Walk in the Park Pt. 1

I can't sleep. It must've been all the iced tea I drank. I don't handle caffeine well.

                                                                                                                               
I shut my eyes for a second or two. I've been on the computer for more than an hour, and it stings my eyes to blink. The unending cycle of switching from website to website lost its excitement a while back, and now feels more like a chore than an enjoyment. At first, I couldn't wait to go online, because I had to check my dailies: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and visit all the blogs I read for updates. Now all I'm doing is typing random letters into the web address bar, hoping the history scrolldown box will show me where I want to go.

The dull lights of the computer screen have sucked the energy right out of me. Even my surroundings add to the sleepiness of it all. The room around me is all dark, except for some of the natural sunlight slipping in between the curtained windows. I wanna be out there, I think. But at the same time I don't really care. What's there to do outside?

For no compelling reason, I force myself outside. Last week I started taking walks around the neighborhood, and I want to start again. I slip my feet into my leathery smooth Rainbows, and head out the gate onto the sidewalk.

When you're busy doing something, usually some kind of physical activity, thought happens in short bursts. For long periods of time you can even forget you were thinking at all. I remember what I'm doing halfway down the block, and realize that I was walking at a pretty fast pace. People only walk at a fast pace if they're going somewhere, or they want to look like they are. I am neither of those, so I slow my walking to a kind of a funeral march tempo.

Last time I went on a walk, I didn't go far. Just to the little mini playground off to the side of Northwood Elementary School. I remember digging a ditch into the sand under the swing set, so that my feet wouldn't drag against the ground sitting in that swing made for 12-year olds. I just kinda swayed back and forth on it, talking aloud, as if to God, about my day, what I thought about things, and whatever else came to mind. It was remarkably therapeutic, I have to say. And I'm really glad no one was around to hear me talk to myself like a crazy person.

I must have passed 3 couples on the way to the playground today. In all three cases, they were middle aged man and wife, walking with long, quick strides, and talking while facing directly ahead, as if speaking to no one in particular. And always, one of them dominated the conversation while the other listened intently. It made me wonder what it'd be like to be middle aged and married. I'd probably have a bald spot, and wear dorky tennis shoes with khaki shorts and a work t-shirt, because that's the age when you stop caring so much about how you look. And I'd have a wife who loved me, and would go on walks with me, and take the time to listen to me talk about how work was that day.

The playground was built at the far end of a large Irvine master-planned park, complete with evenly spaced trees and surrounded on two sides with brick walls. What I like about this one is that it has a particularly large expanse of grass in the middle, big enough for playing football or catch with the dog. I reach the playground and head for the swing set. I thought for sure there would be kids hanging around, because it was a pretty popular place for the younger ones, but luckily the place is empty. I'm glad. I'm alone, and that's just how I want it to be.
                                                                                                                               
Part two will be up in the next couple of days. If not, happy Memorial day weekend! Whatever that means.

Nothing You Didn't Already Know

I've been really sucking at conversation lately. It's fine when I'm in groups, since the others can chime in to fill in the gaps of silence. But if it's just me and you, and you aren't in my small inner circle of friends, I'm desperately grasping at the small-talk straws. I... don't think I can help it. As an introvert, it just makes me uncomfortable around people that might judge me, think badly of me. And I understand it must make you feel awkward as well. Thinking about how awkward it makes you feel actually adds to my own discomfort, and it becomes even harder to think of things to say.

Some people make it look so easy. They can talk to anyone, anytime, and as if they'd been friends since elementary school. That's really intimidating to an introvert like me. So when these outgoing charismatic individuals try to talk to me, I back away. I remember deciding way back that these kinds of people can only do what they do if they look down on other people, since that's the only way they wouldn't be scared of others doing the same to them.

I thought this way because if there was nothing wrong with them, and that being friendly and talkative to everyone is normal, then that only leaves one possibility. That there is something wrong with me.

This self-deprecating explanation is easy to believe, actually. Because when I'm at school, church, or wherever, all I ever see are people in their comfort zones, who are, naturally, with the people they are comfortable with. Most of the time, people aren't starting up conversations with people they barely know, or people that are known to be awkward or not cool. It's hard, and I completely understand why it doesn't happen a lot. I say this not to condemn anyone, but to show that after seeing only conversations that came easily, I started to convince myself that my difficulty was exclusive to me.

