Tales of a Secret Rockstar

This is my issue with Average Joe: It's not fair. They didn't pick average guys to be the "average guys." They picked strange and rather sub-par guys. I mean, there are many average guys who would be considered good looking. But not on that show. Not at all. One of the best looking guys has the weirdest chin shaving job I have ever seen! Ever! The nicest guy is that guy with the terrible teeth who I think looks like Jeremy Taggart (drummer from OLP). I mean, he's nice, but he can't even swim! The guy doesn't even know how to ride a freaking bicycle! How is that average?

Now they've brought in the Pec Squad. It's the 8 hot guys that compete with the average guys. I watched their first week on the island today and it was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. They were so obnoxious, and the other guys were so threatened. They said themselves that it felt like they were in "Revenge of the Nerds." Then the contest this week was this high school setting. They had an IQ test, then an obstacle course, then . . . DODGEBALL!!! What the hell is that? And the ridiculously annoying chick thought the average guys had a chance? Ridiculous! It was like watching highschool guys, but they were all between 21 and 35. I think the pec squad boys have superpowers. That's how ridiculously good looking and well established they are. They can all shoot lasers out of their pecs. And I think Todd might be able to fly.

I think the worst part is the girl. In the first series the girl was believable. Maybe even likeable. But not this time. Sure she's georgeous, but she has not personality, and she's the most annoyingly flirty girl in the world. She's more of a kissing whore (pronounced "whoore") then the first girl was too. All around, a terrible show. I hope the shallowest hot guy wins. She doesn't deserve much else. Especially not the brilliant chef. He's awesome. But he's going to lose. Because he's fat.

This week has probably been one of the lowest points in my distinguished four year stint at Bible College. There are many factors. The main factors I choose not to discuss, even in this relatively personal environment. These main factors were simply catalysts anyhow.

I'm being faced with this simple reality: I am angry. I feel like after 20 years of passive-aggressiveness I'm coming to this boiling point. It's kind of scary. All this anger is coming to the surface. I don't know what to do with it.

Here's my first clue that there was a problem. Every time I thought about some frustrating thing from my church upbringing, even something really mild, my next immediate thoughts involved hitting things with a baseball bat. Mainly the front doors at CLA. I'm not much of a subconscious theorizer, but I think that might mean something.

I think maybe God brought me to this point on purpose. It's like he and I both want to go so much deeper, but, in the immortal words of Hansel, "First me and him need to straighten some shit out." I have issues with God. I'm not convinced he really likes me. I think he loves me because he has to. That's why I was always supposed to love non-Christians. "Love them because God loves them." I suppose that's biblical, but something always seemed amiss. For me, there was no joy in loving non-Christians. My friends were easy enough to love. But they weren't the bad street people that I was supposed to love. They were normal. I don't think I was able to accept that my non-Christian friends were normal, coherent people. I always assumed that they were, on some fundamental level, unable to be happy. Unable to experience joy or love or grace in any form. But really, I think that image is closer to who I was than to who they were. I was depressed. And I knew one thing for certain: if the life I was living was what Christianity was all about, I wouldn't wish it on my enemies, let alone my friends. So I dutifully witnessed (when I could, which was like, once) because I knew that Christianity was right. Morally and logically correct. All this to say, this seems like the reason that God would love me. Because loving me is logically and morally correct. Because it is against God's character not to love me. (Just in case anyone was wondering, I'm being brutally honest here).
But to love me because he wants to?
I can't grasp that. I feel like Martin Luther in his monking years. I just don't get it.
Thus, because I see things this way, I find myself not liking God. I feel like he wants me to bleed or something. I've found myself this week just wondering what the hell he wants from me. Why he let me go through so much in his own freaking church. This whole aspect is really vague. But those are the thoughts I've gathered.

Thus, God and I seem to be at an impasse. Not really an impasse at all, actually. I have walls, he wants them to come down, so he brings me to this place where I have nothing. Nothing at all. I can't even pretend to be happy. I'm not. I just want to swear all day and take up smoking just so I can get caught and draw attention to how screwed up I feel. I've heard every answer the church can give to the whole God's love issue, and I still feel like crap. I think the church's view of the world is seriously skewed. But that's another story.

