04/24/16

Faramir:
His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is. where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.

Emotions and feelings can sometimes define us.
Why is it if someone is acting out of emotions or chasing something based on feelings it is looked down upon?
We say things about how feelings can be fickle, or deceiving.
But we are humans. We are alive.
And to live is to feel right?
To be human is to have emotions do make choices based on feelings.
If we didn't we would be computers, slaves.

I have found myself in situations overcome by emotions.
I have been so unbelievably angry
I have been stupidly in love
I have been beautifully joyful
I have been strangely jealous
I have been unreasonably sad

I think the most amazing part of experiencing these emotions is that voice in the back of my head that tells me what I am feeling isn't logical. It isn't rational but I can't seem to push past the reality of the emotions I am experiencing in that moment.

I have also found the strange key to overcoming the emotions.
Expression.
I can't explain why we humans must express but damn we MUST.

Angry beyond angry and venting to a friend remedies the anger.
Why?
How?

Sad of sad and crying relieves the pain.

This doesn't make logical sense to me. But I guess if emotions themselves aren't logical then the solution to them wouldn't be logical either.

I like that I get emotional. I like that I can be very angry, very sad

It makes me feel alive.
It reminds me I am human and how okay it is to be what I am.

Yes being emotional creates space for very rough moments but at the same time as life seems to continue to show our weaknesses are hidden within our greatest strengths. Because I feel so much it gives me the lowest lows but yet the highest highs and those make it worth all the while.

We have a fascination with the unique the uncommon just like precious stones have a high value based on their rarity so to does my greatest highs.

Can a man fully enjoy the fruits of his labor without the labor?

I am glad I have emotions and I am glad I feel them...all of them, good and bad.
For who can say what is good and what is bad?

I was a walking man she was a talking kind of gal, the kind that makes you hurt.
She was the poetry I was the one who paid the bills, I swear it might have worked.
She wanted to change me I wanted her to stay the same, it never would have worked.

The Steel Wheels - Strongest Wind Blows

04/22/16

Come further up, come further in
― C.S. Lewis

I gave You my word God, I will never talk about this with You or anyone again.

I intend to keep my word.
I cannot look back.
I can only go forward.
further up and further in.

I feel so anxious but I will not talk about this.

We move forward.
Each day we press on.

Change the future, we can travel time
Or make us blind so we can never look back.

CHVRCHES - Night Sky

04/17/16

Cause only those I really love will ever really know me

I watch my friends continue to grow.

Travis is getting better and better at his career. It's really fun to talk with him about teaching and hear his perspective. It gets me more and more excited for the challenge myself. It's also really great to see him very happy in a relationship. Although this past winter was so difficult for me it's good to see my friend hear my grief, learn from my mistake, and finally step out and take the risk that is required for a relationship to work and grow. As long as I've known Travis he's always been awkward and hesitant towards women. People would try to set him up with friends. He would feel so uncomfortable in certain situations. Then this past weekend for Holly's birthday I'm sitting across from them at the bar watching them drunkenly make out in public. Although I found it gross and classless I can't help but also feel joy for my friend and the growth he's experienced. We've been friends for over 15 years.

Jared continues to sharpen his craft. It's good to see his house sell and another step in the process of closing that chapter of his life starting over since the divorce. It's also great to watch Jared change from the party animal getting kicked out of bars and drunken fights to the more chill relaxed person attempting to quit habits he no longer wants in his life. He's also been with Hil for a minute now, it's encouraging to see a friend get up and take that risk again. I remember when we got in that fight under the bleachers during a basketball game. I was maybe in first grade. To start our relationship with a fight as kids and to become friends as he's about to turn 30 in August.

Baldygams moving in with Sam and the two of them continuing to grow together. I love watching them interact. Their relationship works so perfectly even though it isn't what I want for myself it's awesome to see two people come together like this. Matt has been in so many rough relationships it's great to see how the two of them are growing together. It makes me really happy to see my friend find someone who can appreciate the things he has to offer.

Alan continuing another year pastoring his congregation. Listening to the man talk about issues that deeply concern him. Hearing his beliefs and watching his life reflect the convictions. Watching him complete all of that schooling and to return home to pour into the city he has always loved. Alan has always been a strong leader. When I met him he was a camp officer and now he is on the other side as a camp counselor. We are getting ready to celebrate our 10 year anniversary as friends in a couple weeks.

Brian growing and struggling with the pressures of his taxing job. Hearing the broad strokes of the sort of cases he comes face to face with every day. Listening to a guy I've known since we were in at least second grade now become his man responsible for the care and spiritual direction of parents and families in a most vulnerable time.

