"Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too." -Aldous Huxley
Obviously I haven't been as faithful to this blog as I have been over the past few months... I had every intention of posting something at least three times a week.
Here's the deal. I have picked up a second job... a night job. I'll be able to wax verbose on the subject later. Right now, I'm just tired.
In the time since I've blogged I've written an article for the upcoming Elevation Church article, which is cool. Once it's published, I'll throw a copy of the article up so you can see the extent to which I may or may not pander to specific audiences.
I say all that to say this: I may not blog for a while. I have many ideas, but no time to really cogitate. Perhaps that will change... hopefully I'll have a day off soon. Preferably one without obligation or travel. We'll see.
"Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness." Just in case you were wondering about that quote. It's my only apology for the horrific title of this post. It's also the epigraph to Poe's "The Purloined Letter." And, according to Wikipedia, Seneca probably didn't even say it. Which might be funny, in an "Edgar, you rogue," sort of way.
As you probably know, in "The Purloined Letter," *spoiler alert* Poe's Dupin solves the mystery of a hidden letter by realizing that it's sitting in the open. *end spoiler alert*
It's a perspective thing.
As usual.
"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he forbore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better purpose in the dark."
"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."
I'm hardly breaking new ground by realizing that I live too far away from where I actually am. Resting on un-gotten laurels. Searching the forgotten corners of life for a meaning. Making simplicity incredibly complicated.
"And what is the difficulty now?" I asked. "Nothing more in the assassination way, I hope?"
"Oh no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd."
"Simple and odd," said Dupin.
"Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether."
"Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault," said my friend.
"What nonsense you do talk!" replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.
"Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain," said Dupin.
"Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?"
"A little too self-evident."
"Ha! ha! ha! --ha! ha! ha! --ho! ho! ho!" --roared our visitor, profoundly amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!"
I forget that effort is not necessarily the engine for satisfaction. That trying so hard to "find the answer" often makes seeing it impossible.
One thing is for sure: if you get too far ahead of yourself, you will end up falling two steps backwards for every forward step.
It's ok to be a farmer. Farmers have no choice but to do things in order.
Farmers deal with growing things. Growing things take time. They take work.
Farmers don't reap before it's time to harvest. They don't plow through seedlings. They don't plant one seed over another. There's an order to their work cycles.
That's not to say that the process is flat or uni-dimensional.
Farming is not boring. Good farming is diverse. While easier and potentially more lucrative, monocultures end up, ahem, putting all the eggs in one basket. But it's unwise.
I won't get too deep into it. Even though I'm sure you've figured out the obvious comparisons, I'll probably blog on monocultures more later. But for now...
1. Don't look too hard for something that may be in front of you the whole time. 1b. Don't use "exploration" when "realization" is needed. 2. Don't reorganize the cycles. They are in that order for a reason. 3. Give the plants some time to grow. Some things grow slower than others. 3b. Make sure everything is still growing. Dead things don't grow. If need be, prune that sucker.
I've spent a lot of time alone recently. It may be because I stay up past the witching hour and sleep until I have to go to work in the darker parts of the afternoon. Or possibly because I have a long commute to work, so it just seems that I'm always in a state of mind for reflection. The scenery zipping past seems to compel me to look inward at the same rate. Regardless... as of late, reflection is the way of mirrors and Matt Martinez.
I miss my friend Matt Thomason. He would always take a mundane situation and swirl it around like so many tea leaves preparing for a reading. He often called me Zenitram Wehttam. Zenitram Ttam, for short. He would giggle, as if conjuring a new nominative attribute might endow me with the same onomatopoeic robot features that it implied.
Sometimes it did.
I'd repeat it, “Zenitram Ttam,” and do a gawky impression of the dance.
He'd laugh again.
I've grown to know Zenitram Ttam better than I probably should. He doesn't speak much. He holds eye contact for uncomfortable lengths. He doesn't seem to mind that I'm around, although he tends to back away if I do.
He thinks he has big ideas. He fancies himself creative, knowing full well that creativity implies a created object. He gets excited about things that haven't happened yet. He reads nonfiction books solely for their value as a metaphor and enjoys them greatly. He pursues a vibrant spiritual life. He's friendly and outgoing most of the time. He loves his girlfriend and tries to call every day before and after work. He has little old Italian ladies visit him at his part-time job with bags of chocolate that they hide in their purse until he gets them, “so that the other guys don't get jealous.” He has Catholic and Muslim coworkers that love him. He was deeply pleased when the Japanese sushi guy and Venezuelan cheese woman got into an argument as to whether he was a Japanese “twin brother” or Venezuelan “my boy.”
