Movin' On Up!

Here's how much I love you readers: even when I have a lot of important things to do, and even when I should get to bed early because I have to drive nine hours tomorrow, I still make time to write a new post when the situation calls for it. So don't take this for granted.

I am writing this on Sunday night, and on Monday morning I will leave my home in Topeka to move to Cincinnati, where I will begin seminary in a few weeks. The U-Haul truck that we rented is all packed up in our driveway. Since my bed is already in the truck, tonight I am sleeping in our spare bedroom, and that's where I am as I'm writing this. It's funny to me, because when we first moved to Kansas, this was my room the first couple years that we lived in this house. It looks like I've ended up right back where I began. Except there are a lot more cat decorations in here now.

The past few days, I have spent a lot of time packing and getting ready to move. It's been a pretty big undertaking, and unfortunately for my parents, I didn't get my room cleaned up as much as I had hoped. There's something you need to understand about my bedroom. Most of it has gone untouched for years. Seriously, there are things in my room that have done nothing but collect dust since before I left for college five years ago. So needless to say, there was a lot of junk in my room, and it took a long time to dig through everything and figure out what I need to take with me, what needs to be thrown away, and what might need to be stored. It makes me wish that I never have to move again, but then I remember that I'll probably run out of money in a few months and have to move back in with my parents.

All of this cleaning and rummaging and packing has been an interesting experience, because it feels as though I am in a place of transition between my past and my future. One the one hand, I am about to embark on a new experience. It'll be my first time living on my own, and I can look forward to learning how to cook and making new friends (or maybe, I can just look forward to eating ramen noodles and being scared to even leave my apartment). On other other hand, as I have been sorting through all my possessions, I have been reminded of where I have already been. I've looked through old yearbooks and stacks of pictures and notebooks. I've found some pretty cool stuff, like this old picture of me and Jon Foreman, the frontman of Switchfoot, when I was in fifth grade or so. Switchfoot was my favorite band then, and they're still my favorite band now. Part of the reason I am who I am now is because when I was just a kid, I heard the song "Chem 6A" and convinced my parents to get me the Switchfoot album on cassette tape. My past has shaped my current character, and it will continue to do so as I move on in life. While I have been packing and have been reminded of my past likes and past events, I have been able to reflect on who I have become and where I am going.

A couple years ago, I went on Ozark's "Spiritual Formation Retreat," which was one of the best things I did in my time in college (isn't it weird that I can say that now?). One of the activities we did at the retreat was to take a few hours and just think about how the story of our lives had gone up to that point. This was probably my favorite thing we did all week. It really helped to sit down for a while and focus on my life, reflecting on how events and relationships throughout my life--both good and bad--have molded me into a unique individual who can be used by God in special ways. Losing loved ones at an early age has shaped me. Becoming friends with this kid Charlie in my Sunday School in elementary school has shaped me. Getting up on stage and sharing my testimony with the rest of the youth group when I was in seventh grade has shaped me. Being given a copy of Blue Like Jazz by my sister for my 18th birthday has shaped me. Striking out with girls in college has shaped me. Choosing to spend a summer in Oregon has shaped me. We all have experiences and stories and , and even things that seem insignificant at the time chisel away at our characters, constantly determining the people that we are.

It's important for us to reflect on these things, because by doing so, we prepare for our futures. My friend Kelsie is one of the smartest and wisest people I know, and when I was a freshman at Ozark, she graduated as the saluditorian. In her graduation speech, she talked about the book of Deuteronomy, about how before Israel entered the promised land, Moses reminded them of where they had been. He rehearsed their story, and he reminded them about the law that God had laid down for them. It was necessary for the Israelites to keep all of this in mind as they entered a new chapter of the nation's story. The line of Kelsie's speech that I remember was her last: "Reflections on our past will shape our future." That's good advice, I think--especially when entering a new stage of life. We have to remember where we've been if we're going to have a good grasp of where we're going.

When people move away from home, they often call it "leaving the nest." I guess this can be either encouraging or terrifying, depending on the outcome. Because when some baby birds leave the nest, while they might falter at first, they begin to flap their wings and soar to new heights. Other birds, however, just crash to the ground below and are left to die.

I hope I'm more like the first bird.

How We Talk

Sometimes I stop and think about why I write in this blog. After doing it for several years, why do I still find myself at my computer tapping out new words? It certainly isn't for the money, and it's been a long while since any readers have left a gift basket on my front step. I guess the reason that I love to write this blog is simple: I like to write. 

