Oh Eight

Today is the last day of the year. I'm a little bit of a reflective person, I guess. I always like the end of things, because I think it's fun to be able to think about how things used to be and what's happened since then and how stuff has changed and where everything is going. For example, at the end of a sports season, I love when they show the montage videos of all the different big plays from the year. And so, as 2008 comes to a close, I think it's somewhat important to look back on what the year has brought. However, I guess each year means different things to different people, so what defines 2008 for me is obviously going to be different that what it was to you. And since I am only myself, I can only write intelligently write about my own life. So I might be the only one who cares about anything that follows, but that's okay. They say writing is therapeutic. And I'm in pretty bad shape, so I probably need all the therapy I can get.

One thing that I'll remember about 2008 are all the little random trips that I went on. Outside of the summer, I didn't go anywhere too crazy, but there were a few new experiences that were interesting enough. For example, there were the two trips to Tulsa: to help at CIY Believe in February and to go to the National Missionary Convention in November. Or there was my trip to Buffalo NY over spring break (and an afternoon trek into Canada, eh?). Or there was the October pilgrimage to Albuquerque, where I got to see all kinds of balloons and have kind of crazy reaction to a big burrito.

2008 was also a year of personal records. For example, I think I attended three weddings, which I imagine is the most I've ever done. I also went to Starbucks four times, which is the most I ever have in year (Because I really don't like coffee that much). I also think I probably logged more miles on the road traveling from place to place than any other year of my life. So Michael Phelps and I will both remember this last year for our record-breaking performances.

Unfortunately, I may remember 2008 for certain periods of intense physical pain. Last May, I was enjoying a nice, friendly game of softball with some of my fellow Ozark students. Everyone was having a great time. After I hit another crushing line drive to the outfield, I was standing on first base. When the next batter hit a ground ball up the middle, I took off for second. Ryan Hicks, who was playing shortstop, scooped up the ball and hurled it to first. Unfortunately for me, I happened to be in between him and the ball's destination, and it slammed into my left side, creating an instant welt. (There's pictures on facebook. It's actually pretty cool looking). At the time, I believed that was the worst pain I had ever felt before. And then December came. I was in the gym playing a game of pickup basketball that came down to the wire. I was guarding Charlie Landis, and even though he's not very good, I figured I should guard him pretty close just in case. He received a pass and looked like he was about to put up a game-winning three-pointer, so I jumped to block it. Much to my dismay, he did not actually shoot the ball, but dribbled to my right. When I landed from my leap and attempted to change direction to get back in front of him, my body decided that would be fine time to stop supporting itself, and I tumbled to the floor. After painfully hobbling around campus for a few days, I learned that I had a torn meniscus in my knee. And that, my friends, is not much fun. (Here's the irony: Not long before that softball game, Ryan Hicks broke a rib and punctured a lung, which I occasionally made fun of him for. In return, he nearly broke my rib by targeting me with the softball. In high school, Charlie tore his ACL, which I also made fun of from time to time, three years later he took his revenge and gave me a knee injury. Lesson learned: don't make fun of people when they're down, because they will mess you up.)

A big change in my life came in October, when my sister got married. I've already written all about that, so I won't go into it much here. But thankfully, things there have not really changed negatively, and we're still tight and I have a pretty excellent new brother-in-law. It does mean I have to buy one more present at Christmastime, but I guess I can live with that.

2008 also marks the founding of "A Chicken in a Cage with a Ferret"! And I'm confident that w'ere all grateful for that.

Probably the most significant experience in my life in 2008 was the summer, when I worked on Ozark's camp teams. Again, I've already written about all that, so you can check out my posts from July and August if you want. But being on camp teams was definitely one of the best things I have ever done. I learned a ton about God and ministry, I got to travel to some new places that I liked a lot, I met a bunch of awesome people all over the country, and I made some phenomenal friends.

So that's 2008. Of course, there's all kinds of other things scattered in there. The basketball and baseball games and the concerts and the Waffle House experience and the Chick-fil-A and Spangles trips and the Nertz games and everything else. It was a good year. Often frustrating, but also often awesome. It'll be nice to see what 2009 brings. I'll be turning 21, so I guess it's about time I grew up one of these days. And I'll hopefully be doing some type of internship this summer, and with luck I won't discover that I can't hack it in ministry. I look forward to making new friends and strengthening relationships with current friends and growing closer to God.

However, it's hard to be very confident about any New Year that will begin with me hanging out with the Landises.

The Night the World Changed

Right now, "I Celebrate the Day" by Relient K should be playing on your computer. I hope you listen to it. But in case you, like me, have a computer that has malfunctioning sound, I'll put the words of this song here:

And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say
To let you know how much you've touched my life
Because here is where you're finding me
In the exact same place as New Year's Eve
And from the lack of my persistency
We're less than half as close as I want to be

And the first time that you opened your eyes
Did you realize that you would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left your lips
Did you know that it would change this world forever?

And so this Christmas I'll compare
The things I've felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That you have come to meet me here

To look back, and think that
This baby would one day save me
In that hope that what you did
That you were born so I might really live
To look back, and think that this baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day
That you were born to die
So I could one day pray for you to save my life

I absolutely love this song. It states so simply, yet so beautifully, what Christmas is all about. At Christmastime, we get so wrapped up with all kinds of things, like presents, travel, ham, family, gingerbread houses, TV specials, lights, and on and on and on. And most of those things aren't at all bad in themselves. But that's not what Christmas is. Christmas is all focused on Jesus. And so, as Christians, we keep Jesus in Christmas by singing "Happy Birthday Jesus" or by going to church on Christmas Eve and reading the nativity story. And then we got on with the rest of our holiday.

I don't think that we really understand just how huge the Jesus-event is. Everything from his birth to life and ministry to death and resurrection. It's what the world is all about. It is THE point of everything. And we forget this, not just on Christmas, but all the time. Every day, I spend so much time, energy, and thought on classes and sports and girls and bum knees and all kinds of other things. And I think THAT'S all what life is about. But that's not even close. I wig out about all these little things, all the while neglecting the big thing.

It's an incredible thought. All of history, all of existence, comes down to Jesus. The entire universe centered around God enfleshed, lying in a manger in a tiny village. And it changed the world forever. That baby died for me and lives in me, and I will live with him forever. That's the bottom line of the story. That's what it's all about. That's what everything's about. All this other nonsense that eats up my attention fades when compared to Christ.

Merry Christmas. I hope you all get everything that you want, and that you have a great day with family and friends. But I especially hope that you remember Christ, not just today, but all the time. Celebrate the day every day.

In The Dust

A couple years ago, I went to my grandparents' house in Ohio for Thanksgiving. At the time, my grandma was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. As far as I can understand it, this is a disease of the nervous system where the body shuts down bit by bit. By the time I got there that November, my grandma couldn't walk or anything. My grandpa would pick her up from her bed every morning and put her in her chair, where she'd sit till he put her back in bed at night. Also, since she couldn't control all the muscles and stuff in her throat the right way, it was really hard for her to talk, and she could hardly eat anything. So she got really, really tiny, pretty much just skin and bones. It was evident when I was there that she wasn't going to make it much longer.

On Thanksgiving, my grandma started getting a little upset after dinner. I imagine it was because she knew this was the last time she would see me and my cousins all together at once. I remember after dinner, she just began to cry and cry and cry, and the sobs wracked her small, weakened frame. And I wasn't sure how to react. She was one of the kindest, most loving people I have ever met. It wasn't fair for her to suffer like this. To undergo such a slow, painful death and have to be so, so sad.

That night I was reading a chapter of Lamentations. Lamentations is written by Jeremiah and is all about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. And that night, as I was filled with such sadness, frustrated by all the crappy things that I could nothing about, I came across Lamentations 3:28-32:

Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust--there may yet be hope. Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.

Here's what struck me about this passage. Jeremiah is watching his homeland being demolished and his friends and countrymen being dragged off as captives to Babylon. And what he essentially says in the first bit of this is, "Be sad!" So often as Christians, we think, "There's no room for sadness in my life! I'm supposed to be filled with joy! I need to look peppy and happy all the time, or there must be something wrong with my faith!" So when something truly bad happens, our solution is to push our real emotions beneath the surface, keep our chin up, and act like everything is A-OK. But that's not how Jeremiah reacts. He laments. He sits in silence and buries his face in the dirt. He's upset, and he expresses it.

