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Almost 30

I don’t really keep a “bucket list.”
To be honest, I had never heard that term until the Tim Allen Jack Nicholson movie came out, and even then, I’ve never seen it. 

(Update: Not only have I never seen it, apparently I also have no idea who plays in it. My adoring wife corrected me first thing this morning. Eh, movies…)

Yet, as I approach 30, I can’t help but take some stock in my life, measure who I am and what I’ve become.
Sure, there are some that think 30 is awfully young. And yes, it’s not all that old…

But, as you may expect, it’s a pretty big milestone for me. Something I never really looked for or anticipated or even thought about until I noticed it was 2 or 3 years away. 
Suddenly, “Holy Shit, I’m going to be turning 30…”

So I knew I wanted to make a few changes by then: Be finished with college, (I’ll be done this fall) NOT have a job where people yell in my ear all day long at the drive through (quit Starbucks almost 2 months ago) and, most importantly, actually DO something with my life. 
That last one there, that’s the one I feel like I haven’t even started on yet.

I’m not going to lie to you, my life is pretty sweet right now. As it stands, I get paid to write, mostly about Apple and other geeky things, and play music.
I mean, hell…where did I go right? What crazy, screwy detour did I take in life to lead me here? I also get to make beer and run marketing for a fledgling brewery.
Three things I’ve always wanted to do, and somehow I fell ass-backwards into each of them.
I’m so grateful.
Not only that, but I’ve found a woman who, God help me, is 100% perfect in every way.
Our cat is alright, too. 

What’s got me up late thinking about such deep material?

Tonight, I achieved something I never realized was on my nonexistent bucket list. 
I was able to play drums, on a stage, in the middle of Downtown Fort Worth, Sundance Square.

I was telling the guys tonight that when I first moved here from BFE East Texas I would spend almost every weekend just walking around Downtown, trying to soak up as much of the atmosphere as I could, staring at the (what I assumed to be) huge skyscrapers, repeating these words like a mantra:
“I’m here. I’m actually doing it. I live here now.”
It may not sound like much, but it was a huge deal to me then.
And every now and then, my East Texas shows, and I realize
“I’m here. I’m actually doing it. I live here now.”

So for me to be able to play there, on that stage, huge buildings all around me, passersby stopping for a moment to listen to us play…
That was a huge deal. I couldn’t stop smiling. 
“I’m here now. I’m actually doing. I live here now…” 

On the way home, I listened to a playlist I made for unwinding after particularly tiring and exhausting shows. 
2 songs in particular:

“They’re the first to come and the last to leave, working for that minimum wage…”

that one always seems so appropriate at the end of the night, being the drummer and all.

And then:
 

“I’ve been sitting in this lonely town, wondering when things are gonna change. Dreaming my life away, and it seems these dreams turn into a bunch of dust clouds. I’m getting my nerve up, though my past is pulling me down. I packed up my blue jeans and I headed for this big bright freedom, singing bye-bye black sheep…”

This is all probably very normal, but I get this overwhelming feeling as I quickly approach 30 that I want to be remembered for something, something more than just being a nice guy. I want to leave behind something. Something others can look at, listen to, feel, touch, take in, acknowledge and appreciate. I want to pour my heart into something, anything.

I know life is fleeting. I know life is fragile. I know life is mostly made up of comings and goings, the connections we make as we move through life, either affecting others’ lives or simply becoming photos in their distant memory…

I just want more. 
So I don’t know, this is mostly late-night rambling.
But I wanted to share, to get it out into the night air and let you know that, while I seem like a closed off shell of a man sometimes, I try my best to take everything in, to love those near me and to treasure up all the moments I can.
Friends laughing, beautiful music playing, delicious food and drink, and those glorious Texas sunsets.
Because, when my time comes, I want to be able to count the wrinkles on my face and know they came from all the smiles life has left me, and not heartache.
I want to head off towards my big bright freedom and know that I truly lived.  

Good night.  

On “Church Discipline” or Why I Haven’t Been Back

I don’t go to church. Haven’t been in years. 
As a matter of fact, the last church I ever went to told me I couldn’t become a member or become involved because I lived with my then-fiance now-wife.

According to them, we were “living in sin”, which I find to be incredibly narrow-minded, ignorant, fearful, and just dead wrong. 
But that’s probably going to have to be in issue for another day. 

