...if i'm even that anymore

the song i was listening to last night, while feeling rather down.
call it "the weight of words unsaid"... or "things i wish i could say to my roommate".
its an interesting story. ask me later.

...In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes...

-sufjan, casimir pulaski day.

classifieds

alright. so. i'm moving to BC sometime this fall.
that much is clear.
the rest falls into my "phrase of the day" category:

shrouded in mystery.

bahah. honestly. this phrase completely sums up my overall life experience these days. everything is dense fog. (luckily for me, menacing mystery = irresistable.)

so yeah. all i know about the situation is this:
* a few years back in a marv class we had a substitute prof who made some completely vague passing comment about something in BC, and i had one of my "life moments" where an entirely out-of-place impression settled on me. it let me know that's where i was going to wind up.
* as per usual after one of these rare epiphanies, it took a couple years devoid of any further elaboration before it began to come to life. at some point last summer, it reminded me it was there and strange outside and inside things started beckoning me (the only thing i could liken it to would maybe be that small whispery sound of rain on open windows when you're not sure if it's starting to rain yet?)
* continuing with the crappy analogy, it's definitely raining. it's been "spitting" all year, and now there's been a crack of thunder in the most interesting form that seems the closest thing to affirmation i'm going to get. ...bring on the downpour.
* i still don't know the when and the where and the why. i figure the when might be revealed soonest (this summer is the preparation/getting life in order/saving up phase, and i'm aiming for the fall)... the why is definitely being kept an epic secret from me and i don't think i'll know until after i get there (i hope it's something completely unexpected and intriguing and challenging)... and the where is just plain ridiculous. because without the why, that's kind of hard to decide.

i've gone from abbotsford to vancouver to abbotsford to kelowna to insanity. i have no idea where i'm supposed to go. so that's where you come in. yep, you. got any ideas? know anyone who needs a roommate? had any divine revelations regarding my life? let me know. because i know nothing about BC except that i'm supposed to go there.

to be continued...

revisit

i'm sure i've mentioned my habit of revisiting.
books mainly.
albums often.
films occasionally.
journals or other writings from time to time.
it's endlessly interesting to see who i've become and what God's revealed and hidden and how the world and the wants and the weights have shifted since i last encountered a piece and how i perceive it differently. what once was bland might now break my heart..what once broke my heart might still break my heart..what once went unheard might now be the point..it goes on and on i suppose.

i'll credit our brother karl with bringing me back around to my dear dear treasure, mewithoutYou this weekend. i've been on a music cycle that's neglected them for a good while, but now is the perfect time for them to come back to me. i can read their lyrics and aaron weiss' journals over and over, he is one artist and spirit i admire a great deal. i was just pondering Nice and Blue pt.'s one and two and appreciating the revisit. you don't see very many musicians do that. you might see progressions or elaborations but not really revisits.

i know i'm the nerd who's always posting something other than my own work on here (which i hope will change a bit in the fall), but one of my favorite things is appreciating and sharing the fine work of others. so tonight when i meant to be in bed early, i present to you:

Nice and Blue
parts one and two.

pt.1
from [A-->B]Life

You were a song that I couldn't sing
you were a story I couldn't tell
I've only ever loved myself
But I've loved myself so well.
And how defeated I return!
(you're nice and blue, you're nice and blue)
I missed what I was supposed to learn
as all I learned about was missing you.

A life left half behind, though no longer
blind I can't yet see. I'm not the boy that
I once was, but I'm not the man I'll be.
I've been waiting now, for six years on
(and have only just begun)
For the day you'll hold her in your arms,
oh risen Lord, my precious one.

