today was off work

I sat at a coffee shop outside and listened to music and read reviews about said music. It was so good to just enjoy a day, it's been a while since I have. It wasn't exciting, just beautiful, that's all.

being alone is weird/unnatural?

I recently vacationed in Nashville. No schedules, no alarms, no bedtimes, all we did was hang out all week. Honestly of all the vacations I've been on this was the most relaxing. It was probably because it was spent with friends just hanging, laughing as often and hard as I could, sharing life, having a few with no agenda. Even though there were few really serious conversations, this was an enriching experience of community. Sharing the experiences of everyday life together was a refreshing change from the daily grind. I realized, as always, coming home from vacation would be a bum out. This time it seemed worse.

I have a work schedule that is haphazard at best, I go in at 2:30 p.m. and don't leave until 11. By the time I get off of work most of my friends are headed home or soon will, this leaves little room for social contact in between the slats of my work. Needless to say it can get pretty lonely through the week, and the days following my return from vacation I felt this pretty acutely. I wondered why, because this was my usual schedule, and if anything after the break and extensive social contact it would be easier to go through the daily grind of solo hangs, but I found myself really missing my friends.

I realized that I had become used to my daily cycle of limited interaction with friends or family, because after a week of being with friends it felt strange and wrong to be alone. I am faced with the reality that my daily life has become a rather isolated thing, and I don't like it. I don't believe in that kind of living, and I want to be proactive about it before the memory of what it's like to have daily life with friends fades and I'm calloused once again. Stay tuned 'cause I'm probably headed for a job change in the near future.

singing loud

I sing loud, ever since I really learned how to sing in choir in junior high I have. Whether it be in my car listening to music, or in the shower styling some free form song, I have sung at a high volume. I sing especially loud during worship at my church. I have for some time been aware of the fact that I sing pretty loud and sometimes become embarrassed and quiet it down a bit, but recently I began to examine why this might be.

I thought about it and the experience of lifting my voice to such a high volume is somewhat transporting to me. It is increasingly this way if I am surrounded by sound so that I can hardly pick out my own voice from those around me, such as in corporate worship or with the volume in my car cranked up. Why is this, I thought. Perhaps it is the physical experience of joining with something incalculably larger than myself. Not only in word or idea but an actual blending of the sound I am making into and with something I could not do alone. A chorus of agreement that our stories matter and are facets each of the other. That we are one. It seems that the louder I sing, to me at least, the more I am participating, pushing my sound into the larger picture.

Ultimately I think it is that act of claiming my identity, not in a way that says look at me I have this great voice. On the contrary sometimes my voice cracks and sounds tired and worn, even gets hoarse from singing so loud. This is a declaration of my humanity my brokenness that even in the shit stuff of life I will still sing the praise of the one who makes and supports all. Even when my voice is broken and does not ring out beautiful I will still lift it the best I can, as I lift my head to meet His gaze. Even when my soul is broken and full of sin I can and will still confess to him his greatness in my weakness. In so doing, I proclaim that it is not only the most beautiful voices that deserve to ring out loud. It is not the righteous whose praise he longs to hear but the unrighteous, the ones who have hung up their harps and hearts who haven’t sung in along time. He wants these to come back to him. I am with him where he is.

what happens on sleep deprivation

I have currently been awake for about thirty hours. I know it's ridiculous, but by the time insomnia pushed me to 3:30 AM last night, I began weighing the pros and cons of falling asleep at all. It may have been entirely ill-conceived, but I decided it would be better to not sleep and arrive at work on time rather than sleeping in which ended badly last week. When I do put myself in these situations, which happens more often than I'd like, I become a bit emotionally labile. This is magnified by the fact that I often find myself being deeply touched by simple songs and movies. The most extreme incidence of this phenomenon happened when I had just watched Slumdog Millionaire the night previous. I cried while listening to "Paper Planes" by MIA on the way to work, a song whose topics include weed and hustling, I think? It's usually more logical than that, but needless to say it can get interesting.

For some reason I almost enjoy this period of unguardedness, it's as if I have an excuse to feel what I'm feeling without shame and let that take me where it will. Not that it is really a virtue to lose control of your emotions, but when I do I often end up learning some deep truth. I become more aware of how guarded I really can become at times and how hard my heart has been. Usually it's God trying to tell me something or teach me about his world, or simply show me a thread of his beauty up close so I can marvel. It's encouraging to know that God is speaking even when we're not waiting or trying to listen. His hand is infinitely dipping down to touch us, not 'cause we went to church or took the time to open up our bibles for fifteen seconds today, but because he wants to. He joins us and comes after us from every corner of our daily realities, and he is shooting straight for the heart. He is the God that pursues, and this is a great encouragement. I just want to get to a place where I don't have to stay awake for 24 hours to be open enough to hear him, on my way to that place I'm going to spend more nights staring at the stars to be touched by the sunrise.

he makes our failures his glories

Today at the nursing home I work at a man I care for managed to get through the fire escape door walk downstairs and outside without my knowledge. This man is in his eighties and has a pretty hard time walking in the first place. I'm sure it has been a number of years since he has navigated stairs. He has fallen several times merely attempting to rise from bed. If you asked me whether he could walk down stairs without falling I would say that he would definitely fall. It is nothing short of a miracle that he didn't fall to his injury or death.

When I learned what happened it scared the shit out of me. In a worst case scenario of the events of this evening, I would have lost not only my job but quite possibly my license of nursing, which would prevent me from ever being a nurse again. The Lord knows I'm a loving nurse and I am rudely awakened at facing my mistake. He saved me tonight, pure and simple. What is most incredible is that he didn't save me when I was asking to be saved, or even aware of my need. He saved me from my own mistake, he saved that man's life and my livelihood.

Tonight I realized, I have this filter I put over God as if he is motivated like us, as if he only scratches my back when I scratch his. I have thought of him as if he were human as if he rewarded my goodness with blessings, but he is not like that. He doesn't think the way I do and he doesn't work the way I do, as different as heaven is from earth so different is the way he works from the way I work*. Even in the middle of our mistakes he remains faithful, when we overlook something he is there to scoop it up and save it. He truly is a more wild and more different kind of thing than I have ever heard of.

*Isaiah 55:8-9 paraphrased