a match

I've had a headache all day, growing progressively worse as time passes. It has plateaued, perhaps even begun to decrease, in the last hour; whether from the litres of water and tea I've consumed, the six ibuprofen, the two spoonfuls of peanut butter, or simply just giving in to the literal pressure and simply relaxing for a bit. Yet the work biting at my heels will not abate, and the stress only increases the longer it's postponed. I'll resume work shortly.

In addition to the headache, my left eye has been twitching worse than usual. It's a bothersome, uncontrollable and relentless issue, no doubt from stress. That, combined with the frequent outbreaks of hives, are more physical irritations than I could ever wish to endure, especially considering the seven-or-more months they've been occurring. Is there anything to be done? Decrease stress?

Yeah, right...

And, really, nothing is as pervasive as my struggle with the acceptance of uncertainty. How strongly I desire to know! Yet certainty is, perhaps, the most unnatural and foreign concept of humanity; a misleading and dangerous illusion at its very best, and cataclysmic as a rule.

So I cling desperately to the only reliable certainty, Love, as a lit match in unyielding, claustrophobic darkness.

What, or whom, do I love? And for what (or whom) would I sacrifice everything? Those are heavy questions. I think I know the answer. I know what the answer ought to be, and to some degree I hold to it. To some degree, it's more of an assumption that the "correct" answer is already in practice. But beyond that, the answer that rises immediately in response, the one supported by my mind and my heart and my too-emotional self... Risk is always terrifying.

Which leads to the question, of what are you most afraid? And for that, too, I have an answer. Isn't it fundamental to humanity, to fear rejection (in whatever the context)?



I've been drinking so much water (and today, tea), which results in frequent trips to the bathroom. It's a minor nuisance, but mostly it's satisfying and brings an odd sense of pride.





And if honesty comes in conclusion, I am hurting tonight. The absence of peace is pain.

I used to write more.

Several weeks ago, I was digging through some old journals and folders and the like; stuff I'd managed to collect into one box over the last several years, then just move around place to place. Some of it was notes from my favorite classes in high school: German, speech, calculus, etc. (I overcame my pack-rat self, and in. A sort of cathartic moment, threw those away. But what I had substantially more numerous were journals and stacks of written pages, and scraps with scribbles and musings...

I used to write so much. Pages upon pages filled to express myself; prose with odd little drawings in the middle, clusters of potential song lyrics with arrows drawn around, words crossed out and changed, chords and rhythms scattered around. I had forgotten all about that stuff. It was really astonishing to realize just how much there was. And these days I never write. In fact, I'm not sure there's anything I do to express or give outlet to the thoughts and emotions that fill me, that long ago filled me and have since been screaming in crowded frustration to be set free. Sometimes a thought will escape through twitter. And sometimes I'd get to sit down with one or two of my best friends to discuss certain aspects of certain things. But nothing as substantial as just sitting down with a pencil and paper, and writing until my brain is emptied. Blogging is not even the same relief. There's still certain things I censor or entirely abstain from writing. Though my audience is small, there's still certain things I don't want to risk igniting or pushing or causing unintended offense.

I used to still get some emotional release just in playing music with others. But I haven't once had the opportunity since moving. (and I'm terrified I never will get those opportunities again, short of the occasional YouTube cover happenstance for kicks with Brian.) so I no longer have that release through music.

And I can't remember the last time I've taken photographs just for the sake of having a relaxing and fun time out. I spend so much time with a camera attached to me for the sake of work, and even though I love my job, I leave the camera with work to get a break from it. I don't view it as an expression anymore, just a tool for work.

Wonderings

I miss playing music tremendously. I miss the feeling I get when I nail a run on the bass. (and I miss the B string rumbling open through a big house system.) I miss playing hammond at my old church; rockin cool and sometimes dorky synth leads from my keytar; searching for the best whirly and rhodes patches; even holding down simple pads; I miss playing jazz on the trumpet, and even the symphonic stuff, and the stuff for church at Christmas, that, despite being overwhelming and challenging, still managed to pull it off every year. I miss learning new chord voicings on acoustic; anything to break the norm. I even miss practicing scales on those instruments (and I sorta miss the Hanon exercises, too). Sometimes I forget. But then I see people playing, and I remember just how good to feels to participate. I remember leading worship in high school, when it felt more like being led than anything else, because I'd get so lost in what I was singing and playing that everything else around me dissipated and the only presence I felt was God. Sometimes I still have those experiences while driving and listening to Jesus Culture or Hillsong or Amante Lacey or Tye Tribbett, where I fall into worship so wholly that I have to pull over. But I still miss playing; more than I know how to express.

I was thinking tonight: what if I had come to Belmont four years ago after all? I was so close - would have studied music business and trumpet... Could I have stuck with it? Or would I still have drifted to photography, and then video? It's so weird how the smallest details all add up to a drastically different path in life. I might have left Belmont after a year or two and stayed in Columbus, whereas, ironically, school at Cedarville, in the middle of miles of cornfields, OH, is somehow what got me back to Tennessee. See...

Leading worship at heritage -> worship degree at CU -> then joined gospel choir playing organ/synth -> three week Europe tour -> cheap dslr on eBay for photos to remember the trip -> falling in love with photography -> upgrading to a better dslr that coincidentally shot video -> getting very quickly involved with video -> getting a job because of video...
Meanwhile, I had gotten an admin assistant position because of the worship major at another church, dropped the worship major for audio production halfway thru freshman year. Spent sophomore year touring around the country running FOH sound, then went back to working at that church junior year to help fill the gap from my friend Mike who had moved to a new church. But because of Mike and a seemingly random occurence, I got connected via twitter with my current boss and job.

It's unreal to think of all these odd, little details, how one thing led to another, and though I never saw it coming, here I am. It's the most incredible job I could ever think of, and a year ago, I would never have even thought there was a job like this. Three months in and I still can't get over God's providence. He led the way when I was clueless about the path I was on, just stumbling along because it seemed like the right thing to do. There were even a few scary leaps, like turning down another year of touring; but I had peace through it. It just blows my mind. I know if I spent years planning and scheming, I couldn't have come up with anything half as awesome as God designed and brought me to. And there's still so much further that I don't know where He'll take me, but I'm not afraid of the unknown. My only fear is that I'll try to take control and miss something awesome.

Our God is ABLE!

