So there I was..

..on my first day of classes for my junior year of college.  It's been a whirlwind, considering a week ago I had just said goodbye to my CTI team after we debriefed in Minnesota about our return from a month of playing concerts and sharing the Gospel in Honduras.  Wow.  That's about it for a description.  Two very different worlds.  I spent the first couple days back in a haze, and now coming back to college so soon has whipped me back into my "normal" life.  It's been good being in the apartment with the guys, bonding over so-far successful cooking and cat youtube videos, but I don't know that I'm prepared for another year of college.  It seems rather dull and lifeless compared to the last month of my life.  But, I've been put here to do something, so that's what I'm trying to do.  Something.  Hopefully new and not a rehashed, re-run of another year.  I have a lot to write (I think?), but not sure where to start  or find the motivation to do it, even in all this free time before homework kicks in.

Psalm 89:33 "but I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness."

I don't think that the flag's got something to do with being free

It is unfortunate that this falls on the Fourth of July, but I guess it holds incentive to finally let out what I'd been thinking for quite a while.  I wrote a somewhat lengthy and perhaps marginally offensive blog about frustrations with America's confusion of Christianity and patriotism.  And subsequently decided not to post it. There's a fine line between criticism and blasting, and I may have been getting a little carried away. I'll try to restrain myself here.

 I recognize America's greatness when it comes to freedoms and opportunities for a better life it has provided for millions, but I also recognize bigotry, hatred, and "progress" which mar America.  Sadly, it seems many Christians put patriotism as an essential part of their faith and have the audacity to think America has special status in God's eyes.  There have been great sacrifices for my freedom in this country, and for that I am hugely grateful. But I cannot reconcile the importance that America has taken in evangelical Christianity.  God does not love America more than any other nation.  Personally, I don't believe God cares about nations, apart from drawing people from every  nation to worship him around his throne when Revelations is fulfilled. I was about to go off on the huge dichotomies in the Pledge of Allegiance when I stopped myself.  All I'll say is that liberty and justice for all apparently had an asterisk and indivisible was a flop.

I have a grandmother who cries every time she hears the Battle Hymn of the Republic who just stopped by our house wearing a patriotic T-shirt and talking about the excellent patriot music on TBN on Saturday.  I have an uncle who served in Vietnam.  Thus, I mean no disrespect.  I simply ask that you evaluate your beliefs about your faith and your country and make sure that the proper distinctions are made.  Submit to authority, but don't make it an idol.  Keep your loyalty to your Savior much, much greater than  your loyalty to a temporary, earthly institution just as prone to evil as every human heart that governs it and resides in it.

Jesus wasn't American. 


*check this out as well
http://www.thebanner.org/features/article/?id=3363

(news-channel-y action-sounding theme music ) Summer Update!

Good evening.  Well, the normal part of my summer is over, I believe.  I spent the first month splitting time between milking mornings* and working at a greenhouse afternoons/evenings** until they ran out of hours for me.  For the last two weeks, I have continued to milk in the morning and worked for my dad in the afternoons.  And now, stuff starts to happen real quick.  This week, I milk mornings and nights Monday-Saturday while my boss and his family take a vacation and attend a wedding.***  One time, I wrestled a bear.  On top of this, I'll be teaching a guitar class at Dordt Discovery Days (a week-long summer camp for junior-high kids), which despite planning and the best intentions, always throughs huge curveballs and leaves plenty of awkward silences while Jordan Vogel and I attempt to implant music and learning in these children entrusted with us for two and a half hours every day.  Not only that, but we perform on Friday night to show all the parents how much**** the children have learned in the last week.  Hopefully, that goes alright and we can survive the week without too much crying and yelling and dirty diapers or whatever it is that junior high kids do.  After that, my family departs for the border of Minnes-oh-ta and Canad-eh for a few days canoe-ing***** and camping among a few of the thousand of lakes.  I'm really looking forward to this after the awesomeness of the father-son 8th-grade cadet trip way back when. 
After returning from that, most likely on Saturday, I'll have the weekend, Monday and Tuesday before I leave for CTI, the centerpiece of my summer.  Stoked!  Carpenter's Tool's International is an organization that sends music teams to other countries, primarily but not limited to those in Central America and East Asia, which give concerts and partner with organizations like Youth for Christ in sharing the Gospel.  I'll spend two weeks in Willmar, MN, training with my new band mates for four weeks in Hondurras.  I'm currently attempting to learn our songs******, and attempting to review the Spanish that I "learned" in high school.  Turns out, I remember some words and stuff, but as far as actually speaking and listening in a conversation goes, I'm in trouble.  We'll see what happens with that.  After I return, I'll have a week before returning to Dordt.  And that'll be my summer.  Crazy.  I'm excited to see what God will do both as our team trains and as we voyage down to Hondurras, and I'm excited to see what God is doing and will do in my every day life, especially after I return.  In the meantime, pray that God will work in the hearts of those we'll encounter, will work in our hearts as we do the stuff we do, that my fundraising will be met, and that the Hondurrans won't run in fear from the palest, blondest, and whitest person ever to enter their country.


