Thoughts of Thirst

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:
when shall I come and appear before God?"

Ps. 42:1,2

God has a way of haunting me. In YWAM [red. "Youth With A Mission" - an interdenominational short term mission organization, largely focused on youth also rumoured to be the second largest volunteer-based organisation after the Catholic Church] I learnt that I could 'in some way obtain very relevant verses of scripture by asking God if He had anything to say.' This time I flipped to this psalm.

Lately, I'm beginning to realise that my main and very central problem with God is (as expected, had I asked myself), me. Since I read Psalm 42 a couple of weeks ago I've been unsettled, drawing out time so as to avoid discomfort.

"If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me."

Matt.16:24

Its this with the cross and the self-denial. Remarkable how humanism reacts allergically to self-denial (and so have I as of late..) but I am certain that the self-denial humanism condemns is another, unhealthy, kind of self-denial. Matt. 16:24 must be, I believe, also be read in context with, "Love your neighbour as yourself," which clearly stresses the need to love one self. Indeed, the self-denial asked for in the Bible is the exact same as that of the self-denial that is inevitable when it is in relation to love. Just notice all the people who proclaim that they would walk 500 miles and even love unto death on the FM waves.

So to summarise and clarify, I don't want the discomfort of denying myself, my lusts, my 'flesh.' I just don't want to!

But doesn't this lead onto another problem: my view of living in a way that is pleasing to God is merely a uncomfortable, perhaps painful, disciplinarily and morally motivated, dry and incredibly boring lifestyle? Its not, something keeps telling me, and I think its my immaturity making a scene of things. With 'age' must come a living for the greater picture and especially the greater picture which one's daily life tirelessly paints, yes, a lifestyle which is in accordance with the general direction of one's life. Its in this sense I refuse to believe that I'm not ageing!

The problem with this is when to make the transition to this pleasing life. Too soon, and I'm petrified of falling back into my old role with constantly trying to live up to a moral set of rules and regulations. Too late, and I'm a failure to myself and to those dependant on me.

I want it to come spontaneously and from the heart. (Wonderful cliché by the way..) I want to love God and let that be the reason for a righteous and generously self-sacrificial life. But how to start loving God?

Some time ago I wrote about surrounding myself with music and thinking of myself as a musician. Now I love music and am commited to it. I'm prepared to spend 16,000 on a guitar to let myself inspire! "Faith comes from hearing," and so, to some extent, does love.

"My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:
When shall I come and appear before God?"
I feel my soul every day, thirsting, and to you who is prejudiced against faith in something outside the realm of the immediate: I have tasted and seen before and long for it again.

mark's initiative

Mark Stewart has taken initiative! He has started a.. uhh.. yeah, what would you actually call it?! The main points are to meet in a pub downtown ca. once a month plus a website (forum) to join and use as a discussion forum but also, I guess, to create overview of who the invited people are and when we're meeting etc.

I commend him for the constructive nature of his initiative. For those of you who've followed the last couple of posts, you'll be aware of the waves riding high (for some of us) as pertains to relations to the church and I believe some of us, in moments of delusions, have thought insane thoughts of how to call attention to this (apparently) increasing 'category' of people who, within the church, are dissatisfied with the focus and the direction of the reigning 'christian' culture. Mark's initiative does not offend anyone, but constructively compensates for this frustration and is thereby brilliant in its diplomacy.

It excites me to have this opportunity to chill out (I would say that that is the most appropriate and accurately descriptive term to use) with adults who share my visions and dreams in religious and personally faith-related matters. In this forum I can share my frustrations and doubts and we can discuss it together. Invited are also several of the leaders of the church which is exciting as I haven't made a habit out of small-talking with the 'big shots.' In this regard, I must concede that my sister was right (with reference to the comments of the previous post) in that I probably - no, definetly have not gone to any leaders with my troubles with the church and have therefore passed up a chance to be constructive enough about this. -although venting in this forum has been healthy for me, personally.

