where warped light and dark stuff meet for coffee

so the path of the one ends. everything that has a beginning has an end. the program smith has grown beyond your control. you’ve seen it in your dreams haven’t you, the door made of light? once the connection has been severed the alarm will be triggered but another connection must first be made. the key opens the lock, and only the one may enter. these are like back doors, programmer access? the code is hidden in tumbles, one position opens the lock. this door is special.

superchick has amazed me many times with catchy but heart-slicing poignant lyrics. they often change my thinking toward how I think God wants to live. Without limits, with abandon, passion and conviction.

“…it doesn’t happen to you, you happen to life” - So Bright (Stand Up) by Superchick

They’ve got it right, stand up, stop laying down, counting the days. Don’t let the nightmare take control of you. No shoulda, woulda, coulda. Live your dreams. The piercing question I have to ask myself hearing this as I hope you do too is, what is holding me back, and how can I destroy it.

Right now the church is living backwards. We are, it is true. We care more about what people think than what God says. Frankly I’m sick of it. I have myself spent too long being okay with going to church and doing my religious duty of looking half-way with-it. If that’s what you want, religion, you’ll find it in churches of all kinds these days. Very few people realize that the “christian” way of living is also just a fake facade to hide behind. We are all afraid to live out loud, to be about something bigger than we are. We are sitting still and liking it. Entertained and unmoving, uncaring and unnoticed.

I am going to start happening to life, what about you?

So many people are looking forward to heaven, and singing about how all they want to do is go home. I’m sorry my friends, but I DO NOT want to go home, at least not yet. Do you know how many people there are on this planet that need help, that God loves? Do you how much work there is to do? So many in ministry shock me with their lack of enthusiasm for what they are doing. Doing eternal work is “just another day” to them as well. I understand burnout, but cmon, someone has to be thrilled that they have reached that living from who God made you place.

When the time comes, I hope that I am living in such a way that God has to rip me from the earth, because I am way too involved trying to do his will and help his people here. When it is time, I will excited to go home for good, but we only have a limited time offer to shine. Let’s make it hot.

Destiny is a slow revival. It is evolution, not revolution. Every day what you do turns into what you will be tomorrow. Like 1000 small course corrections in the space shuttle, or even when playing a video game, running straight won’t do the trick, you’ve got to keep adjusting to hit your target down the “road.”

Some changes are big ones that take you to another dimension all together. Sometimes a disruption of the entire time line is warranted. This is like shifting into another gear, where much slower, or much faster, or slightly faster is perfect.

Where are you headed today?

Well, another birthday has come and gone now. This year was fun, we did some cool things, got to take the kids to play mini-golf, went bowling with my brother. Despite the better birthday, I am still going through the thoughts of inadequacy, not knowing who I am or why I’m here. I guess I don’t feel like I am special, unique, or that each year that passes isn’t more important than the last. My life isn’t going anywhere per se. I guess I never really found the collison of who I am with the life I have now. When I moved here, all that I love simply ceased to exist. I don’t know how a life as mundane as mine would be worth celebrating. I guess life bores me. I don’t enjoy anything I have to deal with. My life isn’t terrible, it just isn’t really anything to speak of. I run the rat race. I way over-commit to help people who have no interest in me except that they can get something from me. I am tired of making money, making decisions, and not ever making progress or making a difference.

I want to reignite all the things that lay dormant, and awaken new things too. I haven’t had a break from working since my daughter was born, nearly 2 years now, and right now I am in a sort of limbo. I want life to begin, to be me and like it again. It has been so long since anything has happened in a good way.

I guess despite the seemingly unfit pity-mongering, my point is this: What am I here for? Not in just a cosmic sense, but also in a “what was meant to be in my life, what was I meant to have” way as well. It is for me that age old struggle of what is meant exactly by this abundant life we hear so much about. I think I won’t be satisfied with life until I know the answer to that question. The answer to that question will mean the end of “just another year” birthdays, and the start of, “wow, this year was amazing” birthdays. At this point, as I was last year, I just don’t know if I want to have another one, since it brings nothing but more emptiness. You wouldn’t know it from looking, but yes, I admit, I am somewhat depressed (for good reason), lonely (not for love, only friendship, especially other guys), bored (nothing exciting going on), unrealized (I am incredibly skilled, but it doesn’t matter), unappreciated (all my attempts at helping others aren’t important to them), unnoticed (how many people read this?) and pretty much sick of it.

I feel like a dark lens, made out of matter not compatible with this world. I feel I’ve been thrown into a pit of dim haze and wait for activation to turn the known world inside out, darkness becoming light, so bright it will burn away the shadows. I feel like a phoenix, yet unreborn, lying in the ashes. The fire is stirring, but how long until it ignites, how long until it destroys its old form and rises incorruptible?

