Ugly Tree
Wow. I didn’t realize I had taken such a long break from the blog-o-sphere. Life is good, i’m a little less angy than I was when I wrote that post back in Feburary; although still restless. I’m trying to learn to be restless and passionate in a St. Francis of Assisi kind of way and less in a Rambo kind of way.
Anyways, I wrote a bunch of songs while restling though some difficult ideas about the kingdom of God and compiled them into something of a short little album called “Ugly Tree”. You can listen and download it from my music website: www.michaelnagel.bandcamp.com. You can download if for free if you just put zero in the purchase amount, radiohead style.
Hope everyone is well, lets be optimistic and assume this blog will become more active now. Viva la Revolucion!
-Mike
Memo:
I am inclined to believe that God has some high hopes for those who choose to banner themselves with his name. I say “hopes” but perhaps, more accurately, expectations. If there is one thing that Jesus had no patience for it was half-assery, the luke-warm, the on-the-fence, the complacent, the ones who know the truth and are not set free.
Get in or get out.
That seems to be the unflinching message of Jesus. I believe this statement to be true: Jesus Hates Mediocrity. And yet everywhere I go I find it in mass quantities; Christians with whose lives I am thoroughly unimpressed, stagnant, gross.
I’m done. It’s almost unbearable. But perhaps the problem is me, yes that is a very real possibility. Because I don’t want to do one more bible study. I don’t want to sit in one more circle and talk about what a verse means to me. I don’t want to fill in one more blank. I don’t want to spend one more Sunday lunch talking about what a sermon meant to us. We are not becoming better people, we are not building anything, we are stagnant, we are the complacent, we are the boring, yes- we are the white washed tombs. Death looks like apathy, death sounds like sarcasm.
Give me real, don’t give me fake.
I want to build something.
That is what I want:
To build
Something.
Because I think we are supposed to, I think we are put on this earth to build. To build ourselves into something new, always new, always new. To be creative, to grow and stretch. And I think that we are supposed to grow and stretch in significant ways, I don’t want one more person’s goal to be, “I really need to have a better impact on my unsaved friends”, have a better impact on me damn it, I need you. I need you to be everything you are supposed to be, you’re cheating me, do you know? With every surface level conversation, with every church polished cliché about Jesus and God and “believers”, I don’t want to hear it. I want you to swear because of fucking poverty, I want to feel things inside you, I want you to feel them for yourself, I want you to make me feel them too. I want you to come alive, I want you to stop caring what I think; what do I know anyways? Am I judging you? Absolutely I am. I am judging you every moment you sit quiet, I am judging every sarcastic copout that comes out of your mouth, so you might as well say something good, you might was well piss me off with who you really are so that maybe you could change me.
Please change me. I’m begging you. Really.
Dear Dixie
Sent to the Georgia-Pacific (dixie’s parent company) compaint department:
Dear Dixie,
I have been a fan of yours for some time now, especially your tiny cup developments which are oh so handy in more ways than have yet to be revealed. However, I must tell you I found myself extremely agitated by one of your products today: the TM517, medium/heavy teaspoons. The product you thought we’d all over look, or hoped we wouldn’t notice its subtle design flaw. But Dixie, I noticed, today I noticed.
The TM517 is cut ever-so-slightly too deep resulting in an unreachable area of, in my case, strawberry-kiwi yogurt. This is no good, Dixie. Infact my entire yogurt eating experience was thrown off by the use of the TM517 and subsequently the past 15 minutes of my work day have been spent drafting this complaint to you. I request a better spoon be developed, possibly under my supervision, and also I be compensated $3.25 for my time.
Again, if you weren’t such a forward thinking and innovative company I wouldn’t feel the need to bring this to your attention. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mike
Oh, Dixie
I don’t know who designed this plastic spoon that I’m using right now, but whoever did clearly did not understand the fundamentals of spoon craftsmanship. It looks like a good spoon, heck it even feels like a good spoon, but it’s ever so slightly too deep; leaving a chronic layer of yogurt that is absolutely impossible to get. It’s unbelievably frustrating I tell you, and what was suppose to be an entirely enjoyable strawberry/kiwi experience has been dashed by a millimeter of neglect in this disposable spoon’s design.
In fact, I am so grieved (read also: bored) by this spoon that I have just gone to our break room to locate the box where I found this misshapen utensil. Dixie makes this spoon, this black medium/heavy teaspoon product code: TM517. Dixie. A reputable company we all thought, but we were wrong…oh so wrong. Perhaps they were tested by someone with abnormally flexible lips, or perhaps….they weren’t tested at all. Would it be going to far to let this company know my frustration with their TM517’s? No. I have to let them know, in good conscious I cannot let these spoons continue.
Updates to follow.
Isaiah 45:18-19 (ish)
I stumbled on this verse the other day, and I really love it. Especially the part about not seeking him in vain.
He Says:
“I am the Lord, And there is no other.
I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in the Land of Darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s Descendants,
‘Seek me in Vain’
I, The Lord, speak the truth;
I declare what is right”
Anyways, I never liked sunday school
The problem with Sunday school, if you really want to know, is that it teaches us at a very influential age that following Jesus is fun, colorful, and likely to involve songs and games. We learn about how awful people’s lives are who are in the “World” and how wonderful life is going to be if we just do the things Jesus tells us to do. And it’s not that I think Sunday school is intentionally lying to kids, it’s just that kids aren’t always too bright and if you have to break down the Christian message it makes sense to focus on the fun things; kids love fun.
