The People Who Inspire Me

I've always had big dreams--from my very earliest memories, I knew I wanted to do something great. I've gone through dozens of possible career options (at one point I was convinced that God wanted me to be an astronaut, though I thank God that He didn't actually want me to pursue that...), but the overwhelming passion behind my desire to do something big has never diminished.

I believe that now, at the age of nineteen, I am pretty sure what direction God wants me to take on this crazy journey called life. And it's not some cut and dry thing like I thought it would be--it's going to be messy, involved, probably painful, but I am more sure now than I ever have been about what God wants me to do with my life.

I'm going to create things. For Him. For other people. Writing, songs, art in general... Creations that will glorify God and touch other people's lives. But this is all a tangent. It's not what I'm here to talk about.

Sometimes, even though I have these dreams, even though I know God wants me to follow those dreams... I get distracted.

There always seem to be those things that are more pressing. Things that demand my time and attention, things that seem just as important as any dream when I'm faced with them. Sometimes those things are important, and I should be paying attention to them, but more and more frequently I've let these things--the normal, everyday living--get in the way of living a life of purpose and meaning. I need to have focus. I need to be so driven on living my life for God and for others that everything I do is done through that filter.

No more getting by. No more being lazy. No more doing only the minimum necessary to pass. I need to live. I need to look at every task as a challenge, a chance to honor God and serve others in a way that will change the world, if only by a small margin. One of the ways I remember to live like this is because of the people in my life who constantly inspire me to be more than I am.

My parents, who have always told me to do everything with excellence, and have always tried to do that themselves, not just with the big things, but with every little situation that has ever come up in their lives. My parents are not idle, they don't half-heartedly do things. If they take up a task, they do it right. They learn what they need to learn, they do what they need to do, they try to the very best of their ability to complete something with excellence, and you might say that's rubbed off on me a little bit.

My brothers, who continue to inspire and challenge me with the way they live out their faith. Connor with his unshakable faith and conviction. Chase with his unending servitude and friendship to those around him. They humble me and test me and point me towards God more often than they could ever know. Connor and I have had many a conversation where I was being lazy or being a jerk and he has challenged me with God's Word and made me realize my mistake. And I believe I've done the same for him.

My friends. I have a lot of them, and they all inspire me, every single last one of them. The more I get to know people, the more I realize how much there is to know about people. To quote Gandalf: "You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you in a pinch." I am constantly learning, being challenged, inspired, convicted, tested, and amazed by my friends. People have so much to teach, if you are willing to listen. I love hearing about people's dreams, their desires, what makes them tick. And this in turn inspires me to reach out, to live big, to be a better person, if for no other reason than to join this multitude of dreamers and explorers who want to change their world for the better.

In closing, thank you to everyone who has been a part of my life. I guarantee that you have inspired me in some way or another during my time knowing you. Everyone has something to share, something to teach, and most often the lesson I learn is that life is short, and dreams do not just magically come true. You have to work for them.

And so, I will look to the next page of the narrative. That in itself inspires me. The adventure. The journey of life that I get to go through with God and the wonderful people I know on this Earth. Living inspires me. I too easily forget how enchanting and special a single day can be. It takes days like Tuesday, March 24th, to make me realize that life isn't about getting by. It's about giving your all.

You all inspire me. Thank you for that.

The Ways We Experience Music

I find it endlessly interesting the different ways people experience music. We're all just so different. Some people listen to classical music when they want to be de-stressed, others (such as my brother, Connor) listen to hard rock. When I listen to hard rock, I feel determined to accomplish things, but my brother and a lot of my other friends listen to it, as I said above, to calm themselves down. They described it as letting the music be angry and stressed for them so they didn't have to be.

Again, I find this so interesting.

Also, with the way people transition to different types of music: I hop from band to band and go through a phase where that's all I listen to--usually new music that I've found on NoiseTrade or something--and really get to know that music until I find a new artist to love and move on to that. This keeps me feeling refreshed in terms of music, and though I'll always come back and listen to songs from the bands I love (especially in playlists that are themed, like a love song playlist), I often get tired of some artists and can't listen to any of their music for a while. Sometimes the bands I switch to will be old bands I haven't listened to in a while, and then I listen to them almost as if for the first time, because it's been so long and I've been filling my head with so many other songs.

