one year ago

one year ago,

i had a place to call my own,

and people who helped make it a home.

although

i lost some sense along the way,

and the damage was always growing. bigger and bigger,

until the cracks could no longer hide beneath the surface.

one year ago,

i had a place that i called home,

and the relentless desire to make that home known.

but maybe i tried too hard to make it my own,

and maybe i had been given too much space to roam.

i don’t know how i threw it away,

but it doesn’t feel like home today,

even though the ones i love never left their places,

i still can’t bear the disappointment on their faces.

one year ago,

those who i held dear were all gone,

and it was a sign that i wish i hadn’t missed.

those people are back, and they’ve given my heart a home,

and a reminder that sometimes we can get lost when we set out to roam.

one year ago,

i was searching for love.

although,

i think that i really just wanted acceptance

at any cost.

this longing for a space to fit into turned me into a shell of what i thought i once was.

and in the end,

those who i was trying to impress are now at some of the farthest distances from my heart.

meanwhile,

those who i thought had lost hope in me pulled me from the wreckage.

one year ago,

everything was different.

and i told myself,

“it’s going to be different this time.”

in many ways, things ended up being different,

but so much remained the same.

the problem is,

how do you know if the things that changed are for the best?

can you truly know if this is the right place?

because everything feels wrong right now,

and yet in the midst of the chaos there remains elements of beauty.

often, it’s a chaotic beauty. there’s a sense that we’re all still a huge mess, and we all know it.

and yet the pursuit of a Father who truly understands our pain and our needs and our longing unites the chaos,

and holds these pieces together.

one year ago,

i lost sight of the center.

i lost sight of the Savior.

i lost my vision and i lost my way.

i’m ready to pick up a map,

put some glasses back on,

and head back towards sanity.

happy new year.

servant of all (politics, the election, etc)

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Illinois Republican State convention known has the “house divided” speech. It was referencing a concept that Jesus spoke of in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke: “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” (Mark 3:25 ESV). That to me isn’t the standout line from Lincoln’s speech, though. It’s this:

“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.”
-Abraham Lincoln

 

I think that when I look at my country right now, I ask one major question:

 

Where the hell are we?

 

 

I’m 22 years old. This is the first election that I’m registered to vote in (I could’ve voted in 2012, but I registered too late). This has been by far the nastiest election cycle I’ve ever witnessed. I spent this morning looking up polls and surveys on the election, mainly because my Netflix keeps cutting in and out. Priorities, right? Here are some interesting stats I found from Pew:

 

·      Less than half of voters say they know “a lot” about where Trump and Clinton stand on important issues (41% for Trump, 48% for Clinton)

·      36% of Republican-registered voters and 35% of Democrat-registered voters say they are satisfied with their candidate.

·      33% of Trump supporters say the main reason for supporting Trump is that “He is not Clinton.” 32% of Hillary supporters like that “She is not Trump.”

·      64% of voters say the campaign is not focused on important policy debates.

·      71% of voters say this campaign is too negative.

 

How did we get this way?

Why have we settled for such mediocrity?

 

This election has been particularly troubling for me as someone who professes to be a believer in Jesus. Christians have been placed in a weird spot this year. We’ve lost any ability to claim to be the “moral majority”, at least in my opinion. Many who supported Trump early on simply because they could not ethically support a Clinton presidency have been faced with two choices: attempt to justify the abhorrent things Trump has said about women, minorities, Muslims, etc. (which is a rather amusing song and dance to watch), or somehow ignore these things altogether for “the greater good” (the greater good meaning keeping Clinton out of office). Many are taking sides in the election specifically on the issue of the Supreme Court and the unique position we are in right now with the amount of vacancies. It’s a complicated issue, one which I still don’t fully know where I stand.

 

What I do know is that so many of my fellow Christians have sacrificed their witness in pursuit of politics. I’ve seen more hurtful things on Facebook in the last two years than ever before…MOST of them coming from fellow believers. Whether it’s subtle (or not so subtle) racism, the Black/All/Blue lives arguments, the hateful comments made towards the gay community/Muslim community/non-right community, or even the harsh words spoken to me over simple statements, it’s a freaking mess.

