Happy New Year

Well, you all get a treat. I'm posting. Exciting for you all. Not much I'm gonna say except I'm glad the worst year of my life (so far) is almost over. And it's ending par for the course. Yay.

Sad Times

Well my friends, it is with deep sadness that I must report that Archie has died. I came home tonight to find him lying lifeless. Though I only knew him a short while, he became something special to me. From his frightened squeaks when I washed him, to the quiet way he would sit in my hand or on my lap. I couldn't believe how quickly he bonded with me and transitioned from panicked scampering at anything to letting me stroke his tiny body. He will be missed. Below is a picture of him in my hand.

Odd Times

Gee, it's been a while since I've posted. What a surprise. It's been a rather interesting week. On Wednesday, I gave a drum lesson to a teen in the church. It's kinda challenging, but I enjoy it. Last night I made some Chinese stir-fry. It was amazing. Best homemade stir-fry I've had for sure (sorry Mom :-). Afterward I went to play Frisbee with some friends. Who should show up but Meghan Wallwork who has been in New York since May. There was only 7 of us so the game was pretty chill. But Josh threw the frisbee over the barbed wire fence and into a swamp. We stood around quite while trying to figure out how to get it. Teak insanely went to the end of the fence and clawed his way back through the swamp to get it. When he return triuphantly with fribee in hand Jon noticed this guy getting into the dumpster. We all turned to look as he got out and started jogging across the field. Moments later a cop appeared yelling for him to stop. The guy jump over the fence (it was high and topped with barbed wire). The cop stayed by the fence and cop car pulled up next to us and asked if we had seen the guy running. Josh told him what happened and they took off to head him off. We went to Jon's house and watched Aliens (I made some kettle corn). In the morning I woke up and started going about my day, making coffee etc. Suddenly I notice a dead mouse lying by my door. It was probably around three weeks old. I was a little freaked because I had no idea where it came from and how it died. I scooped it up and threw it into the woods. About an hour later a second one came crawling out from under the oven. I scooped it up and put in a box. I didn't know what to do with it because it was too young to make on it's own. I pulled out the stove to find out where they were coming from. I found that the large electicity feed for the oven had large hole around it and nearby was a box of poison mouse food. I figure the mother ate some and must have died in the nest somewhere and the babies started emerging looking for food and one ate the poison and died. Thing is usual liters are around 5-10 so I'm afraid more will come. We'll see.

My Birthday and Some Thoughts

So today is my birthday. It's been a great day. Lots of birthday wishes from everybody. My friends here organized a party for me and it was awesome. Jocelyn made and brought the Lite Brite sign above. Diane, Jen, Josh, and Jon gave me some hilarious cards. Oh, and I forgot, Ben and Jan kindly gave me a book. "The Gospel and Personal Evangelism" by Mark Dever I think it was. Very nice of them. All in all, a good time guaranteed for all.


This is a post I've been thinking about for a couple of days. It's been bouncing around in my head for a while. I will warn you this is gonna be a long post. It really started about a month or so ago. I was given a guitar for Christmas and have been teaching myself to play. A month ago my friend asked me if it was hard for me to consistently practice. He mentioned that he often didn't practice and it was hard to be diligent. I replied that I really didn't have problems like that. I loved to play it and practice. If I had free time, nearly always I used at some point to play. This really began a thoughtful consideration of why this was so. I looked at my life and noticed that there was little that I was diligent and consistent about. I would always get bored with whatever I had started and leave it unfinished. For example, writing (hehe), I would often get a grand idea, start it and then forget about it a few days later.


I found that this was not true playing guitar. And as I thought back, neither with playing drums. I mean, I taught myself to play drums. I loved it. I practiced for at least an hour every day (much to the annoyance of my family). I would still do so, but my living situation doesn't allow it. I realized that music must be really important to me. I knew I liked music, but I didn't think it was more then that. Music must be something special to me, because playing instruments is one of the few things I pursue with a great deal of passion and commitment. But, I thought back even farther to when I was being taught to play the piano as a young child. I really didn't like it. For years my patient teacher would bear with my nearly complete lack of practice. So, there was an instance of playing an instrument where I was not diligent.


As I continued to remember piano lessons, I thought a time when my teacher wanted me to work on my rhythm and instructed me to listen to the drummer and keep time with my foot (she was from our church). I thought, “Sweet! I do that already!” If any of you see me worship, I'm sure you've noticed that I am always doing that even to this day. It's not even conscious, I have to make an effort to stop :-). It's funny how my primary instrument is the drums now when I remember that time. Later, after years of being taught classical piano, my teacher began to teach us worship songs. I still remember the first song she taught us, “To Be With You”. I was so excited. I practiced like crazy to learn it. I was the first of her students to learn to play it. I learned about half of “We Rejoice In the Grace of God”, then I had to quit to help save my parents money. I remember though being so excited to play worship songs. I thought that this was due to the fact that I knew the songs, but as I've been thinking lately, I believe there is a deeper reason.