But I can’t help but wonder if these simplistic and optimistically biased views of Christianity affect our adult understanding of what it means to follow Christ. For example, we assume that if we are experiencing anxiety, depression, or fear that we are somehow missing out on what God has for us; that we are clearly out of his will. Which is quite frustrating if you’re in the middle of something like that, truly seeking God, and getting….nothing. And you realize that following Christ is really nothing like what people told you it would be, that your life is not noticeably better than all those “worldly” people who seem to be quite content and peaceful, actually.
And its times like that when I feel like it’s all kind of been a lie. This whole Christianity thing we’ve been taught. Sometimes it feels so capitalistic, so cost/benefit analysis. I follow God and I get: peace, happiness, love, smiles. Sign me up, sounds good, I’ll believe in that. Hell, I’d believe in anything for that. And the truth is that Christianity does not hold the market on peace, happiness, and smiles. I don’t think I’m being overly post-modern to say that people of many religions exceed in these qualities. There’s a reason that Buddhism resonates with over 350 million people.
All this to say: I don’t like the idea of believing in something based on what I can get out of it. I could become Mormon so I could get a job in Utah. I could become Buddhist so I could have a cool conversation with Madonna someday. But I’ve looked into those things a bit, I’ve read through the book of Mormon, those things aren’t true. And maybe that’s why life isn’t handed to us on a silver platter, that’s why sunday school was wrong. Because I bet God wouldn’t feel too honored by people who follow him because they can get something cool out of it. I bet he wants people who follow him because they know he is real, even in the midst of absolute mess, even if he doesn’t make things better.
Title
Sometimes when I’m driving home late at night I’ll turn off the music in my car and be surrounded by reality. It’s a bit alarming how life feels when the background music shuts off and I’m suddenly transported from fiction to documentary. Like the difference between film and video it seems. I know that life is good when I enjoy the silence, often I’ll turn the music back on though. And it’s not that life is bad or anything, life is actually quite amazing right now, but sometimes I’m scared to let life be what it is. Life can be so frustratingly complicated sometimes ya know? There’s just so much of it, so many different aspects and people, and if one part of it is bad it feels like everything else is falling apart too. And I’m cursed with contemplation, over contemplation really, which is why I’m so thankful for the couple people in my life (one of whom I get to marry in 2 months) who ease my contemplative burden.
I wonder how life is really meant to be lived. Some people are so annoyingly happy that I can’t imagine happiness is the ultimate form of life. When people go around smiling and saying “praise God” and “amen” all the time I get pretty annoyed, I don’t think God needs cheerleaders. I knew a guy one time who would say praise God after everything, he used it like “um”, “The mashed potatoes are on the left, praise God!”, “After dinner we’re gonna go shoot some pigs, praise God!”; after awhile I didn’t want to have dinner with that guy anymore.
I think Paul was onto something with the fruits of the spirit thing: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Self-Control. They are all very meek sounding, unassuming and quiet, and I like them. I want them. I stacked my life up against the fruits of the spirit today and realized I was lacking in the majority. And I started wondering if that’s why I keep the music on while I’m driving, and I wonder what life would feel like if I could start growing in things like peace, and patience, and joy. I think it’d feel pretty good. So I think I’m gonna work on that for awhile.
The earth is not a cold dead place
What does God see when he looks at the world?
This world of suicide bombers and (compulsive) over eaters.
This world of Failures and Tyrants
Sometimes I wonder that about myself, I wonder what God thinks when he looks at me. I’ll admit, sometimes I’m pretty hard on myself and I assume that God probably despises me. But in my clearer moments, I allow God to have tremendous grace for me; or rather I allow myself to see things that way. And when I start seeing things that way, I get the feeling that that’s the way things really are. Sometimes I wonder if God is as worried about perfecting me as I am.
So what does he see when he looks down at the world, smoldering in the aftermath? Sometimes I get this image of him shaking his head in disgust at what we’ve done and do to each other (When both armies whisper prayer under their breath the line between right and wrong blurs a bit). Sometimes I think of that scene from the passion where the tear forms over the lens of the camera and God cries a little bit, sometimes I think he’s crying all the time. But in my clearer moments I wonder if maybe God hasn’t given up on the world as much as we have. I wonder if God looks down at our failures and sees moments of greatness, I wonder if those moments are not tainted by their context. I wonder if God looks down at prostitutes and sees beautiful women, not the beautiful women they could be, but the beautiful women they are.
I wonder if beauty exists out of context. Because I’d like to see the world like that, I’d like for beauty to be inherently beautiful; And, if that were true, I’d want to capture it in words, paints, songs, and photographs.
Regret, Unforseen
I made a decision years ago, a seemingly small and insignificant decision, that has now come back to haunt me in ways I could not foresee. Harley Davidson Checks. Stupid Harley Davidson Checks. I’ve maybe written 3 checks ever, so the checks I picked out when I was 16 are still the ones I use. Now, for some reason, I’m having more and more need to write checks and I’m stuck handing people checks with superimposed Hogs on them. It’s really quite embarrassing, to tell you the truth, and I can’t help but let people know I picked these checks out before I realized I would become more of a Honda man than a Harley man.