Others that I know find it harder to switch to new music. They'll listen to the same music they've always listened to on shuffle all the time, and they have to be in a certain mood to invest in a new song. Once they do, they'll add it to their list of music they like and shuffle it all together.

This goes into what I just love about living--finding out how people operate, discovering their interests, tastes, how they view the world, how they experience things. It's one of my absolute favorite things to do--get to know people on a personal level. Understand where they're coming from, how they got there, and what they strive for.

And music is such a dynamic thing in most of our lives...you can tell a lot about how a person experiences music. If you want to, leave a comment or two about different ways you experience music! When you're feeling a specific emotion, you listen to ...what? And so on. I'd love to read them :)

And The Tears, They Finally Came

I'm sitting in the car, waiting for my brother to be finished with his dance lesson. He's part of a hip-hop class, and he's really good at it. He loves dancing. And I'm proud of him. But that's not what I'm thinking about.

I grab the novel sitting on the center console between the two front seats of the Suburban--I'm almost finished. I read for almost two hours today in the car on the way back from Dubuque. That might be why my stomach is churning and I have a headache. Or maybe it's because of something else.

I start reading. This book is good. The fourth book of one of my favorite series--I'm doing my annual reread of all of David Eddings' books. But I still don't feel well, and my eyes are strained from motion sickness, and so I put it down after only a few pages. I start feeling tired. Maybe I should just shut the lights off and try to take a nap or something. Not like that ever goes well for me. But I'm literally about to fall asleep, so...

I grab my headphones and start to put them in, searching through my music for some soft instrumental pieces to fall asleep to. I don't always do that, but sometimes it helps. I pick a Lowercase Noises track and close my eyes.

I can't fall asleep. The track is "Persistence", and it's one of those wonderfully nostalgic pieces that reminds me of the past and has me looking towards the future. I sigh and realize that I'm wide awake now, my thoughts racing at a hundred miles an hour. Four hours ago was the last time I saw them. The last time I'd see them for a long time. Again.

I haven't been sad about it, really. They're going to a fantastic college with fantastic people and learning fantastic things. I miss them, and they miss me, but we're all okay with the way things are. And that's pretty awesome. They have a home in Missouri now. I'm so excited for them.

We'll keep in touch. I know we will. And life is different, but life is still great, and God is still good. And I'll see them again along the road. But the music is still playing in my ears, and I feel nostalgic. So I take out the letter that she wrote to me.

I read it for the second time today. I smiled the first time I read it, after we all left Dubuque--I headed back to Janesville, and they headed back to Moberly. I smile again as I read it to nostalgic music. But this time I cry. I knew it was going to happen eventually, I'm a pretty emotional person. But it's not a sad, bitter cry, as so many have been before it. It's a happy little sob that wrenches at my heart and turns my brain to jelly as I thank God for everything that is amazing in my life.

It feels like a dam breaking loose, setting my emotions free and taking with it any remaining sense of loss I was holding on to. I finish the letter as I continue to sob. I grab my phone as a short verse comes to my mind. I start composing a tweet.

And the tears, they finally came
In between these bouts of rain
Time will tell, time will show
When this rain will make the flowers grow

I hit send.

2015 is just beginning. Life will be different. But life will be good. I know this.

My friends are still my friends, no matter where life takes us. I love them, they love me. Even if we disagree at times, even if things may drive us apart... We share something that ordinary people just don't understand. You see, we all met at this church in Janesville, and we all grew and learned and leaned on each other as we all held God's hand. And I don't think any of us will ever forget that. I still have them. I still have her.

That's enough.

God Is Love, But Love Is Not Always Nice

Over the past few months, I've really dug into an interesting concept: what it means to love people as a Christian. There are all sorts of views about this, and most of them can be categorized in one of two categories: "Love" and "Justice". People on one extreme say that we should never judge anyone and just "love" everyone, in which they mean give them grace in such a way that ignores their actions and the consequences for their actions. On the other extreme, you have people who are going around telling everyone how wrong they are, and that they're going to hell, and God is going to judge them for the horrible things they're doing. Neither extreme has it right, and as in most things I've found related to God, there is a balance between the two that we as Christians need to walk. But the more I thought and studied the topic, the more I've come to believe that "love" and "justice" are misleading terms, since the two are actually mutually inclusive. But let me back up.