Crappy things happen, and they suck and they're worth getting upset about. Grandmothers get sick. Parents get divorced. Fathers lose their jobs. Kids are taken captive as slaves in Asia. Relationships fall apart. AIDS rips through a continent. Mothers die.

Jerusalem gets destroyed.

So be sad. When these things happen, we don't have to pretend that it bounces off our denial-plated armor. Cry. Punch your pillow. Strum your guitar till blisters cover your fingers. Open your window and shout at the clouds. When crap happens, by all means, by sad.

But don't despair. That's where the difference is. Lamentations is all about being sad. It's about weeping and crying out at the bad things that happen. But it's not about hopelessness. Sorrow lasts for a time. We need to remember that in the midst of our sadness, God is there. When we fall facedown in the mud, he's ready to pick us back up. "For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love." God is there in our sorrow. And he's there in our happiness. While circumstances aren't constant, while our emotions definitely aren't constant, he is constant. It's okay to be upset at the right things and to express that emotion. But we shouldn't remain there. We need to allow God to comfort us and steady us and strengthen us to face life again. In the 1300's, Julian of Norwich wrote, "It is profitable for some souls to experience these alterations of mood--sometimes to be comforted and sometimes to fail and to be left to themselves. God wills that we know that he keeps us ever equally safe, in woe as in well-being."

And I think Jeremiah would agree.

The Elusiveness of Originality

It's Christmas break!

Moving on, I've been thinking a little bit lately about just how difficult it is to think or do or say anything that is truly original. The world has been around a pretty long time. And there have been many, many people that are smarter and more talented and more creative than I am. So chances are, nothing I do is going to be something that a million others haven't already done. For example, a couple posts ago I wrote about my theory on time and about how time seems to move faster as we get older because it's a smaller percentage of our lives. Probably not a groundbreaking concept, but not a bad idea, I think. In the following several days, I was informed by two people (Jackie and Tom) that they too had thought about this. So if two of my five readers have already had this same idea, I can safely assume that 40% of the world's population has thought the same thing. So my theory on time is less original than eating turkey on Thanksgiving.

Also, our freshman year, Charlie wrote a line for a paper that was something along the lines of "Jesus was crucified for our salvation and resurrected for our hope." It's a good quote. Really good, actually. So I jokingly questioned that Charlie had thought of it himself. When we googled it, we found that someone else had already said pretty much the exact same thing. Now I really don't think that Charlie stole the sentence. Someone had just unfortunately beat him to the punch.

However, there are some people that truly do come up with original ideas and who are genuinely creative in a way the world has never seen before. At some point, Eli Whitney had to sit down and invent the cotton gin. Beethoven had to write his symphonies. Dave Thomas had to create square hamburger patties. These people were pioneers. Whereas I recycle decades-old ideas on my blog, they brought something new and fresh to society. So to all you writers, artists, musicians, inventors, and everyone else that churn out original ideas: I salute you. I mean, without you, television would just be filled with the same, ridiculous reality dating shows where one dude dates twenty women until he eliminates all but one.

Oh wait. I guess that's really all that's on TV. My bad.

Gimp

I hurt my knee playing basketball last week. I've had to tell the story a lot over the past few days, so I'm going to put it up here so that I won't have to later tell it again to my five readers. I played basketball last Monday, which was fine, but the next day my right knee felt really tight, but it didn't really inhibit anything I was doing. On Wednesday it felt a little better, so I played basketball again, and when we were almost done, I was on defense and tried to change direction. My knee decided that would be a good time to stop supporting my body, and it basically gave out on me and I went tumbling to the hardwood. It thereafter swelled up like a grapefruit and hurt and made it difficult to walk or do anything that required bending it. I saw our athletic trainer on Thursday, but she said that it was too swollen to really be able to tell what I did, so I'm seeing her again on Tuesday and we'll go from there. However, it is feeling significantly better now that it was at first, and I'm getting around a ton better. It only gives me real problems in certain activities, like getting in or out of a car or putting on my socks or sitting in a bathroom stall.

Now that that's all cleared up, there are a few things that I've been thinking about due to my bum leg. First, I've come to appreciate much more some of the things that I have. Way too often, I complain to myself or sometimes others about things I would change about myself. I mean, I wouldn't mind being a little stronger or having better eyesight or less puffy hair or being a better dance or less awkward around people. But I can usually walk alright, and I guess that's something to be thankful for, because there's a lot of people in the world that can't. I'm fortunate to generally be in good health, and never again will I complain about having to walk all the stairs on Ozark's campus, because at least I can walk them pain-free and without having to take one slow step at a time.

Also, I've come to realize how nice people around here are to injured friends. Not that they're only nice to others when they are hurt, but they are pretty nice in general, and I'm very thankful for that. Although it is imperfect, the community at Ozark really blows me away at times, and the last week has been such a time. Especially at first when I was hobbling around like I had a peg-leg, everyone was asking how I was doing and if I needed them to carry my lunch tray or get me a refill or drive me up the hill or whatever. And I usually didn't need anything. I mean, I could get from my seat to the soda machine and back without collapsing, but it was still encouraging that everyone was so willing to help me out. Also, I had a ton of people offering me all sorts of painkillers and other pills. So I guess I also go to a school full of drug-pushers.

Where these to realizations are connected, I guess, is that I really do have a lot to be thankful for. I have health and ability and resources that so many people in the world lack, and it would be awfully terrible of me to take them for granted. I'm also surrounded by tons of incredible people who really love others and want to serve Christ, and that is always an encouraging thing. Hopefully, however, it doesn't take another demolished joint for me to recognize the good things I have. I've learned all the lessons I care to learn by such object lessons.

Feast

Today is Thanksgiving, so as I sit here watching football and enjoying the aroma of turkey, stuffing, and pie, I feel a little obligated to write a little something about the day. I really do love Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, we would always go to my grandparents' in Ohio for it, and I remember getting up each time to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and then all these people would come over for the meal, and there were mashed potatoes abounding and Coke overflowing, and it was generally just a baller time. Now we just have Thanksgiving here in Kansas, which is still good. I still like the parade, though today I missed it because I slept till noon. Whoops.

Of course, the focal point of Thanksgiving is the feast. In a country where food is often treated like a god, Thanksgiving is like the chief Holy Day. In a few hours I'm going to pile my plate with all sorts of viddles, and then I'll top it off with some pie and spend the rest of my evening watching basketball.

Along these same lines, something that Thanksgiving does make me think about is the special place that meals possess in our lives. There's just something especially significant about sharing a meal with people. It's kind of an odd thing, maybe, or at least a little mystical. But think about it. Often, when people go on a date, they go to dinner. When there's a wedding, there's a meal. When families gather, there's a meal. Meals are where things happen. That's where people connect. It's where important things get said. The table is maybe the most important piece of furniture because that's where people get together to talk and relate and laugh and fellowship.

And that's what I love. When it comes to food, I don't have very high taste. I'm just as happy with chicken nuggets from Wendy's as I am with anything from a nicer restaurant. So when people are going to a "fancier" place (which, in my book, means that there's a waitress instead of an ordering counter), the food itself really isn't worth $10 or $12 dollars to me. However, getting to spend some quality time with the other people going is worth that, so that's why I go. At the heart, meals aren't really about food. They're about people. That's why, at Ozark, mealtimes are my favorite parts of the day. It's not because the food in the dining hall is so mouthwatering, but because that's where people are. I love being at those big long tables just listening to people talk and laugh. It's a joyful thing.

In Life Together, Bonhoeffer writes, "The fellowship of the table has a festive quality. It is a constantly recurring reminder in the midst of our everyday work of God’s resting after His work, of the Sabbath as the meaning and goal of the week and its toil." It's easy, during the day, to feel bogged down by everything that's going on in our lives. To feel stressed out or frustrated. So meals restore us; not only does the food refresh our bodies, but the fellowship refreshes our spirits.

