I’ve never seen Ben Hur. I don’t have any idea what it’s about. I think what sparked the writing of this blog was that the movie was mentioned in a novel I finished a few minutes ago. And so, writing blindly, I give you my immature thoughts on what is supposed to make the world go ‘round.
Love.
It’s confusing. It’s exhausting.
It runs amok, ruining middle school dances and high school football games.
There’s not a lot I know about love. What I know is a general picture, one from the movies. The white picket fence, the anniversary cards, the big, white weddings.
The movies also exploit the madness of love, its true depth of destruction. The divorce rate hovers near 50 percent. Fathers move out. Children cry themselves to sleep. Friends pick sides. Cell phone numbers change.
If I were to give you my opinion of love at this precise moment- 10:35 PM amidst the lulling voice of Jon Foreman himself, the bass beat beneath my feet, produced by a band of 15-year-old XBOX junkies, and the harsh family room lights on my sleepy eyes- I would say this: That it is the truest form of expression in a senseless world. That it is love that will make or break you. And that, no matter what, through the ugliness of a cruel world, each one of us is dearly loved.
I will be straight with you and tell you I have my doubts. A Being, made from nothing, existing everywhere and nowhere all at once, showering a broken earth with unconditional love? Sometimes it just feels to me that the ancients spent too much time star-gazing, making too many assumptions. But then I’ll get those moments of clarity where I am sure God loves me because I can see it in a friend’s face or in a sunny day, and I feel that surely, this must happen to everyone. This is not an exclusive thing, it’s not just a Sarah thing, and it’s not just an American thing. The dirt poor, the terrorists, the soldiers-every one of them is loved. It’s not something anyone can understand, and it’s something a lot of people disagree with. I know many people who do. But as I sit in my warm house, typing on a shiny computer with plenty of creature comforts, I know that we were all made to be loved. Whether we accept it and give it back or not is a human choice, one that will expire with our bodies.
As I end this rant, I realize that this song gravitates toward a romantic love, rather than an ethereal one. But I choose to believe the two aren’t so far apart.
I believe in soul mates. I believe there is someone for everyone, that we all walk the Earth with a partner, that there is someone out there who was constructed to put up with my anger issues, to understand that sometimes, I need space, to give me the world so that I may return it. And I believe that this is all God’s doing.
He knew how hard this would be. He knew we couldn’t do it alone.
The broken hearts, the break-ups, and the might haves stem from our futile attempts to force ourselves upon a person not meant for us. Love is so often a forced act. Love brings validation, something we all crave. But is it ever worth it, to force something so crucial in existence? From what I’ve found, it never is. Love can hurt, and while true love is not untainted, I feel this is one thing we’ve labeled correctly as a society: that true love really is one of the meanings of life.
I’m walking.
I’m on a journey.
We’re all on a journey.
We’d like to share it with someone, to have someone carry us when we’ve gone too long without rest.
Shallow love will carry you for a mile or so. Maybe a little more, but never too far.
True love will pick you up and carry you to heaven.
I’m walking.
I’m on a journey.
I’m going to stumble upon the might haves.
I’m not going to stop.
To share the joy, for better or worse: and I thought that it might have been her.
Acoustic guitar riffs are one of my favorite things on Earth. Home is definitely no exception. There is a certain openness to this song, perhaps brought on by the string ensemble used to really bring it to life. I feel like this song has a breath, one that fogs up the window and is visible in the frigid air of this Michigan winter. Home is very subtle, but longs for warmth and comfort.
And this is where I begin to think that Jon Foreman is a mastermind.
Because isn’t that the goal of a home? To be cozy and inviting and safe? But that’s not where this song is at, lyrically. It’s begging to reach that home, a million miles away. And for a lot of people, this is a truth. Acceptance has become hard to come by. It’s difficult to understand that home is waiting for us, and that we just have to keep pushing.
We all have scars, memories, and fears. We all long to find a place where all these things are not only accepted, but are loved with open arms. Everyone wants to find home, physically or metaphorically. Everyone wants to be loved. But everyone’s been tricked into thinking that this happens instantly. So many homes are forced, and that may be a reason for our high divorce rate. People are unhappy. People settle.
