I Love...

I love the sound of the ocean and the sight of it too, at night. The waves look like they're glowing. I believe they are.

I love music. Not classical so much anymore. Much alternative. Indie. Yep.

I love talking to an interesting person, especially a girl. I don't really know why, but we're not the same, so I'm guessing that's part of it.

I love the feeling of a Q-tip in my ear, but sometimes it makes my throat tickle. Not altogether horrible, but perplexical nonetheless.

I love taking apart my computer and seeing what's inside. Sometimes I like to take it apart, sometimes I clean it. Sometimes I just grin.

I love to clean. Not always, but I get in moods. I do dishes then, clean sometimes, reorganize. Then are the times when I wish I knew all the songs I would ever love, but I'm guessing I'd get tired of all of them right away then, instead of sequentially.

I LOVE GIRLS IN MILITARY UNIFORM. With that gigantic backpack on their back. That's some serious womanliness. Grace, maybe. Not sure, but it freaks me seriously.

I love to dance. Not swing or ballroom or line or anything specific. I just like to move my body and feel the music, cliche though that may sound.

I love taking pictures. I don't really know why. I take some satisfaction from the result, but it's minuscule compared to the pleasure of composing the shot, holding my breath, gripping the camera, and hitting the shutter. I don't get it.

I love to make people laugh. Of course it makes them laugh and me feel good about it, but it makes me laugh when others laugh and I understand why. Complicated, I guess, but I love laughing, and don't like laughing alone. Not usually, anyway.

I love the feel of my muscles aching because I've made them pay the rent, so to speak. It shakes off the false shroud of impotency.

I love to run. To feel the ground, dirty though it may be, under my feet as I try harder and harder to eat the wind.

I love it when water gets in a photo and decides to mess things up a bit. In a good way.

I love it when I know God's there.

I love breakfast. A good, cold, tall, fresh-squeezed glass of orange juice. Some good bacon, some concoction of eggs and other awesome ingredients.

I love a book that you can't see coming, and that you miss when it leaves.

I love snow. It's beautiful, bright, and occasionally combat-ready.

I love it when friends stay.

I LOVE A GOOD BACKSCRATCH. Haven't had a serious, good one in years...


!Noah!

I Want to DO Something

I want to do something. I really do! But I don't. But why?

Hmm. Well, I want to start a Youtube channel and just talk about everything. Hopefully to some happifying effect.

But what would I talk about?

And there's my camera. It's kinda elderly. In the sense that it's lame, senile, and a bit blind.

Well. Those words describe the extremity of the thing.

But then there's my sense of romance, which says, hey! You shouldn't record it on your freakin' digital camera in 720p! You should record it on that old tape camera you bought for ten dollars at the thrift store and left collecting dust in a closet for like five years!

Well, yeah. I guess the camera's not a good excuse. It's just that somewhere between the ideation and the execution of the idea, I end up thinking...gosh, moron, this is a STUPID idea.

Waaahh.

Anyway. As pertains to my life, if you're still listening, care, and haven't heard already...I applied at Apple. Like three times. In person, online, and through a chap already employed there.

So, yeah. With any luck, I'll have some sort of response in a while. God could give me a job (through the fabulous people at Apple), or he could decide, heck, Noah, you don't seem to get what I'm doing yet.

Which, in all likelihood, I don't.

But that's pretty much the natural state of things. Me not knowing what's going on. For those of you who care, that's kinda why I don't talk. At least, that's part of it. I listen and observe in order to better understand the world and the people around me. not always does it work.


Sigh.

Oh, oh, oh. Another problem with starting a vlog-esque thing. (could have thrown in quasi somewhere in there, too. :D) Uh, yes. Well, my family. See, I live at home. There are about two times in the entire week when a sibling or parent isn't nearby or...closer.

Yep. I whine.


!Noah!

The Sublte, Distant Taste of Victory

Hey. It's been a while. (yeah, you've probably heard that a gagillion years before, but this is a blog. My blog. What can I do?

