Nothing Original

I Smell A Conundrum!

2012-01-20T11:24:00.000-08:00

As a substitute teacher I’ve learned a lot about waiting. At times, I will be requested like honey at a bear convention (cause they have those). Other times, it’s as if I don’t exist. I try not to take it personal. I typically advertise myself as much as possible when I am at a school and I try to be awesome so people will request my services again. Yeah, me!

But no matter how hard I try and how much I flex my advertisement muscles, chance and fate ultimately hold the cards to whether or not I get a job on a particular day. I hate that.

It leaves me in an interesting position. As someone who believes in the power and utility of prayer I find myself perplexed in a moral dilemma. If I pray for more work, I am essentially praying for teachers to get sick or to have some sort of personal crisis. That’s awful. And so oftentimes I do not pray for more work even when I should.

To be fair, teachers need to miss school for thousands of reasons which aren’t always negative. Recently I subbed for four days for a teacher who became a grandmother. That was a great reason. In that instance, everybody won. Baby—good. Work—good. Win-win.

But in a larger way, I am in a season of waiting. Waiting for a more stable and permanent full time teaching position (can I has job?). Waiting for circumstances to change. Waiting for something to happen to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not just sitting on my hands (most times I’m sitting on my butt). I am working in the meantime to prepare for a more fruitful season. I am applying when I see things pop up. I am emailing, networking, making phone calls for favors, and begging my students to name drop me if they hear anything from their teachers. I honestly have no shame.

Even after all that, I still have to be still and let things sort themselves out on their own time. This is typically waaaaaayyyyyyyy slower than I would like. But if I am really honest, it’s probably better this way. If I achieved success in every context of my life and saw immediate results, I wouldn’t properly appreciate the end results.

The waiting and the struggling and the failures make the victories worth winning. A story isn’t a story without conflict. We want to live in an exciting story—but would rather do without that pesky conflict part.

And so, I will practice day to day efforts—no matter if the fruit of that labor isn’t seen for years. The work we do today creates our realities tomorrow—or at least shapes our attitudes to those future realities.

I have a theory. Not only are we waiting now, but we will be forever. Waiting for something (Godot). It is our natural state to wait and hope for change of some sort. Prove me wrong.

In our present cultural context of being the richest of the rich and over stimulated with all sorts of gadgetry, long-term labor with no immediate gratification is very difficult for us to handle. We want now, now, now! Instant results! Digital speed! This is not good for our souls.

My closest friends know that I have an odd relationship with technology. Part of me is very suspicious of it and never wants to use it and to just become Amish (The Matrix trilogy really affected me). Another part of me gets totally geeked-out on it and wants machines and robots to do everything (Wall-E much?). Cause that would a good thing…

In our increasing dependence on technology, in many real ways, our species has been damaged in our ability to be patient. We aren’t farmers anymore (they exist but most of us don’t know one, and a majority of the American ones use big robots to do a bulk of the work so they aren’t as “farmerish” as others are or have been).

We don’t know what it means to anxiously wait for the rain and the beautiful sound of thunder—the hope it brings. We don’t know what it means to work together with a beast to plow a stubborn field and ready it for the sowing of seed. We don’t know what it means to work sunrise to sunset and yet be patient in our hearts knowing that if the rain and sun don’t come, our labor will be lost.

The ability to be patient and live in the tension of work and waiting is a vital skill set which farmers embody the best. They are the hardest workers on the planet and the wisest as they know that it’s more up to weather than their own labor. And yet they still work hard—and would be screwed without their work!

I smell a conundrum!

They work like it all depends on them, but know that it all depends on the rain. Chance. Fate.

But we aren’t farmers. Do farmers read blogs? I digress.

The point is, we aren’t very good with waiting for things that take a great deal of work and preparation and depend highly on outside circumstances that are not in our control.

If you haven’t already figured out, I did not get a sub job today. So I am watching the news, taking care of the apartment and writing this blog. I am writing this not for immediate gratification in the form of approval from my readers and friends (but I also am). I am writing this to remind my soul (and yours) that the best things are worth waiting for and that there is plenty to do to get ready while you wait.

At the same time, I so easily incline to make things I am hopeful for my Ultimate Hope. I think that they are going to transform everything and set my circumstances the way I want and everything will be smooth sailing. Has this ever happened? I don’t believe so. And it won’t. Ever. Once we get that thing it’s on to the next thing. We look to something else to look forward to. To complete us. To save us.

But my identity is not in what I do. When I do get that job someday it will not make all my pain and struggles go away. If anything, it will complicate my life and add changes and more work. I am not what I do or what I will do. I am redeemed creature because of what Christ did on the Cross. Hoping in Him alone is where I need to rest. Be still and know that He is God. He has done it all. He is in control. He will provide. Be still, O my soul….Oh, and get to work too cause there is so much to do!

What are you waiting for? A job? Getting into that program or school? A friend? The woman or man of your dreams? The Chiefs to have a winning season (please, Lord?)?

Whatever it may be, just know that it can’t complete you. It’s not designed to. We were made only to be complete in a relationship with the God of the Universe. That is only possible through a relationship with Jesus.

I will leave you with some quotes for your consideration. Keep working. Keep waiting. Is that thunder in the distance I hear? Have fun storming the castle.

“Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become your habits. Watch your habits for they become your character. Watch your character for it becomes your destiny.” –unknown

Find out what you can control and don’t worry about anything else. –old man I met at a friend’s house

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings." –Shakespeare from Julius Caesar

Asthma Induced Exercise

2012-01-11T14:51:00.000-08:00

Warning: Brian gets a little controversial and spiritual in the following blog. Read at your own risk.

I went mountain biking the other day.

Look, I know I live in Kansas City and to my friends who live in Utah, Colorado, or Switzerland I apologize for the misnomer. I understand there are no real mountains in Missouri. It is a truth that pains me everyday of my existence here. Sigh.

The lack of actual mountains aside, I did ride my 2007 Gary Fisher, hard-tail Wahoo Racer (For reals, yo. Before Trek ate that line of Mountain Bikes—Sell outs.) I rode it on an actual trail. This was certainly not my first rodeo. I have ridden in several places (on actual mountains) and this particular trail quite frequently. The odd part here is that it was in January. I think mother nature forgot about winter this year. Oops.

The temperature around 4pm on this day was in the mid 50s. To be honest, I could have used a little warmer air, but it was more than comfortable. The hard thing about trail riding in Missouri is the trails are often overgrown with vegetation, poison ivy, and closed off by millions of crisscrossing spider webs. In mid July, if I had taken this same ride, I would have eaten thirteen spiders and been covered by itching, blistering poison ivy. Yuck! In fact, I believe it was July that I last attempted this trail (Stocksdale park in Liberty). I rode for a total of three minutes. It was awful. Charlotte’s web was on my face and I had poison ivy in my DNA.

However, my most recent expedition was perfect. The lighting, the lack of spiders and itchy plants,the dryness of the dirt, the bareness of the forest (thus increasing the visibility of my surroundings) was all perfect. The ride was smooth like butter. Like Morgan Freeman reading the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus in Mathew chapter one. Perfect.

Then there was asthma. Not so perfect.

Asthma ruins everything. I mean it really was a great little forty five minute ride except for the five year old child sitting on my chest the whole time. I really need to keep up with the running. After a couple weeks of regular exercise, it usually gets better. Last year I was doing that and actually feeling pretty great.

Then there was Thanksgiving and Christmas.Egg Nog much?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it is right to blame a holiday season and its accompanying treats and sweets on my lack of discipline. But I also kind of am. I just stopped my routine and got a little lazy with my diet. Now I’m paying for it.

If I believed in New Years resolutions, I would make one. But I don’t.

So this is where I am at: I really want to enjoy those peaceful yet adrenaline pumped rides through deciduous forests. I want to be thrown from my seat over my handlebars and land in a tree or a creek or a puddle of mud. I want to ride to the top of a hill and charge down as fast as I can. But I can’t enjoy those things to their fullest until I invest in my health in a real way. My body will always fight me and prevent me from getting where I want to be if I don’t take care of it.

I ought to do what I need to do, so I can do what I want to do.

As a Christian, I have a real problem seeing bad health as an acceptable thing. If I really believed what I believe, then I would take care of my body as it is not my own. It’s out on loan and I ought to take care of it so I can be here for those I love. So I can continue the ministry given to me and build God’s Kingdom as much as possible (Mathew 28:19-20).

Now, pursuing rock hard abs, chiseled features, and being able to leap over buildings is not where I place my sights and ambitions. Building up my physical body is not the Gospel. It is not my Ultimate Hope. The Gospel is good news about a Person who Redeemed us to the Father. Speaking that Metanarrative into every aspect of my life and trusting in His Transformative Power and Grace to change the whole of humanity is my only ambition. Forever, Amen.

That is my identity: Who I am at the very core of my being. Not a writer. Not a husband. Not a man. Not an actor. I am a Redeemed creature because of what God did for me through Christ’s sacrifice. Nothing I can do can earn any favor with God. That is religion. I am fully accepted. I am adopted. Therefore, Christ ought to be my only vision. My only Hope. For apart from my relationship with Him, I am a walking dead man. Six pack abs or not.

That’s the rub. I can look to building up my body as a source of identity and worth. I can place my faith and hope in longevity and feeling good physically. I can worship a high endorphin flow and an adrenaline rush. But that’s not good enough to save me. That can’t keep me from the Grave. Anything I do to improve this sack of meat covering my bones is merely a temporary patching. It’s like painting a building scheduled to be demolished.

Then again, I should see investing in my health as Obedience. After all, I can serve others better if I am functioning in a healthy way. I might feel better about doing the dishes to serve my wife if I tear it up on the track for a little bit. I just can’t make that my Only Aim. Tricky business, this Christian walk.

Some Christian person once said that human beings are idol factories. I agree with whoever proposed this idea. We were made to worship. We place our Hope in such silly things. Approval. Power. Comfort. Control. Being a Christian doesn’t mean I am free from this. That’s the beauty of the Gospel. Even though I deserve death and constantly seek other gods before Him, I am still dealt with Graciously. It is by His Grace alone that I can even call myself out on my idol-junk. Look to the Cross and repent. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That is the Christian walk--The cyclical dance of repentance. Lather, rinse, repeat, knowing that Jesus has paid it all. Amen.

Dang, son! You just got preached at! When life gets crazy and anxiety fills your heart, where do you turn to medicate? We are made to turn to something. If it’s not God….then it’s probably not real. I have to tell myself that everyday.

I dare you to ask Jesus if He is worthy of your Hope. And I pray you find what you are looking for.

Until next time. I love you all.

Life Updates

2012-01-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Well hey there, friend. It’s Wednesday, January 4th, in the year of our Lord 2012. I haven’t written on this here blog in a wee little bit. If that matters to you, I am sorry. Oddly enough, the only reason I am updating you on my life is because a student I was subbing for encouraged me to write. Random. My wife, family and friends encourage me to write but sometimes it takes a random person’s off-hand comment to motivate you. And I’m okay with that.

I have been trying to write but nothing was “ever good enough.” That’s never a reason not to do something. We seem to pay more attention to the million and a half excuses to not do something while hardly ever listening to the few reasons we should. We are such bizarre little creatures.

The piece I was working on (which I don’t know if I will post) was my heart reflections on the Occupy movement. I was going to go all political and spiritual on you. Brian being spiritual and political with a touch of sarcastic, often ironic what-he-deems-wit type tone!? Never.

So this is me updating you on my life. I am married. I am substitute teaching. I am writing (literally and at other times too!). I am trying to awaken the runner in me again. I am seeking a job (can I has job?) I am trying to figure some stuff out, namely what it means to be an effective Christian in the 21st century, what it means to exist, what it means to be a man and what it means to be a husband. Tired yet? I am. It can be quite exhausting.

And it can be awfully boring. I don’t believe in being bored but it seems to find me anyway. Not sure how to deal with that. The boredom phenomenon comes from a few places. 1—The fact that I don’t have “a real job” (a big boy job). 2—The fact that I lack discipline at times when I have no sub job and no shift at Crepes (On the Square). 3—That part of me deep inside that is sort of struggling with waiting for things to happen to me rather than making them happen.