So why all this? What have I been babbling on about like this for? Well, because I've realized something. I love music. More then that though. I've come to understand that I love music not for music sake, but because I love to worship God and praise Him through music. When did I really become interested in playing piano? When I began learning worship songs. When I taught myself to play drums, what kind of songs did I practice most to and what was my goal? I practice primarily to worships songs and I most wanted to be able to play on the worship team. When I'm learning songs on the guitar today what songs am I learning and why do I play? I learn worship songs for the most part and all I really want to able to do is be able to whip out my guitar when friends are hanging out and sing worship songs together. This doesn't mean I don't wanna excel. Sure I want to be able play drums like Neil Peart or Mike Portnoy. Sure I would like to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix, but my main desire for and joy from music is worshiping God and giving Him glory. I love music because I love to glorify God with it. I can think of an recent example; just recently the new NA Band album dropped, “Looked Upon”. Now musically I really don't like this album. The mix, the instrumentation just don't work. The bass is non-existent, the drums sound like toys. The only thing that sounds good in the acoustic guitar. Yet, I keep listening to it. Over and over. I 'm learning to play the songs. Why? I think it's because the songs are rooted in the scripture and the Gospel and my soul is being turned towards God in worship. Here is an example of where musically I don't like something, but because God is receiving glory I like it.


Now I'm not saying all this to pat myself on the back. It's really because I'm so humbled by God's graciousness to me. When I see that my desire in and through music is to glorify Him, I'm aware that this desire didn't come from me. Left to my own, I would despise worship songs, and I would glory in music itself and seek to gain my own glory through it. God has graciously given me a love for Him, in particular through music, and I am so humbled and grateful to Him for it and all that He has done for me. This makes me want to praise Him. It's an endless cycle!! I love it!! Therefore, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.” Rev 4:11.

New Attitude Log: Supplemental

Hey I've uploaded my photos from New Attitude to facebook if you wanna see them. Also to flickr for all those who don't have a facebook.

Link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theunderminer/

Na: Day One

So I'm gonna start a recap of all that happened at New Attitude. You've read about the trip there, so I'll just add some funny things that happened. When we stopped for lunch, it was a gas station/Subway and most of us ate there. Stephen was dying for some coffee. You should have seen him frantically search the exit food signs for a Starbucks. So he and couple of guys went to Wendy's and he managed to get some hot water to make coffee. Jonny Altrogge and I randomly decided to get cheapo nerf guns that the gas station had. We spent the rest of the trip ambushing each other. We finally pulled into the Gault House hotel around 4-4:30pm. And so started the crazy rush that is arriving at New Attitude.

After everyone's luggage was off, Stephen and I took the vans to park them. As we entered, there's that height bar hanging and both vans scraped it. I was was pretty nervous that the vans would scape inside. The whole time I was ducking my head (as if that made a difference). But there was enough clearance and after parking in the farthest point away possible, we returned to the hotel. I had been calling Aaron to get into the room, but he wasn't picking up (seems like no one did all of Na). I really didn't wanna be standing there forever, so I tried Josh and Shanna to see they knew where he was. He finally called me and I went up to the room. He and I went and got registered and then I went to see Gen, who was on the same floor as us, which was pretty cool. I went over to the first session with her and a few of her roommates.

Worship started, it was loud and sounded like crap, but definitely better then last year. Usually it really distracts me, but God gave me grace to be able to worship undistracted. There was the usual 4-5 songs that no one knew (at least outside of Cov Life). That's one of the things that bothers me, they always sing lots of new songs, and most of the time they are not that great. There are some outstanding songs that aren't new. Oh and what is wrong with original version of hymns? Stephen and I were talking about this and the one song Nail My Glory in particular was kinda odd, and left him wondering what he was singing. After worship Josh Harris opened the conference with a message what the right response to God's word is. He gave three examples from scripture: Josiah (2nd Kings 22), Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 36), and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15).

After the message we splint into community groups. This year they really separated everyone. There were two people I knew in my group. Zac Dimaio and Rachael Efthimiou. That was it. We were lead by Jimmy Canon (?). The group was then made into about a dozen smaller family groups and mine was led by a guy named Seth Ranneberger. We spent most of the time just getting to know one another. There was a girl in my family group, Liz Dudley, who grew up in Indiana and knew everybody, which I thought was pretty cool. The community groups ended and Zac and I went searching for food. We went to Champions and were eventually joined by Gen and Lauren. Actually a little later a big group from Cov Fell showed up. Zac and I headed back to the hotel after eating. I pretty much just hit the sack (I'm not a young as I used to be).

