Grapevine and Substituting

This is a video I put together from my family's trip to Grapevine, TX. There some footage from the Fort Worth Water Gardens, the Dallas World Aquarium, and the Grapevine Botanical Garden. The best part of the trip was definitely getting to see Christy for two and a half days.



Today was my first day as a substitute teacher; I worked at one of my old elementary schools (Robey) and filled in for the music teacher there. It was a handful. I had kids from Kindergarten to 3rd grade. I found that the older the kids were, the better I could expect the class to be. Thankfully, my schedule was only for the second half of the day. Kids were stabbing one another with sharpened pencils, crying because someone said that the kid was in love with one of their classmates, or running around and hiding. All we did in class was I put on some music and they colored for thirty-five minutes.

But one class was different.

I brought my guitar and played for one of the 3rd grade classes. At first, they all sat quiet waiting for what would happen. And when I started playing a little bit and singing, they all started laughing. I stopped, and wondered if I really was making a stupendous fool of myself. I asked why they were laughing and they said it was cool, they never had a teacher sing and play guitar before, so they were surprised. I finished the song, and played it two more times--at their request. One girl in the front row I could tell was really enjoying it. So much so that she drew a picture of me holding a guitar with hearts all around it, and wrote "I love your music, you rock, ya, the one and only Mr. Meador." And another girl drew me a big multi-colored heart. A couple of the boys before class was over asked me to draw a guitar and then asked for my autograph.

That was the high point of the day.

I don't have much to go on, but I think I'll enjoy teaching junior high math tomorrow much more.

Multiple Thoughts

This is a picture I took last week while driving by the Eagle Creek Resevoir at sunset with gulls everywhere:


I've been doing a little recording since I've graduated, and I haven't seen much product from it as of yet-- but there's still much work to be done. I have a lot of respect for recording artists. I'm trying to create some "good" recordings to have to maybe sell or hand out to people...

I get to see Christy in less than three days, and I'm really excited! It hasn't been that long since school got out, but she's someone I never want to be far from for very long.

Skateboarding is going well, I've been fine tuning the tricks I know and essaying to learn new ones. It's fun when you get on your board and it just feels natural--you land all your flip tricks and grinds, you don't have to force anything. Then other days it's like someone snuck into your room in the middle of the night and stole your mojo via syringe.

Writing music can be very laborious. It makes me sigh heavily, at times. I'm getting better at remembering why I write music when I get really frustrated; that is, to worship God with my music. It's funny, when I first started writing "praise" music it really sucked... bad. But my heart was in the right place. It's sad when I forget that God is my muse. I believe there's a harbor between the seas of worship and hard work, and I want to dock there.

I'm not into the whole "image" thing that it seems some recording artists are into. I'm not really trying to sell albums, but I also know that my desired demographic (Christian scientists/science students) would be hard to go platinum with considering their numbers. I've been told that some of my worship lyrics are "weird." I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with, however, is the attitude of some Christians when they come into a worship setting. And it's sad really, I don't mean to come off as upset, because I'm not, but I know we can all get more out of worship than we are currently. To some who think they are far in worship, that may offend; and to those who are just learning, maybe they understand it all too well. I don't understand worship, necessarily. What keeps me growing in my RELATIONSHIP with Jesus is that I forget it's a real relationship. He helps me remember and change how I'm acting towards Him. Sometimes I'd feel better, I think, if God just demanded select things from us on a certain schedule; but He's not like that. He wants it all, all the time. And He deserves it, to be honest. I don't know where the line is though.

Jesus told us to pray that God's will in Heaven would be done on earth.
Right now.
Yes, next week.
But right now.
Yes, tomorrow,
but right now.
All the time.

So what does that mean? Generally people use the "medicine" example: I'm not going to take Advil for my headache, I'll just pray and believe God will heal it. *I'm not bashing this* But what about eating? Will we eat in Heaven? Is there anyone whose faith leads them to turn down all food believing that God will nourish their body? I've talked to God a few times about where the line is? It's unclear, at least to me. At what point do we rely fully on God, and no one else. Many people would be out of jobs if this really happened. No doctors, no groceries, no clothing stores, nothing. We would get everything from God. And that's how it's going to be in Heaven. So why isn't it like that here if Christians have been praying for over two thousand years that that would be the case? I can't tell you. I do know that God works through people, and I do know that God is the only reason that I have multiple shirts, food everyday, and why I haven't gotten polio or measles. Sometimes we just have to dig deep to see His hand.