Quite frankly, it’s an awkward time. Not awkward in the sense that I am uncomfortable in my own skin, but awkward like watching a newborn gazelle try to figure out how to stand when the dangerous lioness is watching and waiting for lunch. We know the lion is there and we know that stupid baby gazelle better get up and start running before he becomes that lion’s snack.

Tangent. I think I might actually hate google. Almost as much as I hated my third grade teacher whom I blame for crippling my ability to spell. I can’t spell and as you know, I suck, at, knowing, when to, properly use commas. I must have missed comma day. Google makes us lazy. It enables my bad habit of sucking at spelling. All you have to do is type: define: the word you want to spell. And the internet does it for you! Then again, this is the same function as a dictionary, but the difference is, with a dictionary, you have to know how to freagin' spell it already. That’s the evil beauty of autofill. Google knows how bad you suck at spelling so it corrects you as you struggle to type it in. It’s as if it’s saying, “hey, I’m a robot and you’re a dumb human. Let me help you.”

Part of the reason why I haven’t blogged about my personal life in a while is the fact that so much has happened to me that it's honestly hard to keep up with. I just ended that sentence with a preposition. Thanks third grade teacher!

I am a husband. First of all, marriage isn’t easy. It’s the hardest thing I have done albeit attempt to file taxes without calling my dad. In all seriousness, God has blessed me with an amazing woman that believes the same things I do (this really helps). We are growing closer to oneness everyday. It’s beautifully painful.

One of my best friends (you know who you are. Your name rhymes with Frett Hach), has been encouraging me to write down all the amusing and un-amusing anecdotes I learn about marriage. He likes to listen to me talk about it. I don’t know why. Maybe in some way it’s preparing him for when he comes across that road. That burden is frightening. The idea that I (a fool) have a shred wisdom to share for others. If I do, it is by God’s grace and not my own understanding. A lot of it is borrowed wisdom. I have been blessed with a great Earth Dad who taught me by word and deed how to be a good husband. The rest I am figuring out through prayer and trial and error. I like to tease Katherine by telling her I make mistakes on purpose as an opportunity for her to show me grace. Christian jokes are so silly sometimes.

I realize I have stolen a few minutes of your time, and for that I am grateful. I hope we can meet again soon. If not, pray that God blesses me with a big boy job and that I keep seeking Him first to learn how to be a good husband.

Have a superb January. Bis spater und viel gluck!

P.S. I wrote this while “on the clock” as a substitute ( Shh! Don’t tell!). Does that technically make me a professional writer? Just kidding. But not really.

Cheers.

My Fifteen Minutes

2011-10-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

They say everyone experiences fifteen minutes of fame at some point in their life. I experienced mine in an unlikely place—a middle school.

Recently I was involved with the Coterie Theatre in their production of the S.E. Hinton stage adaptation of The Outsiders. I played Johnny. You remember the story. The Greasers and Socs, Tom Cruise played Steve in the movie, Ponyboy and Johnny are bff, Johnny kills Bob to save his “bestie,” and the two run off together. Eventually Johnny is badly burned from a fire that breaks out in the abandoned church where they are fugitives, and, in the end, Johnny doesn't make it.

And so I died (vertically) some 50 times uttering the famous last words, “stay gold, Ponyboy,” to mostly tweens and teens who attended our daily matinees for field trips. Now, I have serious reservations about calling myself a "professional actor" or an actor in general, even if it is true. I’d much prefer to be called Brian—who also happens to act. Moreover, I am the last person to think I would be, in anyway, famous or even well known outside of my immediate friends and acquaintances, but when I came to substitute at this middle school you can imagine my surprise when the entire class and several kids in the hall shouted, "it’s Johnny!" What a bizarre amalgamation of my two worlds. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. After all, I was here to teach—not be that one guy from that one play.

During the first class I was spotted by a couple early students and I held up my finger, "Shh! don't tell everyone! Please don't spoil my fun!" and I winked at them. They hardly had time to keep their secret as several other kids in the twenty-something class instantly recognized me. What did I get myself into? Now I know how Justin Bieber feels. Poor kid.

I started the class in the usual fashion by introducing myself as Mr. G and then reassuring them that I was not, in fact, the shape-shifted new form of their normal teacher. I outlined my expectations for their behavior and I began to take role. After all that nonsense was done I admitted that the rumors were true and that some of them had probably seen me before. I asked, "can someone tell me how you know me?" In unison they shouted, "You were Johnny in The Outsiders!" Sharp kids these ones.

After I answered a few questions about the show, the art of acting (pretending to be another human while standing where someone tells you to and saying words that someone else wrote which may or may not be based on reality all as if it were really happening for the first time), and that, yes, the actor who played Darry really was that buff in real life. After all that, I told them I did plan on teaching them and that I expected them to do their best even though they were being taught by a "celebrity" (tweens will believe anything!).

Class went fairly normal and we accomplished all that their teacher wanted us to cover except, right before the bell, I was rushed by about half of the class demanding my autograph. I could hardly stand it. I laughed and said, "only if you can promise me to get to your next class on time!" I made sure they knew that my signature was worth literally nothing. (Even though our signed poster at The Coterie was worth $3.00. So technically, after you divide the cost by the number of actors who signed, plus the cost to print the poster, mine was worth about half a penny). Movin’ on up!

It was all pretty cute, ridiculous and flattering. Who doesn’t like being recognized for work they’ve put in?—especially actors. For the most part, it made me appreciate my time with The Coterie and to see how our show impacted our young audience members. Yes, I could have easily made this day about myself. I could have taken the focus off the kids and turned into the Mr. G power hour. For some reason I didn’t. What really hit me was how my being there affected them. I was there for them. I was giving them a special memory and connecting them to the content of their learning in a unique way. This is the goal of teachers who care. Think about it! I was a magical emissary from a literary reality! If I were them I would have pooped my pants!

The character they had read about, talked about, and thought about was now right in front of them. It must have been so weird, but good that they knew I wasn’t really dead. I mean Johnny was. A fictional person, yes, but very burned and very dead. But I wasn’t really Johnny. I was acting…you’re confused. You see I was only pretending to be Johnny. But don’t get me wrong, I went to college to study this stuff. Okay? I have a state issued certificate that says I can teach kids all the many reasons why acting is much, much more than pretending to be another human…seriously… it is. Cough. I am not being sarcastic. Cough.

Even after all the fanfare of that day, my favorite part was just getting to be with the kids and be a teacher again. I can’t outrun teaching more than I can outrun my own skin. I’ve grown fond of getting to have smaller, dumber versions of myself listen to me and maybe care what I have to say. Perhaps make a difference just by being with them for a brief moment in time. I have missed that dearly. And to make this awesome day even more special, I got to read to them and take them into yet another story. Jackpot! I make magic—they pay me to do this?

So even if my acting career continues and I have other experiences like this in Kansas City, I will always remember this day fondly as my official fifteen minutes of fame. And then my second fifteen minutes came that following Tuesday at another middle school in my district. Holy crap. What did I get myself into? This experience was far more intense than the first. I signed a lot more autographs and crashed three English classes for an impromptu Inside the Actor’s Studio with Brian Gehrlein. Maybe I am on my way to becoming the next Mr. Rogers. I really wouldn’t complain.

Nothing Original

2011-10-16T13:57:00.001-07:00

Hey remember that time I used to blog? Me too. If you are new here, welcome.
My name is Brian and I have a writing problem. Okay, it's out there. I hope to deal with the issues associated with that problem here. You are not obligated to stay.

I stopped blogging for about a year because I thought it was vain or that I didn't have anything to say or that I was getting too preachy or something. But everyone has something to say and I am part of everyone so I guess I'll try to say things again. Also a lot of life happened to me since I stopped and I think I might want to comment on all that.

Some of you reading are friends, family members, former coworkers/employers, former students/teachers of mine and I want to stay connected to you. I want you to know how I am doing if we don't get a chance to talk in person. I kinda miss you and I'm sorry if we've fallen out of touch.

If you are wondering if I will write something thought provoking or humorous or original I have already addressed that with the title of this blog. So there.

That's all I got for now.

Hole in the wall

2010-12-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

There is a hole in the wall of my bathroom under the sink. The pipes are exposed and the drywall cut away. This is the remnants of the effects of my hubris when applied to water management. The sink drained slow and I had been working with plumbers all summer so naturally I thought it was within my capacity to fix it. I thought I knew what I was doing and I blew it. I broke the pipe and proceeded to dismantle the entire sink. Today it is a scar on my flesh. I used to hate looking at it. It made me sick. If I do happen to see it, it usually screams "fill me! Mend this error! You are a failure! Make this right!" Tonight something changed.

I was listening to a familiar song and I looked and saw the hole. Suddenly,it spoke a different word. "You are human. You have needs. You are dependent. And this is precisely what you should be--don't forget it! Oh and trying to mend me yourself will only make the hole worse than it is."

For whatever reason my attitude changed. I was struck by truth.

I want to like this hole. I want to laugh about it in celebration. I want to look down and remind myself that I incline to think I have it all down. I need to be reminded of that more often than not.

What is your hole in the wall? We all have them. What scar do you carry?

I hope mine reminds me of my imperfections and what happens when I forget that I am not metal but flesh. I hope I love that hole. I do not want to fill it. I want to look at it every morning when I rise and before every sleep filled night. Because it also reminds me of the ones who love me. They love me and my ability to make holes. They love me even when faced with the truth that I will always make holes. And I am reminded to love them. To love the hole in the wall they make as I learn to love mine.

The Death of Summer

2010-08-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

Whelp…. the summer is over and this is my first blog of the summer…… Ironic? Lazy? Random? Seahorses? Yes, probably all of those.

In this blog I will attempt (with one hand tied behind my back) to sum up all that I experienced, all that I learned and all that I anticipate as I enter into this new chapter in my life. So, to recap for our less intellectually inclined readers, I seek to word vomit all over this screen. The vomit will contain a slimy liquid of summer happenings, lessons learned garnished with chunks and bits about where I am at now and where I am going.

Now that we’re all grossed out by awkward imagery I will proceed.

Chapter one (just kidding).

In my last blog I vented to the masses that I felt the need to be initiated into something bigger than myself. I wanted a grand trip or an epic challenge of sorts to send me spiraling towards adulthood and success. If you remember (or can scroll down) I planned taking a longer than needed bike trek across the state where unicorns and bands and giant juicy watermelons would be waiting for me. And I would be complete. False. That did not happen. Furthermore, I think I got on my bike twice because of this nauseating heat.

My buddy Bret and I came to the realization that our dream of Lance Armstrongness would have to be reduced to “a Sunday afternoon ride.” We still have yet to do this, but I believe cooler weather is a preliminary requisite for said activity.

Before I continue with this story please know that I didn’t forget about you or us and this activity we share. I “blogged” like three or four times but I didn’t think any were good enough to “publish.” However, with the good reminder by my mother “good enough” is a relative thing and I shouldn’t care. So this is me not caring. I mean think about it, I could write about seahorses and it would still be blogging. I could type the alpha-bet backwards and discuss my ear cleaning habits and somebody out there in cyberspace might read it!

But the point isn’t that people will read it, is it? It’s something more. I told my mom it’s all the rewards of being a writer without any of the real struggles. I publish on my own terms, I can write whatever, whenever and for whomever. I can get instant feedback and often do. I can have a satisfying feeling knowing that I “accomplished something.”

Enough of this metatextual blogging (Blogging about blogging).

So I didn’t get initiated into adulthood via adventure. However I did enter into a new club that might indirectly help me feel more closure about my experience as a college kid. It’s the club called marriage. Let me back up….engagement with the eventual goal being marriage.

I haven’t really preached to the mountains about my current relationship, and that’s because in the back of my mind I was thinking “well what if it doesn’t work out?” And if that was the case then I’d have to revoke all the sweet nothings I wrote about the girl. I have done that in the past and I didn’t want to do that again. So I asked her to marry me. Now she’s trapped (I win). So I can write all I want about her!!!!!! Hahahah!!!!!!
OMG she is so cute, like totally ya know? 5ft nothing soft brown hair and green eyes like the colors of non-ripened wheat. She likes me for me and theatre and kids and flying kites from Wal-Mart and we’re just about as happy as two puppies with their heads out the window of a Toyota Tacoma 2004 standard transmission two seat truck!!!!!!!!!!

