I’ve disliked Chris Rice for some time. I’m not sure what it is exactly, and I acknowledge that my opinion is invalid since I’ve only heard maybe half his songs. But there’s something non-masculine about him. Something very self-abasing and whine-whine-why-do-I-suck-so-badly about his lyrics and his voice. I understand the frailty of humankind. I just feel like he should get another topic, that’s all. Much to the chagrin of Stephanie, I’ve even called him “Christina Rice” on a few occasions. But this entry isn’t directly about Chris(tina) Rice, so hang in there. Let me cut to the point.

Stephanie and I were talking about him and his music the other day, trying to pinpoint why I don’t like his stuff and why I tease him when he’s clearly quite talented and has a good voice and solid sense of artistry. We didn’t reach any direct conclusions on that exact point, but I discovered a deeper respect for him when Stephanie quoted the lyrics to Naive, a song of his, to me. Read them. Please. They provide context for the rest of this entry.

Sometimes Stephanie’s arguments really put me in my place. Those lyrics not only did that, but they brought tears to my eyes. Here I was, sitting in a pizza parlor, listening to this stuff, getting all sappy over my slice of thin-crust sausage.

I can’t tell you how often I think on those subjects. Those questions spin over and over in my mind every day. When I was a teenage boy, my mind was obsessed with sex. Now, thoughts of this kind of thing have matched and replaced those old thoughts in volume and intensity. Maybe this is what it means to have the weight of the world crush your spirit. I don’t know. I could’ve sworn I wasn’t scheduled for my spirit-crushing until sometime around my early thirties.

Continue reading “Impatience” →

New contest, same as the first, but a little bit later with a bit more verse!

New additional rule: If you’re already won, you can’t win again.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what is permanent and what is temporary, and how the truth of that doesn’t necessarily show very deeply in my life, but especially not very deeply in my attitudes. I realize that what I’m about to write is all very rudimentary in the spectrum of Christian Theology, but it’s something that I keep coming back to, and I can’t pretend it’s not affecting me, no matter how simple it seems. Let me explain.

I spend a huge amount of my time chasing happiness. See if any of these ring a bell for you, personally. They’re all true for me. Some are things almost everyone wants. Some are more Josh-specific.

• I want to be good at my job.
• I want to have fun, interesting relationships with other people.
• I want to feel like I’m a good spouse and friend.
• I want to have fun little gadgets with which I can entertain myself.
• I want to be a talented musician.
• I want to live in a cool/interesting house with cool/interesting stuff.
• I want to experience new and interesting things regularly.
• I want to be (at least) reasonably respected wherever I go.

That list could go on and on for quite awhile. When I hold the entire list (not shown here) in my head, and I think about the percentage of my time I invest in achieving those things, I come out to a figure that is almost 100%. And that really disappoints me. I think some people will say, “Well, most or all of those are good goals, there’s nothing wrong with that,” but I think that response is ignoring a larger fact. All those things are attempting to bring just a moment of happiness, a miniature “high” from which I will eventually come back down, at which point I will simply repeat the cycle and try to get back up there again. It’s kinda pointless, isn’t it?

Continue reading “#redefine” →

I just love it when I stumble upon stuff like this. I’m unfortunately spending the evening calling credit card and utility companies to switch our service to our new address in Cupertino. (Yes, it took me this long to get around to it, and yes, we’ve already gone back to our old mailbox and picked up all our old mail.) Anyhow, I’m on the phone with the electric and gas company out here (called PG&E) and I’m listening to the automated phone options they give you, and the recorded woman says this:

“For gas leaks, downed electrical wires, or any other kind of dangerous hazard, press ‘3.’”

Now, what exactly happens if I press “3”?

I really like the way that, in my own twisted little world, the “any other kind of dangerous hazard,” leaves it totally open-ended to the kind of destruction I might cause. That really kept me on my toes.

I was a little disappointed that I only ended up vaporizing a house down the block. I was hoping for something more colorful, or at least noisy.

I’ve had this post saved in draft form for eight days, but I’m going to publish it now. I was originally going to try to cram discussion of actual issues I’m working through and thinking about in here, but the post is too freaking long, so that’s not going to work. I’ll do that stuff later.

First off, a little revelation: When I post a bunch of tiny blurbs but no long entries, and especially when you notice that those tiny blurbs are written without wit (or at least with really half-hearted wit), you can be almost certain that I’m under a lot of stress for whatever reason. We’re most of the way through with March and I haven’t posted a real entry this entire month. It’s been 100% Blurbville. Well, I’m under a lot of stress.

The entry Steph posted awhile ago brought something to light for me. When I read the last paragraph of that entry, I actually went to her and said, “Hey, are you sure you want to be saying things like that on your blog? I mean, that’s public and it’s a pretty vulnerable, personal topic.” As if that isn’t bad enough, I told her I was worried that people would think that I had said things to her that inspired her initial feelings she blogged about. So I was being self-conscious enough to turn her issue into a “What will your struggles make people think of me?” issue, and that’s pretty bad. I mean, seriously. How low can you go? It’s limbo time.

Anyhow, when she posted that, something totally unexpected (by me) happened. People on and off her blog started responding with “Yeah, I struggle with ______, and reading about your struggles really encouraged me.” I was totally blown away and realized at that point that I’m kind of an idiot when it comes to stuff like this. I know how to put on a good public face and deal with personal issues only with people who are extremely close to me (like Steph or my parents or something), but I had never considered the fact that sometimes my silence about myself might be hurting someone else. I mean, what if I’m struggling with something, and the fact that I don’t say anything about it means that someone else who is struggling feels more alone, and Satan has the ability to tempt them more easily and be more successful with tempting them because of those feelings of being alone? I take partial responsibility for that. I should have spoken out about myself in order to help them, even if I didn’t know they were struggling when I initially made my statements about myself. Honesty can heal, as long as it doesn’t expose things about someone else that ought to be private for some reason.

I’m not saying that I should put all my deepest, darkest secrets up here on this blog and totally destroy myself publicly so others can feel good about themselves. I’m not going to, because there are a few cases where other people could get hurt by that, and clearly that’s not a good idea. I’m just realizing and advocating the idea that we don’t have to seem like super-people or always keep our difficulties to ourselves. Be a little open and help the people you love to see that you can still be a beautiful person and not be a perfect person who never has doubts and never has weak moments. That’s true beauty, because Christ shines through imperfect people. I think many or most of my blogging friends already get this, so I’m probably saying it mostly for myself.

I think some of my way of thinking about this may have come from growing up in a pastor’s home. My dad is an imperfect man, yes, but pastors are a special exception with things like this. Christians can be very odd, picky people. If they hear that their pastor has problems of any kind (not just serious stuff), they can sometimes be predisposed to say, “OK, let’s get a new pastor.” Seriously. It’s happened. So my dad and mom have tended to keep their personal problems between them (and sometimes discuss them with my sister and I, of course), but they didn’t often go outside that circle to talk about things of that nature. Sometimes they would talk with the other pastors in our church. But certainly not to larger groups. It’s just unwise for a pastor to do that and risk being picked apart and fired (or at least emasculated) because even if some people in the congregation will protect him and recognize that pastors are human and struggle as humans do, many won’t recognize that. They may call for his job, depending on what the problem is.

But I’m not a pastor.

And now, page two.

Continue reading “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Blog” →

OK, maybe I don’t actually feel great, but the I Feel Great commercial makes me feel great for about a minute and a half, every time I watch it.

Thanks Mike!