"Easy Like Sunday Morning"

Bloggy-

It's been a short night. I went to bed at midnight (hacking and coughing and whatnot) and I slept pretty well (I made have had a little help) until about 3:00 am when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. For the most part, the coughing has subsided, but I got some quality time in with God about things. That probably took up less than an hour though. So here it is, 5:46 in the morning, and I'm left writing to you.

As part of said conversation with the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and a lot of reflection after, I had a moment of clarity or two. I guess the big one surrounds this whole singleness issues. Maybe not that, more like my issue with commitment and me and everything that's involved with that. I've come to realize that I am so very afraid of rejection that I only think about asking out gals who if they were to reject me (which they won't since I won't actually ask them out), it's of no real consequence. I know where this comes from and it's weird for me to own up to what could be mildy labled as my my 'mother wound' and my 'Melissa wound.' I'm generally terrified of women - my mom today that all of my friends love is not the same woman who was my mother for the first 20 years of my life. There's...well...there's a lot there. She's a good person now (I'm not going to lie, I was going to put woman there, but in a post that's headed down the road of dating, I really don't want to refer to my my mom as a woman...weird, I know), but she wasn't always. And then there's the Melissa incident. Oh, I could talk about that for hours, but to keep it short, honestly, she was the first woman (see) I was ever in love with. I don't mean like, hey, I'm in High School and really like you, but in the realest possible sense that I could love someone. I remember the day that I realized, hey, this is freaking Melissa and telling a couple of my friends - they all gave me this look like I was an idiot and one of them even said "You didn't know? How the hell could you not know? We all knew that you loved her!" Anyway, I also remember the worst night of my life, where, oddly enough, it was a one-two combination of the infulences of these two women that put in front of me the option to really shut down that part of my life for almost five years (oh, by the way, I took that option and here I am!).

So why all of this meandering? Why all of this talk? Because 1) that's all I talk about on here and 2) things about my choices are starting to make sense to me. Like the whole eHarmony thing - all of those women could (and eventually did) say no and reject me for a variety of reasons (let's be honest, I'm 23, have a huge beard, am not the thinnest man, am slightly arrogant, watch cartoons made for children, am only a technical virgin -which is no virgin at all - and am a youth pastor - who's all that surprised?) and there wouldn't be much of an emotional toll. I'd actually've been really wondering what to do if someone had been interested in me. I put myself in a place to be rejected (I'll show you a soon to happen example shortly) because, in a really self-destructive and sick way, I'm the most comfortable there...it's an additiction really.

I remember the three times that I made a move out of this towards something better. I'll give you a single guess as to how those attempts worked out. The first gal got five or six months in and let it all go (and to be honest, as I was still recovering from the night I probably wasn't helping any). The second gal, well, I'm not sure at what moment she decided that she wasn't in to me, but I got a letter on a Tuesday that casually mentioned that she didn't want to date me. And the third gal was the last one where I put the idea of commitment out there, which she flatly rejected. All three of them - married. (By the way, every girl I've ever dated is married, this even includes most of the girls I 'went out' with in middle school!)

Anyway, even now as I think back on my last few months of posting, I shoot low or for people I can easily escape from or from whom if they did say no, not much is lost. Because, in this whole post-Melissa landscape (by the way, I love Melissa. No longer in the hand holding hugging kissing sort of way, but I dearly love her as my friend. We talk all the time and I'm not bitter towards her - she's just a landmark person in my life), there's only really one gal who I can say without a doubt would knock Melissa off her pedastool. Hmmmm...we'll call her...Diana (not her real name...I don't know that I know any Diana's right now anyhow!).

SO she doesn't live around here anymore, which generally makes me suspect of the whole thing because, as mentioned above, it's easy to escape from. But that notwithstanding, here we go. I knew of her for about a year of college and knew her my junior and legitimate senior year. We still talk at least two or three times a month - and she's still single. Which is really hard to believe. Like really hard. Moving along, I have admitted to a friend or two in confidence that I would move to...well...wherever she is east of the ole miss (1. I know where she lives and 2. I say ole' miss cause I can't spell...that state/river) with little hesitation if she were slightly interested in me (after my eventual graduation from college which should happen this august) and not think twice about it. That's where my first big tip off came. Anyhow, she's a poet, funny, a little nutty, and probably a bit smarter than me. So I was thinking about how one would mention these feelings because I think it's time for me to finally grow up and take a risk because, heck, things aren't working for me as they are (by the way, this is all 6:20 am bluster - by this afternoon, I'll have sobered my judgements earnestly and heavily reconsidered and realized that this all foolishiness, but play along with me bloggy!). So imagined (as any good person with an overactive imagination that can't sleep would) how the conversation would go. I wrote earlier that I would demonstrate how I put myself in place to be rejected, and here we go! Imagine, if you will, this all midconversation and generally light hearted and hahahaha(and by the way, she doesn't even know I have a blog, so this isn't a half hearted tounge in cheek thing):