Andrew and Courtney crashed in our room, because they had reserved their room for the day before and since they weren't there, they lost the reservation. They got a room for the last two nights, but had to stay in ours the first. I ripped some blankets from the two beds for them and we all settled in to sleep.

Na: Monday

Wow, are the days packed! I have hardly had any time for anything. I'm going to give a much more detailed, blow-by-blow report later when I'm not so tired and have time. For now I just say that it's been amazing. Worship is great. The messages have been just outstanding. And some fun was had along the way.

Welcome to New Attutitude

Well, here it is. New Attitude. I can't believe it's here all ready. About eighteen of us left from Indiana. We rented two 15 passenger vans to take all of us. Stephen Altrogge and I went to pick up the vans around 6 am. Let me tell you, driving a big van is pretty scary after driving my little car. Plus the windows were fogging up so I could barely see. So we left around 6:45 am, and drove for about 20 minutes or so and then someone in the other van realized they forgot something and turned around. When we stopped for breakfast and waited for the other van to catch up. Except they got lost and took about and hour to finally get here. Finally we met up and continued on. We made a few stops later on, but got to Louisville without much incident. Alright, that all I got time for now. I'll try to post later.

Coming Attractions

So last night a few friend of mine got together at the Murphy's house to have some worship and hanging out time. It was a beautiful evening and after singing for a bit (and failing miserably at singing 'In the Secret' in the right key. Seriously, we had to give up), we started a little fire. Eventually the conversation turned to pessimism (how I have no idea) and I was arguing the point that pessimistic people are happiest. No one agreed and it was suggested that write in my blog about it. So, coming soon, I will be turning my thoughts to this subject and giving a compelling case for it. I'm sure you all are eagerly waiting now. In other news, Purdue apparently did a study of the most carbon emitting cities. Guess what was number 15 on that list. Indiana, PA. Yeah, I don't get it either. This town is almost completely devoid of anything that we usually associate with carbon emissions. Go figure.

So this week has been pretty uneventful. Just going to class, doing homework, playing my guitar, etc. Oh, last night during frisbee, my faithful frisbee disc was split in half. It was blocked throw so violent that the disc cracked right in half. Many tears were shed. It had a full life, so I'm thankful for that. I went to Walmart to get a new one and oddly enough they didn't carry them. The one in Exton does, so I was kinda confused. I don't know where else to get one, cause there's nothing else here. Online perhaps. Not much else to mention. Oh, my nice six month old Macbook just developed a crack. Apparently it's a pretty common thing, so I just gotta head to a Apple Store to get it repaired. Problem is, there isn't one for 50 miles. 50 miles of winding slow road.

Alright, Alright

Due to the incessant whining of my friend Ryan, I am writing my first new post in a long while. I haven't updated because no one reads this, and my life is boring. But Ryan feels that this is no excuse. So, I am writing in it again. If you'll note there is a new logo. Credit for that goes to Ryan. It defaults to the way it is right now, but I kinda like it. So about my life. Nothing new really. School, sleep, eating, frisbee, church. All in all, not much to say about it. There was a recent Resolved (College ministry) Retreat at the church this weekend. There was some worship and we listened to a message. Then came a violent game (many actually) of dodge ball. Lots of fun, especially when David would go scampering across the middle in his ridiculous way. After dodge ball, the party moved into some crazy dancing to 80s music. That in turn changed to swing dancing. By the end of the night I had blisters on my feet from soo much activity. All the girl left to stay a family's house and the guys slept in a classroom upstairs. No one really slept that night. I tossed and turned all night. I only had a sleeping bag, and invariably, when I sleep in one, I end up directly on the floor with the bag on top. One of my friends was working on a computer project all night. The night was punctuated by typing and occasionally a quietly uttered "Crap!" Now, I don't know about you, but I find repetitive ambient noise relaxing and comforting. I guess I'm weird, because no one else in the room like it. There was a ceiling fan and after about an hour it got turned off. A couple of hours later my friend David jumped up and burst out "I can't take it anymore!", yanked the ticking clock off the wall and deposited it in another room. Oookay. I don't think I slept at all, but reports from the guys say that I was snoring for a bit so I must have dozed off for a few minutes. A couple of girls were coming by around 8 am to get breakfast ready, so I got up to help them (and make a sweet morning playlist) knowing I wouldn't sleep anyway. By 9:30 the rest of the girls had arrived and the guys had stumbled down. We ate together, regaling each other with stories from the night. After breakfast we had a discussion and some worship and then left. And some of us went to McDonald's for lunch. And that was the weekend for me.