Roller Coaster

Life is funny. This last weekend was simply a roller-coaster. For one, it was a holiday weekend with three days off from work instead of the normal two. Next, it was July 4, which meant barbecues anywhere you went (I took in two well done events). To add to the fun, a friend’s birthday falls on July 3, which we have started a tradition of celebrating with a visit to Redlands own British Pub, The Falconer where I scored a free 7up (feeling a little too ill for cider) from a bartender who thought it wasn’t worth the $1.25. Either that, or I just looked pathetic enough standing at the bar’s only open space not knowing what to do.

On the flip side, my grandmother suffered a stroke. This wasn’t that huge of a shock, but unexpected none the less. She’s 84 years old, so it’s come to the point where anytime I hear news about her from my folks, I expect it to be the news that will call for me to rush to my car and get to their place ASAP. Even so, it came as a shock. Thankfully, she seems to be pulling out of whatever state she was in exactly (can’t call it a coma or vegatative, just unresponsive). She can talk and move her right side (previously immobile) and will likely be just fine in a few weeks.

Plus, I’m just about worn out with the singlehood thing. It’s extremely difficult to pull it off well and patiently when everyone else is getting married or at least otherwise engaged towards that end in good ways. I don’t think I’d mind so much if I were to be single for life, really. What bothers me is the question of where I’ll end up. If I could just know what’s “in the cards” for me, I can handle it. It’s not knowing if marriage would be a good thing for me or not that frustrates me. And yes, I’m lonely (an entirely different issue from whether marriage is for me or not), but I barely have an excuse with all the people I get to spend time with every week.

All that to say, what a weekend. It was good and I learned a lot, reconnected with some things, had some wonderful food and good times with friends. But at the same time, there is heartache of varying types and styles from varying causes in my life.

Wouldn’t the weekend have been boring otherwise?

Anger Management

Well, for reasons currently passing my understanding, I’m finding myself extremely pissed off at just about anything tonight. It didn’t start until I got back to the house I call home. I was in Fresno since early Saturday morning to attend the wedding of two friends of mine and, due to the distance of the commute, stayed overnight at a friend’s grandparent’s house. So I didn’t return home until late this afternoon, a day after leaving.

But I have found myself angry at a great many things. Dishes left undone, a CD-RW drive that doesn’t like to be recognized as existing by Linux (Mandrake 9.1 to be specific), a CD-ROM drive that just seems to enjoy smoking drugs of an illegal nature and not share them with it’s user, or at least attempted user. But mostly, I think that I am angry at the fact that there is very little joy in my life at home. When I leave the house, there are chances for joy at least, and I often find them. But the house has become a place where I do not experience the freedom or love of God, much less love for neighbor. I feel on the defensive at home right now and I can’t for the life of think of why exactly.

I think part of this stems back to the idea in an earlier entry about not knowing what my passions are and finding that I have no avenue to explore what they are to just about any extant. I have little time at home to pursue anything and even if I did, there is little space with which to do that. I feel crowded in by my surroundings, small, contained, and very rigid. Even economically (which has nothing to do with my house, of that I am sure) I feel weighed down upon with little ability to do anything that I’d like to or would find joy in. The American system of what-have-you is entombing me in a new way.

I tend to try and take the persepctive on things that Jesus knows exactly how I feel because he had experiences similar in nature to whatever I happen to be feeling at some point during the record of his ministry that we have. This seems to be his being oppressed by crowds. More often than not he is asked for heal the sick and release the possesed from their personal hells. At some point, this actually starts to deter his ministry, which seems to frustrate him to some degree or at least frustrate the message that he has from getting out into the world. Jesus, of course, takes it all in stride knowing what needs to be done and being infinitely better at taking things in stride than I will most likely ever be. Jesus’ passion was people, particularly those who had been cast aside by society. I do not know my passion, but if I did, I am blocked from giving that passion everything that I am able to give it. And I am not blocked by people, but by committments, sometimes even those made by other people. I look for Jesus presence here in some fashiong, showing me the way out, but then look again at his experience and wonder if a way out is something I should seek to find. After all, he never turned away the sick or possesed no matter how much in “frustrated” his ministry. Does that mean I just bite the bullet? Probably not, pursuing a passion has been encouraged to me by so many faithful people that I can’ believe that ruling it out is a good thing. But learning how to set it aside when necessary probably can’t hurt. Now, just to find a way to discover what that passion is in the first place so that I am able to set it aside when needed in the first place…

Passion

I’ve realized something while playing with my hacky-sack and waiting for my computer at work to finish what it was thinking about. There whole teams in the world that compete in hacky-sack tournaments. They spend most of their time practicing with one other or alone for this competitions and keep up on the latest developments in “hack-sack technolgy.” Most of us would probably look at them and think they’re crazy.

But they look at the rest of us and think the same thing about whatever it is we put all of our time into. Most of us have a passion that over takes most of the rest of our life. Some of us don’t and some of us may be searching for such a passion.

In the church, I have been mostly encouraged to explore discipleship with Jesus and, with in that for the last few months, hospitality. Hospitality is not something I’m naturally good at, all the more reason to work at it. I usually don’t seek to spend time with people, I’m too much of a loner type. But all that to say that hospitality is not my passion, of that I am certain. It should be practiced, but maybe not solely in my case.

But I have no time to find my passion. I love coding HTML and learning more about that, but have little time to explore that. I love riding my bike, but have little time to learn more about how to take care of it and explore what it would mean to rely on it as my main (or even only) vehicle. I’d like to learn how to play the guitar just for the fun of it. To get my clarinet back out and firm up my chops again. None of that can happen. My time is spent elsewhere on other things that I have learned are not my passion, but I am now committed to in one way or another. All of my activities outside of work are church related in one way or another.

I’m growing concerned that, over the next years, I will begin to resent the church for taking time away from exploring what brings me joy and forcing me into a mold of what a Christian should look like. I don’t think this is intentional, far from it knowing well all those who are with me and guiding me. Nevertheless, this is where I find myself today. If I wanted to put time into being on a hacky-sack team, that simply could not happen. I don’t want to have my early adult experience of Jesus and the Church be a thing that I might remember as an institution that kept me from joy.