Monthly Archives: August 2012

Five brutally-honest-yet-restrained confessions

1.) I think there are arguments for God’s existence and Jesus’ resurrection but not evidence. Trust me, there is a difference.

2.) If it were up to me, I would be sleeping around until I was at least 30 and ready to settle down. There’s only one reason I’m not and it has nothing to do with agreeing with moral principles but instead submitting to them.

3.) In the worst faith crisis since 2007– even amidst attending the best church I’ve ever been a part of. What is this, crisis number 50? And by the way, no-one likes hearing solutions when it’s happening to them, especially when they’ve heard them all.

4.) When I lived in Reno last, I considered many times driving east and never returning. Not because I hate Reno, but because until the last few months, I was unhappy and intrigued with the idea of leaving unannounced.

5.) I probably haven’t thought of your personal well-being in months or even years.

Missing my old self

Driving 90 on the freeway, Tom rolled down his window and yelled “Woo!” in a holy-shit-how-wasted-are-you? fashion.

“Tom, you’re going to kill us,” I said, holding on tight in the passenger seat.

“We won’t die, Jon,” Tom said. “When have we ever died?”

Thinking back to moments like these brings nostalgia. You see, I was 19 when this fun night took place. We went to a party, drank alcohol and laughed. I made new friends and encrypted a version of myself into their minds that some of them still hold on to.

        

And now, when I hang out with old friends, I’m not that guy anymore. I’m a little better, a little worse.

“You’re really good at piano,” a hipster chick with red hair, intense blue eyes and a sundress said to me. I stopped playing, thanked her and got her life story.

Yes, I used to do this. I used to grab trust in seconds and life stories in minutes. I used to be more sure of myself and had a great smile-to-frown ratio.

And yet, what I’ve lost in happiness and social skills, I’ve gained in knowledge and wisdom. But sometimes, amidst stacked books and mental stimulation, all you want is to laugh again. Sometimes amidst learning to trust God and others, you just want to believe in yourself again. Not in a worshipping yourself sort-of-way but in an I-have-some-worth sort of way.

So, this brings us up to date.

                                                   

Tomorrow, I begin improv comedy classes. I’ll be writing about it hopefully for an Austin publication. But I’m not doing it necessarily for the article or to learn how to make things up. I’m doing it because at some point along the way, I got scared of being my quirky self. You may sense the weirdness in my writing but I used to be that guy live. I need my confidence back.

We drove home from the party, singing Bright Eyes at the top of our lungs. Neither of us cared about sounding in tune. Because we were comfortable enough in our own skin. We were happy and we were free.

My big fat atheist wedding

The groom begins his wedding vows.

Groom: Jenna, I am so grateful that the big bang, a billion years of evolution, random chance, and chemicals such as serotonin firing off in our brains brought us together. This might sound cheesy, but natural selection selected us to be together, and we now have a duty to the blind watchmaker to make this thing work.

I promise to flourish our love as much, and as long, as it helps my survival. If by some off chance nature decides we should be together after you’re too old to reproduce, I’d be honored to enter into oblivion with you. To follow you into that black hole of nothingness we experienced before our birth. Or to put it more elegantly, as Ben Gibbard did, I’ll follow you into the dark.

Movie etiquette (Why I don’t watch movies with people)

My biggest pet peeve is people talking during movies.

Five years ago, I was super eager to show a couple of my friends the movie “Garden State.” As the film began, one of them began texting. Then the other began texting. Then they began talking to each other. At one point, they even walked outside.

After the movie, one of them said, “I really liked it.” What, the five seconds you saw? That night I decided I will only watch movies with people if one of three conditions are met:

  1. We’ve all seen the movie already.
  2.  It’s at the movie theatre, where the loud speakers can block out their voices. This, along with social pressure, tends to discourage talking, especially at awesome movie theaters like Alamo Drafthouse in Austin where they make it very clear you’ll be kicked out for talking.
  3. They have a good track record or similar hatred of people talking during movies. Though, people have told me they hate it too and still talk, so I tend to be skeptical.

Don’t get me wrong: There is a right way to talk during movies. Very few people know it, though. But here it is: Quick comments during non-dialogue moments. My favorite? When the guy finally gets the girl and they’re kissing, I’ll sometimes say, “Yeah! Work it!”

The wrong response to the same scene? “You know, this was exactly my technique with Kelly the first time we kissed. Let me tell you the entire history of our kissing relationship.”

