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That’s the unmistakeable sound of summer flying by. It’s hard to believe there are only three full weeks of family camp left at Mount Hermon. Summer always goes by really fast though. I’m finding time itself is moving faster and faster the older I get and that bothers me to no end. Having a sense of urgancy to finding your calling and the sense of time increasingly speeding by makes for some wicked late night conversations with God.
I am looking forward to the fall though. Vintage is great fun right now and it will be nice to get back into my usual routine of documenting church life. It’s hard feeling so disconnected when I can’t hang out much after the service on Sunday. It would be great to get some more documenters too to give some real variety to our coverage. As much as I love sleeping in the way I get to during the summer it is nice to get back on a somewhat regular schedule that makes it possible to hang out with friends on a regular basis. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to go back up to Seattle for a bit too for a real live vacation. We’ll see about that though. I wanted to do it last year and it didn’t work out. Anyway, that’s about it for now. No shocking revolations or deep philosophical thoughts tonight, just a little howdy! Later.
I saw a friend do this the other day and it looked like fun. Basically you just shuffle all your music and write down what songs come out next to the different scenes from the movie of your life. . .
Opening Credits: The Decemberists – The Crane Wife, Parts 1 & 2
Waking Up: Death Cab for Cutie – Talking Bird
First Day of School: The Eames Era – I Don’t Mind
Falling in Love: Weepies – Take It from Me
Fight Song: The Smashing Pumpkins – This Time
Breaking Up: Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer – Popsicle
Prom: Queen – You’re My Best Friend
Life: Rilo Kiley – Science vs Romance
Driving: Moby – Porcelain
Flashback: Nirvana – All Apologies (from Unplugged in New York)
Getting Back Together: Ray LaMontagne – Trouble
Wedding: Jonathan Coulton – The Future Soon
Party: She & Him – Sweet Darlin’
Birth of A Child: Gogol Borrdello – When the Trickster Starts A-pokin’
Final Battle: The New Pornographers – Chump Change
Funeral Song: Guns ‘n’ Roses – November Rain
Ending Credits: Foo Fighters – My Hero
Now, I do have to admit I cheated some because I have so much random music and podcasts and spoken word stuff on my Zune that half the list would have made no sense. So I skipped some songs and tracks if I didn’t recognize it or it was a stand up comic or something like that, all the songs did still appear randomly from my playlist though.
So what does this list say about my taste in music? I think it says I’m a geek with a penchant for 90’s rock and Indie pop bands no one’s ever heard of. Seems about right.
I hate heights. Ladders, ledges, cliffs, platforms, whatever. You name it, I get all weak kneed going near the edge. I especially don’t like trust falls and cliff diving. I’ve never been on a zip line before last week, but it seemed like the kind of thing that would be right up there with the others. So when I found myself flying through the air 150 feet above Bean Creek at Mount Hermon last Friday, I just kept reminding myself of one thing. Breathe.
See, here’s the thing. I may hate high places, and if I can avoid them I do, but it is an irrational fear. Fear is good, it keeps us safe, keeps us from making stupid decisions. Fear keeps you from driving 120mph on the freeway and jumping from second story windows. But like other irrational fears, it reaches a point where it takes control of you and inhibits your ability to enjoy life or even function. When we recognize this and can face our fear head on, it makes us better, more confident people.
It seems so cliche but every time you let go of your fear and fly, it becomes that much easier to face down other things we are nervous or afraid of. So next time someone offers to push you off a platform 150 feet in the air, take a deep breath and ask where to sign up. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Well, we made it through the first check in of summer here at Mount Hermon pretty much without a hitch. I’m hoping things go really well this summer now that I’ve got one summer under my belt.
We did have a bit of an eventful last week though because of a large fire that was burning just about five miles from the camp. I’ve already blogged about that and the photos are still up over on Flickr.
The last little bit of this update is in some ways the most exciting. Tomorrow I’m going down to Vintage to put up photos for a show we are having for the next 6 weeks in the coffeehouse. I’m excited about that since it will be the first ever public show of my photos in large numbers. I had two photos in a show back at Christmas but this one is going to be just Matt and I. We both have about 20 shots to put up.
So this was a little bit of a disjointed and scatterbrained update but Coffee Cat closes soon and, frankly, I’m having a little bit of trouble concentrating right now. Well, on that note, later!
