Accidental Hiatus

Dang, I haven’t written like this in a minute, so bear with me. 

Everyone loves a good Marvel movie these days. The stories, the CGI, the grandiose of the storytelling, there’s usually something for everyone. My favorite parts of a Marvel movie are all the callbacks that the writers make to previous films. Whether it is a cleverly hidden easter egg or an entire character hidden from audiences during the promotional trailers, I love it when I’m watching a movie and can find the moments that connect to the past and remind me of the joy I had in those other stories while simultaneously writing a new one based off of that history.

I am in my callback right now. 

2016 was a franchise-launching movie with 3 main acts: Miriam, Chick-fil-A, and Thailand.

Continuing with the Marvel metaphor, that was the beginning of “Phase 1” for me. It set the foundation for subsequent years of incredible growth brought on by incredible successes and sensational failures. I met the person who changed my life completely.  I grew professionally in ways I never imagined. I met lifelong friends that span every corner of the globe. 

As I get ready to step into a 2 year period of some of the fastest and most intense growth I have ever experienced, I find myself going through “See you one day soon” letters that my Medialight family wrote to each other in Thailand. As I read each letter, I am reminded of the growth that that season offered me and spurred in the years thereafter. I am reminded of the good people saw in me even when I couldn’t see it in myself. I find myself on the floor with letters scattered around me and memories of that season breaching the dam of time and flooding this moment. 

This is not necessarily an homage to a few months in Southeast Asia over 6 years ago. Instead, it is a reminder of the ignorance of looking back. Not looking back and hoping to harness Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to beat back time and travel back to a memory, but looking back to callback to a space in time that led to the present moment and can help shape the narrative of what’s to come and how I approach “Phase 2” of my story. 

If this all makes little sense, that’s okay, I’m not writing this for a grade. This is just a reminder to me to never forget the situations, relationships, and experiences that led me to this moment and the importance of calling back to those things as I prepare for this next phase.  

Pamilya / ครอบครัว

“Love is such an abstract art, and we each have a different part to play.” 

I’d like to imagine that in everyone’s life, there is a moment, an experience, something that drastically changes and challenges everything they think they know. The last few months of 2016 has been that experience. I went into this season with ideas of what I thought would happen. I knew I would change, but had no idea how. I knew I would experience things, but I had no idea what things. I knew I would meet people, but I had no idea how deep those new relationships would go. Media Light, Thailand, and The Philippines have forever engrained themselves into my life. 

For me, Media Light was less about media, and so much more about people. Yeah, I learned media skills that I can use and any variety of capacities, and I will use my new skills, but that wasn’t what I learned the most of over the last few months. I learned about people. I did life 24/7 with people from all different backgrounds, and from all over the worlds. The blend of culture, personality, opinion, talents, and love was a mix that I imagine heaven is quite similar to. When we came together, we had little in common. For most of us, the only real thing we had in common was that we were relatively the same age, and had all somehow discovered this opportunity, and decided to take a few months to experience it. Other than that, we were all so completely different. But different it good. It took a while, but the shyness amongst ourselves slowly fell away, and we became family. For many of us, we became more of a family that our biological family. Those missing a father in their life, found a father. Those missing a mother, found a mother. Those missing a brother or sister, found a brother or sister. Those missing friends, found over 30. Everyone has parts of them that were missing. Over time, we began to fill in the missing parts of each other. While the reality is that many of us may never see one another again, we forged a bond amongst ourselves that will last beyond this lifetime. 

We had little in common, but we had love. 

I’m sure that after a while, people might start to ask me what I miss most about Media Light. While I enjoyed the teaching and learning, I won’t miss that veery much. What I will miss, is the community. While I came from a more comfortable background than most people there, I came from an empty life. I came from a world where everyone is for themselves. I came from a world where commitment to one another, God, and life, were shallow at best. My world is one where compassion and love for each other often goes no deeper than a Facebook post or a share on a newsfeed. My world is wealthy on the outside, and poor on the inside. As I am now back home in the States, the reality of my juxtaposed worlds has hit me like a truck. The love and community that I so very much enjoyed in Media Light, Thailand, and The Philippines, is greatly missing from here. I have no idea how, but I feel like I experienced Media Light in order to bring back authenticity to my world. I want to create a space here like I had in Thailand. A space of love, acceptance, understanding, comfort, and strength. I want to create a space where people from all cultures and backgrounds can come together to do life. I want to create a space where people can sit down and talk about the things that they can’t find the freedom to do in their schools, work places, churches, and friend groups. I don’t know how, but I so badly want that for my world here at home. 

