Archive for January, 2005

in good company (meaning)

Published on January 30, 2005 in alethia/truth, ecclesia/church, epilogei/choice, glossa/language and theos/God. 1 Comment

I’m going to just tell you how this came about. I must apologize up front to all of you who were not raised in some kind of Protestant-ish household, because the first part may not make much sense.

It all began when I was sitting in on a meeting with the pastor of the church-thing I’m part of. Every once in awhile when the music people are in a bind, they ask me to help out, and since I am just an overwhelming sucker (and I really do enjoy it most of the time, to tell the truth), I agree. So I’m in on this meeting and apparently said pastor has decided to do his next message on this thing called “worship.” I have a real problem with keeping my mouth shut lately, so I blurt out that I don’t even know what that word means anymore.

I think a disassociation of meaning happens, it seems, mostly with words that are used frequently, words that carry a lot of weight. These words often have to do with religion or spirituality of some kind, because this is generally the stuff people build their houses on, if you know what I mean. This word “worship” is a word like that for me. I’m not some kind of medieval peasant boy that is required to pay homage to a king in a castle, nor do I ever do anything resembling what I think “worship” must look like with our President. Not to mention the fact that this word has been whored by Christians for probably the last three decades, at least. So yeah, I don’t know what it means anymore.

OK, try to follow my crazy logic here (this is why I care about this kind of crap): if we think in words (and we do, most of the time - try not to), and words represent meaning (which they do), then the words we use, even in thinking, are formative in our understanding of whatever it is we’re thinking about. Make sense?

I just saw a movie called In Good Company, starring Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, and Scarlett Johansson. Let me be honest with you — I loved this movie. In fact, it was love at first trailer for me. Honest. This is a movie chalk-full of meaning. The way I saw it, there was meaning everywhere: it’s in the dialogue, it’s in the heartbreak, it’s in the (implied) sex — pretty much everything that’s done in this film is done in the name of a desire for meaning.

Meaning is important, to everybody I know at least, and this is why I want my words to mean something. I don’t think words become worthless by being over-defined — instead, they become worthless by becoming over-ubiquitous. Words that once had deep, spiritual meaning are ground to a meaningless dust by being consumed without consideration; they are raped of their dignity by our senseless application of them in any dishonorable way we see fit.

And people that care about meaning are always left, sadly picking up the tattered pieces.

NOTE:
(The concepts found in this post contributed strongly to the writing in my first book, blur: finding jesus in a fuzzy world. Download your free copy here!)

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the sad truth of the carpool lane

Published on January 26, 2005 in koinonia/community and zoe/life. 1 Comment

Why do they call it a car pool? I mean, I understand that “pool” has different meanings, but for me it just brings to mind this image of the old, blue-chipped-paint community swimming pool back home with car grills and headlights bobbing up through the water, scaredy-cars cowering near the edges, and maybe a Honda Civic doing a flip off the high-dive or something.

Anyway, I was driving this morning on a pretty major highway in Denver, going to meet a friend for breakfast. It’s technically rush hour, and I hate traffic. I’m approaching a stretch of the highway with a car pool lane (See ‘em swimming?? Cracks me up!), so I’m getting excited for the traffic to thin out, open up a bit — you know, give me a little more elbow room, alleviate my claustro-roado-phobia. So I get up to where the car pool lane starts and watch for all the cars to thankfully move the hell out of my lane.

But nobody moves.

It suddenly occurs to me that nobody is pooling. My next thought is, “Why would they?” I’m not, myself, currently, “pooling,” and how many people do I know that actually would be able to go to work together? I start counting, and stop quickly, ’cause I can’t think of anybody. Then I get sad, because the obvious implication is that every single person on the road in front of and behind me is alone in their car. I start wondering how much brighter their day would be if maybe they had a friend to ride with them on their way to work. Maybe home, too.

Being unemployed, I’m alone most all day, every day, at least during the day hours (because that’s when everyone else works). I don’t really like it, but what choice do I have? “None,” I tell myself. And I’m not sure most of these people around me on the highway do, either.

