right now

I write a lot of things here that verge on, "vague," or even, "cryptic." I think this time it might be refreshing to write something free from the haze of ambiguity. So, how 'bout an update?

I recently moved from Nashville, TN to Salem, OR. I'm sure the first thing in your head is, "why?" and then the second must be, "I'm sure it's for a girl." If that's what you thought... well... you're entirely correct.

I am engaged to a beautiful west-coast woman. I am living with her parents at the moment, which I'm sure sounds like it must be a nightmare. Surprisingly, it isn't. In fact, it couldn't be a more pleasant arrangement. Their generosity and grace are perhaps their strongest qualities.

I don't have a job yet; I also am lacking a vehicle. I should probably be overwhelmed. I'm not, though. Well, not all the time at least. I am more just excited to see how things pan out.

I'm also trying to establish myself as a person apart from my fiancee. As proud as I am to be associated with her, I don't only want to be "Aly's fiance" in the minds of others. What I'm really praying for are even just a couple solid relationships with people my age. I'd prefer guys (I already get my fair share or estrogen), and I'd love someone I could play music with.

Aly and I met with her pastor last Thursday to see if he'd perform the ceremony. He is, and he will also be offering us per-marital counseling for the next few months. Oddly, I'm really excited about it. I know it's probably going to be something that is more difficult than it sounds, but I also really feel good about having someone with an outside perspective offering advice an input into our relationship and the inevitable challenges we'll face adjusting to incessant togetherness. He gave us a book with matching workbooks to begin on called, "Saving Your Marriage Before it Starts." Even the first chapter has been seriously eye-opening. It's a bit of a buzz-kill, but it is really giving me, I think, more realistic expectations for Aly as a person, and for our relationship in the future.

About a week ago we visited the location for the wedding. It is about 30 miles South of Salem in between the more rural communities of Albany and Corvallis. We turned off the highway and towards what seemed like a road curving into nothingness - just fields and their accompanying farm houses almost disappearing into the distance before being stopped abruptly at the foot of the Cascades. After not more than 5 minutes we pulled into a driveway next to a small house. This isn't a commercial wedding site. It's more like a word-of-mouth location. A small old lady with less than perfect hearing lives on the land, which is comprised mostly of intricate gardens. She must spend all of her time tending to them; thats what she was doing when we pulled in, anyway.

We walked on a footbridge over a rushing stream, and Aly showed me around, describing how she is picturing everything. Occasionally she would glance at me with a hopeful and inquiring look, as if to ask, "Do you like it?" I did. It felt like Narnia. The grass was a deep green. Cows lulled in the mid-ground. In the distance snow-caped mountains completed the picturesque setting. It was truly surreal. Now, having no plan B, let us all pray it does not rain in Salem - or how about anywhere in Oregon, to be safe - on July 7, 2008.

Until then, however, I need to catch up on some sleep. And get a job. And a car. And save some money. And help plan a wedding (kinda). And plan a honeymoon. And THAT (pause for emphasis) is about all that is going on right now.

déjà vu

today is my awakening. it feels like a new birth. it feels like a moment of truth. but i'm also clouded in this dream i've had a million nights prior. so why is this one real? it feels like a dream. i need a grounding. i need a line to pull myself back in. like an astronaut drifting pleasantly away. i'm suddenly jerked to a more terrifying reality: what if i wake up again? what if this ends like every other dream.

tonight is a moment of truth. this week is a moment of truth. this holiday season will be a long moment of truth. man, truth is scary as hell.

i don't want to slip into drama, but i hope i can be new again. thats the thought that is pounding in my head. with every single pulse that hope is giving me life. its this idea of waking from dream that feels so so real. like vanilla sky, you know? i wouldn't feel this way if i hadn't already dreamed today over and over. and now its happening like a deja vu.

i can feel my own body. i can voluntarily think whatever i wish. i can stand up and walk into a new room. i can choose all of these things, and that tells me that "the now" is real. however, anything that i think or do i am almost entirely convinced has happened before. its eerie. and its strange. i need something to connect me with the ground. but at the same time, i'm almost more afraid to just "snap out of it." i feel like there is so much riding on this moment that i can't just abandon it.

