Picking Sides

Last night, in order to mildly participate in the super bowl, I would need to pick a team to root for since my beloved Steelers were absent from this final chapter in the 2013 season.  So after learning that the Seahawks were one of my friends favorite teams, and listening to him talk about them, and then watching them over the course of the past few weeks, I decided heck I could get behind this team, I mean they have great uniforms, and they haven’t won a superbowl yet, so that would be pretty cool for those guys who are by average all about my age.  Thinking, if I had a chance at the superbowl, I would be over the moon!  I mean once you win the superbowl your life is set!  Anyways, I did a little googling because I was curious who was rooting for who, and based on my local crowd I watched the game with and results online it was as I expected.  Conservatives were siding with the Broncos and Liberals were siding with Seahawks.  

 

Maybe it was because uneducated folk were slamming Sherman’s emotional outburst in the moment for being Thug-ish, and that he was from then on to be called a Thug for his actions, despite him maybe not handling himself great in that moment, but actually being able to backup his trash talk where most in the NFL can’t.  Sherman did great in high school better than most of his critics, and then followed that up by attending Stanford again doing something a lot of his white middle aged critics failed to accomplish or even come close to.  Sherman has done and has become an interesting player.  While being shoved into articles with the troubled Canadian teen Justin Beiber as an example of how the media on the right treats black men in the news over white, all he is trying to do become the best, and he has.  Ever since stepping into the ring of the NFL he has been trying to prove himself over and over and over again.  He got flack, yet always kept pushing.  He now has a ring to show for it, and while that’s yet still superficial, it still says something about him winning in a game that his critics did not want him to succeed at.  

So, did conservatives root against Sherman and his seahawks because the media on the right were portraying this man as a thug, and framing him as the enemy to white American football?  Our most treasured sport in this country?  Was Sherman threatening what conservatives want for themselves?  Did I root for the Seahawks because I hate America and I want to take something away from the conservatives?  No, I don’t think that’s it.  Did I get offended by the Coca-Cola commercial or the first gay couple portrayed in a super bowl commercial?  Nope.  

What is worse, the media and commercial television ostracizing the majority of the country by only doing commercials with white straight people who only speak one language, one of the hardest nonsensical languages in the world American English?  Or actually trying to reflect and advertise to our country the way it actually is looks and speaks?  

After all they are advertising, it’s not like the NFL and Fox are just trying to worship 1950’s America?  they are trying to make money and sell product.  They are trying to entertain their viewers who are spending money everyday, and if a company like Coca Cola who get’s 57% of their sales outside of this country want to have a commercial tying modern America to it’s citizens and all of their backgrounds and history why can’t they?  America is only America if someone is being oppressed I suppose.  I guess that’s what they mean in the constitution when the wrote the 14th and 15th Ammendments, oh and doesn’t Coca Cola have the right of Free Speech?  I’m surprised anyone drinks coke anyways, haha they have a terrible product and they give money to all kinds of people both conservatives and liberals hate.  The things that gets me is that we do have a choice as consumers in this country.  We don’t need to buy products from companies, we don’t need to play by the same rules.  

Everyone talks about freedom, but what if I don’t vote?  I would be shunned by the conservatives for not being American.  If I said that I don’t agree with our laws, and education system, I’m un-American.  Yet when there is a black guy as our president we want to strip any power he has and handcuff him.  We want to have small government, except when white texans are in power.  It’s the classic pick and choose out of fear.  We do this as Christians with the bible.  We pick and choose what verses fit our agenda.  We pick and choose what amendments allow us to hate something or someone.   Confirmation bias is strengthening our ever polarizing views.  

So what do we do?  Where do we go from here?  I know a lot of conservatives, and I love them to death, I can’ stress this more.  I know a lot of democrats, and independents, also and love them just as much.  Politically speaking at the end of the day, it’s all relative, and both sides flip back and forth around topics, and can’t seem to keep their story straight, so whats the point?  Who said we needed to be one or the other anyways?  

