What's a G6?

Yesterday, my mom took me to Wal-Mart. (To be honest, I was quite excited about the trip. Wal-Mart! Now this is rural America.) As I typically do, I hopped in the car, turned the radio to a random hip-hop station and, upon realizing that this song is amazingly, also my favorite song, I spin the dial, causing the five cars surrounding us to also hear "Like a G6." Hands in the air, holding the beat in my shoulders, I was completely immersed in the world of my music. As the song reaches its repetitious maximum (because honestly, how many times can she say slizzard before I get bored?) and I return the volume to a non-damaging level, my mother looks at me, sincerely curious, and asks, "What's a G6?"

And with that, I smile and remember why I love being home. I love my mother. I love that she never grows tired of my antics (or at least hides her distaste well). I love that, regardless if I'm home for a weekend or a week, my mother will buy me soy milk — and then cook me breakfast every morning so I never have a chance to use it. I love that she always has an update on the dogs, informing me of their eating habits, the growth of their hair, their sleeping patterns.

I even love that every time we hop in the car and drive by the neighbor's house, she will tell me that she does not understand why they have a tennis court (No one is ever on it, she insists. She thinks she should come over and ask to play since no one ever uses that tennis court).

As much as I may mock her for stories, I love my mother and all of who she is. I love that she always wants to share her life with me, mindless details about the neighbors and all. And I wouldn't trade her — or her stories — for the world. She's my mom and I love her.

"It's a plane, Mom. A private jet."

"Oh." She smiles. "That's what I thought, but I didn't know."

And with that, we drive on to the land of cheap things made in China, just my mom and I and some awful rap music on empty Indiana roads.  This is what it means to be home.

Good Thing I Didn't Like Doritos in the First Place

Dr. McDuffee told us a story today that went something like this:

This young kid, Mike, came up to me the other day. He's homeless, strung out on coke, and he asked, "Can God make a Dorito so hot he can't eat it?" and I said to him, "Mike, why are you asking that question? Because it could be a good one. But if you have the wrong motives, you have to be careful — God might make you eat that Dorito."

And I wondered, as I stockpile library books for my theology projects, how many unbearable Doritos do I have awaiting me in heaven? How many times have I come to God, treating him like a hostage and badgering him for the answers or else?  How many times have I knocked down the curtain to the Holy of Holies and demanded that the truth be instilled upon me?

How many times have I tried to stick God, to catch him in a mistake, and prove myself superior to the Great I AM?

Lord, may I learn humility from the foot of the Cross. May I learn to seek your face and not simply your facts. May I learn to rightly see you as the God who is capable of far more than I can comprehend. May I never feel threatened by ungodly hot doritos.

What If Writing Is Just About Winning?

I've been writing a lot lately. Some for school, but most of my time lately has been sucked into writing essays for competitions, competitions with deadlines fast approaching. Each piece, as I come to concluding paragraph, makes me think that it is perfect, that my heart is embedded in these 3,000 words.

And then it strikes me.

Fear.

My heart races as I glance over the content. What ifs fill my mind and I forget to breathe.

What if they don't believe me?

What if they think my writing style is frustratingly sporadic with its numerous prepositional phrases and strange use of adverbs?

What if I can't find a faculty sponsor who has enough time to read my words and sign that it is thoughtful and well-written?

Or worse, what if they don't think its thoughtful?

What if, they read my heart-filled pages and think: mediocre.


What if, after all the hours poured into the language, into studying these topics into understanding what I believe about personhood and otherness; schizophrenia and my family, they simply add it to the pile, as another essay received, but not worthy of the prize?

Is it enough for me to write well, to write truth, to strive to say what I mean and to fight for what I believe in? Or is the goal to walk away with the prize, with a title that says I deserve recognition?

At the end of the day, if my story gets thrown into the pile and forgotten, has it lost its meaning, or was the purpose fulfilled simply in my writing of it?

Pouring Out The Past on Pages

It's not like its anything new: I've known the truth since I was 16 and my mother informed me of just why my parents' divorce was as painful and complicated as it was.

But writing it out, placing the words of the past onto neatly typed pages feels like razors sliding up my chest, puncturing my body, hoping to drain my heart of all that's within it.

There's something about declaring the truth that breaks you to pieces, that feels like are in the moment when you saw your parents fall from your pedestal, collapsing on the floor in all their brokenness, with scars exposed.

And yet, putting words to the feelings, as painful as it may be, allows God to redeem the moment and lets him take the heavy lifting for the pain.