After eating some incredible barbecue in Memphis, we hit the road for Texarkana, our hotel stop for the evening. About two hours later, we made a refuel and restroom stop. The cigarette lighters don't have power in the twelve passenger, so we decided to pick up some fuses and catch up with the other half of our team down the road.

While at Walmart, we received a phone call. A flat tire decommissioned the other van to the side of the road, close to Nowhere In Particular, Arkansas. Mike grabbed a can of Fix-A-Flat, and we got back on the highway. We found them, though a bit further down the highway than expected, and filled the tire. After a mile of slow, cautious driving to test the tire, we stopped again to re-check it. A decision was made to drive to the next exit, where we would at least be safer while waiting for AAA or other assistance.

The next exit surprisingly had a truck and tire repair shop visible from the off-ramp. Even more surprising, for 9:30pm Nowhere In Particular, Arkansas, there was a man there. He explained that the shop had been shut down for years, but he had recently purchased it and was in the process of remodeling. It wasn't even open for business yet! But God had orchestrated all these details, and we happened to catch him at the perfect moment. He repaired the tire for a few bucks, and now we're back on the road!

Our God is ABLE!!

Group texts used to frustrate me...

I'm writing my thoughts in the middle of the day... It's not that I do this very often, but it would seem more typical for me to write very late at night, when I'm exhausted and much more emotionally vulnerable. Is that a sign that these thoughts are long overdue to be released?

I don't even know where to begin. I'm so worried of coming across terribly insecure, even whiny and annoying, as though my only purpose in writing was to seek somebody's pity. I suppose I truly am insecure; timid and frightful and even paralyzed by insecurity. But the last thing I would ever want is somebody responding to this out of pity. It's that thought which almost stops me from writing in the first place. And just by writing this, I'll be suspicious, even cynical, of any changes in behavior of those around me. I'm too skeptical to believe in genuine change, certain instead it's done out of guilt.
And so maybe somebody would start to try, for a brief period, and I'd refuse to respond - cynical and suspicious. And before long, their guilt or pity would subside, and things would return to normal...
(After all, why are you only now trying? Why not before?)


I used to hate group texts. They're frustratingly impersonal, and I also began associating them with dinners where I would show up and be completely overlooked by a dozen people for an hour.
One time, as a "test" of sorts, I responded, telling the sender I would for sure be there. (For conflicting schedules, or simply not wishing to be alone in a crowd, I rarely every came anyway.) I sat and watched from a fair distance as they all met up and left; not waiting for me, nobody trying to check on me to see if I was coming... I had no value to them at all.
Before I came to school, I cooked for these people every week for ten weeks straight. I drove over an hour each way, paying for everything out of my own pocket. Now please don't think I did this to earn anything from them. Giving is just how I live. But to be disregarded, left feeling worthless to them and unappreciated; I just couldn't keep trying after having given so much of myself away and having no more value to them than the day before we met.

And then unfolds a year and a half of story, too much to explain now, but which has shaped me more than any of the repeating relational wrecks that make up my life combined. (And I mean relational in a broader sense; not specifically that of dating relationships.) There's no way to describe just how impossibly never-will-be-good-enough this left me feeling. There's so much more, but I just don't want to get into that.


So here I am in current time. All I want is to feel like a valuable part in a group; not taken for granted, nor taken advantage of. I don't want people to want me around because I take good pictures, or because I cook for them, or because of anything else I do. I want people to want me around, just because they like me. I can't remember feeling that since marching band in high school. That was four years ago, and it's been two years since having anything I could even label as "group".
And now I miss those group texts...



My birthday sucked this year. I went to class, I shot some photos for a theater thing, and then sat around my house by myself. Brian made me brownie-cookies around 10 or 11 that night. Do you have any idea how totally miserable it was, to go my entire birthday, and know hundreds of people here at school, and literally the only person who did ANYTHING for me was one of the three guys living with me? I will say, a pan of brownies has never meant more to me than those, but that day sucked. I've had a lot of bad days, but going almost entirely unacknowledged on my birthday really wrecks it all. And that's something nobody can take back...

The Hymns of Our Generation

This week will be the grand start to LiFT Camp 2010, and we’re kicking things off at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. Last week, we spent every day working through “practice camp” with the LiFT staff at Boyce College in Louisville, KY, where we held worship services, played games, listened to challenging messages and received other training in areas of sharing the gospel, praying with students, CPR, etc.

At this exact moment, however, we’re at Ridgeview Baptist Church in Stuarts Draft, VA. They’re sending over forty kids to LiFT camp this week, and in a sense, this is like a pre-LiFT kick-off. However, this church has a very wide range of ages, and particularly a larger group of the “gracefully aged”.

I'm the sound guy on my HeartSong team, and I don’t mean to sound pretentious, but I consider my role in this team to be one of the most challenging. No matter what church or camp or youth group we have the honor to spend our time, the music we play and the message we bring doesn’t change at all. What changes considerably is how I react within the churches and camps and youth groups. It takes considerable flexibility, because every place we go has a different musical background (and often it goes deeper than that, even as a part of their doctrine).

(Please understand, I consider this very positive. I believe that these people and churches have their various preferences because that’s what enables them to worship more freely. A fellow I met last weekend told me he loves the music so loud that he can’t hear himself singing; this way he can shout out to God and not worry about anybody hearing how “bad” he sings. And for the record, that’s how I like it, too.)

But let’s return to now, here at Ridgeview Baptist Church. Many of these people grew up in churches with an organ and a piano, with hymnals and a minister of music directing the choir and the congregation both. “It Is Well”, “I Need Thee Every Hour”, “Nothing but the Blood”, “Be Thou My Vision”; these and many others are the hymns they know and the cry of their hearts to God. These are the hymns of their generation.

Today, perhaps thirty or forty (or sixty or eighty) years since those hymnals and pews were new and those organ pipes rang their first sonorous notes, when everything else has changed in house and culture and church, these people fight for the hymns they grew up singing. They fight for the hymns of their youth.

And so, in churches like Ridgeview, there are some people who contest the use of drums, dislike the bass guitar and even cringe at the electric. They still long for the four-part, Southern-gospel harmonies and familiar melodies bursting with important theological truths and sound doctrine.

It’s vital that we remember this; as youth, as a team and individually; as a musician or a sound guy. That’s why, in churches like this, I keep the drums and bass turned down, and make sure those vocal harmonies sound as tight as possible. That’s why, in churches like this, we find joy in songs like “Jesus Paid It All” and “Before the Throne”. That’s why, in churches like this, we strive to show people that the love of Christ is strong in everything we do, so that even if they don’t like the style of music, they can see the power of our incredible God and the truth of his word through us and through the words we sing.