and now i realize that i must sound like i've taken a few pills, smoked some vegetation, or ingested some fungi... but i assure you, the reader, that i have not. existence just seems to be having its way with me and i'm having a little trouble adjusting.

oh man, i really need to stop writing but i feel like THIS is my anchor. THIS is connecting me to something so that I don't drift away into a vacuum.

ya, its happening... i feel like i should write "help" but that won't matter by the time anyone reads this... and whoever is reading this. "i'm sorry you felt you had to read this."

end.

dal mio cuore e nei vostri orecchi

how do you write the words that
a million hearts have already sung
while a million hearts sang along?
how can you make that new?

it occurs to me that those hearts
they don't have a clue
and those words
they aren't nearly as true.

because they weren't written for you

desire and fulfillment

Art.

It's something I feel. It's something so deeply embedded in my being. I need it. It's fulfillment of a desire to express. It's the appreciation of another's desire fulfilled.

But it is also elusive. I'm stuck somewhere in the tension between desire and fulfillment. For writers its called writer's block. I don't know what you call it for anyone else. I'm one of those people that when I reach out my hand I don't know whether it will grab a guitar or a pen. And if I touch my pen to paper, I don't know whether it will write or draw. Sometimes I feel without a niche. But other times I just feel lucky. Right now I feel stuck.

Between desire and fulfillment.

what you dont have, you don't need it now

I'm begining to think that we might need to live our lives knowing less than we want to know and having less than we're told we need.

I thought it was a phase. I have been learning to move from despairing in my situation, to coping with it. Now I'm moving from coping with it to living it out fully. I always have what I need. And I don't think that is exclusive to me and my situation. I am amazed when I come across people in incredibly difficult situations who are able to rest in God's provision.

These are thoughts.
Here are more.

What about when I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or even what I'm doing. I looked through the entire undergraduate catalog this weekend and could not find a single major that really grabbed me. But I do know that I want an education. So what do I do? I've already quit school... twice. I just want to be done with it.

But maybe I have what I need? Right? I just said that. The next step is actually believing it. Maybe I've been more responsible with the expectations of others than with the dreams God has given me.

allure of the "profound facade"

“Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is a even afraid to tell himself, and ever decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away… Man is bound to lie about himself.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Notes from Underground)

I am supposed to be writing a paper on literary styles used in revealing a motif of self-deception in two novels. It's got me inquiring as to my own level of self-deception and I can't seem to focus as much on the paper as the importance of truth. I find that it is easy to be allured by the profound facade of something of this title. But truth, like love, is not a victory march. Its a cold, and its a broken "hallelujah." (credit, of course, to Leonard Cohen) Truth isn't whatever is convenient to believe or whatever sounds the most noble. This is a scape-goat truth. This truth is one that simply allows avoidance of social realities, hindering relationships. And it also, and more importantly, avoidance of ones darkest self.

More often than not, I think, truth will be dirty. It will be a disturbing thing that we have to come to terms with. But supposedly it will set us free...

To what lengths do we go to hide from ourselves? And how brave must we be to backtrack into the dark to become free of our masks?

I'm also distracted by the few red leaves that I have noticed from my fourth floor window perch in the library. I guess fall is here...

"freely you received"

I find it encouraging to read Psalms in which David is lamenting, calling for help, or just feeling plain shitty. Sorry, David. I don't want to seem like I'm taking comfort in your pain. Really, its more that I'm taking comfort in your honest approach to life. There is a reality that we feel and see and hear and taste and smell around us. And this is real, right? This is what we are born experiencing. David felt it and lived within it, this creation of God. But what kind of reality does God live in? Of course the immediate and safe Christian doctrine answer would be that He is here, now, with us. And this is more true than we pretend to know, but there is something more. There was God before there was the ground we walk upon, which tells me that this reality is not the be and end all.

