My Soundtrack For Life

2011-11-15T15:08:00.000-06:00

Unplugged. Disconnected.

That's what I need more of these days.

I'm surrounded by technology, currently I"m typing on a MacBook Pro, while editing film on an iMac, and checking Twitter on my iPhone. My surroundings of technology are severely outweighing my need for the same technology.

I disconnected myself for a few days and enjoyed every moment of it. No phone. No email.

The only Faces I saw were in front of my own face and not in a Book. The only thing that Twittered were what few birds were still out this time of year, and the only Clouds were connected in the sky, not between devices.

I went camping. With some people that I was grateful to spend a few days with and just have conversation, laughter, and adventure. I don't get that enough some days.

I miss it when I re-enter "civilization." Our current Civilization pushes me often to isolation. Isolated by the vary things that are supposed to create a better world.

I sit in front of a computer editing video. Eat lunch in an isolation called the Corporate world. Return home where I spend the rest of my day watching TV.

We don't connect like we are meant to connect. We don't share like we need to share.

I hope to challenge myself to spend more time away from the phone, and in front of a person. More time connected to a conversation and less connected to a machine. Will you join me? Keep each other connected to the Human heart again.

Finding Beauty in the Ordinary

2011-11-07T15:56:00.000-06:00

When do we stop seeing ourselves as more than we are?

When do stop seeing anything as more than it can be? And let the rut take over?

I love designs. All types, whether photography, graphic, landscapes, architecture, I love them all.

I've never focused on any particular one and said this is what I love more, because each one draws a different perspective to me at that moment.

Lately, I've been looking more at architecture and interior designs. Yes, I'm toying with the idea of buying a house so that is why. But I've also gotten to help my friend Randy transform his backyard bit by bit into what was once and overgrown jungle in the middle of Downtown Nashville into a very potential backyard, that I'm excited to see at the end product.

I love seeing the potential in things. Seeing the dream inside of a person as they talk, or the beauty in a yard, or house, or whatever that someone else has deemed ugly, unrepairable, unneed, unwanted. It is in those pieces, and those people I am drawn to, hoping to expose their potential. Just a new coat of paint, and look from a different view. Sometimes, its giving it a life it never had before completely.

I took a Barn door that is part of my history. My great grandfather built is dairy barn somewhere between 1928-1933. Now, the barn leans, but still stands. The door, was a door. Covered in 80 years of dirt and filth, aged and honestly just given the term firewood. But instead, it now a table. A strong, beautiful table being used in my sister's boutique (until I get a house then that sucker's coming home with me). It just needed a new life. It wanted a new life, but it always takes someone looking at the thing from a different angle to see the beauty we often miss in the everyday.

It takes a single step to make a new journey

2011-07-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

When I travel I try to take advantage of the time. I listen to podcasts, sermons, or Audio Books. This weekend while making a trip to Brandon, MS for a good college friends wedding I took advantage of the drive time and began listening to a book called "The Art of Non-Conformity." The title intreagued me, as it is a mindset that I relate well to.

After listening, and letting my mind wander, I'm now toying with the idea of doing something more with my down time. I want to start a new, and completely seperate blog, dedicated to writing small blurbs about small ideas that we can do each day to make a small change in both your life and the lives of people you encounter each day. Something that will bring a bit of happiness. Nothing big. But hopefully something that I can dedicate myself to at least twice a week, and who knows, maybe it'll go somewhere with it. I mean seriously, it takes a single step to begin a journey, and only one turn to change the path your on.

But to those of you who actually read this, I'll need your help, you ideas, your feedback, your influence to make it something bigger than I could ever do it on my own. And it could be nothing. But you can't live life wondering "what if."

"The Meer Idea of You, The Longing Here For You"

2011-06-22T22:54:00.000-05:00

Tonight a favorite movie of mine was on. I have no clue why it was on either because its June, and the movie is a Thanksgiving movie. Its called "Home for the Holidays" and if you've never seen it I highly recommend it.

Its a movie about a real family. Its not sugar coated, its not a happily ever after from beginning to end; its life, inside the nuclear family as it is today. With all the sarcasm, all the fighting, all the differences that make up the people there, and all the connections and love and history that they have together. I love this movie because it makes me laugh. I love it more because it reminds me of my family. We're not perfect. We're not rich and put together 24/7. We are a family. We are loud, we are vain, we are stubborn and strong willed. We argue about the dumbest things, and pull together to argue about how stupid america is for listening to [fill in the blank with the current whoever]. We will bad mouth and talk about each other and band together 2 minutes later. We might not can be in the same room all the time without snapping, but if they need me, I'll fly across the world to stand up for them.

We are the greatest family I will ever know. They have caused my biggest heartaches, and my biggest smiles, and my most memorable laughs. Whether its family, friends, or whoever is in your life that makes you feel these ways all at the same time: they are the ones that will make you a stronger person, help you feel the strongest emotions, and bring you closer to who you know you are.

When the Light Catches your Eyes

2011-06-15T23:21:00.000-05:00

There is a time every evening that I look forward to, yet takes me by surprise every time I find myself aware of it. Anyone who knows me is aware that i find myself often living in the past, in memories. There is a time each day that takes me back to my childhood memories. I'm unaware if it is the way the sunlight catches the sky as it starts its road to setting, or if its the show that still play on the television twenty years laterk but it is this moment that I find my mind back at my Grandparents house. There with the whole family cooking a very southern dinner and recounting the day as Wheel of Fortune plays in the background, soon to be followed by a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show. Its a simple moment. Its a constant moment. It is a moment that for an instant a day, if I'm in the right place, at the right time takes me back ten or more years to my Grandmothers living room, with Granddaddy still with us, usually whistling or sitting in his chair watching Wheel of Fortune.

I love this moment. I miss this reality. I often hang too long to the past, and worry to much about the future. I hope to live in the presence, but need someone to hold me here in the moment. The curse of the dreamers. Dwelling in the memories, dreaming of the futures.

"Got I hope I get it"

2011-05-12T14:24:00.000-05:00

"What have I gotten myself into?" is the question that keeps running through my mind on a daily basis.

Almost 4 years ago I moved to Nashville, TN to attempt working as a behind the scenes production assistant for whatever I could work on. And I've had so many great jobs in this field. Trust me, not nearly as many as other people I've worked with, but I'm not living in a box yet. In no time did I ever think I would step onto another side of the camera or the stage. I've always been a production person: wearing a headset and making sure whatever I was in charge of ran smoothly with no hiccups. And if it was Live, that the audience did not know there ever was a hiccup.

But, I've stepped onto the other side. I've had opportunity to be in commercials, to be an extra in Country Strong, and the upcoming Blue Like Jazz as well as working behind the scenes. Its amazing how these things just happened. I wasn't exactly looking for them but the opportunity appeared and I took it. And it has been an awesome ride.

Currently, I've made another move on the the stage. For some reason I decided to audition for a musical in February and actually got it. It was a great introduction to some of Nashville's great theaters and the people involved. And now I've moved on the my 2nd production, and that is where the original question I started the post with begins. If you're familiar with Broadway Musicals, I'm currently cast in the production of A Chorus Line. This will be a challenge that I'm ready to take on. To prepare to be a dancer (of which I am not really....yet) I'll be dancing, stretching, working out, rehearsing, singing. I am determined to be as good as I can get for this production. Its a popular play pretty much sums up everything a performer goes through during any audition they have ever gone through. And I am determined to look like a dancer when we open this play if it kills me. Let's hope my dedication can keep up with me.

And from this Stage

2011-03-17T00:17:00.002-05:00

I fought it on the outside as much as I could, even though I loved it secretly, but fought it still because I knew it would bring with it a label. But I admit it, I've totally given into the show Glee. I mean, its the high school that I know I wanted to fight for. A program with music for those of us who can turn anything into a song, and who know how to better exhibit there emotions at a Karaoke bar than actual words. You know who you are.

I' enjoy the show because I've always wanted to be with a group of people like that, who understand music, in a way that goes to the marrow, and together create something that people enjoy. So for the first time, I attempted an audition for a Musical in town. Shockingly I made the cast, and have been having the best time. I get to be on a stage with a great cast every night making each performance better than the last. I've felt at home among strangers; being able to share conversation about things that most people don't understand, breaking out in song about any moment, and finding a common note all in harmony. Its been a great gift that I was blessed to experience. And, like all experiences like this, you're always ready to jump into the next performance, and continue to grow this community of people who get me the way I feel others haven't. Who get the song, the music, and the drive to keep going after it.

So, for now, I get to perform on a small stage, with some great talented people. I don't hold the dreams of holding a Tony for it one day, but for now, I'm having fun, and enjoying my time as long as the auditions prove fruitful.

2011-02-21T18:01:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I just want to write, and yet the words don't come.

Sometimes I can't think beyond my own stuggles and confusion.

Others I see beautiful words that flow, yet would make no sense if released.

Today, all hit at once. Thoughts muddle and clog, forcing them to separate and blend.

Today the words I hoped for were lost and all that I wanted to portray to the word were erased.

Wonderful.

A Thankful Year, so far.

2010-12-02T22:21:00.000-06:00

I posted last week how I would attempt to write a piece on the thankfulness that this year has offered me.

I remember at the end of 2009 how I hoped and prayed the next year would be a grateful and wonderful year. I'm not saying it was all blessed, but it became the bright light for me in what had turned into a dark time of uncertainty and confusion. I'm not much farther along with the break in confusion, but I am so thankful for the things I've gotten to do this past year. I've been blessed to work alongside great friends on filming projects, attempted to act on screen in very small roles. I consistently hope that these turn into constants for me, but as I'll press through no matter what. Many friends have walked into my life this year that have encouraged me in many ways, and in many areas of life. I've grown to appreciate all the opportunities that I've been offered and given. I still have no clue what it is I'm chasing after, and little idea of where I'll be a year from now, and I'm okay with that thought. I've been grateful also this year for finding my way back to Church. I've been grateful for the spiritual leaders that have brought be back to a strong Christian community. From them I've learned so much, and found so much of myself I felt I'd lost. I've stated it once before over Twitter, but if you want to improve your prayer life spend 2 days in a van with Claude King. its been a great year. And its had some good times, but also some terrible times. Its though the terrible times that I've grown and its through the good times I've let the growth expand and shade others in grace. Its been a good year so far. I hope to keep this trend going.

Georgia on my mind.

2010-11-22T21:19:00.001-06:00

Its the week of Thanksgiving. And I remember at the beginning of 2010 telling myself that this was going to be a great year! And, wow. It has been an amazing blessed and whirlwind of a year. And I have so much to be thankful for and so much to Praise over. And I hope to take the time to write on that this week.

What I want to spend my time writing today is the stories I'm currently recording as we speak. I was blessed to be brought onto a project of stories. I've written many times before about how I love peoples stories and how each person's stories is never lived alone, you always effect someone around you. I'm sitting in a small motel in Bartow County, Georgia recording audio for a county of Christians that are amazing me with there passion and zeal for a Glorious Saviour. There stories of how unified and centered on the Kingdom of God is heart warming and inspiring. These Believers have pushed aside barriers such as Denomination, age, and race to unify and spread the Word. And the Word is spreading like wild fire.

These stories are amazing me, but what is amazing me more is the hunger for God's word here in a small town in Georgia. It is an amazing thing to see and witness. These are the stories that are a blessing to me. I can't wait to hear more of these stories.

"You're on in 3, 2, ..."

2010-10-21T14:36:00.000-05:00

I love stories. Always have. I live inside other peoples imaginations from the books that they write and the people they create. I become so emotionally attached and involved in the characters of the books that you almost don't want to finish it for the hope that you can keep the memories of the characters with you longer. I think we all are like this in some part. It's what draws us to movies, and to plays, and to books. The opportunity to be part of the story that is being told to us.

But the stories I want to hear are the ones that come into my lives every day. I try to make it a point to ask someone, "So, what's your story, why are you here? What brought you to this point?" And to honestly and intently listen to them speak. Let them shine for the moment as you hear there adventures and there passions. To most people this comes easy and naturally. For me, I almost have to force it upon myself. No, I do love to hear a story, but I have to shut myself up to listen to theirs and not take over myself with my own story. Its a learning process, trust me. I like attention, I'm an actor and a story-teller. It can be hard to give the reins to someone else, even for a few minutes. But the biggest part is I want to know your story. I want to know what makes you, well you! And I want to be able to pass your story along to others down the road. The biggest films I watch these days are becoming Independent films and Documentaries that just tell someone's story, simple and straightforward. We all have a story, and I think they all need to be told.