I overheard the pastor at Ridgeview discussing this idea with a member of the church. (That’s what prompted me to write, after all.) The songs we sing, these are the hymns of OUR generation. Perhaps, as the pastor speculated, we will fight for these songs forty years from now. Perhaps, when house and culture and church have changed all around us, we will still cling to these “hymns of our generation”. The music is different, but the words are as powerful and as true as any other hymn we could sing. And perhaps, forty years from now, we can remain open to music and welcome a new generation as they sing new hymns of worship to a constant God.

And as I finish this post, I feel the need to pose a question. Hayden, Tommy and I stayed with a wonderful fellow and his wife, both divorced and remarried, with kids of their own. He asked for our stories; our journey in faith and in coming to know Christ. Then he posed this incredible question: What drives you?

As young adults, away from our parents and our parents’ faith, what compels us to remain faithful? So, what is it? What drives us?

What drives you?

Disassociation and Relocation

Music is often touted as one of the most powerful methods of communicating, whether it's a message or an emotion or something entirely different. It's quite interesting, too, how many memories can be associated with music: come across an old song on the radio or just browsing through iTunes, and suddenly memories from five years ago come streaming back strong enough to put me there.

Normally that's awesome. I'll just jump into the antithesis you're probably now expecting. I heard a lot of really awesome music this past year, especially this past summer. Some of it, especially the song "Fireflies", I really got into before it hit mainstream popularity. Now it's right in the middle of its huge wave (not to mention a few other songs, heard and now played similarly frequently all around me, out of my control). All of the memories associated with such songs have turned to some of the most painful and bitter heartbreak. When those songs come across the radio or are played by a neighboring room in the dorm or a store I'm in or any other place I can't avoid it, these memories stream in as strong as ever, accompanied by the pain of broken hopes.

I started to wonder, with the seeming unavoidability (new word?) of these songs, can I force new memories upon them? Even if I never fully enjoy them like I used to, this would at least keep them from sending my mind to thoughts that buoy depression. Well, I'm trying. It's my goal to re-associate the song "Fireflies" with new memories of winter; a chill in the air, a cloudless, starry night, driving fast on back roads and rocking out loud by myself.

I just read a brief study that says emotional memories are rendered vulnerable to change each time they are retrieved. I need to know it's possible.

I need to know I can stop this, even if I can't erase it altogether.

begin again.

It's much later than is healthy, which means blogging is a terrible idea.

I mean, I should have been asleep two hours ago.

And I'm not even doing anything productive right now.

But here I am. Thinking maybe I'll get into this blogging thing regularly again. And I haven't got anything profound to write right now. At least, nothing currently in my mind. So, I'll drink some more water, waste some more time and wonder why I'm not asleep.

And though I'm feeling more exhausted than I have in at least a few weeks, I'm going to stay up even later.

This blog is such a personal, emotional place for me. I was reading some old posts; they really do show the full range of who I am, from the best of me to the very worst. I guess if you want to get a glimpse of who I am, going through this blog is a good representation.

Sure, getting to know me in real life will accomplish that. But frankly, I'm scared of people and of deep relationships. Most of my deepest relationships have all ended terribly painfully. I still have my sister, and there's one other friend, but that's all that's to show of the dozen or so deep friends I've had in the past six years. I suppose a few have just slipped away, but even that really hurts.

Especially when... Well, I felt totally forgotten. Tons of people I know, all friends, and organized by somebody who once told me I was of immense worth and a very best friend...

But everything changes over time. I experienced enough to know that change happens and pessimistic enough to live in expectancy.

But it still hurts.

It's strange how I seem to cycle through very similar pain this time every year. Last year was so similar to this, and the year before, when I was living on my own, and the year before that...

I just have such unanswered questions; things about life I thought I was beginning to grasp, but it's all been thrown out the window. I do well with formulas and predictable outcomes. Do this and this will happen. But such a certainty in life just doesn't seem to exist.

I can spend day and night thinking about the things that have shaped me, but none of that seems to help me grow. Instead, I feel an even stronger inclination to introverted-ness.

Ugh. I just really need to go to bed.

These are the wounds that give shape to who I am.

Do you miss me the way I miss you? The ways I miss you...

Do you hurt the way I hurt? The ways I hurt...

Lonely and hollow, but I'm still here, forgotten.

Could you lie to me and call it the truth? Tell me the truth...

I'm just another not-good-enough, another I "love" you, but...

I offered my whole heart; abused it, beat and bruised it.

I never saw you as perfect, just beautifully flawed.

All of me, I'm such a damned fool

Let you in, thought you were safe

Thought that maybe I had a chance

But I was wrong, I was wrong.

I never saw you as perfect, just beautifully flawed.

It's a process of healing, of letting go.

One Little Thing
Adapted by Tyler Scott

I love that you brush your teeth six times a day,
And how you wait for open doors; a sign of respect I gladly pay.
It’s great that you wait for me to call you first.
I adore how you know all the lyrics to songs,
And love to hear you sing along.
And when it comes to sports, I don’t care if you’re the worst.
But it isn't enough to give you feelings too.
Left me remembering little things,
The little things that drew me to you.

It’s a fact that I’d give the world for you,
And if you’d let me, I’d promise to always be true.
It didn’t matter how many times,
I wished and dreamed you might be mine.
Through any pain, I’d help you fight,
And when I was with you, everything seemed right,
For the first time in my life.
It’s almost certain I’m in love with you.
But there’s one little thing,
One little thing, not felt by you.

I like how you care about all of your friends,
But it sucks when you’re hurt by all of their burdens.
I love when you laugh without a cause.
I’m inspired when you’re crazy when you’re with your friends,
Can’t get enough of your stories without end.
I know you aren’t perfect, but I even like your flaws,
Still now we must say goodbye,
Remembering little things,
Your little things that caught my eye.

It’s a fact that I’d give the world for you,
And if you’d let me, I’d promise to always be true.
It didn’t matter how many times,
I wished and dreamed you might be mine.
Through any pain, I’d help you fight,
And when I was with you, everything felt right,
For the first time in my life.
It’s almost certain I’m in love with you.
But there’s one little thing,
One little thing, not felt by you.

But there was nothing I could do,
Nothing to change the way you view,
No spark about me to you.
All I could see were the little things that drew me so close,
But one thing was missing that you needed the most.
There’s nothing I could do to make you feel,
That one little thing
Which could’ve made this all real.