Which brings me to my other happening. I got wheels. Through the good Grace of God and those-that-birthed-me, my walking to class and virtually everywhere days are gone! No longer shall I be “that guy” that has to bum rides everywhere or ride his bike to school carrying bags of books and workout and rehearsal clothes while balancing a travel mug of coffee on my handlebars!

I did it! Four years of undergraduate college without a car! It helps that my school was very centralized and I didn’t really have a life outside it, but the fact remains that I did it.
It’s a very good thing. Also for my future children I can, in good conscience, willingly deprive them of a car until they graduate thus saving me tons of money! That sounds funny, but I am serious. Also, in no way was that a jab at my parents. They felt terrible about me walking everywhere and not having a car. I think it was a good thing though. My sister did it, and so did I. Let me tell you I appreciate this car so much more now. I will not take it for granted. Because of this gratitude I have decided to dedicate my truck (Eeva) to the powers of good, not evil. I will stop to pick up things and people. I will help my friends move out of their apartments. I will transport absurd amounts of cargo and humans to various places around the Kansas City area. Amen.

So I got me a fiancé and I got me a truck.
No, I will not reveal the story of our engagement quite yet! Calm down people. I will save that for a later blog to go into better detail. I realize that already I have wasted about five minutes of your time and so I will break this blog into a few sections.

More to come!

New Season

2010-05-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

This post has been a long time coming but one I’ve been dreading. I am on the eve of my undergraduate experience starring at the ambiguous abyss of my impending adulthood. Quite frankly I’ve been depressed about it for probably longer than I know. I’m starting to feel it and its affects are blooming into some of my personal relationships, also, my relationship with God. The main effect: confusion and fear. I’m coping in my own way—a heavy dose of hard rock, working out and not thinking about it.

I have lived and thrived in this place that I have made my very own for four years. Being here has been the longest amount of time in one place in my entire life. As an Army brat the moment I was letting my roots grow deep, it was time to pull out and start over. This place was somewhere I chose to be. I made a name for myself, explored my passions, saw glimpses of my face in this world, and most importantly…. I was needed. I think that’s what it comes down to. We want to be in a place where we are needed. I want to be needed somewhere. Kind of like the Cheers theme song, we want to go where everybody knows our name.

I’ve got no other motive or message for any of you other than I needed to say this for myself because I am needing to deal with it and move on to make a name in a new way.

I have an exit interview with the department of communication and theatre next week and I have to prepare a 2+ page paper on what I learned here and what I would and wouldn’t change. I tried to get a coherent thought on paper but it just wasn’t happening. What have I learned? What have I improved on? What has this meant to me? All that came out was nostalgic dribble.

I wonder what I will keep and bring with me as I start this next part of my journey. Will I forsake all that I have learned and tally it up as foolishness? Will I embrace it and use it in new ways with new faces? God only knows. I feel an urge to get away and climb a mountain. I want to ride on the back of a bucking roaring bear for half a mile and then slit its throat leaving me victorious. I want to carry that bear back to my village where my people will celebrate my battle and then feast on the fruits of my work.

That all might seem strange to you, and please know I am not a fan of bear meat or of killing those beautiful creatures. I just need a grand challenge to initiate me into this new chapter. It’s a primitive and mysterious instinct that I cannot ignore no more than I can ignore the nose on my face. Every time I look down its just sort of there.

Here is something to chew on. In our contemporary American culture we have no ritual to bring youth into man and womanhood. It simply isn’t there. This is something my theatre professor told me once and I never understood it until now. Think about it. Yes, there is graduation but that’s just wearing a robe in front of other people for an hour and having a piece of paper handed to you. What does that mean? Then there is marriage. I just don’t think that would satisfy this indescribable desire in me. Furthermore I’m not getting married anytime soon.

Two summers ago I hiked New York’s tallest mountain by myself. I wasn’t alone as I had three friends with me, but they were my age—there were no adults. It was something I decided, I planned, I executed, and I achieved. The memory of that day will never leave me. I was the first human being on that summit. Nature and I alone with God. The view and feeling was something I won’t let words taint.

I want something like that. I need something epic. I need something to make me feel alive and to remind me that I am not in control before I enter the real world.

And so I am planning a 250 mile bike ride with one of my best friends from college. We’re going to ride from Kansas City to Rolla only on the back roads as to avoid the dangers of the interstate. Maybe that trek will serve this need.

Wherever you are in life try to figure out where you are needed and don’t let go. Understand what you can control and don’t worry about anything else. I may not be able to control my feelings about letting go of this life I’ve created for these four years but I can choose what I take with me as I go.

Questions for you

2010-03-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

Hey there reader! Please take one minute of your precious time to assist me in my Undergraduate Colloquium Presentation!

Follow the link below!

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22ADZ8BCKN4

Something Light....

2010-03-09T23:27:00.000-08:00

Thank you for giving me feedback! I so enjoy hearing from my readers! It makes me feel like what I write matters or that people perhaps care. Those are good things. Even if you didn’t I’d still probably write because I believe is serves a purpose for my own health and enjoyment as well. Everybody wins.

At any rate I’m going to try and switch it up. According to the data before us, most of you don’t want to read my poetry. I am not offended. I understand most people find poetry a bore, or they had a bad experience with it or they see it generally as a silly useless thing. Furthermore, I also see that on the whole you, the reader, want more random, light hearted, humorous material. This I can do. And please understand that this does not mean I’ll stop writing about serious things, or things that I care about or controversial topics. I say this because I think there is a ton of hilarious potential in all those things. You just have to look hard.

As promised and for your pleasure please enjoy a more lighthearted memoir on recent thoughts and events.

Apparently I am funny. I don’t know if I like that. I ate some fish that tasted funny once. I projectile vomited a few hours later. Look I just don’t want people throwing up over the ridiculous crap I have to say. I just….care. Now, whether I am funny looking or have a certain way with words I don’t know, I’ll leave that for you, but I do think the world needs more humor for sure. There is just too much pain, tragedy, war, torture, hang nails, divorce, crying, Ryan Seacrest, dogs with “snuggies” and too many people who take themselves uber serious. Lame.

Well, I don’t know how to start this one…um why did the chicken cross the road….? Fail. Well speaking of “failing” and roads…..This winter I have been walking to school everyday still even though Missouri has become a magnet for snow and icy despair. It really sucks I’m not going to sugar coat it. The other day I slipped on ice face first….good thing my knees and hands broke my fall on the fluffy concrete. Oh, sure everybody falls. Its just extra humbling when other people see you. So the first thing I do after muttering an expletive was check to see if I performed the little stunt for an audience or if I was alone. Alas, I made somebody’s day as the twenty two year old kid who hasn’t mastered the art of walking.

I didn’t hide behind my shame. I waved at the driver and made a goofy face as if to say, “I’m a moron! Have a laugh at my expense!” About two seconds later I just had to let out a bolt of nervous laughter. It was a nice moment to the start of a very blustery very cold day.

So apparently we don’t even know thing one about winter in Missouri. I recently learned that in places up north people can freeze bubbles. Holy frick I never thought about that! A frozen bubble! Also, to test the temperature of the air people throw cups of water into the sky and if it freezes on the way down it supposedly means it’s colder than if the water came back down a liquid. Genius. I’m glad we have such precise instrumentation.

However, since it is colder my warm drink consumption has like quadrupled. I think I can justify the $3.40 every few times a week if it’s not about pleasure, taste, caffeine addiction but rather about survival. I need this warm delicious coffee to live or my insides might freeze! Truth.

Speaking of coffee, I ran out of cream a few weeks ago and I haven’t been able to man up and drink it black. I’ve heard that gives you chest hair and the ability to build things. Men= hairy builders. I can already build things and I have a “little engine that could” chest hair going on. He’s not alone, he has friends, but they are just hard to see. Furthermore, my roommate works for Starbucks and he brings bags and bags of different kinds of beans home for us. It’s like sweet manna from heaven. And so I have all this coffee at my disposal and I need it to survive but I just gotta have my cream and sugar. I want to start my day with excellence and deliciousness. I don’t know how many of you out there bounce outta bed and reach for a warm mug of mediocrity. I hope not….oh snap wait a minute I forgot about Ryan Seacrest…. Well he doesn’t count he’s just a good looking robot plotting the untimely death of Dick Clark.

Let’s just say my coffee intake seriously dropped. At least for awhile. It did until I was sitting in class wondering why I had a pounding headache. I ignored it, drank water and went on my merry way. The next day it happened again, so I bought a cup of coffee at the Perch (coffee shop at the student union at Jewell). Magically the headache went away! A miracle! False, that just means I have a legitimate physical addiction to caffeine. Awesome…

The problem was compounded even further because I don’t have a car to go get cream whenever I want. I am also freakin poor and don’t need to be throwing my money away at the coffee shop. It was a serious predicament. So I alternated for about a week between headaches and paying for coffee. My money is gone. Crap. There is good news though, eventually I did go and buy cream so I can make my own, fuel my addiction and save money every week!

Being poor and living off campus without a car has taught me a lot. One thing is that I don’t know what it is about salsa, but it makes everything taste like Zeus himself sprinkled goodness on it. It’s like the wonder spice (other than salt). Got rice? Add some salsa and you got a sexy fiesta in your mouth and nobody else is invited! Got soup? Add salsa and you get a soup so good it can make a blind man sing! Got some old cans of beans and corn? Add salsa then you got a…..no just go to the grocery store cause that’s not really anything good. At best it’s a couple things needed for a Mexican dish, I don’t know. Maybe go to Taco Bell and see what happens.

Another point of sadness in my life: I don’t have salsa and I’m almost out of sugar. Tragedy.

Although if you think about it, if my biggest woes are not getting coffee every chance I crave it and have to walk in 0 degree weather up hill both ways two miles (seriously), then I am doing pretty well in this whole game of being a human. There are people a lot worse off than me. There are people who do not have a warm place to walk to, or quality higher education at their finger tips. There are people who don’t have friends to drive them to Target. There are people who would love salsa to eat by itself, not just on a heaping warm pile of rice.

And so all in all, I love the life I recognize that I am greatly blessed. How are you greatly blessed?

This year has created a lot of precious memories for me. It has taught me responsibility. It has taught me the value of a new Christmas coat. It has taught me that a savings account doesn’t work that great if you treat it like a checking account. It has also taught me that ATM’s at Bank of America literally get hungry too, and their dish of choice is check cards. Seriously folks, it ate my card. Don’t worry I have a new one.

Well I hope this little blog warmed your heart. And if you decide to put some extra spicy salsa on your eggs tomorrow morning, I hope you have a warm mouth and think about how awesome life is.

Stay warm out there friends. Somebody seriously needs to go kill that freagin groundhog. What a jerk. Why can’t the people in charge just lie and tell everyone we are going to have an early spring? That little rat needs to stop ruining people’s lives I mean this has supposedly been the worst recorded winter in like forever or something.

Much love reader! Have a happy March, count your blessings, eat some salsa. The month of Spring is upon us! For our hemisphere that is. Those creeps down south are about to plunge in a dark and twisted fall and winter. Just kidding, I have nothing against our neighbors to the south of the equator.

Sociopolitical Dream

2010-02-24T23:12:00.000-08:00

Everyone goes to college to find out one thing: They don't need college.

It’s a really silly place where older people rob you and complexify the simplest concepts. For instance I’m taking a class where the basic premise is that people are different. Duh. Wow!

Before I went to college I thought the world and everyone in it was screwed up. Now that I am a senior in college I realize I was seriously underestimating the level of screwedupness.

It’s all a game really. Society says you have to do these things in order to get these other things and they make us believe we need both. Now don't be alarmed. I'm not dropping out. In fact I’m staying in college an extra semester just to get a paper from the state of Missouri that says I can legally teach children. Who knows, I may even have the privilege of teaching your future children some day. If only they were so lucky.

College is a debt factory. Aside from this fact, a redeeming quality is that it attempts to educate individuals towards self actualization. Autonomy. Once this is reached learning belongs to, and is regulated by the owner. And so in a good way school gives you the tools to do such. Ya, college you did something right!