Life is often thought of as a path in the woods (I believe Mr. Frost is to be thanked for that analogy), and it seems that people who settle are just looking for the easy way out to the nearest highway, longing to cruise through life and passing up every golden opportunity to grow with the life we’ve been given. Has our attention span become so short that we can’t even go for a nice walk through the forest God is growing to fit our needs?
I’m not a big believer in the Bible. I know that sounds bad and all, but it’s just who I am. I agree with most of what the Bible has to say, however, and offering all we have up to God seems to be a pretty big theme in there. Our life on Earth is short, and we probably shouldn’t be spending it chasing material goods. They’ll just weigh us down as we trod the often murky forest floor and all the running will tire us out and slow us down. But we do. Man is flawed. I suppose a perfect man would spend his life reaching upward toward Heaven, his ultimate home.
Huh.
Sounds an awful lot like Jesus.
To find home, we have to put down the masks that blind us. We have to be willing to be open to everything: to pain, broken dreams, grief. They all lead us somewhere. And though it’s hard to accept, it’s what makes us stronger, it propels us farther into our journeys. And your journey isn’t over until you say it is.
Life often feels like a blur to me. All day I move, move, move from one class to another, from lessons back home to study, all the while being crammed with information, news, gossip, and conversation making my head fill to bursting. And then I sleep, my mind whirring with a blend of worries and bright colors, creating a never-ending movie projecting every insecurity and dream I possess that never maintains any sense of permanence. But I’m pretty foolish about all of this. I spend my days complaining about the stress and monotony when all it would take to slow down is a request.
My heart accepts that if I gave my troubles along with my triumphs to God, things would much easier, but my brain won’t give up its constant, predetermined fight. I think it likes the attention. Perhaps it is our age; Computers and phones and video games dominating what once was a peaceful mind. Maybe we try to fill the void of a home with this technology that gives us a place to vent and connect with others without having to deal with the trials and tribulations of human relationships and human error.
God promises us a home in Him always. This is hard to accept because we are set in our stubborn ways, doing everything on our own. It seems impossible to believe that home is right in front of our eyes, that we can see beyond pain through God. That troubles and insecurities and worries fall to His mercy. That pain trembles in His wake. There are miracles in God’s eyes. We just have to work to really see them. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully allow this mentality to take over, to sink in.
But I can try. I want to try. We can all try.
In a world of horrors where murder is common and violence is perceived as normal, a place that is safe and comfortable is tough to find. But it’s not far off. Each one of us is accompanied by the Spirit, a God on Earth. So maybe He gave us the ability to form relationships and to love in order to find home in each other, and ultimately in Him. We have all witnessed injustice, ashes shining like chrome in the streets of an overthrown country. We’ve all been poisoned by media, technology, and a gripping selfishness. But some day, we all find our home, wherever it may be. It’s always crucial to remember that the way things are today are not the way they will be tomorrow, and that redemption is always an option. There’s always a path back into your forest, and your journey is still waiting.
This blog is dedicated to Kara. You are missed and loved. I hope you have found home.
I’ve seen ashes shine like chrome, some day I’ll see home.
Sometimes, life is just exciting. At least for me, anyways. I can get excited sitting in second hour Psychology thinking about an album set to release months from now, plans with friends, and even look forward to a good dinner at the end of the day. I get excited reading books, watching movies, traveling through sound as my speakers blast. Heck, I even got excited on the treadmill last night.
I guess it’s the change in scenery that we tend to appreciate the most. If you live in Florida, Florida is nothing special. No big deal. But to a five year old, Florida is a wonderland. Tides roll and roll for miles, bringing in new treasures to collect and stuff precariously in a suitcase to bring home and quickly shelve for admiration. Beaches span farther than the eye can see, and boardwalks have them turning their head until their neck procures and incurable crook. And then there’s the five foot mouse. Florida is a fun place. An exciting place. I’m going to Florida soon with my mom and some friends of ours, and I’m not going to say I’m not excited.
It’s always the little things that get me amped. I can’t wait to sit on the beach and listen to Switchfoot during the day, the blistering sun beating down on my sunscreen-lathered face, and maybe get lost in thought at night with a soundtrack of the Jon Foreman EPs. I can’t wait to be somewhere new for a week. Where I live is not all that exciting, I’ll tell you that right now. I’m excited to be a temporary resident of a brand new place. It’s seems so exotic while I’m there, like life on a movie screen.