“No, baby, that's MY boy.”
He lives in the future and forgets that it takes the present to get there. He neglects friendships, perhaps mistakenly assuming that they'll be there when he finally becomes worth being friends with. He sometimes chooses to sleep rather than do important life tasks. He sometimes doesn't love his girlfriend with enthusiasm. He flirts with universalism and worries that he may slide down the slippery slope of atheism if he's not careful. He caught himself standing by his car during a break today, blinking at the sun and realizing that he really hasn't stood in sunlight for quite some time.
Zenitram Ttam changes, too. Sometimes it's hard to tell, but it happens. Subtle shifts from day to day.
I think that he looks older than he used to look.
I wonder if he thinks the same about me.
So, if I may, I'd like to list a few things that I've learned from him. They aren't profound, but I don't care. Perhaps profundity comes in the accrual of many simplicities.
The more you are alone, the more your ego grows. You can't really help it. You can't really notice it, either... until suddenly it's bumping its massive head on the ceiling and you have to deal with it. It's a result of a lack of perspective. Many perspectives balance your own limited one. Humility comes in conjunction with community, with whose “boy” you are.
If there was one piece of advice I'd dare to give anyone who comes after me, it would be that the most important choice in life is what community you allow yourself to be a part of.
One of my favorite quotes is said by the character Ender in a book by Orson Scott Card. “I find out what I really want by seeing what I do.” That idea has lodged in my head and won't shake loose. It is never more true than when you are alone... it's like the definition of character that I was taught growing up: your character is who you are when no one is looking. You find out what you really value by seeing what you do when you are alone. Just the realization of this truth is enough to help you change it. Or at least arrange it more ideally.
Some guy once said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” That's easy to say when your life is mostly in hindsight. It's another thing altogether when you're trying to build a life from nothing. How about “the examined life takes your eyes off the road.”
There's a concept in acting that might be relevant here: dual consciousness. I was trying to explain this concept at a rehearsal for my improv small group last week. It's the idea that an actor is aware that he or she is onstage in front of an audience, but is also fully immersed into a character. It's kind of what acting is all about; you exist in the present and the future at the same time, mentally (duh). As an actor, you are constrained by what you have to do as the character. You have a mark to hit and objectives to fulfill. But you also have to position yourself to be fully visible to audience, avoid surprising your fellow actor into messing up or breaking, not knock over set pieces, remember lines... you have to maintain more than one focus, and do it believably. [For bonus points, I dare you to perform while being existential about your real life...]
It's kind of like driving a car: going forward while glancing in the rear view mirror and back up and down at the gauges and back up. With the sun in your blinking eyes.
It's kind of like living life while examining it at the same time. Without knocking over set pieces.
It's kind of like making friends with your reflection and learning from his mistakes.
Sometimes I smile at Zenitram Ttam.
Occasionally his return smile seems... ironic.
… that punk knows something that he's not telling me...
So we're looking at apartments, Chris and I, and the ones that are within our price range are... well, not ideal. One apartment in particular sticks out... really, the only one comfortably within our price range. It sits on Baxter Street.
Baxter Street is an anomaly. Located between Luther Street and Henley Place and right off of Queens Road, Baxter Street has all the locational pedigree one could hope for. Tree-lined roads lead through upper-upper-middle-class suburban paradise. Glimpses of the Charlotte skyline peep through, winking opulence between houses reminiscent of Italian villas and Georgian Colonial double-chimneyed mansions. Occasionally there is a name in front: The Duke Mansion stands as a cornerstone of the community, forcing cars to slow down and appreciate the grandeur through which they are privileged to be passing. And there... smack in the middle of success-ville... lies Baxter Street.
Baxter Street is obviously aspiring for something far beyond its reach. It sits ignored like a fault line between productive societies, deep enough to seem inescapable. It is the very definition of juxtaposition. It is the beach on which urban crests into suburban. Baxter Street is a tide pool.
