fear

I've been a slacker in terms of keeping up with things on stalker space lately... I finished the zone at the end of july. I'm not sure I can honestly put the entire summer into adequate words. I really needed a break from the office grind, and I absolutely love camps. Some day I'm going to own my own camp and just work camps all the time... (and hire people to fill in when I need a vacation).

I left New Mexico on a Friday, went to a bridal shower on Saturday and was back at my new apartment in North Carolina on Sunday... supposed to start work on Tuesday until Monday afternoon I found out I had a work meeting in Williamsburg on Tuesday morning. Another meeting on Wednesday and since I got back, I've spent the last two and a half weeks writing a 52-page football media guide so it can be printed in time for the first football home game. I love my job, but it's definitely keeping me busy.

I have reunited with some old fayettenam friends and met some new people, but it is still a process of getting back into the whole long distance friendship with some others. Life keeps moving so quickly and I don't want to get so caught up in it that I don't have a chance to really live it. Careers, marriage, family, friends... they all take up more space so things get juggled around and hopefully nothing gets neglected.

I stole some wise words, but not particularly related... from Nichole Nordeman from the August CCM...

"Fear is potent and central to our lives... While fear is easy to identify on a global scale and in a time of war, consider the more subtle kinds of fear we breathe in and out all day. Career paths are chosen by our fear of financial instability. Relationships wither and die from a fear of intimacy. Fear of cancer motivates me to pick out certain vegetables in the produce department. Fear of rejection makes me laugh at jokes that are offensive and demeaning. Fear of judgment keeps me from raising important questions about my faith. And I might jeopardize my status as an evangelical, but it astounds me to consider the number of people who continue to enter into a relationship with Jesus because a well-intentioned preacher spent half the sermon hollering about how hot the lake of fire is going to be. And, naturally, people respond... out of fear. I think I got "saved" five different times between the ages of 9 and 13 for the same reason...
'There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear...' 1 Jn 4:18
...Imagine living a life where decisions, both personal and international, were made out of perfect love and not paralyzing fear. Imagine what that would look like to the world to see Christians responding from a place of certainty rather than reacting from a place of panic and damage control."

summer pictures

I haven't had time to do a picture blog so I just put all of my summer pictures on webshots... in case you're interested...

http://community.webshots.com/user/skirbster

summer thinking...

I'm hanging out in new mexico for the next two and a half weeks. We flew in late Sunday night after a couple of weeks in north carolina. I feel a bit like a nomad this summer "running" back and forth between everything.

Some of you probably know I can be a bit organized or perhaps over-organized. I like to know what's going on and know what I'm getting into. I'm not too big on uncertainties... I get nervous and would rather plan ahead. I'm not in a certain, safe, or comfortable time in my life right now. I've had to learn more about rolling with the punches and being flexible with what I've been given. I have met a ton of cool people and despite any drama that myspace might bring, I'm thankful for another avenue to help everyone keep in touch as long as it doesn't take priority in your life... or mine.

Camp is an interesting concept... particularly Christian camps... we all hang out for a weekend or a week and trust each other with some pretty personal information and hopefully grow a little bit and try to uncover some new concepts to go deeper in our relationship with God. It's easy to sound like you have it all together or have some emotional moment committing yourself to Christ... and then you go home... not as easy. I don't ever want to get comfortable here, or even appear like I have it all together when I know I'm just hanging out in this safe haven called camp. I hope students continue to challenge me and stretch me and ask me the tough questions that bring me back to reality. I hope God can use my words to say something worthwhile when all I see is glazed eyes and bored expressions. I'm thankful God is bigger than anything I could even attempt to describe... I pray that I can continue to surrender my life not just today, but every day... especially in the "real world" post-"zone".

Keep digging and hold me accountable...

o canada...

I just got back from my first trip outside of the US... I went all the way to Canada... small steps okay! I went to visit my friend Ciara and in the process I saw some good soccer, met some good people, and tried some good food. I know Canada isn't far and it's not that much different from here... but not all Canadians are exactly full of love for the Americans... and yet we don't have a clue... probably because we're too caught up with ourselves to notice... or care. It was a good week to spend on the other side of the border taking a look at another perspective all while having a mini-SOI reunion four years later.

