements like, “they’re obviously not doing something right if there are only 100 or so attending”.
One of the things that Jo and I have talked about is how God uses different types of churches and different forms of worship to reach different types of people. I used to constantly bash my old church and talk about all of the things that they need to change to stay “relevant” or whatever other catch phrase I would use. Who are they trying to be relevant for? For me?
Christ calls us to peace and unity amongst believers. All of the things that make us detest one another have nothing to do with Christ living in us. We see all of those things and can be fooled into thinking that, in fact, Christ doesn’t live in those people at all! We’re called to more than all of the chattering about one another that we allow.

Innocence of Kids

I’m at Birkdale in Huntersville looking for a little inspiration from anywhere. For those who’ve never been here, it’s pretty cool. It’s a self-contained outdoor mall with uber-cool apartments above all of the stores. In the middle is a roundabout that’s large enough to have a small “waterpark”, if you will. There are fountains shooting out of the ground from everywhere which mom’s bring their kids to play in and benches under large white arbors surrounding the play area for the mom’s to relax and talk while enjoying a reprieve.

Normally I wouldn’t think twice about this scene since I’ve sat here hundreds of times before and seen the same thing countless times. (Jo & I lived across the street from Birkdale our first year of marriage and this was probably my favorite place to chill out.) But something along the same line from the weekend brought it to my attention. A couple from our small group threw a graduation party for their oldest daughter and there were a ton of families there. There were toddlers, tweens, high-schoolers & graduates. In the field out back about 20 kids in their late teens were playing ultimate frisbee while younger kids played in the backyard running & doing flips & cartwheels.

A guy named Bruce from our small group was sitting in a chair in the backyard silently, when I asked, “What are you doing man? Why don’t you come join the adult party?!” He said, “I’m just enjoying watching all of the different age groups. There’s something so awesome about watching these kids have fun like this. Those young guys playing frisbee can run so fluidly & have no clue that they’ll one day move rigidly like me. But, the little kids have no clue that they’ll one day be able to run so fluidly instead of having short wobbly steps.”

They don’t think about the future much at all. They just enjoy being able to do what they’re capable of to it’s fullest extent. It’s innocent. The teens aren’t saying to themselves, “I’d better enjoy this now before I start having hip surgeries” And the small kids aren’t saying, “Well, I can’t run like the big kids, so why even try?” Enjoyment at it’s purest.

So these kids run through fountains at Birkdale in much the same way, chasing one another & screaming with delight. They fall down from time to time, get picked up by their mom, shed a few tears & within minutes join the fray once again. Their lives were meant to be enjoyed & they intend on doing it to their fullest ability.

Silence is Golden

I found myself reminiscing the other day about what it was like when I was a teenager and had no cellphone, no Facebook, no Twitter, no IM & only about 12 channels on television.  Believe me, I love my phone & really love Directv!  But I sometimes feel numb to it all.  I like knowing that I can keep up with people in ways that were never possible before.  As far as it maintaining real relationships, that’s all smoke & mirrors.  It’s nice to be in contact nonetheless.

My main difficulty is in being so sucked in.  We talk about being bombarded with media & advertising, but we are the ones that allow it.  I told Jo the other day that I was sick of looking at my phone through all of my favorite websites just to see if something has changed in the past 30 minutes.  What if it has?  What will it change in my life?  It’s a little of why I haven’t blogged quite as much.  I found myself looking to see how many people had looked.  How many care?  Will anyone comment?  If they do, will it be worthwhile??  Most things I say aren’t worthwhile.  There’s no difference.

To add to that, I’ve had very little to say lately.  I feel like the Lord has been growing parts of my life that don’t need any extra distractions.  So, I’ve been quiet and saving some things for myself.  Not everything is for everyone.  There are things that I could write on here in my best efforts to be “real” and they would honestly just tweak most people and make me look like a freak in their eyes.  I look at some of the things that Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) writes on Twitter and think, “why would you write or say some of those things??”  Some things should just be left alone.  Even if it’s remotely funny, just leave it be.