However, not everyone is fortunate enough to receive these life long tools because college is for middle and upper-class citizens. Yes, there are always exceptions but I’m talking about the majority of college students. Even with "government aid" no one in impoverished communities is expecting to go. They don't expect it because sadly, no one else expects them to either. Isn’t that terrible? Think about it.

We were talking in my Cultural Communications class about this very thing and I had to ask myself: Do employers, politicians and the education system unconsciously withhold investment in minority students and workers because we secretly want them to remain ignorant, thus keeping them in the jobs we want them to be in….i.e dishwashers, mechanics, janitors, garbage collectors, factory workers, fruit pickers, and other blue collar jobs? Just asking the question makes me want to take a shower. But is that not true? Is the system keeping them down to force a kind of cast system?

Ah, but maybe you are thinking no! what about the American Dream?! We can change our stars, we can improve, we can move up! “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.1” Well of course we can move up, we can be “overlings.” But it takes education, mentorship and money to do all that. Meanwhile life is happening and the system perpetuates. Oh, and about the American Dream—to hell with it. There is more to life than making money, having stuff and being comfortable. I mean compared to the rest of the living world we are spoiled to the core, the richest of the rich where wants are needs.

Not long ago I sat through an amazing lecture at UMKC with Jonathan Kozol, Education guru and political activist. Mr. Kozol hit the nail on the head when he stated that schools are more segregated now than they ever were fifty years ago. Dr. King when did we wake up from your dream?

Yet, it’s not just about race it’s also about money—and the screwedupness is compounded! Not only can we hate those who look and think differently than we do, but we can also hate those who don’t have the same amount of stuff. Classism.

Oh, but we do our dandiest to mask the truth, our feelings and thoughts by sugarcoating our words.

For instance: I am not white…I’m ethnically challenged. People don’t say that…it’s just funny. But I do hear that STDs are now STIs (sexually transmitted infections) Maybe infection is less socially damning and less permanent. If it’s less permanent then bring on the sexual promiscuity! Adultery is an “extra marital affair.” That doesn’t sound too bad! And did you further know there is a web based company designed to facilitate spousal cheating?! For real people.
Brotherhood is often denoted as siblinghood. That one isn’t that bad on the surface, but on a deeper level I think brotherhood and sisterhood have different, more profound and specific meaning. You can’t just combine both and call it even. And yes it does matter.

Now, ultimately don’t get me wrong, I’m all for being inclusive in word and deed, especially gender inclusive. I really do support and appreciate equality but its getting to the point in some classes where I’m afraid to use the pronoun “he” when referring to a male person. I might get in trouble for being too specific thus offending or invalidating someone else’s existence.

I’ve gone too far. I can’t have an opinion on equality or injustice or anything related to suffering or anything ever because I am a middle class, white, straight, protestant male. My bad. Dang. Must have been my upbringing. You know, raised in an egalitarian household where I was taught to respect and love everyone no matter what and empathize with those in need or pain.

Moving along.

This words game is all so fake. Why can’t we just say what we mean and not worry about being diplomatic and stepping on toes? Is it just to pretend like we are respecting the other person? Where is the truth? Recently I’ve found I really appreciate tactful frankness. Its true, it’s to the point and you can take it at face value. But there is a negative connotation with frankness. I don’t like that. We need more frankness in this world. I’m tired of empty words, and promises. I’m tired of fig trees that won’t produce fruit.

It’s sickening to me to think how far people and corporations will go to pretend like they are progressive or enlightened. Political correctness is the kingpin of this phenomenon for words are the beginning of thought and action. If we somehow neutralize our words to dull down our still sexists, racist, and classist feelings and intentions it’s somehow okay to continue injustice.

I say these things because even though there is a deceptive aroma of change in the air, I think underneath it all we are still very much the same.

On a less depressing note I realized recently that fear and hate are things you have to teach. Nobody is born a racist. Nobody is born thinking they are superior over another person. These are learned traits. And here is the point, our teaching and education is key.

I went to school as the son of a soldier in the US Army. I was typically a minority in the schools I attended, yet I befriended, played with and loved my friends of many different colors. I was taught to love everyone.
Then as I progressed through my higher education I learned what people of my skin color had done to my friends with different colored skin.

The institutions taught me I was a racist. They taught me that I was different from my friends, that we used to hate each other and probably still do. Then they teach us to simply coexist and get a piece of the pie—The American Dream of self love.

Whatever happened to the protection of innocence? Where did my childhood go? Why can't society and businesses and the world function like my blissfully ignorant childlike state? Why instead of hours of learning about all the horrible sins our fathers and mothers committed (although we don’t really learn much about our mothers do we….) can we not be taught how to better improve our behavior? Why can't we be taught to love and to play fair and to keep it like that?

I quote Switchfoot, "look what a mess we've made of love."

I think this country will be just about as racist, sexist and classist as it always was until we learn how to get over ourselves and not talk about it anymore. Maybe if we all banned together under the umbrella truth proclaimed in the Broadway musical Avenue Q, “everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes….doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes…” We are messed up, yes. We are bias and judgmental and selfish. Cool, now what? But it doesn’t happen like that. We are fooled into thinking we are lovely bright creatures capable of making our dreams come true! Sweet! Hey progressive movement…..um…the holocaust. Ya….I went there.
Even today there will always be issues. And yet some people claim that we are so far removed from all this. No way. Actions speak louder than words case and point: white flight.

Just because Barak Obama is president doesn't mean our country isn't racist.

You're probably wondering why I haven't talked about faith issues or brought God into the discussion. I am getting to that.
When I look around I just can’t help seeing that there is something horribly wrong not just with our governments, schools, words, attitudes, behavior, cities and societies worldwide. Those same diseases that infect the system also infect me. I am the problem.

So are you and we’re holding hands running toward a cliff.

I've always held that pretty much all the world’s problems would be solved if we just eliminated the humans. I said that once in a theology class. People starred and laughed nervously. I was serious.

Despite the fact that we are the problem, killing all humans doesn’t work because I like those guys too much. Ah snap! I mean I like those people too much. Women are people too….cause when I said guys I maliciously intended to exclude half the earth’s human population….

The only shred of hope I hold is that I believe there is a way out of the mess. I believe this because I have experienced and have seen a change in myself. Something completely other, outside of me. It corrects my attitude and changes the way I think about everything. It makes me act contrary to myself. When I want to be selfish or think ugly thoughts about someone who is different than me I hear another voice in the back of my mind that causes me to think twice. There is a force in this world that has the power to change. It is very real. It is not physical. It is not a new hot shot political leader. It is not the next trend in international relations or a new educational act, it is the God of the universe. He created everything. Whether he spoke it into being literally in six human days or if he painstakingly designed its slow evolution and watched its poetic unfolding over billions of years we may never know. I don’t think that matters at this point of creation. We already exist.

This God is real and doesn't like what he sees either. I'll bet it breaks his heart to see the things we do, think and say about each other. But he didn't just sit on his hands and agonize far away at the horrible mess we made of his art project. He embodied our struggle. He became flesh and blood and felt and saw the immense weight of sin on his creation. He took it on himself and became the mediator between an angry Father and a guilty child. He paid the price and gave us the ability to reverse the curse if we trust in him. This world is not going to have the final word. No sir. He has given us a way out of ourselves.

The Good News of Jesus Christ is the only true revolutionary theory. It’s turning the world upside-down. I mean think of it! Loving my enemy and praying for those who are persecuting me?! Serving to lead?! Becoming last to be first?! Giving to the least of these?! Rejecting religious hypocrisy?! Denying myself?! Joy in suffering?! Living life free and only by two rules: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Enjoying a relationship with the one who made you and seeing life like it has meaning and purpose! What else do we need?

And maybe you’ve heard this all before. Maybe you agree with me. Cool, so what are you doing to make this sociopolitical dream come true? Mathew 28:19-20. But maybe you disagree. If so, why did you entertain yourself to read this whole rant? Maybe somewhere deep inside you, you understand what I mean and see and feel that selfishness I’m talking about. At least think about it.

There you have it. Jesus Christ is my socio-political dream. I'm not talking about a specific Christian denomination, not a movement or an organization or a religion. I'm talking only spiritual. We are all one and we are all lost. And he is the only way. Keep your religions, organizations, societies, traditions and customs! So long as you have your world rocked by The Mediator and get to know the One True Father. That is his goal. I believe in God's love for humanity. I believe that knowledge of God is attainable. Through the love and knowledge of God, we can start living life the ways it was meant to be lived.

P.S.
To the keepers of the system, the powers that be, the representatives in the heavenly realms and under the earth. Hear the words of my friend Neo…

“I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.2”

1. Julius Caesar I ii, William Shakespeare
2. The Matrix

Shut up and Listen

2010-02-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in this blog in a while. Probably cause I have had ludicrous writer's block. Maybe I don't know what I should say. I don't know what I’ll end up writing about, but I’m going to try with all my might to muster out a coherent thought. If it ends up being profound or encouraging or inspirational, I guess that is good, but I’m shooting for coherent. How am I doing? Its like a truck on the highway with a sign that says how's my driving? Anybody really call one of those numbers? Anybody really care? Sometimes I call the numbers on the sides of food products just cause I figure no one is giving those people the time of day. Recently I tried calling the people who make Frank's Hot Sauce. That stuff is freagin good. I was eating with a group of friends and attempting to try my hand at corporate advertising. Here were the top five for a hot sauce.

(in an intense movie guy announcer voice)
Frank's Hot Sauce: So hot it can make a baby cry.
Frank's Hot Sauce: So hot it can make a blind man speak.
Frank's Hot Sauce: So hot it makes the sun look foolish.
Frank's Hot Sauce: So hot....it just shouldn't be this hot.
Frank's Hot Sauce: So hot it can bring a mere child to appreciate Russian literature.

Who knows.

Coherent yet? Nah I didn't think so either. Let's keep going, maybe we'll get somewhere together.

Well, a good lesson I’ve learned in my life but haven't mastered into practice is when you can't think of anything to say....don't. Meaning, you don't always gotta use your yapper. I think to a certain extent silence frightens people. Have you noticed this? It does depend on the relationship and the person but generally speaking, we (as Americans) tend to shy away from silence. Why is that? Is it because we hate awkward? Are we afraid what the other person is thinking? Why should we be?

I want to like silence more. I want to date it. I want to get to know it and learn something in the quiet. There is so much to learn if we just shut up and listen.

Listening is an active process. It is an active process in which we do not have full control. Not talking makes us give away control. I think we hate that too.
If we submit (ooh buzz word!) to silence and commit to listening more what would we learn? Sometimes the greatest thing you can do for your health is listen to your body. When I look in the mirror I see something interesting. Maybe you will think this interesting too next time you're checking yourself out. I have two ears, and two eyes. I have one mouth. That means I have four times as many "listeners" as I do "talkers."

What would happen to our relationships, houses, schools, communities, churches, cities, states, countries and our world if everyone committed every day to listening four times as much as they spoke?!

What would that look like? What would that sound like? Ask yourself, how much time in your social interaction do you spend talking and how much time listening? Interesting.

At heart I believe I am the biggest problem the world is facing. Me. I am a selfish creature and I am infected to the core with ME ME ME.

I believe I am not alone in this condition. Unfortunately, I believe we all want to talk more than we want to listen. I believe we want to be in control more than we want to give it away. Because of this we are in opposition to each other. Conflict and the rebellion of the soul from its loving Creator.

This past Sunday my pastor put it rather bluntly. We hate God. It’s true. Either we hate God or we Love God there is no middle ground. We play games and try to pretend that we are either apathetic or that we care, but when it comes to the heart of the matter we either love Him or we hate Him. This love or hate can be unfounded. It is usually based on faulty or missing information. Hate is usually rooted in ignorance. And so, we do not love because we do not know. We hate because we do not know. If we knew, we would love.

Maybe we have seen something we don’t like in those who are supposed to know God. If you are somebody who has seen something in me that you don’t like, please don’t judge God. I am sorry. I am doing my best to be a servant of The Story. I am learning and listening as best I can.

