substance and motives revealed...

sorry shock-jocks but there wont be much to talk about around the water cooler today. despite the best efforts of the week long preshow and the encouragement by dave chappelle, MTV's VMA show that aired last night proceeded just as "planned". or rather not as planned. for some, last night was a chance again to glorify controversy. a chance to expose a boob. a chance for two girls to kiss. but instead musicians performed, awards were handed out, and people danced. i hope this doesn't hurt the ratings.

i think it's sad that probably the majority of the people there could care less about the artistic interpretation of a video or its cinematography. it's become such a who's who's, roll out the red carpet event. it's shallow and gaudy and i'm glad i didn't spend anymore time on it then i did. in the words of the great male-model hansel, "award shows are bogus." however i am glad that a station that influences so many teens encouraged the need to vote. they even made it seem like something fun to do. if only the church pushed political responsibility more.

in closing, thank God for polyphonic spree.

today while driving home from school i noticed on the back windshield of this guys car a sticker of a clenched hand with the middle finger standing straight up. i really wanted to flip this guy off just to see his reaction but i didn't. however if i do see him again i will give him the bird. maybe even an inverted double bird with a mctwist. hey if that's the agenda he's gonna push i guess i could give him a little support.

well i am now four days into the fall semester of school and i am already a little behind in one of my classes. but in my defense my professor has conjured up a work load that one could solely focus on and be busy with the entire year. ironically it happens to be my spiritual formation class. something about daily work and spiritual formation seem to go together.

today at school i parked next to a lamborghini. then i stood next to the lamborghini for a few and asked people as they passed by if they liked my new ride. lame i know but i don't have any skills. chicks dig guys with skills.

oh, did i mention that this is a dbu student's lamborghini?

saw collateral the other night. kind of a cool flick if you look at the relational side of it. how tom cruise's character affects jamie foxx's. good movie for discussion but i would wait to rent it.

i think i am going to take my electric guitar to the shop tomorrow and get it a tune up. after my amp was stolen two years ago the guitar has just been a dust collector. to long has the sword sat in the stone. it is time. it is time.

the other night after our houston trip "report back to the people" i shook hands with my new boss brent. with much enthusiasms and excitement i accepted a job to work with the high school student ministry at crossroads bible church. honestly i am sad that i will have to leave starbucks but i'm pretty sure the direction i am heading now is something i would much rather do the rest of my life. only three months into it and i was already tired of making frappuccinos.

the thought that i'll now be working for a church i have been apart of for so long hasn't quite sunk in yet so i'll be chalking all this up as "it's funny how things have worked out".

well i am off to school today. as much as i have been anticipating this day i have to say that i am not quite in school mode yet. i still have somewhat of this careless, no-agenda mindset that will probably only be broken by the first quiz or test. but i do hope i snap back into it sooner just to avoid a low grade or two.

i bought a bottle of wine at the world market today and the guy at the counter didn't card me. well i am glad that i do look over 21 but man help a brother out cuz i am still trying to qualify for the the "we card under 30" gig. do i really look that old?

going to waco tonight to watch becca play a "friendly" soccer match against baylor.

for the first hour of my shift at starbucks i had to pass out sandwich samples. watch out subway cause we're making lunch.

i've been trying to make up different ways to slam espresso shots at work. may favorite so far is a shot with a pump of white mocha syrup and a little heavy whipping cream.

the new wes anderson moview called the life aquatic comes out in december. about freakin time.

i'm sure some time down the road i'll be eating my own words...

-therefore i urge you, brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Romans 12:1

as a worship leader for the youth at my church i have to say that i wrestle with trying to understand the concept of worship. when i re-entered life in the DFW area back in august of last year i had some grand plans to revamp the worship at my church. especially with the youth. when i was out in lubbock i was privileged to experience great worship led by musicians such as shane barnard, david crowder or robbie seay. every once in a while the passion tour would roll through bringing in chris tomlin and speaker louis giglio(sp?) . lubbock was spilling over with praise bands each one with decent talent. you could literally go to a worship gathering every night of the week. my friends and i chose to go to one that got together every tuesday night for about an hour and a half. it was mostly singing. maybe some prayer. maybe some scripture reading. but mostly singing. my first two year of school i remember thinking, "this is it, this is real worship." the songs are so good and the band plays long enough to allow you to "enter in." i think i tried to remind myself that worship can manifest itself in many different forms but there was something about singing that made that spiritual buzz so much more evident and even tangible.