“As children we assume that greatness is within our grasp. Whatever inspires us, we begin to dream that one day we will be the best. It is only as we lose our childlike innocence that we begin to settle for far less. A part of growing up seems to be acquiescing to mediocrity. It’s easy to say that we’re just becoming realistic, that it’s just a part of growing up. But, in fact, it’s the death of our souls. When we stop dreaming, we start dying. For some of us, this has been a slow, painful death.” – Erwin McManus “Soul Cravings”
When I was a little kid, I looked forward to the day when I would get to play baseball in high school and college, maybe even play pro-ball one day. My parents tell stories of me rounding the bases in our front yard pumping my fist a la Kirk Gibson celebrating my own game winning home run. When I was in middle school it was computer programming. I was just discovering all the cool things you could do with computers. I even wrote a program in BASIC which you could pretend to have a conversation with. Then in high school and college it was hanging on every word of Josh Lyman and Kate Harper on the West Wing, knowing for sure one day I would get to be “the guy the President turns to when he doesn’t know what to do.”
But then I realized I just wasn’t fast around the bases. In fact, I was slow on a level approaching epic. While I’m a big guy, I’ve never really had a power swing either, I’ve been more of a high average singles and doubles hitter. That dream limped on for a while longer through church softball and pickup games but I’ve pretty much resigned to living vicariously through my fantasy team today.
And then I realized that I really don’t enjoy math, and computer programing requires a lot of math classes. They aren’t the algebra variety either. Maybe if I had a really great math teacher who got me excited about integers and tangents I’d have turned out a little different but I decided I’d rather let other people do the programming while I just tinker around with the hardware.
Finally came the realization in college that I’m not aggressive enough for politics. Sure I want to be in the situation room as world changing decisions are made, but I don’t want to do the ass kissing and hatchet work it takes to get there. I want to spend my life focused on making the world a better place, not focusing on the next election or congressional vote. If I moved to DC the city would swallow me up in a second. There is so much more to life than polling numbers. If some day I was given the right opportunity to become involved in a campaign or political office, I’d probably jump at the chance. But to move up from the ground level just isn’t who I am. I don’t want it enough.
I look back on my (relatively short) life sometimes and kick myself for decisions I made that basically changed the course of my future in just a few seconds. I remember being invited by the baseball coach to try out for the high school team. I told him I’d be no good and walked away. I think about the homework assignments I didn’t put full effort into or the classes I skipped to watch a movie with a friend and wonder if I couldn’t have graduated from SPU with honors. I think about stupid things I’ve said to girls I liked that ensured a friendship at the cost of a relationship. I even wonder sometimes if the seizures I had in high school didn’t change the wiring in my brain somehow, closing off neural pathways or altering my personality.
If you had asked me even five years ago what I would be doing today it wouldn’t have been working in Christian camping. This is not so say that I feel God brought me to Santa Cruz for no reason (in fact, my brief 1 1/2+ year down here has changed me for the better in ways I never would have though). But I was supposed to be working at a web 2.0 company or the State Department or in grad school writing a masterful thesis. I’m not supposed to be a confused, frustrated, cynical 20-something. My interest in history gives me this ominous shadow of time hanging over my shoulder. People may be living longer, but I feel sometimes like I’m wasting important years of my life. To go back to the quote above, I see greatness slipping away with the passing of time and it leaves me feeling a little more panicked with each passing day. Panicked that I missed God’s calling to whatever I’m really supposed to be doing, missed that class or that conversation, or job fair interview where I was going to get my “dream job.” Terrified that I’m going to wake up and realize I’m 35 and working a job I have absolutely no passion for, just doing it because I’m still waiting for God to show me what’s “next.”
So what is next then. Well, my current passion and dream job is photojournalism. I’ve still got a lot to learn, and it is a very competitive field, but I look at my work at Vintage and compare it to “professional” work and I’m not half bad (in fact, if I might boast a little, I’m pretty good). Traveling to Uganda and documenting the trip was an amazing experience. While it has put a pretty big dent in my youthful finances, it was worth every penny for the photos and stories I was able to bring back. One of these days I will finish the book I’m working on to self publish with photos from the trip. Then next fall I’m going to sit down with a friend and put together a professional portfolio of work to market myself. Looking at photos that tell a story is so inspiring to me that I want to go shoot more myself.
“Your soul longs to become, and you can try to ignore it, but soon you will find yourself hating your life and despising everyone who refuses to give up on his or her dreams.” -McManus
I don’t know what the future holds, I don’t have a crystal ball or hot line to Heaven, but for a little while longer at least I’m going to keep dreaming.