Do everyone around you a favor and don’t pick sides.  Challenge everyone.  Question everything.  Don’t allow someone to pick on someone else and bully them.  Don’t allow someone to team up with you against someone based on their views.  We need to be less Anti- and more Pro-.  The conversation starts with you, don’t be afraid to bring issues to the table.  We are letting silly debates, and lies ruin families and friendships.  What’s important to you?  being on the winning side?  Being on the Correct side?  The best side? Winning like the Seahawks did?  Or if you are peyton and the broncos?  I felt bad for the broncos.  I didn’t feel good about the Seahawks mercilessly crushing them.  I couldn’t watch, I went and played a game of Catan with my cousins.  The super bowl wasn’t fun for anyone, we wanted to see a real game.  We want to see our lives play out that way also, we don’t like seeing people down on their luck while we have a party and they aren’t invited.  So why do we want to do that with our political views?  

If you are putting your identity in the political bucket, I feel sorry for you.  It’s all a scam, it’s nothing but a backwards system that isn’t working.  Find your identity in something else.  watch less TV, read more books, and love your neighbors more.  Yeah sure we have the freedom to do what we want when we want, so don’t squander it away by keeping to for yourself and being a selfish wanker, because no one wants to be friends with that.

Rant over.  forgive me if I offended you.  Bless this mess…

 

-IT

 

Breathable Walls…

My life has been quite the whirlwind this past year.  My wife and I purchased our first house in Dec of last year.  I used the word house, because I think we have had many homes within our marriage, but this is the first home in which we own.  So things definitely change, you worry a little about it crumbling down in a thunderstorm, engulfed in flames on a hot day and blown over in the blustery winter months.  I guess that’s why people are making careers out of selling insurance.  Lot’s of insurance.

We have the regular kind, you know in case “life” happens, but it’s all standard stuff I think.

Today, I learned something about my Old House that really stopped and made me think.  We bought a 1890’s stick built, fieldstone foundation.  Pretty standard for the time period.  Walls made from real 2″x4″ timbers (2×4’s these days are 1-1/2″x3-1/2″, if you didn’t know that tidbit) and horse hair lathe covered in plaster.  As the saying goes, “They don’t build them like they used to.” And that’s the truth!  Removing plaster and lathe is no fun, but it reminds me how much work was put into a wall.  Nailing these strips of lathe to these timbers and then lathering them with plaster mixed with hair and any other fibers that were inexpensive at the time.

I removed a couple of these walls upon the afternoon of closing on the house, and man is it satisfying.  Bringing a whole wall down and rehabilitating a structure that had great bones, but just needed some new life.  I basically put the house on a new diet, got it back in shape and gave her a new look.

Enough with the flourishes…I was spending some time in the basement trying to organize the aftermath of said rehab of the house, when I stumbled upon something fresh.  In our daily lives we become numb to the modern world, we are only fascinated with something if it’s new, fresh, previously undiscovered, cutting edge, etc. and we rarely come across something that’s old where we sit down and say wow, I should try and appreciate the old ways of the folks that walked this earth before me.  So, I was in the basement, and I was giving my old crusty basement walls a good look over, pushing some old mortar out of the way, dropping to the floor and shattering to pieces.  Looking into the hundred year old crevices and inspecting the craftsmanship unbeknownst to the technology of fieldstone foundation building.  Hoping to find a way to make them less ugly, and maybe attempt to seal them up so I can use the basement for more than storage of stuff I don’t care about, since it gets wet all the time.

So, as a modern man, I do a little Google-ing and find that my house is sitting on breathable walls.  Breathable Walls!  Why would you want a basement to breathe?  My modern mind in this moment got the best of me, I read on in shame through articles on a DIY blog,a AskThisOldHouse blog, and finally a YouTube video discussing old foundations built from FieldStone.

I feel as if I’m losing some of you, but don’t worry I’m getting to the point of all of this…err I think I am at least.

Back in the day they didn’t think of basements as any place to dwell, it was used to keep things cool, store stuff, and heat your house with a furnace.  Today we think of basements as Bonus Living Space!  Or as we like to call BLS in the real estate industry.  (Just Kidding…)  So they didn’t need walls to be sealed up and moisture free for drywall, kiln dried pine, pleather covered furniture, flat screen TV’s or whatever else we use our basements for nowadays.

They used a soft stone generally the stone that was previously in the hole you call your basement, and it was probably hand dug.  I’m getting sweaty just thinking about that kind of hell.  They would’ve used a lime-based mortar to keep the stone together and build a strong foundation.  All very interesting stuff, but the crazy thing for me was that the natural stone right there in the ground and the lime stone crushed into a powder is used to make a breathable wall.  Moisture goes in, and moisture goes out!  Mold doesn’t grow here, it’s not allowed, the moisture just takes a quick vacation to the basement nooks and crannies, and then it goes back home!  It doesn’t move in and take root! NO! it just wants to move freely between the ground and into the void where my house is, where it’s home once was, and where it once moved freely through soil and other stone in the ground where springs moved about gushing from time to time.

