NSYNC

My sister has a very keen sense of smell. That's her sense. When good food, or bad food for that matter, is placed in front of her, the first thing she does is smell it. She trusts her sense of smell to determine all kinds of things, and certain smells jog certain memories.

My sense is sound. Even though I swear that I'm deaf sometimes, nothing brings back memories like certain sounds, whether they be music or buses. Buses make me think of Brazil, music makes me think of the time in my life when I first heard that particular song.

Over Thanksgiving I was driving around Edmond in my old car, the beloved Tercel, listening to my old radio station and I felt like I was in high school again. I heard "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" and almost cried. How 8th grade is that? And sometimes I'll hear "What Would You Do?" by CityHigh, and it makes me think of the best summer of my life: summer between sophomore and junior year. NSYNC's "I Want You Back" reminds me of the summer just before I began the 8th grade, when my family moved to Edmond and I found out what boy bands were. That same summer includes the song "Crush" by Jennifer Paige. Freshman year of high school holds "Bye Bye Bye," for NSYNC's second appearance on my list, and "Hey Ya" will forever remind me of freshman year at ACU in Gardner dorm, where Molly and I would listen to that song every single morning as we got ready for class.

There are certain songs that remind me of certain people in certain places. That "I keep on falling in and out of love with you" song by Alicia Keyes makes me think of a happy little relationship I had in high school, both of us sitting in my car (yay Tercel!) outside of his work. "Breath In" by Frou Frou was the soundtrack to driving around Abilene with Mike sophomore year to find grub costumes. Anything by Jump Little Children or Phoenix makes me think of Mike, to whom I can attribute about 90% of my musical taste. And then there was that time freshman year when a bunch of us drove out to the Anson Lights and Frankie J's "Suga Suga" was playing...that song's for Alex. :)

Whatever your sense is, I hope that it brings back memories as vivid as mine. One of my favorite feelings in the whole world is for a song to come on that holds such significant memories and to be so overcome with joy that you actually feel it. I think I'll go listen to a little NSYNC now...

While that great heaven sits above us

Lately I've been unimpressed with what God has to offer.

I don't know if I'm getting caught up with what I see the world offering to me or I'm just unimpressed. I've been reading Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller's most recent book, which chronicles his "leaving home" journey across the Western half of the United States with his then-acquaintance now-best-friend. Last Saturday, between waking up at 1 pm and taking a nap at 4 pm (I better cherish these days as a college student...) I stumbled across this:

"I tend to think life is about security, that when you have a full year's rent you can rest. I worry about things too much, I worry about whether or not my ideas are right. I worry about whether or not people like me, I worry about whether or not I am going to get married, and then I worry about whether or not my girl will leave me if I do get married. . . and all of it, perhaps, because I bought into Houston, one thousand square miles of concrete and strip malls and megachurches and cineplexes, none of it real. I mean it is there, it is made of matter, but it is all hype. None of the messages are true . . . There doesn't seem to be any science saying any of this stuff matters at all. But it feels like it matters, whatever it is; it feels like we are supposed to be panicking about things. I remember driving down I-45 a few months ago and suddenly realizing the number of signs that were screaming at me, signs wanting me to buy waterbeds, signs wanting me to watch girls take off their clothes, signs wanting me to eat Mexican food. . . And it hit me that, amid the screaming noise, amid the messages that said buy this product and I will be made complete, I could hardly know the life that life was meant to be. Houston makes you feel that life is about panic and the resolution of panic, and nothing more. Nobody stops to question whether they actually need the house and the car and the better job. And because of this there doesn't seem to be any peace, there isn't any serenity. We can't see the stars in Houston anymore, we can't go to the beach without stepping on a Coke bottle, we can't hike in the woods, because there aren't any more woods. We can only panic about the clothes we wear, panic about the car we drive. . .We drive around in a trance, salivating for Starbucks while that great heaven sits above us, and that beautiful sunrise is happening in the desert, and all those mountains out West are collecting snow on the limbs of their pines, and all those leaves are changing colors out East."