Oprah and Me, watching Lives Change

2010-09-23T13:43:00.000-05:00

After 25 years, with this woman inadvertently being a part of my life, and my family's lives, we are slowly saying "good-bye" to The Oprah Winfrey Show. For most of my life this woman has been watched, quoted, and referenced by my grandmother on an almost daily basis. If I had thought about it sooner I would have tried to figure out how to get my grandmother, and possibly myself, onto her show as one of her ultimate fans. I've watched the show off and on with my Grandmother. And despite what you think about Oprah, she has an amazing influence on culture and people. And she knows this.

And now she are in her final run. Being the final season, I'm probably going to make an effort to watch many of the shows, because I feel she's going to go out with a huge and expensive bang. But, also, Oprah has this power to change peoples' lives in many ways, and its these stories I love watching. That is what drews me to the show. Oprah has a talent of making you fall in love with people. I've seen her interview people, celebrities I had no desire to ever know, to ever care for, but after watching a one hour interview with Oprah I wanted to be friends with those people.

Some of the biggest events that I've seen Oprah actively pursue over the years, and that have greatly influenced my own thinking, are the times she tried to make lives better, buying off mortgages of people in need, building schools, giving people another chance at their "American Dream." Maybe its dumb, but I've enjoyed watching peoples lives change in an instant. But with every person that has there change televised there are hundreds if not thousands in the same boat, but their boat is still sinking waiting for a life raft. Watching her show, and working over the years with different organizations trying to change lives daily, has made me want to hear each person's story, to tell them, and to live with those people in there joy. This week volunteers have been building a school for an upcoming episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition;" people's lives are changing because someone took the time to be part of something bigger than themselves. But often we get attached to things because of the Fad, or the Prestige attached to the celebrity or the name, then drive away from the volunteering and pass a hundred people in need of change and do nothing because we think we can't. What would happen if we just changed lives, just to see a smile on a stranger's face. Would many of the fears of the world disappear if we decided to help out a neighbor in need because they need it, instead of pretending everything is okay?

During the Nashville Flood hundreds of people put in thousands of hours to help out those in need in this area, we worked for days to help people as much as we could, and did so because time here basically stopped for many of us, but sometimes we forget that a few months ago it happened and that families still struggle to make up from disaster. So, lets remember to not forget. Oprah changed lives for 25 years, many personally, millions more from there own couches as they emotionally spent time with the show and changed something about themselves. Oprah's name will be known for years after the show goes off the air. Can we make our own names mean something more by reaching out to change lives? It only takes one act of kindness to change someone's day.

What Nashville taught me about myself Vol. 2

2010-08-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

Part Deux of what I learned of myself in Nashville:
2. Most of my days are consumed with how I am not who I want to be.
My generation has been told we can do anything we want, I've written all on this before so I'll try not to get into it too much here. We were raised with some awesome television shows and movies that I think gave us the impression of a life we often spend our lives trying to get to. We try and fight for images in our heads that we hope will play out, but very few of us actually achieve this "reality." Girls dream for the image of the dream man to come in and propose in the most romantic of ways, so that they may obtain there Vera Wang-style wedding. While us guys go for the hope of the it job that brings in the money, the travel, the cars, the status. We want the glamorized jobs we see depicted in film: advertising, actors, musicians, designers, agents, etc, etc, but usually find they aren't what we think they are if we reach them, yet most of us never actually do.

I've learned I'm a dreamer, and one that is bound by who I want to be, but only see everything that has held me back. We try to associate ourselves by who we are, but are more often seen by what we do; we're often held by our job position, whether we live for the job, or simply endure it to keep from living on the streets. We are forced into jobs we hate because we need money (oh, money, such a loathes-full thing!), and that eventually rob us of our senses, our passions, and sometimes our friends. I mean if you're job robs you of your own sense of happiness, who would want to be around a Debbie Downer? (I found myself in this position, working for a living in a job I hated and taking it out on the few people in my life nearest me.) In my life, I work a job I hate more than anything in order to pay bills, but do what I love for free sheerly for the joys of doing it. And get the great pleasure of watching other people get paid for what I do for free (add sarcasm as needed please), but I do it for the title Volunteer where I'm praised for the creativity and naturalism of the job that comes so easy to me, but I can't make it happen in a way of making profit from it. It kills me, degrades me. I'm embarrassed telling people I'm a server, and more embarrassed that I don't know what I'm doing to (or how) advance myself out of it. I'm not wired to work a regular 9-5 job, I can't be bound to a Cubicle. And I don't know what I want to do. I hope to find something that lets me travel (an unnourished passion of mine), lets me create, puts me around others who create and think that way. I just want something to happen where I feel comfortable in what I am, to bring back the confidence I wrote of in my last blog. To be known for who I am, really am. To remember who I am and what lies within me that I've forgotten and locked away so long ago.

What Nashville taught me about myself Vol. 1

2010-08-15T12:47:00.000-05:00

After 3 years of soul and career searching, and trying to find community, I took a much needed escape from the town of broken dreams. For the month of August I packed life up and left Nashville. It was a decision I let my poor timing take care of it. With no place lined up to live after one lease ran out I took that as my opportunity to escape from life, a sabbatical if you will. While on this sabbatical I attempted to clean out and reevaluate my life here's a few of the things I've learned about myself:

1. I don't like myself, or feel uncomfortable in my skin
Most days I feel completely lost and unworthy. No reason why, but moving to Nashville was one of the first times that I was doing life alone. I didn't have anyone lifting me up or helping me along the way, and ended up walking blindly trying to make life in a way I've never had to do before, make friendships without a constant encounter or common ground to begin with. I became completely shy and self-conscious and have continued to do so. I just became uncomfortable in my own skin, feeling out of place with everyone in Nashville even though I felt I belong (and loved) the city. The people here just left me being insecure. I see every flaw in my life, my advancing age and lack of life behind it, my looks compared to those around me, my lack of experience and focus. Every part of me is flawed, and to me that's all I see every time I take a look back at myself. I keep attempting to fake my confidence hoping to find true confidence somehow in the faking.

I had grown up being the best at something, and having confidence in at least one thing, here someone is always better, more professional, or more talented in all the areas I once felt at home in. And this home crumbled around me and left me alone, injured, and cold. I felt like Job with his friends telling me that God was punishing me, the only difference was, the voices came from within my head because there's no one close enough to put up with me through half the junk, and I keep most of it to my own self. I suffer alone.

Now, recently, I've started regaining small bouts of confidence but its long road that I'm walking down, trying to not compare myself to all around me, and trying to plug myself into people instead of making excuses to be by myself. And I keep pushing myself into these situations where I hope to come out feeling confident, instead of deflated, but I keep trying, keep throwing myself out in hope some connection will be made, something stick, and some of that old confidence reappears.

How Green is God?

2010-08-05T14:16:00.001-05:00

Today I want to tell you about a new book that was just released by one of my peers I've grown to respect, and would one day love to meet and discuss. After reading his book I find we share many ideas of how to care for our world and not be seen as being radicals.

The name of the book is Green Like God, by Georgia native Jonathan Merritt. He is a self proclaimed "recovering anti-environmentalist," you're average "Joe" American who, like the rest of us, hear all the problems of the world, but never know how to do our part without being reprimanded by many in a "Conservative Christian" culture. While sitting in a Theology class Merritt was opened up to a call to Creation Care and a change of understanding for God's heart.

And I think this is the reason I like this book. I, too, struggle with the ideas of Environmentalism, I've never joined some radical group to stop the use of Gasoline, or to make sure all produce is grown by local farmers, and that everything in you're house is Organic and Fair Trade. I just don't know how to do it, and in many instances I can't afford to be completely "Green." And Merritt sees that. The book does not offer a check pointed list of dos and don'ts, it doesn't tell you how terrible you a person you are if you don't recycle every single thing, and he doesn't use Apocalyptic, end-of-the world scare tactic of where we'll be headed if we don't change our ways.

What Merritt talks about in the book is what we, as Christians, should be doing all along. Caring for what God created. Tending his flocks, but also helping the land they graze grow and sustain. God's first commandment to Adam was to "work [Eden} and watch over it" (Gen 2:15). Each chapter draws you closer to the heart of God, to a God who created everything as "Good" (Gen 1:21, 25, 31), and how we have treated His creation. He breaks apart the ideas of environmental care by what God says, by what is written in the Bible, and by what many honest and true science is stating. He doesn't take a look at the statistical analysis of CO2 levels, or sizes of polar ice caps, but instead looks to where the problems are really hitting hard: the People. The Church is called to watch after the widow, the orphans, and the poor, but do many of our churches do that by purchasing coffee from vendors that destroy the land of Latin America and underpay every farmer who works them? Do we help the widow by polluting her water with pesticides and oil? Or the Orphan by who is hungry because his land will not produce any more food because we've robbed it of nutrients to make our styrophone containers?

We as Christians should know how each action we make causes some action around the world, how the prices we pay in stores are causing others to become poorer and poorer. If we truly care for God and his Creation, His People, we should be educated on how our actions are affecting others. I think Jonathan has done a great job in helping me understand this, and allowed me to see closer to God's heart about how I can better reach out to the People of this world, especially those I'll never personally encounter.

So, go pick up a copy, read it and agree to change something that could impact the world, or disagree and call me crazy. But I do ask that if you are a pastor, or church leader, at least give it a chance and read this book.

ReUniting the Lone Wolf

2010-07-04T16:29:00.000-05:00

It Takes A Village. It was a phrase that filled the 1990s with the onset of First Lady Hillary Clinton's so titled book. Now, I never read the book, even though I believe it was endorsed by Oprah and every housewife in America read it, but I know the title comes from an African phrase of how it takes Community to bring a person up in the world.

Community. This word has been forced into my face many times over the past few weeks. We are made to live in community. We are made to follow the ideas of packs like the wolf, the orca, the meerkat, etc. Creation is made to live in community together. Authentic community is what I believe many of us are looking and searching for on a constant basis. But, we are terribly disconnected from it at the same time. I want to desperately breakout of the world that is isolated and slowly becoming more and more Digital than anything else. I want to unplug from technology and plug into people.

The problem I find with this is that I don't know how to do this anymore. I leave my phone in the car when I see a movie, or when I'm in church (most of the time), but most people don't leave there phone anywhere. We are continuously plugged into the world from our laptops, from our phones, through Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc, etc, etc. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying, because I, too, belong to all these online things, but I long more and more for being part of a real community, with real conversation. I have friends I've only met through Twitter and Facebook, and followers to this blog that I've never met, and to each of them I am grateful for. But my heart still cries out to be a part of a community. The last time I felt that was well over 5 years ago, when I was in college with a group of people who I will always hold dearest to my heart. We lived life together. We spent time together, we lifted each up in prayer, laughed together, cried together, cooked weekly together, ate meals together.

Now, we only stay in touch with new people through this new "Digital Nation" (please watch this Documentary if you have the time) that fools us into thinking we are constantly connected. But we don't see each other, and when we do, the conversation seems forced or awkward. And now with new technology such as the iPhone4, and Skype, and online Gaming we are forcing ourselves deeper and deeper into this digital world. Its time to break out of this idea of connecting constantly and connect intimately. Be a part of someone's life, let them be a part of your life, be a person who is connected to you, eat meals together, study together, pray together, cook together, have fun, live life, but for goodness sakes, lets stop doing it alone. The lone wolf usually dies outside the pack. The wolf packs survive because they work together, defeating there enemies and protecting the weaker. Its time for us to put down the phones, turn off the computers and TVs, its time to connect intimately. I'm free all the time. Lets meet up!

Breaking Habit

2010-06-13T23:49:00.000-05:00

Today I read a blog post that got me thinking. Don Miller recently wrote a post about how bad habits are robbing us of our dreams, of what we should be pursuing daily. It was a small post, but it kicked me in the teeth a little.

The worst part of it is that part of what kicked me in the teeth is something I've already been aware of and looking over to change but too concerned to. The idea Miller writes about was how we fall into habits that break us from our good stories. I find this to be part of my very existence. We march through life with dreams and aspirations that we hope to accomplish and to reach, goals that we set out on with a high hope and gleam in your eyes, a springing step that comes with the thoughts of these dreams.

Then, we get shoved into our lives and our habits and our obligations, and the dreams get caught in the turmoil. Miller's post is on par with many things that I've already been thinking about. About my own story and how it is being written everyday. Where are the plot twists? The Happy-ever-after? The reunions and merriment? The plays and Weddings? My perfect Date with Kristin Chenoweth or Sandra Bullock (too soon?)?

