Josh Rouse and Trent Dabbs
If any of you have XM radio, you have surely heard of Josh Rouse by now, and for those who don't have XM, maybe you have been so lucky as to have heard too. My roomate and I and a bunch of other friends went to the
Exit/In here in Nashville. It was a really good show. A guy named Trent Dabbs (a former RUFer at Mississippi State with Habig) opened for Josh, and he played a really good set also. I knew only a few of Josh's songs before tonight, but I thought he laid it down pretty sweet like, and I'll probably try to get my hands on some of his music sometime soon.
The Music City Marathon is tomorrow, I am not running. I thought that I might run the half, but once I start training, I remember how much I hate to run. And plus I got shin splints earlier this semester. Man, those things are terrible. And it was almost as terrible trying to work them out. A pretty low key weekend on tap for me.
Peace yall
Hotel Rwanda
This movie will make you want to be an activist. If it doesn't, then you don't have a heart, or a longing for justice. I just finished writing a 17 page paper, so I am tired of writing, but hopefully something good and funny tomorrow. Peace
Lonely with Everyone Around
I work with people every day. I have a roomate. I have lots of friends. I am part of a church where there are lots of great people who I am growing to love. I have community. I am lonely.
I decided to write about this after reading a story from a friend about the same subject, and after listening to Habig talk all the time about the biggest problem among the students at Vanderbilt being loneliness. I gave the idea a head nod, and thought myself to be excused from struggling with this. 'It's something they(finger pointed at students) struggle with.' But I was hit with this sometime this week. I am lonely too.
It's not a sit-around-and-twiddle-my-thumbs-kind-of-lonely. Its more subtle. Sin works like that, its usually the real subtle sins that work through your being for a very long time that end up flipping your world upside down. That is how it happens for me at least. Any of you who know me at all, know that I struggle with an idolatry of the idea of marriage. It's not marriage itself, because, well, I have never been married, so that is why I say 'the idea of marriage.' You see, what I think is that one day, Lord willing, I will be married to somebody. And when that day comes, I will be happy, for many reasons, but mainly because I won't be 'lonely' anymore. She will be there to hang out with at nights in the house, I won't have to call people if I want company to dinner, or whatever. And the scary thing is, is that all of these things are true. She WILL be there to watch TV, she WILL go to dinner with me, etc etc. Marriage is a good thing, and there are many many benefits to being married, and that's precisely why for me, this sin is subtle and deceptive.
I don't believe that I am validated and valued in Christ. I don't. I don't believe that Christ is enough. I want to, but today, and many days, I don't. My official theology says that I believe this, but my day to day 'unofficial' theology says otherwise. If I did believe it, why am I so lonely? Why do I think that a girl will validate me, when the Bible says that anything that we look to for life other than Christ is a broken cistern. I look everywhere for someone to validate me, I look everywhere but to Christ.
God loves. In fact, God loves the whole world. And seeing as how God has called me into relationship with him, he loves me in a special way. He loves me in spite of my crap, and not only does he love me, he wants to marry me. I don't know if I would marry me knowing all that I know, but He has seen it all, and wants to marry me anyway. Somehow I think this marriage is better than the one I long for. Would that I believe that the Lord has honeymoon affections for me forever. I need faith to believe that, because that sounds pretty good.
A Farewell
Last night was our last RUF large group of the year, as was it the last RUF meeting for Brian Habig to be campus minister over. Brian and his family are moving to Greenville, South Carolina to plant a church in the downtown area. It should be a great opportunity for him, and I know the church down there will appreciate his shepherding and teaching. As for last night, it was a great night and a terrible one. Brian was very thankful to everyone for their love and support and commitment to the ministry for the last 4 years, and he was extrememly adoring of his wife, Dana, for her love and care and all for the last 10 years of doing campus ministry (previously at Mississippi State). After Brian preached, Katie and I presented Brian with a few gifts from the group, including a really nice picture of Vanderbilt, a 2yr subscription to Paste magazine, and a gift card to Borders. Of course, I started choking up as I always do at good byes, and so I had to make fun of myself so that everyone wouldn't feel so awkward.