So I got up this morning and decided to do a little exploring. I’ve been wanting to go over the hill to a place called Holy City for a while to see what is there. Holy City is a utopian community that reached its height in the 1920’s and 30’s and is now largely abandoned. I was hoping maybe to find a place that would make a good site for a future photo walk with Vintage. Unfortunately, the only building that is really accessible to the public is an old garage. The rest of the development is hidden behind a gate that says “NO TRESPASSING” in big bold letters. If I was the more adventurous sort, I might press my luck and try to find a way in anyway, but I generally like to obey the law so it kind of nixed that plan. Since I now found myself with not much else to do, I decided to drive back on the Old Santa Cruz-San Jose Highway. It was a really nice drive on a bunch of windy two lane roads through the mountains.
After getting back over to this side of the mountains I headed over to Atlantis Fantasyworld and picked up some comics. Between watching iFanboy and The Totally Rad Show I’ve decided my comic book collection and knowledge is the most neglected aspect of my geekness (ouch, Firefox spell check wants to change “geekness” to “meekness”). I already picked up Volume 1 of Powers there last summer so today I added volume 1 of Preacher, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Invincible. I’ve heard good things about all three so I’m excited to get home and start going through those. I think if I had to choose between Marvel and DC I would side with Marvel but there is such a huge pile of back catalogue to go through it would take years to really get a grasp on it. Instead I’ve decided to start out with some of the shorter run more independent type comics that I can actually get through. They also seem to have a more adult nature to them, exploring morality and human nature in ways some more mainstream comics stay away from.
Anyway, I’m just waisting time at Coffee Cat right now. I woke up at 9am this morning which left me with a lot more time than I’m used to on a Saturday. So now it’s 3pm and I’ve run out of things to do. I’ll probably go buy some girl scout cookies at Safeway and then head home to do some reading. Anyway, later!
I was talking at work today with a friend who just found out that a guy she grew up with was killed in a car accident this weekend. This combined with Dan’s first Sunday back after his dad’s passing, I’ve been thinking a lot again about the eternal dance of life and death and faith. The more I think of it the less scary and confusing it becomes. I know that must sound incredibly strange to read so let me try to explain. As I’ve written about before, when I read the first question and answer from the Heidelberg Catechism I can’t help but feel at peace with the reality of my mortality. It is strange sometimes to realize that at any given moment, any number of completely random events can occur that can end life, car crashes, random shootings, freak heart attacks, and yet, the knowledge God has a purpose for my life and until that purpose is fulfilled, not a hair on my head will come to harm, how powerful! At the same time, acknowledging the broken state of our human nature frees us from the fear of death when it does one day come. When we come to accept we can never achieve perfection in this lifetime or state, how beautiful it becomes when we are made complete in the presence of our loving Savior!
As part of getting moved over to my new house I’ve been talking with Comcast to get them to set up my cable internet and tv. Unfortunately they can’t find my address so it is going to be a few days. Fortunately I was able to set up my cell phone as a bluetooth modem tonight so I will have at least fast enough access for email, blogging, and limited surfing. Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do for getting internet to the Xbox. If I put my modem/router in my bedroom then I will have to either buy a 100′ ethernet cable or a $100 wireless adapter for the Xbox. The other option is to put the modem/router next to the Xbox and then use my old 802.11b adapter on my computer for now. I’ll have to think about that. It would be a waste of a big fat pipe to throttle everything through a wireless-b adapter to my computer just so I can plan Halo 3 and get killed by some 12 year old.
So getting my phone to work as a modem was the small victory I accomplished. The epiphany I had is that I can no longer move by myself. I have way too much stuff to move with just myself as the man power. Even having Danny help me move the bigger stuff, it seems like a never ending task to get moved over. When I move back to Seattle, I definitely am not going to be moving all of my stuff. I would have a yard sale to get rid of things before I make that kind of a move or I would have professional movers come before I would try to do the whole thing by myself. I wouldn’t say I wasted today because I did get a good amount of stuff moved but I still have a desk, dresser, kitchen counter, two chairs, a coat rack, a cloths rack, a steamer trunk, a computer and large monitor, and a whole bunch of random other boxes of “stuff” to move before I’m finished. I was hoping to be finished with the move this weekend but I think it will be Monday night now before I can finish. I know that there are now people waiting to move into my unit but I would have to kill myself to be completely moved out by tomorrow night before church. Some stuff I do need to throw away but a good chunk of stuff I just have accumulated over the course of time. And there is stuff I would still like to get, like an actual bed frame (which I started looking for on eBay). Anyway, I’m feeling pretty tired and I still have some organizing and cleaning to do before I do more moving tomorrow. I don’t know how I would ever move a whole house full of stuff. Yikes. Being an adult isn’t so much fun right now.
