Hipster clothes and shopping at church...

This post was originally called "Pardon me, the cynic." which i started about 6mos ago and never posted it because I felt it was incomplete. Recent thoughts have been related so I figured now was as good a time as any.

The old post:

Yesterday, I went to a church that I have attended on and off for a couple years. I went with a very poor attitude, a bitter heart, and I judged them for every move they made, or didn't. I would even say that I went purely because "I should go to church" and because it was something to do on a Sunday night. So, I sat and wrote. I've paraphrased a little so that it will makes sense to more than just myself.

"With arms high and heart abandoned" we don't stand in awe of the One who made it all, we hang out for a couple hours to spiritually get off and then leave. Worship is apparently now a concert, and its really important for the people up front to wear all the trendy clothes, even the really weird wtf accessories. I don't get it. What the hell happened to church? It seems this group of people collectively decided to believe that his is what church was supposed to be. Somewhere along the way, we forgot that living a godly life means more than just once a week. My God."

Then it came time for the teaching, and like usual at this church, I found myself challenged.

The new addition:

I read that and I know exactly how I felt because I feel the same way every time I go back. This time, however, I started wondering if what I felt had more to do with me and less the people I was judging. I walked in the same way I go into "that store" at the mall; similar feelings to discovering "that guy". Everybody looks the same, and I don't feel like I fit, nor do I want to. This time the teaching didn't do it for me either. I was distracted, sure, but it felt the same as any message I had heard in any church. Amidst frustration I did see some people I haven't seen in a long time and that was nice. Leaving, I had a stark realization. I stopped looking at all I had found wrong with the place an saw, maybe for the first time, what they were doing right. Collectively, they are a group (a large one at that) who are doing what seems best to them to do good and follow their God. As it happens, they also all like to dress similarly which shouldn't matter. None of it should matter, but somehow it does. I don't like it, and I don't like that I don't like it. It's another manifestation of the paradox that seems to follow me and a lot of people of similar age who call themselves Christians. We like Jesus and a lot of the Christian ideals like love your neighbor, but not religion. Not church. Not dressing the same as everyone and singing songs that nobody knows the meaning of.

I'm not sure if this is just babbling at this point, and I apologize for the complaining tone, but it is honest. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm feeling, what I think about it all, and what, if anything, I can do about it.

Always caught and never dropped.

When you're in it, you know you're in it. The feeling that overcomes you, the smells that fill your nostrils, and everything else you touch and see and feel are just... different. The world, at least for brief moments finds itself at peace and everything is moving in a glorious harmony. The pain is still real, heartache still happens, but everything is as it should be. When you're in it, you know you're in it. Anne Lamot says this is like a child being tossed into the air by a parent, feeling the exhilaration of being free, but knowing that you will always be caught. It never crosses the mind of a child that its father may drop them, because in their world such a thing is impossible. When you're in it, you feel the same surefire confidence. Right now, I feel as if I cannot fail. I know I might mess up and it may seem as though I have failed at times, but because I'm in it, failures become like stepping stones for future success. I don't know if there has ever been a time in my life where I have felt more at peace or had greater confidence for the future. I'm doing a job where I get to interact with both people and food, the two great loves of my life (other than the requisites of God, family, friends, etc... you know).

This is me:

• I have a degree in psychology. Yes I'm analyzing you.
• For the last year and a half, I have worked for an electrical construction company. I didn't love it, but the money was good and I worked with some great people.
• I have always loved to eat, but only within the last two years did I realize that this was more than just a love, but a passion and an obsession.
• Now, I work with some fantastic people at a restaurant with delicious food. Its ridiculous at times, but it's so great.
  
• I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future, and that is just about the best thing I can ask for. (Cheesy, I know, but it's true.)

Just a bit ducky.

I went for a walk, alone in the woods, not knowing what I might find.
Some trees and rotting apples, a river, women fitness walking.
Sand, bark dust in my shoe, a reminder of a flood in 1996.
No trespassing signs, a couple, some friends fishing.
And a man.

He wasn't necessarily fat, but had that beer belly thing going on. He was sitting on a bench and I observed that his arms could rest of the top his belly. He had two loaves of bread with him and there were ducks all around him. Tearing little pieces off each slice he would flail an arm, which would fling the bread, and his arm would return to rest on his belly. What I loved most about this man was that he seemed peaceful sitting there. The ducks were happy. He seemed happy. And yet, he was also alone. I can't say that he felt alone because we didn't converse, and I doubt he even knows of my existence or that I was watching him. But sitting there, he would break the bread and share it with his friends, and there he found peace. I love that.

