It’s Monday, and I didn’t write all weekend, in order to rejuvenate.  But already, one hour of writing has left me emotionally spent.

I’m not a big fan of football, and I don’t pretend to be. Seldom I enjoy a game, but having my own way – I’d happily miss every game from here until eternity, forsaking them for time spent with people or contemplation in solitude. However, this having been said, I loved watching the Texas Longhorns yesterday. Certainly not because I’m a fan, seeing how anything less than a championship season is boring to me, but because my brother loves Longhorn football. And by love, I mean LOVE. When the Longhorns scored to take the lead last night, everyone at The Tavern erupted. I turn from the t.v. to high five any and all willing participants to find my brother hanging from the rafters above my head, screaming in euphoric ecstasy as if this were a Greek orgy of the ages. Walking home after the game, I realized something: I don’t have to love Longhorn football to enjoy watching a game with my brother. Sometimes watching someone else love something is enough.

Playing a board game last night with some housemates, I realized I’m not as excited about loosing as I am about winning. It was the best of three: boys vs. girls, and while the boys kept getting red-faced and persistent on the interpretations of the law – in this case, the Rules of the Game for Cranium, the girls were busy making penis shapes out of clay, drawing turgid appendices, and acting like a swimming parachuter gardening an underwater volcano. All of which, enabling their victory. Yes, they won. In glorious fashion, they won. And despite the boys calling in a third player for help – in most cases called cheating – the ladies were gracious. So, going to bed last night I consoled myself by realizing that while the girls were overwhelmingly better than us – I can kick both their asses.

Talking last night with a friend, I realized that the things coming out of my mouth were uglier than I realized. While just ideas and feelings swimming aimlessly around in my head, these impressions seem benign and almost playful; however, once they were put on the canvas of our conversation, I realized that they were no longer free but rather concrete and absolute. They were now a part of history rather than the future, and that they were ugly. But as is much with life, they had to be exposed to be fully understood and only then could they be evaluated as truth or not. So today, I am thankful for relationships with the strength to withstand the canvasing of these thoughts.

Last night, sitting on the deck of The Abbey, amidst ten other friends, I found further evidence to support that “at its heart most theology, like most fiction, is essentially autobiography.” In his work The Alphabet of Grace, Frederick Buechner served up this proposition, and I have found it true in almost all circumstances. Buechner coninues,

Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, Tillich, working out their systems in their own ways and in their own language, are all telling us the stories of their lives, and if you press them far enough, even at their most cerebral and forbidding, you find an experience of flesh and blood, a human face smiling or frowning or weeping or covering its eyes before something that happened once.

Prost to those who recognize a theology debate has less to do with reason and more to do with heart. And blessings to those who willingly engage it as such.

We figured it out last night. All of it. Behind mine and Dave’s bedroom is a deck upon which beer and theology meet for an intuitive encounter where all of life has been solved. Search no more my friends, we have every answer to every question.

Last night at the Abbey, I prepared dinner for our community dinner. Mmmmmmm, Fajitas. While I’ve cooked Fajitas several times in the past, I think this was my favorite preparation by far. Sautéed onions, fresh peppers from the garden, fresh cilantro, roasted garlic, chicken, flank steak, and fresh guacamole. Huh? Oh, I just said fresh guacamole, that’s all. OH, THE GUACAMOLE! If ever there was time for gluttonous worship of food, it was here. Why? Well, simple. I put an addictive chemical in it that makes you crave it fortnightly, smartass. Most of us indulged our addiction, and overall, I enjoyed the evening as it helped me learn more about my housemates and the culture. Leftovers, we have leftovers!

I’ve finished editing what has become Part One – approximately five chapters, and begun editing Part Two – approximately five chapters as well. Part Three, the last and longest part – approximately ten chapters, however, will take less emotional energy to edit than the second. Living here at the Abbey has provided a rhythm for writing which has been quite instrumental in working through a tough editing phase. Hold your breath – I’m hoping to begin marketing very soon.

No sports or entertainment. No swinging bars. But in Austin, however, it’s a veritable stool boom getting organized and situated. Here are some tid-bits: I’ve finished one third of draft two. I’ve eaten at Chuy’s, thus satisfying my creamy jalapeño fix. I’m helping redesign the Abbey’s website. I’m meeting musician after musician. Living here does have quite an adjustment period for me, seeing how I moved from living alone for 2 years to living in a house of 9, but the camaraderie is refreshing. And finding a great local coffee shop to walk to every morning helps me write and find rhythm.

I’m officially the newest housemate at the Oak Grove Abbey. More later. I’m tired. Read this.

I’m an American. God bless me. I’m popular. I’m rich. I’m white. Don’t ask me what it means to suffer, because I’m enmeshed in a culture of excess. Need is not a reality for me, but rather a verb I use in conjunction with luxury. I’m fat. I’m lazy. And I’m fucking blind. I want out. Can you hear me? I want out.

It’s well into the dark curtain of night, and this soul of mine is restless. Why must you behave so? And at such hours? I find that it is here that God often speaks – in these soft and slow hours of night. It wasn’t always so, however. He started waking me up late at night four years ago, I presume, to simply spend time with me. It was the night that I decided to read Bruchko, the true story of Bruce Olson’s journey to the Motilone Indians, before going to bed. [read more]

This morning while sitting in silence and thought, it became evidently clear that I have hijacked the book I am working on. True to form, I took what God clearly initiated, and made my own presuppositions about how to proceed. The details are inconsequential, but the offense is not. On how many accounts can I be found guilty for this very crime? The innumerous indictments are telling. How long before I learn patience? God, I ask for the humility to let go.

Everything, dammit. Love has everything to do with it. I’ve decided to condense chapters, reducing the number from 27 to 10, and begin working on a book proposal for a publishing house. I believe I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me, which both excites and scares me, but love what God is teaching me. Love has everything to do with it. I think Tina Turner was a prophet.

Having survived the bronzing effects of modern American Christianity, I am newly learning how to live out of my passion. Metaphorically, I’m closer to napalm than a stoic statue anyways, so I’m content where God has me. But similar to middle school kissing, learning how to live out this passion is at times awkward, however, necessary for growth and education. And somewhere, amidst the throes of despair and exultations of ecstasy, I find solace knowing that so tremendous is God’s love for me that he would surround me with reckless people. Benevolent, yes but negligent none-the-less. Consistently choosing to come near to love and encourage, these people know I’m volatile, yet love me richer for it. They are sustained by God, I am redeemed and we are both better for it. Here’s to the smell of napalm in the morning.