All in all do yourself a favor and listen. Use those beautiful ears and eyes. See the beauty in this place. See the fingerprints of a creative God. Hear the wisdom and voice of God. Hear the never ceasing chorus of creation proclaiming the only truth that matters. I am.

So maybe I haven’t said anything past coherent. Maybe I haven’t touched coherence. Maybe in your mind I have only danced around with rhetorical babble. Perhaps. All I know is what I feel, what I see in myself, what I see in others and in the world. I just really believe that if we let go and listen we would hear God. We would see God. And if we listened we would get to know God. Maybe then we would accept the love God gives to us. Maybe then we might see a very different world.

Four New Poems

2009-12-07T00:40:00.000-08:00

False Love

Oh false love get back!
Thou knowest me not!
Sweet lips full of lies to the core.
Only one speaks true.
I will not be false loved.
I see who you are, though I may forget at times.
Fresh Eyes, be my guide for she lurks with thoughts to kill.

True Love

I cannot give you face, that is not fair.
You are formless yet you contain all I hope you to be—simply all that you are.
My love we shall escape time together.
For the threads of our love already stretch that gap between Dreaming and Reality…Now and Eternity.

Humility

I have broke the chains of pride.
I have been set free.
I was bound to death.
I was blind but now I see.
How good it feels to be rid of Hubris!
To be clean from the infection of arrogance and self love!
I feel at long last filled with joy and something else.
I could dance, I could sing…
Perhaps I’ll write a poem.

Sophomoric

Look at the words I write.
So affluent are my phrases.
Such eloquence that I write with.
How inclusive is my language.
Not just the academic elite nor the learned men and women, but those less fortunate.
See how I bring wisdom and the etchings of the sublime to the masses.
I know words and know how to string them together to say so much.
Packed it is in content and so much meaning.
Not a simple phrase will do.
I waste no words.
I write so that all may know.

Praise me, O praise me!
Look at what I can do with language!
See how I bring even the classes together!
Rich, middle and poor alike have access to my vision and words.
They all benefit and our species is enriched.
I do not write to keep knowledge contained.
Through me it is not owned only by those who own.
How horrible a thing to deprive a man a lesson, to keep a tool from him.

Look at my writing.
How it ebbs and flows!
I have such a large bank of words.
And how deep the meaning and how new my cause!
I shall unite us all and send us forward into the next generation.
For my words do not conform to patterns.
They do not echo the words of others.
I speak as though a person speaks.
A little child or a factory man.
I even write to save paper!
So much meaning in so little space.
Not one word wasted.

To those who sneer or miss my meaning--I weep for you.
Scholastica has made you a god.
It is sad that you do not see as I see.
But you may enrich us far better than I.
With words here not used.
Eighteen syllables each to say not one bit of anything.
I'll burn your books when you're gone.
I’m turning your world upside-down.
Rigid keepers of the way it is.

But nonetheless thank you.
Thank you for opening my eyes to see your sad ways.
Thank you for giving me the tools to force labels and separate others with my knowledge.
Thank you for giving me the keys to success.
Thank you for doing so much.
Thank you for your words.

2009-10-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

Beat
Brian R. Gehrlein
October 2009

Percussionist Poets may never write free.
Please read some more and then you’ll see.
For I contain an inner beat,
ticking and tapping from scalp to feet.
This helps me weave ideas in-time
which come in rhythm and in rhyme.
But poet’s prison is my mind
for words I need are hard to find.

In metre always! Why not in prose?
Will I escape? O heaven knows!
But what of choice, of sovereign will?
My life is blank, a page to fill!
Alright it’s done; I’ll stop the verse,
and finally end this writers curse.
I’ll change the words, the form and font.
And write this poem

However
I
Feel!

This is my most recent little creation. I wrote this after a very tranquil and spiritual late night walk home. All I could hear were the clicks and shuffles of my shoes on concrete. I noticed my steady pace and how my shoes seemed to set the rhythm of the night. Shuffle, shuffle, tap, tap, click, clickity clicky clap, scrape, shuffle, step ball change, rap tap tap tap.... (Apparently I was tap dancing home).

This lovely night sat in the wake of a recent conversation with a good friend about my “writing voice." I talked about my poetic form being trapped in rhyming-only meter sort of stuff and how I wanted to get away from that more. It’s not bad, I mean look at Dr. freakin Seuss and Shel Silverstein! Fun as it is I can't be a one trick pony! Those are lame. I want at least two tricks.

Any way I told my friend that I probably wrote metered poems because I have been a drummer formally for nine years and informally since the womb. Ask my mom I'm pretty sure I came out purple and beat-boxing. It was the eighties....

Seriously, I’m lucky to have made it out of Elementary alive…pencils were sticks and my mouth was a fifteen piece drum set….still is.

And so I live my life with a beat in my heart and skip in my step. It makes sense that this beat will bleed into my writing. I just don’t want to be restricted or predictable! We’ll see.

Another thing that has been on my heart has been the wonderful issue of Free Will. I love me some good John Calvin (depending on my mood), don’t get me wrong, I just also like thinking that God made humans…wonderfully and fearfully in His image….not robots.

Oh free will you tricky devil!

How much do I have? Do I have any? Is it a luxury of money? Am I a puppet and stuck in what life dishes out? Who is responsible, me or the Fates? Do I live my life like I have choice or do I send another message?

I’m pulling my hair out… is it my destiny to pull my hair out or am I choosing it?….OMG….

I hope you can think about your life and the choices you make. What about your choices indicates that you live like you have free will? Are you stuck? Do you feel the tugs and pulls of foreign strings? Are you trapped in the emotions of the past settling for second or third best? Do you dream and work to make those dreams come true? In the words of Switchfoot, “This is your life. Are you who you wanna be?” Do you march to your own beat or the beat of another? Can you hear a beat at all?

Have you told her you love her? When will you tell him the truth? Have you applied for that program or job? Have you forgiven him really? Have you walked through that door? Have you left that relationship behind? Have you gotten on your knees lately?

I will end with a personal revelation.

A friend’s grandfather recently gave me some sagely advice. I had only just met him and I was telling him about wanting to be a teacher. He told me his son in law was one and used to have trouble with school administrators. He shared with me the advice he gave to him. He looked into my soul with piercing blue-wise-eyes and said, “find out what you can control and do it well. The rest…don’t worry about it.”

A quote and a prayer…

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference. -- Reinhold Niebuhr

Dear God, please help me to have a healthy perspective on the amount of control I have in this life. I only live here once. Help me to not screw it up too bad or to ever take your rightful place as the captain of my ship. Let me make wise choices and enjoy the freedom you have given me in Christ. And as always…..THY WILL BE DONE. In Jesus name. Amen.

Man in the Mirror

2009-09-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

Being a commuter without a car sucks.

I found that out pretty well this last week. It didn’t hit me that hard until I had double practice for cross country, biked back and fourth to eat at my apartment twice and then went to weight lifting class. That day I put in a good fifteen miles of training—not including biking back and fourth which is roughly two miles there and back. I also had a considerable amount of books and a few other bags containing food and practice clothes and shoes.
On my way to class I probably looked like a homeless person who just stole a bike. No joke.

Coming to class sweaty and out of breathe everyday after dodging cars and making deals with God that if I make it over just one more hill without dying I’ll become a missionary in Africa is not my idea of a super time. Its fun to be a college senior!

Oh boy! Just think what splendid joy I’ll have biking to class with swine flu secretly nesting inside me while I desperately peddle in place up a snow covered hill in temperatures rivaling that of the former planet Pluto. Burr.

Oh come on we’re all going to get H1N1. At least that’s the impression I get from the media. I mean I’ve always been told I like to ham it up so it just seems to be the natural consequence.

Wash your hands please.

Well, this blog is not me complaining how horrible my student living situation is, because I actually happen to love living in an apartment and pretending to be an adult. Pretend is a fun game. Look mom I made toast without inflicting 3rd degree burns!
I know there are great financial benefits and I’m sure I will make responsibility strides just by sticking to this arrangement. No more complaining for me, however this blog is on complaining.

I feel ever so complacent. So much so that I feel the need to publicly complain about my level of complacency.

At any rate today in class Dr. Kim Harris asked us what we think the problem of the world is—what the problem with the human condition was.
I remembered a quote from G. K. Chesterton when he was asked to write an essay, along with other noteworthy intellectuals of his age, on the same question. Upon the request he wrote back with two words. What’s the problem with the world? His reply: “I am.”

And so I borrowed that quote and told Kim and the class that I was the problem of humanity. I am the reason there is so much pain, suffering, swine flu and bloodshed.

Ponder that for a while because I’m going to bring it home for you real hard.

Of course the answer “I am the problem” carries a bucket load of theological juiciness involving tasty original sin, the necessity for a redeemer, grace and salvation and all that jazz. We won’t get into that now.

However telling the class that after experiencing my grand “I’m a selfish jerk” moment sparked an interweaving of threads. Something God was trying to teach me or “unlearn in me.”
(I say unlearn because His goal is to simplify us until we bear a child like faith not complexify or complicate us.)

It all happened in the middle of a very intense workout after a miscommunication with a significant other.

My coach had almost doubled our workout amount and made us run it on a very hilly very difficult place.
In my opinion the number of intervals was a little excessive and I was upset for being asked to run so much.

I was cranky Brian. I had a bad attitude. I was emotional. This in turn exacerbated the problems in my mind and the workout itself.
Yuck.

Towards the end my teammates and I were taking a water break and one of them called us over to talk.

In my mind I thought he was going to complain and talk bad about our coach and how ridiculous the expectation was. Then it came. The pale of warm spit dumped over my head from my own dirty mouth.

Instead of complaining this younger guy decided to provide a simple word of encouragement and an inspirational quote to get us through to the finish. Positive thoughts. We were all experiencing pain and hardship together. What we needed was that one person to lighten the load just a touch. Healing words. Someone had to be Jesus.

I felt so low because that wasn’t me. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was the “Christ follower” wishing negativity and complacency over genuine encouragement and love. How could I be this person and still claim to be an image bearer of the One True God? The Gospel is revolutionary and yet in this moment I could not find one trace of it in my heart. Where was the cross in me?

This reminded me of the words of my pastor from the day before, “where is the cross of Christ forming in your life?”

Do I really know?

I could feel selfishness on me like a heavy backpack. I could feel sin covering my skin like black oil from the earth. Ugly.

The problem with sin is in its subtle nuances that go undetected until just the right level bleeds out to wake us up. It starts as a thought or an attitude morphing into an action or a word finally exploding into a broken home or the holocaust. Sin is there even when we don’t see it. Count on that.

After doing some careful reflection I realized I had to talk to someone about this gross affliction.

I made up with my significant other and started talking things through, telling her my story.
It began frustrating me. Until it came out.
I asked her, “when am I going to grow up?”

To which she replied.

“Brian it’s not about growing up, it’s about growing together.”

Growing together…...Brilliant!

She meant her and I which is profound in and of itself. But then I thought what if I apply this to my faith?
I had been a Christian for many years and still I had so much to let go of. What would it take for me to grow up… for any of us?
But it’s not about growing up.
It’s about becoming.
Becoming One.
Growing together, sanctification.
It’s life long.

So now I have to ask God.
“When are we going to grow together?
When am I going to let go of stuff that keeps me from you? When am I going to step aside and let you? When am I going to cherish the gift of your grace?”

If we really have faith in what we believe then we should know that we am not our own. We are not us anymore, not who we think we are or what our sin tells us. Our identity is found in Christ and in Christ alone.

We are becoming. A verb, His verb, not a noun.

We are becoming like Him with bits of Self hanging on like static cling until we leave this place.
I really should be more gracious with myself. After all it takes grace to receive grace. Accepting a gift is the most humbling thing.

So right now the world is filled with scum like me. A grim view.
But there is hope.
There was One who took that scum upon himself and transformed it into something beautiful. He gave us the ability through his grace to become beautiful too. If we only believe.

And so I may be the problem….but I’m getting to know The Solution and He's a pretty cool dude.

Don’t be the problem. Please dear friends get onboard with the Only Solution.
Its the only hope this twisted world has.

In the words of the late great Michael Jackson, “I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I am asking him to change his ways. And no message could have been any clearer. If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.”