I’ll never be able to explain it, but something happened to me when I left the Philippines that I may never be able to explain, but I am confident represented how the last few months impacted my life. While on the plane taking off from Manilla, I cried. I don’t cry. I’m the guy that shoves emotion deep down. I was just sitting in my seat listening to music while the plane taxied out and began to take off., when suddenly my chest began to tighten. My cheeks pushed up and my eyes closed up a little, but not all the way. Then, without warning, a tear streamed down my face. Than another, and another, and another. It wasn’t a full-on cry, but anyone looking at my would’ve known that something was going on. I never made a sound, I just cried. I have no idea why I did. I was fine until that point. In that moment, it became hard to leave. I had found something in the Philippines that I knew I needed in my life. When I think about it, I think the Philippines reminded me a lot of how I wanted life to be. A mix of all people, from all cultures, from all over the world had come together and became this loving world of 100 Million Filipinos. The beauty of the city, the countryside, and everything in between embedded itself in my heart. I may never go back to Thailand, but I will be back to the Philippines. There was something there that had locked onto my life and sworn to stay with me even when I left. 

I will write and talk about my experiences so much more over the next days and weeks ahead, but for now, all I can say is that the last few months changed my life, my personality, and my perspective on life. Not in a flippant, “that wounds nice to say” way, but in a way that I can feel in the change in my heart and in my soul. Its going to be hard being back home. Well, not specifically at home, but it’ll hard being back in the world of school, work, and repetitiveness that people here have perfected. 

It won’t be easy, but I trust that I can bring the same love I knew in Asia, back to my community. It doesn’t take much, it just takes patience. 

From the Head to the Heart

I see life as a piece of string. Our life, from beginning to end, is a set length of string. During our journey, we have the ability to move the string. We cannot make it longer or shorter, but we can move it from side to side. As we move it from side to side, we entangle ourselves with other people, or other pieces of string. The more different the person, the more complicated the tangle. Some people don’t move very much either way, and that's fine. Some people, however, want to see how tangled they can make their string. How many people can they meet? How many experiences can they experience. 

I’ve tangled mays string over the past few months. I will never be able to completely describe the last few months, but a quote from one of my favorite songs over the last year, and coincidentally a sort of “anthem” of the last few months, is that my life has been God doing something pretty remarkable. 

“From the head to the heart, 

You take me on a journey of letting go, 

and getting lost in You.”

I’ve gotten lost over the last couple of months. I dove into an experience I knew nothing about, and can never fully appreciate. I lived life with people from every corner of the earth. We had nearly nothing in common. What we did share, however, was a thirst for the love of people and God that Jesus lived out while on earth. Politics and religion aside, our focus was love. Love for each other, for our individually unique gifting, and the love of people. We laughed together, cried together, struggled in projects together, and even argued with each other. That’s family though. Families fight, but families love. I may never see most of the people I shared life with, but we will all have eternal impacts on one another’s hearts and lives. I have no idea if I will ever use media in any significant way, but I now know how to love. I know how to see the best in people. I know how to see what people can do instead of what they can’t. I know how to depend on my brothers and sisters in Christ. I know how to share life. I know how to love life. I know how to dwell in the joy of living and the joy of letting go of the things I can’t do and to focus on what God has allowed me to do. 

I will always have so much more to say than what I am able to sit down and type, but I don’t think words will ever suffice the experience. Because, that’s what it is, its an experience. From the mountains to the seas, I have seen God’s love in a culture I never thought I’d get to love in. 

Coming home will be hard. I am coming from a Godless region where I lived in a community similar to the kind the disciples lived in while following Christ. I will go from a small, powerful family, to a world where everyone professes Christ, but where Christ is seldom seen. It will be easy to go back and boast in my experience as “seeing the light.,” but I cannot do that. To come back home, I will have to practice the hardest thing in the world for me: grace and understanding. I have a job to do now. My job is to be a humble, consistent example of the life God wants for people. I have to love everyone, reject no one, and give completely of myself. I have to be a small, powerful voice for God’s love and his will for my life. Whether that is in the form of a Bible study, a media production company, a church, a small group, or a series of coffee shop encounters with strangers, I have to do something. 

