The Hole of Latent Energy

Sometimes I get lonely.

Why is this? The question posed here is one that haunts me in my times of solitude. This loneliness doesn't just come when I'm physically alone. In fact, I like the time I have to myself. This feeling just hits me sometimes out of the blue. When I'm with my best friends, I get lonely. When I'm having a good time with my roommates, I get lonely. When I'm praying, I get lonely. When I'm with my family, I get lonely. This lonely, restlessness doesn't come everyday. Sometimes it waits a day or two to rear its head. But it comes; eventually, it comes. It comes when I listen to Taylor Swift songs. It comes when I watch Definitely, Maybe or Dan in Real Life or any other movie about a guy and a girl falling in love and living happily ever after. It comes when I'm around two people passionately and wholly devoted to one another. It comes because I want that.

Inside of my heart lies a latent energy. One that carries more power than I know what to do with. Sometimes this energy seeps out of me when I tell a close friend how much I want a wife and kids someday. Sometimes this energy oozes out of my aching heart when I prepare a meal for some of my good friends and then sit down to enjoy it across the table from a couple looking wistfully into each others' eyes. And I sit there alone in a room full of people... at least I'm eating something good I guess.

But ultimately, my heart turns to a question: why in the midst of so much happiness and contentment and love do I feel this burning desire for something more? Why if I have the greatest Love ever to grace the earth with His presence do I long for something other than Him? This I cannot answer. Do I even need to answer it?

For the sake of torture, I'll pose yet another riddle: Why now? Why can't this desire lie in some cave at the depth of my soul for five more years? Why does it show itself when I still have (at least) two more years of college (and there's no way I'm getting married in college)? Why does this desire appear when I'm still years away from even being ready to pursue it? How can this desire show up when I also have this deep yearning to go find something up in the Northwest somewhere? Something rugged, something fiercely simple? Love may be rugged, but it is by no means simple. Where do I go with that?

Insane.

For now, I shall live a joyous, tortuous, vague, and extraordinarily loving existence as I toss pennies into the hole of latent energy that dwells inside me.

...Peace be with you.

In Excess

I just watched a special on ESPN's Outside the Lines that highlighted the troubled times of professional sports in the United States. To put it lightly, I found this program troubling. The show talked about how layoffs are occurring at every level in every professional sport. The franchises just can't get enough people in the seats to pay the bills. The recession we've been dealt has sent thousands of families across the country scrambling to make ends meet due to the inevitable pink slip frenzy that follows the bear market. And the result for professional sports is bottom lines dragging the floors of their stadium palaces because these same families can no longer afford to drop between twenty five and a hundred dollars a ticket to watch Lebron, Arod, or Peyton light up their respective court, diamond or field with incredible athletic prowess.

The part of the show that frustrated me was when Bob Lee (the host) interviewed two people as to what could possibly be done by these franchises to fix this problem. And this is what gets me about our uber capitalistic mindset in America. Not one of them ever even hinted at the idea of reducing the players' salaries. Never once did the program hint at the idea of sports stars making a little less money (i.e. $1 million/year instead of 5, 10, or 20 million/year) in their contracts. Never did the idea come up that moms and dads working for professional sports organizations could keep their jobs if the spoiled, over payed, overvalued professionals would take a pay cut. In fact, they spent the whole of the interview dogging the owners and operators of the teams because they haven't been savvy enough to trick more people into spending more of their hard earned paychecks on watching the super brats expend blood, sweat and tears live and in person.

Perhaps one day, this recession will turn out to be a good thing for professional sports, and the rest of America for that matter. Maybe one day the extreme greed that has taken over our culture will one day subside. Perhaps, yes perhaps, one day professional athletes can find it in their consciences to sacrifice their exorbitant lifestyles so that one day when I have a family I can afford to take my kid to a game to see his "heroes" play.

Cookout

The events that transpired last night were some of the most fun I've had in quite a while. First of all, it was a cookout which automatically bumps any occasion up to a six. No matter how horrible the affair may be, add in a grill and some type of meat and I'm happy as a cow in California. But this was by no means one of those drab affairs where you just hunker down in a lawn chair in the corner and twiddle your grease-soaked fingers. Last night I was surrounded by good people, good food and good music. Not to mention fiery marshmallow fliers and fire breathing...

