A long time

It's been a while, Blogger.com, but I'm back.

This past weekend I went on a trip to Carmel and Noblesville, IN with some of my skateboarding buddies. I usually end up doing the filming--predominantly because I'm the worst skater there and everyone else is doing way cooler stuff than I could ever do, but also because I always bring my little avi video camera my dad got me (thanks again, dad!).

It's been cool over the past few weeks to assume the role of "filmer" amongst my friends. I enjoy it from occasion to occasion. I don't get to skate as hard as I'd like to most of the time, but I get to serve my brothers in a very substantial way. And I get to edit the videos and help make these guys look great on their boards. It's a subtle way to refocus on others and not be so self-interested with the lens.

I always pray for who I'm filming too. Skateboarding can be very stressful sometimes, and it's easy to slip into a poor attitude when your normal tricks aren't coming easy. The power of prayer was really shown to me this weekend at the Carmel park. I was filming Brad Hill and he was trying this very impressive and large maneuver at the park. After numerous tries he was getting close but wasn't sticking with it. He looked up at me and said those fateful words: "one last try." At this point I had already been praying a little bit, but I turned to God and prayed very fervently that He would help Brad land the trick; not just for Brad, but for God's glory. So I kept praying, and interceding. Brad stepped on his board and swooped towards the obstacle. I waited anxiously to see what would happen all the while trying to keep the shot focused and centered.

What if Brad didn't land it? This wasn't a major faith issue for me, but I strongly wanted all of his hard work to pay off, and I knew that I at least wanted to worship God by seeing such an excellent trick be done in person. But I forget sometimes that worship is also done on our knees, crying out in pain, loss, and despair. Clinging to God for everything He is: true worship of the Almighty Father.

Needless to say, he landed the trick perfectly. It couldn't have been any better. I was amazed, surprisingly, having received exactly what I had asked for and more. He didn't just land it; it was perfect. God is truly good to us and concerned about our daily lives. Now I get to show off Brad's skating on facebook and know that God was wrapped around every ply of that canadian maple.

Texas!

That's what I was looking at right before the unthinkable occurred. It all happened so fast. You might think there was turbulence involved, or maybe someone bumped me since I was sitting in the aisle seat.

Nope. I just spazzed out and my knee bumped the tray table, spilling the cup of wine all over my pants. Here's what it looked like:


I had a good laugh about this. I pushed the "flight attendant" button, and she brought me some club soda and paper towels to clean myself up. The club soda actually worked really well; it got most of the stain out. Then when I got here to Christy's house, Teri washed them for me and got the stain right out.

But now back to the airplane. I was going to sip some of wine and read some of Acts. I did a little of both before the accident. There was a young woman sitting next to me. Being so nosey, I looked over to see what she was reading and I caught the end of a hand-written letter:

"You're a friend, sexy, smart,

Kenan"

She was reading a couple of love letters from someone named Kenan. I was trapped in the moment for a couple of seconds. Here was this woman reading love letters from this guy named Kenan, and here I am reading God's love letter to me. Then I started thinking about "What if God's name was Kenan..." Haha, I won't continue that thought, but it was a cool moment paired with being stained by the blood of Christ, literally.

Turkey Run and Eagle Creek

The vid is from last Sunday after I led worship at Campus House at Purdue; me and some buddies went to Turkey Run for an afternoon of hiking and adventure. This vid, especially, highlights my fondness for finding infrastructure and jumping and twirling off...

Today I went to the skate park and saw more people I knew there than usual. I've been trying to learn this trick for the last week or so, it's a fakie big spin heelflip. Basically, you roll backwards on your board and do a 180˚ ollie with your body, the board does a 360˚ shuv-it as well as a heelflip. It's one of the more technical tricks in skateboarding. I've landed on the board a few times up until this point, but always fell off after a moment or two. Well, today, third try: Boo Yeah! And my friends who have seen me trying it so often were there, they just erupted when I landed it. It was perfect. Caught the board 270 in the air and slid the front wheels on the ground to finish the rotation. It was at least a few feet out of the ramp as well. SOOOOOO much fun. And so rewarding when you put so much work and sweat into a trick and you finally land it. I also learned how to "launch" out of quarter pipes today. I missiled a large roast beef grab third try. I suppose today was third try day...

