a life inspired

im reading through painted deserts right now. so far, it’s entirely relevant to the cloud of things that ive been thinking about these past few months, so i guess credit is due to donald miller for making my thoughts more concrete in all of this.
theres this song by bloc party called uniform, and it’s basically talking about how humans try so hard to distract themselves from being bored or feeling much of anything. i think that most people, most of their lives, are resisting the thought that their lives really are boring, monotonous, stressful, whatever. i mean, it really terrifies us. we are pushing so far against this. who wants to be boring? its one of the most evident things when youre looking for it that every single one of us are doing everything we can to find beauty in our lives by looking for love, listening to good music, enjoying our friends, etc. this isn’t wrong, but i feel like we are… resisting something. if i were a writer i would call it The Great Resistance and you would read about it in your history book later on and it would probably talk a lot about pop culture and the united states, but i’m not a writer, so none of that will probably happen, but i want to know, what are we resisting, exactly?
why do you watch television? seriously, why? chances are, you’ll say because you dont want to be bored. being bored is as bad as dying these days, it seems. we are always expecting something to feed us with entertainment. geez, its everywhere. i think it’s pretty safe to say that we are entirely entertainment driven now. when did everyone decide to stop sitting on their front porches just to enjoy the day or to talk to a friend? are we just afraid of thinking? are we scared to venture out into our minds, cause we dont know what we’ll find, be it a bad memory, a question we dont know the answer to, the thought that one day we might die? most kids come home from school and sit in front of the tv or computer, intently watching mtv or checking their myspaces. and they may do this all day until they have to do their homework or go to bed. its so insane! we are addicted to ourselves. addicted to entertainment. addicted to consumption.
maybe we should stop being afraid of what we’ll find if we stop resisting thought. maybe that’s where some sort of answer or truth is. in our minds. the only people that are ever going to change anything are the people who ask why over and over and over. i mean, even if you dont plan on changing the world, maybe in your own life you should walk into everything you do asking, “why do i do this?” so why do you work where you do? money? why do you want money? to buy alcohol on the weekends? why do you drink alcohol? for fun? so you wont be bored? i know thats not how it is for a lot of people, but thats how it is for some, and if you ask yourself that question, maybe you’ll find a deeper understanding about what you’re chasing in your life or where your focus is.
in through painted deserts, don and his friend paul hike to the bottom of the grand canyon, and realize before they did that, if you asked them what they wanted, they would say a boat, a car, a house, etc., but after they did the hike, all they wanted was a bowl of cereal. good food. simple as that. maybe theres something to that. maybe we were really meant to enjoy life as it is. to stop recreating it because we’re bored with it, cause i know watching the sunrise is a thing ill remember, whereas watching date my mom is not something ill remember. [mtv is really pathetic, by the way.] simple living is finding beauty where you are, and sometimes you need to venture out, but beauty is everywhere. its inescapable. its out your front door. its in the woodwork of your house. its on your family’s faces when theyre angry or happy or despondent. its really everywhere.
earlier i was sitting on my porch listening to mason jennings and drinking some water and i thought, man everything sure is beautiful. mason’s voice; pure, clear, refreshing water; the weather; my dog dixie; how green the trees are. everything. its really beautiful. and in that moment i felt like i was really supposed to be where i was. that i didnt have a thing to worry about because everything’s been put in my life for a reason. and maybe that reason is simply to make me say “this is beautiful” or to challenge me or to show me a little glimmer of God’s love, but for whatever it is, im thankful for it. and maybe the people in my life that confuse me are there so i can try my best to understand. and maybe the loneliness ive been feeling for a while is there so ill appreciate the company of others that much more. and maybe sometimes i get too caught up in trying to know how to love the right way that i completely miss it when its right in front of my face. we were created to enjoy things, to appreciate the gifts of entertainment other people give us, but in my life, i hope i always choose the sunset over the television, the company of friends over the extra hour of sleep, the thunderstorm over hiding out in my basement. maybe we should just let God be our entertainer, with his stars and wind and cosmos. i think that’s living a beautiful life. a life inspired.

steph

save me, 3eb

“i’d walk with my people if i could find them.”

seriously. third eye blind is one of the best bands ever, by the way. but i think that statement’s become more real to me than its ever been lately. my aunt told me ive been “different” since i was a toddler. im not sure if that means im just a weirdo or what, but i guess nowadays im seeing it more than i ever have. im not saying im special or anything like that, and im not saying the people i know arent entirely wonderful and beautiful creatures, i just dont think ive got very many like-minded people in my life…

what im saying is, i care about this group of things and im headed in this direction, and the rest of them care about these other things and are headed in other directions. and most of my opinions on most things are not by any means shared by most of my friends, just like theirs arent mine. so i think, in a way, they dont understand a very deep part of me, which explains why i like the music i do, why i like the movies i do, and why i read the books i read. in the same way, i dont understand why they like all of the things they do. why they want to work here or buy this or listen to this type of music. i dont understand it. the more i try to understand my friends, the more confused i get. its like trying to hold onto sand. it just doesnt work. so im worried a little bit. because i love these people, and i think these people might love me, but i dont… get them.

