“Wherever she was, THERE was Eden.”

I love to read.  Something that my parents instilled in me from the time I was young, and boy am I thankful for that.  I remember the first book I “learned” to read which was really just the story about a mom and baby bear who go to the beach and make sand cakes, but the only reason I could read it is because I memorized it (from my very wonderful, patient mother reading it to me over and over again!).

Well one of the blessings of marrying someone smarter than you are is all of the great literature that they can introduce to you.  I have not read much of mark twain, but Meagan loves his writing and is always trying to get me to take a look.  So, I decided to try out some of his short works and see if Samuel Langhorne Clemens lived up to the hype.  Twain was quite prolific and so there is not only a multitude of stories to choose from, but from Meagan’s point of view, there is a multitude of GREAT stories to dive into.

As a self proclaimed theologian I not so astonishingly chose the Diary of Adam and Eve.  I have to put in a little warning here, this story is great but I have not been affected by a piece of literature like this in some time.  Twain wrote this story in two parts.  He wrote the first half (Adam’s diary) while in his fifties and watching his beloved wife get sick and become frail.  The second half (Eve’s Diary) was written fifteen years later when Twain had hit his seventies, his  wife of 34 years had died, and he had outlived three of his four children.  This backing gives way to the melancholy tones of romance and love while also providing a nostalgic look at when the first boy met the first girl.

Twain writes the story in first person from the private journals of these two rather famous personas.  Adam, the inquisitve male can not figure out what in the world this new creature is and why it seems so fixated on following him, talking to him so much, and taking his job of naming things (without any sort of scientific experiment, much to his chagrin).  Eve, the loquacious counter part assumes that this creature (a he, she is sure of it) is not as bright as she, so she helps him out by naming everything for him and trying to show him the beauty in everything.

There is much more to the story, like Adam’s experiments on the creature that appears with Eve after he has been gone many months (he thinks it is a fish, but when he throws it in the lake Eve dives in to SAVE it!), but the underlying message shows how well crafted Twain’s stories are.  He literally develops these two characters brilliantly and then writes them to one another from the opposite ends of the spectrum.

I won’t ruin the whole story, but I finished the book the other night in bed, while Meagan slept beside me quietly.  Adam, in the last line of the book, is standing at Eve’s grave (knowing the back story here makes it that much more powerful) and he says, “Wherever she was, THERE was Eden.”  In that moment I looked over at my beautiful wife that I have been blessed with and I realized that she too would always be my Eden.

I realized in a rush of just those six words that Twain had said everything I would ever want to say about my wife.  Her perfection, beauty, understanding, kindness, gentleness, creativity, intellect, humor, even her intimacy is Eden.  It is the place in which I take refuge and find in it a relationship that knows true uncondintional love and one in which if I ever messed it up I would give ANYTHING to reconcile and bring that relationship back into righteous standing.

Mark Twain has captured me.  Not with his brash romance or his witty writing style, but by pinning me to the mat linguistically.  He has raised the standard to which I want to compare the works in which I write.  In six words he gave me a clearer picture of my love for my wife than I had ever had.  Now I am challneged to write that way, or at least think that way.

Call it what you will – sappy, syrupy, lovey dovey, weird – i don’t care, Mark Twain is fantastic and I look forward to many more years of reading him.

And many more years in Eden with my Eve.

current itunes track: Funny The Way It Is, DMB, Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King

currently watching: The beginning of summer movie season!  O Yeah, Star Trek last weekend and Terminator next!  YES!

currently reading:  Short Stories by Mark Twain and Short Stories by Flannery O’Connor (another southern American writer, but I love her for different reasons!)

*Today’s blog is in response to meagansmith.wordpress.com’s definition of my mind as a Wiki-Trail seeker (i sure love her a lot!)

I love information.  Useless trivia (I tend to bug meagan with my pop up trivia version of movies, music, books, and other things.  I know she loves me though cause she puts up with it..  Riddles.  Jokes.  Books.  News.  Stories.  Anything that I can hold on to and recount.  I collect information the way others might collect keepsakes, souvenirs, or ticket stubs.  Information that I recall can take me back to where I read that or heard that.  Like a keepsake I am reminded of my feelings at the time, or as a souvenir of another time.  The thought itself is a ticket stub of where I have been, what I have “witnessed,” and what I lay claim to as a piece of information.