 

This country is hurting. It’s hurting badly. So many acknowledge that the status quo has to change, but are unwilling to do so. And I see the hurt from all sides. I see communities of color who feel marginalized and attacked by their government, their law enforcement, and even the church. I see police officers and police families who I respect and admire and who have suffered needless violence and vitriol in the last few years.  I see non-straight friends who have been hurt by the church and are struggling to find a place to belong. I see poor families who don’t know how to break a cycle of poverty and despair, and I see middle to upper-middle class families who feel strangled and suffocated by an overbearing government. I’ve watched countless friends walk away from their faith in God not necessarily because of intellectual debate, but many who simply don’t want to be associated with a religion that has been represented poorly by so many. I also see close followers of Jesus who desperately want to see this world change and who genuinely love and care for their brothers and sisters, but who are really starting to understand what Paul meant when he said that we are aliens and foreigners in this world.

 

I hate the polarization. The divide has become so wide, and yet so many of these issues are not black and white. We’ve become so quick to generalize the “other side” that it becomes easy to demonize them. It’s easier to respond All Lives Matter than to acknowledge the hurting in the Black community. It’s easier to fiercely claim to be pro-life than to love the women who may have made the life-altering choice of abortion. It’s easier to try and vote for “the lesser of two evils” than it is to reform an inherently evil system. It’s easier to come up with stock answers for the issues of this day and age than to realize that things are far more nuanced than they seem.

 

Paul spoke in his letter to the Corinthians about how in our freedom, we are to serve all for the sake of the Gospel:

 

“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” 
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV

 

A servant of all.

 

As Christians of all races, ages, genders, and statuses, are we willing to become servants of all?

Are we willing to be the servants of our black and other minority brothers and sisters?

Are we willing to be the servants of our law enforcement communities?

Are we willing to be the servants of the LGBT community?

Are we willing to be the servants of our Muslim neighbors?

Are we willing to be the servants of liberals?

Are we willing to be the servants of conservatives?

 

Are we willing to do all of these things for the sake of the Gospel? It’s hard. It’s uncomfortable at times, and it’s downright painful and messy at times. I don’t think there’s an easy answer. Are we willing to be wrong? I hope so. I hope I’m willing to be wrong. I hope that I remember that the sovereignty of God is much bigger than the sovereignty of the United States, and that someday this country might fall like every country before it but God will still reign. I hope I remember that if Trump wins, God is still God, and if Clinton wins, God is still God. No matter who is on the Supreme Court, or what laws pass and don’t pass, or who can marry who, or what I can or cannot do in this country, God is still God. America is not God’s chosen nation. It is a great nation. But my allegiance is to God and God alone. I could be dead wrong in everything I wrote here, but God is still God. And I have to believe that if the Gospel is our number one mandate, it has to come before America, or before an election, or before our security and safety, or before “religious liberty”, or before anything else we think matters.

 

Hebrews 13:8 reminds us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” I don’t know who I am going to vote for next week. I know that God’s will doesn’t depend on who I vote for. I know that God’s will is to show love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control towards those I don’t agree with. Even online. And for the sake of the Gospel, let’s try and figure this one out.

 

four/14 (dear you, pt. x)

it's been a little over four years.  

 

every so often, memories will flood back. it's been almost a year since the last time these thoughts crossed my mind. it's easy to remember the painful times. they've become etched so deep that it doesn't take much digging to bring them to the surface. i remember the fights, the lies, the awful words spoken. moments that i can't stand re-living, but that always seem to rear their heads when i need them the least. 

 

and then, there are times when something so very simple will remind me of good times. memories of laughter, joy, and simplistic childhood ignorance. there are so many parts of those stories that i can hardly bear to remember. sometimes, the good times almost feel worse. they're a more visceral experience, paying no regard to the way things played out, but instead reminding me of the amazing moments that were lost. 

 

so much of me hopes that it's never too late, and i think that i probably believe that. on my better days, i believe that. i look at the blissful innocence of my favorite four year old, and i am reminded that there is a chance for good in every person. it's only when i look at the reflections of destruction that brought us to this place, the circumstances that rewrote the fabric of family, that i lose sight of those good times and focus on the reality that is the mess you have placed us in. and yet, i want it to be better. no matter how unlikely, no matter how much destruction and damage and hate you have poisoned our lives with, i want to hold on to hope that things can get better, because i know there is always a capacity for change in all of us. 

 

dear you, 

everything ends someday.  

let's end this madness before the madness consumes and ends you.

it isn't too late. (i fear it's too late) i hope it isn't too late. 

this does not have to be the closing of this story, 

but you better act soon because we can't write this in pencil anymore. this destruction is being written in ink. and when we run out of pages, we'll have to write over some of the old stories. 

and I don't want to lose those stories.  

the importance of writing.