We like to cultivate, manipulate and control nature at every turn, making room for us, our lifestyle.  Nature has to report to us, we are in control, we tell it when it can be used or thrown away.  over a hundred years ago they were building houses that accommodated nature.  Or at least, in this way.  They understood that water is going to go where it wants to, so they let it, and everything was fine.  Now floods enter our basements and ruin our expensive things and we pray out to God and ask why would he do this to us!  Why would he destroy such a nice BLS after putting so much time and money into the modern moisture barrier technologies that keeps nature in it’s place and out of our life!

Those before us didn’t always try and change nature or modify it to accommodate them, they accommodated nature.  We always talk about how walls and foundations are strong, sturdy, immovable.  Yet my foundation on my 1890’s stick built is movable, it’s permeable, it’s flexible.  It’s okay if it moves and shifts a little.  It’s fine if a couple little stones fall out of the top and shatter on the floor.  It’s okay if a little water comes through from time to time, it will go back where it came from.  Not to draw out this already very long anecdote, but it would seem to me that every churched person would be under the illusion that their theology needs to be dare I say “Water-Tight”?  We think of words like solid, immovable,  etc. yet, maybe we are thinking about things the wrong way.

We should create a breathable foundation perhaps?  One in which life can move freely through, and doesn’t get trapped in the nooks and crannies causing undesirable mold on our ideas about how to love, or how to think, teach, plan, or parent.  A foundation that is strong enough to build your life on, but if it shifts a little, nothing happens, your house is strong, it’s just settling.  The wind will blow, the storms will come, the water will flood, but your house will be sturdy.  Life will happen, and if we build our future on top of a rigid and hard foundation, it will become brittle and crack and fall away.  Let life in.

-IT

Jesus Jesus

The following is lyrics that have been going through my mind for months now, that sums up a lot of my feelings. Noah Gunderson wrote and performed this song to a silent crowd at Messiah College last year. I’m glad I don’t write songs, because I feel like mine would turn out like this. I love to feel happy and joyful, but more so I need to know what this world is about and how to truly love the people in my community and not be duped by false teachers and manipulative authoritative power hungry leaders….thus my connection with this song…

JESUS JESUS-

jesus jesus can you tell me what the problem is
with the world and all the people in it
because i’ve been hearing stories about the end of the world
but i’m in love with a girl and i don’t want to leave her

and the television screams
such hideous things
and they’re talking about the war on the radio
they say the whole things gonna blow
and we will all be left alone
no we’ll be dead and we won’t know what hit us

jesus jesus if you’re up there won’t you hear me
’cause i’ve been wondering if you’re listening for quite a while
jesus jesus it’s such a pretty place we live in
and i know we’ve fucked it up but please be kind

don’t let us go out like the dinosaurs
or blown to bits in a third world war
there are a hundred different things i’d like to do
i’d like to climb to the top of the eiffel tower
look up from the ground at a meteor shower
and maybe even raise a family

jesus jesus there are those who say they love you
but they have treated me so goddamn mean
and i know you said forgive them
for they know not what they do
but sometimes i think they do
and i think about you

and if all the heathens burn in hell
do all their children burn as well
what about the muslims and the gays and the unwed mothers
and what about me and all my friends
are we all sinners if we sin
does it even matter in the end
if we’re unhappy

jesus jesus i’m still looking for answers
though i know that i won’t find them here tonight
but jesus jesus could you call me if you have the time
maybe we could meet for coffee and work it out
maybe then i’d understand what it’s all about…

The Enemy

i’m tired of social media just being a battleground for everyone to regurgitate politically charged and religious BS ammo at each other in hopes that when the smoke clears we remain and our enemies defeated. I love people and i love the relationships i have with the people in my community wherever they are regardless of what/who they believe…I’ve done my fair share of judging and I need to deal with that, and i am constantly failing at being whatever it is that i’m supposed to…not…ever be…to clarify that last statement, as a Christian you will never have it all together, 80 year olds?? doesn’t matter you will be failing til you die…i get that, i get that I have a lifetime ahead if me of making mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to spend the precious time i have on this beautiful earth just smiling and being polite because i don’t want to ruffle any feathers…the status quo is not good enough, and to really answer what I feel is my calling it might actually bring me a lot of pain and others a slight bit of discomfort.