I acquire information, stories, and data and then store them away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing (or filing it in my brain boxes…with my mind grapes!) it is often hard to say exactly when or why I might need them, but I also realize that I never know when it might become useful? With a beautiful collection of possibility engendering “facts” in mind, I  don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away (I see this connection in life to, I am a bit of a pack rat and I am trying to fight this!). But I will continue to acquire and compile and file stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps my mind fresh. And perhaps, hopefully, and most likely (I have discovered), some of it will prove valuable one day.

I like to take that information and then converse with others who have so many diverse and enlightening opinions.  I love to sit with an individual (especially my Dove…she is so smart!) or group and talk about life, love, philosophy, and even (with humbled reverence for the mysteries I will never know) God.  Even if the conversation never goes anywhere, it is the exchange of ideas and information that makes me light up like a New Orleans evening during Mardi Gras.

I am fascinated and deeply intrigued by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is, to put it simply, a concept, the best explanation of the most events. I get so excited when I can discern beneath the complex surface of an issue and find a beautifully simple concept (or pattern) to explain why things are the way they are. An idea then forms a connection for me. My mind  is always looking for connections and I am greatly enamored when seemingly disparate occurrences can be linked by some seemingly irrelevant connection. The ideas can even become a fresh perspective on familiar challenges for me – whether professionally or personally. I want to take the world we all know and turn it this way and that so we as a community can view it from a strange but enlightening angle. Simply put, ideas are thrilling, and for me that is enough sometimes!

I don’t know what kind of intellectual pursuits you find intriguing but I hope you find ways to challenge yourself personally.  Whether I am just sitting vegging out on video games or I am in deep study for a bible lesson, I know that I will always continue to think and examine things from different angles.  Maybe that is why I feel a close connection with post-modernity because I want to find all the angles people look at the world from and then discern connections between them so we can live in harmony and understanding.

*I would like to add one disclaimer.  I do love wikipedia.org, but YES I am aware of the evils of open source information sharing and so it is usually a springboard for me to go different places and look to real sources for info!

*If you are a news junkie I recommend www.drudgreport.com for intense, diverse, constantly updated news stories.

Hope you are having a great day.  peace to you

current itunes track: Pardon Me, Incubus, Make Yourself

currently watching: not much. I am behind on tv stuff, been pretty busy!

currently gaming: new tunes on rock band 2.  i am disappointed in the content put out by GH: world tour, rock band 2 is light years ahead!

currently reading: Living Your Strengths, Winseman, Clifton, and Liesveld, Gallup Press 2003

So I haven’t blogged since the start of December and I apolgize.  I have been lazy, and apparently that kills so i better watch out!

Lots of changes.  Life is good, I saw Katie and Daniel get married (which means I also got to see some other great friends!  What a great weekend), Christmas was off the chain (I got spoiled like crazy.  RIDICULOUSLY CRAZY.  IT was awesome to see family.), the new year has started well (see below), and now today I am sick as a dog andtrying not to cough up a lung!

The New Year has started and Meagan and I are participating with the Fam in a Biggest Loser type contest.  It is pretty awesome.  The winner will get a new article of clothing from everyone else who participates!  So far I have lost around 10 or so pounds in a week and a half…i need to work harder!

Like always I have been missing friends like crazy.  This college student to adult transition is just no fun, I am glad that Difab, Kyzer, and Selena are here…we are hoping to go to houston before Spring Break though!

Meagan and I have bought some more furniture.  We got her a cool Baker’s rack at hobby lobby and then we got an end table and coffee table for the living room.  We even got some art for the bedroom so meagan is helping me be all domestic since my idea of good pictures are posters!

Surprise on Tuesday, I went to Game Stop and found a copy of Assassin’s Creed for $17.99, this is the 7th best rated XBOX360 game and I snagged it for under twenty bucks, so much for workingout this week!  HA!

New office on TONIGHT!  Don’t miss it.