There's this image I got of God recently. I was thinking about this girl friend of mine, and how messed up her dad is. He is probably one of the most vindictive people I have ever heard of. So I was thinking about God, and how he is her father, and this is the picture that kind of lodged itself in my memory.
Imagine a father whose child is in bed, asleep. I think God would go into that child's room, sit down on the bed, and tuck her in. Then, he would pray for her, stroke her hair, and whisper to her just how much he loves her. Then, I think he would sing over her. Lullabies.
That's the kind of God I want to know.

The stars were brilliant tonight. When I went outside, they just grabbed my attention, and held it for quite a while. I think that's a difficult thing for stars over the city to do, but they did it beautifully.
While I was walking and watching the stars, I heard this train whistle. Usually I don't pay much attention to train whistles, but this one sounded such a clear resounding note. Then this thought jumped into my mind. What if that was the trumpet call of Jesus' return? I just had this glorious imagination of angels' distant trumpets sounding a flourish for a returning king. What a moment! Imagine the purest light dawning over such a clear, black night. Imagine the feeling of knowing you were going to join your king, your saviour, your best friend. Just that split second of anticipation before it actually happened. I felt a taste of that exhilaration. Maybe the early Christians felt that way all the time . . .

The hockey tournament went much better than expected. For one thing, our team just got along really well. It felt like family. After all the craziness leading up to the tournament, that was a welcome feeling. Second, we were totally the underdogs. I loved it. It was cool to face such a challenge, and to see my team rise to that challenge. Third, I really enjoyed being the captain. I just loved leading that team. They were all excited to play and do their best, and it was fun pushing them on. They pushed me on just as much. Man, in our semi-final, going into the overtime period, it felt like we were the Mighty Ducks or something. We just got eachother so pumped up. I think I enjoyed leading this team mostly because my heart was into what we were doing. I believed in us. I saw the odds, and believed that our team could overcome them. That was kind of a new feeling for me. Weird. There's something cool about leading a group of people you like in a cause that you all believe in. It's special. I think Jesus felt like this sometimes . . . on the good days.

I'm getting real tired of trying to pick a freaking hockey team for this tournament. There's nonstop hurdles to jump just to get anyone I want on this team. They feed me a load of shit about how we're a united school and we'll cheer for eachother, when they obviously want their team to win this thing. I don't really care about winning it for myself. I would rather our school had two rather even teams than have one dominating team that is intended to walk all over my team. Then, at the opportune times they're worried about fairness and letting people who signed up get a chance to play. I picked someone who didn't sign up because I think he's better than a lot of the people who did. But apparently I can't do that. I think they would if they could. These are my friends, people I like.

Guys are idiots sometimes.
I wish we were as passionate about encouraging eachother as we are about sports.
Life would be so much cooler.

Talking to girls is a dangerous pastime.

So I was talking to this girl today (not like, the girl of previous blogs, but another random girl). I was basically being a pest, bothering her about stuff. But then she said something serious. I however, not realizing she was serious, continued to be a pest. I kept pestering her and pestering her, until I finally realized she was actually quite serious. It was a sad thing that she was serious. Then she left.
I felt like a moron. A huge moron.

This rather strange conversation drew me to two conclusions:
1) This particular girl has had a much more difficult life than she lets on
2) She hurts a lot

Realizing this kind of broke my heart, if I can say that kind of thing. It's kind of a sappy thing to say, but it's true enough. This led me to think about me, and how I relate to people in general. I mean, how much can I really get involved in an 18 year old girls life? Not much. And I have no bad intentions, but I wonder about my reaction to this sort of thing. I just seem to have so much more of a soft spot for girls. I can't really explain it, in fact I keep praying that God would change it. The Christian world does not look too kindly on a lot of guy/girl counseling. And in many ways I agree with that view. I don't want to compromise myself in any way. I have integrity, and I want more.

But . . .

Sometimes I think girls, particularly girls who have been abused or have gone through family difficulties, have a very skewed image of men, and a very skewed image of themselves. I think girls need to see real masculinity, the kind that looks out for their best interest. The kind that is selfless and strong, yet tender. The prevailing attitude seems to be either self serving flirtiness, which I do struggle with, or girl hating. I don't think either of those are good.
In reality there are at least 10-15 girls at my school that I would love to sit down with, 1 on 1, just to tell them that they are beautiful. Girls need to hear that from a guy who doesn't want anything from them. I just feel so weird wanting to be the one to do that. It doesn't seem right. I just can't handle seeing girls who have a terrible self image try so hard to gain acceptance. I want to sit them down, look them in the eyes, and tell them how terribly beautiful and important they are, both to God and to the people around them. Whether the people around them think so or not.

