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.

Just that it’s delicate.

Riding bikes through empty streets late at night is a favorite thing of mine to do.  My beloved room mate Tyler Saxton just invested wisely in a cool old French road bike, so we’ve spent a lot of time tearing around Fort Collins together lately.  Tonight we got back to the house just before two in the morning after a long talk sitting on some sticky tables we rode to downtown somewhere, a mile or so from our house.  The cold air, the fast bikes, the staggering drunks, the blue Gatorade, the heart-to-heart, all of it, made a great midnight outing.

We discussed tonight, like we do a lot, what God has for us in our relationships with girls.  My theory is that God has a set “Plan A” girl or guy for every person alive.  There are, in addition to this person, many other good candidates for a lifelong partner, but none will be to you what “Plan A” could be.  That’s the theory.

So my question was, are we guaranteed to find that person if we seek God for him or her and do our best to look and listen for his guidance in our relationships?  I’d like to believe that yes I will, in fact, wind up with my “Plan A” girl.  Now if I fall in love and give my heart away prematurely, I believe God will still bless my relationship with whoever if we, together, put him first in the matter and stay holy.  She becomes “Plan A” at this point, and because I cannot know that this woman is THE one for me without God explicitly telling me that, I have to live like she is “Plan A” and love her and treat her like “Plan A”.  So basically I’m saying that whatever girl I “choose”, as if God hasn’t kindly ordered every step of  mine, will become my “Plan A” girl no matter what.  Maybe this is true.

Regardless, it is my belief that although I would wind up happy with whomever, there is one specific girl who is made for me and I for her.  She is someone I won’t just be happy with, but completed with.  I think I’ll find myself  with that one.  I think I’ll know when I meet her.  I think, as I pray for her each day till we meet and thereafter, that the short term, life long relationship we’ll share will glorify God more than one of the relationships I could have had with any of the other wonderful girls all around me and because God orders my steps and brings himself glory through the ups and downs of my somewhat pathetic life, I can believe him to cross my path with that of “Plan A”.

Just some thoughts.  People talk about things like this just when they’re tired of being single and tired of thier unreasonably high standards.

The boys are moving in.

This is an exciting time.  All summer I’ve enjoyed a slowlazy Fort Collins where the pace is easy and the homework is light.  This is not the city at its best.  Over the next two weeks, the masses will return for school.  Approximately 26,000 students attend my university, and over the summer the majority of that group goes elsewhere to work and play in between spring and fall classes.  The third week of August sees the grand homecoming.  Traffic will worsen, jobs will get gobbled up, classes will be held, and my house will be filled with guys.  Eleven total live in my house (Ten the landlord knows about), and every one of them is a God-fearing outdoorsman or musician.  I’m so excited to live with these people.  Our house is big, old, and classy, and will soon be full of laughter, mischief, and body odor.  I can’t wait.

 

Kyle’s been up here over the weekend, and now Dustin’s permanently moved in (He’s the one the landlord doesn’t know about…).  Phil’s back for good on the 23rd, and John’s summer class just ended, so soon they become real residents.  These are my people.  While I love and miss my real family ever so much, these kids are my family right now.  We lift each other up, beat each other up, eat each other’s food, and use each other’s stuff.  Our cars are parked diagonally out front, and our music library’s are shared through our Apple base station network.  Responsible parties are planned well in advance for the year, and playlists have been made for the events.  Class schedules are set in stone, and the train is making it’s predictable journey earlier each morning.  I love this city, I love these people.

My neighbors. They are crazy neighbors.

So as you probably know, I live in a college town.  And I live in the middle of it.  Right by the school.  The house next door has two parts, an upstairs and a downstairs.  Downstairs lives a nice Mexican family with maybe five members.  They have a couple of riced-out Hondas behind the house in the alley, and a foosball table in the backyard next to a giant set of antlers someone somewhere scored with a 30.06 once.   They are pretty great and normal.  No yelling, not too much drinking, and very little communication with the kind folks in my house.

 

The people who live upstairs are different.  They are very loud and very friendly.  Today I was offered beer, a round of poker, and a tattoo when I kindly returned an empty pack of cigarettes one of them threw in my yard during the course of the day.  I had talked with them before, and they all knew me by name.  I figured I could bring it to em and toss out a nonchalant “Not cool guys” and get away with it.  I got away with it alright, but I had to turn down a beer, a tattoo, and a game of schwasted poker before I could leave to play frisbee with the boys.