Last night was also a good night because our new campus minister Stacey Croft was in town, and he was able to meet alot of the students. I got up this morning and had breakfast with him and Katie, and we spent a good bit of time just talking and getting to know him better. He and his wife will be here in June, and we are anxiously awaiting his arrival.
But as for Brian, he will be dearly missed. His quirky/hilarious humor will be irreplaceable, and the bonds that he has built with the students will be forever solid, even in his absence. I will miss him, he has been a good boss, and an even better friend.
Triple Threat- Baseball, Beef Jerky, and starBucks
This day is worth blogging. It got off to a fairly normal start. I woke up, did some reading, and then went out to church to talk to one of our pastors about going to Ethiopia this summer on a mission trip. I met with a guy for lunch, and then went to Starbucks to work on a paper for Brian, my boss. I don't normally go to Starbucks, normally=ever. I don't like coffee, and it was 85 today, so i didn't want hot. But I had a free coupon for any size drink in the store, so I figured this was my time to get one of those cake-like drinks that I see people towing out of the store everyday. A venti (which is the biggest) caramel frappuccino blended coffee drink was the call. This baby was like 6 bucks if I was paying in real life, but instead i flicked over the coupon like I owned the joint. When they scooted my drink to the edge of the counter and called my name, something in me changed. I felt like royalty. I was now a proud owner of whipped cream filled drink that only rich people get everyday. It was good, it was real good, but it hit me like a dumptruck. I felt like I was never going to be able to eat again. As I was leaving, I saw a nutritional guide. I indexed my drink to find that it had....530 calories, 18 grams fat, 83!!! grams of sugar, and other ridiculous numbers. No wonder I didn't eat again until 10 o'clock tonight. Starbucks will make you starFat.
I got the call from the team manager today at about 4:45pm. They needed me at the baseball game. My talent had clearly been heralded since I arrived at Vandy last fall, but it was finally time to resurrect the baseball swing that had last seen action in 7th grade. Half of my life has passed since I last played baseball (softball in this case). I quit because I was scared of the ball, which made me not want to stay in the box, which meant I never hit the ball. Surprisingly, my 7th grade coach gave me the opportunity to stay late one day and practice with the Varsity, but that would have meant 2hrs extra of practice, and i was lazy so I said no. Enough about the distant past. I was genuinely scared that I was going to strike out tonight. They stuck me in right, which was a flattering compiment to my arm strength. Here are the stats: 2 for 2 (2 singles), 3 caught fly balls, 0 errors, 1 mouthful of seeds for intimidation. I think my 7th grade coach was on to something.
When I used to play baseball growing up, I would buy the shredded beef jerky at the baseball fields that was kind of like snuff. It was really good, and it was $1, and I put it in my back pocket. And it came with a baseball card. I had a hobby of collecting these baseball cards, and ahem, the cans that they came in. I had something like 13 different kinds of empty beef jerky cans, and 2 full seasons of beef jerky baseball cards. That's all fun, but here's the kicker. I had to give a speech in 6th grade one time about a hobby, and you guessed it, I talked about my beef jerky cans and the cards. I lied that day, I lied alot. I lied and told them that the cans had come from all over the place, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and the like. I lied about the value of having such a collection of cans, and surely lied about the apparent worth of having hundreds of round baseball cards that said KING B Beef Jerky on them. I was proud of them, I mean, how could you not be?
Then I went to a sweet African drumming and dance thing tonight. Man, the teacher of that class could dance like nobodys bidness.
