stark realizations

read with caution. and don't judge...i'm still hashing this out within myself, and these thoughts are new and real and not necessarily pretty.

i don't have a father. let me back up... technically i do (and yes, i'm talking about father, not Father... let me get past the worldly stuff first). eddy parker is my biological father. but is he my father? no. i haven't talked to him since i was in 10th grade, and the relationship before that wasn't great. my parents were divorced in 1995, when i was 8. up until that time, in my child-like understanding, i thought he was a good dad who came to my baseball games and made me go to church. after the divorce, he was still a "good" dad, one who would get my brother and i on his weekends and take us to do somewhat fun things. buy us things, etc. (as you can see, nothing emotional... that continued, by the way)

as time went on and i got older, my mom (who i obviously lived with) started being a little more real with me about the way my dad had treated her, us, and the way he had been/was living his life. and over the course of a few years, my opinion of him began to change drastically. i eventually stopped caring about going to his house on his weekends, and he didn't seem to care much more than i did about having a relationship. over time, and as i observed more and more, he faded from my life. there is SO much more to this story.. stuff i would love to share with whoever cares enough to listen. but that's a very annotated version.

the point is, i never REALLY cared. i know so many people (including my own brothers) who have been affected in really serious and crappy ways by the lack of a good father. i think we all do. but i never thought i was one of those people. i always just wrote off not having a father as bad luck, and i definitely never considered it my fault. i saw it as his loss, because i would have been a pretty awesome son, i think (ask my mommy...she'll tell you!). it's like if you have NEVER had mountain dew, you don't miss it, because you don't have anything to judge your mountain dew-less experience against (terribly silly example, i know... but i like mtn dew... a lot).

so i've always been fine. i had other semi-father figures: my older brother is 8 years older, youth directors, older male family friends, etc. but it's not really the same. and a majority of my friends didn't have parents with incredibly healthy relationships where the kids REALLY looked up to their dad and could observe a good relationship in their parents. therefore, i never really had anything to look at. to learn from. but i didn't think i needed it. i've always been fine. i've always THOUGHT i was fine.

but the last few months, it's really been starting to hit me. the older i get, the closer i get to the time where i would normally be getting married/having kids (i know i'm nowhere near this, but i'm approaching the generally accepted time where many humans decide to take that route). and this is where these thoughts all get really complicated. i'm beginning to think that all this dad-less existence i've had is going to come back and bite me really hard in the ass in the next 5 years or so. do i have any clue how to be a good dad? do i have any clue how to be a good husband? granted, since i got to college i have observed SO many more solid Christian families/fathers, including my own brother, than i ever did in my formative years. so that's good and all, but none of it is firsthand. none of it is constant contact. my brother is 3 hours away, and i see he and his family maybe once every 2 months.

i've always been a VERY self-sufficient person, not wanting to rely on others for things i think i can handle myself, but i can't help but think that i really have no clue how to do this (outside of the Word... again, i haven't forgotten my Father...i'm speaking in a practical sense). i've had so little guidance. so little example. my mom is the most incredible mother i could have ever asked for, and i respect and love her more than anyone else on earth for what she's been through and continues to go through so that my brother and i can do what we want. but there are things that a father is supposed to be responsible for. and i'd love to name them all off, but i'm not so sure i know what they are. i have such a small understanding of what a father is supposed to be. sure, i am to love my kids. provide for them. but how? why? what else? (i sound stupid, but you catch my drift.)

and don't even get me started on being a good husband. i see even more clearly there that i don't understand much. i can't help but think that my 3 1/2 year relationship failed largely because i really don't know how to treat a woman! i considered myself a great boyfriend. i screwed up a lot, but i think overall, i did a good job, and i think she would attest to that (i hope). and i know i'm not supposed to be perfect. but, as i dissect that period in my life and why it didn't work, i can't help but think that i didn't love her well enough because of the "dad/husband" issue. and then i tend to think, will i ever be able to love a woman well enough? do i have any idea how to?