It’s a fact that I’d give the world for you,
And if you’d let me, I’d promise to always be true.
I would tell you a thousand times,
How lucky I was just to call you mine.
I would always hold you tight,
‘Cause when I was with you, everything felt right,
For the first time in my life.
It’s almost certain I’m in love with you,
But nothing I could do would make you feel it, too.
It’s breaks my heart to stop this, but there’s nothing I can do,
‘Cause there’s one little thing,
One little thing, not felt by you.

It's a mystery...

I feel like I have nothing substantial to blog about, and it's as if nothing can match up to the previous posts I've written.

title: 4

Wow.

It's been a long time.

I'm back at school, obviously. And already I feel as busy as I ever was last year.

God is so prominent in my life, though, and I feel him overwhelming me daily.

That's a definite change from last year.

For the better.

I'm waiting for a shirt to dry and watching Dragonball Z to kill some time. My roommate, Daniel, is playing World of Warcraft, which is pretty standard for him at this time of night. It's actually pretty standard for him any time that he's not in class or sleeping (which often takes second priority to WoW). I like my roommate, but since he's always up late, I give in and stay up later, too.

My body is starting to suffer from the lack of sleep. I need it, bad, but I keep setting it aside for friends and homework and other things I want to do.

Oh, yeah. I'm actually doing homework this year. It's satisfying in a certain unexpected way.

God hit me with this the other day:

Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.

-Ephesians 4:2

I've read Ephesians a bunch, but this only just caught my eye. I was really struggling with loving a friend, because I always feel discouraged after talking to this person. My instinct is to just avoid, because then I don't get discouraged. But Jesus would love them more. Be patient, I'm told. Make allowance for their faults. After all, I have faults of my own.

I can't quite describe how much it really struck me, but I'm just feeling really convicted about it.

Keep yearning for God, first and foremost.

Life Vest

So, I blogged briefly about my week at Adventure Camp this summer, as part of my job; whitewater rafting, rock climbing, hiking, etc, and all paid... I had some interesting thoughts that week, and they recently came back to me. There is some really unrefined theology in this post. I don't mean it to be entirely accurate of God, but it's mostly accurate from how I perceive God at this point in my life, and perhaps it'll spur your own thoughts to challenge and grow mine.

I was in the lake the first day we got to the camp. All the kids were doing their own thing, and us three counselors were basically okay to do whatever. I decided to go for a swim, and the lake has no official lifeguard on duty, so I had to wear a life vest. They had a ton of things in the lake; slides and obstacles and a mountain to climb (all inflatable stuff), and I did a little bit of that. Mostly I just floated around. See, the life jacket hinders your movement tremendously. Even swimming somewhere took a reasonably difficult effort. It was really frustrating, so I decided to just float for some time.

It's interesting how some thoughts can just strike you. Somehow, I started wondering about how the vest I was wearing compared to Jesus. I had a few ideas sift through my head, but nothing that made significant sense.

The next day, we went white-water rafting. Our boat guide said something that made the previous day's incoherent musings suddenly click together unexpectedly. "Now take your Personal Flotation Device (PFD) - some of you like to call them 'life vests', but we can't call them that because we can't guarantee they'll save your life. We only promise they will keep you floating..." And I don't remember anything else he said, because it was no longer relevant to the revelation I was experiencing.

Do I treat Jesus like my PFD? Did I strap him on years ago, and just expect him to keep me alive, even in the storms that throw me from a boat? See, it's one thing to have faith that, if I just lay there, he'll keep me afloat. That much is true. But if some huge rapid tears me up, and I don't fight against the dangerous sin swarming around me, it's true that Jesus will still "keep me afloat", but I won't really be living. Not the way life should be lived. Jesus will always keep you floating, but if you don't seek his wisdom to navigate the storms and rapids of life, they chew you up bad and leave you feeling pretty dead. Life with Jesus is supposed to be so much more than that! He's keeping us afloat and able to breathe, so we have to choose to pursue life, or wrecklessly drown ourselves in sin. I guess if you dig deeper into the theology of my metaphor, you might perceive that I'm implying once you have the "Jesus vest", you never lose it... I don't necessarily believe in the "perseverance of the Saints", as Calvinists call it, that salvation cannot be lost.

I am certain that Christ would rather die than lose another person to sin and death.

But God granted us free will, to choose good and to choose evil, to choose him or choose sin, and if, in our choice, we deny him... I've heard some really good questions to challenge these things in the defense of the perseverance idea: "Was the person ever truly saved to begin with?"

"Couldn't they re-accept salvation in their dying breaths, proving they never, in their heart-of-hearts, denied him?"

I don't know the answers... I just feel as though, from what I currently know about God, it's possible to lose salvation. I don't understand why anybody would make that choice, but everyone makes foolish choices.

Anyway, are you fighting to live as Christ would have (which, by the way, cannot be done unless you have Christ from the start), or are you floating around, getting smothered by the waves and expecting Jesus to keep you breathing without your actions reflecting the life he desires for you?

As always, please comment with your thoughts or reactions. There is some really rough theology here and it probably isn't all accurate, but I only aim to challenge and be challenged, be transformed by renewing my mind.

An Encouragement: Part 2

This one's primarily for the guys (though not exclusively, by any means).

Rob Bell writes:

The word that came to my mind at that moment was the word submit.

Not her submitting to him.

Him submitting to her.

...Submitting is serious. Submitting is difficult.

And it's the only hope a marriage has. (or any relationship, for that matter.)

I'm aware that I am using a volatile word here, one that's been used to cause great harm to women and consequently marriages and even men. The danger is that in reaction to the abuses and distortions of an idea, we'll reject it completely. And in the process miss out on the good of it, the worth of it, the truth of it.

The word submit occurs only a couple of times in the Bible, most notably in the letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5. The section begins in verse 21 with the command, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

The passage says we are to place ourselves under one another out of reverence, or respect, for Christ. This reference to Jesus calls us to follow his example, his sacrifice, his giving his life for ours. As it's written in the book of John, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son." At the heart of the worldview of a Christian is the simple truth that people are worth dying for.

People are worth dying for. We know it to be true deep in our bones. And when we see someone actually do it, it's overwhelming.

Jesus said in one of his teachings that there's no greater love a person can have than to lay down their life for another. (John 15:13)

We know this to be true.

People are worth dying for.

