There must be some mistake.

I learned some things today in the white wonderland that is Fort Collins that made me sad, especially after all my tree-talk the other day.

I mentioned in my last post that the “the oval”, a large circular drive that forms the perimeter of a small sort of park, is filled with a hundred or so trees, all over a hundred years old.  Today, walking to class with a knit hat and the most waterlogged thrift store shoes ever, I came upon that oval.  I found it barricaded, with caution tape tied from tree to tree all the way around, disallowing me to conveniently cross it diagonally.  As I walked a good third of a mile around, I watched as trucks cleaned up a number of enormous branches that had fallen from these huge trees sometime that last night while we all slept.  Enormous gashes in the trunks from missing limbs left these trees looking dismembered and bullied.  God must have walked through the oval while we slept in heated homes, carefully stepping over the trees we planted and stopping now and then to bend over and pull a few thousand-pound branches from hundred-foot trees like a kid might pull the legs off a grasshopper.  He had a good reason to do it cause he knows more about trees, but I was still sad.

I mentioned it to a friend of mine, asking why they didn’t fall to pieces like that last year when we got our first really big snow.  She said that our trees have a sort of tree cancer.  It’s a bug or a mold or something that kills them from the inside and I guess a lot of Colorado trees are dying from it.  I wonder what feels like for these anciently living organisms to feel suddenly and strikingly mortal after all they’ve seen.  Because of this sad tree disease,  the trees in the oval are terminal, and have become a lot weaker than they were in decades past when they stood up straight through the winter, arms raised to heaven like a charismatic.  This year, the heavy wet snow is heartless, felling branch by brittle branch and making it unsafe for the first time since Barrack Obama spoke underneath that canopy, to walk through the hallway of leaves I’m so normalized to.

I don’t know why I’m suddenly such a tree-hugger, but I’m really crushed by this.  How long have I known these trees?  Maybe three years?  Weren’t they planted like in 1870?  The year African-Americans could finally vote, the year Virginia rejoined the union, and the year they found and named Old Faithful.  My great grandparents were probably twenty-somethings or younger, still unaware of the alcoholism and abuse they would engage in later to set the stage for the beautiful families my grandparents would found in the fifties, consequently determined to build homes free from these vices.  Some of their descendants before me would also walk under these same trees as CSU students, long before RamCT or automated text messages on our phones from the school when the snow’s grown too deep for class.  I should ask Uncle Dan what the trees were like then.  I should ask Uncle Jim if this makes him sad.

I bet they weren’t concerned for the trees back then, they seemed strong.  They were probably at a more climbable height anyway.  So why is my generation the one to watch these trees fed piece-by-piece into noisy woodchippers as their dry branches fall on sidewalks and cars?  The next generation will probably just jump from stump to stump, uniquely aware of the blue sky that was hidden to us in the oval by a green patchwork canopy of leaves the size of your hand.  But they won’t be aware of the shade we had when we would play frisbee after work on summer days.

I guess eventually they will plant new trees to fight through the cold, dead roots that stretch a hundred feet underground, to establish a new network of life.  But for another fifty years kids will bike around them, not under them.  I imagine one or two of the old trees will survive, and kids will just think it’s a monstrosity because although it used to be surrounded by friends its size, now it stands out and is contrasted as huge beside the saplings.  The pictures on the CSU website will be of this tree.  Pamphlets and brochures show kids studying under it, amongst the little trees transplanted from some tree farm.  It’s like an anomaly, a living exception that would teach us as much as we could understand if it could talk.  Maybe someday I’ll walk by those trees with a young Raab of my own, to leave him here like I was left here, a wonderful part of life and an adventure I’m still enjoying.  I’ll tell him about what the trees looked like when I went here, we’ll talk about how nice it is in Fort Collins, and then I’ll hug him and hold on as tight as my Dad held onto me. I’ll pray for him to know God and to be courageous like Joshua.

