In Exile

I am in exile, a sojourner
A citizen of some other place
All I've seen is just a glimmer in a shadowy mirror
But I know, one day well see face to face

I am a nomad, a wanderer
I have nowhere to lay my head down
There's no point in putting roots too deep when I'm moving on
Not settling for this unsettling town

My heart is filled with songs of forever
The city that endures when all is made new
I know I don't belong here, I'll never
Call this place my home, I'm just passing through

I am a pilgrim, a voyager
I wont rest until my lips touch the shore
Of the land that I've been longing for as long as I've lived
Where they'll be no pain or tears anymore

My heart is filled with songs of forever
The city that endures when all is made new
I know I don't belong here, I'll never
Call this place my home, I'm just passing through

Public Service Announcement

you are not safe. it draws first blood at the malls and the stores, where it permeates the retailers. it crawls into your car and slaps you in the face, and you're too shocked to stop it.  it even sneaks into your home, first infecting one person, then relentlessly spreading through out your household until there is no use resisting.  you are not safe.  if it came any other month of the year, you'd laugh it off, maybe even indulge in it, just because you knew it was a single, isolated source.  but not now.  now it casts a shadow of something enormous on the horizon that can't be ignored any longer.   it slides in and inconspicuously nibbles your toes at night, and the next day it explodes in prevalence and bites off your arm (figuratively).  sure, pretty soon it'll be ok, everyone will be doing it, and then go ahead, immerse yourself in it.  the bad effects will be over, leaving only the joy it can bring. but until then, be on your toes.  if you are already infected, keep it to yourself; don't pass it on; we don't want it.  Yet.    the danger still lurks.  resist. 
you.
must.
resist.










christmas music in november

This is the only place I would ever consider quoting a Nickelback song, but only because it's cheesy and it fits the topic well

So two weeks? ago, a band with a couple Dordt guys and an alum played in the lobby of the new apartments/coffeeshop.  Dark am I, yet Lovely, they called themselves.  I guess its a little foggy at this point, but they played one of those many styles of music born in recent years which defies typical genre categorization.  A little bit of Brand New's darker sound, and little bit of rock and roll, all probably fitting somewhere in that indie realm of things.  Anyways, I really enjoyed them;  I thought they were something fresh.  Also, Dordt is absolutely devoid of bands.  So about anything would have sufficed for freshness, but these guys were actually good.  But seeing a band again stirred something in me.

I miss being in a band.  Don't get me wrong, if we had the chance to bring Here We Stand back, I would say no in a heartbeat.  We weren't very good and we weren't my style.  And we weren't very good.  But I miss having that creative outlet, that reason to write songs, the reason to dream.  I have little to no free time during college, so having room for practicing with a band is almost impossible.  On top of having no time for practice, I have little to no free time for writing words or music.  The idealist in me says that I should just have songs pouring out of me simply by living life, but the realist says that when I spend most hours of the day in class, doing homework, being in a few too many extracurriculars, and squeezing in a social life, I don't write songs.  I still think about it, but it doesn't come to me when I don't have time to sit down and plunk away at the guitar or do something with that line that's been running through my head all day.

The thing is, I still dream about being a "rock star", which, I assure you, is much different than the stereotypical image of  an 80's make-up wearing, perm-bearing headbanger.  This is the poor-guy-who-lives-in-a-less-than-civil apartment-with-4-of-his-friends-who-eat,-sleep,-and-breathe-music-simply-for-the-love-of-it kind of rock star.  How does that work for this logical-minded, play-it-as-safe-as-possible kid who would hardly sleep at night because he'd worry so much? I don't think it would.  Which saddens me (but not my bank account).  I don't really want to spend the rest of my life with my thoughts in the clouds about how awesome life would be if I could just make music instead of working a normal job.  But I also don't want to spend my life attempting to write song after song or giving up and getting a job I don't like instead of having a job I'm good at and enjoy.  Or maybe I'll just do both and stick it to the man.

my roommate said I needed to put pictures with my blogs

And yes, that is michael jordan in the background.  last name ever, first name greatest.

Just so everyone knows, I am not in charge of the room decor.  Especially not the gangsta ladder with a bandana.

crazocity

so i'm a little busy.

But you already knew that.