So I should wrap this up.  Sorry there isn’t any real content, I will get back to regular blogging with all sorts of jokes soon!  You rock.

peace to you and your family

currently on itunes: Genius playlist starting with Everything’s Magic, Angels and Airwaves

currently watching: 80s movies, classic action movies

currently reading: Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk (for the umpteenth time)

currently gaming: Assassin’s Creed, XBOX360 – Sid Meier’s Priates, PSP – Heavy Weapon XBOX360 Arcade

currently wishing: to just travel around the country and play music.  Schedule Leo Goes Grr in your hometown (just leave me a comment and we will work out the details!  Come on Lubbock, Phoenix, Houston, Tulsa, New Jersey, and Canada…you know you want this tour!)

WOW.  I have not blogged in forever.  I apologize to my mom (cause that is all who read this right? well i would apologize to Kristin but she hasn’t come to visit…so she is in trouble!)

Since my last entry we have had Halloween (Trunk or Treat at our church, it was awesome!), we got a new President (and if you did not know he is a different race than the last 43…so go America!), we finished the walls in the Youth Room at Church!  AWESOME!  The new James Bond movie came out (it is amazing, very much like the Bourne movies, but I like those…so IT ROCKED!), i started listening to christmas music, and It is almost thanksgiving and time for a trip to Lubbock!  I CAN NOT WAIT!

SO AS A TOTAL SIDE TO THIS WHOLE THING I NEED YOUR HELP!

Please respond with your vote for the top 5 best classic rock songs of all time!  PLEASE HELP ME! (1960-early 1980s)

alright well that is a quick one.  I will write something funny and witty later!

peace to you

current itunes track: Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult, Agents of Fortune

currently reading: The Other Philosophy, David Weaver

currently watching: really enjoying My Own Worst Enemy on NBC and Eleventh Hour on CBS

current scripture study: Matthew 17:1-9

craving: plane tickets to houston, new jersey, phoenix, and san diego (for myself!)

Henry missed me updating too!

So, it has been a while.  I apologize.  Lots going on you know.  But instead of telling you that, I just want to talk about things that are important to no one. Meagan and I bought Guitar Hero: World Tour!  It is totally worth the price of admission, we have had people at our house jamming on it  everynight since we got it.  AMAZING.  It is a blast, so yeah check that out.

I am out of my 90s phase of music.  It was fun.  Now i am on to the 00s  (well 00-04…what are those technically called?  serisouly…)

Facedown is going fantastic at church and the Student Ministries Department is having fun and getting excited about the future.

I got flipped off by an old lady a couple of weeks ago.  I drove a UHAUL to dallas last friday and back all in one day.  My best friend is moving to Houston in less than two weeks. We moved into the new worship center at church it is awesome!

Anyway I hope you are doing well.  I miss you.  You know who you are.  seriously…

peace to you

current itunes track: The Theme from John Carpenter’s Halloween…sweet

currently reading: drudgereport.com news

currently gaming: Guitar Hero: World Tour

current fav movie trailer: Quantum of Solace, November 14, 2008

currently watching: CSI, Season 9, DVR is SWEET!

Hey friends

It is about 6:55 am and I am just finishing up some emails and stuff I needed to get sent out this morning to parents and students.  Just wanted to update and not really add anything interesting to the internet other than the fact that I hope some folks are looking forward to reading this bad boy!

Meagan and I have ben housesitting this weekend…this means I miss our apartment (i am spoiled by our bed, it is like sleeping on clouds next to an angel!) Not that the bed at this place we are at is bad, it is just not ours!  Although the little dog Jack has gotten used to us and seems to like us well enough.  At first he was stand offish like a cat, now he pounces, plays, and wants to be right in between us all the time.  But you know how little dogs are, that little dog smell.  mmmmm

Church has been great and more exciting stuff is happening even as I speak!  I will update more on that later, but needless to say many prayers are being answered.

Finally I am ready to go start my day off.  So I am going to be out of here in a couple of hours and then I am taking a nap.  

