Art of Growing Old

I’ve been obsessed with a few artists lately. The most recent one (for the past several hours) is Sam Beam of Iron and Wine. He’s an amazingly talented musician and he truly just blows me away. The others, to name just a few, are Leslie Feist (namely the album Open Season) and almost anything by Ben Gibbard (most notably the song Couches in Alleys by Styrofoam).

I began a new series of entries a couple of weeks ago and have yet to follow up on it, terribly sorry. I do intend to do so this weekend now that I’m adjusting to this new routine that my friend Drew and I have found ourselves in. If you haven’t heard, we’ve decided to make some major changes in our lifestyles to really get into shape. From an extreme switch in diet to a very intense workout schedule with our personal trainer, there have been some drastic changes around here.

It’s interesting to think about how life has changed over the past year for me. Some years can sneak by and you barely notice them. However, anytime you move across the country more than once in a single year, that year can’t just “sneak by” you, y’know? Moreover, the changes in job and lifestyle are just astounding. I’ve gone from hating my life (and complaining about it constantly) to loving everything about my job and well, life in general. It doesn’t stop there, either.

It seems as though every day my responsibilities grow, I am challenged, and I get a chance to truly show what I can do. After years and years of hard work, I’m starting to get a preview of the benefits. As confident as I may be, this is something that I can never truly say that I deserve. I find myself incredibly blessed on a day-to-day basis and I only hope to be able to leverage my position to do something great. Let’s just hope I can actually pull it off ;).

I had originally planned on writing about Blue Like Jazz in its entirety but I’ve finally come to realize that it just isn’t something that I can do. I’ve been struggling to wrap my head around my thoughts and feelings about my latest read and, well, it’s not something that can be wrapped up in a single entry. It’s a continuing process of change and understanding. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I barely took the first step today.

I think I’ll randomly take excerpts from chapters and explain how they’ve affected me. My dad is the one that recommended I read this – in fact, he bought a copy and had it shipped to me so I kind of felt obligated to read it. You see, him and I have both struggled with the modern-day church (a topic I ranted about some time ago). He told me that this book helped him wrap his head around a lot of his issues and thought that it could be of help to me as well.

I reluctantly opened to the first page and began my search for something that pissed me off. This is something I always do when I’m not exactly “excited” to do it. The first chapter was void of any of my pet peeves so I decided that I would give it a shot (and by “give it a shot”, I meant continue my search in chapter two).

“I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man’s mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into habit. I grew up going to church, so I got used to hearing about God.”

The author had me with this one. “It was an interesting way to open the second chapter”, I thought to myself. “No, that’s not it”, I mumbled as I continued to figure out why this statement was so captivating. It happened to be a combination of a couple of things. I’ve lowered my view of my fellow “believers”, if you will, to such a point that I almost find it amazing when they say something that truly moves me. It’s the repetitive and blinding routines that seem to suck away all traces of intellectual thoughts. This one was even more interesting to me as it’s something that I had been thinking for quite some time. It was one of those issues I had that I just couldn’t put my finger on: there really can be something WRONG with being that religious.

In this chapter alone, he began to bring the concepts of Christianity to a level of humility that I could actually relate with him. Taking a very neutral stance from his faith, he very calmly and clearly stated that there is something wrong with our image and practices.  He apologized for the wrongs that I firmly believe 99% of all Christians are guilty of and convinced me that he had something genuinely interesting to say. He didn’t sound like he was writing this as a preacher and he sure as hell didn’t sound like he grew up in a temple. Instead, there was dialog that happened in every day places over current events, and broke the taboos that infuriate me.

I was officially hooked after the second chapter. I wanted to hear more from this man that clearly knew things that I didn’t. He had managed to find a way to accept his faith and not throw away his mind or his happiness. Not only that, but he still managed to present himself as someone that I would love to have a deep conversation with over coffee and not someone that I would never want to be seen with in public.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ll leave you with the words from that back cover of the book:

“For anyone wondering if the Christian faith is still relevant in a
post-modern culture,
For anyone thirsting for a genuine encounter with a God who is real,
For anyone yearning for a renewed sense of passion in life…”