My Summer in Words

2009-08-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

The magnitude of what I have learned and un-learned this summer is too great to recount in any bit of detail at this point. Too much to chew, so I wouldn't want you to choke. I know the Heimlich but I'm a nice guy first and foremost. I won't subject you to intentional conceptual gagging. However I will touch on the major points of growth, lessons learned, hardships endured and joy felt through a sharing and analyzing of some of my summer poems.

1. Context: I worked at Six Flags as a live performer in multiple shows and the Glow in the Park Parade! One of my character's names was Chris Seafoam, another was Scott Smithsonian. WOW. One night during the parade I happen to catch the eye of a recent ex girlfriend. It was messy and I was still thinking I could salvage things. The truth came out pretty well. It always does.

Poem Number Three on Love Lost At the Parade

Amidst the glow,
and in the show
I saw you there
within the mass.

Who are you now?
I wonder how,
we ever came
to be this way.

If eye to eye,
I’d ask you why.
but silence kills
the hope within.

The music’s done,
we had our run.
And time reveals,
the heart moves on.

This one is about the dawning realization that the relationship I had previously ended in the Spring was really over. Sometimes hope is misplaced and we don't see who a person truly is until we are away from a bad situation. Enough about that. However I learned some great things about myself and about what I want and don't want in a relationship, so positive change no doubts or regrets. I got over it fast with a summer fling...guilty.

2. Context: A group of friends and I decided to fourth-meal it up at a local diner. I had coffee and waffles and was reflecting on some Shel Silverstein I had read a few hours earlier.

Waffles

Waffles, waffles everywhere and not a drop to drink.
But can you drink a waffle? The answer’s no… I think.
The sugar makes my coffee sweet; it’s tiny, white like snow.
The cream, it makes my black turn brown the caffeine makes me go!
The waitress is a little off my waffle a bit too small.
If there be a tip tonight there won’t be much at all.

3.Context: It was my day off so I went to Six Flags to chill. Go figure. I watched the sunset on top of the Ferris Wheel. I watched the Parade for the first time. It was spiritual and made me want to describe and contrast light created by God and light created by us. Keep in mind that Parade would have made Thomas Edison crap his pants.

Wonders of God, wonders of man

I am in wonder at the wonders of God.
I stand in awe at the wonders of man.
I see the soft glow of painted sky.
I feel the bright glow of magic movement.
I taste the dull fade in cloud’s tangerine light.
I hear the colors bursting onward in the parade.
A peace comes over me.
It is well with my soul at
the end of a wonderful day.

4. Context: I read a lot of books this summer, one of them A Severe Mercy. It was the second read. I had a lot of faith conversations with a good friend who roomed with me and goes to my school, he is also my counterpart in pretty much every play at Jewell and show at Six Flags. This poem was about him and others in my life struggling to find genuine faith in a sea of false belief and poor example. What does it take to set someone on fire for God if they are only playing around in the smoke of curiosity or doubt? For Aaron.

What Mighty Wind

What Mighty Wind can stir an ember to flame?
What Spark makes Fires Glow?
How can I Burn for You?
What makes Smoke change to Blazing Glory?
Come Mighty Wind come.
And Wake the Pyre.

An accompanying prayer...

Dear Lord, teach me how to be used by you to inspire others to live for you, to be loved by you. Teach me how you alone can bring us alive. Make me burn for you. May the heat you fan inside me spread to others in Jesus name.

5. Context: Dealing with my own faith battles. Identity check all around. My views on relationships and romance ebbed and flowed. My concept of faith and my relationship with Christ leaped forward in the words of Kim Harris. I didn't want anything fairytale. Just raw and real. I love to live in stories. I am Theatre major.

Dreaming of Real

Do I want Strength or the appearance of ability?
Do I want Love or the idea of it?
Do I want dirty, rough Faith or the beautiful illusion of belief?
Do I want Loyalty to the King, or halfhearted allegiance?
Do I want Real or dreams, Truth or lies?

I want Real all across the board.
After all, the best stories are real, not stories for the sake of stories.
So find me Real.
I’m ready to be found.

If you are still reading this, you are a trooper and I give you a gold star! Either you are obligated to read this as a close friend and editor/ reviewer or you are freakin bored. I'm not that entertaining.... But good news, I'm almost done.

6. Context: I started freaking out about all the unknowns of life. Then I realized how I have a tendency to "complexify" just about everything. Even simple things like snails and fruit. I over think and over analyze. Thanks Billy Jewell!

Anyway some things are just irreducibly complex which in appearance makes them "simple." Things like God's sovereignty and love and gravity and stuff. So I picked some symbols to represent the attainable Truths and truths that life is full of. Most of it in nature and the Bible. These truths are our constants in a sea of unknown. They make it possible to live and have faith. God is real and so are His words. At least this is my personal firm belief.

Music of the Math

Dreaming of reality again aboard the good ship Babyl-on, I look out upon the fray.
It is dark and the waves rise and fall in bleak sea of variables.
This vessel, my constant, rides on despite weathered waters of why, where, who, how, what and when.
Through violent cresting blues of y, foaming whites of x, and black raging currents of z, we marvel at the mess, careening to conquer the conundrum while ignoring the simple music of the math.

It comes in softly like the glow of sun-kissed horizon.

Oh how steady this vessel, these waters, if we just listen to the music of the math.

The music cools clenched fists, melts the ears and eases the eyes. It turns them toward eastern anticipating skies.

None shall know what dawn may bring

But soft, I hear a Voice beneath the storm…

And through the gales
within my sails, His breath
will chart my path.

In light of Dawn,
the Darkness gone,
I hear the Music play.

With gentle sigh
I float on by
and vanish in the tune.

Last one fools...

7.Context: Sitting in an empty apartment remembering every show, every parade, every roller coaster (literal and figurative). Catharsis. Closure. Realizing how much I sweat performing everyday and how much a human body can sweat in St. Louis in July humidity performing in a fifty pound flight suit covered in $6,000 worth of lights...

Six Flags

I’m done.
It is finished.
A chapter closed.
The summer of 2009 but a glowing memory.
A sweat drenched summer...
Filled with laughter and lights, speed and heights.

Its over!
Thanks for reading. So, you pretty much know my whole life now. I guess I'll go to bed or go eat something.

Looking forward to a brand new Fall. Lots in store and new waters to swim.

Much love!

Thanks for the words all who inspired and contributed!

Dear God, thank you for your presence and persistence with me. Even though I ran at times and probably frustrated the snap out of you, thank you for this summer and for every word you gave. My turn. I give you this Fall and ask only that you would use me and lead me to be a blessing to others. Let me not forget the lessons I learned and un-learned. Ultimately Lord, just lead me to a child-like faith and a closer walk with Jesus. That is all that matters. Simple, real, honest faith in The One who is the only thing worth living this life. Let me stop over complicating things and living in my mind. Let me learn to listen. In Jesus name. Amen.

Seafoam....out!

Poem for The Season

2009-07-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Taking and the Giving
Inspired by A Severe Mercy

A time to take, and receive all that is around me.
Harvest time for winter’s approach.
But I am not far away from summer’s kiss.
My warm childhood and youthful spirit remain inside.

And still I gather, take in, and work for colder times
Not long, when the Time of Giving dawns.
The Dishing of the Grain.
A time when I shall deal generously with the hungry and thirsty.
Giving to those in warmer months, and in every Season.

So stay in now, where the bounty overflows.
Drink deep of Knowledge, Wisdom, Beauty, Love, Understanding and the Things of the King.
For soon the need to give them away will come.
The Taking passed as green to brown,
with the smell of crisp snow clouds and shorter days.

I dedicate this poem to all my twenty something guys and gals. College students, graduates, those living in their parent's basement. But mostly to my lil' bro. Here's to you Andrew. Don't be a fool, stay in school. Even if you and I are both pursuing useless degrees.... maybe one day when we teach living off government cheese, we'll look back and say: "Hey! I'm glad I'm up to my ears in debt so the state could give me this stupid little paper that says I can teach kids how to be deadbeat actors and theatre technicians!" I think it will pay off.

So, go learn, make mistakes, find your story, act and rethink how you think. Meta-cognition....ugh!
I love you bro....welcome to the club.
Take in every bit of anything they throw at you, but always remember your roots.....

Go to class and brush your teeth.

I was going to ramble on about this poem's importance to me at this time of my life before I finish college, but I don't think I will. Life is long. Just another ripple in my pond.

Oh boy...senior year....here I come....

A Real Confession

2009-07-13T22:59:00.001-07:00

Right now I am enjoying the eve of my day off by drinking lemon tea with honey and feeling the wondrous effects of Tylenol with codeine. Don't ask. The tea is for my poor exploited voice. Okay it’s not exploited. Maybe overworked but not exploited. I am a professional performer this summer for Six Flags St. Louis and I need to be a big boy and take care of my tools (Me). So I guess for me that means resting my voice, preparing well before work and exercising like a mad man.

Moment of vulnerable honesty. I'm not going to lie I didn't need to take Tylenol. I'm in no serious pain except for my blasted ingrown toenail. Besides my stupid toe the only reason I had to take prescription meds was just to zone out and feel good. Guilty. Sometimes I take medicine when I don't need it. Just to feel different.

I recently had an open conversation about whether or not its a good idea to drink alcohol now that I am of the legal age. I have since becoming 21 drank many times. Many times to excess. Guilty. Not proud.

I basically don't know what I think about drinking. I don't judge those who do nor do I judge those who don't. I have many reasons to not and they should be considered as I slowly formulate my opinion of the activity.

I am not fully convinced as Paul mentions in Romans 14. I suppose I'm getting there.

But as I write this and slowly slip into a codeine induced buzz I wonder why so many people (particularly Americans) want to escape the pain of their lives by diving into the tempting pool of numbness. Or the opposite happens, (one that I don't resonate as well with) people latch to pain to liven up the numbness. I don't know which is worse. Nor do I think it matters.

The point is life is hard and it sucks sometimes, whether your a Christian believer or not. Sometimes joy is hard.

The question then becomes: What is our escape? Who is our escape?

They say substance abuse is something that may be genetically linked. This is true of me. As much as we want to, we may never out run our blood. Depressing as this is I also hold another belief that trumps the fact of the latter.

Because of my faith in what Jesus did through his life, death and resurrection, I have been given a new nature. I am not defined by who I or who my family was, or what I did. I am redone. I am set free.

This doesn't make life easy. In fact I've seen how faith in the incarnate God can actually complicate things tremendously. Good thing it also simplifies them too. All things considered everyone has dirt. There are some pretty dirty Christians out there. I am one.

When I started this post I didn't have an idea in my head. Just floating words. Yet I see the question remains.
It beckons and needs response. What, Where, who, is your Escape? Why?

Can I honestly say it is only the Loving God of the universe who became human to give me Life to the Fullest? Sadly, no.

But I desperately want Him to be.

I’m borderline ranting now so I guess I just wanted to throw the idea out there that only a relationship with Jesus can bring meaning, and healing to the pain and numbness inherent to life. At least that’s what I think. That’s what makes sense to me, even if it is shrouded in mysteries that may never be known.

I remembered tonight my blog is called coffee and confessions and in a conversation with a friend recently I told him that one of my only guilt free addictions is of course the magical and mighty coffee bean.....uh.... in drink form.

I believe we all have addictions. I certainly do. But there is Hope. These addictions and tendencies and habits and escapes don't own me. My dirt is not who I belong to. I am owned by The One. And I can see myself falling in love with Jesus more and more.

I want to be addicted to Him. I need to. I really think only He is the One True Healthy Addiction. I think He is the Only Avenue. The only Way to True Love.

So yeah, confession. I can be a mild substance abuser at times. That’s not good.

Don't do that. Its out in the open. Air applied.

But don't worry about me. Worry about yourself. I just showed you the damned speck. Now go check out that plank....