PEACE to you

current itunes track: E-Pro, Beck, Guero

currently reading: Pagan Christianity, George Barna

currently watching: lots of DVR’d things (football, daily show, colbert, american dad, king of the hill, family guy, CSI, all sorts of fun!)

currently craving: more time with meagan and some donuts

can’t wait: TO BE HOME THIS WEEKEND!

see you then

I am a big guy.  I know this and I also know that I am responsible for the choices I make.  But since I live in Obama/McCain America (how scary that either one will run this country in 3 months) I get bailed out (by fast food conglomerates, who are really the ones to blame i mean seriously how good is that double beef burrito at TACO BELL, darn Mt Dew for tasting so good) even if it is my fault I am flatlining on the table in the ER.  The very people who caused part of the problem (the administration and congress) are now bailing out investors and big business WHILE WE PAY FOR IT (to the tune of now 835 billion dollars).  I have a solution what if every person over 18 just took a cut of that 835 billion and let us AMERICANS decide where the money can go, and if big business falls well BOO-FRICKIN-HOO (o yeah in my plan every person over 18 would get a check from the government for around 4200 dollars).  I don’t get heated about much politically but this economic bailout plan is the biggest load of bull crap I have read about in a long time (and I have been alive long enough to remember both of Clinton’s and Bush 2’s administrations).  

So besides that meagan and I are doing well.  We are fearing for our lives now that the bailout has hit and I figure that why worry we will just open up everything we bought for fear of Y2K and just use that stuff.  I mean that bottled water is only 8 years old right?  How long can canned beans sit?  O and we are filling up our gas tanks every night so that if that  gas shortage happens we will have two full tanks for the jerk thieves who will syphon gas from innocent people’s cars while they sleep!

Alright so I am being cynical, good things in life right now are: Meagan, my job (church is great), we got internet at the house and DVR it is really great, i finally was able to rent rock band 2, and I am going to take meagan home for a visit to Lubbock next weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  

Well hope you are doing well.  Sorry for my bitter rant.  i hope you have enoyed another episode of hilarity from me, or at least i thought it was funny.  calm down man.

peace to you

currently watching: DVR’d (is that a verb?) Daily Show and The Colbert Report (happiness)

currently reading: every magazine put in front of me (if you get that I will buy you a drink)

currently gaming: Rock Band 2, XBOX360

current itunes track: Parabola, Tool, Lateralus

current time: 4:01 pm

This week has been busy.  Planning, working, living, laughing, and enjoying!  Meagan and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary yesterday (from the day I asked her out. hahaha).  So we celebrated the best way we know how, by being at church and having a great communion service with the students.  man i love being a pastor.

Heroes and the Office return this week.  WOW.  Never have I been glued to the tv like this, o except every video game I have ever played. (i am sure mom is laughing.  i know you miss the sound of sirens and gun shots from the game room haha!).  I am excited for the office.  o man i have been watching youtube clips in my office OVER AND OVER.  If you did not see the slap face commercial during the olympics.  then stop.  STOP right now.  type youtube into your browser address and look up the office slap face.  one of the greatest 31 seconds you will ever spend.  i promise.

My friend Jessica and I have been planning a new mid-week service for prayer and worship aimed at college students and 20 somethings.  Well really it is aimed as a place for people to come and drop FACEDOWN before God and worship and pray for an hour.  I don’t really care who shows up…I am just pumped that we can all worship TOGETHER!  So if you are in the Oklahoma City area on October 7th at 9pm you should come to Northview Community Church for the first FACEDOWN.  Seriously it will rock.

I have been reading like a maniac.  Meagan and I are on different schedules.  Mainly she gets up at 5:15 ever morning and I DON’T.  So what does this mean for me when Meagan declares bed time at 10 ?  Well it means for me that I have been reading, anything I can get my hands on until about 3 in the morning because I don’t have to get my day going until 8:30.  So I have been reading.  Fiction, non-fiction, magazines, classic novels, theology books.  You name it I am ingesting it (well not like really ingesting it and don’t name drugs cause…thats just bad).  Anyway I feel like the bookworm I was in high school again and it is grand.  I LOVE reading.

Well I better go.  I have to get ready for our small group and then we are going to PARTY and watch the office premier!  AWESOME.

peace to you

current itunes track: Inside Out, Eve 6, Eve 6

currently reading: Simply Christian, N.T. Wright (just finished Fahrenheit 451.  such a great novel)

currently watching:  the office clips on hulu.com

currently gaming:  i am going to rent rock band 2. sounds awesome.

It has been a few.  I apologize.  I know there were some of you literally suffocating from a lack of knowledge about what is going on in the life of one 23 year old caucasian, male, student ministries pastor in the northwestern part of oklahoma city, oklahoma.  

