Filed under: America, Denver, Food, Friends, Fun, High-Five, Office, U2 = LIFE
Ok, if you have never been a part of a Mark/Hosh lunch . . . you need to be. Get on the dance card.
Today, Smashburger
Holy moly. This is a fantastic burger place. You know why? They make a great burger! Simple, about 15 menu options, that is all. I had a mushroom, swiss burger. Fantastic. Greasy? Yes. Delicious? Yes. Recommended? Highly. We decided to go ahead and put it in the rotation. So here is our current rotation:
Weekly: El Parrell, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle
Bi-Monthly: Pizza Hut Buffet, Smashburger, Wendy’s
Monthly: Some other Mexican place somewhere
Never: Applebee’s
(Oh and we heard, “The Sweetest Thing” while we were there . . . )
Last Friday was a great Friday! I hadn’t had a day off in almost 2 weeks, so I was ready for some nonsense. Mark and I got an entire day together!
Here is the Itinerary:
Twist and Shout 1 hour (6 U2 albums)
Denver Ted’s 1 hour (gut bomb)
Hollywood Poster/Jerry’s Record Exchange 1 hour (1 U2 poster/Joshua Tree album)
Pipe Shop and Gold Sound 1 hour (new pipe for Mark, good information from the very odd hifi guy)
Various Errands including mall, grocery and Microcenter 1 hour (new battery in MiniFree)
Awesome day. It is good to have a good friend. Here are some pics:
PLAY THIS WHILE READING THIS POST
Freaking out is not good. At all. It indicates that I am taking WAY TOO MUCH control over my world. I am looking to myself to figure my life out. That is exactly NOT what God wants us to do. He wants us to love Him daily, trust Him continually and pray without ceasing. That is what He wants from us. Why!? Because worrying doesn’t do a mess ‘o crap for us anyway. Except shake our trust that God has our lives under control.
It is normal to freak out. BUT it is also a time to take all of that to God and lay it down! Pray about it, tell God that you are freaking out. Tell HIM! He will listen. And then He will reassure you that He has it figured out. He might even scold you for lack of faith. (Look at what He says to the disciples in the boat – the BOAT IS SINKING!!! “Ye, of little faith!”) BUT He will teach you.
Please read this entire passage of scripture:
If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? [Definitely not me.] All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
(Matthew 6:25-34; The Message)
Ok. Now, play this video and let God talk to you.
Sometime You Can’t Make It On Your Own
Tough, you think you’ve got the stuff
You’re telling me and anyone
You’re hard enoughYou don’t have to put up a fight
You don’t have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonightListen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go it alone
Find a good friend and talk to him. Thanks Bone!
Filed under: U2 = LIFE
(This is a copied post. I copied from Holy Heteroclite – go read his post too.)
A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel
From where I stand
I can see through you
From where you’re sitting, pretty one
I know it got to youI see the stars in your eyes
You want the truth, but you need the lies
Like Judy Garland, like Valentino
You give your life for rock n’ roll
Uh huhStand, we’re on a landslide of love
You got everything you want
But what you need you give awayFor primitive love
And a ride on the mistery train
A primitive love
A room at the Heart…
The Heartbreak Hotel
A room at the Heartbreak
Heartbreak Hotel
A room at the Heartbreak
Heartbreak HotelYou say it’s love, it’s not the money
You let them suck your life out like honey
Turning tricks, you’re on the street
Selling your kisses so bittersweet[Gospel voices]
A primitive love
A and a ride on the mistery train
A primitive love
A room at the Heart
The Heartbreak HotelA room at the Heartbreak, the Heartbreak,
The Heartbreak Hotel, Hotel
[Repeat until end]
What a song. Nothing more to say here.
Don’t you just love doing stuff that you don’t want to do?
Man, I sure do! There is nothing like it. It is a rush. (I am irritated.)
Something I love about following Christ is that He knows right when to push you and when to let you be. You know what I mean? Right now, lol, He is pushing me. That all-too-familiar push of Christ molding you into His image is once again influencing my world. I feel it all over. My thoughts are being challenged. My words are being examined. It is good, I like it. I love knowing that God is working on my life. (Good thing, because it is going to take a while.)