But I bet our lives would seem a bit brighter if we would find a way to not be lonely.

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college students

Published on January 25, 2005 in alethia/truth and zoe/life. 0 Comments

So I almost hit a college student with my car today.

I didn’t, though, so don’t worry (I knew you were worried).

Apparently, trying to get directions out of a palm pilot with a (very) tiny screen and driving are not things that the male brain should attempt to do concurrently. I’m in the People’s Republic of Boulder, Colorado, it’s a beautiful day (sunny, about 65) and I’m driving past CU, so you’d think that I’d watch out for college students (especially college students in crosswalks), but noooo, I don’t. So I almost hit this college girl, a relatively attractive female (if you’re in to that kind of thing), and in that half a second between scouring my palm pilot, looking up, noticing the girl, and hitting my brakes I get a sickening feeling in my stomach… but not because I almost plowed her over.

At that very moment, I knew I would give anything to be a college student again.

I’m not sure why I thought that, really. When I was in school I couldn’t wait to get out, move on with my life, not take any more finals, etc. But now that I’m out, I kind of want back in.

I suppose it could be the fact that this thing that naïve people tend to call the “real world” is so much of a letdown. In college we’re trained to be thinkers and dreamers, and we’re told (or maybe it’s just what I heard) that once we get that diploma we’ll be free to mold the world as we see fit. But now I see, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the “real world” simply exists to feed itself. Mostly, it isn’t challenging, it isn’t forward-thinking, it isn’t revolutionary, and it panders to the lowest common denominator in a lame attempt to placate the masses with some deranged form of real Life.

I could be angry with the college I went to for the obvious setup for disillusionment they fashioned me with, but I’m really not. Somewhere (some days I have to dig pretty deep to find it) there seems to be this idealistic hope in me that refuses to die. Now, I realize that I’m only 23 and I’ve got a lot of years left for the world to try to kill it, but I do rather enjoy dreaming and hoping for a world that is just a bit more beautiful than the one I live in.

That’s why I love college students. They don’t really know any better than to dream lofty, pie-in-the-sky dreams, and in my current enlightened state I think that bliss sometimes really might be ignorance.

If you liked that, then try these…

the crash course

unemployment

the beginning

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ask for the moon

Published on January 23, 2005 in echos/sound, glossa/language, techni/art and theos/God. 0 Comments

I just finished a new song. It’s different, I think, than any of my other songs. Of course, that’s almost a ridiculous statement, as the song was still written by me and came from my head, so naturally it will sound like me, but you get the idea. (Maybe.)

I don’t remember what spurred this thought, but the other day I thought to myself, “Man, I bet God hears a lot of weird things.” Seriously, think about it for a minute. If God exists, by the nature of the concept of “God,” he/she (here is when I really hate English [reference blog post "language"]; no freaking gender-neutral plural pronouns) must hear thoughts/prayers from all people at all times from all over the world. Even people that claim not to believe in this God will pray to him/her when they’re put, as Ulysses Everett McGill says in O Brother, Where Art Thou?: “In a tight spot!”

So if this is true, and I think it is, God hears lots of strange crap. People praying to ace their final at the same time as someone’s praying to find their lost dog at the same time somebody’s praying to get laid that night at the same time someone is praying that their dying parent will be miraculously healed. Know what I mean? At this point it all gets a little too erudite for me, but I thought a simplified version would be a really cool concept for a song.

So, the new song is about the things that people ask God, mostly, and just a little about what I think God thinks about it all. It’s a piano song, so you may never hear me play it live (as I rarely play on piano), but I have intentions to record it eventually, so hopefully it’ll end up as an mp3 on joshAllan.com or maybe it’ll be on the next album (more on that later).

Oh yeah; the song’s called “Ask For the Moon.”

If you liked that, then try these…

soul

creativity and spirituality

the lovely bones

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hats

Published on January 21, 2005 in echos/sound, epilogei/choice and techni/art. 0 Comments

Sometimes I wish I looked good in stocking hats. I think I might be a better rock star if I did.