It’s especially rude to talk when someone is showing you a movie. Do you know how stressful it is to show someone a movie? You constantly watch their reactions to your favorite scenes. Make sure they don’t miss any crucial lines. When you talk or text during this, you’re saying with your actions that their interests don’t matter to you.

So, if you ask me to watch a movie with you and your friends, I might say no. But it’s not you, it’s m…ovie etiquette.

I dare you to confess

In January 2009, I wrote a one-sentence blog: I feel like I lose more faith each day. That was the last time I really put my faith crisis in the public sphere. People went on thinking that at some point I “figured it out” or “matured.”

It seems to me that serious Christian churches– of where the gospel and Bible are regularly preached– are facing an epidemic here: Filled with people who are scared to share their true struggles.

No-one wants to be perceived as an “immature Christian.” 

It’s okay to have “minor issues,” such as lust. But when you get specific and say you’ve been dealing with porn addiction for over a year, then you’ve crossed some sort of line. You’ve transitioned into critical condition, where perhaps you have just been going through the motions and we were all wrong about your salvation.

I’ve more or less been in a faith crisis since sophomore year of high school. And up until 2009, I was pretty public about it. What happened afterwords? I was asked to become a leader at my church. People began viewing me differently. I was a role model to some. One girl even said, “You seem to have everything figured out.”

But deep down, even with the knowledge gained and perhaps “spiritual growth,” I’ve consistently asked the question: Is this the week I break? Is this the week I let go of my faith entirely? And if you didn’t know, I’ve bailed from the faith several times since my first church camp sophomore year of high school. Sometimes for just a week. One time for eight months. And right now I’m tempted to tell you it’s been a while since I’ve totally bailed, due to wanting you to think I’ve “figured it all out.”

I have a theory, though: You’re not that different from me. Maybe your struggle isn’t doubt. Maybe it’s something else. But you feel you can’t bring it to the congregation. You have an image to uphold: The sort-of-broken-but-mostly-fixed-by-Christ image.

When will we open up and realize that nothing we do from this point makes us any more or less loved by God? I won’t think you’re an “immature Christian” if you tell me you struggle with porn or drug-use or suicidal thoughts. I’ll just think you “do what you don’t want to do and don’t do what you want to do,” as Paul put it. And unless someone is camping out in sin, then we should let them drink of the wine and eat of the bread and help bring them back to the alter…time and time again.

Doubt. Porn. Masturbation. Desire of atheism. Days without reading my Bible. Thinking about myself most hours of the day. Occasional drunkenness. Anger at God for hell and suffering. Nostalgia leaning on wishing I could still live in the dark. And so on.

You?

The importance of confidence to your cause

When I was a kid, I was nearly as analytical as I am today. So, when I saw two kids trash talking before a fight, it never made sense to me.

For example, I would see both kids before the fight predict their victory. I remember thinking: How could they possibly know the future? They’d say things like, “I’ll kick your ass!” and “I’ll kill you!” Several questions came to mind. What’s your fighting history? Have you seen the other kid fight before to claim such confidence?

But now I get it. If you don’t claim confidence to your cause, it will allow the other person to focus on your lack of confidence and not your cause.

It’s the same concept in film. If the acting and production is awful, then the viewer won’t really care about the screenwriting. Why? Because an ongoing goal of the filmmaker is to enable the viewer to suspend disbelief. Meaning, if the viewer is constantly thinking, “This film is fake,” then they’ll never get into the story.

This is transferable to evangelism, fellow believers.

In the Bible, you don’t see John the Baptist saying, “I think you might need to repent because, and correct me if I’m wrong, the kingdom of Heaven may or may not be here.” You don’t see Jesus come up to Matthew at the tax booth and say, “It might be a good idea if you follow me…just saying!”

Now, I’m not saying that a confident presentation of the gospel will secure one’s salvation. No, that’s God’s work. But an unconfident proclamation of truth is distracting and concerning. It makes one think, “If they’re not even sure of what they’re saying, what hope do I have at believing it?”

Also, it draws too much attention to yourself and your own weakness. If you want someone to focus on your message and not you, you should eliminate both loftiness of speech and insecure proclamation. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, speaks of the first kind and I’d like to argue that the latter is also just as bad.

Just proclaim your message plainly, clearly and firmly. Take yourself out of it. It’s tough sometimes, I know. But if it’s something you truly believe in, then why are you so afraid to share it with conviction? Don’t be.

We have no control over the truth (But this isn’t a free pass)

Back in 2008, I had a very difficult time with the concept of hell. I still do but back then it was essentially a dealbreaker for me.

