Hello World!

I should be doing something else right now. There is no milk in the fridge, a book waits for me at the library, and the Young Life office here in Seattle is expecting me to register for the leader's retreat this weekend up at Malibu. (On a side note, don't tell anyone, but I am going to Malibu for the first time this weekend. That you can tell people. What you can't tell them is that the main reason I am going is just to go to Malibu. My intentions are all wrong, to meet YLers and grow in my Jesus relationship should be the main reason, but it is really is to see the camp and I have the added benefit of the people.) These "pressing" issues will not get done on their own, but I made the mistake of sitting down at the computer while eating my late lunch consisting of a turkey pastrami sandwich with the best cheese, Tillamook Cheddar, and red onions. Having full time access to the Internet at my new place, I can get on-line and check all sorts of interesting things. This time was to others blogs. Once again I made it to Barb Iverson's blog and once again she was inspiring.

Barb, you must write more because you are great.

In a subtle and insiders sort of way, she described with detail and emotion the short trip I was blessed to be a part of. It truly was a great four days and one that I will carry with me for years. Greece is one of my favorite places just for that reason. I won't even try to explain it, but read her comments and that is enough.

There is a second thing that I will comment on. Last week I spent at Lakeside Bible Camp on work staff with 18 others. The director, for the past five years, was Scott Golike of Grace Fellowship of Puget Sound. We had a wonderful week naming the elephant. Let me explain.

One day a little boy came to his father. "Today the teacher showed us a big round globe she said was a model of the world. She said the world was just surrounded by space. How can that be? Dad, what holds up the world? Why doesn't it just fall down?"
His father, knowing that this was just a child's question, gave him a child's answer: "It's a camel that holds up the world, son."
The boy went away satisfied, for he trusted his father and for the moment it made sense. He'd seen pictures of camels holding up all sorts of things. So why not the world? But then he got to thinking about it and by the next day decided something was missing in his father's answer. He asked, "Dad, I was just wondering: if a camel holds up the world, what holds up the camel?"
His father now thought that he might be in trouble. So, knowing that a quick answer turneth away further questions, he said, "It's a kangaroo that holds up the camel."

Again the boy went away, but this time only for a couple of hours. Back again with his father, he asked, "Dad, if a camel holds up the world and a kangaroo holds up the camel, what holds up the kangaroo?"

This time the father realized that he was in deep trouble. So he chose the largest animal he could think of and he put a capital on it. That is, he shouted, "It's an elephant that holds up the kangaroo."
"Come on, Dad!" his son retorted. "What holds up the elephant?"
His father, in a fit of genius deriving from necessity, replied, "It's... it's... it's Elephant all the way down."

"Naming the Elephant" is a book by James W. Sire. In it he is discussing world view. Though we talked for a week about world view, I still don't fully grasp it and therefore feel inadaquate to expand upon that topic. So what are we talking about, Jason? Well, I do like the story so how about it. Name your elephant, what is it in your philosophy that is all the way down?

Most people don't think about this stuff. Most American's that is. We are content to take life in its most simplest form, bottled for our convience and served fresh, fast, and hot. I have got no idea where I am going so who cares where I came from? But at some point the question arises, Where did I come from? Is this all that is out there? Is there more to this thing called life? And in the words popular today and taken from a incredably boring book that I couldn't get past day 27 of; Is there any purpose?

What is the elephant?

I am going to let you all, my ppls, dwell on that a while. If you are like me, then you will, if you aren't then you probably stopped reading this months ago.

It is tomorrow.

Jason

Where are we going?

What is it about the divisions we establish in our lives; the haves and have nots, where I was born or wasn’t born? What about my parents and what they do are don’t do, how much money is taken in and what car I drive? There are also deeper divides that cut down to the heart. Looks can play a huge factor in that division. Are you dark, light, tall, short, big, little, BEAUTIFUL or do you have great personality? It almost seems like I am looking for a reason to separate myself from everyone around me, and put up either walls that keep unacceptable people out or maybe only keep me in.

I am up at a definitive place of acceptance but even here there are divisions. And what about this word anyway. Has anyone ever noticed that accept and except are pronounced the same but mean the opposite. I accept you except you. Ah, it makes more sense saying, I accept you all except you. When they made the baffling English language, I am sure that they thought this one was pretty funny.

