I am done making plans for the future. Seriously, I give up.

Today is just not my day.

Abuse

I HAVE TOO MANY LIFE DECISIONS TO MAKE.

I am avoiding facing this fact. I am avoiding making decisions. I am avoiding thinking.

Thank you, Zoloft. I know I don't say this often enough (or ever), but I appreciate your patience with the gymnastic spasms of my brain. Perhaps, if taken in great enough quantities, you will enable me to avoid thinking about what it's like to be a grown-up.

Hopefully forever.

I have a sexy new computer that mom and dad helped me buy for Christmas. It is a Mac. I feel like someone designed this computer with me in mind...iCal? StickieNotes? NOTEBOOK WORD DOC FORMAT? I can do ANYTHING on this computer. Seriously. It's awesome.

Allow me to pause for a moment of sacrilege: this computer is so perfect for me it's almost it was created in the image of my brain. LIKE I WAS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD.

Unfortunately my late obsession with said computer means that I am developing carpal-tunnel like symptoms in my wrists. They ache every time I type (admission of stupidity: I recognize I am an agent of problem perpetuation. Blogger.com can also be indicted). I can't help it. This Mac means THAT THE WORLD IS AT MY FINGERTIPS.It's like owning the best dog ever - it's so faithful and  eager to please me. I think it must be generating all of these surprises (like multi-screen) just for my personal delight.How can I deny that which fulfills my personal needs so readily?

Answer: I don't. I allow it to ravage me, all thanks from the tendons in my wrist aside. My hand could literally scream at me in agony and I would still muster the courage to use the nifty, two-finger scroll. bbc.co.uk? Boom. Scroll, top news, done. Facebook? Oh hello, Jordan. You have five new messages. All of them will load for you in a timely manner. Appstate.edu? Oh, you want to download something homework related? Allow me to save that for you in a convenient file that you will always be able to find.

Yes. Awesome. Delicious.

Yes. Awesome. I did have coffee a couple of hours ago. A large, actually. I can feel it zip zip zipping around my brain and inside my fingers.

I am going to go watch J. Biz play intramural basketball. He wanted me to be the assistant coach with a fellow resident. I said no - she cussed the ref out last time they had a game and they got a technical. I am afraid of her. I am going to sit by the court and clap politely.

If he makes  a basket he better point at me a blow me a kiss. He knows this. If he wants to be an NBA star someday, I need to be groomed to play the part as well.

For My Dad

I can remember how much

bigger you were when I was small
and the way your fingers would
swallow my hand when we walked.
It was hard to keep up

with your long, leggy stride.

Your mustache was trimmed to perfection,
and one time while you were shaving

in the bathroom I saw you cry.

The radio was playing a song about

how little girls have to grow up, and I watched

the hairs in the sink spread where tears fell.

Once a month you had to go away for your job.
If it was summer time, Mom and I came too,

and while you were at work I would play.

I scraped knees climbing cannon ball statues
and running through the Pineapple Fountain
in Battery Park.

Once a year we ate hotdogs

with other families whose dads were in your unit.
You loved convincing me to sing
“I’m Proud to be an American”
for the other basemen – it wasn’t hard;

I always liked receiving your attention.

During the school year when mom had to work,
we couldn’t come to Charleston with you.
You used your absence as an excuse
to expand your childhood Hot Wheels collection
(I can remember how you were disappointed

when I asked for Barbie clothes instead).

When you brought me cars anyway,

you did make sure to pick out colors
little girls were supposed to like.
My favorite was the hot-pink Monster Truck,

from that time you took me to a show and made me

wear your over-sized ear protectors from the shooting range.

One day when I was seven,

Remington and I left our toys in the drive-way.

The Blazer, oblivious to our belongings,
crunched them into the gravel.

I could not reassemble my truck;
it was a broken mess of bright plastic and metal.

Things are different now.

While you shine your gun collection
I plot ways to send it toward space,
where pressure could cause bullets to burst.
Then the heat of the atmosphere

could burn them to bits as they fell.

I do not understand

your commitment to protecting Our Way of Life

with war. You would die for our country.

I would die if only for a pocket of peace,

even if that place was not in the United States.

These are the thoughts that are keeping me awake.

Sometimes in these moments, when I can’t rest at night,
I'll steal a pillow from your bed like I did when

you left home and I couldn't come with you.
The lingering smells of bar soap and softened grease,

WD-40 and plane exhaust,

can still lull me to sleep.

Now that I am grown up,

I don't always agree with you and sometimes

we argue. I know we can't always understand each other,

but you are part of why I am who I am.

Thank you for still loving me and for letting me be

the reason you cried over the bathroom sink.

In Search of Christianity and Authentic Love.

Life at ASU has been so crazy lately that it's been hard to keep up. Things are going really well; I'm involved, I am making new friends, I am trying so many new things. I am beginning to feel like an adult. I turn 21 in a little over 2 weeks. I begin a new R.A. position tomorrow. I'm finally actually picking up guitar. 

Everything has been going so perfectly, it's become too easy for me to center my life around things outside of Christ. And while it makes me feel good about "me", it hasn't really made me feel that great about anything else. 