This train of thought has caused me to think about how different people prefer to communicate. For whatever reason, communication through writing means a lot to me. Over the past couple years, I have had chances to deliver messages in different ways, especially by preaching and teaching. As much as I love to preach, and as much as I love to teach, and as much as I try to give my best in my preparation for such opportunities, I get most excited about writing a new blog post. I feel that writing is how I communicate best. When I write something, it means that I have really thought about it and that I have worked at getting the right words to convey my message. 

For me, the things I write are usually things that I mean the most. Whether it's a blog post, a letter, or just a short message to someone, if I take the time to write it, that person can normally know that I really mean whatever I say (except for the exaggeration and sarcasm that tends to work their way through anything I do). Now, this doesn't mean that if I say something verbally in conversation or in a prepared message, I don't mean it or care about it. However, most often, the topics I am most concerned about are ones that I will address through writing.

Of course, other people communicate most sincerely in other ways. For some who are perhaps more passionate and less cerebral than I am, they communicate most deeply through off-the-cuff conversation. Others do it best through music. For others, it's painting or sculpture. Or by actions. Or with film. Or with a host of other mediums and channels. We each communicate best in a different way, and it's important for each of us to make sure that those close to us understand how we function. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to any sort of relationship is mis-communication, so if you are going to have any sort of relational success, it's necessary that others know how you communicate, and also that you know how they communicate.

So what about you? How do you feel that you communicate most deeply? What mediums do you use to convey the most important messages of your life?

Make Life Happen

A few night ago, I watched one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction. After watching it, I started thinking about this blog post. This morning, though, I discovered that I already wrote a very similar post last summer after watching the same movie. Since I didn't even remember this, I'm sure you don't remember it either, so it can't hurt to write it again now. Besides, this should just tell how how good of a movie Stranger Than Fiction is, since it made me want to blog twice. So go watch it.

When the movie starts, the main character, Harold Crick, lives a life of monotony. He does the exact same thing every day down to the second, and it's not a very interesting life. Over the course of the film, however, Harold begins to change the way his life looks. Instead of just going to work and coming home to eat alone, he stops counting how many steps it takes to get the the bus stop, and he starts playing guitar and flirting with an anarchist baker. By the end, Harold's life is completely different than it was at the beginning. He brought about change. He developed, and he was much better for it.

This change didn't come about by happenstance. Harold Crick doesn't go to bed one night as a calculating IRS agent living a life of solitude and then wake up the next morning as a different person. The story of his life develops because he himself chooses to enact change. He's not just sitting on his couch when a guitar and Maggie Gyllenhaal fall throw the ceiling. He figures out what he wants and goes out and tries to get it, and it involves action and risk and vulnerability and the chance for failure or rejection. But those are the things that make a good story, I think.

I'm a bit of a daydreamer. I often sit around and think about the life I would like to be living, or I think about the person I would like to be. My problem is that I'm hesitant to go make that life happen, and I don't take any steps to grow into the person I could be. As a result, things don't really change, and it becomes easy for me to complain about how I'm not entirely satisfied with how things are going for me.

The law of inertia says that an object at rest will remain at rest. I suppose that's why changing is so difficult. It's much more comfortable for me to lay here in my bed than it is for me to go out and meet new people or try new things or put myself in a situation that might not turn out how I want. As far as life development is concerned, maybe I'm in a state of rest, and I need a kick to get me rolling.

Maybe you're like me in that. A truth that we need to grasp on to is that the best things in life don't just fall into our laps. They almost always require that we go out in search of them, and that usually involves risk and possible failure. It's much easier to just sit in your bedroom and think about what things could be like than it is to try to make it be so. But the latter is much more rewarding.

On a side note, this last Wednesday I gave the devotion for the senior adults lunch at my church, and after I was done, they had a singing group made up of senior citizens come perform. First time I had ever heard an 80-year-old woman yodel. Best Senior Saints lunch ever.

Checklists

I've made a decision. I'm going to start to try to write at least two new blog posts every week. I have noticed that blog that do really well all have new updates pretty much every day. I'm not quite to that level, but I figured it's time to step things up at least a little bit. Don't get too excited though (or too disheartened. Depends how you feel about my blog). Chances are, this new pattern won't last beyond this week.

In Mark 10, a group of Pharisees comes up to Jesus with a question: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" Jesus responds by asking what Moses commanded, and they reply, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." After this, Jesus goes on to describe how the intent of marriage is a lifelong commitment between a husband and wife.