And then grace.

Showers are usually intended to make things clean and new again. Sometimes, showers seem to remind of the mess that is always present but pushed into the corners and along the edges so we don't remember they're there. Sometimes, spring rains will push all of the mud and debris from along the curbs and corners of the street into the middle. In those times I hardly want to walk down the street. Showers for bathing can bring the same thing- A reminder of how dirty we have become and the chance to become clean. Sometimes, though, it seems the dirt of our youth has become forever lodged in the pores of our soul. Adolescent misunderstanding and thoughtless pursuit have stained the underside of our fingernails and all we can do is scrub. Unfortunately, time is what will take the stains away, not scrubbing harder. To perform an act over and over intending a different result is insanity, right? So why do we always go out to play in the mud and expect to stay clean?

One day, the mirror...

told me who I was. It stopped, stared, looked me in the eye, and faked half a smile. Then it told me who I was. Except that isn't me. I'm different than that, a little less stereotypical. I try to convince myself that the mirror is wrong and that the real me is more genuine, more loving, less cynical, less angry, perhaps more muscular, and a little cleaner kept. Then I realize the mirror isn't lying. Sure, it doesn't know who I am, but then again, sometimes I wonder if I even do. All I know is...

Transition.

It's funny how sometimes we create plans. Extravagant plans that encapsulate every last little detail. Finally, we reach a point where the plan should materialize and those little details should blossom into flowers of reality. Then, I realize that this is real life and real life doesn't always look like the picture on the menu. Not that its, bad; just different than expected.

I find conversations with current college students very entertaining in a sadistic kind of way. My humor is at their perhaps misguided view of a grand future. "After I graduate, I'm going to get a job with [insert grandiose cadre of companies] and live in Portland." It really does sound nice, and perhaps even I will leave the comfort of my parent's home and venture into that place called the real world. I mean like the TV show.

Having graduated and found nothing but dead ends with my pursuit of that job which would allow me to live in Portland, I find myself at home again, but with new perspective. It has taken me months to come to terms with, but I think its good. I've said before that I am "caught in transition with hopes and dreams I don't yet know what to do with." This is 100% true, but I might be getting closer to knowing what to do with them. I'm learning that one's current mindset is very easily influenced by those they are around. For instance, when I'm at work, I think about how I could be an electrician and a good one at that. Slowly, the back of my mind lends a quiet voice, reminding me of those hopes and dreams which teeter on the edge of becoming fears with each thought of a future without them.

I had another realization. I didn't even know what hopes or dreams I had until I found myself months into the summer job turned into "work until I find a 'real' job". What if I had found a job straight out of the gate? Would I have slowed down long enough to think about what I want to live for and who I want to become? Perhaps I would have been okay with it; that's what scares me the most.

Almost tears.

Its been four years minus a small handful of days since I last cried. I don't just mean tears either because I get those all the time when I accidentally pull out a nose hair. I mean a good cry. I simply do not cry. I like to say its because I'm an "iron pillar of masculine strength". While I may wish for that to be true, it is unfortunately not. This isn't to say that I'm not moved by things or sometimes wish that I could cry. I wish I could cry all the time. I hear that its even healthy. I even think of times when it would be appropriate to cry. I am moved by both simple things and complex things; the moon on a clear morning before the sun comes up, flowers growing where they should not, that damned biggest loser show (embarrassing, I know), and things far more serious. Tonight I was driving and thinking, which I do often, and a thought entered my tiny yearning brain. I love food and I would even venture to say I might enjoy it more than most people I know. It's never a chore and always enjoyable. I love it. But what about people who don't have food? Then I imagined a little scenario. There was a little girl I met in Romania (you can read about her in "Dandelions") and I will never forget her or her brown eyes. She wanted me to buy flowers from her, but I refused. I imagined her asking me for food and me telling her no. Then a flood of other children's faces flooded my mind, campers I had at Tilikum, children of friends, even my family and my friends. And for a split second a tear wanted to push itself out onto my cheek. Selfishly, I held it back and thought of something else. Those images are sticky though. Especially telling them no. And that's what I do. This is me wondering what its like to be somebody who does something about passions and convictions. This is me in awe of the inconsistencies of my own life. This is me hating money for seeming to hold me back from doing something about these feelings (which I know is a total farse). This is a small bit of the dissonance I feel between my mind and my heart. May their blood be on my hands if I go on as before, and continue to do nothing.