Anyway, today I was tempted and somehow resisted.

And by I resisted, I mean solely by God's power, without any real effort on my part, I somehow came out of hell without so much as a light tan.

That said, what exactly did I do? Did I do anything? I think this is something I'm probably going to spend a lot of time struggling with, because I don't really understand it. Maybe that's the way it is, and I never will, but I'm not the kind to give up just because it might be the right thing to do.

Ok. So when I need God...

Er, wait, let me rephrase that.

I need God.

At such times (all the time), how exactly is it that he becomes potent in my life? I mean, perhaps it's mere appearance, but at times he doesn't seem to be up to much. Yeah, I know, from a human perspective, you can't really see the whole elephant and imagine simultaneously patting the entirety of said elephant, but even so!

Is the simple act of asking for God's help the only act we can call our own?

And why the heck is this so important for me?

I think it probably goes back to the whole way God created us. With free will and all, y'know? If he created us without the freedom to love and to hate, we wouldn't truly love or hate because we'd be robots. Everything we do would be pre-done (so to speak) by God himself.

Which strikes me as really freaking weird, 'cause when we end up loving God, it's only because he did that himself to us a long, long time before we even knew the difference between cyanide and sugar.

Huh. Not trying to be heretical here or anything, but God made us with the express intention of not making us do anything while simultaneously planning ahead of time to rescue us through his power alone.

What's the difference? I guess it's love, in a weird way. Given robotic humanity, God's love would mean nothing to us, and our love would mean nothing to him, whereas if we have free will, our love does mean something to him and we understand the meaning of his love for us.

As to our asking God for help being our only true act, I don't think we can even claim that as our own, as, quite simply, God created everything. He created the desires that drive our lives, the influences that buffet us, the loves, hates, imaginings, friends, wonders...I don't really have to even list them these days. He made a ton of stuff and it all works to bring about his plan, whether we want it to or not. I'm a part of God's plan inside God's fold or out. I think it's foolish of me, but I've sometimes found it in myself to take comfort even in that.

So God created us, everything to do with us, and what's inside us, that drives us. Thus, I'd say our desire to love God is from God. But what's the difference then? Is it the dichotome (been wanting to use that word for months) of good and evil at work in us? We're neither consumed by hate of everything nor love of God and neighbor, given the angels and monsters at work in us?

Is this folly?

Hmm. I propose thus: God gave us everything we have, from the most physical the most metaphysical, and he gave it us with the express command of freaking doing something useful with it. That useful thing most prominantly being praising our Creator. We were given not just the earth to steward, but every fiber and sinew and desire and love and heartbeat of our beings as well. In other words, despite the simple fact that all things will work for the good of the elect, at the same time we have the freedom to use our love, time, and stuff for whatever we want.

I've got this theory about the Image of God, in which we were created. Of course, church doctrine doesn't have a habit of making itself anew this late in the game. I'll admit it's unlikely there's anything to what I say, but what I think is this:

God created us in his image not just to set us apart (which, now that I think about it, is pretty much saying we're holy...the meanings are similar if not identical), but more than that, as a means by which to commune with him. Perhaps this is old hat. Regardless, I think it's important. I don't really know how yet.

!Noah!

I've Never Ripped off a Limb Before

Let me explain. No, heck, I won't explain. You guys probably get it by now. Hopeless romantic, can't stop crushing, I could say so much more, but it should be clear if you've read half this blog. Which would be a pretty big feat, I should remind you.

So I need to change. This constant obsession with a single girl (both single in the sense of being just one person, and in the sense of being unhitched) is really getting in the way of me doing useful things, loving people, loving God.

But how? I want her!

Like, really badly.

So?  You've liked girls a lot before. You'll forget it, of course, but mere months ago, you were obsessed with this other girl. Let's call her Girl Q, just for the heck of it. She was similar in a lot of ways. She laughed! She smiled! She joked, she did interesting things, she had a few ridiculous quirks in common with you.

But what of it? My heart is elsewhere now!

