Video Update: 7-19-2010

Jordan: Unhindered

The Journey Begins

No You're Not Dude, Don't Lie...

As the weeks have wound down here, I've begun to spend a lot of time looking back and thinking on the last three years of college. Three crazy, quick years.

When I came here to SBU, I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing. I still remember laying in that bed on the first night in Landon room 330. I honestly had no idea why I was even here to begin with. For some reason, when I stepped foot onto the campus that snowy day in February it just felt right. As though a divine hand was resting on my back and a ethereal voice was whispering "Yes...."

That's creepy. I think God would agree that He doesn't want to be shed in that light. Sounds like quite the omnipresent creeper.

But it's as close of a description of the moment as I can recall. Hard to put an attribute to the divine.

I was going to go to Mizzou to become a journalist. For some reason I like to write... Which is hard to believe, since every time I get excited about writing and logging my thoughts I get one week into the process and quit. Maybe my life is just too boring. Maybe I just hold too much in my head all the time. I've always found release in telling stories. I guess I think that maybe if I can help those who can't tell their stories get their hearts out there, then maybe mine will go with them. Some kind of weird writing missionary style, I suppose.

I find it funny that the Bible was presented to us in word form. In the form of a Book... a grand story that tells an unique and compelling story that no one seems to be able to comprehend. Two thousand or so years of people sitting down, reading, praying and pleading to be shown the true meaning behind the Bible, and yet no one can seem to give anyone else a solid answer.

A book is bound and has a definite beginning and end. A physical barrier that says "This is it. There is no more." But the grand story of the Christian life goes on past the leather binding. It pours out of our hands and mouths and flows ahead and behind us. As we live it flows from us, and it begins to meet and blend in with the other stories around it, making one continuous flow of narrative. Each person is the main character in their own book, yet a minor character in each other's. But Christ remains as the binding and glue that brings all the pages together, places them in order and creates the story. There was definitely a beginning.... but will there ever be an end to the story? I hope not.

I don't want my story to read like the Missouri Fishing License Manual.

I want my story to read like that part in Harry Potter where.... well... where you couldn't put it down, for fear of missing out on what would happen next. For those moments where the characters are alive and breathing, and shutting the book would, in essence, kill them. Kill the story....

Ethan just came in here from the other room. Looks like he is going to sleep out here. I wonder what's on his mind.

"Is SBU everything you thought it would be?"

"The food sucks, but I like it here."

I smile. That's about how I would sum it up I suppose. It sure is interesting here. Going from Tyler and I... to Higher Ground and Justin Goodwin.... to Jan Term with Ramen Noodles and Fallout 3... to Saturday lunch at McDonalds with Andy.... to Trevor and Ethan coming.... to Newspapers and Communication... to Florida... to the lake... to now....

To the future.

Hard to think that I'll be sleeping in a bed in a dorm room in Georgia a week from now. I'm incredibly excited, but even more terrified. I feel a sense of responsibility and power that I haven't felt before. Like these kids that I'll be living life with this summer have something to say to me... to this nation. I hope that I can help them spread it.

I'm excited to see the west. The mountains call to me for some reason. Maybe it's the Seattle journalist writer thing... I guess when it rains you have no other choice but to read. A lot. And once you finish reading all there is to read, all you can do is write more books to read.

I want my book to stay open. I don't want to shut it or end it, because I'm not good at writing endings.

Guess I have to keep writing then.

Dang. I'm going to bed.

They Say The Sky's The Limit... But The Sky's About To Fall

Saturday's in Bolivar never seem to disappoint. Or at least, never seem to provide you with experiences that make you stay up at night and write out your thoughts. Whatever...

Today's adventures all began with a bike ride. Around 10:30 I awoke with the desire to take my bike all the way to somewhere. Unsure of what "somewhere" should be, I just decided to go. I rode all the way through the center of town, with the sounds of Deas Vail and The Low Anthem encouraging me to continue. As I passed the statue of Simon Bolivar, the town's hero, I wondered what he would think if he was to come back to life in this day and age, to find his likeness erected between a bank and an auto parts store. Definitely fitting for an explorer/conqueror type. Would he go nuts and throw a car through the bank?

