peacocks and fire and meteor showers and dreams

Caitlin Holliday is a new friend of mine as of this waning semester of school.  She gets along with my sister, and she eats with us often at Corbett when I freeload off Becky’s thousand remaining dorm meal passes.  The two of them, years behind the trend, just started blogging.  I’ve been just thrilled to read their writing lately because they’re both fantastic writers and have so many great things to say.  You should definitely try out their blogs if you have a chance.

Becky Raab can be found here at I Got Stars in My Pocket.

And Caitlin Holliday can be found at Hallway of Leaves.

Before I go any further, did you catch the song references?  Becky’s is from a song Sean Brage started writing for her like three years ago around her 16th birthday.  Caitlin’s is from a Sleeping At Last song that I adore.  Good starts to good blogs.

A couple of excerpts from their first posts.  When I read this this morning I was inspired. Caitlin, writing about the creativity of God this morning wrote “Our God is the God who created things like peacocks and fire and meteor showers and dreams.”  Does that make your heart flutter a little?  God is brilliantly creative indeed.  Becky, thinking about God’s plan for her life wrote on Tuesday “I don’t have to worry about getting my list done, because it is not about me in the first place.  I don’t have to worry about meeting God’s expectations because He will help me, I could never do it myself anyway.”

Good writing.  I’m glad that people choose to write.  Read some blogs today, and read Caitlin and Becky’s blogs too.

The sun forebear to shine.

I’m about to rant about my inward struggles.  Although this is what blogging is all about, if you’re not interested (and I wouldn’t blame you) then just don’t even bother reading this.  No hard feelings.  Just need to say these things to the world for some reason.

 

Bullets serve this post well…

• I’m tired of being disconnected and disorganized.
• I’m tired of double-booking.
• I’m tired of not getting work off in time and messing up more important things.
• I’m tired of leaving my keys in inconvenient places (my apologizes to Tim and Alyssa).
• I’m tired of making dumb, costly mistakes.
• I’m tired of how messy my room is.
• I’m tired of how my stuff is all over the house, unlike the other guys.
• I’m tired of how much I suck at studying.
• I’m tired of how pseudo-ADD I am.
• I hate that I still don’t know where my glasses are.
• I hate that my guitar still has mismatched strings.
• I hate that I run my car into things.
• I hate that I run my car into things right after the car becomes legally mine.
• I hate that I run my car into things right after we reduce my insurance to liability only.
• I hate that I have two court dates set due to my careless driving.
• I hate that all I do is wish I was better at school, or even that I liked it, or appreciated it.
• I hate that I re-wear socks every day.
• I hate that my bank accounts are a mess.
• I hate that as soon as I pay off my Credit Card again, I have to use it for some huge, unexpected thing.
• I hate how much money I owe my dear parents.
• I hate how they pretend like they don’t mind that I’ve never been able to pay them even a little, expect for my computer.
• I hate how I had to sell my iMac back to my Dad (see “I hate” line above).
• I hate how I don’t even have a whisper of direction in my life.
• I hate how I constantly blame God for that.

 

Could I go on all day?  Yes.  I’m stressed because I am a mess.

Am I happy?  Confident?  Satisfied with my lot in life?

Absolutely.  Joy is all over me. Jesus is completely my strength.

So what’s the deal?  God is still unreasonably good to me.  I believe that.  I am just a sloppy, undependable steward of his blessing and favor.

• I hate that I’m a sloppy, undependable steward of his blessing and favor.
• I hate how I’ll get to heaven and still hear “Well done my good and faithfull servant” no matter what I do down here.
• I hate that God will sincerely mean that, and means that even today.
• I hate that I don’t understand that kind of grace.

Sorry you read that whole thing, thanks though.

My Exit, Unfair.

I’ve been enjoying the blog “Stuff Christians Like” quite a bit lately.  Its a cleverly satirical, unchurchy analysis of Christians and how we live.  It’s moving and hilarious.  This most recent post, however, wasn’t as funny as it was convicting to me.  

 

You see, “Stuff Christians Like”  has become a lot more popular than the writer ever expected, with thousands and thousands of people reading it everyday.  The author, a man named Jon, is always trying to deny that God is doing something through his blog, much like I deny that God is actually doing something through me, my music, my day job, or my relationships.  Anyway, he quoted a section of  The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield, talking about the struggle that artists of various types have with making their work their life and fully using their gifts.  This was convicting to me:

 

The Artist’s Life
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.