To leave my experience as a series of neat pictures, and stories about living in a different world would be a waste of this season. I have to be different. I have to live differently. I have to think differently. As Jesus was different, so must I be also. 

14 = 12

14 = 12

Mathematically, fourteen does not equal twelve. 

When it comes to Media Light, however, fourteen absolutely equals twelve. 

We are fourteen students here. There are more staff and other people, but fourteen registered students. There were twelve disciples. Twelve men who decided to forsake everything and follow a phenomenon. Those men took a leap of faith into the unknown, and now, here we are doing the same. Fourteen students from all ages, genders, ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds.

When I first came to Media Light, I knew little of what to expect. I knew, for the most part, what it was about, but I underestimated all of it. I underestimated the depth of learning, the pace, the people, and the impact it would have on my life. I viewed Media Light as a place to get away from my life for a bit, learn some skills, and vacation a bit. I absolutely did not expect the spiritual impact it would have. 

I have a bad habit of expecting events, people, practices, and other things to change my personal circumstances in life. I went to a Christian school expecting it to make me a “good Christian.” I squandered that. I helped out at church, volunteered, and tried to make myself feel better through good works. Well, it did nothing. I came to Media Light expecting to either have a spiritual epiphany, or to put up a shield to keep myself from being affected by the spiritualness of the school. I failed in both ways. I never had an epiphany, and I couldn’t keep up my “God firewall.” 

As I sit here at 3:10AM in Chiang Man on a short break from classes, I can’t help but notice the parallels of the last month here, and the life of Jesus’ disciples. I paused life, and jumped into an unknown. The disciples did the same. I took a leap of faith knowing that “something” was out there, but had no idea exactly what. The disciples did the same. I am living together with people I never knew before now, from all different walks of life, and we are all going on this journey together. The disciples did the same. 

While we don’t have a human person to follow like Jesus’ followers did, we do have the example Christ  modeled for us through his ministry. I never really know what the next day holds for me, and I am never anxious or stressed out about that. I have made lifelong friends that are like family to me. I have discovered parts of myself that I never knew existed, and I have also dusted off old talents and gifts of God that I failed to utilize like He intended. 

I still have a month left here, and I do miss home, but this is already a time of my life that I will never forget. A time when 30+ people came together for a time and a place that could only be divinely woven together. I would be lying if I said I knew what would happen after this school, but not knowing doesn’t bother me. If anything, I have learned that to plan out life is to limit myself. When I start making lists of what I want to accomplish in life, I limit myself to only those successes. While they may be good, they become my box. My benchmark by which I use to grade my life. 

God is a creator.  He creates and makes new things. Nothing he makes is the same. As God created and molded the heavens, Earth, time, and space, I know that he will surely guide my life if I let him. I must make more leaps. God wants me to trust him. He wants to show me how powerful and amazing he is. Before Media Light, I am not sure that I would easily let him. I was too comfortable in my little patch of life. So afraid of it cracking, that I would not give myself the opportunity to grow and be stretched. 

I have been stretched here. Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, this has been both one of the most stressful times of my life, as long as one of the most satisfying and beneficial. Whether I go on to do media or not, I can show the love of Christ through whatever medium God blesses me with. While media is quickly evolving and more easily accessible than ever, media means nothing without a intentional meaning. A meaning of hope, life, love, and grace. Media Light doesn't just give me the tools I need to produce excellent media, but it has taught me how to connect and be intentional with anyone and everyone I meet, and to show them the love of Christ in the most genuine and originally intended way as possible. 

Like the twelve disciples, we are fourteen students. Fourteen people on a journey to follow Jesus and to be a intricate part of his purpose for our world. Media Light is not just media, its love. Its grace. Its passion. Its growing. Its learning. Its God’s will for our lives. 

More Than A Feeling (Not the song by Boston)

Something happens every once in a while that, when it does, you want to record and relive it every second of every day for the rest of your life.

It can happen in a coffee shop, by a river, on a plane, in the morning, in the stillness of the night, in a bar, drunk, sober, during a breakup, amidst heartache, in celebrations and through tears. 

