one year past....

Time moves so fast.

It would seem to me that it's been just about one year to the day since I started my first ever Daniel fast. I don't know who else in the group had already done one, but I knew it was my first. Nothing but fruits and veggies (basically) for many days. It's funny. It was such a huge deal to me then, but now I can't recall how many days it lasted. I think it was 10 because I remember counting down the days.

What's happened since then? It doesn't just seem like a year ago. It seems like, cliches aside, a lifetime ago. Who are those people in my memories? They, we, don't appear to be the same although our faces have similar features. I look back in my memories and I think we are an enigma. Something has changed. It's evolution I suppose.

I feel distant from the memory now. I think we went to see Upton towards the end of the fast. I remember standing outside Life Center, was it day nine or ten, I don't remember. But I remember smoking a cigarette with Chip and Merr and even over the taste of smoke and filter, all I could taste in my mouth was 10-day old "tart" ness from all the fruit and fruit drinks I'd eaten and drank that week. That's the memory that sticks out the most.

And I wonder to myself, "How can we be a year past that?" We've welcomed others into the circle, gathered together, agrued, had crises, mended, fractured again and now where are we? I don't feel at liberty to say because I can't categorize it. Maybe others could put it better. But I can't.

I look back on it now with a sense of sadness. I don't know how much I've progressed in the last year. I don't know if I was able to turn that fast into anything lasting, or if it was just 10 days that I forgot as soon as they were done. I can't say what's happening inside. Am I rotting? or growing?

Is there a difference?

Maybe one day we'll all try it again. Maybe that's in our path. But I don't know. I fear not. I hope I'm wrong. But maybe summer and the warm weather and porch settings will return with something in store.

Something unexpected. Something great.

there's really not much to read here. don't waste your time. seriously, it's all rambling crap. ok, suit yourself. but you've been warned

I realize now that for me, this blogging format that we've embraced over the last year or so has become restrictive to the point of discouraging me from writing at all. There was a time when I could write for days on end and I would enjoy the thought of blogging. But now, I feel like every time I open up this page to type, something relevant or poignant has to come out. And the truth is that on nine out of ten days, I'm not poignant.

So it seems to me that when I sit down here in front of the computer, I'm doing so knowing full well that I'm not going to divulge anything more, not one letter more, than I want to share. Perhaps if I had balls and didn't fear repercussion then I would write more openly. But even that isn't true. The reason I don't write more, the reason I don't share everything, is because there are still those things that I find best to keep to myself. Everyone deals with this.

But it flies in the face of everything we've believed, or want to believe, about true community. I once read something along the lines of this...

"True love is withholding the truth when you know it's going to hurt"

And I realize that in our spectrum, in our Christian world where honesty and integrity are so very important to the fibers of our being, we want to look at a phrase like that and scream, "Bullshit!"

But sometimes, on a lot of days and especially those when I'm trying to blog, I believe every word of that line. I believe that true love is sparing someone's hurt in light of "truth". And for me to say that causes fear. I know how this will all sound and look and I can even hear some of the oral arguments that could be summoned to denounce such a phrase. And that's ok. Because it's not as if I've got all these grievances stored up and penned up, just waiting to deliver them. That's not the case.

(writer's note: if you're reading this, I must have chosen not to delete it. Just know that when I was typing it, this was the first point where deleting this post crossed my mind)

I don't really know what I'm trying to say. I know that it's become a chore to write and write with some sort of consistency. But yet, I still like doing it. It's a strange paradox that I can't quite explain. It may just be nothing more than the literal enjoyment of clicking the keyboard and hearing the sound of punching letters. I don't know.

But I'll keep going and you'll keep going and then someday this will all make perfect sense.

or not.

BLACKING OUT THE FRICTION

In my world, I write with the lights off and the music on. I'm momentarily free of distortion, so I'll write while I can; knowing full well that this desire will soon fade. It won't be long until I feel the need to run from these keys because that's what I like to do.

I'm feeling heavy and confused, currently. I'm wondering if I'm destined to work in a restaurant all of my life. And I'm not even asking in that despondent kind of way because if I was told that that's where I was supposed to be, I would do it. But it's the not knowing that is tearing a fucking hole in my head. It's the questions and the un-answers that leave me wounded and confused and scared.