I remember one late summer when my family went to the Jersey shore. As I recall, a storm had raged miles off the coast the night before, churning up the freezing water from deeper parts of the ocean, causing an immense amount of dense fog and a strangely cool breeze despite the time of year. Or maybe it was just Jersey, it's hard to tell. Regardless, it was cold, so although everyone had removed their footwear, no one was quite courageous enough to approach the ocean's unpredictable wave patterns. Instead, everyone played in the tide pools.
Of course, in the true spirit of family vacations, we decided that it was necessary to splash a bucket of the cold water onto Mom. I mean, come on... it was inevitable. I forget who threw it, which probably means it was me. She saw it coming and started to run away, squawking loudly. It was the running that caused the problem, as she was watching the bucket and not the beach (which is, in itself, a lesson). The water was aimed squarely below the neck when it was thrown, but, due to an unforeseen dip in the sand, it slammed heavily into the side of her head. A big bucket full of stagnant tide pool water right in the ear... needless to say, she had a massive ear infection for weeks afterward.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it was Miles who threw the water, the scamp.
Baxter Street is a tide pool and it has shocked me into sobriety. I deserve to live on Baxter Street. I know this. In overly-dramatic terms, this realization is causing me a raging ear infection of the MIND (I'd make the font bigger to highlight the ridiculousness of that statement, but you get the picture)
No matter how much I can explain it away with phrases like "personal efficacy" or "cultural/societal restraints," the fact is that I haven't played the game. I've placed myself in a rich culture without concern for preparation, expecting my surroundings to influence my actions and appearance. My occupational floors are warped with the effects of extreme temperature, having neglected a central heating and air. My attitudinal stove is rusted over with poor usage. My communal wires are exposed and disconnected. My emotional storage space is so small as to be considered non-existent. Physically... well... I think I've made my point.
The funny thing is, we're probably going to live on Baxter Street, at least for a while.
I'm sure everyone goes through this. Correction: I'm sure every non-medicated person goes through this. I've never taken Ritalin, but I'm craving the idea something fierce right now.
Here's the deal: I have like thirty hours to complete my grad school application in order to be considered for a scholarship for the coming fall semester. But, in true slacker fashion, I have managed to find everything else far more interesting. Here's a quick list of some of the more interesting distractions I've managed to find over the last hour or so:
1. The new Rob Bell bookcontroversy. -Just a couple reflective thoughts on this one. First, I still like Rob Bell. He's been on the fringe of the Christian realm for a while now; his struggles with the established church are struggles that I share, albeit in my case on an impotently mental level. And it irks the hell out of me (see what I did there?) when the untouchable ones (Piper, Driscoll, etc) react as pompous jerks sneering off of theological high-horses. But now I'm being as judgmental as they are... ah, the temptations to engage in the mud of church battlegrounds. I'm definitely going to read the book, though.
2. Catch up with the Oscar results, as I was busy watching "Let Me In" and "The Social Network" during the live broadcast. Both movies are amazing, just in case you wondered.
4. Reddit, of course... still giggling at this and this... and still kinda annoyed at this.
5. Reflect on my fear of success and fear of failure and general lack of personal efficacy, remember not to be negative about what I don't have, buckle down and attempt to finish the autobiographical section of the application... immediately get massively overwhelmed and retreat to a blog to distract myself even further.
So now, to complete the cycle, off I go to see if I can make it another round with life.
1. Measureless goals are empty dreams. 2. Excellence and elitism hold hands. 2b. Elitism and nepotism hold hands. 3. Direction and progression are not the same. 4. Meditative, present-oriented self-actualization is useful only if you have money. 5. No one seems to differentiate between what God does and what you do under the influence of a God-flavored motivation or strategy. 5b. Are what God does and what you do under a God-flavored motivation equally important? 5c. Why do I feel tricked when I'm told that God won't work unless I do first?
I've been trying my best to lose control, but control is an onion.
Control is an onion shaped like a möbius strip; internal and external, but you still can only get to it from one side at a time.
Losing control is trickier than seizing it.
I've been thinking a lot about trying not to think about everything a lot.
Like a character in a play, only actions that arise out of necessity bring progression to the story. The absence of necessity easily facilitates the absence of action. The absence of action stops any progression, resulting in dissatisfaction. There is no story. Two roads present themselves: passivity and activity. Passivity yields to the inaction... which is an action. One road presents itself: activity, either positive or negative, internal or external. Passivity is an illusion. There is always a story. The absence of satisfaction brings action. Action easily facilitates the awareness of necessity. Like a character in a play, actions that create necessity bring direction to the story.