I know I've accomplished much, and met so many wonderful people, but I also see the Bad habits in my life that I feel are robbing me of a better story, a thrilling life, a glorious chapter. I want to bask in the wilderness life by kayaking, climbing, and camping, but instead I watch hours of bad TV; I long to be more in shape and hit the gym, tracks, or climbing walls, but instead sit on my couch eating bags of chips with sodas; try to find the time and focus to catch up on mounds of reading, but spend wasteful time on Facebook or Twitter instead.
And I want so badly to be better at some art-form, perfecting craft, music, acting, anything, but find that with my huge Fear of Failure I push out ideas of auditions on the fact that I won't get it anyway, and don't even try, even though every part of my being is telling me otherwise. The Fear of Failure has driven more of my life than any other thing, it has claimed who I am by shoving me into the shadows.

We all have bad habits that are causing our stories from being told. We have to break those bad habits, and push them out of the way to go forward with the story, and to make it as good as we can make it. Let's help each other write better chapters by pushing away some of the excuses and bad habits we all struggle with.

"On The Other Side, I'll Be Thinking of You"

2010-06-05T22:18:00.000-05:00

This summer I want to give that up. I want to be a part of a story that is made up of other peoples stories. This sumer is about living life beyond the gravity of your own persona, your own hemisphere. This summer is about being pulled into other peoples stories, into there lives, and set myself aside.

I recently went through a trial that placed me living in another person's life. Moving all of my personal belongings back to my childhood home in a small town of Eupora, MS where my blood runs so deep it gets hard to leave there. I then packed up what I needed to survive (couple bags of clothes, couple bins of music, movies, and cooking essentials, a Wii for solitary boredom entertainment, and enough books to start a small library) and made the trip back to Nashville to continue and find life here in a new way. I had just begun to feel alive again, to feel passion growing here, and had met people who made me feel that way, who made me want to be around them because of the joy we blessed each with. I didn't want to let this die so early in its beginning, I wanted to give it a summer to nourish, to grow, to spread, to ignite. I want to be pulled into the stories of others I've been blessed with, to finally push beyond the relationships that hold me down and the self-loathing thoughts that have destroyed much of my own character. Instead I want to trade it in for a character that lifts others up, to make them feel great about themselves, to make them see there potential and greatness. To find a group of characters in this Play of life to give it some meaning, some purpose, and some substance. I don't want to draw on a life that is more emotionally connected with the people on a TV Show than it is connected to the people who I encounter daily. It's time to build relationships on top of solid foundations and go from there. Repairing the cracks as they come and building a beautiful house of intertwining stories of people as we move in and out of rooms together, building each one brick by brick, and memory by memory.

We're not meant to live this life alone, yet so many times we do. So, this summer I break the mold of the "American Dream" where we must have the biggest, fastest, best of everything, and embracing the life that has the solid, meaningful, and memorable. It's time to embrace the meager, and give what you have, whether it is Time, A Smile, or even a couple dollars to something worthy. People I work with are committing to Run a 5k each month this summer, I've started volunteering/interning for a Great Cause, and I'm spending time with people who's stories I want to know more. Now there are several people I've gotten a chance to meet only through Blogs or Twitter are even lifting me up, and I want to finish where Technology started and get to know them and there own Stories. Its time to give it up for something new and better right now! Make the places you live be the places that God dwells and moves! To see Him in ways and places I have forgotten, to awaken parts of the spirit that I put to bed too long ago and forgot to set there alarm, well the alarm is ringing, the shade open wide and the day is beautiful right now!

Song Title comes from the lyrics of "Patchwork Plains" by Stacy Lantz

You're So Vague...

2010-05-19T09:46:00.000-05:00

When you define the details of your future life, how do you see it? Do you see specifics, images and goals, that you hope to accomplish and bring to fruition, or do you see in broad vague terms that define a million points with just one word?

I find I think in the vague. The broad ideas with have no or little details. There is little focus and clarity of anything in my thoughts. I need to change this. I need to find focus in the every day, in the specific hopes of my present and my future. But are we all this way? Are we all so vague and broad minded that this is a normal to everyone?

Do we live a Vague existence? Do we try to put ourselves in to so many projects and groups that we lose the specifics? We are told for so long that the world is our play ground and that we can do whatever we want that we try so hard to do everything. We spread ourselves so thin amongst different groups of friends, among different organizations, among different personalities within ourselves. I don't live specifics, and it has become something that I need to do. I need to find a way to focus my thoughts, my interests, and my connections to people and passion that excite me, encourage me, drive me onward and onward to be a better person within myself, and within the world I'm in. I want to find the things I'm good at and make them the things I live for, to find a focused group of people who encourage my talents, and let me shine as much as I brighten their own shine.

So, I've set out to set goals for myself, to bring my vague life into focus, to give myself something to work toward. For now, I have set a goal for June 1st to set my goals for the summer. I hope to make a small list of 2-4 possible things to tangibly work toward by summer's end.

Maybe its time several of us do this with our lives. Turn off the media's idea that we have to be everywhere at one time and just focus ourselves for once!

I Chase the Fireflies

2010-04-30T11:33:00.000-05:00

I chase the fireflies
Following there paths and they cross in and out of sight
Briefly illuminating a small dot in the darkness
I chase the fireflies
Hoping to hold them in my hand
To absorb there lightness of light and air
Letting there lights shine enough to fill all the darkness
I chase the fireflies
The twinklings that come and go, left and right
The fireflies call and beckon to those who see them
Calling them to chase them.
But which firefly do I chase first?
What firefly do I need to belong to me?
THey all twinkle, they all shine
They all are so appealing
But, I chase the fireflies.
I chase all the fireflies
All the twinlking lights
Many too far from my reach
Many disappearing as soon as I get then into grasp
And I cannot find them
But still I chase the fireflies.
Just once, I want
One of the fireflies to chase me

"Occupy the empty halls, Until the man I am has faded"

2010-04-25T12:59:00.000-05:00

What becomes of words that fall on deaf ears? Do they disappear into a void? Or eventually penetrate through the thick wall until something is heard?

I fear that this describes me many times more than I would care for. I am a hardheaded individual that stubbornly runs everything my own way without the idea of what others think. But has it all been too much? Has my stubborn mindset and constant worries of what I "should be doing with my life" mentality formed a wall against me and the world around me? Or better yet me and the Christ who loves me? Have I placed a wall up that causes me to hear the Words each week, each day, read the Words that live in us all, yet they fall on deaf ears? That, though the Words move and breathe, they just become words on a paper, Words that to many reach depths of passion and belief, draw little more than whispers of history to my mind? To hold the knowledge of the Biblical history, the stories, the images, the dialog, is embedded into my core, part of my make up, my knowledge, my understanding; but despite it all, there often feels that a wall is between my knowledge and understand of the words, and the Breath and Passion of the Words. I worry about it sometimes, that I've become so calloused and jaded buy a dying and deceitful world that I've forgotten that this world is not one that I am made to be a part of, that a home beyond this temporary one is just beyond the horizon, waiting patiently to receive me into its warm embrace. Have I really forgotten that so much by all that glitters? By all that shines and calls to the ego? Have I pushed the light so far out with blacked out curtains and duct tape that the darkness is all that I can stand in sometimes, because in that environment I control how much light and where it can shine..

I've always been bothered by the verse in Exodus where God Hardened Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 9:12) and he would not listen to the Words of the Lord that Moses spoke. God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Twice before this happens Pharaoh hardens his own heart, whether because of his Ego and Pride, or because of Judgment and Prejudices I cannot say. But the fact that God finally Hardened his heart against what Moses told Pharaoh has always bothered me. I feel that we often times push God out of the places that we don't want Him and wall up, Harden if you must, the places we want to keep for ourselves where we don't really let anyone in, where when people start to get too close to that sector we lash out, we push them away as much as we've pushed God away. And then the Hardening continues.

I've hardened myself away from other people because of hurt from broken relationships, hardened myself from joys because of hurt and disappointments from constant failures, and hardened myself from a God who has offered nothing buy love for me, and though sometimes the hardened world has kept me from feeling His ever present arms, He is the One I keep calling out to, to turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh beating once again for humanity and joy, crying out for worship and knowledge, intimacy and grace. One heart beating in time with the Master's and knowing the ever present taste of Glory. To be back in that understanding again is a prayer I've cried for over and over. To reach back into the time of pure innocence before the world robbed us of His Wonder and replaced it with that temporary shine, is a longing to get to one day. It's time to clean out the mess along the way, and know I cannot do it alone, but only with help from a God who wants this for me more than I want it myself, and from those few constant friends that have stood beside the walls and help me to break them down with there truth and prayers.

"Forgive me for the disrepair, And the souvenirs from floor to ceiling
Gathered on my search for meaning, Every closet's filled with clutter
Messes yet to be discovered, I'm overwhelmed, I understand
I can't make this place all that You can."

Shaun Groves "Welcome Home"

"And all I've got is your hand"

2010-04-15T13:48:00.002-05:00

Can you never be good enough?

That is a question that twirls around may peoples heads and thoughts. We grow up with an idea or a dream that it seems only the elite few actually achieve, while the rest of us constantly struggle to stay afloat just hoping to understand why we, despite all our efforts, will never be good enough to get to where we are going. Many times the destination we think we are headed to is in sight, but we have no clue how to get there. We think we know and along the wondering in the woods we might find something completely different but better for us. But, most of the time I think we get sidetracked completely, getting more and more lost along the way, nevertheless still trying so hard to make it toward the original destination that began the journey, always feeling just defeated.

A recent conversation had a friend of mine make a statement that we (meaning he and I, yet I'm sure that there are others who will understand the feeling) were caught in this pertetual Intern position. I think what he meant by it was that somehow, despite our best efforts, we always ended up in lower level positons for payment as to "learn" from those above us, but instead we end up staying exactly where we are, never advancing, never being encouraged in our talents and strengths and never really understanding what it is that we are to do next. I've dealt with many a situation like this, hoping, begging, pleading to learn from someone who does the things that I want to do. I want to Apprentice. An ancient practice that we really do not do anymore, except in trade prefessions (mechanics, welding, construction). Many times you're left to the wolves to fend for yourself with an idea, a glimmer of something, that you hope to get to, begging to learn from those who have done exactly what you would like to do, but get caught instead in the cycle of repeated the same bad patterns and habits of never making it to the destination, still so focused on the unreachable destination that we completely miss the journey that's happening. Perpetual Interns. I feel that those two words hit home to so many people under the age of 35, treading water and losing steam along the way. We have talents that often get overused and underworked, abused and overlooked.

For me, personally, it gets harder and harder to look toward the ending destination, mostly partly because I get distracted by so much of the scenery along the way or conversations along the road, but mostly it gets harder to watch people I know working toward the same goal get there with so much ease and comfort that I feel maybe this path isn't for me, that maybe I jumped onto a map that I had no clue I shouldn't be on until I was too far down to turn around and start over. If someone would just take our hands for a couple miles, and guide our steps a little away from the potholes and keep us from spraining our ankles and limping along, and show us what feet we have to stand on, what ground is firmer for us to walk on, and what road is so much easier for us to deal with. We don't all make it to the destination, but we do make it the places we end up, sometimes we need to help people along the way find what it is in themselves they lost, but mostly what they never new they possessed. Like Dorothy on that Yellow Road. She held the truth with her the entire time, but it wasn't until someone pointed it out what she really had, REALLy had, that she was able to find her destination she'd been looking for the whole time. When will we start letting people know what it is that they really have with them that they do not see?

Title from this blog comes from the Lyrics of "Cold Water" by Damion Rice.

"This is the lifetime I turned my back on you"

2010-04-05T16:38:00.001-05:00

I find myself constantly taking in more and more information. It's basically part of the way of life now with Internet, Television, Social Media, and just the abundance of Advertisements attached to all of them plus more.

But I have tried to find ways to take in information that is useful and advancing as much as possible. Something that I learned recently was from a podcast that I was listening to following an interview of the new president of Focus on the Family. Now, this was part of a PodCast Interview that I was listening following up the Tim Tebow advertisement in the Super Bowl. Whether you saw it or not, know anything about Focus or not really isn't the relevent point here. But during the interview this man said something that was so profound. He discussed talking to a friend writting a Thesis on 12th Century Christianity. He, like i would have done, asked why he picked a topic that seemed so boring or unprofound. The answer he got, it something I think I didn't expect but has shaped our Culture more than we realize. Now, he did not go into the details, and I'm going to summarize in my own way.

Sometime in the 12th Century, The Church changed. They went from being a group of Followers that lived by Ortho-Practice (taking care of the widows, the children, the needy) to being a group of Followers that cared more about Orthodoxy. Two simple variations of a single word. Orth is Greek for "Right," "Truth." It was there way of living that set them apart from the world. They were pioneers in being those that cared for the needy and the the orphans and the widows. If someone was sick, they did not wait for someone to offer them Health Care or Charity, they went to the Christians who assisted them out of the goodness of there hearts. These Christians tended there physical needs in hopes of tending there Spiritual Needs. What happened to that? What happened to the point that as soon as Guetenburg created his Printing press that we decided we could back off of this idea? That since now everyone could get a copy of a Bible if they wanted it, the Christians don't do anything anymore? There was a shift at this time were the Church became more focused on the teaching and the preaching of the Bible than the practice. Centuries later I feel that most of us are still fighting this idealism.