So, quiet has been a staple lately & it’s refreshing.  Just listening to worship music, reading, writing in my journal, & listening to sermons.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m still checking my sites, but I want to replace some things.  Bit by bit.  My life is too short to be worried about someone I don’t know all that well eating toast for breakfast or driving in the rain.  My life is mundane enough as it is.  I don’t need to take on someone else’s monotony too.  I like reading blogs that really dig deep, but I’m feeling exhausted with one sentence, compartmentalized glimpses into people’s lives.

Sorry, just rambling….

Playlist Today

Put a “Genius” playlist of Being Here by The Stills on the ipod today.

-Everything I Build by The Stills
-Sing the Changes by The Fireman
-Bodysnatchers by Radiohead
-The Shock of Lightning by Oasis (Manchester boys…even if they are City fans)
-Jager Yoga by CSS
-I Sing I Swim by Seabear
-Glass of Water by Coldplay
-Ragged Wood by Fleet Foxes
-Cath… by Death Cab for Cutie
-He Doesn’t Know Why by Fleet Foxes
-The Heinrich Maneuver by Interpol
-Challengers by The New Pornographers (i hate their name…good song)
-My Eyes by Travis
-Olympic Airways by Foals
-Gideon by My Morning Jacket
-It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry by Glasvegas
-Intervention by Arcade Fire
-The Weight of the World by Editors
-Rest My Chemistry by Interpol
-Chinese Translation by M. Ward

I do these genius playlists a lot, but few are quite as good as this one was. Genius got it done today!

Things Just Work Out Sometimes

I’ve had a pretty interesting couple of weeks, I have to admit. I’ve been fairly busy with driving here and there & then last week I was playing for our church’s worship team, so I had lots of practice, rehearsal and the weekend itself. Aside from that, the Lord has made some pretty interesting things come about.

I’ve had some pretty sobering conversations with some guys recently that have experienced some of the same things that I have. I wrote recently that the Lord was allowing those types of things to happen & he still is. The whole thing of sin being exposed to the light has been recurrent with me lately.

Also, I found myself going into this whole experience with worship praying that none of it would be about me, but it would be solely focused on the Lord. As I prayed that on Thursday I thought, ‘The Lord is gonna let me gonna screw up this weekend to humble me! Dangit! Why didn’t I just pray that everything would be awesome or something like that??’

Sure enough. I had to lead my song at the end of the service after the pastor was done praying. I was playing & singing, so I when I got on stage I had to setup my mic stand, music stand (since it was my first weekend), hook up my guitar & turn it on, and hook up my ear monitors. The ear monitors are soundproof, so all you hear is what’s coming through the system. People were standing in the way, so it took me longer to set up my mic & music, then I put on my guitar, hooked it up & heard the 2-count. I sang on 3. I tapped the tuner with my foot to turn on the guitar on 2 and just played a couple of bars to lead myself in. No one knew the difference with that. But, I was forced to play it by memory & worst of all, my ear monitors weren’t plugged in. I couldn’t hear the band. I couldn’t hear the other vocalists. I could only feel the vibration of my guitar and my voice sounded like someone inside a box with a sock in their mouth. It sucked!! I kept looking around at the other vocalists for some kind of reaction to let me know if I was even relatively close to the right notes. They in turn thought that I was looking at them because they were hitting wrong notes. When the song ended people clapped & I automatically plugged the monitors in. People told me that it sounded awesome, but I couldn’t judge whether or not they were just being nice. The band leader told me it sounded great & when I told him what happened he almost crapped. So, the Lord humbled me. Nice & solid, from the outset. I texted Jo later & told her I was sweating like Reuben Studdard.

It seems a little dumb in one way, but it’s been awesome to see the Lord working. As nerve-racking as worship was it’s kind of put me on a high to know that the Lord has been laying things before me and having my back along the way.