So? It all changes. It all ends, even. The simple truth is that, while not taking the position of a miser of time, never waiting, never patient, always doing, always thinking, always dreaming, you similarly can't live your life with no time to do nothing, but neither can you live your life with only time to obsess, dream, hope, and be eventually crushed in dissatisfaction and folly.

But isn't this the way it's figured out? Isn't that how it's done? Trial and error?

Sure, but trial doesn't have to be blind, neither error meaningless. If you don't think about what you're trying beforehand, how can you change? Similarly, if you don't understand your error, how can you learn from it?

But when is that moment? When am I sure? How can I know? I wish I did! I've done nothing so long, for the simple reason that I knew I was ignorant!

I don't know, but since neither of us do, you might as well wait until you do. It'll be like a thousand mosquito bites all asking you to swat them, but you can do it, if you really try. Naturally, the God of the universe can help as well.

Sigh. It had to come to this at some point. Patience, like always, but also love, like never. This is going to be a rough ride.

(Garg contributed to this post.)


!Noah!

Absolutely Nothing

The translation being I need to do better.

(for those wondering, this is a response to Bush Maid's comment on my previous post.)

But I can't do better separate from God. Am I separate from God? No? Well, then why can't I be better? Because I don't believe? My faith is from God alone. But something must be mine! But no, nothing is mine. No action, no thought, no intention, no well-placed advice, no pride, no goodness, no honesty, no meekness, no money, no family, no badly-chosen shades, no silvery silence, no joyful noise, no happiness, no wonder, no glory, no love.

Nothing.

But Jesus' love! That must be mine. His actions, his thoughts, his intentions, his fabulous parables, his pride, his goodness, his honesty, his meekness, his riches, his family the church, his well-seeing eyesight, his unwavering silence, his good words, his happiness, his wonder, his glory, his love.

But is it? How can it be? In order for it to be mine, I must have something. Right? No? Then how am I different from the heathens? How have I become his, if not solely, absolutely only because of his love and choice? Am I merely blinded by the human idea of exchange? Is giving simply not human? Is it merely not something we understand, in our heart of hearts, in the deepest chasm of our being? But are we not in his image? Have we not some essence of the God we are called to love? Is that it? Do we give him what he first gave us, and in return he gives us more?

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?” -- Romans 11:34

"Speak to me, God, that I may have words to say! Think, that I may think as well! Dream, wonder, love, hate, imagine, work, love, LOVE, LOVE, that I may too love. I am nothing!" -- Swishkin


!Noah!

Do Better

So a couple nights ago, I was laying in bed, thinking about my day, what had happened over the last few weeks (rather a lot, actually), and thinking about what God's given me. I recently got a job pretty much dumpster diving and ripping apart consumer electronics in a mad search for modern-day gold...which turns out rather to be steel, brass, bronze, and copper. At the very best, there's the gold in all the circuit boards, but you can only imagine how little there actually is in them.

Still, I'm grateful.

Or am I?

For some stupid reason, I found myself thinking, "God, you could do better."

Multiple times, actually. I spent a bit of time regretting it, and then thought it again.

Eventually my heart got involved and explained to me that God couldn't do better with me.

And that naturally opened up a furious firestorm of misunderstanding in my mind.

Of course, God COULD do better, in my specific instance.

But God WOULDN'T do better for me, specifically. It's weird, trying to say God's doing something perfect in the world and still trying to say his ability isn't limited. If an artist creates a masterpiece, it can later be eclipsed by an even better work.

I guess at this point I don't really know what I'm saying. But the point is, God is good.

Also, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. It's not a sure thing yet, but I might be losing my job.

Dirtbag McSpleen. That's me.


!Noah!

