A letter I wrote a few months ago that I keep returning to. I thought I’d pass it on to all of us wrestling with (1) dating and breakups and (2) how we relate to God and others.

Hey there,

You’re now far removed from the breakup, and maybe it doesn’t carry the same sting or confusion like it once did. But I still feel for you with that. I’m sorry to see you two part ways, but this is also just the way things have to work sometimes. And sometimes it’s heartbreaking, sometimes not, but it’s always jarring and disorienting to have someone and then, after a conversation, not have them. And you’re right. These are the times made for rediscovering ourselves.

I want to tell you a story from my experiences for the sake of sharing, commiserating, etc.

I’ve been through a few breakups before, and they are always uncomfortable. They definitely do awaken a range of emotions. It’s painful and frustrating, freeing and productive. I remember the breakup that affected me the most was with a college girlfriend, my closest girlfriend. We had talked about getting married, and then it hit me one weekend that I didn’t think that should happen. I broke up with her, and we cried for hours. And then I wanted to get back together with her—we cried for hours again when she said no. And then I wanted to get back together with her again, and I cried for hours when she had connected with another guy in a time that felt so quick to me. It was definitely the darkest time in my life. I was depressed, stopped going to classes, and my identity was severely deconstructed. I asked myself: without her who am I? It wasn’t that I didn’t have any idea who I was. It was just that I got so used to walking with four legs, that I forgot how to walk with two.

That time of dismantling was so necessary for me. I think I found God in it more than I ever had before. I know I have a deep idolatry of women in my heart. At that time, if I dated someone, they became my everything. If not, then I imagined how a girlfriend would fix everything going wrong in my life. It’s super dumb, really. But breaking up with her shook me from that for a brief moment, and that’s where I could look past the idol to God himself. I needed that thread to be pulled to unravel my whole sweater, so to speak, so that I could be cold and needy and find God for warmth. My life changed through that. I became more aware of my neediness, more willing to allow God to take care of me, and less prone—though I’m still an idolator—to treating women as the solve-alls for my life. In all honesty, I’ve emerged from it like a champ. The sort of champ who somehow wins despite how much he sucks, who wins by losing.

So that’s my story for how a breakup drew me to Jesus. Maybe you can relate to some of it or maybe not. Either way, it’s good to share a story with a friend.

As for you and your former, I don’t know how this breakup will take each of you closer to the Lord. I understand that difference in spiritualities you mentioned—she is the structured, disciplined, Bible-reading type, and you are the free-form, general observer of God in whom “we live and move and have our being.”  Both are good and true. I’m certain God delights in both. I definitely relate to your spirituality. I have probably found more spiritual insight in The Alchemist  or East of Eden or the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins than I have in scripture. But I also think that I wouldn’t know what spiritual insight really is apart from what scripture reveals to me. Scripture’s important: I can cognitively assent to this fact. Does this make me want to read it? Sort of. Does it make the experience of reading scripture any less like pulling teeth for me? No way. And me, keeping a rhythm of reading scripture: psh, I wish. Still, I know reading the Bible and praying at a set time are good for me, and sometimes I do better than other times at taking that bitter medicine—plugging my nose and drinking it down like a kid.

When it comes to keeping set prayer/reading times, I really am young. Lots of people are more mature than me at that stuff, and I’m thankful for their examples. But when it comes to seeing God in literature, story, and other people’s eyes, I think I’m much more mature. The kingdom of God is huge and diverse, and there’s room for many languages, many expressions of devotion. And there’s nothing wrong with speaking one language and not another, so long as I remember that my language of spirituality has its strengths and weaknesses. Also, for me to communicate, commune with others, I might have to learn their languages, and they might have to learn mine. You’re right, we don’t have to conform to the spiritualities of others, but there’s still something to learn from each other. In our developmental moment, we are grown up in some areas and in need of maturity in others. We’re all each other’s parents and all each other’s kids—all helping one another grow up.

This is a long ass message. Sorry. Haha. I’ve just had a while to think since receiving your message, and I thought then wrote way too much, per usual. I care for you a lot and am thankful for our friendship.

Peace,
Matt

SIGHT OR FLIGHT, A TRUE STORY
 
 
Haggard, disheveled, tie tucked into his pants, the part in his hair mussed by static, Herald walks into the Santa Ana office right on time. His supervisor asks him if he’s all right.

“I’m fine. I just flew into work today. Trying to get over my fear of flying.”