But yeah, summa summarum: good job, Mark! [cheers]

the same frustrations from others

I keep running into people, grown-ups who've grown up within the church, who say just the same as Mark Stewart, "Let's drop the church and meet down at Café Borgen and talk about what life is all about and how we should live it." I've just come from an hour-long conversation where the very same thing came from a different generation. So now I've heard it from teenagers, 20-23 year olds, 23-30 year old's and above. The one I talked to tonight said, "when they call people to the front for salvation, I feel like going too!" He named the names of about 12 people who meet because they are in the same boat! A thought popped into my head, that I've headed into a crisis that is apparently capable of lasting years, decades. Its a predicament, a frustration, and it makes me anxious, desperate! But what to do?

How many are we in this situation? How many just need to talk about this right now instead of being encouraged to 'come to the front?' Where is God in all of this and what is actually the root-problem to be adressed? Should we stand together in this or don't we wanna 'rock the boat?'

At least its inspired me to one of the most expressive songs I've ever written with a chorus that says, "I've heard that You are good / and I've heard that You are great / I've heard that You are mighty to save, mighty to save me today" I hope to play it one day and that it'll help someone else out there to see that they're not alone with this. Being alone with it is not a good thing.

Lyrics feedback, plz

I just wrote a new song. Kinda a 15-minute-job, but I wanna have some feedback on these lyrics, please.. [smile] The two-line part is the chorus.

Everytime I see that face
I break down and cry
When the truth finally breaks
The seas they roar in those eyes

I knew how it felt to be free
Never a worry on my mind
Some say that ignorance is bliss
'Till there's no comfort left to find

Only in that love was I truly free
Only in those arms could I really be me

They told me love was my own thing
To do with as I pleased
That it was all in how I tried
All was good if it felt right to me

Ever an arbitrary truth
Fragments spread through time
An intermittent compromising truce
Never a clearly drawn confine

elements in life / control

My life is comfortably simple right now - and I am hesitant to let anything disrupt it! My life before "now" was chaotic to say the least, wildly disorderly to say less. I have never before had the space that I do now (I own a 3-room flat, 68m² with my older brother and sister, both of which have since moved out resulting in my lone hibernation.) Not only physical space but also mental and emotional space. Why have I waited so long with settling into habits of maintaining the order of my surroundings thereby giving myself space to think and rest?

The simplicity is not only in space but also in elements. My life consists of few elements. Before I had school, the teen-group at church, the kid's group at church, music ("worship") at church, occasionally jobs, friends and family = 7 elements!
Now I have nothing to do with church, no friends, no school but I have gained myself and a job. Myself, job and family - oh, and this leaves place for creating music! [smile]

This sounds harsh, yes, I know. But nice. Simple. On top of this, I have pro-actively chosen (or approved) all the elements! Never before have I experienced this and its a wonderful feeling of being in control and actually choosing what I'm spending my time doing.

Can't wait to see what kind of chaos a re-entrance of God could possibly create! sheesh!

Revelation of Forgiveness

"Forgive:
To cease to feel resentment against, on account
of wrong committed; to give up claim to requital
from or retribution upon (an offender); to
absolve; to pardon; --said of the person
offending."
-1913 Webster

Pain caused from maltreatment is a premise for forgiveness. And let us not be naive about the magnitude of the glory of the Decision to turn away from pain and a deep desire for revenge and to accept the nauseating injustice done to one's own flesh and soul. Neither are the emotions involved in this inner battle for the soul to be downplayed, as they can be likened to the powers of nature if one's body were the Earth. Wherefore the Decision is to be likened to the calming of a storm, the convincing of a flood to retreat and the dispersing of the winds of every hurricane: everything within the Earth is closely interrelated wherefore one must assume and retain control over every element within oneself to calm the many raging storms and to draw up again the lines for every wild drop of water in the floods.

Neither must the beauty of the Decision to relinquish one's right to revenge, the ensuing rainbow and the tranquility of great grassy plains drying in the sun, be forgotten. For in making this Decision one not only exonerates the Offender from the curse of the sin commited against oneself, one also frees one's own Earth from a curse of die-hard storms resulting from nature not being in equilibrium. It is fair to say that one holds the fate of two lives when faced with the Decision.

Another beauty, which is worthy of meditation, is how forgiveness enables closure in regards to the haunted memory of the Offender.

Mercy, people, and the appreciation of it, is beautiful.