But man, it sure it hard sometimes. Don’t you just like doing what you like doing? I do. I like just doing what I like. Doing what feels right. That is what I like. I like to say things off the cuff, just because I am pissy. I like to get in people’s face at the drop of a hat, because they “need to be corrected.” Man. I love NOT working. I love it.
Thankfully. I love God more.
Trip Through Your Wires by U2
In the distance, she saw me comin’ round
I was callin’ out, I was callin’ out.
Still shakin’, still in pain
You put me back together again.
I was cold and you clothed me, honey
I was down, and you lifted me, honey.Angel, angel or devil?
I was thirsty
And you wet my lips.
You, I’m waiting for you
You, you set my desire
I trip through your wires.
So, yeah. Dave Wainscott’s blog is incredible. Mark has him in his blog roll, I am adding him now as well. I spent a large portion of last night reading through a bunch of his stuff. Most of it is pretty dang heady, but sometimes I like that. Here is an interesting bit from his post Elevation Church; Jesus Loves Righteous People. This is not his, it is from the book Blessed Are You: A Comprehensive Guide to Jewish Prayer by Jeffrey Cohen
Prayer is not something the pray-er just recites…it is an experience he enters into. There is no room for inhibition; singing and dancing are essential means by which he expresses his emotional cleaving to God….but such ardor/desire for God has to be so overwhelming that any extraneous thoughts are excluded…If distractions are erotic in nature…and he faces up to the predominance of the sexual urge at both conscious and subconscious levels, and its capacity to intrude even during prayer…then he has learned to take measures…by introducing the (ancient) doctrine of the “elevation of strange thoughts.”
This is a Chasidic Jewish technique not of sublimanation, but of thought conversion, whereby the beauty or desirability of the woman is latched upon and used not as a sexual but rather as a mental and spiritual stimulus. We are taught to “elevate” these thoughts by substituting the beauty of God for the physical beauty that is currently bewitching us. The praying person has learned to immediately contrast the pale reflection of beauty that humans are endowed with, on the one hand, and the supreme Divine source of authentic and enduring beauty, on the other. This is not sublimation; This is elevation.
Elevation by U2
High, higher than the sun
You shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here,
At the corner of your lips
As the orbit of your hips
Eclipse, you elevate my soulI’ve lost all self-control
Been living like a mole
Now going down, excavation
I and I in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high, elevationA star lit up like a cigar
Strung out like a guitar
Maybe you could educate my mind
Explain all these controls
I can’t sing but I’ve got soul
The goal is elevationA mole, living in a hole
Digging up my soul
Going down, excavation
I and I in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high, elevationLove, lift me out of these blues
Won’t you tell me something true
I believe in youA mole, living in a hole
Digging up my soul
Going down, excavation
I and I in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high, elevation
Elevation…
Elevation…
Elevation…
Elevation…
Elevation…
Elevation…
This is a touch strange to me, I will admit. I don’t fully follow what he is saying, BUT what like about the post is the indication about how deep prayer can be. There is a place in prayer that we can begin to find where we are facing head on our deep desires and ambitions and then using them to propel us towards Christ.
Onto Bono’s song. Anyone who has any type of functional prayer life can completely relate to this song as almost an ode about prayer. “A mole, been living in a hole, digging up my soul.” HA! That summarizes most of what my prayer life has ever been. It is one of the primary reasons that prayer is sometimes scary to me and oftentimes avoided. My soul gets dug up. It forces me to vulnerability. That is hard. I have to trust God with my world, my heart.
The fun part about prayer is the flip side of that coin. When you are able to allow God to do some ‘digging’ He is able to apply His grace and mercy directly to your heart. When you release something to Him, a hurt, pain, pride spot, etc. He can then fix it and heal it. That results in a type of transcendence. Prayer and the results of God meeting you in prayer transcends you. It will lift you above your circumstances as you trust God with your worries. It will lift you above your pain and past as you release them to Him. It will elevate you! That is terribly exciting to me. It is addicting.