* Everyone thinks I milk at an awful time like four in the morning, but I actually start at 8:30.  For some reason, Terry chose to milk at 9 and 9 instead of 4 and 4 which is the greatest thing I've ever heard of for a night-owl like me. 

** The length of my day depended on how much work there was to do.  Usually, I got off between 5 and 8, until the last week, when I was getting off at 3:30.

*** Do not read the next sentence.  It does not contribute in any way to the content of this blog.  This is a test to make sure that you are reading the asterisked items, as they are an important explanatory tool for this blog entry. 

**** or how little.  But hopefully how much.

***** canoe-ing? canoing?  canoeing? canoe7hlmx4ing?

****** 14 of the 18 songs are in Spanish.  Despite playing a musical instrument, which is not bound by languages, I am required to have the words memorized.  I think it's going okay so far, but there's a lot of suelo to cover yet.

EVERYBODY'S DYING

Remember that awful news a few days ago about the baby bird that got stepped on while I was milking?


It happened again.


yesterday.


I didn't witness it this time, but there was a new baby bird, so I quickly picked it up and moved it away.  A minute later it came back, this time out of my reach.  I resigned myself to let it be as it sat on the black water hose.  I never should have turned my back.


After finishing the opposite side of the parlor, I looked back, and the bird was gone.  My heart started beating faster.  When the cow was finally done milking and released, my worst fears were confirmed when a ball of feathers lay where the heiffer's foot once stood.

It's been a rough week.

A Lament

 a whisp of breath
fluttering wings
signs of life
so late in spring

avian infant
still so young
so much life
left 'neath the sun

a summer morn
life begins
and yet so hastily
it ends

my heart's downcast
the reason why
is that the other day I saw a new baby bird just out of its nest and it could hardly fly yet so it was hopping around the milking parlor excitedly until a 1500 pound heifer stepped on it and squashed the life out of it while I watched helplessly
 and it died

video games are dumb

Help! I'm trapped at my friend's house an hour away from home with my friends who are obsessed with Age of Empires 2! It's two in the morning and I'm stuck here because I didn't drive.  And I'm bad at AOE.  And I don't care.  foo

Body Building

While milking in the mornings, the radio in the parlor is always playing KNWC.  First, let me say it was nice at first, but after two weeks of it, it's become a bit ridiculous.  Every morning I hear the same songs played.  Honestly, I think they just change the order and switch in ten new songs or so.  Kinda disappointed when considering how much good music there is out there compared to how much actually gets played.  But the main point of this blog is to point out a couple lines from a song that gets played often enough for me to have most of it memorized.  Stronger by Mandisa.  Another encouraging "life sucks but its ok cuz you have Jesus" songs.  Sure, most of it is good, but the last and main line of the chorus is "He knows that this is gunna make you stronger". 

Really?  Will it make you stronger?  Or will it make your trust in God stronger?  It seems those are the two options.  We could take the world's recommended course of action after hardships and become a stronger person and all that junk.  But to me that seems a lot like sticking an air compressor hose in your arm and pumping it up.  Sure, your muscles look bigger, but does it help?  I think when I'm at my weakest and most-bombarded, I'd rather depend on somebody else who already has the strength to handle it than endure the trial simply for the sake of coming out on the other end more self-reliant and assured of my ability to survive on my own.  When trials come, I think I'd rather have my weakness made evident so my trust goes to someone besides myself.  So, life is hard.  God's muscles or mine?

Sorry Mandisa.  I don't want to be stronger.

I was going to attempt to blog, but then i remembered that my sister's hard drive is plugged into my computer with new music that I don't have yet, so i'm going to do that instead.

Send me Summer

It's summer.  I survived exams and sophomore year, which I realized went by faster than anything else ever.  To be honest, I barely remember much of it.  Which is sad if this is the best years of my life. Anyways, two weeks ago, I planned on working on the farm again because every other job pursuit had failed(or so I thought).  Now, I have two jobs, one full-time and the other part time.  Needless to say, I will be working quite a bit this summer until I leave in July.  There are positives and negatives, but what seems to be overriding all these is the fact that I will finally be able to fill out the "List your most recent three jobs" section of a job application with something other than guitar lessons and teaching a guitar class for two weeks.  Not to mention that I can have references other than my youth pastor on my resume.  Maybe this is too much work just for a better resume, but I really would like to work somewhere else, not because I don't like the farm or my dad (or the flexibility), but because I'd just like to try something different than I've done the last 5 years.  Besides, it'll only be for six weeks, so if I hate it, it'll at least be short.  I think it'll go okay, though.  Have a good summer everyone.

ps - one huge downside - I'll barely be able to play league soccer this summer.  That's usually one of the highlights of my summer.  shoot.

destroy.rebuild

So, in dealings with and speakings to those around me, a certain idea seems to be of importance; also, this idea is  needed just as badly to be instilled, taught, or smacked into me, whichever is most effective.  When we think of Christ changing our lives, of being transformed by the renewing of our minds, of taking off the old self and putting on the new self, don't we often think of that as something that still occurs in the life we lived before?  It's easy to take the old Jon Bierma and replace him with Jesus' new version of Jon Bierma and put him back into his life as it was, but with some changes.  But what if giving our lives as living sacrifices means that the very foundation of our lives is different?  If our old selves have died, there's nothing left; if anything is to be rebuilt, the very basis of our lives will be different.  Too often, Christ is an add-on in my life; I have my traditions and beliefs rooted in 20 years of life, and yes, Christ pokes holes in some of it, but he fills in the cracks with cement patches. But no, Christ throws that one out and starts over, not just remodeling the house, but starting from the ground up.  If my life is changed, then my life might be like Jesus, but if my life is new, then for me to live is Christ, because Christ is my life, not just something in it.  This isn't just an election for who's running the government in my life, it's a completely new country. Am I putting Jesus into my life, or am I putting my life into Jesus?