When my wife left me, I was “let go” from my position at the local christian radio station because, in their eyes, I was a liability. What if the listeners got word that one of the DJ’s wasn’t living in harmony with his wife? As a listener-supported station, they were more worried about losing their funding than the fact that one of their employees was going through hell. 

So perhaps I shouldn’t even be involved in this conversation. 
But I was raised in the church. It’s in my roots. It’s a part of my heritage. Love it or hate it, I can’t fully get away from the church. Anytime I hear about it or see something about it, my ears perk up. I’ll probably never get away from it.
Hell, half of my friends are church-goers. I’m always surrounded by it. It is what it is and I’m not that upset by it’s proximity.

But this newest in a long line of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill kerfuffles has me completely outraged.

And perhaps I’m only outraged because I’ve been on the other side of “Church Discipline” before.
I know that this argument and debate will go on forever. Without having gone through experiences such as I did, I can see why some people have no problem with, hell, even CRAVE something as odious as “Church Discipline”.

I’d wager to guess that most of the people on the side of Mars Hill and their actions are people who are either so frightened by what the church has taught about hell, damnation, etc that they would BEG for any sort of system or accountability to keep them out of the clutches of evil. I know I did when I was that person…

Then there are those people who life has not been kind to. There are those people who have made mistakes.
When I say “made mistakes” I’m not talking about the churchy cliche christian-ese “mistakes”. Any church going christian who believes that “Church Discipline” is a necessity or a good idea and yet proclaims that all “Mistakes” or “sins” are equal in God’s eyes are full of shit. When these kinds of christians say the words “mistakes” or “sin”, they only mean a handful of select mistakes, usually involving sex. Lying, cheating, stealing, coveting, etc are the mistakes these kinds of christians talk about when they claim they aren’t perfect. These christians who believe in “Church Discipline” view some mistakes larger than others, notably divorce (check), homosexuality (I’m still not convinced it’s a sin), and having sex before marriage (gasp!). 

These people who have made the hypocritical “big” mistakes and who have faced extreme judgement and condemnation know what it’s like to be on the other side of this debate. And for these people, “Church Discipline” is just another way for these goody-two-shoes “christians” to snub their noses at the sinners and say “What slime you are…”
“Church Discipline”, at least so far as I can determine from this Mars Hill fiasco, is another way of beating down those who aren’t towing the line.

I mentioned earlier that I don’t think that living together with my wife was a sin. So because I think differently than other “christians”, I’m not allowed to go to Mars Hill were I insane enough to want to. I also wasn’t allowed to be a member of this other local church that I had, up to that point, I really enjoyed. A lot. 
“Church Discipline”, in this sense, is a way for power-mad and egotistical pastors to create their own doctrine and have others mindlessly follow it all under the incredibly false pretense of “love”.  

Because I have been through the wringer at churches and have seen the brutal and unsavory sides of it, I am hesitant to go back. Were I to find a church that I could stand being in for more than 10 consecutive sunday’s, I would be very careful about who I opened up to, because I know that as soon as I mention that I don’t view premarital sex as a sin and that my divorce, although completely devastating, was one of the best things to happen to me, I would be either judged, condemned, or excommunicated. 

Oh, and as an addendum, I saw this video this morning. Another reason why I’ll probably never like ol’ Driscoll. Nothing says “love” like creating a group of brow-beating christians. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkaeAkJO0w8

An Ode to Beer

Beer. 

It’s delicious. 
It’s comforting. 
It’s a litmus.
It’s a unifier.
It’s an unstoppable force. 
It’s a double-edged sword. 
It’s ancient, primitive, yet tried and true. 

Wild as the elements, it’s able to be tamed and conformed to our whims and wiles, but it never allows itself to be completely conquered. Like a frontier that’s been surveyed time and time again, it calls us again and again to discover it’s unlimited beauty. 

When done well, it’s poetry in a bottle; liquid jazz replete with high notes, free-form sensibility, and a brooding personality. 
When done poorly, it’s commercialized, commoditized, and water-thin. It’s a formulaic song that’s been done to death. It’s nothing more than background noise, a sad distraction from the grandeur of life. 

 

As brewers, we can wrestle with the raw ingredients to try and form something suitable for our palettes, ever seeking that “perfect” recipe for that “perfect” occasion. As an artisan wrestles with his raw material to make something truly spectacular, deep, and meaningful, a brewer’s job is to cull together organic material to become something greater than the sum of it’s parts. A brewer tells his story with each batch, tells of his past, his experiences, and his goals. 