Every day I see my generation wanting to change the world. Stop social justice, save the planet, reestablish a moral compass. My question is that what have we changed Now that we are going back to the way it was before we focused on Orthodoxy and are trying to reestablish the Ortho-Practice. I hope there is a change back to this. I've spent so many years in churches that preach to you to find salvation, but shortly afterwards leaves you to the wolves of the world to find your own way. We don't practice Discipleship much, and its so often unheard of in many churches that we don't know how to do it without it being awkward in some way. Maybe after all these years we will now see a new shift back to the way it was. To the point where the Church will stand up and help those that need help and that we will be seen, again, as a place of refuge and comfort, and not as a building or an establishment that is tarnished with Prejudice and Judgement, Uncaring and Stale. May it again be seen as Refreshing, accepting, and loving. To reach those that need a friend and earnestly seek out those that need someone to chat with, honestly, truthfully. So many Christians tend to pull the "I'll pray for your" card when they encounter a hurting friend or acquaintance but never really take the time to see how they can mend this persons hurting heart. May we fall back into our calling to be a shoulder to cry on, ear to listen, and a heart to help them through it honestly.

Blog Title comes from Audio Adrenaline's "Hands and Feet"
Enjoy and change the world.

Shall we Gather at the River

2010-03-23T22:43:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I took my attempts at a video blog. Now whether I made a good attempt at it is to be your own discernment. Yesterday, my friends Daniel and Megan and I gathered in Downtown Nashville to participate with a group called Blood:Water Mission on World Water Day. By participating, we tried to make awareness of what people in third world conditions have to go through every day just to obtain something that we in America find so ordinary that most of us don't even think about it. We gathered with buckets to walk s couple miles to gather water from the Cumberland River that runs through Nashville. It was pretty amazing that several people showed up to bring awareness of the world situation. World news recently released that more people die from unclean and contaminated water, than all sources of world violence. It's something that is fairly amazing to us, who just turn on a tap and receive gallons of clean and filtered water any time we wish.
The average American uses anywhere form 50 to 200 Gallons of water a day. A DAY, between drinking water, cleaning, bathing, and cooking. The average African uses only what they can carry normally; anywhere between 5 and 8 gallons. Think about it, eight gallons of water, often times unclean, to do all your bathing, cooking, and cleaning. And most have to walk upwards of 5 miles or more. We only walked one mile to the river and one mile back, a small trip for something that women in other countries do every day, rain or shine. It was something to think about. And to know that for only a handful of change, we could offer help to other countries to who need clean water.

So, on March 22, 2010, World Water Day, we walked a couple miles in some one else's shoes. It was something to think about and hope that others will too. We have the right to help those around us in need. Maybe its time to start looking into it more. Take a look at the video, let me know what you think. The quality is poor because its from a Flip camera, and the edits are terrible for someone with my talent and experience, but it at least gives you a little perspective.

Here are some other organizations that help offer clean water sources to those that currently do not have access to such:
Charity:Water
Mocha Club
Wine To Water

"So much cooler online"

2010-03-10T16:06:00.003-06:00

Ten years into the new millennium. It's a concept that part of me is still trying to fathom. Think back 20 years, or even beyond that of how we thought our lives would be lived in this millennium. The funny thing is that I feel that many people think we're not as far advanced as we should be, yet from the way I grew up and the way things are now, it's a world of differences. Some differences I'm grateful for; the technologies that offer us an easier lifestyle, the improvements in medical procedures and diagnoses, the advancements that we have in education and the ways that we learn; yet, I'm more bothered by the vast differences that the advancements have brought forward.

By writing this, I'm going to sound like a hypocrite I'm sure, but the advancements of Technological communication are getting to the point that seems out of control. At least for those of us born after 1978. The New Millennium, the age of technology and the Age of the Internet. The Millennials, GenY and Xer's Dream worlds, The ME Generation's playground. Welcome. I'm writing this because it is a topic that I've been fascinated with since my last few semesters in college at Mississippi State University. We've hit the point that we really cannot keep up with Technological advancements; you buy a computer to have it outdated before its a year old, Apple releases the iPhone to have a newer, faster, better phone hit the shelves 6 months later, the Plasma screen releases to be followed by the better LCD, the technolgy wars go on and on and on, to the point now we're completely going 3D as the new medium for Film. But I digress:

The topic I'm fascinated with is our obsession with Online Society (here is were the hypocrisy will commence I'm sure). We're so connected through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blogs, IM, Skype (thanks Oprah), etc, etc, etc, yet most of American's, and most people around the world connected online, claim to feel completely alone and isolated. We've done it to ourselves. My last semester at College fall of 2005, I noticed the trend of freshmen who would walk across the drill field side by side and never have a single conversation with the person to there left or right, yet both of them were fervently chatting away in cellphones to people across campus, or town, or state (this was pretext message mania, so I feel now everyone just looks at a screen while walking). I was amazed how in 5 years the Drill field was filled with these kind of incidents, when my freshman years we just called to meet on the field and hang out and chat together. This was when I decided if, and that is an "IF," I ever make it to Graduate school under a Masters in Communication I wanted to focus on the rise of Technological Communication was depleting Interpersonal Communication. It was shortly after that thought I was noticing a trend of studies following the same thing. This all came back to me after watching the most recent House, MD episode "Private Lives" sorta covers this topic. An avid blogger who is completely dependent on strangers who read her blog to give her medical advice from what the Medical Team is asking. Good episode, good to see the main actress back on the screen again too; but it did bring back these ideas how so many of us focus more on our online lives than our actual ones. We create versions of ourselves that make us feel better, open up more to people we don't really know, and draw more into these inner world, yet feeling utterly alone. What happened to people meeting for dinner once a week? Or coffee every day to discuss life and happenings? When did people care more about there constant Facebook Status updates and Profile photo changes than anything else. WE DON"T CARE THAT YOU TWEET EVERY 5 MINUTES!! Some things are just annoying to deal with. SO, call me a hypocrite for complaining about internet and blogs over a blog, call me a trend follower by my words, or whatever you feel like doing. But if you want to discuss this, I've already stated the words, "call me." Dinner, coffee, day in the park on a sunny afternoon. I'd rather hear you words from your mouth than read them on a comment page.

Title comes from "Online" by Brad Paisley.

And on the 6th Day.....

2010-02-06T11:41:00.001-06:00

I hate Saturdays.

I understand the abhorrence of this statement made by an American citizen because we are geared to spend our weeks looking forward to weekends. I don't. Saturdays have always been a burden. I don't like having nothing to do. I like having something to do, something planned out to keep me going or entertained. It never happens that way, but wake up on Saturdays usually depressed. Or at least I have been since I started college. Saturdays growing up were always spent doing some form or yard work with the family, or going to the nearest town with a mall and going shopping, or spending the day out with my horses. Those Saturdays I loved. I enjoyed those Saturdays.

Since I started college though I can't get around the idea of Saturdays. They were the worst days of the week for me. They were the only day that I had nothing to do. I don't like that. During the week I had school and Sundays were church, and since I was in some way involved in helping out with several of the ministries at church or on the road with Fisherman, Sundays were more busy usually than other days. But I enjoyed that. Saturdays made me want to scream. I felt trapped inside an apartment with nothing to do and no one to see. They usually cause me to go into depression. I always get the feeling that everyone I know has so many plans for that day and all I have to do is sit on the couch and ponder the things that they will do together and I will still be sitting on the couch. Doing nothing but pondering. It is not good to leave me to myself, my thoughts run away to places I don't want them to be and they tend to circle there like a vulture circling a carcass. The nothingness that I encounter is normally only made worse by the fact that I find little or no reason to leave my house. No one to see, nothing planned to do, and no money to really spend on anything so why leave the house? I get the feelings on Saturdays that no one really needs me around so I stay home with nothing to do but watch TV. And there is so much good Television on Saturday afternoons (input Sarcasm here). Its been an ongoing thing of mine for years. Saturdays are horrible. Always will be for me I assume. I get restless, need to move.

Snow day in TN

2010-01-29T16:29:00.005-06:00

There is a calm silence that can only be described as a snow day in the south. It is so quiet and peaceful outside; I'm sure that same quiet does not exist in the northern territories because, there, life goes on, work must commence and people have to go to work and school and about there normal lives. Here, in the South, we shut down. Very little cars on the road outside of the Postman and the UPS truck, few businesses open, schools closed, and a constant white accumulates on the ground. There really is an interesting peace that washes over people on Snow Days. Everything is clean, bright, fresh.
Families stay home and watch television and make meals together because no one cares to try driving on the frozen roads, or at least thats the reality I choose to accept. The fact of the frozen South most times is that we don't know how to deal with it. There are drivers who lose control of vehicles because they see snow as no difference than driving over gravel, grocery stores are constantly out of the necessities such as milk, bread, bottled water, and canned goods in the horrific event the snow turns to ice and we are out of power for several days. Most of the time people jump the gun and try to hoard as much food as they would need in the event the Apocalypse comes with the snow or the snow is really just ask from an erupting Volcano. We panic. We hole ourselves up inside our houses with fireplaces going and wait for the rain to wash it all away into a dreary, mud-filled memory. But many of us look forward to the Snow like it is some magical creature that only makes an appearance about as frequently as Halley's Comet. We dream about it on Christmas Cards and watch the beauty of it's brightness in holiday specials and television and try as hard as we can to be involved with it as long as it is here, because in all honestly, it is a rare occurrence to see real powdered snow in the South. It is a rare beauty to wake up and see a yard covered in the most pristine white, almost glowing. To me the best are the days that offer a full moon with the snowy evening. The moon shines so bright and is so wonderfully reflected back to make the night almost as bright as day. The dark sky contrasted against the white ground is a magnificent image that nature paints for us to take in. So, we take it in while we can.

"Wouldn't wanna be swept away"

2010-01-24T16:39:00.000-06:00

There are days that I feel I should be apologize for everything that I do; for my constant forgetfulness of meetings and events, for the rude persona that I personally think many people think that I come across as, my inability to connect on a deep level with people, my constant ramblings, my desire to dream bigger than my life seems to allow me to, for the fears that hold me back.

I have alot I apologize for, yet looking over the list none of it seem reasonable. Maybe it is just the after effects of having a lower self-esteem than the usual person. Sure some things are legitimate things, such as the rude behavior that most people get from me, much of that I don't understand myself yet I know that I come across as brass and crude and only interested in myself. I'm an actor on the side, what else would you expect. On that thought, I always apologize to myself for not living up to what I should be. I apologize for the lack of enthusiasm I have in myself for the idea of Acting and Performing, something that I truly do love but have very little idea of how to pull off. Its funny how the acting thing fell into my lap, yet how it really is something that I do love and enjoy, as much as stage production, but for the life of me I cannot make myself throw myself into it for fear of failure and fear that I'm just wasting time and money on something that will do absolutely nothing but eat me alive. Perhaps I just need to surround myself with people who encourage me in the ways that I need to be encouraged. Not to feed an ego, but to nudge me in the right directions of my life. Physically, Spiritually, Career-wise, etc. I need people to encourage me to continue. I think that I have the spiritual Gift of Encouragement and Mercy myself, yet after years of giving and giving and giving of myself I have myself run dry, emotionally, spiritually.

So, don't write me off just yet. I know I'm rude, I know I'm at the bottom of myself socially, but the effort I've made the past year of getting involved in peoples lives is testimony that I'm at least fighting back. That I go on auditions I know will lead anywhere gives me a glimmer of hope, that my resume is constantly being sent with a hope and a prayer, it all shows where I'm headed. I promise to try harder to not be the Debby-Downer and the dark cloud in groups and to find some silver lining in each cloudy day. Be patient.

Title comes from "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" by Chicago

2010-01-13T17:46:00.002-06:00

I can't read at the house. The lack of chaos builds inside me to force chaos in my own brain. That attached with the need to think that if I'm at the house I need to be doing something to hold onto my sanity keeps me from concentrating on reading. I do laundry, clean up, all as an aversion to my attempt to read or work on something important about 100 times before I finally get out. Usually to some local coffee shop.