 

I’m praying for them.  They’re really nice people.  I think there’s like three guys and three girls living there.  The only name I remember from the lot of them is Cassie.  So toss up a prayer for them team.

Pipe time is for you.

Every weekend my roomate Phil comes up to Fort Collins from Parker to play guitar at my church with me.  He is my better half musically, classically trained, tastefully modest, over-the-top bluesy.  Everything I’m…not…yet?  Phil is partially responsible for my love of fine tobacco as well.  Last year we became fast friends over a nice cigar at Edward’s Pipe Tobacco up here in the Fort, and regularly returned to hang out and feed a newborn habit.  Next year we will live in the same room, and I anticipate that somehow through being in proximity to him I will take on a similar 4.0 GPA and a near-perfect musical ear.

 

Last year I declared myself as more of a pipe smoker than a cigar smoker after falling in love with my La Rocca pipe and a blend called Black Raspberry.  Phil smokes CAO Mx2’s almost exclusively, and made it clear that he would never be a pipe guy.  Last night he became a pipe guy.  As did his older brother Luke.  We sat on the roof outside my window and conversed with the neighbors in the window across from us as we went through a couple bowls each.  Time flew, and before we went to see The Dark Night, completing a perfect Sunday, the two Waggoner brothers had fallen in love with pipe smoking.  They each have new pipes now, and Sunday will most likely become a regular time for pipe-smoking enjoyment.

I’m an official Noodler.

Noodle Ambassador to be exact.

I am a new employee at Noodles and Company on College and Laurel.  I’ve blogged about it a bit I think, but I’m about to go into greater detail.  I work with a crazy group of kids about my age making, serving, and partaking of various noodle shapes and forms.  It’s real easy, they really like me, and I can walk to work from my house in about two and a half minutes, meaning no drive to work and therefore no gas expense.  I eat for free every shift for the first two months, or until I’ve tried every dish, of which there are very many.  I’m pretty happy so far, and God’s already been so good as to give me a LOT of favor with my bosses and coworkers.  How is he so good to me? Really?

Tubing the Poudre

First time it was suggested amongst my group of friends that we all go “Tube the Poudre”, I snickered because that’s funny to say.  Just say that to yourself out loud real quick…”Tube the Pooder”.  Awesome.

 

Tomorrow will be the second time I will have participated in this very Fort Collinsy thing to do.  We basically take those big black tire tubes into the lazy Poudre river five minutes from my house and ride from the bridge at Shields street to the bridge at College avenue.  The first time I was reluctant to get in the eff cold water, but by the end of the journey was reeling with excitement as I got into my car dripping wet.  It’s just so fun, relaxing, and American.  This time there is no fear, no apprehension.  Just unashamed anticipation of a great event.  We are tubing tomorrow afternoon and I don’t even know if I’m gonna be able to fall asleep tonight (this morning?) with how excited I am.

Romeo Y Julieta Reserva Real, Tanzania Benefit Show

Tonight this cigar changed me. Just about. It was thick and so great. I don’t yet have the smoker’s vocabulary to describe exactly how it tasted (i.e. “hints of robust dark flavor”), but it was great.  That’s all.

It did just about end me, however. I was smoking this tasty cigar at the wonderful Edwards Pipe Tobacco in Fort Collins with my buddy Philip Waggoner (I’m sure you will hear about him a lot in this blog, he’s a good man), when Phil asked me something. I had a mouth full of smoke at the time and carelessly inhaled to say a few words to Phil that I soon forgot. I basically swallowed a liter of smoke and just about died right there in that black leather chair. I’ve been smoking pipe tobacco and cigars as a neat little hobby since Sean got me into it at a Cameron At Bay show in Canon City on new year’s about a year and a half ago. In my whole career of casual smoking, I have never had such a blunder. The whole store was laughing at me. But hey, you learn from stuff like that. Schwhatever.

Right now I’m about ready to sleep until who knows when. Jared Anderson from Desperation Band is playing a benefit concert tomorrow night at my church up here and I’m way pumped for it. My dear friend Ashley has been planning this concert to help her missions team go to Africa in about a month with the MILL, and we’re all pretty excited about it. I’ll probably blog about it later tonight afterwards.

Gotta throw out a thanks to my boy Seanster for getting me started with this whole blogging thing. I already really enjoy it!