One last thing. Whenever we're back in Topeka on a break, the Charlie, Jim, and I make it a point to have lunch at Spangle's. The food is delicious, and it's pretty cheap, so it works great for me. I love eating there, but it's more than that. When we're done with our food, we always end up staying there for at least another half hour. I think we've been pretty close to two hours before. And it's not like we have a ton of stuff to catch up on; we live with each other every day when we're at Ozark. But there's just something about being there with one another. And I value that highly.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving. Eat a lot. Spend time with your family and friends. Thank God for what he's given you. Pray for those in need. And take it all back with you, making it a part of your life. I don't think there's any reason to only be thankful and enjoy others' company over a meal once a year. Let's do it every day.

28 days till Christmas.

T-Town: Tulsa or Topeka?

It's Thanksgiving break!

Normally, I'm not a very big fan of breaks. It's always nice to not have to worry about schoolwork for a little while, but in general, I would rather be in Joplin than at home. I just usually get pretty bored here without all the people and things to do. However, I am very glad to be home for a bit. The past month at Ozark has been a little crazy, and I feel like I've been in the library doing research every day. But now all my big stuff is done for the semester, though I am going to be spending much of my break catching up on all the reading I haven't done because I was working on papers so much.

I went to the National Missionary Convention in Tulsa the past few days. I had never gone before, and I really liked it. A few thoughts:

First, the convention really made me appreciate the community of the church. It was crazy walking around and seeing all these people I know from all over the place. Obviously, I saw a ton of fellow Ozark students, because there's always a lot that go, and it was only two hours from Joplin this year. But I also saw some people who used to go Ozark. I saw people from other camp teams that I met over the summer, even people I met from the Northwest. Even Jessica from Pentecostal camp. And I saw old ministers. And people from Bible Bowl. And it all made me realize just how small of a world the church is. Not to mean that it's too small is needs to grow (which I suppose it does), but it's pretty incredible all the connections you can make as a member of it. I've been to that North American Christian Convention a lot, but it was pretty much always for the Bible Bowl tournament. But I know that when we've gone, my dad always runs into people he randomly knows from going to Milligan or just by being active in the church for so long. Now, as a supposed "adult" in the Christian community, I'm kind of in the same place, and I think it's pretty awesome. It was good to see everyone, and I look forward to seeing them all again in the future.

Second, I was amazed and humbled by so many of the stories I heard at the convention. There were so many spiritual giants there. It's almost like I don't even belong in the same room. I especially liked listening to Ash Barker on Saturday night. This guy lives in the slums of Bangkok in a house the size of four double beds. I mean, he lives there. I live in a dorm room bigger than that, and I'm in college. And he just one of many people at the convention that do things like that. At times, people think I'm "spiritual" because I know a lot about the Bible or can write good exegeticals or whatever. But I'm nothing compared to these people who voluntarily live in such poverty to reach out to people the rest of the world tosses aside. It's absolutely incredible, and I learned so much and was challenged and inspired all the time while in Tulsa.

So if you haven't been to the NMC, or even if you have I guess, you should go. I'm not going to be a foreign missionary as far as I know, but every Christian should be pretty interested in missions, I think. God wants us to tell people about him, whether it's in Joplin or Topeka or Buffalo or Chicago or Moscow or Bangkok or Nairobi.

The Bloggolution has expanded with the addition of Blake's blog. Check-a it out.

Time Flies

I received a lot of nice compliments about my post that I wrote last week. People saying it was really funny or brilliant or whatever. So thank you for all that. I also heard people say that it was really sad and that they feel bad for me. And that's okay, I guess. But there is something that I thought was fairly interesting. Normally, for whatever reason, I write about something that is somewhat serious, and I put a lot of thought into it and try to make it good. And every once in a while, someone will say, "Hey, I read your blog, and I thought it was really good." But when I write something completely ridiculous, I get more comments than about anything else I have written in my life. So maybe I should stop writing about worthwhile things, and start just commenting on all the unfortunate aspects of my life, because I guess people really like to hear about that.

I really don't have much to write about right now. Things at school are going pretty well, but busy, and I've been in the library a lot. It's becoming very dear to my heart. I may just set up a cot in the periodical section and stay there. And every night, before I go to bed, I'll read a few articles of the Evangelical Review of Theology or something. And everyone on campus will be talking about the periodical hermit, and they'll come look at me from a distance and make remarks about my long dirty hair and the burlap sacks that I wear for clothes.

But putting all jest aside, there is a thought that I've had for awhile, and I've shared it with a few people. It's not very interesting, and I'm sure it's not original, and there's definitely no application point to be gained from it. But it's my theory about how time works.

Today is November 15. I have only two more weeks of regular class, and then finals, and then the semester is over. At that point, I will be halfway done with my college career. And it feels like just yesterday, I was setting up my dorm room my freshman year and eating chicken parmesan for my first meal in the dining hall. All the time, I hear people saying things like, "Man, this semester has gone so fast." And it's true. Every semester, every year, seems like it's shorter than the one before it. What causes this phenomenon? Does time actually accelerate?

I think that the reason each period of time feels like it's shorter than the ones before it is because, as we get older, that amount of time is a smaller percentage of our lives. Think about it. When you're five years old, one year is twenty percent of your life. And so a year feels like a pretty long time. However, when you're twenty years old, one year is only five percent of your life. So it feels like it's a lot shorter.

Really, none of us is able to gauge any amount of time longer than our own lives. Someone can say, "This happened 100 years ago" or "This happened 2000 years ago." And I suppose I can cognitively grasp this difference, but not fully. It's all pretty much the same to me. I have no reference point for any amount of time beyond 20 years (almost 21 years; buy me presents).

If there's anything to be gained from any of this, it's that time really is going faster as far as you're concerned. So make the most of it. I imagine that when I'm 80, each passing year is going to seem like it's nothing at all. And it's probably a shame to have to look back and think, "Man, I really wasted my time sitting around reading meaningless blog posts." So you may now move your mouse up to the little X in the corner and close this. After all, time is flying. So try to keep up.

Bystander Effect

Since I started this blog last summer, pretty much all of my posts have been somewhat serious. That was never really my intention. I don't want people to have the false impression that I walk around all day thinking about things of significance. For the most part, I spend all my time thinking about what's for lunch or how many clean shirts I have left or how the Reds kind of suck. And so, even though the topic of this blog is deathly serious, it may not be all that significant, and you may read it and think, "Wow, that was a really big waste of two minutes of my life." But if you didn't read this, would you really be more productive? Or would you just be playing tetris on your computer?

In my psychology class last week, we learned about the bystander effect. Basically what this means is that a person is more likely to help another if they are the only person around to help. If there are a group of people surrounding the person in need, everyone kind of assumes that "someone else will do it," and so it ends up that no one does anything. The classic example of this is the story about Kitty Genovese in the 1960's, who was attacked and murdered near her apartment in New York City. The attack lasted about thirty minutes. Thirty-eight of Kitty's neighbors watched the attack from their windows, but absolutely no one did anything to help. No one called the police. No one ran down to confront the attacker. They all just thought that, since there were so many people around, surely someone else would take some initiative and do something about the situation. And so, no one did anything, and Genovese's screams for help rang out unanswered.

Tom and I were talking about this last night, and we discovered a way that the bystander effect has an impact in my own life. For whatever reason, there is a group of girls here at Ozark that have this hypothesis that I am going to marry the most beautiful in the world. At least a couple times a week, I hear, "Oh David, you're going to marry a supermodel. We all know it!" And herein lies the problem. All of these girls come up to me and tell me that I'm going to end up with some gorgeous woman, but none of them want to step up and be that woman. They all assume that someone else will do it, I suppose. If every girl I ever meet tells me that I'm going to marry some other girl, then I end up with no girl at all! I am the unfortunate victim of the bystander effect.

So don't let innocent girls get mugged in the street. Do something about it. And don't let awkward, socially inept guys walk around alone. Don't be a bystander. Be a hero.

One Less Heffren

My sister got married today.