Since when did Christianity become this litmus test for leveling up to heaven? Buying into this Christian industry? selling Jesus like he is a video game? so cheap, so disgusting…Why is that every Christian i run into these days make me want to gag? Do they really think that our country is a Christian nation?? Oh wait, no sorry they think it’s worse, a “post-Christian nation” is the correct term to refer this dreadful time we are in because the majority of the people that live within these borders are no longer of the great Caucasian race? Because at some point in time our country was better off quietly disregarding a whole race and sexual orientation and gender all in the name of Jesus! Can I get an Amen?

Just plain sick…

I hear the most disturbing things out of Christian men and women’s mouths (or social media because we cower behind the keys) on the regular.

It normally is brought on by spiritual warfare (which if you are unchurched that means the enemy (satan) is out to get you, and destroy all of the work God had planned for you… ) where you feel like you are being persecuted by another human to the point in which you deem it necessary to volley a nice little flaming bag of biblical/political/emotional poo at one another…in other words a bunch if Christians who i love dearly just crapped themselves reading this because I’m currently being channeled by satan himself for writing these things. He is after me! Trying to consume my soul!!!! I think that’s why i sat in traffic the other day, it was the enemy…oh wait never mind i just found out that if i would’ve arrived 5 minutes sooner i could’ve died in a fireball accident!! Praise the lord its a miracle, the lord works in mysterious ways…

Let me clarify. I love Jesus, and I’m doing my best to follow him, and that has lead me down a lonely road where i feel I’m hand in hand with him aaaaaand maybe a handful of others I actually think don’t have their head up their butt. But thats it.

Maybe the moral of this story is that…It’s true, the body (the church) is made up of many different parts and I can’t judge the foot on how good of a hand it is being, but at least maybe it could stop acting like the arse it ever so longs to be!!

The best common denominator we can agree on is that we live in a messed up world. And if you believe we can be redeemed, i think we have a chance.

Love one another!!! stop being a pompous, proud, pandering, pro-life/anti-life, greedy, cheap, blind, ignorant twit!!!!!

T swift said it best “I mean…This is exhausting…you know?”

I just for once want to love and be loved by real people with real problems…

I just ruined a good blog post.

Sorry…

IT

The Perks of Being A Wallflower

So recently i watched this film. Scared i would keep hoping Hermoine would put a spell on a muggle, nonetheless Emma’s debut post Harry Potter was breathtaking. I have always been drawn to media and art that is liberating or hopeful. Some sites reviewing this movie didn’t see the redeeming value, however i’m almost certain those movie reviewers have never lived or loved…despite obvious parallels with The Breakfast Club it kept it’s own story in tact and owned the characters on screen, maybe even more so than the 80’s cult classic. Even the references to The Smiths is an obvious tribute to Sixteen Candles. However, this story is not just about a group of “Misfit Toys”. It’s about community and being able to have deep relationships with people that know all of your ugliness and love you more deeply for it. High School can be brutal, the suburbs of Pittsburgh apparently is no exception. Some of the bullying in this film and the insight the audience has will make you twist and turn in your seat as the drama unfolds. You will want to just make it all stop, but just at the right time the filmmaker does the right thing and brings you back down and gives you another reason to love this movie. One of the best depictions of what it means to be a teen in this culture, even down to the repercussions of drugs, abuse, and teen hormones.

A beautiful piece of our pop culture that may take some back to a hard time in their life, and others to a place of sensitivity to the pressure that kids are under today. Go find it in your local movie store machine!!