two years of this would go by of hopping from worship gathering to worship gathering. some even took place in my roommates and my house. singing and praying all night. we were so spiritual. but something began to rub me wrong. something didn't click. in the middle of singing on a tuesday night i would find myself getting frustrate with all the singing. sometimes it was even annoying to listen to. i wanted to much rather spend time talking with the kids skate boarding in the parking lot outside. i wanted to spend time at a bar talking with a stranger. i wanted to be away from my christian friends just for a little bit. i wanted to be salt and light. i wanted to stop doing the "church thing".

over the years i have realized how easy it can sometimes be to get into a self-seeking frame of mind. to view my relationship with God as nothing more but a "thank you for saving me!" you have done such great things for me. and to continually reaffirm that through singing until i feel that i thanked him enough.

i recently went to mardel christian store to find some worships cds not only for myself but for the youth at my church. i remember returning to church after my trek to the store empty handed and telling my youth pastor that this so called modern worship movement is just plain cheesy. some of these song lyrics where so silly.

i just got back from a mission trip to houston last week which was probably one of the most incredible experiences i've gotten to be apart of. to me this trip seemed more like Romans 12:1 than anything else i have ever done. no amount of singing could compare with what we did in a week.

so i find myself constantly asking the question, "why do we sing?" and as i head back in to this fall semester i am still not sure about the answer. i don't want to provide that spiritual buzz for the youth that i so quickly jumped on my first couple years in college. more than anything i want these kids to understand that they are loved by God and that a relationship with Him is necessary. i want these kids to serve others before they serve themselves. and not because the church tells them to but because they understand that all have fallen short and that there is a desperate need for the world to know God.

i think there are several thoughts aggressively colliding here so my typing seems a bit dis-jointed. i think i need to stop for now.

try not to touch my sister's butt at her wedding because this might happen. well probably not but you will be pistol-whipped.

so i am sitting here playing on this nice taylor guitar and kind of regretting the fact that i gave it to my sister. the guitar was given to me while i was working at a camp in new mexico last summer by one of the church groups that attended. after worship one night a counselor from the group came up to me and said that he really felt like God wanted him to give me his guitar. i was really blown away by that statement and not really sure how to handle the situation. i mean, it was either tell him i didn't think God told him that or say thank you. i decided to say thank you and a week later this guitar arrived at camp.

since i already have a pretty nice acoustic guitar i decide to let pam take it to school with her because she really wanted to learn how to play. now pam is off somewhere and the guitar is sitting alone in her room. isn't there a saying that things always look better when it's not yours? well this guitar all of the sudden sounds pretty nice. and its small too. maybe she won't notice if i stuff her gig bag with newspaper.

off to houston for the next week. hopefully i'll have some good pics of the trip. catch ya on the flip side.

i lost myself in the summer rain...
 
the sky has that weird greenish orange glow to it.  it's pouring rain now.  i'm sitting here at the computer compiling worships songs for a mission trip to houston next week and i reek of espresso.  i'm excited about going on the trip.   there will only be about sixteen or seventeen of us going which will be a nice change from the usual sixty to seventy.  not sure what we will be doing but i'm sure it we be good for all of us.  i've been interested in doing inner-city work for a while now.   

i'm sleeping on a really cool futon now. i still can't believe my little sister is getting married.    the evening cd is really good.  can someone be pro-human and pro-choice at the same time?  deconstruction is a very interesting concept.  trying to pre-plan a worship set is hard for me to do.  especially a weeks worth. 

now the sky has turned a light purple. 

well, this guy at work officially quit so that now brings the guy/girl ratio to a wonderful 2:10.  to make things worse there is already a pretty strong "us verses them" mentality that i don't really care for.  my boss, who is a chick, told me the other day that she likes to blame things on the guys at work because the girls will cry if you try to do that to them.  i don't know about you but getting blamed for everything, even jokingly, gets kind of old after awhile.  i think that's why this other guy quit.  i'm enjoying the job but sometimes the people there are hard to work with. 

blah, blah, blah.... 
 
just got back from seeing the bourne supremacy and now i am waiting for a fellow partner at starbucks to close up shop so he can turn the keys over to me.  i got some time so i think i'll blog. 

