Yeah okay, so I'm good at making commitments and not good at keeping them.  Big deal.  So I said I'd blog every week and here I am, two and a half weeks later without anything to show for it.  At least I'm getting okay at making the commitments and not sprinting away at the first sign of them.  And besides, it's impossible to keep every commitment you make exactly as you make it, right?  And you shouldn't be judging me for not writing if you're not gonna comment.  And if you love my blog so much, why don't you marry it?

...I get a little defensive about the commitment thing sometimes.

Anyway, I do still plan to write in the blog more consistently even if I can't keep up an every week update.  Let's talk about what my life has been like since I last wrote.

I don't drink beer, and yet, for the Fourth of July this year, I found myself jumping out of a car and unloading disposable styrofoam coolers full of beer.  It wasn't really my choice, I just didn't have a lot of friends who were available to hang out and so I agreed to go spend it with a bunch of quasi-strangers.  We had about 6 coolers full of beer and carried them about a quarter of a mile through crowds of people into a park until we got to a line of people waiting to go in.  There were cops standing there, checking people's stuff and we all thought it must be a homeland security take off your shoes and belt type thing to keep our independence day safe, until the african american policeman (...er, policewoman) came over, opened up a cooler, and just started laughing. 

"What do you guys think we're checking for here?  Bombs?" 
"uh...no maam....I mean...yes maam...I mean"
"No alcohol is allowed in a public park, especially not tonight - so come back without it"

So then we trekked back a quarter mile and put the approximately 137 pound coolers back in the car, and trekked back again to the park.  And finally, after all that walking and stuff, the awkwardness continued because remember - these were close to strangers.  Good thing it was a beautiful night and the fireworks were shot off of a barge in the middle of elliot bay and I was at least with some family and not alone and could hear the sea and I got to eat a 7 dollar hot dog on America day and learned what the jowler was.

Oh wait, that wasn't this summer, that was last summer.

This year I there were no fireworks over elliot bay, just fireworks over the walmart auto center because my dad is morally opposed to going to the casino where the real seats were so we sat on the edge of it in the wal-mart parking lot.
And there was no beer, just an awkward offer of wine while at dinner with my parents.
And no hot dog, but instead a Naked Mango Antioxidant Juice purchased by rubbing awkwardly against Bill Gather and having to say "no, I'm the OTHER lyon boy, not the one running for office.  And no, I don't have a job right now"
And no sounds of the sea, but instead the sounds of R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. and 7 Sandi Patty key changes.

So yeah, life can change fast.  Luckily for me, it always seems to be an adventure.

The next day, I went to a John Mayer concert and if there was an alter call while there, I may have bowed down and rededicated my life to him.  And by him, I don't mean Jesus.  I mean I would have dedicated my life to John Mayer.  He's really that musically talented, I promise.  And I was really that high off the second hand smoke from the bong being smoked next to us.  You want to hear some things that made this concert better than the Marc Broussard concert (outside of the genius that is John Mayer)?  The man who randomly danced through the crowd and spun right past me.  The ongoing challenge we had to go dance with the crazies next to us high off of unknown drugs.  The time Gretchen said "don't look up" and I did, just as an unfortunate girl was walking over me (okay...so that was actually really gross).  Although, I did forget to mention last blog that while leaving the Marc Broussard concert we actually ran our car into a person..which was pretty awesome once we discovered no one was hurt aka sort of just drove off.

Anyway, John Mayer lawn tickets were a success.

So this is getting long and late, so I'm going to do a quick summary of the last two weeks post-john-mayer-pentacost:

Impromptu walks through the cemetary.
Chasing fireflies in the soybean fields.
Taking a dog to Real Hacienda.
Finding out about health code violations at Real Hacienda.
Getting sick from a Hookah (again).
Vowing to never smoke Hookah again (again).
Interviewing for a job that I really want.
"Let me be your ride out of town"
Second interviewing for a job I really want.
Not buying an iPhone.
Being really really poor.
"Who's surprised Andrew wants the solo?"
Running every single day.
Citing everything I eat on thedailyplate.com
"No really, I like your background"
experiencing Bazbeaux Pizza and Puccinis Italian for the first time
"I don't really want to see the Rocky Gay Horror Picture show for 8 dollars"
Holding $60,000 in my hands, and then handing it over.
Making some really good, whole, proactive choices.
Putting myself in some really bad, broken situations.


