this thing called life

september

2005-09-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

much has happened and nothing has happened....sometimes i wonder why we get so worked up about life when all it really amounts to is just a tiny little blip on the radar screen of existence...i don't want to get so caught up in the here and now that i miss the forever that i am really a part of....so i'm still working in las vegas, still becoming an appraiser, still volunteering, still writing songs and playing guitar...and it's all good...i just wish forever started today

the morning after

2005-05-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

So Gene and I played at the Golden Nugget last night for the Las Vegas artist showcase. They asked us to come back next month and play again which was kind of cool. All the demo stuff I took was picked up by agents and scouts (if there really were any.....) or people who just liked our stuff. We were the only original artists in the whole thing. There were two Neil Diamond impersonators, a Tom Jones, a Rodney Dangerfield, the entire Rat Pack, a few things I'm still trying to classify, and then us. Everyone had backing tracks or full band or were stand up, and then Gene and I walk on, plug in two acoustic guitars and play original stuff. Very surreal and very fun.
When I got home this morning I saw a comment that was posted on my blog from annonymous who mentioned a book from the SDA book center or something like that. If the anonymous person doesn't mind answering a question, I was wondering if the author was SDA? I used to be an SDA minister and left the denomination so I don't put any stock in SDA writers. I thought it was either a very strange coincidence that a person who knows about SDA's wrote to me, a survivor of that cult, or this person knows I used to be SDA and is trying to 'influence' me back in. (Being an ex-SDA makes a person a little paranoid....it comes with all the 'theology' they try to teach you).
Anyway, it is the morning after and I'm sitting down to study again. For anyone interested in seeing us perform again, it is June 21 at the Golden Nugget showroom in 'beautiful' downtown Las Vegas. Chow.

school sucks

2005-05-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

o.k. i'm in school...appraisal school....every evening until 10 p.m. all day i'm at home studying and then all evening i'm in school. i'm learning all about 'delayed gratification' through this process however. i'm learning that i have to finish this school thing in order to actually start making some serious money. so, for any of you who know me and wonder where i have been or why you haven't seen me for a while.....you probably won't for a while longer, unless you come to the golden nugget tonight at midnight and watch Gene and I play at the Las Vegas musicians showcase.

the player

2005-03-26T00:03:00.000-08:00

I saw an old t-shirt today in a whole new way. It was the old shirt that read 'don't hate the player, hate the game'.
Wouldn't that be a great way to live life, hating the evil and corruption and politics and lies of our world, and not hating the people?

Temptation

2005-03-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

I can reach out and feel it all around me
In the silence and every spoken word
In the writing tattooed across this subway
In the lyrics to every song I've heard

When I'm hiding it knows just where to find me
When I'm sleeping, it's drawing in my head
When I'm talking, it is the words inside me
And the images that float above my bed

It is sewn in the fabric of existence
It is part of a jaded history
I have loved it and it has left me empty
Why I still return remains a mystery

-these are the lyrics to a new song I'm working on called 'temptation'. I guess lately I'm feeling tempted to hate. Hate is such a solitary emotion that it can eat you alive inside and no one around you will ever know. The problem is that when you surrender to hate, it makes you feel really great for about 10 minutes. Maybe for some it's longer, but in the end it is always empty.

graduation

2005-03-17T22:38:00.000-08:00

I graduated from rehab today. They tell me I'm no longer a danger to society. I think that's a good thing. I am now officially part of the clean and sober side of society, which they tell me, is more than half of the world's population. I certainly don't feel like I'm suddenly part of the majority. In fact, if anything, I feel like I'm part of a tiny subset that meets every day in smoke filled, widowless, rooms to talk about the lives they used to live and how if I'm going to make it and not kill myself I have to take one day at a time.
I made it today and I'll make it tomorrow.