I could write all about the funny and memorable little experiences that Jackie and I have shared over our lives. Like going jogging a few times a week at 11 pm when I was in middle school. Or like waiting forever at Buffalo Wild Wings for our check, only to have a manager creepily slide up to our table and say, "You're waiting for your check, aren't you? Well, no one knows where it is.....but I know where it is" and then running off and pulling it out of some random drawer. Or the numerous tennis matches. Or getting stranded in Shamrock TX because our car broke down in the middle of nowhere. Or watching The Cosby Show late every night for an entire summer. Or driving to school every morning pumping T-Bone in her car. Or staying at the shady Yucca Motel in the middle of New Mexico, where we did have HBO on our six-inch TV screen. Or going to a Relient K concert and trying to avoid being trampled by moshing high schoolers. Or watching "That Thing You Do" or "The Return of the King" or "August Rush" or "It's a Wonderful Life" or "John Q" or all the other scores of movies that I've seen with her.

There are very few people that I look up to as much as I do Jackie. She has a trusting faith that I try to model, and usually fail at. She has more wisdom and practical knowledge than I'll ever have. She has an enormous heart for people that I typically lack. She's the reason that I read what I read and like to write. She's easy-going and finds humor in almost every situation, and there's no way I could count the laughs we've had together.

And at the same time, she's not only my big sister, but one of my closest friends. It seems a little odd maybe that would be the case for siblings of opposite gender that are seven years apart, but it's true for us. When I'm frustrated about something and need to vent or whatever, she's the person I call, and I know that she'll always be there and understand and encourage. But she'll also tell me when I'm being stupid and will set me straight. She's able to relate with the crappy times in my life, because she's gone through them too. She knows my hurts and my laughs and everything in between in a way no one else does.

I've been thinking lately about how relationships change. You might be pretty close with someone, but then they move or get married or start hanging out with other people or just start ignoring you all together. People lose contact, lose frienships, start new friendships, and cycle back around. Two people can be best friends one day, and a couple years later have no contact beyond Christmas cards. And that kind of sucks, I think. Sure, situations and life change, but why are we so terrible at retaining relationships. Why do the good things have to fade away?

My relationship with Jackie has been different though and has been one of the most stable things in my entire life. She's always been there for me, and I know that she'll always be there for me in the future. She's never been embarrased to have me around. When she was in high school and I was a noisy, annoying elementary kid, she wanted me around. When she was in college and I was a pimply-faced middle schooler, she wanted me around. And now that she's out of college and has a house and a job and a dog, and I'm a 20-year-old guy whose maturity does not live up to his age, she wants me around, and that means the world to me.

Things change. I hope that my friends now will still be my friends in five/ten/twenty-five years. But that's hard to gauge, and chances are, our bonds will be somewhat looser down the road. But I don't think my relationship with Jackie will change much. Her last name may, but her place in my life won't. She's one of the most incredible people I know, and I love her a whole whole lot.

Also, I am very awkward and cannot dance.

Next or Now?

Last spring, all of the members of Ozark's camp teams went on "wilderness retreat." It wasn't my favorite weekend of the semester. In fact, it was maybe my least favorite. And I even had it easy, because I got to sleep indoors for two nights while most people slept out in tents. And we did all the normal things that you would expect on such a retreat, like team-building activities and eating hot dogs and standing on planks and being wiped out by 5'3" girls in capture-the-flag. But the first thing we did when we got there was spread out and spend about two hours by ourselves, giving us a chance to pray and read and meditate and journal and all of that. And that maybe made the rest of the weekend worth it. It was at an especially stressful time in my semester when I tend to neglect my time with God, so having that time and space helped tremendously and got me organizing my thoughts and feelings a bit. And during that time, I wrote something in my notebook that I feel like sharing, and maybe I'll comment on it a little bit. So here it is:

My cell phone isn't in my pocket. About fifty times, I've had the urge to pull it out and see what time it is. I have this obsession with time. Not necessarily because I'm so busy and am always on the go. More because I'm always thinking about what's next. I have this attitude that the next is always better than the now. I'm never content with the moment that I'm in.

I remember in high school at worship at CIY, I always hoped that it would never end. I felt I could stand and sing forever. How much I've changed since then. Even in really great worship times, I think, "Hm, the sermon should be coming up pretty soon." And during an awesome sermon: "I think this has been about 30 minutes; he should be winding down here."

I approach everything with this attitude. Even simple stuff like watching a movie or playing cards. And the result is that I end up not really enjoying anything at all. I always think that things will be better later. Why can't they be better now? What keeps me from loving every moment and making the most of every second? I think it's time to leave the cell phone in my room more often.

I don't know how long I've been out here. I think at least an hour. Maybe less. Maybe a lot more. And I don't know how long I'm going to be here. I'm sick. I'm cold. I'm uncomfortable. My butt kind of hurts. But let this be a time that I make the most of and that has an impact on the rest of the semester, summer, and my life. Live in the now.

That was all about sixish months ago. And I haven't really changed all that much. Actually, I wear a watch all the time now, so maybe I'm even worse about this than I was. It's like, every day, my goal is just to get by--to survive. I'm not too concerned about doing anything too positively or negatively. I just want to get through so that I can get to the next day, hoping that maybe it'll be a little better than this one was. And what a dumb, dumb way to live.

I have things very good. I go to a school that I love, and right now there's no where else in the world that I would rather be. I have the greatest friends that I could every ask for. I have a phenomenal family. But all the time it seems, I walk around wishing things were somehow different, and I think that difference will occur someday down the road. Granted, there's things in my life that I genuinely wish were different, but most of it is really nothing. I have a fantastic life now, and I don't appreciate it or use it. I'm so busy wigging out about whether or not I'll be happy tomorrow or next year or in five years that I don't open up my eyes to the opportunities that in front of me today. Is the next really better than the now? Only if I keep on treating the now like it sucks, when it really doesn't at all.

Wish You Were Here

It's been quite the weekend. I just got back from a trip to Albuquerque NM with Caitlyn, Charlie, and Ryan. It was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. We saw a whole lot of hot air balloons, sat in a car a lot, fell asleep in movies a lot, and all kinds of other things. And all those hours in the car (especially at night, when I wasn't allowed to drive because of my poor night vision) gave me time to think. So here's the fruit of that.

I've been thinking about missing people. Not people on the back of milk cartons, but how two people are separated for whatever reason, so the resulting emotion is that they miss one another, generally. Usually, we think of this as a negative thing. Whether it be a friend that moves away, a girlfriend that goes to college out of state, or a parent that dies, we miss those dear to us when they're not around. We know that things aren't as they're supposed to be. They're not as we would have them be.

Understandably, we don't like this. It's not fun to miss people. We want them to come back. And so what do we do? We try to fill up the vacuum created by their departure with something else that will distract us or make us feel better. We create a new relationship to take the place of the one that's been interrupted. We bury ourselves in music to drown out the silence. We sit comatose in front of a TV to keep our brain for focusing on what's missing. And to a point, I guess that's all useful, and necessary even. We obviously can't just wallow in pity because of changed relationships. But we shouldn't necessarily do whatever we can to keep these feelings away. Basically, we loathe the negative emotions that come with missing someone, so we do whatever we can to eliminate them.

Maybe we shouldn't run from "the missing feeling" the way that we do. Maybe it's good for us to miss people. Maybe it's an emotion that can can be used and should not be only avoided. Maybe God wants us to feel this in our guts. Maybe it can push us closer to him.

Do you miss God when you've wandered away from him? I mean, we freak out if we go two days without talking our sweetheart, but we don't even blink if we don't spend time with God for a month. When we miss a person, we often do what we can to fix it. We'll call each other or plan a trip to visit or whatever else. But when we don't spend time with God, and don't miss him, we just keep going as we are. I imagine he probably misses us during such times more than we can fathom. So if you have been distant from God, GET BACK TO HIM!

There's another way that I think how we miss people relates to how we miss God. Even if we are nurturing a close relationship with God in our everyday lives, there is a sense that things are not as they should be right now. Even though we can talk to God any time and we have the Spirit living within us, there's still more to come in a fuller sense. We can look forward to a day when we'll be face-to-face with God, and the gulf that exists between us, though bridged through Christ, will be erased completely. So while we're living here now, we should be missing God. Missing someone connotes a feeling of yearning. Our insides ache because we want so much to be with that other person. And that's how we should feel toward God.