Show and Tell

Here are some things that I've learned in the past few weeks:

1. I like to write.
2. I like to blog.
3. I despise the word blog.
4. I don't really like the woods in the summer time. Too many spider webs.
5. Pandora is great.
6. Morning routines are great.
7. I love 70's rock.
8. I have really great friends.
9. I don't want to go to Grad school right after I graduate. I want to spend a few years on my own surrounded by good friends, a good church, and something else I haven't figured out yet.
10. I'm going to move back home someday. (By home I mean Indianapolis, not my mother's house. I love her more than most on this earth, and she loves me the same, but that would drive us both crazy.)
11. Dancing is fun, but only when in very small groups. (for both my and humanities sake)
12. I love having friends who are different than me.
13. Love is the most profound thing you can share with another person. And you can share it with anyone.
14. We don't need to fix society; we need to work on ourselves; only then can society go under construction.
15. God created each one of us different. We are all weird. We are all crazy. We all have the capacity and the freedom to be individuals in one Kingdom, and the funny thing is, the King wants it that way; he created it that way. I think I've found more peace in this idea than any other.

A Journey Worth Revisiting

Yesterday I went to take some breakfast to some terminally ill men with my good friend and pastor, Eddie Young. On the way there, we were just shootin the breeze and the topic of people watching came up. We both love to people watch (sometimes he goes to the mall with his wife and they'll sit there for a while and just watch the people going by). I told him that I love to make up stories for people. For example, I wonder where that dude's been today, or hmm, what has her life been like? People are so amazingly complex and life stories follow in that same line. So not only do I love to people watch, but I also love to hear people's life stories. The journey of a life is one that is always worth revisiting. I think one of the aspects that most intrigues me is the idea that two people can be presented with very similar routes but end up very different. Or conversely, two people who grew up in very different environments can end up very similar. I love finding out that I've grown up in a similar circumstance as one of my friends and come out with the same results. One of the best things about knowing a person's story is that I get to interact with that person according to what I know about him/her. It's a huge asset to a friendship. The feeling of knowing someone so well that I can almost predict what they're about to do or how they'll react to something is a feeling that I cherish in life.

The Simple Life

Henry David Thoreau came to my attention recently. Really the only clear views I had of him in my mind before I began reading about him was that he lived in the woods and he viewed nature (Nature) with a sense, and perhaps an unhealthy sense, of awe and magnificence. I have yet to begin reading his actual writings, but I have read about half of the introduction to the anthology of his works. In the first few pages of this introduction, the author highlights some of Thoreau's views on life, and I believe that at least a few of them have parallels into Christianity. As far as I know Thoreau had no ties to the Church in any respect, so I'm not saying that this man's life was by any means one that endeavored to follow Christ, but I do believe that Christians can learn a few things about how this man lived. As a side note: by all means, share with me any concerns, disagreements or quarrels you may have with what I have said and/or what I am about to say.

What I am concerned with in this entry is what the very title offers: the simple life. I have thought about this very topic since I read Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution. That was almost three years ago, but since then I have read other authors and books (Thomas Merton and the Gospels being examples) and have made observations about the world around me that lead me to one very simple quotation from Mr. Thoreau: "Simplify." I am not saying that I have figured out the meaning of life, but I do say that simplification is necessary in a very complex world. I refer mostly to materialistic simplification when I speak of a simple life. (i.e. having only one or no TV in your house or perhaps having a two bedroom house for a family of three instead of a four or five bedroom house with a basement and a play room and a storage room and three bathrooms, etc, etc.) Jesus refers to material simplicity in several circumstances. First, when he sends out the twelve, he commands them to "acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff, for the laborer deserves his food" (Matthew 10: 9-10). There are also other instances when Jesus refers to a person gaining the whole world but losing his soul, or when Jesus tells a man to sell all he possesses and follows up that the wealthy would sooner watch a camel pass through the eye of a needle than enter the Kingdom of Heaven. All this to say that I don't believe that anyone who makes over fifty grand a year or any person with a three level house cannot be in the Kingdom. I am saying, and I believe Jesus gets at this too, that a materially simple existence is far wiser, far more pleasing, and far better for the Kingdom of God than one lived in astute opulence and comfort.

Thoreau poignantly states in one of his works that, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Why is this? Thoreau is partially right in his response-- "Simplify." Man must simplify his life. However, the key to this equation has been overlooked by Mr. Thoreau. This key lies in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Peace and love and joy like no other found on earth or above it are found in the life, the wounds, and the resurrection of this, our Savior.

On the flip side of Thoreau there are many who follow Christ in 21st century America who fall into this desperate mass of men. My message to them is this: Simplify.

Wake Up Call!

