a month and change

for some reason i have become a binge/purge writer. i fear this to be a character trait since i have long carried this habit as a reader.

i have also noticed that i am particularly fickle in the area of my facial hair. it seems i cannot commit to any one form of whiskery. this could be in part to my portly state of being. without fail, the removal of my beard (as it did just this week) will lead me to wonder at my small collection of chins, a collection which now leads me to believe that not having a beard will eventually lead me to a thinner and ultimately healthier lifestyle due to the unpleasantness that accompanies any gaze at my reflection. i hope this to be a hypothesis which will prove itself true.

now, there is a reason i'm writing this evening. yes, there was some inspiration, a muse that begat this post. that muse be chuck klosterman and his book of deconstructive pop-culture prose, sex, drugs & cocoa puffs. in this book of essays, klosterman analyzes subject matter that ranges from billy joel's artistic merit to the importance of saved by the bell (an obvious reason for my initial attraction to it).

i am aware that most of the people who will read this (most being about 4 out of the 5 to 7 people who do read this from time to time) started reading this because i was living in moldova doing mission work and might be surprised that i would read a book with 'sex' & 'drugs' in the title. i will also say that if this book was rated using the movie rating system we all seem to be familiar with, it would be rated 'R' for language mostly (outside of that it is pretty much pg-13). that being said, i really enjoyed reading it.

klosterman managed to give meaning to seemingly meaningless topics. at the very least he tried to thoughtfully look at things we mostly thoughtlessly ingest. as a christian, i even found some of his insights to be quite pertinent to my spiritual life and thought that the church could benefit from some of his observations. in fact, had some scripture been thrown in, the language and more risky subject matter been toned down, and of course some simple faith revelations been inserted, this book would be something hip & 'emergent' christians would proudly display on both their bookshelves and tables at the starbucks in which they are reading it (right next to their copies of 'velvet elvis' and anything written by donald miller. yes, it is that type of book, a quasi-pomo (almost postmodern if you prefer) work that is quite engaging but makes things much more important than they probably are.

perhaps, that is why i enjoyed it. i am either in a place where i am making things much more important than they are or not making things important enough. either way i have felt somewhat disengaged with the world around me as of late. i don't quite feel connected to anything, or for that matter, anybody at this time. i don't mean this to sound as if i'm depressed. i'm not. i just feel disconnected.

there is a great part of me that would like to blame this on my time in moldova. i don't mean blame here in a negative sense. i simply mean it in the sense of causation. it has been over 5 months that i've been home. i'm not sure that i did a good job re-entering the world i'm currently in. there is a sense of liminality in my life right now. it can feel as though i'm not really anywhere. i'm just living.

but i can't just live. that will kill me.

i need to be engaged in something, be challenged by something, be something. it has been very hard to be passionate about anything. i hate that.

there is a good part of me that fears that life could become that and that i could just become the type of person who never looks beyond surface of anything i see. perhaps i am envying that characteristic of klosterman. the things we all consider mundane, he looks at with an earnest desire for meaning.

i remember somebody telling me that somebody like john piper, if not him, said something to the effects of this: if you can't see God's glory in a morning cup of orange juice, then you're missing it entirely. i suppose that's true to some extent. but i feel like the reason that has stuck with me is because i can't.

i really have trouble with that. orange juice comes from oranges from a tree from the soil of the earth God created in a incredibly divine and holy moment. and i suppose that the creation of that agricultural system of progression, in God's providence, speaks of His great love and omniscience in a way that is profoundly spiritual and moving. i'm sure there is beauty in that. i just seem to notice the level of pulp, whether it be too much or too little.

perhaps that is why i feel disconnected: because i look at cup of orange juice and see pulp and the certain unpleasantness that comes with it after i've brushed my teeth.

i'm just tired of it. i'm tired of feeling so garbled and scattered. i'm thankful for the growth and learning i've had over the last year or two. i just want to live life more richly, more abundantly, with less of a gut and as soon as possible.