I was reading Philippians 1 yesterday, where Paul is talking about how being in prison has given him a chance to witness to all kinds of people, and then he starts going off about whether or not it is better for him to go on living and serving the church, or to die and be with Christ. He writes, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain...I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body" (Php. 1:21; 23-24). Paul feels that yearning. He misses Christ. His desire is that he can leave the world behind and be united with God as he is meant to be. Do we miss God like that? I'd say most of the time, no. And that's not good.

I miss people. I miss my family back in Topeka. I miss my friends that live across the country. I miss my Ozark people during breaks. I miss my family members that have died. And that's ok, I think. It's alright to miss people. God teaches us through it. It doesn't have to be something that we bury deep down, but it can be something that we experience and deal with. Let it bring us closer to God.

Go Lead

What makes a leader? That' might be a fairly important question. There's tons and tons of books written about it, books by former presidents and football coaches and businessmen and preachers and everyone else. To be a leader, you need to fit a certain blueprint. You have to be motivating, organized, visionary, influential, eloquent, and on and on. Some people are leaders, and some people aren't. If you're not a leader, you're a follower. If you're a follower, your job is to follow that leader. If you're a leader, your job is to lead the followers. We look at some people and think, "Now there's a natural leader," and so we admire and respect that person and generally try to do what we think they want us to do, because as followers, we need to follow them.

What makes a Christian leader? Does a Christian leader need the same qualities as a leader in general? Should the church fit in with the whole leader/follower model? I've been thinking a little bit lately about how leadership pans out in Christianity. The first thing that needs to be considered is what qualities a leader should have, because they're not all the same as what we think to be "leadership-material" in the secular world. Leaders in the world need to be ambitious and confident with a fair amount of charisma. But I think the most important things for a Christian leader are obedience, service, and humility.

The leaders we see in the Bible aren't always that special. Half the time, they don't even have much of a desire to be leaders (Moses, Gideon). But then God tells them to do something, and they do it. They at times put up a fuss I guess, but they're obedient nontheless. God uses them because of it. He doesn't use them because of their awesome leadership skills. He just uses them because they're available and they do what he says. And I think that's what Christian leadership is about. It's not always about being a good speaker or singer or delegator or video tech or whatever. It's about doing what God tells us to do, like loving people and loving him and telling people about him and not being jerks.

Over and over again in the gospels, the disciples argue about which one of them is the greatest (which of them is the best leader). So what does Jesus say? He doesn't say, "Duh, Peter is the best leader because he's outspoken and people do what he says." He doesn't say, "Matthew is the best leader because he can handle money really well." He says, "If you want to be a leader, you have to put yourself last and serve people" (Mk. 9:35). Leadership isn't directing people in what to do. It's buying food for people, picking them up when they're car breaks down, giving them an ear when they need someone to listen.

And then there's humility. Way too often in Christianity, we equate leadership with a formal position. If I'm a minister or a deacon or a small group leader or an RA, I'm a leader. If I'm not one of these things, I'm not. And what it seems like is that we've taken the business model from the secular world and transposed it onto the church. Businesses have a manager, with people under him, with people under them. It's the whole leader/follower thing. (Granted, there is a level of authority given to some in the church, like elders.) So if I'm in a position of leadership, I think it's my duty to lead the followers, and if I'm a follower, I just follow and don't think I have any responsibility to lead.

So what we've done is based whether or not someone is a leader by what title they have. And I don't know that God is much into titles. I don't think God wants a select few to be leaders while everyone else is a mindless follower. I think we're all supposed to lead, to a point. Can we really believe that God doesn't not want everyone in the church to be spiritually mature; that he wants some people to keep taking in but not giving anything out spiritually? The Bible says we're a chosen people, a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9) We're all called upon to minister to others. To serve. To lead.

So if you're in a position of leadership, don't get too high on yourself. Don't think that everyone needs to come listen to you on your microphone as you tell them how to act. But use the position to serve and love. Don't look on everyone else as your peons. And if you're not in a position of leadership, still look for ways to lead and minister. Don't use it as a cop-out to keep on in immaturity. Look for how you can help others with their walks and guide them close to Christ, to build them up. I'm not so sure that our visual should be a "leader" building up the spiritual lives of everyone else, but all of use building one another up. None of us are really all that much better than anyone else, I think.

If you're a leader, lead. Obey, serve, and be humble. If you're not a leader, lead anyway. Obey, serve, and be humble. I can't imagine that God wants any of us to act too differently.

There's No "I" in God, Church, Jesus.....or Team

I'm not feeling any kind of clever introduction today. So I'll just go into what I feel like saying. If you haven't read my last post, do that, because I think this might relate somehow. Earlier I wrote about how in relationships between people, we tend to make them all about us, seeking to gain the other person's approval of our existance and putting all the attention on ourselves. Thinking through all that some got me to thinking about something else. I wonder if we treat our relationship with God in much the same way.

There's a couple of different ways that I see this happen with Christians, including myself. One is that we constantly look for what we can get out of our relationship with God, much in the same way that we look to see what we can get out of relationships with one another. And there's a lot to be gotten, I suppose, and that's a very good thing. Obviously we're forgiven of sin, and we receive joy and purpose and everything else that makes life on this sphere worthwhile. If there was no benefit to following Jesus, I can't imagine that I would be doing so. But way, way too often, we leave it at that, and only approach God (and by extension, the church) for what we can reap from it. And so we go to church on Sunday and as we head to Wendy's for lunch, we complain that the music didn't suit us, or the preaching wasn't up to par, or the old people are too cranky, or not enough people greeted us during the "Holy Handshake" time, or whatever. In essence, we ask, "What did I get out of church today?" All the while, what I think is maybe the more important question goes unasked: "What did I give to God today?"

I don't remember many sermons. Maybe because I hear so many these days. But there is one that is a little more vividly implanted in my mind. My old youth minister preached it a couple times while I was in high school, and it was about how we approach worship. The most noticable thing about it was when he shouted at the congregation, "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!" That caught a few of the pew-snoozers a little off guard. Probably because he yelled it really loud, but maybe because it's true and we need to be unremittingly reminded of it. We need to stop approaching the church with a "gimme-gimme!" attitude of what we can get out of it. There's got to be more to it than that. Instead, perhaps we should ask: Am I using this time to honor and worship God? Am I connecting with and drawing close to God and with my Christian family? How am I ministering to those around me and encouraging them? What am I doing to let unbelievers know that Jesus loves them?"

There's another way that the attention-grabbing mentality works itself into our spiritual lives. Basically, we like ourselves. And we want other people to like us, so we do all these things so that they'll think we're worth their notice. Not only that, but we understandably want God to like us, so we end up doing all kinds of other things in hopes that he'll do so. And because of this, even the good, righteous things we do are done in an effort of self-exaltation and ego-enhancement. We think, "Hey, I'm a pretty good chap! Look at all these great things I've done! Surely God doesn't have any complaint against me! He's probably likely to name me MVP of the kingdom!"

And as per usual, we don't think the right things in the right ways. It's great to do all these things that God calls us to do. But we think that by doing all these good things, we can get God to like us. But the truth is, you can't do anything to cause him to like you more than he already does. He thinks you're phenomonal. He died for you, even when you hadn't done one good thing in your entire life. Do you really think that doing the right things and saying the right words is what causes God to notice you? To think you're worth loving? He does all that already! So maybe instead of asking, "What can I do to make God happy with me?", you should just ask, "What can I do to make God happy?" Remove the emphasis from yourself.

I apologize for not having written for a while. Things are getting busy, but I will try to write more often. Tomorrow (Sept. 22) is National Elephant Appreciation Day. Go crazy.

Can I Have Your Attention Please:

Once again, a Mark Moore lecture has gotten me thinking. The other day, we were talking about Jesus healing a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. This woman sneaks up behind Jesus in the midst of a massive crowd and touches the edge of his clothing. He then turns around to find her, and tells her that she is healed because of her faith. Meanwhile, Jairus, whose daughter is at home dying, is likely getting impatient waiting for Jesus to finish his encounter with this woman. The point that Mark made was that Jesus was able to give intimate, individual attention to this woman, even while being swarmed by the multitudes and being on his way to heal a dying child. Mark went on to describe several people he knows who, when they talk with someone, give that person their full attention, as if there is no one else in the room.