I've been doing a lot that seems like spinning my wheels.
Seizing control is easier than losing it, but it requires both direction and progression.
Once upon a time a farmer went to market and purchased a fox, a goose, and a bag of beans. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and hired a boat. But in crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases - the fox, the goose, or the bag of the beans. If left alone, the fox would eat the goose, and the goose would eat the beans. The farmer's challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. How did he do it?
I've been trying my best to find control, but control is an onion.
I had to get up early this morning, like before-sun-is-up early. Like punch-yourself-in-the-face early. Like fall-asleep-standing-up-in-the-shower early. Now, I knew that I was going to do this. I had thought ahead for once, and had given myself a mental pat on the back for seeing future problems and waylaying them.
It had been a southern snow day, which generally means a few inches of snow and clear roads on which not one stinking person knows how to drive. My brilliant idea was this: get a jump on the ice situation by brushing off all the snow the night before, so that when I came out the next morning my car would be pristine and I would be able to just jump in and take off down the road.
As with so many future plans, it didn't exactly work out as planned.
I stumbled out onto the icy sidewalk and looked with pride at my slick, shiny car... completely sans-snow. Woot. As I slid over the sidewalk, I hit the button in my pocket which unlocked the driver's side door. I pulled open the door. Correction: I tried to open the door. As I pulled, I realized that my journey was going to be delayed... quite delayed. After a stubbornly resistant wrenching, the half-inch of crystal-clear ice shattered from around the door frame with a loud crack, coating the inside of my car with large shards. Shards of ice and muttered choice words.
There are times in life where a new lesson is learned instantly. These lessons typically follow failure.
As I'm sure many of you have known (and have judged me for the last few paragraphs), it's not always the best idea to remove snow from your vehicle, even if you think it may save time in the long run. Or to give yourself something to do on long snow days. Because, as I learned in approximately three microseconds, it is WAY harder to remove ice from the surface of glass than it is from the surface of six inches of snow. Snow brushes away easily... glass does not. Well, it does if you break it. But it's preferable to break snow than your windshield.
Twenty minutes later, having started my car, cranked the heat and engaged any sort of thermal-related function in my Focus, I managed to chip away a weakness in the solid sheet of what might as well have been iron.
"Knowing [this], that the trying of your faith worketh patience." -James 1:3
Ok, this one's from experience. You'll just have to trust me on this one.
Here's what you do when your patience is being stretched:
Breathe and remember that you are not in control of everything.
Seriously. Read the verse. Faith and patience are clearly linked.
BREATHE.
I'm not kidding. This is what it's all about. Perspective. Take a step back.
REMEMBER.
This includes the little things. Remember that there aren't "little things." You exist in an interconnected world. There are designs at work that are bigger than yours.
You are NOT in control of everything.
Blunt implication: Get over yourself. Patience is recognizing a higher power at work than YOU getting what YOU want, when YOU want it. You are important, it's true. You have real value. But you are also too limited to see that you are way too stupid to understand everything. Get over yourself and widen your gaze a bit.
Breathe and remember that you are not in control of everything.
"Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." -Psalm 46:10
Yes, I realize that the economy of my words is so grossly over-inflated that it's waiting for the townspeople to rise up and rush the courthouse.
Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. -Rilke
Now I'm not going to call this is a rant, per se... More of a need to express the growing emotions that have been surging in my spirit over the last few days. Call it cathartic, I guess. I completely understand if you don't have the will or the patience to work your way through this slog of a post; to be honest, I barely have the will or the patience to write it. But write it I feel I must do... compulsory to some extent. It's all that is allowed for me to actually physically do, as recently my car's transmission gave up the ghost in front of the Total Wine as I was on my way to the Booksamillion on Harbison Blvd, keeping me from driving back to Charlotte (not that CLT is doing me any good at this point...). So I suppose this is preferable to walking a hundred miles, although my feet won't be able to do any moving and will continue to move as if I have somewhere to go.
So here's a snarky "All hope abandon blah blah blah." Fair warning. This is going to be in the typical nature of blogs, that is to say completely self-oriented and/or self-obsessed. It's the only way.