Do it or don’t do it.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

(This part spoke to me the most…)

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution.

Give us what you’ve got.

 

 

I Love it.  Tell me what you think.

Crummunity, Crumunity

I started a blog for bloggers.  It’s a “short” blog or kind of a “status” blog that might remind you of Twitter.  I’ve seen it done before and I love it!  Cru friends of mine who have just recently begun blogging or have been blogging for a while now have been made “contributors” to the blog (If I missed you, let me know!).  As if we needed more ways to communitcate.  Crumunicate?

 

By the way, does this term “Crumunity” that we’ve come up have two “m”’s, or one?  I texted a few people to find out.  Dan and Brittany said two m’s, but Chris Martinez and Barry said one, so this left me to figure it out on my own.  I declared today that one m makes more grammatical sense.  ”Community” is comprised of Com and Munity, to create com-munity.  Say those two parts separately and it makes more sense.  Since Crumunity is a cute way to say “Cru community”, and we substitute the “com” out for “Cru”, it would make no sense to throw the extra m in there.  ”Cru-m-munity?”, say that to yourself.  I don’t see it.

 

So check out the new short blog for Cru bloggers and let me know what you think!  Say whatever you feel, link to new posts you’ve written, put up pictures, verses, videos, songs, etc…

Nobody go to Phil’s blog.

A lot of bloggers like to check the “Stats” feature of WordPress regularly to see how many views their blog has gotten lately.  It also tells you what links are giving your site the most views, which posts get the most activity, etc.  I’m one of those bloggers.  I like to see what’s going on.

 

I started blogging on May 2nd of this year, so that means I’m still pretty new to this.  My most popular day ever was 45 views, laugh at that if you will.  My roomate, Phil Waggoner, just started blogging today.  He is ALREADY AT 47 VIEWS for today.  HOW IS THAT?!  His blog is nothing.  A cute and appropriate picture of a kid stuck in a toilet and a picture from a comic strip that isn’t funny.  I pour my heart out regularly and get zero traffic apparently.  His blog is already super popular and is meaningless.  I am John McCain, and Phil is Barrack Obama.  I’m all history and relevance, he’s all image.  And that image is a kid stuck in a toilet.  

 

I’m not actually bitter.  To be honest I’m pretty pumped that he’s blogging now because he has so much to say about politics.  His blog is destined to overrun mine.  So be it.  Welcome to the blogosphere, roomie.

Twitterpated.

I am loving my new Twitter account.  I should have gotten into this earlier!

 

Check it out, make one for yourself, follow me, follow your friends.  Web 2.0 frolic with us.

So I just wanted to point out a couple things real quick.

Sean is now using the same theme I’ve been using for weeks on his blog.  Probably just because it looks so good and artsy.  Girls would be mad at their friends for copying them, but I’m actually a little honored.  Schweet.

 

Second thing is that his head line is a quote from a song by Brooke Waggoner, my room mate Phil’s older sister.  Her music is incredible and I listen to it all the time.  Her amazingly unique EP is free to download, and her full-length comes out very soon.  So check it out and let it take you to a really cool, really happy place.

Definitely needed another homework distraction.

So today I start blogging, behind the trend as usual. I’ve started to read blogs from friends of mine like Sean Brage and Mark Thomas, both men who’ve influenced me more than a little in my life, and I’ve loved reading about and getting caught up on their thoughts and ideas. So here’s the first blog.

A friend of mine whom I went to elementary (pity I had to spell check THAT word) school with met up with me for lunch at the brand new “Academic Village” dining hall on campus here at CSU (also had to spell check “academic”, that’s fantastic.). I’ve known Caleb for years, but today as we enjoyed some entirely sub-par food he opened up to me for the first time and I really got to hear about his life. People like Caleb should be exciting to Christians. He was raised in a Christian home, but like so often is the case, he lost his way some time in high school. Through a lot of prayer from his friends and his family, he found a church up here in lovely Fort Collins where he’s been getting back into his faith. In this next month he will be baptized in the Poudre river and re-dedicated to Jesus. Beautiful. His life isn’t easy right now, his girlfriend of 14 months broke up with him a few day ago and he’s obviously really hurt over it. But I am so encouraged that his faith is new and he is seeking God even while he’s hurting. Love it.