“It’s Wednesday and you were at work yesterday. Did you fly somewhere after work yesterday?”

“No. I woke up extra early this morning and drove to LAX and flew down to John Wayne where I got a rental car and drove into work today.”

Herald’s supervisor Adam stares with a slight tilt to his head, mildly furrowed eyebrows. The cup of tea steams from his mug while he does his best impression of perplexity.

“By the way,” Herald adds. “I’ll have to leave the office at 10:00 today. I have a meeting with a client at Costa Mesa Country Club at 1:00, but I left my clubs in my trunk at LAX. I’ll have to fly up and get them.”

Sipping from his tea, Adam hesitates to quietly blurt: “What?”

“I couldn’t take my golf clubs on the plane. It would take forever if I checked them. I’d be late to work.”

“But why do you have to fly up to get them? No…why do you have to fly at all?”

“It takes 30 days to form a new habit. I’m going to fly in and out of work the next 30 days. Sometimes that might be a bit of a hiccup for the office, but I promise that it’s for everyone’s good if I straighten out my fear of flying. I really need your support on this one, Adam. Personal and professional development stuff, you know? I can take it to HR to write off on it.”

Knowing it’s worth fighting about as much as a war on drugs, Adam pauses and offers his help. “Okay, fine. This can fly for today, but we’ll be reevaluating your plan for beating your phobia, because I foresee it being more than a ‘hiccup’ for the office if you continue departing two hours after you arrive.”

Imagining a possible solution, Adam takes Herald into his office to show his odd yet endearing subordinate his golf clubs. Herald rummages through the pockets of the golf bag, admiring the wedges and drivers with two gentle hands.

“How about if you borrow my clubs for the afternoon? That way you won’t have to fly back to LAX until after normal work hours.”

“You know I can’t borrow things, Adam. You know this. I can’t borrow. People lend me things, and they never get them back. Please, don’t make me.”

Adam remembers his wife’s party tray, his fountain pen, and he knows lending the golf clubs is a bad idea. He also wonders about the missing doormat that once welcomed clients to the office, the receptionist’s candy bowl that was relocated to Herald’s cubicle, but mostly he wonders why his daughter married this jackass.

This jackass who tries so hard to become a better man.

Adam dismisses Herald for his five-minute drive to John Wayne in his rented Mustang convertible.

Herald keeps the top up on the convertible, intentional about not getting used to extra luxuries. But he eyes the maps in the glove compartment, slipping them into his bag before returning the keys to the rental center.

_____________

Herald takes his seat in the airplane next to a mature woman that looks like his mother-in-law and fastens his seat belt.

Is that what my wife will look like in thirty years?

Pushing the thought out of his mind, he opens his bag—looking for anything at all to keep his mind off of take-off—his bag where the same maps that caught his eye earlier catch his eye again.

“Dammmmmmit.” He exhales as he turns his head and gaze upward, sending an elongated curse into the air. “Why do I do this?”

The woman next to him continues examining the photographs in the in-flight magazine. She debates lifting her eyes to him in a consoling glance, but her gaze remains glued to a photo of a new restaurant that opened in Philadelphia last month. They serve gourmet breakfast burritos exclusively for lunch.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees this man remove something from his bag—and she feels afraid.

Herald self-talks: I can’t keep these maps.

Across the aisle by the window a dad wearing a Disneyland t-shirt sits next to his daughter, and his wife and younger daughter sit in the row directly behind him. His fatherly instinct keeps an eye on this potentially crazy man across the aisle who just cursed in front of his seven year-old.

He is surprised to be addressed by this character.

“Excuse me, sir,” interjected Herald with fear-sweat dripping down the side of his temples. “I see you are wearing a Disneyland shirt. Did you just have a vacation there? Because, you see, I have these maps, and I want to give them away as, um, souvenirs to your daughters…if that’s okay with you.”

The eyes of Disney-dad’s elder daughter jet across the cabin to this mystery man and back at her dad’s face. In a moment the father sees the formulation of tears in his daughter’s eyelids. They are on reserve if he makes the wrong decision.

“Sure.”

As soon as Herald extends the maps to the daughter, she snatches them away with a rapid grunt sounding like “thank you.”

“We are now beginning our descent,” the airplane alerts its inhabitants.

“To the grave,” Herald mutters holding tight to his seat belt like a bull rider.

_____________

In the early evening, Adam—about to leave work—receives a picture text message from his son-in-law.

Three golf balls sit in a line on well-kept green.

