Boston
- Augustana
I keep sitting down trying to write.
Mostly about Child abuse. It’s not as funny on paper as it is with voice
inflection or the occasional song from Annie. Today I thought about a movie.
Sometimes movies have stories that remind me of my own life, but mostly when
they are about awkward boys who fall in love with awkward girls. Sometimes when
the movies are about superheroes they also remind me of my life. In an inverse
way, like the way seeing a car reminds me I don’t actually drive. Today I
thought about a movie that I watched in Texas about a year and a half ago, it
was sad. Everyone died. Well really only one character, but he was kinda the
whole she-bang. It was called Into the Wild. Sometimes when I watch a movie I
get absorbed into it and connect with everything. Every scene of romance
reminds me of memories and kisses and cats that bite the skull, every scene of
victory reminds me of those precious moments in life where I succeed. Normally
at Halo but occasionally at something like falling down stairs.
During these films I invest myself
into the world of the characters, I escape and become them, memories line up
like little sailors and wave huzzah while looking for friends in the movie.
When life is fun and dandy, a movie is quite the escape. When life is hard and
people stop talking to me and I sweat all day and sometimes my bike tire goes
flat, well then a movie can be quite an immense form of torture. Every moment
aligns with a memory, much like songs with nice lyrics, and Ice Cream places
like Coldstone. They call out from the past and invade the present. Today I
thought about Into the Wild. In it, a bright young lad named Alexander
Supertramp or possibly Christopher, decides to leave everything and wander. He
wanders around and around. I haven’t seen the movie since I watched it about a
year and a half ago on a white sofa that was kind of uncomfortable to sleep on.
The whole movie came over me like a wave. It’s about that eternal search for
something different, for purpose, and how sometimes in our best meaning ways we
run from what is really important. After traveling the United States, Alex
makes it too Alaska as a wandering Vagrant. There he discovers the meaning of
his life, he understands everything, and then promptly dies.
Eddie
Vedder - Society
It’s a bit like winning the lottery
and getting hit by a car although that is cliché’. It’s more like finding out
you were wrong all along and then dying sadly in the woods clutching that
answer, perhaps with a bus as well. What makes it even sadder is the story is
based on a true story. I don’t know what that means. I say stuff all the time
that is based on a true story but occasionally unicorns get involved and in the
muddled mess it perhaps lends itself to be less believable. Today I thought
about Into the Wild, and Eddie Vedder. I don’t know what he looks like, but his
song Society is quite musically pleasing to my ear canals.
After I watched that movie I hugged my
best friend and we cried. He cried. I cried. It was a strange and tender moment
as we both knew that I was going Into the Wild. It was the night before I would
leave on my own journey. Although it did get delayed a few months, which made
the somewhat infinite purpose of that night seem more emotional and dull then
it should be. We talked though about this trip. I would leave friend and
family, searching for a lot of things. Healing. Ministry. Jesus. I would leave
behind more than I can say without going back to my base instinct of tearing up
and feeling feminine. When I am really a man. A man who cries though. At that
moment we both knew I wouldn’t come back the same, he wouldn’t come back the
same, our whole world would change.
It did.
That night was one of those moments
where I knew I couldn’t turn back, I ate pizza rolls and animal crackers
covered in sticky frosting and wept. The stale pizza smell of a bachelors pad
with tears and sweat is quite the combination.
Our whole world changed.
I found out strange things about
myself, like I really like Curious George and California even though sometimes
I tell people I don’t. I found out I love America. I had always thought I hated
the land of the free. I know that is unpatriotic, so I am probably off of the
watch-list because unpatriotic behavior is acceptable in America, but now I am
on it cause I really like America. I think that is where I belong sometimes. I
know I’m not supposed to say that. But I did. I really developed a compassion
for my own people. Strange I know. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of it, I
know a Mexican from Colorado who had a similar experience in Uganda.
That was the start of a strange
journey. I have now come to the end of myself. A mumble mumble friend of mine
prayed that this year would be the most healing time in my life. For about 9
months that didn’t seem to be so. I had lost a lot, been hurt a lot, kicked out
of houses, and I also was really bad at Jenga. Yet… In an ironic twist of fate.
I only say ironic cause it’s what people say when this stuff happens. Really I
just think God is a funny God. He’s hilarious. He healed me with the deepest
wound I could have never asked for. My father figure passed away, yet I found
the grace to move on and heal. I found the grace to ultimately allow God to
bestow masculinity on me when I thought that was the job of someone I would
never find. I lost friends that I thought I would have forever. Three months
ago my own filth and trouble confronted me. I had become bitter, arrogant, and
ultimately had refused to let God heal me from a wound struck against me two
years ago. Getting into that wound was the first piece of an indescribable
process. Two months ago, I was brought to my knees and there found a strength
in Christ that has me giggling like a school girl. And sometimes I also feel
like Eyore. I also can’t spell the name of most fictional donkeys, except for
the one from Shrek, Donkey. In all this God has restored me, made me myself
once again. It’s so sad to see the wreckage that I made of my life by living
out a false self. I was fearful, timid, passive, and jaded.
Lifted
Me Out – Chris Tomlin
Most missionaries aren’t supposed to
be those qualities. I think this is right. Yet I was and yet God still used me.
That was nice. It’s good to know God takes weak little boys and lets them do
man things. Like use hammers and tell people about there eternal destiny. So I
am a new man these days. Maybe not even knew, maybe I am just who I was before
I was wounded. The irony was God had to wound me in the same place I had been
wounded before. It’s ironic except I guess we break jaws to make them beautiful
sometimes so it makes sense if you’ve ever drank food out of a straw for six
weeks. Today I walked into a thunder storm and asked God in my head to show me
His wonder. I asked Him to show me He is big. I think before I would rather
just think He is big and never really get shown that, cause it’s kind of scary
and when I was twelve my Mickey Mouse lamp exploded and electrocuted me.
So what do you do with your life when
you finally look at yourself two years later and say, “Aha! I got it!”? I kind
of hope I don’t have to die in a bus eating berries. That is hard. Yet it is
not unreasonable. I have learned to live with silence, extreme isolation,
illiteracy, food I can’t really understand, and few friends on a Saturday
night. I have learned so much, overcame things that once held me back. It feels
good. It feels nice to look at the scale and see it says 95 KG instead of 112
KG. I didn’t even have to eat only subway like Jared did.
For me I guess I have lived the life
of Alexander Supertramp. I ran 12,000 miles away from home. I explored, lead
people to Jesus, and now I have finally seen my lesson. I have cut it into the
wooden board above my cabin. I have learned my name. It isn’t such a big name,
and perhaps I still have nicknames left, but I have learned who I am. I have
learned I am a man, a good man, a man of God. I have learned that despite my
failures, insecurities, and stubbornness that God gave me a new life, spirit,
and sees me as His son. It’s pretty nice to know that I can probably play catch
with Him.
It cost me my own heart to get it
back. It cost my life to gain. I lost everything. Yet in that everything was
found. I stand here at the end of myself, wondering if there is anything left.
God is funny. Maybe He will do more funny stuff. Doesn’t matter though, the
fact is I am ready for life, excited, and I have another challenge left. One
more test of integrity, grace, and growth. Now I’m asking myself, not what do I
need to do, but what makes me come alive.