And then, in a 2 minute 54 second phone call, she challenged me to be better than I am.  "I know people that have gone with me all over the world but have never really left Anderson.  You have to get to know people: eat what they eat, speak how they speak, dream how they dream.  Travelling is about living a culture, and until you do that you'll never understand the individuals you meet.  But hey, I need to go.  Good luck with that job, it sounds exciting.  How long do you think you'll work there?" 

And another phone call, "You did really well, but we really need someone who's willing to make the commitment to build a program over time.  Are you open to that?"

And my dad, "I think some people are just trying to make sure you're not just gonna move to Paris or something."

And so yeah, okay, fine, I'm bad at the commitment thing.  And maybe I don't own any furniture because I need to somehow know that I could easily pack up my car and go away for 3 more lonely months somewhere again.  And maybe I didn't date any girls in college because dating a girl at my college implied marriage after college.  And maybe I joke so much about Christianity because a real commitment to a real God implies marriage vows that are sacred and unbreakable and life-shifting.

But commitment isn't all bad.  And I think I'm close to making commitments which I intend to keep.  So maybe this blog is the start of that new leaf.  Here's to making (and sometimes breaking) new commitments.

I can't figure out how to write this blog.  Everyone loved reading about my flu misery last week and I don't think I have a story to top it...so if you're looking to be amused and inspired like last week, maybe you should stop reading now (but still leave a comment, because really, I don't care if you read, just if you leave a comment, and don't comment about my comma splices, kayley).  A lot of great things have happened since dating made me sick a couple weeks ago.  For one, I found out that my little brother is a fantastic singer.  I found out that with some people, it doesn't matter how often you see each other - because you just have that connection.  I learned that white people love to go to graduate school (stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com).

I have this problem where when something bad happens to me or I fail at something, I don't know how to deal with it very well.  I don't face problems.  I don't work through them.  I don't channel them in a healthy way to the arts or run them off with exercise.  I either 1) scream in my car or 2) escape within myself.  Yup, I just get alone and escape into something else - video games, t.v. series, books, the internet, sleep, boo.  I'm gonna try to start facing my problems someday soon, but motivation is hard to come by sometimes.  Maybe if the sun would come out for a couple hours...

Let's talk about how amazing my weekend was last weekend.  Friday night I went to muncie and talked to a good friend for probably 5 hours.  It was fantastic.  What did we talk about?  Life? God? Happiness?  Ending Poverty?  Nope, we talked about how much we love music history, how NPR has changed our lives, and how to appreciate where we are in life.  Another wise person, just popping up in my life.

Then, saturday I went to a showchoir competition - which is lame unless you're going to teach it or are just trying to be a supportive brother (of which I'm the latter).  It was pretty fun, but what was really fun was afterward when I had the most random night of old friends mixed with good coffee, tea, cheese, and conversation.  Who would of thought that the four of us would fit together so well and create a dining club?  Unbelievable nights.

Sunday was then church and the most ridiculous amount of videotaping I've ever done in my life.  Apparently I've been chosen as the funny one in chorale (with a few other people) and was picked to do this As the Chorale Tours video for every day of spring break.  A few shoutouts, skattalks, st. patricks day hats, yarn wigs, chog hymns, blindfolded races, stupid impressions, and brainstorms later - we have about 30 minutes of video.

Being a movie director is fun, but exhausting.  I don't recommend it.  I think from now on I'll just continue to make fun of other people who make movies.  It's what I'm good at.

What are you passionate about?

I'm tired of that question and I'm tired of trying to relate it to my life.  What if I'm not passionate about anything, does that make me an unwhole person?  What if all I'm actually passionate about is music?  Am I supposed to try to make that into a job?  I think it's a bit late for me to have a real music job now.  And besides, I just really like good music.  Good music and people.  Can that be my job somehow?  I mean, can that be my job without me being a music minister?  because that has a really low chance of happening.

I can never stick to reading my Bible or listening to God long enough to hear an answer.  Always a bit too close minded, long winded, and bored for that.

And I also think I'm a bit too lazy to hear God anyway.  If the divine spoke to me, I may not be able to respond...even though I know the real answer should be "Here am I, send me."  I think there's too much pressure to be something great.  Not everyone can be something great, so why do I feel like I'm somehow destined to achieve it?

At FranklinCovey we were supposed to "enable greatness in others" ...whatever that means.