After a thorough work out at the skate park, I went to Eagle Creek park and spent some time away from the sterilizing, infertile noises of the city and enjoyed some peace and quiet next to the reservoir. I spent a good half hour sitting on a buoyant walkway watching ducks. I observed some new behaviors today, it was quite exciting. They did the usual stand on one leg and pretend to sleep bit, and the whole primming deal, along with the butt shaking. That's my favorite part to be honest, when they shake their butts, haha. I don't know why, it's mesmerizing... Anyways, I saw a good number of the ducks, all female mallards (btw), they would stand on one leg and stretch out their opposite leg and adjacent wing for a few seconds. And also, with the stretching, they would stick their neck straight out to its fullest extent, and then raise their wings up, like open car doors on a Lamborghini or some other fancy car (you know, like how the Delorian's doors opened up in Back to the Future). I tried to communicate with them: I waddled around hunched over, moved my arms like wings, and quacked. I only managed to get some glares from them, haha. They knew... Ducks are just sweet animals. I think sometime soon I'm going to make a duck costume out of cardboard. Be watching for that in the future... There was a hispanic family on the wharf next to me fishing, and as I was leaving the father caught a fish and exclaimed,"got you sucka!" I laughed all the way to my car.

After all that fun, I went to the bird sanctuary and on my way encountered a clan of female deer. I tried to follow them through the woods, but they were skiddish and wouldn't let me get close enough to pet them. I would've petted them all day if they would have let me. They're like the wild dogs of the woods. So I got to the bird sanctuary and I looked down to my right only to see a bumble bee plucking the petals off of a flower, one by one. I'd never seen this before either, it was quite strange. After it finished trimming, it just flew away. Another cool part of this portion of the park is the butterflies. There were monarchs flying around me as I walked down the trail, darting only a few inches in front of my face. It kinda scared me every time they did it; I'm sure the people around me had a good laugh.

Like I said earlier, it was nice to get away from "city." It's wild to think that God created all those things I saw: the ducks, cranes, butterflies, spiders, plants, every thing!

Patrolman

Tonight I spent some time with my two friends Kristen and Calin who are leaving for Uganda in the morning to deliver audio Bibles and do some photo journalism stuff. I just wrote a song, inspired by the breath-stealing storm that we drove home through from Buca di Beppo's. For the entire drive, over an hour, there was constant flashing and flickering of lightning. After a while of being awed, I just began to get bored with it. I started to talk to God about it, saying things like, "Lord, it would be really sweet if there was neon blue lightning, and sparks came up when it 'hit the ground.'" I have this problem, that's how I see it at least for now, that I see something and I usually want to change it. When I walk around campus I always imagine that the grass--instead of being just green--is colored in rows like a rainbow. And that trees have yellow bark with white leaves. Just something that I'm not used to seeing, that would catch me off guard and really make me stop and stare at it.

Like I've said before, I sometimes get off track and lose my wonder of God's creation. Lightning is sweet, but I always want to take it further, add more to it. Sadly, there are no tears in my eyes right now. I want to come back to the place where I'm as a little child marveling at everything God has done. I want it to be genuine, and I want to put this part of me in the shredder and burn it; this part that depreciates the wonders of God's hands.

The song I wrote is called "Patrolman," and here are the lyrics:

Verse 1
God, how many times do I really have a better idea than You
Just because I think that using more colors would be a wiser choice to light the sky
God, forgive me for my selfish thoughts
For You know what You want more than I can see

Chorus
I surrender my patrol at Your borders
Take me as far as You can, Lord, don't keep me waiting for You to show
I'm crying out because I'm craving more of You

Verse 2
God, I don't want to take credit for Your work through me
It's so easy to cast away thoughts of humility when You seem so far away
A violent death is what I need to bring me to my knees
I'm tired of thinking I have a better way around things

Outro
This box isn't big enough for the both of us
So I'll burn it to the ground
And dance around the glory of the Lord
Who knows me inside out