So how does this apply to encouragement when feeling down? Well that all depends on whether or not you believe it possible to live beyond what we see, hear, feel, etc. God created this container we call "reality" for us to exist in, but did He intend for us to be confined to it? Was it really to contain us? Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of Heaven is near. He told His disciples to preach the same. Is "near" a measurement of time or location? I actually just looked it up. So...

I used Matthew 10:7 when Jesus is commissioning his disciples he says "the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." (NAS) The Greek verb that is translated "is at hand" is eggizo. It means to draw near. [look here] I also looked in an online study Bible and saw a footnote for that verse saying that it littoral meant "has come near." [look here] So unless it has left, it is still near, right? Well, it gets better...

Right after verse 7, Jesus commands His disciples to go be crazy asses:

He said, "8 "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give."

I mean... what?!? Who does that?? Apparently they did. Human beings, living with a command to be supernatural. And I know people will argue that just because the disciples were given the ability to apparently function in the supernatural does not mean that we are as well. But Let me just say one thing. If I know human beings, just like me, in the past have been able to, then there is no way in hell I'm not going to try to live my life like that, too.

This was all just a spontaneous train of thought so I don't really know how to end it. But I did just want to add that the reason I started writing today is because by 9am, this had already been the shittiest day of the semester. I had every intention of just writing out some sort of pseudo-complaint disguised as an intelligent line of thought and I feel like God redirected me into the way He wants me to think, and that's really pretty damn cool. So anyway, I'm just going to leave it like that and go to the post office.

my love is a room of broken bottles and tangled webs

It's true.

I find myself in love with everything. Which is good, right? At lest in some ways? I love something about almost every day. I'm in love with every girl. I love spending time with my close guy friends. I sound like that flowery girl in highschool who you tried to get to cuss in every class by stealing her pens or drawing obscene pictures on her textbooks.

But the thing is, I've realized I just don't love... well. Sad realization, yes. Especially lately. This may seem like normal behavior, but I've just been picking on all my friends a lot. Most of the time its fine, but sometimes I feel like its just too much. And its just because I'm too lazy to figure out what kinds of things bother other people. I just won't put forth the effort.

So, I want to be more respectfully and treat them well. I love the people in my life. They kick ass.

jesus, etc.

So first off I must address and apologize for my unfaithfulness to my writings. This may affect no one and it may also be critical to continued universal existence, but this is what I offer and a decline in the frequency I write is also a decline in an art of personal vitality.

That's that.

The word of the day is experience.

I feel, at times weighed by a burden that many others I know seem not to bear. And yet describing this weight as a burden seems almost insane because as much as I loathe it, I long for it. And as much as I fear it, it is my comfort. No part of my being really knows what to do with this thing which is commonly known as conscience. I'll bypass Webster for you on this one, and define this according to Jacob's dictionary...

Conscience. n. A spiritual impartation, or duress (depending on one's stance), from the Holy Spirit, of the will of God upon a human being's soul to bring one closer to His own likeness in purity and holiness.

And now back to the word of the day (if you will remember, this word is "experience"). I have a history, if you will, with the creator of the universe. We go way back. Like any relationship it has its ups and downs, and I freely admit my unfaithfulness is at the core of most of the problem's we've experienced in the past. As for those current and future... we're still working on those. But I'm sure they, too, are issues of my own. In the meantime there is still this conscience imposing its will upon my own creating a constant quarrel.

Something tells me this is all going to boil down to a question of belief, so I think I'm going to discard all the fluff in between the issue and the answer. Today I had a perspective moment. If you, the reader, have ever read any blog of significance that I have written then this will sound familiar. I need God more than I could ever really know. I know that is a cheesy Christian cliche usually disregarded as tired bullshit. I know. But I had a moment where I recognized (again) how small I truly am. And He has been so faithful to me in ways that I never even think about. Except today I began to try to think about them and became swiftly overwhelmed. I couldn't do it. I experienced an emotion in the same family as sadness, but I wasn't sad. I was ashamed. I do not love God well. I love my damn cat (bless her sweet, sharp paws) better than I love God.

