Summer of 2008

I used to watch things like VH1 Behind the Music and hear them talk about how there was never a summer like the summer of 1968, or the summer of love or other shows that would mention the summer of (insert year). And I used to wonder what it would be like to refer to a summer in my own life as the summer of whatever and look back at with nostalgia.

In reality, looking back, God has blessed me with multiple summers that fit that description. The summer of '05 was a magical summer after I graduated, where I didn't have a job, but lived quite well on graduation money, and hung out with friends playing disc golf and video games till 4 in the morning every night. The summer of '04 had me going straight from the most impacting IMPACT of my life to Honors Symposium to our mission trip at LIFT. The summer of '06 was incredible with my first internship at Central COC. Last year was equally incredible.

This year, the summer of '08 is only halfway over, and it may already be the most phenomenal summer of my life. I have been so happy these past several weeks and God has blessed me with so much. I feel like I'm going to tell my grandkids about the summer of '08. Here I am, 21 years old and in the prime of life, in the exact place that God wants me to be this summer, and just getting a chance to soak everything in. Here are some things just off the top of my head in no particular order:

• I am getting the chance to do some REAL REAL ministry here. God has blessed a lot of relationships here to allow for some deep discussion and his Spirit is really alive and active in this place.
• IMPACT was amazing this year! We had 15 Junior High students decide to get baptized and the theme of "Day of Reckoning" really got us as a group to look at things with an eternal lens. It was such a blessing to go on that journey with our teens.
• The weather has been beautiful this summer. Maybe global warming has just made me more used to heat, but the temperature has been very comfortable and almost every day as I go over the mountain from church to Hampton Cove I see beautiful sunsets, clouds, sky, trees. I don't know if I've just been in a very Emerson/Thoreau mood lately, but I am just in love with nature right now. The day I got back from Impact I went hiking for 4 hours on this awesome trail where I didn't see anyone the entire time. It was awesome!
  
• The new Coldplay cd is amazing!!! Every song is awesome. You can tell that they just wanted to get very creative instrumentally and lyrically and try a bunch of new things. It reminds me of when the Beatles realized they were so good that they could just go crazy and wild and got creative with Sgt. Pepper's and The White Album.
  
• The Boston Celtics just won the championship in a very fun season of the NBA, capped off by an old school Lakers/Celtics series. I used to always watch the old 80's Lakers Celtics series flashbacks on ESPN with Magic and Bird and always wish I could see one in my own lifetime. Plus I'm really glad that KG and Pierce finally got a championship.
  
• My boy Obama is the nominee, and I'm getting to watch the beginnings of a great debate between McCain and him. I have a lot of respect for both candidates and it is so refreshing to see two solid and honest candidates have a real debate on the issues. I feel so excited and un-cynical about politics right now, and I just have so much hope for things. Of course, that could all go down the tube, but it's nice every once in a while to throw cynicism down and just believe and hope for a change.
  
• Wall-E is probably my favorite movie of the summer so far! It was so smart and funny and had a lot of great messages (My favorite quote: "I'm tired of surviving. I want to live!"). Get Smart was ok and Price Caspian was pretty good. Everything else that I was excited about got bad reviews, but I can't wait for the Dark Knight!
  
• I am getting to share this summer with 3 other fantastic interns, and 3 great Youth Ministers. It is so great to come to work each day with people you love and enjoy. I have laughed so much and had so much fun with Barrie, April and Heath. And they've been a great support and encouragement to me as well. They've helped me out so much and have even been a shoulder to cry on at times. I have idealistic hopes that this isn't the end of our ministry together. I could honestly see Heath and I doing mission work together or something crazy like that.
• There have been some times when I've felt physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted, burdened, and poured out. But I have been continually filled and renewed by the Spirit. It has been great to continue my maturation and walk in Christ and feel the closeness I was hoping for last semester. I hope and pray that I can continue this closeness into the next school year.
• This past Wednesday our theme was Broadcast Generosity and so this week we're getting our community and serving. One group is going under bridges and feeding the homeless, my group painted at a Rescue Mission, and others are doing a lot of other cool things. It's cool getting to see God working here in the same way I've seen him work in Searcy and elsewhere.
• I just love my kids here! I feel like I have so many little brothers and sisters and I see God working in them so much.