Here's some of the meaning. The first verse is what I was talking about up top about the lightning, etc. I want my life to be about what God wants, and hopefully it is. The chorus is where the name comes from, "Patrolman." As we were driving home, I thought of God driving up to the border of how far I'd let Him go in my life, what I imagined God would do, and as He wanted to pass, I would put down the gate and say no. I'm done with that, and I want to let Him pass now. I want everything that God has for me, I want to suck Him dry of everything He has to give. In any situation, I feel that I enter with some sort of expectation, and sometimes my expectations for God are extremely shallow. I'm not used to giving a "word of knowledge" or prophecy to someone, even healing someone, but I want to be open to it at all times. I just want God. I'm learning to hate my life more and more now, just like Jesus says in Matthew 10:39. Not as in hating to exist (although I really long for Heaven), but as in not loving my life enough that I still grasp tightly to the reigns and pull in my own direction. My life is the Lord Jesus', and He will decide what I do in a day (that's what I'm aiming for, completely). The last part of the second line,"don't keep me waiting for You to show." It's a bold line; if I'm honored to be used by God somehow, then I want to have to wait for God's timing for it to happen, not have God wait for me to be ready. May it be on God that I wait, and not myself.

Then the second verse. It's about how we wake up, we breathe in, we breathe out, our limber joints move us from place to place as our muscles stretch and contract, and all the while Jesus puts no neon signs above our beds to remind of that He gave us all these things for the day. Almost like we're renting them, but He doesn't make us fill out the paper work. Jesus owns everything we could imagine, even the breath in our lungs, but He's so humble and powerful that He doesn't stamp His name all over us. It basically is, I mean no one else can create atoms or tissues, but you know what I mean--hopefully.

I keep coming back to this idea of putting myself to a violent death. I hate violence: guns, knives, hatred, anger, it all makes me sick. But when it comes to me and the Lord, I want to be as dead as possible; John 3:30, "He must increase, and I must decrease." It doesn't say, "I must decrease, He must increase." God even comes first when he says this. I am completely useless in and of myself, and until I truly realize that, I'll never live up to my full potential in God's Kingdom. I want to make sure that I'm dead, completely. Not like in those movies where you think someone is gone and then they keep coming back. No, I want the worst death possible, to be sure that I'm not going to get in the way. And honestly, I'm tired and sore from thinking that I have a better way to go about things.

That brings us to the outro portion of the song. Just as much as I put God in a box, I also put myself in a box. Ephesians 3:20 says,"With God's power working in us, He can do much, much more than we can ask or imagine." And Philippians 2:13 says,"because God is working in you to help you want to and be able to do what pleases Him." I liked the imagery of God and I both stepping out of the box and burning it to the ground, so that we could never go back in. And in my joy I begin to dance.

KKSM and the Market Place

Friday was the skate camp at Shepherd Community (those are some of the donated boards that I put together for the campers that didn't have a skateboard). We had around 30 kids, and got to break up each instructor with 2-3 kids, so there was a good instructor/camper ratio which made for some good personal interactions. We did an all day camp, complete with snacks and water and lunch, and did a small devotional with the kids. I talked briefly to the older, more experienced skaters about griptape. Skating without griptape is an awful idea, because without it you can't do any tricks. You can have a complete skateboard, but if you don't have griptape, it's practically useless to a street skater. Just like with Jesus: you can have the entire world, but if you don't have Jesus, it's all meaningless. He's what makes it all worthwhile, and He enables us to do incredible things. There was a good response, the kids seemed to get it.

So then, after a great demo by the King of Kings guys [highlight: nollie flip up the bank land one foot down the other side of the bank, Dave Voetberg] I blasted off and went to Circle Center Mall in the heart of Indianapolis. I paid the meter and skated towards the food court, where I enjoyed some bourbon chicken. I found a bench in the mall and started reading for the day, Philippians 3-4. The following verse, specifically, struck me as all the teeny boppers and middle aged women, husbands and "gangsters" walked by me, occasionally brushing the edge of my Bible with their fat shopping bags: Philippians 3:8 "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ."