God, teach me how to better pray. Not just words or rhetoric, but God teach me how to bare all to You. You are the Healer, Forgiver and Deliverer. Help me reveal myself to you. Help me break through the walls of pride and frustration that would keep me far away from Your grace and mercy that I so desperately need and desire. Lord lift me up! Help me to see the world from Your eyes. Teach me how to view people like you do. Teach me how to view myself as You do. I want to know You. I want to be close to You. Help me do so! AMEN
It has been one. It ended poorly. But you know what? I want God so badly right now. No matter what. Drama comes and goes, but I want to be with Jesus. Not someday, right now. Not when I die, right now. I want to listen to Him, talk to Him, walk with Him, have Him tell me what to do. That is what I want.
So, let’s quote Vertigo, because we can and it expresses some of my life right now.
Vertigo
Unos dos tres catorce!
Lights go down, it’s dark
The jungle is your head
Can’t rule your heart
A feeling is so much stronger than
A thought
Your eyes are wide
And though your soul
It can’t be bought
Your mind can wanderHello hello
I’m at a place called Vertigo
It’s everything I wish I didn’t know
Except you give me something I can feel, feelThe night is full of holes
As bullets rip the sky
Of ink with gold
They twinkle as the
Boys play rock and roll
They know they can’t dance
At least they know….I can’t stand the beats
I’m asking for the cheque
The girl with crimson nails
Has Jesus round her neck
Swinging to the music
Swinging to the music
Oh oh oh ohHello hello
I’m at a place called Vertigo
It’s everything I wish I didn’t know
But you give me something I can feel, feel
is a FREE BURRITO!
In case you aren’t aware Chipotle is the ONLY way to go!
Today they gave away free burritos in exchange for canned goods. Amazing! Guess what I am having for lunch AND dinner? . . . this . . .
This is Joniyah. This is Joe and Lynn Turner’s new baby. They also have Tristan who is amazing at 8 years old! This baby was awesome, she is happy and smily and obviously liked me a lot! I held her for about 30 minutes. She definitely looks like Joe. I am happy that I got to meet her.
This week was a transitional one for me. There were some obvious things in my life that indicated this – Jami and I parting ways, actually spending time at Jonas’ – however the main thing I feel this week is a huge rush of spiritual ‘momentum.’ I can’t really explain it, but all of a sudden I am tremendously excited about my life and what is going on around me.
Some dreams of mine have resurfaced in strong ways. I have been sleeping hard, but waking up feeling like taking the day by storm. My room is clean (ish). Things make sense. Some of this might be the weather, but a lot of it might be God.
Over the past year-plus, I have felt the definite hand of God on my life holding me in place. Sometimes holding me up, sometimes holding me back. (God will hold you back sometimes, He will do this to keep you from hurting yourself or others.) But I think God is leading me forward in a lot of ways. Almost like He is encouraging me to go for some things. I don’t know what all this means, but I like it. I will talk more about some of these dreams as they become relevant.
This weekend, my main goal is resting. Some reflection, but mostly just resting. Then onward to the next season in my life. I know it will be a good one.
Something is about to give/I can feel it coming/Think I know what it is/I’m not afraid to die/Not afraid to live/And when I’m flat on my back/Hope to feel like I did – U2
(Also, do you like my background?)
Filed under: U2 = LIFE
I just wanted to post a U2 song, because . . . actually I don’t need a reason to do so on this blog.
Mofo
Lookin’ for to save my, save my soul
Lookin’ in the places where no flowers grow.
Lookin’ for to fill that God-shaped hole
Mother, mother-suckin’ rock an’roll.Holy dunc, space junk cominí in for the splash
White dopes on punk staring into the flash.
Lookin’ for the baby Jesus under the trash
Mother, mother-suckin’ rock an’ roll.
Mother. (scat singing)Mother, am I still your son?
You know I’ve waited for so long
To hear you say so.Mother, you left and made me someone.
Now I’m still a child, but no one tells me no.Lookin’ for a sound that’s gonna drown out the world.
Lookin’ for the father of my two little girls.
Got the swing, got the sway, got my straw in lemonade.
Still lookin’ for the face I had before the world was made.
Mother, mother-suckin’ rock an’ rollSoothe me, mother
Rule me, father
Move me, brother
Woo me, sister.Soothe me, mother
Rule me, father
Show me, mother
Show me, mother.Show me, mother
Show me, mother
Show me, mother
Show me, mother.
Josh Brage 