A girl would be the loudest, funniest, most spastic person at her old table, but when she moved to mine, she barely talked. I tried. I began to think it was my fault. For not thinking fast enough. Not being witty enough. For being too much of this, and not enough of that. You can imagine I went home feeling pretty depressed.

                                                            

I think I know what you're thinking. That we all go through these feelings and insecurities, and it's all about learning to overcome them. Or maybe it just comes naturally to you, and all you can do is empathize. I don't know.

I think it needed to be said, though. If I'm going to tell you guys to stop pretending like you have it all together, I should try too. So here I am. The awkward, conversationally challenged boy you know from school/church. Who doesn't have it all together.

I Know What You're Thinking

Joseph hasn't been posting a lot recently. But that's probably because AP tests are this week, and he's probably busy studying.

Wait, what!? Is this the same Joseph that would take all his finals cold(no studying) without any second thought about what it would do to his grade? Has he, in his epic battle against the forces of unthinking conformity, lost and gave in to the powers that be?


Response: Iono. I think it's because I don't really feel creative right now.

That, and my computer crashes every 5 seconds.

The Gospel According to Art

A black-and-white faith would be so much easier, you know? I would go down a certain path, look down at my feet, and either see a pure, blameless white or a relentless, piercing black. To say that everything is actually shades of gray would be cliche, though.

I like to think of it as a massive mural on a building wall in a back alley somewhere. And God's got this plan for this beautiful, larger-than-life painting. The picture's in His head, with a little room for artistic freedom here and there    but he doesn't pick up the brush. He lays out every color imaginable, every shade of every intensity of every texture of paint. From luscious reds to soaring blues to dignified greens. Then He sets brushes of every size and bristle type before the wall.

He goes out to the street and invites a couple of the neighborhood kids playing hopscotch and tag to come see the mural. He sits them down and He explains to these boys and girls, who've never heard of Van Gogh or Da Vinci why He loved art, in down-to-earth terms, in a way that they'd understand. He explained how you didn't have to have taken classes or be trained, just passionate and sincere to create something beautiful.

Then He stands up, picks out a few choice brushes and paints, starts painting one of the bottom corners of the wall. All the while the neighborhood kids are following the man's every brush stroke, and his every color choice. Amazed, they witnessed art being created before their very eyes. Before He can even set his brushes down, the kids run off to tell everyone the news. But by the time they return with all their friends and families, the man is gone.

Many witnesses of the small painted area of the mural insulted the unintelligible mixture of paints. There were rules and proportions that had been broken. What this man painted wasn't art, they said. But the kids wouldn't listen. They had heard the passion in the man's voice, and the gracefulness and skill of his painting. All they cared about was finishing the painting, and filling others with the same passion they now felt.

                                                                                                             
I remember hearing someone calling the Bible "our instruction manual". I think that is by far the worst label you could ever give it. Sure, there are parts of the Old Testament books that are just laws for the Jewish people to follow, and parts of Paul's letters that also sound like long to-do lists. But how boring and limiting is that analogy?

The last time I read an instruction manual was for installing the new computer monitor I got. It didn't inspire me. It didn't show me beautiful stories of how a broken people tried to live in a dark and menacing world. And it definitely didn't make me want to love God and other people more. The Bible is so much more, yet it has been diluted to the point where it is compared to a book of rules.

Maybe that's why young Christians today leave their Bibles on their bookshelves, to collect dust. Maybe that's why they treat Sunday sermons as a sort of religious "pill", to fulfill a moral obligation and to avoid feeling like they're going to hell. It's because the Bible we are pitching them is a Bible of rules and regulations that only serves to ruin their fun.

This is not the Bible that I've read. The Bible I read is full of beautiful, awe-inspiring stories and difficult, heart-wrenching situations. I think that's why Jesus rarely gives straight laws to people, but chooses to tell parables     stories that show, rather than tell. The greatest parable ever told was the one Jesus showed by living out his own life. Jesus is the epitome of why the Bible is not just a really long self help book. In coming down out of Heaven's neighborhood and becoming flesh, our God also wrapped flesh around the Scriptures, making them living and active. That we might want to be like the man who conquered death, and who loved even wretches like us.

The man, like the one in my story, who inspires by example.
                                                                                                            
Started 3/8/10