Don't get me wrong, I still have a commitment to God and the Church and the Scriptures and people and prayer and all that.  But sometimes in relationships, it's hard to communicate.  The commitment and relationship is still here, I'm just needing some direction.  Maybe less escaping would help with that.

Never to be forgotten from this week:
unabashedly singing Imogen Heap all in falsetto with a friend in the car
sitting crosslegged on the floor discussing how much I've changed and who I may become
"two men are walking up a hill, one disappears, and one is standing still"
"and i, feel like I'm wasting"
a french art song sweeps my heart up off the floor
speaking in tongues at nicholson
getting a headache from laughing too much in the shower
the feeling of being cared about and for

Happy Spring Break!  Maybe this week will be illuminating and I'll learn what my passions really are!

Ever since I started looking, wise people have been speaking into my life.  Some people offer wisdom when I ask and some give of their own volition...but it's all appreciated.  Here's a glimpse into what I've been hearing and thinking these past few weeks:

"When I was going through what you're going through, someone I really respect told me to just ask God for the answers.  So I took 20 days and stopped asking everybody except God what I should be doing.  I made sure I was really searching scripture, and then I went for it"

"Just take your time and have fun with your friends before everyone goes their separate ways.  It'll all work out, I promise"

"One thing is for sure, if you make sure you honor God, He'll honor you with a full life - even if everything doesn't go exactly as planned"

"Don't have a baby before you get married.  Or at least, if you do have a baby - make sure and take care of the girl.  We know you're not planning on it, but we know that sometimes people don't make good decisions when it's late at night in bed"

...yeah.  My loving Grandparents told me that last one.  I was just nonchalantly eating my french toast at Eva's Pancake House and suddenly they dropped that bomb on me.  I mean...it's good advice, really.  They're right - I can't support a baby right now, let alone the woman who would bear him/her.  I couldn't help but laugh a bit though.  "sometimes people don't make good decisions late at night in bed"?  Really?  hahaha  Thanks for that Valentines day advice G squared.

And really, thanks everyone for caring enough and taking the time to say a prayer or write a comment or email or get me coffee.  In fact, shout out to Becky Rosenberg (a woman from my church who I'm sure doesn't read this) who sent me a simple bible verse in campus mail the other day which, coupled with goods chocolate, made her my valentine.

I went to Shadyside yesterday.  One of my favorite places in the world.  It was ultra warm outside for no good reason and so I decided to take my dog for a walk and invite one of my best friends.  It was really pretty picture perfect - the sun was out, there was a breeze, my dog was sniffing and peeing literally every 5 seconds (she didn't want to make us wait so she'd run really far ahead - do a bit of her business until we caught up, and then keep walking until 5 minutes later when she'd do it again...I think she peed probably 25 times in an hour, which is saying something considering how small she is)...but back to the perfect day - other walkers were smiling and saying "afternoon!", the lake was in that frozen melting time, and the geese were just coming back, drinking in the water.  It was picture perfect - that is to say, it would have been a good picture.  In fact, my friend and I thought it was a bit warmer than it really was, so that by the end of the walk our feet were soaked (my toes were white and numbed - raynods style), our faces were windburnt, our hands were cold, and we started huffing and puffing because of how cold we were.  In fact, we kept unconsciously speeding up the walk because we were literally becoming snowpeople halfway around the lake.  We never talked about it really, but I think it turned out to be a bit more miserable, weatherwise, than we thought.  But then, who could NOT have fun walking around shadyside - bitter cold or not.

Two saturdays in a row now, I've ended up singing hymns with my friends.  Loudly.  It's got to stop.  What kind of 21 year old college student am I that I sing hymns on a Saturday night?  The whole night.  And not just Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art.  We're singing OBGs (oldies but goodies) like Standing on the Promises and He Lives.  ...and you say there's nothing fun to do in Anderson on the weekends.  and you say I only hear what I want to.  and you ask me how I know He lives.

He liiiiives.
Withiiiiin.
My heeeeaaaart.

This brings me back to a point I was gonna make earlier which is this: I'm really beginning to re-embrace my Christianity.  I've been through a bit of a tumultuous early 20s questioning God organized religion personal journey time through the last couple years...but I'm getting back.  Not that I was gone.  It's more like this:  I took some time to break down my belief system and really question what it was I wanted Christianity to be versus what Christianity really was.  And now, I pretty much have the same questions, and maybe less answers, but rather than using them to distance myself from church and using questions as excuses - I've started embracing them and using them as a tool for my faith.  Because really, what is faith if you have answers to the questions?  Ways that this is starting (trying) to express itself in my real life:

A new love for the Bible.  I really believe a lot of the stuff that's in there.  okay, I guess...all of the stuff that's in there.  And I'm wanting to read it.  And learn it.

