the point is that Jesus is huge

Turning a blind eye is never the point. Pretending that flaws don't exist is already making too big a deal of those flaws. If something is so terrible or embarassing that it can't be mentioned, then that thing carries much more power or weight than it should. How this translates into actual relationships is trickier, but maybe it starts with self-awareness and openness with others. I heard someone say once that the best thing for a person would be if their sins were broadcast on the news every evening. This makes a lot of sense to me. Not because sin is great and powerful, or that people need to be shamed or humiliated. That's missing the point completely. Hiding sin gives sin power. There is immense pressure and power in secrets. Confession is freedom, openeness is freedom. The point is that Jesus is huge.

But I will admit that this is all something I realize with my head that I can work on putting into practice. Because I wouldn't want my sins broadcast everyday.

I was thinking yesterday: how could a God so big make such a big deal of sin? Next to God, sin is such a little thing. In these moments, it's hard for me to remember all the pain and suffering caused by human cruelty (or thoughtlessness). But the point is never sin, the point is God.

More on touch: touch doesn't require words, and that's probably why it appeals to me right now. I feel like I'm talking talking talking with people. My life is consumed with words, with reading and writing and talking. And it's good. But silence and touch are also stellar.

stuffz

Current status: watching girls in windows on other side of dorm. This is the first time I have. And no, nothing exciting or embarassing is going on. I was on the phone for an interview a few months ago, and one of the questions was: 'how would your closest friends describe you?' The first word I said was creepy. I decided afterwards that wasn't very accurate, and that a lot of people that knew me (but not well) would describe me as creepy, but my closest friends wouldn't. I guess I can be creepy, but it's intentional, which I think takes away from the actual creepiness.

Hm...the wind just picked up, and there's a bad smell on the wind.

Less creepy: I feel like I have no time to listen to music these days. This isn't good. I think that music is an important part of life and that I should take the time to listen to good music. I already feel this great pressure to fill my time up, because I don't have much. This is good and bad. Good because I will hopefully fill my time with good things. Bad because I will probably burn out if I fill up all my time with doing things. I think music might be an important part of this quarter for me, in the way that stories and poetry might be at other times. Right now, stories and poetry are part of my work, so they're not as good for getting time away to do what I really enjoy. I don't know if that's true, but it is different. But music isn't something I have to do right now, listening or playing.

I've felt a great longing for intimacy lately. I thought I was just feeling horny (a word I don't like, oh well) but decided that wasn't it: I've been thinking about sex, but not the physical pleasure of it, more the closeness and nakedness. This is showing up in my poetry. Sometimes its strange to be around 13 or 14 year olds who've had sex (which feels like such a clumsy term), when I haven't. That would probably be weird for them too, if they knew. Incidentally, I read a sweet poem about sex and intimacy and loneliness today ("Privilege of Being" by Robert Hass). Here are a few lines:

I woke up feeling so sad this morning because I realized
that you could not, as much as I love you,
dear heart, cure my loneliness

I think that this is the deep grief that accompanies loneliness, that no human relationship can create total one-ness. On the other hand, this truth creates a great freedom within relationship, freedom to free others from curing you (they won't, they can't).

"

tire

I feel exhausted. Not just tired, but tired and empty. There's some humor in this for me, since it was the first day off of training stuff or mandatory sessions (except our staff met this morning). I'm ready for this day to end, it was one of the ones where I felt like I needed to flee and give up. But I don't think I will. These, I think, are the really hard days for me: when the temptation is present to turn my back on something.

I've been asking Jesus for a lot of help lately. When I'm in the moment, help for that moment and that time, help for right now. And I think he shows up. Which doesn't mean everything magically becomes better, or how I want it to be. I don't really know what it means. Maybe something about redemption. Maybe it has something to do with magic, because a lot of things that happen in my life feel like magic, or like there's some fantastical element to them. Mystery.

one life

I'll be busy this year. Today was the day that all the freshman moved on to the floor, so of course I was thinking about the day that I moved in last year, and how much different things are now, and how much different this year will be.

