I don't have new ideas

In early-mid-July, I switched from the sort of training section of my company to being placed on a real project in a real office. You can tell, because a week or two later I wrote a post called "Change" and then, if the title of this blog is true, didn't feel like writing for a long time.

It's not entirely true, though, because I've wanted to write. I've wanted to throw some ideas out there and put them into somewhat well-formed sentences and see what you (yes, you! ...whoever you are) have to say about them, if anything. I have opened the posting page several times and written nothing, because I haven't had the words. I haven't had the words, because I haven't had time to think.

I haven't had time to think, because I haven't made time to think. I haven't made time to play the guitar. I haven't made time to pray. I haven't made time to read, and those are all things I think are important for me to do. If you feel like you've read this before, maybe you read the post I wrote just before graduating from college.

Sometime in the last year, I went through several piles of old notebooks, full of writings and drawings going back as far as 3rd grade, saving only a few highlights and throwing the rest away, because I do not need to carry a giant pile of notebooks with me through life. My descendents either won't care or won't have time to look through it all, and, even if I became famous for some ridiculous reason, it will just make me more mysterious which is probably good.

I haven't written a lot of songs as of late, because I haven't been playing guitar (see above) and those tend to correlate (whether or not I'm not writing for guitar), but I sure did write a lot more songs in high school, in the throes of adolescence - what a surprise. I'm not claiming those were very good (some were real woofs), but as I looked back at them I realized that, despite the ways in which I've grown and matured, some of the struggles and themes were the same things I deal with today. It was a little bit too much like the beginning to a Caedmon's Call song, I guess.

One of the great things about a blog is that it's super-easy for me to look back at what I wrote in the past and realize that I still have the same problems, which just confirms my observations of my 16-year-old songwriting self. I'm not saying that I haven't changed, that things haven't gotten better, but it looks to me like the root causes in the heart are the same.

I don't read the Bible much, outside of my weekly Small Group Bible Study, because I don't make time for it, but I remember that back in my adolescence I was a huge fan of the end of Romans 7. This is probably one of those things unique to certain kinds of Protestants, but the problem of feeling like I want to do the right thing and then doing the wrong thing was a major concern in my life. I can't tell you how many songs I wrote about that. Paul says this:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I've tried a lot of things to change myself and overcome my problems. I don't know where to draw the line on the great continuum of trying to fix yourself and just sitting around doing nothing saying "Well come on God what is taking so long" and I feel like I've done both at various times. If you feel like you've read this before, maybe that's because I have written all this before.

A year ago, I was in St. Louis at Urbana 2009, and no, I still haven't committed to intentionally serving Christ in a cross-cultural context in the near future, and that was far from the first time I thought that was a good idea. I still haven't done all kinds of things that I sometimes I think I ought to do, like learning to make time for things, and fixing one of those things would probably fix all the rest: changing myself to be a better person, whatever that means. Michael Jackson may have sang about only needing a mirror to identify and fix his problems, but I've been staring at myself for years and I think it takes more than deciding to change. If you feel like you've read this before, maybe you read the ending of the post I made last on this blog.

If I can't change myself and God is taking so long, what can I do? Try harder, try different things, or be patient. I've tried the first one, I'd do the second if I wanted to, and the third option is so difficult.

Change

The first two years of college, I church hopped all over the place, and I think that was a useful and important educational experience. During my Junior year, eventually my friends and I settled on Rivers Edge Community Church, a Presbyterian church near UMBC. It's a pretty good place, and I kept going there after I graduated and moved back in with my parents, because a twenty minute drive isn't all that bad, and it was familiar to me by then. As summer approached, though, I realized that there were other churches that I might be interested in, much closer to home. I visited a few, and have been going to City of Hope Church on Sundays. It's in Columbia, less than a ten minute drive, and it's a lot like NewSong Community Church up in Baltimore. It's a good, small, fairly young church.

One of the reasons why I didn't mind not going to River's Edge is that, for the most part, I haven't gotten to know anyone there, even though I went there consistently for two and a half academic years and first went there as far back as 2006. I know a few people, but not particularly well at all. When there was a crowd of us college kids, it was pretty typical and not surprising that we'd all bunch up together and only talk to each other after the service. But after I graduated, and after Smitty moved to Cincinnati, it was just me, and still I didn't talk to anyone. After the service was over, I'd usually just leave.

I've been going to City of Hope for most of two months now, and I've met a few people. If someone sitting near me accosts me after the service, I meet them, we chat for a few minutes, and then I leave. If that doesn't happen, I just leave. When I stopped going to Rivers Edge, I said that it'd be different at City of Hope, because there were people my age, because I'd be an adult there instead of a graduated college-kid, because I'd be outgoing and friendly, because I wouldn't run away from the intimidating and uncomfortable situation of meeting people. Now I talk to myself every week as I walk across the parking lot, asking why I left, why I didn't stay and talk to the people I've briefly met in weeks past.

I don't do New Year's Resolutions, but it looks like I do New Place Resolutions. Going to Camp, living in a different dorm, moving home - There have been many semi-unstated goals, where I wanted to start doing something, or stop doing something, or change how I did something. I've never kept track of these, but I don't think I've done all that well. Does that mean that my ways have never changed? By no means! But change doesn't happen overnight, it turns out; I suspect it's slow. I'm hopefully moving out of my parents' house in the coming weeks, and it might do my mental health some good to remember that all my faults are not going to disappear when I come up with a new and clever way to organize my belongings in their new environ. I'm not saying I shouldn't try, though.