--
Marley was dead to begin with. In this particular drama, playing the part of Marley is my enthusiasm for a recent move to Charlotte, NC. This ordeal, for all those somewhat distanced from the situation (which, if you're reading this blog, hi. We should hang out.), was something of an impulse thing. I had been living in Greenville, SC long enough to really feel the smallness of the town and my own life's experiences, namely two years. The growth of the local community belied the abandonment of my own. I hadn't attended a church faithfully since... well, since recent memory. I had gotten way, way out of the habit during my undergrad years, because the traveling drama team visited a new church every week. And I suppose my standards are perhaps a bit on the impossible side, but there were no churches in the upstate South Carolina area that I felt even marginally interested in attending. That aside, my desire to be in and amongst the Church was growing at a rate proportional to my waist size. That is to say, growing quickly and unceasingly. When an opportunity appeared, I ran with it. Not in an aerobic sense, although the thrift that was thrust upon me has seen to a reducing of the aforementioned waist. And now, in the aftermath of that haste, I find myself torn.
Here's the deal. Elevation Church (the impetus for my spring from SC) is generally known to be among the most creative churches in the world. They consistently produce some of the most interesting visual content that exists in the church-at-large, and possibly anywhere outside of professional movie studios. And yet, despite their visual excellence, they tend to lack content that might provide a suitable empathetic or intellectual response that might fully complement the bravado shown by their illustrious leader, Pastor Stephen Furtick. I'm just calling it how I sees it. And that's how I sees it. Polished, yes. Pretty, yes. Innovative, sometimes. Revolutionary... almost. Not quite.
Here's where this post might take a turn for the bloggy (as if it hasn't been there for at least three hundred words). In the interest of full disclosure, I already know how unqualified I am to be saying what I'm saying. There is no reason that anyone should listen to a word that I have to say in regards to anything. And still I write. This intrigues me.
Here lies the crux of my concern. This is what I would like to explore in this wordy tub o' thought: is it appropriate or prideful to speak forcefully and honestly about matters that you only have thought-equity invested in? To rephrase: in this case, is it my RESPONSIBILITY (emphasis mine)to contribute my perspective to a church's creative leaders or simply a prideful attempt at finding my own significance, even if an unintended side-effect? ... and, depending on the answer, what's the implication on a Christian's responsibility to contribute to the body of Christ if they have no vested authority in their respective fields?
I'll even take another step back and go completely universal for a sec. What is the appropriateness for a layperson, driven though he may be, to walk into a respected place of worship and ask if he can play, too? A gray area in practicality, although on paper it sounds relatively easy. There are many factors that prevent one from walking on water: buoyancy, surface tension, salinity, etc. Not to mention that only one non-deity was documented doing it, to relatively ill-effect. And certainly it is not advisable to step into a neighbor's yard to borrow their pool for a bit while they are in the midst of a brutal water polo match. Even if you say excuse me as you take the first step.
So I move to Charlotte with the hopes of contributing my two cents. So here's derr strooggle: Which is the less-prideful decision? 1. To focus on my own relationship with Christ and with others that I come into contact with and wait patiently for opportunities to arise organically from situations (in other words, be passive), or 2. Be proactive and attempt to insert myself strategically into the workings of a powerful Christian zeitgeist-factory? Honestly, not an easy one. On one hand, all things will be on the timetable of God and his working, but then again, it's more advisable to throw your seed onto fertile soil (although this last metaphor seems a little risque, it's the best one I could think of).
I know that I'm not going to "arrive" if ever I am allowed to participate with the creative team. I just desire the opportunity to be able to even start the process of learning from hands-on experience and grow slowly into an effective artist. And so far, I've either pulled the rug out from under myself as I am engaging with the church to keep from doing it for the wrong reasons, or gotten bitter that I've ended up homeless (oh yeah, I'm def not living in my own space, but on the continuing good will of a benefactor and couch).
Perhaps I can't answer this question just yet. It's still maturing, as am I.
And I know that this issue is not as dichotomous as I'm implying. There's of course the fear of failure that is ever-present, and also a personal reaction against it. There's the resentment that I have to force myself upon someone in order to proceed with my life. There's a ridiculous quality in pursuing an artistic life in general, though I know that such a life in the church would be the only thing that would satisfy my intellectual/emotional needs. There's the time-consuming exhaustion of working a terrible job. There's no personal space for reflection.
There's the irrepressible ache for artistic outflow that remains dammed up inside and swirling as if there's a brutal water polo match raging.
It's as if my transmission has seized up in front of the Total Wine on Harbison Blvd, that I have no way of fixing it myself, grinding my forward momentum to a halt.