Fear

2005-03-13T22:29:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid of sharks. Big freakin' huge fish with giant teeth that swim just below the surface and when you have your back to them, they rise up out of the water and bite your head off. They're at home in the water, I'm not. Every once in a while I'll go and order shark if a resteraunt serves it, just so that I can say I ate one of them before they ate me.
I'm afraid of structure. I'm afraid that systems and rules and controls will kill my creativity. I'm afraid that conformity is the ultimate form of control and that if I submit to the authority of too many structures, I'll be one of the masses: faceless, nameless, and unimaginative.
I have given in to the structure of marriage because I love my wife, and to the structure of being a dad because I love my kids, but beyond that, there aren't too many structures I embrace.
I'm afraid of the future. Not the ultimate future, because I know God is waiting for me there, but the near future. I'm afraid of not finding work, of having to move my family back to Canada, of never being able to lead worship again. I'm afraid that I'll never do anything with the hundreds of songs I've written, or that I'll do the wrong thing with them. I'm afraid I won't be a good father or that I'll never be the perfect husband. I'm afraid of church and prison (I think they might have a lot in common.....).
Not that anyone cares, but here are some of the lyrics I wrote to a song called 'Afraid'. (c) 2004 Timothy Wrote This music (ASCAP)
I'm afraid to see the future, I'm afraid to see the past
I'm afraid to finish first and I'm afraid to finish last
I'm afraid you've told me lies and I'm afraid you've told the truth
But tonight I have decided I won't be afraid of you.
I'm afraid to take the credit, I'm afraid to take the blame
I'm afraid that things will change and I'm afraid they'll stay the same

That last line is my life right now. I guess I need God to drive out the fear. The bible says that 'perfect love drives out fear' and I need perfect love.

you're breaking up.....

2005-03-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

Today I saw two people with broken bones. First, at my sons' football game, during the opening drive, a kid from the other team fell on his arm and broke it in half. He was laying on the field for about twenty minutes while they put a splint on it and got a truck out onto the field to take him to the hospital.
Then, this afternoon my friend Hal was out dirt biking in the desert and fell off his motercycle and broke his leg in two places. I went with his wife to get his bike and bring it home and then go see him in the hospital.
I've never been around people who broke bones, and today I had two incidents in one day.

football

2005-03-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

I was watching my son Kyle at his football practice tonight and I realized how much fun it actually is to just go hang out and be a football-parent. Not to be confused with a soccer-mom, but kind of the same. I realized just how much of my time and energy went to my work and how many evenings with my family I gave up to do a job.
Honestly, my son cares that I'm at his practice. He cares that I spend time watching him play. Kids equate love with time. They figure that adults give their time to what they love. I'm giving my time to my kids now instead of my work. It's a great feeling.

Days of the New

2005-03-05T18:40:00.000-08:00

I have not blogged anything for months. Part of it is that I'm just plain lazy (I got an ipod at Christmas and still haven't learned how to use it yet....) and part of it is that I'm on a journey right now that began about 14 months ago with a serious car accident and culminated in my being fired from the Crossing this past week. I'll probably get in trouble for blogging about this but I'm not slamming the Crossing or feeling any ill will towards them at all. They did what they felt they needed to do for the future of the church, and I did what I did for my own health and sanity.
This road is not one that I anticipated consciously, but I think unconsciously I new the day would come when I'd part ways with the organized, evangelical church. I was just too lazy and too comfortable to actually do anything about the conflict I felt in my soul. Thankfully, God knows me better than I know myself.
So, here I am God. Today is the first day of the new life you are making for me. I don't know where it is or what it is, but I know it's not anything I will try to manipulate or control for my own benefit.

in the beginning

2004-08-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

All things have a beginning and an end. This blog begins on August 3, 2004 and will end at some point in the future. My life had a beginning, many years ago, and will eventually end, which of course will simply begin the next life which has no end. This world had a beginning, I don't know when that was and I don't care to try and figure it out, and it will have an end also. When that end will come and the process of trying to figure it out is something I don't really care about. What I do care about is the fact that it did have a beginning and an end. That tells me someone or something started it and someone or something will end it. I call that power 'God' although I have very little understanding of who or what exactly God is.
I know surface things about Him. I know surface prayers and surface religion. I know the God of sunday school and songs and late night discussions over beer and coffee, but I don't really know Him. How he began this whole thing is a mystery to me other than a book that says 'in the beginning God created...'. For now, that will have to do.
I want to know more than surface things. I want to know more than the simple 'God is love' that everyone I know gives as an answer when I ask about God. Love, isn't enough. I've known good love and bad love. I've seen love that was used and misused to the point that it didn't resemble any concept of love that I have ever experienced. I've seen all sorts of terrible things done in the name of love. I've known erotic love, sensual love, passionate love, cold love, love of things that were not good for me and of people that weren't good for me. I've known love that has blinded me to the realities of life. I've never known perfect love. I wouldn't know it if it hit me in the face. Sometimes the things I thought I loved, I ended up hating and the people I once loved, I learned to hate. The love I know is imperfect and selfish and gets me in more trouble time and time again.
So, this beginning is really a journey to discover love, to discover God, and to find myself somewhere in that journey.