Earlier this evening, a stranger was in our mist. He appeared harmless enough, but in this world, enough is not enough. This random, slightly irregular guys was just walking around. Since the camp is private, Christian but private, unannounced visitors are kindly asked to leave or state their intentions. I had a few short conversations with Lan and he talked of being here when he was 14, probably 25 years ago, and here is were he met Jesus. Good for him, but now there are crazies, Class II sex offenders and sinners out and about so you are just going to have to find Jesus else where! Huh??

Maybe these divisions are for our protection? Be wise like a serpent it says. Makes sense in my little mind, but nothing else does so maybe this doesn’t make as much sense as I think it does. If not, then what? Let everyone run free, no boundaries, and no limitations. I don’t think so. I was reading about politics years ago and the author, whose name I don’t know, pointed out a deep difference between the two main stream parties of my country. He said that there is a philosophy about human nature that is the underlying driving force for every policy. One party believes in the inherent evil of mankind and feels that government must limit our nature and protect humans from themselves. If given the opportunity, man will destroy its self so it needs government. The other believes in the inherent good of mankind and feels that government and society have forced man to the decrepit state that it finds itself. If given freedom from those cultural bonds, man will pick its self up and improve to the point of better. (A European and an American are talking. The American says, “We are better! We work harder, we let people fend for themselves, and we have a huge military to fight our wars. The European responds, “You have a funny definition of better!”)

Which is right? Neither? Both? Former!

My problem remains. Run free? I haven’t seen it work. So we divide and conquer.

A short time later, I was invited to join a friend in a gathering of his friends. I declined. See, he has been spending everyday for the last 10 weeks with this group, they have created over this time a unique bond. All of them together, and without knowing it, they have formed their division, unintentionally and completely unmaliciously. None the less, it is there and for me to break in would be work, work beyond what I desire in this late hour. The term, fifth wheel comes to mind. So maybe we don’t from divisions, or we do, but not we the group, but we the individual when we feel that we wouldn’t be accepted without even trying. There is a word for that.

Or maybe we form divisions out of cultural driven habits? Maybe that one party is right? Somewhere, sometime, there wasn’t enough to go around. To survive you had to divide, you had to keep out some because putting everyone in the life boat sank the boat. It happens once, it happens twice, the third and successive times form a pattern, then a habit, then a culture. When there is enough to go around, people don’t know any different; but I was watching a one year old who had never known want and if he could have held onto that fifteenth toy, God knows he would have. Screams of the dieing were heard if you mentioned the word share.

Enough already!

It is tomorrow.

Jason

Wait! Wait! Wait! Say that again!

The sun is shining in a perfect fashion through the pine tree out behind the house. Let no one say that Washington isn’t a magnificent place, maybe the best place on this planet. Here are some of its marvelous attributes. 1. It is green, green like a World Cup match for the Irish national team. 2. It is cool, but not cold, warm, but not hot. On an idle Tuesday afternoon when every other relative that I have is, I am sure, indoors, I sit here on the back porch enjoying the beauty and peace. 3. It is progressive. Every other relative of mine would call it liberal, I think progressive has much less negative connotations. So I sit here in the cool afternoon sun, reading my not so progressive Outside Magazine, day dreaming about my up coming move and follow-on packing trip into the Cascades and all around loving life.

It has been an interesting few days and with my new freedom of solitude, I have pontificated, among other things, the meaning of life, the value of the “church”, the speed of our existence, and the futility of it all. Solomon is quoted often that “all is futile.” What does that mean, all is futile? Does that mean give up? Does it mean not care? When asked what the two biggest problems today are, most people answered, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Funny seeing that the answers are apathy and ignorance, in my opinion. So this time we are going to spend together is going to be a compilation of about three different things that I have read recently, one radio show that I caught the middle of just yesterday, and my own thoughts thrown in just to keep the painfully slow interested.

If all is futile then even trying to voice a solution is pointless, which means that writing these words or thinking these thoughts are a waste. But even though the wisest man that ever lived said it, I am still, pig-headily going to plow on, thinking otherwise. I have to, otherwise I would kill something, like this scary looking spider that has come to collect her silk entombed meals.

My solution, today, is… SLOW DOWN!!!

In a blog past I mentioned a new philosophy I have recently come to hold. “Start slow & taper off” At first when I read that and started referencing it in my daily encounters, it was just a funny saying and more of a reaction maker than anything, but today it has become more true in my thinking.