I have stared out this window for a long time. Some days I see the mountains, some days I don’t, but I can’t help but feel like there is something waiting for me. A destiny all ready, waiting for me to come alive. What will that look like? Is there something I was meant to do? Even if I know what it is, how do you start to pursue it? How do you begin the process of one day finding yourself doing what you’ve always thought you are supposed to. How do you put to death the every day, and find the extraordinary? Maybe the answer lies somewhere in the crossover. By doing the every day, the mundane, it becomes extraordinary due to cumulative effect over time. Pursuing your calling is huge, earth shattering even. It can change everything, and should.

How do you put your old life behind and pick up this rough, unhewn piece of purpose? How do you do this when you have a family, financial obligations, a mortgage, etc? It shouldn’t stop you and it can be done, but my question is how?

I less than three technology obviously. My favorite subset of tech is programming. At one point long ago I thought I would never have the aptitude or chops to program, and now it is what I am good at, and what I do for a living.

With any sort of milestone, I find it to be a time of reflection, way too much introspection, uncertainty, and also partial excitement about the new year I’ll have to change things. Technology is no different. This year, it will be year of the rockstar, meaning I am not going to hold back on anything, and most noteably, anything I want to do.

Most of life, I have suppressed who I am and focused on what other people need. Not that I pride myself on being selfless, far from it, but most of my waking moments, thoughts, and actions are based on what is best for everyone involved. Everyone else’s needs are important, especially for anyone in ministry, wanting to do ministry, or simply “doing the right thing.” My problem however is that I am too much of an extremist when it comes to taking on responsibility, and helping others that I often don’t take care of me at all.

Well, consequently, that is what I am going to spend more time on this year. Me, enjoying whatever it is I enjoy. Most of that will include learning new programming languages. Here are the ones I know with relative fluency:

• PHP
• XHTML/HTML
• CSS
• Javascript
• MySQL
• MS SQL

Here are the langauges and technologies I want to learn and will be focusing on this year:

• XSLT/XPath (I know some)
• ColdFusion
• C#.net
• JQuery
• CakePHP
• CodeIgniter
• Ruby and/or RubyOnRails
• Flash
• Adobe Flex

Why would I want to know this stuff? Isn’t what I know enough to get the job done? Well, yes, but I am an enthusiast about technology and programming, so consider this just following a passion, pursuing a dream. Granted, for me this is a small dream, a side-note, nothing big. Bigger things will come.

Much of life is learning to overcome your weaknesses and learning to outdo yourself. In the process you find that you know more and less than you thought.

Among the other things I want to learn this year, Quantum Theory has always fascinated me. I hope to learn more of that as well. There is so much we don’t yet know about the building blocks of our existence. I like finding out that all of us dumb humans, and even the smart ones keep being flabbergasted by the extreme intelligence of our creator. Quantum Computing is equally interesting, even though it only consists of mere mimicry of the ideas behind the theory.

So raise your glass to a year of rockstar-flavored awesomeness. I am.

I was made to do big things. I am ready to do big things. I think more of life is like slow revival than epic earth-shattering events all in one day. Big things happen in small daily chunks. The secret and key to life is the often unnoticed cumulative effect of your every day choices. Stay up late every night, you will always be tired. Don’t brush your teeth, and you let it all go decay. Don’t take care of your family, and they will not stay for long, even if it means emotionally checking out but living in the same house.

God has for all of us laid out things to do, whether you believe in God or not. All of us are set in motion to be all that is good in the world. The things I am supposed to do seem exciting and scary, but also somewhat mundane. When you ask yourself “what am I on this earth for” the answer for most people will not be “I am supposed to kill people, hurt the innocent”, etc. We all have in us a base desire to do good and improve our planet.

This year (my fiscal year you might say) will be one of big things. God has stuff for me to do. It is big, huge, and daunting. My kind of challenge.

today was my last day being 25, and while everything in my life is up in the air at this point, somehow I have an odd calm and I am very strangely not worried too much. this is pretty significant if I were to discuss the things going on right now. maybe for once I am actually trusting God to handle things.

it is hard to know for sure whether this attempt on moving forward in my spiritual life is going to “take.” I keep clicking that dumb button and it never seems to stay that way. there are big things going on in my life, my heart, my world. I am scared and excited for the potential and risks that I am considering.

this festering passion welled up in me needs to get out and I want it to, but there are so many things tied to it, so much that will happen if I pursue it. I know that even now I don’t quite grasp the depth and gravity of it, but I never will until it happens. mysterious ways indeed.

so, here’s to being 26 and all that it will bring. I think this might be the year of the rockstar, the ubertasticnessed-one cometh? how’s that for your chinese calendar? I don’t think that is an animal. oh well.