The curse
Often times I wonder when I will know the full extent of the curse of growing up in a small town. I tasted it once again tonight. It shows us in unexpected ways and its kinda fun when it does. So I ended up going to listen to my neighbors play (band name 'The Early Evening'), and it was a really great show. I was alone, which actually made it kind of nice b/c I could just sit in my velvet chair and kick back and enjoy and not have to worry about making conversation. So I did, but here is where the curse comes in. You see, when you grow up in Duncan,OK population somewhere just north of 20K, you don't see alot of famous people. If you run into the bank president you feel more like you just ran into Alan Greenspan. Fame is all relative to our surroundings. For example, in Duncan, I was really famous. I come out to Nashville, and I'm a nobody. I'm recovering though. That's a lie, i've never been famous. But anyhow, as I was sitting there in my velvet chair, I kept thinking that there was someone famous around me. Anyone who was dressed in more than a t-shirt with a pair of rock star jeans on, I supposed was a major player in the record industry just waiting to make my neighbors famous. I somehow felt like I was getting insider information on a new stock offering, and that I knew something that most of the surrounding world didn't. Then I played this game in my mind, and I started wondering if anyone thought that I was someone from a record label, and maybe that's why I was by myself I was concentrating. I was feeling out the stage presence, seeing their magic, really trying to decide if they were the next big thing. But i'm not, I'm not working for a record label. Instead, i'm just hanging out, hair messed up just enough to play the part for a night, wearing my rock star jeans.
Wait, are you talking about me?
I am realizing again tonight that I am not that far removed from my middle school insecurities. I am going downtown tonight to listen to some of my neighbors play music, and I am going alone. That's right, flying solo. I called everyone in my phone to see if they wanted to go, I called every student that i knew over the age of 21, but no dice. So, i'm sitting on my couch instead, waiting till the last minute to see if anyone calls...
Giving it a try
Last night at RUF I gave the 'talk' at large group for the first time. I say 'talk' because i can't quite bring myself to call it a sermon when I have had no formal training and am not ordained or a preacher or anything like that (yet). But maybe it was a sermon, who knows. I was pretty nervous leading up to it, but I think that is pretty normal. There were about 200 or so people there, many of whom I know or have met somewhere along the course of this year. I think it went smoothly, people came up afterward and said that it was good. Who knows what that means, other than the fact that they were probably just being nice. But that they were. I appreciated their kindness, and it gives me courage that God was at work through my feeble and often times very convicting words (I say convicting because I talked to a group of cool people about how they don't love and care about others very well, or really at all). I also say convicting because the several days that I spent in preparation were pretty convicting and I would find myself praying that God would allow me to love better b/c I don't do it well either, even when my job is to love and care for others. This is something that I am more and more convinced that has to be learned. We don't come into this world loving people and caring for anyone except the one trapped in my skin. Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz says that "the biggest lie that I have ever contended with is this: That life is about me." I think that is very true, and honestly I don't know how often I actually contend with it. I think I like the fact that I am the most important thing in my life most of the time. I need grace, and I need God to have mercy on me, and to give me eyes to see others, because it isn't natural. It was only natural to one person, and He is the reason that we can ever have hope of being different, ever. Man, i wish someone else would like me as much as i like me. I would probably marry her.
Finally, I have something to ask for on my birthday
Dear Mom and Dad,
Birthday wishPlease try to find these dolls before they are sold out(or before someone realizes that the 2nd commandment is still in effect...). I really would like the whole collection once it is unveiled.
Sincerely,
Brent
I'm a post-collegiate collegiate athlete- The 2005 United States Collegiate Disc Golf Championships
So i have been playing a little bit of disc golf with some of the students that I work with at Vanderbilt. When I say 'have been playing' I mean that I have played 4 times in my life. Its much harder than you think, and if you are good at ultimate frisbee, you will be terrible at disc golf(different throwing technique). Last Wednesday at RUF, the group of guys that I have been playing with asked me if I wanted to go play in a disc golf tournament with them on Saturday. It took me a while since the Masters is on this weekend and I had planned on watching for about 4 hours on Saturday, but I agreed.
We traveled to Bowling Green, Kentucky (about 1hr from Nashville) to go play in the tournament. When we showed up at the registration at 9:30, John Trapp(another guy who isn't very good) and I found at that we were playing in the United States Collegiate Disc Golf Championships. It was that easy. I walked up, gave them $20, and I was a post-collegiate collegiate athlete playing in the national championship. It doesn't get much better than that.
I quickly took my shirt off, which was half way expected and began practicing putting. I stretched with John, and we headed off for the scramble part of the tourney. John and I's goal was to shoot 5 over par, and we shot 3 over so we were pretty excited about that. Then came lunch and a move to a different course for the individual competition. I have never played individually before, so i was nervous. My goal was simply not to get last. I played like crap, said a few cuss words(as if i am good enough to cuss?) and finished by shooting 15 over. BUT, I didn't get last. I beat one of the other guys on the Vanderbilt team who has been playing for 3 years.
