If I give you $2000 will you tell me I matter?

Driving down Spalding Dr., at two in the morning, in desperate need of what God had to say to me. I was a little bit younger then I am now. I could not listen to save my life. I had just experienced one of the biggest heart breaks in my entire life. The more I thought about it the more my heart started to race. My stomach twisted into more and more knots, to the point where I thought I was going to quit breathing. The farther my thoughts started to race, the more I realized that I couldn't do this. Then something happened. Without even thinking about it I suddenly shouted out," Why am I not good enough for anyone?" as I burst into tears. Oh my God. That's what it was about. That's what it had always been about. At times in my life when I felt incompetent a small part of me held onto that 9 year old kid sitting in a church office grasping to a chair. That prayer is where a lot of freedom began.

"But what if I fall and hurt myself, would you know how to fix me? What if I went and lost myself, would you know where to find me? If I forgot who I am, would you please remind me?"

-Rosi Golan

The same questions that Ms. Golan asks in the above text are questions that I asked so many people, places, and things throughout my entire life. It is so bizarre. Our human nature, the image we bear, our stained souls know that something out there can fix us, find us, and tell us who we are. And we begin an honest search and then somewhere along the way we get content with fake answers and so we stay in the darkness, just as long as it still feels good. Then when we start to feel less good we move on to the next thing to find these answers in. I believe that anyone who honestly seeks the truth is going to find it. The problem is that so many of us stop honestly searching for it.

For those of you that are reading this for the sake of skimming off the top of what I am figuring out in Simi, I am sure you are asking," What does this conclude here?" Conclusion: We are all looking for something that is going to answer these questions, and only one honest answer exists. YHWY.

Lets be honest here. Nobody reads Matthew 1, the genealogy of Jesus as their morning devotional. One thing I have learned out here though is this. If you read through that genealogy and research his ancestors in the old testament you will find this. Prostitutes, murderers, and sex addicts. Liers, disloyal, and people who made bad decisions when they drank to much. In the very genealogy of Jesus you would find a picture of the hopeless, lowest of the low, asking the world," If I fall and hurt myself, would you know how to fix me?" Not the elite. He wanted to come from the very people who needed his answers the most. Fixed, found, and reminded.

But why is the rum gone?

As I sat in a chair made for people 10x as small as me, helping a four year old named Keenen draw a picture of a dog on top of a house, while a six year old girl named Brooke put a hat made out of plato on top of my head, I thought to myself," This is not all there is."

Not the thought most people would have when they are helping baby sit 30 plus children under the age of eight, but it made since to me. I remember being four years old getting carried through the hall of Edmond church of Christ by my preschool teacher. At the time I was certain that that was all there was for my life. I couldn't think beyond if we were going to have gold fish or graham crackers for snack-time. 17 years later, I look back and I can learn one thing from that moment. 'This' will never be all there is.

Whatever "this" is, that's up for interpretation. What I mean though is the present moment in my life, looking at what I have and don't have, it will change and it will become a much more intense adventure as I go further down it.

In the church, we have the opportunity to do what makes our hearts come alive. I know everyone seems to have this opportunity but how many people go to bed at night next to someone and wake up feeling lonely? We are given the chance to stop tears from hitting the ground. We are given the chance to shine light on what's causing the carnage of life. We are given the chance to live an adventure beyond anything we could have planned. But most of us are haunted by one lie; This is all there is.

Sex sells

"Big terms are used by scholars to make subjects

that aren't complicated sound complicated"
-Douglas Main

I remember the first time I was challenged with the words "Take Heart". I was 18 years old and going through a life that I didn't think was going to change. Shortly afterwards I had them permanently placed on my body. Not because I believed in these words. I couldn't commit to saying I believed in them. But if they were true, and that was a big if, then hope existed for me. Take heart; I have overcome the world. It haunted me in the most beautiful way possible. Little did I know, how much pure hope really existed.

I am not going to lie, the work load in California is over-whelming. They really challenge us with education. One thing that is pushed though is that if you are doing it for a degree, for an A+, for any reason other then learning more about God, yourself, and love then you aren't going to survive. When you come to education, you have to come for the right reason. We are taught these things so that we can play a vital role in teaching a world how to love. It is how he is still over-coming the world. By using his body.

I cried three times today, and if you know me then you know that this is slightly unusual. Lately God has broken my heart for the hurting of this earth. Daily we watch a world take advantage of the poor, exploit women, sell humans for sex, and force children to be soldiers. Kids are born into homes run by junkies and it seems like nobody is doing anything about it. We have to remember though. The hurting will know that God is on their side. That is why we still have to fight for a child's right to play.

Don’t teach me about moderation and liberty. I prefer a shot of grape juice.

If I had to make one recommendation to alter your life at this very moment, I would tell you to go listen to "New Law" by Derek Webb. Make it happen, kids.

As for Simi Valley and the many works of a poor, college student who is out to learn what love means I once again heard a professor say something that made me want to tuck my tail and hide at the back of the class, because I knew that what he was saying was directed at something I had been guilty of so many times in the past. Not only was I guilty of it, but the movement that I am convinced is going to bring peace to the hurting is guilty of it as well.

"You're an idiot if you just throw a bible verse at someone dealing with the carnage of life. It isn't a take two of these verses and call me in the morning type of thing."-Spencer MacCuish

The topic was relationship counseling, what it is and what it is not. More specifically, discipleship counseling. He goes on to explain how this isn't a hybrid of Biblical truth and psychology, nor is it something reserved for trained professionals. It is what love looks like in action. It is what it means to truly be patient. It was what the church, the body, is called to do.

I am reading Sires "The Universe Next Door" right now and this guy knows how to kick my butt in the best way possible.