I don’t know how or why, but once in a while, I feel God. 

I usually find myself thinking about life, and where its taking me, and then all of the sudden, I feel it. I feel Him. I feel Her. I feel this force that spun the galaxies and stirs the ocean currents. Its overwhelming, and I usually do well to hold back tears, but its peaceful. 

I overthink everything. If there’s four ways to think about a problem, I spend time thinking about it in eight ways. I can every scenario of life and simultaneously play out every possible conclusion in my head, usually convincing myself that the worst ones will be my path. 

Here I am in Thailand, at a school I hardly even took seriously until mere days before arriving. I come with baggage and burdens, as all do. I come with the expectation that this will teach me a few interesting things, beef up my photography/videography skills, and then I’ll leave with a chapter to add to the book of my life. 

The problems of life, home, relationships, God, love, sin, its all still with me. It all still plagues me. It all still exists. But, once in a while, when I least expect it, I feel it. I feel that peace. I feel that assurance that everything will work out, that it all has a place in my life where it fits perfectly. 

When people make the mistake of asking me for advice or for my opinion, I usually know what to say. I know how to make them feel better, and to move their thought process onto something more vague and positive. However, I know myself. Because I know myself, I can’t console myself. I just keep everything in, locked away, buried deep, until it boils out and I have a silent, undetectable, existential meltdown. I don’t know what to do then. I just suffer through it, and learn to familiarize myself with the pain, so much so that I come to welcome it and find it comforting. 

It is then, that I feel it. 

That peace. 

It sends chills down my body, floods my mind with memories, soothes my soul, and drowns me in a love for life that I often lose and subsequently long for. 

I wish I could trap it, save it, and keep it near, but I can’t. It has to come fresh. Though it often feels the same, its not. It is almost as if its “custom built” for the moment. Whatever size the hole is in my soul, its the perfect fit. 

Its indescribable. 

It cannot be imitated

replicated

reproduced

saved

recorded

relived

revived

It has to be God. 

It has to be that force that hold humanity together, despite our constant tugging and pulling apart. It isn’t a chemical. It cannot be studied or seen. 

It has to be God.

Now what does it mean? 

I have no idea. 

Often, I feel God, and its amazing for a while, but then life happens and the memory of the moment fades into times. 

What do I do with it?

I have no idea. 

I wish I could harness it and plow through life with a confidence and self-assurance that people so often long for. Right now though, I haven’t had that. Maybe I will one day, but right now, nope. 

I never know when or where these moments will happen, but I do know that they come at the perfect time. They come when I least expect them, but need them the most. 

Maybe I will come out of this season will a handle on this peace, or whatever it is? I sure hope so. If not, I will still be okay. They will still happen, I trust, and I will keep pushing through life day-by-day, until this peace takes me home. 

Wedding Dress

If this post reads like a hodgepodge of random thought and confusing analysis, its because that’s what it is. Hence the name of my entire blog… But still, as is the usual, I apologize in advance. I also, much to the chagrin of every English professor I've ever had, never read over my writing. I already delete 95% of the things I write because the moment after I write them, they seem ridiculous. So this is me pushing stuff out before I have a chance to delete it. With all that said, good luck. 

When people ask me what my favorite verse or Bible story is, without hesitation, I go to Ezekiel 16. 

Go read it. Its interesting. In fact, its so interesting, that some Jews refused to read it because of how “interesting” it is. Seriously, go read it and then come back here.

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Crazy, huh? 

I love it. I love it, but I also hate it. I hate it because its so depressing,. I love it because its so depressing. Depressing, yet exciting. Depressing, yet, dare I say, hopeful. 

Its graphic for a reason. Its graphic because its about us. Well, its about Israel, technically, but us as well. We are the child in the desert. Here we are, little nothings on the big blue Earth. We’re thrashing around in our desert lives, left out to shrivel and die. Sadly, a lot of people do just that. Maybe not literally, but figuratively that’s all most do in life. They, and by they I also mean myself, go through life trying to do everything on our own. We try to be successful on our own. We try to learn on our own, find our own way, do our own thing, love what we choose, love who we choose.

Love who we choose. 

Dang. 

That’s me. That’s us. That’s the woman in Ezekiel 16. That’s the church. That’s not okay.