Turns out, it was a two day tournament, but several of us didn't go back for day 2. But, for those who stayed the night and played round 2, there was a huge party last night and most people were going to sleep in tents. That would probably be an interesting thing to go to...
What I learned at the 2005 USCDGC:
1. People who play disc golf are cool in a disc golf kind of way
2. You can drink beer while playing in the USCDGC (i was with students, so i abstained)
3. Many people smoke pot while playing in the USCDGC (again, i abstained)
4. Disc Golfers are a sub-culture.
5. Girls who play disc golf somehow are more attractive than other girls. In normal life, I don't think that i would think they were cute, but they kicked my butt so hard in the individuals that they became cute.
6. There is a pro disc golfer named HB who lives in Bowling Green. He is a little scary(in a dirty old man kind of way), and he didn't wear a shirt yesterday either. He should have worn a shirt.
I hope yall enjoyed this, I sure did, and I look to make a bit more of a run at the 2006 USCDGC than i did this year.
Tiger and Steve Williams
Tiger practicing putting right after he holed out for eagle on #9
More Clubhouse Beauty
Can you hit a fade? Tee box #18
From the tee box on #17
Number 16
Azaleas abound
My personal favorite hole, #13
Number 12
Luke List (Vanderbilt Sophomore) and his group on #10
Number 9 with the clubhouse in background
Charles Howell III and his caddie walking up to 7 green
Perfection
Beautiful (the flowers)
John Daly following up a 360yd drive
Number 9 with the clubhouse in background
Green everywhere
The Clubhouse
I kept pinching myself to see if it was a dream- The Masters 2005
I had been dreaming of this day since about 7th grade. I hoped that one day I would be able to go to Augusta National and see the Masters. My roomate called me on Saturday and said that he had an extra ticket to the Monday practice round. Being impulsive, as I always am, I went. It was amazing. That place is beautiful. Here are a few of the best pictures that I took.
Quick story- I fell asleep near #9 green, and woke up as Mark O'Meara and Tiger were walking up the fairway. I watched Tiger hole out from the rough from about 150 yards. It was pretty great.
Parents Weekend at Vanderbilt-
It is about mid-morning on Friday and today commences what is known as Parents Weekend at Vanderbilt. I am coming to see that this is not small deal, in fact there is a line forming in front of me here in the student center of parents waiting to check in for something? It reminds alot of parents weekend at OU, but there are a few added bonuses here. I imagine this is what is going on in the minds of all the attendees this weekend...
Parent) I sure hope little Ivan will show me us all of his classes today so we can meet his teachers
Child) I sure hope mom and dad don't want to go to class, I really don't want Dr. Eppstein to make some strange face and wonder if I am in his class
P) Oh honey, this will be great, we can go back to your dorm room and meet some of your friends
C) Dad, sweet Indiana Jones hat
P) Maybe Ivan will introduce us to some of the fine little southern ladies that he has met this year
C) Dad, why are your shorts coming half way up your thighs?
C-alternately) I hope we don't run into all 17 girls that have spent the night so far this year
P) Maybe Ivan will want to go to dinner tonight, you know, just the 3 of us
C) I hope mom and dad won't care that I invited my whole hall to go to Ruth's Chris. Oh wait, dad owns General Motors, he won't care
P) I can't wait to see what Ivan has planned for us these next few days
C) I hope mom and dad don't think I have anything planned for this weekend. if nothing else we can play playstation for 9 hours like every other day of my life
P) Maybe Ivan will show us about all the cultural diversity here at Vanderbilt
C) Cultural Diversity? I think that is the difference between Polo and Gucci, but I'm not sure
And finally.....
P) Surely Ivan is going to show us what he does at night with his friends
C) Mom, why are you dressed like my girlfriend?
P) What, are spaghetti straps not 'in' this year?
C) Yes, but the people on my hall think that you're hot
P) Well, that's okay. at least its not as bad as the hat your dad has on
C) True