I was once the wine, and you the wineglass.
I was once alive, when you held me.
God became the glass,
all things left were emptiness
Oh, my little girl, if you look out
and see a trace of dark red that used
to be my face, in the clarity of his
grace: remember me.


pt.2
from Brother, Sister

You were a song I couldn't sing
caught like a bear by the bees with its hand in the hive
who complains of the pain of the sting
when I'm lucky I got out alive!
a life at best left half behind,
the taste of the honey still sweet on my tongue
and I'd run (Lord knows I've tried)
but there's no place on Earth I can hide
from the wrong I've done

then I saw a mountain and I saw a city
steadily sinking but suspiciously calm
it wasn't an end, it wasn't a beginning
but a ceaseless stumbling on
there, strapped like a watch on my wrist
that's finished with gold but can't tell the time
was all or what little pleasure exists
seductively sold and uselessly mine

our horse was fast and first from the gate
with the lead of a length at the sound of the gun
and the last of our cash laid down to fate (at 17 to 1)
but by the final stretch in the rear of the pack
that nag limping bad in the back
we reluctantly gave all the money we'd saved
1/5 to the commonwealth and the rest ot the track
then I saw a forest grow in the city
and a driftwood wall of birdhouse gourds
and I'm still waiting to meet a girl like my Mom
who's closer to my age
the true light of my eyes is a Pearl
equally emptied to equally shine
and all or what little joy in the world
seemed suddenly simple and endlessly mine

I was once the wine and you were the wineglass,
I was once alive when you held me,
but God became the glass,
all things left are emptiness
but oh, you're just a little girl
if you look out and see a trace
of a dark red that was once my face
in the clarity of such grace,
you'll forget all about me


.

...and someone with strength

(excuse my recycling, but...)

i love those friends that you can hang out with and not have to worry about what to say next, or what to do with the awkward silences. i love those friendships where you can be real, and not have to put on these fake personalities in order to feel comfortable, worried that the people you are with will reject you.

the kind of friends that you can run across a beach with, making a fool of yourself, and not have to worry about what they are thinking of you. and theres that underlying, unspoken, feeling of "who i am is important to someone".

i'm not sure how else to describe it.

011//vegetarianism

here's a thought for you to completely disregard:

i've tried to become a vegetarian once or twice in my life; it didn't stick. it's not that i am so in love with eating dead animals that i couldn't not do it, but it's that i couldn't remove something that had become so normative in my life.

two thoughts came to my mind when i thought about this scenario:

one: when God created life, everything was in this perfect state of shalom, where all relationships were healthy and wide. now, by all relationships i mean people to God; people to people; people to creation. now, please correct me if i'm wrong, but the goal of a christian life should be to do our best to bring our current life back to that state of shalom; we should be trying to spread God's love to all people. earlier today, i thought that exact thought: "...to all people". shalom is more than just people to people; why have we overlooked creation! unless there was some way that adam and eve ate animals without having to kill them, (death wasn't around until the apple, right?) we can assume that they were vegitarians. now, i realize that our goal in life is to be like Jesus, and not Adam, but i hope you can see what i'm trying to say.

two: why is it so hard for us to give something up? what kind of pathetic people are we?! i can't even give up something like myspace for a week, and i know that that's the case with most of our generation. we're so dependant on our day-to-day basis, to the point where when something changes, we won't accept it. why couldn't i try harder to be a vegetarian.

sorry if this is a little scattered. i just wanted to write down my thoughts.

so kids, advice time? is it worth trying to be a veggie again? besides obvious health benefits, (look into where your meat products come from) and a test of self-control, maybe it could help me get closer to God. let me know what you think.

and treat your ears, go listen to rachel's: here here here!

night all.

Jamison.

. The Hollows

I just gripped my first deck and I smiled because it looked nicer than the ones I've seen the boys do. There's something very satisfying about doing something right--the way it's supposed to be done.

There are certain things in life that have a pretty self-explanatory, common-sense blueprint.
Exhibit A: No one wants a deck with raggedy edges that'd cut their hands up.