Today I finished the ARTS camp at Easley First Baptist Church. I had two classes to which I taught improv for four days. The first class consisted of eleven 1-3 graders, the second of six 4-6 graders.
I learned something very valuable. Kids don't need improv.
Keith Johnstone said it right (as usual) ((by the way, the following quote is paraphrased because I'm too lazy to go grab my copy of "Impro" even though it's mere feet away. So go buy the book yourself and read it in context. You won't regret it.)):
"Kids are not under-developed adults. Adults are atrophied children."
It takes a certain amount of life to paralyze the creative impulse, or at least bury it deep enough to require excavation. Typically, improv is that excavation.
But kids are already kids. They don't need excavation. They need discipline and structure.
Improv then becomes a different monster... one of training on a very basic level, not error correction. I think that traditional theatre training is a preferable method for developing a child's artistic temperament, with improv used primarily as a tool in the theatrical creation process, instead of my usual ideal of using theatrical devices as tools in an improvisational creation process.
I think that I now understand why Peter Brook used an eclectic mix of fully trained, experienced actors from different backgrounds in his troupes. He used improv to "untrain" these actors, who could then use the reverse-engineered techniques of their previous crafts to re-assemble themselves into a super-creative entity. But they had to have something to untrain.
Improv seeks to return "adults" into a child-like state of freedom, creativity and security, but with the confidence, awareness and capability that only time can instill.
Kids need something different.
Hopefully more experience in this arena will show me different techniques to deal with the needs of such budding little geniuses, but as of now... if you're a teacher of elementary students, stick to theatre.
Improv will fix anything you screw up... but later on.
I think it’s been a long enough time since my initial experience at Elevation Church to be able to separate the emotions from the experience and tell why I have decided to drop everything and move to Charlotte.
We stayed up all night on Saturday. Since Chris started working at Blockbuster, we had made it a habit to stay up pretty ridiculously late watching movies (needless to say, we’ve watched a LOT of movies). On this particular Saturday night, at around three or four in the morning, the suggestion was made (I forget by whom… most likely Chris) that we just stay up and go to the early service at Elevation Church. The suggestion was accepted instantly… I mean, why not, right? Seemed like a good random idea. We had been talking about Elevation Church over the past few months, anyway. We had watched the worship videos and read up on what they were doing there. And it was a road trip, which is always an awesome idea. So we did it.
{Now I’ll just take a little aside here and say that I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from this trip. I fancied myself a “church expert,” since I had grown up my entire life in churches and had been on Act 2. [For those of you who don’t know, Act 2 was a traveling drama team at North Greenville University.] Over the course of the two and a half years that I was on the team, I had visited tons and tons of churches all over South Carolina, so I thought that I had a sort of inside look into the workings of the church at large… mistake number one. I was expecting to go into the church and analyze it for creative potential, since, in my mind, no one was sufficiently doing any sort of legitimate creative work in the church worthy of attention… mistake number two. Yes, I’m often a smug little expletive. Hubris is more readily seen in hindsight. Ok… back to the story.}
Chris and I were driving down I-85 in his car early Sunday morning at around six-thirty. We were discussing the plans for the day. For both of us, this would be the first time at Elevation. Chris especially wanted to see two of the four worship leaders, Chris Brown and Mack Brock, but since Elevation had three campuses over which they spread their worship leaders, we were going to find out where they were both leading and then drive to each campus to check them out. Chris was just mentioning how he couldn’t seem to maintain a constant speed on hills when we got pulled for speeding. Of course we were. Three miles from the North Carolina border. Bummer.
We finally made it to Matthews, North Carolina almost an hour too early for the service. This was the main campus, located in a strip mall about fifteen minutes outside of uptown Charlotte. Compared to architectural behemoths like Brookwood Church or Marathon Church, this location was so understated I had a little trouble mustering up all the enthusiasm I wanted to… I was honestly hoping for something a little less cave and a little more obelisk… mistake number three. They had large flags and bright tents that clearly showed it to be a church… which was cool… but still. A strip mall? Ok… I could go with it… We ended up going to Hardees while we waited. Did you know that they give free coffee on Sundays? Well… this Hardees did, anyway. It was a welcome surprise after the ticket incident. ----- Upon arrival at Elevation Church, a first-timer is asked to turn on his blinkers so that he can get priority parking. Once parked, the visitor is, for lack of a better term, bum-rushed. A greeter meets the guest in the parking lot and asks if it’s their first time. If yes, the greeter introduces him/herself and escorts the visitor into the building. He/she then explains the mission of the church, shows where everything is located, and talks with the visitor about things until the visitor is settled into the whole church-thing. Then the greeter returns to the parking lot to start the process over again, leaving the visitor feeling warm and very greeted. ----- Our greeter was Charles. We met him mere seconds after emerging from the car. We were given a little folder that explained that we were VIPs and contained a sample CD of some of their worship team’s original songs and a welcome message from Pastor Steve Furtick. It was well-designed (something I’ve been more prone to notice recently). Charles escorted Chris and me inside and showed us around the facilities.