I (and I think a great deal of humanity) suck at this. We're generally pretty focused on ourselves. And because of this, we approach interactions with others in a self-centered manner that hampers our relationships dramatically. We want to be liked, to be accepted. And so we approach others looking for how we can build ourselves up through them. Our focus is not them, but on ourselves. So many times when I am having a conversation with someone, they may be saying something, and I am not even hearing them because I am already thinking about what I am going to say next. What can I say to make this person like me? What story can I tell so that they'll think I'm funny? How can I appear smart or interesting? I don't say anything out of genuine interest in the other person. Instead, I want to bring all the attention to myself.

I see this a lot. Guys get loud and obnoxious to get the attention of girls. Girls get cutesy and flirtatious to get the attention of guys. Guys boast about how great they were in high school football to get the attention of other guys. I have no clue what girls do to get the attention of other girls, because I've never been involved in any such situation. But I'm sure there's something.

Something I've realized is that the times I am most satisfied and happy with my relationships are when I put all the attention on the other person instead of myself. When I write an encouraging note because they're having a hard day. When I go pick them up some food because they haven't gotten a chance to eat. When I look for ways to build them up instead of myself. And not doing these things so that they will be grateful and tell me how nice I am, but doing them genuinely for them. Conversely, the times that I am most frustrated with my relationships are when I have put the focus back on myself, looking for what I can get out of the relationship and how I can build up my own ego and sense of worth.

What if we started to genuinely care about those we interact with day-to-day? What if, instead of looking for how we can make ourselves look interesting/funny/smart/attractive, we placed on the emphasis on the other person and sought ways to encourage them? There's an idea that I'm sure I heard somewhere, but I don't remember where. I just imagine it's too good to come out of my own head. But I think every day when we get up, it may be helpful to make it a goal to make someone else's day. This means really sensing the needs of others and meeting those needs in a completely selfless fashion. Perhaps Paul said it best: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:3-4).

And here's the thing: When we do this, when we actually put attention on others instead of on ourselves, the other person will typically begin to look to our interests. It works both ways. Instead of it becoming a battle in which each person is trying to build the castle of their own ego higher and higher, each person sincerely invests in the life of the other, giving of themselves to the other. Maybe that's what relationship is. Maybe that's what community and fellowship is. And I guess maybe that's what love is.

Our Time is Flatlining

I feel like at the beginning of almost every post, I apologize for not having written for a while. That's probably because, every time, I haven't written for a while. However, to mix things up a bit, this time I am completely unapologetic for not having written. I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats, checking this blog every five minutes in desperate hope that there would be a new word, but you've been frustrated for the last week and a half. Get over it.

Anyhways. life has been going along. Classes are picking up a bit as far as work and stuff go. I had a seminar this weekend about ministry through small groups that was really good. I imagine I'll write more about that later. I'm poor and need a job. And the ladies are all up ons. But I digress...

Mark Moore said something in my Life of Christ class last week that I thought was really good, and it's been mulling around in my head for a while. We were talking about Jesus' interaction with the Sabbath laws. Mark was talking about the need for sabbath in the life of the Christian, and how resting actually prepares us to do the work we need the rest of the time. The line that I particularly liked was: "Every day, there's enough hours in that day to do what God has called you to do."

I feel busy a great deal of the time. And thus, I feel stressed out, especially when we get into the trenches of the semester when all the term papers and tests and book reports and everything else are due. And I think, "If only there were like, 30 hours in a day, that'd be great. Then I'd have no trouble getting everything done." But I don't have 30 hours a day. I have 24. And my job is to use that time to its maximum potential to accomplish what God has lined for me in that day.

What that means is that I can't afford to waste time the way that I do. Over the past week, I've been thinking about just how much of my day is like a vacuum, totally devoid of anything useful. I'll walk into my room after classes and sit on my bed. And just sit for a while. And I'll probably do the same thing sometime during the afternoon. And before I go to dinner. And when I get back from dinner. And then a couple times in the evening. And then before I go bed. Mixed in with all that bed-sitting are the 63 times that I check my facebook to read all the wall posts that I don't get. And every once in a while, I stare off into space whilst I digest the Cheez-Its I just ate.

What if we eliminated these pockets of wasted time that are strewn along our day? What if, once we got back to our rooms, we got cracking on our homework. Then when we get that done, we'll have time to do something actually significant, or at least enjoyable, whether it's spending time with others and investing in their lives, or partaking in some ministry in the community. The stress caused by backed-up school work is taken away, and we use our time in a way that honors Christ.

I suck at this. I'm on facebook way too much. I play way too many video games. I lay around like a paralyzed walrus way too much. So I can definitely improve, and I imagine we all can as well.

If you haven't noticed (and I imagine you haven't), there's a bloggolution sweeping the nation. Or at least me and a few other guys at Ozark. So check out the links to Jim, Charlie, Tom, and Connor's blogs. And tell your friends. And put it up on your facebook. Print T-shirts. Rent billboards. Stand on the street corner with a sign. Secretly add this site to all your friends' favorites. Whatever it takes.

Call Me Ronahldinho

Once again, it's been a little while since I've written. So for the two of you that read this, I apologize. Things are getting into full swing at Ozark. I'm very, very glad to be back. I think this semester will be really good, and I'm excited about my classes.

Today in chapel, Kevin Greer spoke on community. Last year, Charlie and I had a discussion on how it seems like people here often have their bit of theology or doctrine or whatever that they get especially passionate about. We decided that for Charlie, this would be the cross. For Tom, it might be the kingdom. For me, I think it's fellowship and community. Which may sound odd, since I probably don't act like I enjoy other people very much, but it is something I do think about often, so I was especially interested in today's chapel sermon.

The community at Ozark is the greatest that I've ever been a part of. In high school, I kept to myself much of the time. Most of my friends were from youth group, and I wasn't all that close to anyone in my school. So when I first came to Ozark, it was refreshing to be in a place where I had a lot in common with so many people, and where everyone seemed friendly and anxious to build a relationship. In a lot of ways, we really do live as a giant family at Ozark, and I love it.

At times, however, I wonder how our community can be improved. Even at Ozark, it seems that people tend to divide themselves up into groups. Whether it be by dorm or floor or small group or church or age or whatever, we associate with a select group of people and don't make enough effort to include others, or to branch out ourselves. We may only play cards with certain people, or we only invite certain people to play volleyball or videogames or whatever. We even go to lengths to insure that people we don't want to be a part of an activity don't find out about it. And as a result, some people feel excluded, and we end up pigeon-holing ourselves and may miss out on benefits of the larger community. And I do this more than anybody.

I guess some of this is out of necessity. Obviously, a game of sand volleyball doesn't work out too well if 274 people show up to play. But I think the community at Ozark can do a little better sometimes at living as a family.

Sidenote: Yesterday, I played in a scrimmage game against the girls' soccer team. And one thing that I realized is that I am not in shape for soccer. It's a lot of running, and I'm not diggin' that. I'm not a soccer fan. I like to see the highlights and scoring plays during the World Cup, but outside of that, the game kind of bores me. But I give props to people who can run for 90 minutes without dying of heat stroke. They're almost as cool as people who play other sports.

Dead Space

The past couple days, I've been thinking, "Hm, I haven't written anything on my blog for a while." And then I realized that I don't really have anything to write. Why? Because I've been spending the last week bumming around my house, just waiting to get back to Ozark. And that doesn't provide much material for thought or writing.

When I was in high school, I didn't have a problem just vegging out. It didn't bother me too much just sitting around watching TV for an entire day. In fact, that would have sounded like a danged good day. But I can't do that anymore. Maybe I've gotten too used to the constant busyness of Ozark, in addition to always having other people around. Camp teams this summer is much the same thing, where there's always something to do and someone to be around. And for the moment, all I have to do is watch swimmers doing the backstroke on TV while I enjoy the dull companionship of our cats.