That's my routine. Sit at the house, care of things, make lists that never get done, or go through old lists to take care of now until I finally force myself out of the house to feed my brain; or whatever it is that forces me to have to write or have to read or have to research something. So I'm sitting at a local Coffee Shop in Nashville reading and writing thoughts out, mostly listening in on conversations around me to be honest, and observing what is going on around me. Everyone seems to be working on something amazing, except for myself of course, I'm just observing, like this is my television (and of course I create events in my head as this goes on so it sort of is like television). People are typing on there computers or doing research for school and writing papers of probably some amazing significance that will change the way we think about things. Across from my table is a both of two women discussing Production and Videos and Social Networking. They seem to be working in the field of study that I moved here for and I should probably get up and talk to them but one looks like a stay at home mom you'd picture in the winter edition of a LifeWay Sunday School book and the other reminds me of Victoria from One Tree Hill. I probably should chat with them if for no other reason than to get my name/face out there in the production world instead of just "reading" my book.

Others are typing papers and two girls are the only ones that are not sitting alone with there laptops open, in fact they are the only girls in a room of five men. The men are attached to computers and earbuds. No wonder we can't communicate with the opposite sexes. The girls are at least doing something productive with each other. Building relationships. Just chatting about what is going on in there lives. I miss doing that on a daily basis. Most days its just me and my books, or me and my DVD collection (I've recently been re-introduced to Ally McBeal, its good to have my girlfriend back). I don't really get an opportunity to have a meaningful discussion about topics I enjoy. I find that if I don't enjoy the topic, I don't participate in the conversation, I tune out and think to myself, mostly I judge people's outfits I think or observes the way they walk and hold there hands to use for a created character later.

There is no significance to the blog here, no insight of greatness. Just observance at others. Thoughts that jumble around my head and by writing them I get the weight relieved off my own brain. Happy Wednesday.

"Christmastime is Here"

2009-12-24T22:48:00.006-06:00

It's Christmas Eve. That one night of the year when, no matter how old we get, I still feel the whimsy and magic of childhood. It has never been the presents, or the Norman Rockwell-style Christmas Day that happens. Far from it to be honest. By this time the presents have all been opened, the wrapping paper thrown away, and the mass chaos of my family gatherings would make the Griswolds look like the most well behaved family you've ever seen. There is nothing magical to expect, but still...
Sitting here with only the Glow of Christmas lights shining in the darkness with some overly broadcast Christmas show playing, there is still a Magic, a feeling that the world is an amazing place with endless possibilities and that all the pain and strife will soon end. That is what I feel many times Christmas Eve comes around. Maybe it's because I read "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus" too many times, or maybe I just spent too many years living in my own Imagination, and this is the one time of the year you can get away with it and not look like a fool. But I am a DayDreamer, by trade and by heart. And it this night that I think my daydreams run more vividly. I'm not expecting a Fat Man on AntiDepressants to jump down my chimney with lots of gifts, or a flight enhanced Deer to paw up my roof, I'm just expecting the memories of this season to fall upon us. To hear the cheering of Merry Christmas, or the gracious smiles of family (actual and adopted), to be the blessing of the times. Its Christmas. Show people that they matter, that the smallest person in your life means the biggest to you. Don't be the Grinch.

"So This is Christmas..."

2009-12-12T13:33:00.006-06:00

I'm unfamiliar what to do with myself most days. I spend an awful lot of time at my house alone and I never know what do to otherwise. I work evenings and so, to keep from spending money I stay at home during the day until the time I go to work. Some days I will run my errands: bank, post office, grocery, etc, etc. But mostly I stay in, feeling the walls closing in on every second attempting to find something to keep my mind active outside of Laundry.

I have a problem with just sitting around. I inherited too much of my Grandfather's personality. I don't really remember the man ever standing still; he probably suffered from Adult ADHD in some form, or just the old ideas of work hard until Death. I have that. I may not have the same work ethic that he did, but I have the constant moving ethic. The need to do something at all times. I tend to feel I'm constantly wasting time. I find it hard to sleep in because I feel I'll sleep the day away and regret it or miss something.

And so my mind questions what people do on Saturdays. I grew up in the manner of Saturdays either being days that I worked on something with my parents, or rode the horses, or jumped into the car to go shopping with the family. These were what my weekends consisted of. To have nothing to do, to waste time is an idea I do not know what to do with. I have never known how to spent my time isolated with nothing to do. Another problem is there are a multitude of things to do, but I don't want to do them alone. Life is so much better when you get to share experiences and times with others.

At the present Nashville is covered in Christmas. There are a million things to do for Christmas this season, and yet I feel I've no opportunity or time to be Merry with any of them. No much of Christmas, and I feel that I will watch it all pass by because of my obligation to my job and my lack of socialization. Something I must push past before I'm confronted by the Ghost of Christmas you never lived. But I do see something interesting on the Horizon of my life. I have hope, and that hope shines, that hope keeps me going. Hope.

Title comes from John Lennon's "So This is Christmas"
I prefer the remade version by Melissa Etherage myself.

"Everyone Deserves a Chance to Fly"

2009-11-18T09:47:00.004-06:00

As I look down the last few weeks of my time at age 27, I have done a lot of life contemplation and review of the past ten years of my life and tried to focus my thoughts on how I have lived this life as of far, and where it is that I'm supposed to take it. The biggest problem for me has been the task of Focus, I'm fairly certain that I suffer from Adult ADHD, which leaves your thoughts and thought processes scattered like leaves in the Autumn, and have a million thoughts that happen at once, yet none of them ever reach any conclusion or ending. Every possibly outcome is at the forefront of my Frontal Lobe, yet I can't grasp any of them to the point where I understand at all what it is that I should be doing, that said, I continue with my previous thought.

I've tried to understand what I have accomplished and fine-tuned since my adolescence and in doing this evaluation, I find that I haven't really taken the opportunity to finish growing up, much less fine tuning anything at all. It has been this lack of motivation and order that had previous left me in an odd state of depression and frustration, never finding an end to my longings or a way to express myself, in fact no way to BE myself. One observation I made is that I do not think that I have, despite attempting to find myself, made any progress in being who I am, aside from everything else. I wear costumes, masks, personalities of those around me so that I can finally fit into a group of people that would accept me for who I am, but once the glimmer of that person wore off and I had to actually be truer to myself, i just pulled away and put on a new outfit to better fit into a newer circle. This is where I stand today. Looking at a mirror that has an outline of a person, that may seem familiar, yet his image is fuzzy, out of focus, and shattered. There is no solidity to his form or his thoughts, this is the image I see of myself. I put on images of whatever it is that I need in that moment or that day or that event, hiding who I am because in essence I don't know who that person is, I've never gotten to know him. Who would think that my fears of commitment would leak into being committed to myself? This ME I think is the ME that feels trapped within a cell, closed inside barred walls with a box of crayons, yet no paper to write on. Maybe this is the creative person I've pretended to be? The one that has been screaming out of me as someone who needs to shine and be seen? Because I've never felt that way, or if I have it has only been briefly. I've tried so hard to put on these personalities to please everyone in my life and live the life I felt I was "Supposed" to be living, yet the whole time I've felt it a lie and that I've never reached any potential in anything I've touched because Maybe I haven't been given that time to shine, maybe I've spent my whole life hiding my light behind some Bush that I forgot what it looked like. And focused on things I was somewhat good at but did not necessarily enjoy. I've wanted to be recognized for what makes me shine, for what puts a smile on my face, yet I always find myself just going through some motions forcing smiles and painting on a fake glow to keep other people happy, but I'm bored and exhausted from all the extra energy I have to exert to these "Fake shines." I want to know what I'm GOD-MADE for, and what His made-ness has been set aside for me to use because I think I'm not the person I've been trying to be. I think its time to be a new person and embrace a life I've wanted to be a part of but too scared and too hidden to do so. I want to be pulled out of this shell and emerge as a new creation, a butterfly that is a brilliant times brighter than the brown caterpillar that once crawled so slowly on the ground, its time to spread my wings and fly to the sky to defy what pulls me down and overtake all that is before me.

I don't know this ME inside intimately, we've only begun our relationship but I want ME to take over with a force stronger than I can imagine, to live to my potential and strengths. To know what makes me tick and go and what Purpose there is that breaks a smile on my face daily. I want to know my Faults! What Faults I've been living thinking they were strengths, and instead of doing some thing so mediocre and just getting by, I want to do something Excellent, and Amazingly. To surpass anything I ever dreamed could happen.

Title comes from "Defying Gravity" Wicked Soundtrack
Other music to check out: James Morrison album "Songs for You, Truths for Me."
Derek Webb "Stockholm Syndrome"

"I'd give it all away if you give me one last try "

2009-11-09T17:31:00.005-06:00

Here in Nashville it is a WHO-you-know kind of town, and after 2 years I'm just now breaking into that class of people. Hey, if you want to build relationships you got to put in the time, correct? Ok, I thought so. Yet, I'm feeling left completely behind in the WHAT I know category at this point.

I've gotten opportunities to meet and work, on a very limited basis, with people who get to do this work that I moved here thinking that i wanted to do. And part of me still does on a very creative level. Yet, at the moment I'm becoming Archaic and Obsolete by not being able to keep up with the technology and ideas that the entertainment world works in. If this world were a town I would be living in the trailer park with about 5 feet of land to my name. Now, I would at least have a double-wide with basic cable, yet I'm hanging out with guys who live on the good side of the Tracks that own the multi-acre lots with 4 car garages. Am I out of my league? I always have been, but I've got one helluva fighting spirit to say that I can belong there soon. No do not misread the metaphor, I'm not looking for loads of cash and all the fame Britney Spears can spare me, I'm just stating a metaphorical image of how behind in this word I am attempting to live in I am. I mean I listen to music on Vinyl, an idea that has been overrun and virtually died out in 1983, yet the sound is SO much better. Video equipment is often beyond my understanding as the technology has changed so much and I'm easily overpassed by 6th Graders with a computer and YouTube. I am friends, and good graces with people who design lighting and stages daily, who create movies and act in films, locally and nationally. I know people who have won Dove Awards and members of the Screen Actors Guild, I'm surrounded by the world that I thought I wanted, and I still do. But I also want to just create, to change something for the better some way some how some day. But I have to understand that this is all in God's timing. I'm living the "if a door stays open and stays open I assume God wants me to go through it." Yet, when I assume things I always, note that.... ALWAYS, screw it up. So instead I'm just taking life one step at a time and 100 prayers a second. The worst part about it all is that at the current I'm being pulled every which way but Normal. And being spead this thin with a brain that can't think normal anyway is never a good thing. So we'll see where it all ends up. Who's along for the ride with me?

Lyrics come from song
Foo Fighters: "Learn to Fly:

Albums to check out: Gary Go
Will Hoge "The Wreckage"
She & Him "Volume One"

"Can you Paint with all the Colors of the Wind?"

2009-11-06T09:03:00.003-06:00

I do not know if it is the crispness in the air, or the changing of the colors surrounding me, or the way the light shines out of the Autumn skies, but this time of year always forces my mind back to my childhood more than any other. More than springtime, or summer trips, the time between Autumn and Winter takes me back to my childhood and growing up every year. It never fails that as the leaves start to fall and the chill of the air hits the skin, I'm a child again. I want to spend time outside in the yard with golden retrievers, to saddle up a horse and take a ride down through the woods, visiting the cotton fields around the county, time with family watching television that is reminiscent of times when families did things together; mine watched television specials: Charlie Brown, Disney, Garfield. Any possible holiday special that aired between 1984 and just a few years ago my family would take the time and watch as a whole. And most of them come one between Halloween and New Years. Maybe it is that time that I long to be near, just simple time and simple memories. Gathered in the living room with fire in fireplace and a decent dinner in the oven. Simplicity.

2009-10-22T10:47:00.004-05:00

There is a life inside my head that I feel has never gotten a chance to be lived out. Its that voice that sees what other people are able to do and gets a little jealous because I too want to do these things in my own way. I'm not talking about huge monumental accomplishments or life altering abilities that some people are innately born harboring. I am simply talking about things that all my life I think I've wanted to experience but either have not taken the time (it would be a great lie to say not had the time, taken works much better) or felt comfortable enough to pursue such ventures. Simple things: Camping (i've never been, seriously!), group road trips to no where in particular, gotten my SCUBA license.
Simple every day things for some people yet for some reason I always feel this desire to be one of those people that loves nature so much that they have to be a part of it. So much so that I subscribe to Outdoor Magazine and National Geographic Adventure, read articles of other people's outrageous experiences and stories and wish I could get out there with some of those people myself. But I usually just read the 2 page article then send it on to the recycling center and not go on my own real adventure. I keep thinking I'll find a group of people that do that and I'll just fold into the deck with them soon. BUT, I also spend money reading Men's Health to figure out how to get more fit and then never go to a gym because I say I don't know what I'm doing there. I find it so easy to talk myself out of things that I want to actually participate in.