When I return home, there will naturally be a void.  Kind of like the void the trees left when we cut them down.  But he’ll return on occasion, far from forgotten, unlike the trees.  I dramatize everything.  Music people are the worst at doing that.  Now I’m caused to remember that those trees are still there as we speak, even if they’re looking a little grey like the sky the last couple days.  No one’s cut them down yet.  I don’t have a son, praise God in Heaven, and  I’m actually the one who returns home, on occasion, to see my lovely parents.  Hmmm….life is good for me.

The character of God is different than trees, because even the oldest, most majestic trees we can think of can be destroyed from the inside by little beetles or mold or whatever.  They eventually topple over and we send them in pieces to wherever dead trees go to become paper.  I assume all trees get turned into paper when they die.  God is different though, because we can climb in His branches, build a treehouse amongst the strong limbs, and live in peace and childlikeness in His great comforting love, without the fear of anything bringing us down.  No beetles, fire, or irresponsible teenage drivers could bring down this great tree.  We’re safe, we’re warm and cared about.  I am sure that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39) We’re safe amongst these branches.

If  there does come a day when I leave a little Raab kid who maybe looks a little bit like me, at this great university or some other one, I’ll tell him about trees, and about the ones in the oval, and about how God isn’t anything like them.  Because His beauty is something unaffected by seasons or fires or anything people do or even the way people see Him.  He is Himself and He’s unspeakably brilliant and we don’t understand Him and that’s why it’s entirely appropriate to worship Him with every second, every moment, and every single thought.  That’s the God I serve.  THAT is my soon coming King.  If you’re looking for me, I’m up in His branches, holding on as tightly as He held onto me.

I held on as tightly as You held onto me.

I can’t get past my relationship with trees.  I live in a house made of what used to be trees.  The bed I sleep in was fashioned from a tree, bought by some great grandparent of mine.  All of my guitars and drums were once strong trees, birch, maple, spruce, ash.  The living trees of my city build a canopy over my head, starting from the time I walk down the (wooden) steps of my home and step onto the ground, where the leaves all crunch when I step on them.  Down the street, lined with cottonwoods and aspens, across an intersection of busy cars.  Trees don’t get near the train track, but as I cross over it, looking both ways out of habit, I wonder what it looked like here before trains and people cut into the landscape to build this city.  The trees stretch over my head as I keep walking and cross the oval, three old rows of different species that stood still through two world wars.

 

Putting out my pipe, I step onto a campus boldly self-proclaimed as “green”.  I don’t think we know anything about green, we think green means turning off the lights when we leave the house.  I think green is a color.  I also think green is beautiful, and smells like summer, and looks like when I was ten or so, planting rows of little pine trees with my dad somewhere in Elbert County, Colorado, by a house he built for us to live in.  I wonder how many of those trees are still alive.   This thought process brought to you by Patrick Watson and the Cinematic Orchestra.  Listen to “To Build a Home”.  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjjc59FgUpg ) Then listen to it again.  Then call me and we’ll cry and talk about it.

 

Out in the garden where we planted the seeds
There is a tree as old as me
Branches were sewn by the color of green
Ground had arose and passed it’s knees

By the cracks of his skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me

 

I think God put more of his character into trees than we realize.  They don’t move from season to season, they don’t stop being there.  We stop noticing them, but trees are the houses we live in, the chairs we sit in, the beds we sleep in, the tables we eat on.  In spring they bloom or release cotton to fill the air and glow in the afternoon sun.  All summer they grow green, we climb in them, and they give us shade.  In fall they light up and glow a different color on their way to winter.  Then they paint themselves white and sleep in colorlessness until spring.  Like God, we see them differently as we go from season to season, but we don’t see them move, so we don’t always think about them.  We only notice them when they signify the changing seasons.  Oh, notice your God, climb to to top of the tree.  When the wind comes to blow you down, hold on as tightly as He held on to you.

August Christmas Lights.

Leaving the Christmas lights up year round provides an ongoing illusion of cheer and seasonal togetherness. I like the way that feels. As if tomorrow morning we’ll all come down the stairs in our pajamas to a glowing room full of things our parents bought for us without any expectation of repayment. But its August the 7th, and my parents live in a different town now. Maybe they would like the lights if they visited for some reason, but came at night so the braided green wires didn’t just look tacky draped around the room.

