my [premature] new year's resolution

i don't usually make new year's resolutions, and the few times that i have, it has usually come to me a few weeks into the new year. last year, my new year's resolution was to start and maintain a blog. success!
admittedly, it was a bit of a cop out, since i already wanted to start one, and adapted it as my resolution, but if that method works, then i'm already off to a good start with this year's resolution.
after reading a friend's myspace bulletin- one of those surveys you only read when you're bored or procrastinating- and seeing that she answered "Who is your most silent friend?" with MY NAME, i have decided something must be done about this.
if you are my friend and you are reading this, do tell me: do you think i'm "silent"? and is that a positive or negative thing?

incidentally, my resolution is to be less "silent."
my inclination to be more on the silent/reserved/observant side involves many contributors. one is that i don't want to say stupid things. a lot of people say a lot of stupid things. this could be prevented by more people being more silent. or just thinking before speaking. maybe the main reason is that i care too much what people think- afterall, why would i care if i sounded stupid if i didn't care what people thought in the first place. thus, i care.
and yet, paradoxically enough, i maintain a blog, which probably makes me more vulnerable to stupidity than just talking more. hmm.

so my resolution is to care less?
right. wish me luck with that whopper.

what i am peeved about right now

for months the auto-spell-correct thing on microsoft word has been telling me that "comfortability" is not a word. the only suggestion is "comfort ability." so, being the trusting person that i am (sometimes), i always find another way to say what i'm meaning without using the word comfortability. today, when writing a response to a Marianne Moore poem, i typed in the word (since i always seem to forget that to microsoft word, it is not a word), and got so irritated that i decided to look it up online.

GAH. if you can't trust your microsoft word autospellcheckerthingy, WHO CAN YOU TRUST?!

another one about the BlendTec blenders...but this time with Chuck Norris.

first watch the one i posted a week or so ago.
then, this one:

and

sometimes
i think i'll be alive forever
stuck
a bug on flypaper

in those moments
i crave death.
just a taste,
to hold its hand for a moment
that i might appreciate
my own mortality,
and find more than pain
in its brevity

to redeem myself

for that last playlist i blogged about.
here's a sampling of the music i listen to normally.
it's also in response to greg and matt's posts.

Oh, the shame!

so i realized that the music i like to listen to when i go running is the most embarrassing mix ever.
i'm going to share that list with you:

"How I Beat Shaq" by Aaron Carter
"Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson
"The Way You Make Me Feel" by Michael Jackson
"How Will I Know" Whitney Houston
"Ready to Run" The Dixie Chicks
"Rumors" Lindsay Lohan


...yeah.
i might regret sharing that with the world, but there it is.

we use these at my work

so i'm a little frightened now.

a reason to ease off mark driscoll*

i've noticed that a lot of people have beef with mark driscoll, the speaking pastor at Mars Hill church in Seattle.
A friend sent me the link to that sermon by Mark Driscoll on humility:

I believe that humility is the great omission and failure in my eleven years of preaching. I believe that this is my greatest oversight both in my example and in my instruction.

I therefore do not claim to be humble. I do not claim to have been humble. I am convicted of my pride, and I am a man who is by God’s grace pursuing humility.

So in many ways this is a sermon that I’m preaching at myself, this is a sermon you are welcomed to listen in on as I preach to myself.

But I truly believe that were there one thing I could do over in the history of Mars Hill it would be in my attitude and in my actions and in my words to not only emphasize sound doctrine, encourage in strength and commitment and conviction but, to add in addition to that, humility as a virtue.

And so I’ll start by asking your forgiveness and sincerely acknowledging that this has been a great failure.

And I believe that it is showing up in our church in the lives of men and women who have sound doctrine but not sound attitude. They may contend for good things but their motives are bad and their methods are bad and their tone is bad and their tactics are bad and their actions are bad because their attitudes are bad even though their objective is sometimes good. I see this in particular with the men. I see this with men young and old, men who have known Jesus for a long time and should know better, and men who are new to Jesus and are learning sometimes the hard way.

I will take some responsibility for this. Luke 6:40 says that when fully trained, disciples are like their teacher, and I am primary teaching pastor of this church and I can’t simply look at the pride in some of our people and say that I am in no way responsible or complicit.

I’m a guy who is pretty busted up over this personally and it really came to my attention last December just in time for Christmas. The critics really brought me a lot of kind gifts of opposition and hatred and animosity. Merry Christmas. And some of those most vocal and nasty critics were Christians – some of them prominent Christians. So I was getting ready to fire back (my usual tactics). They hit you, you hit them twice and then blog about your victory. Which I don’t have any verses for and don’t say it was a good idea. But it had been a pattern in my life until a man named C.J. Mahaney called.

I’d always considered humility to be cowardice and a compromise. In the name of humility you give up biblical conviction and passion and the willingness to contend for the faith (Jude 3) and to fight false teaching. What he was describing was orthodoxy in belief and humility in attitude and that those two together are really what God desires. And so it got me thinking and studying and praying through pride and humility and repenting and learning and growing. So I would start by saying that I thank my dear friend C.J. Mahaney for his ongoing friendship and the kindness he has extended to me and the things I’ve been able to learn through his instruction.

Furthermore, I apologize and repent publicly to you, the church for whom I am responsible, for much pride in the history of my ministry that some of you have poorly imitated and for that I am deeply sorry.

And thirdly, to say that I’m not a humble man but as result of study I’m a man who is acknowledging his pride and pursuing humility by God’s grace.

-- Mark Driscoll, sermon on Philippians 2:1-11 (November 4, 2007), part 5 in The Rebel's Guide to Joy in Humility

**to be clear, i really like mark driscoll, and have learned a thing or two from him about reaching out and getting my hands dirty in a lost and dirty culture. there are a couple things i'm not sure i agree with him about, but i've found that's the case for me with most christian leaders. i admire that he sticks to the Bible, and presents an uncompromised picture of biblical conviction and passion to christians and non-christians alike.

He's got the whole world....

thanks Brady!

wilco-miseration

that's when i knew you
you might be lonely too
that's what i wished for
somebody just like you

another auden shout out

"Much can be said for social savoir-faire
But to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap."

-"Leap Before You Look" W.H. Auden


I just finished a five page paper about this poem....and am now quite enthralled by it.

found

it's a good thing
the train crashed
before we got on
it slipped off its tracks
only two stops before our
stop
which is a good thing
for us

i know you had hoped
to go to the fair
we've both been there before
we'd hoped
to go again
together

to ride the train along the coast
pretending to see dolphins dancing
and seeing the sun set
for us
------
i thought i'd be relieved
since i was worried to go back
that it'd be different

but i'm only curious
wondering what color the taffy was
and if anyone threw up
on the spinning wheel ride
or if you would have won me
one of those big stuffed bears


10.16.2006