Enjoy!
IT

Quarter-Life Crisis Part I+II

PART I: A few years ago we moved to Franklin TN, (a small Civil War town now famous for country stars and CCM celebrities) in hopes of making a living as a musician or some sort of hybrid mixing in other elements of the music business. After being there a few months things were looking bleak, changing jobs 3 times to make rent, moving once to avoid a bad renting situation and entering into a more awkward one. These things were stressful. Money was quickly leaving our bank account and even though I did get a job towards the end of our stint in Nashvegas, my wife’s job was starting to fall apart and we were coming to a place of homesickness. As we tried very hard to protect our marriage, it is hard to not let the little things start to put dents and dings into what maybe wasn’t a candy red paint dripping shiny porsche, but still it was our marriage, a more modest less shiny but very fun 66′ chevy of a marriage. We built it piece by piece, it didn’t come from some factory all ready for us to get in and go, it took work, it took some taking a part and putting back together. As a husband you never want to show the true fear you have to your wife, not because it’s weak, but because she is depending on you as you are to her to keep it together. If you lose it, she loses it, then it’s chaos. Well, I seemed to have lost it, and broke down because moving 12 hours away from your family with no plan, no savings and a dream is terrifying if there is no miracle that intercedes and lifts you out of impending doom. I wouldn’t say it was a huge break down, but it was enough to start thinking of exit plans, and praying to God (also, part of this crisis was if I was even praying to anyone in the first place) for a way out. That was the beginning of the end of my drumming and touring phase of my life. I ended up playing drums for a band back in PA, and that moved my wife and I back to PA and got back on our feet. I wound up working as a temp at the engineering company I am still at (as well as going back to serving part-time to pay the bills), but now working at marketing and business development with our development side of the company (as well as doing some small engineering/surveying work as needed). Things have been going well, my wife also got a good job managing a thrift store, and now managing a frozen yogurt place. So things got stable, we ended up (through a bunch of amazing events) able to buy a house and fix up parts of it to really make it ours. So how am I at Quarter-Life Crisis Part II? Good question.

Apparently buying a house, adding more debt onto a already huge load from school and whatnot is very stressful. Remodeling in an impossible time frame is also stressful. Trying to push myself at work, and at home and our schedule being crazy is also stressful. I also have an addiction. An addiction to saying YES to anyone who asks me to do anything that I like doing, and feel passionate about. Isaac do you want to build this website? Isaac do you want to start a record label? Isaac do you want to film this video? Edit that video? Play this sunday? Play this wednesday? Teach my kid to play drums? Build this? Build that? Run this ministry? Lead this group? Lead this service project?…and on and on…So what happens when you feel that there are not enough hours in the day and all you want to do is run away? Well, you break down of course. Because you can’t bear the weight any longer. There are too many balls to juggle, they start to fall, and hit you in the face, and bounce and break windows…things just fall apart. And all of this inside of a marriage, it’s like that juggling act just turned from juggling nice soft bean packed leather bound juggling orbs (because I can’t possibly say balls one more time)..into…chainsaws…now, dropping these things gets dangerous, you can hurt people, you can hurt yourself. And I realized that somehow I need to catch these things and somehow make sure that I don’t hurt anyone or myself in the process, but how many people can do that. Either way, any plan looked messy. Fast forward a little, and now I’m here working out my identity, my values, my husbanding skills…what do i want to do with my life? Is it time for a baby? Is that going to help or make things worse? Should we adopt? Should we just focus on becoming more stable? #firstworldproblems comes to mind when going on in my head about these things. Are we over thinking it? Do we have a faith if we cant seem to make any decisions that would require us to get outside our comfort zone?! To say the least i think my life is becoming simpler but harder in someways. Routines and habits are cutting deeper grooves in to me and that keeps this train moving forward, but i want to be on a bicycle, free to go where i please at my own pace without having a huge plan that is dictating my future or get in so deep i cant even begin to throw the brake. Writing this is good for me. It helps me create, it helps me connect and sort through my stuff. I’m not in serious crisis by any means, but by definition because it disrupts my day to day life it seems to be legit and i want to take time and unravel the knot i have made. Thanks for taking time and reading my thoughts in the raw. Next time i will post something about music…

Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios

I don’t remember exactly when I learned the 4T’s, and I’m not even sure in what context. All I know is that it’s important to do this simple catchy phrase. Take TIme To Think daily, weekly etc. is important for balance and growth in your life. I don’t have a shortage of time spent thinking, it’s just the time that is to think about nothing that is short. I normally have to divide my thinking time to work, and personal solutions to life’s problems, and cut out time in that schedule to think about nothing. I use the word “nothing” loosely, or better yet to define an undefined genre of thinking (TIme that isn’t for work etc.) This week I wanted to spend some time to just think, and explore different ways to understand a situation, or dynamics of people and their day to day life. Before I venture off into a land that I know little about (Psychology/therapy, psychoanalysis etc.) I want to say that this concept is basic to say the least. Taking time out in your schedule to think about whatever your mind takes you into with some guidelines keeping you focused on “nothing” isn’t a complex concept. You could say it’s an exercise, or a practice to grow your mind, or as my friend Mister Rogers would say “The Garden in your mind…where Ideas grow”

So, on this day in my life still just a young 24 year old with a lot of years ahead of me and a beautiful wife by my side and just a couple bucks to my name, I can’t find a better way to spend a portion of my time to just sit and think, turning off outside distractions or purposefully welcoming a cacophonous atmosphere, whatever it is I think it’s important that we intentionally create pockets in our life to just connect with our mind and grow our ideas.