So the passage in Ephesians is to love and serve the poeple around you, placing their needs ahead of your own, out of respect and reverence for Jesus, who gave his life for us, the ultimate act of love and sacrifice. Die to yourselves, so that others can live. Like Jesus.

In Greek, the passage continues with verse 22, "Wive, to your husbands as to the Lord."

Did you notice that a word is missing?

We're missing a verb. The words submit is not in the verse. You have to go looking for the verb, which is in the verse before.

The wife isn't commanded to do anything different from what everybody else is commanded to do in the previous verse, namely submitting. Placing the needs of others ahead of her own, especially in her most significant relationship - the one with her husband.

Verse 23 is next: "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior."

The point is that the husband is supposed to be like Christ. And what does that look like?

Notice how the text continues. Verse 24 repeats the submit command, and then verse 25 reads, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."

Christ's "headship" comes from his giving himself up for the church.

His sacrifice.

His surrender.

His willingness to give himself away for her.

His death.

Whatever authority the word head carries with it is rooted in the sacrifice of Christ and therefore the sacrifice of the husband.

So the husband is commanded to lay down his life for his wife, and the wide is commanded to submit to her husband, but they're both commanded to submit to each other because everyone is commanded to submit to everyone else, and all of this is out of "reverence for Christ."

A man waiting for his wife to submit is actually a failure to lead. He thinks he's the strong leader, but he's actually weak and misguided. If he really thinks he's the head, then he would surrender his desires and wants and plans. He would die to his need to be in control and do whatever it takes to serve her, to make sure she has everything she needs. He would die to himself so that she could live.

He would lay down his life for her, like Jesus laid down his life for the church.

This is submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

What if he had a habit of this?

What if she knew without a shadow of a doubt that his love for her was so great that he would give his life for her in the blink of an eye?

Think about your friendships, the closest ones, the ones that have gone the distance. How often do you ask who is in charge? Do you ever find yourself questioning, "Where does the buck stop?"

No, it's not even on the radar. Over time you've built up reserves of trust and love, and power and control become irrelevant. The healthier and more whole a relationship is, the less you ask these kind of questions. When people are truly living in what's called "mutual submission," you lose track of who's in charge.

In a marriage, you're talking about power and control only when something central to the whole relationship has fallen apart.

And once again, poetry comes to our rescue.

The woman says in Song of Songs, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."

She speaks a paradox. Two things are going on here. She's giving. Giving herself away. Letting go. Losing herself in her lover. And yet she's also getting something in return: the other person. Her lover, at the same time, has let go and fallen into her.

(Let's go back to those verses in Ephesians.)

This paradox of mutual submission is only one of the profound things going on in this passage. The command to the husband is to love your wife "just as Christ loved the church." On the first pass, it seems quite straightforward. But as we've seen before, words in the Bible are often loaded. In this case, the word love in the Greek language is specific.

The word for love here is the word agape. We find the word all over the New Testament, and it's generally used in the context of God's love for people as in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world."

So the man is to love the woman, to agape her, like God agapes the world.

Agape is a particular kind of love. Love is often seen as a need, something we get from others. Agape is the opposite. Agape gives.

Agape doesn't love somebody because they're worthy.

Agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love.

Agape doesn't love somebody because they're beautiful.

Agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful.

There is a love because, love in order to, love for the purpose of, and then there is love, period. Agape doesn't need a reason.

It's written in the book of Romans that Christ dies "while we were still sinners."

Jesus reminds his disciples, "You did not choose me, but I chose you."

People in the Scriptures essentially are loved into their futures. Think of how many of us had encouraging or affirming or inspiring words spoken to us years ago about our worth, our value, our future, and how those words shaped us. We often carry those words of agape around with us our whole lives.

Agape shakes us. It's too good to be true.

Or maybe you could say it's good enough to actually be true.

It affects how we live, how we act, how we think about ourselves.

For God so agaped the world...

And so the man is commanded to agape the woman with the same kind of love that God has for all people everywhere.

It's a big task the man is given, and it's reflected in the number of words in the passage. In the Greek, the command for the woman is 47 words long, while the commands for the man are 143 words long. The onus here is on the man to love with the kind of love that will go all the way to death if it has to.

What if she were loved like this?

Guys, do you realize she is worth dying for?

Gals, do you realize you are worth dying for?

See, marriage is on my mind. Not anybody in particular. But in another few years, I'll be around that age and stage in my life where marriage comes to great potential. I'm certain most of you guys are feeling similar to me. I want to live like Christ. I want to learn to love like he loves. I want to learn to die to myself so others can live. If I'm still living selfishly, marriage opens the door to cause overwhelming damage to another person. I want my marriage, with whomever, whenever it should come, to reflect Christ's love for us.

I guess the encouragement is more of an instigation for us guys. Can we spend our time now, whether single or already in some sort of relationship, learning how to submit to others, how to die to others? Can we learn to give up our desires and wants and plans for the sake of others? Now is the time to start learning and to start practicing.

Now's the time to start living. "To live is Christ and to die is gain." To live is Christ who died for our gain. To live is Christ so we should die for their gain. His gain. Her gain.

A good friend wrote on the subject of girls about two years ago. I'm going to adapt his main points, quoting and paraphrasing some and elaborating my own thoughts of response, too. Jeremy Steckel, I hope you don't mind, and know that I greatly respect you!

1. Girls are talkers!
I'd think if you haven't noticed or observed this fact before now, you might be somewhat daft. There's countless articles and books suggesting that girls use an average of 20,000-25,000 words a day, and guys use only around 7,000-10,000. There's no way this is going to change! Girls are wired to talk about everything, and it's how they connect with other people. I once read that girls define their closeness of friendships based on the amount of conversation they've shared, where guys base their closeness on the amount of time spent together, whether talking or not. The point is, if you want really respect a girl, LISTEN! It's important to her!


2. Girls are relational!
Some of you may disagree with this, but it's an observation Jeremy made with his post, and I agree: "Girls tend to de-bunk their bunk beds here at college more often than guys do. Why? I wondered the same thing. Until I realized an astounding truth: maybe they do it because, then, it's easier to TALK to your roommate! I've also noticed that girls seem to have more of an emotional connection with their roommate than guys do." From here, we get to Jeremy's third observation:


3. Girls are emotional!

Again, if you haven't noticed this by now, you may be a bit daft. Girls are HIGHLY emotional. Emotional security is probably the most important thing for a girl! God is a wonderful daddy who provides incredibly security, but as guys, we can constantly remind every gal we know of this. We are able to encourage and lift them up with the reminder that Abba, daddy, is their emotional guardian. Too, we can help to guard their emotions. Physical protection is a great thing, and I know girls value feeling safe in that sense, but emotional security is even more important than that!