I’m very glad God gives us these chances to be excited. It’s definitely a top five emotion for me. It’s a blessing. Excitement is a gift.
The most excited I can ever remember being is for my first Switchfoot concert back in March of 2010. It was a small venue, I was a Friend of the Foot, and it was all going to be perfect. And it was. I mean, nothing’s perfect, but that’s about as close as I’ll ever come. We walk in to a large lobby for soundcheck, lead by the great Andy Barron, and we hear the opening notes of the Sound. It was invigorating, I can’t even describe that emotion. I’m really surprised I didn’t pass out once that night. Not when they played my favorite song, Sing It Out, during soundcheck, not when the lights dimmed, not even when I met my hero, Jon, for the first time. But the thing was that even though that was what I had been looking forward to for weeks, I was there, and that excitement would not go away. It was still there as we walked wide-eyed back to the car to take the two hour drive home on a Thursday night. It was there when I woke up the next morning at six A.M. to go to school.
It’s been over ten months. It’s still there.
No, not every day is exciting. As I am writing this, I’m on a school bus, flying down a highway I’ve trekked thousands of times throughout my life, to show off my lack of knowledge at a Quizbowl competition. Not terribly fun. But a blessing nonetheless. And I’m starting to wonder why I can’t just be excited about everything. Why shouldn’t I be? I am alive and breathing, I have food and clean water waiting for me at home, and this bus is heated. Why isn’t that exciting enough?
I blame movies. Movies glorify life. They even glorify its nastier aspects like divorce, confusion, and dishonesty. When I watch movies, I want that trendy vibe they all seem to give off in one way or another. I want to pick up and movie into a loft apartment in New York City, one that overlooks a park and is fashionably furnished. I want to sit down at Starbucks every day with a MacBook and write a novel. All of this, meanwhile, is making me terribly rich. These are the kinds of things I dream about. They excite me. But I also have a very strong foot in the door of reality. I’ll probably wind up somewhere close enough to home, work from nine to five, and never have a high enough salary to afford Starbucks every day. These facts bother me. Why have I set these goals for myself? Why can’t I do what I want, what I dream about, what excites me? My immediate answer is money. New York has a price, and a high one at that. But I think I just tell myself that I’m not like the trendy people in the movies. That this, for me, isn’t reality.
What if it could be? Or what if I could try, at the very least?
Writing this blog is making me realize that I should. And I’m getting excited. On the bus to Quizbowl. I haven’t been excited all day.
So maybe dreams equal excitement. Maybe it’s the thrill of what is not, of what is to come. Because it could be anything. I hope the small number of beautiful people that read this blog understand that they deserve to be excited. Your dreams and goals are something that matter, and are things that are waiting to be solidified. Don’t let your excitement be fleeting and don’t let it run away.
Go catch it.
Nothing here’s the same, it’s all a dream; life on the movie screen. And I’m sitting on the edge of my seat.
This song is a catchy little tune that makes me often bounce up and down, ironically, like a bobber. I feel like this is a song where our favorite resident drummer, Mr. Chad Butler, shines. If you’re not listening closely, this song is particularly easy to dismiss as a filler, and I did this for the longest time. It was only a few months ago where I really started listening to what I was missing in this song. And then I got it.
In a life this short, we are constantly setting deadline after deadline until we eventually expire. And it seems that at least half of this time, others are not working to please us, to meet their prerequisite requirements. But are we working to meet theirs?
It often is hard to see what we are doing with our lives because it becomes the same thing time after time. It takes all day to finally reach the night when we are able to unwind and relax. And although we have this time to ponder the meaning of a rising and falling sun and strengthen our relationship with the one who gave us the day, we instead use this time to strengthen our relationships with the television, social network, and treadmill. This is underwater.