Conversations in conflict

I just had a thought but haven't the energy to think it through (formulating it always helps): is it not true that 90% of all conversations are based on disagreement? Meaning to say that if you talk to someone, you don't talk to them, you discuss something with them. Exceptions are introductions (telling about oneself) or teaching or expanding the other's horizon.

Maybe that's why I'm not good at talking to anyone past the pleasantries: I hate conflicts and I'd rather "nod and smile" my way out of them than in any way discuss something. I've tried to teach myself to be more adamant and clear headed in some point but its just spectacularly unbecoming to me.

Judge me, plz, is that good or bad (ethically, socially and professionally)?

What happened with me and the church?

Mark Stewart commented on my post titled "My Faith - now" from the 7th, November the following:

" I have read this over and over and still do not understand what you mean by "but somehow I'm not able to get past the emotional hurdle of the Faith having been hugely discredited in me by my former church." "

I have in quite a number of conversations now been asked the question, "Ivan, what happened with you and the church?" Its a question I have only succeeded in answering somewhat with few people as it takes me ages and concentration, that I never have in public places, to answer. I need to formulate a coherent answer to it sometime, so here's a draft which is also a reply to Mark Stewart's comment:

Its quite unchartered area for me to describe as a large part of my issues with this specific church still remain unconscious and emotional. But to venture into it, I think it a very central factor how my faith was largely dependent on my social surroundings (as stated in the original post.) To this effect my faith dwindled when the social climate changed to my disadvantage - coupled and tripled with numerous other areas in which the church did not address the issues that I was struggling with, and when some of the issues did surface they were badly handled.

This is turning out very vague, isn't it? I think what I'm trying to say is that there was a lack of depth, or I just didn't encounter it. I was too busy leading worship and facilitating the youth to delve into both the spiritual realm and myself or to equip myself (or let myself be equipped) to handle life in- and outside the church. I guess you could say that my connection to God and myself wasn't maintained, wherefore I ran out of fuel. I neither knew who I was or who God was but instead I spent my time being distracted with moods (also in worship) and battling superficial sins.

In addition to this (or is it in relation to it?) I found myself stuck in a role in my relations to the youth group, in that I was always the irresponsible, late-coming, flirting guy you could safely get a laugh out of with a clever variatino of a "who're-you-flirting-with-now"-joke. And since I am no good for radical, life-changing spurts of personal growth, breaking out of this role was next to impossible - short of taking hour-long heart to heart talks with everyone there.

I also lacked rolemodels or a mentor. Questions about faith, love, application of faith, morality and ethics, theology, philosophy and mysticism (and the question of why there was never any victory in my heart, no swords and shields to brandish) were building up and I had no-one to turn to and no energy to read litterature about it. It seemed that all the sermons that I did hear (usually because I was leading worship in that service) had nothing to tell me about the abovementioned subjects and all the people around me hid their thoughts about it behind a thick coating of slightly varying adapted social etiquette. I don't remember having eye contact with anyone, much less did I spill my heart to anyone. All my input on existentialistic issues came from my school and my classmates - and you do (to an extent) believe what you hear!

So, based on the abovementioned, with reservations as I am not yet aware of all the factors that have come into play within me, I left into the 'real world' on my own with not much else than 2 friends and a family - not that that isn't much; they counted for a lot and still do!

Now, I am aware that the abovementioned bears alarming resemblance to the picture of a self-pitying, youthfully narcissistic ball of snot but I am painfully aware of many things I could and should have done differently to maintain myself on top of my activities and my responsibilities. I hope this is taken rather as an example of what can go wrong for people like me so that someone else might benefit from any increased perspective and understanding a reader has hopefully gleaned from my story.

In this way, I work on not hating (to ANY degree) the institution that is this church or anyone who attend it - I just don't go there because I still have a very bitter taste in me when I do go.

worrying about the aftermath

In the aftermath of a battle, wherein one had to contend with not victory but an overall defeat, it is hard to know what to do with oneself. The time, until the next occasion for battle, seems unchallengably long, and so you find yourself warring your own defeated spirits until you decide to move on. This is my decision to move on. Nonetheless, the feelings do not evaporate instantly.