4. Girls are gorgeous!
Yeah, we all know it's true! Jeremy said it best: "Imagine a world, or even a campus, without girls, and I imagine a place full of dead bodies of men who couldn't take looking at each other any longer."

Girls need to feel loved, and girls need to feel beautiful. Encouraging a girl in this area is a fine line, and I'll admit I often avoid walking it altogether out of anxious fear I'll creep a girl out. But us guys have the opportunity to really embolden and reassure value in our friends and sisters in Christ, and it is absolutely possible to tell a girl she looks beautiful without hitting on her! Take that uncomfortable step and encourage! (Which is a challenge for me, too.) After all, she is worth dying for!

Lo and behold, it was the chainsaw...

Today, I cleaned out my car, in the hopes that somebody might soon buy it from me.

Then, Josh and Katie picked me up, and we drove to the Ohio State Fair. We saw some stuff, most notably a chainsaw artist carving a bear from a log, with botox lips, a mohawk, fins from its chin and strange legs. Katie swears it was actually a fish, but I was intent on seeing him carve a bear, so I just know that's what it was. Josh tried to convince me to eat a fried PB&J, but I went for a gyro instead. It wasn't worth $6, but it was still good; maybe worth $4 or so, at the most. We saw a lot of random crap people were selling in their various booths, and we also "walked the line" with beer goggles on. The trick is to look straight ahead, zone out and just step forward, heel-to-toe, with trust in your natural walking abilities. Josh wanted to ride only one ride there, and it was closed.

After the fair, we went to dinner at Buca di Beppo along with Drew, Josh Gulvas, Steve and Jackie, Andrew and Amy, and a couple other friends of Steve. It was sort of a surprise dinner for Steve's birthday in a couple days. Drew, Gulvas and I split the Chicken Parmesan, which at Buca is a huge waste of money. Never get Buca's Chicken Parm. You'll regret spending that much money on something that totally isn't worth that much money.

After dinner and some hilarious conversation/antics, Josh and Katie dropped me off and left to see G.I. Joe. The ride home was spent mostly discussing how awesome (my point of view) and lame (their point of view) the name "The Ceiling Fantastic" is. I love it. I think it's catchy and a clever play on words. I want some more opinions.

Anyway, all this stuff is great, keeping me busy and rather entertained. I truly am enjoying myself in the midst of such things, but being back at home, back in my terribly messy room and feeling overwhelmed by everything I need to do in the next week, I'm feeling rather bitter. I don't actually understand why I'm feeling this way, but bitterness is the best way to describe it.

I cannot seem to finish the music I've been writing. I keep changing the words, I keep striving to make it less cliché, yet still maintain my identity within it. The emotions in these songs are so deep and so dark, and I'm in a place now where I can dredge them up and use what I'm feeling to help create. But nothing ever feels good enough. It all starts to feel the same to me, even among the differences from song to song. It's additionally frustrating to be in my "prime" of creativity (both tired and emotionally fragile), yet still unable to produce.

My room is a mess, like the state I'm in, and busy-ness is all I see coming in the next week. Please pray for my endurance and peace and joy in this, as those will be pushed the most.

Currently Listening:

The Flower Kings - Adam & Eve

title: 3

I've been really depressed this whole week. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I keep thinking, I just need school to start, then everything will be okay. But that isn't true. All of my stress and emotional burdens will follow me to school like they did last year. No, it isn't a matter of school to fix this.

I don't even know what "this" is. My car's transmission went out on Monday, but it's nothing to do with that. This whole week has felt all clumped and senseless. I don't even know what day it is, and I hardly believe the calendar. Apparently tomorrow is Friday. Already? I don't even remember Tuesday, and Wednesday is only a tiny fragment. And today is over now, too?

I'm riding my bike to work tomorrow. Possibly. It's a longer trip, but I don't have a car that'll get me there.

I feel as though my list of things to do will overwhelm me. Perhaps I need to rewrite it, organize it, and keep going at it. It's probably less challenging than I'm expecting, but since it's a bunch of things all floating freely in my mind, it takes up so much more space.

What's to come of friendships this fall? Will things start to fall apart, as I've witnessed in others' lives for this season? What of the expectations, or hopes, at the least, that I have for other friendships? And will I be able to restrain myself, exhibit self-control, for the sake of my commitment to God? I haven't the slightest idea of what's coming; just a general sense of fear. It's the same fear I feel when I see tv shows about supervolcanoes that could destroy the US or comets that could wipe out earth. It's a sort of worst-case-scenario fear, but those are the only scenarios I seem able to think. There's a supervolcano lying dormant underneath this upcoming school year which could blow at any moment, and anxious me is convinced tell-tale tremors are rumbling all around.

Some old habits and cravings are redeveloping, or at least resurging. I guess they never fully went away, but I'm feeling overwhelmed again. Food doesn't make anything better, but those endorphins are killer when I'm feeling down.

Everything just feels so artificial right now.

"Here's your change. Have a good evening."

"You too."

But neither of us feel that way.

Even time feels artificial. It feels as though time is whirling and spinning around me, and I do not even understand what I'm seeing. Everything just feels really foreign right now, as though I've been thrust into something with no instruction and expected to just "figure it out".

I don't feel hopeless. This is a different depression than I've had in the past. My belief in God is strong now, as is my faith in general. I just feel a general, dark sorrow, and also discouragement. Perhaps it's also an identity crisis.

Though this next part is unrelated to my current emotional state, something reminded me of this: I've been really grappling with some things about God this summer. There's certain ideas about God that I've grown yp being taught, and they all seemed to make perfect sense when I was younger. But I've been meditating on these ideas and I'm convinced that the only reason they exist is because it comforts people more to think that way than to think the way it really is. I'll just throw myself out there.