Around that time I began to enter a most interesting part of town, an area that I had never been to until that moment. On the left side of the street were a few trailer homes, and some houses that looked as though about 10 years of garbage had erupted from the windows and doors, and now littered the yards. On my right was a house that seemed quite too big and fancy for anyone in Bolivar to live in. This pattern continued for a long while, and I tried to ride the middle of the road, trying to stay in my middle-class white American subclass category.

I wonder if those people ever meet in the middle of the road to talk about the day's events, or to trade handyman or cooking tips?


A little later I found myself in the park, where all of Bolivar it seemed was out and about, enjoying the beautiful day. I rode around the bend, and continued on around the lake. It always seems like there is a birthday party going on over there. I pulled over and took a break by the water, watching couples and families walk by. A small child across the lake approached a goose and almost lost his hand in the ensuing attack. Poor guy.

I try, as often as I can, to take in the world around me. I watch the people walking by, and wonder what kind of life they have led, what experiences they have had. Have they struggled? Have they felt victory? Have they ever stopped by a lake during a bike trip and contemplated the meaning of life?


I raced my thoughts back to the dorm, but they ended up beating me there, as they usually do. But one thing is for sure.

Life is a story, always unfolding. And we are writing the pages each day.

There's my 2 am wisdom. Feels like I just type until my brain shuts down.

Which is now.

Here's a picture.

"You speak your thoughts aloud in a stream without much thinking beforehand"

God is one crazy dude.

I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it seems like we often fail to realize how much He is truly involved in our lives in an extremely personal way.

For me lately, God does not reside in writing, in lifestyles, in the classes we take or the countless Christian books we read and collect. My bookshelf is full to the brim of various christian authors and wordsmiths who have the ability to describe God's love in an incredible way. My iPod is full of worship leaders and christian artists who use their music and songwriting to paint a picture of a faith that I want to live out. My fridge in my dorm room is not full of beer. I kissed a girl once and felt incredibly awkward and guilty. I have a half-written journal of thoughts and prayers that have yet to be finished or answered. My time is full of different duties that I take on in hope that one day I will make enough people happy with me that they will love me.

I've begun to realize that I cannot put my finger on the idea of a God. No matter how much I read or listen or pray or go to church, I still feel no closer to figuring Him out. Sure, I feel like I'm a bit closer to understanding how to get what I want in life by spiritual manipulation, but when my head hits the pillow, I'm already preparing my back up plans for the next day's failures.

These things I've encountered in the last year. I watched my family be torn apart by infidelity and lies. I watched a tear fall down the face of the most beautiful girl I've ever met when I let her go. I walked away from a degree that I put half of my college experience in. I said goodbye to a best friend as she left for another school in Texas. I screamed at God while kneeling in the snow as my walls of safety and security fell down around me.

I also reconciled the past with a best friend, and then took a 24 hour trip with him across the country. I took on a job that allows me to talk to 90 different people a night. I acquired a position that allows me to tell the stories of students who want to make a difference with their creative passions. I had the first real conversation with my father that I can remember having in a long time. I rejoiced in Christ as I realized that he had bought a bible and was starting to attend church.

I stood on an elevator today and talked to a kindly old woman who smiled at me when I told her I was visiting my grandma. I looked into her eyes, eyes that were full of the stories that come of a long life of living. Pain, joy, suffering, victory, all things that create an epic story... all contained in that small package. A woman who's life could have affected countless others. A woman who's life may have, in a grandiose sense, may have affected my being alive today.

Every day the sun comes up and goes down. Terrible decisions lead to miraculous events years later. What if the terrible things that happen to us are not so terrible after all? What if when we suffer, we are actually existing just as we are supposed to, so that later on in life something amazing can happen?

What if an abusive husband can lead to a divorce that leads to a marriage that leads to a son being born who marries a woman who bears a son who now sits here and writes these words?

What if we began looking at our failures and mess-ups as divine intervention?

Might shake things up a bit.

Hmmmm...

Project Southern Comfort (Day 0)

Three men. Four cities. One destination.

Can we make it to the beach?



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Stay tuned.