Puddles of freedom.

I love puddles. Ever since I started being a little boy 22 years ago, I've loved them. Mostly, they are fun to splash in, sometimes they are really big, sometimes they have cool reflections and sometimes they are the nastiest things ever. Maybe literally. At work, there are a lot of puddles because the building does not yet have a roof and water collects on the concrete. There are a lot of puddles outside too, but I don't really like those ones because they are really deep and super muddy. However, this is not about those puddles, this is about the ones inside.

I went through a couple week streak where I really didn't like my job. Not that it was really all that bad or that I didn't feel fortunate; that was not the case at all. My mind was simply elsewhere. I would walk through the building to deliver materials to the electricians who needed them and splash through the puddles on my way. Except, for tiny moments, I was alive in another world. I would imagine stepping into the puddle and falling into an alternate reality.

You know the feeling when you step off of a dock into deep water? The cold envelops your entire body and for a second you think about gasping for air, but you don't because you're underwater and that would be stupid. That is the feeling I would imagine each time I stepped in a puddle. Actually, who am I kidding? I secretly hope to fall into an underwater world each time I step in a puddle. I imagine the cold surrounding my entire body. I long for the feeling of being almost out of air and finally coming to the surface. I wish... I wish I was on a dock with screaming (joyful) all around and the sun beating down on me. Children chanting for me to go in the lake. I suppose each time I step in a puddle, its like reliving those moments when my body entered the cool lake on hot summer days. That was camp. It is in these simple moments of reclaimed reverie that I find freedom.

Perfect music.

Sometimes, every song seems like the same song. The same album, the same track, stuck on repeat. It's torturous. Always longing for, but never finding, the song that will absolve this feeling of uneasiness. Then, finally, by chance a song more perfect than you expected falls on your ears and everything, at least for that moment is okay; not because things are actually okay, but because the music of that moment is. My favorite times are when there is no audible music, and that same feeling washes over. It might be the wind or rain or the way light catches you for a split second but for a moment, things are perfect.

Fire.

For the past several years, I have been involved with the Muscular Dystrophy Association. It's one of those things where, if you allow yourself to be truly alive in the moments you are at their summer camp, you can't help but return the next year. It's often hard and frustrating, but there is something about it. Most of my time throughout the week was spent simply 'hanging out' with my camper and others in our cabin group. There is always a fire burning, and one camper is always encouraging somebody to throw more wood on the fire... to "make it bigger".

Muscular dystrophy in one sense is a very sad disease. No cure. Often, a shortened life expectancy. Limited mobility. A constant dependence on others. Though these negatives are stinging reality in the lives of most of the campers, there is much to be learned from them. Many learn more about love, the beauty of interdependence, and the joy of true community than many of us ever will. For this week of camp, all bets are off, the field is leveled, and everyone is somebody.

Many of the campers are loud and boisterous, while others remain practically silent. Yet to each of them, camp is like a little morsel of heaven. Unfortunately, this heaven isn't eternal and has been cut short. MDA just announced that the age limit for their summer camps would be dropping from 21 to 17. 4 years of this magical place stolen from many of them. Apparently, those making the decisions haven't spent time at one of their summer camps, or this decision would have happened only after much more deliberation. For these kids, this is what they live the other 51 weeks of the year for. It is the highlight of their years, and for many and their shortened lives, it is a yearly source of strength, love, and joy.

When a camper has reached an age where they will no longer be able to return to camp, their counselor is asked to say a few things to everyone about their camper. This year, I was up, as Ben is now 21. Typically, there are about 6-10 "graduates" as they are lovingly referenced. This time, there were 37. Not just 37 campers, but 37 of about 90 campers who will no longer be invited back to camp; not another week of joy and camaraderie, and no partaking of a small morsel of heaven.

Yet, there is still a fire burning. A passion for life and for living; for loving each other and relishing in the joy that comes simply from 'hanging out' with one another. That is a fire which can never be put out.