Maybe I’ll take up smoking to get that cool raspy thing going on with my voice to compensate.

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twenty-four

Published on January 20, 2005 in alethia/truth, epilogei/choice and zoe/life. 0 Comments

I woke up this morning with the thought blaring through my head that I am almost twenty-four. Which is true, kind of — I’ll be twenty-four this summer, but since it’s going to be 70 degrees in Denver today, maybe that’s what brought it on. You know, feels like summer… oh, nevermind.

In any case, the problem is that 24 makes me think of 25 which makes me think of 30, whereas 23 makes me think, “Oh, I was just 20,” which brings a refreshing connection to the physical perfection of college students, spring break, and the like. But 30 - well, 30 brings me awfully close to having babies and a big house with a bigger mortgage and being that mean person who tells twentysomethings to “Conform,” “Stop dreaming,” or maybe worst of all, “Pay your dues.” Man, I hate that.

Our American society is so overrun with its fascination with youth that we have forgotten how to enjoy aging. I find myself utterly torn between a me that wants to be in my early twenties forever and a me that wants to get older quickly (so I can stop paying the damned dues). At the same time as we strive for a constantly youthful appearance, we’re condescending our youth with the curse of existing only for entertainment. Think about it — twentysomethings are all the rage when it comes to water-cooler talk (although does anyone even have a water cooler with which to talk around anymore?). I don’t even need to name these people for you, they are the instant, just-add-water (hey, you could use that water-cooler!) celebrities that pop in your mind the second you need to discuss anything with anyone. (If you really have no clue who I’m talking about, visit the Lycos 50 and see what people search for on the internet.)

So, while the “adults” are telling the youth (mostly, me) to “pay my dues,” they’re concurrently propagating a contradictory fact: the fact that some people really don’t have to pay these so-called dues, and it’s those people who deserve our unabashed fascination. If, by some miraculous occurrence, you can skirt this paying of dues (what the hell does that mean, anyway?), you obviously deserve our respect and attention, not to mention truckloads of money.

I don’t have to tell you that in a culture drooling over entertainment we tend to judge beauty by cover over content. You know this. But the problem is that I’m not going to stay twenty-four. I’m going to get older and get wrinkly hands and an achy back and those crow’s feet smile lines that appear on the outside of your eyes… and I don’t want to hate it.

There has to be an inherent beauty that comes with aging that we are tragically missing. I believe in something like aging gracefully, and I don’t think that means gliding gracefully down to the plastic surgeon.

But what do I know — I’m only twenty-four. I mean, twenty-three.

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unemployment

Published on January 19, 2005 in alethia/truth, echos/sound, theos/God and zoe/life. 2 Comments

It was really only a matter of time before I titled an entry this, as I am, indeed, unemployed.

On his album I’m Good Now, Bob Schneider says, “This is the way life is supposed to be, and there’s a reason that you just can’t see.”

Well, this is what I say: I say that I am trapped in the midst of some kind of nether-world, between being a college student and a functioning member of the adult population, and I hate it. I find myself too idealistic to consign myself to working at Starbucks (no offense to any Starbucks employees — it’s just not for me), but at the same time cannot seem to find an employer who will pay me to do what I’m good at. I am desperate to lend my ideas to the world, but it seems that said world has no time for the dreams of a 23-year-old. It’s a rather depressing place to be, and trying to maintain some semblance of faith often just brings feelings of guilt at having such a lack of it. I am more convinced than ever that there is such a thing as a quarter-life crisis, and that it is, in fact, rather like hell.

All that said, I’m not going to kill myself; these thoughts are apparently just the unfortunate byproduct of me forgetting that I really do have a lot of hope, and a fairly strong belief that things will get better.

I don’t know Bob personally, and I don’t know if he has any kind of faith allegiances, but today, he is part of my problem. “I know I maybe can’t see the reason, Bob, but is this really the way that life is supposed to be?” I can’t seem to consign myself to this amorphous fate. Maybe that means I don’t have enough faith, or maybe it means I have just enough — I’m not really sure.

I do know that unemployment sucks.