So, its time to change the stars. Realign the heavens of who I am and seek out things that could make us all tougher, stronger, more well rounded and exciting. Its my turn to make a first move in something. This week, I've definitely started a few small steps. Just trying to create a new constellation with the stars I've been given.

But, in all honesty, I'm going to probably need people to go with me, or at least push me forward to keep from talking myself out of anything again.

"Change is Hard"

2009-10-05T14:01:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to change my attitude about life from the past few years. I've been so busy trying to live my life that I had forgotten how to live; why we live for each day. I was forced to take a long look at myself and who I had become by listening to conversations with my different circles of friends who, some by force, pulled me out of this depression that I had become stuck in, sinking further and further into it and loneliness. There harsh honestly and kindness have pulled me a long way in the past few weeks, and for them I have become grateful. Yet, each day is still a battle to find what it is that I want to accomplish out of this existence I've been given.

I have found myself having grown far more Cynical and Jaded than I had realized, its funny how things like that seep their way inside and root so deeply before you know how bad its gotten, much like the Kudzu plants I see back home that grow so silently and swiftly that they become the norm and grow so green and beautiful, yet they kill everything around them but smothering out the good trees and plants that offer more life and support to the ground. I write this now because I'm no longer cynical, far from it, I'm just aware of how bad its gone and I try to find that optimistic person that I used to be. To surround myself with people who force me to be a better person by supporting and lifting me out of the loneliness I had fallen into. (that's funny thing about depression, often times you reach out to people to keep from feeling as lonely as you feel, when at first its often just in your head, yet you tend to push yourself deeper into actual isolation because of the depressing state that you live, of which many people don't want to be associated with. In essence you cause your own loneliness by pushing everyone away.)

I've finally returned to the worlds of the living in some senses; I've had several people with whom have regained my confidence in myself, so much so that I feel I can have conversations with complete strangers again and smile some days again. It still remains a long process, and I still search every day for that Career that I've searched for my whole like; one that will offer me peace and meaning and purpose, to know this is my calling. Problem is I suffer from too many callings:

I had a recent conversations with one my best friends and confidants where we both discussed how we seem to have Multiple personalities fighting at any given time for leadership. Mine seem to have manifested in the:
A) Small town country boy I always have been and always will be on some aspects. The one who wants to live on a 100 acre ranch much like the times of the early 20th Century
B) The Star who longs for the compassion and eyes of his audience, to stand center stage in the spotlight because of something he created, whether it be a song, a voice, a monologue, or a beautiful stage that was build for someone else to star on.
C) the Humanitarian that wants to change the world one motion at a time, to reach out to anyone and everyone who needs a hand, to change there path, to save the world, to stop persecution of animals and humans, and bring it back to its beauty and sanity.

Sad thing is these are just the few personalities I know of, I'm sure there are others that have not shown themselves as strong. Now I'm not stating I'm Schizophrenic (I'm not Megan Fox, but if she's in town please give her my number!) but I know there are different aspects of myself, my passions and goals that I'm still finding out about myself.

But now I've got friends here who are truly reaching out to help me be the man I used to be, but better. For them I'm grateful.

Blog Title comes from the song "Change is Hard" by She & Him, Volume One.
Highly recommended album, preferably purchased on Vinyl. Thanks for reading.

"Shifting Sands"

2009-08-24T15:19:00.001-05:00

The past 3 years of my life have been a growth of my own self discovery that has in contrast created a hollow shell of my former self. A robot that is only programmed to mimic and copy the people that surround, never creating an image of my own self of my own mind, but instead turns myself into a character that i have created inside my own world, inside my own head.

I am not stable. I am not constant. I am not locked into anything in my life outside of family. I drift constantly to what I am near, a satellite that drifts from one planetary orbit to the next, an electron within an unstable orbit of protons being pulled by the strongest charge.
This comes to light in the past week I sat down and made a list of ideas that I always thought would be jobs I wanted to have, and at this stage in my life would have made a few steps in the direction to one of these. For some reason my brain cannot get around the idea of me not having a career. I am bound to the depression caused by my lack of feeling purposeful and useful in this large world. And as time continues to march, I continue to draw deeper and deeper into myself with less and less outlets or knowledge where it is that I should step next. To step away from this dream I thought I had? Is that even a possibility? To turn around from what it is I thought I wanted? What is it that I want? I want attention, limelight. I've always been drawn to things that people swoon over, to be one of the ones that lives larger than the life I was given.
But I can't take that step, any step, to where I would like to head because I don't know how to get there. When I made my list it contained 2 columns. One that consisted of jobs I thought that I wanted, dreamed about; the other column, jobs that i had: the contrast of the 2 columns was heartbreaking. A drop that felled me deeper into the hole of depression that I already struggle with. I looked at jobs that consisted of what it is that I wanted to do with my life and the jobs that I've taken on to pay for my life and they do not even begin to compare. I see jobs like Radio DJ and Audio Tour Engineer and Voice Over artist/Singer next to a column of jobs that say words like Janitor, Lawn Mower, Server. The contrast is overwhelming as I realize that I am the same age that my father was when I was born, or that 30 is only a few years away and I have very little support in my life to stand on. I wish that I could, like so many my age, afford to live and not live from paycheck to paycheck, have things that I actually needed and maybe a little extra to buy some nice toys. To feel secure in my own self to actually pass the love I had for myself over to someone else, to form a relationship with a girl I've been waiting almost 30 years for and to one day actually bless my family with the expansion of the family name, since lets be honest, that's all some of them care about, haha. Oh, the joys of being one of two Ray men that have the ability to pass down a name that's been going for generations.

This is the product of what happens when you can't sleep at 2am.

"But That Was Just a Dream, Just A Dream"

2009-07-22T05:42:00.003-05:00

Dreams are an amazing thing. Most of the time I wake up from dreams that leave me confused and dazed, yet I have no clue or memory of what happened during the dream. Then there are those that I wake up from and have to figure out if it really just happened because they are so vivid, so alive, so real. It is these dreams that leave me remembering that I want to know more about.

I had a dream last night that left me wide awake; not awake wanting to sleep, but awake wanting to know is God was trying to tell me something in the dream. I was so alert and aware of the dream. It was a dream where I was reunited with people in my life that I have lost touch with; it made me want to reconnect with, not only them but instead everyone in my life that has come and gone, that left an imprint on my life that I doubt I will ever be able to shake off. People from High School that I haven't spoken to in ten years, friends from college and from Fuge Camps that I spent so much time with and whom I think I honestly love with the love of Christ, yet have not spoken to in years. I wanted to call them and reunite over a fishing trip with all the guys that I have been friends with in my life to just spend time catching up on their lives and investing more of myself into theirs, to walk with and help carry their struggles but to also have them hear and comfort mine.

This dream also made me miss my bedroom. My OLD bedroom that I spend my entire childhood in, the one that still has the stick-on-glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. It made me want to be home for no reason but to be there, to wake up on a cold winter morning and know there would be a fire in the fireplace and a couple dogs on the bed with me. I love my childhood, I loved the way I grew up and miss it constantly, I miss my dogs, my simple life, my horses, my close-knit family upbringing. Things that I overlooked then, yet long for some days here.

It all started with a dream, yet we live out our lives. Leaving marks with those around us and hoping to be left fuller from the encounters in the end.

Title comes from R.E.M. "Losing My Religion"

Album that you should re-listen too: Caedmon's Call l "Long Line of Leavers" it has been reestablished into my life and I never listened tot the songs like i do now, and I've gotten alot back out of the music.

"We're trying to fit into this crazy world Somehow, somewhere, some way"

2009-07-12T14:12:00.003-05:00

To spend every aspect of your life questioning who you are and what you're doing is exhausting. To be strung between 2 worlds and 2 lifes that neither seem to exist in this world or dimension. I have long understood the concept of it not mattering where you are because God can use you wherever, but I struggle with the constant questioning of what will make me happy, because I'm not. I'm not UNhappy but I'm not joyful about anything either.

I did not leave home to find happiness, I guess I left home to try for a dream, a dream that I thought once existed but I have no clue where it all ended up. The dreams the ideas of life. I wonder if I wasted these last 10 years pursuing something I really didn't want. Or have just been an Israelite waundering in the desert for so long I forgot where I was even headed to Caanan. I just want to know what I was placed here on Earth to do? I know my time is supposed to be temporary but I am completely at a loss for ideas.

Title comes from "Trying to Matter" by Gary Allen
When I think of how I want to live, to die, to be remembered, I want to live the way I grew up. As much as I want to be part of something bigger than life, I'm still drawn to that simpler life.

Everybody wants to be a star

2009-05-24T21:08:00.005-05:00

Most people know I"m not the biggest fan/advocate/what-have-you of American Idol. I guess I can't stand the ideas of someone being rocket propelled into Celebrity from a nothing life, OR maybe I'm just jealous of the fact that these people get to do he jobs that I would give my Right Arm to do (works for Drummer of Def Leppard, Rick Allen).

I come at this because of all the Hype of American Idol this past week. Kris Allen and Adam Lambert have been all over the news, and honestly until the past 2 weeks ago I had NO clue who either of these guys were. I normally don't watch AI because it takes up about 8 hours a week, 6 of which are commercials for Coco-Cola and Ford, with AT&T following very closely with a huge check. The show hurts me to watch because I always catch it on nights when some contestant brutally murders a song that I think should be nationally protected by the Police of Good Music. But I think that the sad fact is, I want to be where they are standing. No so much as an American Idol Contestant, but more as the person in the limelight, center stage, all eyes on me, mic in hand.

Recently, you who have read my blogs know I've been searching for what makes me happy. In all honesty that's what it boils down to I think. Some of the happiest year were spent on the road with a Ensemble called Fishermen, singing for groups every weekend for 2 years, rehearsing around 6 hours a week, on top of that singing for the University Choir 5 hours a week, and vocal class 3 hours a week. That was a great semester in college. Plus I had my Acting/Theater classes.

Maybe this is what i want to do with my life but I've been too afraid to do it, in all truth very few people have heard me sing anything, and the people I know in Nashville I think have NEVER heard me sing, or act for that matter. Maybe my dreams have been the Singing/Acting aspect of it. Because I'll be the first to tell you, I LOVE being the center of attention with all eyes and ears on me. I love the idea of the performer, to become someone else that who you really are.

True, I am more shy that I would like to be, and more insecure of every part of myself to the point I'm scared to death to put myself out there for fear I'd fail at everything. I've always wanted to sing in a band or act on a play but I haven't been offered much encouragement for it, and had very few chances. I have to be encouraged and pushed or else I will let life pass me by completely. Its what I'm good at, slacking with an intention to be greater than I ever can. To dream bigger than my life is now, and to put Eupora, MS on the map.

Title comes from "LIvin' in the Limelight" recorded by Peter Cetera.

And the Thunder Rolls

2009-05-08T07:46:00.004-05:00

5:15am. I woke up to the sounds of nature and spring. I'm used to these sounds, having grown up in the south, I'm familiar with being woken up by back to back cracks of thunder. Normally, I just check the weather, make sure there is nothing severe headed my way, and roll back over to sleep.

Not this morning. Yes I did eventually get back to sleep, but my mind was rapidly awake with thoughts and questions. I couldn't go straight back to sleep because I stated to miss my room at my parents house with the big king size bed and star stickers on the ceiling. Thing is, the bed is no longer there, but the stars are.
And then i started questioning what, if anything, I was good at. Seriously good at. I've made my life doing things halfway. Starting things to never finish them. I've honed my skills slightly then gotten bored and moved on to something else, a constant schizophrenic lifestyle mixed with some ADD.

I began questioning WHAT, if ANYTHING, I was good at enough to do as a career. Manual labor? Farm? Music? Management? Arts? Vagabond? I think I started getting scared that I"m only good at being a vagabond, and i'm not sure I'll be completely happy doing that because there isn't really much luck in that lifestyle, just the glamorized ideas that Hollywood brought the bohemian. And I"m not sure I'm good enough at being a bohemian, even thought i think I think alot like that.

So now I am haunted by that question: What am I good at? Can I work with that? Can I be happy with it?

Title comes from song "And the Thunder Rolls" by Garth Brookes from the album No Fences.
other songs to look into: Simple Plan "When I'm Gone," and Graham Colton "New Years Resolution."

