Not Penny's Boat

I have no idea what I'm doing.


And feel free to tell your friends, I'm over trying to look like I do. Cause I just don't. And that's how this story goes.

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You know what irritates me about academics? They always have to friggin talk. There is no discussion. True discussion in academia is a myth. Really, they just want to hear themselves talk. And my God, talk they absolutely do. On and on and on and on and on....and when I finally get a word in edgewise, I'm pretty sure what I say is not heard at all.

How do we get like this? How do we become so obsessed with how much we know about You that it turns right around to become about us? How do You keep from proverbially slapping us across the face?!

I wouldn't blame You if You did...even to me. Because You know that that kind of person is the absolute last thing I want to be.

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I understand that I exhaust people.

I get it that I'm like uber-intense and seem like I don't give people a break.

But I really do, and if you can stick around long enough, you figure out exactly what kind of person I am. I love pop-culture--I watch all those ridiculous shows that get made fun of on The Soup, which I also watch. I love to numb my mind sometimes.

I feel too much.

I see too much.

And it exhausts me, too.

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I'm convinced that humanity as a whole should spend more time with their mouths closed and listen better.

Everybody just shut the hell up.

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I committed today to a final project for my Worship and Spirituality class. I told him that since my final Annotated Worship Experience (sounds fancy/cooky-weird, right?) will be designed for a youth group whose services often include a lot of media, I wanted to do a separate project (since I'm a grad student and it's required) on "secular" media and the way it can be used to teach. I made it pretty clear, I thought, that I want to use specific TV shows and bands that may or may not explicitly use religious imagery all the time to train a group of youthies in how to adopt a mentality that allows them to participate alongside culture while still understanding the concept of being "set apart." The theology of "secular" entertainment, if you will. For instance: how to watch LOST and see Jesus. How to listen to Kanye and see Jesus. How to care about Britney Spears the way Jesus does.

What I do NOT want to do, is talk about the use of "clips" in a message. I'm pretty sure I said those exact words...

He proceeds to say to me, "well that's not very original at all."

Um, really?

"Haven't you been to services where people use media in messages?"

Well, yes, but that's not what I'm trying to do at all.

"Yes it is."

Um, no. It's not.

Pretty sure I know what I'm trying to do, thanks for playing.

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I mean, can you even see me standing here?

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I no longer care. I know what I'm trying to say. So I'm just going to say it and stop trying to avoid being misunderstand. Screw the prologue...damn the introduction and disclaimer straight to hell.

Here's the point.

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Christ = Hope.

And there are only two kinds of stories in the world--

...the ones with Hope...and the ones without

...the ones who display the human search for echad and reward it...and ones who display human depravity without redemption

..the ones that move you...and the ones that oppress you

...it's either about you, or it's about something bigger than you

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I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun.

Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences

--CS Lewis Meditation in a Toolshed