I recall one evening, during an especially heated shouting match with God regarding hell, I said, “I’m done. I want out!” I fell asleep within seconds of saying this. I woke up alive. (By the way, I suggest handling all problems with God before going to bed because eight hours is a long time to not be on good terms with someone who holds your body together).

At the time, the only thing that comforted me was the fact that I have no control over the truth.

For some reason, such string of words hadn’t crossed my mind before. I was subconsciously living under the false pretense that my belief in hell somehow dictated its reality. As if I was the one sending people there.

The truth is that some of us are wrong. Some of us hold to worldviews that don’t align with reality. And your believing/disbelieving in something will never make it more or less true. But this is no excuse to quit seeking truth and no excuse to live as if your beliefs might not be true.

And that was the next mistake I made: I went on sinning, with the thought, “Well, it might all not be true, anyway.” If you’re going to subscribe to a worldview with even just 55 percent certainty, still live by it with 100 percent action. There is no point in keeping one foot in and one foot out. And this is pretty much what I’ve been doing for years, now.

Though I will never close my mind to the idea that I’m wrong and be unwilling to change if I find out I am, I am recommitting my life to Christ and his mission. With all the strength that sin hasn’t stripped from me, here’s 100 percent.

Grace means grace

At my work (Whole Foods), we have this thing called a “grace period.” In the New York store I was at, you had a grace period of ten minutes (you’re considered on time if you clock in within ten minutes of your shift). In Reno, it was five minutes. In Austin, it’s seven minutes.

Even though we were allowed to, I always sensed a hidden risk. I thought, “Okay, so they let us have a few extra minutes. But I’m sure if I ALWAYS showed up at the end of the grace period, they’d get mad.” I finally asked several people and I received the same response.

Grace means grace.

I had a dream in my early Christian days that I was at a kickback with some Christian friends. A few of them started looking out the window and pointing. I walked over to see what they were looking at and noticed a large moving tornado of fire.

Everyone else was cool. Excited even. I was freaking out.

“No, no, no!” I yelled. “I need more time. I need more time to figure some stuff out and change a few things.”

I didn’t feel ready for Heaven. I hadn’t done enough.

When I told a friend my dream, he reiterated something you hear in church often but seem to forget and can’t take to heart.

Grace means grace.

Did you know that grace and mercy aren’t the same thing? Mercy means someone’s letting you off the hook when you deserve punishment. This can be for any reason. Maybe the person doesn’t even like you but is being pressured to let you go free. Maybe they’re being lazy and ignoring justice.

But do you know what grace means? It means unmerited favor. It’s not merely being let off the hook. It’s being let off the hook because you’re loved and valued, for whatever reason.

So, I went through most of my Christian life trying to earn mercy– to avoid hell– and not realizing that I’ve been given something so much better: grace. In all my sin, He loved me first, before I ever loved Him. He didn’t excuse justice– no, someone paid the punishment. But it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t because I earned it. And do you want to know why?

Grace means grace.

I could care less….just saying!

There are two phrases that drive me crazy: “I could care less” and “Just saying.” Let’s begin with “I could care less.”

I could care less

People misunderstand what they’re saying when they say “I could care less.” You’re not saying you do care less, as in you care a small deal towards what you’re referencing. No! You’re saying you could care less, signifying the potential to care less about something/someone.

Let’s look at an example. I hate cucumbers with a passion. Let’s say they’re at the bottom of my care scale. If they’re at the bottom, could I care less about them? No! They are already at the bare minimum of me caring about them. There is no room left to lower the care bar for cucumbers.

The phrase “I could care less” ends up meaning the opposite of what people want to say. What people mean to say is “I couldn’t care less,” which puts the object of their apathy at the bottom of their care scale and everything else above it.

Just saying!

I hate the phrase “Just saying!” even more. You can give the most brilliant argument for time travel and then ruin it by ending with “Just saying.” Let’s analyze why.

“Just saying!” is a safety tactic. Right before saying it, you just said something potentially harmful, harsh or challenging, and now you’re saying “Just saying!” as if to really say, “Hey man, I’m just using my free will to voice my potentially fallible opinions.”

Once you say “just saying,” you make everything you just said less effective. The connotation is that your opinion or argument can’t be universally true and is purely subjective. If it’s purely subjective, why did you say anything in the first place? Keep it to yourself.

State your argument and don’t make excuses for it. You are possibly a valuable member of society with valuable opinions. Unless someone pulls out a gun after you say your opinion, then just say it without “Just saying!” it.

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