I dont ever want to miss a day with God. I always think of it. See our relationship is something precious and bright, and it isn’t an illusion of joy like Christmas lights in summer.

Once a day here at my job in college, at a $7-a-plate restaurant across an intersection from the University, the sun suddenly suspends itself right over the awning for a while and shoots through the window for about ten minutes in brilliant orange. Before it disappears behind the building across the street, it colors the whole restaurant and illuminates every dust particle on its way across the dining room and into my squinty eyes. When I had glasses, if they weren’t really clean when that time of day came around, all the fingerprints and scratches would come out in the direct sunlight. I would usually just take them off at this point.

He is more like that light to me. Whenever he comes around I am blinded and mesmerized by him. See he could become just something I come home to, something I’m not shocked to see like the summer Christmas lights in my living room that lost thier novelty in the spring. I need to keep making the most of every moment I have with him, and not grow into grown-up complacency. For he is a very constant friend to me and a failproof companion I cannot see but know very well as my rock and salvation.

That resturant will be gone someday, but as long as God holds back his wrath on the Earth, the sun will return to that place every evening, whether veiled by clouds or not. I want to see him like that everyday, blaring into my dark, wicked life with his brilliant light, making me cover my face and eyes in shame and unspeakable joy to see that I’m not half as bad as he is good!

I pray all the time that he will brightly blind the eyes of my generation in the same way so they can be as overwhelmed with his glory and goodness as I am.