*Romans 12:1-2, Colossians 3:9-10, Philippians 2:21, Colossians 3:3-

A Song of Colonial Mexican Bakers

For my Latin American History research paper, I am arguing how food is a national identity in Mexico.  At least, that's what I'm supposed to be doing.  I was intrigued by a song I found in one of the books about Mexican food, so I felt compelled to share it with you.  The lyrics are beautiful and moving, so to think that 18th century street musicians composed these words is unexpected.  Taken directly from a historical source, renowned for its accuracy and amount of information.



He is really a baker
who doesn't indulge himself;
and if you give him a tiny
kiss, he'll start to work.

She is really a baker
who doesn't indulge herself;
take off your underpants
because I want to party.



There you have it.  I blame this for the existence of American pop "music" in the condition it's in today.

No, I am not thinking about buying Manchester Orchestra's $90 pre-order bundle?

Every time I buy a song from iTunes, a little part of me dies.  No, not because I'm fueling the music industry's chokehold on artists who create music and pour their lives into it only to get 12 cents to the dollar for each purchase.  Okay, maybe I lied, that does bother me quite a bit.  The thing that really gets me, though, is buying a song which at one instance of time is out and about in the netherworld of the interweb and the next instant, after a minute of downloading and readjusting itself to its new foreign environment, resides in my iTunes library.  I don't ever pick up the CD in my hand and hear the cellophane crinkle.  I can't break open the annoying sticker on the case and pull the CD out for its first breath of life.  I can't pull out the album liner and pore over every detail of artwork, pictures, and (hopefully) lyrics.   No color.  No life.  Just another transaction across ethernet cables.

iTunes is convenient and fast and really great for those amazing songs on less-than-stellar albums.  Also, iTunes gift cards seem to be popular gifts, which I refuse to complain about.  If you give me one, it'll take me three months to use it, not because I don't like anything, but because I'll be straining over the decision of what to get.  This is where I feel the most torn.  I have a convenient amount of money in my account, which will purchase me an album that I've been looking at for a long time.  Why haven't I bought it yet?  It's not that I don't want it, and I don't really have much else I'm even considering buying, but the fact that I don't get to  hold it in my hands and possess the CD, which is really dumb since the only time I use the CD's is to import them into iTunes and in my car, makes me hesitate to buy it.  It's all about the music, though, right?  That's what I tell myself, and I'd really like to believe it, but it's not completely true.  That's what I get for being a visual person.  Maybe this is why the idea of records intrigues me; a giant piece of machinery devoted only to playing music, which comes in the form of an enormous disc with an equally large casing and cover artwork, would absolutely complete the aesthetic experience for me.  No, I'm not a hipster.  I just think it would be really cool.

I think I was born in the wrong decade.

ug

I literally wasted at least 3 hours today.  I don't mean the usual college distractions of facebook and friends (not actually a waste of time, but it doesn't help you get your homework done); I mean like I spent hours looking online for a Java game with open source code because I couldn't get mine to run.  Then I noticed the file on my desktop which included all the files I needed to make the application run.  No modifying the code, no messing with locations.  Just dragging and dropping that file into my project folder.  And voila, it runs perfectly.

Much to my chagrine...

I am an intimidating person.  I'm not loud and in-your-face (unless you make fun of my momma), and I'm not a jacked giant with skulls tattooed on my arms.  But I have received numerous reports from people that they were scared of me at first. I get a little sad when I hear this, because I'd like people to think I'm easy to approach.  Also, I don't usually strike up conversations or approach other people just for the sake of meeting them, so if they don't do it to me, no one will.  It makes me wonder if I subconsciously give off an aura of "don't talk to me", or if I'm just not friendly-looking, or if I'm acting in a way that somehow makes people uneasy.  A few people have attempted to explain their reasons but that usually fails to shed any light on it, in my opinion.

Most of my high school friends like to remind me that I was intimidating at the beginning of high school before they got to know me.  I didn't talk to my stand partner in concert band until second semester in part because I was shy, and in part because she was scared to talk to me.  A freshman I'm friends with now and have a couple classes with told me he was intimidated of me in our first semester speech class.  Maybe it's because I'm usually pretty quiet around people I don't know, and somehow that gets to people.  Or maybe it's because the default position of my face and/or eyebrows tends to a bit of a cross look (I think, anyways).  Or maybe its that time I stood on a table in the commons with a butter knife and said I was going to kill everyone in their sleep.  Whatever the reason is, it's beyond me.  I guess I just need to try to look nicer or something.  *sigh

so...

Now that I'm back from band tour, there's so much I could blog about.  But I haven't.