i hope this isnt offending anyone. if it is then i am truly very sorry and if you are my friend then i can assure you i think youre incredible and im not saying either of us are too good for one another and im not lumping you into a “rest of my friends” category because you are absolutely an individual and you may be entirely different from the rest of the people im talking about. in fact, its almost guaranteed that you are. i just dont know very many people who care about the things i care about to the same degree. i wish i did, though, cause it would give me more room to talk about the silly things i talk and think about all the time and have some sort of response, something that may tell me what i think is wrong or stupid or right or great, who understands why i care, who has an opinion.

i know it sounds like im minimizing the people that dont care about what i care about. dang im seriously sweeping up what i said after every single sentence, but i really dont want to leave the wrong impression with this. but really, if you dont care about what i care about, good for you, cause thats why the world works. if we werent all headed in different directions everything would be really stupid. im not saying stop the cycle or anything, im saying, i dont know how to relate to people anymore. yeah. its pathetic. i really dont. i dont like music that plays on the radio [unless of course it’s 106.9], i dont like television [unless of course it’s the history channel or south park], i dont know anything about cars, i dont want to sit around and talk about what guys are cute, i dont smoke weed, most of the time i dont put effort into looking nice [honestly, i wear the same clothes all the time and i rarely wash them unless they just smell funny or start fitting weird], i dont care about what mtv did during spring break, i dont go around trying to find someone to date because i dont think i would date 99.999999999999% of the population.

i think ive sort of… disbanded from society. i dont want to, ya know, but my interests led me that way. and maybe its my shortcoming right now. maybe its my fault. i dont know, but where are all the people i read about in books [non-fiction i promise] who care about whats going on in the world and do what they can to change it, the people who know theres more out there than just their friends and myspace and overall benefit? the people who will drive to the middle of nowhere with me just to see the stars? i think some people are caught up in the world while others are busy just enjoying it.

i dont even really know where im going with this because im really, really tired and i cant stop thinking about the dove chocolate in a cabinet in the kitchen, so i guess ill say it again, i’d walk with my people if i could find them, and until then im going to be holding this handfull of sand and trying to make sense of it, trying to find a way to keep it there rather than letting it slip away again and again.

take care,

steph

displaced

its become painfully obvious that i have got to get away from here. not that “here” is a bad place by any means, i just really have to get out. i have to shake off the familiar and work toward change. i have to spread out. to grow. i feel like a goldfish in a fishbowl. its driving me mad.

the truth is, i’m very lonely with my life the way it is. i sit on my back porch all day. i talk to my dog. i question if im close to much of anyone anymore. my best relationships are with people i dont get to see very often. and its very evident that most people are only indifferent. indifferent because to them their own lives are so big and everyone else’s so small.

people are not meant to be alone.

youre probably thinking well why dont you get a job, but i cant go anywhere on account of my mom wrecked her car and has been driving mine. i feel bad for her cause she said she feels bad about it, but i dont really mind much. i never had gas in the thing anyway.

“and i could not have known then that if i had been born here, i would have left here, gone someplace south to deal with horses, to get on some open land where you can see tomorrow’s storm brewing over a high desert. i could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. the seasons remind me that i must keep changing, and i want to change because it is God’s way. all my life i have been changing. i changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers. i changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. i will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. everybody has to change, or they expire. everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.
i want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. i want to keep walking away from the person i was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently…
life cannot be understood flat on a page. it has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath.” -don miller, from the author’s note in through pained deserts

that is precisely why i have to go. and i dont want to miss what “used to be” in my life. when we would all jump off that rock in turkey creek and hope we would land in the right spot, or when we climbed that crane, or when we got on top of that oil tower just so we could see over the trees. those things may be beyond some of us now but i want to make every single day better than the one before it. always growing, always improving. i want to be excited for what will be and look back on what used to be knowing i was happy, knowing, for a short time, that was all i needed, and looking forward to the days when i might go on a road trip with some people or alone, when i might swim in another creek, when everyone else’s lives are much bigger than my own.

to write love on her arms

just a few minutes ago, i was flipping through the latest relevant magazine and i came across, in one of the first few pages, a story about the to write love on her arms tour thats been going on. i knew a little bit about what they were doing so i decided to read the story. from my understanding, what this tour was about was hope. showing people who may think about suicide, cutting, etc. that pain is real but there is hope. in the story, there was this girl who saw the show and later handed the group an envelope with a letter that starts with “five years of scars mark my arms and blood replaced the tears i was unable to cry.” she left them her razorblade and ended with “thank you for loving the hopeless. thank you for loving me.”