like i said, i understand that, above all of this, there is a Perfect Father who watches over me, loves me, created me uniquely, etc. and i know that the Bible is as good a guide as any on how to be a pretty kick-ass father and an equally great husband. but a lot of times, it's hard to know how to translate that to the 'here and now'. i also know that 99% of what i'm feeling is just lies, lies, lies. but still, the thought remains. when the time comes, will i know how to love my girlfriend/wife with the kind of selflessness and grace that is required of me? and will i know how to love my children the same way? and is this lack of a father going to fall on me like a ton of bricks in the near future, like it has done to so many others? do i feel equipped to handle this?

short thought

yesterday at auburn church, andy stanley started a series called "destinations". he spoke on a passage in proverbs where solomon observes from afar a situation where he can basically see the future and knows where the situation is leading (he was the smartest guy in the world, mind you). stanley compared it to those moments where you see two cars at an intersection, and you KNOW they are about to hit each other, although neither of them have any idea...seconds later, BOOM! his first talk in this series was best summed up in a quote that he continued to repeat over and over:

"it's your PATH, not your INTENTION, that leads to a destination."

he applied it to many areas of life, and obviously the main application is our walk with Christ. but i think the other areas of life are important too. and it makes me think of my friends. i tend to like asking for advice about situations, but if it's not what i want to hear, i twist that person's credibility or advice in order to discount what they're saying. there's a situation in my life that i am constantly talking to others about, and i've made myself believe that it can end well. because that's my INTENTION. but the path that i constantly find myself on is going to lead to the end that i continued to be warned about. and i know that's much more realistic than the intention that i have. that was a confusing paragraph... but hopefully you see what i mean. the point is, an outsider's perspective is sometimes (usually) much more on point than my shaded, skewed view of reality. God puts these people in our lives for a reason... we must learn to listen to them.

persistence

i can officially say that i accomplished something this weekend.

about 3 1/2 months ago, i bought and started reading a book called gilead. i had read many glowing reviews on different blogs, etc, including the rabbit room, hearing that it won a pulitzer prize for fiction in 2005. naturally, i decided it would be worth my while to purchase. however, after getting about 50 pages in, i got really frustrated and bored with the book. i picked it up at random times throughout the summer, reading a few pages here and there, but never feeling as though i was making any progress. but one fateful night, a conversation with a new friend revealed that she had also started gilead and was also very frustrated and ready to give up on it. but, we also both agreed that, with all the good reviews and the pulitzer, there had to be a point in which it redeems itself. i (out of my own selfish pride, i suppose) made a promise to her to finish the book (i think i was giving it more hope than she was...i may still be today). during my breaks between classes this week, i've hit it really hard, knocking out larger and larger chunks, until finally, i finished the book yesterday afternoon. and, as much as i hated the process, the end result is gilead being one of the best books i've read in a while.

it's kind of hard to explain why i like the book so much. the basic plot goes like this: john ames is a 77 year old preacher living in the small town of gilead, iowa. he has recently found out that he has a heart condition which is killing him. after marrying a much younger woman, he has a 7 year old son. because of his impending death, he begins to write a diary of letters to this son to attempt to teach and tell him all of the things that he won't get to. he explains family history, his own story and struggles, and also documents many events that happen as the diary itself is being written, much of this present action involving his neighbor and friend boughton, and old boughton's family (with much of the plot focusing on the story of jack boughton).

the story is not so much why i was so glad i finished it. the story is good, as it is very metaphorical and subtly interesting. but the language with which this book is written is what got me. it's absolutely beautiful. stunningly so. marilynn robinson writes with such precision, but it's also nonchalant in a way. yet even the simplest statements/explanations are thought out and make you stop and say, "wow".

i also was struck by the central role of Christianity in the story (obviously, as it's from the point of view of a preacher). as many nonfiction Christian books i've read over the years, this might be the most profoundly Christian book i've ever read.