Untappable

2009-04-07T15:43:00.003-05:00

A well of untapped energy
An artist of untapped potential
A smile of untapped joy
A pen of un-inked stories
A mind of unthought creations
A piano of unplayed notes
A voice of unargued points
A dance with unchoreographed moves
An Idea without an ear to hear
Without a Soul to care
Without a presentation
Without an end
A beginning
A Start
A chance
A chance
An untapped well
Waiting to flow
To nourish
To feel
To feed
To dream
To flourish
To happen
To shine

"If happy Little Bluebirds fly"

2009-04-06T23:20:00.005-05:00

Tonight i wanted to be a cattle herder.... I watched the movie Australia.. great film, great director. You did it again Baz. Don't let Nicole Kidman fool you at the biginning about being an uptight lady.. that woman can work a steed as good as a rodeo queen. Welcome to Music City Mrs Urban.

It made me miss my horses, miss the open skies and the feeling of connecting with true power from nature.

More to come tomorrow. There is much to write about for me.

Title from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

So lie to me and tell me that we'll make it through the night

2009-03-22T13:55:00.007-05:00

My Generation is the Generation that has believed too many lies of how we can live our lives. I teeter on the brinks of being both part of the either GenX or GenY categories depending upon the website you refer to. Most refer to those born in 1982 as the GenY category.

This Generation is constantly refer to as the "Me Generation" and "Millennials," and "Echo Boomers." We are bound by technology, addicted to Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, and MySpace. We spend more time involved in Electronic Meetings and situations than being REAL and face-to-face with people. We poor our hearts out in Blogs that can be read around the world, but we will not discuss how we feel with the people closest to us in our lives.

We have are the 2nd Generation to have been told, "You can do anything you want to do and be anything you want to be." We have been lied to. We have been tricked. We have been slapped in the face of a world that wants us to change it all but scared of our possibilities. It has been stated that the generations before us have "Lived to Work;" ours is described to "Work to Live." We work so that we may continue to live the life that we want to. We do not want to be bound to who we are by our jobs; instead we either work to make the money to do what we want to, or we actually find careers doing what we sincerely love to make our living.

This is the issue that I feel most everyone my Generation demands. We want to feel that wheresoever we are, or whatever we are doing we are able to have enjoyment and purpose there. Yet with the economy in the turmoil that it is, us that are claimed by GenY are troubled to find jobs of such stature. We want jobs that we have an idea for, yet, in my own case, we have no clue how to find the path to this career nor anyone to give us the right directions. So, we float around, questioning everything, searching for "who we are" in hopes to find a way to have day to day purpose and, until that happens, making our way as best we can without loosing hope to someday claim that we "can be whatever we want to be."

Or do we finally state that it is all a Lie and that we, like those before us, will again Live to Work. We are the Generation that wanted to Change our planet, to be part of something bigger than what we were born to be and we strive to take over the American Dream that we've spent our lives reaching for but never sure it is still there. This magical OZ that may have blown away in a tornado, and we hit the point where we all want to click our heels together and go back home where everything is good and wonderful and we can be who we really are and start over from scratch.

So I stand on a hill and look out over the unknows. Below my feet is a fading yellow brick, ahead of me in the distanct i see what looks like a city, occasionally glistening in the sun. Yet, the road is broken before me, the path is split. Do we continue on through the dark woods, or click our heels and claim "there's no place like home?"

Title comes from :
David Cook "Lie"
Song to check out:
"Prozak (Be Like Me)" by Dexter Freebish

Is it worth it?

2009-02-19T09:43:00.005-06:00

Most days I feel like I have wasted the past 6 years of my life.
I regret several things and don't at the same time.
I feel that I made so many mistakes and that looking back I traveled down so many Roads Less Traveled that now I am just wondering around in an unmapped wood who's trees are so dense I no longer see the Sun. I am Alice in Wonderland trying to find my way back to Diana and Home, yet surrounded by curious creatures that make the confusion only worse because I do not get answers, just more riddles.
Do I belong here? Or have I been the dog barking up the wrong trees for so long I forgot the original scent I was chasing.

Maybe I should start over again. I'm so sick of Starting over with nothing in sight first. I wish I knew what I was here for and GOOD at. Maybe I should have just stuck with a Biology degree 8 years ago. Save the Dolphins. Change the ecology.

What makes your blue eyes green

2009-02-10T13:54:00.005-06:00

Growing up I was always drawn to green. Hunter green is one of my favorite colors. My favorite hats are Green, my Jeep Wrangler is Green, most short sleeves I wear are green, the fields I used to live around are green. On occasions my eyes are a brilliant shade of emerald green. Normally because I wear green alot. I have an unstable pigment in the irises of my eyes are unstable. They shift colors like a Mood Ring. My eyes are similar to the shifting colors but not to describe a mood from changes in body temperature but more to reflect and complement the colors around me. But despite my love for the color green, I've seen that it isn't always a good connotation. Green tends to represent things that I'm passionate about: Environmentalism, healthy eating, M&Ms, Kermit the Frog.

Yet, green tends to have other negative connections: Money (its a good thing but it tends to drive our lives more than is should), spoiled rotting food, disease, Envy.

It is the last that I prefer to write on: Envy. That Green-Eyed monster we live with and must try to control, if we choose to. Envy is something that I've seen alot over my time since College. And is something that I continue to attempt to kill daily, but often time fail. Envy surrounds our being, driving us to be better than the Jones', the desperate Housewives of Wisteria Lane, and the Men on Men'sHealth Magazine who look and live so much better than I ever will. And for my time in Nashville, its a stuggle to see people doing the jobs that I would like to get my hands on, but I have hands covered in Butter and Olive Oil and watch them tend to slip away instead. I hear of things happening to everyone for the better; while on the other hand I live a life where things just slip away. I live the life of the person fearful everyday that the job he has for Financial support is about to go away, of family members being laid off every week, and of more stuggles of people who grew up the same as I did.

And the whole I time I live my life of fear and struggle, I get see people who do not even have to try. They have the Look, or the Money to do what they want to and just focus on the jobs that were handed to them by some friend of the family. I struggle to not envy these. The careers that just happen; the music and stories that just flow; the opportunities that happen at the right moments. I know I'm being taught patience but no one told me Patience was a 4 year bachelors degree. I'm working on my Masters and failing miserably. I envy. I admit it. I envy hearing others have the life I thought I would have, and I live in the trenches building myself up as best I can. Maybe these Green Eyes can turn blue again. Or brown, but despite the connotation of Green Eyed Monster of Envy.... I love it when my eyes shine like Emeralds.

SONGS for the TIME: Gary Allen "Trying to Matter"
Carrie Underwood "Lessons Learned"
Ken Block "We Don't Talk Anymore"
Gary Allen "Still Learning How To Bend"

Cheers to The Times

2009-02-05T22:34:00.003-06:00

2009 has, so far, proved to strengthen me in several ways.

I have been faced with challenges that I was forced to overcome and deal with as an adult. I was challenged to get involved in organizations that I have a passion for, and I have tried to stop myself from looking at the unknown future and just live in the moment of the day.

I'm looking forward to the future but right now I'm only taking it one day at a time. And its getting to spend these days with people who strengthen me is different ways that make the journey better. I've been challenged to be more spiritually sound, and to know why I believe the things I do much more than I have in the past few years. I've gotten to sit down with creative people again. People who share my interests and creativity, and see that life is more than just work, sleep, work, sleep, eat to some people. That we are driven by some unseen force to be bigger than life sometimes.

It has been a refreshment to get to spent time in this environment again. To sit and discuss life and its occurrences over coffee with someone is my highlight. To be honestly frustrated with how life is not how we expected it to be with each other, yet still drive on to that unseen dream because we know it is going to happen is an encouragement. I hope that 2009 continues to offer these occasions more often with good friends and good times with some great guys.

Cheers to you 2009, treat me better than your predecessor but let me grow all the same

Mental Rest?

2009-01-12T11:22:00.001-06:00

I think that I would like to take a Sabbatical.
Is that an odd idea for someone of my status? Or is it something that is legitimate and rational?

Sit down.. lets talk.

2008-12-19T09:47:00.003-06:00

Is it possible to lose your social skills in just a manner of months? I'm beginning to think so. I sat down a few days ago and realized the last time i felt like I was really a part of a group/community/what-have-you with people that I generally shared so many interests with was back in the old MSU Student Union around a big fat-daddy book with a group of misfits that called themselves the Friday Crew. Now most of them are married and living their own lives. I've had people recently come and go and I've had a groups of different types of people over the years, but nothing like those times. I miss having a group of people who honestly share many of my thoughts on music, religion, politics, etc. I just miss discussions like that and I miss the opportunity to debate, well debate is a bad word... explore the ideas of religion as we see them. I remember in college and even hight school having many conversations of this type. I honestly miss them. I long for them so much more these days.

Snowflakes and Glitter equal Magic and Harmony

2008-12-03T20:30:00.004-06:00

Why is it that at this time we start to hear bells jingle everywhere we look? Glitter becomes a physical manifestation of the magic that we feel enters the air as soon as we hear the music with jingle bells in the background being pumped out of the radio and store speakers. Advertisements are everywhere covered in snowflakes and the color Red but not just any red, not barn red, or maroon, but a bright cheerful red that goes so beautifully with the same bright Green that always shows up beside it. We spend more time in the grocery stores purchasing all the things we've spent the other eleven months trying so hard to keep out of our house so that we still fit into those skinny jeans that are all the time hiding in people's closets (or at least that's what I hear).

BUT, there is a feeling of magic that comes this time of year. I actually do feel that people are a little happier, or at least faking it for now. With all the hard times and depressing news constantly in our faces, I appreciate the happier faces and looks of hope that seems to be on peoples faces. For me, there is a magic in the air and a since of wonder.

I found myself walking around a mall today after watching a Christmas movie; Four Christmases. Walking around and looking at the window decorations and the reds and greens and glittered snowflakes hanging on hooks made me feel good. I heard bells jingle and smelled fresh coffee and cinnamon coming from the Starbucks around the corner. It made me happy, joyous, a kid again. I don't know why it is that as soon as the chill gets in the air or the Rankin/Bass specials start playing its a Wonderful and Great time to be alive and spent in the city surrounded by the lights and trees and events; but at the very same time it gets harder and harder with each song that comes on the radio to be here, to not be in good ole Eupora sitting next to a fresh fire my Dad just built, decorating the family trees, ours and our Grandmother's, spending time with my dogs (I have 4 back home) and cooking large elaborate Christmas-styled dinners or deserts. And here I find myself at a mall, in the middle of a time of giving, in the middle of an economic recession, in the middle of my own Christmas thoughts and wishes. I want so badly to be able to purchase many wonderful decorations to deck the halls of my all too small and under furnished house or to spend on things that would brighten the faces of people I care for and bring them a little holiday cheer. But as much as my head wants that, my wallet and responsibility speak otherwise. But I'm joyful. God has taken care of me so much, having never been behind on bills or completely overdrawn in funds I see how much He's giving me, and all of us. I love this year, and I hate that I'm away from family. So this season is a complete love/hate of contradictions and hopes and miracles that will happen.

So, to anyone who actually reads this, I'm always reminded of the words that a Francis Church once wrote to a young child, Miss O'Hanlon:

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary."

Merry Christmas

2008-11-13T23:21:00.003-06:00

I'm perplexed.
I really just wanted to use that work. Perplexed is a favorite word of mine. But I am confused, bewildered, whatever adjective you want to use. I've been in Nashville for a year and some months still with absolutely no clue as to what I really want to do with my life. I thought that I wanted to be a video producer, the next Roman White, directing videos of country artists, Or a FOH sound engineer because I've got the ear but I can't get a chance to talk to anyone to do either of these jobs.
I've hit the point where I don't know if I'm completely taking all the wrong paths or what it is that I'm doing wrong to not find a job somewhere. Maybe I just don't really know what I want to do. I keep thinking that maybe I should hang it up, but then I go see a show or a concert and see all the people and I want to be one of them: The guy behind the sound console; the person managing all the lights and fog; the manager getting everything what they need; or honestly, the frontman on the stage behind the microphone. I want to do them all and experience it all. I see people getting a foot up on some dream that they have every day I'm here, and I hear of all the great things going on for people who I serve food to at work, and that's what I continue to do. Serve food, make conversation, try to network somehow, and try to get my voices and talents heard.
I watched the CMA Awards last night. They alway make me feel jealous of all the shows and prouctions going on just a few miles from my house and I want to be a part of it so badly. Maybe that is where all this is coming from. I really just want to know where my place is, where I belong in this career path and what i'm good at. If anyone out there wants to tell me what I'm good at I'd love to have your imput.

its finally over for 2008

2008-11-06T13:32:00.003-06:00

So finally it comes to an end. We finally have a new president that will take up the seat of our nation and attempt to work through the troubles that we are faced with without making it any worse. And I do not state that to say that I do no support our president. I support and respect him as I have any President. Each person that was placed in this chair is always faced with problems and they try to get out on top without hurting the nations people. I just hope that the people are patience enough for these changes to take place because that's what will have to happen. Time. Time much take place to get the balls rolling. I never understood why people do not understand this. They expect things to happen immediately. I, myself, am just glad to not have any more of the mudslinging or the bickering or the constant accusations. It drove me nuts.

