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.

And my song will be I love You…

Tonight I was watching the olympics at my friends Dru and Chris’ house.  Sean Johnson had just been awarded the gold medal in gymnastics at age 16 and was holding back tears of joy.  An interview came a bit later, in which her trainer talked about how when she came to his gym in West Des Moines, Iowa at age 6, he asked her “How good do you want to be?”  Ten years later her answer to him had become a reality as she stood on the podium with a gold medal around her neck, hearing the Star Spangled Banner play over the sound system in a gigantic Olympic gym in communist China.  

 

Playing electric guitar came into my mind, like it tends to, and I thought to myself. “If at her age she had  developed to be as good as she set out to be, through intense training and dedication, I also can be as good as I want to if I do the same.” Of course I didn’t SAY those words to myself, but that was the thought process.  So here’s the truth.  Let me get it out there.  I want to be a really good guitar player.  Like Johnny Greenwood good.  Like Omar Rodríguez-López good. Like Michael Guy Chislett good.  Here is why I want to be that good at electric guitar.  Honestly and sincerely I do not want my talent or inability to play to hinder my creativity in worship.  If I hear it in my head and feel it in my soul I want to be able to communicate it through my instrument unhindered.  

 

It’s selfish because I want the satisfaction of being able to seamlessly play the things I hear in my head that I think are great.  It’s selfish because it means a lot to ME how good I am.  It’s honestly not to impress anyone.  No Bull.  I’m not concerned with what you think about my talent or lack thereof.  I need to know that I’m good enough.  It’s selfish because I want to be talented enough to make a living of playing guitar so I don’t have to waste my time doing something else I don’t care about.  I would spend all day at even the best desk job thinking about playing electric guitar.

 

But here’s why it isn’t selfish.  The biggest reason for my wanting to be a fantastic electric guitar player is that I want to communicate my love to the father and I know of no better way to do so, set aside giving my life for his glory.  In my situation, the passion I have in my heart is music.  Not uncommon.  When I try to run from it I get unstable and cranky.  It’s my love.  It’s my outward love to God.  My life’s a lovesong to you.  If I can make a sound that comes from my whole being, if I can make noises and pick the notes that move you, then I am all I need to be as a musician.  If I’m all I need to be as a musician, than I can easier worship with all that I am as a person.  Then it can bless other people, too.  But honestly for nobody else, if I can make sounds that come directly from my love and God is blessed directly, than I have found my portion in life.  My song, my sound will be “I love you.”  I think that sound is crazy and loud.  I think that sound is unbridled and unheard of.  I think it sounds like home.  I think it sounds like hope.  Maybe I am arrogant, but I am not arrogant in this.  Christ is worth my whole life’s efforts.  I would lay it all down and seek after music if it were his will for me.  It may or may not be his will for me, but it burns in my heart every day.  

 

“How good do you want to be?”  I’m a six year old right now in the world of guitar playing, not terribly talented, but being trained in my passion one step at a time.  Ten years from now I want to be standing on a podium receiving the enormous reward of my work.  The biggest reward possible in the world of worship and electric guitar playing.  The reward of chains being broken, lives being healed, eyes being opened, and Christ being revealed on a massive scale wherever the Lord chooses to put me.  If my podium is a stage on a tour, in my little home church , in a studio booth, in a local venue, or in a staduim packed with youth desperate for God, I believe I will see my efforts rewarded.  Because I have said “For my inheritance give me the lost!”  

 

This is why I want to be a really good electric guitar player.  Does that make sense?

My neighbors. They are violent neighbors too.

Last night I awoke to the sound of a breaking window and a lot of yelling next door.  I looked out the window just in time to see a man in blue book it from the neighbor’s front porch into someone’s car before they sped off.  Cops came over soon after, and eventually everything was quiet again.  Later that night I heard one of the women from next door on the phone yelling, apparently to the man who broke the window and peaced out.  She was telling him how he scared her when he was that drunk, and how it reminded her of her ex-husband.  He kept hanging up from the sound of it, and she yelled at him again and again for being so drunk.  I’m honestly not a creeper and was certainly not eavesdropping, just their window is right outside mine, so I could not help but to hear every word.

 

I have been burdened about this all day.  Pray with me for my neighbors and their salvation.  They are such nice people when they’re not totally smashed.  I know that sounds ridiculous to say, but if college has taught me anything I care to remember, it’s that people aren’t “drunks” or “stoners” or “meth-heads”.  People like that are STILL the precious children of Almighty God.  I still love them, and there is no question as to how much God still loves them.  They are not their addictions.  I’m believing God for their salvation.

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.