So I sit here, at 1952 Mulberry St., pondering my new existence as a city dweller. Because of work I've been unable to anchor myself here which has defeated the purpose of living here. I think that soon it will remedy itself but in the mean time, it's hard. I miss my friends. This distance, while not fatal, often leaves me with the feeling of being alone. I miss those girls and silently fear that I will not be there to see them grow up. I don't know if I would forgive myself for that.

It's not all bad. I feel like I'm growing up and learning some things about myself, which is good. I feel like I'm becoming something new, whether or not I know what that is yet. I guess these are just the growing pains they talk about....it's hard.

But I've got to believe it's worth it...

list

I'm one hundred percent unaware of what I'm supposed to write about today. But I want to write for some reason. So I think I will start out by writing down the first 10 songs that randomly show up on my mp3 player...perhaps this will get the writing juices flowing.

1. Ryan Adams - "Dear Chicago"
2. Mute Math - "Chaos"
3. Modest Mouse - "Black Cadillacs"
4. Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama - "Satisfied Mind"
5. Tom Petty - "Learning to Fly"
6. Kathleen Edwards - "Back to Me"
7. Keane - "Bend and Break"
8. Nada Surf - "Stalemate"
9. Fountains of Wayne - "Everything's Ruined"
10. Kutless - "All Who Are Thirsty"

I kid not that was the final song. That's pretty interesting because I remember playing this song at the UR shortly after this Kutless record came out. Of course we've played it several times, but I think that time was special because Jordie and Clint were there and we played with electric guitars.

That was fun. This is a great version of this song. I've decided to let it play as I type because sometimes I don't get enough "inspirational" music throughout the day. Although I don't really buy into Christian/secular musical debate. I don't think about that too often, but maybe I should. I know a lot of people who think that I'm diluting my brain by listening to music that they don't think is very Christian like.

But I've always felt like I don't come to music (some music anyway) to get my spiritual thirst fed. I guess there are some times when I do (when we worship together on Sundays or practice on Tuesdays) and sometimes when I don't (Pearl Jam concerts).

Actually I think music is just another area that I am gray about. I know it's not cool for Christians to admit to being gray about anything. It's all supposed to be black and white. All these issues that I've written about my doubt before are supposed to be clear cut but for some reason that's not often the case with me. I don't think I could only listen to Christian radio. I think my head would explode because, c'mon, some of it is just plain terrible.

Ugh, I'm exhausting myself. I thought this might be going somewhere but if it is, it's going there without me. Goodbye for now all. Hope you are well.

The bitch of it....

Recently, I've started using a new phrase....

"the bitch of it"

Sure, it doesn't have the poetic beauty of "oh for pete's sake" but it's just what popped into my head a few weeks ago.

It's used when I want to express what I find particularly wrong with a situation. For example, North Korea is pursuing nuclear weapons. I would say to you, "Timmy, here's the bitch of it. They could use these weapons to blow up South Korea."

I think that's a good example.

Well, I would also use the phrase to describe my attempts at blogging lately. I want to, but the bitch of it is, I just don't feel like. Inspiration, or the lack thereof, is the bitch of it.

And why is that? Why does someone like myself, who actually enjoys the physical act of punching keys into a keyboard and seeing the results scroll across a computer screen, lack the desire to write about life at a pace of more than one post per month?

Where did the love go? A year ago, well, more than that now, we found ourselves this exciting new arena...the blog. Granted, we were about a year behind the trendy teenagers who've been blogging forever, but still, we found it and embraced it. Posting was the "it" thing to do; now it often seems as a "keeping up with the Jones'" situation...posting for the sake of not having to answer the question, "So why haven't you blogged lately?"

I'm as guilty, if not more so, than anyone. Often, my posts are neither frequent or forthcoming in nature. When I do write, I often glaze over anything that I think would expose something inside of me that I would rather, for the time being anyway, keep to myself.

I think I've got to chew on that for awhile. So I'm signing off. Wishing you all well.