Lord, may the testimony of my life bring you the glory. At the end of the day, I do not want someone to hear my pain and offer pity. I merely want them to come crawling to you, asking for you to heal. Lord, you are the healer of my soul. The redeemer of my story. The center of my life. May all glory and honor be to you.

Intimacy and Relationships

Gary Chapman is coming to Moody this week.

A week of inventories that tell me I do not like being touched, but I love being complimented.
A week of thinking about love and dating, and everything else intrinsically romantic.
A week to to think about relationship.

It couldn't come at a better time in my life. After finishing a philosophy project about relational personhood and after spending two weeks contemplating Martin Buber's I and Thou, I am ready to think about relationship.

But before you start placing me in the "Ring by Spring" category, let me tell you what I've really been thinking about: intimacy.

From uninterrupted eye contact with a friendly and attractive acquaintance to a long walk home from church with an old friend, this week has reminded me what it means to be vulnerable, to experience intimacy the way God intended.

And its horrifying. In a meeting on Wednesday, I was asked to gaze deeply into the eyes of a fellow RA and say nothing for 3 minutes. I was uncomfortable with the idea, and if I would have been given enough time, I probably could have come up with a philosophical reason why I was against it, but in the moment, I sat with my legs crossed on the floor, like a kindergardener, and stared into the eyes of man I hardly know. I laughed at first, but as the nervousness began to show in my eyes, I knew he could read my uneasiness. The clock ticked slowly and with each penetrating stare, I felt like he was reading the secrets of my soul, as if my eyes were a teleprompter, scrolling through every thought, every desire, every weakness within me. Worse yet, I felt as if I was a trespasser into his soul; I was walking where I had not been invited.

When the speaker's timer went off, Joe wanted to chat about it and I gave blank statements about what I was feeling then promptly ran away, feeling violated for what he knew of me now in our silence, yet feeling like a creeper for reading his eyes for every trace of his soul and feeling like I might have found it.

They say eyes are the window to the soul, and there might be validity in that statement, but I would rather be invited in the front door than gaze in someone's window.

4 days later, in a rebellious moment, Emma and I skipped Sunday School and walked home from church. We had little to say and spent most of our walk discussing graffiti and tagging, wondering what really changes graffiti into 'street art.' Yet, walking side by side with one of my best friend, never looking into her eyes, I remembered just what it means to care about another person as a whole being.

If I wanted to, I could probably write you a list of reasons why Emma is a worthwhile human being. I could scribble down attributes that I find admirable and definitions of what makes us friends. Yet, I assure you, if numerical value could be given to each quality she possesses, the sum of my list, no matter comprehensive, could never equal my value for her. Likewise, if I went on a trip around world, casting for the role of a new Emma in my life, I assure you, even applicants that outshine her in every attribute that I appreciate, would be no replacement for her. I value Emma, as a whole being.

I may not have gazed deeply into her eyes, but there is something to be said about the intimacy of the relationship I have with her. We were made to value people as whole beings. We are designed to love others, to care for them not for the sum of their uses, but for their essential being.

I'll stop before I get into a theological treatise about personhood and otherness, or worse, script out the secrets of one of my three essays on the matter.

Instead, I'll end on this:
Matthew 26:36–46: When Jesus most needed his disciples to be with him, they fall asleep and disappoint him. When Christ rebukes them, he does not focus on his need, but on theirs.
Romans 15:2–3a: "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself."

Jesus: The Crazy Cultic Con Man

I've been reading through my old journals a lot lately. This morning, I stumbled upon a rather comical commentary on Mark 1:35–39:

Jesus is quite possibly the worst houseguest. We focus so much on Jesus rising early to pray. All right and good — Jesus spent intimate time with the Father. But what about how his friends felt? So everyone is exhausted after a long day's work and they are OUT. But when they wake up, Jesus is gone. He's like a cultic con man. Follow me — and then he peaces out. So they're flippin', thinking "Where on earth is Jesus?" Mark, unlike Matthew, doesn't portray Jesus as crazy, but Matthew and John for sure make him to be a weird kid. I mean, he talks oddly.
Anyways, Simon and his motley crew realize that their crazy cool miracle-working weirdo friend is gone when they wake up. They gave up everything to follow him, so they aren't going to let him disappear that easily, and they go on a hunt. When they finally find him in the middle of nowhere, alone, he doesn't even respond to their cry "What the heck!" He just says, "Surprise! You found me. Let's head out."
If I were them, I wouldn't be too sure about this character. I would be pretty distant from this madman. He's crazy awesome, but so strange.