Let Love In

2009-06-23T09:53:00.001-07:00

The topic of love has been on my heart quite a bit recently for reasons I’m not telling. I've gone through what can be described as an epic transformation, metamorphosis if you will. At any rate I will spare you the exposition and share with you how love has been on my heart. As a follower of Jesus, I am expected to love everyone. Myself, my neighbor, my neighbor's annoying friend, my neighbor's jerk brother. And the rest. I just finished the book Blue Like Jazz and I got to say....wow. Very good stuff. At any rate in that book the author proposes the question "Do you love unconditionally?" And so like the responsive reader I am, I asked myself the question, "Brian, what about the way you love people says you love unconditionally?" I couldn't answer the question... In the book the author has a similar freak out experience. I noticed that sometimes I'm not that great at being loving to all people. Particularly in my attitude towards others who annoy me or offend me or those who call me short. Nobody likes being reminded that they are small. Its okay I can run faster than them anyway.

So, a few days after I read that chapter I thought I would try something to try and fix my attitude issue. I went into work (Six Flags St. Louis as a performer) and everyone I passed I looked at them and thought "I love you." People need to hear those words. I think words must start as thoughts. It's best to think before you speak. I looked at probably 50+ people and muttered and thought I love you. All of them different. Kids, old folks, moms, dads, weird looking people, fat people, skinny people, people in wheel chairs. I thought I love you and something started to happen. I got this very "more than Brian" goofy grin on my face. It was like I was walking in the clouds. I felt lifted and purposeful. As if I was connected in a web. Part of a big family and every stranger my best friend or brother or sister. I wanted to kiss a child on the forehead. Good thing I didn't. I'm not a fan of jail. After a while of mentally confessing my care for these people, I felt an urge to pray.

Father help me to love as you love. Unconditionally. Help me be a magnet of love for you. Use me to show others that you are love and that only through your Son can we be made whole. Teach me and correct my selfish attitude. Let me not withhold love from anyone. Amen.

How can we experience the love of God if we haven't first felt the love of another? Furthermore how can we give love to others if we first haven't felt the love of God? Feeling love and knowing love are different things but they meet somewhere, hard to say exactly where.

Another concept concerning love on my heart is the idea of learning how to love yourself. How can I love myself? Isn't that pride? No. I don't think we can love others or God until we know how to receive love. That starts with the self. The knowing part of love means understanding that you are loved. Feeling love is the hard part. Loving yourself I suppose means respecting yourself. When you respect yourself with what you know (that you are valued and a gift wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of Almighty God) then you will let yourself be loved. Goo Goo Dolls say it best.
"You're the only one I ever believed in. The answer that could never be found. The moment you decided to let love in. And now I’m banging on the door of an angel, the under fear is where we begin. The moment we decided to let love in."

I recently took my Dad's advice the sage of 50 that he is. I let myself be surprised. I am learning how to let myself be loved. Nothing is more humbling.

When will we stop hiding and let love in? When will we let ourselves be loved? When does hate stop? When does selfish attitude stop? It begins with me. I must love myself in full confidence that I was bought at a price. I am not my own. I was loved enough to be died for. In turn I love me because I am loved. Then I can love my neighbor. All of them. All seven billion.

I love you. Whoever you are reading this. You are loved. Love yourself. Don't withhold love. It is not limited. There is enough to go around. So go. Share. In Jesus name.

2009-05-12T01:16:00.000-07:00

Love's Interview:
All Humans Need Apply

Written by Brian R. Gehrlein

Love is patient love is kind

If asked to wait I would not mind

It does not envy does not boast

Then Green’s no color that I’ll host

It is not proud it is not rude

Though pride may creep I’ll keep it glued

Love is always other seeking

I’ll be the patchwork for your “leaking”

Love cannot be easy upset

I’ll do my best, if mad, I’ll jet!

No record of wrongs should ever be kept

My pages are blank, my memory swept!

Your love should not in evil delight

Don’t ask again its evil I’ll fight!

Love should always rejoice in truth

My joy is clear and pure as youth

And if you love you will protect

Though waves may crash this ship won’t wreck

Your love, our love must always trust

You’re right by that I know it must

If love’s all here but without hope?

I’m sure, as you, the love won’t cope!

Perseverance is love’s aim

Like lengthy walks or steady flame!

But most important that you know

I’ve got no place I need to go

This love I want can never fail

My love it won’t I trust the Nail!

Christ’s walk, is now my guide, my rule

Without His light, to live’s a fool!

I see the questions are but done

May we, in hand, begin the run?

We may, I see your words are true

But time will tell and actions too

You say you are the one for me

So, if you love me set me free!

Simple, cute, true... What else do we want?

This is who I am...the hopeless romantic... at least I'm trying...
This poem is like banana pancakes on a rainy day with your best friend and a little bit like Dr. Seuss chillin out with 1 Corinthians 13!

ENJOY!

Seeds to Sow

2009-05-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

At a recent church service I experienced an interesting thing I like to call Intellectual Déjà vu.
Lately I have been meditating on the concept of Seed Sowing. The thought started after rereading my most recent poem about the interconnectedness of life (Ripple Effect). Every word I speak, every prayer, every action I perform affects those around me. I don’t always know how they affect others but I know they do. This led me to think about the way I have been communicating to others. How do I treat others? What kinds of seeds am I sowing in others? Are they seeds of Truth? Hope? Love? Faith? Friendship? Reconciliation? Peace? Or are they seeds of Destruction, Confusion and Fear? It is my ambition as a Christ follower to sow seeds of Faith in others. It is not my job to Nurture and Grow these seeds—Only God can do this. However, I am responsible to be a Seed-Sower.
This imagery is found in the Gospels about spreading the Seeds of the Good News of Christ, which is where my Intellectual Déjà vu snuck up on me. The sermon was about the Kingdom of God illustrated in Mark 4. God’s Kingdom is like a mustard seed which starts small but grows into a full tree. God has set things in motion from the dawn of time, that His Kingdom will be established and His Will be done. His Kingdom is alive and growing in the hearts and lives of those who share in The Inheritance, those who live each day full knowing The Need to be Made New through faith in Jesus Christ. We are all Broken people in Need of a Savior. We are made to be grafted into this Tree of Faith. God is the Ultimate Gardener Sowing Seeds of Faith in whomever He Wills. As He does this He calls us to be Sowers in this way. And so I step out in faith to Sow a Seed in you….God is real, He cares about you. You are not right with Him and so He sent His Son to die for you just to bring you back…Placing your Trust in Him will rock your world….

What seeds are you sowing in the ones you love? Whatever is planted will grow to fruition…..unless something else is planted stronger in its place.

The strongest seed of all, which will not germinate without Christ, is the Fear of the Lord. It is the root of Wisdom and the beginning of Faith… This Faith will not disappoint. It is the Only Way to Wholeness. Apart from this seed and its Breathing Life all grows death…

Ripple Effect

Lord of Love with tear drops full, drip one drop into my soul.
Ripple waves from Holy Fount, circle growing inside out.
Ripple moving faster still, striking others changing will.
Is it all connected through, every action that we do?
One small touch, or word or deed, vital thread or Hope Filled Seed?
Is it all Your perfect plan, waiting deep within each man?
If only Fear, through Love, was gone, could we see your gentle dawn?
Bursting through our darkened age, finally reading Brand New Page?
Hope and Love and Peace so dear, no more shedding Painful Tear
Ripple moving Love Linked Chain, Give us grace to help You Reign

Poem

2009-03-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Ripple Effect

Lord of Love with tear drops full drip one drop into my soul
Ripple waves from Holy Fount circle growing inside out
Ripple moving faster still striking others changing will
Is it all connected through every action that we do?
one small touch, or word or deed vital thread or hope filled seed?
Is it all your perfect plan waiting deep within each man
If only fear through love was gone could we see your gentle dawn?
bursting through our darkened age finally reading brand new page
hope and love and peace so dear no more shedding painful tear
Ripple moving, love linked chain give us grace to help you Reign

***

The interconnectedness of life...

This is something my mother taught me a long time ago. Everything we do has a ripple effect on others. Nothing is purely isolated. Thoughts, actions, words spoken all ripple into others. We can only hope that the ripples we send are Right and Good and True... All dripping from God's Grace leading us inward out to eternity and beyond...

2009-03-10T00:21:00.000-07:00

Be My Lord My Love My All

Be my Lord my Love my All open ears to hear your Call
You alone shall reign on high in my heart that You did Buy
Be my Vision and my Voice Careful Thought with every choice
watching Mind and Heart and Deed, Breathing Life to Words I Read
and with every single day may Your Grace bring Peace the Way
holding Hand and Map and Sight on the path in need of Light
may I careful look and turn on my Journey as I learn

feeling every joy and pain sunlight’s kiss or drenching rain
seeing Truth and Good come round every season I am found
knowing Hope is closer still every time I let You Fill
loneliness is paired with fear Stir my heart and draw me near
bring me someone I may love completing partner from above
let us walk as ONE deep tied trusting You alone our Guide
believing love can last forever keeping You within The Centre

***

I wrote this poem as a prayer not for public view.
I hope this blesses many or at least a chosen few...

God is Meaning, Truth, Peace, Love and Beauty. He is Real and He is near, not far...not far away...

2009-02-16T22:14:00.000-08:00

I realize that my past blogs have been super long and boring. These are two words that I have never heard to describe me. And so I feel that I must post on something less trivial, maybe less preachy, maybe less...whatever... so I think I might write about a topic I think I know enough about to have something to say. This is a topic that many people are into based on many conversations that I have had. I'm going to talk about dating. That's right the big D word. I'm not really sure what my views are on it, but we'll explore that together. I think a lot of young people are lost about how to approach a dating relationship especially one with those scary things involved--FEELINGS!!! Yikes!!! I know, I know feelings are scary and should be avoided at all costs. Anyway I just wanted to announce my next topic of discussion. I don't think I will ever need to get super specific because if I do there are a few girls out there that would probably eat my soul. True that. Alright sounds good! I'll see you soon... bring your opinions and your critical discussion hats and we'll hash it out!

Normally I don't like to super structure anything because I feel that restricts creativity and organity, but I would like to PROJECT a series of topics that I will talk about that include:
Brian on dating
Brian on politics
Brian on education
Brian on theology
Brian on religion
Brian on nature
Brian on life
Brian on love
Brian on poetry
Brian on Acting and theatre
Brian on Art
Brian on hangnails
Brian on planets that aren't planets anymore

2009-02-12T22:22:00.000-08:00

It has recently come to my attention that people actually want to hear what I have to say about things, or at least that in some strange way I entertain. I was asked by a friend to write about something so apparently (I don't know why) some of you people want to read what comes out of the random box that is my head. I don't know what I’m going to write about. I have nothing planned. However I am a firm believer that the most organic and beautiful things in life happen out of spontaneity... Anyway, basically what I’m doing right now is suffering from writers block (a fancy term for NO I DON'T WANT TO WRITE THAT STUPID TAKE HOME TEST ON CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY!!!) I've got nothing against contemporary theology, especially Neo-Orthodox theology (so far I love it... Reinhold Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and some others) but I can't think of anything that makes sense in English as far as my thesis is concerned.... awkward pause..........silence.........sniff, sniff......uhhhhhhhhh.....hmmm....cough, cough. OH!

Right, where were we? Oh yeah what the heck am I going to write about?! Well, here is an idea, I recently got into a debate with a few friends, arguing which was worse:

1. Missing some one
2. Having No ONE to miss
3. Missing some one knowing they are not missing you

In my present state of being I suffer from the bitter, bitter #1. I have friends in each of these categories. I'm not going lie, you start to worry about yourself and your friends when you realize that you're all casually debating which one of you is the most depressed.... oh well sometimes life is a competition--yet in this case we all recognize that the winner is the biggest loser.....
(From Avenue Q) "it sucks to be me! it sucks to be me. It sucks to be broke and unemployed and turning thirty-three. It sucks to be me....."

Well this is pretty sad but this post isn't about how much my life sucks. I love my life and I feel humbled knowing God has blessed me with so much.
I guess the whole point of this is that when we are GOING through pain it seems to us that the pain is the worst pain we have ever felt. In some strange way because pain is temporary we never fully remember how much it hurt going through that thing we did when we were going through it.
When I hack sawed my finger this summer I never thought, man this hurts but it wasn't as bad as when I got my fifth ingrown toenail surgery without a numbing agent.... (true story)

When I was in the heat of the moment the pain I was feeling was intense and real and "the worst pain ever." Yes, I speak out of ignorance full knowingly because I realize I am not a woman. I will never feel the intensity of birthing a child. Yikes! I may one day pass a kidney stone (God forbid) but even then I won't be able to say that I have felt more pain than the next guy or gal.