This, in turn, gives me a new perspective on conscience. I suddenly feel like God really does have a plan for me. I suddenly feel less suspicious that He might be the bad guy. And if I really take a good look at this will of His that He seems to be imposing upon my life, it seems less like an imposition and more like the guiding hand of someone who sees the big picture. This proves true in the context of today's word as well.

How many times can one be new? I'm beginning to hope that every moment I will be...

until next time...

Yesterday I met Dolly Parton and a girl who could kick my ass. Today I didn't work but went in anyway an hour and a half late. I watched Seinfield and drank beers with a friend I haven't seen in a while. There was good conversation. There were also cigarettes and Jimmy John's sandwiches involved.

I think that reality is relative. Maybe. I'm not sure I think that at all, actually. But I do think about it.

I also think I'm in no state to be writing a blog. These beers are sending me to bed. And so is Ryan Adams. And I'm beginning to agree with them.

Ya, bed sounds awesome. I'll pretend to be deep and in some sort of literary substance tomorrow.

Goodnight.

yesterday

On June 5th two men feasted upon the following (each):

• 2 rolls
• salad
• 10 oz. ribeye, medium rare
• quarter rack ribs
• 1 serving loaded mashed potatoes / steak fries and steamed vegetables
• 24 oz. killians

The occasion?

They were hungry...

daniel lanois

Who do I have to blame for my ignorance? Why have I never heard this name Daniel Lanois before a week ago? I am blown away by the beautiful ambient folk of his album, Shine (2003). He has an extensive catalogue of his own music (that I have every intention of digging into) especially considering he also happened to produce U2's The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991), All that You Can't Leave Behind (2000), and co-produced The Unforgettable Fire (1984) with Brian Eno. As if that weren't enough, Bono suggested Lanois to Bob Dylan in the late 80's and he ended up producing Oh Mercy (1989) and Time Out of Mind (1997). He also worked with Peter Gabriel and Emmylou Harris.

Lanois' lyrics are semi-abstract but almost tear at truths and passions that are buried in one's heart. Listening to Shine has been an experience that reminds me of C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which Aslan frees Eustace from what he has become (a dragon!) by peeling off layer after layer of scales and skin. And as painful as self-analysis can be, the smooth guitar and brilliant production allows the process to be a most peacefully reflective one.

It is awesome to me (and I truly mean I am in awe) that an album like this would come to me at a time where I am nearly obsessed with truth and being alive. Even more interesting is that a friend of mine who helped introduce Lanois to me even claims that this album convinced him to not commit suicide a few years ago. Maybe I'm just crazy and I'm drawing too much from "small" things. Maybe I'll suck them dry. Or maybe something divine is happening.

I'd like to think the latter.

[most of the discography info was taken from the wikipedia article on Daniel Lanois. i don't retain that much knowledge on my own.]

rain forged reality

Monotony creates illusion. While some people escape through alcohol and some people escape through sexual fantasy, many more escape through the monotony of their stoic unchanging everyday existence.
You've got your 9 to 5, then home by 6, in bed by 8, up by 6... (to quote the Loft).
An illusion of life is a life not worth living.

I sit on a grandma couch with floral pattern in a garage over-run with old prints behind cracked glass, charcoal grills, baskets of laundry, and even more furniture. Rain has been steadily washing over the roof above me and the concrete in front of me is releasing a steam from the warmer half of today. The leaves of giant trees droop a dark green and sway with the weight while a thin fog lingers 30 feet into their limbs. And I feel alive. I feel like I've shed another skin of numbness, as I so often do. I live for things that shake my ever wandering perception of reality. Every so often something real (for lack of a better word) grabs me like a child eager to show his parents a new discovery, and drags me back to meaningfulness.

