All kinds of adventure..

The road is unknown

The road is all we’ve known,

Got you in the zone

Waiting for me to come home,

Got you ready for love

Ready for something new to come

Your way,

Laughter at the wheel

And making a deal

Thought we had something real .

Never want to give up

At this fight

It’s been a hell of a ride

With You by my side ,

I got some pain

It went down down with those

Pills down with those cheap

Thrills, now lovely calls to me ,

Still got you waiting for me ,

Future  like furniture ,

Thought you might like to sit and

Stay? Pulled up this truck paid

The extra buck , moved you in

Thought I would win but now

It’s a loss,

What I want is your smile to stay

To never go away in the darkest

Of days,

Never gonna stop wondering

And wandering,

Got you at night

Just before twilight,

Got you known,

Got you unknown

Never given up

Running towards up 

Your love was freeway 

Your love was freedom 

I got lost in the lust 

Now I am making a list 

Of what I miss,

Can’t go back 

Can’t laugh at it again,

Just want you here again 

Thought you were the future

Just like the furniture ,

That you were gonna stay a little 

Longer ,

Let me love Ya better 

Let be live Ya longer ,

Let it linger 

You are a little like a stranger 

But I will always remember

Your love for danger ,

You were an ambulance chaser 

A last of the line reminder ,
Let me love Ya 

If you let me ,

Cause no one else 

Comes close 

To how close you got to me,

It was ten years ago this past May that I graduated high school in Fort Collins, Colorado. The summer of Uncle Juney(footage to yet be released) when I was in a dark place. All responsibility fell off of me and all I had to worry about was being a cashier at Safeway on Drake and Taft Hill(somewhere close to there). And so partying with friends and some not so good friends. Going to the warped tour at Invesco field the end of July 2004 to see Taking Back Sunday, New Found Glory and Yellowcard( as well as many others like Mae, Underoath, exc.)

The summer of smoking and drinking and violent movies came to a radical halt when my mom flew with me to Kansas City for the beginning of the Fire in the Night Internship. A few days before I had watched the book of Mormon movie and I bought Under the Banner of Heaven. And Stuart Greaves had just got asked to come back to the Night watch to lead again the fire in the night. IHOP-KC had been going nearly five years straight of nonstop prayer and worship before the throne of God.

The seeds of Kansas City had been getting thrown into the soil of my hardened heart really intensely the year leading up to Kansas City. I had my friends and a very special girl my whole last year of high school and making the switch to spending hours upon hours just reading the word, praying, worshiping and trying to make sense of this premonition( later more so confirmed by Scripture) that the end of the world is coming soon. It is possible for this Great and Terrible day of the Lord to come sooner than I could ever expect. The days of Left Behind could actually be sooner then I could ever expect.

September 2004 marked the beginning of what would be an 8 year adventure. Meeting Zack on the night watch, making videos of  it all and later working with teenagers for the summers have made its many stories( some shared on this blog) that I can never, ever forget.

I think what I have come to realize the most is that God has made me in a very unique way. I am not an accident and I am not someone that is a mistake. A lot of times we don’t actually believe that God has spent time crafting and making us. And not just making us to be like others but making us to represent a very unique element of Him. I have come to believe in this a lot more and it has been a very sure cure of depression and any other form of sadness that would try to steal from the master builder and master Creator, God Himself.

Prayer has more value then it has ever before and the war of boredom continues. 10 years later and we are still just beginning. I long to see my generation enter into all that God ha for us. I long to see it for myself and I desire to not waste that which God has given and that simply is the time that we have right now. Love, it is with me and without it, I am nothing.

 

Smashed
Rehashed
Living in the past
Smoking its smoke in
Me, the way it used to be
Was the way I was never meant
To be, I suffered, I cried, I died,
I never lied so many nights in a
Row, I really did never try to know—
I just saw dark, I just had no spark—
I just lived with you in my head,
With that one night with one spread
With one dead bolt of secret inside of me—
Backseat chaser, memory eraser, beauty to
Behold, everything in me is growing old,
Growing cold, growing closer to never
Being close anymore—man seeks, man
Dies, man lives in constant exile,
In constant worthless days of pain
And sorrow and nothing new under the
Hot sun—I am spun, I am done, I am
Spotting trains and sitting under planes—
I am watching and waiting to never let
Summer go and be gone the way it has
Been—all that was in me that summer day—
When the night never did end, all I remember
About it stays to loud now—loud is the desire,
Loud is the liaison, loud is the liaison called King,
Called Ruler, called worthy of it all, called maker
Of the stars, maker of me,
I can never be His liaison,
For it demands I will be trampled on—
For it means more sorrow for me to
Borrow—for it means a hard life—
For if love is all I am after,
Then that should be enough—
For all other memories are
Never going to be good enough

It would maybe make sense to put this in a ‘best of the summer’ list but it is so good that is deserves its own post. On my trip to New York in July we watched the beginning of this movie and I had to finish it upon coming home. Thanks to redbox for the freebie. Overall, the animation genre is usually a win. There are some from Pixar and Disney and others that are not good even if visually they do a good job on making it sweet. Wreck It Ralph was the last animated film I watched and its whole play on being yourself, even if that means being deemed a bad guy from the world around you..really made it work and made it enjoyable. The glitch character also resonates with not conforming to what others say about you, but rather to live upholding what you say about yourself.