Re: Love like old people

I love old people who love kids.  Some old folks just don’t care for kids and I don’t blame them, but the elderly who like kids, I really like.  I remember being a kid, like maybe nine.  I was at a church garage sale with my mother, outside in front of the building our church shared with the post office in our small town.  I forget the woman’s name now, but she was always so nice to my sisters and I.  She had made some sort of beginner embroider kit items for the garage sale, apparently not understanding that you get rid of old things you don’t want at garage sales.  She had instead created some things for the sale, and I found myself at her table.  I picked up a little blue and white standalone pocket thing she had made, matching cross snugly inside its fold.  There was a typewriter-written poem on white paper stuffed behind the cross in the pocket.  I thought the thing was fascinating, not even reading the poem till I got home.  When I picked it up and asked her how much it cost, I saw something move behind her eyes.  She put a soft hand on my back and told me sweetly that I could just have it.  She then bent over and pulled out a plastic bag, like the kind you get at the grocery store when you don’t ask for paper.  She began to put a number of other things in the bag, telling me they were all things I needed.  She gave me a few things to give to my mother.  I didn’t say very much, because although it didn’t register in my eight or nine year-old brain, I was humbled and almost embarrassed, feeling guilty that this person I didn’t really know was giving me all these little Christian keepsakes and treasures she made that now I’ve lost a long time ago.  There was a very pleasant, warm feeling on my back and shoulders, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  It was like goose-bumps and butterflies in my chest.  I was moved inside at her kindness. I was like ten.  Throughout my life, I’ve gotten that same feeling from other older people when they’ve shown me unusual kindness.  Another example is Alma Suhonnen, a woman my mother used to pray with a lot. Alma passed away a few years ago now.  This lady was so sweet and so kind.  She sang in the worship team my parents led at a church in Parker, CO.  Her husband Bill played saxophone in the band, and their son Mark went on to be a professional drummer.  Playing all kinds of music in all kinds of countries.  He influenced me to play drums when I was maybe twelve, and I still communicate with the man on rare occasion.  Last I knew he was in Korea or something playing his electronica for tens of thousands of Koreans.  Life is strange.  His mother though, always gave me that same warm feeling.  She would pray for me and lay hands on me with my mother when I was sick or bothered.  I think it was her that my mom prayed with over my stomach when I had swallowed a penny at age four and was in need of surgery to avoid an ensuing hole in my stomach lining around the stuck penny.  The first miracle my mom ever felt was the penny moving out of the lining of my stomach and safely into my system, right there in that room.  She says she felt the penny move.  Now and then when I’m digging through storage back home looking for something, I’ll stumble upon a manilla envelope with the x-rays of my small body, the penny a bright reflective hole in the picture.  I think about it and the day I painfully passed the penny out of my system, never to eat money again.  God’s miracles are the basis of my life.  There’s another good, more memorable example of old people that make me feel that warm sticky cared-about feeling. I met a girl at youth group senior year of high school named Courtney Carrington.  She had a hell of a past, with family problems, health problems, the whole works.  I should have not hung out with this girl as much as I did.  I think she liked me more than I liked her and I must have hurt her.  I had known her for a number of months when I left for college, moving to the town where I still live.  I didn’t have a car for my first year of college.  I had a trashy bike and a good pair of shoes.  Those got me faithfully around campus, but I had to call on my friends for rides around town and rides back home an hour and a half away, South of the school.  One weekend, as Courtney was trying out schools, her, her mother, and her two sisters all came up North to visit my school.  We spent some time together, I showed her the campus, the dorm I lived in, the IHOP nearby, and the Village Inn a few minutes away down the main road in the town.  I decided as they were leaving that I needed to go home that weekend, so I bummed a ride down with them, sharing the back seat with two little Carrington girls as their big sister drove, sitting next to mom upfront.  We listened through every CD I ever burned for Courtney on the way down.  We stopped by the house they were staying in and I had the pleasure of meeting Courtney’s grandfather, Kirt Gandy.  Him and I connected over the fact that we both enjoyed cigars.  I don’t smoke much anymore, but I had fun then sitting on the back porch conversing with him about it as Courtney got ready inside to take me the rest of the way home.  Apparently she had to change clothes to do that.
About the time she emerged and was ready to leave, I had been ushered into his library and was seeing his collection of books.  The man is a Bible scholar.  He has a degree of some sort that he exhausted before he retired and he also has whatever sort of credentials you get after spending enough time at seminary.  Anyway in his long life that I really know nothing else about he developed this library.  That day as Courtney waited in the living room for me, he showed me book after book I needed if I was every going to study the Bible seriously.  The whole time as he poured out his heart to me regarding the depth and character of the word of God, I was covered in those same goose-bumps I had as a kid at the church garage sale, and felt that same warmth I felt when Alma Suhonnen would pray over me with my mother.  I can’t get enough of that distinctive feeling.  Later that year a box of books showed up with Courtney one day when she came over to see me at our old house in Parker.  Her grandfather had put together a small library to “get me started”, as he wrote on the first page of the blank journal that came with the collection of books, the journal he intended me to fill with clever scholarly notes like the notes he made all over every book he had given me to help me better understand them.  It was the most meaningful gift I had probably every received up to that point, bar my first drum set and guitar, not that I realized it then.  I remember sitting on the floor of my room in the basement later that night after Courtney had driven her mom’s car back to Aurora.  I looked through this box of books, lots of them still brand new, purchased by this guy just for me, and got that same feeling of warmth and unspeakable joy.  He had included a little broken book rack, three or four new versions of the bible I didn’t have, a few books on worship and worship music since he knew that’s what I did, and also a book called “How To Read the Bible for All It’s Worth”.  As we speak, I’m halfway through reading this book and it has already changed the way I read God’s word.  I’ve read a lot of the books from that box, I’m pleased to say, and one of those bibles is now my everyday reader.  The collection is now nicely arranged on my bookcase on the shelf under the fantastic array of worthless math and science textbooks I hope to never use again.  Every time I open one of those books and read through it, I get that feeling again as I stumble across something he’s underlined for me or notes he’s personally made in the margins.  I get the feeling of someone caring for me deeply and genuinely in a way I didn’t earn and don’t deserve.  Kirt Gandy must have thought I was marrying his granddaughter for the time he put into the gift he gave me.  I came back over to the house he lives in a few weeks later with a long thank-you note and him and I talked for a while.

I don’t know if everyone has that same sensation when they encounter selfless love like that.  I’ve felt it at a number of random times throughout my days, strangely always from older folks, but all those times are still so memorable.  Thinking of it now I get that feeling of warmth and closeness, even here alone on my couch tonight.  It’s my favorite feeling in the world.