8 page paper and 4 page book review, both due Monday.  Go

the 12 days of tour-mas

I leave in 3 hours for band tour of the northeast U.S. and a little bit of Canada.  I've never been further east than Michigan, and I've always wanted to go to some of those huge metropolitan areas just for kicks, so I'm excited.  Also, I love traveling.  Especially when its free.  We'll be going through Iowa, Illinoise, Indiana, Michigan, Ontario, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.  Which adds several states to the list of places I've been.  Its so exciting.  Our free day is in Boston the day before St. Patty's, I'm super excited for that, not because of St. Pat's but because its 9 hours to roam around Boston.  Not sure what it is about big cities that excites me, but nevertheless I'm looking forward to seeing the East Coast.  Plus 5 - 8 hours on the bus every day will be awesome! if I can finish reading the three things I need to before Spring break is done to keep myself from falling ridiculously behind.   Most notably, the documents for a 6-8 page comparative paper due the week we get back.  That'll be fun.  But I think, Lord willing, it's going to be a fantastic trip.  I'm ready.

Note to self

I can't ever cut my hair again, or the world is going to end.  Nations will go to war with each other and people will riot in the streets, the children will cry and mothers weep, life comes to a standstill when Jon buzzes his head.

Do not fret.  It will grow back.  I promise.

"We take Jesus' command in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations, and we say, That means other people.  But we look at Jesus' command in Matthew 11:28, 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,' and we say, Now, that means me.  We take Jesus' promise in Acts 1:8 that the Spirit will lead us to the ends of the earth, and we say, That means some people.  But we take Jesus' promise in John 10:10 that we will have abundant life, and we say, That means me."






Have I discarded the obligations of Christianity but held onto the privileges?

I Samuel 15:22

"Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams."    -  NIV


"Do you think all God wants are sacrifices - empty rituals just for show? He wants you to listen to him! Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production. "   - The Message


"Which would God rather have you do- consistently attend praise and worship services or do what he says?  
Obedience is better than singing loudly, how you live is more important than how good your band sounds."
      - JRV










Romans 12:1 "Therefore, I urge you, dear brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -  this is your spiritual act of worship."

Confession

Last night, I played in the house band for the Dordt Talent Extravaganza, which involves playing filler music to keep the audience entertained while the acts are being set up.  Aside from messing up in almost every song, mostly because of changing order and parts on the fly, it went pretty well, aside from me changing channel settings mid-Back in Black and dropping out early twice in other songs.  So does that sound like it went well? I' not sure.

We played Play that Funky Music during an extended break while judges deliberated, which included a bass solo and drum solo, both of which were pretty sweet.  After the talent show was over, at least 5 to 20 people said they were waiting excitedly for a guitar solo and asked why I didn't have one.   At this point, I confessed to them what I will confess now.

I am not that good at guitar.

I know there will be objections by people who have been misled, but its the truth.  Maybe my big head is making this up, or maybe it's because Miguel likes to compliment me to a ridiculous extent, but I feel as though there's a certain amount of hype about my guitar skills, and I think it's unfounded.  Back in high school, sure, maybe I was ahead of the curve a little bit;  being in a rock band and jazz band certainly helped that.  But now, I rarely play guitar on my own simply because of a lack of any amount of time to do so.  And without practice, I haven't gotten any better; if anything, I've slid backwards a little. Almost every week, the only guitar playing time I get in is guitar lessons and praise team.  Which also probably gives the illusion of lots of talent.   But in reality, I don't think I'm as good as people expect.

Don't get me wrong, I'm great at keeping rhythm.  I could play rhythm guitar all day.  But there's a lot more to guitar than that.  Yeah, I would say I'm a good guitar player.  I really, really, really don't want to sound full of myself or cocky, but I also don't want to discount the talent that I've been given by God.  I think He's used it for good things, hopefully He will this summer too.  I'm just a little wary of getting more recognition than is due.

I'm not sure how this admission is coming off.  Maybe it sounds like I'm trying to drum up sympathy so people will tell me how awesome I am at guitar so I feel better.  Maybe it sounds like I'm having a pity party on myself for secretly not living up to expectations people have.  Maybe it sounds like I'm trying to give the illusion of humility.  If any of these come across, I really don't mean this that way.  I don't want you to think that I have this grandiose vision of the world viewing me as the next Slash or Eric Clapton, because I don't.  I just think sometimes I get more credit than I deserve.  I don't want this post to be anything more than me stepping down from a pedestal that I feel I've been put on occasionally.  And occasionally keep myself on for too long.  Encouragement is great, just as long as it stays that, and that alone.

Today, I'm Thankful for....

Perseverance.  Its that spirit of trying and trying, even when things get hard and quitting seems the only option.  Perseverance is that drive inside us that makes us keep on keepin' on in the face of insurmountable odds.  But it doesn't even have to be an enormous task.  Perseverance finds its way into every facet of life, big or small, both in persevering all the way through to the end of a marathon or persevering all the way through to the last bite of the Common's shrimp pasta.  Without perseverance, this nation would not have been founded.  Without perseverance, the ENIAC would still be considered a supercomputer.  Without perseverance, no one would get to the end of my blog posts.  Because of the perseverance of individuals and humanity united, our world has taken the milkshake of progress and sucked it down till it passed out from brainfreeze.  Perseverance isn't the light at the end of the tunnel, it's the coke-bottle-thickness glasses that help us see that light.  Perseverance fights the good fight, regardless of who's winning.

