But what does it all mean?

Sometimes I am one of those people. I long to believe that there is some greater understanding, some big abstract lesson that I am in the middle of learning. It is just a matter of time until it all becomes clear.

Of course this isn't so. Not in my opinion, anyway.

So I am reviewing my past year in my head tonight. Pennsylvania, California, Wisconsin, Colorado, Tennessee...I travelled around a little bit. I managed to keep my job which, in this economy, is no small thing.

I painted my bedroom and this summer succeeded in not getting a letter from my town compelling me to cut my grass.

And yet this year has flown by, it seems, and nothing truly significant happened to me. My life hasn't changed, I've not been transformed.

Can that really be?

It's just life. In times of upheaval the mundane is so appealing. And then you get there...

I dislike feeling frustrated like this--my inner dialogue (yeah, I talk to myself, back off) is full of "should"s and "would"s and "ought"s. If I were truly successful my life would look like "this." To be happy I really should try this. If I were willing to risk anything at all I ought to try...

What is with this inner craving for more?

Part of me thinks that it's heaven. We're never truly satisfied in this life because deep in our souls is buried a glimmer of the beyond, the mirage of this life that should, would, ought and will be all that we imagine and then so much more.

I believe that. I want to believe that.

I get in these moody, melancholy modes sometimes. When I do I reread all my email. I think this may be my favorite sentence I've written this year:

But I see the world as God's creation, redeemable if not redeemed with beauty, love and glimpses of God to be found in it.

I was writing to a friend describing another friend of mine's disenchantment with this whole life thing (and the pain of love). My email buddy and I went on to talk about how it takes a certain courage, or strength of [heart | soul] to view the world that way.

I'm feeling more like the cowardly lion these days. It isn't the trauma of life that frightens me. It's the prospect of a seemingly eternal number of gray days.

I'll probably be manic next week.

Friendship and Refrigerators

Fridge Factor

It's a discussion of how people don't have close relationships in their lives--using refrigerator freedoms as a measuring stick. That seems like a reasonable measure. I always talk about "drop-by" friends. I only have a few people who I'd drop by their houses unannounced. People may be comfortable doing so with me, but no one ever does. This is the reality of our disconnected world.

Miller and Sparks argue that too many Americans suffer mentally and emotionally because they have too few of those relationships in their lives -- the ones with family and friends that connect us and restore us.

They also argue that one of the main reasons those relationships are missing is because Americans too casually move away from friends and family in pursuit of a new career or other opportunity.

This is why I still live in Cincinnati (see my post below...)

I could live anywhere. And the mountains call, and winter weather here is so blah, and I do indeed miss the ocean. But I'm not going to live a life running away from my past and I refuse to live my life surrounded by strangers.

Now, Indianapolis would provide a "new" place that meets both of those criteria. But besides there I'd need some convincing to live anywhere else.

Reliving my childhood

I played nerf basketball the other day.

A friend of mine included me on an invitation to a "welcome a new member to our group" type of open house. The odd thing was, I wasn't really part of "that" group. But I went anyway. Hey, there was the prospect of pizza and meeting new people. We played some fun group games, much fun was poked at the newcomer, and a grand time was had. As it got late people started to drift away. And the nerf hoop hanging from the inside balcony began to get some use. This next part is hard to believe, but some twenty-something guys started getting competitive.

Soon we were in the midst of all out, full-contact, co-ed nerf twenty-one. We played, we sweated, we clawed (or got clawed) and we stayed up far too late. There were three-point bombs, lots of trash talking, and autumn sweaters and sweatshirts gradually discarded for the t-shirts underneath.

Once I even finished in something other than last place.

(Come on...I was the oldest one playing.)

Another participant kept saying "it's like college."

And so it was.

It's a funny world we live in. We have close friends, and yet somehow some barriers that are nearly unidentifiable never come down. Additionally, once you leave school you can quickly find yourself surrounded not with immediate age-group peers but operating in a demographic that spans more than a decade. And we rarely play.

It was delightful to make friends, and play a pointless game, and revel in spontaneous fun, flagrant fouls, and--in one case--an almost eerie skill at this kids game.

This was one of those parties where I was thinking "why don't I just turn around" as I pulled into the neighborhood.

It turned into one of my favorite experiences this year.

An anal-retentive pack-rat geek

Derek's Big Website of Wal-Mart Purchase Receipts (as of 23 Dec 2002 this link is bad)

The funny thing is, I think I have some friends whose receipt archive would go back much further than this. They just don't have websites.

