To everyone at LifeBridge church:

If this church represents the hands and feet of Jesus, then I have learned that Jesus is rich, spoiled, cliquey, persnickety, and exclusive; friendly, but only superficially and only on Sundays.

I attended this church for years and attempted to invest in people and into new friendships and relationships but felt so turned away and abandoned by so many who probably simply forgot that I exist. The only friends I have who attend(ed) there were my friends before I ever attended, the people who invited me in the first place. Sure, lots of us are friends on facebook, but are we really friends? Am I getting the love that I need through relationship, am I even allowed to give any?
I have offered multiple times to help with various ministries at this church, but each and every time I have been turned away because certain areas were “too full” or they “didn’t need me.” When I left the church, not once did anyone ask where I went.

I saw a therapist for months because I knew that somehow it must be my fault that no one at this church seemed to notice or really care about me… he told me that there was nothing wrong on my part, other than I didn’t realize that some people don’t really care, and that I can’t change them.
Now, I am not attempting to selfishly complain because MY needs were not met, I am simply stating that after years of trying, after quietly, patiently praying that people would notice me, let me in, return my calls with messages other than “sorry I’ve been busy”, I am giving up. And I am really sorry that it had to happen this way.

So to everyone there, if you are genuinely my friend (and I’m sure you know who you are, because we actually spend time together) you are amazing and I am eternally grateful for you. To everyone else, please notice the impact your negligence has had on my heart.

I would still love to be your friend, and I realize how insanely busy everyone’s schedule can be (which is why I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt for so long), but I would still love to to go to cool bible studies with you, to go out to eat and get coffee and hear your life stories and encourage you, pray with you when you need it, etc.
But this message is to let everyone know that I have stopped trying because my efforts thus far have been utterly fruitless.

I have felt welcomed and comforted in the company of agnostics and atheists more than I have ever felt love in this white-washed church.

Merry Christmas.

the unexpected end.

So, 2011 began with a wonderful leap into the unknown.
I finally got the chance to be a roadie with Invisible Children, and so, as most of you know, I moved into the roadie house (with more than 60 other people) and got to work!

I kept meaning over the weeks to write about my adventures in the house and in the office, but it was all just this exhilarating busy blur of working and training and getting to know all of these people I live and work with, and dance parties every night in the garage and running and shopping and laughing and studying and learning and trying to find room to cook food in the kitchen because there were so many people eating all at once, and getting up before dawn and emotions and vulnerability and getting to love my team and struggling through our differences and booking this crazy trip across the country.

I was more than beyond excited to travel to many new places I had never been, and share this powerful story of northern Uganda and the Congo with everyone I met. It was all going so well, I loved every moment of it like crazy, I was being challenged in the best possible ways, I was so glad to finally be here where I felt like I belonged.

Well, last week, after working hard in the office from dawn until dusk (literally), I was approached by my regional manager and she took me into an office and basically said that it wasn't going to work out with me, and that my internship would be terminated on the spot.

The specific reasons they gave were that I "have a very independent spirit, and while that is appreciated, it will not work with this team environment." That and they said I asked too many questions, which could be misconstrued as not trusting the management.

I attempted to plead with them, and I told them that my intentions were misinterpreted and wrongly perceived and that I was wholly dedicated to this company but to no avail: I wasn't good enough to be here this semester and my work with IC was over.

I am still rather dazed and shocked and confused.

They made me move out of the house that night with nowhere to go. I called my best friends and have been sort of just couch surfing around until I figure out what to do.
I drove up to L.A. (in my mom's car because I sold mine two weeks ago) and spent some time with friends, and have just sort of given myself time to come to terms with the fact that I will not be going on this tour anymore.

It kind of feels like losing a close friend or family member, or I guess, it feels like a divorce or something. I haven't experienced that and I never plan to, but it's just this weird shock of things being over and you never wanted them to end that way. Even worse, it's hard because there is no solid black-and-white answer to why they let me go. It was just because I'm me, and I didn't fit. My heart is broken and I miss my team and my roadie family more than anything, but the fact of the matter is: Now I'm here. Not there. I'm not going to be touring the South this spring with two amazing Americans and a Ugandan.
I guess that something else is planned for me during this time, and while I can't imagine it being better than what I was supposed to be doing with IC, I'm eager to find out what it is.

That's all I really have to say about that.
I'm so sorry if I let anyone down. I've certainly let myself down.

‎"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." - Leo Buscagli

Home Sweet Home

I live in a house with 64 people.

Sometimes more, sometimes less.

There are:

50 roadies (the rest are interns)

6 Canadians

2 brothers

2 Morgans

5 refrigerators

4 bathrooms

one attic

two cupboards-under-the-stairs

two "harry potters" (who live in those cupboards)

one machete in the hall closet

one giant cockroach named Rickey

10 musical instruments of mine which are kept in the basement

9 couches

39 cups and mugs

No cable

5 massive vans (you know, those vans)

"enough knives to arm the neighborhood"

1001 laughs

4000 Questions for Getting to Know Anyone and Everyone

ten thousand reasons to rejoice

A million stories

64 distinct and wonderful personalities

A house full of people who love switchfoot. (My dream come true, right?)

64 hearts that, in one way or another love Africa and have minds made up to change the world.

The Roadie house is one of a kind.

(Did I mention there is a basement? Isn't that weird?)

Are you ready?

this is your life.

whoa

October 22, 2010 has snuck up and pounced upon me like this awesome tiger upon this frightened man:


I have not posted (here) in a long while!
I've got some catching up to do.

But time is merciless!
Time will continue on, against my will and thoughts and work and tireless valiant efforts to slow it down (or even to speed it up on occasion).

Time is like the clinging monkey on the back of this rather angry parrot,

or like this vulture's vicious attack upon an unsuspecting jackal:
Time still marches, marches violently, silently onward!

a englilish poem

The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

- Charivarius (G. Nolst Trenité)

Two quotes I have memorized, and that I will unconditionally love forever.

Jon Foreman:

"I yearn to live and love and burn, and yet so much of my time is spent faking and forgetting, faking and forgetting... I carry out my disbelief with uninspired hands, my eyes shut, my emotions dulled, my spirit numb. It is in times like these I am in desperate need of truth to come to me like a blinding light, like a splinter in my soul, reminding me of the brevity of my time here on earth."

&

Jack Kerouack (from On the Road):

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"