For instance, the sharpie that snuck into a pocket of the jeans that I just washed.  It was tossed and tumbled on regular spin cycle, but did it give up and leak black ink onto the entire load of wash?  No it did not!  The little guy fought through it and hung on till the end.  He didn't let the fact that he was only a fine-tip sharpie, not a thick-tipped marker of more usefulness, stop him.  He held himself together till he finally was pulled from the pit and relieved of the dizzying terror.  Only when his life was gone, his strength sapped, sitting in my hand away from my easily-stainable clothing which was amazingly spared from his wrath, did he give in, bleeding black ink all over my damp fingers.  I owe the existence and cleanliness of each and every piece of clothing in that washing machine to him, the little Sharpie, who managed to keep from staining all my clothes and ruining my day.  And for that, I pay homage to him.

Start the Machine

I haven't posted in five days.  But now I have.  This should tide me over for a couple more days until I come up with something interesting to write about.  But now you're all saying, "But Jon why don't you just wait to write until you have something worthwhile instead of wasting our time?"  I'm not sure.  But I felt the need to update.

Manchester Orchestra.  May 10.  Simple Math.

this blog is now worth your time.  You're welcome.

Funny how it seems we never get anything done
until those final seconds when we're staring down the gun

the end

Now that I've stopped crying

well....that was a heart-wrenching little post.  Let me sum up that post in emotionless prose.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a very good movie.  The end.

Blessed are the Forgetful

Ever since I first watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I said it was one of my favorite movies, even though I'd only seen it once.  I was never quite sure, though, if it was legal to call a movie one of your favorites if you'd only seen it once.  Today, I finally saw it again after at least a two year break.  And it lived up to its billing after one view.  I still love this movie.  The idea is original, it features Jim Carrey, and it possesses that perfect dosage of reality with a fantastical side.  The scene where Joel and Clementine are in the beach house while the tide and sand comes in as the house crumbles blew my mind the first time I saw it because it was so...I don't know how to describe it; the only way to understand it is to watch the movie.  Not just the scene, the whole movie.

The movie plays through Joel's memories of Clementine in reverse, with life afterwards as bookends to the winding road through regrets and reminisces.  The movie rummages through Joel's brain and tosses what it finds into your hands for you to cling to as Joel lets go.  I get sucked into Joel's perspective because I can't help but see myself in him, more than I'm comfortable with. What exactly I see, I'm not sure, but he often reminds me of me. Meanwhile, he's so helpless, so cautionary, such a victim in his mind.  His frailty feels familiar.  His struggle is so aching.  Its as if Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" alone could have been the soundtrack.

Taglines describe it as romantic, comical, and poignant.  Poignant, yes.  The other two? Depends how you define them.

Tragic.

Tragic is the way I feel when I watch this movie.  Because I think this movie is a tragedy.  Not a weeping demolition of the human spirit  tragedy, but something else.  Reaching out for something as it's slipping away.   Desperation and fear and insecurity and helplessness quietly sneaking in and stowing away in your basement. Cutting down a thick oak tree to plant a seed in its place.   Watching a heart being broken in reverse, from its final intertwined string being pulled out to the first unwinding of its delicate lacing.  So poetic, so sad.

So hopeful.  Joel and Clementine duke it out in reality and his memories, but at the end they try to hold on as long as they can.  After the truth comes out, the new seed seems to be smothered.  But after everything, they still hold on to the vacant space where their love used to be.

Animation Inspiration

As I wait for my friends to respond to my textes, I will update ya'll about my evening.  I studied for Western Civ, which, as you might expect, lived up to all the expectations of something so awesome.  Then I joined several fellows in a band called Amos Slade to play some songs.  The bassist and I are on the same worship team, and he asked if I could play some lead parts for them.  They're pretty new, so they had a couple songs they had worked out, so I hopped in and played a little and listened a lot as they fleshed out their stuff.  The songwriting and song constructioning, in my opinion, is really good, and all three guys are very musically inclined, which makes the songs pretty tight, both music-wise and coolness-wise.  It was fun to jam with them as they begin to spread their wings and fly.  Oh wait, you don't understand that.  Inside joke already.  Awesome.  Now Trevor is getting very nervous.

Seriously, you should check them out.  Very good.  Click on tracks for music.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amos-Slade/148977365158269

An Infuriated Discourse of my Post-Rearrangement Abhorring of our Dormitory

OH MY WORD I HATE OUR NEW ROOM SET UP SO MUCH I AM SO ANGRY AND UPSET MY ROOMMATE THINKS ITS GOOD BUT I HATE IT SO MUCH I AM LITERALLY SO UPSET THAT I HAVE LITERALLY FORGOTTEN HOW TO PUNCTUATE AND I TURNED ON CAPS LOCK FOR EFFECT SO THAT EVERYONE KNOWS HOW ANGRY I AM BECAUSE OF MY ROOMMATE I CAN'T WAIT TILL HE READS THIS SO HE KNOWS HOW MUCH I TOTALLY don't really care, as long as I have my desk space and get to see his lovely face while I'm doing homework.