Trip to See the Birds Day One

Brighter than the Sun just came on the radio. God is pretty crazy awesome. Breakfast is reasonably priced and should be amazingly good. We stopped at Perkins at about 10 today for coffee and cinnamon rolls, although I'm getting a hot chocolate instead.  We just left Marshall and should be on I90 as soon as noon. From there we'll go on into South Dakota. I'm not sure yet if we'll be stopping there on the way over or on the way back, but I might get to see the Badlands and the black hills again, which would be great. It struck me today that Grandpa might be where I get my quiet tendencies from. While he talks a lot more than I do at this point, I'm inclined to believe it's because he's got more to talk about than me, being more than four times my age.  He was a large-animal veterinarian and has many stories of giving birth to calves and of building roads in Alaska. On the other side of things is Grandma. She's not along on this trip, but I've always felt, since going camping with Grandpa and her earlier on in my life, that I probably got my make-do attitude from her. Now that I think about it, it doesn't really seem that apparent in her as I thought, but I guess it doesn't always show on top. I should have mentioned acouple things earlier. First, it's ridiculously cloudy and even foggy today. Second, I brought along Eat Pray Love, and it's an interesting book to read at a time like this. As for the fog, it was so foggy earlier that we could see for perhaps a thousand yards ahead and then it was just gray. We passed a number of large grain elevators barely a stone's throw from the road without seeing them until the last second. Just south of Jasper, near the SD/MN border, a couple of female deer waltzed across the road in front of us and Grandpa had to slow down in order not to hit them.  We're coming into one of my favorite parts of America, where you can see half a mile while sitting in a low-riding station wagon. Not sure what I like about it, but it seems like i just like to observe, and wide open spaces without visual obstructions of any kind really help that.  I just realized that my last crush didn't culminate in some sort of truth-telling or confrontation. At some point in me liking some girl I decide either to give up and move on or to tell all. Usually the case is the latter, and while I sort of took the easy way out (acquiring for myself a new direction for my affection), it somehow surprises me that I didn't ever actually tell said crush how things were. Inexplicable joy is the best kind.  Grandpa decided to sleep a bit as he fears he'll fall asleep while driving. Mere yards away is a 55 MPH speed limit sign. This worries me a bit, but I reminded him to turn on the hazard lights. Well, it seems grandpa wasn't having so much trouble staying awake as he was merely driving. I drove for probably an hour at about 55 MPH on a two-lane highway. Hands are still shaking a bit, but I think it helped. !Noah!

I Want to be Proud of my Heart

Ok, so, most of you probably know I'm a hopeless romantic. Or something like that. The deal is basically that I spend very few days of my life not pining after one girl or another, usually sequentially, occasionally simultaneously. Yeah, weird, I know, but that's sort of me in one word, once you really get to know me. Or it could be that other one, but that's not for me to say.

Anyway. That's kinda how I've lived all my life. I may not have been obsessing over girls at age five or eight or twelve or anything, but since probably fourteen, that's been the story.

And, honestly, it hasn't changed since then. Which I guess I sort of implied in my previous statement, but I digress.

As long as I can really remember, that's been my big deal. My greatest want, desire, hope, dream. And I think I may have found another piece of the puzzle.

To explain the vague picture I've got so far, I'll start with what I've already figured out, within a reasonable margin of certainty. Or something.

First, I really want companionship. I always have. My siblings have interchangeably been fabulous and awful, but it's not about them, it's about me. Which sounds selfish, but that's the way it is. It's not that I'm the only thing that matters, or that I don't see their problems and want them to improve, it's that I see mine a thousand times clearer.

Or so I hope.

Second, I want said companionship to be lasting. I'd like to say I want it to be infinite or eternal, but that's not possible in the way that I want. Grrr. I hate saying I want things, but I think this self-exploration is helpful. Thus, I want it to last. I want someone who'll be willing to listen to extremely long-winded moments, wherein I babble mindlessly for hours, and times when I don't feel like talking at all. And that turns out to be a lot of the time, actually. It's not that I'm regularly unhappy or reclusive, but I really like to observe and to think. Occasionally this thought is accompanied by pacing, sometimes by sitting, sometimes by stationary standing. Not always do I want to be alone, but there are times like that as well.