Here is something I've been thinking about lately: one life. Not one life in the "you only have one life, live it" sense, but in the sense of consistency, mostly with "spiritual" things. Mostly that what I do in the public sphere needs to be an extension of what I do in the private sphere (and the reverse). In front of other people can't be the only time that I play worship songs, with other people can't be the only time that I study the Bible, or pray. Service days can't be the time that I do ministry, or that I serve, it should just be an extension of what I do everyday.

Actually, I'm just noticing that this topic has been on my mind for several years. When I went down south after the tsunami, it was on my mind a lot. I noticed when I was there how eager me and everyone else on the team were to serve the people there. More eager than back home. And I realized that it can't be that way. Something in my life needed to change so that they balanced out and created one consistent life. There shouldn't be a change in my willingness to serve depending on if I'm on a mission trip or just walking around doing whatever I feel like. I was also thinking about this last year around this time, when I started working at the Kazba, and about how I was very open with the kids there, and that I needed to have one life and be open to the people here at school too.

Another thing I've been thinking about: attitude is more important in prayer than the words themselves. It's not as important that I pray that God's will be done as it is to live it out. I feel like what I'm thinking is less simple than "actions speak louder than words", but I don't know if I can explain it now.

Anyhow, I feel like this post is full of weird catchphrases and Christianisms, and those tire me out, so I'm done.

reunions

I went over to some friends' house tonight, and it felt like a family reunion, seeing friends that I hadn't seen in a while (1 week-3 months). But more like a real family reunion than blood family reunions. Friends = family. Once I got back on campus, I immediately regretted that I'd left.

This happens to me a lot, I'll leave a place and feel a great sense of loss and regret. Like I'm missing out. I have this feeling a lot, it's one of the things that ruins me. When I'm in one place and feel like I'm missing out because I'm not in another place. When I'm with one person and feel like I'm missing out because I'm not with another. Which is, of course, true. Any time I'm not with someone I'm missing out on that part of their life. That's okay. Shared experience creates a bond, but sometimes it's really good to be apart from people and then come back together, no matter how long or short that period is.

I don't want to be living in this terror that I am missing out, that my temporary absence from peoples lives means that my relationships with them are falling apart. Fear = lame. Life/love/peace = cool.

lonely + Jesus

I feel like I will be very alone this year, which doesn't really make sense. I have more and closer friends than I did last year, I'll be closer to the other guys on my floor (I already am), I like the other members of my staff. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's that feeling of division, divided between people. Or else it could just be from coming off the summer, when I saw the same small group of people a lot. Who knows.

I also feel like I'll see a lot of Jesus this year. He has a way of popping up, especially when things are busy and confusing, which this year will probably be. I see and hear God in the busy and intense times, and not so much in the chill out times (like the last couple weeks when I've just been kicking around). I haven't really seen much of God the last week or two, but I'm sure he's sneaking around anyway. As Rumi writes, "No metaphor can hold this truth / that knows how to keep secret / and when to show itself." Maybe God's giving me a break from himself. But if so, I'm not enjoying it.

Anyway, I ran out of soap sometime last week, so I think I'm going to go buy some. And the fire alarm just went off.

advice, listening

I rarely ask others for advice. I've been thinking about this some lately. I'll ask advice about technical problems: money, how to fix something, how to write my paper. But not about existential problems, problems with God, with others, with me, with life. I ask God for "advice" (which is good), but not other people. I'm not sure why. Probably because I don't usually talk to other people about those problems. Part of the reason I don't is that a lot of times its not about getting advice, but when someone talks to you about their problems, it's hard to feel okay with yourself for just listening instead of finding some more tangible way to help. Usually when people give me advice, I feel like they end up missing the point. Not only the point that I just want them to listen, but the point of what it actually is that's bothering me. I often feel like I blow it when I'm listening to people, I end up feeling inadequate, or like I said the wrong thing and missed the point, or that I should have said more. Oh well.