I was rudely awakened at three o'clock this morning by the lamp that is attached to the side of my bed. After I woke up and steadied myself from the pain, I realized that I had been sleeping on the edge of my bed and whacked my nose against the corner of this lamp. Was it a dream? Not according to the bruise that is now supplanted on the bridge of my nose.

A Brother's Love

The following poem is an excerpt from the last page of the book I just finished. The book is Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain (I highly recommend it). The poem is written by him and is directed toward his brother who lost his life in WWII. The love conveyed in this poem is one that I have not found with either of my two brothers, but one that I would cherish. Especially in light of the fact that Merton helped lead his brother into the waters of baptism shortly before his departure to Europe, and ultimately his death.

"Sweet brother, if I do not sleep
My eyes are flowers for your tomb;
And if I cannot eat my bread,
My fasts shall live like willows where you died.
If in the heat I find no water for my thirst,
My thirst shall turn to springs for you, poor traveller

Where, in what desolate and smokey country,
Lies your poor body, lost and dead?
And in what landscape of disaster
Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?

Come, in my labor find a resting place
And in my sorrows lay your head,
Or rather take my life and blood
And buy yourself a better bed--
Or take my breath and take my death
And buy yourself a better rest.

When all the men of war are shot
And flags have fallen into dust,
Your cross and mine shall tell men still
Christ died on each, for both of us.

For in the wreckage of your April Christ lies slain,
And Christ weeps in the ruins of my spring:
The money of Whose tears shall fall
Into your weak and friendless hand,
And buy you back to your own land:
The silence of Whose tears shall fall
Like bells upon your alien tomb.
Hear them and come: they call you home."

Father, may you open the hearts of my brothers, and may they find our Christ and through Him grace and peace. And when this happens may you lend me grace to welcome them home.

What about the woods?

My facebook status a few days ago was "kyle needs to find the woods." Reading my last post compared to this facebook status could seem a bit confusing. To make it easy separate the two ideas. It's not the same metaphor. I've changed my blog title which also may add to the confusion. I probably should have spent my first post explaining the idea of the blog and the woods metaphor. So, let me now explain...
I love the woods. I love being in the woods; I love looking at pictures of the woods; I love to think in the woods and let the natural sounds and silence envelop me in its soft overcoat. Furthermore, many other people in history have felt the same way. Specifically, Thoreau and the transcendentalists, but there are others as well. This being said, the woods are my temporal and symbolic place I like to use to refer to my introspection and the journey of finding myself. I'm by no means a pantheist, but I do believe that God is in the woods. I haven't thought about it enough to have a definite idea, but I know that God is there, and the silence and peacefulness that the forest pervades brings one closer to the Creator than anything created by the creation.

The post I wrote the other day used the woods in a general sense to explain the state I was in at the time. I felt lost. I felt stranded. I haven't been motivated for life in a while. I had gotten bogged down in junk, in trash, in the world. I am not one to say that a person should forget all of society and retreat into obscurity in order to purify his soul of the world, but there is a certain gunky residue that one must deal with when he loses himself in the desires of the flesh. I do this too often, and the result is this feeling of profound gunkiness. The muck that clings to me leaves me with a confused and cloudy feeling. And consequently it leaves me with a hunk of apathy. Apathy towards myself, toward others, toward God. Above most things that I can't stand is apathy. I hate when others are apathetic, especially Christians, and I hate when I become this way as well. I can't stand being unmotivated and stuck in the mud. This blog is a way for me to loose some of those chains, clean off some of that muck and get my head a little clearer. In the coming days and months, I will share my life, my mind and my soul. I hope that you find this journey pleasant.

Motivation

Motivation is a prime antecedent in life. It comes before just about everything. Why did you get out of bed? You were motivated to start your day. Why did you tie your shoes? You were motivated to prevent your shoes from falling off. Why did you cover yourself when someone walked in on you in the bathroom of Pilot when you were changing? You were motivated to prevent him/her from seeing your hidden treasures. And the examples could go on and on.

This could turn into a deep philosophical/ metaphysical discussion of motivation and its causes and whether or not it really exists at all. I will, however, leave those meanderings of the mind to such people as Rene Descartes and John Locke for my mind is far too inferior to deal with such things. What I am concerned with is the practical nature of what I understand to be motivation. What is it? Where does it come from? How do I get some? Why is it that I'm motivated to do this much in life, and Benjamin Franklin was motivated to do that much in life? Why is it that at different points in life motivation is strong and vibrant, but in other points of life motivation wanes and dries up?

My main concerns with motivation at this point are where did it go and how can I get it back? Whatever it is, from whereever it comes, I've lost it. I'm lost in the woods, and I don't have the will to search for an exit.