The morning after...

It's funny that people refer to me as a professional in my line of work.


It's something that I was never hoping to be called but deserve the recognition & compensation that comes w/ it. I've done the work & have earned the moniker, but I can really do w/out the responsibilities associated w/ it.


I guess I've always wanted to be successful, receive no recognition except that folks know I was good @ what I do, and live a comfortable life. It's hard to be successful when you have absolutely no self-confidence and needed approval from people you trusted before doing anything. There's good & bad to that. I feel as though that part of me is starting to fade away or morph into what it really should be.

(amazing how my mind wanders)

When we decided to move to Texas in January 2010, I started to realize that change was ok. It is slightly ironic that during our 11 years of marriage, we've moved 12 times--I guess it all depends on what your fears are that determine your risk assessment of the change. It made me feel a little freer...like I could breathe a little easier.

(hold on...brain is whipping around again)

Last w/end @ the David Crowder Fantastical Church Music Conference, I experienced some of the coolest arrangements of music that I've ever heard. This is the list of bands that performed: Welcome Wagon, Gungor, Paper Route, Derek Webb, Bifrost Arts, Leeland, Israel Haughton, Hillsong London, John Mark McMillan, Civil Wars, Jars of Clay, Mike Crawford & His Secret Siblings, & David Crowder Band.

Now, aside from the normal instruments that most bands used here were a few instruments or things that I was not expecting to see in what amounted to a rock show for most of the artists: a banjo, upright bass, cello, not 1 but 4 xylophones, a Polish folk band from Brooklyn wishing they could have brought sausage & pastries as gifts (Wagon Wheel), 5 guys in one band all playing percussion @ one point (Paper Route), violins, hooter (official name is ???), electronic bass machine in vein of Linkin Park, flute, saxophone & soprano sax (think Kenny G), Gumbo Band (Bifrost Arts picked up a bunch of Baylor music students to play/sing), a triangle, John Mark McMillan is one cool sounding dude w/ an infatuation w/ graves, skeletons et al, Crowder looks like my great aunt Georgia (pronounced 'george-ie'), and there was a 6-foot harp.

I'm listening to "Call Me Out" & "We Will Run" from Gungor's "Beautiful Things" album. Incredible music.

I'm going back to the conference next year if Crowder does it again. It was my first time to see/hear Francis Chan, Rob Bell, & Luis Giglio in person. Thank goodness I recorded the audio from the w/end. I like to review what I hear because I tend to space while listening (and typing).

I have been stretched by Francis & Rob (yeah, we're on a first-name basis). Do I agree w/ everything they say? To be honest, I don't know. I've learned to not have a knee-jerk reaction to something that I have not taken the time to do my own analysis of; however, these guys know what they are talking about.

Challenging my own preconceptions about why I call myself a christian has been an incredible experience for me over the last year or so. Things that have been taken as "truth" for my whole life has now come back into the picture for me to determine, first, what do I believe, why do I believe that, then, ulitmately, am I totally off base here?

The good news is that I know that Jesus Christ is my savior, died & was resurrected to atone for my sins, & he is in heaven anticipating when we can meet face-to-face. I am tasked w/ telling others that he didn't just do this for me.

Since that is what he ultimately wants me to know/do, then, while the rest of this stuff is important, I can relax a little more as I learn more about who I am & who God is to me...all @ my own pace.

I may even take this Sabbath thing seriously too...