I wonder, if Jesus were in the mall would He weep. Not because of all the things people can buy, necessarily, but because of all the money that people spend that isn't going into the Kingdom, it's going into themselves. I'm so guilty of it. I see a shirt with a cool graphic on it, and I want to buy it, and more often than not I do buy it. I get caught up in trying to wear cool clothes, instead of really just being thankful for any sort of fabric draped across my body to keep me from shaming myself in the nude. I'm giving up my entitlement to a vicious self image to let Jesus allow me to see how beautiful I am no matter what clothes I wear. I'm not condemning the purchase of articles of clothing, but really, is that God's money well spent? There are so many Christians, apparently, here in America, so why is our culture so submerged in dirt. Everywhere I look I'm practically spitting rocks and dust out of my mouth.

I'm incredibly guilty of the following things: having more than 2 or 3 shirts, pairs of pants, socks, underwear, etc. I don't think it's a crime to have an abundance of something, but when others have so little... Get ready for this: Luke 3:8-11 "Do the things that show you really have changed your hearts and lives. Don't begin to say to yourselves,'Abraham is our father.' I tell you that God could make children for Abraham from these rocks! (DANG) The ax is now ready to cut down the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." The people asked John,"Then what should we do?" John answered,"If you have two shirts, share with the person who does not have one. If you have food, share that also."" Does that rock you? I'm looking for a way that I can give away some clothes to a family that would really use them. I don't just want to give them to Goodwill or something like that, but it may come to that. Let me know what you guys think about it.

This is a picture I took from the demo on Wednesday at East 91st Church in the parking lot right next to one of the ramps. It's cool that Jesus is everywhere. Sometimes we have to squint, and other times He just reaches out and grabs us!

Skateboarding

I went to the skatepark with my friend TJ last night. I never go at night, because the lighting there is not very profound. But I went, I figured I'd at least roll around and get some exercise. We got there, and within 8 minutes I had landed every major trick that I have in my proverbial bag. I was really quite astonished when I landed fakie f/s 360, fakie f/s big spin, b/s flip, f/s flip, f/s shuv, b/s shuv, kickflip, f/s half cab, b/s half cab, fakie flip, fakie 50-50 f/s big spin out, f/s 180, b/s 180 all out of the wedge ramp and practically in a row. Especially the fakie f/s 360, that was so much fun. I really wish everyone could experience what I do when I skate. It's so excellent when you're trying a trick and you land it perfect and roll away. You can't overappreciate going very quickly towards a ramp, throwing yourself in the air, turning, flicking the board, and then landing perfectly. I'm amazed that God made us with an ability to do this!

So after I had done all those tricks, this guy came up to me and we started talking. I have the Gsus chord on my board, so he asked about it, and I told him I'm a Christian. He said,"Really? Christian skater, huh? That's cool..." I politely corrected him: "Well, I'm a Christian that happens to skateboard." I asked him if he was the same, and he said that he's agnostic, that he at least acknowledges a higher being, he just doesn't know what it is. So we kept talking, and it was really cool to see God use my skating to give an inlet to talk to this guy. Who knows what will happen, I'm just really pleased to be used in a positive way at the skate park. So much crap goes on there, so much foul language that's demeaning to most living organisms, and so much anger and hatred. When pimps and whores, skateboarders and bikers really begin to see the light of the Gospel, it's truly incredible.

Heinous

I'm reading through Judges, because I can't recall ever having read it. The only tidbit I did remember from the book, besides the cycle that Israel went through, was that some dude got killed in a tent by having a stake hammered into his head. That's really terrible.

This week is the King of King Skateboarding Demo(s), Camp, and Video Premier. I'm super excited about it all; it's cool to see everything have come together in less than a month, too! Just goes to show that if God wants something to happen, by gum it's gonna happen! It came together so nicely, getting free ramps from a great indoor skatepark--who's manager I just happened to bump in to--and then the three locations that we're using, three different churches around Indianapolis. It's just great. I'm excited for all the kids whose lives are going to be changed. And on a base note, just to skate with some professional and amateur skateboarders.

Christy gets back in three and a half weeks. Yes!