Me: So, here's the question we have to get to as Taylorites, Ms. Diana, are you married yet?
Her: Oh you know, John...sooo many options that I haven't really picked one yet
Me: For sure, for sure. But seriously?
Her: No, not married. Not really dating anyone. It's been kind of hard getting to know people here and I just think I'm going to wait until after I'm back from teaching [ESL overseas]
Me: You always say that!
Her: I always mean it! There's just no point, you know, in starting something when I'm just going to move off to Taiwan or Indonesia or Swaziland. You know?
Me: I guess...I see that...[and this is where the conversation will realistically break off, but let's pretend for a moment that I grew a pair of testicles in the next few days]...but, can I be fer serious for a second?
Her: Oh no! Serious! Why would you do such a thing? And yes.
Me: Diana, you're a friend of mine. Probably one of the top tier friends, so feel honored and whatnot, so take this however you will [see the avoidance and escape language? Brilliant!]. You're beautiful and you're wonderful. I've known you, what, five years? I think you're...well...there've been one too many lines written by one too many song writers in the past few generations to describe how pretty you are, so I'll let that one be. But you're beautiful through and through and through [insert all thos positive emotional, spritiual and other qualities blah blah blah]...if you were interested in me, and I'm not saying that I think you are or should be or whatever, [again, see the hypothetical nature of the langauge? See how clumsily it comes close to flirting and sending a message, but it really doesn't?] but if you were I know that there'd be no question in my getting a passport and going to Beijing to...well...do whatever while you pass on some mad english skills [see the Hollywood and New York and Ontario influenced romance language from the chick flick genre? But back off, this is my imaginiative conversaton!]. I'm just your friend, and I can't imagine that there aren't a few guys who would jump at the opportunity. I guess...I guess I'm rambling and not making a whole lot of sense, but I think that you're using a silly excuse not to look around and not to date. But hey, what do I know? I'm still in the extended adolescence of college.
Her: Oh. Hmm. Well. Thanks? Hey, you know that project I was talking about earlier, I think I'm going to go work on that now. It was great talking to you and all, but I'll talk to you later, yeah?
Me: Yeah! Swell! It's awesome that we're friends!
Her: Yep. Friends. Good solid friends. By friend!

So there you go...my lame imagination ends with me being rejected - it's like I can't even see a world where that doesn't happen! Anyway, it's 6:41, which means that I've been thinking about this way too long. And I've already talked myself out of having that lameo convo with her, but here's the point; I now know that I'm intentionally setting my sights low and trying to settle but trying to fail at settling, so doesn't that balance itself all out? The answer? Not at all. But now that I know I'm sick and really looked at how it's affected me, shouldn't that help me fix it? Probably not. Not until I'm thin and pretty. That'll pretty much fix everything (he says not being all that sarcastic). Seriously though, (and I was being more than a little serious in that last comment) I know what I need to work on. If I ever want to get married, have kids, and experience marital style intimacy, I've got to fix this. May Grace cover this.

"What the world needs now..."

Bloggy-

So today I have a final. Guess who hasn't studied? That's right, me. And what am I doing? Blogging (something I've done with regular inconsistency since September), so we know where I stand on the whole studying issue. Anyway, I've got an ethical issue that I'm sorting out. And it's this kind of ethical dilemma (?) that will bar me from hiring a single youth pastor if, God forbid, I become a real pastor. I'm not attracted to a student or former student (just to clear that up for everyone), so it's nothing like that. I just - what's the wisdom of asking out one of your adult sponsors? Probably not very. Especially if she seems the type who doesn't date all that much. She's much quieter than I am - that's for sure. I'm not even positive why (by the way, I am studying right now as I blog...yay...) I'm attracted to her. She's very sweet, very kind, she connects well with students - - - I think she's funny. But heck, I think this about a ton of people. And to prove my shallowness as a man, yes, she is very pretty. I don't know. The best way to solve this quandary is by dating lot's of women who aren't her and aren't volunteers in my youth group. First, that'll prove my manly prowess and virility (right?) and show that I shouldn't date someone who is much quieter than I am because I would just dominate them in conversation and everything else. Okay, so in that last sentence, I just ran the course of the 'what if' and it seems like a good decision to not ever date for any reason. Awesome.