So there's this paper for Western Civ. about Augustine and his worldview and how Plato affected him.  I know it sounds like a pile of fun, but to be honest I haven't found out if it actually is yet.  Its due tomorrow and I've been putting it off because I've been trying to keep up in every other class, which means the 6 page paper gets saved for last when everything else is done.  In other words, today/tonight/todarrow(the part of night when it switches from today to tomorrow)/tomorrow will be fun.  Now I'm just delaying it more. I read through the excerpts and took notes and read about Augustine's life, so at least I have that done.  Now we've come to the part of the blog where I get over myself and start writing about what I actually was going to write about when I decided to write.  But now I can't remember.

Convicted?

Hm..how to say this..

I have no idea what to do with my life.

"Hey Jon, I though you were an engineering major and have been since like eighth grade?"
"Aren't you a sophomore, so shouldn't you know by now?"
"I thought the point of Core 100 was to tell you what your calling is.  You must have failed that class."
I know you're all thinking it, because I am too.  Quite a bit.

I've always been good at math.  I could delve into my ridiculously good grades throughout grade school arithmetic and my 7 consecutive appointments to the talented and gifted room.   But I don't want to brag.
In eighth grade, I had to research a career.  I chose engineering.  It seemed like the logical choice.  And it looked cool.  It looked like school, except with the subjects I didn't like replaced by math.  Turns out, I must have been a pretty bad researcher.  I did find out they got paid like crazy.  I researched that well.
In high school, math continued to pique my interest.  Other than a hidden love of poetry and writing ( that's not a joke), my favorite classes were the ones where everyone else got headaches and I hardly tried.  Then I got into computer programming and decided that was more fun that math problems.  But math problems were still fun.
After all of this, I come to Dordt College and find out that there's a computer-emphasis engineering major.  And I think that I just won the lottery.  I didn't mind sitting through drafting and mechanical parts ( the shaft/hole lecture seemed to be a favorite of some)  lectures that could put the Energizer bunny to sleep because I was a computer engineer; I wouldn't have to do that with my life.  But other than those lectures, we also talked about what it meant to be a Christian engineer because its Dordt and thats just what we do here.  And then the doubts started weaseling their way in.  We, the future Christian engineers, were assured that God was not separate from the mechanical, logical world of physics and calculus, and we could justify the development of new inventions because we were fulfilling God's call to explore and expand creation.  But I still wasn't sure what to think.
The debate in my was strengthened by my dislike and struggle with Physics and boredom in Intro to Engineering.  So far, my major looked pretty boring and very difficult.  So, I pondered long about switching, but ended up sticking with it.  During the second semester, I took a few computer-engineering oriented courses and fell in love with it.  My decision to stay with engineering was vindicated.  The world of logic ruled supreme, which made my logical brain pass out with happiness that finally something so absolute and unsubjective existed.
But lately, the doubts resurfaced. Except this time, they brought reinforcements.  Insane amounts of reinforcements.  Picture the battle at Minas Tirith;  God has the orcs and I have the Gondorians.  Oh, except that Gandalf, Aragorn, and everyone else important or with any fighting ability switched to the orcs' side.  Which basically means 100,000 orcs plus the main cast of LOTR and all the soldiers in Return of the King versus the children and the elderly.  Starting to see how one-sided this argument was?
Just a few months before, I was pretty well convinced I'd spend the rest of my life as a computer engineer, but with the nudging of a book and the prodding of my conscience and a slap in the face from the hand of God Almighty, I needed something much more.  To what end would I design computerized products?  Was I fulfilling the cultural mandate and "expanding God's creation" or feeding the tech-frenzied world with something faster and better that they didn't need and would probably cause them to be further robotized away from all things good?  I could not escape the thought of my arrival at Heaven, with God on the judgement seat, looking me in the eye and saying "What did you do with your life?" To which I say

Well, God, just look at these integrated circuit chips.  I made these!
Hey God, give me a separable differential equation and watch me solve it. You'll be impressed
What about those starving people who needed to be told the good news while I sat in my comfortable life, being comfortable?    uhhhhhh...

I know that there would be more to my life than just work, with a wife to love, children to raise, people to share my life with, but I feel like there are things God would rather have me do than spend 50 hours a week building technological artifacts that will be replaced and made obsolete within the decade.  How can I justify spending a life of comfort praying for people instead of actually doing something about it?   Aren't all these classes completely meaningless when it comes down to what really matters in life?


There are more questions than answers, because frankly, I don't have any answers.  My brain has been back and forth on the issue, and I'm stuck in the middle.  Part of me says that my revelation of sorts is just an extreme, and I really can follow the path I'm on now and wind up in heaven with the "good and faithful servant" speech ringing in my ears for eternity.  Part of me says that the only way to really follow God's call is to drop everything and take off for somewhere that needs a Savior.  Part of me says there's got to be some sort of a compromise of the two that doesn't compromise my faith.   But if so, am I in that happy medium?  Is my current lifestyle a watered down version of what I should be doing?  Is it completely wrong?    It's completely possible for others to justify it.  I'm sure many have found a way. But for me, it has become difficult.  Not impossible, just difficult.