Pain is all relative and it sucks the most in its own present context. Its like our memories have some sort of defense and blot out the full reality of what we felt in the past. Of course our brains can recall bits and pieces of a particular horrific experience (physical, emotional, spiritual) but we still never fully go back to that low place. This is a good thing.

Going back to the three questions, I know I am #1 because the love of my life lives in Dallas and I am in Kansas City. Yes it is hard but SO WORTH IT! Faith, hope, and love keep me here. For me, missing some one is the worst (because I am experiencing it!) and for my other friends, their specific situations are far worse in their own minds. Even if they have been in a similar experience in a different category they will probably still choose their present state as the worst. I may be wrong or other generalizing but if you think so remember this the next time you feel pain and see if I am incorrect then. Bring it on. I welcome criticism!

In practical application to this post I guess you should take away a more urgent necessity for a greater sensitivity to the suffering around you. Its everywhere. We live in a broken world full of broken people wracked with pain. In our own pride we think well they aren't me, or heck, they haven't felt pain till they have experienced X... that is so selfish. We are so selfish. I think it's about empathy and bearing burdens. Whatever it is, pain always seems to be more endurable when we are sharing it with others. Partake in each other's sufferings. For me this is a sort of theology. Wow....organic spontaneity of writing on the breeze of a thought... I have come full circle as this is the very core of Bonhoeffer's theology: living fully in the world and sharing in its suffering with our suffering God who has felt it all.

This brings me to my last point. Too many Christians live by the saying "In the world, but not of the world." People who default to this now meaningless idea from the Bible usually emphasize the latter portion of the saying. NOT OF THE WORLD. These day dreamers say this in a sort of legalistic fashion and a touch of holier than thou attitude to get out of doing something or going along with something they "don't believe in or support." Its different for different people and we all do it--this is not to say Christians should DO EVERYTHING--if you are reading that then just give up....cause your pride has taken you out of this discussion already...

ROMANS 8:17...if indeed Christ endured and took on the suffering of the whole world, we too are called to endure in its suffering. This means that we must suffer along with the world. It’s time to put to death this false notion that Christians are "better" "perfect" or above the rest of the world. We are REAL people who are broken and feel pain and are in need of a God who can bring about something beautiful through our suffering. I think that is why so many are turned off from Christianity... it seems that somewhere along the way we forgot how to be human. I apologize for being preachy, but give me an Amen if you resonate.

Back to the people who are stuck in the NOT OF THE WORLD mindset...
They are like children who in anticipating recess forget to do their assignments sitting in front of their noses. The Teacher (Capital T for allegory ; )) walks around the room growing ever impatient and worrisome over the foolish boys and girls sitting as drones gazing and itching, eyes stuck on the clock. They may miss out on their education......Recess will come when it will. The task before us is what our focus should be. We can't shy away from pain and suffering in a world filled full to the brim with grief. We can't recluse into this non-human state of dreaming for better times and for God to come rescue us from our horrible ("not supposed to happen to Christians") pain. We cannot get stuck waiting for heaven or for change to just happen supernaturally. Now please don't misinterpret I am completely 100% a believer of God's Sovereignty and Grace, His Provision and radically life altering power--I just think we have free will too (ohh controversy, FREE WILL!!!).

Further more don't interpret me as condemning people who are excited over the idea of heaven or being with God in eternity or the Kingdom of God being fully established on Earth. But how can God establish His Kingdom on Earth if His people have their heads stuck in the clouds? Don't get me wrong, I am excited too!! Rather I am reminding us (especially myself) that we have a job to do and there is pain involved...it must be endured, used and shared. God cannot be our "get out of jail free card" in the life game of Monopoly. The stakes are too high and there is too much injustice and suffering to simply be brought out of the game every time we get our feelings or our little fingers hurt.

SO, in conclusion, embrace the season you are in no matter what. God has you there for a purpose. It is not just to get you to that next season of happiness (Lord knows what's next!). There are lessons to be learned and there is work to be done. God isn't a magic wish machine to grant us our selfish and tainted American Dreams. God is our joy in the midst of all and nothing...In Christ..... He is the Meaning and Centre of everything....In pain and sorrow, in sickness and health till death do us join....AMEN!

of course....I could be wrong........

"I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith." --Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sorry this was a book.... I can't ever find an end to the things I want to say...

Lord, who am I? What are my words?

2008-12-18T22:49:00.000-08:00

I want to warn you, this blog post is coming out of a very sleep deprived rambling Brian who should yet again be studying or sleeping instead of writing whatever pops into his head. I am writing in third person...yuck, I’m really not like that, please bear with me. Tonight (this morning I should say) I felt the need to make an observation on the power of words and what they mean to me. As a writer it is my job to paint some sort of picture of reality or some revelation of truth with the most essential human tool: words. It is thought by some theorist that I can't remember right now, that thought wouldn't exist without language (convincing huh?). However, like I said in my last entry that the meaning behind words or their connotation is assigned by us and can change. Therefore words and any human language are very subjective things. They change all the time depending on our necessity. We even create new words usually through mass media and the recycling of accepted jargon in the realm of "scholastica." Point taken? Yeah I thought so, fo shizzle. Anyways, I was just being particularly existential and stuck in a post modern rut that all things, especially words are subjective, so how can we ever come to some concrete grasp of Truth or objectivity? It’s all grey these days I miss black and white. Don't worry, in all my talk I always hold that God contains all Meaning and all Truth and that these observations are merely evidence for my feeble humanity and inability to grasp anything. This in turn makes God all the more mysterious and amazing. I am supposed to be writing an essay on Dramatism (another made up word); an interpretive communication theory developed by Kenneth Burke which basically holds that life is drama and all our rhetoric and communicating is grounded in the necessity to purge ourselves of guilt and to persuade others to accept our interpretations of reality or our dramatic story (yuck, I think I am going to go read Dr. Seuss!) At any rate, Burke had a very beautiful quote that made me attempt to formulate it into my own words and this is what I came up with. I see this as a bit of a mantra working on many levels for me as a Christian an actor, writer and general artist for such a time as this.....

"A writer is a choreographer of words, who synthesizes a dance which reflects a particular interpretation or perspective of reality."

The way I see this working with my faith is that I have a story to tell. We all do. I have a view of God and a view of humanity and the world which only I can see. Nobody else can look into the perceptual lens of Brian except myself. It’s not like I am saying I have some special corner of truth and that I have it all together. I am deeply flawed like everyone. What I am saying is that even if we believe the same things, I will still see the world and God in a unique way, slightly different than you because of my combined experiences. Now, If I believe that I have come to understand truth and bits and pieces of our enormous Creator then it is my duty as a Christian to share my findings as they unfold on my road of life. As a human it is my obligation to do more than take up space. I must impact my world, all the people around me. Even you as you read these words. We are all connected. I believe it is my privilege and my calling to share the words I have come to understand in a unique way. I have a unique voice (as we all do) and the words I use to construct my life dance, will and should positively impact others and inspire them to see some revelation of truth or Truth that may be present in the movements of my language. It is my desire to encourage others through my abilities to find Truth which I think is ultimately Peace with God. I want people to understand the joy that I have even in dark times because of my faith in Jesus Christ. I believe there are infinitely creative ways to show the immense complexities of being a human through writing. There are a billion and a half ways to write about God and His relationship to us. Please understand that I hold my role as writer, storyteller, and actor no more important than any other position in life. We are all created equal. However we are all special and bring something beautiful to the tapestry of life and God's perfectly Choreographed dance of creation. We all play a different role. I am just coming to understand my part in new ways and I am excited to explore that challenge. If my words and choreographed dance of language and thoughts do nothing for you and you only see me as a fool stammering on and on, so be it. I don’t need anyone to tell me I am good or horrible. I don’t do it for that. If I didn’t have an audience I’d still act in a play. I want to experience the story and be forever changed through it. And ultimately I just want to improve and share what I learn. That’s all folks…….

Oh, goodness gracious why?! I don't think I’m done being reflective or pathetically desperate profound Brian. I need to think…..Recently it dawned on me (possibly) why I am the way that I am (in one aspect). I think my understanding and appreciation of the manipulation of language and general word play arose from a constant and inescapable environment of punning. My father, Russ Gehrlein has some of the cheesiest jokes you will ever come across (that I have come to adopt as my own). Also he probably has a pun for every situation and every sentence ever uttered or written. It’s absolutely ridiculous. However, living with the guy for twenty something years I may have heard them all. My mom and siblings will attest to this. Anyways, I was forced to understand puns and word's multiple common threads, and ironies and double meanings or else I wouldn't have been able to communicate with my parents! I would have been left out of the joke and that’s a lame feeling. It’s my dad's fault that I can't help being a total word dork. My brother and sister are similar in this way. It has manifested itself differently in all of us but its still there. That was really random but so is this post. Oh well, that's who I am and I feel God leading me to develop this part of me more and more as I grow in knowledge and faith. I have a story and stories to tell. I see the world a certain way and I have to talk about it. Yet I know that I am still in a stage of infancy in the grand scheme of things and that is okay with me. I'm only 20! I don't expect to possess all wisdom and knowledge. No one can and it’s silly to try. I don't expect to write drama like O'Neill or poetry like Whitman. Besides I suck at spelling and grammar escapes me. If not for the crutch of Microsoft Word spell check you would think I’m an idiot! Maybe so. Frankly I think I just ramble on and on. Whatever I'll still do it and see where it gets me. Thanks for chilling with me for a while. Peace out.
I will leave you with a little word-play.

Reiteration in my taste is out of fashion. I just don’t like being redundant. People should be articulate enough not to repeat themselves. Don’t you just hate hearing redundancy?

Cheers

Dear God,
Calm my useless chatter and help me to rest in your peace. Help us stop thinking so much and just learn to BE. Let us find contentment in you and in the restoration you bring. Let me speak the words I find and dedicate them to you always. You are the ultimate Truth and the one True Author of all. In your name I pray, Amen.

Poem for a dreamer

2008-12-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

Wake Up Now Dreamer

I am a dreamer dreaming dreams,
Conceiving what never was.
I wait in dreams, entranced it seems,
Between a clock-tick pause.
So lost in dreams, in things,
In hope, in morning’s rising sun.
So lost in dreams, so much it seems,
My now is all but done.
For I have spent my past in dreams
And hope for night to end.
Moment fleeting now—tis passed.
For time, she does not bend.
Alas, for soon, my past is now,
And now my now has passed.
Now is gone. Sweet dreamers remember that
Time slips by too fast.
Cruel time has killed my dreams for good,
And dreaming killed my now.
Too late to dream, too late to live.
No dreaming should you vow.
If in today you rest,
Save your dreaming for tomorrow.
You’ll have a dream, you’ll have a now,
You’ll live without my sorrow.
I know tomorrow killed today.
My dream, she never came.
Wake up from dreams, arise to now.
To dream’s a foolish game!

I wrote this poem after I spent a great deal of time literally doing nothing dreaming about everything...

I don't believe that meaning can inherently be in a poem or a literary text. Sure words have meaning but they only mean what we want them to mean. The meaning is in us. Words and poems change as we do. Emphasis on interpretation. Without being redundant I'm not a fan of New Criticism in literature theory. Reader response is my piece. This poem or any poem I post on this blog will mean what you think or need it to mean. You bring the meaning and I'll bring the words.

I find myself in the future far too often and quite frankly I’m sick of missing my now. I suppose you could apply this to the Christian faith. Dreaming about heaven isn't going to get you there any faster. We have work to do and we aren't even guaranteed the rest of the day. All we have is now. So stop reading this and kiss your loved ones, do what is most important, get some work done and don't wait till tomorrow. Stop all that dreaming or you may have no time left to dream.

Guilty accusation....instead of writing this blog or contemplating the delicate balance between dreaming and living I will go do some studying...

I guess I'll just use this blog to write reflections, poems, and stories about everything I think is meaningful. Thanks for reading.

Cheers.