I thought it was rather appropriate that my first college writing assignment was, "Do you think writing is important?" I figured I'd share it here.

Three weeks ago, I sat alone in the parking lot of my home church at 5 o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t slept in at least 19 hours, and yet somehow I couldn’t bring myself to go home and collapse into bed. My mind was racing; after an incredible weekend of music and ministry with some of my closest friends, reality was beginning to sink in and I started coming to terms with the fact that I was moving away from everything I loved within ten days. I began crying out to God in my mind; in actuality, it felt like screaming. I needed to make sense of what was going on. Within moments of those initial prayers, I opened my backpack, pulled out my laptop, and began doing the only thing that made sense to me in such a time as this: I started writing. 1,310 words was all that it took to bring stability to my fragile soul and peace to a very troubled heart.

 

To me, writing is one of the most important things I think I can do as a person. Writing gives legitimacy to the thoughts that beg to escape from an author’s crowded mind. I believe I was in 6th grade when I stumbled across what I believed to be the best idea ever: “Hey! Maybe I should write a book!” Seven months later, I learned my first important lesson in writing: if you’re going to write a book using a word processor, don’t save your only copy to a flash drive. You’ll probably lose it; or, in my case, you’ll probably have it in your pocket when you’re thrown into a swimming pool. I was so furious when this happened to me. Seven months of hard work, gone forever. As an 11-year-old kid, this was practically traumatizing. However, shortly after this prepubescent tragedy, a new medium began to bloom right before my eyes: blogging.

 

For the last ten years, I’ve written online in some form or another. My earlier writings seemed incredibly primitive; almost all of my work in the first eight years was primarily autobiographical in nature. This writing was probably the least artistic as well, mostly involving lists of things I had done and how I felt about said achievements (much like this current essay.) In the last two years, this began to shift for me. As a musician, I’ve always been envious of my favorite songwriters for being able to put poetry to music. It was disheartening to me in a way, because I never felt like I could achieve anything remotely close to this. The inability to write music was a strong point of contention within my own internal narrative; I felt inadequate both as a musician and as a writer, which brought me to the verge of giving up creative endeavors altogether. A close mentor of mine soon convinced me that this would be a terrible idea. I began embracing the poetry that had been spilling from my mind onto paper and screen for years, and stopped discarding these writings despite my needless perfectionism and anxiety. I made a pact with myself and my mentor to publish every piece of writing that came to mind, no matter how imperfect or flawed I felt it might be. Out of this newfound motivation, something unexpected happened in my own mind. I began discovering how cathartic this writing was to my soul. It was a taming of my own inner demons, a reflection of the chaos that had been controlling me and a confessional of the burdens that had held me back. Writing to me has become the primary method in which I communicate with God, and reflects the words of comfort, healing, and love spoken back from a creator who chooses to also be our sustainer.

 

I have always had mixed thoughts about taking a composition class, because I’ve worried that conventional writing styles often get in the way of poetry. My writing rarely lives in complex, complete sentences; I swim in a sea of ellipses and fragments and disjointed thoughts and too many used of the word “and” because it tends to be a reflection of my own mind – abbreviated and disjointed and free-flowing. But maybe this isn’t supposed to be the way it is; at least, not the only way. Composition classes have their own inherent value in the same way that a music class has inherent value. If you do not know how to compose, this can serve as a springboard for composing. Of course, there is also a necessary practicality for teaching the masses how to adhere to a prescribed form: where there is no order, there can only be chaos. In academia, this is especially important. One can only imagine a world in which all conventions of proper grammar and form are thrown out the window; a world in which all information and richness of language is boiled down to 140 characters or less. There is a time and place for poetry, and composing a term paper is rarely that time or place. My only hope is that academic writing can be seen as a springboard for narrative and creative composition. Where there are 1,000 rules, there are 5,000 ways to break them. Perhaps this class can teach us when to break them, and when to maintain harmony within the English language.

 

Writing in a parking lot at 5 o’clock in the morning isn’t ideal for academia. Writing in a classroom at 2 o’clock in the afternoon isn’t ideal for art. Perhaps these two worlds don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Perhaps both forms serve the same purpose: to express thoughts, emotions, and concepts that are just begging to be released from the confines of our walled minds. Each platform can worship the God who gives us these words to begin with.

 

Where there is chaos, let writing seek to bring clarity.