I'm crumbling.

Something that has been a part of my identity for all of my life is slipping away. I'm still clinging, but without passion. I don't know how far I have to fall before I must acknowledge that I hold to this principal no more. But I think I am close to that point.

What I'm talking about is (of course), my aversion to country music.

Yes, a couple of years ago a friend gave me a Lyle Lovett CD for my birthday. But I don't think that's where it began. I think it was Garth Brooks covering Billy Joel's Shameless. I'm a huge (huge!) Billy Joel fan and the song almost sounded better with the country slide mixed in (it's taken me years to publicly acknowledge this).

But then I took possession of Lyle Lovett. And on the advice of a review in a journal, I picked up a Johnny Cash boxed set. Then a friend introduced me to the Lost Dogs. There is an Emmylou Harris disc on its way.

I'm perilously close, I know.

This can all be rationalized away. It's folksy, crossover music, in-between genres. It's good, heartland music, far from the black guitar, big-hat wearing stereotypes.

I still believe that, I really do.

I think.

A new website for a place that holds many, many fond memories...

Camp Challenge

Schermerhorn is the 9,502nd most popular surname in the United States.

Don't ask me how they figured that.

Thanks, Chad, for the link.

Wow...too busy (or too distracted) to ever gather my thoughts. The links below were culled when I was looking for others opinions about a question rattling around in my head. Namely, I wonder if our notion of "denominations" in the Christian Church will survive?

I don't think so.

Basically, I see two trends converging. One, so many churches are simplifying and distilling their beliefs and worship structure so that many denominations are left with a rather consistent set of beliefs and values. This is both to assist in communicating to those outside the community and to train and reassure those inside the community. The point that I'm trying (not so clearly) to make is that many churches (and even more believers) operate at a basic level of theology.

Our post-modern culture is a factor in this as well. This is the second trend. We live in a culture that is syncretistic and increasingly willing to acknowledge doubt and grey areas. Because of that there is much less inclination to delineate and seperate based on statements of belief on relatively trivial (in some cases) points of theology. We no longer live in a culture that is willing to split and shift because one group disagrees with another. The trend of denominationalism seems to be a very "modern worldview" phenomenon.

I don't see this as a bad thing. Theologically and sociologically I think that the Church could greatly use a unifying force. And this may very well be that force.

I do wonder what is being lost, though. If those points were worth fighting over decades or centuries ago, aren't they at least worth understanding and communicating now? I am afraid that the subtle differences will simply be glossed over as fewer and fewer people think deeply and passionately about issues of Christian faith. Hopefully we can continue to think and re-think in a less divisive way. That's my hope, at least.

I belong to a strange little sub-group of Protestant America, the Church of God (Anderson, IN). It began so many years ago as a reformation movement attempting to do away with just this denominationalism. And now we are one as much as anyone else.

I cannot help but wonder if some structure and rhetoric for addressing these trends might not be found in the corners of our little history.

Maybe someone smarter than I can begin to unearth that.

Islamic proselytizing

Yep, I'll be doing some systhesis tonight. Or tomorrow. Someday, hopefully...

Church survival

A MINISTRY CLEAR about its culture and priorities. The age for sentimentality is gone. The stakes are too high for us to hesitate about whether or not we can afford to rearrange the deck chairs on a ship that is taking water...

Comments to come...

Why I live in (near) Cincinnati

Nobody rides a tired horse like I do.

Another Keillor quote, the Law of the Provinces

Don't think you're somebody. If you were, you wouldn't be here, you'd be on the Coast.

My friend Chad linked to a recent CityBeat article.

Now, I'm not a native Cincinnatian. It took me a while to get used to hear people ask "So where'd you go to school?" and realize that they meant high-school. But I'm a Midwesterner at heart and by birth. And like so many others I fled my own home (Central Indiana) shortly after cleaning up from my college graduation party. Goodbye flatlands, hello Bay Area.

And now I live here.

The reasons behind all that transpired back then are many, but I live, and continue to live, in the Cincinnati area very deliberately. I like the feel here. I enjoy that people have lived here their whole life, and their parents live across town, and they still have friends from high-school. Try finding that in San Jose, California. I like how the city is laid out so randomly and hugs the river and that streets are confusing. There is no friendly grid like Indianapolis and learning your way around actually represents some sort of accomplishment. I enjoy walking through the old parts of the city and feeling the juxtaposition of the urban and the pastoral, the flood of German and Appalachian influence, the hints of the old frontier-spirit that still linger.