gilead was an unexpected gift to me. i went from dreading picking it up to not wanting it to be over, and wishing i had savored every word a little more. it's simple, poignant, haunting, and meditative, but more than anything, it's beautiful. read it. you can borrow mine.

here's a short passage to hopefully convey how awesome the language is (probably my favorite passage in the entire book):

"in the matter of belief, i have always found that defenses have the same irrelevance about them as the criticisms they are meant to answer. i think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things. we participate in Being without remainder. no breath, no though, no wart or whisker, is not as sunk in Being as it could be. and yet no one can say what Being is...

i've lost my point. it was to the effect that you can assert the existence of something- Being- having not the slightest notion of what it is. then God is at a greater remove altogether- if God is the Author of Existence, what can it mean to say God exists? there's a problem in vocabulary. He would have to have had a character before the existence which the poverty of our own understanding (THAT'S quite a phrase) can only call existence. that is clearly a source of confusion...

so my advice is this- don't look for proofs. don't bother with them at all. they are never sufficient to the question, and they're always a little impertinent, i think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. and they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. that is very unsettling over the long term. 'let your works so shine before men,' etc. it was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. i'm not saying never doubt or question. the Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. i'm saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment."

"no one's intended to die with their heart still intact"

i've been a bad blogger. let's catch up on the time betwixt now and my last post.

-obviously tops on the list is, school has begun. my last real first day of school of my life. first day of my senior year of college. what the crap!?! that sounds so crazy and weird. i've been having so many moments where i think '3 or 4 years ago doesn't seem like that long ago to me... but i feel so old at times. where will i be in another 3 or 4 years?' and the fact that i have NO good answer for that question excites me so much.

-political science might be the most boring major with the most boring professors at auburn. i already skipped a class yesterday!

-i was worried about how burger night would coincide with encounter being on thursday nights, but it went off basically without a hitch this past thursday. encounter was a little overwhelming with all the new little freshmen running around and the smaller venue, but i needed it. been a while since i really experienced the Lord.

-last night i was blessed enough to make a trip to atlanta with my good buddy jeff (i would love to add a link to his blog on his name, but he doesn't have one yet. get on that, jeff... we've talked about this). jeff and i met some really awesome new friends from UGA for a concert at georgia tech featuring jon mclaughlin. it was incredible. it's really humbling to see someone sit down at the piano and do the things he does. i'm part jealous, part angry that i didn't get that gift (to that extent), and part amazed that the Lord gives us the gifts that He does, and at how diverse they are. it was a great night of music, food, drinks, good conversation, and good fun. thanks friends.

that's my week in a nutshell. this coming week will see the beginning of college football, fantasy football, more boring classes, and hopefully some increased patience (and persistence) on my part in a certain situation. and i'm finishing a book today that i've been reading for 4 months. i'll post about that ASAP. thanks for reading. comments welcome.

here's to you, old friend.

which old friend, you might ask? that old friend is summer '08, also known in some circles as the "summer of debauchery".

this post is dedicated to reviewing my summer. i've been putting off this post for a while now, i suppose so it would be closer to the end. but also because i don't want to believe that it's over.

in the weeks and months leading up to the summer, i didn't really think i had a whole lot to be excited about. no trips to kenya. no big vacations. no summer of love. none of that. just a regular ol' summer in the loveliest little village on the plains (my first in auburn, by the way).

the summer began with a trip to disney world with the au singers (yeah, i was in show choir. judge me.) i definitely was NOT excited about this, both because i am always burned out on singers by the end of the year, and because i just didn't think disney world had a lot to offer to a guy like me (it was my first trip. again, judge me.) but disney world was incredible. i loved every second of it. may have even surpassed trips to boston and nyc as my favorite summer tour of the 3 i went on. i had so much fun that week to close out the "au singers" chapter of my life. love you all. good luck this year.

