I am trying to enjoy the quiet times....like that are around right now.  All the campuses here have finished their school year (Wofford's graduation was this past Sunday) so now it's summer.  It is pretty quiet at the moment.  I think I appreciate the quiet moments more than I used to...I think in a lot of ways because I know that things will pick up as time goes on.  The sermon this past Sunday on rest was a good reminder that we should take time to rest and that shows our dependence on God.

On Monday I helped out with an event called Assault on Mount Mitchell.  It's a bike race that starts in Spartanburg and ends at the top of Mount Mitchell in North Carolina.  There was a group from the Baptist Network that went up and volunteered to help out and I was one of them.  I was with a group at the top helping to load bikes onto moving trucks to be transported back down the mountain.  It was a long day.  Met up with the group at 7:00am then drove to Marion, NC.  We then split up and I went with the group to go up the mountain.  We got to the top around 10:00 or so and got instructions and ate an early lunch.  Around 11:30 or so was the first biker and from that point until around 6:30pm or so we loaded bikes onto the moving trucks.  Aside from a downpour at one point, it wasn't too bad.  Had a late dinner around 9:30pm or so, didn't get back home until around 11:30pm.  Still a little sore and got a little sunburnt but overall doing fine.  Hoping next year to bring some college students with me to help out.

I'm looking forward to traveling this weekend, even though it will be a lot of miles on the road.  It'll be good to see my friend Kyle get married.  There was a long stretch where I wasn't able to be at friends weddings so it'll be good to be able to attend.  Yeah it'll be a reminder that I'd like to be married but just like being content with the quiet days, I'm trying to be content being single.

Well that's all for now.  Until next time, later days...

It has been a long month or so.  One big thing after one big thing.  There are some down times but I feel like I barely catch my breath before the next big thing.  I know this will end soon when the middle of May comes and then it'll be summer for students here.  At that point I'll be able to catch my breath....and hopefully figure out a plan for the summer and then start some planning for the fall.

I feel wore out a lot lately.  Spiritually I feel at times drained, the same emotionally.  Physically I feel tired and there are times that random parts of my body ache.  It's no fun at times getting older...and I'm still fairly young.

I went to see "Blue Like Jazz" the movie tonight.  It was interesting seeing how it needed to raise money (through Kickstarter) to get finished (I donated like 5 dollars, bare minimum but hey it was something) so it was weird seeing it on the big screen.  I first read the book back in 2005 when I was living in Seattle.  I actually read his first 3 books back to back to back (liked Searching for God Knows What & Through Painted Deserts better than Blue Like Jazz but that's just me.  As a review, I liked the movie.  Does it do the book justice?  Eh yeah kinda.  It's really hard to translate a book like that into a movie but for I think for what it is, a means to have conversations about Jesus, it's a good starting point.

Watching the movie and seeing a lot of Portland, it made me miss Seattle.  I like to affectionally call the city my "second home" and in a lot of ways it still is.  Even though I've lived in K.C. & now Spartanburg since then, I can't get Seattle out of my blood.  If I could and there was a full time campus ministry job offered to me, I'd pack my car up and drive to Tennessee and load up a U-Haul with all my other stuff and drive there now.  But given that's not really an option at the moment, that's not the case.  If God opened that door again to return to Seattle, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  But at the same time, I'm to be content where I am.  God has provided me with an opportunity to live and serve here on some great campuses and minister to some really cool students.

Do I wish that my story is somewhat different?  I'm not going to lie yeah I do wish that sometimes.  But being a follower of Jesus we have to die to ourselves daily.  I would love to be married and have a family.  I have to die to that dream every day.  I hope and pray that at some point I don't have to die to that dream but until then I have to follow God's calling for my life.  I would love to be living in Seattle again.  I have to die to that dream.  Ultimately, I'm called to follow Jesus and serve.  The older I get, the more I appreciate where I've come from and hopefully helps me to trust Him as I keep going.  I do long for heaven so that I can not worry about my tired aching body and my frustrations for messing up now and then and just be able to be face to face with Jesus.  It'll come but in the meantime I'm to keep on keeping on.

There was a quote from "Through Painted Deserts" that I quoted on here back in '05 and I think the quote is still pretty relevant:

"It's interesting how you sometimes have to leave home before you can ask difficult questions, how the questions never come up in the room you grew up in, in the town in which you were born.  It's funny how you can't ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize that nothing that is happening to you is normal"

Well that's all for now.  Until next time, later days...

I think there are spells right now where I just don't feel like blogging.  It's not that I don't have stuff to blog about.  I'm just not motivated to do it.  I think that's why my blogging both here and at my sports and theology blog can be sometimes sporadic.  I probably just need to get back in the habit of writing regularly just simply for the fact that it is helpful in working my brain and processing thoughts.

The past few weeks (and the next few weeks) have been one big event after another.  From Brandan Davis speaking at Upstate to Day of Prayer at SMC to Crave to the EAN Summit to Why Jesus, it has been one thing after another after another.  In a lot of ways it's been good but it's has been kinda exhausting at times.  There are times in the midst of this where I feel like I have to force myself to rest.  Because it's so easy to get burned out and right now getting burned out isn't a good thing (well it never is a good thing but especially right now).  So when there are moments when there is a lull, I really try and just stop to relax.  Being intentional to rest in a period of restlessness is important.

I'm a big fan of How I Met Your Mother and the episode this week "Trilogy Time" was a very good one and thought provoking.  The premise of the episode was that Marshall and Ted watch the Star Wars trilogy (the original one) all the way through every three years ever since college.  And throughout the episode they talk about how their lives will be different every three years and it got to this year and how Ted really didn't have hope in what the future would be like.  And like most of the episodes in the show, I can relate to Ted.  I have had moments when I don't really have hope for the future when it comes to relationships.  It's tough being single in your early 30s.  But I keep pressing on because I trust that God knows what's best for me.

Well that's all for now.  Until next time, later days...