Seven 8 Nine

I had 49 page views yesterday.  I'm a little bit freaked out about that.  I'm not really sure how I got that many on one day, since I don't usually get that many in a week.  Maybe it's because blogging is the new cool thing to do.  At least, in a little bit of my friends circle.  It's spreading like wildfire.  I'd like to think I started the trend.  But that still doesn't answer how I got that many views.  I'm not trying to brag, I'm just puzzled.


I'm also confused as to why I have views from Russia, China, Slovenia, Singapore, and other countries which I have no contact with.  Search Engines?




Or spies?

Chicago!

Balance Overdrawn

Do you ever feel like you're committed to a few too many things?  Like you spend more time on extra activities than schoolwork, the reason you're going to college?

The last two days have been hectic, and tomorrow will be just as bad.  This is due to a busy schedule and several events that are normally later in the week that were pushed up to compensate for my absence from campus on Thursday through Saturday because of a trip to Chicago.  Another side effect of this trip is the requirement to have all of my homework for Friday done by tomorrow night.  This means more homework in less time, but I haven't even done very much homework yet because of the crazy schedule.

There are many times where I wonder what it'd be like to be a student at college who isn't involved in any extra-curriculars or other nonsense.  I know they exist, and I must confess that I'm quite envious of their ability to have a "How I spend my day" pie-graph that has plenty of time for academics while still fitting in this thing called free time.  Today, from 5 o'clock to 10 o'clock, I participated in 4 different activities which had nothing to do with academics.  I don't want to list all the things I'm in to brag about how busy I am and how you should feel sorry for me (or do I?), but most of the time I feel like my pie graph has pieces that are hardly worth eating because they just take up space from the more important pieces and suck little bits of the limited taste-goodness from other pieces.  Eventually, with enough things sucking the flavor out of the important parts, the whole pie gets bland and you're basically just eating a dirt pie.  That's a terrible analogy.

Why don't I just quit some things?  Beats me.  GIFT is good, but it makes Sundays not-so-restful.  Intramurals are a "study break", but there are days where homework is a actually a break from everything else.  I like to have something to do, but where's the line between being occupied and being busy?  Even when I'm not bogged down by commitments (like Christmas break), I have a list of things I want to do.  Stupid Dutch Protestant work ethic.  It'd be nice to have a little more time for something that hasn't been scheduled for me or assigned to me by other people.  I know I should take advantage of these chances because I won't have the same opportunities after college when my life will likely consist of almost completely work and time at home after work.  Right now, the thought of coming home at 6 with no obligations sounds like a better deal.

Sometimes I think I would be learning exponentially more if I could read my textbooks and do homework to understand  instead of to get credit.  Sometimes I think that I'd really like to be able to read books for liesure and finish songs I've started writing and create computer programs just for fun.  Sometimes I think I'm not really enjoying college because enjoyment isn't written in the mental schedule I keep in my head.

I was going to complain about how no one blogs anymore

but then somebody did.  And I realized I haven't written in over a week myself.  oh

Song for a Saint

Before you read this post, I need you to follow this link or copy-paste it, whatever it takes to open this page.  Listen to it as you read.  If you finish before the song is done, close your eyes and let it play out.  If it ends before you've read everything, play it again and keep reading.  Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUgoBb8m1eE



Ever since I started doing anything, my grandparents always loved to see me do it.  Sports, musical instruments, that awesome Lego spaceship I made; the list goes on.  I'd play instruments once in a while for special occasions, but that never seemed to be quite enough for one of the grandparents.  I can't remember anything that got my Grandma Bierma quite as excited as wanting to hear me play my saxophone.  I was always quite reluctant to do so, though, and didn't end up doing it very much at all.  She'd come to my concerts when she could, but she kept getting older and eventually, attendance was no longer possible.  With this came regular reminders that she would love to hear me play my saxophone again.
     Back in high school, I was much more serious and interested in playing guitar, but that didn't come up very often compared to the saxophone requests.  I could never figure out why, because the guitar seemed so much more exciting than a slightly-revved up version of a hymn played on the saxophone.  Nevertheless, she persisted; she didn't ask every time I saw her, but I could figure every couple months that somehow the topic would come up.  And I would always say that maybe I'd do it sometime, that maybe I'd come up with a song or two to play for her.  I intended to do it, but I never really put any effort into it.
     She continued to age, and I still didn't play for her.  I don't know why I couldn't take the time to show up at her room for 15 measly minutes to play her even the easiest song on saxophone, knowing that would be enough for her.  I wish I would have given it a little more effort, to spend some time with her and bring a remarkable amount of joy to her day and receive from her an undeserved amount of praise for my talent.  But I never did.  I meant to, but I never did.
     Last year, during band tour during the end of Christmas break, she got pneumonia and was sent to the hospital.  She'd been declining for the last ten years, the way people do when they've lived 90 years.  This wasn't the first time my parents had told me that she might not live past the week, so I again braced myself for what might happen and proceeded with life.  Her condition worsened as I returned, and I spent the week receiving updates from my mom about Grandma's state.  This time it seemed she was reaching the end of her time here.
    Friday morning, January 15, I woke up to news that Henrietta Bierma packed up and headed home during the night.  Sorrow and relief mingled, knowing that my grandmother wasn't with us anymore, but was free from breathing tubes and walkers and medication and the myriad of pains and problems she'd been pressing on through for over a decade.  We couldn't visit her every Sunday after church and answer the usual questions about how our week went and what we were doing in school, but we didn't have to listen to her scratchy voice aching for healing.  We couldn't host our family gatherings at her nursing home anymore, but we didn't have to watch her hobble and shake or be pushed in a wheel chair longing for strength again. She was home.
      The day she died, I was supposed to play in our concert band's tour homecoming concert at Dordt.  I could have skipped, but I didn't see any reason to miss it.  I showed up and went through the concert routines as usual, thinking it just another concert, except with a little heavier heart.  However, as we moved through the repetoire, we came upon Elgar's Nimrod from the Enigma variations, and in that instant I knew that this song meant something much more than it did when I played it in rehearsal the day before.  I always liked the piece, but tonight, each phrase, each elementary quarter-note expression, so simple yet something she still would have loved to hear coming from my instrument, rose up from the stage.  I remembered my promises to play for her, and poured my heart into each note to make up for her almost-deaf ears dying without hearing me play for her.  The piece built and built, culminating in a climax worthy of heaven's choirs.  The final crescendo to the peak chord shot heavenward from out of the roof of the auditorium, and in that moment, I knew, I wholeheartedly believed that my grandmother listened with uninhibited ears and rejoiced at the sound as she left this world.  I didn't play my saxophone for my grandma while she lived, but as ascended to heaven's glory,  I played for her.
 