Okay, maybe that was a bit over the top. But seriously. I won't be asking her out. Yes. That realization came to me as I typed. Why won't I? Basic reasoning - it would be amazingly awkward if she said no. Second, that would totally be an abuse of authority for me to do so. Third, it'd raise (unwarranted) suspicions as to why I ask any woman to help out with the youth group. Fourth, I fear rejection. Fifth, she's way younger than I am (did I mention she's a freshman?). Sixth, if she says yes and then we do date and things click really well, then the other women (and possibly men) would feel threatened by her continued presence. Seventh, picking up on the last point, my relationship past is dotted with breakups (hence singless now...logic! It's so wonderful!), so if that trend continues (and someday I hope it'll break) what happens to the students when we break up? You see how smart I am? Very. Eighth, asking her out would be a tactic admission of either a)laziness b) lack of options or c) lack of creativity, because I mean, seriously, she's one of only six or seven collegiate women I see on a regular basis.

Wow. I'm amazing. I didn't even need you bloggy. Okay, so I did, but only to process. For a long string of one's and zero's you're a great listener. I'm the man. That's right, I Da Man!

"Rescue is comming..."

Bloggy-

Okay, it's time to play some catch up because I've got a lot on my heart and mind and you just need to sit back and get ready to read kid! Anyway, we'll start with Tim's wedding - he's married! It was a great wedding, it was outside (and sooooooooo hot!) and Erin was beautiful. I didn't cry...well maybe I did, but the sweat covered it up pretty well (gross!). The wedding was in Ft. Wayne at a park - and that was just super. I got to see three of my best friends from High School, and that's always good. The best and weirdest part comes with one of the wedding guests in particular. Bloggy, think hard, back to the awkwardness of "Drinks with the ex-", now imagine that quadrupled and then add her husband into the mix. Okay, well, not put that at a wedding where I went by dateless. Okie dokie - but here's the deal, it was good to see them both. I enjoyed getting to catch up with Matt and here how his whole career is going; it was good (but really weird) to dance with Sara (her idea, not mine - okay, so that was REALLY STRANGE, but I learned something from Matt during that whole thing - once you're married, it becomes about trust. Jolly good job Matt). Anyway, so yeah. Weirdness, but weirdness that grows.

So I came home from the wedding the next day (Sunday) - I was supposed to be at church by 9:00 am to help downstairs, but had alarm problems and wound up leaving at 9:10 am or so and made it to the church by 9:47 am. Yeah. I'll let you do the math on that one, but let's just say if I'd gotten pulled over I was going to jail. So the afternoon at church went alright - hung out and went to a cookout. It was awkward. Really, really awkward. Not in the growing way, but in the awkward way. I don't even know where to begin there. But, moving right along, I met later that night in C-bus with a friend and we had coffee of sorts and talked and hung out and as I sat across from her, a conversation that two separate people on two separate occasions came to me - so I kept things in the happier realm where no one would have to think. That's the American Way!

Wow, let's just skip most of the week with this description: Meetings, stress, overworked, confused, blah. But bloggy, I've got a new friend that I've been worried about and haven't told her yet. I don't know her well, I don't see her often, and we don't talk on the phone ever, and we probably don't agree on an issue or two, but she's beautiful and wonderful and been an encouragement and a rescuer to me and she's sad now - I know that sounds very 1st grader, but sometimes that's the best way to express your soul. Oh bloggy - sorrow has overwhelmed her shores, and darkness hedges her in as though light were about to be extinguished and the ground she walks upon is ablaze in apathetic regard to her, but I pray that somehow, someway, she would see God.

Well, I need to work some more - I'm reading background material on...well...it's Thomas Aquinas and it's just good to read to be able to answer questions that my kiddies ask. Take her easy bloggy.

Dr. J

"I can't lie, I sometimes cry, when I think of how it used to be..."

Bloggy-

Recently, I've spent a lot of time thinking about relationships because my best friend is getting married this weekend, and I know how you love to hear my rants about relationships, but this one is going to be short(er)...I wonder, have I missed her? There've been one or two gals in the past few years that have had an interest in me, but for whatever reason (usually timing or some other dumb reason), I've said I'm not interested, and now I'm looking back and just thinking, man, whatif? What if I missed something really good? The two that spring to mind are beautiful women with great personalities and everything - so yeah...anyway...at this point, it's probably too late to even start talking about this with anyone about that, but that's what I've been thinking about. Okay, it's time to go back to work.

