Do You Know Me?

I absolutely love getting to know new records. There's nothing quite like acquainting yourself with a group of new songs that you really enjoy. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it's almost like meeting someone you're really interested in. After you meet somebody (or hear a new record), you really look forward to the next time you see them, because the next time you see them, you know you're gonna learn something new or interesting that you didn't pick up on the last time you saw them.

But when you find one that lasts, one that never gets old, that's when you've got someone really special. There aren't many records out there that can do that.

Summer Nights.

Even though the Summer Solstice isn't until late June..Isn't it beginning to feel like Summer? There's just something about the air. Twice a year this happens to me (Summer & Winter): I wake up and fall into my routine of the day. Just as soon as I walk out my front door, I sense something different. It'll just feel like it's the beginning of Summer.

Summer feeling like it's here just screams High School to me. I spent my first day of Summer as a high school graduate floating for hours on a huge inner tube in Josh Gillespie's pool, with a straw hat drawn over my face and no sound other than a faint radio and our conversation. That felt like freedom. That was my last great High School Summer.

My Summers reminiscent of the glorious High School Summers are coming to an end. Soon, all Summer will mean is I'll be sweating way more every time I get in my car.

But not this Summer. All I've got to worry about this Summer is work and making sure that none of my guitars are neglected. Bring it on!

And no, not that "Summer Nights", this one.

Waiting on my World to Change...

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9

One thing good ol' Paul left out of that verse was timing. He should've tagged a little "Oh yeah, and you'll have no idea when it's coming at you either."

One thing Pastor Dave likes to point out on weekends that we feel God will be doing awesome things is that Satan attacks us in other ways to try to bring us down. Thing is though, there's no stopping God. Satan can throw his whole bag of tricks at God and his plan, but no matter what, God's gonna win out, and Satan's gonna get his behind handed to him for eternity.

Now why do I bring these two things up? God having greater things in store for us, and Satan's futile attempts at stopping God's awesome movement? Because a good point was brought up to me today. I'm going through the toughest semester of school I've ever been through right now (and I'm not the fondest of school in the first place), at a point where I absolutely have to decide the exact path the rest of my college education will take, and am kinda feeling like I'm missing out on something more fullfilling? I'm part of one of the most fantastic churches in the world, striving to bring cultural relevance and relatability to people and God's word. It's fantastic. Yet I sometimes wonder if there's more that I could be doing? More for my church, more for myself, more for my God?

Is Satan trying to bring me down before a door is opened? Or am I just being put through a time in my life where I have to grow, work hard at things I don't understand, and it'll all payoff in the future? It almost all sounds kind of immature when I look at it from a distance, but I guess that's just where I am right now.

So for now I have to keep working through school, and try to juggle school work, church work, and work on myself (musically, spiritually, relationally), and maybe someday soon God will open up some door, some crazy life change that'll just make everything click. A blessing of Clarity.

Matthew 6:34 - "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Clarity.

Well here it is. I've got a blog.

I could never think of what I would write in such a thing. Blogs to me always seemed like something suited for the real creative types. Those who look at the world a little bit different than everybody else. I've never thought of myself to be one of those.

But here I am, at a sort multidimensional crossroads, in need of some sort of outlet to process my thoughts. Thus my blog is born.

What has sparked this crossroads? A lot of things changing. Breaking the half-way point in college, having responsibilities seven days a week, and a recent abrupt change in my social life has brought the way I think to a whole new place. I didn't know it existed, and I'm still familiarizing myself with it.

I've grown unsatisfied with myself as a guitar player. Not just my guitar playing though, as a musician in general. I've always boxed myself into a specific genre. It's kinda my own little cliché now. Over the past year, I've began branching out from that cliché. I've never invested enough time in song writing. Now that all of the sudden I've come to this point where the simplest things are spawning different thoughts inside my head, I'm writing every single piece of potential inspiration down. It's caused me to take the way I look at things a step further. I hope it isn't temporary. Maybe there's a songwriter in me after all?

So I'm kind of excited for this chaos that's ensuing in my mind right now. It may not be much compared to the chaos of others, but it's a lot for me to take in.

Sometimes you just need to write everything down, take a step back, and look at it. Then everything becomes much clearer.