The problem for the Pharisees here is that they are solely concerned with following the details of the law without worrying about the intent of that law. They want to be able to check their adherence to the law like an item on a checklist. Yes, Moses did permit divorce, but in no way is it ever depicted as a positive thing. But instead of wanting to follow God and his true desire, the Pharisees just want to say that they have stayed within the bounds of the law. For them, it's not about having a trusting relationship with God. It's about crossing your t's and dotting your i's, so that you can look at God's commands and say, "Check."

A little later in Mark 10, a rich young man runs up to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus essentially tells the man to obey the Ten Commandments, but the guy claims to have already done so. Don't murder? Check. Don't commit adultery? Check. Don't steal? Check. Don't lie? Check. Honor your parents? Check. He's done it all, and at the end of Jesus' listing, he can say, "All these I have kept since I was a boy!"

When it comes to marking items off of a checklist, this guy is in pretty good shape. But when it comes to following Jesus with everything, he's unwilling. In verse 21, Jesus says, "One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Then the man walks away, unwilling to part with his possessions for the sake of Christ. Like the Pharisees earlier in the chapter, he was interested in wearing his adherence to commands on his chest like merit badges, but he wasn't ready to be a true disciple of Jesus. He was focused on a checklist of duties and not on walking in the footsteps of Christ.

But what comes between these two passages--the first about the Pharisees, and the second about the rich young ruler? In verses 13-16, people try to bring their little kids to Jesus, but the disciples try to keep them away. Then Jesus famously says, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

What sharp contrasts we find in this chapter. On the one hand, there's the Pharisees and the rich young ruler--so intent on following commands, but not as concerned with a true relationship with Christ. On the other hand, there are the children--with no merits of their own, but coming to Jesus with attitudes of trust. And which group does Jesus commend? The children. Both the Pharisees and the rich young ruler do not have the attitude of a child. They don't want to receive the kingdom of God. They're trying to earn their way into the kingdom.

Often, I find myself taking the stance of the Pharisees or the rich young ruler instead of that of the children. I come to God with my checklist of accomplishments and expect him to be impressed with all I've done. Read my Bible regularly? Check. Weekly church attendance? Check. Didn't cuss anyone out today? Check. Pray before I eat my dinner? Check.

But God isn't interested in our checklists. He's interested in our hearts. He wants us to come running to him like a child into his father's arms. A child doesn't have to come to his parents with a list of accomplishments to ensure that he is loved by them. Likewise, our ability to work really hard and follow all the rules doesn't cause God to love us, and I think he would rather we faithfully throw ourselves into him. This isn't to say that obedience is unimportant. But we might need to examine why we are obedient to God's word. Is it so that we can keep crossing things off our checklist? Or is it because we love Christ and desire to follow him?

On an unrelated note, I have recently caught myself saying "Will do" a lot whenever I am given a task. You know, someone will say something like, "Hey, can you make sure to take out the trash on your way out?" and I'll say, "Will do." It really bugs me. I think that's an annoying thing to always be saying. I don't like saying "Will do." But it's like I can't stop, not matter how much I want to. Do you ever catch yourself always saying something that you don't like?

Train Your Brain

I read an interesting blog post a couple weeks ago that touched on the subject of neural plasticity. Neural plasticity means that our brains are shaped by our experienced and by how we actually use our brains. The blog referenced a study in which MRI's were taken of the brains of London taxi drivers and were compared with images of other people. Researchers discovered that the hippocampus of the taxi drivers' brains were larger than those of other people. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that controls spatial memory, and since taxi drivers need to remember routes to so many different locations, their activity of driving a taxi had actually changed the morphology of their brains. So basically, these drivers had trained their brains into being able to meet the demands of their job.

Reading this made me wonder what my brain might look like. Recently, I have been feeling mentally sluggish at best, especially since I have been home for the summer. I really do believe that I have been getting dumber. For example, when I was a little younger, I used to be able to zero in and focus on what I was doing without getting distracted. If I were doing a specific task, I probably wouldn't even hear someone at first if they tried to get my attention. Nowadays, though, I have trouble focusing on anything for more than about 20 seconds at a time. I'm worse than a typical Jr. High student. I constantly find myself just staring off into space, thinking about nothing in particular, even when I have a task to be doing.