I end up learning one way or another though. Mostly by observing others, myself. Seeing how people do things and realizing "that's how I want to do it" or "that's definitely not how I want to do it" or just by listening to people talk. I wasn't in boy scouts, but I thing I've turned out okay even so. Another part of the problem is that I sometimes just feel dumb talking about my existential troubles, and suspect that they must look dumb from the outside. And I don't like the uneasy they're-witnessing-me-having-a-break-down-and-it-must-seem-silly feeling. It's an unfortunate tendency that I need to hurdle, but sometimes I feel embarassed about emotion, positive or negative.

I also realized the other day that in my life, I'll only be able to read a few thousand books. This makes me nervous, because that seems like such a small amount. But when I read, I want to hear what I'm reading. This is easy to do with poetry, but its hard to do with a long, sustained story. But that's what I want to do. Hear what it says, and what that says to me. Books have been a big part of my life, and probably always will be. Better make sure that I'm paying attention to something that I'm expending time and money and energy and life towards (including people, incidentally).

I'm feeling pretty aimless this week, just sitting around. It will be good to get to school although then I might have an overload of things to do.

snow

I'm reading a book called Snow, and it feels like my life. Not the actual events. It's more the style of the whole thing, the feel. I feel like my life is a string of bizarre, confusing, and beautiful events, and that's how Snow feels to me too. There's something mysterious about life right now, and maybe in Snow also. Sorry for using 'beautiful', it's really not a very descriptive word, it feels weakened, but I don't know what else to use. Right now, I feel very overwhelmed by the confusion and beauty of life. (Confusion + beauty = mystery?). All these things happen that I don't understand.

Summer feels like it's over to me. This is probably because the tribe that I've been hanging out with is no longer together. Well, it is, but its different. Different enough to not be the same thing. People are returning, and that changes things.

These things make me feel nervous. I feel nervous about other things, too, like where I will get money for school this year. But when I look back on my life, or even just last school year, everything worked out fine. God knows what's going down. If he wants me to stay at SPU, he'll keep me there. Sometimes I get nervous about this too, though, because I wonder if I should be doing more. This is, maybe, a valid concern, but I don't worry about it much.

Anyway, I think I am going to finish Snow now.

scripture + redemption + marriage + relationship

"Don't fall down the well of scripture.
Use the words to keep moving."

Rumi wrote those words 800 years ago, and they resonate very strongly with me today. Jesus is the way, and the Bible keeps me moving along that way. The Bible isn't the way. I feel like I'm in some danger of sounding anti-Bible, but I'm not. I love the Bible, but it's a very messy group of books, and confusing.

I want to believe that God will redeem everything and everyone. That those who go to hell will one day be redeemed, that Satan will be saved. Vengeance is God's, and I hope he never takes it. But what I want to believe is less important than what's actually true. It's no good to create God in my own image. Right now, I guess I believe that some people are going to hell, for "good", but I'll continue to hope that somehow, many many people have got it mixed up, and God will redeem everything (where everything really means everything).

A couple of years ago, I was at my friend's house for breakfast. I was eating with his family, and his dad asked his mom whether she liked syrup or not. This event has stuck with me for a long time. Initially, it seemed surprising that he wouldn't know. But after thinking about, it became a very meaningful moment for me, to see that after twenty years of marriage (and more of friendship), he still had more to learn about his wife and, better, was still trying to learn more and learn better. That's what it meant to me. I hope that if I ever marry, I can do the same thing.

But it's hard to remain open to learning more about someone. It's almost like if you leave yourself open to learning more, you can never close anything down completely. But it's appealing to close things down because it implies this intimate knowledge of someone else that you have. I don't think the two things are necessarily exclusive though. I suppose it's going on what you know while still leaving someone room to change (and for the new things you learn to change how you look at them).

I'm very tired right now. Partially on a physical level, but not primarily. More just on a relational level. I'm looking forward to school starting up.