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August 24, 2007
Terrified
There are times when I am completely terrified. Times when I feel so completely not ready. Not ready to be a husband, a man, certainly miles and miles away from being ready for fatherhood. Life goes by so fast. It literally seems like just yesterday that I was in college. It seems like just yesterday that I was still living at my parents' house, screwing around, with little or no direction in life. Those of you who know me well know that this past year has been hell for my wife and I. Hell in a way I had previously not experienced, and hope to never again. Suffice it to say that I'm still dealing with it. And by "dealing with it", I mean "I have absolutely no ideal how to deal with it". Let me just say that what I had as decoration on the outside was a very expensive facade for what was really going on inside. I'll tell you this: Kristi and my kids will never experience that. Allow me to draw an analogy:
Recently, european scientists have claimed the ability to cause things to travel faster than the speed of light. Those of you who are aware of the ramifications of such a claim understand that if this is true, everything we hold to in science will come into question. Well, personally speaking, during this past year, I discovered that I could travel faster than the speed of light.
Posted by chriscoxmusic at 01:26 AM | Comments (1)
August 22, 2007
Hmmm
Does it scare anyone that President Bush uses words like "destiny" when describing the reason for our presence in Iraq? I'm not editorializing on whether or not we should be there. But I'm listening to Bush give a speech right now, and he just said that he wants the middle east to experience the freedom that is intended for them by their creator. Those of you who know me know that I have not and will not ever jump on a bandwagon, especially when it comes to political things. But this language scares me, and it's been around for a while now.
Posted by chriscoxmusic at 08:25 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2007
Gain
A few nights ago a friend was over. We sat on the patio, drinking good beer and smoking cheap cigars, as we are want to do. I stole some music from his iPod. Now, this may sound like a total conflict of interest on my part. That's because it is. But I do have a bit of a justification. Most of what I stole i've purchased in the past, and have lost the cd's. Still, I know I'm full of crap. Anyway, one of the cd's that I stole was "40 Acres" by Caedmons Call. Allow me to qualify this blog by letting you know that I literally spent years of my life listening to this record, almost exclusively. Save for this guy, these guys and these guys, all I listened to between the ages of 19 and 21 was Caedmons Call, specifically the aforementioned record. So I put it on the ol' iPod and was a complete emotional wreck as I drove around, taking the long way everywhere I went to get more in. It's still really really good. Among my favorites is "Shifting Sand". At the end of the day, the courageous Christian is the one who embraces the fact that none of our faith makes any sense, and is therefore full of tension. There are many churches out there who have all the answers. They can tell you exactly what your problem is and how to fix it. They hand you a neat little package with all the answers inside. Don't believe them. They are most likely lying to you. One of the reasons I love Jesus is that although he spent most of his time talking to less-than-intelligent, and certainly less-than-educated folks, he never ever dumbed down what he said. The church has for the most part overlooked this, which shouldn't frustrate me because the guy that started the whole thing 2000 years ago said that they would. And so we have an intellectually lazy body these days. I don't worry about it because I know that God governs the universe. But I do whatever I can to make a difference.
How's your walk, bro?
Posted by chriscoxmusic at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2007
Hard
Life is hard. It's hard because I am a business man. I am a business man and I love business. I love business because I love making cool things happen. I love making cool things happen because I love experiencing them. But every once in a while, maybe every other week, I get a feeling. I see an artist play, I see a tour bus on the road, I sing something in my car, and it all hits me again. That same feeling I had at 16. Band after band and show after show, all fueled by my love of music. Certainly not fueled by the response I got from the fans, or by the amount of people coming to the shows. I just love music. But I wanted more than just to play. I wanted the whole thing. I wanted the huge tours and the big lifestyle and the blah blah blah. Ironic, because I know that none of that would make me happy, but I wanted it anyway. So when I get this feeling nowadays, my only response to it is... damn it! I don't think "what if" or "if i'd only..." because I walked far enough down the road to stardom to very clearly see the reality. But I just think "damn it". Because it didn't happen for me. It's really ok, because I know that I will only find fulfillment and happiness in the love of God. And I know that logistically speaking, the rock star lifestyle sucks unless you have A LOT of money. And so I think this has a lot more to do with my own mental health than anything else. I think most people have this feeling at some point. Some of us never pursue our dreams, some of us give it all we've got, most of us are in the middle. But at some point along the way, we all look around and say "damn it"! Because it's just not what we thought it would be. Nothing ever is. Good or bad. Rarely is anything as good or as bad as we think it will be. I will say that marriage is much better than I could've imagined. I was expecting it to be good, but it's so much more than good. It's good in a new way. It's close in a new way. And it's hard in a new way. So I guess what i'm trying to say is that most things promise things that they never deliver. And we are programmed to believe it. But the love of God is different. It is both static and actively reaching to the depths of our souls. It does not disappoint. But it's also as abstract as it could possibly be, and usually there's something much more sexy in my face.
Posted by chriscoxmusic at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)