Dear Blank, Please Blank

Lately, I've come to see that I'm a very needy pray-er.  I think this might stem from my childhood where prayer was mostly  "Dear God, please be with this person and the people in the hospital and....." and "Dear God, thanks for my friends and my mom and Jesus....".  As a kid, prayer consisted of please and thank you, but not much else, which happens to make a pretty lousy conversation.  But a conversation I feel I've kept having.  My prayers, long or short, tend to stick to a pretty direct ask-thanks pattern, and I know that there's a lot more to talking to God than that.  Sometimes it feels more like a relationship with a cashier at a restaurant,  "I'll have this and that, thanks", than a conversation with someone I know, "Hey how ya been, what's up."  Prayer is  a good way to show some trust in Him, but as I said, I tend to seem needy when it comes to prayer.  I'm not sure how to feel about this.  After all,

If you remain in me, and my words remain in you,

ask anything you wish and it will be given you.

-Jesus

There are several ways this can be distorted and twisted to make us think we get what we want, but it still remains true.  And look at the Lord's Prayer.  I'm no grammar buff, but most of that prayer is in the imperative mood.  Give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us.  It starts with praising God and praying for His kingdom, and then the meat and potatoes is about us and our neediness.  I'm really not sure what the perfect prayer looks like, but I'm assuming Jesus knows what he's doing, so I'll keep asking God, and I'll keep thanking God, and I hope I can drop the fast-food conversation feeling and dig in deeper.

God comforts the disturbed, and disturbs the comforted

I feel compelled to share a dream that I actually remember quite vividly,even after a week, unlike most of my other dreams.

So there I was, in Sioux Falls or some other reasonably-large city, with several of my cohorts, who will remain unnamed mostly because I cannot remember who they were.  We found one hundred dollars somewhere, but we decided that we should give it to some people who needed it more than us.  Soon after, we spotted a homeless shelter/soup kitchen, so we decided that'd the place if anywhere where we could find people who could use money.  We walked in, and the first thing I noticed was Jory Kok having a dance party with some friends.  I thought this was quite an odd occurence in a soup kitchen.  Anyways, we sat down and looked around the place, which was quite full of people.  There were quite a few people who were obviously quite poor, and most of them walked around as if they weren't psychologically sound, which was strange.  However, seated in several other booths were other people I knew, just hanging out and eating as if this was a normal restaurant.  I was quite disturbed at this point, and this was aggravated by the manager of the soup kitchen, a rather frazzled, tired-looking woman, who left the soup pot where she was serving from to feed us ice cream sundaes instead of continuing to feed the people.  The worst part was, we accepted the sundaes as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about it and joined some other friends hanging out.  We began on a mission to help others, and ended up forgetting them for our own selfish gain.


I woke up with my head spinning; there are so many things wrong with that dream that I could comment on.  My subconscious view of people in poverty, our society/church's reaction to poverty, our sometimes casual attitude toward the imbalances in our society, the condition of the unfair food distribution that we take part in every day.  This semester several books and a speaker have really taken jabs at me in my comfortable middle class life and my view and reaction to those who are below the lower class.  I've felt twinges of guilt and anger about poverty, but I think the last 4 months or so have changed those twinges to pain sometimes.  I wish I would do more, but I've yet to actually do something besides rethink buying stuff when I shop.  I think the dream just showed me what my life might look like right now.  It bothered me.  And I hope it continues to.

Forehhhhhvvver young, I want to be, forever young

Do you ever really, really wish you were young again?