Underwater is a place where we can swim away from our own realities. Underwater is home to every lie the Devil’s ever told us. And humanity as we know it has given us so many reasons to dive on in. Religious wars, poverty, genocide. Daily occurrences. We’ve all taken a dive in some body of water in this life we’ve been living. It’s an escape and feels as close to freedom as we’ll ever come. But we always feel that burning in our lungs, that absolute necessity to return above the water for air. The water owns us, we do not own the water. We are not as free as we think we are, submersed in wet isolation. We are meant for the beach, the pool deck, a place where we can survive and enjoy the highs and lows of life. If God exists, as we constantly allude, somewhere above us, then underwater is where we are away from Him. I feel like every truth I’ve ever found is when I’m gripping towards the surface and tumbling onto the soggy, refreshing shore as the tide pushes me in. The time when I’m recovering from an injustice, a sadness, a depression, and being reimmersed in the sunshine of God. This is where I belong, where we all belong.
Sure, there are plenty of fish in the sea, but didn’t Jesus spend his time with the fishermen, performing miracles until every last fish was brought to land? And so many people nowadays do live underwater. It is far from trendy to fall to your knees and seek redemption from God. Instead, people find ways to mask their pain. People climb into the bottle, drowning their sorrows in alcohol instead of begging to be saved. Men and women search for truth in prostitution, gambling, and drugs; This all occurs underwater, away from the saving hand of God. We long to find what we’re looking for, that undefinable goal filled with wisdom and encouragement, in the glorious weightlessness underwater, because it is easy to drift away beneath the heavy undertow. It requires no effort, letting go. But what we don’t always realize is how easy it can be after asking God to take it all from us. God hands out life vests, free of charge, to those who are willing to ask. And once redeemed, he’ll even throw in some sunscreen, no payment necessary! God will protect us from the burns inflicted by the cruelties of this world if we take a minute to lather up. He wants to see us walk around and explore our given world, not a shiny, coral utopia that only exists in the numbest of states. And he is willing to give us whatever we need to ensure that this happens. Yes, sometimes it is extremely hard to allow ourselves to feel, to consider the harsh realities of our lives and press our fingers to the red on our necks. But the answer is not to set sail and plunge into a dark ocean floor where no one cares to know our names. On land, we can speak and form relationships and love and create. We were made to breathe air, made to exist above our crises because we have the mental capacity to look beyond them. It’s not as if this life means nothing, even though at times it may feel so. We will not discover until we are with God what this has all meant, so until then, shouldn’t we enjoy and bask in the sunlight out in the open, with the people we love burning up beside us? We can choose to fall under the pressure of the wave, or lay in the glory of God’s sun with a few friends and a bottle of sunscreen.
She’s underwater.
How many times have I come home from school trying to will away a next day test with my mind? How often do I talk myself out of studying for a daunting exam?
The answer is too many times. Why are we so unwilling when it comes to our obligations? In reality, I am a very studious person, one of few in my class that enjoys soaking up new knowledge. But when it comes to reviewing, I admit my laziness. The truth is that, as a race, we have become apt to putting things off and piling up excuses. I want an A on a quiz, but what have I done to cause this? We wait and wait and wait for things to happen until we’re old and gray and have missed so many opportunities.
If you want to change your situation, you must in turn adapt a new motivation.
Often, we settle contentedly with what we believe (or pretend) we are unable to change. But the fact is that if I want to succeed, I must take steps to be successful.
God has given us the resources and is anxious to see us utilize his gifts.
Because everything we have is a gift. Every skip of the heart as the one you love moves just a little closer. Every aching wound when a family member passes. Every happy go lucky feeling is a privilege not to be taken lightly. Every moment you breathe is precious. Every ounce of the blood that runs through your body from your heart to your feet to your brain is sacred.
Everything we have is because of one sacrifice.
If a friend took a bullet for you, wouldn’t you eventually yearn to live life to the fullest, because you would come to realize that everything could be cut short at a moment’s notice? Because you would come to see that you are lucky to feel, to be alive for a sunset, for a wedding, for a funeral. Lucky that you still have time left to live the way you’ve always wanted to, and that God has given you the tools to do so.
We tend to worship our television sets because they give us the satisfaction of adventure and freedom while we can sit happily on the couch in no danger of being injured, mentally or physically. A noble, upright life is something we can accomplish tomorrow, so for tonight we can just breathe and exist. But what is existence? Is it the physicality of breathing and a pumping heart or is it something much, much more?
