Holiday at the Sea?

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - C.S. Lewis

Yesterday morning, I arose at the pleasant hour of about 9:30. I boiled some water, took my shower, then made morning coffee in my beloved french press, which was given to me by my parents for my birthday. (Funny how much things like that mean to me as I get older. I frequently try to figure at which point in my life I stopped asking for toys of the children's variety.) While my coffee brewed, I started making my breakfast: red potatoes, onions, eggs, and sausage all fried together. Just as the food finished cooking, the sun came out, and it occurred to me that I should sit outside. Our deck is severely lacking in the area of seating. So I settled for the roof.

It wasn't long before I was laying on my back on the roof with my eyes closed, soaking in all the vitamin D I could and singing to Zac Brown Band. Right about the time I realized what I was doing, I thought of this quote and started laughing.

"Far too easily pleased? Are you kidding?" I thought. That was the most fun I'd had in so long, and I was doing NOTHING. Yet this quote was telling me that I should want more than that. I realized I really would have just as much fun, if not more, making throwing mud around than I would going to the beach. Being able to sit on the roof in the sun was a huge blessing to me, and yet somehow, according to Lewis, I was supposed to be striving for more.

Being easily amused has given me so much joy in all of the little things that people always overlook. All the little wisecracks or the puns that occur in conversation and cause groans from everyone else make me laugh more than things that everyone else finds hysterical. I don't know what it is, but I actually like being content with the little things like mud pies.

Because there's sand at the beach.

And that stuff is IRRITATING.

Reading Job

Job has been the source of some confusion to me. The first time I read it, it was weird and hard to follow. The second time, I felt like I understood the general idea, and wondered why it took nearly 42 chapters to get it. The third time, I suddenly realized that it was written like Proverbs or Psalms, and could be put bridging the gap between history and poetry. But then it read like a musical. For real: who talks like that?

"Hey Eliphaz, I'm depressed, scratching between my boils with a shard of broken pottery"

"No worries, I'll tell you you're sinful in a poem off the top of my head."

*cue the harp here*

"Did this really happen, or is it just some kind of crazy metaphor?" I asked. I guess it makes more sense to believe that there was a guy named Job who's life stunk for awhile than to believe that God would become a man to save the people that would kill him. I believe the latter of the two. It makes sense to believe the former.

So then the fourth time (this morning) I remembered that Job's friends weren't really any help to him, or so it's been said to me. But as far as I could gather, everything they were telling him was true; he just knew it already, and expressed as much. So Job spent 40 chapters whining about how righteous he was, how he was being punished for no reason, and on and on and on and on.

I wanted to play Eliphaz and be like "DUDE. You self-righteous, arrogant, whining little boy. SHUT. UP. Yes. Everyone's dead, but you shook that one off like a champ. Yes, you hurt. But you crying about it isn't going to solve anything."

While I am only about halfway through Job, the little booger is irritating me. I'm gonna be excited when God shows up, rocks his world, and puts Job back in his place.

I say this knowing that we all whine every now and again. I feel like I've been whining my whole life. We even whine when our friends try to help, but we don't want to hear it because all we know is our own pain. While many of us don't get the fireworks that Job does, I know I could use one when I whine about my life. Especially because I have a job, a place to live, food to eat, friends and family that love me, a church to attend that isn't in danger of getting torched, five quilts on my bed, and an air purifier on top of my dresser.

So I'll fight through Job. It'll probably still confuse me, but it seems I take something different from it every time.

The Haiti Post

Everyone and their mother is commenting on this whole Haiti bit, so much so that for a long time it seemed pointless to look it up and see what was actually going on, such was the stream of information on Facebook and the number of people who said their hearts were aching for the country.

Unless something drastic has changed in the last few years, Haiti was switching back and forth with Afghanistan for the poorest country in the world. I would guess it's back at number one. It's really high on the GINI Index, which means it has a huge income disparity. They are currently ranked number eight based on the most current information they provided (2001), so I would suppose they've gone up the list a ways. As far as I can remember, it also has a pretty high level of corruption.

I've kind of avoided looking at pictures of the tragedy, lest I have dreams about finding someone I love dead in a pile of rubble. For this reason, the heart-break I've experienced is fairly minimal, even barely existent. However, I got a chance to look at a New York Times article in which the Haitian President's palace was in ruins, and the President was quoted as saying he didn't know where he was going to sleep.