Here is a video that I think PBS did an amazing job to really sum up what it means to do what I have briefly discussed here.

Mumford and Sons Cover by Noah (Only1Noah)

This guys is blowing up all over the world. Check out his other videos. He really does have an impressive tone from his voice, not to mention good mixing skills.

BLESS THIS MESS

God bless the man who stumbles

God bless the man who falls

God bless the man who yields to temptation

God bless the woman who suffers

God bless the woman who weeps

God bless the children trying her patience

God bless the house divided

God bless the weeds in the wheat

God bless the lamp lit under a bushel

God bless the man at the crossroads

God bless the woman who still can´t sleep

God bless the history that doesn´t repeat.

[lyrics from Bless This Mess by David Bazan]

Which line stands out to you? Which one of these lines can you relate to? As I have been living and growing the past few years since hearing this song for the first time (while on tour with some of my dearest friends) I have found that I have been touched by each line in one way or another. I think if we are honest, we all have.

The song that these lines come from is very simple. It has a somber yet driving melody from a man who has lead a very turbulent life. From being a leader in the church, front man of a Christian band, and all together navigating the mess we have made as Christians of art, and the beauty of expressing ourselves through our creation. David Bazan has since left the church, and removed any affiliation to the Christian music industry as it were, to become an atheist, or as I would like to call a nomad. I don’t know if he will always claim atheism, or whether it’s just him wanting to not be apart of the American Christianity that is being spewed out by politicians and televangelists on every television channel and talk radio station at almost anytime of day.

Now, I don’t know if I will meet him [Bazan] in heaven or not. In fact we won’t know if anyone of our loved ones will be in heaven. We want them to be. We want them to be in church and follow Christ, and we want them to walk the walk, but sometimes their faith might not look like our own. And that’s a hard pill to swallow. Mahatma Ghandi once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”. Ouch, that hurt. Did Ghandi just say that? Oh yes he did! and I see what he means.

As a whole, the Church is ultimately failing to be like Christ, the one thing we are called to do as the Church. So, although we can judge and compare and contrast all we want, but when it comes down to it Micah 6:8 is where we need be. Act Justly, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly with your God. And, not worry about keeping up with the Jones’ or the Jones’ Church.

The line “God bless the house divided.” That is the line I’m speaking about here. There are many divided houses in my church congregation. Those who have had faith, never had faith, recently lost faith, or somewhere in between. My house is no exception. Family dynamics change, people change, and sometimes it’s not that we change, but it’s that the truth has been revealed for the first time. Whichever change has divided your house; it gets hard, as a husband, as a wife. Church gets hard when you sit in the pew by yourself. It’s not the same anymore. You have been living your whole adult life sharing your faith with your spouse, and then one day you realize you just can’t keep sitting in that same lonely pew each and every Sunday.

Church is the place we can go for refuge, for strength, for encouragement. Is it a place we can go with our stuff? Can we really show up weary and heavyhearted? How long can a human continue to live under the stress and suffering of “losing” their mate in the spiritual battle for their heart, mind and soul?

A few years back, my father took himself out of the running for being the next interviewee of the “in the pew next to you” (an article written in our Church’s newsletter each month), by officially renouncing his Church membership. His whole adult life he followed Christ as best as he knew how. He taught children the love of Christ, he taught men the wisdom and power of such a loving God, and most of all he taught us how to be beautiful in an ugly world.

30 years ago he started building his house on the rock with his big carpenter hands. And not too many years later I was doing the same. We were neighbors on this rock, and I learned how to be a man of faith from watching him. When he moved out and abandoned his house, it was hard for the rest of us, and still is extremely difficult to understand and cope with. Now my neighbor’s house is vacant, and no one is there to take care of it but my mother and me. We are frequently over there doing yard work and sprucing up the weathered front porch built with the finest of wood from around the world. Hoping that one-day he will return to his house on the rock.