I ask myself this all the time.
And the reason I don’t have an answer is most likely because I do not know what it is to truly live. As of right now, I am. Nothing more. I am sitting on a futon writing a blog. Nothing to exciting. But every now and then, I catch a glimpse and get a taste of a different reality. I tend to chase it for a few days, and then give up, because it is simply too difficult to continue on.
But is it?
We have God on our sides, and don’t we say all the time that with God, we can accomplish anything? So why are we lazy, why do we give up?
I am extremely excited to be writing this blog, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered giving up this daunting self-imposed task today. Why? Why would I think that? I love writing, I love Switchfoot, and I love when people read my writing about Switchfoot! And yet I still want to give up.
It’s human nature.
It’s okay to feel lazy.
You just have to understand that if you ask for it, God will give you the strength to carry on. But if you’re not too fond of your present situation, you must take action. Don’t let life happen to you. Because then, while you may be existing, it is possible that you are not alive at all.
It’s all wrong, but it’s all right.
The Legend of Chin. Track 1. Bomb.
So for a while now I’ve been trying to motivate myself to get on Tumblr and finally write a blog about Switchfoot, my favorite band. I’m an aspiring something to do with English major, so I figure a bit of outside-of-school writing hurt. And why shouldn’t I write of something I feel completely passionate about? The sound of Switchfoot is my life soundtrack. I have this reoccurring habit of unclicking that shuffle button and settling on my playlist of every chronologically released Switchfoot song released on an actual album. I takes me on a 13 year journey that seems like it’s only just begun. Needless to say, Switchfoot is awesome. So I thought I’d blog about these songs. Every one. In order. Folks, this’ll take a while. But I feel like these are things that need to be said. And here, we begin with the Legend of Chin, release all the way back in 1997. There is no song story for this track on my favorite website, Land of Broken Hearts, so this first blog will be my deeper understanding and a bit of guesswork. A captivating bass line pulls you in to begin the first album of these San Diego natives. Muted guitars make you inch that volume up every few seconds until you are sure you can’t get enough. And as suddenly as this explosive song came, it’s done. We all have our moments of apathy when we’re just too tired to care. I mean, why would I be thinking about Darfur or human trafficking when I sit in front of my computer, worn out from a week of learning how to solve trigonometric equations and wrapping up Frankenstein with my British Literature class? My stomach is full of pizza and an Arnold Palmer, and I am warm. We become encompassed by our more or less easy living lifestyle. Work nine to five, come home to fix dinner, feed your inner pop culture junkie with an hour segment of the Insider, and then away to bed to do it all again the next day. We sit around, waiting for life to happen to us. We do not naturally seek empathy. We have to be motivated to feel it. We have to be presented with a genuine understanding of a present situation to feel anything at all. Apathy is a disease striking my generation. Apathy is on the rise to become the definition of who we are in 2011. Apathy is the kid falling asleep in Economics. Apathy is the teacher who shows movies every day. Apathy is the father letting his young son into a rated R movie. I have come to the conclusion that if apathy is the disease then God is my only cure. God lights the fuse. God sends sparks and notions and emotion to run through my brain. God lights me on fire. Even when I’m sinking down, further, into nothing, I am easily pulled out by the bomb blast of grace. And I’ve found that I never let go for good. I decide that enough is enough and I’m done caring about the million things in this life that occur each day, each hour, each second, that I simply cannot process it all. But there’s always that voice in the back of my head, telling me that I know this isn’t right, that I’m meant to feel these things and may as well feel them with full force. They say your conscious sounds more and more like yourself over time. I do believe that I’ve come to recognize it as the voice of God. The voice that begs me to rid myself of apathy is not stern or demanding, but speaks with a strong voice that always seems to know what it’s talking about. And once again, the fuse is lit. I discourage my peers from speaking against one another. I begin again to understand that maybe that neighbor that I’m not too fond of has battles and scars I can’t even begin to imagine. I remember the children dying at that very moment. My empathy is directly linked to my faith. I live for that moment when God sets off a blaze in my head as I near the bottom. I’ve begun to live to feel what is around me, to truly experience a meaningful life. This is the bomb that I’ve been waiting for.