Anyways, I'm tired and I've been rambling a lot this post. Basically, this has been a wonderful summer so far. I just want to write a song about it or something, but a blog post will have to do for now. Don't you just love summers?

Living World Religions Field Trip-Day Two

Today was incredible, but exhausting. So I'm going to have to brief in my explanations of the day, so I can go to sleep, because we have another big day tomorrow.

We headed out for the Hindu Temple at 8:15 this morning. On the way I had one of my most profound religious moments of the trip when I saw Texas Stadium, home of my Dallas Cowboys, for the first time in my life. I almost cried it was so glorious, though a little ugly.

The Hindu Temple was fascinating. We looked at all their statues to Vishnu, Ganesh, and many other gods and watched an offering to one of the gods. Then we listened to some explanations of Hinduism from some of the members of the temple. One of my favorite quotes from them was, "Once you learn to treat every person like there is a part of God in each of them, then you really don't need much religion after that." We also examined many of their saints and enjoyed some conversation with them.

From there we headed to the mall's food court for lunch and then headed to a Zen meditation center. This turned out to be just a regular house that they happened to put a bunch of mats in the living room. There we learned about meditation and how to properly perform it. Then we practiced for about 7 minutes. The basic tenants of Zen are pretty cool. They teach about being in the moment and being conscious and aware of everything you do. They gave the example of how we wash the dishes so we can then put them up and then move on to another chore so that we can do something else, while all the while our mind is elsewhere. They said that under Zen you wash the dishes simply to wash the dishes and are in the moment and just thinking about washing the dishes. During meditation we were just supposed to be semi-focused on the wall and try to clear our mind. Our guide told us it was impossible just to force yourself to stop thinking, so she gave us the metaphor of us being a mountain and thoughts are just clouds passing by that mountain. We were just to realize that those thoughts would just pass us by and we didn't have to force them away. Our guide gave us the option of just counting to ten over and over in our heads or saying a spiritual word over and over (I just kept repeating "Jesus") It was a neat experience, though difficult for me because I have bad posture. After that we did walking meditation, which was basically the same thing except you are walking around, and trying to just focus on taking one step at a time. This was a lot easier for me to concentrate on and I really enjoyed it (although it did last a little long and we were just doing circles in the backyard).

Meditation is a spiritual discipline that we Christians tend to neglect, but is however a very important one. Although Foster's Celebration of Disciplines discusses how Christian meditation is different from eastern meditations that try to empty the mind, while we try to empty ourselves but fill ourselves with Christ. I also liked the aspect of Zen where you simply try to stay in the moment and devote yourself to the here and now. Paul says "we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5) and 'whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17).

From there we went to a Bhuddist Soka Gakkai center. There we listened to the recitation of their chants which was really cool. It was weird because the members were mostly white hippies, and their beliefs were a lot different from traditional Bhuddism. I liked that they were really into world peace and ending suffering around the world. But they were basically a self-help group that believed by chanting the phrase "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" you could release the power within to reach a higher consciousness. The leader seemed to not have a lot of depth in his faith and kept saying we were asking "really tough questions" even though they weren't that tough. I was more interested in talking to the Japanese immigrants who were sitting behind us who were beautiful singers (chanters?) and really cool ladies.

Then we headed to a Sikh temple. We took off our shoes and sat down and listened to a long lecture on Sikhism, before enjoying some of the Sikh's hospitality and food. I love Indian type food, and this stuff was great (and full of curry....yum!). Then we listened to another lecture, but also got to listen to hymns and ceremonies and prayers to their holy book. Coleman even got to fan the book, which was hilarious. Then we watched as they put the book to bed and tucked it in as they said, "Goodnight teacher, we will see what you have to teach us tomorrow." Then the Sikh's served us even more dinner and we got to talk and meet a lot of cool people at the temple, who were super nice (definitely my favorite people of the day).

We then went back to the hotel and had some great worship time to God, and had some time to process everything we had seen today.