i would love to talk about the show i saw last night at trees but it seems like i always talk about the shows i see.  however, the brief is: look for Radiant and Evening, these guys are good.  Ratatat i think are two brothers who where home schooled so they spent most of their time looping drum tracks and playing guitars along with it.  made for a pretty cool club atmosphere but it got a little old.  Someone said that Sorta sounded like Wilco.  I think the band would do well out in lubbock, but it's music like that that made me leave lubbock.  The Paper Chase made me smile.  i don't think their keyboard player ever had one lesson.  And the Killers ended the night with some tunes worth listening to.  that's all i got.

my family decided not to move.  i decision i am very pleased with.  it was just not worth it.  so now i don't have to vacuum my room every other day. 

funny story... a friend called me out of the blue the other day.  she was at school and some of her friends where talking about this guy they saw at chipotle.  apparently he was attempting to eat his burrito when it busted open spilling it contents on the floor.  my "friend" had called me to see if the person her friends where talking about in their story was me because she thought that was  something that would happen to me.  ok, like i said before this was a call out of the blue.  i hardly talk to her so i am not really sure what to think about the whole conversation on the phone.  i'm sure it was innocent enough but... the thought running through my head was "you never call me and when you do you are asking me if i was the guy who spilt a burrito in his lap because that situation reminded you of me."  i hate wrong impressions. 

well i got to go get some keys...

these words mean nothing to me anymore

so despite what the title of the store may entail, Bed Bath and Beyond sells neither beds nor bathes, and in a last ditch effort to find the beyond i ran into the back wall.

all i really want is a futon.

i've been so uninspired

this week has really been a tough one. maybe one that has allowed too much time for thought. that's it, i've been thinking too much.

yesterday i couldn't handle living at home with my parents. i couldn't handle this whole trying to sell our house, always having to keep my room perfect process. i couldn't handle the fact that i am 23, about to go into my fifth year of college, and i still have no idea what i want to do with the rest of my life. i couldn't handle feeling like my life is in limbo.

so i drove to dallas. first i stopped off at my school and took care of some financial stuff. then i went into deep ellum to get some wooden plugs put in my ears. then i drove up to urban outfitters and bought some plain t-shirts and a pair of pants. i cruised down mockingbird lane to look at all the different houses (we have track homes where i come from) and also to wait out the traffic on 35. i got home a little after dinner time feeling better but nowhere near where i would like to be.

i am really struggling with being the change i want to see.

i was reading in 1st peter today about being a living stone and i was wondering why peter would say that. aside from the obvious correlations with the word 'stone', the word 'living' in particular stuck out to me. i have a pretty cool saltwater aquarium at my house with some colorful rock pieces. well when i purchased the rock when i was setting up the tank i had the option of buying more expensive rock known as "live rock". the reason it was called that was not because the rock itself was alive but because what was in the rock was alive. so my tie in is that it's only by Christ living in us that we can become living stones. he came that we might have life and have it abundantly.

so i rented the movie elephant the other day. a film written and directed by Gus Van Sant. pretty heavy stuff. despite the raw and disturbing violence this movie portrayed about a fictional school shooting i actually enjoyed the film. it was much like the way i would want to make a movie aside from the plot. the movie didn't have to make up a story or build up the characters. basically everything is already in motion and you, the viewer, just has to step in. the dialogue was simple and limited. everything about the movie was raw. raw, real, deep, simple, beautiful, painful, and unsettling. i liked it and would recommend it, but beware! it doesn't have a happy ending by any means. some people might need to chase it down with a little saturday night live: the best of will ferrel.

The Pepsi Smash-Ups

yesterday i watched a show that i normally, well, never watch only because my favorite band in the world href="http://www.switchfoot.com">switchfoot was performing on the WB's Pepsi Smash. the significance of the show was that switchfoot was going head to head with this band sugarcult for the encore and the viewing audience could vote on the internet for who they thought should come back and play. so i went and voted, and voted, and voted again but when it came time to announce the winner sugarcult got the encore and played pretty much the same little pop-punk song they played earlier. yes, i was a little disappointed. well, today i got an e mail saying that there was an error in the counting and that switchfoot actually won the encore. so to whom it may concern switchfoot will be performing dare you to move on the WB's pepsi smash off this sunday around 4pm or 5pm for the real encore.