{Aside number 2. Having established my initial distaste that Elevation met in a strip mall, I will say that their facilities were very well thought out. Their worship space had a large stage, but the seating layout was small enough to still have an intimate feel. Overall, the church felt very warehousey, but I kinda like that kind of thing. Sort of highlights the temporal aspect of the whole church thing, in that we’re only here temporarily. But I take this aside to mention something small: the bathrooms. It’s said that the devil is in the details… which I suppose makes it an apt allusion in this case. It kind of snuck up on me, the bathroom did. I wasn’t expecting the little table at the exit door. This little table was humble enough, but spoke volumes about the priorities of the church. On this table was a basket of mints, hand lotion, and Kleenex. And it was well stocked. Call me crazy, but the fact that someone, first, thought of this table and, second, made it important enough to keep full kind of cocked my head to the side in surprise. And it made me feel appreciated, which is something I did not expect from a bathroom.}
Chris and I were there early enough to be there for the opening of the doors post-sound check. We sat in the first row to be as close to the action as possible. The anticipation was pretty high. We had just finished speaking with John Bishop, the campus pastor. Cool guy. He actually stopped to have a conversation with us, and, believe me, we didn’t look like to the cool guys that stop traffic in the church foyer. Well, at least I didn’t. Chris might have, and probably did, the beautiful man that he is. (On yet another random note, I just now recalled my freshman year at Cedarville University where my roommate said, “You know those guys that you see, like across the room or something, and you just think, ‘I really want to be friends or hang out with that guy’? …You are not that guy.” Good times. Thanks, Dan Harder.)
I was busy filling out the first-time visitor questionnaire as the lights dimmed and the worship service started.
I'm not sure what to think of spring at this point... If only I were confident that the spring-like attributes of the weather around me would manage to change the winter-like attributes of my life's situation. Maybe I should just open the door and let the sunshine in, right? Whatever that means.
Potential for change is often more scary than the change itself. The sheer possibility of what could happen or not happen is enormous. Anything could happen. There is no way to know whether you are in over your head or if it's just another little bump in the road. It's a free-fall. It's terrifying. Often, it's life changing.
I'm prepared for the worst for tomorrow. I do not like preparing for the worst. I'm selfishly tired of it. And I'm not even the one in the hot seat. Not the hot hot seat, anyway. My seat is pretty warm.
I know that I'm going to have to deal with the fallout again. It's so exhausting.
Last time I was in this situation, I read Camus' "The Stranger." I knew that I would associate it with the new location, situation, and feelings. And I do.
What should I read tomorrow?
Situations that require a lot of emotional stability inevitably reveal weaknesses in yourself and others. It takes a lot of wherewithal to know when and when not to maintain composure.
Stoicism doesn't help anyone who needs someone to cry with. I have learned this the hard way.
In the end, change should be expected. It will find you, whether you are content or not; whether you are aware or not. To be prepared for the worst -- mentally, emotionally, and otherwise -- is just prep work... the slow, tired, heavy, dirty, annoying, frustrating, redundant tread of walking the long path is the actual journey. It's the process.
Keep your head up, your eyes open. Don't be surprised when the bottom drops out. There wasn't much of a bottom there to begin with.
I write this today knowing that tomorrow I probably won't feel much like writing.
Please pray for my family. And me. And especially Miles.
I feel sad because I am closing in on 25 years old, so nothing that I do, no matter how good, can be special. Not REALLY special.
In college, if you could string two words together to describe the emotional turmoil that sprang from your fecund loins of academia, then it was something special. Something to be shared. A commonality between you and the fifteen other budding souls that were quickly becoming the best thing that has ever happened to you, ever, I totally swear.