In a couple months, I'm going to be in over my head with papers and tests and everything else that goes with life at Ozark. I'll be constantly stressed out and will want nothing more than to have a break to myself. But for now, that break is driving me crazy. Bring on the schoolwork, I say! As long as it comes with the Nertz and ping-pong and Chick-fil-A and volleyball and pizza and Carterville and raquetball and everything else that makes my life A-OK.

It really is good to get to spend some time with my family and friends in Topeka. But something I realized is that life in Topeka tends to revolve around meals. Just about all the time that I've spent with others has been either having lunch or dinner together. The space in between meals is just dead. In a sense, I wish I could just go to bed, wake up every once in a while to eat, but not really get up until Saturday. And someone else could do all my laundry and packing. Yeah, that'd be great. Just about 68 more hours till I leave. I'm sure you're all counting down along with me.

I Used to Be on Camp Teams

Right now, I'm sitting on the couch in my basement with Sportscenter on the TV in front of me as I type away on my laptop. But I feel like I should be wrapped up in a sleeping bag on a bunk in a room of high schoolers. My summer as a camp teamer for Ozark Christian College has finally come to an end. It's a very odd feeling. For the last seven months, camp teams has been a major part of my life, and I just finished my eighth week of camp. And now I am thrown back into somewhat of a normal existence.

I've had an absolutely incredible summer. I've gone through so many crazy experiences and have laughed so much. I've been buried in a pile of sticks while covered with Sharpie-dots. I've been surrounded by 100 high schoolers speaking in tongues, and I underwent a miraculous healing of head lice. I went to some sort of Christian rave that featured strobe lights, music, and milk and cookies. And now...I'm back in my basement.

This summer has likely been the most intense period of personal and spiritual growth that I've had since my freshman summer of high school. I've learned a ton about how God works in people. I've learned a ton about ministry. I've learned a ton about relating to others. I think it's going to take me a couple days of just laying around to sort out all the thoughts that have been banging around in my head for the past two months.

Being done is bittersweet. The way that I said to a few people is that I'm glad to leave, but sad to go. I'm happy to be home and to see my family and friends here, and I'm getting excited to get back to school and see everyone and get back into the flow of the semester. But on the flip side, I've met so many awesome people across the country that I'm going to miss a lot. Some of them I'll see again; some of them I probably won't. It's weird to think about how I spend a period of time working closely with people and getting to know them pretty well, only to go our separate ways at the end of the week.

I guess what I want to do is give out some thank yous to people who helped make the summer what it was. I think this might get long. But that's okay. So thank you to all these people:

Joni: Joni lives on a farm. Thus, she lives a life that gives me constant fodder for my sarcasm and ridicule. And she takes it and laughs, which I love. I learned a great deal from being around Joni this summer. Joni recognizes the power in prayer and prays for things very specifically. She also has a great sense for sensing opportunities for ministry and the courage to follow through on them. She has a heart the size of Wyoming, but near as desolate.

Kaylene: 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says simply "Pray continually." When I think of this verse, I think of Kaylene. I have met very few people that are such persistent pray-ers as she is. In general, my prayer life sucks pretty bad, so I learned a ton from her. Also, Kaylene has a life where her spirituality is completely ingrained with the rest of her life. There's no compartments in her life, and I respect her for that a whole, whole lot.

Sy: If it weren't for Sy, I probably would've had a mental breakdown by Week 3. Throughout the course of the summer, Sy has become a great friend, and we had a whole lot of awesome moments together (which we catalogued in a list in my spiral notebook). It was a gigantic privilege to get to work with this guy. I've learned a ton about how to begin and maintain solid relationships with people from Sy. He's also twice the preacher/teacher that I am. I'm looking forward to our cooperation in the future: making movies, playing frisbee. Maybe we'll throw some ministry-stuff in there somewhere too.

Cliff: Our training for camp teams was intense. It often made me want to cut off my own arms. And I still have no idea how standing on a wooden plank for three hours helped me lead a small group or organize recreation. But somehow or another, Cliff definitely prepared us for the summer. Also, I've never had a boss that cares so much about his employees and is invested in his life, and I appreciated that a ton. Definitely a far cry from my managers at Wal-Mart last summer.

I'm grateful to the Quad City DJ's for recording the Space Jam theme.

Maybe my favorite part of the summer was meeting all the camp teams from other schools, and there's a few that I am especially happy to have gotten know. First, St. Louis Christian College (Matt, Michael, Julie, Katie). We went to the 'ship. We won the 'ship. And we partied it up in a flooded St. Louis until the wee hours of the morning. This kids are so Penny Hardaway.

Kentucky Christian University (Erich, Arthur, Michelle, J-Fuzz): Getting a group rate at Six Flags by recruiting random people at the gate was the most unethical thing I've done in a long time. But also one of the best memories. I had never before been accused of being Chinese until I met these guys. But regardless, those two weeks in Indiana were awesome, and I miss them a lot.

Boise Bible College (Todd and Sam): I wasn't expecting to be part of a worship band at the beginning of the summer. And yet there I sat, banging on my djimbe while Todd and Sam did the real musical stuff. These are the best fellow cabin-checkers that I've ever had, and they were part of my first and only Dutch Bros. experience.

Hope International University (David and Wendi): I was with these two for three weeks. They've promised me a free trip to Disneyland if ever find myself in California. so that's solid. David has an great heart for ministry and an incredibly genuine spirit. I'm especially thankful for Wendi. She was my Dark Knight buddy.....twice, suffered from bubonic plague with me, and has become an awesome friend that I value immensely.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who was especially encouraging to me during the summer and that were praying for me. (At least they said they were. Maybe they lied.) Anyways, those people would be: my parents, Jackie, Kelsie, Becky, Jayne, and Charlie. They're all awesome and helped keep me going when I was wearing down.

Now I'm home for a week and a half before I head back to Joplin. I'm getting really excited to get back to Ozark, and I miss everyone there a lot and look forward to hearing about everyone's summer. The Olympics start in a couple days. Look for me on the water polo team. I'll be the one treading water.

I Thought She Was Having a Seizure

It's been a couple weeks since I've had access to a computer. Since then, I've been to a camp that absolutely incredible. I've also been to a camp that was...very interesting. So I have many things that I want to write about, and will get to that shortly. Right now I'm at Kaylene's house near Portland, and we leave for CIY at Oregon State in just a couple hours. CIY was always my favorite week of the year, so I am stoked to get to go back this week. This is our last week of camp, so next Saturday we'll begin the three-day trek back to Joplin, and I'll get back to Topeka August 5th.

So about our camps. Two weeks ago we were at Camp Berachah in Auburn, WA. Which we soon discovered is a very pentecostal camp. I am not pentecostal. So that was quite the shift for all of us. There's a lot of things that I could say about why I disagree with a lot of pentecostal theology and interpretation, but I don't really want to do that now. Maybe I will someday. But I do have some thoughts just on the entire structure of the week, so I guess that's what I'm going to focus on now.

And here's my primary thought on the structure/method of Camp Berachah: I very much disliked it. Basically, each day of camp would begin with a morning praise service, then some group activities, lunch, more group activities (random things like go-karts or biking or archery or climbing wall. There were a lot), dinner, and then big worship session at night. So the day pretty much consisted of two worship sessions and a whole lot of random recreational activities. Problem with this? Very little opportunity for discussion, teaching, and discipleship. No classes. No small groups. Just canoeing and a dunk tank.

Also, the worship times were very emotionally charged. They very much had a concert-feel to them. When the worship band started, they invited all the students to form a mosh pit in front of the stage, and then those who didn't go up often just did there own thing throughout the room. And I'm all about getting in front of the stage and jumping around and dancing in worship. It just seemed somewhat forced here. Then the speaker would deliver an impassioned sermon, and there would be a big altar call, and all the kids would go back up to the front and cry some. Then some people would stay behind and pray, and everyone else went to bed.

And this creates a problem in my book. And it's not just something in pentecostal youth ministry, but in youth ministry in general. Far too often, youth ministries rely on pure emotionalism to impact students, and this was especially evident at Berachah. The camp was all about the big event, and it thrived on emotions. But it's not difficult to get a bunch of hormone-driven teenagers hopped up on energy drinks to come up to the stage and cry. It's another thing to help them turn that raw emotion into a decision for change.