So yeah, I'm exhausted and a little overwhelmed with everything I've seen today. I need some more time before I can actually process everything I've seen. But, I'm going to bed for now. God bless!

Living World Religions Field Trip-Day 1

I'm currently sitting in a hotel here in Dallas, Texas on our Living World Religions field trip. Being on a charter bus turned a 6 hour drive into a 7 1/2 hour drive, but it was all good. Today is just a get there day and then we start our religion-ing tomorrow. We're going to a Hindu, Sokko Gakkai (a form of Bhuddism) temple, a Zen Temple, and a Siek temple tomorrow. It should be lots of fun.

I'll try to keep you all updated. I'm exhausted tonight, and there's not really anything left to write about. Lata.

I'm A Sell Out.....

So, I guess I didn't get the memo that the writer's strike was over. I looked and I saw that I had only one post in the month of March.......lame.....I'll try to do better in April. It's been a crazy month with tons of stuff going on, papers, tests, midterms, sermons, and just not really in the mood to write any more than I had to for school. Oh well. Anyways, on to the real post.

So, I was filling out my Bible scholarship yesterday and the blank came up for Religion. For these things I usually just put "Christian." I say that on facebook or when people ask me at jail or anywhere else. I've always attended a Church of Christ, but that's not my religion and I don't really have any allegiance to that denomination. My religion and allegiance are to Jesus and that's all. In fact, a few of us are thinking about visiting the Episcopal church in our neighborhood we've been working with, because a lot of the people that we've met there attend it and it's more involved in that community.

However, I've heard rumors around that we don't give as much out in scholarship money for people who don't put "Church of Christ" in the religion blank. I'm pretty sure this is not true and is just a rumor.....but I did not want to take that chance. So, after thinking about it for 5 seconds I slapped the "Church of Christ" tag on there and turned the form in.

I guess I could just say that I meant Church of Christ in the broad universal sense of the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the past 2000 years.......but I didn't. I wanted to make sure I got every dollar I could possibly get and so I sold myself out. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of a lot of aspects of my Church of Christ heritage, and I imagine the Church of Christ will be an important part of my future. But, I'm more proud of my savior Jesus Christ and want to be known only as a follower of Christ, not a follower of any particular denomination (although it may claim to be non-denominational).

So I feel a little guilty today. I know I'm being pretty dramatic about this, and it isn't really that big of a deal. I know I didn't really "sell out" my religion or back down to the "man" or anything. I just feel that I wasn't totally honest with where the center of my life and religion is. I just hope that next time someone asks me my religion I can faithfully say, "I follow Jesus Christ" and that's it.

Bracketology

Well, it's that time of year again. Let me get into my inner Dick Vitale for this:

IT'S MARCH MADNESS BABY!!!!

For the next 3 weeks, I will get to watch one of my favorite annual sports events. This year is even more fun with UT actually having a legitimate shot at the title. But one of my favorite parts of march madness has been going on all week. That's right....filling out my bracket. For years, this has been one of my favorite things to do.

Here's the catch: I'm terrible at it! I have never won a bracket competition, I usually get beat by a girl, and often I am toward the bottom of my groups. That's the thing....you do research, look at bracket trends (there's always at least one #12-#5 upset) and check what the experts say, and then you get beat by the girl who just picks the highest seed for every game. The whole thing is a total crapshoot. Last year I went upset-heavy in my bracket and the bigger seeds dominated. The year before that I had less upsets, and teams like George Mason rocked the house. Plus, even the biggest NCAA fans can't know everything there is to know about the 65 teams in the tournament. I didn't even know San Diego had a basketball team, but I know that I'm picking them to upset UConn. That's the thing about this game.....you just never know.

This year was very difficult to pick, with no clear dominant team. Plus, I have biases still working against me. I have to pick UT to go all the way, there's no way around it. If I picked against them and they won, I would never forgive myself. Last year I picked Kansas to go all the way, and they got beat early and destroyed my bracket. But, this year they have a good team again, and I don't know if I should just forget about last year or make sure I don't get caught by the same trap again. (I've switched my pick on the Kansas/Clemson sweet 16 game 4 times now).

