The Adventure

here we go
life's waiting to begin . .

I love Angels and Airwaves. Go listen to The Adventure right now. Or not, really. I'm not going to know either way. But if you do, and especially if it's your first time hearing it, you'll know you discovered one of those encapsulating songs that says more than its lyrics, as though talking to a part of you you're not always sure of yourself . . .

Maybe I'm a crazy optimist, and maybe I'm fairly stupid at times in my persistent belief that all things will be made right, but, well, I can't help but be bouyed by hope no matter what happens in life.

I'm entering into a new chapter in life, and the fear is there . . . but it's not a fear of failing, a fear of making a mistake, a fear of screwing up. No, it's a fear of doing nothing with this passion in me . . .

Valentine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine's_Day

Just a quick read shows us that what this day started out as has no connection to Eros, or Cupid, or Romance. Yet that doesn't change the fact that it is, now, very much a day to celebrate your loved one.

I am single. It's funny how innocent those words look right now, yet at 2 in the morning, they can keep me up, and when I think about where I am in my life, they can haunt me.

won't you dance with me

O Lover of my soul

to the song of all songs?

And yet right now, I'm exactly where I need to be. I've called my beautiful mom, told her I loved her and asked her to relay that to my sisters this morning with a hug and a kiss attached for each. I woke up this morning so in love with a God who loves me like no one else will ever be able to, and found myself once again in the middle of my very own Great Romance . . .

So while I celebrate with those of my friends and family who have that special someone, the one whose smile lights up their life, for me, I celebrate this love today, and wait patiently for when I play my part in that image of this Romance . . .

sojourner

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone

...Ulysses . . .Tennyson

I love horizons. I love conquering them and then searching for new ones. I get restless fast. I like challenging myself to do things I've never done before. I want to be a gourmet chef, an airline pilot, a drummer in a semi famous band, a monk, a published author, a shrimpin boat captain, a breakdancer, a parkourer (parkourist?).

I want to marry the most beautiful woman in the world and wake up beside her every morning, yearning for another adventure. I want her deep laugh to mix with mine daily, to not let a day go by without holding her hand on a walk around the block or wherever, really; I want to make 3 or 4 babies with her, and spend a good deal of time practicing it; I want those dear little kiddies to roll around in the grass with me, let me sweep them up in my arms when I come home from work and be content to sit outside and watch the stars dance in the summer sky and basically never grow up even if they get older.

I want to always be enchanted when I look in her eyes. I kind of think I will be.

I want to spend every day in full expectancy of the very best God has to offer, even if and when it takes the form of what I would think is the very worst that life could have. I want to always be alert for opportunities to be an angel in disguise, to do the little things that stick out in peoples minds when they wonder if God exists or not . . . "if God doesn't exist and isn't good, what about that angel who pushed my car out of the snow when everyone else downtown was walking by?" (true story - happened today. Next time I will wear gloves).

I want to always be amazed by God. I kind of think I will be. I want to fall more and more in love with Him, that rapturous love that makes fireworks into sparks and turns every little detail into an exquisite work of art, makes it so that ordinary is a word I no longer know.

I want to never feel like I have settled. Ever. For anything.

I want to bathe in solitude, drink deeply from that peace that comes from knowing your own soul well, and not only liking but enjoying, loving, and cherishing what you find there. I want to always embrace alone times, times of still when I know He is God. I want to be able to do this on the side of a mountain, as my eyes drift off to my nocturnal date with Morpheus, as I walk in a crowd.

I want to always travel, even if I never leave my house.

Love 146

Also.

New background here is courtesy of love146.org . . . again, what with February being all about hearts and love, I thought I'd have something here that tugs at my heart, something that stirs the love deep inside me like few things in this world . . .

Go ahead and check them out if you haven't already.

agape . . . amore . . .

February is Valentine's Day. I know, I know, the 14th doesn't last all month, but really, outside of Wiarton, Ontario and Punxatawney, PA, the only really big day in February that happens every year is V-Day.


Currently watching clips of Desmond and Penny from Lost . . . and I gotta say, I don't really know a whole lot in this thing called life. Not anymore, at any rate. But I do know that if you have found that person you know you're going to love for the rest of your life, you treasure that. You hold onto it, you nurture it, you cherish it . . . and if you haven't, but you know people who have, you celebrate it with them.


So to all my friends who are lovers and with their loved ones, I celebrate your love with you this month. Well, everyday, really, but especially now.

And to those who think that v-day single = worst thing ever, there are many avenues to express your love. Find one and do it with all you have, passionately, recklessly, wholly.

new year

2011 . . .

dang

it's funny, where we figure we were gonna be by a certain point in time, what kind of job we were gonna have, the financial stability we were working for now a reality and well on our chosen career path.

i had a little dream once, where i was a fantastic youth pastor with a lovely wife who worked together to infuse meaning and beauty into the lives of people around them. every day was another adventure, and every day was filled with equal parts laughter, joy, tears, hurt, and healing.

in the front of my bible, i have written, among other things, the following:

Sometimes our dreams have to die so His plans can go forward

and 2010 was about letting dreams die . . . or, more so, finally acknowledging that certain dreams had been dead for a long time. while having the courage to dream some new ones, some that i may have never dreamed were it not for other dreams no longer being played around in my head.

i have this feeling that 2012 will find me bidding farewell to other dreams, and i don't think this is a bad thing. i think as we all evolve as people, we need to realize that some of the things we thought were so worthy of pursuit are like fireflies in comparison to stars - they are so very temporary, while the actual light that has captivated us may not be as near our reach, but will prove so much more worth the challenge of pursuing it.

i sometimes talk a little cryptic here, a little vague and ambiguous, but i don't want to just tell you what my thoughts on things mean to me - fill in your own meaning where you see fit. i don't have all the answers, but i hope you enjoy whatever journey you're on, and if anything i say is helpful, then you're welcome :) we're all in this thing called life together.

not sure

Hey.

There are lots of things I'm not sure about.

I'm not sure how my family works, and how I fit into it sometimes. There is a fracture, with dad on one side and my mom and my sisters on the other, and I love them all, and I'm not on either side, even though there's people who aren't my dad or my mom and my sisters who seem to have a really good idea of where I should be. And the Bible doesn't really address this issue at all, so most of the cliche's that Christians throw my way (and that I ultimately hate anyway) are meaningless.

I'm not sure what to do when there is something that seems good to me, that I want, that I think God wants for me, that is denied on a fairly consistent basis.

I'm not sure what to do when it feels (emphasis on feels) like I am a convenient shoulder to cry on, but once the tears are done, there is no more use for me, and I can be discarded. I'm not sure what to do when I have tears of my own and wouldn't mind a shoulder and there isn't one around.

I'm not sure if it's okay to claim to follow Jesus, claim to have this hope that all things will be made right, and yet to have days when all you really long for is for that hope to be realized, not because you've been hoping for so long and it would be nice, but because you no longer are satisfied with simply hoping and believing and you just want to know.

I'm not sure if I make any sense when I speak about things I think about.

I'm not sure if it's always a good idea to continue to turn the other cheek, to always go the extra mile, to always love your neighbour as yourself, because your cheeks start to hurt after a while, there always seems to be just one more mile, and your neighbour can sometimes be a douchebag who will take advantage of your love.

I'm not sure if douchebag is an appropos word to use given the context.

I AM pretty sure that this blog, in itself, does not encapsulate my thoughts on everything,

But I'm not sure how to navigate the things in life I'm not sure about.