I think the woman of God I marry someday will make me feel this same way.  The lucky pattern God has established in my life is called undeserved blessing and unmerited favor.  I have lots of things I don’t deserve and lots of meaningful, personal things he’s given me or done for me that were not things I asked for but have greatly improved my life.  Good room mates, for example.  A car.  Good musical instruments.  A phenomenal family and extended family.  A worship leader position amongst people my age.  Just to name a few in no particular order.  I think God will appoint for me a woman who is like these things.  A wonder, a person to make me warm and happier.  She’s sweet and sincere, uplifting and gentle.  I think she, by being a gift I don’t deserve like a box of books or a heartfelt gift from an old church lady, will give me that deep and warming feeling.  When she hugs me as I come home from work, I’ll have that pleasant prickly goose-bump sensation as a sign that not only am I with the right person, but that God is himself a giver of undeserved and marvelous gifts.  From his Son’s death in place of mine, to a lifelong companion someday so that I might not go through life alone, God’s generous character is evident in the lives he’s crafted for us.  I like how I get a warm feeling when people reflect God in this way.

Back to where we started, more than who we were.

“Come, and let us return to the Lord

For He has torn, but He will heal us;

He has stricken us, but He will bind us up.

After two days He will revive us;

On the third day He will raise us up,

That we may live in his sight.

Let us know,

Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.

His going forth is established as the morning;

He will come to us like the rain,

Like the latter and former rain to the Earth.”

Hosea 6:1

 

Today is like this…

• Copeland on vinyl
• Rainy, green Fort Collins
• Hope in Jesus only
• Excitement for Eikon tomorrow (ask me about it?)

Too Bright to See Too Loud to Hear.

Tonight I did homework for a number of long hours.  While it was Wednesday I listened through the new Kings Of Leon album, “Only By The Night”.  Into Thursday I listened through the new Underoath, “Lost In the Sound of Separation”.  It was a satisfactory listening experience. On my big green couch.

 

The truth is I’m in the mood for anything musically after a certain time of night.  Everything starts to have more depth and meaning, everything becomes more elegant.  In the morning if I’m still really into what I was listening to the night before, it’s something I need to remember liking so much.  This applies.

 

I like both of the above albums quite a bit.   I don’t have anything musiciany or critical to say about either album right now, other than way to go Kings for kicking teeth in and way to go Underoath for being sharply creative and singing about Jesus from your scene little guts.  I enjoy your records, I like your sound.  Both of you bands.  Lets all be friends.

Act like big city kids when the sun goes down.

Vinyls don’t make it into bins at Goodwill unless they are awful.

I don’t make it to Goodwill unless I’m really bored.

 I don’t get really bored unless I’m denying I have a lot of things to do, tricking myself into feeling like I have nothing to do, so I do nothing when I have lots to do.

It’s actually a great feeling.

She was a quintessential college student straight from Alley Cat, wheeling her fix-gear into the store.  I flipped through a few worthless plastic records as she walked through isles of clothing people didn’t want but felt guilty throwing away.  Blonde hair cut short, glassy blue eyes and a plaid jumper over jeans, she glanced directly up at me.  I stopped flipping records over and briefly locked eyes with her, smoothly turning back to my time wasting task of making completely sure I didn’t want to purchase Lawrence Welk “Christmas Memories” for 99 cents.

People are of a different value than anything.  She’s a person, a compete, living work of God.  Completely self sustained, mechanically speaking, without any internal need for electricity or petroleum products.  A machine that feels, looks, and listens all on its own with a soul God died for once.

Next thing I know she was flipping through vinyls with me, laughing as Neil Diamond came and went back into the rejection pile on the ground next to us.  

We made small talk.  I asked her not to buy all the good ones.  Some boy with a pink and green shirt came up behind her and they left in high spirits.  I smiled and put the records back into the bin.

 

I love people, and that’s all.

Light story

I could only see a little through my eyes. A sliver of light cut some sort of wall in two pieces, and small patches of shadow ran accross the light in order and at the same rate. Something like a dim spotlight shone on the wall, but that didn’t make sense so I closed my eyes again because I didn’t want to figure it out.