NOTE:
(The concepts found in this post contributed strongly to the writing in my first book, blur: finding jesus in a fuzzy world. Download your free copy here!)

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tears

Published on January 18, 2005 in alethia/truth, echos/sound, theos/God and zoe/life. 0 Comments

There aren’t a lot of things that make me cry. I don’t think I’m unemotional or detached (or that it’s simply because of the fact that I am male), though - I just don’t cry. Very often. It’s happened a few times over the past couple years, most of them having to do with when I did something horrible to the love of my life - in which case I probably deserved every bit of meltdown I received.

But recently I’ve encountered a new phenomenon: art that makes me cry. Or at least, almost cry. I try to hold it back, you know, and then I wonder if that’s really good for me - maybe I should just have a good bawl-fest and let it out, I mean, for the sake of catharsis if nothing else. “One of these days the dam is gonna break,” my emotions tell me. But I go on holding back the tears. Nonetheless, there apparently is art now that takes me so close to the edge of humanity that I no longer feel in control of my behavior.

I have girls that are friends of mine who, in the past, have tried to explain this peculiarity: where they are laughing so hard that all of a sudden, they are crying. And I’m not talking about “tears of joy” or whatever, I’m talking about the fact that at that very moment, something within their emotional foundation cracked a bit, they slipped, and apparently now they are sad-crying. I must admit, I was rather incredulous when I first heard of this anomaly and promptly blamed it on estrogen or some other female hormone that I certainly do not have in nearly the abundance they do, and thus, this could conclusively never happen to me.

But (you knew there was going to be a “but”) it has all changed now. It happens to me. Seriously. It first happened when I was driving down the road listening to a CD by a musician named Derek Webb. He told the story of a song he’s written called “Dance” about his grandmother and how she loved to dance; she was 91, living in an assisted living facility, and every week a girl would come in and play the piano so they could dance. Derek’s grandma loved it; even after she was in a wheelchair she’d go every week to rock around in her chair. After this introduction, Derek plays the song. Just him and his guitar. And this is when it gets me. I’m totally minding my own business, driving down C470 next to the mountains, and suddenly I am completely overcome with emotion. This song is completely joyful and I am overwhelmed with happiness in the middle of this story about the sweet grandma who loved to dance, and I’m all wrapped up in the melody and the rhythm. But I feel so full of feeling that I don’t know what I feel anymore. I could cry, I could scream, I could laugh, I could probably even dance (assuming I wasn’t currently driving at 70+ miles per hour).

And that’s when I realized how close emotions are. I don’t mean close as in “close to the surface” or something, but close in proximity - they are all connected, as if somewhere in our history, they were all the same essence, or source, or something, but somehow these notions of contentment were invaded by alien ideas of fear and sadness and they’re not really quite sure how to play nicely together.

Now I’m a wreck. It’s started, and I don’t think it can stop - every time I hear “Defying Gravity” by Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenoweth, and the cast of Wicked the meltdown process begins. Who knows what it’s going to be next!?

I’m not sure what this all means, but I must say that I’m glad there is art that can make me cry. Or at least, almost.

NOTE:
(The concepts found in this post contributed strongly to the writing in my first book, blur: finding jesus in a fuzzy world. Download your free copy here!)

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language

Published on January 16, 2005 in epilogei/choice and glossa/language. 1 Comment

I find that after I’ve been reading for awhile, my thoughts seem to write themselves in a more advisable and congruent fashion, which I very much like. It’s almost as if my inner monologue has just aced some vocabulary test or something, and in response the rest of my intellect is gladly operating on all cylinders just to keep up with this new, profound clarity. And all this is in spite of the fact that my internal eloquence is utterly, fruitlessly wasted on the very thoughts themselves, for, sadly, no one else ever hears them.

And, then, consequently I find that if I do choose to say these things, they are never as profound as they were before their expression. Maybe you know what I mean: it’s like the very fact of my keeping them to myself gave them an aura, a presence, a mystical formation that is true and real and beautiful, and to explain it would be to simplify and kill the mysterious beauty. It is almost like drowning in your favorite song and then attempting to define what it means to you. Or crying your eyes out at the end of a film and then being forced to talk about it.

