hi steve.

camera phones are unflattering.  i’m not sure if that is a word.  i think it is.

amendment:  while i’m waiting at 2 in the morning for my laundry to get done, let me update this.

unflattering is okay with me.

recent jesus things that have been on my mind:  his conversations with peter, bearing and baring the cross, that i am not god’s only creation.

recent highlights in my life: 24 hour pre-Africa days, playing a baller game of croquet, being with a huge chunk of my fam, bookshelf and chair jam-packed in my car for missouri, getting my earring back in, cherry glen and pirate ships on sailorville lake, great smelling body wash.

1.21 jiggawatts

technology.

a gate called Beautiful

Acts 3: 1-10

A beggar brought before the gate called Beautiful.  A man crippled from birth is brought before the temple gate called Beautiful to beg.  He sees Peter and John and asks for money.  What he gets is his life.  He is made whole.  Peter says, “silver and gold I do not have, but what I have, I give you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”  This man has never known what it is to walk.  He couldn’t even drag himself to a place where he could beg.  He had to be carried.  He couldn’t have known to ask these two men coming by for what they gave him.  How could he know or desire something he had never experienced?  He was content to ask for survival, but he was given life.

We’re all beggars.  We are all beggars who can’t even walk to the gate.  We are carried by the King of Kings to the very entrance to beauty and there we are made beautiful.  And none of it is by our own virtue or power.  The crippled man couldn’t even ask for what he was given.  We don’t even know the depths of what God longs to give to us.  The beauty he intends for us.  The true life he has come to give us. We are so often content to settle for less than we are meant for.   Yet, God isn’t.  He continually draws us out of ourselves and offers us opportunities to become who he truly desires us to be.  Not by our own power.  Not because of our own worth.  But because of who he is.  Because He is a God of wholeness, he desires us to be whole.  Because he is a God of beauty, his love makes us beautiful.  He is a victorious God, and therefore he makes us more than conquerors.  We come to him with so little, asking all the wrong things, but because he is all things good, perfect, and right, he offers the same.

We are the beggar, carried to a gate called Beautiful, asking only for what we need to survive and being offered abundant life.

frank sinatra

i really want to eat some grapes right now.  red grapes.  too bad college is synonomous with a dearth of fresh fruit.

i’m happy being back at truman.  but i miss summer.  i miss camp.  i miss the community.  and i miss the people.  more than anything, i miss the environment that was more than normal.  sometimes i feel like college is just prep for a nine to five life.  a life i do not desire in any way.   i know that the ordinary can be made extraordinary, but i need to put in the effort.  check.

i have three hours before my first class today, so i think awaken application is going to be my top priority.  authentic essay writing, here i come.

Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein loma-làn easgannan (My hovercraft is full of eels–Scots Gaelic)

jesus is the light of the world.

last night i tried to use a new lamp for the first time. i put in the required sixty watt bulb.  i turned the knob.  it came on.  beautiful.  i walked across the room to turn off the overhead lights so my roommates could sleep while i continued living in the waking world.  pop.  the room is dark.  i think to myself, “self, i think the light bulb went out.”  i reach in the lamp to unscrew the bulb, perhaps reposition it, perhaps put in a new bulb altogether.  half of it breaks off in my hand.  something went very wrong.  i decide to leave it until the morning.  the next morning after church, i look inside my lamp, see the wires sticking out all over the place and very little area to grab onto the bulb to untwist it.  so i decide to grab the wires.  lets play good idea, bad idea.  a good idea would have been to unplug the lamp first.  a bad idea would have been what i did.  shocking.  however, i learned from my mistakes, unplugged my lamp, and successfully changed a light bulb.  i’m sure there is a life lesson in here somewhere.

today

I’m back down in Kirksville. My room is huge. I like it a lot. Approximately six people could fit comfortably in our shower.

