rather poignant thoughts – from a ska band, of all places – that struck me lately. less than jake’s the science of selling yourself short:

I’ve come to my senses,
That I’ve become senseless,
I could give you lessons on how to ruin your friendships,
Every last conviction, I smoked them all away,
I drank my frustrations down the drain, out of the way,
So I sit and wait and wonder,
“Does anyone else feel like me?”
Someone so tired of their routines and disappearing self-esteems

I could be an expert on co-dependency,
I could write the best book on underage tragedy,
I’ve been spending my time at the local liquor store,
I’ve been sleeping nightly on my best friends kitchen floor,
So I sit and wait and wonder,
“Does anyone else feel like me?”
I’m so over-dosed on apathy and burnt out on sympathy

Let the meaning slip away
Lost my faith in another day,
Self deprication seems okay,
I never thought I’d make it anyway

I’ll sing along,
Yeah with every emergency,
Just sing along,
I’m the king of catastrophies,
I’m so far gone,
That deep down inside I think it’s fine by me,
I’m my own worst enemy

it has been a fine couple of days. last night i saw a funny movie and then sat out and stared at the stars, in a recently rare totally clear sky. today, cruised around with the top down enjoying the sun, listening to live. finished a very good video game. hung out with my mom and dad for a bit – something i am enjoying more and more as i get older. i cooked up something brand new for dinner. went back out for an evening drive, cresting the hills on rybolt, surrounded by the candy-striped sunset. now i’m sitting on the balcony with my laptop and my guitar.

God wants us to be happy, right? sure. i feel like the sunday school proviso to that is “while we are doing His work”. a mindset i have bought into – that happiness that i feel while i am not out in service of the Lord is false happiness. when i am not out advancing His Kingdom, winning souls, etc. i am wasting my time. the guilt is like a hangnail or an eyelash in my eye, trying to spoil my carefree pursuits.

but how is it, then, that this entire day, my heart was weightless, a seagull drifting aimlessly over sand and sea? i felt a joy and a resulting closeness to the Lord that has been far too absent from me. i found myself raising my face to the sky, eyes closed, smiling, grateful, blessed.

a line from live’s where do we go from here seemed to counter the guilty sentiment:

i wanted a revolution, you said i was already free.

i know God delights in my joy, as a father delighting in his son’s. i know that the happiest i will be is when i am completely connected to and reliant on God. i’ve felt powerful – excruciating – joy during the times when i have been engaged in, how do i describe it, literal ministry – at Young Life camp, or leading a study, or alone, studying the Bible.

but i am tired of self-rationalizing the time i spend just having fun, enjoying myself. maybe that’s doctrinally wrong. if it is, i can accept that – but the concept that i need to be spiritually hard at work to experience happiness doesn’t fall flush with reality or the experiences of my life. today i enjoyed life by relaxing, and i did so because i have been set free from the weight of my rebellion and their eternal consequences. at the end of this day i am thankful.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

- 1 Cor 10:31

i think i know what van gogh was going through. from the writer’s almanac:

As a young man, he was deeply religious and went off to do missionary work in a coal-mining region in Belgium. One day he decided to give away all of his worldly goods and live like a peasant. But his religious superiors thought he was having a nervous breakdown. They kicked him out of the mission and he had to go home. Van Gough wrote in a letter to a friend, “They think I’m a madman, because I wanted to be a true Christian.”

It was then that he started to draw and paint. He taught himself with art books and by studying the masters. He was especially interested in painting the daily life of peasants. He finally decided to move to the village of Arles in the south of France, because he said, “I want to look at nature under a brighter sky.” It was in Arles that he began to develop the style he became known for, in which the images of flowers and trees and landscapes were exaggerated by extremely rough brush strokes and vivid colors.

He said, “I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”

the times in my life when i’ve seen the most substantial growth have been when i was meeting regularly with a group of dudes. God seems to make extensive use of that dynamic, using my peers to mold me, in ways i’m never aware of until long afterwards.

it never was that we discussed anything of enormous spiritual significance, or did so with any particular fervor. in fact, things were downright ugly at times. we didn’t read books particularly well, rarely agreed on anything, sat in silence a lot, argued, yawned… it looked very different from the ideal scene: righteous, holy, scholarly men taking turns sharing their profound insights on following Jesus.

in spite of the ragtag, spotty nature of our gatherings, though, i was comforted weekly that i wasn’t the only one who felt frustrated by their own failures. there has always been something about not being alone that’s reassured us humans.

i kind of miss it. i miss a lot about college, namely doing high-school ministry. i guess maybe it’s because things were that way for so long, i got used to them. maybe that’s why things feel so stagnant now, why i feel like i’m not moving forward, because there is so little that i feel passionate about. i’m bored a lot, tired, passive, barely scraping together the energy to feel excited about stuff a few hours a week. i keep having the same conversation with God, feeling like he’s trying to say more to me but i’m not awake enough to hear it. i’m staring at the past for a solution, like this is a technical problem i can address with a patch or an update. something larger seems to be missing.