The whole animated genre( and musicals too) play to a more privy advantage because most of the audience(even little kids) don’t expect any complicated plot lines, adult like dialogue and any form of impact or meaning. But, more times than not I have been more impacted and more impressed by the animated genre. The Incredibles, Ratatouille, The Iron Giant, Up, Megamind, and all the Toy Story films all make your cry, laugh and are incredibly inspiring. I would put the Lego Movie in this same category.

Story By: Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Screenplay by: Christopher Miller and Phil Lord

Stars: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Charlie Day, and Liam Neeson

Plot: Emmet is your below-than-average lego worker and not even close to being a master builder. He gets mistaken for someone that he is not. someone who is great. And the search and adventure begins when he is “the one” for the prophecy and all to stop the evil tyrant known as President Business(Will Ferrell) who is trying to freeze the world with the infamous Kragel. The showdown of characters and action sequences( all lego parts, even the bullets in guns) take us on a wonderful aesthetic of the lego world coming to life. The deeper meaning, however, is that humans can live and function like plastic lego people without any function other than to blend into what others are doing and what the world conforms them to be. Don’t be a lego part, be a creative and wonderful person. After all, “everything is awesome!”

The deeper meaning: it would be safe to say that playing it safe is not how to live life to its fullest. The fact that Emmet’s friends all say, “he is a blank slate..he just does what everyone else does.” We live in a robotic world. The zombie genre( which can be either disgusting or when its mild..highly entertaining..i.e. World War Z) always hits this point very clearly: technology and stress and the addiction to trying to be rich and happy has created zombie like people. The world is just one big addiction to the system. As Jon Foreman sings in ‘back to the beginning again…’ he says, ‘ with the weight of these machines across my back/ I am busy living in a single file line.’

The lego movie is saying: we area addicted to our iced coffees( 37 dollars, of course) and we are operating like we are just plastic parts stuck to an even more plastic city life overspending with a plastic credit card. The world is plastic. And to live is the opposite. To live is to be addicted to adventure and to being creative. I love how the movie ends with showing Will Ferrell( as a grown person) interacting with the son that he has been very hard on for a very long time. The dad comes to see that he is quenching the creativity of his son by telling him not to touch his special lego parts. I think everyone has to realize that being apart of a fallen world and a fallen justice system and fallen leaders is all apart of living on this side of heaven. But, we don’t have to stay addicted to being disconnected. The more I see that Facebook and Twitter are taking over our free time and even time that we could have devoted to others. Social networking is making us increasingly more plastic and even more so parts of the puzzle of a life we maybe hate and a self that we maybe despise. After all, living well is the best revenge. And doing it well, well, that is a rare thing.

Special quotes:

“Emmet gives the speech to Cleopatra, Gandlaf, Superman flies, Lincoln, Green Lantern, and other famous people!

Emmet says , “I am the least qualified person to do this!”

“I am not special!” is what he is saying

She says he’s not even a master builder

You are special the girl says

Emmet says, ” I never have any ideas!

Vitruvius says, “I don’t think he has ever had an original idea in his life!”

Emmet tells the girl you are nicer then you really are–she says I wanted the prophecy to be for me, she says, “I wanted to be the chosen one!”

Petrivius says, “a corrupted spirit is no match for the purity of imagination.”..then petrivus gets his head cut off–

Petrivius dies and says Emmet, “I made the prophecy up!

Lord petrivius ghost says–you didn’t let me finish before, because I died!

Emmet says, “all it takes to be special, is to believe that you can be!”

This movie is more than worth your time!

 

First, listen before the title scares you. Second: I am finishing my discussion on Galatians 5:16-25.

The topic: flesh verse Spirit and everything with it.

I am thinking of this picture to put in your head. The human brain remembers everything(like little kids, or my brain). This is exaggerated but true. The brain can capture a thought in three seconds. So, if you have a good or bad thought, or see an image you will have it inside of you in three seconds. We just have no clue what we remember(that is called forgetting). The point: its there really fast.