Sometimes I am very frustrated with language, and I suppose this is its very problem. It is limited in ways that our experiences are not, and to communicate something clearly is not only a matter of choosing the right words, but is something of a tiny miracle, an illumination transferred from one mind to another.

I know a little bit of ancient Greek, which is probably one of the most useless things you can know as it is completely incompatible with today’s Greek (apparently - this is what people tell me. I’ve never really tested it). Unless, of course, you want to translate the New Testament (which is something I definitely do not do in my spare time). But Greek as a language is powerful - it’s complicated and logical (unlike English which certainly is complicated, but not so much what I’d call logical), not to mention beautiful, aurally (what I can tell anyhow) and in appearance. Sometimes I wonder if I could learn other languages like Latin or French or Chinese or some ancient, mysterious language no one else knows if I would find the language of humanity — something that can adequately describe our experiences.

I kind of doubt it. And I suppose that’s why I write songs — because music is maybe the closest thing you can get.

NOTE:
(The concepts found in this post contributed strongly to the writing in my first book, blur: finding jesus in a fuzzy world. Download your free copy here!)

If you liked that, then try these…

to believe in God

i am the firestarter

hope

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big business

Published on January 14, 2005 in alethia/truth, asteio/fun and zoe/life. 1 Comment

I’m not sure what happened to me.

You should know, before I begin, that I’m one of those people that saves every email they’ve ever written or received. So, as you can well imagine, approximately half of my 40GB hard drive is taken up with email (just kidding, but it’s no laughing matter how far back these things go). But back to what happened to me; I was looking through my sent items folder and realized that I had doubles of every email I sent between the dates of March of 1999 through October of 2000 (or thereabouts). Being the technological guru that I am, I realized that I had a lot of emails taking a lot of space that didn’t need taking. But that’s not really what happened to me.

So I’m scrolling down using the clever little wheel on my mouse (those Microsoft geniuses!), selecting every other email so I can rid my sanity of these duplicate space-takers, and naturally I’m reading some of the subjects of the emails. And they’re funny! I never knew I was funny!

There are emails with obscure Austin Powers’ references like, “No, Mini-Me, we don’t gnaw on our kitty,” nonsensical crap like “Wadaladabingbang,” and even frightening apocalyptic things like “IT’S THE Y2K BUG - WE’RE ALL SCREWED!!!!!” I’ve even got one with this subject: “Mini-RE: It’s a flu shot, I don’t want you getting sick…” — can you even stand the wit?? Mini-RE:… man, I just crack myself up. (Keep in mind these are just subject lines; I can’t even imagine the infinite depths of humor that could be contained in the email body!)

But that’s not what happened either.

As my wheel continues it’s journey upwards toward the more recently written emails, I am getting the impression that I am, sadly, getting less funny. I am simply not as funny anymore. What happened to me? (There’s the question.) I’ll tell you what happened: I grew up. I started conversing with quote-unquote “adults” and thus, had to obviously rid myself of the extraneous wit. Professionals have no time for such nonsense, you know.

The only problem is that I think I liked myself better before — that person who wasn’t afraid of smiling, of being a little goofy.

In a fantastic movie called Finding Neverland, Johnny Depp’s character, J.M. Barrie, has a conversation with a boy named Peter that has adult syndrome — he’s grown up too quickly and is older than he actually is. Barrie creates an imaginary world where his dog, Rufus, becomes a bear in the circus, and Peter says “This is absurd. It’s just a dog.” Barrie replies, “Just a dog? Rufus dreams of being a bear, and you want to shatter those dreams by saying he’s just a dog? What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That’s like saying, ‘He can’t climb that mountain, he’s just a man,’ or ‘That’s not a diamond, it’s just a rock.’ Just.“

It’s just a bit of silliness, really.

Well, I should hope so. Maybe that’s not so bad.

If you liked that, then try these…

interview with mclaren

unemployment

aching for adventure

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