when i read that something came over me. i just cried. i think what got me were the last two sentences. i just sat there and cried. so much of the time i forget that im not the only one hurting in this world. other times i forget about america and only think about people in africa and i think they are the only ones hurting. but really, pain is everywhere. cutting and suicide are frighteningly real in our society. my own granddad who was a youth pastor for a time ended up taking his own life. i dont know the story very well because i dont think my mom likes talking about it, but its certainly close to home. my dad’s mom came strikingly close to killing herself several times. my dad saved her life a couple of those times. my aunt tried to kill herself last year. my ex boyfriend said he tried to kill himself when we broke up last year as well. im sure you know people who have either succeeded or at least tried. maybe it’s you.

i think it’s amazing that there are people out there reaching out to those who are hurting and saying, look it’s okay. i feel pain as you feel pain, i understand, and im going to love you. there are people who are choosing to love the ones who cant even love themselves. and thats what we all need. we need someone to tell us that we are loved. most of the time, people made us feel unloved, and that is why we are hurting. breakups, parents, friendships, disloyalty, whatever. theres generally someone telling us we are not worth it when we feel bad. well guess what, you are worth it, and if you were here with me right now i would shake you and repeat it until you believed me.

we live in such a crazy world. that song mad world by tears for fears is so on. life gets so monotonous and sometimes it takes a little tragedy to uproot our planted feet. that’s no good, but it happens every single day. every single one of us have cried because we were sad, we have all been unloved in some way, we have all fallen short of some expectation. we are a broken people doing everything we can to put ourselves back together.

as christians, it is our duty first and foremost to reach out to people where they are hurting. to, not only address our wounds, but to hold theirs as well. it will be a perfect system when we can find a way to look inside one another rather than looking inside ourselves. there is a world out there shouting that you are not good enough. that you have to get plastic surgery, the right friends, and the right amount of money to be allowed to take part in our society. i think soon there will be a rising voice shouting much louder and saying “you have a purpose. you are loved. you belong. there is hope.” we should all join and shout it together. we should all love unconditionally every single time to every single person. despite how hard it is, we have aid. we have scripture, one another, and a loving God ready to instill us with a passion for humanity. someday maybe christians will love as we should and every single person purged of love will come and find peace and hope and a place where they can belong. this is what we should be about. this should be our vision.

learning what youre after

so, hey blog thing. i quit livejournal because it seemed very… teenage angsty… and moved here. honestly, i dont care much if anyone at all reads this; just knowing i can have public personal thoughts out there somehow is a good thing for me.

today i realized that i’ve been a little desperate lately. if you talk to me on a regular basis, especially if youre a member of my family, you’ll know that all i do is read. i want to know about God and theology and characters in stories. i want to know everything. well in the past few weeks, it’s gotten to the point that the only thing i think about is God. i will not hang out with people so i can sit at home and think about God. i told my brother, matt, that i feel like i’m completely wasting time if i’m not talking, thinking, or reading about God. it sounds really nice, it does, it seems like something we should want, but no. it got to the point where i was a recluse, i didnt enjoy anything because i was too busy thinking about its relevance. i couldnt do anything and enjoy it. i was totally caught up in understanding how big God is and all the things he does and i totally forgot how to live my life. it was not about seeking a relationship, it was about seeking knowledge. and knowledge is great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a difference between an interest and an obsession.

ya know, i thought i was on the right path, but today i learned that it’s hard to glorify God when you’re alone in your bedroom avoiding relationships and the real world. that’s not what life is about. it’s not about storing up all these thoughts in your head so you can imbue your knowledge to your friends and family and they will say you’re smart. that’s glorifying yourself. that’s human. that’s selfish.

the truth is, most of the time, Christians are not following Christ. plain and simple. we are following our own agendas. we are listening to self-help preachers tell us that Jesus is our answer to life because he’s going to enrich your life and it will flourish with all the sweetest little treasures on your fluffy stupid pillow. that’s completely false. Jesus did not come promising us comfort and he certainly did not come promising us wealth. why would paul’s life have sucked so much if that were so? it just doesn’t add up.

the truth is, most of the time i have a really hard time glorifying God and not myself. most of the time when i try to say beautiful things about God, i want you to think the things im saying are beautiful because of something inside of me. it’s a completely indirect self-motivated thing for, not only me, but i think a lot of us.

the problem with my lifestyle right now is i am so focused on the wordiness of Christ that i am forgetting the beauty part. it’s wearing me out. part of enjoying God is enjoying his creation. it’s really… strange not to. so im going to go outside and look at the stars and think about my family and friends and dixie. i have every reason to enjoy God through these things because every single one of them points toward God. it’s really inescapable if you think about it.

adios.