 

For a while I laid there, wherever I was, trying to disappear again from consciousness, but apparently my brain was awake enough to ask questions. I moved my hand to my face to feel for contusions or stitches as an explanation for why my head hurt. All I learned was that my fingers smelled like cigarettes and I needed to wash my hair.

 

Opening my eyes again I looked into the brightness. I could make out nothing but the sliver of light with the shadows racing over it.

 

Sometimes the brain is better at producing images than the eyes, and suddenly, invoulentarily, I was somehere else. I saw her in the hallway of her apartment with her hood pulled over her head and a crooked smile over dry lips.  She softly says “Hey-ay” as I take off my shoes and walk through her door, my chest all warm inside.  Those grey eyes have been tragically embossed into my mind for months.

 

I was in a moving vehicle. That explained the moving shadows and the vibration in the floor.  Rays from the coastal sun intersected with the foliage beside the uneven road on their way into the cabin through some narrow open window, but that didn’t give an explanation as to why my head hurt so much I couldn’t see.  The air smelled like Thai food with a hint of diesel fuel and all i could hear was the rumbling of the engine and some sort of chains rattling around.  

 

A bump passed beneath us somewhere and knocked my head against the metal floor in the vehicle. It hurt so much I just closed my eyes again as the joyride continued.

 

Something about my situation didn’t concern me.  There are more important people than I.  I don’t know anything to make me valuable and I have hardly a cent to my name with no one to ransom me, so I probably wasn’t being kidnapped for anything.

 

Maybe they were taking me home to see everyone.

She’s gonna teach me how to swim.

I was inspired by Sean’s latest blog, utilizing a neat list format.  I haven’t written in a while, so hopefully this will help me formulate my thoughts?

 

Halfway through SB ‘09 in La Jolla, CA.

• Yogurtland/Yogi Topi/Golden Spoon = Fantastic  Frozen yogurt parlors are the next big thing.  Move over Cold Stone.
• Renting Bianchi hybrid bikes and riding all over town was a hoot today.
• I saw two Bugatti Veyron’s and #3 of 20 Lamborghini Reventons in the world.  Good car day with Marcus Lutz and Bucky Johns.
• Being sunburned isn’t fun.  Being overwhelmingly sandy isn’t fun.  Being sore and tired isn’t fun.  Being all of them at the same time after a whole day on the beach is fantastic.
• I really like As Tall As Lions.  That band is great.
• Also really enjoying Thievery Corporation. Good electronica.
• The most notable band lately, however is Faultline.  Holy cow this band is so good. “Where is my Boy?” featuring Chris Martin is the saddest most sensational song I’ve heard in some time.
• Nightclubs are a great place to have a church.  Great sound systems, Lots of good lighting and projectors, creative seating arrangements, etc…  Rock Harbor church at the Shark Club was a great experience.  Plus they have real sharks in giant tanks.  Cool.
• California is a great place to visit, but I couldn’t ever really live here.
• I miss Fort Collins.
• I miss Phil. (Awwww)
• I love my fantastic friends here in Cali.  Go spring break.

Can You Make Any Sense Of This?

I am such a huge time waster.  It’s really bad.  I live in a house without cable television, and without video games from the last decade, but I cannot get a thing done.

 

It’s a AWFUL feeling and I hate it.  Is it ADD? Is it just apathy and laziness?  I don’t know.  I don’t want to put out the effort to be more productive.  I could try but I would hate it.  

 

God, I am worthless without your direction.  See I have no passion for school because I am only occupying a seat there, not learning from it.  As of now I exist at CSU to lead a worship team that leads kids from my age group in the worship of our Savior King, Jesus.  That’s fantastic and I love it, but that’s not the original goal at all.  Eventually I will get some kind of degree from the University, but as of now I am worthless here!  God give me a vision?  You led me here, you gave me a job here, a house here, a band here, and a hundred friends here.  I love it here.  But the original reason for my being here was to get an education and eventually a degree.  What happened to that?  Why don’t I even care about that anymore?  This is really hard for me.

 

Without vision I perish, but have it as you will.

 

K thanks.