God works on the heart. I won't deny that, and I'm glad for it. It usually takes the Holy Spirit breaking us so that we can see the hurt in our lives and the ways we've fallen short of what God wants us to be. But it can't just be left at that. Emotion needs to be turned into a conscious choice. Emotion is temporary. If our faith is based just times of emotion, it's not firm at all. I might as well base my faith on the weather in Missouri.

I've heard students say things like, "I raised my hands in worship today, and it was such a spiritual experience." Or "I cried after the sermon today; it was such a spiritual experience." And maybe they're right. But I really hope spirituality isn't reduced to that. When kids say that kind of stuff to me, what I want to reply is, "I think it would be a pretty good spiritual experience if you told your best friend about Jesus. If you showed love to that loner at school that everyone ignores. If you stopped looking at porn online all the time. If you started showing respect to your parents. Yeah, those sound like some good spiritual experiences."

So that's probably my problem with that camp, and with the way a lot of youth ministries and student events are run. Students needs a chance to discuss and download the things they hear in a sermon. I worry about those who were stirred by the Holy Spirit, but never had an opportunity to talk to others about what was going on and to figure out how to take that "spiritual moment" and make it last past the week.

I don't want it to sound like Camp Berachah was an all-bad experience. It made me think about a lot of things, and I learned a lot. There were a ton of people there who really loved Jesus, and a lot of students were confronted with God's Word. I just was not much in favor with the whole method of the camp. I have several other thoughts from the week, as well as from our last week, which at Wi-Ne-Ma in Oregon.

The Northwest is awesome. I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time last week, which was incredible. Please be praying for my teammates and I as we're at CIY this week, and Joni, Sy, and I will be driving home. I'm getting really excited to see all of you who are in Topeka or will be in Joplin. And I'm even excited to see Jayne, who gets back from Africa the same day I get back from here. Check out her blog; she's having an incredible summer.

The Oregon Trail

I'm in Camus, Washington right now. I just finished up my first week of camp in the Northwest, which I will talk about in a bit. But first, some thoughts about the trip up here.

Oregon is a long, long way from Joplin, Missouri. It took us three full days to drive in our sweet 15-passenger van with the Ozark logo emblazoned on the side. And the greatest lesson I learned on the trip is this: Wyoming is not a very exciting state. People complain a lot about the drive through Western Kansas. Granted, it's not very fun either. Yeah, it's flat, but at least there are signs of civilization. Like, some gas stations and stuff. But there is nothing in Wyoming. Just....space. If I hated people and loved tumbleweeds, I guess it would be the place to be. But I generally like people. And Wendy's. And indoor plumbing. And I have a hunch that none of these things exists in Wyoming.

Utah was cool. There were mountains. Idaho was iffy. Some of it was a lot like Wyoming, and some of it was a little better. But they have potatoes, so they're A-OK with me. Most of Oregon is pretty awesome. There's not much going on in the eastern part of the state, but we were going through these mountains for a long time and then drove in the gorge right along the Columbia River to Portland. It was a fun drive. And the western part of the state has more mountains and some volcanoes and really tall trees. And some cities, too. So I like it a lot.

Now about camp. Our team was split this week. Sy and Joni went to one camp, and Kaylene and I went to Little River Christian Camp. It was a lot different from the other camps we've been to. Most noticably, it was much smaller, about 45 kids from 7th-12th grades. All the rest of our camps have had at least 80. Also, it was just structured much more loosely.

So after the first day or two of camp, I was a little skeptical of it. It just seemed like these kids wouldn't get much out of the week. It felt like these kids weren't near as spiritually mature as at our other camps, and the programming didn't have the same kind of punch as at our midwestern camps. However, the staff was very genuine and loved God a whole lot, and by the end of the week, everything was awesome. The camp hit a lot of kids hard in a good way, and there were some decisions made and cogs turning in students' minds.

All of this made me think about how incredible it is how God steps in and takes control of a situation. I love the book of Jonah, and here's what I love about it most: After Jonah gets swallowed by the fish and heaved back on shore, he finally heads to Ninevah and gives this masterpiece of a sermon: "Forty more days and Ninevah will be overturned." I'm sure Jonah said more than this, but this is all that's recorded. I has no gripping introduction. No three well-crafted, alliterative main points. No tear-jerking conclusion. If I gave this sermon in a preaching class, I would probably fail. But the entire city of Ninevah repents as a result.

Here's the point. Ultimately, God is in control. Just because we might not write phenomonal lessons or preach award-winning sermons should not keep us from ministring to others. All God asks for is for us to obediently step out and tell people about Him. I might not preach like the guys you see at the NACC, but that's okay. God can take a simple message and use it to change people. Little River didn't have all the awesome video, worship, and other things that I've seen at other camp. But it was honest and God-driven, and it made a change. And I think we can all learn from Jonah and Little River.

Dang Keesha, this is lengthy. I feel like Jayne Long. And that's not a good thing at all.

Here I Am, and Here's Why

Hello faithful reader(s). It seems that I have a blog again. And here's why: 1) I'm sitting around at home all day with not much to do. 2) Several of my friends have gotten blogs going recently (though for much more noble purposes), and I feel that I should join in. 3) I was talking to a guy last week about my days on the high school newspaper, which reminded me that I like to write, which reminded me that writing might be a productive thing to do with my time.

Here's a little update on myself for those of you who don't know. I'll be a junior at Ozark Christian College this fall. This summer, I am on Ozark's camp teams, so I basically travel all over the place with three other people and work at church camps. We've done four camps so far, and they've been awesome. Tomorrow we head out for Oregon and Washington, where we'll be for the next month for three camps and a CIY.

In our training for camp teams last semester, we had to try to figure out our personality colors. I don't put a ton of stock in such things. However, I discovered that my personality color is green, which means that I'm apparently supposed to think a lot. Since then, I have developed into a hermit who locks himself up for hours, alone with his many thoughts. And now I have decided to share those thoughts with the world. Some of them may be serious. Most probably won't be. Writing will likely be sparse, until it eventually fizzles out in mid-October. We'll see.

But here's my thought for now. I've been thinking about the purpose behind blogs. Or behind writing thoughts down in general. I remember for a while in high school, a bunch of us started blogs, mostly just for laughs. But maybe it can be something a little more than that. Something that has hit me recently is the power that written words hold, and the opportunity that we all have to grow and mature because of the thoughts that others have put down on paper (or on a computer screen). I think all forms of communication can have great influence, but written words hold a special place.

From my days of working at Blockbuster, I know that New Releases are what sell. There could be an incredible movie that shakes society for a time, and it'll rent like hotcakes for about three weeks. Then, people stop wanting to watch it, and the store is stuck with 100 copies of a movie that no one wants anymore. A movie's influence is generally shortlived for the sake of the next big hit. Similarly, a song may be at the top of the charts for a couple months, but then people forget about it until it shows up on an episode of "I Love the 90's" on VH1. Television shows are lucky to make it past the third season. But for whatever reason, the influence of written words tends to last a little longer. Looking throughout history, books have had incredible impact on the shape society takes. Written words change the world.

Not that anything I write on here will change the world. It probably won't even change anything you do with your day. But I just think that there is great value in finding out what others have to say. Just think about how the world might be a little better if people spent a little less time playing Rockband and a little more reading and benefiting from the wisdom of others. Donald Miller sums up what I think pretty well in "To Own a Dragon" when he writes, "The truth I've learned about life is you can't do it on your own. People don't do well independently. One generation passes wisdom on to the next, wisdom about girls and faith and punctuation. And we won't be as good a person if we don't receive it." (Sidenote: the title of my blog is from the same book. Read it and anything else Miller has written.)

So that's about it for now. I'll try to do better next time. I like comments, by the way. So if you're thinking, "Hooray David! Keep it up, champ!" then let me know, so that I know I'm not wasting my time. Or if you're like "Man, this guy sucks. He needs to stop writing before I come steal his internet cable" then let me know, because I like my internet cable.