I didn't know I was unimpressed with God until last night when I was sitting at Starbucks with Ragan and Andy. Ragan was telling us about a chapter she had read out of a book called 90 Minutes in Heaven. As the three of us talked about heaven and Ragan tried her hardest (bless her sweet little heart) to describe the description of heaven in this book, I became ashamed. I realized that I'm waiting for God to prove He is worth it to me. Someone came up to talk to Andy and he said "Hold on man. I'm in the middle of hearing a really intense story and there is nothing I'd rather be hearing right now." How often has the Lord tried to speak to me, tried to reveal little snippets of His glory to me, and in response I have I rolled my eyes and turned away to talk to someone else? Andy hit it right on: There should be nothing I'd rather be hearing right now.

How much have I missed out on by becoming consumed with everything that has nothing to do with God? How much has my skepticism that God really can do anything, really can reveal himself to me, really can answer my prayers, limited my ability to receive Him?

I am unimpressed with God, and it's my own skepticism that limits His power to work in my life.

Irony

You know it's funny. I created this account last year when my good friend Justin Scott was running for Student's Association president. His opponent had created a campaign blog to discuss "issues" of the race and platforms of his campaign. Well, nothing he said made sense, so my sarcastic nature got the best of me and I found my fingers itching to post a comment. With no intention to ever use this as a real blog, I titled it "confused voter" and left my comments for the opponent. Little did I know how apropos that title would become when I outgrew Xanga and finally succumbed to the blogger world.

This might be a bit drastic for my first post, but ever since a long talk with a good friend last night I can't really think about anything else. Maybe a big girl blog will help me get out my ideas that I feel I can't really talk about with many of my friends, for reasons you'll understand right...now:

Did Texas really pass an amendment to their state constitution that prevents the institution of marriage from including any type of relationship other than one between a man and a woman? Really? Let me first say that in no way do I "condone" homosexuality. I believe the Bible just like you do, I believe God intended marriage for a man and a woman and He intended sex to be between a man and a woman, within the context of marriage. But right now I'm feeling that maybe I understand the Bible a little differently than a lot of my "vote yes to the amendment!" peers. When Jesus came to seek and save the lost, he never mentioned coming to "seek, save, and make laws to hurt the lost." If we are to emulate Christ, and Christ came to love everyone, all of us, all of us who are sinners, how does creating a law that prohibits two people who love each other from lawfully making a lifelong commitment to each other show them the love of Christ? I'm not advocating gay marriage. I'm not implying that Christ would support gay marriage. I don't believe that at all. I'm questioning whether or not voting for such an amendment even remotely resembles what Christ calls us to do: Love.

I hear often that gay marriage destroys the family. Hmm...I could have sworn that it's divorce that destroys families. A heterosexual boy and a heterosexual girl can stupidly but legally get married at the age of 18 without giving the seriousness of marriage much thought, have a child, then divorce three years later. That's all legal. But a homosexual man and a homosexual man commit to be together for a lifetime, perhaps adopt an unwanted child, and remain in a monogomous relationship for the rest of their lives, while giving that child a "family" who loves him and supports him, and we are up in arms, disgusted with such an idea, trying to pass leglislation to make sure that doesn't happen. Wow. Is that backwards?

I don't have answers, and I hope I don't claim to. But I do have a Bible. And last time I read it, it told me to love my neighbor as myself. It told me to put on love over all other virtues, because love binds them all together in perfect unity. It told me to love each other deeply. It told me not to love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.

I get the feeling sometimes that God sees all of us like chickens running around with our heads cut off, thinking we know what we're doing and where we're going but really we just make fools of ourselves. He sees us promoting such amendments from the pulpit and in church bulletins. I see Him maybe shaking His head, saying "You don't even get it, do you?" On issues like this, I think we've made a mockery of what Jesus was trying to teach us.

I'm not a Texas resident and am therefore not registered to vote in Texas. Thank goodness. How is a Christian supposed to vote on issues like these? Either you vote to actively maintain what you think God's intentions for marriage are, or you vote to actively maintain the love of Christ. Yeah, I get that it's weird to pit those two against each other. But maybe we should give this whole idea a little more thought before we vote to amend constitutions.

So I've come pretty far around the circle, (I don't think I can call an ACU election and a state election a full circle quite yet) questioning Justin's opponent to questioning amendments against gay marriage. Told you I was a confused voter...