I can’t speak for other peoples’ lives, but I can for mine. 

I do all of those things. I’m the woman in the story. To God, to others, and to myself. And the worst part is…I’m aware of it. 

One of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced in my life, is watching someone go out of my life, and into someone else’s who cares so little about them and has nothing to give. That hurts. When you know you can love someone better than anyone else, but they go, still. 

Here’s why Ezekiel 16 is my favorite, because I’m both characters in the story. I’m the man who rescues the child and wants to give her everything she ever needs, only to have her give herself to others. I’m also the child as a woman, who throws herself to those who only want to take and hurt. Its a strange situation, I suppose, to play both the protagonist, and antagonist, but its a magic trick I seem quite adept at pulling off. 

So how does one who hurts others who care about them, but who is also hurt by others who they care so much for, untangle themselves? 

“Good question, Nathan.”

Thanks Nathan! I wish I knew! 

“Wedding Dress,” by Derek Webb, is a song that highlights that exact question.

Go listen to it. Seriously. Then come back.

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Feel like crap after that song? Good, that means the intention of the song got through. 

Its humbling. God loves us, has everything for us, will do anything for us, yet we try to get his love elsewhere. We throw God on like he’s a magic fix-it-all, when sometimes, we have to deal with the consequences of our actions.

Its Paul sneaking up on us through Romans 7:15. We know what is right, but that’s not what we do. Why? 

If I could somehow take every intellectual though I have about what to do in life, and actually do it, I’d be in a very good place. But no, we have emotions, desires, and wants. Things that make life better, but also just seem to pester us. We see a decision that needs to be made, and go “Yeah, that’s the right choice I should make! I’ll do it!” Do we? Of course we don’t. I don’t. I make the choice that I know I will regret, but in the moment, its the short term satisfaction that distracts and bids be come forth. 

I give love to the wrong people, and get uneasy when people that God sends my way, try to show His love to me. I’m repulsed, but politely, at least. 

God has rescued me from the desert, cleaned me up, dressed me in the finest clothes, and wants only for me to love him as much as he loves me. But I just can’t seem to do that. Its a switch I can't flip, an intellectual conclusion I can’t reach, a mountain I can't climb. I want to love people like God loves people. I want to choose God’s love over the waining and fleeting love of others. 

I don’t imagine its an easy thing to do, otherwise no one would ever have these problems. Ezekiel 16 wouldn’t exist as an example. 

Stretching

Thailand. I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d be here for two and a half months. I never thought I’d be stretched like I’ve been stretched. 

I had no idea what to expect when I came here. I had some ideas. Learning new skills, being immersed in a new culture, spiritual growth, I could’ve named all that before I got here. I’ve been sideswiped by the time. Usually when you know you will be experiencing something outside your comfort zone, you can mentally prep for it. You can shut everything down and focus intensely on getting through a challenge unscathed. What you can't plan for, however, is the endurance. I love being here, and I love the community that exists here. Its as close to what kind of community Jesus intended people to live in as we can get in today’s society. 

I underestimated how prepared I would need to be mentally and emotionally. 

I have far too little patience for others. Yet here I am learning patience.

I struggle even saying “I love you” to people. Love runs this entire place. 

I try to do everything on my own. My whole time here is spent as a part of a team. 

I hide my emotions and “disappear” from the world for a while. I am with people 95% of my time here.

I take people and relationships for granted back home. Being away brings a new meaning and so much more appreciation to everything I have back at home. 

Being so far for so long is one of the hardest, yet greatest, things a person can do. It pulls you out of your comfort zone, then makes no attempt to make life easy. Its not the family that I miss, although I do miss my family, its the lack of appreciation I had for them while I was there. This is a time of stretching. 

People don’t stretch for fun, they stretch so that when adversity comes, they won’t hurt themselves while battling through it. 

Life is a battle,………………………and I’ve never stretched. 

Relationships are hard,……………. and I’ve never stretched. 

Walking with God isn’t easy,……… and I’ve never stretched. 

Love is hard,……………………….. and I’ve never stretched. 

As I go through this time of stretching, I pray that isn’t doesn’t become easy, but that I can accept its importance. I pray that I can appreciate this opportunity. I pray that I can look into my life and be able to know how much this season will mean to me.