Dr. J

"I now pronounce you Husband and Wife"

Dear Bloggy-

I come to you at the end of a long, long day - but a joyous day indeed! I wrote this morning and then drove back to the lodge where I was informed it was my duty to hangout on the beach and enjoy the day - enjoying the day consisted of reading some more of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" on the side of the lake, eating lunch, playing some baci (Sp?) ball and just generally having a good afternoon. After that, I went up, got dressed, and started getting ready for the wedding.

Anne was beautiful and Chad was darling (did I just sound...ummmm...girly?) and the ceremony went well - I was the last person to call Anne Anne Simmons and the first to refer to her as Anne Hope; I know what you're thinking - such a stud! Anyway, I do have some pictures that the photographers took and I'll be putting them up here soon.

Anyway, the reception was great - lot's of great food, friends, dancing (and an open bar...seven Sam Adam's and two rum and cokes and here I am!). Afterwards we went down to the beach for some late night swimming and fire - oh how sweet it's been!

I did realize some things today though as I was prepping for the wedding, doing my reading and also just kind of existing around the whole wedding scene - are you ready for some crazy awesome realizations? Well here they are bloggy!
1. I miss writing - I haven't been reading any 'good' literature of late. Everything I've been reading has had to do with work or something like that, but today as I was reading "On The Road" something came alive in me again and I'm looking to write - I'm itching to do it. So yeah, hopefully I'll be putting some new stuff together soon and using that typewriter on my desk at home!

2. I miss adventure - Again, "On the Road" reminded me that I used to have adventures and find places and travel and have good times - I haven't done that in forever. I think I've let working in a church 'tame' me - I've lost Aslan's roar and that's not a good thing. I need to start just taking a random trip/adventure/dumb move once a month at least. I need to travel and dig the road (oh Jack! How you write that makes me feel!)

3. Weddings are fun and great and beautiful, but they're only a moment. The marriage begins today, but doesn't end today. It's just the start.

4. I miss having GREAT friends around to talk to and just be with. I miss talking until late in the night about things that matter and having people who hugged and touched and loved (not in a sick sexual way, Bloggy, but in a healthy friend way). I don't have that right now and maybe my loneliness stems from that, but what do I know...I'm no psychologist!

5. I am looking forward to marriage - not tomorrow, but yeah, it's something I want to do. I don't want to wait forever, but it's a good thing - a hard thing to be sure, but good.

SO I think that covers my lessons about myself, bloggy. I know you just love my introspection...

Anyway, it's pretty late and I'm headed to Mars Hill tomorrow for church pretty early, so I'll write you later kid!

Dr. J.

Queen...

And another one bites the dust...So I have yet another girl i dated who's engaged now! Rock on John!

So it's been awhile bloggy, but here I am! To fill you in, I've been doing VBS all week, which has been crazy...in fact Krazy because as we both know, children are not my strong suite. Anyhoo, in the course of doing VBS I got to be the story teller and help with football - that was good. Yep. The music - well it was little kid music with that slight feel of "are we teaching these kids the aryan heresy?" For example, one of the lines in a particular song went something like "The Bible says that Jesus was a joyful human man!" Okay, there's a lot of debate to be had here, you throw in the Isaiah 53 passage (which any good Jew will tell you is about the sufferings of the nation of Israel, but we'll stick with the Catholic/Orthodox reading that it's about Jesus.) where it talks about Messiah being a "Man of Constant Sorrows" (and that can be taken a couple of ways), the discussion of if Jesus were Divine (which I strongly hold that He was...hence the capitilization of He)...so you see that at times my head was going to explode over 'minor' details like that. Oh, and some song that sounded just like "All Star" by that band...oh...I don't know...they did the Shrek soundtrack...anyway - yeah, it was the EXACT same song except there were a few changes like - well, let's just say that it was so minor that I'm glad I wasn't the one that had to worry about artistic originality!



Moving right along, last night was the Relay for Life and I 'volunteered' to walk from 2:00 am - 4:00 am. It wasn't so bad - and I really did volunteer. A bunch of middle schoolers who are in the orbit of the church were there and they pretty much moved as a herd - if one walked, they all walked. Man, what would've happened if one of them had taken the "Black Pill?" Scary! Anyway, I've decided that if I have one daughter, it's time to stop. Not that I have the ability to have children at this point, but when that comes up, yeah, stopping at one. The reason I say this is all I see is how sisters fight and I refuse- did you hear? - REFUSE to deal with that in my own home. If, by some cruel twist of fate (or divine Judgement) I do have two daughters...I'm putting one up for adoption. Probably the most annoying one. I'm just kidding...but seriously?