My visual and the title: You are in the hallway at a party with your friends. You say, ‘hey retards.’ This is mean, this is stupid that you just said that. Them being your friends now want to hurt you but not because they are mad(if passive-aggressive maybe, probably not friend)….rather they are going to chase you down as fast as possible into the bedroom. You have three seconds to get into the bedroom so you can slam the door in their face and lock the door.

The world and its thoughts is similar to those friends. They are there and you can invite them in by seeing and speaking. And if they, the thoughts, chase you down the hallway called your brain just know that you have three seconds to forget.

To conclude according to Paul: Don’t give the flesh room, focus on the Spirit. The Spirit has the power to slam the door before you can say broken door (assuming those stupid friends lean up against the door and try to break in, most likely they will try to break the door first).

So its been two days, maybe three, since I have blogged. I am trying to figure out why people apologize for not blogging. I have only been blogging for a couple of months and I have been really good(almost to good) at blogging everyday. I like everyday writing (Kyle calls this prolific, it means producing a lot).

What I am really trying to say is that I haven’t blogged for two days because I haven’t.

So, if you are frustrated that I have not updated my blog I apologize, I will try harder the next time I turn on my computer and purpose in my heart to blog.

Please comment on anything that is stupid and retarded and hard to understand and something I would only say if you were one of my ‘real friends.’ That way this blog can make sense for the whole word if they accidentally find it on the internet.(GOOGLE SEARCH:Mullets, Jared Diehl, ruckus, passion, Sky High, Zack, exc.)

If you don’t accidentally find my blog I take it you actually treat me like a real person and you read and comment on my blog because you know me OR you like my writing(which I don’t mind).

We could go back and forth with all this stuff, these are just my observations of what the blogging world is like.

Yesterday was full of verbosity. I’ll keep it brief today.

Mike Bickle has spent a lot of time preaching the same thing over and over again. If you are at IHOP you know what I am saying, if not, repetition is wisdom. We have to hear the simple things over and over again because when we blow it, or not blow it and life happens, we get sidetracked from simple truths.

The simple truth of walking in the Spirit that Paul presents is simple as asking the question: ‘Lord what are you saying?’ Lord, what are are you doing, saying, speaking, showing, exc.. all these interactive words.

Just ask the Spirit inside of you, hey, what is going on inside of me and up there?

For dinner tonight my roommate Tim and I went to Home Town Buffet, also known as Country Buffet in other parts of the country(like Fort Collins). This place is a step above Western Sizzlin and just below any restaurant that is not a buffet, whatever that means.

What distinguishes a buffet from any other restaurant is the overwhelming amount of choice. Each section of the buffet is a different group of food. You got the ‘before the meal’ food, i.e. salad bar, soup and crackers. After the salad bar you have a gazillion options for the meal. Most people who are really hungry would take advantage that you can dirty multiple plates, unlike some places I know that force you to preserve your one plate if you want seconds. Meats, Mexican, Italian, American, European and Missouran food is arrayed in a sundry for you to eat. I happened to choose Mexican tonight and whoever invented fish, I ate that too.

Lastly, after 20 minutes, when you should be done eating and full; you go up for desert, which again, multiple choices. You can have ice cream, cookies(oatmeal, chocolate chip, sugar, snicker-doodle, exc ), and a variety of flavored cakes. While consuming mostly high calorie, over preserved food you are constantly drinking liquids, either soda, juice, milk (white, chocolate, fat-free, skim, 2 %, organic and Soy). The meal comes to an end and for the next three hours you tell yourself, ‘I wish I wouldn’t have taken advantage of all those choices, I ate way to much.’

As we are consumed with options of how to flesh out in our society. Of course, we have to eat and buffets are not the devil. I realize that my flesh is always hungry for a buffet, it is always hungry for a variety of choices for whatever I may be feeling in the moment( those shots in the arm to numb the pain.) It is ridiculous the amount of choices we have to do whatever will satisfy our flesh.

I want to grow in the grace of God of how to exercise self-control in the midst of an overindulgent society.

Constable quotes this one guy about the flesh, he says, “Our flesh is characterized by lust, which stands for the strong, but sometimes evil, desires that are associated with bodily living.”

Bodily living is buffets, sleep, normal things that we have to do to function in life. We shouldn’t be a Gnostic that hates the fleshly things and everything of the world is evil. He says that the flesh is mostly that evil thing(the old man) that wants instant pleasure apart from God.

In conclusion, I am convinced that the way to overcome the buffet syndrome is not the denial of the options, but rather walking in the Spirit. Simply asking God to help you. No one knows our frame like Jesus, except for sinning, he was tempted with buffets too( you know, eating those huge meals with Tax Collectors).