"A person who writes about worldviews and is not biased, is also not a credible source"-

James Sire

Sire talks a lot about how God was the source of all truth. The problem with naturalism is that it keeps us from finding the truth in anything while attempting to do the complete opposite. Sire knew that as long as we seek wisdom then we would be able to find the pure truth in things outside of our culture.

On that note, as I sit here with no phone, no bike, and no Atlanta I realize something. It is time to let the dead bury the dead. I am going to run like a little girl every time I am pushed to live these words, but they are so painfully true. We only need what we are given.

Naked at Bible college

I have a confession. I hope you won't hold it against me. It's nothing huge, but it is a confession. Are you ready? Here it goes. I told a lie. If I were going to justify it, which I am, I would say that it wasn't really a lie pursea. It was more the truth but leaving out some details. But heres where it gets fun. I got called out on it.

The story goes like this. I'm an open book, but out here I have tried to be a little less that way and a little more open to listen. The other night a new friend of mine asked about a part of my life. After I got finished with a ten minute story she staired at me for a minute and then said," You're only telling me half of the story." as she walked out of the room.

The story continues. Last night in a philosophy class my professor puts me up against an older wiser student with an opposing oppinion to write our oppinions out as diagrams right next to eachother and then explain. He went first and absolutely blew me out of the water. Nothing in me wanted to explain mine. I wanted to tuck my tail between my legs and keep walking. For the sake of staying on my professors good side, and because of my competitiveness, I explained mine and then sat down. I later found out that the professor leaned towards my side of the argument when the two of us went to get coffee, which has nothing to do with the story but making me feel a little bit better.

So how do these two stories possibly connect to one? They connect somewhere in the middle of one final story. A time in life existed when everything was good. Pain did not exist. Humans got side tracked though, we fell, and years later we are still feeling naked and ashamed. Ashamed of rejection, pain, imperfections, etc. And when these things are exposed they make us feel naked and ashamed and we may not want to die but we no longer want to live in that situation. We look for a way out and that way out leads to more nudity.

It is in these moments that I realize I am not chasing after God because I want to be some spiritual power house. I'm chasing because I am desperate and needy. I don't feel alone on this.

I was asked to start this blog to track what I was learning, correct? This is one of those things. Anyone who writes about a paradim, a habitual way ot thinking, or a worldview and makes it %100 unbiased is not credible.

Cowboy Christianity. A Bible and a gun.

I never realized I was southern until I left the south. It is true though. I miss sweat tea, and the instant availability of it. I miss Truett Cathy and his holy baptist chicken sandwiches. I even miss the one fingered solute we so freely give each other on the highway. I cannot lie. A part of me misses home. A part of me hurts that I am not with my family, nor am I with my friends. Although this part of me exists, my soul knows that this is where I am supposed to be.

Two years I walked into Algebra 1101 and sat down in my chair nervously, looking like the awkward freshman I was. Today I did the exact same thing. This time was different though. This time I was walking into this classroom because I desperately desire what the instructor has to offer us. I want to learn what he has to say. I need to learn what he has to say.

I am not going to lie. It was overwhelming to hear my second instructor tell me that if I missed one assignment then I would fail the entire class. The same instructor later gave the entire class the previously mentioned salute in order to prove a point and that killed some of the tension. I am like any other human. I have quit many commitments that I have made, but I am unwilling to do that on this one. I have been given an amazing opportunity and I want to live it to the full. They weren't kidding when the said this was pre ivy league.


Southern is a man made thing. A culture that we have created and learned. Like other cultures, we can unlearn it. It only exists if we let it. I feel like I have had a hologram in front of me that I have been fighting to catch, and when I pass through it I turn around and start the chase again. I would like to say that when I found out it was just a hologram I stopped, but like a little kid in a 3D movie, I kept reaching out for it. In this way, I was also finding my identity in man made things. Something that I learned but can unlearn. Something that only exists if I let it. Today I felt God turn off what was projecting the hologram and allow me to chase what truly matters. Him. And like a dad playing tag with his son, he makes it pretty easy to catch him.

To live is Christ and to die is gain. A simple concept, but not an easy concept.

47 Party? Is that a band?

Monday morning if I were to walk into an art history class and site wikipedia as one of my sources on a paper about "Hamlet" I would not only lose all of my credibility as a student, but would also join the millions of people who mindlessly allow the rest of the world to do the research for them without checking the original sources.
Monday morning if I were to walk into an art history class and claim that I had found a way to travel back in time, had interviewed William Shakespeare about "Hamlet", and brought back the original skull my professor would probably think I was clinically insane. On the off-chance that he actually believed me I am sure he would wonder what I was doing in Humanities 1101 with the technology needed for traveling time and the most profound Shakespearean research of the 21st century.
I am not ignorant enough to believe that my appearance is all a person sees when they look at me. If we were to pay close enough attention to anyone then we could spot emotions, opinions, and thoughts just from what there faces carry. I don't want to be the "wikipedia first year", mindlessly allowing anyone and everyone to fill me up with information as I fruitlessly take it. I also don't want to be the "Back-to-the-future first year", going so far out of my way to prove to the rest of the community that I behold the knowledge of all things that I am willing to lie or run after the impossible. I don't want to miss what I was meant to receive because of me not allowing myself to be properly guided.
While sitting on the beach in Malibu discussing future adventures with two of my new friends, I realised something. I'm comfortable. I've been comfortable since I walked into this new life. Not in the sense that it has been easy, but in the sense that it has been so obvious that I am going through what I was meant to go through that anxiety does not exist.

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is men that have come alive"-Gil Bailie

I don't know what to call what I am experiencing out here, but whatever it is I can say this. It is making me come alive.