In other news, Samantha is pretty sick. I've tried some over the counter fuel system cleaner, but Idon't think that's going to do the trick this time around. She needs a doctor, so I'm taking her to the dealership on Monday and they're going to charge me $65 to tell me what's wrong and then offer to fix it for like $1000 more...did I mention that I, as a twenty something youth pastor who just started his job, don't have that kind of money? Oh well, I hear the devil is always buying souls, at least according to twentieth century musicians.

Let's see, I guess I'll avoid angry ranting about being single (or does this count as that?), but I will say that I miss a lot of my friends. Oh. :( Well, off to planning world dominiation (or a bonfire tonight, whatever....it's all the same, right?)

Drinks with the Ex

Hey bloggy. I'm back in the office after spending a crazy couple of hours in Columbus. Let's just say it was one of the weirdest times I've had in a bit. Where to start? Okay, so I helped my father (not the one in heaven) with some work in the backyard, showered and then went to go pick up F. to play some mad Euchre action. Before I left, I had already called in my regular partner extrodinaire E., and she was going to meet us at the Roadhouse so that we could play. As I pick up F., the X, simply known as X is there. Not a biggy - we get along fine, we're generally kind and even developing a sort of back and forth again. I mean, it's only been six years, so it's about time that happens. The deal is, though, that I haven't spent any extended time with her without her husband, M. So when she says that she'll be F.'s partner, I ofcourse agree (what else can you do?), and she meets us at the Roadhouse. Let me tell what was so weird about it - one, I'm not, as they say in New Mexico, 'attracted to her' anylonger. Our relationship pretty much ended that possibility. It was weird because - well for a couple of reasons I'm not comfortable sharing with you bloggy, because we just met. But anyway, what made the whole of the evening super uncomfortable was that I feel like a successful failure in comparison to her. I've got a job, I'm almost done with college (she's got the first and done with the second); I've got some limited success socially in making a difference in communities or something like that; I've lectured on college and high school campuses; I speak a whole lot all over the place. But I haven't been able to make a relationship happen. That's the wrong way to put it. I haven't been able to put together my life in such a way that a relationship can happen. On top of that whole line of thought, her husband wasn't there, and I really, REALLY did not like that because I wouldn't want my wife to be hanging out with her ex- even if there were two other parties who were with them all the time (did I mention he's going to be a state trooper real soon like?). And then - I tried to explain this to my friend - looks of familiarity that I don't want to share with her, because, well, we're not familiar anymore and I don't want her to think we are. I've moved on (sounds like it, doesn't it bloggy?), but I don't want her to think that I haven't. I'm totally living under the weight of a whole other failed relationship. But bloggy, that's another story for another time. Anyhow, as I was going to couch that night, I ofcourse went to that place where I began to think that she was trying to make all of these thoughts happen - but I don't honestly think she's that malicous (or is she?). Anyway, welcome to my wonderful world of awkward. I've got to get some stuff done, but I'll be back with more stories later bloggy.

J

Even Murderers Are Getting Married! What's wrong with Me!

Okay bloggy, I'm going to write here now because I've got somethings on my mind. One is I wonder how I'm going to make it some days. I'm 23, not ancient, but not incredibly young and hopeful anymore - I wonder why I feel so old and I'm really not. I just feel like I'm trying to catch my life, but it's not happening. I don't know, maybe I'm not really all that ready to talk with you, bloggy. You seem nice enough, but I don't know. Let me try it this way...

I'm on one of those dumb dating sites. I say dumb, because you basically get a collection of people together who are trying to find someone, but because of whatever reason we make up, we're on this site with other similarly situated human beings. We've failed in the traditional western system in which friendships, one night stands, coffee house run-ins eventually become a relationship that eventually becomes a marriage. This raises a lot of interesting questions - let's say, just for a moment, that I find 'the one' on this site (is there really only one?), what great story am I going to tell the kids about how dad met mom, and how can I tell my son or daughter about dating and building healthy relationships because I obviously can't do it. Another question - what's so wrong with me (and everyone always says there's nothing wrong with you - insert condescending, but sympathetic look here - but they either a) have rejected you at some point or b) have some great wonderful super amazing person in their life) that this is what I'm doing with my life. I'm gambling on mathematical algorithms or something to find the right one. Yikes. I trust random chance a bit more, but she hasn't been gracious of late. Or am I just blind and dumb. That's quite possibly the answer there too.

Anyway, today I got to cancel an event - always a sadness, but it'll be rescheduled. I'm going to go home, try to figure out how to get some work done and then...well...I don't know, bloggy, you might be hearing from me again!

J