There's one girl I hang out with once in a while, who I'm always challenging to like herself. Recently she said she didn't think that she was going to get married for a long time. I asked her, "Do you think you're worth marrying?" She started talking about her cooking and cleaning abilities, her character, etc. I said, "No, do you think you're worth marrying?" I wanted her to see that what would hold her back from a healthy relationship is not her character or abilities, it is whether she thinks she is worth loving or not. I think she is. I try to believe that every person is, although I can be terribly judgmental. Anyways, for some reason that kind of thing is important to me.

So, I don't really know how this all plays out in my life. I definitely pray more for girls than for guys. I asked God to take this away if it isn't from him. And if it is from him, I just ask him to make and keep it healthy.

I need a lot of grace. That's not easy for me. That's not even easy for me to admit. I'm not good with grace. I don't know how it works really. I'm kind of a perfectionist. I don't give myself any grace. What is grace?

Grace is the first mountain stream bringing spring's life to a dry creek bed.
Grace is the light in the eyes of a child.
Grace is the shooting star that no one else saw.
Grace is my eyes, turned inside out, away from me.

Today, I am unhappy.
It's bigger than a simple circumstance or event.
I am unhappy. I am confused and scared. Life just seems out of control, and I find it hard to care. Not that I don't care, more that I feel like I can do nothing about it. I'm drifting like a ship with no sails. Or motor. Or rudder.
I don't like being sad. I feel like a burden on society. I was always taught to be happy around people, so that I wouldn't bring them down. That's how I spent alot of my depressed years. I don't know if I'm as fun as I appear. Sometimes I think it's just an act or something. Not that I don't like having fun. I just don't think I'm very good at doing it without hiding, or trying to impress people.

Maybe I'm just too hard on myself. I've discovered that I'm not very good at grieving. I hate showing emotion. Of any kind really. If I'm happy, people make fun of me because somehow being happy is stupid, or out of style now. Maybe that's being a little too dramatic, but sometimes it seems that way, especially with my guy friends. I don't like telling them things I like, because they tell me I'm a girl. Seriously. It's like people think I want to be a woman or something. I just don't think masculinity lies in whether you like action movies or not . . .

I knew a guy at camp who was really effeminite. We, being 15 year old high school guys, made fun of him alot. He listened to Britney Spears and Shakira and danced really effeminitely and talked with a lisp. I think if I knew him now I'd be alot more gracious. He was a good guy. And I don't think he was gay. I think I respect how much he didn't compromise himself. He couldn't not be effeminite. So he didn't stop just because we teased him. That's cool . . .

Anyways, if I'm sad, I don't feel like I can say anything for some reason. I just feel like I'm bringing people down or something. Again, this is mostly with my guy friends. I don't know what it is. Maybe I just can't relate. I'm not a good communicator sometimes. That's why I write. So, I feel kind of . . . trapped? I don't know. I just seem to have all this stuff deep inside that never really comes out. And I don't notice it most of the time, but every once in a while it surfaces. Then it's scary. I don't make much sense. I have trouble accepting that I'm different. I'm afraid to be like somekind of snobby writer who wears black trench coats and makeup to prove how different he is. I don't want to prove it. I'm scared of it! But it's there, all the time.

I'm ranting.
Sorry.
Actually, I'm not sorry at all.

My Grandpa died on December 14, his birthday. He was 77 years old. I really waited to write anything, because I wanted to give him some kind of fitting tribute before I moved on with my blog. I really wanted to write a poem, and that still might come later. But for now, I think I will say this.

My grandfather was a man who made me feel at home. It didn't really matter who I was, I was always the same to him. If that makes sense. I guess I knew he loved me no matter what I did or who I was. I felt like I didn't have to prove anything to him. He was always so proud of me. And I know he prayed for me all the time. He was special to me. When I was little, he was one of my best friends. He had so much wisdom. I always admired that. I want that. When I was an insecure, geeky highschool kid, he still made me feel at home. It didn't matter to him. That meant alot to me. And as I grew up, and he got sick and more distant, I still always loved and respected him. He was always wise and loving. He cared. He was a warrior. He wouldn't back down from spiritual opposition. He had alot of faith. I respect him. I'll miss him alot. But I know he's finished his course, and he fought a good fight. He has nothing to regret. That makes me happy. I think that's the way it should be.