My cigarette ash is as drawn out as my thoughts. My Rice Krispies are singing with the rain. Time that has been steadily marching forward for an eternity has slowed to a casual saunter as if to take in every moment that is happening, in every life, at every time of day, all across this earth. It reminds me of all the people I know in different time zones, countries, and continents. I wonder what they are doing at the very moment I type these words. I wonder what they are thinking. I wonder who they are with, what they are feeling. "When was the last time they thought of me?" I muse. And I pray for their well-being. All of this puts me in my place. Small, in that I am only here: at one point in geography and at only one point in time, in any given second (and those are only moving forward, never in reverse). But as small as I am, what infinite possibility I have been given to speak with the creator of time and space who, being bound by neither, can reawaken the hearts of every companion I thought of before. Just like my heart. Just like this moment. But with moments that are as different and individual as each one of them. I am confident He hears and follows through with my pleas for my fellow hearts in every hemisphere.

A late sun is breaking through the clouds and the trees as if to seal this epiphany, as cliche and tired as it may have been. I remember in high school my football coach spoke an unwittingly relevant truth. He said something of how rain forges events in our life into our memories. They become carved into our reality. Today is the furnace carving a memory to live by tomorrow. One second at a time. Until I need to shed another skin.

what?

west coast?

so i've just discovered that you can update your blog with audio from any telephone. now i realize how dorky this is, but thats really exciting. i like the idea of taking road trips and keeping a log of them online through a phone. then when you have access to a computer you can edit the post with text or pictures or whatever. i feels like this calls for traveling. oh, and i had to try it out...

bombs and condoms

Whenever I find myself in a public restroom I have this strange intrigue with graffiti on the walls. Usually they are just pollitical hate mail to anyone emptying their loins or sexual offers followed by a phone number, but every now and again there is something thoughtful. This is not one of them, but it made me laugh a small laugh inside myself.

"Don't you see how overpopulated the wold would be if it weren't for war??"

I couldn't help but draw the strange image in my head of dropping bombs as a now effective form of birth control. Maybe I shouldn't have been laughing, though. I am not any better off in my mindset than this fellow (I assume it was a fellow writing in the men's restroom).

there's a design

I don't think I really know how to respond, yet I know I need to. I am continually amazed at what God does despite... well... despite me. I, so often, just can't figure out how to let go of my worries and my problems and my struggles. My worries are just figments of my imagination conjured up by unbelief. Pretty much, I say to God, "Ya know, I believe you're there. Hell, I believe you created the ground I walk upon, but my rent this month? I don't think you've got that covered. But don't worry about it, I, a fucking human being, will do what you, the almighty God, can't." I'm way out of line most of the time. Recently, however, I've let go. Maybe I was just fed up with myself, but I woke up one morning and said, "God, you have this day. I'm sick of it." And He did. I've watched so many things fall into place even just today. All the things I spoke of in my previous post on 4/10/06 have only seen themselves more fullfilled. Things aren't complete, but they are happening. And I am, more or less, just watching the show.

In the spirit of this revelation I took a vacation over the past weekend. It was a block of time that felt removed from life. A few friends and I drove to a lake in Alabama near the border of Tennessee and Mississippi. We listened to a lot of good music on the lengthy drive and between Weezer's blue album and OK Computer I sang myself hoarse, but a moment stands out to me listening to Sufjan Steven's Michigan album. We had recently taken a break at a Cracker Barrel outside Chattanooga at Lookout Mtn. and the sun had finally given way to the night. I always become reflective at the time of day between dusk and the fullness of night. My body relaxes and my mind's guards are changing shifts or something because I stop trying to explain things and I just let them happen. They usually aren't physical things. They are the kind of things that mold the heart and have the potential to change a person altogether. This night listening to Vito's Ordination Song I heard God singing, "rest in my arms. sleep in my bed. there's a design to what i did and said," and in my evening vunerablity I did rest. I thought about all He had been doing and I saw Him with His hands on everything. There is nothing free of His design. This is the kind of peace I think every human was meant to live with.

no one quite as cool

 

all your worries won't add a single moment...

Sometimes I feel like so much is happening at once that even though I am drawn to write I can't get anything worthwhile down. I guess its a matter of not knowing where to start. I heard the beginning is a good place, but what if you can't put a finger on where it begins?

(warning: if you click the link below, you must know that this post is probably only life-changing as it relates to me. It is written in story form and you must take your own nuggets from it as you can. There is no extremely profound thought. and it is long. you're warned.)