Third, and perhaps most potent, has been my desire for the intimacy that comes with a best friend/lover/spouse relationship. And, yeah, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm not married, and, besides my parents, I don't know people very well who are married. And, if you've ever had parents (perhaps not, for some), you'll understand that I could be one of the worst people to judge my parents, while simultaneously being one of the best to judge them.

So I want to get hitched, basically. I can't really remember a day when I didn't, which is sort of weird. I don't know if I've ever had the sort of young boy grossed out at married couples kissing or being together or loving each other or anything like that. But my memory is rather horrible for the far past.

I realize that not only isn't marriage the one-step fix for every problem I've got in my life, but also that it'll more likely solve few of my current problems and create for me a dozen or so more. I've found that, in life, the quick, easy fixes are the ones that aren't good in the long run.

Which, somehow or other, is no comment against marriage in general. Marriage as God intended is a fabulous, wonderful expression of God's love, both as metaphor and literally.

Now, let's get current. I was thinking about this and completely forgot what I was talking about, 'cause I wrote a dozen paragraphs nearly unrelated...gimme a second.

Oh, snort. Another point. I've always wanted a constant companion, someone who'll listen all the time, any time, who's kind, gentle, honest, patient. All the good stuff. And naturally there's Jesus. God. And I keep thinking to myself...how exactly is God supposed to be far, far, far more than enough for me, and I simultaneously desire, from the bottom of my heart (heck, from the top and sides as well) that I have a spouse, someone on this earth who's got similar qualities while still human and flawed.

I think this is the crux of my problem. I don't know how to put this deepest desire of my heart in its right place. And I've prayed, believe me. I realize that, somehow, I'm supposed to put God first in everything, especially in those things I feel most strongly about.

And, God, I feel strongly about Girl X.

(I've never been completely clear on when using God's name is in vain, and not in vain. Flaw 2.)

So what can I do? I feel like there are many easy ways out of this, and I've taken a number of them before. I've always been partial to the Tell All and Hope For the Best approach, but, honestly, it's failed me twice in the past.

And I guess there's always the problem that I feel deeply insufficient. I always compare my talents, skills, interests, and intellect to those of Girl X, but there's more to it than that, I think. That's just me feeling insecure and losing perspective like an overfilled tortilla drools salsa. That doesn't help.

But there's also the fact that I don't have more than Benjamin's two cheeks to rub together.

So. I'm insufficient, insecure, have my heart set on the wrong things, don't put God first in everything, and on top of it all, I'm still getting over that sort of shy phase. Or maybe I'm just quiet like that. I always feel like I don't speak enough, laugh enough, or answer loud enough. But that's another topic.

Ah, yes. I want to be proud of my heart.

You see, were I to alphabetize the Girls that have, whether sequentially or simultaneously, occupied my heart, I would be probably half through the alphabet by now. Which bodes horribly if I actually get to Girl X before I find the one.

You see, it's shameful to me that I'm so fickle in my desire. I want to love constantly and really and actually and truly and fully. And being an all-or-nothing kind of guy, either I didn't actually love Girls A through H (or whichever I'm currently on...you can only imagine how I'd hate to keep track), or I don't love Girl X (X being current), because I've really felt this strongly about girls before today. I have. I've known girls better than Girl X (wayyyy better), I've been closer to girls before today. (somehow, though, I've managed to completely avoid ever actually having a girlfriend)

So I love and hope and dream and then pow, it's gone with one more beautiful face, wonderful person. Was that real? If it was, how can this be? If it wasn't, how can't this be?

And I haven't said this much. It takes a lot of time for me to figure me out, and I sorta just realize that the reason I'm ashamed about this sequence of potential partners is because I want to be proud of my heart.

I want to be proud of my heart.

And that makes sense. God made my heart, and my heart was made to constantly, absolutely, unreservedly love him. And I'm extremely bad at that.

But that brings me back to my biggest problem. Idolizing an idealized relationship rather than worshiping and serving God through everything I do.

My heart is hard.

This is going to be harder.

(I'd really appreciate prayer at this point. Thanks.)


!Noah!