then came the return to auburn. didn't look like there was a lot to look forward too now, for sure. but slowly, things started to get good. a group of us (dan, lee, nathan, jeff) began to start hanging out. a lot. too much. every day. but it was so good. we slowly started noticing that there are countless specials at auburn establishments each night of the week, and because of our lack of money (still jobless at this point) and our love of good food, beers, and friends, we saw these all as good ideas. there was loco's trivia night on tuesday, $2 pints of anything at mellow mushroom on monday and wednesday, $1 pitchers at the tavern on monday, tuesday, and thursday (still having trouble figuring out how they make money), various wing nights, and, the mother of them all, BURGER NIGHT at niffer's, which i discussed in my last post.

through these various activities, the 5 of us bonded and had more fun than we should have been allowed. at times we let others partake in our fun, be it other friends in the periphery, lady-friends, or friends from out of town. all of you people also had a hand in my summer. thank you.

there were many other events/situations that made this summer what it was, including, but not limited to:
music and arts week at camp sumatanga (probably the best week of the summer overall, but it got its own post in July)
drinking Baileys from a shoe
eron's and cravey's softball games
getting a job at Bizilia's (still deciding if i like this one or not, but money is money)
dmb concert in atlanta
city stages (ben harper, jon mclaughlin, flaming lips, act of congress, grace potter, etc) and almost getting arrested
many, many nights on the porch at bodega
jensen
frantically trying to keep up with my fantasy baseball teams
new music
new and wonderful friends
wanting to be back in kenya, regardless of all of that fun i was having here

thanks to everyone who had a part in this summer of debauchery 2008. here's to the last burger night of the summer tonight. here's to having a few too many beers when i have to work at 6:45 the next morning. here's to coming up with more hilarious and offensive team names for trivia next time we go. here's to a senior year filled with these same good times, if not more (in number and greatness).

here's to you, summer of 2008.

you were way too good to us all.

miscellany

as i sit down to post for the first time in quite a while, i realize that there have been countless ideas for posts that have passed through my head over the past 2 weeks. but, in my usual way, most of them escape me now. i guess short bullets will suffice again...

-burger night. it's always awesome. despite drama, numbers, and waiting forever for tables. a $3.99 burger, a $1.50 bud fat (king of beers), and some damn good fraahhlls (fries) and rahhhhnch (ranch dressing) will make my week EVERY TIME.

-i've learned over the past month or so that getting over your first love is never going to be easy. there will always be challenges, and you'll always have a place in your heart that can only be filled by that person. it might get easier over time, depending on the circumstances, but when you know it's not right, you have to try to stop it, and not look back. because once you do, you're through, and the entire process starts over again. don't look back. ever.

-i moved. for the last two years, i have called an apartment on west magnolia ave. (affectionately called "the oasis") my home. i had two awesome roommates, chase and lee, who have become life-long friends. chase and i slept in the same room every (well, most) night for those two years, shared countless laughs, arguments, heart-to-hearts, and maybe even some tears. we helped each other through break-ups, hard times, deaths in the family, and more. i'm so thankful for his friendship and that he crashed my room over 2 years ago. love ya buddy (i know you'll read this in 5 minutes).

and lee. what can i say about ol' lee kelley. let's just say, after a trip to africa together, a million slammed doors, me doing his laundry, him washing my dishes, me turning off his lights to save electricity, times of not speaking, an engagement, the end of an engagement, etc., lee is one of my best friends. and for that, i'm grateful.

but now, i have a new home. 720 thach ave. a little old house built in the 1940s with more mind-boggling engineering ideas than i can count. but man, is it awesome. i get to share this house with my good friend dan and his incredible dog jenny (i call her jensen... don't know why). i'm thankful that they have let me have a little room in their home. i'm really excited about the good times that will happen over the next year here.

-i'm thinking about a little weekend excursion to seattle in two weekends. i'm not sure if it's possible with my money situation right now, but man, would it be fun. karli and rachael, i'm working on it.

-might i recommend the music of bon iver.

-i have so much to be thankful for. new friends, old friends, good times, the good Lord.





don't look back. never, ever look back.