God is love. One can know this simply by reading any part of the Bible with an open mind--the thread of God's love for humanity lies throughout the entire narrative, in every poem and song, in every historical account, in every prophecy, you can see the overwhelming desire of God's to be in an intimate relationship with His creation.

But we need to define the term love, as Christians. After some considerable thought, I believe that this simple definition might be the most accurate: loving someone is giving them what they need emotionally. Most of the time, that is acceptance, companionship, grace, servitude--being there for someone. Everyone has a deeply rooted desire to feel like they belong, and loving someone truly is to show them that they do belong, and that they are accepted. But if love can be defined as giving people what they need, then there comes a point when what someone needs is not going to be what they want.

My parents can tell you this, from hundreds of experiences throughout their illustrious careers as youth leaders, that loving people with the truth is hard, but necessary. They've told me time and time again that you have to be okay with people not liking you for a while, maybe even hating you. But hopefully, as God works on their heart, the person you spoke truth to will be able to look back and thank you for it.

Obviously, different situations call for different approaches. For the most part, if you're in a situation with a non-Christian, and they are involved in sin, calling them out on it will neither be productive or loving. But there also come times when the truth does need to be spoken, and at that point the most loving thing to do is often not what modern Christians would call "loving".

We, as Christians, need to keep each other accountable with our actions and our words, and dancing around subjects because you don't want to hurt people's feelings is a horrible way to do that. There needs to come a point when one follower of Jesus Christ looks at another follower of Jesus Christ and is able to say "what you're doing is wrong, and you need to stop", and the recipient of that criticism will be able to, with an open mind, evaluate their actions and line it up against what the Bible says. If they are in error, they should change. If they are not, well, God's Word takes prevalence over man's.

In that sort of a situation, one obviously needs to make sure that one's own actions and words are being held to the same standard, so as to not be hypocritical, but using your own faults as an excuse not to lovingly correct someone else's (in the context of brothers and sisters in Christ) is not only unloving, but it's really sort of a cop-out. We have a responsibility to people on this earth. We're all headed in a downward spiral further away from God, and only by keeping each other accountable to God's moral standards and guidelines for our lives will we be able to have credibility when speaking on His behalf.

This is not to say that we are not broken people. Of course we are. And we will undoubtedly make mistakes. But there is a difference between stumbling and falling, and that difference is what defines those that have surrendered to their sin and those that have surrendered to God. Iron sharpens iron, and sometimes that process will hurt, and it will create sparks. But in the end, we will be better for it.

So, really, the love versus justice argument is faulty. Love is justice, and it is grace, mercy, acceptance, truth, and a host of other things. God is love, and so every aspect of God's character is an aspect of the definition of love. The same God who died on the cross for the sins of every man also told the adulteress to go and sin no more. And that was exactly what that woman needed in that situation--Jesus did not condemn her, He did not throw stones, but he did not pull any punches. He spoke the truth in love, and that was probably the turning point in her life.

As a closing thought, the thing we need to be most careful with when trying to be more like Jesus is letting our pride get in the way. This can take many different forms--thinking that we are so good that our sole duty is to tell people how they are wrong without challenging our own brokenness, being so caught up in the theology of what love is or isn't that we lose sight of the people we're supposed to be loving...even using our own weaknesses as an excuse to not try to live up to God's standards for our lives, no matter the cost, can be a form of pride--focusing so much on how screwed up we are that we forget that God redeemed us, and that means we have a responsibility to everyone around us.

In the end, God is who the Bible reveals him to be, and trying to put him into the "mercy" camp or the "justice" camp is neither correct theology nor anything but an unproductive waste of time. God is love, and love is anything that God would do. Follow His example, and don't let your own feelings get mixed up in it, and you'll be fine.

The Anticipation of Contentment

One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot over the last few months is the subject of contentment. Being happy with where you are in any moment--not regretting the past or longing for the future (or the other way around), but simply being present and living for the here and now.

All of our lives as human beings, our natural tendency is to rely on anticipation. We wait for the year that we've convinced ourselves will be "where our lives truly start". When we start dating. When we get a job. When we get married. When we finish college. When we have kids. But those moments often come and go, and they don't fulfill our expectations how we thought they ought to.

The event, no matter how great it is, will never live up to the expectations we've set up for it. That birthday party will never be quite as fantastic as you pictured it in your head. That's just the way the world is. And the more we rely on expectations, the more we wish we were in a different place and time than we are now, the more we become disconnected and unhappy with where we are right now.