I just ate the rest of a rice krispie brick from Flying Burrito and thought of Sam Harris, O’Neil park in Ames, and small children. I think the next part of my day will consist of reading People magazine in Spanish, drinking a Jones soda (I was jonesin’ for one), and going for a run.

I need to make my bed. And wash my hair.

I superglued my shift key back on my keyboard. Its working…sort of.

That was bad grammar.

I have flowers beside my computer right now. I like it.

My weekend plans are up in the air.

early morning musings

i like the part of my personality that developed this summer.  the “screw you, i do what i want” part of my personality.  sometimes it was a little gentler of a statement, sometimes it had to go to the “fuck you” end.  but all in all, i think it was pretty healthy for me to be living a life without the constant worry of what others are thinking.  obviously what god wants matters and, honestly, what i want matters.  but what you want doesnt.  i’m not living my life for anyone else.  its genuinely being myself, not being what i think other people want me to be .  its breaking down the false images i set up.  taking off my masks.  letting you really interact with me.  no veiling.  just being. living an abundant life.  not the half life i spent my time hiding in.  i’m want that to keep up.  and its in my hands.

updating

i need to soak my ear in salt water.  it hurts a bit. and by a bit, i mean that when i touch it, my heart breaks a little bit inside.  thats an exaggeration, but there you go.

i’m packing up all my random crap to move back down to missouri.  i obviously need to simplify my life.  however, i’m taking a book shelf with me to college this year.  thats really exciting.

i couldn’t remember for a long time what the fifth class is that i would be taking this fall.  so i looked up my schedule.  its statistics.  just when i thought i was done with math…

i talked with heidi on the phone today. i can’t even put into words how much i miss that girl or how fabulous it is to be friends with her.

i’m seeing candace tomorrow.  its going to be sketchboardgames.  and by sketchboardgames, i mean amazing.

i need to figure out what is going on friday.  time to get on the phone.

someday i’ll write something meaningful and deep in here again, but not now.

my eight year old cousin mentioned today that he would like to go bungee jumping.  so i took him out a window on to our roof and we walked around.  then my eleven year old cousin joined and we reenacted karate kid.

ballin’

i’m wearing a shirt i found in RC 2.  i found it on a chair and no one knew to whom it belonged, so i straight up janked it.  and i love it.  its an extra large riverside t-shirt that someone cut and sewed smaller.  if it belongs to you, sorry.  i’ll buy you a new t-shirt.

i’m going to go wash my hair soon.  its 11:45 at night, however, which means i’ll have to spend a long time blow drying my hair so i can re-wax my dreads and not go to bed with moldy, wet hair.  yum.  i write blogs about washing my hair a LOT.  sketchblogs.

i played ladder golf today three times.  i lost everytime.  but each time, it was close.  thats a step in the right direction.  also, this evening my family played a game of pick-up wiffle ball on an old school baseball diamond in the middle of my town.  it felt like something i should do more often.  a couple kids rode by on their bikes and joined in the game.  i enjoyed it immensely.

i smoked hookah for the first time last night.  i enjoyed it.  and the environment.  i don’t think it will be a one time experience.  next time, i’m trying lemon rose hookah.  for my own future reference.

both of my traguses…tragi…are pierced now.  i like being symmetrical again.  i’m trying to hold myself back from impulse ear piercings. but i might end up with a couple more before i’m done.  we’ll see.  i don’t need to be too b.a..

i’m going to the state fair tomorrow.  pumped.

i’m missing camp right now.  i miss the people.  i miss the peace.  i’m happy where i am.  i’m enjoying life very much right now.  its an odd combination of moods.  and i’m okay with that.

i have a bruise on the side of my leg still.  i’m not sure of its origins.  oh well.  i need to go hang up my laundry now.

you might want to keep your distance.

my shirt smells like burnt tires.  i strongly object to that.  but i’m wearing it anyway, because i really like the color.  i think its okay, as long as you don’t stick your face on me.  i’m going to go with that, because i really want to wear this shirt right now.