Even just today, I spent the day writing funeral sermons that I can use in the future, so that I already have them on hand when I need them and won't have to write a new one. I spent all afternoon working on this sermon, and at the end of the day, I could look at it and think, "Wow, this isn't very good at all." And it really isn't. It took forever and a day to write, and it's kind of lousy. It's as though I was more focused, sharper, and more creative four years ago than I am now.

I imagine that I have probably let my brain get flabby. I haven't been practicing very good discipline lately. I get home from the church and just loaf around the house for the most part. The result? I'm less productive, I write fewer blog posts (and even fewer good ones), and my brain turns to a sloppy mess. And, just as it's hard to get back into physical shape after you've let yourself go, it's tough work to get back into mental shape. It means I need to be on facebook and youtube less, in my books more, and engaging with others more. So I'll be working on that, and in the meantime, I ask that you forgive me for being an idiot.

The Ten Not Worst

I hope that, as your beginning to read this post, you have your confetti and noisemakers in hand, because this is a very special post. It was on this day three years ago that I started writing this blog! (This is the part where you throw the confetti.) And oh, what a three years it has been. There have been some laughs. There have been some tears. Maybe even a little weeping. And I'm consider myself privileged to have gone through all of it with you, my faithful reader. Even you...the one in the red shirt. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Thanks for being here.

When I first started this blog, I had about three readers. Today, I have at least five or six. As I was thinking about that, I realized that there are some people who haven't read any of the older posts. So today, I want to do something that feels very vain and self-glorifying. But I figure, "Hey, it's my blogiversary. I can do whatever the heck I want, and people still have to tell me how nice I look in my turtleneck sweater, and I get to pick out which piece of the cake I want first. Now, do I go with the biggest one, or the one with the most frosting?" 

Anyways, today I am presenting to you links to the top ten posts I have written thus far. Over the last couple weeks, I have gone back over everything I have written in the past three years, desperately searching for ten posts that didn't suck quite as much as the others. Some of these are the ones about which I received the most positive feedback from readers, and others are just ones that I especially like. And so, without further stalling or silliness, I am pleased to present in chronological order:

The Top Ten 'Chicken in a Cage' Posts of the First Three Years (there's got to be a more concise title for this).

Bystander Effect (Nov. 2008): How psychological theory has a very real and very depressing impact on my own life. This post probably doubled the readership of the blog at the time, and it has unfortunately continued to define my life ever since.

In the Dust (Dec. 2008): How the book of Lamentations shows us that grief and sadness are legitimate experiences that can even push us closer to God.

C'est La Vie (March 2009): One of several posts that arose from me being pretty hacked off at the world. How God-given contentment helps us roll with the punches that life throws at us.

Van Ride (April 2009): Using a 15-passenger van as a metaphor for the fluidity of our social circles. This caused several people to somewhat aggressively ask me, "So David, I bet you're just ready to kick me out your life, aren't you?! Well, I hate you too!" I guess good blog posts come with a cost.

In Search of Swagger (Nov. 2009): A semi-sarcastic post about why I don't have much luck with the ladies, mixed in with a few other random thoughts that I found humorous at the time.

Before Garmin (Dec. 2009): How God leads us through life a little bit at a time and usually doesn't show us the whole picture at once, as well as why I need to be in more jewelry commercials.

This Isn't the Church (Jan. 2010): Why the internet and online communities (even this blog, regardless of how good it might be!) are inadequate substitutes for the flesh and blood church. This post is notable because I quoted a guy from a book, and he commented on my post. Which means I have to be way more mindful of libel these days.

My Friend (May 2010): An ode to my best friend upon his graduation from college. In the post, I say something about him being single. Now, just over a year later, he's engaged. I like to think that this post was the catalyst that made that happen.

Dancing Is Better Than Poking (Nov. 2010): Why the church should be the remedy to the "classy isolation" that we tend to put ourselves in. (By the way, this might be my favorite post, if you're looking for an "Editor's Pick".)

Ready for Rest (May 2011): A reflection on the tornado that struck Joplin earlier this summer, and why we should all be looking forward to the day when Jesus makes the world as it should be.

Well, that's that. As we celebrate another year, I would like to reaffirm how thankful I am for each of you and for you taking the time to read. If you have been reading my blog for a while and there's a post that you like that didn't get listed, share it in a comment; I'd be curious to know.

Now here's your mission: When you come across the first person you see after reading this, wink at them and say "Go get 'em, Tiger." It's a very encouraging way to greet someone.