Downing as he attempts to move to Columbus and plug into our community we have been building in the city. Listening to his career ambitions while still making me laugh harder than anyone else can. I remember when he first moved to Wauseon in first grade. We were in the same class and even then he was the funniest kid in the school.

And Dain, I worry about Dain but I also realize the man wants a different life than maybe the one I want for him. He is walking his own path and I want to love him along the way. I don't want to lose connection with him. I hope no matter the path that he is truly happy.

My friends.

They know me better than my family.

They are my family.

I don't like to show everyone who I am. Only those I really love will ever really know me. To be known is to spend time together. To do life together. To witness each other come to crossroad after crossroad and choose a path. To come face to face with hardships and see who we are. What we do. I love making my friends laugh. I love putting them ahead of everything else. But they know me. They know who I am when we are one on one. They truly know me.

People come and go in our lives. They might know me for a season but who we are is such a fluid thing. Who I am today shapes who I will be tomorrow but by no means is that the same person. It's only those who stick around for the journey that truly know me. It's only those who lived my past with me that know why I am who I am. It is our past that creates our present. And it is our present self who creates our future.

Someday I will have a wife and she will know me more deeply than anyone else could ever imagine. But my friends will know who I was that lead to who I became with her.

And everyone else will only know the shadow of who I once was in that window of time we crossed paths of life.

To be known.
What a strange and powerful thing.
Do any other living things feel such a deep desire to be known?
People will know I love them if they really know me.
That is how we express love.
We express love by being known by those we really love.

Cause only those I really love will ever really know me
...Soon we'll be thirty years old

Lukas Graham - 7 Years

04/10/16

 

Everyday I grow closer and closer to the dream of being a licensed teacher. But more than this I am excited to one day be a father. That moment when I babysat for a family from the center I want more of those moments. I want to call them my own.

Moments.

At the end of the day that's all we really have in this life. I wonder what life would be like if I lost my vision, if I lost my memory. What would life be at that point? I put so much stock on seeing things and experiences I can look back on but both of them can be taken from me with the right hit to my head.

In an instance.

Fatherhood, I look forward to that day. Spending the evening with these two kids was so much fun. Spending any time with children is always such a fulfilling experience. If all we have in life are moments then I want them to be fulfilling. Sitting on a couch watching a cartoon with my very own children that must be a better feeling than sitting by the eiffel tower, sitting inside the great pyramid of Giza, Sitting in the Sistine Chapel, sitting on top of a mountain, sitting by both American oceans, I've sat in all these places but to be with my own children watching the same cartoon for the 50th time I have yet to sit there and I wonder what that moment will feel like? It makes my eyes begin to tear just thinking of that moment.

To be a father
to be a dad

I'm excited for that. Sitting with those two being pulled around their house to the playroom or the kitchen the joy they experience sharing their lives with me. Sitting until midnight talking with their father hearing about his life, where he came from, his passion, and his future dreams. It's powerful to experience moments like that.

I am thankful God that we get to play a part in procreation. I'm thankful we get to experience a small taste of bringing life to this pale blue dot even if it is just for a moment, how beautiful and worth it that moment is.

Maybe one day I will look back on this entry as a father. It will be interesting to reflect on my expectations and my dreams mixed with the realities of mundane routines and struggles of parenthood. But I hope I can look back and keep this moment in perspective.

Glen Hansard - Grace Beneath the Pines

04/03/16

Education in the true sense, of course, is an enablement to serve – both the living human community in its natural household or neighborhood and the precious cultural possessions that the living community inherits or should inherit. To educate is, literally to “bring up,” to bring young people to a responsible maturity, to help them to be good caretakers of what they have been given, to help them to be charitable toward fellow creatures.
-Wendell Berry

I'm about to finish my second semester of grad school. Three more weeks. I'm so excited to start this new chapter of my life. I can't wait to have my own classroom. Decorate the walls with the students' art and hang plants from the window sills and ceiling. I want to bring up the next generation to become caretakers of their community and their environment.

It's been a very cold dark and difficult winter. Day in and day out leaving the preschool in the dark getting home starting online lectures and homework until my stomach grumbled then shoveling microwaved food in my mouth and trudging back up to the cold attic to continue my work. Reading a different text book each day during nap time 50 or more pages. Still striving to keep this 4.0 alive.