Nonsense! I will forget the defeat and wait upon my salvation which is expected within a couple of months. Until then, defeatism prevails in my inner man.

music is for me and I am for music - go, power ranger

Behold! [Trumpets] I have decided (yet another decision, yeah, and the trumpets are outta tune too - nonetheless, give me a chance!) I have decided that I wanna be a music guy. (Thank you, Mayer) I wanna be about (with certain reservations) guitars, sounds, jazz players, riffs, modulations, music as a tool, me as a tool, tools in general (sidetracked already!) uhh.. yeah, strings, singing techniques, singers, genres, songwriters, lyrics, concerts etc etc etc...! But wait, there's more
! (Its late (again) and I should be in bed (again))

I'll calm down now.. [smile] The thing is, I was talking to a friend the other day who got all worked up about imagining my future - a good one at that - but it freaked me out! I felt really old already and I realised that if I wanted to go anywhere serious, I'd have to strap on 'em boots and get on the field. I'm hyped about being proactive, a go-getter who sets his mind on something and runs like a bat outta hell.. -would fly, but the imagery's clear enuff.

Couple the abovementioned factor with my job at Café Borgen (which is going rather well, thank you for asking) where I'm (sorta) in charge and in control, ergo my being in charge of myself, and you'll be getting near what I am thinking now:

I wanna go the places I wanna go!

I was reading a book where the first chapter was all about how many people 'got stuck' in, par example, mediocre jobs with possibility for promotions but nothing in sight. Many times this is not due to lack of skill or ability but rather lack of drive, vision and overview. Don't you have to establish where you are, where you want to go and then go there? (rhetorical questions are cheap, yes) -Whereas many of us contend with where we are (whereever that is) and only make a dull move when its getting to be that time where people around us start to ask why we aren't pursuing an education or a trade (or woteva).

I just wanna be proactive and explore how far I can actually go (and prove to one or two that I can actually go friggin-far-farther-by-far than they'd thought of me!) [angry-fella-face]

So for now I've set my sights on guitar/singing/music and I'm gonna start being proactive about surrounding myself with sources of inspiration and spending my money on relevant stuff.. :)

nuked, frozen, flambé-pizza

Today I was heating a frozen pizza in an industrial microwave oven in a youth club, when the oven started burning. Imagine running into a kitchen where you can't see a thing for the dense smoke except .5m flames licking out of the top of this oven.. I just stared at it for half a sec the grabbed what was nearby (tea towels), soaked them and threw them over. The other guy who was there found a fire extinguisher and we put it out - with blue powder from the extinguisher. After crawling out by the floor cos of the smoke, we had to clean the ENTIRE kitchen by washing EVERYTHING in there.. took 3 hours! pft - we should've ordered out!

Conviction plz

I think what I need is conviction. One will not value any salvation or saving if you don't reckon you need to be saved. Another point I need to be clear on is that the point of Jesus' sacrifice was not to give me a nice life or improve my everyday financially. There it is.

My Faith - now

Guess I'm back at the stage where I don't really know if I believe in God as much as I 'hope in God.' The sad fact is that I'm more expecting a social instance, that'll encourage me to believe in God, to get me believing more than I'm expecting 'it' to 'spring up from within'. Sad, yes, but I am very much dependant on the people around me - more than I'd like to readily admit. As is now, I still don't have anyone who does that for me but somehow I'm not able to get past the emotional hurdle of the Faith having been hugely discredited in me by my former church.

bvadr - nothing constructive

My brother moved to Århus (nearby University-city, 2nd largest in Denmark) AND TOOK HIS COMPUTER WITH HIM.. sigh, yes so I'm without a comp now which is why I'm neglecting this blog.

I'm semi-depressed though - a week ago I got a job in Århus and yesterday I was fired.. well, it was a trial-week, so its not a huge blog, just depressing.. So now I'm back to no-job, no-activities, no-friends but now with added no-computer to console myself with.

And there's this girl... but I won't go into it. :)

Sooo... i dunno!

Cliché #1

How many of you despise clichés? I did, in a desperate attempt to establish my own identity but can something become a cliché if it doesn't contain some degree of 'truth' or element that people can relate to - therefore, honour clichés! :)

That was just to legitimize the cliché, "feeling brokenhearted." I feel brokenhearted. Something is gone, something is missing. Something is not there..