Here is why. Aaron Vederoff, my current landlord and good friend, is a 72 year old “retired but active” racquetball player. He is a wonderful person to talk to, is more than funny in a dry Jewish sort of way, and has his annoy quirks like the rest of us. One of those quirks is the insatiable desire Aaron has to collect things. He is frugal enough to be called a cheapskate, but obviously shares his life as I am mooching off his generosity even now. His house is a pile of papers; news print from the depression, magazines and letters from magazines that are collecting faster than they can be read, and thousands and thousands of interesting articles that Aaron wants to share, but rarely gets around to.

A recent article was handed me because of my new philosophy. Ellen Goodman wrote, Can’t wait to stop hurrying, and was recently published in the local “progressive” daily. She starts her article describing the much lost art of writing letters. Hers is a rant of the pace of life, a longing for times of old when communication took effort and words meant something. I agree with much of what she says, even as I hypocritically type this blog using my high-speed laptop, monitoring my camera cellphone and hoping that I am not missing an important email, like the one from that girl I initiated with yesterday. The point that stuck out the most was when she writes, “Continuous partial attention inevitable feels like a lack of full attention.” Everyone knows that mastering multitasking is getting ahead. If you can get thirty minutes of work accomplished on the thirty minute drive into work, then you can spend an extra thirty minutes at work getting done thirty minutes of work that you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Wow, I have been able to multitask my day into more work than I have every done before. (I say that from the perspective of someone that actually has a place of work, not my own, God forbid!) Accomplishing so much more work today, I have time to do even more tomorrow.

All is futile.

Ellen notes that teenagers are the extreme end of multitaskers. “Instant-messaging while they are talking on the cellphone, downloading music and doing homework.” She is mostly right, I doubt they do homework, but being one of the types that feels called to masochistically subject myself to the frantic, if not chaotic life that adolescents lead, my ears perk when their lives are mentioned. How, I ask, can this help me to speak into their lives and be a light? (To all the youth out there that read this, ha, ha, jokes on you, I really do have an agenda.) I think the answer is subtly mentioned in the same article.

“We suffer from the illusion that we can expand our personal bandwidths, connecting to more and more. Instead, we end up overstimulated, overwhelmed and unfulfilled.”

Being unfulfilled is huge. I know on my darkest days, it is a personal fulfillment that is most lacking. I know it is for my dad too. So, what can I do, how can I show those around me how to be fulfilled when even I struggle. Listening! Really listening! Not the multitasking-you-are-as-important-as-this-song-sms-e-mail-tv-show-book-advertisement-and-bird type listening that everyone is so capably willing to bestow. I want to listen while looking into your eyes, the entire world gone except you and me; but, as my wonderfully, trying to be more, patient sister can attest through my multiple failures to do so, I suck at it.

Maybe there is a way I can practice? An article in May 05s Outside points to one such technique, pain! In this article, Mark Jenkins is recounting a climbing accident that brought him to master the art of single-tasked, mind focused accomplishment. He too is sucked into today’s world of move fast and do, do, do, but when his broken wrist forces him to do the one thing his body needs and mind rejects, he sees the light.

“An injury worth the time will slow you down. Precisely what we all desperately need. An injury will make you do one thing at a time. You’ll re-remember that multitasking only means you’re doing several things poorly. Injured, you must focus on one thing for it to happen at all. With this singularity of focus come happiness, for you have been released from distraction, the most corrosive disease of the 21st-century life.”

It is the several things poorly that I need to learn. It is the several things poorly that cause those around you to see that they are unimportant in your world. To know that we are important is “what we all desperately need.”

My solution, now, is… SLOW DOWN AND LISTEN!!!

(I can now say that the battery of my laptop, in normal usage, has 1:35 minutes of go time. I have been forced to move indoors for the remaining of this post. Which is all the better because I should be wrapping it up anyway.)

Isn’t it wonderful how in just over an hour, we can move and grow? I think so. For all you out there who are doing listening well, kudos to you. For those who accomplished four other things while reading this, kudos to you too.

It is tomorrow.

Jason

How exciting is this.

I haven't figured out how to post pictures the way I would like to, but this is working sort of.