I hope I don't forget these days and what life was like during grad school. These were hard days and sleep didn't always come easy. But soon the summer semester will start and after that field experience in the classrooms during the fall! In my psych class I learned about Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development.

Hope: trust vs. mistrust, Can I trust the world?
Will: autonomy vs. shame and doubt, Is it okay to be me?
Purpose: initiative vs. guilt, Is it okay for me to do, move, and act?
Competence: industry vs. inferiority, Can I make it in the world of people and things?
Fidelity: identity vs. role confusion, Who am I? Who can I be?
Love: intimacy vs. isolation, Can I love?
Care: generativity vs. stagnation, Can I make my life count?
Wisdom: ego integrity vs. despair, Is it okay to have been me?

As I continue to struggle in the Early adulthood stage with the battle between intimacy and isolation I'm also looking ahead to the next stage of life, adulthood. Can I make my life count?

I've been thinking about both career and parenthood exactly like the care stage indicates. I feel strongly I have finally figured out the career path I want to walk down. And I am certain parenthood is a deep desire within me.

But God I need help in the intimacy isolation stage of love I am in right now.
I don't want to be in the Maturity stage suddenly reflecting on my life and answering 'No' to the question is it ok to have been me?

We don't get a reset button and life only has one gear, forward. I want to spend this life planting seeds. I want to plant seeds of hope in a community through education. I want to plant seeds of love through fatherhood. I want to plant seeds of trees that will grow long after I am gone. I want my life to be a personified life of hope to those around me.

As I continue to flow between the stages of
Who am I?
Can I love?
and Can I make my life count?

I want to choose the path of hope. I want to firmly walk that path so when old age takes hold of my mind and body I can confidently answer 'yes' to that final question all humans ask.

This season of my life has been difficult. God knows I've made mistakes. But no longer.
No more performing, no more facades, no more fear. Life is but a breath, I choose hope.

Noah Gundersen - Garden

Terraporum III

THE GUT OF TERRAPORUM

Doceo could feel the evening air beginning to drop colder and colder as his horse pumped its legs beneath him. He took the path along the river North towards the center of the city. The wind cut through the skin of his face as the horse kept its course. His curly dark hair pulled behind him by the wind. The air slowly changed the further he galloped away from the garden. It grew heavy and thick. The darkening night sky suddenly began to ignite the closer he drew towards the city. The lights of the buildings pressed their will against nature. Conversations and commotion also entered the quiet night. Doceo thought how strange his friend is. It's almost like he lives in another land. As Doceo drew closer to the boarders of the Gut district he slowed his horse's pace to a pleasant trot.

Doceo preferred the noise of downtown. He preferred the lights too. It made him feel like he was apart of something alive. It made him feel like he was someplace important and thus he was also. He rounded the familiar corner to his favorite pub in the gut of the city. He leap off of his horse and felt the solid wet stones of the street beneath his boot. He lead his stead over to a post outside of the building and wrapped the leather reign around it. The leather flexed and cracked as he pulled the knot tight. Doceo pulled his shoulders back took in a deep breath of the crowded city air and began to walk towards the creaky wooden pub door. He pulled the door towards him and suddenly the atmosphere of the room engulfed him. He felt at home. Holding that door open and looking inside he could feel the party, the energy of the people in that place. Being in a crowded place like this takes a mind many places. And when pulled in so many directions the mind finds rest. It's strange like that. The mind seems to work opposite of everything else in life. It seems the more our bodies are put to work the more they are stressed and tired. But the mind is something different. When the mind is filled with many things it feels at rest. It is only when the mind has nothing to occupy it that it truly begins to betray it's master. Doceo was a slave to his mind, as long as it was busy he was content.

He stepped past the kind greeting of the patrons of the room and made his way to the bar. He ordered his usual glass of mead and spun around leaning against the wooden slab bar. He scanned the room at a table his eyes found Attentess and he remembered what Lutum had said. He scoffed to himself, "I'm not going home with her tonight. Lutum is wrong about me." He looked to his left towards the back of the room where the bar curved into an L shape. There she was again sitting next to Vasilias. Her eyes wide and brown listening to every word he said. The man was slamming his fists to the bar and fully extending them out and in. "I can only imagine what tale he is filling that poor woman's mind with now," Doceo thought to himself.

He took a slow long sip of his drink. He let the liquid rest on his tongue. It had been a long day and tomorrow would be no different. But now, this moment, he was in his element. He set his glass down with a relaxed ease. After convincing himself he wouldn't prove Lutum correct tonight he decided to see what exactly Vasilias was selling this stranger. So he started towards the two of them.