I have this problem. I want to make everyone I like happy, I want everyone to respect me, I want to be taken seriously, I don't want to be a joke. I don't want people assume things about me that aren't true. I think that I sometimes downplay who I am and what I believe because I don't want to be lumped with the crazies....scratch that. I know I do.

I think one of the most beautiful (and frustrating) things about the way God has been shaping me over the past two decades is that I am always stuck in the middle. I don't have a place I "belong". I love my home and my family, but my ideologies no longer reflect the ones that typically characterize my hometown. I love my school and my friends, but there will always be a part of me that will never be able to understand why and how they operate the way they do. At home I get raised eyebrows and teased and labeled liberal because of what I am passionate about. Or just strange looks. At school, most people who find out I am a Christian assume that I am bigoted and Republican, or that I burn Korans in my free time.

I am president of Peace Club. Of the active members, I am one of two Christians. On one hand, that's great. It is wonderful to be able to interact with people with whom I can have interesting debates and stimulating conversations, especially when they are also passionate about peace. 

On the other hand, it's completely heart-breaking. And what's even more heart-breaking is that  people on campus who openly label themselves as Christ-followers respond with ridiculous statements like, "Christ could be violent too, you know," when I ask them if they are interested in helping Peace Club plan events. 

I know that I am not alone in my passion for peace and mercy and justice in the name of Christ, but at a secular school it's really hard not to feel that way sometimes. I keep waiting to meet people on campus who are in the same boat as myself. There are 15,000 students here....

Where is the Church? Where is the Church?

Where is the Church??

Skin

As my flesh wakes I
slip out of mind and into you,
oh  fragile sleeve - you
who sweetly surrender to curve
of muscle and bone.

Your tight fibers that wind around
my eyes and loose lips,
the cracks of my stiffened fingers,
gently stretch themselves
over broken veins and bad joints.

Tenderly you hold
the memories and mishaps of

trips, rips, risen scars;

to you they are bound.

You forgive, and mend to forget.

How quickly you yield

to make room for my harsh requests,

to take on demands.

Modeling generosity,

you never complain.

When summer comes your pigment blooms,

and peeling valleys, 

filled with freckle-dust, paper your

creases with sand-shaves.

Your folds never discriminate.

You have given much,
merciful membrane, that the whole
of life incarnate
should choose you as Love's pure vessel,
Divine sack for grace.

Solid sheet-wrap of timorous

flesh, you caress my

quiet thoughts so tenderly.
Dear skin, you are the
earth, sky and muddy water who
make their home my own.

Blackbird Singin' in the Dead of Night

I suppose I could apologize for not updating recently, but to do so would mean that I am going to have to apologize every time I blog. And I don't want to have to apologize for whatever I'm not obligated to do...this should be enjoyable, not aggravating. So from now on, no more apologies in regards to my sporadic posting...I will just post when I can/feel like it/etc.

A couple of weeks ago I had my nose pierced. It has been a bit swollen lately and today the ring fell out entirely. I tried unsuccessfully to put it back in for over an hour, but to no avail. The good news is I am developing an immunity to blood and light injuries. The first time I tried to put the ring back in I almost passed out, but that didn't happen when I tried again later. I have yet to decide whether or not I will re-pierce - I did like it, but I don't want to risk infection. It also made my nose itch terribly, and I like being able to scratch without wincing (of course I'm sure after it healed it wouldn't be painful). At any rate, I need to at least let my nose heal completely...it's going to be a month or so, at least.

Today I realized that every person I have ever dated is in a relationship. I have been reminding myself that being single right now is good for me, that I am getting a lot accomplished by not having to worry about a relationship, that it would just be a distraction and it would get in the way. All of these things are true, but it still doesn't completely eradicate the twinge of loneliness that invariably creeps around when I am with others who are dating. It's especially depressing when I see people I used to care about romantically in happy relationships. It's easy to tell myself that I need to be content without all of these peripheral things, but that doesn't change the fact that it's mind-numbingly difficult to rejoice when my friends meet someone they care about or that I am occasionally jealous. It is entirely true that none of the people I have dated would have been individuals with whom I could have created a sustainable lifestyle. There is no specific person to miss or pine for. I'm just kind of lonely.

I am trying to keep myself busy. Sometimes I think I am spread too thinly. Rarely a day passes in which I don't have some sort of meeting or function to attend after classes end; this semester has also been the most challenging that I have had thus far as a college student. It's not necessarily that the work is terribly difficult as much as it is that there is always something to be done. Between study abroad and my language requirements for Global Studies I feel like maybe the things that I love or that generate excitement in my life are becoming tedious. That's the last thing I want...at some point this week I am going to go talk to my advisor about course schedules and perhaps modifying my academic focus areas.

Reading over this entry makes me realize that I probably sound a wee bit down in the dumps. Momentarily, perhaps. I am having a good school year, though. There are lots of wonderful, lovely things going on in my life right now. I promise that the next time I post it will be less disjointed and more uplifting. It is nice to say what's really on your mind, though.

I should try to get some rest. I don't have class until 3:00 tomorrow, but I do have a lab report to write and some errands to run.

Blessings, 

Jordan

Invitation to a more fulfilled human existence.

You must learn to love Thad Cockrell as I love Thad Cockrell.