I don't think God has my life (or your life) all plotted out, step-by-step. I firmly believe God has a will for my life (and your life). I believe that will is for me (and you) to emulate Christ to the best extent we can; to focus our energy - heart, mind, body, soul - on loving God and on loving others as Christ loves us. THAT is God's will for me (and you). God also gave us freedom. That means the freedom to choose if we go to college or not, what we study, where we work, whom (if anybody) we marry, etc. I think Paul was right: it's best for us not to marry and our greatest work for the Lord is done when he has every fiber of our being dedicated solely to Him. But we are very fallible creatures, so it is better for "us" to marry and pursue God together than to try alone and fall more because I'm too distracted by desire. Back to the idea of "God's will", it just doesn't sit with me. God's will gets accomplished with or without us, right? So, then, for a person to live, that's God's will; for a person to survive a heart-attack means "it was God's will" that this person survived. But by default, that would mean for another person to die of stroke, or suicide for that matter, it was also "God's will". After all, by that argument, he planned out our days. I don't believe God would ever "plan" or "will" a person to die, especially not if by murder or suicide. It breaks his heart, and I'm sure of it! God wants life for us, and life to the fullest! That's why someday we'll be in a place with no more death and no more sadness! But God gave us freedom out of his great love for us, and with our freedom, we've entered into sin. That means we can kill each other, hurt each other, steal from each other, and it all breaks God to see us misbehave! But if he just steps in and stops it all, what freedom do we ultimately have? That would be like God saying, "You can only do it your way if it looks like my way. Otherwise I'm just going to step in and stop you until you do it my way." There is no freedom there, and without freedom there can be no love.

I don't think that sufficiently covers my thoughts about it all. I don't think any number of words could quite capture what's in my head. I just don't believe that God has every step of my life (or yours) already plotted out and planned to work a certain way. Sure, he knows what I'm going to choose since he is outside of time. But that doesn't mean he sketched it out and made it for me. He gave me the freedom to choose, I chose it all, and he's just able to see the whole timeline even though I'm stuck IN time still writing. I made the ending, but I haven't seen it yet; only God has.

I don't think God cares at all where I go or what I do or whom I talk to or marry or anything, as long as I'm doing all of it in a spirit of love and compassion, just as Jesus did, just as God-with-flesh would do. In a sense, Christians should be "God-with-flesh" or... the body of Christ... My actions should show God's love above all else, and the only thing I could do that would defy God's will for my life is to continue sinning. Like I said, I don't think God cares where I go to school, where I work, whom I marry, etc, as long as his love is evident and overflowing from my life.

(Now if school, work, people, relationships, etc, distract me from God, then such things should be avoided/moderated until the fruits of God's spirit are built enough to live within them and not be brought down. To dive into the specifics of this side of things would be a lot more typing, but frankly, it's all covered pretty well in the New Testament already.)

Hmm, I'm done ranting for now. I feel a little less depressed than when I started, but maybe that's because I'm excited about going to sleep.

Currently Listening:

Andy Hunter - Life

(I always forget how energetic and generally great this album is.)

Part 1: An Encouragement

Do you realize that you are worth dying for?

This post is primarily intended to encourage my girl friends. I've recently finished a book, and there was a segment I really wished to share, and this seemed the best method. Anyway, Rob Bell writes, and I repeat with the utmost sincerity and desire to edify (and occasionally add personal thoughts in parenthesis):

You don't need a man by your side to validate you as a woman. You are already loved and valued. You're good enough exactly as you are. (You're good enough exactly as you are.) Do you believe this? Because it's true. You have limitless worth and value. If you embrace this truth, it will affect every area of life, especially your relationship with men.

You are worth dying for.

Your worth does not come from your body, your mind, your work, what you produce, what you put out, how much money you make. Your worth does not come from whether or not you have a man. Your worth does not come from whether or not men notice you. You have inestimatable worth that comes from your creator. (Unmatchable, immeasurable, limitless, incontainable worth in Christ.)

You will continue to be tempted in a thousand different ways not to believe this. The temptation will be to go searching for your worth and validity from places other than your creator.

Especially from men.

But you don't have to give yourself away to earn a man's love. You're better than that. You're already loved.

When you give too much of yourself away too quickly, you're not being true to yourself... There is a mystery to you, infinite depth and endless complexity.

Your strength is a beautiful thing. And when you live in it, when you carry yourself with the honor and dignity that are yours, it forces the men around you to relate to you on more than just a flesh level.

You are worth dying for.

If you're dating someone, what kind of man is he? Does he demonstrate that he's the kind of man who would die for you? What is his posture toward the world? Does he serve, or is he waiting to be served? Does he believe that he's owed something, that he's been shortchanged, that he's gotten the short end of the stick, that life owes him something? Or is he out to see what he can give? Does he see himselfas being here to make the world a better place?

These are the big questions you need to ask yourself.

Does he have liquid agape running through his veins? (Agape doesn't need a reason. Agape doesn't love because you're worthy. Agape loves in such a way as to make you worthy. Agape shakes us. It's "too good to be true.")

A friend of mine was engaged to a man, and some of her friends were not excited about them getting married. As the wedding day approached, one of her friends decided to say something to her. He said, "When a woman is loved well, she opens up like a flower."

She broke off the engagement soon afterword. In one brilliant sentence, her friend taught her what agape is and what it isn't.

Can you tell him anything? Is he safe? Can he be trusted?

Can you open up to him, allowing yourslef to be vulnerable, knowing that he will protect, not exploit, that vulnerability?

Are you opening up like a flower? (Perhaps like a red rose, or a blue orchid...)

When you live in your true identity, when you find your worth and value in your creator, when you live "in Christ," in who you really are, you force him to rethink what it means to be a man.

(You are worth dying for!)

I think, to try to summarize this whole post: girls are incredibly valuable.

---

I mean, besides the fact she gave birth to me, my mom is very important. Though we can fight on occasion, she has been a great source of wisdom for me as I've been growing up, especially in the last six years. My sister is also immeasurable valuable to me- she's my best friend, and at times the only friend I've had whom I could trust to talk to about things in life. I can't imagine what particularly the last four years of my life would have been like without her.

---

The fact of the matter is, you girls are an extraordinary gender. You are worth the respect, honor, protection and love of every guy. No exceptions.

You are worth dying for!

Pictures at an Exhibition

...I don't recognize my hands anymore. Staring down at them, unfamiliar scars on my knuckles and elsewhere gaze blankly up. I turn them over, hoping to recognize the inside. Instead, foreign, calloused and stained landscapes instill within me a supsicious captivation. What works have caused such destruction to territory I once knew so well? These aren't hands the hands I knew, nor are they hands I would have ever anticipated owning...

...I do not belong to a "friend group". In short, I hate "groups". I'm not particular interested in ranting about this right now. I just refuse to belong a definable "friend group"...