I've been "reading" this book for the better part of the year (I'm not super-committed to it--I just like to experience it in pieces now and then). It's about the psychology and sociology of "counterculturalism" and has a lot to do with groups like the nazis, existentialists, hippies, punks, gen x-ers, etc. The guys who wrote it are researchers/professors/former punks, and apparently really into Fight Club. I think I see at least one reference to that book/film in every chapter. (Which is kind of funny now that I think of it, because on the same Chapters trip that I bought this book, Karl bought Fight Club.) It's legit though, because I wholeheartedly agree with them that it's been one of the finer pieces of the past decade reflecting and critiquing the psychosocial disposition of our current culture.

"Greeting someone politely, holding the door open, using the correct salad fork and adopting a benevolent demeanor all help to reassure others that there are no nasty surprises in store--that the interaction will unfold pretty much as it is supposed to."

I like this because it makes me think of little kids and how they are full of "nasty surprises" when they haven't been "sufficiently socialized." It can be very satisfying doing something "wrong"--the way it's "not supposed to be done..." Now, I'll be the first to proclaim the virtue of good manners and common sense--don't get me wrong--but I'll also be the first to pull the proverbial rug out from under your feet if I see you conforming to something that doesn't align with reality in its overarching sense. ("See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." -Col.2:8)

In our culture it's become far more than salad forks and taking turns and smiling. Conformity has become a cyclically-generated pandemic. And not just conformity to fashion trends and suburbia-utopia. What about spiritual conformity? In this fancy-free Americanized Wonderland, our parents have had the divine opportunity to lay out our little life clothes for us and a ridiculous amount of us have shrugged them on and headed out to play. I'm not entirely sure all these blueprints are showing us what we think we're building.



I can't get these verses out of my head lately and they seem to be haunting and taunting me. It's the feeling of a forgotten treasure waiting to be discovered in a place no one dares go to find it...

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."




I haven't had a decent conversation in months. I hope you all are faring better than me out there! <3

010//purchases

the picture doesn't have any significance. just a picture.

here are some things that i've spent my hard earned, sweet sweet sweet money, on:

music





trendy sweater



hot drink



that's about it. the bradley hathaway show was a fun time. i got to see adam roper, and i touched his foot once during the show. bradley hathaway talked...for a long time.

man, that record by the national is really stinking good. if you see it at your local record shop, and you've got 15 bucks to drop, get on that.

hope everyone's doing just splendid.

memories of a life I wish we'd lived

sorry I've been absent from this site. its been one of those weeks.

arg. i have a feeling every week until school starts is going to be "one of those weeks". but, complaining is not the reason i started to write, sooo...

one of my favorite books "to own a dragon" by donald miller, talks all about fatherhood. its not a complete work on the subject, but its a good discussion piece.

i'll pick up the topic here- the absence of a father.

one of the connections i was able to make, this past year, is the connection between the absence of a father figure, and the absence of God. One thing Miller talks about is how "our negative perceptions of our dads can sometimes be projected onto God.

while i was reading this book i was also writing a paper on psalm 13. In this psalm the writer talks about the feeling of being "abandoned by God". I'll say this- we live in a world of broken relationships. And because of this we all walk around with this sense of rejection. Because we are rejected by people, we expect rejection from God.

And, it really shouldn't be that way. This kind of thinking doesn't just ruin our self esteems, but it ruins our relationships. When we don't believe we are capable of being loved we can't accept love... and in turn we can't offer our love, or our gifts, to others.

i could say more, but this feels too much like a tangent. add this to the list of things we should talk about. i can tell you some good stories.

009//absent

karl, i miss you and your lamp.

so i've been gone. i know. i've been in hawaii, and up the hill at the golf course. i've also been drinking wayy to much coffee, and writing too many songs about the number one highway. but this i know: i'm going to make an effort to get back into this. sorry for leaving you kids behind.

all i've got to say tonight is this: the other day i had a conversation with a friend, and in it i said, "that's so ignorant. that's like saying going to war against iraq is a good idea." i felt like john stewart.

see you!

Jamison.
(yes that's all the story was.)