But i am out of college now.
I can no longer be a child prodigy.
I can no longer surprise you with hidden talents; I've had enough time to develop synthetic ones.
It's creepy to have a crush on someone now. It's marrying time.
I hate it.
I feel like walking around repeating "I could-a been a contendah." And I don't know where my hope for a better life has disappeared to...
I'm pretty sure that I feel that life after a vibrant community (in this case, college) is about as close to that moment immediately preceding death as you can get. The light at the end of the tunnel is the receding one through which I can see what I used to be. In college. How pathetic. Have I really peaked so soon?
In many ways I feel that in college I attained every dream that had crossed through my adolescent brain at some point or another... and now all that is left is to try and recreate that same experience in "real life." And that is really depressing to me.
I need to be surprised again. I need to take stupid risks with no idea as to why I'm taking them. I need to find my worth again. I need to be open to new dreams. I need to be able to abandon the mediocre now for a better one. How's that for being Zen?
Not that I really have that much of a choice. My life is going to change completely in the next year. I have no idea what that means yet. After the year's completed, I'm hopefully going to re-read this posting and laugh at how wasteful all the worry was, that if I only knew how much better the future was going to be than I wouldn't be concerned at all, only very excited. But there's no way of knowing. Next year I might be dead. That'd be a pretty big life change.
Of course, the idea that I might be dead within a year is quite motivating. Theoretically that means that I can take all the risks that I want, without thought as to the repercussions. But I've already learned that it doesn't quite work that way. Especially with women. A woman doesn't seem to be flattered when they become your "if I die tomorrow, I don't want to have never told you how much I love the idea of possibly being with you" girl. It tends to work against the "I'm a valid long-term partner" vibe. Because, remember, crushes are now creepy. It's marrying time. I'm so very much out of my depth.
I feel sad because I'm closing in on 25 years old, and I can no longer become more successful than someone else my age has already been. My angle of "he's successful and he doesn't even try" is no longer valid. If it were the case, I would have been successful.
But as it is, I'm closing in on 25 years old and have nothing to show for it.
I knew I should have taken that right turn at Albuquerque.
I think that perhaps one reason that a web log exists is to get a sort of insight into the mind of that particular blogger. Well, perhaps that exact reason is a bit too creepy for the average person, but whether you like it or not, that is at least one of the side affects of reading blogs. Get over it. You're a stalker. And that's ok.
Perhaps that is a reason that I don't really blog on this blog as much as keep a gallery of the silly little nothings that I fritter away on and then do nothing with. Makes me feel better about not pursuing writing as a career, which I have oft thought of but know I couldn't hack. No discipline, after all.
Perhaps I don't want the reader to get bored in reading my mundane observations on a life much less interesting than his is. Or hers. Whatevs.
I'd much rather you think I was simply a creative entity that thinks in pithy little one-liners and poems and youtube-esque galleries.
But I think that every now and again I will force myself to just write... maybe in an abundance of words you can see real parts of me despite my efforts to conceal them. Like when you run past a fence and can see through it, even though as you stood still in front of it a moment ago it afforded just a stop-gap glimpse into the yard inside. Like a movie, the sequential placement of similar images to convey the movement of an object in a believable way. I'll run you a wordie. See me waving?
I have decided to start an official blog in hopes that I won't keep bugging everyone on facebook with incessant notifications of new notes.
The first few posts following this one will be transplants from said fb notes.
But! to mark the occasion, I will now recite new stuff that has happened in the last few days (that's what a blog's for, isn't it?):
I shaved off two months of facial hair growth, effectively clogging the sink in the bathroom.
I spent $31.27 at Mr. K's used bookshop on two Baudelaire poetry books, "The Subterraneans" by Jack Kerouac, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce, "Theatre and Drama in the Making" by Gassner and Allen, "Wise Blood" by FlanneryO'Conner, and "Genius" by Harold Bloom. *bows*
Colt bought a Wii and we've played it quite a bit. The only game we have so far is Super Mario Bros, which is a good game to start a Wii on. Colt bought it from a sketchy dude on Craigslist, and, after driving thirty minutes on the wrong road before finding his house, I watched what looked like a drug deal as Colt made the transaction. And even though it was at the guy's house, he still had it in his back pocket and wouldn't bring it out until the money was paid. Classy.
That's about it for now. The next ones will be the transplants. As if the distinction really matters on a blog.