What happens now?  I have no idea. I really don't.  Maybe I stick with engineering and live something along the lines of the American dream.  Maybe I switch majors and become a missionary.  Maybe neither.   My strength is logic, my weakness most of the time is people.  Not exactly a prime candidate for Christianity and shining your light, God.  But more and more I'm realizing that maybe that's the point.  It's not me.  It's the one working in me.  It's a lesson in trust.  It's a lesson in faith.  It's me finally figuring out that maybe the best way for God to use me is a way that involves as little of me as possible so that I can't get in the way of whatever it is he chooses to do.


My power is made perfect in weakness.        -God
 

Lately, death has been a heavy subject here in Jon's brain.  Not just death as the usual frightful or  relieving (depends on your perspective) event on the horizon, but death as the very real sudden force that drops down to earth and snatches away with no warning the ones we love.

It started this summer when a Dordt student that I used to be teammates with in high school cross country and soccer was killed during a climbing excursion in the Grand Tetons.  Brandon was a really funny guy and easy to like.  Go read the newspaper articles that quote Jim Eekhoff if you want to hear a testament about the kind of guy Brandon was.  Nothing unnerves you ( or your mother) quite like your friend getting phone call that someone you know who's about your age has gone missing in the mountains, especially when you're 500 miles from home on the first leg of a roadtrip on which your first stop is..mountains.  Your stomach drops when he gets a call half an hour later and the one-sided conversation between him and his phone gives away what you don't want to hear: the search party didn't find him.  They found his body.  It hurts to hear things like that.

Now today. An email this morning that a band member's father passed away unexpectedly.  Its difficult to imagine that happening, but it does.  You say goodbye to someone, leave for college, and the next time you come home they're not there anymore.

And now, even more.  This weekend, I became aware via facebook that a guy I used to play basketball against had been killed in a car crash.  This seems like something tragic, but not connected to me, other than a name that's stuck with me.  But its more than that.  I'm good with names, I guess you could say.  I like knowing people's names, for some reason, so I guess I tend to make an effort to know people's names.  Back in gradeschool, I looked at roster sheets at AAU basketball tournaments and connected the names with faces.  I can still name guys I played against that I've never talked to, never met, never had anything to do with them except playing basketball.  But not all the names are meaningless.  Sam Kruger was a guy I never officially met, but maybe talked to once or twice, I don't remember for sure.  But I respected that kid.  Sibley-Ocheyedan was a huge rival to SCCS's AAU team. They were one of the few teams that could beat us, so our games were intense.  But I cannot remember ever seeing him get out of control, lose his temper, or play dirty.  He played hard, but he played fair.  And I remember that.  And I remember thinking that he was  a great guy.  And I am sure he had no idea the impact he had on me.

And now, less than a decade later, I find out he was killed in a car crash.  Another kid my age taken from this world.  It was unsettling news.  Tonight, I found out he was a very good friend of Brandon Wilson, a guy who transfered to Dordt who I've become good friends with.  The tragedy increases.  I tell him I'm praying for him, and he tells me to pray more for the wing Sam lived on, where Sam was leading a Bible study to a lot of guys who didn't know Christ.  My junior-high suspicions proved correct.  Sam was everything he could be.  Everything I wish I could be.  But now he's gone.  I didn't even know him, but it he's left an impression on me.

The last couple hours have raised a lot of questions.  I don't doubt that God's got it under control, and neither does Brandon.  But it hurts to think about this. I didn't even know Sam, but it hurts; I can't imagine losing a friend who had years of his life ahead of him.  Even more, I can't begin to imagine losing my life right now.  Who's to say I won't?  Who's to say any of us won't?  I don't know what else to do but mournfully lift up those whose  hurt is far greater than mine, and thank the Lord for every second of life I and those I love have been given.  Its times like these we resolve to live life fully, to change the way we think and live so that if our time comes all too quickly, we will go in confidence that we've done our best and left no doubt in the minds of anyone we ever came into contact with that we lived, we breathed, we died, with one reason and one purpose.  And that's what I'm doing tonight.




Will you carry me down the aisle that final day?
With your tears and cold hands shaking from the weight
When you lower me down beneath that sky of gray
Let the rain fall down and wash away your pain


Save sorrow for the souls in doubt