From what I remember about Haitian politics, the President is one of the wealthiest people in the country, living in splendor while the people he governs suffer because they lack the income to do anything besides feed themselves (I apologize for the generalization.) The fact that he was effected by the outcome of a devastating earthquake at a deeper level than an administrative headache seemed a small slice of justice in a situation as horrific as this one.

Prayers go out for the people in Haiti. Pray that many come to know the Lord through this catastrophe, and may those who do feel a peace that surpasses understanding as they serve others, knowing that the God of the universe will do great things through what seem to be terrible situations.

Lots of Little Topics

Because I spend forty hours a week doing what janitors do, I've had a lot of time to ponder. Lots of things, really. I've thought about music, news, health care, going to the dentist, my future, climbing, and theology. So because I haven't written in many moons, I figured I'd hit the major topics in my line of thought.

This may seem a bit disjointed, but so is my thought process. As an extrovert, I tend to think out loud, and my thought process emulates that. It's really hard for me to carry a single line of thought until I'm finished with it. This is why the topics discussed are so vastly different from one another. I'm getting better at doing all this in my head, but until I learn to think before I speak, this is how it goes.

1.) Hello Hurricane. The newest Switchfoot album. Now, most of you know how much I love Switchfoot. Knowing this, these guys could put out an 80's pop album and I would buy it, listen to it, and learn to love it. This one is taking a bit more work.

Lyrically, the album is BRILLIANT. After about the third time through the whole album, I recognized a much more "Christian" vibe to the whole thing. A major theme of the album is repentance, coming to the realization that we are completely and utterly destined for a life of destruction, sadness, and separation from God if left to our own ways. A desire to worship Jesus with everything that we have, change our way of life and live a life of holiness and joy is reflected in many of the tracks, and I gotta say, lyrically it's some of the best work they've done, as far as I'm concerned.

Unfortunately, the music isn't as cohesive. Drew coaxes some fantastic sounds from his guitar, and Tim continues to blow me away with his tone and bass riffs that are so central to Switchfoot's sound. But really, the songs, aside from lyrical content, seem so different from one another that they don't really flow.

That said, there are maybe three stand-out tracks on the album that exemplify everything that Switchfoot does best. I would actually venture to say that "Sing It Out" is one of their best songs.

It's taking me a long time to get used to it, but I definitely like it more every time I see him. That's really all I'm gonna say about that one.

2.) Doctrine. I have listened to a fair amount of sermons while sweeping the steps of the Fairhaven Administration building. I enjoy learning within in that context, and it's nice to do something while I feel like I'm doing nothing, seeing as someone will tramp their muddy feet up the stairs without a second thought as soon as I'm done.

But here's the thing about Doctrine: it's distracting. At least to me. Great big terms that explain why I'm not good enough to choose God, and he has chosen me. Wordy explanations about the authority of Scripture. Predestination, penal substitutionary atonement, justification, sanctification. And it's all true. It's all valuable under a certain light. At least as far as I understand it, it is.

But such inner dialogue that occurs when I hear words like "elect" is almost instantaneous: "You don't love Jesus. You're not elect. You just looked at that girl, that means you're lusting and God's children don't do that. See. BAM. Not elect. No hope. I just proved it to you." The result is INWARD focus, rather than UPWARD and OUTWARD focus. So I focus on fighting the lies I'm being told while trying so hard to be spiritual and know what all these concepts and big words are rather than KNOW JESUS. And I would rather know Jesus than have a dictionary full of doctrinal terms that lead me to religion and a spiritual check list of all the stuff I know.

3.)Last one. Gender inclusive housing and bathrooms may be making their way onto Western's campus. I'm not really that surprised, honestly, because I knew it would happen sooner or later. And I'm not flipping out, blowing the whistle or anything like that. I just think it's interesting.

Gender inclusive housing i'll leave out of this for now, because I feel I need to be able to accurately articulate what I think about it. Bathrooms, however, I can address now.

The intention of gender inclusive bathrooms is to help individuals who identify as a gender that is different that their sex. By having one bathroom that everyone uses, aforementioned individuals just walk in rather than feeling uncomfortable choosing between their gender or biological sex that appears on every bathroom door. There are lots of arguments as to why we should adopt such a system, one of which (that I, for the record, thought about for probably a half hour) is that it increases standards of cleanliness. I still haven't figured it out: when we're done cleaning them, men and women's bathrooms are equally clean. ANYWAY. The main issue (not addressed on the little blurb that was handed out in promotion of such a policy) that I find with gender inclusive bathrooms is one of simple safety.

I'm not a huge dude. In fact, I'm not even really strong. So I can do pull ups on my finger tips-big deal. I don't really worry about using public restrooms, even at night. If girls were in there and it was deemed socially appropriate for them to be, I wouldn't feel weird peeing next to them.