I tried to post some pictures... hope this works... some of the vancouver sights... including the top brazilian dancer in british columbia... ciara's on the move to take over the crown next year... and listening to some anna begins in honor of the trip soundtrack...

life and loss

Sometimes I'm not the best at putting the thoughts in my head or feelings from my heart into words. In the last two weeks I have lost two friends... neither was a best friend and there is a lot about both that I didn't know and wouldn't claim to, but I miss both of them. One man was 24 and the other was 79... at 24, Gene's death probably created more shock and questions while Mr. Lee at 79 was admired for his long, productive life. Both men were very different, but just the fact that I have to use the past tense shows one too many similarities. Neither loss is any less significant to the people that knew them. I don't have any answers for the why's or any big sweeping gestures to fill the space that has been left behind. I do have hope that the rest of us can live life big enough to make them proud.

On the other end of the loss spectrum... Oprah did a special with Elie Wiesel at Auschwitz today. I don't think any of us can truly comprehend the loss that occurred during the Holocaust. Even bigger than the number of lives lost during the Holocaust (more than 5 million Jews) are the lessons we can take away from the unthinkable tragedy. Wiesel has said "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." Let's not be indifferent. Step up and step out. It is so easy to run our lives with blinders on... naive, ignorant and indifferent to the world around us. We have more to give... we have more to be...

To those who lost their lives
We Remember
To those who survived
We Hear You
To the next generations
We Must Never Forget
- the oprah show

it's about time

I've been anxiously waiting to share... but I just accepted a position at MethCo as the sports info director starting august 1st. Three years ago no one would have believed I would be moving back to Fayettenam (myself included), but time and space away from it all has helped me appreciate it for what it is. The SID position is not the most glamorous job in the world, but after a year of waiting and trying to trust that I would find a job in sports, I might actually be able to put that master's degree to use. I'm excited to get back to MethCo and I'm hoping I can help clean up some things. I have a feeling I'm going to be working a lot, but I still have some friends and family in the NC area and it'll be good to catch up. At the same time I know I'm going to be leaving a lot behind. Despite the living with the parents and the not working in sports and the lack of activity on the shore... I am so glad I came back home after UT... if nothing else then to be in three weddings and meet two new babies. Distance can't take away those memories... and I can't wait for everyone to road trip it to NC now. I've learned a lot about patience and that God's timing is perfect.

In the meantime I'm going to be spending the summer at Ridgecrest, NC and Glorieta, NM working some camps. My last day at Inter-Rail is June 1st and while I'll miss the people and maybe even the safety of it all... I'm excited about what's coming next. I've been sitting for a long time just being comfortable and I'm ready to get up and move.

"It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . . It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to." - Marilyn Ferguson

real to me

Nichole Nordeman has a new radio single from her album Brave called Real to Me... I don't own the record and I didn't gravitate to the song at first... probably a little too bubble gum pop... but then I read her inspiration for the song and I gained a greater appreciation for the meaning behind the song...

"This song was, in the truest sense, an evolution.... I lost track of the number of re-writes, title changes, melody transformations and re-structuring that took place during the writing of it. It started with a series of late night phone calls with my good friend, Jill...which were a rare treat.

Jill started telling me about this tension she'd recognized in her life. There seemed to be this giant disconnect, she'd noticed, between how meaningful and inspirational Christian books/music/Bible study/church services can bebut how irrelevant all that seems in real life. It's like when you walk out of your church on Sunday morning (regardless of how you felt inside) and back into the sameness of your everyday, the genie disappears back into the bottle somehow, or at least that's how it feels. This totally made sense to me. I've even felt that way walking off stage after a concertknowing that God had done something really special in the room, and somehow just wondering if the evening would really change anything or anyone for real. Even worse, some nights I care more about what after-show food will be on the bus than I do about any lasting spiritual impact on anybody. Sorry, the ugly truth.

We talked for hours over the course of several days about how some days we just feel like hollering up to God Listen. I really appreciate all the stuff that's being written, and spoken, and sung about youit's great, really. but just for one minute, could you be really REAL to me? Jill ended up reading these beautiful passages and entire chapters out of Brennan Manning's Lion and the Lamb book to me, until I could locate my own dusty copy, and then we read together. All of these wonderful late night talks, and longings, found their way into this hopeful song. It means a lot to both of us."

Lyrics to Real to Me...
(Nichole Nordeman, Jill Tomalty, Jay Joyce)

Every time I try to find you
Every road comes back around
Just another hoop to jump through
Another mile of covered ground

I am weary of the answers
More theory and cliché
They raise the letter of the law like a banner
Til youre small and far away

All the questions in my head
Are from my heart instead

Be real to me now
Thats all Im asking
Be real to me now

Every scribe and every scholar
No winners in this debate
Everybody seems to stand up taller
When youre easy to explain

I dont need to know what I dont know
Just got to let it go

Be real to me now
Thats all Im asking
Be real somehow
More than anything
More than anything

So lay down the sword
And put away the doctrine
Love a little more, love a little more
Cause everybodys broken