...I'm very counter-culture. Or, at least, I like to think I am. It's very possible that a part of my brain is missing, or that I lost some vital social skill at a very early age. Whatever the reason, I don't typically do things through convential means. This applies to a lot of things, but probably most noticeably in a relational setting. Often, my anxiety is overwhelming and I do nothing. However, should I begin to feel safe, or should I have a rare moment of daring, impulse takes over. Sometimes it seems entirely irrational, but that's just how I live. I think I much rather prefer to live irrational, unconventional and absurd than to follow the "social norms" (whatever those are, exactly...)...

Selfless love in the name of Christ is the only means to achieving genuine world peace.

Think about that for a bit.

After you've thunk, please go here and vote for Brian and I. You can vote five times, and we'd greatly appreciate it!

I finished reading Passion and Purity recently. I haven't discussed it with anybody, so it is very quickly and largely escaping my thought. It was much more challenging and fascinating than I ever expected, though. The overall effect of that book on me was... simply wow...

It's difficult parting with my DVDs. At the same time, it's inspiring me to become free of even more possessions. It's like, what more can I rid myself of?

God, I made you a promise. Then that happened, and I compromised it without even asking because of my own desire. I need to reinstate that promise before situations arise where foolish me can mess things up from a lack of self control. I promised you a year, and so it shall be.

Do you have any idea what you do to me, how overwhelming you are? I need something tragic and beautiful, and Damien Rice may just do the trick...

Currently Listening:

Shiny Toy Guns - We Are Pilots

(I've had this CD for over a year, and I've only just discovered how good it is.)

We speak in different voices.

I wasn't going to blog at all this evening... morning... See, I'm quite tired. Are you surprised?

Anyway, I might try to catch you up on the insubstantial elements of the last week, and I can supplement the deeper thoughts at a later time.

Monday night a week ago, I received a phone call from work. "What are you doing the rest of the week?"

"Not too much..."

"Wanna go to West Virginia?"

And so 12 hours later I was meeting up and departing with "Adventure Camp". It's a middle school camp run sort of through Super Games during the summer for a couple weeks. We arrived Tuesday evening, set up our tents and went to the lake for a couple hours to swim. The net morning, we made pancakes for breakfast and went hiking several miles.

Excuse me, let me clarify: there were three of us counselors and sixteen kids.

After lunch on Wednesday, we went whitewater rafting on the New River, which, ironically, is the second oldest river in the world. I'm determined to go whitewater rafting frequently for the rest of my life. It was AMAZING.

Thursday, we went rock climbing and rappelling, even though it was lightly raining. It really just made the climbing a bit tougher. Rappelling was awesome, though. We went back to the lake that afternoon, and I read a significant amount. I also played some giant chess. That evening, I connected a little more with the kids, playing some tricky word games. Friday morning, we awoke and packed up in pouring rain. We stopped and had lunch at OU. Arriving "home" we unpacked and set up everything to dry out.

Saturday, I set up and ran sound for an evening of worship at the "all-church" campout (which was probably only 5% of our total church, but whatever). Sunday, I did video stuff during the services, band practice, and running sound at CT.

Band practice.... what can I even say? The music we're making is so spectacular, I hardly have words. We're really locking in now, and the whole time we're playing, I have chills and can't stop smiling.

It's just soo goooood.

Today was spectacularly productive. I listed most of my DVDs on half.com, then did my house sitting duties. I watered and pruned flowers, cleared the drive and sidewalk, grabbed the mail, then washed and waxed their boat. That was tiring. I cut some of our grass, too, but it started to rain. I still have to weedwack and also cut most of the backyard. That'll happen in the morning, though, along with shipping off about thirty DVDs that have sold already. I'll also be listing some gear from church tomorrow; just unused stuff we're selling to generate extra tech budget.

Insightful and profound thoughts will come soon enough.

I promise.

Currently Listening:

Seussical the Musical Soundtrack - Solla Sollew

An Exercise In Prose

This morning, I decided to catch the sunrise. I had not actually been to sleep, and I had just seen Brian off for home. Here is my reflection, written while I observed the sun rising.

A subtle haze crouches close to the ground, its purpose unknown. Geese are calling out as they glide across a calm water, and a lone duck cleans herself. Fish intermittently break the surface, for food or other reasons, while a man stares longingly, yet emptily, in pursuit of those same elusive creatures. As I walk along this familiar bridge, I pull out my headphones. Yet a voice in me conflicts my desire: "You think you could create a soundtrack to this morning better than what I have in store?"

I put my headphones away and continue to walk. Water cascades in routine fashion over the dam, providing a familiar, soothing sound. The kingly moon seems to gaze even upward still of its own heavenly position. Indistinct treetops fill the horizon on all sides, and just above them, the sky is revealing careful distinction between clouds and solemn space. Even now, the gray-blue void is betraying soft shades of pink, orange and yellow, perhaps hinting at something grand to come. A machine nearby drones its steady tone of work, either measuring or drawing power from the cascading water. Several small birds dot the sky, leaving no trace of flight save an image in my memory.

A mile away, enormous power lines smile across the resevoir, but their smile is a force of habit and not an expression of joy. Docked sailboats hardly shrug as water passes beneath them, nearly unnoticed.
A jet tears through the poloroid sky some great distance from here; I cannot hear it, but I see the unnatural trail it expels. Meanwhile, the poloroid continues to develop, filling the crevices of earth with light and revealing greater color overhead.

I'm not lonely, but I'm struggling with the desires of emotional intimacy. I've been warned not to "arouse or awaken love until it so desires." Right now, that only begs the question: WHEN does love so desire? Would these incredibly urges for emotional intimacy be a signal fire that love desires an awakening? Why is the expression of selfless love through self-restraint such a painful challenge?

The sun has finally streaked above the curtain of trees to warmly make eye contact. The geese have withdrawn from the water, and it is quieter. The resevoir now clearly reflects the very sky and clouds responsible for carrying it away in small doses to foreign plaes. The reflection of the sun resembles an inverted torch, as if defying gravity. The vast orb itself still rises slowly, maintaining ever-increasingly bold and persuasive eye contact. I can bare to look no more, instead forced to acknowledge all that has been revealed in the light.

These emotions I hold are not secret. I have freely shared and embraced those who inquire of my feelings. Yet an aching lingers heavily, as though I haven't expressed what I feel in the necessary direction. "Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." Do you so desire, and would you tell me if you didn't?