Long time, no update! I really do wish blogging was more in vogue.. I miss reading peoples’ thoughts and feeling a closer web of connectedness, versus the very detached, stlaking-capable facebook. And who has the time to socialize with everyone?? Well, even though I don’t, I’m feeling a strange sensation of senioritis (or fourth year-itis?) kicking in.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about the act of attempting to make a difference versus saying general comments about human incapability. When I was younger, I always said, “We’re really weak as humans. We cannot do anything on our own.” When I encountered a difficult situation, I would think for about 3 hard seconds and then say, “Well, we’re just human. There’s no alternative. We’ll get there someday when we die.”

As I age, I find how important creativity can be. Creativity, more than painting pretty pictures or writing different songs, is about finding another route. A really creative person does not follow a well-trodden route, but rather paves one’s own. In the back of my mind, although I still resonate this sort of insufferable human idea, I don’t want to believe that something is impossible just because I cannot think of an immediate alternative.

In praise team today, we talked about the act of confessing sin, and it got me thinking that a lot of times as Christians, we expect sin and hurt to fill our lives and world, amongst our friends. And this is true, along with grace and forgiveness and all those good, godly things. But I think we leave our imaginations and dreams behind in the dust when we say things like “One day in heaven..” or “When we die and see God..”

I used to love this guy a lot, and I thought back on what drew me to him at first. And I think it was because he shared a vision of a true community of grace– living heaven on earth, being authentic and really relating in such the way Christ has meant us to. He sparked in me this thought that maybe there are alternatives to what we can see before us now, and it doesn’t have to be “when we die.” That Christ might be calling us to usher in the Kingdom and see it in reality right now.

This kind of mentality can be seen as more humanistic, I think. They even have songs on the radio that say, “Ooh heaven is a place on earth.” The idea is that people aren’t really thinking about an afterlife, and because the present is what we have at the moment, we need to make the most of it. Now, while I truly believe earthly pain will cease when we are complete in God, I think Christians can benefit from having a more “present-time” mentality. And, I should get my facts straight before I say this, but I do think God and Jesus care about how we are investing our time now.

So, although there is a lot of pain and hurt and death and disease in this world, I don’t think we should brush off that there could be an alternative from this, and maybe God is calling us to attempt. In praise team, Hyung Woo shared that success is obedience to Jesus, and I think I agree. I really want to be a part of a community of true and godly grace. You know, I was fasting the other day, and I was planning to finish at midnight. I went over to play some cards with some friends, and one of these friends is a genius at cooking and made me this awesome chicken and rice burrito thing. And a minute before my fast was to end, I couldn’t help but just feel so grateful to God for everything that I have: I felt like in that moment, I was feeling a little bit of heaven on earth. Connecting with friends, bringing joy to one another, just basking in what I felt was like commonality and love in the room and ready to enjoy the food I had been deprived of for so long. I also felt this when I went over to talk with my best friend one random night when I was delivering Valentine’s day truffles, and it felt like something deep within me was intermingling and mixing with something deep within her, like our souls were forming into a pool of oneness. Strange analogies, I know.

And it got me thinking that maybe life isn’t about becoming somebody important or accomplishing the mission you set out for yourself, or making a good career, or going through the right milestones at each age. It made me think that maybe life was about this– this feeling of connectedness and thanking the One who made all this possible, this exisiting/living business. Needless to say, I wanted to cry as I ate that burrito, I was so happy.

And it made me happier still to know that even though that moment couldn’t be forever, it was special because it was the present. But I’m perfectly fine with that, because humans need to grow and find different ways of connecting and loving, and I can only thank God for the present that I can have. As Donald Miller wrote in Through Painted Deserts, a human was made to grow and develop, not read the same page over and over again.

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I jammed downtown recently. And this time, I wasn’t doing it for money, although I got the most money I ever have jamming outside.

I think I’ve been stressing myself out so much because I feel this sense of urgency to get my musical career started. A good friend rebuked me on Sunday. Er, he didn’t really rebuke me or at least I don’t think he meant to, but I felt rebuked, corrected. He said, “Don’t let making a cd become your idol.” And it just shocked me, because I think that’s exactly what I was doing. He went on to talk about passions and got really heated, but I became more deflated. I felt really worthless and stupid.
But I think he’s right. I think if God has meant for a person to do something, He opens doors. He makes chances and opportunities, and it shouldn’t be me controlling my own ship of destiny. I was so pressed to scheme of ways to get money so I can record things, but it just made me more anxioius.

I read a book called Bird By Bird by Anne Lamont, and she wrote about how if you’re into writing just so you can get famous, rich, or be somebody, you’re probably going to quit writing after a few years. She said writing is giving– in writing, you’re giving it away, and in giving it away, you’re receiving it. The fulfillment is in the writing itself. I see a strong correlation of this with everything I do, including music. Music shouldn’t be about becoming somebody, famous, or making it big. Would I stop writing songs and singing them in the open even if I was not successful in the common sense of the word? I think I would, because my focus was all whack. But music should be the fulfillment– in making it and playing it, that’s where your joy comes from.

And music that bleeds my life, my love, and my God– oh, that’s just sublime.

So anyway, I think I just want to enjoy life. I want to enjoy the transcendent feeling I have in life right now. I want to keep these lenses of filtering what I’m living to see the true worth and value, and just enjoy it. Enjoy relationships, enjoy people, enjoy good times, enjoy touching moments, enjoy counseling suicidal patients in my psych nursing clinical, and enjoy playing music.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll update about the suicidal patient I connected with later.