Someone has drawn frowning faces on each.

“Sorry. I took them. I promise to bring them back. See you tomorrow. Might be late if flight is delayed.”

Adam knows he won’t get his golf balls back, but he’s happy he got an apology. An apology wouldn’t have happened three months ago.

Reply.

“See you tomorrow, son.”

This is a story I wrote because I woke up laughing the other morning. I had dreamed up a character in my half-sleep. He’d be an eccentric kleptomaniac who is highly intentional about becoming a better person. His name would probably be Herald. I dreamed of Herald wanting to conquer his fear of flying.

My church reads wonderful poems like this during the service. I LOVE it.

THE QUIET WORLD

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

—Jeffrey McDaniel

Here’s a full demo of Transcontinental that my friend Ben and I recorded. He’s training to be a recording engineer, and this was for one of his projects. I’m kind of psyched about it and even more psyched about the fuller and more legit version we’ll eventually get to make. Hope you like it.

the-absolute-best-posts:

ohthenightsky:

“Lily is a Great Dane that has been blind since a bizarre medical condition required that she have both eyes removed. For the last 5 years, Maddison, another Great Dane, has been her sight. The two are, of course, inseparable.”

(via madebycows)

Here’s another demo of a song I just started.

I had the honor of playing the pre-processional music at a wonderful friend’s wedding Saturday. This guitar part is what came out of it.

The melody came about today, and who knows when the lyrics will come. Right now it’s just some fill-in-the-blank melodic babbling done pretty poorly, I will add.

It definitely has a 90’s music feel, which I actually really like now but usually never.

TRANSCONTINENTAL

Here’s a quick demo of a song I can finally say is finished after working on the music more than a year and the lyrics about 6 months.

It’s all about the effort given for love, using the metaphor of building the transcontinental railroad.

The lyrics—

Maybe ‘cause I’m lightning, you are thunder.
Maybe ‘cause I’m bright neon, you’re grey.
When I’m fighting danger, it’s to keep you safe.
When you’re feeling gathered, I’m asunder.
It gets so lonely in the modern age.
Sorting through the wild just to see each other—
Calloused hands to meet halfway.

I’m an honest man on a dusty road,
And I’m laying tracks as fast as I can slowly go.
I’m an iron horse, building a railroad,
And as the miles pass, I pray that I am getting close.

I’m an honest man on a dusty road,
And I’m laying tracks as fast as I can slowly go.
I’m an iron horse, building a railroad,
And I’m trying to get you next to me,
Connecting east to west to see our continent whole.

Sentimental Son

THE SECOND FALL

When the Spirit came,
Breaking like waves,
Hurricanes and accolades,
He said to us:
Don’t be afraid.
We said to him:
Don’t go away.

Then the Spirit stayed.
Birds flapped their wings,
Dancing around the sky to sing
Their squawking-chirp-tweet
Symphonies.
The onlookers could not believe
What they had seen. 

And the Spirit thrived.
The plant life there had come alive.
A whirlwind swayed them
To and fro,
And tongues of fire licked the hopes
Of cowards, heroes. All could know

When the Spirit spoke. 

I woke up with this poem in my head this morning.

This is my translation of Neruda’s Poema 20. I found the poem in the Spanish book I’m studying from. It’s a seriously heartbreakingly beautiful poem. I had some time to kill, and translating Spanish poetry on my terraza overlooking the Mediterranean in southeast Spain seemed like a good way to hack away at my free time.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To write, for example: “The night is starry,
And the stars blink in blues, off in the distance.”
The night winds turn in the sky and sing.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she also loved me.

On nights like this, I had her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under an infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I also loved her.
Oh, how not to have loved her big, fixed eyes.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I don’t have her. To feel that I lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls on the soul like the dew on the grass.

How important that my love couldn’t protect her.
The night is starry, and she’s not with me.

There’s all of it. In the distance someone sings. In the distance.
My soul isn’t pleased with her being lost.

Like getting closer to her, my gaze searches for her.
My heart searches and she’s not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, us from before, already aren’t the same.

Already I don’t love her, it’s certain, but oh how much I loved her.
My voice searched the sky to play her ear.

From another. It will be from another. Like before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I already don’t love her, it’s certain, but maybe I do love her.
My love is so short, and forgetting is so long.

Because on nights like this I had her in my arms,
My soul wasn’t pleased with her being lost.

Although this was the final pain she caused me,
And these were the final verses I wrote for her.

—Pablo Neruda