I know I can’t bring him back, I know that there isn’t anything I could say to make it all better. Back to the way it was when I was younger.

At the very least, if he decides to come back to his house, it will be ready for him.

So I ask one question. Who’s house are you watching while they are away?

I AM

As the political season vamps up.  As our country becomes more and more polarized.  I feel like my beliefs and views “as observed” by my friends and family are confusing.  It’s hard to express clearly my beliefs and views with friends and family who disagree, because I don’t want to be hurt or hurt them by arguing over such complex issues.  For what it’s worth, I love my enemies ALL my enemies, including those that are enemies of my country.  And I don’t think that violence is the answer.  I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t claim to have it all together.  If you are in the military, have been in the military, or support the military in some way that would contradict my views, please please understand that I am not un-American, in fact I love this country.  I can’t simply love war because it has created this country, and I can’t apologize for believing this.  If we are friends or family we have already had this conversation, and I want to agree to disagree, because ultimately you and who you are to me means more than any institution, society, government created by us humans.  Just know that I love you, and nothing can change that.  I’m not trolling, or expecting to create waves.  I just want to clarify to those who feel hurt by my beliefs, or are confused.  I don’t know how to live in community with this conflict between us, and I don’t want to destroy relationship over political, religious, or faith based issues.  If you disagree with me posting this, maybe it’s unfair, but I don’t want to have a discussion on facebook about it.  Come and talk to me personally.  This is just a simple way to clear the air to a number of you who I feel I have possibly hurt by walking away from engaging in an argument in an unsafe environment.  

In addition, if you are curious as to whether or not I am a Republican or Democrat or Libertarian, or Independent, or “one of dem liberals” I want to clarify my political choice as to who and why I believe should be running this country.  Some days I wake up feeling that my vote would be better off not taken into account, but part of me keeps telling me, if I’m a part of this world (living in the U.S.) then I should vote, and make use of the voice (a small voice) but a voice nonetheless that has been given to me by a government I don’t agree with.  I don’t disagree in the style of government, it’s just how it is carried out in a way that disregards the weight of the rest of the world, and chooses to believe (on a regular basis) that we are the greatest country and breed of humans ever to walk the planet, and to that I say…good job, well done making babies and raising them in a bubble.  

We don’t deserve this life.  Founded in lies, taken, conquered, stolen, “protected”, whatever you want to believe about this country, but in the grand scheme of things the past 400 years is a blip in the big picture, and we as Americans have really screwed the world up in those 400 years.  You may not feel this way, because well, you’re American, it’s your worldview not to.  

So does my vote really matter?  Do my opinions on war and peace really matter to you?  What should matter is that we have been put on this piece of land for 80+ years God willing, and we are to make the best of it, and at the very least die doing something we were passionate about.  

I don’t like the idea that the church is represented by politicians.  Politicians are and always will be just that, a profession, a career, someone who wants to bring change, or simply provide for their family.  

So, my vote, surprise surprise, will go our current president.  Do I think he’s the best president ever? Nope, is he the worst?  Nope.  Is he someone that I think can run this country? Nope.  Is he someone that cares about the entire world?  Yes.  I believe that he understands the power he has, and actually knows that every move he makes has consequences bigger than him, his agenda, the country’s agenda, and any political movement.  He’s making a living for himself, he’s providing for his family.  He’s trying his best to change the world, and well, he has.  Even if you disagree with him, talk about him like he’s some sort of terrorist or worse, he has turned the entire world upside down.  Others have come before him making these kinds of impacts on our world.  People refer to them in speeches and commencements, and love to talk about them and use their words out of context to defend their personal agenda.  People like Ghandi, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Jesus, and another dozen or so saints and “game changers” that have sacrificed their lives to make a change in our short blip, and future blips.  

 I can vote for that.  

So, by way of conclusion, I just want to say that honestly I don’t care what or who you believe in, or why.  I want to know you and care about you.  

If we don’t play be their rules, we don’t have to expect their rewards.  Money, stuff…really?  The American Dream is just that.  It’s a dream.  My American Dream is when we let go of our pride, our disillusions, and can embrace all people regardless of their differences, just as lofty right?

In whatever you do, do it with passion, and love one another as yourself.  I’m not sure if we will ever agree, but I do know that I don’t ever want to let a disagreement stand between having a relationship and not having a relationship.

 

Love, 

 

Isaac