I like this town.

Yes, Cincinnati has problems. But for every person who leaves and gripes about their old neighbors resisting change I wonder where the responsibility rests? If so many things need fixed then why don't these people stay around and fix them? As I feel about those who don't vote, I think moving away should force you to abdicate your right to criticize.

I have no idea if I'll live my life out here or not. I can imagine that happening, though. And hopefully, in some small way, I'll have helped create a neighborhood and community and city and region that more closely meets my ideal. Maybe I'll rehab an OTR building of my own, or move down to Norwood just to escape the suburbs. Maybe by riding the bus when I work downtown I can continue to be an evangelist for mass transit. Who knows what kind of influence a lifetime can uncover.

But in my experience, the exotic is indeed wonderful, with better weather, better views and many different people. But it's not home. I can't speak for Portland, but I know that the transient nature of Bay Area residents took it's toll. I lived there for a short while near the end of the Silicon Valley boom, and you didn't bother meeting your neighbors, because housing turnover was rapid. Peoples' yards were small, backyards surrounded by fences, and I cannot remember once doing anything remotely social with my coworkers.

But here?

My perception is that people are just a bit friendlier, a bit more open, not quite as calloused to the comings and goings of others. I've lived here just over five years and have good friends from both companies I've worked for.

Keep in mind that this whole argument can be so easily turned on its ear. If I think people are responsible to contribute to the community where they are raised, then why don't I still live in good ol' Muncie, Indiana, or at least in nearby Indianapolis? Well, I have my reasons. And as I drove around Muncie last weekend I thought "I wouldn't mind so much moving back here after all."

It's so easy to only see the problems in your familiar world and to only see the jewels of a foreign place.

Maybe Cincinnati is still foreign to me. Perhaps that's why I still like it.

I don't know exactly where this has come from, but I've been thinking all day about a box of letters that has long been discarded. I'd love to be able to see what my friends from a decade or more ago were telling me.

Alas, in a fit of fidelity the box got tossed years ago. So many of my pen-pals were women (well, girls then) and when I got married it seemed the thing to do. But at what cost? My marriage didn't last and God knows I've ended up with a prototypical man's memory now. I wouldn't mind being reminded that I'm probably exactly the same person now that I was when I was sixteen.

John Eldredge shares a phrase that his friend Brent Curtis coined: multiple intimacy without promiscuity.

I can identify with that. I have friends that I've known my entire life whose lives quickly diverge from mine. And I've had relationships that so quickly dive into the depths of knowing and just as easily are left behind.

I treasure my friends of today. Some I've known a while, some I've only recently met. And continuing the tradition of penpals, I've shared some intimate, ongoing conversations with a few people that I've rarely, if ever, personally seen. I have no idea how life pans out. I'm certainly not where I thought I'd be. But I enjoy how my friends form me and wonder how that looks in the future. Hopefully, when I'm old and wrinkled and cranky(ier), I'll have some circle of friends that can remember with me shared summer nights at camp, or crisp college evenings, or concerts in smoky dive bars.

One bit of truth I seem to be discovering is that I know myself best when I'm most known by others. That intimacy and vulnerability is sure to hurt like hell someday, somehow. But I have a hunch it's worth it in the end.

All of these books stacked throughout my house, cluttered thoughts and notes in my brain. I'll share one more before I finally tell my laptop to hibernate for a few hours (and myself as well).

At the end of the street I saw the cathedral and walked up toward it. The first time I ever saw it I thought the facade was ugly but I liked it now. I went inside. It was dim and dark and the pillars went high up, and there were people praying, and it smelt of incense, and there were some wonderful big windows. I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bull-fighters, separately for the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again, and while I was praying for myself I found I was getting sleepy, so I prayed that the bull-fights would be good, and that it would be a fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn't seen him since that night in Montmartre, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time...

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

This is so like my prayers, rambling self-centered run-on sentences. When I read this for the first time I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Well, not so much laugh as smile knowingly at someone reaching for such similar things as I often do and not so much cry as just inwardly ache for the immanent taste of Immanuel we all long for but so rarely (if ever) experience.

a man who has no story is a man with no truth to offer.

Garrison Keillor wrote that.

I suppose I have a story. Boy, do I. The trouble is, like many I suppose, my story is in need of a good editor. Maybe I can be that for myself.

The words certainly won't be hard to come by.

The truth will be, I am afraid.