this is the frontier. i am standing on the edge of a highway looking at the passengers in their silently speeding cabs. i am waiting for my ride, but i'm still walking toward the city. my steps are unstable and weak but straight as the dashed lines on the road. i have been given a vision for the future and it's filled with a family of servants. i see a young girl embracing a homeless man and that homeless man caring for that young girl as he would his own daughter. I see right through the disguises that many of us wear and security that we so often pretend to have in our daily lives. i see broken men of the world turning their eyes toward the only man who can teach us how to love each other.

i am on a road to the city, and as much as i love the idea of being there, i am enjoying this journey. get out of your cars. we may share the same road and final destination but you miss out on SO much when you don't do some walking.

the only man who can teach us how to love each other, is JESUS of course.

I am holed up in an empty dorm room. It is quiet except for the train that passes just outside the window every 20 minutes. There is plenty of food and water and it is warm, but I still feel uncomfortable. I'm sick. Maybe I still have a fever. It's more than that. I've felt a little bit distant this week. I'm emotionally drained and I think it's because I've been in my own head a lot, trying to figure out what to do about a girl. what's bothering me more than anything right now is the isolation. I miss Cathy and she's only been gone a day. I miss my brother and wish that we could hang out like we used to. It was the freedom that we both had that made life so wonderful in the past. It was the abuse of that freedom that made life unbearable. We would cruise down the street in his old car and smoke cigarettes and talk about the places we'd go and the lives that we'd change. All I really want is a second chance at that freedom.

I had a dream last night that my roomate, Josh, my girlfriend, Cathy, and my brother, Cortland wanted to hang out with me, ALL AT THE SAME TIME! I hope this will actually happen someday because I think Cathy would love Cortland and I know Josh would get along with my brother because Josh kind of reminds me of scummy scene-fresh Cortland. In this dream I was laying in my hammock, wrapped up in my sleeping bag, when suddenly Josh, Cathy, and Cortland decided to go for a bike ride. I remember wanting to go but being way too comfortable to get out of my bag. Suddenly my hammock fell away, but I continued to float in my bag, on my back, four feet off the ground! I chased after them down the street, paddling at the air as if I were in a kayak.
This dream may sound silly and strange to you, but there was another part to this dream that really challenged me:
I was hanging out with Cortland (something that never happens anymore) and I was giving him a hard time about how he's been using his gift. I remember encouraging him to write more and use his gift to its fullest potential. Cortland replied, "what about you? what have you done with your gift? do you do all that you can to use your gift for good? are you a prisoner to your calling? MUSIC HAS CAPTURED YOU!"
I woke up and thought all day about what that meant. I wondered why it's so hard to devote yourself wholeheartedly to a task.

1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:1-6

a|A

listening

i do a lot of listening, but do i do enough? there's a big difference between casually soaking things in and being actively involved in what is being said. there is a tremendous need inside all of us to be heard and taken seriously. i consistently find myself tuning out certain conversations because i don't feel involved in whatever they're talking about. in meetings, i'll drift off and then come back to my senses wondering, "what just happened? was it important? i'm really hungry..."

i desire to be active in my home and in my community, but i can't do this without first listening and learning. i should put myself 100% into whatever i'm doing at the moment instead of wishing that i were doing something somewhere else. i most often wish that i were in the basement working on a song or starting an art project. however, i'm realizing that it's how you live your life outside of the studio that determines the content of your art. without a rich and focused work or social life, you don't have all the experiences and opinions necessary to say something with your art.

using our 5 senses is the first step to creating beautiful songs and pictures.

a|A

the animal and the angel

there exists in me two promptings:

one of them is directed toward animalistic desires, and though i have indulged in many things that look, taste, smell, and feel desirable, I have found no satisfaction in them. There is only more hunting to be done in order to sate my thirst for pleasure.

the other is prone to avoid animalistic pleasures at all cost, and although this may seem right and nobel, it is nonetheless unpleasing to me and my creator. as humans we were made to experience and enjoy the world around us.

i think i understand more clearly how to balance these two inner forces.

i was reading rob bell's novel, sex god. he talks about how the bible approaches this issue:

"in the creation poem that begins the bible, people are created AFTER animals. and from the rest of scripture, we learn that people were also created after angels. the order here is significant. the movement in creation is away from tohu va vohu (wild and waste OR formless and void) toward greater and greater harmony and order and beauty...how we live matters because god made us human. which means we aren't angels. and we aren't animals."

i desire to exist somewhere in between the wide range of these two extremes.

a|A