And that's not what God called us to do or be. He calls us to be content in every circumstance--to trust Him. The more I live my life, the more I realize how horrible a sin worrying really is. When we worry, we not only waste time, we aren't trusting God.

The level of happiness and joy in our lives is directly dependent on our level of trust in God. And until we can learn to be content in every situation we find ourselves in, and not be longing for or dreading things that may or may not ever happen, we will be anxious.

There will never be a point in your life where you can say you've arrived. There will never be a time that you can look at definitively and say "I was the closest to God I'll ever be right about then" or "I was the happiest I'll ever be at that point in my life" because it's simply not true. Or at least it doesn't have to be. People are constantly growing and changing, sometimes for the worse, but sometimes for the better. But looking forward in time and thinking "I'll be a follower of God when that happens" or "I'll be happy when that happens" is just wrong, and it will drive your focus away from what God has for you in this very moment.

You have to live every moment as if it's the best moment of your life. Joy, pure joy, is not something you just stumble upon--it is something that you strive for. It is something that comes from a conscious change of attitude. If you base your actions on however you're feeling at the moment, what happens when you're feeling depressed? God has better things for you to do than to wallow in melancholy because of how horrible a person you are.

Life is about your attitude. There's only so much that other people can do. The rest is up to you. You have the Living God inside of you, and all you have to do is ask for his Holy Spirit to fill you up, and bam, it's there. And that is a conscious choice you have. Life is not about what you're feeling. Life is about what you choose to do with those feelings.

So, let's go. Let's live in the moment. Be content with who we are, where we are, right now. God has some amazing things for us to do, and all we have to do is take a step of faith and trust Him, and He'll lead us. Stop longing for a time when things were better. Stop worrying about what the future might hold.

You're alive now, and you have a job to do.

The Next (Late) Update

Sorry about the lateness of this post. Well, I would be sorry if anyone ever read this, but whatever. Nothing too crazy has been going on in my life, internet. Just working, making music, and writing fiction. Crazy thing happened, though: my family just left on a two week vacation without me. This is the first time they've done that in...well, ever. So, right now I'm sitting in the living room by myself, after binge watching Legend of Korra, and I'm a little lonely. You don't realize how much you miss talking to your family about things until they're literally not able to talk to you about things.

So, for two weeks, I'm going to be working, writing, making music, and doing the chemistry I should have been doing the last three weeks of September. Hopefully I'll make some progress in all of those areas.

Writing: Clock Strikes Death is finally being read by some critiquers (took long enough) and so I should have some feedback on it soon. Also, I finished To Look Skyward, though it didn't necesarrily turn out how I hoped, and only fueled the fire for a project of mine that's beginning into the outline stage: my NaNoWriMo novel. I decided to write it in the same world as was To Look Skyward, and have those characters be a part of that story. To be honest, since I'm never going to use that short story for anything other than fuel for that story's fire, and I like the title To Look Skyward so much, I'm probably just going to steal that name for the NaNoWriMo novel and scrap TLS Prime entirely. Oh, I've also been in the process of writing a few other short stories that should be finished soon that I'm very excited about, and once I get enough of those, I'll probably release a short little anthology on NoiseTrade (though I'll need to get them proofread and polished up first).

Music: Well, I did actually put one of my songs on YouTube, one I wrote for one of my best friends, Miranda Steiner, for her birthday. You can find that below. (Yes, I know there's buzzing. I don't know what caused it, and it's gone now, so I didn't bother re-recording the entire song). I'm now working on a demo for what is probably my favorite song I've ever written: A Promise To Write. I really like the way it's coming along, and I'm going to get to work on it more tomorrow.

Chemistry: Eh, you don't need to know how far behind I am on that.

Well, that's about all for now, except for one last thing. If you've ever heard of John Maxwell, you'll know what I'm about to talk about. If you haven't, you should, because his speaking is incredible and very inspirational. Well, anyway, he says that everyone should have a Rule of Five. Five things you do every day that will make you successful in what you want to be in life. John's Rule of Five is Think, Ask Questions, Read, File, and Write (those may or may not be in the right order, and there may or may not be an actual right order at all). He challenges others to find their own personal Rule of Five, and to stick with it every day.