Meagan and I had an awesome college small group on thursday night.  Our college group is phenomenal.  It was our first time to meet and everyone clicked and we shared stories from 7 until about 11 it was so much fun.  it will keep meagan and I feeling young (cause we are old.  seriously meagan woke up at 9 today and couldn’t go back to sleep…on saturday.  crazy.)

I received a birthday card from kristin thomas.  wow.  i never knew receiving a birthday card (a grandpa card at that) could bring such joy.  I immediately pinned it up on the wall in my office because its my office and I can put whatever I want on the walls (you know within reason.  it is a church.   my Pantera and Metallica posters have to stay at home….haha.  no i don’t really own those posters)!

The children’s pastor at the church I work at has family that lives in houston so we have been praying and glued to the weather reports about the town.  Such an odd thought to think of a place so big in such peril, but maybe it will wash away some of their terrible football playing and help out their team!  I mean look at what happened to the New Orleans Hornets (ok they was in poor taste sorry).

Meagan and I went to our first Seeworth Academy Football game.  It was funny because they were playing a team I used to cheer for because it had students from my first youth group in it.  So it was interesting and quite a study of the human spirit to watch a rather wealthy group of students (mostly white) play football against a Seeworth team that has one white player.  It was a lineup like the gridiron gang.  Watching these students from different sets and gangs work together and not yell at each other when things got bad but rather play harder was an amazing thing.  They were down 28 to 8 at half and were able to keep the score at 28-14 for the end of the game AND they had touchdowns called back for holding which was really sad!  It was cool to meet a lot of the people meagan works with though, I feel safer knowing they really do take care of her.  And seriously they had their security guy there with a gun on his hip so if anything went down it was getting old west style on the field.

well enough stories.  i hope you are all doing well. 

peace to you

current itunes track: Texas and Seafood, Mitch Hedberg, Do You Believe in Gosh?

currently watching:  Hot Shots (I love old school parody movies.  none of this crap that is on now)

currently reading: It, Craig Groeschel (yeah not by stephen king there is a difference here)

Hey Friends!

Today is my birthday and it is the strangest birthday I have ever had.  I am married, I have graduated from college, and my mom and dad are hundreds of mils from here.  Now I have had birthday’s when I was dating meagan (and I knew we would be married), I have had birthdays in college (hoping I would graduate), and I have had birthdays apart from my parents, BUT this one feels so weird because it is like I am an actual adult and I realize why people want to do childish things on their birthday, because you miss that anticipation of a stupid song and cake.  Now I have a great evening planned with friends, but the pinnacle of tonight is laughter and stories about days gone by.  The theme of birthdays  - at least when you live at home and worry about homework and if your teacher’s will be nice the next day – can be found in the the apex, the precipice, the mountaintop moment of joy when a cake with candles (hopefully trick) is brought out of whatever kitchen is present and everyone you know (and that matters in this world) sings you happy birthday in the most god-awful key you can imagine.  

Now I realize that as you get older everyone that matters might not be able to be in the same room to sing you that song and that is pretty darn sad!  But I don’t want to be a debbie downer, I just realized that there are new ways to look at birthday’s and that now the point isn’t the cake or the presents, but the people around them that matter o so much!

so on this day of OLD growth how about wisdom from some young folks?  In my last post I wasted time with an awesome forward.  Well I took that and transformed it into a youth lesson for us to share at church.  Here are some responses.

I fear: Jellyfish (9th grader)
I miss: being loved (senior) 
I wonder: how ants feel being 500 times smaller than me (a pretty tiny senior)
I care: about everyone (8th grader)
I hate: when I can’t find something then I find it when I don’t need it (a frustrated 7th grader)
I love: sisters ( a beautifully sweet junior)
I always: watch tv (a really honest 6th grader)
I wish: I had more time (a wise 8th grader)
I never: cuss (8th grader)
I hate: gas prices (a non-driving 10th grader)
I don’t always: ride my bike with no handlebars: (a rambunctious 9th grader)
I have: much more compared to people in other parts of the world (a very perceptive and wise 7th grader)

Nothing like reading the words of students to know that this is the great job in the world.  I love my students.  

peace to you

current itunes track:  Can’t Complain, Nickel Creek, Why Should the Fire Die?

currently reading: just finished up Postmodern Youth Ministry, Tony Jones

currently watching: The office, Season 4 (i am addicted…)