We watched home videos from childhood tonight.  My youngest sister is obsessed with these-- she can say what's going to happen and where all the funny parts are in each scene of the tape --that's how much she loves them.  I didn't think I'd watch because I tend to have this burning desire to be productive with everyone second of the day (except when I kill excessive amounts of time on the intraweb), but I saw just a little bit and got suckered into two hours of laughing, laughing, and lots of reminiscing.  I don't know how in the world my parents put up with such an imaginative, controlling, and very loud kid, but it sure looked like I enjoyed it.
And that just makes me think of how different life was then.  I spent every single day hanging out with my siblings, most of the time playing "Let's pretend..." or any assortment of creative activity.  Life was so carefree.  And fun.  It just looks...beautiful.  Plus, I was actually kind of cute for a little bit back then, if I dare say that about myself.  Mostly just in pictures, though.  On video, the demeanor kind of overrides the cuteness.
Fast forward to now after rewinding to then.  Life is stressful, full of big decisions, big responsibilities, big everything.  Yeah, there's great things we can do and fun times we have that we can't when we're young, but when we're young, we're so caught up in living that most of the time we forget about everything else.  Our whole lives are ahead of us, and our dreams can literally stretch just as far as our imaginations.  Those dreams of being an NBA star from small-town nowhere are fed with every basketball that slips through the rusted rim clamped to our garage.  Those dreams of being an archaeologist finding the latest discovery from eons ago are kept alive every time an old silver spoon is discovered and dug out of the lawn.  The possibilities are limitless in our minds, even if not in real life.  The only rationale for pursuing anything is because we want to.  We are not held back by anything but our age, and we don't hold ourselves back by what we can or cannot do.  Life is beautiful.
Life is still beautiful today, but I feel as though we often glimpse it through a pane tainted by reality's setbacks and troubles.  Sometimes, though, these problems only enhance the beauty we experience.  But our eyes never return to that innocent view of the glorious world we live in.  Our lives can still be good, but our youth still remains unlike any other time of our lives.  Ecclesiastes 12  says

"Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"

and while I don't think my life has no pleasure in it, I do know that I would love to return to that state of youth before some days became a chore and seemed to have the joy sucked out of them.  No matter, though, because I can't return.  I can only remember those days and try to  borrow a little joy from them for today and the future.  I can't wait to watch the kids I hopefully will have someday experience their youth so I can watch this phenomenon of youngness not in retrospect on a television, but in real time as they grow up and I get to be with them while they do it. 

Yeah, life isn't what it used to be, but I can dream about it, right?  When I invent a time machine I know where I'll be heading for a visit.

Stereotypical New Year Post

So...this last year...2010...yup.

I feel like nothing particularly explosive or revolutionary happened this year.  Looking back, here is a list of things.  I think I'm usually not all that fond of lists like this, but I just decided to make one.  I have no idea.  So here's some things.  I'm not sure what their significance is.

• I decided to doom my next 3 years of college by remaining an engineering                                    major.  But at least its computer engineering so its less sucky?
• I dated a pretty cool girl.  We're not dating anymore, but we've avoided for the most part post-dating awkwardness, hatred, threats on eachother's lives, etc., so it worked out okay and we're still good friends.
• Much to my chagrine, I worked on the farm again.  I tried to get a different job, but I couldn't find one.  Positive bonus of living on a farm: you always have a job to fall back on.  Negative bonus of living on a farm: you always have a job to fall back/get roped into every break from school.
• My two best friends and I went on a roadtrip.  One of those legitimate ones you see in movies.  Except ours was probably a lot less adventurous and debaucherous than those.  But I think we had more fun.  Go look at our pictures on facebook.  Permission to stalk granted.
  
  • Drove through South Dakota, Wyoming, and the eastern side of Montana.  Turns out, there's a reason almost no one lives there.
  • Visited a friend in Montana
  • Stayed in Glacier National Park for a few days.  That was fantastic.  Probably the most beautiful setting in the world.  Gorgeous.  Also, camping was fun.  Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy.  There's an inside joke we'll be talking about when we're 80.
  • Moved on to Kennewick, Washington to visit then-girlfriend.  The ugly side of Washington, but it was a fun visit
  • visited BJ's brother in Lynden.  I also cliff-jumped for the first time.  That was cold, but definitely awesome.  One of the highlights of the trip
  • Visited my roommate from freshman year in Mt. Vernon.  We relaxed and did some boating.  This was an awesome close to the trip.
  • Drove back straight through to get home.  30 hours?
  • Seriously, one of the best things in my whole life.  Over 4,000 miles of driving, but it was well worth it.  There was so much craziness and seriousness all jumbled together in 9 days.   All the laughs and memories trekking cross-country with Bj and Trevor will stay with me forever.  This is gunna be one of those stories my kids hear a lot of.
• Returned to college and met some more people, did some stuff, learned a little..the usual
 

I can't think of anything else exciting or interesting, which means I must be either boring or forgetful.  It was a good year, and I'm looking forward to the new one.  I'm sure there will be plenty of exciting occurences, and so far there's already quite a bit of traveling planned, which makes me excited for more adventures.  Thanks for reading this year and keep coming back.

That feels like a very cheesy way to end this blog.  And a cheesy way to begin the year.  Oh well.