A renewed love for the Church.  For all her brokeness and quarreling and hope bringing and welcoming and bureaucracy and grace and difficulty and life.  I love the church.  I love the church I attend.  The way it fosters and feeds hope.  The way we dream big.  The way we love people.  The way we try to be community grounded while globally engaged.  I can't help but go every Sunday.  And I can't help but invite my friends who aren't part of that mutli-generational, multi-socio-economic, multi-ethnic (sort of), growing place.

A way of praying on my way places.  I pray for people, mostly.  I'm not sure whether I think prayer works on its own or not, but I've definitely found myself more aware of other people recently, and what they've been going through.  Looking at people as people is a lot harder than seeing them based on their musical ability or their intelligence or their decisions.  But since I've started praying for people throughout my day, it's really been affecting my view of them.

A guilt felt when I speak poorly of people.  Which happens often.  haha.  It turns out that if it's funny and/or true - I say it.  Which makes me funny.  and makes me mean.  But my guilt isn't a confining one - it's a growth filled guilt.  More like a conviction.

I've started using words like conviction.  And saying things like "I'm praying for you" And I've helped people pick up things they've dropped and left them with a "God Bless"  I've been leaving scripture in people's facebook messages.  I'm tired of it not being cool to be a Christian around my Christian friends.

All that to say, it's good to be back...but I still need to cut out the hymns from my saturday nights.  It's just getting embarrassing.

And maybe these things aren't what being a Christian is about. 
Maybe it's about singing songs or being with the poor or giving money to the poor or visiting shut-ins or visiting prisoners or saving the lost or building life centers in india or stopping aids in africa or living in a true community or honoring my father and mother or giving 10 percent of my earnings to the church or giving 10 percent of my earnings to a charity because the church isn't going to do the right things with the money anyway or giving my time to a children's ministry or an elderly ministry or learning all I can about the bible or learning all I can about other things in a sort of academic worship or just getting to know people or welcoming them into my home or feeding the homeless or healing the sick or taking care of widows and orphans or baking my neighbor cookies or writing a note of encouragment or leading a new ministry or being a follower in somebody else's ministry.  Maybe I should start writing music for God or start listening to music other people have written for God or stop listening to rap or stop listening to Rush Limbaugh or Barack Obama or start listening to Joel Olsteen or live a Purpose Driven Life or try to be blue like jazz.  Perhaps  it would help to learn about other cultures or stop globalization or start globalization or love the lord my god with all my heart strength mind soul body eyes time emotions thoughts being.  Maybe if I visited africa or europe or asia or the poor or the rich or the lower middle class or the west side of anderson or the south side or if I would help out at the Y or the Christian Center or Dove Harbor or YoungLife or YouthForChrist or WordMadeFlesh or sing in Chapel or start a new worship service or start a new service project or live on a dollar a day or help make journals for the poor or not wee for a wii or ride a bike everywhere instead of drive or invest in rollerblades or buy mighty putty or get a new air freshner or only buy clothes from Goodwill and give the rest of my money to charity or only buy foreign made products to encourage foreign investment or only buy american made products to get our economy running at home (all to reduce poverty here or there) or stop ignoring global warming and animal cruelty and domestic abuse and crime growth and unemployment and people without insurance and people who don't know what insurance is.  Maybe if I volunteered at an after school program or only at organic food or supported our troops more or found a way to wipe out al quaida or joined al quaida (okay...i'm not a terrorist) or was a lobbyist against waterboarding or against abortion or for abortion or against gay marriage or for gay marriage or against evolution or for evolution. 

All of this has been somehow thrown at me.  More like vomitted at me.  Or maybe it was vomit thrown at me, telling me the way to actually live the Christian life.  The way actually be like Jesus.  In any case, I think this is what I'm going to do:

I'm gonna stop. 
And I'm going to search. 
And I'm going to pray. 
And I'm going to hope.

I'm going to hope that the Divine shows the smallest piece of Him/Herself in my life in such a way that I can somehow impact the lives of others in a real, concrete fashion.

Because really - isn't the rest just a chasing after the wind?