I am sitting at a coffee shop which closes in 20 minutes so this will be short. I am back in Seattle, if I didn't mention that already. The first things on my list to do after getting back was find a ministry and I think I have that covered, Young Life is very active in this area and also church, Hope, is looking to start an urban youth ministry. Both of those are going to take some time so until then, I don't know.

The second thing to do is find a place to live. That should be covered also. I put in an application for this one place in Greenlake. It is a two bedroom place in the basement of a house, the owners are Christians that go to Mars Hill and I would be rooming with what seems like a pretty cool dude. He put on the advertisement for a new roommate, "Easy going Christian guy, likes to rock climb, looking for..." I thought, score, sounds perfect. I saw the place and besides a smaller than I would like kitchen, it is perfect. Now it is just a matter of being accepted, but I met and talked with the owner this afternoon and I think I am a go.

The next step after housing is finding a job. Job, I hate that word. But I know that it is essential, I can't live off of savings forever.

Well, my time is almost up so I will have to get back with all you sometime later. Next time I promise to tell you about my trip up here and driving off the road into a ditch. I have pictures and since I think I have pretty much got it down, I will post them. If not here, then on my website. Oh, be looking for a lot of new postings on the website shortly. I will have my first broad band connection in months so things should be a lot easier to post, pictures, pictures, pictures.

iHs,
Jason

Why doesn't this work???? If you saw this pic it would be of where my car went off the road.

The before

Almost gone

In all its glory

Here they are, maybe!

I guess it is one at a time

Here they are by Hello

My facial hair

This post is an attempt to post some more pictures. I couldn't figure out how to post pictures and text at the same time. Here goes nothing.











Obviously it is, in fact, nothing. I just want everyone to know that I tried.

If you could have actually seen these pictures, you would see the final picture of my gotee in all its glory. The following pictures are of the gotee going away and the final is an impressive soul patch.

I tried.

Jason

Colorado State Road 139 

Day Last: Somewhere in Colorado

You guys will not understand how beautiful this place is. There isn’t much to describe. I am on my way to Jackson, WY after staying with the Brownson’s in Grand Junction. The route will be mostly back roads. Small, two lane roads that twists and turn up and down the mountains. Presently, I am on one of those roads, far up in the valley. Being August, you would think that it would be less green, but instead I see a dozen different shades of green. They remind me of Ireland a little. But this is nothing like Ireland, this is nothing like Germany or Scotland, or Italy, or Greece. This is the most beautiful place on the planet.

The United States is blessed by God. It has to be because only God could bestow this kind of magnificence. I don’t know if I can leave here, here being the States. I will have to leave CO, because I would die in a few days if I didn’t, but can I leave the States? Europe was amazing, there were so many things there that enthralled and inspired me, but it isn’t America. America the Beautiful has new meaning now.
When I was in Germany and eating with Michael and Ruth, I asked them why anyone from Europe would come to the States. We were in a little town called Lautenberg. It was one of those old time, 1500, German cities. It was beautiful, and the history, amazing. So why would someone that has a place like that in their back yard come to a place where the old buildings weren’t even conceived in the 1500s? He told me it was because of the open spaces, the mountains, and the land. I see now what he was talking about. They don’t have places like this in Europe. They don’t have miles and miles of nothing that you can drive through and get totally lost in yourself.

Yesterday I was driving from Lubbock, TX to Grand Junction. Along the way I passed miles of nothing. There were miles of open fields that flowed as far as the eye could see, a far cry from the cultivated fields of Europe. Only Scotland had open space like this and it wasn’t nearly as vast.

There is also a smell here. Take a deep breath and you can feel the thin air as it rushes into your nostrils. I think it is the sage brush. Sage has a unique smell and there is a lot around here. I miss this place. I miss the mountains and the solitude and the expanse. Will I be able to deal? Sure! Right now, I just want to put on my hiking shoes (which are in Seattle) and trek into the hillside. Get lost for a few days and discover something that maybe no one else has seen in hundreds of years. For me, God is in the high places. That sounds pagan but even now as I think about King Solomon and the temples he built on the high places, I can imagine why he did it. To me it isn’t because those places are sacred, but because I feel His presence more there than other places. Tired and thirsty after a hard hike to the top of anywhere, I sense God’s strength and hold over my life.

As the birds are the only sound I hear, the sage fills my senses and the sun pours over the trees, as the long shadows of the mountains draw into themselves, I thank God because he has revealed Himself in His creation. Thank You!

Jason