But I will say that I'm going to be upset to not see Sarah Palin in the news as much.

2008-10-22T01:22:00.003-05:00

I wrote today. I've attempted to carrying around a journal to write in more often. I've always carried a journal to write about significant things that go on in my life. Some of the time I'll write every day while other times there are large gaps of time between one entry and the next. It really depends on what I am going through and where my mind is taking me on that way.

Maybe it is the way my brain is wired or my personality or some innate flaw that we have yet to find in me, but for me to actually think and get my thoughts in some order is for me to write. Many times it is just jabber that I have with myself and God. Sad thing is that most of the things that have been written down are confusions, questions, times when I yell at God and ask what my reason for existing is. Yes, there are good things and happy moments but they tend to be overshadowed by the demons I fight with every day. Constant questions of worth and passion and purpose.

Maybe its all because people want to know what I'm doing and then when I tell them I'm a server they look at me like I said I'm a hitman. Because to them they see that I am just wasting what life i have here or that I am not looking for anything else. Some times they let the story teller tell his story and find out I quit a nice paying job with benefits to move here to server food and they do not understand why. Some of the time I don't understand why either, but then I remember that they did not see how unhappy I was in that office, how each moment there was like a knife blade running over my skin, and how just a change of scenery took that off of me.

Sure now I work long hard hours and hope to make the right amount of money, but I've never messed a payment on rent or anything else, I've never overdrawn a check in my life, and I think those are pretty good things.

But Today I wrote in my journal. I used to do it all the time. I wrote poetry, and songs, and thoughts, and things God reveled to me. I want those days back so I'm hoping to will them back to me. To write again because I want to and because I have something beautiful I hope to share. I want to some day have that song back. And to have an audience to hear it, cause right now my words fall flat on the page and no one cares to hear them, read them, or know the story.

Wake me up when November Ends

2008-10-06T22:55:00.002-05:00

I'm worn out about all the Politics. I'm emotionally unavailable to deal with all that is being said from people about each person, whether they be the top dog or the follow up behind. I will say that all parties involved have their good things and their bad things, they all have their problems and their highlights. Have I personally decided who will receive my votes and my support. Yes, I think that I have. Does it come from what Party they claim? Good gracious NO! If I based my entire platform on a part it would be like building something in sand, it shifts too much and too frequently for my good. Plus, a party does not think as much as find fault with its opposite. I look for the actions of the person, the history of who they claim to be, and the way that they non-verbally deal with the way accusations are passed from one person to the other.

As far as the Political debates go, I'm excited to be in the city of one of them. I think I'm more excited about the random chance, though I know it won't happen, of running into Tom Brokaw or Katie Couric. I've watched them all, including the Vice Presidential debate also. I enjoy seeing what they men have to say, and how they say it. Having studied non-verbal communication I tend to spend more time focused on how the other candidate reacts to the one answering the question that I do to the actual answer to the question. I will say that I hear what the men have to say and listen intently because I do care who takes over this country. There is several things that are going on right now that someone is going to have to face head on, and I want to make sure that the right person or at least the one who is not going to make it worse gets into that seat.

2008-10-04T02:13:00.002-05:00

What happens when the Storyteller is silenced? When the words and perceptions fall on deaf ears, when descriptions and images go unnoticed, does his purpose fade away? Is it the changes that he'll face or the lack of movement forward keeping his voice from being heard more? What causes the silence? And what can bring the stories back to the surface? Where does the story come from again?

Or has the scene changed again. Has the stage been set up for a different play, a different story? Is the audience different, yet no one told the actor? They come for the comedy, and end up with a tragedy and only remain out of obligation. Maybe we should let the obligation go. But then Whom does the storyteller tell his stories to now?

Masters???

2008-09-14T22:30:00.003-05:00

I've decided that I have no clue what I'm doing some days.
I currently have far too much time on my hands and have gotten through most of the days by reading. Having spent the past year working at a bookstore its probably a good thing to finally knock out my To Read List; BUT in saying that, I really need to be busy working. I'm currently in a position where money is rather needed, not desperately yet, but that horizon is coming.

Also, I'm needing more direction in life. I've started thinking about Graduate School but I'm not sure where that's leading me. Currently I"m looking at MTSU because of costs and proximity. Outside of that I'm open for suggestion; then of course we have the questions of what to study. With a degree in Communication I've focused on those similar styles, Masters of Mass Comm or Masters of Fine Arts in Recording.
But I'm beginning to wonder if this is a path I want to continue. Maybe I should go back and get a Masters in Biology or Zoology, or just a Masters of Comm and teach Comm Theory at a college. Do I have any idea what i am doing. Nope. But I really would like to if anyone has any ideas. Production, biology... Maybe I should just start doing production for Animal Planet or Discovery. I mean I tivo everything that comes on anyway.

2008-09-03T23:38:00.004-05:00

I need to create something. Something that I can invest in and be a part of too. I don't want to make the mistake that I have before. I want to focus on what I'm good at. The problem with that is that I don't really know what I'm good at anymore.

I want to have something seen by the public, my writing, my photography, my videos, something. I've dabbled in all these different types of creative elements and I want to have them seen and critiqued, to know that someone has seen this. Maybe I should start getting out there and just filming things, or taking photography. Maybe someone will see it, like it. Who knows.

I moved to Nashville to get creativity out there. I'm not really making much progress.

ON A SIDE NOTE:
I play frisbee every Wednesday night. Its the highlight of my week; but I was looking at Roman White's work, who is an idol of mine as a Music Video Director and this video is the place where we play frisbee at. I think its funny.

Why Soundtrack?

2008-09-01T17:04:00.004-05:00

I named my blog Soundtrack For Life. I would safely say that only a handful of people get that. The rest, either don't care, or haven't put any thought into it. This is a phrase I brought up several times over the past few years because for some reason the only thing that drives me onward and holds my sanity, that portrays more of myself that I ever could, can, will.... is the music.

Each moment in life; whether it's mine, yours, anyone's, is driven by something. It has to be! There has to be something worth holding on to and look forward to or part of yourself dies! Music is the only thing that I can lean on in so many ways. Music is the only thing that I know, that I see, that I hear. Every emotion that i encounter I can find a song to relate to it, every thought, every action, every struggle with life...its the music that calls the shots better than I can. Every day I find a song that calls out something that I cannot put into words myself but some one somewhere could. That is what draws us to music. Its that other people have felt what we feel, that some one else has been through this and come out on the other side, sometimes. We relate so well to that chorus, that bridge, that drum solo that to anyone else is meaningless and time filling but to a handful, it connects them, binds them. I always say that at any given moment you can find a song that can tell everything your feeling at that moment.

But for me it is a disconnection, the music gets more out of me than reality. Its who I know, who I love, and who is able to make me smile when nothing else can. She is who drives me; Music, Melody, Muse, passion of worlds, all are her name and I call them all. And follow her sounds so that maybe I'll find that way to her forever, maybe.

what is my soundtrack for now? Who calls to me: (Listen to them, you'll get to know who I am)
"Screamer" Good Charlotte
"Lessons Learned" Carrie Underwood
"World Inside My Head" Sister Hazel

Jack of all Trades.. Master of what?

2008-08-18T18:58:00.006-05:00

The past few weeks have caused me to question and doubt a variety of things. My reasoning for moving to Nashville; my degree; the way things have panned out over the past 4 years. Its disheartening to look back and question your recent lifeline. The way that I've come to live in Nashville. I love this city, I really do. I love what it stands for, the people here, the ministry fits me and there are many ways that I think that I could actually serve. But in saying all this I've been forced to try to figure out what it is that I'm good at since camp has ended this year and if there is any reason for me to continue here for much longer.

I left camp this year with too many questions. Job? Housing? Purpose? what will life be like after? What will change? Will anything stay the same...

Some of these have since been answered. I've been able to find a part time job here in Nashville and get to continue living where I have lived for the past year. At least one source of continuity. But aside from that, I've still been forced to look deeper inside myself, to find out what it is that I was made for. To see what it is that I am good at, that I could do for a living and enjoy. For years I've worked to getting some job in production, but really, where do I even fit in there? Film? Sound? Acting? Direction? Programing? Where... there are too many options and I've got my hands in all of them and can't decide which I like more.
But maybe I'm wrong to stick with Production. Maybe I should focus other joys but could that get me any farther? Biology? Environment? Music? Design?
I have no clue what I'm really good at anymore. I can do alot of little things but I'm not a master at anything. I know enough to get by in some accounts and nothing in being an expert. And what's worse: there is still so much more that I want to do than I think I'll ever accomplish in this lifetime; ballroom dancing, mountain climbing, sailing, designing my own hat company, etc and so forth.

The one thing I know is music. And how Music can change a mood, draw you to a conclusion, and help to make sense of someones day by giving them that right song. My Song? For me there has only been one song that I go to when I have no clue what I want to do with my life. That no matter when the questions of life get at me I go back to a song I loved in the 90s, and I continue to love. The chorus says it all to each of us: "you were born to shimmer, born to shine, born to radiate." Shawn Mullins.

Photos are worth how many hopes?

2008-08-08T16:48:00.002-05:00

I've been cleaning out alot of the past year. Going through things that have accumulated and need to be thrown away, going through mementos and trinkets that have been pushed into the mix and the junk that we tend to gather in life. In doing so I opened a drawer filled with pictures. Everyone has one. That drawer that just gets to hold your past: photos, small gifts that mean nothing more than memories, pieces of paper with something written on them from some friend that made your day better, cards; you know what you have in your own drawer.

Upon opening mine I found photos, photos that spanned over the past ten years. They reached back to my last year of High School through college, through my years at Fuge, to this past year. Just scattered inside a drawer away from light, away from veiwing, like they are a part of you that you've hidden away until that day you look back and see where you ended up from the beginning.

Yet, looking at these photos I'm reminded of the person I was at this time, the friends that I have had, some that still hang on, some that have moved on. I'm reminded of what my dreams and ambitions were at that time and see how they've changed and altered over time. How ten years ago where I dreamed I'd be, or even five years ago and see how life was altered from the former and how it has changed since. How are we constantly changing, how are we constantly moving yet staying stationary? How are our own dreams and reactions to life so different with each changing season? And what is that constant that keeps us grounded? Through all the changes of life and reality, through the hardest of times and the happiest, what is it that you hold fast to? What ideals do not change, relationships that you refuse to let go of, music that keeps a smile on your face? What makes you constantly get up and smile? I'm not simply talking about the ideals, or the spiritual, or the unseen, but the real! The tangible things! That person who's voice can bring you back to reality, that hug that can calm your storms, that photo that reserves the sweetest of memories!

Why do we let these leave and never return? To be a part of that connection is so overwhelming at the time... And more than anything, it is what keeps each person here. It is what is needed to get through life, to get through the hardest times, and needed to share in the greatest. Because some things cannot be done alone. Some things you have to have an adventure to get through them. Adventures that are across the world in a place no one knows your past or your language, or as close as a living room and an adventure of a sleeper sofa that will always be part of those invovled.

Whether our photos show that we've kept on track of everything we wanted to do or gone so far off that original path, I hope that we can keep our heads high and that the other side of the path is still bringing some happiness; some dreams that still reach high. I mean think about who you were five years ago and then where you are now. Look how far you've come and gone.

A New Dawn

2008-08-05T09:36:00.000-05:00

Today we look out onto a new day, I, I look out on a new day. I'm preparing myself to get back onto the road to head to Nashville. The city that for a year I've called home. A city that for a year I've tried to understand and to find my footing there. Part of me questions when that will occur, when my feet will be placed onto that solid ground. What do I expect to happen over the course of this next year? of this next Dawn? I have no expectations except that they are new. New can express the overflowing excitement that we seek, or the fears of the unknown. I stand in the unknown both fearful and excited. Fearful for I can see no farther in front of me than my arm can reach out, and I have no sight as to what I am holding on to in that darkness. I am excited in the escape of the hopes of what comes ahead. But that excitement is not exactly a good excitement, its more of an anxiousness that I must deal with at this point and hope to push forward within it. That the anxiousness will allow me the ability to reach out for that which I hope not has changed over the course of a month, a summer, a year; and that will allow me the courage to push forward into what I do not know an anticipate what can happen soon. That I have not wasted these years on things that will only pass away, on bridges that will only be burned and not rebuilt, on lives that are meant to be together and not fallen from that grace.

A new Dawn, a new day, a new life.....let the sun rise.