I don't want to have to pay for health insurance when I'm out on my own because I have full confidence that God is able and willing to heal me of any disease or ailment. But what about the Christian who works at that insurance company who's trusting God to provide their salary. I'm just saying I don't have it figured out and I'm definitely confused about most of it, but I want all of Heaven right now. He told us to pray for it, and I want it. I just don't see it right now and it makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong or if that is something not available to us. I do wonder if my mindset about these things is worldly. I don't want to pay health insurance because that's a little more money per month I could give, and I would give it. Why should I pay for something that God provides? Maybe He wants to provide it through other people?

I'll quit rambling now. This is tough for me to articulate at times.

Another Top Five

Here's my Top Five Photos of 2008:

#1 A picture I took in Eagle Creek Park this past fall by Lilly Lake.
#2 A picture taken at Shades State Park
#3 Another picture I took at Eagle Creek on a separate occasion. I went with Christy to the Discovery Center and found this cool little dock at sunset.
#4 The visible spectrum of light being refracted through my Dr. Reisling wine.
#5 This was taken when I spent the weekend with my friend Alex; this is a cornfield in Noblesville.

A Few Top Fives

My friend Steve is encouraging people to post their favorite "Top Fives," so here are two related ones.

First, a video of my Top Five Favorite Personal Skate Clips (in no particular order):



#1 frontside anchor grind nollie shuv
#2 sewer ride to fakie in a ditch near the Round Rock Skate Park
#3 frontside 50-50 nollie backside bigspin
#4 board stall nollie shuv on an elastic tree branch
#5 a nollie backside bigger spin

Next are my Top Five Favorite Personal Skate Photos (also in no particular order):

Pop Shuv-It

Ollie

Sewer to Fakie

Noseslide to Fakie

Wallride

Almost Graduate

I finished my first of four finals this morning. It feels good to be done with collegiate courses! I have one on thursday night, and then the last two on saturday, and then I am finally done and get my degree in Chemistry.

After my final this morning, I did a little bit of creative work for a new set of songs I'm going to be getting around. The project is called "Out of Order." Here's a few peeks:

An Abrupt Consciousness

I woke up this morning with quite a piercing first thought: I'm only praising God because I want something from Him.

Woah. That's not usually how I start most days, but I'm really thankful for such a blunt awareness as that. I've really been praying for a job, but lately I've been so focused on the job part that I've been trying to "use" God. I need to change that because that's a really crooked way to treat Jesus. He is worthy of praise no matter what I go through, no matter what I have, no matter what I lose. Always. And today has been different, and I'm really glad that God showed me that so that I could change it.

I went skating today, and landed a new trick... well, I landed a fakie heelflip--a familiar trick--over the largest flat gap I've ever tried it over (around three feet). It doesn't sound like much, but I cleared it completely and rolled away smooth. It was definitely a highlight of today. Here's a sequence of the very talented Kellen James doing a fakie heel down a more sizable gap:

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yesterday I went with a couple of friends to Manchester College in North Manchester, IN to visit a friend of one of my friend's friends. We visited and talked with her, then we spent some time praying for her and the campus. We procured a guitar and some drums and went to Worshiptown in the chapel. Afterwards we went to Warsaw and got some cheap and delicious chinese food (they gave us free sweet rolls). We went across the street to Central Park and ate watching the Christmas lights.

Here are a few shots from the park:




You may notice that the title of this blog is a line from a famous Christmas song. I'd like to talk about that now. Christmas songs.

I don't understand why people don't sing Christmas songs all year round. I am thankful every day that Jesus became a man to walk the earth that He created. Once when I lead worship last year I tried to do a Christmas song and it was discouraged because it wasn't Christmas time (the song was "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"). I'm not talking about songs like "I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas" or "Jingle Bells." I'm talking about real Christmas songs. I find that a good portion of songs like "Silent Night" and "We Three Kings" do have moments of praise, but are primarily stories about stars and journeys. I'm talking about songs that glorify Jesus Christ, born and risen.

I think the main reason that I don't enjoy that this happens is because I see Christians getting swept under the "Christmas rug," or sorts. We can redeem Christmas (trust me, there is a LOT of pagan ritualism in almost every corner of the Christmas secular tradition), but it's going to take us acting differently and believing differently, and showing that we are not alright with what is happening to the celebration of the birth of our Lord.

God is jealous for our attention at all times, not just after Thanksgiving and before New Years.