This is my personal Rule of Five:

1. Communicate (with God, through prayer and the reading of His Word, and with those that I love).
2. Read (fill myself up with stories, life-lessons, and ideas)
3. Think (think about deep life issues, or story ideas, or the future)
4. Sing (whether with my voice, or with instruments, just create music)
5. Write (whether it be song lyrics, non-fiction, a letter to someone I love, or stories)

Obviously, there are a lot of other important things to do during a day, but those I will undoubtedly do because I have to in life. My Rule of Five is a reminder to me to do important things that I may forget to do, but are also vitally important. As of today, I will be doing these five things every day. Or, at least, I will try very hard to. I want to try, at the very minimum, to do it every day for a year. I've been more or less consistently writing lately, but I could stand to do that better as well, and my other four things.

So, wish me luck. I'm off to change the world, one word at a time.

The Core of All Thought

The purpose of this blog is twofold: 

1. To allow me to write down my thoughts in a journal-esque manner, and to do so much quicker than writing with pen and paper.
2. To be a place to practice writing in its various forms--whether it be about spiritual concepts, stuff going on in the world, the various universes that are contained within my mind (different book ideas, magic systems, and settings), or just about writing itself.

I'm always thinking about things, sometimes to distraction. My parents will tell you this--I often have to return to them two or three times to be reminded of exactly what it was they just told me to do. Although this is obviously not a good thing sometimes, especially when I forget something important, it's really just the way I am. A thinker.

This translates directly into writing. A quote from my favorite author, David Eddings, explains this: "Words are the core of all thought. Without words, there is no thought." Words, at their very essence, are the building blocks of thoughts, ideas, and dreams. With words we capture concepts and whole worlds in the net of our minds. This is how I express myself--through words.

This leads me to the meaning behind the name of this blog. A story does indeed live in all of us, though it is not always told with only words. Even though at their essence, stories are crafted with the building blocks known as words, they are not always expressed with them.

Everyone has a story to tell. And I'm not just saying that everyone is going to or should be a writer--not at all. Rather, I'm saying that everyone has a journey, or a dream, to share or discover.

Once again, I am a thinker. This might sound a little weird, but I tend to think of everything in the terms of stories, even going so far as to try to contemplate the effects of each minor event that occurs. When you come right down to it, everything is made up of stories. Say you are in line at a fast food place. There is someone in front of you. This person might seem ordinary, mundane, just a minor character in your own journey. Though, in your story, they are, the role they play in their own life is incredibly important--in that story, they are the main character. The story revolves around them.

This thought is at once simple and yet immensely vast: everyone has their own personal story. Everything might seem to revolve around you, because to you, it seems as if you are the main character. But everyone else is too. As this thought starts to sink in, think about how that should affect your view of life. Everyone is going through their own problems, many of which are much harder than your own. It kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? What seems so important to you is only a background event to everyone else, and an occurrence that is monumental to that person in line at the fast food restaurant, you don't even give a second glance.

Hmm... that was a tangent. I can already tell that this blog is going to be full of them, but that thought has been nagging at me for a while now... Back to my point, however. Everyone has a journey, or a dream. They are different for each person, and some have both.

A journey is a story within your own life--an experience, good or bad, that changes who you are and where you are going. This is primarily based on reality. Though a person might write about their life experiences later, it doesn't always happen. Many people's personal stories never get "out there". But the story remains, and for those who take the time to learn from it, they can find much of value in each and every person's personal journey.

A dream isn't based on reality, and falls within the realm of writers, artists, and other people who spend far too much time doing what the name implies--dreaming. J.R.R. Tolkien's world of Middle-Earth, and the stories told within, are prime examples of this. This was Tolkien's dream--the story he told, the story that made a mark on the world.

Just as every thought is based on words, every dream is based on stories. The painter is telling a story as he creates an image. A musician is telling a story as he writes a song. A writer is telling a story as he pens the words that will become a part of the library of history.

This is what I wish, first and foremost, to do.

I want to serve my God and Savior, and see my story unfold, page by page, as I follow in His steps. I want my journey to be revolved around Him--and in that, I will see a great masterpiece be uncovered.

I also want to dream. And I want to make that dream into something great. Whether this ends up being with music, words, or both, only time will tell, but a story lives in all of us.

Now is the time to tell that story.