 

As consumers, we have the opportunity to delve into the psyche of the artist. We are able to literally taste the passion, the history, and the ideals of the artist. As each flavor dances on our tongues, we are able to distinguish the story behind the brew, and are given an opportunity to join along in the tantalizing tango. It’s a exercise in living in the here-and-now, as each sip, each taste of the elixir is just as fleeting as life itself. The moments, the people, the surroundings, and the atmosphere are all characters in this grand story that unfurls itself in our hands as the suds move slowly and intoxicatingly from brim to base of every glass. Just as each musical performance is different and unique, even subtly so, each sip, each and every moment can be different than the last. 

 

Beer lives in its own universe. It allows itself to succumb to ambiance, tastes different at different temperatures, shows new characteristics when the brewing process is changed, tells a different story with each batch and recipe. 

It compliments a meal, it heals wounds, it brings friends together, it celebrates momentous occasions, and it passes the time. As much as beer gives us, we give right back. We have a mutual relationship with beer, as it asks us only to pull up a chair and listen. And we are always the better for it. 

 

More of the same, really…

“I’m unhappy with my life. Now what am I going to do to change it?”

That’s where I stand. Normally I use this forum to “exercise” my writing muscle by writing what I know, and what I know usually happens to be what I don’t know…or more to the point, what I would like to know. 

Who is God? What does he look like? Is he calling me? What should my life look like? What is the purpose to this life?

You know, the easy stuff….

And so as look at where I stand with my life, eight months and five days away from my thirtieth birthday, I have realized that I am not where I would like to be. Im downright unhappy with it. 

To clarify, I am in no way unhappy with my marriage or my relationship with my wife. That I have found someone as wonderful and loving and supportive as her answers one of the larger questions: “Is there a God?”

But how do I fix it? What changes do I want to implement to make me happy with my life?

That’s a question only I can answer, unfortunately. 

And that makes it quite difficult, if not impossible, to write about. I could make guesses, plan out a five year trajectory, cobble together a pros and cons list…but in the end, if I want to change, I have to make it happen. 

What’s the point of writing about change without actually changing? 

What’s the point of stressing about change, worrying about it, wringing my hands and beating my chest if that is all I ever do? 

So here I am…wanting to write about all this, but knowing that it’s ultimately foolish. 

Jobs

“Apple.com/Stevejobs

Steve Jobs died”

That’s the text I received from my oldest brother (an Apple skeptic through and through) last night just before 7 PM Central. 
I was at work, lamenting my career and life so far to my co-workers. 
I probably shouldn’t have been doing that, anyway…

I was doubtful when I heard. After all, this is not the first time this story had been broken, albeit quite wrongly. 
So, according to social convention, I took to Twitter. 
The news had been confirmed. Steve Jobs had passed. 

And I was sad. I was very sad. There I was, reading of a heroes death on a device that was very clearly his brainchild, the end result of his life’s work. I think perhaps most people had found out about Jobs in the same way, on an Apple device. 
That’s the saddest and most beautiful kind of poetry. 

But why was I so sad? I had never met the man. 
I don’t know how to code, so I can’t relate to all the programmers who had their work and career paths forever altered by his vision. 
When Jobs made his triumphant return to Apple in the mid 90’s, I was too young and much to involved in other areas of life to fully comprehend what was going on. 
God help me, I thought Windows 95 was the pinnacle of computing because I could watch a Weezer video on it and play minesweeper. 

I’m just a sideline fan of his work and of the company he built. Oh how I pined for an iPod when they were released. How I coveted a fellow youth pastors iMac when he showed me how easy it was to create a video with it. I became sweaty when another close friend of mine let me listen to a song he had written and recorded with GarageBand. I knew his work, and I knew I wanted it…but I had never even been to California, let alone ever come in contact with someone who had come in contact with Steve Jobs. 
I was and am many, many degrees of separation from him. 

Even though I had never met him, he has changed my life. 
And I think that is exactly what he wanted; To change the lives of everyday people with his vision through his products. 
Steve Jobs would never know just who I was, but he knew he could change my life, and that takes guts. 

Now that he has passed, I hope that the memory of his passion, his relentless vision, his fervor, and his pie-in-the-sky dreaming continue to make a mark on everything that I do. 
As I went for a morning walk, I listened to his now famous commencement speech at Stanford University, and every word he spoke rang true. 
Don’t be afraid to follow your heart and your dreams. 
Be fearless.
Don’t live someone else’s life. 
Pursue what your heart tells you to pursue. 

Don’t be scared of death…