So, here was my strategy for this year: I did more research than ever, I checked out who's entering the tournament with momentum and who slipped their way in (Andy Katz's hot/not list), checked experts from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and CBS, looked at each matchup carefully, tried to avoid cute upsets, avoided biases except for UT, had a very good reason for picking upsets supported by other experts, and tried to pick safe teams for going into later rounds (no 7 seeds in the final four this year).

So my final four: UT, Georgetown, UCLA, Texas
Championship: UT over UCLA

Big Upsets: George Mason over Notre Dame, St. Joeseph's over Oklahoma, Davidson over Gonzaga, USC over Wisconsin (Round 2), Arizona over West Virginia, San Diego over UConn,

(I toyed with Pitt over Memphis in the Sweet 16. Should I go for it? I don't know. I still have till 11:00 tomorrow to change it up).

Well, there you go. I probably wouldn't listen to me, because like I said, I'm going to lose. But, I'll be watching as much as I can. (*Dick Vitale voice*: It's March Madness baby! You gotta love it!)

Back to the Port of Kings

Hey guys! I just wanted to let everyone know that I am coming back home to Kingsport in two days! I'm really excited since this will be my first college spring break spent at home (no Florida or Nicaragua this time). Some things I'm looking forward to:

• Our booth at Waffle House! If I'm there at the middle booth by the window, then I know there is much merriment going on. Plus I miss my K-town waitresses. The Searcy waitresses are always so grumpy.
  
• Frisbee golf! I'm ready to get back in the game!
• Relaxing at home with the Mom and eating good home cooking and sleeping late and just having an awesome time.
• Seeing my gang again and having lots of laughter and fun
• That sweet Eastman air!
• Renewing the ping pong rivalry between Wes and me. 84-82 baby!
• A million other little things that just make home so great!

Can't wait till Friday! Love yall! God bless!

The Sports Desert of February

A lot of people I know say that February is the worst month of the year. They say it's cold, monotonous, and has a lack of any excitement. I have a dislike of February for a different reason:

There are no sports in February!!

Football ends in late January/early February and I'm usually a bit grumpy at how my teams did in the playoffs, if indeed they made the playoffs (this year was no exception). Baseball is still 6 weeks away. The NBA doesn't matter till June. And college basketball usually doesn't get exciting till late February/early March. I haven't even watched Around the Horn/PTI when I get the chance, because there's nothing really interesting to hear about except depressing steroid stories or coaching changes.

I usually have to fill this time just by looking at the Astros or Red Sox rosters and waiting for spring. This year I've made politics my sporting event and have treated the primaries like an NFL season (which probably isn't a good comparison.....since politics actually affects people's lives). But today, my sports famine of February finally found some food.

This afternoon I got to go to the Harding-Henderson State basketball game. HSU is our biggest rivals and the game was nationally televised on CSS. We had to get tickets beforehand, and it was sold out and totally packed. The crowd was on fire and I felt like I had gotten out of a rock concert when I left (even Dr. Burks painted up). We totally dominated the game in the second half and ended up winning by 17. There really is just no comparison to the Rhodes Rowdies here at Harding. Every game you go to is an event, and you never know how pumped up the crowd is going to get.





The next awesome thing to make this a doubly-fantastic sports day was the match-up between #1 Memphis and #2 Tennessee. I can't remember UT basketball ever having a team that was near as good as this one (men's basketball that is), or there ever being a bigger regular season game than this one. The game did not disappoint as it went back and forth and came down to the wire. But in the end, thanks to a Tyler Smith turnaround J, UT came out the victor and can now claim the #1 spot in the country. I can't believe I'm saying that! UT is #1 in the country! Way to go Rocky Top!

I can't say how much I love this team. Last year's team was carried by my boy Chris Lofton. This year there are so many playmakers, we don't need to be carried by any one player. At any time Jajuan Smith, Tyler Smith, Ramar Smith, J.P. Prince, Wayne Chism, Lofton, and a great bench can come alive and dominate. We have great team chemistry, fantastic defense, decent rebounding, great outside shooting, and great dribbling penetration. Like I said.....I love this team!

So, for the next several weeks I will be fully immersed in college basketball. Sports are back. The famine is over. Thank goodness....February was getting rough.