[get the big picture]

It has been over a year since I felt I was seeing anything in my life fall into place. Now it's happening, and not only in areas I have been praying into, but also in unexpected places.

Easter weekend was an appropriate starting point, I think, as it is day to celebrate redemption and new life. I took a trip to Nashville to be with my family, stopping first in Mt. Juliet to see my father, step-mother, and little step-bro. For some reason, as much as I miss all of them, there are times I am less than excited to visit. It usually has a lot to do with where I am personally. I want to seem collected and driven towards something specific, and more importantly, worthwhile. I'm not sure why that is when I'm with my dad, but I think it just has something simply to do with him being my father. I know this seems like a cliche thing, to subconsciously desire to impress the old man, but its a true issue. The moment came soon enough.

"So you're not thinking of staying in Knoxville, are you?"
"Well... I don't know much of anything right now, dad."
"What would you do?"
"I had thought about going back to school, but again, I don't know. I just don't think I there is any good reason for me to come back to Nashville all summer when I probably won't be staying here long anyway."

Surprisingly, his responses was entirely supportive and then my step-mother offered the best advice I had received since I had begun feeling directionless.

"Jacob, I think you have so much pressure on yourself that you can't even see clearly what your options are, much less make any decisions. I think you just need to let God take this pressure off you and I really believe then, things will begin to fall in place."

A burden lifted. Someone finally told me what I had been trying to tell myself for a year, but never believed. It finally sunk in. I spent the rest of the night experiencing a nearly tangible respect for this side of an imperfect, yes, but loving family. My dad and I talked about Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, The Who, etc. while putting on his old vinyl records. Later I stood outside my car in a young summer night, with cool breeze and clear skies, talking with him a bit more before I departed.

I spent the next hour driving to Murfreesboro, listening to Beck's Sea Change with the windows down, and reflected on this new perspective. I sipped a Red Bull as I tossed the glowing butt of a cigarette out the window. I love watching the rear-view as it shatters into orange sparks on the highway in the dark.

Saturday was spent running errands for my mother. I got distracted and spent a few hours at my favorite record store in Nashville, and in the end purchased Kid A, and a Sigur Ros ep (Ba Ba, Ti Ki, Di Do) on vinyl with the intention of taking my dad's old record player back to Knoxville with me. I still haven't got a needle for it, but hopefully soon. In the evening I had dinner with a few friends and then played pool downtown with another friend later on.

Sunday morning I went with my family to church. I forget how much I miss my home until I go to church. I was so encouraged and so refreshed. Afterwards my family had a dinner with our close family friends, the Haires. I left from there, but before I did my mom pulled me aside and gave me some advice and encouragement. Essentially she said that she felt like things were going to start falling into place. She also said almost exactly what my step-mom said. Confirmation.

So this week has been an amazing manifestation of all I brought back with me from Nashville. Decisions have been made. I still may not have the entire picture, but I have direction. I feel I can see my desires better and know that's what I need to be pursuing. I am staying in Knoxville. At least for a while. This damned city that grasps people in its claws and bores them to death. I, of my own free will, am choosing to stay here. Never thought that would happen. I am seriously considering going back to school. I am changing jobs. I am pursuing a girl (not that I actually know how to do that one very well). There is just so much. It all feels new. It feels right. And I am more at peace than I have been in a long time.

going public (coming out of the closet?)

i've been locked in my room for three days relearning html and cursing at my computer. finally, having realized that it will never be perfect, i am at least midly satisfied with my page and have officially unveiled to the public what, for months, has been mine alone. in celebration i am shutting down myspace. well... at least my myspace... and by shutting down, i mean placing more of an emphasis on this site.

so, hello world. welcome to my... space? i dont want this url to be confined to the stereotypical blog connotation. i want interaction and response, suggestions, links, new music, art and literature. please leave thoughtful and provocative comments on my posts, and happy thoughts in the guestbook so i know you were here. and then come back. and tell your friends.

-jacob