SO switch perspectives, and I can tell you that if I was a woman, there is no way that I would want to use a public restroom on the fifth floor of the library, where no one ever goes at 10:45 PM if I knew that a guy with Brandon Adent's build could possibly walk in and find me there, regardless of his intentions.

I guess it comes down to my wondering if we really have so much faith in humanity that we would take away all restrictions on who could use which bathroom and when.

See how disjointed that was? I'm actually getting drowsy and pretty tired, so I wouldn't be surprised if none of it made sense.

The Last Link

I embarked upon my journey to the Adent Family Household in Vancouver, Washington on December 24th, after much deliberation in the days proceeding as to whether or not I should leave my home in Bellingham on the night prior (December 23rd). Due to foreseen circumstances involving my state of exhaustion after a day on the job and the possibility of hardship on the 250 mile trip south , I decided it would indeed be wisest to leave early on the morning of Christmas Eve. When I awoke, on the morning of my departure, I rolled out of bed with much difficulty, threw on some clothes, chucked my stuff into my 1984 Chevrolet S-10, and was forced to push start in the sub-freezing weather. After a stop for gas and a swing through Starbucks, I was en-route. WOOT.

As I prepared to crest a hill about ten miles south of Bellingham while marveling at a spectacular Pacific Northwest sunrise, something strange happened: my car slowed down, then jerked back up the hill. My heart pounding, I wondered if it was over.

Not a chance. Slip-jerk-downshift-slip- jerk-downshift-slip-jerk about every ten miles all the way to Everett, where I realized the full gravity of the situation. The likely-hood of my beautiful, old, reliable clunker of a truck making it the remaining 200 miles south to my destination was highly unlikely. I had called my mother miles before to inform her of the situation, and my brother was sacrificing his leisurely Christmas Eve of baking to meet my in the Seattle area. The problem of my arrival in Vancouver solved, I now had another problem. What was I supposed to do with my truck for the duration of my week- and-a-half long stay in Vancouver?

Thankfully, I was reminded by parents of my Aunt and Uncle who lived in the area, who upon contact, were gracious enough to allow me to park my truck in their driveway until my return to nurse my truck back up to Bellingham. For about three hours, I sat, visited, and played card games with my cousins. I was even given more coffee until my brother showed up to cart me off to what is still his place of residence.

The experience could have turned out much worse, but once again I laugh at my own simultaneous misfortune and blessing. I refuse to believe that God is some sort of cosmic sadist who created me to be an object of his wrath, which is why this whole bit really is funny. Somehow, the temporary loss of my lifeline to nearly all my hobbies, my transportation to and from worship team and church, and my link to the grocery store is going to sanctify me and help me more accurately reflect my Savior on this hunk of rock we call Earth. While I ponder the details regarding my return to Bellingham, I know the situation will work out. I just have no idea how. I feel somewhat uneasy about this whole business of sanctification, and I want to be comfortable now.

Welcome to Therapy.

The Intro

Welcome to the real world. Spending the last 18 years of my life in school to become an official member of the proletariat in this time of life-transition.

Oh don't get me wrong, I've really got it awesome. Good pay and fantastic hours, a position in which nearly 11% of the United States population lacks, last I heard. I just never ever thought I would study history for four hard years to wind up scrubbing someone else's digested pizza out of a just-defiled commode.

But that's how it goes. Looks like I need to take some servant lessons.

The title of this new set of posts is not that I need medical treatment (knock on wood: no health insurance.) Rather, my objectives in life need to be redetermined. It's one thing to say that you're following Christ with everything that you have, yet quite another to actually do it. Near the end of November, I took a frigid winter day to try to do exactly that: get with Jesus, and seek out what his will for my life. What he did was show me all my idols, the things I had been going to instead of him.

When God's the only one listening, when all we think we can cling to is yanked from our clutches. When we feel totally powerless to Life itself, like C.S. Lewis suggests in The Screwtape Letters, we go from Peak to Trough. And when we're in a Trough, God does his best work in us.

Therapy.

The theme comes from a Relient K song that showed up on my computer (when I put there last time I was in Vancouver) that bears the same name as this series of posts. So I stole the concept, and I'm actually not that creative.

But while I put in my hours scrubbing grease from the ceiling tiles in the dining hall, I laugh at both my fortune and misfortune simultaneously, wondering what in the world I'm doing on a ladder above the pizza cooker. In this time of transition, this is my therapy.